FUTURE TIMES

2018-12-10 21:00:16 ​​​​ What articles have you missed?
Our weekly digest:

Sports betting with Bitcoin. Why is it important?

How non-tech industries can adapt blockchain?

Awareness of ICO projects: could excellent ones fight the shadow of scams?

Bitcoin reached the new lows. Weekly crypto sentiment brain-powered by the most authoritative experts from the trading network Open / Comment

2018-12-10 20:30:02 ​​ Here is your daily dose of crypto news

– Over 1500 restaurants in Denmark now accept Bitcoin

– Tether dominance drops to new 3-year low as other stablecoins gain traction

– Research: 1.3 million Bitmain S9 miners switched off in past month, “almost all miners” were losing money

– Bitmain’s development center in Israel is shutting down amid the bear market

– Researchers: Nearly 200 dApps went live on the EOS blockchain over the past 5 months Open / Comment

2018-12-10 20:00:14 ​​NEWS

Euro-backed stablecoin issuer Stasis makes promise to become first independently audited stablecoin

Stasis, the Maltese stablecoin startup, will have its financials and euro reserves independently audited, the company has announced. The audit is meant to prove that the company’s supply of EURS token is backed by an equal deposit of euros.

The move by Stasis is the latest twist in the stablecoin shake-up of the last month. Fellow stablecoin issuers Circle, Gemini, and Paxos all published attestations that their USD-pegged tokens have sufficient fiat collateral in their bank deposits. However, Stasis will go a step further if it fulfills its commitment to conduct full audits for EURS. Other issuers – including Gemini – have said that such audits are unattainable given crypto’s novelty.

Stasis and its peers are under pressure to shake off investor skepticism around stablecoins, fueled by the unsettling precedent set by Tether, the dominant stablecoin issuer currently. Tether claims its USDT tokens are backed 1-to-1 by US dollars. However, Tether has yet to publicly release its audits after dismissing its auditing firm Friedman LLP in January. Tether instead offered documents issued by its lawyers and Bahamas-based bank last month, vouching that the company has sufficient fiat collateral.

Stasis CFO Vyacheslav Kim seemed intent on separating the company from the Tether controversy in a statement last week. Kim said that

“the recent conversation around stablecoins has hinged on two things: compliance and transparency. By providing verification by a top accounting firm…we’ve established EURS as a standout option for European investors.”

BDO Malta, Stasis’ newly appointed accounting firm, has already provided the first of its “weekly cash reserve” reports verifying the level of fiat deposits, with official audits expected in Q1 next year. Open / Comment

2018-12-10 19:00:16 ​​NEWS

MIT: pump and dump schemes account for $7 million in monthly trade volume

On Dec. 4, the MIT Technology Review published findings of a new study that has found that pump and dump schemes in cryptocurrencies are accounting for $7 million trading volume every month.

The research was conducted by Benjamin Livshits and Jiahua Xu both of Imperial College London. According to coinmarketcap.com, the daily trading volume stands at $14.2 billion. So, the pump and dump volume realized by the study accounts for only 0.049 percent of the total 24-hour trade volume.
Typically, the organizers’ such schemes usually choose a coin, ‘pump’ boost its price and then ‘dump’ sell the overvalued currency. The result is that the price of the coin falls further leading to more losses for other investors.

The two researchers focused their study on a pump and dump scam that involved the BVB coin that occurred on Nov. 14 of this year. They gathered details of the scheme by following announcements on several Telegram channels, including the official McAfee Pump signals. They then recorded the changes in price trading volumes of the coin.

According to McAfee Pump Signals, the BVB coin had been dormant for over a year by the time the scheme took place. The currency showed less trading activity with a value of about 35 Satoshi ($0.00132202).

The analysis shows that the first buy order was placed and completed within one second after the first announcement was made. Then the price of the coin surged to its peak after just 18 seconds to reach 115 Satoshi (0.00434378).

It took only three and a half minutes from the start to the end of the scheme. Within the short period, the schemers had taken their profits, and the price of the coin dropped below its opening price. The researches add that those that joined after 18 seconds hardly made any profit.

The two researchers also investigated another 236 pump and dump scams that were conducted between July 21 and Nov. 18. They concluded that “many of them were preceded by unusual buying activity in the target currency.”

Adding:

“The study reveals that pump and dump organizers can easily use their insider information to take extra gain at the sacrifice of fellow pumpers.”

They concluded that it’s possible to spot target coins before they are revealed by looking for unexpected trades in shadowy currencies. Open / Comment

2018-12-10 18:12:43 ​​NEWS

Founder of TenX, $80M ICO startup, has been linked to a pyramid scheme

TenX president Julian Hosp has reportedly been implicated in connection with Lyoness, an Austrian discount shopping service that has been declared an illegal pyramid scheme in Norway, Austria, and Switzerland.

After a summer of Chinese whispers on the internet alleging that he was involved in Lyoness before becoming the face of TenX, a video has emerged that appears to show Hosp presenting an online tutoring session used to enable viewers to recruit new participants in the pyramid scheme. The news was first reported by Breaker.

The emergence of the video, if authentic, is particularly damaging not only because of the reputational harm that TenX stands to suffer, but also because the contents of the video point to a damning lack of integrity and a willingness to promote dishonest and underhanded tactics in pursuit of profit. Among the pointers mentioned by Hosp in the video are exhortations for users to exploit relationships with friends and family because they “cannot evade” them, and to hide the real reason for requesting meetings with them. The video also includes tips for evading “annoying questions” about how Lyoness works.

It will be recalled that TenX raised over $80 million in its ICO last year on promises to “make cryptocurrencies spendable anytime anywhere” by connecting bitcoin to the real world with a Visa debit card and banking license. According to the TenX whitepaper, its platform native PAY token would entitle holders to dividend payments generated from use of its cards – a promise which has since been jettisoned. Since 2017, the platform’s basic promise has not been delivered on, with users still waiting for the promises bitcoin-linked debit cards more than a year later.

Questions are increasingly being asked about the willingness or capacity of TenX to fulfill its substantial promise, with some concluding that the company is in fact yet another iteration of an ICO exit scam.

According to reports, Hosp had previously been successful in censoring such material linking him with Lyoness (known as “Cashback World” in the United States), particularly before the TenX ICO. Twitter accounts that shared material discussing his involvement in Lyoness were quickly suspended from the website, and even a message board created to catalogue complaints about Lyoness has been commandeered by the company, redirecting to its U.S. website instead.

Excerpts of Hosp’s tips from the video go as follows:

“Never forget, it is not about telling the exact 100% truth…if you follow this method, you can earn incomes in an extent that it’s not imaginable to you at this moment…you will never run out of contacts if you follow some guidelines.”

Apart from reputational damage however, this is unlikely to bother Hosp too much because multi-level marketing schemes are not a regulatory priority in the U.S. What will bother him a whole lot more however is the SEC’s current affinity for prosecuting ICOs that sold unregistered securities during the height of the ICO boom last year, one of whom is TenX. Open / Comment

2018-12-10 16:00:17 ​​NEWS

Crypto hardware wallet Trezor adds native Ethereum support

The Trezor Wallet development team has announced that the device’s beta firmware now offers native support for Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, and ERC20 tokens. In an announcement on the Trezor blog, the crypto hardware wallet manufacturer stated that existing third-party integrations such as MyEtherWallet, MyCrypto, and MetaMask, which currently enable Trezor to support these tokens, would continue to function parallel to the new functionality, with no plan to discontinue the integrations going forward.

According to the company, instant crypto exchange platform Coinswitch has been added as a new wallet exchange partner alongside Shapeshift and Changelly, as part of a revamped user experience. The announcement states that to access the new functionality, users should select “Ethereum” or “Ethereum Classic” in the currency selector, and then select “Go to Trezor Ethereum Wallet.” Once in, they may immediately commence using the new beta interface.

Users of any of the aforementioned third party Trezor integrations will immediately see their balance in what Trezor hopes will be a seamless user experience. The summary view presents them with an overview of their account balance and helps them select their desired tokens. The tab also shows users the total balance and current exchange rate denominated in any fiat currency of their choice.

They may also use the tab to deposit a selected crypto token to their wallet and monitor balances and transactions for any selected tokens.

Describing the “Send” and “Receive” functions, an excerpt from the announcement reads:

“These sections function very similarly to what you are used to. Use the Receive tab to display your receiving address either in the text form or in the form of a QR code. Always remember to verify the address on your Trezor device. The Send tab allows you to set outgoing transactions and transaction fees. In the advanced settings, you can set the Gas limit, Gas price and add additional data to the transaction.”

The news comes as the latest attempt by Trezor to consolidate its position as a market leading hardware wallet. In October, CCN reported that it faces a stiff upcoming challenge from global electronics giant Sony, which is reportedly developing its own sophisticated hardware wallet.

In the same month, CCN also reported that the company issued a warning to its users about a counterfeit Trezor wallet on the market which was designed to steal user funds by impersonating the Trezor One to an astonishing degree of accuracy. Open / Comment

2018-12-10 15:00:34 ​​NEWS

Cointext makes Text-Enabled BCH payments available in 35 countries

Cointext.io is a cryptocurrency wallet that provides users with the means to send bitcoin cash (BCH) through SMS technology (text messages). The wallet gives any text-enabled mobile phone the ability to send and receive BCH without an internet connection. The company has been adding supported countries to its list over the past few months, and on Monday Cointext added service to the Ukraine and Italy. The two new regions bring the total number of countries that are Cointext connected to 35.

Because the application doesn’t require registration and all it takes to use the app is a valid text command, anyone from the supported 35 territories can send bitcoin cash via SMS. After the Ukrainian and Italian services were activated, Cointext founder and CTO Vin Armani shared some notable pictures of people in Ukraine sending BCH through text on basic feature (Nokia-style) phones.

“Cointext allows anyone with a cellular signal to access cryptocurrency — This includes all brands of smartphones and about two billion people with basic feature phones,”

Armani explained.

The Cointext founder continued:

“Ukraine is experiencing political instability and Italy is facing a sovereign debt crisis. Cryptocurrency provides residents with a way to opt out, and Cointext provides them with the easiest tool to begin using cryptocurrency.”

By referencing the Cointext website, users in the Ukraine, Italy, Argentina, France, Hong Kong, Ireland, United States, Netherlands, Sweden, Puerto Rico, and other countries can locate their access number to use the service. In order to get a wallet, users simply text the word “receive” to the access number to get a fresh BCH address. Cointext uses a variety of other text commands to send funds to another address, and another command to read the wallet’s balance as well.

BCH proponents like applications that give people the means to interact with bitcoin cash using any text-enabled phone. This is because concepts like Cointext could bring cryptocurrency accessibility to the 1.7 billion unbanked individuals worldwide. African telecom companies have been experimenting with services like Mpesa for years, giving citizens in the region the ability to leverage text-based payments. Because the Cointext service allows individuals to send and receive BCH onchain via SMS, it operates in the same manner as Mpesa. In the African continent, however, the Cointext service only supports South Africa right now. Cointext has the most presence in regions throughout Europe, the U.S., and South America. Open / Comment

2018-12-10 13:50:19 ​​NEWS

Facebook Blockchain ramps up hiring, states “ultimate goal is to help billions of people”

Facebook’s investment in blockchain is gathering steam. According to Facebook’s career site, the “ultimate goal is to help billions of people with things they don’t have access to now” via blockchain technology.

As of December 6, there were seven blockchain-related job listings. One listing read “Facebook is seeking an experienced Data Scientist to join the Blockchain Data Science team” while multiple software engineering roles are open on the Blockchain team, now with a capitalized “B” in multiple listings.

The product and brand marketing roles provide the most compelling new insights into the state of Facebook Blockchain and future product plans. In addition to Head of Brand and Global Brand Development Lead, there is a team leadership role as Product Marketing Lead with the following responsibilities: “This person will be responsible for creating our product strategy for developers and consumers, managing our product go-to-market plans and coordinating a cross-functional team to bring great solutions to connect the community.”

Large tech companies like Facebook typically ramp up product and brand marketing hires once products are nearing their launch. This comes towards the end of a product’s technical development phase. The roles are meant to position, prepare and pitch the product to consumers, developers and businesses.

Clear insights into the future plans of Facebook Blockchain can be gleaned from the Data Scientist job description:

“At Facebook, we have established a new team building blockchain technologies. It’s a small, but talented group of people, who are passionate about changing the world”

A LinkedIn search of Facebook employees with the term “Blockchain” in their title now returns 32 results, up significantly from earlier in the year. There are leaders across nearly every function – Engineering, Product,Design, Security, Public Policy, Legal, Risk & Operations, Business Development, Marketing, Strategy, Recruiting and Communications – as well as numerous individual contributors.

“We’re exploring lots of areas of interest across all facets of blockchain technology. Our ultimate goal is to help billions of people with access to things they don’t have now – that could be things like equitable financial services, it could be new ways to save, it could be new ways to share information.”

According to the job description, Facebook plans to operate their Blockchain products at global scale with a usage target in the billions. To hit those goals, Facebook is looking at multiple use cases on their Blockchain team, including financial services as well as information sharing. Given Facebook’s global penetration of nearly 2.3 billion monthly users, financial services accessibility is a use case where they could have a unique advantage. Open / Comment

2018-12-10 12:47:20 ​​NEWS

Venezuelan President: We’ll sell oil for Petro tokens by March 2019

Venezuela will sell oil for Petro tokens instead of US dollars by next March, the country’s President Maduro announced Thursday. State-run media reported that Maduro is seeking to amplify the role of cryptoassets in the industry to minimize national and international dependence on the dollar.

He told local press,

“In 2019, we plan on selling oil in Petros and in this way we’ll keep liberating ourselves from the currency of the Washington elite.”

The introduction of the token, which the new national currency is pegged to, reportedly forms part of Maduro’s six-year economic plan to mitigate the devastating impact of U.S.-led sanctions on Venezuela. In the fall, a group of U.S. senators moved to sanction Petro in the Venezuela Humanitarian Relief, Reconstruction and Rule of Law Act of 2018. The next stage involves setting up a platform to exchange multiple currencies into Petros, with the goal being to eventually sell all its oil products exclusively in the digital coin. The country began selling Petros to citizens in October via a government system, which the opposition has called illegal. Citizens are also now required to use the token to acquire passports.

Thursday’s announcement follows Maduro’s visit to Russia earlier this week, where he met with President Vladimir Putin. Open / Comment

2018-12-07 17:30:10 ​​NEWS

UnitedCorp launches lawsuit against Bitmain, Roger Ver, and Kraken

United American Corp (UnitedCorp), a digital technologies company, has filed a lawsuit against Bitmain, Bitcoin.com, Roger Ver, Kraken, and other individuals involved in, what United Corp claims is, a “well-planned scheme to take control of the Bitcoin Cash network.” UnitedCorp alleged that the defendants caused the “global capitalization meltdown of the Bitcoin Cash network” for their personal gains at the expense of others. This suit revolves around the November 15th, Bitcoin Cash hard fork that effectively split the network in two. After the split, UnitedCorp alleged that the defendants took control of the Bitcoin Cash network violating the “Nakamoto Whitepaper and consensus rules,” creating “significant uncertainty and a lack of confidence in the network.”

On November 15, 2018 the Bitcoin Cash network underwent an upgrade using the Bitcoin ABC 0.18.4 implementation.

UnitedCorp alleges that the defendants took control of the Bitcoin Cash network immediately after the November 15th software upgrade against all principles and protocols of the blockchain, through the use of “rented hashing” – the process of artificially and temporarily deploying or redirecting computing power to take control of the network and used this computer power to favor the adoption of the Bitcoin ABC new rule sets over other implantations that would have maintained democratic rule sets.

Once the Bitcoin ABC rule set was established, it became the dominant chain and the rented hashing was withdrawn and was no longer contributing to the Bitcoin Cash network. UnitedCorp alleges that the use of computational hashing power that did not contribute to the network just prior and then was withdrawn shortly after the network upgrade was put in place for the sole purpose of maintaining an artificially longer chain over the existing rule sets and amounted to human manipulation for the purpose decentralizing the autonomous network and that this was orchestrated by a small group of individuals and corporations.

UnitedCorp also alleges that a few days later on November 20th, the ABC development team planted a “poison pill” into the blockchain in the form of a “Deep Reorg Prevention” as well as other functionality in order to cement the control of the blockchain ledger. This intervention allows maintenance of control on future implementations and any related rule sets for future network upgrades.

“We are bringing this suit on behalf of UnitedCorp because we believe strongly in the value and integrity of democratic, distributed and decentralized blockchain networks which will become more important with time,” stated Benoit Laliberte, President of UnitedCorp, “In order to maintain confidence in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin Cash, no person or entity can be allowed to control them.” Open / Comment