Tag: blockchain

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Are Boys With Midas Touch About To Make Move On ICO Market?

Are Boys With Midas Touch About To Make Move On ICO Market?

    

The recent maneuvering by the billionaires into the world of Initial Coin Offerings

Our London correspondent Nick Ayton aka The Sage of Shoreditch explores the recent maneuvering by the billionaires into the world of Initial Coin Offerings, AI and Blockchain. ICOs have enjoyed their best run ever, albeit it’s a new phenomenon in recent time. The last six months have seen the ICO market leave traditional funding mechanisms in their wake. Will ICOs become the preferred mechanism for entrepreneurs of all shapes and wallet sizes?

It seems so.

"The Midas touch boys are moving in as they know a good thing when they see it. And they don’t like to miss out."

It can come as no surprise to me to see billionaire moves by Mike Novogratz who placed 10 percent of his wealth into crypto and Mark Cuban who has announced his own ICO of Unikrn, a sports betting business. And there will be more to follow.

ICOs coming of age

Some are calling ICOs into question, demanding regulations and government intervention, others see it at a big scam. But ICOs are attracting a lot of interest from very successful entrepreneurs who are turning their back on banks as a source of capital that becomes very expensive, with its high fees and

lots of strings attached.

"The involvement of the Billionaire Boys is the sign that ICOs are not only becoming mainstream but also a legitimate alternative capital market for already successful entrepreneurs."

Is this the extra endorsement needed where Bill Gates who has already said if he would start a new business today it would be in AI on the Blockchain?

Are records about to be broken, again

With Bancor, Status, Block One and others that have easily passed the $100 mln mark,  are we likely to see soon the first billion dollar ICO? Enter stage left, Gurbaksh Chahal who certainly has the Midas touch when it comes to backing the latest technology and is already disrupting global advertising with his AI marketing engine Gravity4. He wants to launch the largest ICO ever breaking the $500 mln plus mark, and who would be against him?

Can he make Gravity4 a leader in Artificial Intelligence Big Data Cloud, the largest ICO in ever surpassing $500 mln or even $1 bln as they take what is known as High-Frequency Marketing to the next level? Who would bet against this maverick entrepreneur of Indian-American descent who founded his first company aged 16 and sold it for $40 mln?  Further going on to sell four businesses for $300 mln:  BlueLithium (behavioral targeting) to Yahoo, RadiumOne (programmatic advertising) and ShareGraph and innovative tech business.

Gurbaksh explains:

“We intend to take what we have done in AI marketing and connect it to the Blockchain. We have already created the world’s first Artificial Intelligence Big Data Cloud called Mona Lisa and we are already way ahead of SalesForce, Oracle and Adobe.”

Gravity4 already has a footprint in most of the major Fortune 1,000 brands globally and many consider their offering to be way ahead of anyone else. The business is on track to deliver $200 mln revenues in 2018 and so this is no mere startup.  

High-frequency machine learning

Gravity4 is the world’s first high-frequency machine learning marketing operating system built to enhance advertising across SaaS Industries. It collates customer experiences so marketers can target customers more effectively through the entire customer journey, regardless of delivery channel. The proprietary AI technology ‘Mona Lisa’ builds a ‘consumer persona’ aggregating the data from all channels and touch points, using semantic graphs to form connection clusters and correlation variables in a single click of the mouse, optimizing and automating the effort in what is a $200 bln global advertising market.  

The worlds of AI and Blockchain sit well together and deliver a powerful combination indeed. With Gravity4 we are not seeing a startup trying to raise capital to build a Blockchain. Gravity4 is already a very successful global business and wants to raise further capital to extend its R&D to dominate the high-frequency machine learning marketing industry. Who would be against them?

Chuck Reynolds


Marketing Dept
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Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

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Silicon Valley is hot on a new cryptocurrency that could become worth 100 times its current value

Silicon Valley is hot on a new cryptocurrency that could become worth 100 times its current value

    

Ether, the unit of cryptocurrency used on the Ethereum blockchain,

has given investors a wild ride lately. Its value more than doubled in May, peaked in June at more than $400 an ether, and then lost more than half that value by early this week. That may sound like a bubble bursting. But some investors are still optimistic and are prepared to ride it out. Aaron Batalion, a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, said he expected to see more 50% price jumps in ether, with big returns down the road.

"Over the next five to 10 years, I believe it will be worth 10 or 100 times its current value," Batalion said. Jason Calacanis, an early investor in startups including Robinhood and Uber, recently tweeted: "I think I need to own some #Etherium — what % of net worth would you allocate to crypto as a 46 year old with stable income?" Matt Galligan, a serial entrepreneur and investor in ether, said he was also looking to the five-year mark, when he expects the platform to have matured to the point when it has a lot of uses. "The space is still really early," Galligan said. "There's going to be a lot of froth and volatility."

What are Ethereum and ether?

Ethereum is a platform for sharing information that cannot be manipulated or changed. It's a blockchain similar to the one underlying the bitcoin cryptocurrency that records information chronologically and publicly. In the future, Ethereum may be used to securely transfer money to your bank or to send documents to your insurance company. Today, these processes require multiple steps for verification and authentication, but Ethereum makes verification a one-step process because the information is incorruptible in the first place. Ether is the unit of currency in Ethereum. It's a token that can be exchanged for services on the platform. The currency is the "fuel for the Ethereum virtual machine," said Andreas Weiler, the head of markets at Smith and Crown, a crypto-financial research group.

Ether, Ethereum, and bitcoin are not the same things

While often compared to bitcoin, ether is not actually a competing currency. Bitcoin is explicitly a digital form of money and payment system, whereas ether is a means of buying services within Ethereum. Ethereum is still in beta and not widely used, but some investors believe it may someday be a foundational layer of the internet. Ether is still a financial risk, however, because Ethereum hasn't yet taken off — and there's no guarantee that it will. "When you invest in ether, you are not actually doing anything — you are holding ammo, which will allow you to execute code when there is code worth being executed on the platform," Weiler said.

In the meantime, though, you have to be prepared for a lot of volatility.

The price of ether shot up this spring, rising from less than $20 a digital coin in March to an all-time high of $420 in midday trading in the middle of June, according to Global Digital Asset Exchange, the primary Ether-trading platform. In May alone, it rose to nearly $230 an ether from less than $90. In recent weeks, though, investors have been selling off the digital currency. It sank to as low as $175.56 earlier this week, according to GDAX, before rebounding. In recent trading on Wednesday, it was at $208.87.

Part of that instability comes from people not knowing what they're investing in, Weiler said. "It really did smell like dumb money coming in and not knowing what Ethereum is about or what role ether plays in the economy in the first place," he said. But the currency's price may stabilize as Ethereum scales and becomes more commonplace. It is this possibility that is keeping some investors in the game. "As with any new technology innovation, the early attempts are fraught with challenges, but this technology will not go back into a box and disappear," Batalion said. "We will see meaningful companies built using this technology and fund-raising approach, even if the normal end user doesn't realize it's part of the foundation of a product [or] service they use."

Chuck Reynolds


Marketing Dept
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Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

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No systemic risk from Cryptocurrency Speculation

No systemic risk from Cryptocurrency Speculation

    

possible to view price movements in blockchain-based cryptocurrencies

as influenced by the ultra-easy monetary policies put in place by central banks after the 2007-2009 global financial crisis. But sharp price gains in cryptocurrencies may be a sign of excess and have led some investors to call the market a bubble. "I look at the charts, and to me that looks pretty scary," Turnill said at a media briefing in New York. Turnill and his colleagues have been advising clients to stay invested in global stocks even as some other strategists warn that prices are overextended after a run-up over the better part of the last decade.

Bitcoin, the primary cryptocurrency, hit a record just shy of $3,000 last month but has fallen some 20 percent since then, trading at $2,366 on Tuesday. Over the last year, bitcoin is still up 264 percent. Competing cryptocurrencies, such as ethereum and litecoin, posted quadruple-digit percentage gains ahead of losses in recent days. The virtual currency relies on "mining" computers that validate blocks of transactions by competing to solve mathematical puzzles every 10 minutes. The first to solve the puzzle and clear the transaction is rewarded with new bitcoins.

Some investors have warmed to the technology, wooed by its explosive performance and the potential that the currency compete with gold and government-issued money as a store of value. Some also see other potential uses for blockchain, the technology that documents and verifies bitcoin transactions. But Turnill suggested the broader financial risks associated with blockchain-based currencies appear limited. "There's no evidence that if that price went to zero tomorrow that there'd be any broader financial implication over time, but to me it is example of where you're getting some big price movements in the market."

Apple sets up China data center to meet new cyber-security rules

BEIJING (Reuters) — Apple Inc on Wednesday said it is setting up its first data center in China, in partnership with a local internet services company, to comply with tougher cyber-security laws introduced last month. The U.S. technology company said it will build the center in the southern province of Guizhou with data management firm Guizhou-Cloud Big Data Industry Co Ltd (GCBD).

An Apple spokesman in Shanghai told Reuters the center is part of a planned $1 billion investment into the province. "The addition of this data center will allow us to improve the speed and reliability of our products and services while also complying with newly passed regulations," Apple said in a statement to Reuters. "These regulations require cloud services be operated by Chinese companies so we're partnering with GCBD to offer iCloud," it said, referring to its online data storage service. Apple is the first foreign firm to announce amendments to its data storage for China following the implementation of a new cyber-security law on June 1 that requires foreign firms to store data within the country.

Overseas business groups said the law's strict data surveillance and storage requirements are overly vague, burdening the firms with excessive compliance risks and threatening proprietary data.The Apple logo is pictured on an iPhone in an illustration photo taken in Bordeaux, France, February 1, 2017.Regis Duvignau Authorities say the law is not designed to put foreign firms at a disadvantage and was drafted in reaction to the threat of cyber attacks and terrorism. Apple also said it had strong data privacy and security protections in place. "No backdoors will be created into any of our systems," it said.

In April, China also announced a law requiring businesses transferring over 1,000 gigabytes of data outside China to undergo yearly security reviews, with potential blocks on exporting economic, technological and scientific data. Earlier this week, Apple said it planned to open a new data center in Denmark. An earlier center in the country, announced in 2015, will come online this year, it said. The new laws come as Chinese cloud firms are expanding rapidly in foreign markets. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd has 17 data centers across China, the United States, Europe, Australia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Other foreign firms that oversee cloud businesses, including Amazon.com Inc and Microsoft Corp, already have data centers in China.

Chuck Reynolds


Marketing Dept
Contributor
Please click either Link to Learn more about -Bitcoin.

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

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Big Businesses that are Leading the Bitcoin Charge

Big Businesses that are Leading the Bitcoin Charge

    

No longer shunning and brushing Bitcoin under the carpet,

some of the world’s biggest companies have seen the light and are accepting digital currencies as a form of payment. Bitcoin’s reputation as an obscure currency that is only used on the Darknet has long been left behind as the digital currency finds itself more in the mainstream than in shadowy corners. The growth of the currency as an asset, as well as the technology behind it, has sparked the interest of a lot of forward-thinking and progressive companies. The likes of Microsoft, Overstock.com, DISH Network, Intuit, and even the rival of sorts PayPal are all utilizing Bitcoin.

Microsoft

As one of the pioneers of technology it only makes sense that a company with the prestige of Microsoft has decided to invest and integrate with Bitcoin. It may sound surprising that Microsoft customers, and by extension Xbox users, can buy content on the Windows and the Xbox stores. What is even more surprising is that Microsoft has been offering this since December 2014, back when Bitcoin was far less common, understood or even trusted.

More importantly, perhaps, is that Microsoft is working on utilizing Blockchains, the technology behind Bitcoin, for large-scale businesses to facilitate the settlement of their financial data. This was done through the launch of Azure, which is a service platform on Blockchain technology. Finally, it has been announced that the latest release of Excel will have Bitcoin integration among its currencies so that users can implement the digital currency into their spreadsheets with ease.

PayPal

As one of the biggest online payment platforms out there, it seems illogical that PayPal would be looking to integrate and utilize Bitcoin which could act as a direct competitor to their services. However, the payment processing service has moved with the times, albeit in a roundabout way. In September 2014, PayPal announced that it would indeed accept Bitcoin, but it would be through integration with their mobile payment platform, Braintree. Braintree has linked up with Coinbase, BitPay and GoCoin, to allow merchants using Braintree to accept payment through Bitcoin. It must be noted that this was the start of integration for Bitcoin and PayPal, but their growth has slowed somewhat since the payment processor broke off from Ebay.

Overstock.com

The large and well-regarded E-tailer was one of the first major companies to take the plunge with Bitcoin, stating that it would accept digital currency through a partnership struck up with Coinbase back in January 2014. Customers of Overstock.com can make a purchase of anything from furniture, jewelry, clothes and decor with the digital currency. Overstock was also savvy enough to carry between five and 10 percent of Bitcoin in their reserves, and seeing how the currency’s worth has grown since 2014, that move is to have surely netted the company a huge return.

Intuit

Known predominantly as the software giant behind QuickBooks, which is a DIY Tax preparation program, Intuit integrated Bitcoin into its programs with great success for cross-border clients. In 2014 BitPay partnered with QuickBooks to create the PayByCoin service that allowed for next-day settlement into bank accounts. This helped overcome the issue of Bitcoin’s volatility. It also appealed to businesses as the usual bureaucracy and red tape associated with overseas payments were all but removed through the use of Bitcoin.

DISH Network

DISH admitted that it had heard the calls from its customers to allow them to pay with Bitcoin for the digital satellite services and it too joined up with Coinbase to be the payment processor. Again, this was all the way back in May of 2014 and has been successful in allowing customers an easy alternative to making payments for their digital television requirements.

Chuck Reynolds


Marketing Dept
Contributor
Please click either Link to Learn more about -Bitcoin.

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Markethive

Blockchain Will Disrupt Every Industry

Blockchain Will Disrupt Every Industry

    

As with all major paradigm shifts, there will be winners and losers. But if we do this right, blockchain technology can usher in a halcyon age of prosperity for all. 

I continue to read articles and see example of the disruptive nature of Blockchain. Recently, one of our Salesforce higher education customers demonstrated a persistent, progressive student profile that was built on top of a blockchain chain-script, linking student credentials to potential employers in a real-time using a mobile trusted framework. Trust is foundational to all businesses, and Blockchain enables entities to seamlessly establish trust and transparency at scale. Today, The total market capitalization for the world’s crypto-currencies, led by Bitcon on Blockchain, is more than $100 billion.

To learn more about the impact of Blockchain on businesses and industries, I spoke with Brett Colbert, Solutions CTO and Vice President of Enterprise Architecture at Salesforce.In this role of Solutions CTO, Colbert leads the customer-facing Salesforce Enterprise Architecture team which helps customers and prospects strategically transform their business systems. Previously, Colbert was IT CTO and Vice President of Enterprise Architecture at Salesforce. In this role, Brett was responsible for Salesforce IT strategy and Enterprise Architecture. Colbert has been researching Blockchain for more than three years, leading customer implementations and collaborating with blockchain industry thought leaders.

What is Blockchain?
“A Blockchain is a digital, distributed transaction ledger, with identical copies maintained on multiple computer systems controlled by different entities.” Blockchain owes its potential to its many valuable characteristics: Reliable and available, Transparent, Immutable, Irrevocable, and Digital.Here a high-level summary illustration of blockchain:

What is Blockchain?

“Bitcoin or other digital currency isn’t saved in a file somewhere; it’s represented by transactions recorded in a blockchain—kind of like a global spreadsheet or ledger, which leverages the resources of a large peer-to-peer bitcoin network to verify and approve each Bitcoin transaction. Each blockchain, like the one that uses Bitcoin, is distributed: it runs on computers by volunteers around the world; there is no central database to hack. The blockchain is public: anyone can view it at any time because it resides on the network, not within a single institution charged with auditing transactions and keeping records. And the blockchain is encrypted: it uses heavy-duty encryption involving public and private keys–like the two-key system to access a safety deposit box–to maintain virtual security.” — Don Tapscott, Author of Blockchain Revolution

Why is Blockchain a disruptive technology?
Blockchain is a disruptive technology because of it’s ability to digitize, decentralize, secure and incentivize the validation of transactions. A wide swath of industries are evaluating blockchain to determine what strategic differentiators could exist for their businesses if they leverage blockchain.Soon to be disrupted industries will include Financial Services, Healthcare, Aviation, Global Logistics and Shipping, Transportation, Music, Manufacturing, Security, Media, Identity, Automotive, Land Use and Government. Blockchain is garnering a lot of attention because blockchain will fundamentally change many of the industries listed above.

“The “killer app” for the early internet was email; it’s what drove adoption and strengthened the network. Bitcoin is the killer app for the blockchain.”

Examples of Blockchain use by Industry –
The answer isn’t in the technology, but in how the technology can improve inefficient business processes. The processes that we use to ship goods globally, buy and sell things, determine ownership of things or identify ourselves are typically slow, error prone, paper-based and heavily people-dependent.

Here are a few examples of the opportunities that exist to improve processes in a variety of industries using Blockchain:

  • Land Use –
    Ownership and history of property currently requires the investigation of many different document sources such as Grantor-Grantee index, Land Records or Deed Records. The goal is to find any records related to property liens, easements, covenants, conditions and restrictions(CC&Rs), agreements, resolutions and ordinances. This a time consuming and laborious process in which it is easy to miss important information. Sweden is leveraging blockchain to track land registries called the Lantmäteriet. They estimate a taxpayer savings of $106 million per year based on reduction of fraud, eliminating paperwork and accelerating the process.
     
  • Identity –
    Across the globe we use passports to identify people, which are paper-based identity cards similar to your driver’s license and therefore counterfeitable. ISIS is reported to have the ability to manufacture fake passports. In 2013, almost 40 million “travel” documents were reported as lost or stolen since 2002, according to Interpol. Dubai is working on a digital passport with a London-based company called ObjectTech. The digital passport is based on Blockchain. “This is an identity that is fit for the digital age,” said Paul Ferris, co-founder and chief executive of ObjectTech. “Not only will it make international travel quicker and safer, but it also gives people back control of their personal digital data.”
     
  • Global Logistics and Shipping –
    The second largest port in Europe, Belgium-based Port of Antwerp, announced a blockchain pilot to automate and streamline the port’s container logistics operations. “According to the terminal authority, moving containers from point to point often involves more than 30 different parties, including carriers, terminals, forwarders, haulers, drivers, shippers and more. This process results in hundreds of interactions between those parties, conducted through a mix of e-mail, phone and fax.” Maersk is investigating blockchain to track global trade and shipments (see video below).
  • Automotive –
    German automaker Daimler AG has issued a corporate bond worth €100m as part of a Blockchain pilot project. “According to Daimler, the entire transaction cycle — from origination, distribution, allocation and execution of the loan agreement, to the confirmation of repayment and of interest payments — was automated digitally through the blockchain network. Lending technical support were the IT subsidiaries of Daimler and LBBW, which also adopted the Blockchain’s cryptographic signature to prevent manipulation of transactions.” Jan Brecht, Daimler’s CIO said, “We see blockchain as a promising technology, not fully mature yet, but continuously growing. Now is the right time to get into it, build up knowledge and form a network of like-minded people to share experiences.”
     
  • Aviation –
    Accenture’s head of Aerospace and Defense said about Blockchain, “I really see this coming in, in a couple of years”, speaking at the Paris Air Show in June 2017. “Through all that life cycle of the engine, the original parts, the replacement parts and configuration are all being tracked, and it is being done by a number of different companies. “Blockchain is in effect a single federated ledger that everybody who uses and touches that engine could use it as a single point of truth of what has happened to the engine,” he explained. “It is something we can see clearly in terms of the benefits and we effectively have a patent pending on how to leverage blockchain in the aftermarket.”
     
  • Manufacturing –
    The manufacturing industry uses QR codes and bar codes to identify products. These methods are notoriously insecure given the ease at which someone can copy or duplicates these codes. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), the “imports of counterfeit and pirated goods are worth nearly half a trillion dollars a year, or around 2.5% of global imports.” Imagine if luxury goods were tracked in an immutable blockchain.
     
  • Prescription Drugs –
    Worldwide sales of counterfeit medicines could top US$ 75 billion this year, a 90% rise in five years, according to an estimate published by the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest in the United States of America (USA). The FDA’s Drug Supply Chain Security Act, signed into effect in November 2013, creates a requirement to ‘develop an electronic, inter-operable system to identify and trace certain prescription drugs as they are distributed in the United States.’ A San Francisco-based startup called Chronicled has launched a ‘track and trace’ pilot using blockchain to build an electronic, inter-operable system to identify and track prescription drugs as they are distributed in the United States.

A Beijing policeman walks across a huge pile of fake medicines

  • Finance –
    Visa has a blockchain effort called “Visa B2B Connect” partnering with Chain to analyze the possibility of optimizing near real-time funds transfer system for high value bank-to-bank and corporate payments. A company called Ripple is working with banks to optimize how they send money around the world, with the goal of new revenue models, lower processing costs and better overall customer experience. IBM Global Finance is working on one of the largest blockchain implementations.
  • Government –
    he US Navy’s Naval Innovation Advisory Council (NIAC) will spearhead the testing of Blockchain technology in their 3D printing in order to help securely transfer data during the manufacturing process.
  • Banking –
    According to an Accenture survey, “Nine in ten executives said their bank is currently exploring the use of Blockchain.” Some of the focus is on transforming payments at scale and reducing the risk of failure.
  • Blockchain as a Service –
    Several enterprise software vendors have announced Blockchain as a Service offerings in which customers can leverage blockchain in a cloud environment.

“Every business, institution, government, and individual can benefit in profound ways. The blockchain is already disrupting the financial services industry. How about the corporation, a pillar of modern capitalism? With this global peer-to-peer platform for identity, reputation, and transactions, we will be able to re-engineer deep structures of the firm for innovation and shared value creation. How about these billions of connected smart things that will be sensing, responding, sharing data, generating and trading their own electricity, protecting our environment, managing our homes and our health? And this Internet of Everything will need a Ledger of Everything.”

Chuck Reynolds


Marketing Dept
Contributor
Please click either Link to Learn more about -Bitcoin.

 

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

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Wall Street Strategist Sees Bitcoin at $55,000 by 2022

Wall Street Strategist Sees Bitcoin at $55,000 by 2022

    

Tom Lee, strategist at the firm Fundstrat, has released his estimate on the value of Bitcoin by 2022,

In the next five years

Lee, an expert in market commodities and stock valuations, has made his estimate based on Bitcoin’s limited supply and market stabilization. He’s not the first to make such bullish predictions either. Ronnie Moas, the famous stock picker and strategist has also suggested substantial upside, even in the near term.

What's driving the demand?

Lee believes that one of the main market drivers for Bitcoin is a cannibalizing of gold demand. As the economic situation continues to present concern for many investors, vehicles like Bitcoin can be a way to store value similar to gold and other precious metals. The limitation on supply, as there can be no more than 21 million inherent units, and the decentralized nature of cryptocurrencies make Bitcoin a safe harbor in times of economic uncertainty,

according to Lee.

"In other words, substantial upside exists in owning cryptocurrencies here”.

Lee did accept the reality that Bitcoin is wildly volatile, considering that the its annualized volatility is 75 percent, but also argued that gold had the same effect in the late 1970’s, saying, “gold's volatility approached 90% from 1971 to 1980 as the U.S. abandoned the gold standard — hence, we expect this to improve over time."

Chuck Reynolds


Marketing Dept
Contributor
Please click either Link to Learn more about -Bitcoin.

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

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SmartPlay.Tech – New Game, $3,000,000 Trading Volume and Macau Partner

SmartPlay.Tech –
New Game, $3,000,000 Trading Volume and Macau Partner

    

The win-win roulette launch

The beginning of the month was marked by the release of a new win-win roulette, which amount of players surpassed the activity in the previous blockchain game, released by the developers in late February. The success of the project was achieved due to the uniqueness of the solution, favorably differing from other products of this segment. Focusing on a large number of players unfamiliar with the world of blockchain technology and crypto currency, the founders set a goal to expand the popularization of the platform among ordinary users. For this purpose, a whole strategy was developed to create and promote the project including the maximum simplification of the game start without plugins installation, playing for free and the absence of commissions for placing bets. No deposit solution in less than a month attracted 12,800 players who were able to get up to $ 10 for participating in the new roulette testing. Feedback of satisfied users has been spread across forums and social networks, creating an additional advertising effect. At the end of the month, the total amount of bets placed by the players was almost 8 million RLT with the number of rounds played approaching to 570,000, which exceeded the blockchain roulette statistics parameters for 4 months by 43 times.

Having built up the active loyal players’ base SmartPlay.tech founders added the possibility of refilling the account with RLT tokens. Users are given a bonus of up to 50% to their first deposit, which makes it possible to receive 0.025% of each bet regardless of the game outcome. In the near future developers plan to connect the balance of win-win roulette to the system of dividend distribution in order to resume payments and increase their frequency. In addition, to further expand the base of players will be added the ability to deposit ETH.

Exchange statistics

June was a record for the volume of trading and the value of the token on the exchange. RLT more than once held record positions in the amount of transactions made on Livecoin which total monthly value comprised $ 2,872,000. On June 9th, SmartRoulette token reached another record with the price soaring to $1.

Project development In mid-June, in order to attract and build up the audience of players, the project started to be advertised on more than 370 crypto-currency and gaming sites. On a regular basis press releases are posted on the top 20 news outlets and aggregators with the base of active users engaged for the distribution of the information about the project using a whole system of so-called bounty campaigns. In the second half of the month the developers presented the first version of the affiliate program. On unique market conditions earning 0.5% from each bet of the referred player became available not only for professional webmasters and advertisers, but also for ordinary users. In this case, the weekly commission is charged regardless of the player’s game outcome, unlike most affiliate programs. At the moment 23 major affiliate websites are participating in the promotion of the project.

Cooperation with the big partner from Macau

The main news of the outgoing month was the beginning of negotiations between SmartPlay.tech and a major gambling partner with a significant stake in the gambling and hotel business of Macau. The decision to make a big investment in SmartRoulette project was made by the partner after a detailed review of the developed solution. According to him, the project favorably differs from competitors in the presence of a working solution oriented to ordinary players and unique opportunities provided both to players and investors, however its rapid promotion requires aggressive marketing in order to occupy a significant market share and raise its competitiveness. According to the founders’ calculations the conclusion of cooperation with a partner having many years of expertise and a high level of competence in promoting online gambling will increase the project’s capitalization and its share of the presence in the international gambling industry.

Chuck Reynolds


Marketing Dept
Contributor
Please click either Link to Learn more about -Bitcoin.

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

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Blockchain — “Bitcoin with Haircut” or Replacement for Inefficient Banking System?

Blockchain — “Bitcoin with Haircut” or Replacement for Inefficient Banking System?

    

Following other major banks and financial institutions

such as Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, the New York-based $335.4 bn banking giant, has started to utilize Blockchain technology to automate high throughput transaction processing. Most operations and settlements facilitated by banks including JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs require significant manual verification and labor. In most cases, bank wire and transfers can take at least five days to three weeks, due to the requirement of manual approval required by financial regulations, money transmission policies and KYC and AML systems globally. Although it will be more accurate to describe the efforts of Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan as the development of Blockchain technology-inspired systems rather than Blockchain-based decentralized applications as by law, banks are required to have strict control over their transactions and settlements.

“Blockchain vs. Bad Banking”

At the Blockchain Arica Conference hosted on March 2, Bitcoin and security expert Andreas Antonopoulos explained in a talk called “Blockchain vs. Bad Banking” that the actual Blockchain technology used by Bitcoin and other successful public Blockchain networks such as Ethereum require much more than the conventional “Blockchain technology” itself.

Antonopoulos stated:

“Blockchain is the technology behind Bitcoin. Which is incorrect. Blockchain is one of the four foundational technologies behind Bitcoin and it can’t stand alone. But that hasn’t stopped people from trying to sell it. Blockchain is Bitcoin with a haircut and a suit you parade in front of your board. It is the ability to deliver sanitized clean, comfortable version of Blockchain of Bitcoin to people who are too terrified of actually disruptive technology.”

Then what are banks actually building?

Cryptographic evidence and signatures are essential in most cryptographic platforms such as Blockchain networks as they allow financial service providers to record time stamps of settlements of assets and transactions in an immutable ledger. Because the vast majority of banking systems are centralized, they are vulnerable to sophisticated hacking attacks and security breaches. However, with the usage of Blockchain technology, banks such as JPMorgan Chase can process high throughput transactions efficiently and most importantly, securely.

JPMorgan: Blockchain will replace inefficient banking systems

Alex Liu, the CEO of AMIS, the Blockchain infrastructure provider that partnered with JPMorgan recently and joined the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance in its early days,

stated:

“The protocol is a vital part of efforts aimed at building the next evolution of the Internet of Value, similar to the creation of the TCP/IP protocol earlier in the history of computer networks.”

More to that, Liu explained that the JPMorgan Chase development team would showcase a new technology called proof of authority (PoA), a consensus protocol that would allow the verification of pre-approved nodes. Whether the pre-approval process of nodes will become an issue in the future regarding security and network efficiency will be answered by the public launching of JPMorgan’s launch of its PoA Blockchain in the near future. At the moment, JPMorgan Chase and AMIS remain absolutely confident that Blockchain will replace inefficient, insecure and centralized financial networks in the upcoming years, to optimize the settlement process of assets and transactions for users and customers.

Chuck Reynolds


Marketing Dept
Contributor
Please click either Link to Learn more about -Bitcoin.

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Markethive

Fourth Largest Cryptocurrency Exchange Was Hacked. Users Lose Ethereum & Bitcoin

Fourth Largest Cryptocurrency Exchange Was Hacked. Users Lose Ethereum & Bitcoin

    

Bithumb, the world's fourth largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume,

confirmed a security incident during which an unknown hacker was able to make off with an yet undetermined amount of funds. Clues that something was wrong emerged on Thursday, when South Korean users, who make most of Bithumb's userbase, started complaining on a local social network about losing control over large funds stored in their Bithumb accounts. A day later after these complaints, the company officially admitted the breach in a blog post on its website, albeit it did not provide any meaningful details.

Attacker hacked Bithumb employee's PC

More facts came to light on Monday, when pressured by local media, the company revealed that the breach occurred after an unknown attacker hacked the personal computer of a Bithumb employee, from where he stole the details of over 31,800 Bithumb users — about 3% of the platform's entire userbase. According to local media [1, 2, 3, 4], the hack took place at around 22:00, local time, on Thursday, June 29, and the documents the hacker managed to access contained data on customer names, email addresses, and mobile phone numbers.

Soon after, Bithumb users started complaining online that someone was draining their accounts. It is unclear how the hacker gained control to targeted accounts. Some users reported losses as big as 10 million won ($8,700) worth of cryptocurrency. Local media grossly estimates that the attacker made off with billions of won in cryptocurrency, but Bithumb never confirmed the exact amount of stolen funds.

Bithumb promises to reimburse users

Based on a blog post published on Monday, the exchange doesn't seem to know the exact amount of money the attacker took. Nonetheless, in a gracious move, the company is willing to provide compensations of up to 100,000 won ($897) per affected user until midnight July 5. "As soon as the amount of damages is confirmed, we will reimburse the entire amount of damages," said Bithumb in an official statement.

According to user complaints, the hacker stole both Bitcoin and Ethereum from user accounts. Besides being the fourth largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume, Bithumb is also the Internet's second largest Ethereum trading platform by volume. Bithumb told South Korean media it contacted law enforcement last week and informed them of the theft. Two months ago, an unknown attacker hacked fellow South Korean Bitcoin exchange Yapizon and stole 3816.2028 Bitcoin (over $5.5 million). This is not the only Ethereum-related hack that took place this past we

Chuck Reynolds


Marketing Dept
Contributor
Please click either Link to Learn more about -Bitcoin.

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Markethive

Goldman Sachs Finally Recognizes the Power of Blockchain Technology

Goldman Sachs Finally Recognizes the Power of Blockchain Technology

 

In the most recent initiative to promote

its acceptance of Blockchain technology, one of leading US investment banking institutions, Goldman Sachs, has set up a microsite dedicated to explaining the benefits of Blockchain technology.  It was then followed by a tweet on July 1 which clearly sends a message of the banking giant finally embracing the same technology

that powers Bitcoin. 

Trusted, secure, efficient — why #blockchain could revolutionize how we work together

The page was created for the purpose of giving people an idea of how Blockchain technology is used and how cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin run on these programs. One of their key messages include Blockchain technology’s security feature: Blockchain is designed to store information in a way that makes it virtually impossible to add, remove or change data without being detected by other users.

Goldman Sachs on Blockchain-based projects

Although the financial sector has not really been very keen on cryptocurrencies for quite a long time, Goldman Sachs has been involved in some Blockchain technology based companies like Circle and even Digital Asset Holdings. While the banking giant has been helping startups such as these, it is just now that they have formally announced their acceptance of Blockchain technology.

Blockchain's future in finance sector

Despite its price volatility, there is no doubt that Blockchain technology is making waves in various industries, including finance. In fact, a report by Accenture shows the cost data of eight of the world’s largest investment banks states that Blockchain technology could help reduce the costs of investment banks by as much as $12 bln per annum by the time 2025 comes. This is a big thing for investment banks because not only will this new technology help make the transaction of data safer and more secure, but it will also help drive the costs down.

The foray of mainstream banking, financial and technology giants into the cryptocurrency sector showcases the promising future of Blockchain technology and its applications in various industry segments. The initial wave was caused due to the increasing threat to conventional banking methods by Bitcoin, which could execute cross-border transactions much faster at a much cheaper rate while staying decentralized the whole time. Now, with the capabilities of cryptocurrency technology well-known, could its widespread implementation will be expected in the next 3-4 years?

Chuck Reynolds


Marketing Dept
Contributor
Please click either Link to Learn more about -Bitcoin.

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member