Tuesday 31 October 2017

Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Ripple, Litecoin: Price Analysis, October 30


The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of authors/contributors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

* BTC/USD, ETH/USD and LTC/USD market data is provided by the HitBTC exchange.

A bullish rumor doing the rounds was that the Chinese ban on bitcoin trading is likely to be lifted. That news boosted Bitcoin’s price higher yesterday. However, a parting message by Huobi poured cold water on the expectations. As a result, Bitcoin prices are correcting from their highs.

While Warren Buffett, Jamie Dimon, and a few others are warning of a bubble in Bitcoin, the legendary investor Bill Miller is smiling away to the bank. His fund is up 70% this year. Miller had invested about 30% of his fund’s assets in Bitcoin in early-2016.

Elsewhere, a few central banks are trying to stifle the use of Bitcoin by banning it. Nevertheless, the beauty of cryptocurrencies is that they are not controlled by anyone. The market shall decide the value. Though the ban might make it difficult to use Bitcoin in the marketplace, it is unlikely to affect trading activity.

BTC/USD

Bitcoin has rebounded sharply from the trendline support and is attempting to breakout of the ascending channel.

On Sunday, the cryptocurrency broke above the resistance line of the ascending channel, but could not sustain it. Though the ascending channel has been a stiff resistance and the RSI is also showing a negative divergence, we believe that if the digital currency again breaks out of the channel, it is likely to gain momentum and rally towards its target objective of $6845. Therefore, we recommend a buy at $6400 with a close stop loss of $6000. However, this is a risky trade, therefore, please use only 30% of the usual allocation.

If the cryptocurrency fails to breakout and sustain above the resistance line of the ascending channel, it can again fall to the trendline support. It will become negative, only if it breaks down of the trendline support and the 20-day exponential moving average, which is at $5623.

ETH/USD

Ethereum continues to trade in a range. It has still not been able to breakout of the overhead resistance at $315.

ETH/USD

If the cryptocurrency breaks out of the resistance at $315, chances are that it will start a new uptrend. This time, we expect ethereum to breakout of $353 and head higher towards $366 levels. Therefore, we recommend a buy on Ethereum at $319 with a stop loss of $289.

Partial profits can be booked at $350 levels and the stop loss on the remaining position can be trailed higher.

On the other hand, if the digital currency fails to break out of the range, a fall to the trendline is likely. Ethereum will become negative if it breaks down and sustains below the trendline.

Therefore, we recommend a buy, only on a breakout.

BCH/USD

Traders who initiated long positions on our recommendation would have earned a quick 22% return within a day. They would have entered at $422 and exit at the target objective of $518 on October 29.

BCH/USDBitcoin Cash broke out of the range on October 28 and has been sustaining above it since then. This is a bullish sign. Next, the cryptocurrency is likely to rally to $549 levels, where it can face some resistance, but if the bulls’ breakout of this overhead resistance, a move to $700 is possible.

We, however, don’t find any reliable buy set up at the current levels, which offers us a good risk to reward ratio. Therefore, we don’t recommend any long position at the current levels. We shall wait for a small consolidation to re-establish the positions.

XRP/USD

Ripple has still not triggered our buy levels. It continues to trade in a tight range. The longer it trades in this range, the farther it will run when it starts a new uptrend or downtrend.

XRP/USDTherefore, we retain our buy recommendation on Ripple at $0.22, on a breakout above the moving averages. The stop loss should be kept at $0.19659.

The breakout is likely to carry the digital currency to $0.23955 and $0.25311 levels, which are 50% and 61.8% Fibonacci retracement levels of the fall from $0.29699 to $0.18211.

Traders should raise their stops to breakeven once the cryptocurrency rallies to $0.23955. We suggest booking partial profits at $0.25311. The stop loss on the remaining position should be trailed higher.

If the breakout fails to sustain, ripple is likely to remain range bound for a few more days. It will become negative only on a breakdown below $0.18211.

LTC/USD

Litecoin has still not closed above the range of $44 to $57.7. Therefore, our buy levels from the previous analysis have still not triggered.  

LTC/USDLitecoin continues to consolidate near the upper end of the range, therefore, we are modifying our previous buy recommendation.

We, now, recommend buying Litecoin at $59 with a stop loss of $53. Our profit objective remains $71, where we recommend booking 50% profits. The remaining position can be held with a trailing stop loss because if the digital currency breaks out of $71, it can rally to $82 levels.

However, if the cryptocurrency fails to breakout and sustain above the range, it can again fall towards the $51 levels.

 



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Wednesday 25 October 2017

Decentralized lead sourcing for business with Snovio


Snovio is a blockchain based platform that aims to overcome the main challenges of any business searching for high quality leads and other data. It combines a global marketplace for data with a ‘Software as a Service’ (SaaS) model for relevant additional services. The whole thing is powered by Snov tokens, that are available for purchase during the ICO starting on 31st October 2017.

Crowdsourcing Data

The Snovio platform will be open to thousands of data suppliers from around the world. In return for seeding and updating the database of contacts, these data suppliers will be rewarded with Snov tokens. Thanks to the use of smart contract, data suppliers will receive the reward automatically whenever a customer purchases data. Thereby the platform will guarantee a transparent and fair model for distribution of revenue.

The process of importing data and keeping records up to date will become much easier thanks to browser extension, allowing for efficient work completed by data suppliers.

Marketplace & Contact Search

When fully developed, the Snovio platform will become an entirely open, global, and decentralized source of precious leads along with a marketplace for data supply orders functioning on blockchain and smart contract.

Business users will be able to search the contact database in order to find leads that perfectly fit their criteria – no matter who or what they are looking for. They will then be able to purchase this data for Snov tokens.

In cases where the precise requirements for a campaign cannot be fulfilled simply by searching the existing database, Snovio customers will be able to post ‘wanted’ ads with token rewards for professional data collectors able to fill the requirements. Multiple workers can take on one of these jobs, and get paid out proportionally according to their personal contribution.

Every transaction within Snovio platform and its marketplace will make use of smart contract and will be recorded on the blockchain.

Additional Business Services

In addition to lead sourcing and marketplace features, Snovio will also offer other business-related services.

The primary service under this category is a mailing service. It will save time and money on transferring data around and maintaining multiple accounts, as Snovio customers will be able to search for and purchase leads and then launch email campaign to these leads all from the same location.

Ensuring that data is up-to-date, an email verifier will remove invalid addresses from client lists, with an accuracy of 98.5%                

Snovio also provides its customers with such features as Domain Search, Bulk Domain Search and Company Search.

ICO Crowdsale

Sixty percent of the total supply of 2.5 billion tokens will be sold to investors during an ICO.

With an initial price of $0.01 USD, there is a hard cap of $15 million to be raised during the ICO.

The sale will begin on 31st October and will run until 30th November 2017 or till all the tokens are sold out.

For more information and to take part in the ICO please visit: https://snov.io/



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Lucyd- Decentralizing the AR Space with Glasses v2.0 – The Merkle


It’s not every day that an ICO comes around with thirteen patented technologies to enhance the smartglass space that’s expected to boom. By introducing their token LCD, Lucyd endeavors to make the future of augmented reality glasses and apps decentralized.

Disclosure: This is a Sponsored Article

With the traditional market realizing that AR is no gimmick, but rather an accelerating trend. Market research experts estimate that the AR space will be worth 134 billion dollars by 2021. In the nascent stages of this technical revolution, Lucyd has procured the worldwide exclusive rights to thirteen patents from the University of Central Florida that optimizes AR glasses.

These patents allow for a sleek design with familiarity. Wearing Lucyd glasses is expected to be like wearing normal prescription glasses. These innovations come as a relief to prospective users who expect glasses to be comfortable to wear. Not only will Lucyd’s designs comfortable to wear, they will allow for prescription lens wear as well.

The glasses will also provide up to 120° field of vision which is vastly superior to the Lumens head mounted display (HMD) which is expected to provide 55° or the Google Glass which yields 54°. By cutting down the size of the AR frame, Lucyd is also able to cut down the weight as well as the light leakage, which in turn is expected to provide better optical resolution and extended battery life.

Innovation doesn’t just stop with the frame size. Lucyd’s head mounted display will connect with your smart phone, an improvement that allows for energy efficiency as well as access to your handheld operating system whether it be Android or iOS.

LCD is used to organically motivate user and developer engagement with Lucyd smartglasses. It accomplishes this through the Lucyd Lab blockchain, on which new AR content & apps are registered. Blocks then release LCD to developers based on user ratings of their content, and to users based on their feedback to the developer community, and participation in ads and promotions. LCD can be used to purchase AR products from Lucyd and other developers, as well as bought and sold on token exchanges.

Lucyd will release 50 mln tokens in the total sale, out of which 25 mln are on offer at the presale price of 1 ETH=2,133 LCD. The regular sale LCD token will be valued at 1 ETH=1,280 LCD (Oct 31st or when the pre-sale pool of 25 million LCD is sold out).

Another 50 million LCD is designated to support long term development (30 million LCD), reward third party developers (10 million LCD) and the management team (10 million LCD – frozen for 12 months). LCD will go on sale exclusively for Ether. All the money raised by the ICO will go into development of a prototype, business development, administration and legal compliance.  Following the roadmap set for the development of Lucyd Lens, Lucyd expects the prototype to come out in early 2019.

The first 500 pairs of Lucyd smartglasses are reserved for LCD holders who have given over 2.35 ETH, giving token sale participants a chance to be among the first to wear them (you will need to return the purchased LCD to Lucyd to get them). LCD tokens may be used to purchase Lucyd hardware and native content when available. Although actual production costs may vary, Lucyd estimates 5,000 LCD will be able to be exchanged for one basic pair of Lucyd smartglasses. LCD can also be sold to token exchanges for other tokens and fungible currencies. Lucyd plans to design developer tools, productivity and entertainment apps made natively for its smartglasses, available on App Store/Google Play. Such apps would be eligible for purchase via the LCD token.

Lucyd’s team, led by Konrad Dabrowski, Eric Cohen, and Harrison Gross, is very confident in their published patented technology allowing for a seamless, ergonomic user experience. It is a rare ICO with patents and an experienced team including five Ph.D.’s.. The research professor that developed the thirteen patents, Janick Rolland Ph.D., works as a science advisor and optics expert. Dr. Rolland has already developed the central optical system that will be utilised by Lucyd. The optics team is led by Dr. Mike Kayat, who is a physicist and a business development executive with 20 years of experience in development and marketing in advanced optics. Dr Clifford Gross, Strategic Commercialization Lead, is an experienced executive and entrepreneur who founded three public companies and is a named inventor on 19 issued patents from his research.

Professor Hao Li is a Lucyd science advisor, and a well-recognised AR expert. His work revolves around dynamic shape reconstruction, real-time facial and body performance capture, 3D hair acquisition and garment digitalisation.  Dr Chris Harrison, also a science advisor, is an expert in AR and Human-Computer Interaction at Carnegie Mellon, while recently added Pedro Lopes is an expert in Haptic AR and a Human Computer Interaction Researcher at the Hasso Plattner Institute, Germany.

Lucyd ensures that they will only have a sale like this once. Any tokens not sold are kept in the team’s storage. The pre sale which is capped at 25 million has already started this Oct 17.



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Monday 16 October 2017

Scaling Bitcoin Just Released This Year’s Program and a New Developer Bootcamp


Today, Scaling Bitcoin, the international engineering conference focused on Bitcoin and blockchain research, released its program for the 2017 edition. The conference, to be held in Stanford, California, in the first weekend of November, will also introduce a new side event this year: Bitcoin Edge, a bootcamp for starting Bitcoin developers.

“The program is extremely interesting because it delivers cutting edge research on different blockchain scalability approaches, fungibility, consensus, data propagation, alternative techniques for handling blockchains and many other topics,” said Anton Yemelyanov, chair of the Scaling Bitcoin Planning Committee.

Scaling Bitcoin Stanford

After events in Montreal, Hong Kong and Milan, the fourth edition of the Scaling Bitcoin conference is taking place at Stanford University on November 4 and 5 of this year.

Where the first two editions of Scaling Bitcoin were mainly focused on scaling and scalability, the third edition broadened the scope of the conference to include a more diverse set of topics. This trend will continue in Stanford, where talks will range from highly technical topics concerning privacy and fungibility, to fee markets and fee estimation, censorship resistance and more.

“Bitcoin is the origin of all distributed ledger technology,” said Yemelyanov. “Scaling Bitcoin has been fortunate to act as a vehicle for bringing the audience technologies such as Segregated Witness and MimbleWimble, all of which have been adopted or incorporated into various blockchain projects. We hope that other material presented by our participants will be of similar value and help the industry advance the research and development of blockchains.”

Yemelyanov added that another key goal for Scaling Bitcoin conferences is to bring engineers and other technical minds together in a physical space where they can discuss their work in person.

“It is through collaboration where a lot of ideas are born and have potential of becoming reality,” he said.

Bitcoin Edge Dev++

In addition to the conference itself, Scaling Bitcoin is also introducing a two-day technical bootcamp for experienced developers getting into Bitcoin: Bitcoin Edge.

This nonprofit initiative is an effort to help scale the development capacity of the industry, Yemelyanov explained:

“One of the approaches of helping the industry scale is to scale the much needed development capacity of the industry. There is a clear talent deficit and we are trying to help all industry participants by running a nonprofit workshop that will allow developers to gain complete understanding of primitives that comprise Bitcoin and blockchains in general and be able to start working in this field.”

Bitcoin Edge will be led by well-known Bitcoin developers and academics Anditto Heristyo, Ethan Heilman, John Newbery, Karl-Johan Alm, Nicolas Dorier, Thaddeus Dryja and Jimmy Song. They’ll introduce participants to a range of technical Bitcoin-related topics, including Elliptic Curve cryptography, transaction structures, difficulty calculation and adjustments, and much more.

This workshop will take place on the November 2 and 3. For more information on the Bitcoin Edge initiative, visit bitcoinedge.org.

See here for the full Scaling Bitcoin Stanford program.



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Friday 13 October 2017

Race towards the First “Crypto-Country” in the World


The small European country of Estonia aims to become the first crypto-country in the world. The country is already in the midst of digitizing its government services using Blockchain technology, the tech behind digital currencies like Bitcoin.

The Estonian government’s digitization project reached a whole new level in 2014, with the government’s e-residency program. Under the initiative, any individual around the world can file an online application to become a virtual Estonian citizen. As a digital citizen, he/she can access the same online platforms that Estonia’s physical economy is based on, and the same online public services that domestic Estonians use.

The adoption of Blockchain has also allowed Estonia to introduce an online voting system during national elections. However, only physical residents are allowed to vote under the system. The country is also involved in various public services projects that are powered by Blockchain, including health services, and originally planned for its own digital currency.

Other Blockchain developments worldwide

Aside from Estonia, various countries around the world are also adopting Blockchain in public-sector applications, with the latest EU country vying for the same position being Slovenia.

In the UK, the government is currently piloting a Blockchain-based system for the payment of health benefits claimants. In Russia, Vitalik Buterin has signed a deal with a Russian state-owned bank for the creation of a special national system called Ethereum Russia.

The government of China, meanwhile, has developed a prototype of a prospective national cryptocurrency in the country since June 2017. By September, China decided to better regulate ICOs by banning them and eventually considering licensing options down the line.

In her report, Georgetown University cyber-lawyer, Dr. Clare Sullivan, claimed that the government of Australia is studying ways to replace its separate passport and birth certificate databases with a single Blockchain-based system.

“It is not necessarily cybersecurity concerns that have prevented the increased digitization of government services up to this point, though Blockchain is indeed much more secure than existing systems. Rather, it has been the importance of ‘know-your-customer’ protocols — the need for governments, banks, and other institutions to verify individuals’ identities using physical ID documents and in-person interactions.”



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Bitcoin, Dash Can Now Be Spent at 40 Million Stores Worldwide, Thanks to Wirex Debit Card


Digital currency could quite possibly be transformative, providing a paradigm shift in the world’s interactions with money and finance. As Jihan Wu, CEO of Bitmain, recently blogged:

“[Bitcoin] essentially rolls gold, cash, and our credit card system into one. It takes the strengths of each and leaves the weaknesses behind. It has the limited supply quality of gold, but can be used to purchase everyday items. It has the speed of a credit card, but respects and protects your privacy. Transactions are settled instantly like cash, but are recorded on a public ledger.”

Accessibility

Bitcoin and other digital currencies are seriously lacking in one vital area: accessibility. It’s prohibitively difficult for new users to obtain cryptocurrency. An individual who wants to obtain a small amount of Bitcoin would probably find even the easiest route to be rather challenging.

Setting up a Coinbase account would be relatively simple in itself, but then the person must link either a credit card or bank account. Depending on several factors, the purchase may be instant or may require several days for an ACH transaction to be processed. Our new user now owns some shiny new Bitcoin…and probably has no clue what to do next.

Buying larger amounts of Bitcoin is even more difficult, requiring users to go through an extensive process to comply with “Know Your Customer” (KYC) and “Anti-Money Laundering” (AML) laws. This involves submitting numerous personal documents such as driver’s licenses and utility bills, then filling out a long questionnaire and awaiting approval. Such users must then figure out what wallet they want to store their currency in, and wrestle with issues such as two-factor authentication and the like.

For users wanting to purchase altcoins (outside of Ethereum and Litecoin), they must do all of the above, then transfer their Bitcoin to another exchange. There they will likely repeat the same KYC/AML process, and only then will they be allowed to trade their Bitcoin for their favorite altcoin.

Selling one’s digital currency for fiat is even more difficult, as doing so nearly always requires AML/KYC verification and additional hoops to jump through. Very few retailers accept even Bitcoin, much less less-known altcoins, so using one’s digital currency to directly purchase product is prohibitively difficult.

Bitcoin ATMs

Over the past couple of years, several solutions to this vexing difficulty have been attempted. The first such attempt was the creation of the Bitcoin ATM. This machine is similar to the bank ATM that we are all familiar with. A user inserts some cash and receives a printed paper wallet which holds their new Bitcoin purchase.

Bitcoin ATMs are expensive, however, and are only suitable for areas with high levels of foot traffic, a sophisticated tech-savvy user base, and reliable Internet access. In some jurisdictions, AML/KYC questionnaires are still required, and many ATMs are merely one-way, as they lack the ability to convert Bitcoin to cash. Thus it remains even more difficult to get fiat money out of cryptocurrency than into it.

Debit cards

Recently another solution has emerged: the Bitcoin debit card. Users deposit Bitcoin in the debit card provider’s web wallet, and they receive an ordinary looking Visa card. When the swipe the card at a retailer’s point of sale, the appropriate amount of Bitcoin in their wallet is immediately sold, converted to cash, and then the cash is sent to the retailer as payment. This all happens in seconds, allowing the transaction to be completed as quickly and seamlessly as an ordinary debit card transaction.

Attempts to integrate Dash

While many digital currencies focus on more arcane areas such as smart contracts, tokenization, or the like, the digital currency Dash has always focused on payments. The name Dash is itself a portmanteau of the words “digital cash.” Founded by Evan Duffield in 2014, Dash aims to promote faster transactions with its InstantSend technology. Unlike other cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, that can take an hour or more to fully confirm, Dash’s InstantSend transactions are fully confirmed and irreversible in just four seconds.

Such speed would make Dash highly useful in physical stores, as there is no need to wait minutes or hours before a transaction clears. However, as with all digital currencies, direct acceptance of Dash at retailers has lagged behind. Since Dash is a payments-oriented digital currency, Dash debit cards seemed like a logical next step.

Bitcoin pioneer and early investor Charlie Shrem came to the Dash community and asked for funding from Dash’s treasury system to fund development of a Dash-branded debit card in March 2017. He received funding directly from the network and began work on the project, but has not yet released the card.

Shortly after Shrem made his proposal and received funding, Dr. Julian Hosp of TenX requested funding to integrate Dash into their Bitcoin-only debit card. His proposal was approved by the Dash network and was funded directly by the Blockchain. That integration was completed in late-April.

Wirex integration

At September’s Dash Conference 2017, the Dash team announced an integration with Bitcoin debit card provider Wirex. Dash’s integration into the Wirex platform will allow Dash to be used at any retailer that accepts Visa, both in-store and online. This effectively allows Dash to be spent at over 40 million merchants worldwide. Also, owners of Dash will be able to withdraw their funds, in cash, at any ATM in 210 countries around the world.

In response to the Wirex integration, Dash Core Team CEO Ryan Taylor wrote:

“I know that once Wirex consumers try Dash they will recognize the time-saving user experience our network provides [for] a fraction of the fees. [Dash] is becoming the payment network of choice for many products and services, largely because our InstantSend feature ensures transactions are confirmed and settled in seconds. Customers can send and receive tokens instantaneously, negating issues of any price swings, and merchants enjoy less fees, and no wait times.”

CEO of Wirex, Pavel Matveev, agreed:

“Wirex customers will be the first to spend Dash up and down the high street, or online, as simply as spending any national currency. Dash’s low transaction costs and fast transfer times means customers now have significantly greater flexibility and opportunity to spend cryptocurrencies around the world. Buying everyday groceries, a glass of beer or even a brand new car is now possible with the Wirex-Dash partnership.”

More to be done

More work still needs to be done in order for digital currency to truly reach the masses, but cryptocurrency debit cards are a crucial early step. At the same time, a number of industry leaders are working with the Blockchain Caucus in Congress to cut through the red tape and standardize regulation across the US.

Dash and other cryptocurrencies continue to work on making themselves more accessible to ordinary people. At present, Dash’s development team is working on an update to their software called Dash Evolution. The goal of Evolution is to make using Dash so easy “even your grandmother can figure it out.”

Dash’s previously mentioned treasury system uses a portion of the block rewards to fund development of the project and its ecosystem, making it the first self-funded digital currency. Each month, 6,650 DASH are available to fund Dash’s development team and other projects approved by the Dash community. At current prices, that equates to an annual development budget in excess of $23 mln.



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