Monthly Archives: January 2020

Machine learning and eco-consciousness key business trends in 2020 – Finfeed

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In 2020, small to medium sized businesses (SMBs) are likely to focus more on supporting workers to travel and collaborate in ways that suit them, while still facing a clear economic imperative to keep costs under control.

This will likely involve increased use of technologies such as machine learning and automation to: help determine and enforce spending policies; ensure people travelling for work can optimise, track, and analyse their spend; and prioritise travel options that meet goals around environmental responsibility and sustainability.

Businesses that recognise and respond to these trends will be better-placed to save money while improving employee engagement and performance, according to SAP Concur.

Fabian Calle, General Manager, Small to Medium Business, ANZ, SAP Concur, said, As the new decade begins, the business environment will be subject to the same economic ups and downs seen in the previous decade. However, with new technologies and approaches, most businesses will be able to leverage automation and even artificial intelligence to smooth out those peaks and troughs.

SAP Concur has identified the top five 2020 predictions for SMBs, covering economics, technology, business, travel, the environment, diversity, and corporate social responsibility:

Calle said, 2020 will continue to drive significant developments as organisations of all sizes look to optimise efficiency and productivity through employee operations and satisfaction. Australian businesses need to be aware of these trends and adopt cutting edge technology to facilitate their workers need to travel and collaborate more effectively and with less effort.

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Machine learning and eco-consciousness key business trends in 2020 - Finfeed

Neural Architecture and AutoML Technology – Analytics Insight

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Deep learning offers the promise of bypassing the procedure of manual feature engineering by learning representations in conjunction with statistical models in an end-to-end fashion. In any case, neural network architectures themselves are ordinarily designed by specialists in a painstaking, ad hoc fashion. Neural architecture search (NAS) has been touted as the way ahead for lightening this agony via automatically identifying architectures that are better than hand-planned ones.

Machine learning has given some huge achievements in diverse fields as of late. Areas like financial services, healthcare, retail, transportation, and more have been utilizing machine learning frameworks somehow, and the outcomes have been promising.

Machine learning today isnt constrained to R&D applications however, has made its foray into the enterprise space. However, the conventional ML process is human-dependent, and not all companies have the assets to put resources into an experienced data science team. AutoML might be the answer to such circumstances.

AutoML focuses on automating each part of the machine learning (ML) work process to increase effectiveness and democratize machine learning so that non-specialists can apply machine learning to their issues effortlessly. While AutoML includes the automation of a wide scope of problems related with ETL (extract, transform, load), model training, and model development, the issue of hyperparameter enhancement is a core focus of AutoML. This issue includes configuring the internal settings that govern the conduct of an ML model/algorithm so as to restore a top-notch prescient model.

Creating neural network models frequently requires noteworthy architecture engineering. You can sometimes get by with transfer learning, yet if you truly need the most ideal performance its generally best to structure your very own network. This requires particular skills(read: costly from a business point of view) and is challenging in general; we may not know the cutoff points of the present cutting edge methods! Its a ton of experimentation and the experimentation itself is tedious and costly.

The NAS discovered architecture is trained and tried on a lot of smaller-than-real world dataset. This is done in light of the fact that training on something enormous, like ImageNet, would take an extremely significant time-frame. In any case, the thought is that a network that performs better on a smaller, yet comparatively organized dataset should likewise perform better on a bigger and progressively complex one, which has commonly been valid in the deep learning time.

Second, is that the search space itself is very constrained. NAS is intended to construct architectures that are fundamentally the same as in style to the current state-of-the-art. For image recognition, this is to have a set of repeated blocks in the network while continuously downsampling. The set of blocks to browse to manufacture the rehashing ones are additionally usually utilized in current research. The principal novel part of the NAS discovered networks is the manner by which the blocks are connected together.

The demand for machine learning systems has taken off in the course of recent years. This is because of the achievement of ML in a wide range of applications today. Nonetheless, even with this unmistakable sign, that machine learning can give lifts to specific organizations, a lot of organizations struggle to deploy ML models.

To start with, they have to set up a team of seasoned data scientists who order a top-notch pay. Second, regardless of whether you have an extraordinary team, choosing which model is the best for your concern frequently requires more experience than information. The achievement of machine learning in a wide scope of applications has led to a consistently developing demand for machine learning frameworks that can be utilized off the rack by non-experts. AutoML will, in general, automate the greatest number of steps in an ML pipeline, with a minimum amount of human effort and without trading off the models performance.

Argonne analysts have made a neural architecture search that automates the development of deep learning-based predictive models for cancer data. While expanding swaths of collected information and growing sizes of computing power are assisting with improving our comprehension of cancer, further improvement of data-driven strategies for the diseases diagnosis, detection and prognosis are necessary. There is a specific need to grow deep learning techniques -; that is, machine learning algorithms equipped for extracting science from unstructured information.

Analysts from the U.S. Division of Energys (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have made progress toward accelerating such efforts by exhibiting a strategy for the automated generation of neural networks.

Architecture search has become unmistakably increasingly proficient; finding a network with a single GPU in a single day of training as with ENAS is quite astonishing. In any case, our search space is still actually very constrained. The present NAS algorithms despite everything utilize the structures and building blocks that were hand-planned, they simply set up them together in an unexpected way!

A solid and conceivably groundbreaking future direction would be a far more extensive-ranging search, to truly search for novel architectures. Such algorithms may uncover significantly increasingly hidden deep learning insider facts within these huge and complex systems. Obviously, such search space requires efficient algorithm design. This new bearing of NAS and AutoML gives exciting challenges to the AI community, and actually a possibility for another breakthrough in the science.

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Cryptocurrency Market Update: Bitcoin, Ripple and Ethereum dive into the rabbit holes – FXStreet

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The bull rally that has been praised immensely this January appears have died and passed on the mantle to the bears who want nothing but to wreak havoc in the cryptocurrency market. The market generally painted and interestingly, the biggest gainers last week are recording the biggest losses of the day. For instance, Bitcoin Gold is correcting lower 4.85%, Dash is down 4.18% and Ethereum Classic is teetering 3.58% lower on the day.

Read more:Ethereum Classic Price Analysis: ETH/USD bears flip the bulls, target shifts to $5

Bitcoin is undergoing a pullback from the recent $9,200 high. The reversal is taking place after an incredible performance since the beginning of January. Bitcoin extended the gains from last Decembers recovery from $6,500. The bulls nurtured the gains above several resistance zones including $7,700, $8,000, $8,400, $8,800 and $9,000.

However, it is apparent that a reversal mission is underway and Bitcoin could soon touch $8,000 if the support at $8,300 fails to hold. The largest cryptocurrency has a market value of $8,300, although an intraday high of $8,399 has been traded on Friday.

Looking at the hourly chart, Bitcoin price is holding onto thelower trend line of a falling wedge pattern. If the shallow recovery above the trendline continues, a breakout seems imminent above the patterns resistance. For now, $8,400 is the stubborn zone ahead of the resistances at $8,500, $8,800 and $9,200.

Ethereum has finally forced its way through the support at $160. The failed attempt to break above $165 yesterday, paved the way for a bearish action that is becoming too strong to stop. At the time of writing, ETH is trading at $158, which is 2.30% lower compared to the opening value of $162.50. Thehigh volatility and increasing growing bearish trend signal that a dive to $150 is possible in the near term.

Also read:Ethereum Price Analysis: ETH/USD balances at the edge of the $160 cliff

The third-largest cryptocurrency on the market has not escaped the bearish wave. Its price is dancing at $0.2216 after shedding 1.6% of the tokens value on the day. On the brighter side, the bulls managed to retake the support at $0.2200 after dropping to an intraday low of $0.2174. To avert possible declines to $0.20, XRP must scale the levels above $0.23 and focus on the resistance at $0.24.

Also read:Ripple Price Analysis: XRP/USD struggles to save triangle support at its peak

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Cryptocurrency Market Update: Bitcoin, Ripple and Ethereum dive into the rabbit holes - FXStreet

Cryptocurrency and OFAC: Beware of the Sanctions Risks – JD Supra

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Updated: May 25, 2018:

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Cryptocurrency and OFAC: Beware of the Sanctions Risks - JD Supra

Alleged BTC-e boss will be extradited to France over cryptocurrency fraud – The Next Web

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The man thought to be behind notorious cryptocurrency exchange BTC-e, which is involved in a multi-billion Bitcoin BTC fraud case, will be extradited to France.

According to a Greek news report, Alexander Vinnik is facing allegations of laundering at least $4 billion through the cryptocurrency exchange.

[Read:Alleged Russian boss of Bitcoin money-laundering scheme wants to go home]

The extradition comes after a Greek court reportedly gave the go-ahead.

Vinniks lawyer Zoi Konstandopoulou said he had been flown to France just hours the court ruling. The lawyer said he had been taken to hospital as he was on the 35th day of a hunger strike in protest of his prospective extradition to the European country, The New York Times (NYT) reports.

However, NYT notes that Greek authorities were unable to confirm on Thursday whether Vinnik had already left Greece.

France reportedly wants to trial Vinnik for alleged cybercrime, money laundering, belonging to a criminal organization, and extortion.

As previously reported by Hard Fork, Vinnik was arrested by Greek authorities in July 2017 while he was holidaying in the country with his family.

The arrest came after Russia, France, and the US all issued international warrants for his arrest.

Vinnik has maintained his innocence throughout saying: I do not consider myself guilty [] The fact that I worked for BTC-e and did my job, and its not justifiable to accuse me of it. I found out about the charge about a month after I was taken into custody. This was told to me by my Russian lawyer.

Founded in 2011, BTC-e is reported to have handled almost 5 percent of Bitcoins trading volume at one point. However, subsequent research showed that as much 95 percent of ransomware-related cashouts took place through its platform.

An attempt to shut down the exchange was made by the US Justice Department after they charged Vinnik (and BTC-e) with allegedly running an international money laundering operation featuring stolen funds from Mt. Gox.

Published January 24, 2020 11:19 UTC

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Alleged BTC-e boss will be extradited to France over cryptocurrency fraud - The Next Web

Indian central bank: Cryptocurrency is not banned in the country – FXStreet

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The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has clarified that regulated entities cannot offer crypto assets in India, but this does not mean theres an overall digital asset ban. Recently, The Economic Times of India cited a document that the central bank had submitted to the nations Supreme Court back in September.

The document reads:

Firstly, the RBI has not prohibited VCs (virtual currencies) in the country. The RBI has directed the entities regulated by it to not provide services to those persons or entities dealing in or settling VCs.

In April 2018, the RBI had issued a statement limiting its services to anyone participating in cryptocurrency usage. The statement said:

In view of the associated risks, it has been decided that, with immediate effect, entities regulated by RBI shall not deal with or provide services to any individual or business entities dealing with or settling VCs.

According to an earlier Cointelegraph report, following the banks statement, the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) petitioned for a reversal of the crypto-related regulation. IAMAI is a non-profit group dedicated to digital growth.

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Indian central bank: Cryptocurrency is not banned in the country - FXStreet

Latest news on the cryptocurrency market – Born2Invest

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Swiss Cryptobank hopes to attract money from new investors, including financial institutions, family offices and individuals. The banks crypto services include asset management, trading, custody, and financing.

For fresh updates on cyptocurrency, biotech or fintech, Born2Invest offers an app that aggregates business news from the most trusted sources.

SEBA, a young Swiss digital asset bank with a regulatory license, is seeking to raise more than $95 million in additional funds. The SEBA crypto bank aims to get $103 million (CHF 100 million) from new investors, including financial institutions, family offices, and individuals, reported Financial News London.

The crypto friendly startup SEBA Bank AG, announced its launch on November 12th, 2019, after the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) approved the team to operate in the world of securities and banking.

The crypto bank raised significant capital in its first round of fundraising, attracting more than $103 million, according to the Seba CEO Guido Bhler in a press release dated November 12th. Bhler said that: We are proud to have founded a bank in 18 months, raising CHF 100 million in capital from investors.

Oklahoma Senator Nathan Dahm wrote a new bill for his state that seeks to build an innovative state-backed financial institution around blockchain technology, establishing a new classification of institutions. Dated January 15th, 2020, the bill stated that the state-licensed financial institution will be the central depository of the virtual currency used by government agencies in this state.

Adding more details, the text explained that the movement will essentially prevent regulatory suffocation, allowing innovation to grow while protecting citizens. The document noted: The purpose of this new state-licensed financial institution will be to provide valuable financial and technical services to innovators and developers of blockchain and virtual currency.

More than 5,000 victims of the Dunamiscoins cryptocurrency scheme have applied to the Ugandan Parliament to seek reimbursement of money they lost in the scam. Arthur Asiimwe, the leader of the petitioner group that submitted the application to Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga, claimed that the government has granted a license to the alleged scamming company, according to an official announcement by the Ugandan Parliament on January 16th.

First seen in early December 2019, Dunamiscoins is allegedly involved in defrauding more than 10,000 people, resulting in losses of around $2.7 million. The apparent scam company reportedly closed its offices only one month after opening, stealing money from its investors and employees after previously promising a 40% cash return on investments.

Asiimwe stressed that the Ugandan government must be held accountable for the Dunamiscoins incident. The government authorized this company and gave it the go-ahead to work as a non-deposit-taking financial institution. It performed its functions as a micro-finance company. They gave unrealistic bonuses..

Canadas leading financial supervisory body has highlighted that cryptocurrency will be subject to the securities law if it acts as custodians of users digital assets. The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) said that the common exchange practice of guarding users assets could subject them to securities legislation: simply by providing users with a contractual right or claiming an underlying cryptocurrency asset. Whether, and to what extent a cryptocurrency asset has been immediately handed over to a Platform user, is an important component in assessing whether and to what extent the transaction and the Platform are subject to securities legislation, says the joint statement.

The CSA is a group of provincial security regulators in Canada, who do not have a federal equivalent such as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The CSA said that non-delivery transactions constitute derivative sales. Even if the asset under custody is generally recognized as a commodity, such as Bitcoin, it could be classified as a sale of debt or an investment contract, a transaction that is governed by the countrys securities law.

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(Featured image by Andr Franois McKenzie via Unsplash)

DISCLAIMER: This article was written by a third party contributor and does not reflect the opinion of Born2Invest, its management, staff or its associates. Please review our disclaimer for more information.

This article may include forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements generally are identified by the words believe, project, estimate, become, plan, will, and similar expressions. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks as well as uncertainties, including those discussed in the following cautionary statements and elsewhere in this article and on this site. Although the Company may believe that its expectations are based on reasonable assumptions, the actual results that the Company may achieve may differ materially from any forward-looking statements, which reflect the opinions of the management of the Company only as of the date hereof. Additionally, please make sure to read these important disclosures.

First published in CRIPTO TENDENCIA, a third-party contributor translated and adapted the article from the original. In case of discrepancy, the original will prevail.

Although we made reasonable efforts to provide accurate translations, some parts may be incorrect. Born2Invest assumes no responsibility for errors, omissions or ambiguities in the translations provided on this website. Any person or entity relying on translated content does so at their own risk. Born2Invest is not responsible for losses caused by such reliance on the accuracy or reliability of translated information. If you wish to report an error or inaccuracy in the translation, we encourage you to contact us.

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Latest news on the cryptocurrency market - Born2Invest

Can Cryptocurrency be Regulated? – CryptoTicker

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Cryptocurrency market is relatively new and still maturing. Its largely unregulated currently, which is why its heavily manipulated. Even though, the basic premise of crypto-assets and blockchain technology is to create a decentralized, tamper-resistant and censor-free world. An unregulated market however is a double edged sword, while its free and operates without restrictions, however a lack of oversight and control can bring serious problems, as we are witnessing right now. Besides that, objectives of most crypto-assets dont align with the interests of most governments and institutions, why is why regulations will be implemented. Yes, like all other things, cryptocurrency regulations can be implemented, up to a point. But what are the types of regulations that we should expect?

Exchanges are where most regulations fall on or will be implemented later, as they are the points of trading and liquidity, where people go to trade assets and/or convert them back to FIAT money. They are required by major governments now to collect Know Your Customer (KYC) data to assign identities to random accounts and curb money laundering. The accounts which havent provided identity documents are limited, by the amount they can withdraw, in a day. Going forward, we should expect that exchanges will be required by most governments to share trading data and profits, so that gains and assets can be properly taxed.

Governments can also make exchanges safer by bringing them under the umbrella of the current financial systems, asking them to get insured and forcing them to improve their security. This will reduce the number of hacks, exit scams and provide protection to users, in case the funds are lost by the exchange. They should also be monitored for wash trading across trading pairs and asked to prove solvency to regulators and financial institutions.

A lot of cryptocurrencies operate on Proof of Work (POW) algorithm, which requires high computational power, expensive hardware and of course the latest hardware. These miners can be taxed by the governments directly and/or be required to pay special rates for electricity or for environmental matters. Similarly, crypto friendly governments can actually subsidise the mining activity, making it more lucrative for new entrants and existing ones. These regulations will definitely have an effect on the cryptocurrency prices.

A big roadblock in the further development of cryptocurrencies, is the lack of day-to-day usage and adoption by common people. Government regulations can be imposed, allowing or curbing the use of cryptocurrencies by retailers and service providers. This will massively help or obstruct, the use cases and adoption of crypto-assets.

Financial institutions currently dont engage in or allow the trading of crypto-assets. If new friendly regulations are brought and institutional investors are allowed to invest or engage in trading, this will help the whole ecosystem massively, opening it to new money, further development and recognition.

Other general Cryptocurrency regulations can include: Friendly governments declaring them as legal tender and choosing to receive taxes and payment for other services in cryptocurrencies, though it most probably will be in their own national cryptocurrencies. A few countries are developing special zones for blockchain development and giving incentives to do so. Also, regulation needs to be drafted for crypto-assets to be recognized in the court of law as an asset and in the case of a persons death, it needs to be included in the inheritance category to be given to inheritors, under legal protection.

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Disclaimer: The authors of this website may have invested in crypto currencies themselves. They are not financial advisors and only express their opinions. Anyone considering investing in crypto currencies should be well informed about these high-risk assets.

Trading with financial products, especially with CFDs involves a high level of risk and is therefore not suitable for security-conscious investors.CFDs are complex instruments and carry a high risk of losing money quickly through leverage. Be aware that most private Investors lose money, if they decide to trade CFDs. Any type of trading and speculation in financial products that can produce an unusually high return is also associated with increased risk to lose money. Note that past gains are no guarantee of positive results in the future.

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TheSEC announced on 30th September, 2019that it has approved a settlement with block.one, the company developing the EOSIO software, for

In an announcement on July 8, FINRA (The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) and the SEC (The United States Securities and

With the release of new products like Libra from big companies like Facebook, there is a sense of urgency among

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Can Cryptocurrency be Regulated? - CryptoTicker

Plasticoin, the cryptocurrency that wants to clean up Uruguay’s coast – Contxto

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This post is also available in: Espaol (Spanish)

Contxto Two entrepreneurs want to clean up beaches using crypto. As a result, theyve joined forces with the Uruguayan governments National Agency for Development (ANDE).

Essentially, people will be able to gather plastic and then trade it for Plasticoins. They will then use this emerging cryptocurrency to acquire products and services at a discount with associated businesses.

The eco-friendly Plasticoin is set for full launch next summer in the coastal region of Piripolis, Uruguay.

Related article: Chilean sustainability startup Algramo to introduce portable repackaging units to US

The minds behind Plasticoin, Juan Rivero and Nicole Wyaus want this unique crypto to encourage people to separate their trash. And to incentivize this good behavior theyve come up with a cryptocurrency-based solution.

So this is how it works:

A person signs up and recollects as much plastic as they can. And for every kilogram of plastic they gather, they can exchange it for Plasticoins.Pricing is as follows:

In all instances, the plastic must be cleaned and compacted.

Anyway, the entrepreneurs and ANDE have prepared two collection centers where people can bring their plastic to be weighed and then exchanged for Plasticoins.

This cryptocurrency can be used to achieve discounts on products and services with partnering businesses. For example, two for one surf lesson.

As for the plastic thats gathered, it shall be reused for streets and in construction.

Related article: Conceptos Plasticos partners with UNICEF to build schools made of plastic in Ivory Coast

For the moment, Plasticoin is still in its pilot phase in one small location. Yet there are over 600 people whove registered to participate.

Further down the road, the project may even expand further to other parts of Uruguay such as Maldonado, Sols, Ocean Park, and Pan de Azcar.

Moreover, Juan Rivero and Nicole Wyaus hope to eventually bring Plasticoins to the coastal parts of Argentina, where plastic too plagues its lovely beaches.

I must admit its not entirely clear how this will transform into a business model for the entrepreneurs (Ill keep you posted!). Nonetheless, I found it to be an interesting initiative. And hopefully, it will be replicated in other parts of Latin America.

In many countries, separating garbage is the norm. But its still not common in Latam. Consequently, this type of project may motivate people to make an effort for the planet we all live in.

Related articles: Tech and startups in Uruguay!

-ML

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Put cryptocurrency on the national curriculum, say one quarter of Brits – The Commentator

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One quarter (24 per cent) of British workers believe cryptocurrency should be taught in schools as part of the national curriculum, according to a new study from cryptocurrency trading platform CoinBurp. Breaking down the data by age bracket, 35 per cent of 16-24 year olds surveyed agreed that they would benefit from cryptocurrency being taught as a subject in school.

This is compared to just 15 per cent of those older than 55 suggesting that there is a generational divide in public interest towards learning about cryptocurrency, which only emerged in 2009. The survey of over 2,000 professional workers in the UK, conducted by Censuswide, an independent polling company, also found that a combined average of 25 per cent of 16-34-year olds said they are planning to invest in cryptocurrency in 2020.

At the same time, 37 per cent of 16-24-year olds believe that their bank should provide access to cryptocurrency, whereas only 15 per cent of 55+ year olds agree. When asked about their confidence in the UKs economic future next year, almost half (49 per cent) said they believe the economy will go into recession in 2020. Interestingly, the ICT GCSE was recently phased out of the UKs national curriculum and replaced with the more challenging computer science, in order to better combat the predicted skills shortage of 800,000 skilled IT jobs in the EU by 2020. Similar to the skills crisis, a lack of understanding of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology could be as damaging to students future, should another financial crisis hit the UK.

Peter Wood, CEO, CoinBurp told The Commentator: Cryptocurrency is already offering exciting opportunities for investors and is set to transform the banking industry and wider economy in the very near future.

Right now, its utterly ludicrous that such important digital assets are being overlooked by businesses and our education system. "With trust in established financial institutions at an all-time low, the need for preparing the next generation to understand, invest and use digital currencies is absolutely vital. Likewise, the ability to transfer funds and make payments instantly, anywhere in the world without rip-off fees is essential for ambitious companies, particularly once the finer details of the Brexit process are agreed.

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Put cryptocurrency on the national curriculum, say one quarter of Brits - The Commentator