Category Archives: Cryptocurrency

New Zealand cryptocurrency exchange Cryptopia, which is based out of Christchurch has announced New Zealands first cryptocurrency pegged to the New Zealand dollar. Similar to the USD, EUR, and JPY created by companyTether.to which uses Omni Protocol, an open-source software that interfaces with blockchains to allow for the issuance and redemption of cryptocurrency tokens, like such tethers above.

Tether Platform currencies are claimed to be 100% backed by actual fiat currency assets in the companys reserve account. Tethers are redeemable and exchangeable pursuant to Tether Limiteds terms of service. The conversion rate is 1 tether USD equals 1 USD.

As to the move for Cryptopia to develop the recently launched the NZed (NZDT), the first cryptocurrency token tethered to the New Zealand dollar. The motive for the NZed came from several speakers at The Blockchain NZ conference, including cloud accounting software Xeros Head of Government Relationships Grant Anderson, who raised the need for Kiwis to have a crypto-based New Zealand dollar that could be traded with most of the benefits of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.

Users believed it would be useful to have an easier way to settle bitcoin transactions quicker and easier for the New Zealand dollar, without being subject to BTC risk.

The Cryptopia developer team created the new currency and within eight hours had orders on the exchange for more than $40,000 NZDT.

Currently, total tokens available are limited to $100,000 NZDT, an amount Cryptopia can easily back from reserve funds.

Cryptopia CEO Rob Dawson toldBizEDGE NZ, while thats not enough liquidity to allow widespread adoption, it gets the ball rolling with a challenge to government, and to the broader industry that blockchain technologies and cryptocurrencies are here to stay.

Right now, we can only accept cash deposits for tokens from overseas clients, although pending regulatory confirmation we expect to be able to offer the full service to Kiwis shortly.

We need to get moving if we want to establish New Zealand as a global leader in this space, says Dawson.

Cryptopia has over hundreds of coins listed andprovides a mining pool, auction house and marketplace, several stable nodes on the network, and a support framework for each coin accepted on the site.

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Cryptopia launches first NZD-pegged cryptocurrency - CryptoNinjas

Cryptocurrency enthusiasts are always at the mercy of price volatility. This is especially true for altcoins right now, although Bitcoin is also going through some violent swings of its own. Some projects have even tried to create a pegged cryptocurrency, although efforts have been mostly unsuccessful as well. There is a good reason as to why that is, though.

As the name somewhat suggests, a pegged cryptocurrency indicates a coin, token, or asset issued on a blockchain that is linked to a specific value of a bank-issued currency. In most cases, these coins would be pegged to the US Dollar, as it is the one currency that dominates the entire financial sector. Tether has made some waves in this regard, as their USDT token is pegged to US$1 at all times.

It is vital to understand one cannot simply claim a coin or token is linked to the value of 1 US Dollar without enforcing this fact, though. To be more specific, the cryptocurrency project owners will need to have the specific amount of US Dollars in reserves at all times to guarantee the pegged value of their cryptocurrency. This becomes even more important when said cryptocurrency can be openly traded across multiple exchanges.

Holding vast amounts of US Dollars in reserve is one of the major challenges for pegged cryptocurrencies, though. There are ways to achieve this goal, either through investors or fundraising. The teams collect x amount of money and issue their number of tokens accordingly. However, this also means there will be no profit to be gained from buying or selling the currency since it will always have the same fiat currency value.

Even if the project would successfully maintain its 1:1 peg to the US Dollar for an extended period of time, they would face a new problem. Regulators do not take kindly to companies looking to link the value of a central bank-issued currency to something created out of thin air. It is safe to say one would need some specific paperwork and potentially even licenses in most countries to provide such a service. Additionally, the company needs to keep a public record of their assets at all times to ensure they have adequate reserves.

More importantly, there needs to be a decent enough demand for the pegged cryptocurrency to make it a worthwhile venture. This has been the downfall for quite a few projects attempting to guarantee such a service. Ziftr, for example, never gained much traction, despite their coins pegged to US$1. If the supply is greater than the demand, one would need very deep pockets to keep offering this service. Unfortunately, the money will dry up sooner or later in that case.

Even successful projects such as Tether run into problems of their own. Due to issues with their partner bank, they are unable to convert the pegged currency back to US Dollars for now. There are exchanges who provide a USDT/USD trading pair, yet the premium to convert back to USD is quite steep. All of this shows creating a pegged cryptocurrency is not evident by any means, and there will always be risks associated with doing so.

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What is a Pegged Cryptocurrency? - The Merkle

The next generation of cryptocurrency trading has arrived: Liberalcoins.com is the first local cryptocurrency exchange that offers Bitcoin and Altcoin trading for cash as well as inter-cryptocurrency trading all under one roof. The new user-friendly platform charges the lowest fees in the market and offers unrivalled security features. Free registration is now open.

Liberalcoins is the brainchild of entrepreneur Simon Lange, 26, who addresses the need for more flexibility, privacy and safety in the cryptocurrency exchange market. After two years of development his international one-stop-shop for crypto trading launches today (13/5/2017).

With its secure, intuitive and easy interface, Liberalcoins is perfect for newbies who want to start their crypto portfolio as well as for experienced traders. Users can find local traders via the platform and arrange to meet face to face for cash for Bitcoin or cash for Altcoin exchanges. Alternatively, they can choose from a wide array of wire and transfer services.

Bitcoin/cash trades are charged at 0.5% per completed transaction. This is the lowest fee in the market.

Heres the brilliant thing: The platform aims to unite the diverse cryptocurrency market by also facilitating trades between cryptocurrencies. This will give users the option of easily balancing their cryptocurrency portfolio, and has potential to further drive the demand for Altcoins on the back of the recent surge in Bitcoin prices.

Currently supported are exchanges between Bitcoin, Dash, Monero and Litecoin in any combination, giving traders ultimate flexibility when balancing their portfolio. As Lange puts it, Liberalcoins has the potential to bring the cryptocurrency community closer together to drive towards a common goal a stronger integration of digital currencies into our daily lives.

The company has gone to lengths to offer the best security features on the market: Shortly after launch, users will be able to encrypt access to their assets with a password an industry first.

A built-in escrow system releases the coins after the transaction is completed. Liberalcoins is business validated by Symantec, which also runs daily security checks. Users also benefit from the stringent privacy laws of the Isle of Man and Scandinavia, where servers and email storage are located respectively.

At Liberalcoins we seek to give traders the opportunity to trade and invest in digital currencies minimizing dependence on the global banking system, says Lange. We firmly believe in the future of cryptocurrencies and the security and privacy of our users.

We strongly advocate that the cryptocurrency market remains free from any governmental regulatory and legal intervention. In an economic reality of historically increasing inflation, rising prices and central bank printing of fiat currencies we are part of the evolution of our financial future.

Join Liberalcoins.com today to be a part of the evolution in digital currency trading and become part of the community. To keep up with news and developments that will help traders with their investment decisions, follow Liberalcoins on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Steemit and Liberalcoins Blog.

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Launching Today: Liberalcoins.com the First One-Stop-Shop for Cryptocurrency Trading - newsBTC

The Palestinian Monetary Authority is considering the possibility of introducing its own cryptocurrency in the next few years. Read more...

Bitcoin has already proven its potential to act as a universal currency, overcoming geographical, cultural and political differences. The cryptocurrency has been a savior to many in suffering economies, throwing them the much-needed lifeline in the form of an alternative currency. The recent legalization of Bitcoin in Japan and Russias consideration to assigning a similar status to the digital currency has got another geographical region thinking along the same lines.

According to reports, the Palestinian officials are planning to create their own digital currency in the next five years to establish an autonomous financial system. The new cryptocurrency based system is expected to reduce the regions dependence on its neighbor Israel while safeguarding itself against potential external interferences.

Currently, people in the region do not have their own legal tender, and most of the transactions happen either in euro, US dollar, Israeli shekel and Jordanian dinars. With the new digital currency, the Palestinian state will be able to conduct transactions with its own legal tender. The Palestine Monetary Authority already has a name for it, and they intend to call it Palestinian pound.

The decision was made public by the Head of Palestinian Monetary Authority, Azzam Shawwa while participating in the annual meeting of European Bank for Reconstruction and Development held in Cyprus. The ease of creating a digital currency, compared to printing banknotes may make this project successful in the conflict-ridden region. However, there are concerns about the 1994 Paris Protocol Agreement which has effectively revoked the monetary authoritys power to print its own currency.

Mentioning the monetary authoritys choice of cryptocurrency over conventional banknotes, Shawwa said,

If we print currency, to get it into the country you would always need clearance from the Israelis and that could be an obstacle, so that is why we dont want to go into it.

As the state continues to build the necessary infrastructure to rebuild its financial system, the Palestinian pound is not going to make an appearance anytime soon. It may take almost five years before the first Palestinian pound transaction can take place. But it is a good start nevertheless.

Original post:
Will Palestinians Consider Cryptocurrency as a De-Facto Currency? - newsBTC

It is evident for everyone to see Japan is going crazy about cryptocurrency right now. This is made possible thanks to the new regulations going into effect, which removed the 8% sales tax when buying Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. It is also interesting to note several cryptocurrencies are incredibly popular in Japan, whereas others are not that hot. All of the coins listed below are ranked based on their JPY trading volume.

Although this particular cryptocurrency has eluded the vast majority of enthusiasts, MonaCoin is quite popular among JPY traders. It is listed on the Zaif exchange, where it can be traded against Bitcoin as well. MonaCoin was also one of the altcoins successfully activating SegWit before Litecoin did.

The native token of the New Economy Movement has seen its fair share of success in Japan as well. It is a currency maintained by a team of Japanese developers. Moreover, XEM and its NEM blockchain have made quite a name for itself in Japanese circles as well. Definitely a currency to keep an eye on moving forward.

A lot of people will be shocked to learn Ethereum is not all that popular when it comes to buying or selling it in exchange for the Japanese Yen. Then again, these are still the early days for cryptocurrency in the country, and things may continue to shift around for quite some time to come. Ethereum is very popular when traded against bitcoin, though, as is to be expected.

It comes as quite a surprise to a lot of people to learn Ripple or to be more precise, XRP is quite popular among Japanese cryptocurrency enthusiasts. Various exchanges list XRP as one of their trading pairs, and it seems to do quite well overall. In most cases, XRP can be traded against the JPY only

There is one big exception to this trend, though. The Mr. Ripple exchange which is mostly known for buying and selling XRP trades the currency against the JPY, USD, Bitcoin, and Ethereum. Its JPY market is by far the largest on the platform, although the XRP/BTC market is quite popular as well. It is quite interesting to see Japanese exchanges dedicated themselves to one particular currency and even naming the platform after it.

Regardless of where one looks in the world, Bitcoin will always be the most popular traded currency against fiat. Japan is no different in this regard, as all exchanges allow for BTC/JPY trades by the look of things. It is due to this trading pair these platforms are so successful during the initial stages of Japanese cryptocurrency adoption.

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Top 5 Cryptocurrencies in Japan - The Merkle

The United Nations agency dedicated to fighting drug trafficking and organized crime has developed a new cryptocurrency training program.

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) revealed its "Cryptocurrency Investigation Train-the-Trainers" this week, partnering with law enforcement officials from 22 countries on the sessions.

What's happening: According to UNODC which has taken part in similar discussions in the past the initiative is centered around "[conducting] bitcoin tracing as a part of a wider financial investigation".A follow-up training was specifically dedicated to improving institutional knowledge of the tech.

The agency also worked with blockchain analytics startup Chainalysis to develop the program.

"It's thanks to donor Governments such as the UK, USA, Norway that UNODC GPML has been able to develop and deliver this innovative course," Neil Walsh, UNODC's point person on cybercrime, said of the venture.

The bigger picture: With the launch of the trainings, yet another UN agency is expanding into blockchain.

As CoinDesk has previously reported, various elements of the UN are testing the tech to see if it can help withsending remittances, delivering financial aid and endingchild poverty, among other areas.

Some of those UN agencies are even moving toward more collaborative efforts, signaling that the organization sees a positive role for blockchain in its global operations.

Disclosure: CoinDesk is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which has an ownership stake in Chainalysis.

Image Credit:Arsenie Krasnevsky/Shutterstock.com

United NationsCybercrime

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UN Agency Launches Cryptocurrency Cybercrime Training - CoinDesk

FundYourselfNow, a global cryptocurrency crowdfunding platform, announced earlier this week it is set to launch in the first quarter of 2018. The funding portal revealed:

The year 2016 saw over $200 million worth of cryptocurrency investments raised though the ICO (Initial Coin Offering) process. But creating and launching an ICO campaign requires expert technical and marketing knowledge which may not be everyones forte. FundYourselfNow makes the whole process easier by enabling project creators to get their ideas funded by global backers. The project creators on FundYourselfNow will be able to create virtual tokens to offer unique customized rewards to the backers and helpers contributing towards the project. These tokens can also be traded or sold on the platforms marketplace on a later date.

According to the creators of the platform, FundYourselfNow is being built over an Ethereum platform and a significant portion of the site has already been completed, with preparations to introduce Bitcoin support in the future through Rootstock.Jack Ser, CEO of FundYourselfNow, stated:

With the recent mainstream acceptance of virtual currencies such as Bitcoin, we want to build an ecosystem that offers entrepreneurs an alternative funding raising platform for their product, with minimal technical and marketing knowledge.

FundYourselfNow recently closed its initial seed funding round, which angel investors led by Carlos Salas invested. Salas shared:

We believe that FundYourselfNow addresses many existing problems in the traditional crowdfunding model such as accountability, high transaction costs and lack of project support. FundYourselfNow has capable people, process innovators and expert domain knowledge for successful execution.

Funds from the seed round will go towards FundYourselfNowsplatform development and enable easy crowdfunding through virtual currencies and allow users to seek assistances for their initiatives.The platform added it scheduled its upcoming ICO on June 2nd,offering an opportunity for investors to be a part of the new crowdfunding movement.

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Global Cryptocurrency Crowdfunding Platform FundYourselfNow Announces First Quarter 2018 Launch - Crowdfund Insider

Stellar, an open-source payments network that started as a splinter project from Ripple, has formed a for-profit company to help financial institutions integrate its software.

Lightyear.io represents an acknowledgment that to fulfill Stellar co-founder Jed McCaleb's goal of an open, global financial system, traditional banks will need to be involved.

The company said in a press release that by utilizing Stellars open-source network, it will be able to power payments between financial institutions and enable seamless exchange between currencies, and let anyone build low-cost financial services.

Stellar started in 2014, the year after McCaleb left Ripple. Early on the Stellar project's strategy was to integrate with microfinance institutions in the developing world, but it "couldn't go past a certain point" without larger financial institutions connected to the network, he said Wednesday.

It's a common narrative in fintech lately, as aspiring disruptors pivot from challenging incumbents to partnering with them, or pursuing some combination.

For financial institutions, McCaleb said, Stellar's selling point is interoperability. Just as the internet allows users to send messages anywhere in the world, Stellar will allow banks to connect to remittance companies, payment platforms like Venmo or mobile money systems such as Kenya's M-Pesa, he said. It will "increase the reach and scale any financial institution can have," said McCaleb, who is the chief technology officer at Stellar.

Thats a similar pitch to what his former employer, Ripple, has been making in recent years as it positions itself as a modern alternative to the decades-old Swift messaging network. So far, Ripple has recruited scores of bank partners, giving it a considerable lead.

McCaleb argued that his team has improved upon Ripple's code (including a complete rewrite after Stellar suffered a major technical snafu in late 2014) and that having a nonprofit, the Stellar Development Foundation, in charge of software development gives his project stronger governance.

Nevertheless, he said, it became necessary to set up a commercial enterprise to work with partners so the foundation could focus on its core mission of securing the Stellar protocol and "wasn't pulled in two directions."

The relationship between Stellar and Lightyear is akin to that of the Linux Foundation and Red Hat, where one focuses on the development of open-source software and the other sells related services, McCaleb said.

Lightyear's other co-founder is Brit Yonge, previously an executive with Palantir Technologies, the analytics and data firm co-founded by the Silicon Valley titan Peter Thiel.

McCaleb also created the first bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, which he sold to Mark Karpeles in 2011, three years before its collapse. In 2012 he started Ripple with the serial fintech entrepreneur Chris Larsen in 2012.

Ripple and Stellar both allow payments denominated in fiat currency but have their own native digital currencies. Stellar's is called lumens. The digital currency serves as a "security token" guarding against spam attacks by requiring users to spend a small amount of lumens to transfer fiat. Lumens also can act as "bridge currency," facilitating trades for currency pairs that lack a liquid market. For example, if someone wanted to send money from London to Toronto but there are few counterparties on the network willing to trade loonies for pounds, trading in and out of lumens could get the transaction done.

In its early days, Stellar envisioned getting lumens in the hands of consumers, but McCaleb said Wednesday that he now expects the digital currency to operate in the background for most users, who would only know that they are sending or receiving fiat.

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This cryptocurrency project is now courting banks | American Banker - American Banker

Changelly,a service to exchange cryptocurrencies in a simple and cost-effective way by charging a 0.5% fee on all transactions has today announced support for cryptocurrency altcoin newcomerDecred(DCR) which was developed by former Bitcoin developers.

Decred uses a hybridized consensus system with the goal to strike a balance between minersand users to create a more robust currency.

Typically, the miners who operate the infrastructure exercise considerable influence while the users have relatively little sway. Decred allows users to participate in the project directly without the need for expensive mining hardware.

Decred is a multi-platform digital currency with support for Windows, Mac, and Linux. The assetprovides a full suite of command line tools allowing customization of the Decred experience.

There are three main ways to interact with Decred:

1) The Wallet For sending and receiving funds as well as participating in PoS mining. 2) Proof-of-Work Mining Using computing power to validate transactions on the network and generate new Decred tokens. 3) Proof-of-Stake Mining Using funds to vote on important network development matters and validate transactions for rewards.

Changelly now supports the following coins:

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Cryptocurrency exchange Changelly adds support for altcoin Decred - CryptoNinjas

May 4, 2017  By : Aman Trivedi

Theres a discernible pattern in the interesting aspects of blockchain and the extended distributed ledger technologies over the years. We took to Google trends to map this evolution over past five years and the results are fairly interesting:

Source: trends.google.com

The X-axis depicts timeline while the Y axis quantifies Google search interest. It shows here that until late 2015, bitcoin had by far been the most popular search term pertaining to anything blockchain. The year 2015, incidentally, also marked an awakening of enterprises to the fancy technology underpinning bitcoin, while actually pushing bitcoin to the sidelines. Blockchain became the poster boy of financial technology, enjoying regular mentions in boardroom conversations. However, the beginning of 2017 revived the currency use case of blockchain because that is when the funds have started moving at an unprecedented pace.

Towards the end of the graph, we can see the yellow line approaching to overtake the red line, yet again, taking cryptocurrencies to the mainstream.

With the cryptocurrency hype just around the corner, as iterated before, there have been two major observations: 1. New money coming into overall cryptocurrency market and 2. Money flowing from bitcoin to altcoins. The Bitcoin Dominance Index shown below beautifully captures the situation at hand:

Source: coinmarketcap.com

The overall cryptocurrency market capitalization stood at ~$41b at the time of writing; however, bitcoins dominance has steadily declined from 95% in 2014 to the current 60%.

The natural question here is: do we now have better currencies than bitcoin or is the market far bigger than we imagined? Well, it seems the answer is both. Bitcoin, with its archaic transaction speed and the never-ending block-size debate, is the giant elephant which is too large to move fast and there are better currencies out there. Having said that, the fact that the cryptocurrency market has seen tremendous growth cannot be ignored. Of the current $41 billion market value, almost $20 billion was added in the past five months. And this new influx of money has greatly staggered the distribution of value across cryptocurrencies:

Source: coinmarketcap.com

Each of the currencies in the list above has its unique value proposition. Ether has smart contracts, Ripple has its network of banks, Litecoin has its segregated witness update enabling fast transactions and lighter network, Monero has its private transactions feature, and so on. That being said, trying to compare these currencies/projects is like comparing apples and oranges.

Since we attempt to study cryptocurrencies, the obvious conventional counterpart here should be well, fiat currencies. The Global Foreign Exchange markets run a daily trading volume of $5.1 trillionin April 2016, a figure which is on a steady year-on-year decline and is about 10,000 times the current cryptocurrency daily trading volume. Cryptocurrencies derive their value from government authorized fiat currencies and the former shall remain a subset of the latter for the foreseeable future. Now, lets take a look at the top fiat currencies:

Source: wikipedia.com

It is important to note here that the above structure is an outcome of numerous historical events and agreements between nations; for example, the Bretton Woods agreement cemented the worth and dominance of US Dollar. Interestingly, the underlying value of a cryptocurrency is fairly independent of the community backing it and more concerned with the technological capabilities of the protocol.

This shift from human consensus to an incentive driven machine consensus creates all the difference for cryptocurrencies and is beautifully captured by Vitalik Buterin, the creator of Ethereum:

This is one of the perfectly valid thoughts on the current state of crypto affairs and indeed, the recent events have remarkable similarities to a financial bubble. Nevertheless, the crypto-markets have an intricate involvement of underlying technology in asset pricing which might call for an altogether different perspective towards its analysis.

There are numerous ways to try to make sense out of this: some advocate for a crowd sentiment analysis considering the current big data capabilities while others advise seeking a balance between technical and fundamental analysis. That being said, we are open to hearing out ideas and perspectives on this potentially revolutionary trend; I can be reached via LinkedIn, Twitter or mail.

Aman reads and writes about distributed ledger technologies and digital identity at Let's Talk Payments. He has been active in the financial technology consulting space for over two years, looking out for novel business models, markets, products and services.

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Whats the Deal With Cryptocurrency Market Caps? | Lets Talk ...