Category Archives: Cryptocurrency

Even though bitcoin has introduced a new concept of decentralized cryptocurrencies, the inevitable consolidation of mining into mining pools, that control enormous portions of the networks hashing power, is a problem that undermines the decentralized nature of the protocol. On the other hand, scalability and the inconveniently long transactions conformation delays represent another problem that hurdles popularization of bitcoin.

A recently published paper proposed to forgo the blockchain and the blocks entirely, and formulate a truly decentralized ledger system which relies on a lean graph which is comprised of cross-verifying transactions. A fully decentralized consensus mechanism, which relies on progressive proofs-of-work (PoW) with predictable rewards, guarantees rapid convergence even throughout a huge network with unequal participants, who all get incentivized for mining using their mining equipment which possessvariable hashing power. Graph based affirmation endorses concise response via a process of automatic scaling. On the other hand, application agnostic design is compliant with all of cryptocurrencies modern features including swaps, multiple denominations, scripting, securitisation, smart contracts.etc.

The authors of the paper proved experimentally that their proposal achieves a pivotal convergence property. In other words, any valid transaction enters the system will rapidly become included in a block and linked to the proceeding blocks.

Bitcoins scalability represents an artefact that stems from the consolidation principle of the blockchain itself, which renders it very hard to distribute incentives to the large group of participants contributing, or would have been contributing, their processing power to bitcoin mining. When a linear blockchain is considered, the mining rewards are somehow few and relatively far between, and the sole secure and fair way to distribute them is literally a lottery.

Risk averse miners coalesce into bitcoin mining pools to decrease the variance, at the cost of relinquishing their individual chances to find the solution to the puzzle. This renders the network more vulnerable to a myriad of attacks; the well known 51% attack and the selfish miner, or the 33% attack, which can occasionally become a 25% attack. The problem is that mining pools have transformed into monopolies within the bitcoin system. Recent data denote that 50% of bitcoins network hashing power originates from mining pools that are located in China.

Sometimes, people had to wait for more than 24 hours to get their bitcoin transactions confirmed. A long and/or unpredictable confirmation time renders people reluctant to use bitcoin for real time payments with considerable amounts of money. Ironically enough, retailers accepting bitcoin payments now overcome confirmation delays via utilization of payment processors, or third parties which bitcoin was designed to omit!

The new proposal represents a blockchain free cryptocurrency, as confirmation of transactions no more yields a blockchain of transactions, but a lean graph that is entirely composed of transactions; a graph of cross verifying transactions.

Whenever a transaction is posted, it will refer to the actual coins paid, as well as two proceeding confirmed transactions. This will lead to a growing group of hash-graph confirmations, where each transaction confirms two parent transactions. The below figure shows how transactions are connected, or refer to each other. The arrow originates from a parent transaction and points to a child transaction.

This proposal establishes the concept of a cryptocurrency without using the traditional blockchain system, which mitigates the scalability issues associated with blockchains and avoids centralization problems that are inseparable parts of blockchain implementations. I believe that this represents a crucial improvement in this research field and will be warmly welcomed by crypto-entusiasts.

Diagrams are Courtesy ofCryptology ePrint Archive: Report 2016/871

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A Cryptocurrency Without a Blockchain Are You Kidding Me? - Live Bitcoin News

With so many alternative cryptocurrencies in existence, it becomes difficult for developers to make their coin stand out. Some developers prefer to offer large block rewards, even though that will only add to coin inflation as time progresses. Below are some of the alternative cryptocurrencies with the largest block rewards in history. Not all of these projects are still operational today, though.

While the list is ranked based on the raw amount of coins that a cryptocurrencys network rewards, we alsomeasured each cryptos reward as a function of its total supply. You will be surprised to find out that while a cryptocurrency may reward users with 10,000 coins per block, when factoring in its total supply some of the coins rewards arevery close to that of Bitcoin. This is a reminder to always keep data in perspective.

Perhaps the only altcoin with a somewhat intriguing name is Bonus, listed as BNS on various cryptocurrency exchanges. Although this altcoin doesnt offer much in terms of innovation, the block reward of at least 2,300 BNS is plenty of reason for some miners to jump in. The block reward rate of 2,300 is the minimum as a random bonus will be assigned on top of the original reward.

If we were to compare Bonus reward to that of Bitcoin, since there are 2.5 billion BNS in circulation, a 2300 block reward would equate to a 23 BTCreward if the network was Bitcoin. Remember that Bitcoin would have 21 million total coins in existence which is roughly 1/1000 that of BNS. It is important to keep these values in perspective when comparing block rewards.

MazaCoin is one of those altcoins which has seemingly been around for quite some time. Despite gaining some initial momentum, there are very few use cases for this particular currency. That said, the coin made it onto Poloniex, which is considered to be the leading altcoin exchange to date. Mazacoin had an initial block reward of 5,000, which halves every 12 months.

Due to its low trading volume on exchanges, and the 50 million premine MazaCoin never amounted to much. With a total supply of around 2.4 billion and a block reward of 5,000, if MazaCoin was a Bitcoin network, the reward would be roughly 50 BTC.

At one point in time, many people thought Earthcoin could become the next Dogecoin. Rather than positioning itself as a meme, EarthCoin intended to change the world and protect out natural ecosystem Things did not work out all that well. With a variable block reward usually around 10,000 the coin is plagued by significant inflation. With no clear use cases and no one interested in using Earthcoin, that inflationary supply is doing more harm than good.

With a supply of 13.5 billion and a block reward of 10,000, Earthcoin has roughly 500 times the supply than that of Bitcoin. If it were a Bitcoin network, the reward would be around 20 BTC.

Once called the joke-coin of the internet, Dogecoin turned into something much more powerful than that. Dogecoin gained a lot of mainstream media recognition by sponsored various sports teams and even a NASCAR driver. Even though there isno limit as to how many Dogecoins can be generated in the end, many people still like this concept. The current block reward still sits around 250,000 DOGE, which is way too high. Dogecoin still generates a fair bit of trading volume across exchanges, though.

With its current supply of 108.619 billion coins, there are a lot of DOGE in the world. In fact, the number of coins is 5,172 times higher than bitcoin. If this were a bitcoin network, the block reward would be 48.34 BTC.

When it comes to finding an altcoin with a very large supply, look no further than Reddcoin. There will be 109 billion coins at the end, which will be achieved due to the currencys high block reward. After initially starting at 300,000 RDD per block, the reward is now sitting at the 100,000 mark. It is not a surprise the value of RDD has tanked significantly as more time elapsed. The lack of proper use cases is not helping matters either for this altcoin.

Reddcoin has a total supply of 28.279 billion, resulting in there being 1,346 as many coins as bitcoin. If this were a bitcoin network, the block reward would be 74.29 BTC.

When MoonCoin was first introduced, a lot of people were very skeptical about this process. The developer deliberately introduced significant block rewards, which started at two million MOON. As more time progressed, the reward dropped to 1 million, although mining was halted shortly afterward. With so many coins in circulation and no way to spend them other than selling MOON in favor of bitcoin, this project ground to a halt pretty quickly. It is still the altcoin with the highest block reward during the time it was actively mined.

The current MoonCoin supply sits at 221.64 billion MOON, making it 10,554 times as common as bitcoin. If this were a bitcoin network, the block reward would be 94.75 BTC.

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Top 6 Cryptocurrencies With High Block Rewards - The Merkle

People active in bitcoin and altcoin circles are often referring to a trend known as the flippening. it is evident the cryptocurrency landscape is undergoing some major changes, even though some users remain oblivious to what is going on. Now is a good time to explain the flippening and how it can affect bitcoins position as the top cryptocurrency in the next few years.

Truth be told, it took some time to figure out what people mean by referring to the flippening. Consumers, investors, traders, and speculators have shown an appreciation for bitcoin these past few years, despite the cryptocurrency being far from perfect. Any other currency, or altcoin if you prefer that term, seemingly derives its value from being paired to bitcoins price. Over the years, this caused the value of altcoins to go down if bitcoins price took a hit.

That being said, things are changing in the world of bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Bitcoin maximalists have held onto their BTC supply in the hopes of everything turning out to be alright. So far, there has been no evidence proving these people wrong, yet that does not mean bitcoin is in a good place right now. Particularly speculators are actively diversifying their portfolio by investing in altcoins, as they grow concerned over bitcoins scaling issues.

Altcoins, on the other hand, have always been looked at as second-rate projects by bitcoin maximalists. One could argue there was an air of disdain between most pro-bitcoiners and those whose see the merit of alternative cryptocurrencies. Multiple years of friction have caused a paradigm shift in the cryptocurrency world, an effect known as the flippening. To be more specific, it is evident most altcoin traders no longer base individual coins value on the bitcoin price.

As a result of this paradigm shift known as the flippening, it is very well possible bitcoin may not be the dominant cryptocurrency in the future. Or to be more precise, it may not hold such a big lead over other cryptocurrencies moving forward. Bitcoins share of the total cryptocurrency market cap continues to dwindle, allowing altcoins to rise in value, regardless of what is happening to the bitcoin price. Until a year or two ago, such a change seemed impossible, yet the charts speak for themselves.

This does not mean people will lose faith in bitcoin by any means. Instead, a more competitive cryptocurrency ecosystem will be created, and altcoins are expected to significantly rise in value over the next few months and years. Ethereum, Monero, Dash, Factom, and others are all trying to find their place in the world right now. Nearly all of these currencies have risen in value despite bitcoins price either stagnating or going down. While it is possible this is just a temporary change, the flippening is not a trend that should be ignored by any means.

Leading the charge during the flippening is Ethereum. Several dozen ICOs are offered on top of the Ethereum blockchain, rather than using Bitcoins technology.It is evident Bitcoin will not be suitable for every project one can think of, or at least not in its current state. Competition in the cryptocurrency industry can only be a good thing. The flippening indicates this shift towards a more competitive industry in which bitcoin will not necessarily be the center of focus any longer.

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What Is the Flippening? - The Merkle

Every cryptocurrency in the world needs a team of developers to take things to the next level. It is no surprise to find out people take a liking to specific developers, simply because they create new features or bring improvements to a particular cryptocurrency ecosystem. Below are some of the most respected cryptocurrency developers listed in a random order.

Most people will know Evan Duffield as the person responsible for creating the Dash ecosystem. The project was formerly known as XCoin and DarkCoin before switching to a more marketable name. Even though some people still question initial coin distribution once the project launched, Evan Duffield has become one of the most recognized developers in cryptocurrency. Given the recent price increase Dahs has gone through, it is evident his efforts as well as those made by all of the other contributors are receiving well-deserved recognition.

The infamous creator of Litecoin has proven time and time again to be a valuable member tothe cryptocurrency community. Even though little changes have been made to Litecoin over the past few years, Charlie lee remains an active developer to this very date. Moreover, he often weighs in on discussions pertaining to bitcoin and other popular cryptocurrencies. One of his latest feats of development revolves around porting Segregated Witness to Litecoin, although it remains to be seen if this solution will ever be activated.

Better known as Fluffypony, Riccardo Spagni has made quite a name for himself for being involved in cryptocurrency projects since 2012. Most people know him for his role in the development of Monero, a popular cryptocurrency focusing on anonymity and privacy. Riccardo is also a well-respected speaker at various conferences and meetups, during which he tried to explain the intricate working of Monero.

When talking about cryptocurrency developers, it is impossible to overlook Gavin Andresen. He has been one of the most prominent members of the bitcoin developer team ever since discovering the cryptocurrency project in 2012. He also used to operate a bitcoin faucet in those early days, through which he helped distribute this now-popular cryptocurrency to novice users looking to get acquainted with the ecosystem

Although most people have nothing but respect for Gavin Andresen as a developer, his reputation took a small hit during the entire Craig Wright debacle. Wright had seemingly convinced Andresen that he was the one and only Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious creator of bitcoin. When Wright failed to produce the evidence validating his claims, some people briefly questioned Andresens role in the bitcoin development team. Despite what some people may think, Gavin is still one of the most-respected bitcoin developers and his expertise is invaluable.

The career path of Vitalik Buterin is quite interesting taking note of. He co-founded Bitcoin Magazine many years ago and later on became the well-respected for developing the Ethereum protocol. Ever since inventing this ecosystem, he has been working on the project full-time. Moreover, he is a popular speaker at all types of events, including Ethereums very own Devcon conferences. Buterin is also known for his contributions to open source software projects, including DarkWallet, Egora, and Kryptokit.

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Top 5 Respected Cryptocurrency Developers - The Merkle

It is apparent there is a lot of excitement in the world of alternative cryptocurrencies. Plenty of coins are seeing significant value increases, although not all of them will have a place in the mainstream world. Below are some of the altcoins gaining a lot of value as their mainstream potential continues to grow.

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Every cryptocurrency enthusiast will have heard of theAugur project. By creating a decentralized prediction market where users can wager on any event taking place at any given time, Augur sees a lot of merit in using the wisdom of the crowd. The platform will be powered with REP tokens, which have seen a fair value increase these past few days.

About a week ago, the value per REP was US$5.35, which has now increased to US$10.16. Keeping in mind how there are only 11 million tokens, this value could go up even further in the coming months. Then again, investing in Augur should not be done for short-term gains by any means.

Even though the Factom project is quite intriguing, a lot of people tend to overlook the platforms native token. Factom stores records on the blockchain and anchors them to the Bitcoin ledger. It appears people are finally realizing the potential Factom holds, as its native tokens value has increased from US$2.63 to US$4.41 in just seven days. Impressive momentum for a somewhat undervalued project.

The rise of Dashs value cannot be ignored by anyone in the world of cryptocurrency. Even a DDoS attack against a few hundred masternodes could not disrupt this price increase by any means. Even though Dashs value is retracing a bit after a steep rise, things are still looking quite positive. Over the course of one month, Dashs value has gone from just over US$21 all the way to US$90. It even surpassed US$100 yesterday, but the price momentum could not be sustained for long.

Some people will gladly tell you a Monero price increase had to happen sooner or later. Anonymity-centric cryptocurrencies always tend to do well, and several darknet markets have shown interest in Monero as well. Things are looking very good for Monero these past few days, with a value increase from US$12.45 per XMR all the way to US$22 in a weeks time. It is interesting to see Dash and Monero experience growth around the same time.

People who are not glued to the exchange charts right now may have missed out on Ethereums meteoric rise these past few days. Right now, one ETH is worth US$40.98, up from US$18.75 a week ago. Interestingly enough, Ethereum Classic saw its value increase as well, from US$1.33 to US$2.02. Although some people argue these coins are still one and the same ecosystem, there are some major differences between them. In the end, both coins market cap is increasing at the same time. Most intriguing indeed.

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Top 5 Most Hyped Up Cryptocurrencies Right Now - The Merkle

One of the most popular trends in the world of cryptocurrency comes in the form of companies raising funds through an ICO. Several of these projects have proven to be quite successful in the process, raising millions of dollars from investors all over the world. The list below highlights some of the successful crypto ICOs.

The ICONOMI project has attracted a lot of interest from cryptocurrency investors during their crowdsale. The company aims to provide a connection to the distributed economy by allowing anyone to create their own Digital Asset Arrays. This digital asset management platform allows anyone in the world to create their own DAA and manage it accordingly. However, the project should not be looked at as just a marketplace for value tokens.

During the ICONOMI ICO, the team hoped to raise around US$10m in funding. It was quite an ambitious goal at that time, yet the investors helped the team reach that goal with relative ease. Even though US$10.5m sounds like a lot of money, it pales in comparison to some of the other recent successful ICOs. The company reported nearly 4,000 investors from all over the world partook in this ICO, which is quite intriguing.

The year 2016 was quite a positive one for cryptocurrency projects looking to raise a lot of money. WAVES made quite an impact, as the team raised the US$16m worth of bitcoin in the end. That is quite a significant amount, although some other projects raised more funds in the process. Unfortunately, the WAVES ICO turned into a very controversial topic later on, as allegations were filed of how the company successfully scammed investors. The thread on bitcointalk is worth reading through, that much is certain. Despite these allegations, new projects are still built on top of WAVES, indicating some of these rumours might be overstating things.

The Lisk platform has seen its fair share of success, especially during the ICO phase. With US$5.8m raises in a short amount of time, investors were more than excited to invest in this new crypto-based project. Ever since launching the platform in Q2 of 2016, the team has been actively working on adding improvements to the project and its wallet. The team also liquidates some of their bitcoin raised during the ICO as part of their liquidation plan. A total of 101,000 BTC remains under their control, according to a recent Twitter update.

Raising US$8.6m in mere minutes is quite an amazing feat, and most people will always remember the Golem Project for achieving that goal. This significant amount of interest was not entirely unexpected, considering Golem is a decentralized global market for computing power. It is evident these types of ICOs will always see great interest from investors all over the world. Being able to rent computer resources from other people in exchange for Golem Network Tokens is something to look forward to.

The Ethereum ICO was one of the first of its kind to put this concept of an initial coin offering on the map. The team successfully raised US$18m over the course of 42 days, making it the number onemost funded ICO in cryptocurrency. Ever since receiving that amount of funding, Ethereum has quickly grown and successfully became the second-most valuable cryptocurrency ecosystem in the world today. Although it is not the most successful ICO The DAO raised US$150m but the project had to be abandoned Ethereum has proven to be very successful in its own right.

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5 of the Most Successful Cryptocurrency ICOs to Date - The Merkle

Kraken, one of the largest cryptocurrency trading venues in the world, has announced that it will offer support for trading Melon tokens (MLN). The new pairs are MLN/XBT (melon/bitcoin) and MLN/ETH (melon-ethereum) with the exchanges team said to be working on also possibly offering MLN margin trading.

The Melon protocol is a blockchain protocol for digital asset management built on the Ethereum platform. It enables participants to set up, manage and invest in crypto-asset management strategies in an open, competitive and decentralised manner. They can define the parameters of portfolio structures using smart contracts, build an auditable, visible track record, and invest in other participants portfolios or attract followers to their own portfolio.

MLN tokens cover the platform usage fee and are used to reward developers who build Melon modules. Melonport, the company behind Melon, recently completed anInitial Coin Offering (ICO), reaching its target of 227,000 ETH (currently worth over $9million) within just 10 minutes.

The team behind MLN includes Reto Trinkler (co-founder and CTO), Mona El Isa (co-founder and CEO), Dr. Gavin Wood (Advisor), Dr. Andreas Glarner (Advisor) and Jehan Chu (Advisor).

Krakenrecently acquired the charting and trading platform Cryptowatchused by thousands to trade up to 22 digital assets.Kraken has already leveraged Cryptowatch to release an upgraded trading interface based on the platform.

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Cryptocurrency Copy Trading Protocol Melon Now Supported by Kraken - Finance Magnates

USFIA

In the eight-page final judgment, which was issued on Monday, Chen agreed to no longer participate in any similar financial dealings. In addition, he and his former companies willhave to pay back over $51.2 million in ill-gotten gains, plus $3.79 million in interest, and a $16.7 million penalty as a result. Some of that money will be repaid by liquidating his companies assets, including multiple pieces of real estate. A recent report by the court-appointed receiver found records showing that approximately 65,000 unique e-mail addresses of investors had been affected. But even more people may have been put at risk.

Neither SEC attorneys nor lawyers representing Chen immediately responded to Ars request for comment.

As Ars reported two months ago, US District Judge Robert G. Klausner ruled that Chens Gemcoin operation was fraudulent.

Gemcoin advertised itself in ridiculous promotional videos (see above) as a purported cryptocurrency that was "trusted," as it was "backed" by amber mines. The offices of Gemcoins parent company, Alliance Finance Group, and its subsidiary, United States Fine Investment Arts, were raided in October 2015 by federal and local authorities.

Steve Chen and the companies associated with Gemcoin also face a proposed class-action lawsuit on behalf of alleged victims filed in state court in Los Angeles. The lawyer who brought the state case, Long Liu, did not immediately respond to Ars request for comment.

Link:
Man behind GemCoin, a fake cryptocurrency, settles lawsuit for $71 ... - Ars Technica

Matchpool, an incentive-based community platform that allows anyone to open their own dating pool and earn cryptocurrency, is set for a crowdsale that will begin next week on March 25, and continue for four weeks or until the 500,000 ETH cap (equivalent to $15 million at current rates) is reached.

Participation is encouraged by the platforms Guppy token (GUP). Matchmakers on the platform can earn Guppies for successful matches, while individuals can earn Guppies for participation. The developers say that users will eventually be able to trade or sell their GUP on cryptocurrency exchanges.

We are overwhelmed by the communitys support for Matchpool already, and our Guppy token crowdsale will allow investors to get involved from the ground up, said said Yonatan Ben Shimon, CEO of Matchpool. The Guppy token is an integral part of Matchpool, and will incentivize users to build meaningful connections within their communities.

Investors in the GUP crowdsale will be incentivized to participate early. During the first hour of the crowdsale, 1 Ether will be exchanged for 120 GUP. After that, the price will change to 110:1 for three days, then 100:1 for two weeks, followed by 90:1 for the remainder of the crowdsale.

When the crowdsale concludes, token transfers will be locked for one month. The crowdsale will offer 60 million total GUP, 60% of the total GUP currency. Of the 60 million GUP, 18% will be minted for new users over two years, 20% will go to the team and advisors, and 2% will be reserved for Matchpool bounty campaigns.

The Matchpool advisory board includes Joe Shapira (JDate), Dr. Gavin Wood, Ned Scott (Steem), and Jake Brukman (Coinfund).

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Cryptocurrency-Powered Dating Platform Matchpool Set for $15m Crowdsale - Finance Magnates

Ethereum

Ethereum is looking at several layers of resistance on multiple timeframes. It is time to exit that trade, in my opinion. Here is an example, on the 4 hour chart:

Other timeframes look equally scary. It seems to me that more aggressive traders will look for a short in this area. However, it is too scary to short a bull market like this one for me. Ill leave that trade to others.

Bitcoin is stuck in a sideways movement which does not have any obvious reason to advance until its siblings top out. It is above the top of the square, so it does not look like a fall is imminent. However, the shorter-term charts are not just sideways, they are flat.

While eth is looking likely to top out quite soon, others, such as Monero, are looking poised to move upwards next:

This chart looks delightful. Pricetime has only just crossed the 1st arc pair. The 3rd arc pair is a good first target at $26, but it would not surprise me at all if it went to the 5th pair, at ~$36

All in all, it appears that for now at least, the so-called altcoins have taken center stage. Bitcoin may resume its run in the not-distant future, but for the time being, the money is rolling into several of the better-known of her siblings in the crypto space.

US Treasury Bonds are arguably the most traded contract on the planet. With all the talk about interest rate hikes in the news, I decided to take a look at the chart to see what the reason was that such talk was in the air. As you can see, bonds are very near the 5th arc on a daily chart. Either the low is already in, or there is just one more push down remaining.

Happy trading!

Remember: The author is a trader who is subject to all manner of error in judgement. Do your own research, and be prepared to take full responsibility for your own trades.

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Analysis: Has Ethereum Reached its Peak? Here is Another Cryptocurrency to Watch - Hacked