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What is the future of Bitcoin BTC? Will it become a mainstream currency, or will its popularity wane, and why?
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Bitcoin can only become an additional digital currency instead of credit cards, but cash will remain for an alternative payment option. Could Bitcoin ever replace conventional money?
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This information is useful. Thank you! A Distributed Network of Smart Economy On June 22th, Antshares blockchain, China's first ever original and open source public chain project, has been officially renamed NEO. Inspired by the same Greek prefix meaning innovation, modernization and youth, the project wishes to share a similar sentiment. And apparently, one can also take the meaning from the protagonist of ‘Matrix’: Neo, The One who woke up and changed the world.
With the success of Antshares, we hope that this rebranding can usher in a new age of this blockchain. One that puts more emphasis on realizing a smart economy through the use of smart contracts, making registering, distributing and trading digital assets more intelligent.
LATEST UPDATES [Aug. 10 2017] Nikolai Kuznetsov , FORBES Contributor : NEO Co-Founder Banks On Blockchain To Build A Smart Economy [Article] [Aug. 9 2017] INC. : NEO now a top 10 cryptocurrency. [Article] [Aug. 8 2017] NEO Website is online! [Aug. 3 2017] What is NEO: An Interview With NEO co-founder DA Hongfei Credit goes to Boxmining for this awsome and informative interview! [Aug. 3 2017] NEO and blockchain-labo.jp | meetup in Tokyo, Thursday, August 10, 2017 [Event Detail][Aug. 2 2017] NEO and ELASTOS reaching strategic collaboration to further the development of the Smart Economy: [Article]Read this blog post for dates and details of our Rebranding plan. [Related Article]We've just held our first AMA on the NEO subreddit!! NasdaQ: Antshares Rebrands, Introduces NEO and the New Smart Economy(also on Bitcoin Magazine. )CCTV(China's predominant TV broadcaster): China's first original open source blockchain platform has launched. Watch here
Design goals and Technical Advantages*Our goal: To be the vanguard in the effort of building a smart economy. SMART ECONOMY = Digital Assets + Digital Identity + Smart Contracts Digital Assets: The main design goal of NEO’s predecessor (Antshares) was ‘Digital Assets for everyone’, to build a digital financial system bridging the real-world assets. With blockchain technology, the digitization of assets can be decentralised, trustful, traceable, highly transparent, and free of intermediaries.
Continuing from this original intention, NEO firmly believes that it is an irreversible trend that real-world assets become digital and programmable. To reach this goal, Antshares takes a very different underlying design: - Use Digital Certicate to Guarantee Trust
NEO supports digital certificates, solves the potential problem of untrustworthy nodes on a public blockchain. With digital certificates, one can legally issue assets on the blockchain and be protected by the regulations. - Original Superconduct trade mechanism
This mechanism makes a trustless digital exchange possible. Support decentralized digital assets exchange. Match between sellers and buyers will be handled without need for users to deposits anything on the exchange. On the NEO blockchain, users are able to register, trade, and circulate multiple types of assets. Proving the connection between digital and physical assets is possible through digital identity. Assets registered through a validated digital identity are protected by law.
Digital Identities: Digital identity refers to the identity information of individuals, organizations, and other entities that exist in electronic form.
For digital identities on blockchains to have rights, they need to be legally authenticated. The most widely accepted digital identity system is based on the PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) X.509 standard. We will implement a hybrid trust mechanism supporting X.509 + Web of Trust. Our verification of identity when issuing or using digital identities includes the use of facial features, fingerprint, voice, SMS and other multi-factor authentication methods. Smart Contracts: Smart contracts are automatically executed programs in the blockchain environment. A blockchain system that supports smart contracts makes it possible for any kind of contracts, rules or instructions to be automated.
The NEO Smart Contract 2.0 (NeoContract) includes the following features: high certainty, high concurrency, and scalability. The contract types include: validation contracts, function contracts, and application contracts.- Write Smart Contracts in any language
The difference between NEO Smart Contract 2.0 and Ethereum is that NEO is more intuitive: unlike the original Solidity language in Ethereum, the NEO smart contract can be used directly by almost any high-level programming language. Supporting languages such as C#, Java, Go, developers can quickly start developing smart contracts on NEO blockchain. - NEO VM lightweight Virtual Stack Machines
NEO uses a lightweight VM that has short booting time and takes up a small amount of resources. The instructional setup of the NEO VM includes a series of cryptographic instructions to optimize the execution efficiency of cryptographic algorithms in Smart Contracts. Both features are very much suitable for short programs such as smart contracts. Other Features: - Better Scalability: Distributed Storage Protocol - NeoFS
When competing with traditional technology solutions, scalability is the handicap of blockchain technology. In order to have a censorship-immutable and trust-free system, blockchains such as Bitcoin compromises latency and throughput in its design. NeoFS is a distributed storage protocol that utilizes Distributed Hash Table technology. Large files will be divided into fixed-size data blocks that are distributed and stored in many different nodes. The old block data can be stored in NeoFS, so that most of the full nodes can release the old data for better scalability and at the same time, ensure the integrity of historical data. At the moment, the block generating rate is manually set at 15 seconds. With low enough latency in inter-nodes connection in the future, most blocks will be generated by every 1 second. With the bandwidth at 100Mbit/t and external cryptographic computing hardware, NEO Blockchain is capable of handling thousands, if no tens of thousands, of transactions per second. - Innovative dBFT consensus mechanism
Consensus nodes use Byzantine Fault Tolerance(dBFT) Algorithm to reach consensus and ensure the finality of transactions. The system is operable as long as less than 1/3 of the nodes are dishonest. It is also ensured that the system keeps its finality, meaning that once confirmations are final, the block can not be bifurcated, and the transaction will not be revoked or rolled back. ( more) - Cross-chain interoperability protocol -NeoX
This protocol allows multiple participants to exchange assets across different chains and to ensure that all steps in the entire transaction process succeed or fail together. It is possible by creating a contract account for each participant using the NeoContract function. Any chain should be compatible with NeoX as long as they are compatible with NeoContract or can provide simple smart contract functionality. - Quantum-computer-proof technology: NeoQS
The emergence of quantum computers creates a major challenge to RSA and ECC-based cryptographic mechanisms. For quantum computers can solve thses cryptographic prblems in an extremely short time. Using Lattice-based cryptograph signature and encryption technology, NeoQS can prevent the quantum crisis as Lattice-based cryptography provides encryption problems (e.g. SVP) beyond the capability of quantum computers. *For more in-depth information on NEO’s design goal and technical advantages, please reference our whitepaper.
NEO Seed ProjectNEO Seed is a project aimed at developers around the world. With this project, NEO hope to spread the knowledge on NEO blockchain and bridge the distance between NEO and community developers. We hope to see more developers taking part in new smart contract projects. In the meantime, we shall endeavor to promote new projects on smart contracts, construct the NEO ecosystem, and hopefully find out and foster outstanding projects and project teams. λ Blockchain WorkshopNEO will form a ‘Blockchain Workshop’, uniting the technical members of the community to establish a dedicated column on blockchain technology. This column will update the news about blockchain technologies and discuss about the application practices based on NEO. Technology volunteers will comprise this club. They can submit contents about their related technologies. The NEO team will check these contents before letting them go public. λ Blockchain Programming DayNEO plans to organize online open courses to help global developers open the gate to the smart contract application and development. For the developers with great ideas, NEO would provide technical assistance to help them develop their targeted blockchain applications. λ Testing your NEO applications on the Testnet If you are starting a NEO ecosystem application project, and need NEO or GAS in the test net, please fill in the following application form and send it . Once your application is passed, you will receive an email notification. Note: Application form currently only available in Chinese, please reference this file for the translation of each entry.
Developer's CornerIntroducing directories on GitHub/docs Technical documents including the whitepaper. See the technical doc on /docs/index.md || getting-started.md offers an introduction to the development of NEO. /neo-compiler Compiles Smart Contracts written in multiple coding languages like C#, VB.Net, Java, and Kotlin /examples A collection of smart contracts written in C# that can run on the NEO blockchain. You can reference these for the syntax and details on how to write smart contracts. For more on writing Smart Contracts, please see /introduction.md /neo class library of the project /neo-cli Full Node with Command Line Interface, designed for developers. /neo-gui Full Node with Graphic User Interface, aka Client. For more on nodes please see /node/introduction.md /neo-vm Visual Studio Virtual Machine /neo-devpack-dotnet Development Kit
FAQs* *The full FAQ is available at GitHub. This document is still under constant update. - What is the purpose of rebranding? What new things will the rebranding bring?
NEO wants to be more professional, combining digital assets, securing digital identity and allowing users to write smart contracts in multiple coding languages like Javascript, C++ and Python. NEO is the use of blockchain technology and digital identity to digitize assets, the use of smart contracts for digital assets to be self-managed, to achieve "smart economy" with a distributed network. Additional features will include NeoMessage that supports secure, encrypted peer-to-peer messaging and NeoFS, a distributed cloud storage. Smart fund investments, Online Networking and a Decentralized Exchange will also be implemented in the near future. - When will the new NEO website be updated to fit the rebrand?
NEO Website & Network will be released on August 8. - What's the relationship between ANS and Neo?
Neo is the new name of Antshares(ANS), Neo gas is the new name of Antcoins(ANC). Your ANS will become Neo automatically after the rebrand. Similarly, Your ANC will become Neo Gas as well. - What's the relationship between NEO and NEO Gas?
NEO is the ’shares‘ of the Neo blockchain system. As long as you possess NEO, NEO Gas will be generated automatically in the system according to generation strategy and you can claim your NEO gas as dividends. NEO stands for ownership of the system, NEO gas stands for the right to use the system. PC: Download the NEO client. MAC/Web: use the web app . You can find more information and apps on our reddit sidebar.
NEO CommunityReddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/NEO/
Slack: https://neosmarteconomy.slack.com/
QQ: 23917224
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NEO_Bloackchain
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NEOSmartEcon/
Blog: https://neo.org/BlogYou can access the latest developments and news on NEO on any of the platforms above. You can post your feedback and advice about NEO on these platforms well. We welcome the participation of volunteers from all over the world. Anyone with expertise and willing to help can get in touch with members of the NEO team. With your help, we hope to bring NEO to a bigger and better place. |
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After Bitcoin Gold, Bitcoin Diamond and Super Bitcoin, another forked-coin Lightning Bitcoin is coming on the way. Initiated by an European team, Lightning, the project will become the first forked-coin that adopts the DPOS consensus mechanism.
Fork at Block 499,999
The new project Lightning Bitcoin (LBTC) will fork at block 499,999 on or around December 23, 2017. Why lightning? The team aims to make Bitcoin transfers as fast as lightning, or at a maximum of 24 million transactions a day. How can that happen? The answer is the DPOS mechanism, according to the project’s proponents.
The POW mechanism has long been discussed as the cause of mining centralization and network congestion. Daniel Larimer, author of Delegated Proof-of-Stake Whitepaper explained that miner tycoons control block time to maximize their interests, which will ultimately along with all POW systems be controlled by the fiat system. As such, the Lightning team employs DPOS mechanism that gives voting rights to token holders to avoid control of the system by any party. According to its official website,
"The DPOS consensus will significantly reduce the number of participating verification nodes and help LBTC reach consensus in seconds and boost the transaction speed to really be as FAST as lightning."
Who is Behind the Project?
The project hasn’t revealed its development team today, except for the Chinese community leader “Jack Zhang”. But on its website we can see that they already got support from exchanges CEX.io, BTCC, gate.io and Coldlar wallet.
The Initial Fork Offerings Craze
Since Bitcoin Cash came out, Initial Fork Offerings have become a trendy way for new blockchain projects to receive funding. Now we have witnessed the success of Bitcoin Gold(BTG) and Bitcoin Diamond(BCD). Despite concerns about its security problems, BTG ranks in the top 5 for market cap. And the newcomer BCD has been listed at over 30 exchanges worldwide. With these successful examples, there will be more projects bearing the name of Bitcoin to save listing and advertising fees.
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Cryptocurrency trading can be extremely profitable if you know what you are doing, but it can also lead to disaster. Even though most traders decide to either go with fiat or bitcoin, other cryptocurrencies can represent viable income sources, as long you as you tread carefully and understand what you are doing. This guide is for those who want to start getting involved in cryptocurrency trading. That being said, after you learn how to trade cryptocurrencies, study the ones you are going to trade before actually investing. Some may be on the forefront of innovation and represent a safe way to make money, while others might just flat out fail – as bitcoin has shown us, sometimes it may be better to hold on to your coins. Where to tradeThe first thing you will need is a safe and secure platform to trade your cryptocurrencies. While fiat currencies have well-renowned financial institutions in which you can trade, most cryptocurrencies aren’t that lucky. It is, however, possible to trade bitcoin, the number one cryptocurrency, using renowned institutions. A few trading platforms now include bitcoin, as some even offer Contracts For Differences (CFDs). These allow you to trade bitcoin without actually using it, as they represent a contract between you and the exchange. In it, the two parties ‘agree’ the difference between the entry and exit price will determine your profit or loss. CFDs are a flexible option, but they do have disadvantages worth looking into. To trade other cryptocurrencies, you will need to use cryptocurrency exchanges. According to CoinMarketCap, there are well over 100 active exchanges, so we need to filter them. The best way to do so is to go with those with the largest trading volume, as they will enable the best possible opportunities. According to data, these are the 20 biggest exchanges you can use: 1. Poloniex 2. xBTCe 3. Bitfinex 4. Quoine 5. BitMEX 6. Kraken 7. BTC-E 8. Bithumb 9. Coincheck 10. GDAX 11. bitFlyer 12. Zaif 13. Coinone 14. Bitstamp 15. Korbit 16. OKCoin.cn 17. Gemini 18. Yunbi 19. Bittrex 20. CHBTC In the last 24 hours, Poloniex had a whopping $160 million trading volume, and CHBTC was at $7 million. Note that, trading volume alone, doesn’tmean the exchange is trustworthy. Before choosing one, check for online reviews. A great tool to use is Web of Trust, as it compiles user reviews and can be downloaded as a plugin to your browser. There are also other exchanges in which you don’t need to create an account, such as Shapeshift. The following principles stay true across exchanges, even though user interfaces and other aspects can vary. As an example, I’ll be using Poloniex to explain how one can start trading cryptocurrencies. Getting started1. SignupThe first thing you need to do is to sign-up and confirm your account via email (Poloniex). While setting up your account, make sure you use a safe password that includes numbers, letters, and symbols. 2-factor authentication might also be worth considering. A varying level of verification will be required, so make sure you pick a trustworthy exchange. 2. Deposit/WithdrawalsOnce you’ve signed up, you will need to transfer funds into the exchange. At Poloniex, you are now presented with the exchanges’ terms and conditions. After agreeing, select the currency you are interested in trading and click “Deposit/Withdraw.” In some exchanges, it is also possible to deposit via bank wire. 3. AddressesYou’ll be given an address to which you should transfer your funds. After doing so, you should have access to the pending deposit. Depending on the currency, it shouldn’t be long until your funds are available. Remember, you might need bitcoin to be able to start trading on a cryptocurrency exchange as most do not accept fiat money (if you do not have any other cryptocurrencies). Buying and selling4. Finding a marketNow all you need to do is find your desired market, in which you will trade a certain amount for another cryptocurrency. Before placing an order, make sure you properly analyze the market, and agree with the current best price. If there are enough available tokens at your eligible price, your order will be immediately taken care of. If not, your order will be waiting for someone to trade at your desired price. 5. Trading on PoloniexCryptocurrencies are volatile and can be traded 24/7. It’s important to closely follow the news and to understand how the market may interact with certain types of information – you need to know the ins and outs. General trading principles apply, and always remember: buy low, sell high. Some believe it isn’t a good idea to leave money on an exchange for a long period of time. Bitcoin’s history has been marked by the collapse of Mt. Gox, an exchange trusted by users that suffered the largest-ever bitcoin heist. Risk-free experimentingIf you are new to cryptocurrencies the volatility may make you feel like gambling. In order to start learning without risking your money, we’ll give you a few ideas. Follow me to keep updating |
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Similar to support and resistance lines, these zones are also often found in areas of the chart that can be explained with technical analysis, such as round numbers and Fibonacci levels, or price levels where fundamental forces previously have come into play. Market participants often remember these areas from earlier, and the power balance between the bulls and the bears in the market will shift.
Getting used to thinking in terms of areas or zones on the chart can be a very useful next step, once you have familiarized yourself with the basics of technical analysis. Support and resistance lines are wonderful concepts in theory, but the reality is that it oversimplifies how the markets really work.
Let’s take a look at an example of how traders end up losing money when focusing solely on one price level for their entries.
As you can see, the blue resistance line is drawn from a recent top in this market. However, when price again approaches the resistance line, it overshoots it and the retail traders who already entered their short positions will most likely get their stop-loss orders triggered.
Trading is not an exact science
Professional traders, on the other hand, know that trading is not an exact science and they instead draw these lines as zones or areas on their charts. That way, you can catch much more of the price action within this area of interest and you are able to wait for confirmation before entering your trade.
By waiting for the price to trade completely outside of these areas, as well as crossing for example the 20 Moving Average line, your trade idea has been confirmed by the market and you can now simply react to what is happening rather than trying to predict the next move.
From the chart above, we can see that it was easy to draw the supply zone based on the previous high in the market. When the price again enters into the supply zone, we can see a sudden shift in the direction of the trend. Smart traders know that they are entering an area with lots of trading activity, and act accordingly by tightening up their stop-loss, so that their sell order is executed at the first sign of a reversal in the trend.
Getting used to thinking in terms of areas on the charts instead of lines may be a bit more difficult for the beginning trader, because it requires a more subjective approach to trading which takes experience to master. However, once you do get comfortable with this way of thinking, chances are your trading performance will see immense progress.
Good luck with your trading and feel free to share with us any questions or comments.
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I think so, summarizing for a successful year with the crypto-currency market |
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Do not worry, then the market will stabilize again |
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Internet users don't have sole control over the data they share on today's websites. Ethereum is unique in that it attempts to wield the blockchain as a way to correct what its designers believe is a problematic part of the internet's design. It's like a “decentralized appstore” where anyone can publish their unstoppable apps (dapps), which unlike today’s apps (think Gmail or Uber) don’t require a middleman to function or to manage a user’s information. Dapps connect users and providers directly. One example is to use this design for a decentralized Twitter that’s resistant to censorship. Once you publish a message to the blockchain, it can’t be erased, not even by the company that created the microblogging system. There isn’t one definition of a dapp, though, as it’s a newer concept. A couple of main characteristics are that they're open source and don't have a central point of failure. Three typesWith this new technology out in the wild, ethereum advocates might feel electrified by the thought of decentralizing "all the things." But the types of applications that users can build with the computing platform might be somewhat narrow. The ethereum white paper splits dapps into three types: apps that manage money, apps where money is involved (but also requires another piece), and apps in the “other” category, which includes voting and governance systems. In the first type of app, a user may need to exchange ether as a way to settle a contract with another user, using the network's distributed computer nodes as a way to facilitate the distribution of this data.  The second type of app mixes money with information from outside the blockchain. For example, a crop insurance application that's dependent on an outside weather feed. (Say a farmer buys a derivative that automatically pays out if there's a drought that impacts his work.) To execute, these smart contracts rely on so-called “oracles” that relay up-to-date information about the outside world. (Though, it's worth noting that some developers are skeptical that this use case can be done in a decentralized way.)  If bitcoin can do away with financial authorities, is it possible to do the same for companies and other types of organizations? Decentralized autonomous organizations are one particularly ambitious breed of dapp (this is explained further in 'What is a DAO?'). The goal is form a leaderless company, program rules at the beginning about how members can vote and how to release company funds and then... let it go. |
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The global cryptocurrency market is undergoing a massive correction Friday, as bitcoin and the top-20 coins plunged at least 20% each. The massive decline follows weeks of unprecedented growth that took the global market cap well north of $650 billion. Cryptos PlungeThe combined value of all cryptocurrencies in circulation has plunged nearly $190 billion since Thursday, according to CoinMarketCap. At $464 billion, the market cap is at the lowest level since Dec. 12.  Trade volumes exceeded $43 billion over the past 24 hours, with bitcoin accounting for nearly 47% of the daily transactions. Bitcoin’s Dramatic DeclineThe violent selloff was triggered by a 23% correction in bitcoin that sent prices below $12,000 on the Coinbase GDAX exchange. At press time, bitcoin was down 14% to $13,385. The decline shaved tens of billions of dollars from bitcoin’s market cap, which now stands at roughly $220 billion.  It was only last week that BTC/USD was testing new highs near $20,000 as rallied behind the introduction of bitcoin futures. But we wrote earlier, institutional investment is no guarantee that bitcoin will continue higher in the short term. The success of the derivatives contracts could depend on whether the so-called ‘bitcoin billionaires’ embrace these new markets. As it currently stands, about 1,000 investors hold roughly 40% of all bitcoin in circulation. Altcoin UniverseAll the major altcoins suffered huge losses Friday, a sign that the broader market was still following bitcoin’s lead. There were no immediate catalysts for the decline, which suggests that investors were taking profits after the record build up in recent weeks. As veteran cryptocurrency traders would attest, huge price swings in the market is fairly common. Below is a recap of the major losers on Friday:  Despite the recent price collapse, 2018 is expected to be a huge year for cryptocurrency as more institutions embrace the alternative asset class. On Thursday, Goldman Sachs Group announced it was entering the cryptocurrency market. According to Bloomberg, the bank’s crypto traading desks should be ready in time for summer. There’s also evidence that bitcoin derivatives contracts will continue to proliferate as Nasdaq gets ready to join CBOE and CME in offering futures trading. Recent activity at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also suggests more firms are lining up to offer bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). According to the SEC’s public filing system, two companies have recently submitted applications to launch a bitocin-based ETF. |
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I usually write about Altcoins investing and trading. Right now I wanted to spill the beans on how I research an ICO. If you are not familiar with an ICO, it is a coin offering an altcoin does to raise funds to build the product or to expand their company/reach. Instead of doing an IPO as most traditional companies do, a lot of companies are now going ICOs. Why? Many reasons but I would say the top 2 are the fact that millions of dollars are being raised in a short amount of time as investors are trying to be a part of the new altcoin launches in order get in on the ground floor. The second reason is that investors that take part in an ICO do not own actual equity in a company, they are essentially just giving the company money in order to launch their product. In traditional IPOs, investors would actually own a small or large percentage of a company when they invest possibly giving them voting rights as well as actual company ownership. Now I want to jump right into how I analyze and research an ICO. While some people start with the technology or the idea itself, I have to admit that I start with the ICO token metrics. First, calculate market cap to make sure they are not overvaluing themselves compared to other ICOs or existing altcoins. Determine the Market Cap of the ICO: - Calculate the token price with this formula ETH Current Price/Num Tokens per ETH - Now multiply Token Price * Number of Tokens in Circulation (tokens sold in crowdsale + presale) This is the company market cap roughly if the ICO sells all available tokens during the crowdsale. Take this market cap and compare it to the top 100 altcoins to see how the coin compares. If the market cap equals $30,000,000 then they would need to grow to $90,000,000 in order for you to make 3x your investment. Now go to Coinmarketcap.com and see what companies have the same market cap as this ICO. Ask yourself: Is this ICO as good as the existing altcoin and is it or should it be worth the market cap they are trying to achieve with the ICO launch. Read the Whitepaper:Ask yourself these questions: Is the technology unique? Can this company survive/thrive without doing an ICO? What is the purpose of the token in the company ecosystem? Are they just creating a coin to profit in this ICO craze or does the coin serve an important purpose? How will the coin increase in value, is it based only on hype on exchanges or is it from it being used as a utility in the company? Does this company have competitors that may make this one irrelevant? Research the Team:First off, is the legitimate? Do they really exist on Linkedin, etc. You would be surprised how often the team members can be faked. Read the linkedin description to see if the team member is full-time with the ICO and if the ICO is even mentioned at all. Research the ICO Advisers:Are the advisers relevant to the ICO or are they just a shiny attention grabber? If you see the same adviser on multiple ICOs then their credibility/value to the ICO diminishes greatly. Determine Level of Hype:Don’t underestimate this step. An easy way to get a feel for hype and popularity is to google the name of the ICO. See how many mentions are in the google search results. Make sure you use exact matches such as quotes in the google search so that you don’t get results for the word ‘the’ or something generic. How many times are they mentioned on social media? The best way to do this is to go to buzzsumo.com and type in the name of the ICO. This will give you a results list showing content and mentions on Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Pinterest and how many times the content pieces were shared. Go to the ICO website and search for the websites, social media and chat programs where they interact. Some of the most popular are Slack Channel, Telegram Chat, Twitter, [Suspicious link removed]. Check out their existing product and code:For this step you don’t have to know programming or anything like that. You will just want to go to their Github.com account as this is where they will store the code for their project. You can see how often they update their code and how active they are developing. Also, do some research on their past products if they are an existing business that is just expanding by offering an ICO. Research similar altcoins:Go to Coinmarketcap.com and CryptoCompare.com and study similar coin charts. Of course, every company is different but you just want to get a general feel for the potential. Right now ICO investors are leaning towards investing in Protocols and Platforms such as 0x, Kyber and Raiden. Ideas that are needed to propel blockchain and cryptocurrency forward. Good luck researching ICOs and may you see 3x – 100x returns |
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Whether you intend to trade crypto, stocks, forex, or pretty much anything else, lots of trading concepts are useful for you across all assets. The characteristics of a robust and reliable trading strategy is one such thing that is important to learn no matter what market you are operating in, whether you are a discretionary or systematic, fundamental or technical trader.
In trading, there is a well-known relationship between the win-rate of a trading strategy and the reward:risk ratio. Generally, the higher the win-rate, the lower the reward:risk ratio, and vice versa. This is important to understand in order to avoid being fooled by people who present you with their “amazing” trading strategies.
Oftentimes, these people will claim that their strategy have extremely high win-rates of 80-90%, but is that really what you should be looking for?
I saw someone recently used the analogy of a Volvo vs. a Tesla to make this point. Basically, it went like this: Tesla is a great car and feels wonderful to drive, plus it takes you to where you need to go in the shortest amount of time possible.
But when something goes wrong and one of the parts fail, you’re screwed. The Tesla isn’t moving anymore, and you don’t even know which part failed, much less how to fix it.
With the Volvo, however, you may not reach your destination that fast, but you know that you will eventually make it there, each and every time. When the car stops, you know that some googling and improvising is all you need to get it going again. Let’s say for example that your radiator is leaking. All you need is some tape to seal it temporarily until you can make your way to a shop.
With the Tesla, it’s not so easy.
Now imagine the Tesla is a high win-rate strategy and the Volvo is a high reward:risk ratio strategy. With the high win-rate strategy, things go really well until it stops working. When something goes wrong, you risk having to pay back all your wins for one stupid mistake. You have zero tolerance for error.
On the other hand, the high reward:risk strategy will still make you money regardless of your occasional mistakes and lack of discipline. For example, a win-rate of 40% and a 3:1 reward:risk ratio gives you room to lower your win-rate by another 10% and still make a profit.
Now that you know that high win-rate strategies have zero tolerance for error, you probably also understand why most experienced traders prefers to use strategies with a higher reward:risk ratio instead. Simply put, it gives you some more slack. And we all know that human traders need that.
This is also the reason why high win-rate, low reward:risk strategies are often used by robots and high frequency trading. Machines don’t make mistakes the same way as humans do, and they are therefore much better suited to trade with high win-rate strategies.
So, when you are developing your trading strategy, or even just trying to optimize your current strategy, focus on improving the reward:risk ratio of the strategy. Don’t try to boost the win-rate at the expense of the reward:risk ratio. It may look cool for people who are trying to sell their strategy to others, but it’s not very useful for real-world trading.
With a high reward:risk strategy, you know there is room for mistakes and unexpected events, which by the way do happen from time to time no matter how good you are. Because of this, you will also develop much greater confidence in your strategy, which is helpful in stopping you from making one of the main beginner mistakes in trading: constant strategy hopping.
"Systems don’t need to be changed. The trick is for a trader to develop a system to which he is compatible."
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Hedging methods give you the opportunity to reduce your risks in times when you think that crypto prices will fall while keeping your coins, or at least staying within the segment, while also avoiding taxing in a certain period. That doesn’t mean that you won’t pay taxes on your profits, rather that you will be able to tweak the timing of the taxation, and maybe optimize the payable amount as well.
Also, in a lot of cases, it is easier and cheaper to enter a hedging position than straight up selling your coins. Sure enough, these positions have their own negatives cost- or otherwise. Trading fees, spreads, counterparty risk, cash losses, and particular tax issues could make them less alluring, while given the less developed state of the segment, availability is also an issue.
Traditional Vs Crypto-Hedging
In the case of liquid traditional assets (stocks, commodities, bonds, currencies), there is a wide range of assets and methods to choose from for hedging purposes, such as options, futures, futures options, forex options, ETFs, swaps…
While several of those now have the equivalent in the crypto-space, the real-world usage of the crypto versions is often far from the traditional ones, and their application requires much more effort and sometimes a leap of faith.
That said, the future is bright for those who want more flexibility in managing their exposure and the excessive volatility in the segment, as the number of available hedging assets is rising by the day – and that doesn’t just mean the widely covered BTC futures contracts or the LedgerX platform. But how does hedging work anyway?
Let’s dive into the basics.
The Basics of Hedging
The basic concept of hedging is that you purchase an asset that’s value is moving in the opposite direction than the one you want to protect. Traditionally, the producers of commodities used futures contracts to “lock-in” the price of their product for a certain future point in time.
Today, with all the hedging options available, the concept can be used for all kinds of time-periods, asset classes, and different levels of protection. Also, the assets once only used for hedging purposes are widely used “naked” – purely for speculative reasons, often taking advantage of the leverage applied through some of the products.
Leverage and Hedging
While not all hedging products use leverage, it is a natural and useful part of hedging as it gives a traditional hedger the opportunity to protect a large amount of exposure with a much smaller amount of cash. Imagine that with 5-10% of your protected amount, you can be sure that you will able to sell (or buy) your entire holding for the desired price.
That advantage could turn into a deadly weapon in the hands of a rookie speculator, who uses leverage (margin trading) to increase his profits or losses with no “products” or other assets to cover, the sometimes large, fluctuations in the value of the hedging asset.
Hedging and Cryptocurrencies
When it comes to cryptocurrencies, leverage is only loosely connected to the concept of hedging, and a lot of traders and investors are playing the markets with way larger positions than their invested capital.
That said, leveraged hedging products are already available, and they offer one of the best ways to protect your profits without selling your precious coins, and even giving you the flexibility to take additional positions in other coins that you think have a better risk profile.
Basically, for a small fee, you can get rid of the risk of holding your coins (for a while) without actually losing them.
Of course, not everything is rosy, as if you have all your capital in coins, with no significant cash holdings for example, you might have a hard time managing your positions. I will look into those and other problems in the second part of the article.
Hedging Strategies and Hedging Assets
Some accomplished investors say that the only hedging you need is diversification, and spending on hedging assets is a waste of time. That might be true for a lot of value-focused conservative investors, others might find significant value in the different methods listed below (and detailed in my coming article).
Also, although leveraged trading can be very dangerous, some of the leveraged strategies and assets (options, pair trading) offer ways to limit risks and trade more consciously.
In a broad sense the hedging strategies that I will cover can mean:
- Holding a certain mix of coins, cash (fiat), and leveraged crypto positions
- Holding special (derivative) assets such as futures or options contracts
For starters, what this means, is that you might need more than one account to access the desired products, which is a clear disadvantage compared to a non-crypto portfolio, but at the end of the day, the benefits might be worth the efforts.
Looking ahead to the exact methods we will discuss the following:
- Derivatives: futures contracts, options contracts
- Correlation-based hedging: safe-haven pairs, “Pair” trade hedging
- Diversification
- Tether USD and fiat holdings
While some of those might sound complicated, we will provide a step-by-step guide to understand and use the strategies. Stay tuned.
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The fintech ecosystem in Singapore has grown significantly this year, with now more than 400 fintech ventures based in the city-state and over 30 fintech innovation labs or research centers set up by multinational corporations.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the nation’s central bank and financial regulator, has largely contributed to Singapore’s thriving fintech industry. In addition to collaborating closely with the private sector, the authority has initiated a number of projects of its own to be at the forefront of fintech and digital finance.
Year 2017 was all about fostering collaboration, building Singapore’s fintech talent pool, and attracting even more startups and financial institutions to test, develop and apply their new technology solutions locally.
Here are some of the key events that happened in Singapore’s fintech scene in 2017:
International collaborations
This year, MAS joined hands with several authorities from other jurisdictions to collaborate on the promotion of fintech and foster development. Bilateral agreements were signed with Israel, Denmark, the Philippines, Poland, Malaysia, Thailand, France, Hong Kong and Japan, among others.
The partnership with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) includes the creation of a distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform for trade finance. MAS and HKMA have committed to jointly develop the Global Trade Connectivity Network, a cross-border infrastructure linking the National Trade Platform in Singapore and the Hong Kong Trade Finance Platform, allowing for cross-border trade and financing to be cheaper, faster and more efficient.
MAS and ABS DLT inter-bank payments project
Another DLT project that MAS is working on is a blockchain-based inter-bank payments system. The platform is being built in collaboration with R3, the Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) and a consortium of financial institutions.
MAS and ABS released the report and source codes of the prototypes in November. The report describes the prototypes developed on three DLT platforms and shares the findings and observations from the project.
The project, called Project Ubin, aims to explore the use of blockchain for clearing and settlement of payments and securities.
25,000 participants for Fintech Festival 2017
This year saw the second annual Fintech Festival organized by MAS in partnership with ABS and in collaboration with SingEx.
The week-long event, which took place between November 13 and 17, 2017, drew more than 25,000 participants from across 100 countries, bringing together policy makers, top financial institutions and fintech entrepreneurs to discuss the state of the global fintech industry.
Blockchain technology, artificial intelligence, as well as cybersecurity were among the themes discussed. Participants also got to meet with the some of the world’s finance disrupters and brightest minds, as well as discover young, early stages startups during the Fintech Awards.
New 80RR fintech hub
A new fintech innovation hub was launched in the heart of the central business district in Singapore to spur more experimentation and collaboration in the local fintech scene. The hub, called 80RR, is a 100,000 sq ft space dedicated to housing fintech ventures.
MAS launches S$27 million grant for AI and data projects
MAS launched a S$27 million grant to promote the further use of artificial intelligence and data analytics in the financial services market. The scheme was officially presented at the Fintech Festival by MAS managing director Ravi Menon.
The Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics Grant is reserved for Singapore-based financial institutions and research firms. For banks it can provide up to 50% reimbursement on projects which “leverage artificial intelligence and data analytics techniques to generate insights, formulate strategy and assist in their decision making.”
Fostering fintech talent
The Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and MAS, together with SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG), six local universities, and five financial associations, launched the TechSkills Accelerator (TeSA) Fintech Collective to beef up Singapore’s infocomm and fintech talent pool.
The collective has committed to launch several initiatives including research collaborations in fintech with the universities, mentorships and hackathons with finance professionals to help students understand fintech trends.
Another partnership was formed between MAS and the MIT Media Lab this year that aims to help strengthen Singapore’s talent pool in the fintech industry. Singapore-based industry professionals and researchers have been provided with opportunities to work alongside MIT researchers, and financial institutions and fintech players can participate in pilots and experiments in a wide range of financial-services projects.
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Yes, I think that's a great opportunity for us |
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It is about time! Bitcoin is the future but we need it to be honest |
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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)’s investigation over shady behavior in the cryptocurrency market will only continue, said former chairman Harvey Pitt.
Tighter Regulation on the Horizon
SEC this Tuesday halted trading of The Crypto Co. over manipulation concerns after a massive stock leap. And the regulatory body’s cracking down on suspicious cryptocurrencies will only continue, according to former chairman Harvey Pitt who said Thursday on CNBC’s “Fast Money”:
“We’re in line for some serious regulatory responses to all of this and that will be forthcoming after the first of the year.”
Pitt disclosed that further regulation is on the way. “Everyone else is investing in it, and the price seems to be going up,” Pitt said. “That’s a real problem because there’s a lack of education and knowledge on the part of many of the people who are actually doing the investing.”
The SEC has been highly critical of tokens that operate like securities. Back in August, the regulator suspended trading in three stocks over concerns about the issuing companies’ ICOs.
Pitt identified many cryptocurrency offerings as “offerings of securities,” which therefore fit under the SEC’s legal authority. For him, that means insider trading is a very real possibility. He added:
“There absolutely can be insider trading. When people have advanced knowledge of the offerings of these interests and take advantage of the offering long before it occurs.”
Caution for Pump-and-Dump Schemes
Coupled with the SEC’s crackdown, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) this Thursday warned investors of bitcoin cold-calling scams as well.
“Beware of potential stock scams when considering the purchase of shares of companies that tout high returns associated with cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin,” FINRA wrote in the statement.
The most common scenario in which an investor can get duped is the “pump-and-dump” scheme, said Gerri Walsh, FINRA senior vice president for investor education. “Pump and dump” is a form of securities fraud common among penny stocks, in which shareholders attempt to artificially inflate the price of stock through misleading statements.
At a time when attaching “blockchain” to a company name is a surefire way to blow up stock values, there is plenty of incentive for these schemes.
FINRA issued a guideline to inform investors that investors could use FINRA BrokerCheck® to check the professional background of the individuals involved in selling the investment. The regulator warns investors to be wary of stocks with huge spikes in price, which could signal manipulation or fraud.
“We warn investors to look behind the name of the company, look behind the ticker of the stock. Take a look at a company’s filings,” Walsh said. She recommended investors look at the SEC’s list of trading suspensions to check whether the company has been deemed a threat to investors.
“There can be legitimate ways to get involved. Our concern with investors is they might field a call from a less legitimate actor,” she added.
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The value of Ripple surpassed a key milestone Thursday, solidifying an incredible year for the world’s fourth largest cryptocurrency. XRP/USD Price LevelsRipple’s XRP token rose above $1 on Thursday for the first time, adding more than 41% to $1.004. Short-term gains are still possible, based on the technical indicators, which show major targets at $1.10, $1.25 and $1.50. Trade volumes over the past 24 hours reached reached $3.9 billion, with South Korea’s Bithumb processing a quarter of all transactions. Bitfinex, another popular cryptocurrency exchange, processed 10.5% of total transactions on Thursday. Ripple peaked at $1.10 Thursday morning for a market cap of $42 billion, according to CoinMarketCap. The token has risen 160 times in value this year from an initial price point of less than 1 cent.  Coinbase RumorsThe latest rally is being fueled in part by rumors that Ripple may soon appear on Coinbase, where it would join the elite company of bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and, more recently, bitcoin cash. Coinbase, which has more than 13 million live accounts, is one of the world’s most popular crypto exchanges. Extending support to Ripple would likely generate greater buying interest in the token. Coinbase is reportedly considering adding several cryptocurrencies to its basket next year. If that’s the case, XRP is likely on the short-list, given the coin’s growing profile in corporate circles. The company recently announced a partnership with American Express to solve liquidity issues in remittances. Under this partnership, Ripple will help AMEX achieve instant blockchain-based payments. TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington is also launching the creation of a $100 million crypto ledger called Arrington XRP Capital. As the name implies, the hedge fund will use XRP to pay distributions, salaries and other fees. At the same time, financial institutions such as Standard Chartered are building a cross-border payment system on top of technology developed by Ripple. The platform will connect corporations across vast geographical distances. It’s not just positive news that’s driving Ripple’s price gains. As we showed earlier, South Korean trading desks are on fire for XRP. As Kenneth Rapoza of Forbes reports, Asian traders are “going mad” for Ripple. This euphoria extends far beyond traders to include financial institutions as well. Ripple recently reported that a coalition of 61 Japanese banks and two of South Korea’s largest banks will launch a new digital payment platform on its blockchain, thereby bringing more institutional players to the mix. “This initiative will be the first time money moves from Japan to Korea over RippleNet,” Team Ripple announced last week. |
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The price of bitcoin is down more than 25 percent from an all-time high of nearly $20,000 reached this past weekend, market data shows.
Prices fell to as low as $14,502 to start today's trading session, according to CoinDesk's Bitcoin Price Index (BPI), about 27 percent from the all-time high of $19,783 reported on Dec. 17.
Overall, bitcoin has seen several notable price drops following Sunday's gains, including a dip below $17,000 on Tuesday that accounted for a roughly $1,800 drop on the day. Indeed, analysts have suggested that the price could experience continued volatility as 2017 comes to a close and new money, brought in by bitcoin's meteoric gains, exits for fiat.
But, others may be testing the waters in alternative cryptocurrencies, as bitcoin is far from alone in having seen its price recently hit an all-time high.
According to data from OnChainFX, which charts price developments for cryptocurrencies, all of the top-20 coins by market capitalization have seen an all-time high within the past four days. Of those, cryptocurrencies like bitcoin cash, dash and litecoin have since posted declines in the last 24 hours.
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