The incredible amount of funds that have been gathered by projects doing Initial Coin Offerings has, in turn, attracted more developers and entrepreneurs, further increasing the number of ICO projects to a point where there is at least three new ICOs every week and it’s no wonder. ICOs allow project developers to gather funds without the need to resort to banks or VC firms which makes the whole process much simpler.

ICOs also provide additional advantages for those creating them like the chance to distribute their token on a global scale, increasing the value of their network in accordance to Metcalfe’s law, and the possibility of cultivating a vested community that can help market and develop the project globally.

Most recently, this new form of fundraising has been catching the eye of mainstream audiences and even celebrities with stars like Jayceon Taylor (The Game), Floyd Mayweather, and even Paris Hilton, all three of which have endorsed ICOs. Traditional investors have also become aware of ICOs and their potential as an investment vehicle with Goldman Sachs analyst Robert D. Boroujerdi and his team stating that “it’s getting harder for institutional investors to ignore cryptocurrencies.”

Positive news regarding the ICO scene have been abundant but not all is well. Several government institutions across the world have also taken notice of ICOs with many of them threatening to ban or regulate the fundraising mechanism. China has banned all ICOs and both the U.S.Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) have warned that ICO tokens may be considered securities.

Other places like Isle of Man, Switzerland, and Singapore have taken a more permissive stance and are becoming “hubs” for ICOs and blockchain projects. Although regulations, upcoming technology, and many other factors will play a big role in the future of ICOs, it’s clear that this alternative fundraising mechanism has opened new doors both for project creators and for investors alike.

Now, a new wave of ICOs is beginning to emerge from mainstream companies with considerable user/client bases. Although projects like Bancor, Filecoin, Tezos, and others have gathered an unprecedented amount of funds, reaching hundreds of millions of dollars, these projects are still unknown to most outside of the cryptocurrency sandbox.

So what happens when big companies like Aptoide or Kik join the ICO scene? Although many believe that there will be a blockchain “killer app” or a user interface moment that will take crypto to the mainstream stage, it may be the opposite. Mainstream companies may end up bringing ICOs to the spotlight, making cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology globally known.

A perfect example of a mainstream company entering the world of Initial Coin Offerings is Aptoide with the upcoming Appcoins ICO. Aptoide runs an Android app store that has over 200 million users, 800,000 unique apps, 12,000 publishers, and 70 different manufacturers and partners. In order to solve inherent problems found in the current App and Appstore ecosystem, Aptoide is launching the Appcoins protocol, allowing users to earn the APPC token by using the app and watching ads.

The system put forth by Appcoins will not only eliminate unneeded middlemen and associated fees, it will also introduce its millions of users to the concept of cryptocurrencies through an incentive-based model for developers and advertisers. The white paper reads:

"The AppCoins network is an open and distributed protocol built on the Ethereum blockchain. It aims to mitigate the current inherent deficiencies of app stores. By marrying blockchain technology with app store technology, app advertising, in-app billing and app-approval can be drastically improved and sped up through disintermediation and redistributing the unlocked value to end-users and developers."

The Kin ICO, another popular example, was created by Kik Messenger, an award-winning instant messaging app with over 300 million registered users (as of May 2016). The ICO funded the development of Kin, an ERC20 token that will be integrated within the Kik app, allowing for trustless payments and incentives within the app itself.

By exposing the Kin cryptocurrency to over 300 million users, Kik is sure to introduce a large percentage of its user base to the concept of blockchain and the endless advantages it brings about. According to Ted Livingston, CEO of Kik, the use of a cryptocurrency token will create an alternative monetization model that does not rely on advertising, introducing a new incentive-based approach for developers that build apps and services that can “get user attention and create value”.

Source: http://bitcoinist.com/can-icos-mainstream-companies-lead-cryptocurrency-mass-adoption/

That question becomes a lot harder to answer as we see more and more of these projects pop up in the cryptocurrency world. Many people assumed Bitcoin Cash was a joke at first as well until it recently surged to US$2,800 per BCH. Moreover, we have seen various new Bitcoin-themed currencies and digital tokens come to market recently, which is something that needs to be addressed sooner or later.

On CoinMarketCap.com alone, we see many different Bitcoin clones listed. BitcoinDark, Bitcoin Plus, BitcoinZ, Bitcoin Scrypt, Bitcoin Red, and BitcoinFast are just some of those names. There are also a few Bitcoin-themed ERC20 tokens in circulation, which only makes matters even more confusing right now. If they weren’t enough, we now also have Bitcoin Cash Plus, although it is doubtful this is a real project in its current form.

While it is true the Bitcoin Cash network received a hard fork upgrade not too long ago, this particular currency has nothing to do with it whatsoever. Bitcoin Cash Plus will be provided to Bitcoin holders through an airdrop, which is scheduled to take place once network block 501,407 is discovered on the network. No one really knows how this airdrop will occur, as it is not a direct hard fork of the existing code. It is likely the approach will be similar to that of Bitcoin Gold in this regard, even though a lot of details have yet to be worked out, by the look of things.

As one would expect, Bitcoin Cash Plus purports to introduce some new features. The developers claim there will be an even bigger focus on decentralization by using the Equihash mining algorithm. This is the same algorithm used by Bitcoin Gold, which draws some interesting parallels between both airdropped currencies. Additionally, there will be on-chain scaling with a block size of 8MB, which puts it on par with Bitcoin Cash itself. Those are interesting design choices, to say the very least. How all of this will play out remains to be determined, though.

Furthermore, Bitcoin Cash Plus claims to offer an emergency difficulty adjustment algorithm. Such an EDA was removed from Bitcoin Cash through its hard fork not too long ago. There is also a new SigHash providing replay protection, which we have seen in other Bitcoin clones as well. Someone is seemingly attempting to combine the best of both worlds with a brand-new currency. It’s an interesting approach, assuming this is even a real project to begin with. That remains highly questionable at this point in time.

Assuming this project is genuine, the question becomes who will support this new cryptocurrency. That is very difficult to answer right now, as we have seen both wallets and exchanges become less keen on supporting such airdropped currencies for the time being. Even the integration of Bitcoin Cash itself has taken most service providers several weeks, if not months, to complete. Bitcoin Cash Plus is worth keeping an eye on, mainly because it may result in more free coins for Bitcoin holders. This entire situation is getting out of hand, though; that much no one can deny.

Source: https://themerkle.com/what-is-bitcoin-cash-plus/

With the crypto craze seemingly only beginning, a few non-crypto companies have leveraged themselves to capitalize early. And it’s these companies’ stocks that are reaping the benefits of such first-mover status in the explosive crypto space.

Graphics Processing firms like AMD and NVIDIA have had strong performances in the stock market so far in 2017 courtesy of an explosion of user interest in mining cryptocurrencies in general, particularly the ASIC-resistance Ethereum blockchain.

And in 2018, the shares of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group (CME) look poised to enjoy the “crypto bump” – a potential forthcoming investment boon on the heels of the CME’s fresh announcement that they’ll be listing Bitcoin futures in Q4 2017.

Indeed, the three aforementioned firms are among the first in the world whose shares are being increasingly tethered to, and boosted by, the performance of the ever-wild cryptocurrency space.

For CME’s part, they’re among the largest futures and options exchanges in the world, meaning they’ll be well positioned to take advantage of the increasingly rocketing interest in cryptos in mainstream and institutional circles.

And for GPU manufacturers like AMD and NVIDIA, 2017 has already been a fruitful year – mainly thanks to the unprecedented interest in GPU mining that’s materialized over the past 11 or so months.

This booming interest is exemplified perfectly by the performance of NVIDIA’s shares, rising more than 50% between January and August alone. The crypto-boost was a sight for sore eyes for the firm, as their bread-and-butter gaming sales were down more than expected in Q1 and Q2.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang told Marketwatch in August that cryptocurrencies’ effects on the stock market aren’t going anywhere anytime soon:

"Crypto is here to stay, and the market will grow to be quite large. It’s not likely to go away anytime soon. There will be more currencies to come – they will come from different nations. We stay very close to the market, and understand the dynamics very well."

Perhaps the interesting aspect of investing in shares like NVIDIA’s or CME’s, then, is that doing so allows investors to capitalize from the periphery of the crypto community without actually having to get down into the nitty-gritty of cryptocurrencies – especially at a time when the space is still premature and volatile in “the trenches,” as it were.

Traditional, more risk-averse traders might find these crypto-related, but not crypto-based, stocks attractive alternatives to investing in cryptocurrencies themselves in 2018 and beyond.

With a recent report out of the ever-reputable Wall Street Journal claiming powerhouse trading firm Goldman Sachs is looking to start their own Bitcoin trading operation, there could be a flight of speculative investors to Goldman’s shares in the weeks ahead.

Nothing is official yet, of course, but Goldman Sachs’ CEO Lloyd Blankfein hasn’t exactly been mum on the topic of cryptocurrencies as of late.

In a recent interview with CNBC, Blankfein explained that “I wouldn’t preclude” setting up a Bitcoin trading desk at Goldman Sachs.

And that would be a titanic legitimizing move for the entire crypto space if it really were to materialize. All eyes are on Blankfein and Goldman Sachs for now.

Source: http://bitcoinist.com/traditional-stocks-capitalize-bitcoin-boom/

Mark Karpeles, the former head of what was for a time the world’s largest Bitcoin exchange, could wind up profiting handsomely from the portal’s ignominious 2014 collapse. Those who had owned Bitcoin on the site, on the other hand, stand to lose hundreds of millions of dollars generated by the cryptocurrency’s rising value.

Mt. Gox was one of the first convenient platforms for buying and selling Bitcoin online. Much like a bank, it retained direct control of the Bitcoin that belonged to many of its users. But it shut down in early 2014, claiming that hackers had stolen hundreds of thousands of its customers’ Bitcoins. Karpeles, in addition to being publicly condemned for mismanagement, faces criminal charges of embezzlement in the case.

Nonetheless, according to the Wall Street Journal, Karpeles could make in the neighborhood of $1 billion from the bankruptcy, thanks to Japanese law’s treatment of the Gox Bitcoins.

Article 124 of Japan’s bankruptcy codes required that liabilities be registered at market values when proceedings were opened in April of 2014. At that point, one Bitcoin was worth roughly $500, but the price has since risen to more than $6,300. Mt. Gox later recovered some of the allegedly hacked cryptocurrency, and still holds 202,195 Bitcoins, now worth around $1.5 billion.

But at a Sept. 27 hearing, Karpeles’ lawyer argued that those market gains belonged primarily to the collapsed Bitcoin exchange, not to the users who lost them years ago. According to the Journal’s calculations, based on a higher Bitcoin price earlier this week, selling off Mt. Gox’s remaining Bitcoin holdings at today’s prices while paying back creditors at April 2014 prices could leave a $977 million surplus. According to the Journal, Karpeles’ holding company, Tibanne, owns about 88% of Mt. Gox, meaning he could pocket a large portion of those gains.

According to Fortune’s prior reporting, Japan’s bankruptcy code does allow for liabilities in a bankruptcy to be marked to market values, but the Journal reports that the period for creditors to dispute such decisions has ended.

Source: http://fortune.com/2017/11/11/karpeles-mt-gox-profitable-bankruptcy/

News of over $300 million in ETH going frozen thanks to a flaw took the industry by a storm earlier this week. A user named Devops199 had claimed responsibility for triggering a critical security vulnerability in a Parity multi-sig wallet paralyzing all wallets that were created after July 20th. While Devops199 had said that they had triggered this bug accidentally, at least one company has suggested that it was no accident.

The problem stems from another bug that was discovered in July and during its fix a new flaw was left in the code. “Following the fix for the original multi-sig issue that had been exploited on 19th of July (function visibility), a new version of the Parity Wallet library contract was deployed on 20th of July,” Parity wrote in its advisory. “However that code still contained another issue – it was possible to turn the Parity Wallet library contract into a regular multi-sig wallet and become an owner of it by calling the initWallet function.”

Around 584 wallets have been affected, however, their total amount is unknown. Private researchers have put the affected amount in ETH anywhere from $150 million to over $300 million, but Parity has called this figure speculative. It is expected that most of the affected wallets belong to companies as multi signature wallets are predominantly used in the corporate world as they add extra security of only confirming transactions after multiple verifications.

After the news broke, Devops199 came forward suggesting that they accidentally triggered the bug. Following the reports, the user was even worried on GitHub if there would be any involvement of law enforcement.



In an email to Wccftech, Cappasity – a platform for 3D/AR/VR content production and exchange – says that Devops199’s actions may not be accidental. The company’s wallet was one of the affected as it was frozen due to the multi-sig vulnerability. “Our internal investigation has demonstrated that the actions on the part of devops199 were deliberate,” the company writes, mentioning the number of calls executed by the user.

“When you are tracking all their transactions, you realize that they were deliberate,” the statement says. “Therefore, we tend to think that it was not an accident.”

It is too early to suggest if these actions were indeed deliberate since Parity is yet to comment on this development. However, Cappasity added that contacting law enforcement agencies will be the right next step “if the situation is not successfully resolved in the nearest future”. Devops199’s account has since been deleted.

Source: https://wccftech.com/frozen-300-million-eth-was-no-accident/

What do you think about this? Is there something fishy about the frozen $300 Million ETH?

The popular digital currency, bitcoin, came close to the $8,000 level on Wednesday, as markets reacted to the news that another cryptocurrency split might not happen after all.

The bitcoin split was scheduled to take place in mid-November, with developers planning to introduce an upgrade called SegWit2x. But, the idea was temporarily suspended after major developers reversed their support.

In response, bitcoin surged to $7,899.90, reaching a new all-time high during the day. The cryptocurrency later retreated and was last seen trading at $7,387.30.

The main reason for scrapping the update was that it could “divide the community.”

“Our goal has always been a smooth upgrade for Bitcoin,” wrote Belshe. “Unfortunately, it is clear that we have not built sufficient consensus for a clean blocksize upgrade at this time. Continuing on the current path could divide the community and be a setback to Bitcoin's growth. This was never the goal of SegWit2x.”

The email was also signed by some major developers in the bitcoin community, including Xapo CEO Wences Casares, Bitmain co-founder Jihan Wu, BloqInc co-founder Jeff Garzik, Blockchain CEO and co-founder Peter Smith and ShapeShift CEO Erik Voorhees.

SegWit2x was meant to upgrade bitcoin network’s capacity by improving the speed with which it processes millions of daily transactions. But, the change would have impacted bitcoin’s rules and led to a so-called split in the currency.

This would have been bitcoin’s third split, following one in August, which created bitcoin cash and one in October, which created bitcoin gold.

The update received a lot of support when it was first proposed in May. And the plans to proceed could resurface if there is an increase of support in the online community.

When bitcoin splits the owners of the original currency receive the same amount of the offshoot as well.

Analysts commented that the cancellation of the update was a positive move for the digital currency.

“Indefinitely postponing the fork is a healthy move for crypto assets,” Guy Zyskind, CEO and co-founder of Enigma, a crypto-investment platform, told Reuters. “The ability of the bitcoin community to self-correct and avoid a contentious fork inspires confidence and shows how the ecosystem is entering a more mature phase.”

Source: http://www.kitco.com/news/2017-11-08/Bitcoin-Nearly-Hits-8-000-As-Developers-Back-Out-Of-Another-Split.html

This week two well-known bitcoin hardware wallet manufacturers, Satoshi Labs (Trezor) and Ledger Wallet, revealed their contingency plans for the pending Segwit2x fork that may take place in nine days. Both companies explain they will support both chains and tethered tokens if there is a split and provide a tool for the splitting process.

The hard fork announcements keep piling up as block 494784 approaches with many cryptocurrency based businesses revealing their plans. On November 6 the two hardware wallet companies Satoshi Labs and Ledger explained how the firms would handle the upcoming fork. Satoshi Labs explains Segwit2x is a proposal to fork the network by increasing the block size to 2 MB. The company says the fork “is a contentious hard fork” that will likely result in a split. However Satoshi Labs explains Trezor wallets will support both chains calling the Segwit2x token “B2X,” and wallet owners will receive a 1:1 distribution if a split occurs.

“If you have held BTC on your Trezor before the fork, you will own the same amount of BTC and B2X after the fork — With Trezor, you own your private keys (in the form of the seed), therefore you have control over all of your coins, including forked coins,” explains Satoshi Labs.

The Prague-based firm explains their users need to be careful sending transactions during the fork due to Segwit2x’s lack of replay protection. Additionally, Satoshi Labs will provide a splitting guide and tool for users looking to obtain B2X within the platform’s beta version.  

“B2X will use the same address format as Bitcoin,” Satoshi Labs notes. “However, Trezor will generate B2X addresses with a different derivation path.”

Ledger Wallet Will Also Support Both Chains
The France-based Ledger Wallet also says it will support both chains and the associated tokens if a split happens. Ledger explains users should be precautious about sending transactions during the fork and says users should “wait until the dust settles.”

“As for the previous bitcoin cash fork, we’ll let our users trade on both chains and split coins easily, even if the ride might be slightly more bumpy due to the fact that Segwit2x was not initially designed to cause a split,” details Ledger’s fork announcement.

For the sake of clarity and as different actors might name a different chain “Bitcoin” during the fork and some time after, we’ll call in this article the current Bitcoin chain Bitcoin-1x and the potential Segwit2x chain Bitcoin-2x.
Ledger also details the company’s wallet platform will display a warning if a user’s transaction is vulnerable to replay attacks. At that point, the platform will ask the user if they want to split the coins or they can choose to bypass the warning as well. Additionally Ledger will offer both a non-custodian and “half custodian” process to split tokens after block 494784.

“The non-custodian process will rely on the software created by the chainspl.it initiative and offer a command line or web interface to use it with Ledger Nano, Nano S or Blue — It’ll be non automated and recommended for advanced users only,” Ledger’s plan details. “The “half custodian” process will involve a new Ledger application created for the Nano S and Blue (it will not be available on Ledger Nano) and will be fully automated.”

We’ll make available tainted inputs to our users with a contract enforced by the new application that sends back those tainted inputs to us — this is possible because our secure applications distribution architecture allows to securely share a set of keys with our users without revealing it. In other words, our splitting app will take care of everything automatically and with the highest levels of security.

Read more here: https://news.bitcoin.com/two-popular-hardware-wallet-firms-reveal-segwit2x-fork-plans/

Huobi Bitcoin exchange will begin offering over-the-counter (OTC) services for Chinese traders soon, as announced by CEO Lin Li. This news came as traditional Chinese crypto-to-crypto exchanges breathed their last breath.

Heavy regulation has forced Chinese exchanges to rethink their business models. As of 1 November, trading cryptocurrencies on open Chinese exchanges is henceforth prohibited, and in response, they are considering over-the-counter transactions. This would enable traders to purchase digital currency (i.e.Bitcoin) using fiat currency such as the Chinese yuan. Timeline for introducing this feature is yet unannounced. More here: https://cryptoanswers.net/china-bitcoin-exchanges-trade-over-the-counter/

While bitcoin world is moving on without them, apparently they will be back sooner. China would not want to lose the opportunity to have some share of the crypto market so they will be back. What do you think will be the effect of it in the price of bitcoin and other crypto when they come back?

While Bitcoin bulls will probably never have it so good as they have in 2017, we wonder whether many of them have stopped to think about the environmental downside of this roaring bull market. After all, back in the dot.com boom, people had ideas about potential internet businesses, issued pieces of paper representing ownership and watched their prices go parabolic parabolic. All it took was a Powerpoint presentation, some computer programming expertise and a “research” report, courtesy of Mary Meeker, Henry Blodgett et al.

The environmental downside we’re referring to in Bitcoin is, of course, is energy.

We alluded to this in a constructive way here when we noted that a new Bitcoin mining hub is developing in Iceland, where the natural temperature dramatically reduces the cost of cooling computing hardware.

The primary energy requirement, however, goes into the computing power to “mine” the Bitcoins. The Bitcoin mining industry can consume 24 terawatt hours of electricity and still be profitable – the Motherboard website provides some context...  

Bitcoin's incredible price run to break over $7,000 this year has sent its overall electricity consumption soaring, as people worldwide bring more energy-hungry computers online to mine the digital currency. An index from cryptocurrency analyst Alex de Vries, aka Digiconomist, estimates that with prices the way they are now, it would be profitable for Bitcoin miners to burn through over 24 terawatt-hours of electricity annually as they compete to solve increasingly difficult cryptographic puzzles to "mine" more Bitcoins. That's about as much as Nigeria, a country of 186 million people, uses in a year… De Vries also estimates that the worldwide Bitcoin mining industry is now using enough electricity to power 2.26 million American homes.

A rapid “Google” later and we discovered that there are 125.8 million American households, so almost 2%.

Another way of looking at Bitcoin’s energy consumption is divide the electricity use in Bitcoin mining each day by the number of daily Bitcoin transactions. As the Motherboard notes, each Bitcoin transaction now requires the same amount of electricity needed to power the average American household for one week.

Expressing Bitcoin's energy use on a per-transaction basis is a useful abstraction. Bitcoin uses x energy in total, and this energy verifies/secures roughly 300k transactions per day. So this measure shows the value we get for all that electricity, since the verified transaction (and our confidence in it) is ultimately the end product…This averages out to a shocking 215 kilowatt-hours (KWh) of juice used by miners for each Bitcoin transaction (there are currently about 300,000 transactions per day). Since the average American household consumes 901 KWh per month, each Bitcoin transfer represents enough energy to run a comfortable house, and everything in it, for nearly a week. Since 2015, Bitcoin's electricity consumption has been very high compared to conventional digital payment methods. This is because the dollar price of Bitcoin is directly proportional to the amount of electricity that can profitably be used to mine it.

Unfortunately for the environmentalists, the Bitcoin price – as every bull knows – entered the parabolic phase in 2017. This Bloomberg chart calculates the number of days for each $1,000 rise in price.

Read more here: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-11-04/each-bitcoin-transaction-uses-much-energy-your-house-week

US business schools are beefing up training in the software that underlies digital currency bitcoin, a technology expected to be a game changer in many industries.

The move makes sense as more students seek careers in financial technology, or "fintech," which has captivated leading Wall Street banks and been called "the most important technology since the internet."

In January, the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley will offer its first ever course in blockchain software.

The Haas school, which is near San Francisco and Silicon Valley, will handpick 60 students from the departments of business, engineering and law and split them into groups of six to explore possible applications of the technology.

"When people think about blockchain they think about cryptocurrencies," said Haas school lecturer Greg LaBlanc, who sees the technology as potentially disrupting many sectors.

"We believe it will have the biggest impact on contracting, logistics and supply chains, healthcare, public administration, assets clearing, property, transactions," he said.

"Pretty much every function of businesses are going to be affected by this."

- 'Very transformational' -

Blockchain runs by recording transactions as "blocks" that are updated in real time on a digitized ledger that can be read from anywhere and does not have a central recordkeeper.

It was originally developed as the accounting method for bitcoin. But while that cryptocurrency remains controversial with some players in finance, bankers increasingly see exposure blockchain as a must.

Blockchain is "something we are very optimistic about," JPMorgan Chase chief financial officer Marianne Lake said on a conference call last month.

Newer technologies could be "very transformational for the financial services industry and we are forward-leaning and optimistic about that," Lake added.

The technology, which lets users trace items back through their supply chains, also could offer a means to limit tainted food problems, or to guard against "blood diamonds" that come from a war-ravaged area.

In finance, blockchain could be used to permit parties to check the solvency of counterparties, significantly reducing costs.

Training students for that function and other evolving roles in finance is altering curricula at universities and shifting how students structure their programs.

Students who wish to work in trading must learn how to code, while bankers need to understand algorithms and big data to be able to attract new clients and devise strategies for fast-changing markets.

Read more here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-5050905/Blockchain-rage-US-business-schools.html