Blockchain in Logistics Industry Will Improve Transparency, Enhance Process Accountability



Communication flow and logistics is an essential aspect of human existence which forms the backbone of the transfer of goods, services and value.

As international trade and logistics continues to expand, more efficient methods are being developed to enable effective service delivery and value transfer. However, Blockchain technology is bringing another dimension to disrupt the logistics industry in areas such as transparency and efficient tracking.


A globally significant industry

John Monarch, CEO at Shipchain, notes that the logistics sector employs the most people in the world. He explains that as this sector expanded over millennia, it has required innovation to scale and sustain practicality for the growing human population. This is happening again at the time of writing, with the fourth industrial revolution.

Monarch tells Cointelegraph:

    “Connected devices revolving around the Internet of Everything (IoE) need a higher level of security. Blockchain technology is a matchless solution in this regard because it provides the best protection through distributed ledgers, advanced encryption, smart-contracts and reduced intermediaries. As a result, this will tackle corruption, ransomware, theft, premium-fees and tracking issues.”

He concludes that once Blockchain networks begin taking their first steps on a mass-market level, they will save the international trade industry at least $50 billion per year. And upon maturity, Blockchain technology could save the logistics industry a whopping $500 billion annually.


The actual role of Blockchain

Blockchain professional Aleksandar Matanovic tells Cointelegraph that Blockchain technology will indeed work as a tool to improve processes by bringing inherent properties into the industry.

Matanovic says:

    “As in many other industries, I don't see Blockchain as a tool to increase efficiency, there are much more efficient systems than Blockchain-based ones. I see it as a way to make systems more transparent, more robust and less dependent on intermediaries.”


The importance of effective tracking

The COO of BitLand, Christopher Bates, explains that one of the main issues with chain of custody is knowing when property changes ownership or custodianship. Bates uses a car’s history as an example: 

    “It is pretty important to know if a car has been in a major accident and has frame/structural damage, he says. “If there was an immutable accessible record that kept track of the car history, there would be no way a car salesman could sell a car that had been extremely damaged.”

Bates also explains that ownership of land has many problems affecting it around the world.  One of the most consistent problems is when a parcel of land is double or triple sold, meaning a person will sell land to multiple people with only one of the sales (if any) actually being legitimate.  In some places, land titles are kept on paper or are tracked by only a single individual.  In these cases, it’s often impossible to truly know the proper chain of custody, and individuals manipulate ownership records for personal gain. 


Blockchain will enable accountability

Given that shipping anything is a sequence of custody handovers, having an immutable record of chain of custody transaction makes it impossible to lose track of who is responsible for a piece of property during each handover.  Existing courier services often track packages along their route, but such methods are imperfect. Bates says:

    “The issue therein is that since they are mutable, shipment records can be hidden or erased completely to the detriment of the people at large. Governments are able to hide their black budget spending by erasing shipping records or preventing records from being issued at all. On the one hand, governments will argue this is for national security, but on the other hand, the taxpayers that are sponsoring these budgets deserve transparency in spending.” 

Blockchain technology combines chain of custody control with the transparency of immutable record-keeping.  This creates an ecosystem that deters malicious actors, as they will eventually become known due to system transparency. 

Bates concludes by noting that anyone who claims to be in the decentralization movement should be extremely happy any time a government decides to implement Blockchain tech of any sort.  It means that government is moving towards transparency whether they know it or not.


Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/blockchain-in-logistics-industry-will-improve-transparency-enhance-process-accountability

Pax Crypto: Russia Proposes First Multinational Cryptocurrency, Expert Blog



At the end of the 12th century, unexpectedly, Genghis Khan created the world’s largest empire, gaining control over the trade route “the Silk Road” which stretched across China to Eastern Europe. Secured under Mongolian leadership, during the Pax Mongolica period, the Silk Road was particularly safe from raiders as well as taxes, which stimulated free trade between China and the Mediterranean countries enabling political, economic stability to follow.


Pax Crypto

Recently the Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed a cyber-initiative grander in scale than Pax Mongolica after consulting with Ethereum co-founder Blockchain expert Vitalik Buterin and experts from fifteen other countries- including the US, India, Israel, Armenia and Turkey- about their Blockchain and cryptocurrency initiatives. Putin’s first of it’s kind cyber-initiative will connect some of the most promising emerging market economies stretching across Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa and South America, via Blockchain and smart contract technology by using a new multinational cryptocurrency to be collectively adopted by the BRICS and the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) countries (Member States).

Member States, known for their tremendous economic growth potential, could hail this first of its kind cyber-initiative. As they have been reeling from the global credit crisis of 2007/2008, which hindered their economies. Federal rate increases augmented their mounting debt burdens and falling global commodity prices stymied their export led growth. The cyber-initiative could reshape Member State economies, by spurring technological innovation for income growth and economic prosperity.


Russia’s proposal- first multinational cryptocurrency for BRICS and EEU

As reported by Russian media source RT, days before the end of 2017, the Central Bank of Russia, proposed to create the first joint multinational cryptocurrency for BRICS and EEU countries. By jointly adopting a new cryptocurrency, the Member States could increase their investments in Blockchain, smart contract technology pushing towards creating cashless societies and improve managing their liquidities with substantial support from the New Development Bank.

Many economists, veteran bankers and traditional financial institutions have sought to downplay the influence of cryptocurrencies in the overall world economy, such as the German insurance giant Allianz Chief Economic Advisor Mohamed El-Erian who said: ‘‘Bitcoin’s price will explode, but mass adoption is not going to happen.”

But if adopted and implemented, the first multinational cryptocurrency could be used by more than 41 percent of the world’s population. It could potentially improve trade efficiency among the Member States by replacing other fiat currencies used in trade settlements. And it could create a technologically resourceful trade block that could reshape global trade via Blockchain and smart contract technology.

However, for this initiative to succeed, among other things, Member State transnational legislation concerning cryptocurrencies would need to be updated in a synchronized fashion. As currently there are substantial differences between Member State legislation concerning cryptocurrencies as summarized in the table below.
 





 
Russia’s new cryptocurrency bill

Based on instructions from President Vladimir Putin, Russia’s central bank and finance ministry jointly prepared a bill for the regulation of сryptocurrencies and ICOs which was submitted to the Duma for approval on Dec. 28, 2017. The bill is expected to be adopted in March and finalized by July 1, 2018.


Characterization of cryptocurrencies

The bill characterizes cryptocurrency, including ICO tokens not as legal tender but as “other property.”


ICO Regulation

The bill allows for ICOs but establishes restrictions on them. Those who are not qualified investors will be able to purchase tokens of a certain type for an amount not exceeding 50 thousand Rubles ($869). The ministry also suggests limiting the maximum amount of funds raised by an ICO to one bln Rubles ($17.4 mln). Although the President of the Russian Association of cryptocurrency and Blockchain (RABIC), Yuri Pripachkin, argued: “ICO fundraising should not be limited as they can attract an unlimited amount of foreign investments to Russian projects.”


Taxation of cryptocurrency mining and trading

Presently mining and trading of cryptocurrencies is not regulated under Russian laws. The bill defines cryptocurrency mining and trading as a taxable activity. Individual entrepreneurs and legal entities could engage in cryptocurrency mining and trading activities, subject to tax by analogy with the taxation of business activities.

Cryptocurrency trading would not be subject to a value-added tax (VAT).


Cross-border tax policy of Member States concerning the new Multinational cryptocurrency

The bill does not address cross-border tax rules that could apply to transnational cryptocurrency transactions among Member States in the event the new multinational cryptocurrency is adopted.

Member States, with the exception of Armenia, Belarus, Iran and Kyrgyzstan adhere to OECD BEPS action plan. It is not clear whether Member States will follow an approach similar to the EU in formulating an appropriate transnational tax policy for their new multinational сryptocurrency transactions.


Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/pax-crypto-russia-proposes-first-multinational-cryptocurrency-expert-blog

Kraken Exchange Is Back Online After Troublesome System Upgrade



Kraken, the fifth-largest cryptocurrency exchange, has resumed service after scheduled maintenance that was supposed to take two hours but instead took two days.

The unexpectedly long downtime agitated many users, since not only trading but also withdrawals were unavailable for the period, during which coin prices gyrated on bearish news coming out of South Korea.

As a penance of sorts, the exchange, based in San Francisco, is waiving trading fees for all its clients through the end of the month, it said in a blog post published Saturday. However, the waiver does not apply to non-margin trades.

In the blog post, the company reassured clients that their funds were kept safe during the incident and expressed contrition, saying:

    "We apologize for the uncertainty our downtime has caused. The scheduled downtime was to replace our old trading engine with a brand new trading engine – an improvement that customers have long asked for and that we have long been working hard on."


'Possibly longer'

It all started when Kraken gave customers a heads up on Wednesday that the next day it would be offline for a systems upgrade. The company estimated then that this upgrade would take "about 2 hours ... possibly longer."

As scheduled, the downtime began Thursday at 05:00 UTC, according to a status page on Kraken's website. But the rest did not go according to plan.

"We got a late start and the upgrade is moving slower than anticipated," Kraken said on the page at 07:34 UTC, about a half hour after the the work was initially expected to be done.

A few more hours went by, with a couple updates from Kraken. Then, at 15:27 UTC, it looked like there was a light at the end of tunnel, with Kraken telling users:

    "We are in the final stage of installing the upgrade now. We are getting close but hard to give an exact ETA since it depends on how the final testing goes."

No such luck. Three and a half hours later, Kraken said it now had to "resolve a number of issues that came up during final testing" and that it could not give a hard estimate for when that would be done.

The pattern of periodic updates, but no resumption of service, continued. "Yes, this is our new record for downtime since we launched in 2013," one update confessed. "No, we're not proud of it."

All the while, users were unable to access their funds. Understandably, many of them took to social media to voice their complaints.

    #kraken #krakendown longest silence between update messages. Last one was 6h ago. Anybody still in there??

    — Jakub Karczynski (@KubaKarczynski) January 12, 2018


'Elusive bug'

At 20:15 UTC Friday, Kraken said that "an elusive bug" was still holding up the relaunch of the site. In its next message, Saturday morning at 09:32, it said service would resume "shortly" but all orders had been canceled.

Finally, at 11:30 Saturday, Kraken's systems were back online, and by 15:47 trading had resumed.

In its subsequent mea culpa blog post, Kraken gave a general explanation for the delays:

   "Our system is replicated in development, where all tests passed. However when the new engine was moved to the production environment, regression tests picked up a condition that proved quite difficult to track down."

A more detailed breakdown of what happened, and how Kraken intends to prevent such snafus from reoccurring, will come in the next few days, the company said.

In the meantime, it said it would be monitoring the performance of the new trading engine and cautioned that "the site will come down if needed, which may occur with little to no notice."


Source: https://www.coindesk.com/kraken-exchange-is-back-online-after-troublesome-system-upgrade/

Trading Wallet: I will sell my bitcoins in the anytime when the price grow with 25%
Hodling Wallet: No date, perhaps when the bitcoin price reach a million dollar benchmark.

Good advice, there are many new sites claiming to be cryptocurrency exchanges on the internet these days. You guys should be very careful with the new popping exchanges or something else would happen you someday. I always prefer using the popular exchanges such as HitBTC, and BitFinex.

Well, that is a big bet! The bitcoin still have the potential and the momentum of reaching $50,000 and beyond. But we need to tell ourselves the truth  which is the bitcoin transaction problem. For the bitcoin price to thrive, to really thrive of reaching up to $50,000 benchmark the bitcoin transaction issues must be fixed.

Bloomberg got it wrong - Binance claims only 250,000 new users in 24 hours not one hours, followed by Coinbase that claims 100,000 new user a day. And then Kraken that claims 50,000 new users a day.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/binance-bitfinex-bittrex-temporarily-say-no-to-new-users

Yeah, I learned to control my emotions very well because I don't deviate from what I originally planned for. Before I buy new coins from the market, it may take couple of days before I made my final decision. And once I made it there is no turning back from it. At first, study the coin very well and then invent into it and don't let any other coin distract you if that coin is not falling.  

The best way to improve your trading skills is by learning from experts.
I saw there are many good trading videos by experts on YouTube you should be learning from them to improve your trading skills.

Well, there are many ways of making money in cryptocurrency space such as working on a campaign, bitcoin mining, trading bitcoin and altcoins, or lending your bitcoin or altcoins for interest. The list goes on because there are many other ways also such as gambling, betting, and so on. But the best place for beginners to start is working on a campaign.

For me, the worst trading the decision I made was in late November where I sold my STOX tokens for $0.566 each because their value in not growing to the level I want and yesterday I saw STOX was selling at about $1.5 each. I said to myself - shoot! is that STOX am I seeing or another coins with the same name.

The best way to start trading is by learning about it and the good place to start learning about the bitcoin and altcoins trading is YouTube. There are so many good video tutorials about bitcoin and altcoins trading on YouTube. When I was starting out with trading I learned a lot from videos on YouTube and I'll suggest anyone how is new to trading to do the same. 

You guys should be careful with the new popping cryptocurrency exchanges - there are many SCAM sites claiming to be crypto exchanges. Put your coins on your own risk because anything can happen. I prefer using the most prominent exchanges all the time for me and my coins safety.  

I think anyone can predict the coin price by studying the coin charts, stats, and recent growth history. The one thing about prediction is you can't just go ahead and make one up head without doing the proper market research. You have to study every move made by the coin in the past carefully and then make your prediction with facts.

I made my own predictions by looking deep and studying the market charts. When I want to buy new coins I normally go to sites like CoinCap.io and CoinMarketCap.com to look for the fast rising coins and study their price charts and recent growth to see whether is it organic or a pump by the whales.  

What the Data Tells Us About Bitcoin in 2017



- By Jameson Lopp is an engineer at BitGo and the creator of Statoshi.info.

I’ve always been fascinated with the raw numbers relating to the operational status and growth of bitcoin, especially as we ride the rollercoaster of the adoption life cycle.

That's why I created Statoshi.info in 2014 to track bitcoin metrics from the perspective of a full node.

To that same end, I've compiled statistical measurements of bitcoin's growth in 2017 from a variety of sources.

A couple things are clear: bitcoin is at the forefront of an increasingly complex ecosystem that continues to grow in a variety of ways. And for the ninth straight year, it stubbornly refused to die.

    Bitcoin obituaries proclaimed per year:
    2010: 1
    2011: 6
    2012: 1
    2013: 15
    2014: 29
    2015: 39
    2016: 28
    2017: 93

    https://t.co/ERqWe9S6Vi

    — Jameson Lopp (@lopp) December 19, 2017

While 2017 is well known as the year that institutional investors started showing interest in bitcoin, it was also picking up steam in smaller countries.

   Countries with the most relative interest in searching for Bitcoin in 2017. https://t.co/Wgrqev6fP7 pic.twitter.com/YXZpK6Oqu2

    — Jameson Lopp (@lopp) December 31, 2017

Academic interest continued to increase, which is great for the long-term prospects of this industry as we continue to gain a greater understanding of what we're building.

    Google Scholar articles published mentioning Bitcoin:
    2009: 83
    2010: 136
    2011: 427
    2012: 737
    2013: 1,570
    2014: 3,790
    2015: 4.380
    2016: 5,470
    2017: 5,840 (will continue to rise due to listing lag)

    — Jameson Lopp (@lopp) December 19, 2017


Funding and forking

Venture capital funding continued to flow it in at pretty healthy levels, though there's more to this story.

    Blockchain industry venture capital funding:
    2012: $2.13M
    2013: $95.05M
    2014: $361.53M
    2015: $490.48M
    2016: $601.15M
    2017: $554.45M

    — Jameson Lopp (@lopp) December 19, 2017

It may be that VC funding did not accelerate because new funding avenues have opened up for entrepreneurs in this space. The initial coin offering (ICO) boom of 2017 saw unprecedented levels of funds raised in a non-traditional form. CoinDesk's ICO tracker logged over $3.5 billion in funds raised via ICOs!





On top of the ICO explosion we also saw another type of boom: in a new type of bitcoin fork that has come to be known as an "altcoin airdrop."

While most of the crypto assets in existence have been created via software forks of Bitcoin Core, they have historically started with a new genesis block and thus a new distribution scheme for the tokens themselves.

You can see a fairly complete list of the airdrops at btcdiv.com, but many of them don't even show up on market cap lists because they have little value.

From looking at the top few forks you could claim that about $50 billion in value was created/raised via bitcoin forks in 2017.


Continue Reading: https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-2017-stats/

Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Ripple, IOTA, Litecoin, NEM, Cardano: Price Analysis, Jan. 12



The South Korean government has confirmed that it has no plans to ban cryptocurrency trading in the short-term. This is a major relief to the markets, which were reeling under selling pressure.

Warren Buffet’s warning that the cryptocurrencies will have a “bad ending” also did not have any noticeable effect on the prices.

During the recent decline, instead of being perturbed, many traders saw this as a buying opportunity and rushed to open new accounts. The cryptocurrency exchange Binance saw a whopping addition of 240,000 users in just an hour on Jan. 10.

However, unlike the previous occasions, the pullback from the lows has been muted. Is this a sign of waning momentum? Let’s find out.


BTC/USD

Bitcoin broke below the 50-day SMA on Jan. 11 and since then, it has been struggling to climb above it. It has managed to hold on to the critical support level between the trendline of the symmetrical triangle and the neckline of the head and shoulders pattern.



If Bitcoin fails to rally within the next two days, chances are that it will turn down and break below $12,500, sinking it to $8,000 levels.

On the other hand, if the cryptocurrency clings on to the support and moves above the 20-day EMA, it will indicate a short-term bottom.

Very aggressive traders can buy on a breakout above $14,500 and keep a stop loss of $12,500. The target objective of this trade is $16,500. This is a very risky trade, hence, should be attempted with only 25 percent of the usual position size.

Risk-averse traders should wait for a reliable setup to form as there is no clear trend on the BTC/USD pair as long as it trades inside the triangle. It’s better to wait for a breakout or breakdown from the triangle before initiating any positions.


ETH/USD

Ethereum has been comparatively strong during the South Korean ban episode. This shows that its owners are not in a hurry to sell their holdings.   



The buyers jumped in at the 38.2 percent Fibonacci retracement levels of the latest rally from $640.43 to $1,382. The uptrend remains intact and the bulls are likely to make another attempt to break out of the recent highs at $1,382.

If the price breaks out of the overhead resistance zone of $1,382 to $1,434, it will signal the start of the next leg of the up move, which can carry the ETH/USD pair towards its target objective of $1,814.67.

On the downside, support exists at the 20-day EMA and at $965.18, which is the intraday low on Jan. 8.

However, as we expect a strong resistance between $1,382 and $1,434, we are not recommending any fresh long positions in it.


BCH/USD

Bitcoin Cash broke out of the range on Jan. 10, however, contrary to our expectation, it could not rally to $3,249. It faced strong resistance at $2,950 and turned down from there.



It continues to be range bound but in a larger range. On the upside, $2,950 is the critical resistance and on the downside, $2,291 continues to be a strong support. If this support breaks, it has another support at the $2,072 level.

Traders should wait for a breakout above $2950 to initiate long positions. The breakout is likely to carry the BCH/USD pair towards the highs.

On the other hand, a breakdown below $2,072 can result in a decline to $1,733 and thereafter to $1,200.   


XRP/USD

For the past three days, Ripple has been attempting to hold the uptrend line. The bulls continue to buy the dips close to the $1.5 levels.



The cryptocurrency is currently correcting inside a descending channel. If the bulls succeed in breaking out of the resistance line of the channel, a move to $2.85 is likely.

Strong support exists between $1.76978 and $1.40463, which are 50 percent and 61.8 percent Fibonacci retracement levels of the recent rally from $0.22255 to $3.317.

But we don’t find any reliable buy setups on the XRP/USD pair. Hence, we are not recommending any trade on it.     


IOTA/USD

IOTA has continued its range-bound trading between $3.032 and $4.34. Yesterday, Jan. 11, the bulls again defended the lower end of the range.



We expect the range to hold.  Hence, traders can buy on weakness towards $3.1 and keep a stop loss of $2.7.

The IOTA/USD pair should attempt to move towards $4.34 once it breaks out of the downtrend line. A move above $4.34 is likely to propel it towards the upper end of the range at $5.59.

Our bullish view will be invalidated if price breaks down and sustains below $3.032.   

 
LTC/USD

Litecoin is still stuck inside the symmetrical triangle. Yesterday, Jan.11,  the bears failed to break down of the triangle.



The bulls will now try to push prices towards the resistance line of the triangle at $280. The move will gain momentum above $254. The support is way lower at $215.

At the moment the risk to reward ratio is not attractive for trades.

The LTC/USD pair will become bearish if price breaks down and sustains below the 50-day SMA.


XEM/USD

As forecast in our previous analysis, the decline to the trendline support prompted buying. NEM is currently in a pullback. Should we trade this?



The traders bought the dip below the trendline support yesterday, Jan. 11. We now expect the XEM/USD pair to rally to $1.56949 and $1.68590, which are 50 percent and 61.8 percent Fibonacci retracement levels of the recent fall from $2.06278 to $1.07619.

The aggressive traders can buy at the current levels of $1.38 and keep a stop loss at $1.06, below yesterday’s lows. Though the initial risk to reward ratio is not attractive, we believe that buying near the strong support of the trendline is a good strategy.


ADA/BTC

Buyers bought the dip below the trendline on Jan. 11. We had forecast a pullback from the trendline in our previous analysis but advised waiting for a confirmation of a bottom before buying. So, can the traders buy now?



If the pullback sustains above the 0.000057 levels, we expect the move to extend to $0.00006616 and $0.00007221, which are 50 percent and 61.8 percent Fibonacci retracement levels of the recent fall.

Traders can buy the ADA/BTC pair at the current levels and keep a stop loss at 0.00004. Here too, we are recommending a trade without an attractive risk to reward ratio because we are buying close to the strong support of the trendline from where the price can surprise on the upside.


Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-ethereum-bitcoin-cash-ripple-iota-litecoin-nem-cardano-price-analysis-jan-12

Leaving your coins on cryptocurrency exchange is very risky because they have some many issues from hacking attacks to sabotage. In fact, an exchange platform can go down anytime because we have seen what happened to Mt. Gox and VirCurrex - they are all down today because hacking issues, maintenance negligence, and sabotage that led many people to losing their investments. Therefore, I prefer storing my coins in Coinpayments.net and as you mention Coinomi wallet for android for me and my coins safety.

The best place to learn about trading bitcoin and altcoins is YouTube. When I'm starting out I used to learn a lot from YouTube trading tutorials by different people. There are so many great video tutorials on YouTube and all you have to do is take your time everyday to go and learn. 

I don't really have any specific percentage to sell my bitcoin for now because I'm planning to hold them for long-term. And for my trading account I normally exchange the falling coins (reds) with the rising ones (greens) for more profits.