CoinSpectator, Author at CoinSpectator Blog

Can Metronome Save Cryptocurrency?

While bitcoin continues to be the buzzword when it comes to alt-money, it is actually one of many that are lumped together as generic cryptocurrency. In fact, the world of cryptocurrency embraces a vast amount of different ways to pay, with many already being adopted by various vendors and retailers and even some governments as legal tender. One that should have the attention brought to it is the Metronome altcoin. Describing itself as the ‘built to last cryptocurrency’, Metronome are clearly disassociating themselves from the flaky nature of bitcoin and the volatility that clouds its place on the markets. But what is Metronome, or MET?

What is Metronome?

Metronome cites its differences as being able to offer “greater decentralization.” Indeed, a benefit of any cryptocurrency is the decentralization, and seeing as the tide is still questioning the alt-currency, offering more of one of the major pulls of cryptocurrency seems like a way to differentiate. Moreover, Metronome promises to deliver “institutional-class endurance,” which sounds like another way to break away from bitcoin and any misgivings people may have about it. The endurance as a cryptocurrency is what Metronome promises and it claims that this will be achieved through three key areas: self-governance, reliability, and portability.

The Benefits of Metronome

The team at Metronome promote the virtues of self-governance and reliability as a standout reason that makes them noticeably different from other cryptocurrencies. Indeed, in such a saturated market, where little can be changed in the basic functionality of blockchain – which in fact is almost a commodity – changing how the system for buying, selling, and owning the altcoins is more important. So, it’s no surprise that the marketing efforts are focusing on positioning Metronome as extolling these virtues.

Self-Governance

When it comes to cryptocurrency, self-governance away from the powers of centralized banks is absolutely imperative. Metronome further promise that the founders won’t tamper once it’s launched – which offers an intriguing possibility that whoever uses it fully owns it. Greater ownership could be a key area in which people may be swayed to using and investing in cryptocurrency. The auction-style ownership model also allows for greater self-governance, and the entire process is 100% auditable, which provides a higher degree of trust and reliability. There is also public access to all sale opportunities, which takes away the esoteric nature that some fintech start-ups inadvertently create.

Reliability

In terms of reliability, Metronome promises unchanging issuance and supply of the cryptocurrency. This provides a safety blanket for potential users, but also speaks to some criticisms of going with a cryptocurrency. The reliability also stems from the MET being minted daily indefinitely, with 2,880 MET per day or an annual rate equal to 2.0000% of the then outstanding supply per year. This reliability offers something that other altcoins don’t and helps bridge a huge gap that potential adopters may have with blockchain.

Portability

Finally, Metronome promises portability – that is against central lenders and even different blockchains. In the digital age, portability is a sure-fire way of promising to keep up with the trends and where the future of digital is leaning. Being able to exit chains for any reason without question helps potential adopters to feel less of a commitment to taking up Metronome. The cross-blockchain import and export potential also helps position MET as being more fluid in society than its alternatives and competitors. The fact that the blockchains can migrate gives greater long-term reliability in the altcoin. As technology improves, the blockchain technology can adapt with it and won’t be held back by becoming obsolete as a cryptocurrency.

Source: Pixabay

Altcoins vs Tokens

Both coins and tokens are considered cryptocurrency, regardless of whether the coins function as currency. Altcoins refer to native bitcoin-derived blockchain (Namecoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin) and native blockchain (Ripple, Omni, Ethereum), whereas tokens are a form of cryptocurrency in and of themselves. Altcoins are alternatives to bitcoin using the same protocol of derivation, but changing it slightly to create a new strand. Tokens can be placed on blockchains and can represent anything from loyalty points to commodities. With tokens, the code doesn’t need to be modified. Tokens are released through an Initial Coin Offering (ICO), which is essentially crowdfunding. Both are useful in terms of discussing cryptocurrencies and crucially possess their own major reasons for choosing, despite being part of the larger umbrella of cryptocurrency.

What are Cryptocurrencies Used for?

The lines as to what exactly cryptocurrencies can be used for, aside from forex and investment, are still blurred and many are still unclear on exactly what they can spend their altcoins and cryptocurrencies on. Around the time that bitcoin really gained mass market interest, vendors and retailers were eager to show their willingness to move into the future and were offering many uses for bitcoin as a way to purchase things. Flights and hotels can be purchased with bitcoin – through Expedia, CheapAir and Surf Air specifically. Musicians are using blockchain technology to offer music downloads through a special blockchain relationship. Imogen Heap uses the Mycelia programme that takes the positives of blockchain cryptocurrencies and uses them to mitigate against the real world issues that musicians face. Under certain circumstances, Subway accept bitcoin – and Germany and Japan accept cryptocurrency as legal tender in various forms. It is fairly clear that cryptocurrencies are the way of the future and the culmination of a more digital world, but there are still detractors from the overall cryptocurrency phenomenon.

Possible Limitations of Cryptocurrency

As well as the fact that some people still treat cryptocurrencies with wariness, some cite the fact that cryptocurrency payments are so permanent as a reason not to use them. Indeed, once a payment is sent through with bitcoin or an altcoin, there is no way to reverse it. Some also cite the fact that multiple payments cannot be made at once. The digital world has created the Lightning Networks, which offers some semblance of compromise and a show of dedication to ensuring that facilities are in place in the wider world for a stronger widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies. Some also claim that cryptocurrencies are volatile, but this is largely due to the fact that the monetary system as people know it is facing its first real challenge – one that looks to be putting up a good fight.

The Future of Metronome

The team behind Metronome also boast credentials and expertise in the emerging fintech and blockchain industries – including advisors attached who were involved with the Ethereum Project – and offer a transparent view of the structure of the people behind the cryptocurrency. The first 8 million Metronome tokens were available on auction from June 18 for one week. The price per token will be 2 ETH (Ethereum). The Descending Price Auction helps give a fairer distribution of tokens and a greater degree of price discovery. Following the initial auction, the 2,880 MET will be auctioned daily until the 2% mintage rate is reached. After this, the amount of MET available will reflect this rate.

Whether the Metronome altcoin fulfils its promises is still to be seen, but it is a huge step for the world of cryptocurrency. Healthy competition helps stoke industries, and with so many new blockchain based currencies emerging, it can only presage good things for the industry as a whole.

Binance exchange complete review & guide 2018

Considering Binance? Read thew review below for our expert opinion

With so many cryptocurrency exchanges recently launching finding the right one for you can be challenging. Some trading platforms don’t have the trading volume to buy or sell, others have limited features and slow trading engines that often timeout when executing orders, some have very slow verification processes etc.

Malta-based company Binance is a very popular cryptocurrency exchange not just with China but it’s also used heavily international due to its high user volume, competitions and extensive number of features.

Whilst the company is still young, Binance does still have an extremely good track record in crypto exchange services and is on its way to a $1 billion dollar profit in 2018 alone. This is largely in part due to the impressive number of Initial Coin Offering listings the exchange adds to its platform, easy to use submission process and low trading fees.

In this review we will try and outline everything you need to know about the Binance cryptocurrency exchange, including things like how it works, what coin/ token pairs can be exchanged, trading fees/ limits, how to secure your exchange and customer support information.

Visit Binance here: https://www.binance.com/

How the exchange works

When first visiting Binance you will notice how the platform offers two modes of digital currency trading – basic and advanced. To decide which works best for your needs a basic understanding of what cryptocurrencies are, how trading platforms work in general and what tools/ data you need access too when making buys and sells.

The main difference between the basic and advanced modes is the increased level of technical analysis and graph options available in advanced mode. These are not available in basic mode as they can over complicate/ overwhelm a new user who simply wants to submit simple buy or sell orders.

The basic view looks like this:

The basic view has three easy to follow columns and the design is simple to navigate. Buy (green) and sell (pink) prices can be found in the left column. Graphs and order boxes in the center and trade history along with trading pairs to the right.

The advanced view looks like this:

By default the advanced view uses a dark mode and the trading charts are more prominent. The layout also differs in that the prices are are shown to the right with the buy/ sell boxes below them. You will notice in the graphs there are more graph options and trading engine views/ algorithms.

Regardless of which view you prefer buying and selling is quick and easy with Binance where others are more complicated.

Binance Signup and Login

Before using the exchange an account needs to be created. This is a simple process where up on registration you gain immediate access with Level 1 verification. This offers a withdrawal limit of 2 BTC per day. Users can submit additional information such as photo ID to increase the verification status and lift restrictions. For example with Level 2 the daily withdrawal limit is increased to 100 BTC.

Approval time can vary depending how busy the platform is. It is very important that you verify for the appropriate level asap to ensure you can quickly moves funds around when the time comes. It is also recommended you verify before depositing large funds.

This might also be a good time to increase your account security and set up 2FA. SImply follow the on screen instructions to set this up.

With the account set up you are ready to go ahead and fund your binance account. To start with it is recommended that you stick with more popular currencies such as BTC and ETH.

To fund your account click the Funds > Deposits at the top of the page. Then select the coin you wish to transfer INTO your Binance account.

Once selected, a box will be displayed with a deposit address. Simply send your funds to this address to begin trading from your personal off-exchange wallet. Depending on the currency being transferred in the time and and require conformations can vary. For example currencies like Ethereum are faster than Bitcoin which can take a while. Binance notifies you via email once the deposit is in your account.

How to Trade on Binance

Binance makes it very easy to get started with trading, especially with the Basic Mode. Once your funds are deposited in the account simply click Exchange > Basic in the top menu.

At the top of the right column you will see options for trading pairs in BTC, ETH, BNB and USDT. These indicate what coin you wish to purchase your new currency with. In our example we deposited BTC in to our account and will use the BTC pair to buy a new currency. Click it.

We then choose the new currency we would like to buy. In this case we will use ADA (Cardano) as an example so click ADA/BTC.

Once you have clicked the currency in the right column the middle column will be updated to reflect this.

Now to place a buy order, use the middle column below the graphs to buy/ sell ADA. In this case we wish to purchase currency so will use the buy box to do so.

You can manually enter a price you wish to purchase at, but a more efficient way is to purchase using the presets (25%, 50%, 75% and 100%). For example if you click 100% it will use all your BTC balance to purchase the new currency. If you click 25% it will only use 25% of your BTC balance etc. Then click the buy button.

Once the order has been placed it will show below in the Open Orders section. It will remain here until it has been filled (completed). Once filled you can then confirm that you have purchased the currency by clicking Funds > Balances in the top menu.

The selling process would be exactly the same only you would use the sell box instead of the buy one.

If you would like to withdraw your currency from Binance and move it to a different wallet you would click Funds > Withdrawals in the top menu. Select the coin you wish to withdraw, add the wallet address you wish to send to and the amount to transfer. The click submit. It is advisable to try a small test to ensure the address is correct and all is working as expected.

Supported Crypto Currencies

Binance is a very popular option amongst users for its wide support for currencies. Many traders use the platform for multiple digital currencies, including, but not limited to Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, EOS, Dash, LiteCoin, NEO, GAS, Zcash, Dash, Ripple and more. Binance also supports a very large number of tokens, as part of ICO listings.

The platform is regularly praised for its efficiency in supporting new coins and tokens. As previously mentioned they currently offer trading pairs in BTC, BNB, ETH and USDT and very soon Euro and possibly GBP sterling.

Binance ICO & BNB Coin

As well as operating the exchange Binance also launched its own ICO and token – Binance Coin. This can be used to pay your transaction fees on the platform and thus reducing fees. The token will also play a large role in their Decentralised Exchange where it will form one of the key base currencies.

Purchasing the Binance coin will likely be a good investment for the future as the exchange plans to use their profits to buy back a portion of the coins every quarter and destroy them. This will result in a decreasing supply, making them more valuable for holders.

Binance Fees & Limits

At the time of writing Binance charges an average fee of 0.1% on each trade made through the platform. However those who wish to pay these fees in Binance Coin (BNB) receive a 50% discount on the trading fee.

With regard to withdrawal fees these change from currency to currency and can easily be checked by going to the withdrawals section and choosing the coin to withdraw. The current fee is then displayed.

Binance has 3 levels of verification. As previously mentioned account withdrawals are restricted based on the level of verification however deposits are not. You can deposit any number of coins into the platform without limitations.

At the time of writing the withdrawal limits are as follows:

Level 1 (new default user) – 2 BTC
Level 2 – 100 BTC
Level 3 – Contact

The verification process requires users to provide Binance with their full name, country, gender, a photo of passport/government-issued ID card, and a selfie with the passport.

Binance Competitors

Although there are a number of great exchanges one unique feature to Binance is the regular competitions and prize draws. Many of which include coin giveaways. In the past these have included Waves and Tron.

The waves competition gave away 20,000 Waves to traders based on how many trades they have made of this currency.

They also gave Tron (TRX) participants the chance to win a Maserati, Mercedes Benz, a Macbook Pro or a iPhone X. Again, the winners were the people with the highest trading volume of this currency.

Some of Binance’s competitors you may want to consider include Bittrex, Kraken, Cryptopia, IDEX, and Bitfinex.

Is Binance Safe?

Although Binance is one of the newer cryptocurrency exchanges it is still considered one of the best. It has quickly managed to move up the ranks and gain high levels of user trust and community approval. However, the exchange does not provide users with enough information on how funds are being secured. Two-factor authentication is also available to secure individual accounts. It is however known that the platform offers a multi-tier and multi-tier system architecture, possibly multi-signature where many parties must sign the transaction to withdraw or move large funds.

Although we think Binance is a fairly secure exchange, nothing is un-hackable so we recommend if you are not actively trading and holding your cryptocurrency for a long time to store them in a hardware wallet, you can see our Trezor Vs Ledger Nano review for choosing one of the two wallets we consider the best you can buy right now.

Update: In March 2018 Binance suffered a hacking attempt.

In March 2018 a 3rd party tried to pull off a hack, however it was caught and thwarted by automated systems in place at the exchange. For months the hackers had been accumulating people’s login credentials via a phishing website and secretly installing API access on the affected accounts. They then struck, converting all the victims altcoins to BTC and purchasing Viacoin, pumping the coin to a huge price and then selling their own supply of Viacoin at the highest point, before then withdrawing the BTC to their own wallets. Thankfully no one lost funds as the hack was caught and the only people to lose out were the hackers, whose funds will be donated to charity.

As this hack was only made possible by users falsely entering their credentials on a fake phishing website, this was not directly the fault of Binance. You should always make sure you are on the correct Binance url before logging in. We recommend you bookmark the site and only use that to access it, never click links from emails, Twitter, Telegram etc.

The way in which this issue was handled by Binance has done a lot to instill confidence in the platform. Not only did their automated processes catch the attempted hack before anyone lost any funds, but the team have also since offered a $250,000 bounty to anyone who can help catch the hackers. Throughout this event, Binance acted exemplary and have been praised for their swift action in mitigating and resolving this hacking attempt.

Binance Customer Support

For any exchange to be successful it needs to have great communication and support in place for customers. Once that can answer questions, fix problems and given crypto trading advice in a timely manner. While the support can always be better the team is responsive and capable of offering professional aid to users. Support tickets are submitted via an online form featured on the website, and responses are provided via email. There is currently no live chat support, nor a phone number where customers can get in touch with the support team.

There is also an FAQ’s page which offers information on some of the more common questions users may have.

Binance Moving to Malta?

In March 2018, Japanese Newspaper Nikkei reported that Binance was trading in Japan and not following their official regulations. This caused some turbulence in the markets until Binance made an official announcement that they were moving operations to the crypto-friendly island of Malta in Europe, most recently a whole new bunch of laws have been voted into the country securing the exchanges future.

This is good news for the company and the community and they even received a warm welcome from the Prime Minister of Malta on Twitter. Binance also announced that they were in talks with Maltese banks with the goal of providing Fiat pairs. This would mean they can offer access to fiat to crypto transactions in future along with fiat trading pairs on the exchange.

More good news for Binance, it seems as their profile and reputation within the industry continues to from strength to strength.

Another key area Binance will most likely improve on is with the banking situation, its suggested that the exchange will provide deposits and withdrawals from a Maltese bank in Euros and Sterling meaning lighting fast transactions if the bank is in the SEPA network.

Launching a Decentralized Exchange?

Binance also recently announced that they would be loaching launching their own Decentralized Exchange (DEX) and BNB holders will benefit from this greatly.

The BNB digital asset, now an ERC-20 token, will migrate as the native token of that network and be used for paying the trading fees on the new exchange.

Binance Conclusion

Binance is currently one of the most used exchanges with a growing portfolio of supported currencies making it a big contender for anyone trying to break the market. The exchanges matching engine is capable of processing approximately 1.4 million orders each second, making it one of the fastest exchanges available on the market. Additionally, the exchange works on a wide range of devices devices, including web, Android, WeChat, and HTML5. Non-English speakers will be happy to know that Binance also offers multiple-language support in Chinese, English, Korean and Japanese.

Pro’s

Trading engine is extremely fast
High volume for selling & buying
High number of assets/ cryptocurrencies supported
Good customer support

Con’s

Exchange is not decentralised
Binance Coin is expensive to buy
Large share of the trading volume, if hacked could tumble the crypto market significantly
Security and support may be a problem when

Thanks for reading our review of Binance, if you would like to download the iOS app please see here: https://www.binance.com/ios-install.html for further support on Reddit see here: https://www.reddit.com/r/BinanceExchange/ to login please visit binance.com only to avoid phishing attempts.

BitRewards Announces Partnership with OSA Decentralized

BitRewards, the blockchain-based rewards and loyalty system for e-commerce businesses, announces a partnership with OSA Decentralized — an AI-driven blockchain platform that collects and analyzes data from retailers, manufacturers, consumers, and open data sources in real-time.

The pursued strategy will help both companies to shape the future of the retail market.

OSA is an acronym for optimal shelf availability — a standard term in the retail industry that refers to the immediate availability of all the relevant goods on a retailer’s shelves at any moment in time. The retail industry loses $400 billion in sales annually from product shortages and understocked inventory. But it is just a part of the problem.

The problem itself is even more diverse because retailers and product brands either may suffer negative consequences of stock-outs indirectly; for instance, they may feel the effects in the 55% of shoppers who report having given a negative social media review to suppliers or retailers, according to PwC. The retail market badly needs a technological solution that will improve all the processes while fixing inefficiencies.

The platform aims to solve the major challenges retailers face across the globe due to the distrust and lack of transparency that plagues the supply chain industry. OSA Decentralized has already attracted a lot of attention and high valuation from experts community — for instance, it was awarded 1st place at d10e in Seoul — the leading conference on decentralization.

The partnership between OSA and BitRewards aligns 5 key points:

BitRewards integrates with OSA DC;
The retailers connected to OSA DC receive exclusive access to the BitRewards platform, so that they can easily launch loyalty programs for their customers;
The retailers’ customers receive BIT tokens as a cash-back for their purchases;
There will be an easy and secure exchange of BIT tokens to OSA tokens (through Bancor, for instance);
Both companies will start working on token exchange economy soon to approach a win-win model.

The crypto market becomes mature day by day and already established businesses are coming on the scene to replace all those idea-only backed projects. In that sense, BitRewards and OSA have a lot in common: OSA was established in 2015, it’s already a successful standing business serving the world’s leading FMCG companies including Coca-Cola, Mars, L’Oreal and many others.

In its turn, BitRewards is based on GIFTD, a motivational marketing SaaS that has been (and still is) on the market for over 5 years, it works with a global companies like TUI, WarnerMusic group, and GoPro, some of them have already confirmed that they will implement blockchain-based loyalty solution from BitRewards.

Alex Egorov, CEO BitRewards and GIFTD, commented on the partnership:

“Every year millions of retailers spend in excess of $20 billion on loyalty software, and they do it only in order to stay in the market. Taking into account other problems the retailers may have such as supply chains, product shortages and many more, there is a clear need for a comprehensive solution that will fix all inefficiencies of this market. At BitRewards, we see this partnership with OCA Decentralized as the first step towards this goal.”

Alex Isaiev, Co-founder of OSA Decentralized, gave the following statement on the collaboration of the two projects:

“At OSA, we are doing our best to ensure that our application will be used by millions of shoppers daily, and large brands will grant cash back to shoppers with our coins. We believe that loyalty means a lot in the consumer retail market, and we are thrilled to have found kindred spirits at BitRewards. We look forward to their progress and collaboration with like-minded initiatives.”

The synergy of both companies will fuel the retail market and unite various parties that are disconnected at the moment — retailers, loyalty software developers, data providers and end customers.

About OSA DC:

OSA Decentralized (OSA DC) stands for creating value for consumers, retailers and manufacturers with its AI-driven digital services. Being built on the existing technologies – big data platform, machine learning and real-time AI processing – OSA DC will completely solve product availability issue, drastically reduce product waste and deliver tangible benefits to supply chain members and consumers.

Website: https://osadc.io

Telegram: https://t.me/osadecentralized

Bitcointalk: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3286093.0

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OSAdecentralized

Twitter: https://twitter.com/global_OSADC

About BitRewards:

BitRewards is a blockchain rewards and loyalty system for e-commerce businesses. It enables online stores to reward their shoppers with a cryptocurrency “BIT”, which helps to increase sales by an average of 17%. Because of the blockchain, and our unique business model, this cutting-edge loyalty system is offered to businesses free of charge.

Website: https://www.bitrewards.network  

Telegram: https://t.me/bitrewards 

Bitcointalk: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2409919.0

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bitrewards.network

Twitter: https://twitter.com/bitrewards

WatermelonBlock partners with IBM Watson using its supercomputer to let crypto investors know what the market is thinking

WatermelonBlock teams up with IBM to introduce the power of AI to investors through IBM Watson, the computing platform that scans and analyzes big data sets in seconds, providing real-time market insights to cryptotraders

Singapore – July 2018 – WatermelonBlock, the company that combines big data and AI to create a market sentiment ranking of the top cryptocurrencies and ICOs, is announcing its partnership with IBM. IBM’s Watson AI is a cloud computing platform that scans, categorizes, weights and analyses big data sets in seconds.

For investors, it can be incredibly difficult to dedicate the time and resources to reading large volumes of information to better determine market trends. WatermelonBlock uses its proprietary algorithms to compute a percentage and index score for each network, known as the MelonScore. WatermelonBlock scores cryptocurrencies and ICO investment data using IBM Watson’s AI-platform, providing tangible benefits to users through a simple, user-friendly interface. WatermelonBlock recognizes the influence of opinions in the cryptomarket and uses AI to help investors stay on top of investment information in real-time. In partnering with IBM Watson, WatermelonBlock is able to read and categorize big data sets from the web according to their social influence and reach, thus empowering crypto investment decisions.

“IBM is extremely excited to partner with WatermelonBlock”, explains Boris Manitius, IBM Cloud Leader (Watson, Bluemix). “Through this partnership, WatermelonBlock’s dedicated team of data scientists, will work with IBM industry experts and IBM state of the art equipment to develop, test and monitor a system that will augment WatermelonBlock’s current environment”.

“I’m pleased to be able to work with one of the most advanced AI engines on the planet, IBM Watson. By combining the power of machine learning with our own computer algorithms, WatermelonBlock transforms the way crypto traders arrive to investment decisions”, says Elliot Rothfield, Co-Founder of WatermelonBlock. “Through this partnership, WatermelonBlock and IBM can provide investors with real-time actionable insights and detailed contextual analysis at the press of a button, making the user experience easy from start to finish.”

About WatermelonBlock:
WatermelonBlock harnesses the power of AI and big data to produce cutting edge sentiment analysis in an intuitive, simple user experience. WatermelonBlock places the importance of information sharing and usability first, making crypto investment simple enough to fit any lifestyle, providing an indication of how the market thinks and feels 24/7.

Food Standards Agency trials blockchain technology in slaughterhouse

The UK’s Food Standards Agency (FSA) responsible for protecting the public health of the nation has completed a pilot programme using blockchain technology to ensure compliance in cattle slaughterhouses.

The agency has long been interested in blockchain technology due to the value it could potentially add to food industries where a high number of inspections take place to ensure compliance and animal welfare.

Sian Thomas, Head of Information Management, said:

‘Our approach has been to develop data standards with industry that will make theory reality and I’m delighted that we’ve been able to show that blockchain does indeed work in this part of the food industry. I think there are great opportunities now for industry and government to work together to expand and develop this approach.’

During the pilot scheme both the slaughterhouse and the FSA had full permission to data on the blockchain, which improved transparency across the food supply chain.

Further trials are planned for July where farmers can access data from their own form with the goal aimed at replicating the scheme in other plants throughout the UK.

The FSA has said that the industry must lead the blockchain effort as currently the only data being collected is from the inspection results and communication with the agency and the farmers/ slaughterhouse.

The supply chain industry has long been seen as one of the ways in which blockchain technology can thrive due need for transparency of where products are sourced and tracked to the consumers plate.

Vertex Launches First Vetted ICO Token Aftermarket

Anyone who saw how ICO markets rose in spectacular fashion during 2017, knows that a significant number of projects were set up to fail from the beginning. They raised funds nonetheless and many people were left holding useless tokens. Roughly about half of ICOs launched in 2017, have already failed, and that is without considering the scams. This is one of the fundamental problems in the space now, and Vertex has decided to provide a first of its kind solution: a vetted ICO token aftermarket.

Vertex Ecosystem Advantages for ICOs

A six-step vetting mechanism that filters 97% of the ICOs out there is the first pillar on which the Vertex aftermarket relies on. Some of the most prominent business people and investors in the world, will evaluate ICO projects to select a handful of promising projects. Once the vetting process is over, these ICOs will move through the Vertex ecosystem, in which they will find:

A pool of users that have gone through a KYC process that can buy their tokens and help jump-start their projects.

Investment from Vertex at an early stage. Vertex will buy vetted tokens to sell to its user base on the Vertex aftermarket at a preferential rate.

The seal of approval that getting investment from leading business people and investors bestows upon a project

How Users Benefit from the Vertex Ecosystem

The users, who are at the center of the Vertex ecosystem, will also derive many advantages from participating in this vetted ICO token aftermarket. The advantages that users get from using the aftermarket, are at the result of that first of its kind solution that Vertex has designed to select and fund only the strongest projects in the space:

The vetting system filters out scams.

It also filters out projects that are less likely to succeed.

Vetting brings the strongest projects to the after market at preferential prices. This is an advantage that no other project brings.

Additionally, Vertex will give its users the option of buying into projects that are now being sold to private investors only.

Vertex will also guarantee to give all its users a fair chance of buying any kind of token it offers on the aftermarket platform.

A Dynamic System Underpinned by its Own Currency

All the token purchases on the Vertex platform will be done using the VTEX token. ICOs that Vertex buys into will also have to take VTEX tokens as part of the purchase. VTEX therefore underpins the whole ecosystem, connecting ICOs and users directly. VTEX usage will close the ecosystem completely and allow it to develop further. Vertex plans to introduce more services that users and ICOs can both gain access to with VTEX tokens.

Vertex: A Comprehensive Solution

This makes Vertex the most comprehensive solution in ICO markets, and one that can lift them up to a level in which business concepts develop into fully fledged, profitable projects in the cryptocurrency space. ICOs will benefit from access to funds, expertise and an ever-growing pool of users to boost their project and deploy their businesses. Users will benefit from access to carefully vetted projects at preferential prices. The markets will benefit from higher standards when it comes to selecting the strongest projects, which will raise success rates across the board and lift the markets above the currently high rates of failure.

For more details and a more comprehensive explanation about how Vertex will implement its solution, check out our website.

Join our Telegram group and ask our team members about the project directly.

You can also contact us directly at [email protected]

Bermuda’s Land Registry to move forward with Blockchain implementation via Bitfury Group partnership

Launching on the 2nd of July, the Bermuda Land Registry is expected to utilise blockchain technology for storing and accessing national real estate deeds.

The governments move into blockchain will be implemented by Bitfury Group who recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the Bermuda Government based around improving the islands land registry system for its citizens.

The project will be a first for implementing ledger technology within the government and will act as a pilot educational scheme for possible advancements in other governmental areas

Bitfury Group will also work in partnership with land administration company Trimble and will implement Exonum, their open-source framework to build an additional blockchain layer on top of Trimble’s current land registry system increasing data security.

“The Government of Bermuda has taken huge strides to foster and provide an innovative environment for blockchain technology and create blockchain solutions for their citizens,”

“We are honored to work with Bermuda to build a more secure and transparent country-wide land registry, and we couldn’t be prouder to help advance their mission to improve services for citizens using blockchain.” said Valery Vavilov, CEO of Bitfury.

Stratis launches Sidechains enabling Enterprises to innovate with bespoke Blockchains

Enterprises can now easily create custom private blockchains while benefiting from on-going enhancements to the Stratis Platform.

Stratis has officially announced the launch of its alpha version of Sidechains that allows enterprises to rapidly create private or public blockchains linked to the Stratis blockchain (mainchain), while keeping the flexibility to tailor any blockchain implementation to specific business needs. Some of these new features enables consensus, block size and privacy provisions.

Building sidechains in C# makes it easier to integrate into existing enterprise architectures and opens the door previously blocked due to programming language barriers. Stratis sidechains in C# builds upon the established .NET framework, language and ecosystem. Therefore, it is more readily poised for wider adoption.

Stratis Sidechains solve a significant challenge facing enterprises concerned about implementing blockchain solutions due to the lack of privacy and control inherent to most existing public blockchains. An enterprise lacking the ability to influence changes in public infrastructure to suit their specific needs is a valid cause for concern.

Stratis CEO Chris Trew states, “Sidechains provide a means to quickly provision, sandbox and deploy a bespoke blockchain tailored to specific enterprise processes. Because Stratis sidechains remain linked to the well-established Stratis mainchain, enterprises can be certain their blockchain implementations will continue to benefit from enhancements made by our core team of highly-experienced developers.”

Stratis Sidechains operate by ‘locking’ Stratis tokens on the Stratis mainchain as a value proxy for enterprise tokens forged on any sidechain. This overcomes the complexity of transferring digital assets between different blockchains, offering flexibility and confidence that any sidechain digital asset will always be backed by the correct amount of Stratis tokens.

Chris Trew further explains, “As an example, if an enterprise wants to improve efficiency by moving invoicing or asset tracking to a blockchain solution, it’s likely that they will not want to publicize that data. That’s when a private sidechain becomes a flexible solution that’s quick to test and deploy, as well as easy to maintain. Sidechains are a critical step in making blockchain accessible to enterprises wanting to benefit from blockchain while retaining full control of their business processes and privacy.”

The flexibility of a sidechain also helps to improve scalability, a long-running challenge of decentralized computing. Aside from leaving the mainchain free to exchange funds, Stratis Sidechains make it possible to specify both the block size and block interval, increasing the number of transactions in each block and/or reducing the time between each block.

The Stratis Sidechains Alpha release follows the recent news of Stratis Smart Contracts in C#, which allows a wide range of decentralized applications to be built upon the Stratis Platform.

For more information on Stratis Sidechains please see here.

Slate’s Early Success Underscores the Need for Disruption in the Entertainment Industry

The SLATE token (SLX) pre-sale successfully met its objectives by selling the allocated amount in thirty days. Positive demand for SLX has paved the way for an ICO. In addition, SLX has been pre-listed on Hong Kong based HitBTC, a top 10 cryptocurrency exchange. This ensures that token buyers will be able to trade SLX on an open market.

The rapid growth of the SLX community has led to a Slate telegram group consisting of over 20,000 users. Slate’s promotional video “Meet Slate”, starring Devon Bostick (Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The 100, Okja) has had over 2 million views on YouTube in the last 4 weeks. The video has garnered the attention of crypto enthusiasts as a result of its high production value and humor designed specifically for the crypto community.

Blockchain technology has the potential to disrupt countless industries, but perhaps none more so than entertainment. The objective of the Slate Entertainment Group (SEG) is to affect positive change by creating an ecosystem that encourages acceptance and adoption of the technology and the currency. Key developments include:

BINGE, a streaming video platform. Because Binge is powered by blockchain technology, it has numerous advantages over current streaming video providers such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu. For example, Binge will be decentralized and therefore not burdened by the substantial cost of a centralized system of hosting data. This represents a significant savings that can be passed onto consumers. Next, the blockchain’s transparency means that content creators will have access to valuable analytics that other platforms refuse to share, while completely eliminating questionable accounting practices that have historically plagued the industry. This built-in accountability will help to ensure that Binge has access to the best content in the world;

SLATIX, a ticketing platform that will change the way consumers buy, sell and transfer tickets. Slatix will virtually eliminate the notoriously high fees charged by other leading ticket applications. Blockchain technology’s immutability will eliminate ticket piracy and slash payment charges. With Slatix, price gouging and piracy can become a thing of the past.

Slate’s mainnet will be launched on July 5, 2018. The Slate wallet will be available for download on July 5, 2018, in advance of the token distribution on July 20, 2018. Masternodes and staking wallets will begin to receive block rewards on or about August 1, 2018.

SLX has the potential to be a widely adopted currency with an incredibly practical use in the entertainment space. The Slate ecosystem is being established on solid fundamentals designed to build a decentralized sustainable market. SEG intends to deliver on their stated goal of disrupting the entertainment industry as we know it today. Although some industry leaders may be fearful of change, most will come to the realization that the old way of doing business is obsolete – and that there’s a better way to create, consume and access entertainment.

Welcome to the future of entertainment

For best pricing, the SLX token sale starts at 17:00 GMT Wednesday, June 27. SLX token distribution takes place on July 20.

slate.io

The Latest Innovations in the Online Gaming Industry

Online gaming is an industry which is largely driven by new ideas and innovation. In a fast-paced environment where technology is rapidly evolving and seemingly becoming obsolete more quickly than ever before, gaming developers are always on the lookout for the next big thing to stay ahead of the curve. With the internet now more accessible than ever, gamers have arguably never had it as good and the online gaming sector is fast becoming one of the most complex and lucrative industries on the planet. With that being said, below is a quick rundown of the some of the latest innovations in online gaming and what we could expect to see in the future.

Virtual and Augmented Reality

There are differing opinions when it comes to both virtual and augmented reality within the gaming sector. The recent success of Pokemon GO has gone a long way to convincing developers that augmented reality could have a big future in the mobile gaming realm. However, some experts are still skeptical with regards to virtual reality, especially as the technology hasn’t quite broken into the mainstream yet. Nevertheless, the release of headsets such as the Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR and Playstation VR has certainly helped breathe new life into the technology and there’s still plenty of potential left in both AR and VR if their strengths are properly managed.

A post shared by Pokémon GO (@pokemongoapp) on Jun 23, 2018 at 8:10pm PDT

Blockchain Technology

By now, you’re probably a little sick of hearing Bitcoin this and cryptocurrency that. However, the fact remains that cryptocurrency has a big part to play when it comes to the online gaming realm. Blockchain technology is already making big waves in games such as Fortnite and League of Legends by giving gamers real ownership of characters, currency and items that have been purchased in paid transactions. In addition to this, online lottery company Lottoland are introducing blockchain-based lotteries which make for smoother and more convenient transactions without you ever having to go out and buy a ticket. No matter how over cryptocurrencies you feel, strap yourself in because they look to be sticking around for at least the foreseeable future.

Facial Recognition

Despite the fact that it rarely bears any sort of resemblance to yourself, creating an avatar is undoubtedly one of the most fun things to do in a video game. However, facial recognition software now allows developers to go one step further by scanning your face and then transferring the image onto your on-screen avatar – and that’s not all. New technology such as Intel’s RealSense 3D camera can now scan up to 78 different points on your face and adapt the game accordingly – i.e., if the game recognizes a few grimaces on your face as you’re playing, it will dial down the difficulty settings of the game in an attempt to lower your blood pressure. Pretty nifty.

Source: Intel via Facebook

The Future Is Now

In such a rapidly evolving environment, predicting the next big game-changing piece of technology is immeasurably difficult. For now, the likelihood is that gaming developers will be putting their time and money into improving and refining technology that’s already available but, one thing’s for certain; it’s certainly an exciting time to be an online gamer.