Author: CoinSpectator

After a laborious nine-week search Uber’s management board has voted to appoint crypto-friendly Dara Khosrowshahi as their new chief executive – a potential win for Bitcoin Ethereum.

Under Dara’s 12 year run, Expedia was one of the first major organisations to accept Bitcoin as a form of payment (back in 2014) and subsequently legitimising it. So much so that both Microsoft and Dell followed suit shortly after. Dara is also a personal investor in Bitcoin startup 21 inc and has been an influential promoter of blockchain technology and its uses in real world projects.

With Bitcoin dominating the early days it made sense for Expedia to start accepting the cryptocurrency, however three years down the line it would seem Ethereum would be a better all round solution.

Bitcoin has also encountered a number of issues of late, many of which have stemmed from its slow confirmation times and increased transaction fee’s. With neither of these issues being appropriately addressed it is impossible to use this currency in any time critical use cases. Ethereum however with its lightening fast conformations (which are soon to get even faster) and low transaction fees would be a well equipped contender. It only takes around 15 seconds for a transaction to be confirmed on the Ethereum network making it easy to pay as you pop out of the cab, as opposed to Bitcoin which would require you to… well we’re not quite sure how that would work.

Rumours around Uber accepting cryptocurrencies have long circulated but until now they been nothing more than internet chatter, with Dara’s appointment however it may well become a reality. These are exciting times for the cryptosphere.

Will you be paying for your next uber with Ether?

WannaCry Bitcoin on the move as hackers cash out

Bitcoin linked to the infamous WannaCry malware attack which held thousands of computers ransom around the world is now on the move according to security experts.

Since the attack three Bitcoin wallets have been sitting idle with roughly 52 Bitcoin, but as of today they have been split into multiple tiny amounts and distributed to various other wallets and exchanged for a more anonymous cryptocurrency, a common tactic used by hackers to disguise and obfuscate trail. At this stage it is not yet known if the coins movement is related to the perpetrators or a law enforcement agency.

Victims were asked to pay between $300 and $600 to get their systems back.
According to various security firms the Bitcoin has been exchanged for Monero on a swiss-based cryptocurrency exchanged named ShapeShift which facilities such transactions with minimal if none AML or KYC checks for small amounts.

Monero is the choice cryptocurrency for anyone looking to remain completely anonymous as it offers superior privacy and tumbling features. The link between the two currencies will be almost completely untraceable allowing the perpetrator to use the laundered Monero without any red flags.

Many people are still blaming the NSA for the thousands of victims computers being held ransom due to the 0day exploit used in the WannaCry attack originating from leaked NSA skyware.

It’s safe to say that despite the best efforts of security experts and government agencies it is likely the trail will now go cold.

Jersey-based Global Advisors has just closed a $5 million altcoin and ICO investment fund. The fund caters to investors by smoothing the complex methods and issues people encounter when investing in cryptocurrency, enabling access to a rapidly growing ICO market which has raised around $1 billion since May.

The firm was previously behind the world’s first officially regulated bitcoin investment strategy, GABI which became the first regulated bitcoin fund to be listed on any exchange worldwide when it was listed on The International Exchange (TISE) in December of 2016.

Global Advisors is now applying its success in the Bitcoin space to alternate cryptocurrencies.

Each funding proposal is expected to adhere to strict compliance with the team performing due diligence for each ICO offered to clients. The fund while structured to invest broadly, will focus first on ICOs where tokens are integral to powering the protocol and secondly as a vehicle to invest in other viable, alternative cryptocurrencies which are emerging, in addition to bitcoin.

Speaking to Coin Desk chairman Daniel Masters said an ICO “calls for a team of experienced, motivated and technically savvy founders”

Source: Pressat

Atlanta-based Storj Labs announced today it has partnered with popular open source FTP client FileZilla to bring drag and drop file uploading to the masses.

FileZilla is one of the most popular FTP clients rocking around 100 million downloads per year, lightyears away from its high school project foundations.

Over the last couple of months Storj’s future looked far from bright with a prominent member of the team leaving the company, but in a recent blog post the firm made changes to the executive team which settled investors. Amidst the internal storm, the firm have quietly been developing a highly requested feature to bring drag and drop uploads to users, the partnership with FileZilla opens the distributed cloud storage that to an additional 15 million monthly users.

The feature is currently still in BETA testing but interested users can join the Storj community chat https://community.storj.io/ for access to the group.

Fancy a long invigorating soak?

Handmade ethical cosmetics retailer Lush has recently started accepting Bitcoin as a method of payment for online shoppers.

The retailer operates around 1,000 physical stores across 49 countries worldwide and has suggested its online adoption will likely influence its in store Bitcoin rollout.

Lush said in a statement that Bitcoin was introduced as part of their “wider strategy to delve into the Blockchain community and provide an ethical viewpoint on its possibilities”.

The firm claims that it would allow them to create more ways of working with a wider range of suppliers, some of whom are from developing countries. Providing an alternative method in these regions will open up new new markets and make transactions more transparent with little to no exchange rates or fees.

The Bitpay ecommerce solution has been utilised and will allow the platform to handle customers who wish to pay with Bitcoin.

Lush is headquartered in Poole, Dorset, United Kingdom. The company was founded by Mark Constantine, a trichologist and Liz Weir.

Lush is expected to make $1 billion in global sales by 2017.

So whether you would like to treat yourself to a long relaxing soak or just smell like a million bucks with Bitcoin, grab yourself one of the many awesome sounding bath bombs from: https://uk.lush.com/products/bath

German state-owned development bank KfW has for the first time confirmed its use of Blockchain technology to improve transparency across its budgetary funds.

The bank is a running a pilot project in the African region on behalf of the The Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) who will utilise Blockchain technology for greater transparency and auditing purposes.

The use of blockchain technology will allow the provider to create a fully auditable paper trail showing detailed plans of the work carried out, procurement, contracts, tenders and releasing funds for the project.

At this stage it does not appear that the bank is utilizing any of the more prominent open-source Blockchain technologies such as Ethereum and according to the press release have instead partnered with TruBudget, an independent software house who have developed their own blockchain implementation.

At this stage we have been unable to verify TruBudget’s internally developed blockchain (which somewhat defeats the purpose of transparency and openness).

The project hopes that the new technology will benefit the common good with schools, hospitals and other organisations receiving allocated funds in a transparent auditable manner as opposed to current systems that can lead to misuse, misallocation and terrorist funding.

Despite reaching all time highs of around $400 in mid June, Ethereum has been slowly declining. It hits its lowest price of $130 last Sunday. The coin has seen a lot of volatility and panic although this now looks to be abating.

Its steady incline over the last 48 hour period looks promising as it hits $190 at the time of writing. This trend is expected to continue with the price breaching $200 by the end of the week.

There is no one reason for Ethereum’s recent decline but the biggest culprit seems to be the Bitcoin split. This has caused panic and uncertainty for many traders across all altcoins resulting in a sea of red.

Also the millions of ETH being raised and dumped for fiat through the recent ICO frenzy has also fueled investor uncertainty and driven down the price.

Even now the recent Tezo Initial Coin Offering (ICO) is worrying many traders with the fear that the project will dump the $200 million equivalent raised on the market in the very near future.

The market cap has dropped from $36 billion to $14 billion. That’s a $22 billion loss with a two-month period.

A top judge in the United Kingdom says that without a doubt there should be an update to the current legislation so that blockchain and smart contracts are included.

Crypto-currencies are on the rise in the online world and seeing this, many lawmakers including the judge have realised that there should be a law for them as current rules and regulations don’t cover the new technology.

The Lord Chief Justice for England and Wales, John Thomas is the highest senior judge in the UK who declared the importance of making such changes.

At the end of last month, the top judge spoke during an event that is held twice every year by the UK Law commission, which is the government’s authority in looking after different legal developments in the country.
John Thomas’s speech mentioned strict reforms regarding the digital currency especially in the light of events and their effect on the global economy. He further mentioned how imperative it is for the British Government to keep abreast of the digital economy. He also commented on the steps taken by the European Commission to be up to date with the digital currencies such as Bitcoin. He said that the European Commission’s efforts to progress itself towards a digital economy is something what the UK government should also aim for.

In his own words he said:

“Certainly, the European Commission takes the view that legislative change will be needed to deal with new forms of contract such as the block-chain and smart contracts. I have no doubt that we must consider whether our law (as it will then be) will need similar legislative updating.”

While this statement of his doesn’t show an active pursuit in digital currency reforms, it certainly is a way towards progress and a new way of carrying out transactions online to become normalised.

Why does crypto-currency matter?

Countries like the USA, Japan and some countries Europe are legalising smart contracts and crypto currencies. This however, has only happened in a few states such as Vermont, Arizona and Delaware. This indicated that block-chain based signatures getting accepted by many places and merchants are looking towards a more digitised form of currency as well, be it in Europe or in the Americas.

Although Judge Thomas isn’t actively pursuing this method of transaction, his approval and acceptance of such payment modalities signifies something like this in the near future, especially given his designation at such a high place.

From a bunch of knowledge and information that we get every day, it is difficult to single out something useful. Why is this happening? Because the most of ICO conducted today is a pure fraudulence. And most investors understand it perfectly well. The investment approaches of Warren Buffett or Paul Graham don’t work here.

First of all, these gurus considered the profit that the business can give and tried to buy such a business at an easy rate. With ICO it’s useless to search for profit, in most cases it simply does not exist. This is not about a cheap price. Most of distributions are simply filled with investors’ money. Why are they doing that? Everyone is waiting for a sharp increase in the cost of tokens after posting on the exchanges. And, it is true that most investors are still right, which is almost impossible on the usual stock exchanges.

What is the problem? The problem is only one – another bubble inflates more and more. Everyone gets that it will burst, but no one knows when it will be. It can happen tomorrow, maybe in 3-4 years. Let’s see what happens at the time of this burst. Most companies that don’t really produce anything else and don’t generate additional profit can break up tens of times … more truly, the cost of tokes will be reduced.

Who will survive? Only those companies who bring real profit that you can feel your hands. Are there such companies and such ICO? Yes, there are. They are a few ones, but, in theory, “classical investors” should be on a manhunt for these companies. One of such companies is Ziber. The presentation will be held in a few days on July 15.

What does Ziber do? The project team combined the blockchain technology and IP telephony. If the technological problem is solved (the Ziber representatives stated it), the service will be a killer of Skype, Viber and hundreds of IP-telephony companies. The cost call will make up 0.5-2 cents, where for most countries it seems completely insignificant actual earnings. But it just so seems to you, if you don’t know real numbers. And the numbers tell the stories best. The market is approaching a turnover of $100 billion annually.

Once again! It’s about a new company that has made a technological breakthrough on the market with a turnover of $100 billion! Even if it gets net profit in the amount of $5 billion you will baulk at the idea of its future value on the basis of P/E within 2-3 years. Moreover, Ziber will generate real profit, but not virtual one.

By the way, let’s get back to Buffett, who also likes investing in the team. Ziber doesn’t have any problems with it! That only decision to distribute 10% of free tokens to all owners of Bitcoin and Ethereum wallets. A brilliant marketing trick that gives us a hope that will be ahead of the game.

Ziber ICO: https://ziber.io/#ico