Image Source: Coin Suggest

Cryptocurrencies are essential money in digital form and one of their key selling points is that they provide a level of pseudo-anonymity to users. Their digital nature however means that if they are stolen, it is often practically impossible to find out who stole them. In addition, the blockchain based nature of cryptocurrencies ensures that transactions can’t be reversed – this includes illegal transactions in which cryptocurrencies are stolen.

Many cryptocurrency users are content to keep their coins and tokens with exchanges – it is cheaper, easier to access, and the onus of keeping the coins secure falls on a company who has more resources and economies of scale to invest in high-tech security systems. However, in the last couple of years, cryptocurrency exchanges have been victim of many high-profile hacks and heists. The centralized nature of cryptocurrency exchanges and the huge funds that they hold makes them a magnet for hacks and heists. This piece examines some of the biggest cryptocurrency exchange hacks and how companies producing cryptocurrency hardware wallets might benefit from the chaos.

The biggest cryptocurrency heists by the numbers

Cryptocurrencies started 2018 with losses straight out of the gate – customers of Coincheck however suffered double losses when hackers succeeded in breaking into the exchange and making away with NEM coins worth more than $534 million. Coincheck did own up its mistakes of not taking proactive measures to ensure the safety of customers’ coins and the firm promised to reimburse customers for their losses. Nonetheless, the hack has gone down in history as the “biggest theft in the history of the world.”

The second biggest cryptocurrency exchange hack happened in the heydays of Bitcoin in 2014 when cybercriminals successfully breached Tokyo-based Mt.Gox. The hackers successfully stole 750,000 BTC belonging to customers and about 100,000 BTC belonging to the company – all worth about $473 million at the time of the hack. Apart from the fact that Mt Gox wasn’t proactive about the security of its exchange, the company didn’t manage the bad news properly, and it went on to file for bankruptcy – both its funds and customers funds gone forever into the coffers of cybercriminals.

The third largest cryptocurrency exchange hack also happened earlier this year when the Italy-based exchange, BitGrail fell victim to cybercrimimals. Hackers made away with as much as $195 million worth of NANO from the cryptocurrency exchange. The revelations made in the days following the hack revealed that BitGrail was guilty of storing its customers’ funds in hot wallets – these are wallets connected to the Internet and it was quite easy for hackers siphon the funds away.

Hardware wallets to the rescue

As cryptocurrency exchanges continue to suffer hacks, data breaches, and losses, the value proposition of hardware wallets is becoming increasingly obvious to users. A cryptocurrency hardware wallet allows users to store their private keys offline on encrypted devices. The fact that the coins are stored offline means that they can’t be stolen via hacks.

A USD wallet could set you back some $35 and premium devices could cost upwards of $100,  you’ll still need to climb a steep learning curve to know how to use Trezor, Ledger, KeepKey, Pi or other wallets correctly. However, once, you’ve mastered the art of storing your coins correctly; you don’t have to worry about the theft of your coins and even if you lose your wallet, you can easily use the recovery seed to rebuild your wallet on a new device.

Researchers at Mordor Intelligence reported that the global hardware Wallet Market was valued at $227.5M in 2017 and that the industry will grow by a CAGR of 36.6% to $1.60B by 2023. Of course, a using a hardware wallet costs a little bit more money than storing your cryptocurrencies on an exchange. Interestingly, USB wallets are still more most popular form of hardware wallets accounting or more than 88% of the total market share, probably because they are cheap. Europe currently has the largest number of hardware wallet users with a 26% market share and most of the companies producing hardware wallets are based in Europe.

Nonetheless, the fact that investments in cryptocurrency investments have surged from $18B on January 2017 to about $800B in January 2018 suggests that cybercriminals have an incentive to find ways to conduct hacks and heists to steal cryptocurrencies. Going forward, the demand for hardware wallets will continue to rise as cryptocurrency enthusiasts start taking responsibility for keeping their wallets safe.

In a world where financial transactions are becoming increasingly simple and transparent, accessibility is key. This is precisely what leading cryptocurrency business, Trilliant, intends to do – make cryptocurrency accessibility for all.

In what many are viewing as the evolution of the sector, Trilliant are to launch their own next generation ATM terminals across Europe later this year. Beginning in Autumn, 2018, the world’s first two-way cryptocurrency ATM terminals will be installed in selected locations across Europe.

Manufactured by Crypto Capital AG, Trilliant has chosen to focus their blockchain enterprise on creating the infrastructure to support the cryptocurrency sector. With the ever-increasing professional and layman knowledge of cryptocurrency – resulting in fervent belief traditional currencies have grown archaic – this infrastructure will prove pivotal to the forecasted growth of different types of cryptocurrency.

Each of Trilliant’s cryptocurrency ATM terminals will afford users greater usability that ever before. Currently, there are 2,700 cryptocurrency ATMs in the world. As pleasing as this is to investors, these terminals only facilitate one-way transactions, meaning users can only purchase coins. What has become clear is that ATM terminals must have greater fluidity to support investor transactions. This is exactly what Trilliant’s ATMs provide.

Trilliant’s innovative terminals can facilitate two-way asset handling. Investors can deposit and withdraw their cryptocurrency assets at the touch of a button. Supporting the growing popularity of the sector, Trilliant’s ATMs also make it easy for users to exchange traditional currency assets for tokens and allow users direct access to ICOs.

The ATM terminals come equipped with a state-of-the-art touch screen, card reader and PIN pad. It is this function that users can use to make cryptocurrency purchases directly from their credit or debit card.

As further evidence of Trilliant’s commitment to building a sustainable infrastructure to support the evolution of the financial sector, their ATMs have comprehensive in-built security features that include a front-facing camera, known as KYC or know your own customer for optimal recognition and security.

Founder and CEO, Sebastian Korbach has stated, ‘Our aim is to have 500 ATMs operating by 2019. He continues, ‘In the long run, we want our machines visible on every corner, creating greater awareness for cryptocurrencies in general.’

Mr. Korbach is a serial entrepreneur, with more than 15 years’ experience in financial markets and payments. He has worked across the globe in Germany, Switzerland, Brazil and Columbia. With more than 3 years’ experience in the cryptocurrency sector, Mr. Korbach is confident that cryptocurrency will play a significant part in the global financial landscape in the years to come.

Trilliant has mapped out a long-term strategy to make cryptocurrency accessible to everyone. Through their Fractional Ownership Program, investors can purchase a share of Trilliant’s network of terminals and earn dividends from their investment.

Calculated at 2% of the total transaction fee revenue of Trilliant’s network of ATM terminals, these Fractional Units can be purchased on Trilliant’s website using their unique TRL Token.

A mere modest investment affords investors the opportunity to receive an income from this profit sharing agreement – and allows Trilliant to reward customers who have shown belief in their service.

It’s safe to say that Trilliant ATMs are indicative of fiscal Darwinism. Trilliant is changing the face of cryptocurrency investment and accessibility. Soon it will be more accessible than ever before, allowing greenhorn and novice investors to reap the rewards of aligning their fiscal assets to the direction that the financial sector is surely heading.

Learn more about Trilliant by clicking the link here and reading their Whitepaper.

Stratis announces their ‘Stratis Identity’ mobile application is available to download for iOS devices.

Unprecedented enterprise data leaks and hacks in recent years have compromised hundreds of millions of people’s sensitive data. Stratis not only imagines a world where data breaches cease to happen, it’s working hard to deliver a solution.

The free Stratis Identity app allows users to manage their identity and imprint it upon the Stratis blockchain, allowing for secure and verifiable identity sharing experiences without compromising sensitive personal data. Stratis Identity will also open up the potential for enterprises to securely manage customer identities using cloud-based or Internet login services.

“Mass adoption of blockchain will only come through simplicity, and Stratis Identity offers a streamlined way to verify one’s identity through popular social media accounts, using pre-existing Microsoft, LinkedIn or Google account information,” explains Stratis CEO Chris Trew. “Once one’s true identity is established through our app, a Stratis Identity can be shared securely without ever exposing any specific user’s sensitive personal data.”

Stratis Identity creates a permanent, unique record of a person, company or organization’s identity while simultaneously providing layered, permission-only access to the information. Each online social media profile has information linked to it (username, e-mail, job title, etc) stored by the account provider.

Stratis Identity processes basic information returned (email address and name) and makes sure it corresponds to the information provided for a social media account. Stratis calls this verification process “attestation.” After a successful login attempt, non-sensitive metadata retrieved from the social networking site is securely stored and timestamped on the Stratis Platform.

Two things happen on the Stratis blockchain when you create and attest your credentials with Stratis Identity. First, a unique, immutable address belonging to you is created on the Stratis blockchain. Second, any confirmation of your information is encoded as a custom, hashed transaction. Only a string of numbers and letters is placed on the blockchain, no personal information is stored — just metadata linking to your Stratis Identity.

The Stratis Identity app integrates into Microsoft’s Identity and Cloud Management solutions (Azure B2C Active Directory) and the Xamarin framework to provide an additional blockchain layer of trust to any identity certification procedure. This opens the door to unparalleled customer and employee identity management in the cloud, making Stratis Platform the platform of choice when implementing blockchain-based identity solutions for large enterprises.

Key features of the Stratis Identity app include:

• Creation of a unique Stratis Blockchain ID, registered and secured on the Stratis blockchain
• Attest your identity by logging into a selection of social media accounts, such as Microsoft, Google or LinkedIn
• Proof of ownership of online accounts via viewing and sharing of unique public addresses and transaction hashes
• Validate other Stratis Identities using the built-in verification tool

Future integration with other Stratis applications will permit single sign-on engagements to interact with smart contracts deployed on the Stratis blockchain.

A key strategy to Stratis is releasing proof-of-concept apps that can easily be customized into full-blown products for developers in C# .NET framework. The idea is to prove how simple building blockchain apps is using the Stratis Platform, while also providing useable basic elements to quickly succeed with any Stratis blockchain implementation.

“Stratis Identity’s proof of concept enhances blockchain opportunities for Microsoft partners and customers currently exploring blockchain options for their business. It’s an invaluable tool to show how decentralized blockchain apps work and how they could transport existing business processes light years into the future,” Trew concludes.

The free Stratis Identity mobile app is available for iOS devices using the download link below:

Stratis Identity iOS Release

There is no denying Bitcoin’s place as a mainstream currency. It is transferable, legal, accountable, and valuable. Yet, it is not money. This might strike some as odd given that over the course of human economic history everything from eggs to potatoes and whiskey to cigarettes have, at various times, been considered to be money. So why not, then, the virtual currency?

An acceptability dilemma

Bitcoin’s shortcoming – and that of every other cryptocurrency – is its acceptability. To be money, bitcoin would have to become a generally accepted medium of exchange for goods and services. Although the explosive demand for cryptocurrencies in recent years has, at times, been frantic, the subsequent buyers might still have struggled to buy a pair of shoes, or a bunch of bananas, with their digital coins without first passing through an intermediary. Bitcoin was wildly accepted, but not widely accepted.

Cryptocurrencies please all holders some of the time, like in December 2017 when practically all cryptocurrencies reached record highs in US-dollar terms. They also please some holders all the time, for instance, shoppers, diners, gamers and sportspeople, who know they can always use digital coins in their favourite establishments. But satisfying all holders, all the time has proved elusive. This is a primary reason why cryptocurrencies are not more widely accepted.

Central banks to the rescue

Counter-intuitively for crypto-aficionados, the solution to the acceptability dilemma might lie at the gates of those institutions that have often fuelled demand for private virtual currencies – central banks. After spending years admonishing cryptocurrencies, shutting down exchanges and strangling bitcoin start-ups, financial authorities around the world are now looking into issuing digital currencies of their own.

These central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) could be designed to be transferable between individuals, peer-to-peer, and could even be made anonymous. This anonymity would preserve the privacy enjoyed by parties to cash or cryptocurrency transactions. CBDCs would also be backed by monetary authorities, so one could recover any digital coins that happened to get lost or stolen. These coins would be legal tender, which would mean they must be accepted as full and fair settlement of any debt. The acceptability hurdle would be overcome at a stroke.

However, CBDCs would also be like any other central-bank-issued note or coin in circulation. They would have to carry the same interest rate as any other central-bank money, and the central bank would be able to ‘create’ as many CBDCs as it likes. One should not forget that it was the fear that monetary authorities would debase money through excessive money printing and ultra-low interest rates that catalysed the demand for cryptocurrencies in the first place

Build it and they will come

Still, the introduction of CBDCs might not be bad news for cryptocurrency holders. This is because the acceptability hurdle is partly due to the huge psychological leap that consumers must make when switching from notes, coins and credit cards to virtual currencies and digital wallets. For many, this gap is simply too great to bridge. If the central banks built this bridge, and encouraged the public to use its virtual currency, the subsequent shift from CBDCs to private digital currencies, like bitcoin, would be far easier for the public to make.

After launching their Presale on July 1st, 2018 which ends July 20th, 2018, Bitminer Factory today announced their ICO will start July 21st, 2018 with limited time 12% discount. Their startup makes the Blockchain sustainable by using renewable energy to mine cryptocurrencies and shares the benefits with token holders. Crypto fans, Miners, and other investors will profit from the exponentially growing demand for energy to power worldwide crypto-mining activities.

Presale ends – 20/7/18

ICO starts – 21/7/18

Tokens to sell – 100,000,000

Presale (currently active)
Dates – 01/7/18 to 20/7/18
Discount – 18% to 20/7/18

Lockup – 3 months
Token price – $1.00 USD

ICO
Duration – 26 days (21/7/18 to 15/8/18)
Discount tier 1  – 12% to 20/8/18

Discount tier 2  – 6% to 20/9/18

Token price – $1.00 USD
Soft cap – $0.5M USD
Hard cap – $100M USD

Energy needs for the global crypto-mining industry have increased fivefold in less than a year and are expected to double over the coming year. Bitminer Factory investors will profit by taking part in the radical transformation underway in the energy sector, switching from fossil-based to zero-carbon.

Gabriele Angeli said, “Our tokens represent a mining contract that allows anyone to benefit from the production of our mining and renewable energy plants.” Further, he added “We’re so confident we’ll succeed, we’re offering a Buy-Back plan for our tokens every three months where investors can sell back their tokens at an increasingly higher price.”

Bitminer is a startup from Angeli’s Group, constructors and energy producers for 40 years. With more than 20 collaborators and more than €3M revenues, they are the largest industrial crypto-mining group in Italy. Gabriele Angeli, Founder, has longstanding experience as a general contractor in the Oil and Gas and renewable energy industry, where his family business, Angeli Group has been working for large corporates worldwide for over 50 years.

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

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

Con’s

1. Exchange is not decentralised
2. Binance Coin is expensive to buy
3. Large share of the trading volume, if hacked could tumble the crypto market significantly
4. 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, 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 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.

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.