CoinSpectator Blog

Even people who understand cryptocurrencies and blockchain will admit that they can seem complicated, even at the best of times.

However, they are a big part of the world right now and most of us know that they are here to stay.

That being said, there are certain areas that have been slow to catch-up to this new and exciting technology.
Business schools and universities are getting to grips with this new movement now, but few would describe them as ‘up with the pace’ of cryptocurrencies or bitcoin.

The Financial Times has reported that these organisations are jumping to get courses that can give curious minds information on cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, because there has been a huge surge in demand for these subjects to be put on curriculums.

Since bitcoin’s value went through the roof late last year, there has been a huge boost in demand for courses specialising in this area. It’s no surprise to see this demand surge, as this technology moves from the fringes of industry into mainstream society.

Organisations within industries ranging from banking to the motor industry are looking into how blockchain can work for them.

David Yermack, professor of finance and business transformation at the New York University Stern School of Business, told the Financial Times: “This is moving much faster than people expected. Business schools will have no choice but to update curriculums.”

Yermack detailed that the latest course in cryptocurrencies and blockchain within the MBA programme 230 students enrolled in it.

Jens Martin, programme director at the University of Amsterdam Business School, which offers a blockchain and cryptocurrencies course on its master in international finance, also told the FT that she believes this element of industry is going to continue growing.

She said: “The increase in value in the cryptos played a large part in the increase in public interest. However, we feel that the finance industry is very interested in the technology itself and the possibilities it offers. We see many applications not only from people with a banking background, but a more diverse group who are interested in applying these concepts to finance.”

This increased interest has seen a huge rise in the purchase of initial coin offerings (ICOs), as investors are doing their best to find the next bitcoin.

Courses in this technology can only help those trying to do this.

Are autonomous cars the future of vehicles?

That’s a question we don’t quite have the answer for just yet, but some big names are certainly paying attention to this area.

For instance, Volkswagen and IOTA are working alongside each other on a proof-of-concept protocol which will use IOTA’s Tangle system.

In fact, on second thoughts, many experts think that the answer to our original question is a definitive ‘yes.’
These experts expect there to be over 200 million ‘smart’ vehicles on the road by 2020, so it seems like autonomous cars might be the ‘present’, never mind the future.

This protocol was presented at the Cebit 2018 Expo in Germany earlier this month. The proof of concept has been designed to allow Volkswagen transfer software updates to their connected cars.

The technology behind Tangle is slightly different to blockchain; instead of ‘blocks’ and ‘mining’, a directed acrylic graph (DAG) is used as part of a foundation. Thus, its chains work all at once and topologically.

The German car manufacture plans on using TANGLE to wirelessly and securely work with data from its autonomous car line.

There are several reports circulating suggesting that IOTA has joined up with MOBI (Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative) and many experts expect them to join up with other big names in the motor industry too.

IOTA is quite busy at the moment, as they are also planning to launch a Tangle-powered digital identification system.

MIOTA is currently trading at around $1.20.

Blockchain technology has been embraced in many of the world’s largest and most successful industries, with the insurance sector just one area where it has been utilised to great effect.

Thus, when the biggest blockchain insurance consortium on the planet, B3i, announced that they’d be using R3’s Corda platform to build future products, there wasn’t too many onlookers who were surprised.

There may be a lack of shock, but there certainly wasn’t a lack of awe, as the Blockchain Insurance Industry Initiative (B3i) announced that they will use the platform to further a prototype reinsurance blockchain.

The group, which was founded by Allianz, Aegon and Swiss Re (while being supported by AIG and AIA) also revealed that they will use a smart contract system to reduce paperwork.

A press release provided by the group stated that B3i “concluded that the Corda platform offers the best blockchain solution available, providing a solid foundation for B3i to efficiently deliver business value to its clients.”

It added that they expect the “full integration of Corda notes… in the professional and compliant IT environments that are used by B3i’s clients.”

For those of you who don’t know, R3 is a group of banking organizations who launched the Corda platform in the Autumn of 2017.

Their CTO, Richard Brown, discussed B3i’s move in a statement, which read: “We are delighted that B3i has selected Corda as its preferred platform and our engineering team is looking forward to working closely with the excellent team at B3i to bring their innovative solutions to market.”

It’s an interesting move within the financial industry and one that is sure to make waves within the insurance world.

Despite the longer-than-usual public sale phase, a flurry of activity in the purchase of LCS Cryptoshares kept the LocalCoinSwap team busy late into the night on Friday 15th June, with a last-minute surge of interest in acquiring dividend-yielding shares in the latest decentralized cryptocurrency exchange.

But now over 40 million LCS tokens are sold and distributed there’s no rest for the development team, who remain on track to launch the exchange to the public in August 2018.

“The ICO was a fantastic experience”, explains COO Daniel Worsley, “But it’s just one stage in the complex and demanding process of building and launching a fully-inclusive decentralized cryptocurrency exchange, to meet the needs of users in any part of the world, and with broadly varying levels of experience in trading. We’re not going to be dropping the pace at all, as we put the investment to immediate use building the tools are users are waiting for”.

Because as well as raising the funds we need to operate, the ICO was undeniable proof-of-demand, for a new user-owned exchange designed to accept any fiat currency as a point of entry into the market:

“Throughout the sale, whilst also working hard to immediately reinvest all the funds raised into critical development activities, we were also listening to our very active communities – and maintaining complete transparency as our development proceeded”, Worsley continues. “We’ve found their feedback and ideas invaluable, in shaping the tools we’re creating for traders to use. We’ve been able to learn a lot from existing platforms and the pain-points that investors have identified, and we’re committed to giving them access to a safe, powerful and clear interface, which can be used to trade a growing number of top-rated cryptocurrencies and tokens.

“We now have over 7000 users poised to start peer-to-peer trading, and that’s vitally important, because LocalCoinSwap is all about community. They’ll be interacting in social forums, building trust and knowledge, as well as contracting directly with one another (using our secure escrow trading tools) to buy and sell their cryptos.

“Many of those users are keen to get involved with beta testing, and we’ll be rolling out access to our platform in stages for our earliest investors, before the end of the month. We’ve been putting those funds to good use, expanding the development team, and working hard to assimilate new tokens and partnerships into our launch plans.  Please be patient if you’re waiting for a beta-invite – we will be on-boarding new users in careful stages, testing continually, and ensuring that security remains front-and-center at all times.

“If you can’t wait for the beta and you want to see what we’re building, check out our Youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfUR13Y6dzv84EPG9uY1BUA – we’re releasing sprint updates, AMAs and behind the scenes footage – including the burning of unsold ICO tokens as promised. Transparency remains absolutely fundamental to our ethos, and we’ll be continuing to share our progress over the coming weeks as we count down to launching the exchange.”

File-sharing pioneer BitTorrent has been acquired by blockchain entrepreneur Justin Sun, the founder of TRON for $140 million dollars according to Tech Crunch.

The rumours have been circulating that the two firms were in negotiations last month, with BitTorrent long been seeking a buyer of its popular software used by 170 million active users.

The news was broke yesterday by Variety magazines who reported that BitTorrent and Justin Sun closed the deal, but no price was released.

The deal has not been officially signed off by the shareholders as of yet and allegedly some are disputing the terms, although due to the length of time BitTorrent has been seeking a buyer its unlikely that it will harm the acquisition.

What remains unclear is how Justin Sun will utilise BitTorrent and whether its going to be integrated into TRON, but it’s assumed that TRX, the digital cryptocurrency will be used to power the file-sharing app rewarding users for partaking in various activities similar to how Upfiring aims to utilise the blockchain for P2P file sharing. Neither of the companies have official announced what is planned.

The total market cap of the TRX cryptocurrency is currently at roughly $5 billion, of which $1.65 billion is held by Sun’s Tron Foundation.

The future is looking brighter for TRON.

Source: Tech Crunch

You don’t need to be a professional bettor to make easy money on the World Cup matches with this promotion from 1xBit!

The 2018 FIFA World Cup that will take place in Russia later this month is the perfect occasion for everyone to celebrate, meet with friends and just enjoy the quality time and thrills provided by this international event.

What if you could do more than just watch the games on a big screen when you’re going out with your friends? What if you could be part of the game and make things a lot more interesting? If the answer  is yes then you’re in luck, because 1xBit has prepared a promotion just for you.

Earning money and having fun at the same time? With 1xBit it’s possible! . Creating an account takes only a few seconds, and that’s not just a figure of speech. Afterwards, every bet of 2 mBTC that you place on any World Cup match starting  June 13th gets you with a ticket and automatically qualifies you for the lottery where you can win 100 mBTC daily.

It’s as simple as that, no other requirements or complicated Terms and Conditions, simply create an account and you’re good to go. Chances are that you’re already rooting for your favorite team so why not take advantage of that and multiply your winning chances with the lottery organized by 1xBit that has a total of 116 winners daily?

The more tickets you have, the greater your chances of winning are.1xBit makes it easy for you to collect tickets because all bets during the day are taken into consideration and accumulated towards the final ticket count. So, if you bet a total of 2 mBTC you get one ticket, 4 mBTC gives you 3 tickets, 8 mBTC gets you 5 tickets and so on. The maximum  you can get is 100 tickets t if you bet a total of 50 mBTC in a day.

Remember, this promotion is only available for 1xBit registered players, so you should create an account right now in order to be eligible for it. Have unlimited fun this summer with 1xBit and the FIFA World Cup.

Naviaddress, location ID management project, engages the community to write and share a post about the project to spread the word about the project.

Naviaddress, the company which develops, markets and operates an address platform is now utilizing blockchain technology to provide people and businesses the ability to create, obtain, own, lend and sell their digital addresses, launched a marketing campaign encouraging users to generate and distribute original social media content about the product in return for tokens of the project. The campaign, called ‘Spread The Word’, is scheduled to proceed until June 22.

In order to take part in the campaign, the user is supposed to create an original Medium, Steemit, or Reddit 600+ word article in English on one of the following topics: real-life use cases for Naviaddress; how the Naviaddress blockchain solution tackles the real-world pain points; how the Naviaddress blockchain solution can be compared to other non-fungible token format platforms; and how Naviaddress helps the blockchain adoption around the world.

For each article created, the user is going to receive 600 NAVI, and for the first 50 engagements (comments, shares, and claps for Medium; upvotes and comments for Steemit; upvotes and comments minus downvotes for Reddit), additional 100 tokens. Tokens will be sent in two batches on June 29 and July 29.

 

For other requirements, qualification criteria, rules, step-by-step directions, and other details on the campaign, see the project’s Medium post.

 

Naviaddress ID on blockchain will simplify the way transactions are conducted by and amongst online retailers, delivery and other businesses – without compromising privacy or security. Today, 20 percent and up to 80 percent of addresses in developed and developing countries respectively are not verified from the first time due to mistakes in address spelling, address verification and “last-mile” problems.  Naviaddress provides the solution for e-retail and delivery businesses –  a trustless verified by transaction and geo coordinates precise ID of users’ locations linked to user generated metadata. The solution will cut the wastes drastically.

The company was founded in 2015 in Cyprus. Nowadays there are teams working in Moscow, Cayman Islands, Germany, Canada and India, new office in Singapore is going to be opened in Q4 2018.  The company actively works on implementing the new international addressing standard which is relevant for the modern digital world. For more information, please, join the website www.naviaddress.com.

 

Love him, or hate him, there is very little doubt that John McAfee always keeps things interesting.

The eccentric founder of McAfee Associates is rarely far away from the headlines and that’s not about to change any time soon, with the businessman announcing plans to make a run for the Whitehouse in 2020.

The security expert’s decision to run for the presidency can only be good news for the cryptocurrency community, as McAfee has repeatedly shown himself to be a proponent of digitalised money.

In one of his most recent showings of support, McAfee challenged the SEC to a debate on the subject, which he would like to be aired on national television. He made this challenge after the SEC chairman Jay Clayton’s comments on the regulations currently in place on cryptocurrencies.

Earlier this week McAfee took to Twitter to call out Clayton.

McAfee’s reaction was partially prompted by the SEC Chairman’s recent classification of all initial coin offerings as securities.

He commented on this via his Twitter, writing: “The head of the SEC declared today that all ICOs are securities. While I STRONGLY disagree, and believe that the majority of ICOs do not meet the Suprene Court Howey Test for securities, I will submit, for now, to their rules and will not work with future ICOs.. But, I’ll be back.”

The worry of McAfee and other cryptocurrency supporters is that the SEC will move toward strict regulatory measures. McAfee has never been shy in his view on this, stating that he believes that money should be separated from the state as the tools are now available for this to be possible.

McAfee also believes that a discussion over the subject on CNN could help him further prove his point, stating:

“I challenge the SEC to debate me on CNN. I debated the FBI two years ago when they they overstepped their bounds. You, the SEC, have overstepped your bounds. I ripped the FBI a new asshole on CNN. I welcome the opportunity to RIP the SEC a new asshole.”

You ask why I need security. I tweeted islamming the SEC yesterday. Last year I debated the FBI on CNN and trashed them. I posted the video earlier. Here I trash the NSA. There is no US agency I haven’t trashed. Any questions?https://t.co/s73zQ6Gg31

— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) June 11, 2018

It’s not clear which way this will go as of yet, but McAfee doesn’t look like he’s going to back down any time soon.

Want to cash out Ethereum or other cryptocurrencies from an exchange instantly without paying ridiculous fees? ORCA can help you. The passage linking cryptocurrencies together regular finance is being laid. Yesterday ORCA Alliance has presented their technological case for the community during a live event streamed online. Mere 6 seconds. That’s how long it took ORCA to complete a transfer from a cryptocurrency exchange straight to user’s bank.

The demonstration was opened by Laurent Bourquin, Chief Operating Officer of ORCA and former investment bank analyst who presented the changing landscape of global finance.

“The whole banking sector is being disrupted <…>. A couple of years ago it had been inconceivable to think that a start-up can enter the closed market of retail and investment banking and take over a part of its market share” – claimed L. Bourquin.

According to him, new IT-based market players are challenging banks and providing cheaper, more efficient services. To intensify the changes further, Open Banking is already making it’s way to Europe while other countries are watching closely to jump onboard. Most importantly, cryptocurrencies are capturing people’s attention and have become the most recent trend widely discussed in the world of finance, especially due to the fact it is including and making regular people interested in finance.

Natan Avidan, the co-founder, and CEO of ORCA Alliance gave a broader presentation about ORCA and what problems does it aim to solve. ORCA is a financial management tool oriented for cryptocurrency users which connects various financial accounts through their APIs.  N. Avidan said that mass cryptocurrency adoption would be reached only if the market becomes more user-friendly, facilitating ease of access to technologically uneducated users.

The technological case itself was presented by Dmitrij Radin, Chief Technological Officer of ORCA, with the help of a vending machine which helped to verify that funds were received. The transfer took only 6 seconds, ten times shorter than was initially expected.

ORCA’s solution is set to relieve loads of issues tormenting cryptocurrency adopters. ORCA is building an Open Banking platform that will make everyone’s banking experience convenient and simple. Users will be able to connect, track and manage their financial accounts from European banks, e-money institutions, cryptocurrency exchanges, and wallets. ORCA is providing an all-in-one banking solution.

“At the core, ORCA is a consumer application, and we are well aware that mass adoption can be reached only through practical use cases and convenience benefits. Instant crypto withdrawals are just a stepping stone towards our goal albeit an essential one.” – commented Natan Avidan, CEO of ORCA Alliance.

ORCA started making waves in the crypto community. Fintech start-up recently announced a partnership with an e-money institution MisterTango which is operating under the supervision of European authorities. Soon enough they presented the technological solution for momentous crypto withdrawals and plans to release introductory version of the platform before the end of June. The timing of ORCA to create a consumer-oriented application for personal banking including cryptocurrencies is impeccable.

More information about ORCA: https://orcaalliance.eu

OSA DC has penned a partnership with DalongPay, a payment platform that bridges the gap between crypto and traditional currencies.

Founded in December 2016 with the goal of delivering convenient payment instruments to the emerging crypto community, DalongPay is a crypto-to-fiat payment system. It acts as an easily accessible bridge between fiat currencies and crypto currencies. The system allows its users to buy crypto online with bank cards, as it allows them to sell and swap crypto and fiat freely using the bank card and transfer between the two types of currencies using DalongPay’s system. DalongPay currently supports Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, Dash, and Zcash.

Approximately 15%-20% of ICOs use fiat for contributions, while more than half of 2017s most successful ICOs accepted fiat during their token sales. The team believes that the service will be greatly beneficial to the OSA DC community, it’ll make purchasing OSA tokens easier and more convenient than ever before. It’s the first step OSA token sale participants can take towards become smart consumer’s on the OSA DC platform, as they’ll have easy access to liquidity and a sure-fire way to participate in the ecosystem even if they have no prior experience with cryptocurrencies.

“At OSA DC, we cater to the smart consumer, so it’s only natural that we’d want to provide every avenue possible for them to participate in the token sale,” Alex Isaiev, co-founder of OSA DC stated regarding the developments. “Now it’ll be easier for our community members to get involved with the project, opening up avenues for even more smart consumers to join us in our pursuit of a perfected retail experience.”

Building on its predecessor the OSA Hybrid Platform, OSA DC combines blockchain technology and cutting edger artificial intelligence to help retailers and manufacturers better manage their inventories. With OSA DC’s blockchain, producers and sellers can track their products with pinpoint accuracy, while its AI digital assistant will allow them to devise more precise business strategies and help retailers to manage stock-outs and inventory issues in real-time. Consumers will benefit from the platform, as well, utilizing its AI assistant to tailor shopping choices and to commit data to the network in exchange for OSA tokens.

At the moment, DalongPay applications for iOS and Android are already available for users. For companies wishing to conduct an ICO using DalongPay, the organization has developed an API for acquiring and instantly converting fiat currencies into cryptocurrencies.

You can learn more about OSA DC here and more about DalongPay here.