Download Tor Browser Portable 5.5.4 – softpedia.com

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While antivirus software may protect you against malware attacks, countless websites track your location and browsing habits when you navigate the web, something many users prefer to avoid.

Tor Browser Portable provides you with a solution, as it directs traffic through large network of relays maintained by volunteers from around the world. Not only does this browser maintain your online anonymity, but it enables you to access regionally restricted content as well.

Tor Browser Portable does not store any information on your PC outside of the application folder, so it can be installed on USB flash drives and deployed on any system that meets the OS requirements.

It can be integrated with the PortableApps.com Platform, making it possible to include it in a custom application suite for use on your PC, USB stick or cloud drive.

Tor Browser Portable works by routing your URL request through a series of servers from around the world, thus preventing others from viewing the direct path from your PC to the visited website.

The browser displays the Tor circuit for each web page you have accessed, and a new identity can be created with a couple of mouse clicks.

When first launching the application, you may need to configure the Tor network settings, although the default configuration should work in most scenarios.

Tor Browser Portable is essentially a modified version of Mozilla Firefox, so users who are familiar with it should have an easy time making the transition.

However, the browser also includes the NoScript and HTTPS Everywhere add-ons, which provide an extra layer of security and encrypt communication.

To sum up, Tor Browser Portable is a great solution for users who wish to hide their identity when navigating the web. It prevents others from tracking your location or browsing habits, and it can even be run from portable storage devices.

Secure browser Hide identity Internet security Tor Browser Security Privacy

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Download Tor Browser Portable 5.5.4 - softpedia.com

Quantum Computing | Centre for Quantum Computation and …

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UNSW researchers at CQC2T have shown for the first time that they can build atomic precision qubits in a 3D device another major step towards a universal quantum computer.

The researchers, led by 2018 Australian of the Year and Director of CQC2T Professor Michelle Simmons, have demonstrated that they can extend their atomic qubit fabrication technique to multiple layers of a silicon crystal achieving a critical component of the 3D chip architecture that they introduced to the world in 2015. This new research is published today in Nature Nanotechnology.

The group is the first to demonstrate the feasibility of an architecture that uses atomic-scale qubits aligned to control lines which are essentially very narrow wires inside a 3D design. Whats more, team members were able to align the different layers in their 3D device with nanometer precision and showed they could read out qubit states single shot, i.e. within one single measurement, with very high fidelity.

This 3D device architecture is a significant advancement for atomic qubits in silicon, says Professor Simmons.

Read full articleRead Nature Nanotechnology publicationWatch Video: https://youtu.be/8JB7ncztJWs

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Quantum Computing – VLAB

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Quantum ComputingTechnology Nirvana or Security Armageddon?

Quantum computing promises to create the most fundamental change in the history of computing. The increases in processing power and speed will enable new capabilities that would take years or maybe are simply not possible using classical computing technologies. From molecular and financial modeling to weather forecasting and artificial intelligence, quantum computing represents the biggest advance in decades.

Perhaps the greatest impact and most dangerous threat will be in cryptography. Capable of instantly breaking todays strongest data encryption algorithms, quantum computing is a major focus of governments, multinational corporations, and a growing number of startups around the globe. Theoretically, the first organization to build a quantum computer will have the power to break any existing security key anywhere, potentially wreaking havoc on entire societies, militaries, and economies. The race is on.

Join us on November 15 to find out.

Moderator

Panelists

Alexei Marchenkov, Founder and CEO, Bleximo

Louis Parks, Founder and CEO, SecureRF

Pete Shadbolt, Chief Science Officer, psiQuantum

Hratch Achadjian, Quantum Computing & AI, Head of Business Development North America, Google

Joseph Raffa, Director, IBM Ventures

Ticket Includes Food and Drink

Hors doeuvres, beverages, wine, beer

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Pumpkin Key – Florida, United States – Private Islands for …

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Dolphin Jump Key Florida, United States$ SoldHangover Island Florida, United States$ Sold

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'; if(item.price_display && item.price_display != '0'){ pr += item.price_display; }else{ if(item.price_display === 0){ pr += ' Price Upon Request'; }else{ if (item.price && item.price != '0') { pr += item.price; } else { pr += ' Price Upon Request'; } } } } } } } template += 'width: 100%;">'; template += '' + (item.currencySymbol ? item.currencySymbol : '$') + ''+pr; }else{ template += '">'; if(item.whole_price){ for(var i = 0; i '; } }else{ if(item.villa_price){ for(var i = 0; i '; } } } } template += '

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The Legal 500 Caribbean 2019 > British Virgin Islands …

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Harneys' 'level of service is extremely high; its lawyers turn around work very promptly and provide practical, sensible advice'.Typically advising both commercial (including trust companies and banks) and individual high-net-worth (HNW) individuals and their families, the practice specialises inthe creation, administration and termination of trusts, international wills and estates, and in contentious trusts matters; the firm also has a related corporate and fiduciary services business with a trusts administration team.Private client head Sheila Georgeadvises HNW individuals and families on multi-generational planning, charitable giving, and issues relating to redomiciling to the BVI; she also assists with the setting up of bespoke, multi-tier trust structures for investment into private islands, businesses, luxury yachts and BVI residences. Johann Henryis also a key contact.Henry Manderis in the Cayman Islands but also highly rated for BVI trusts work; senior associate Laura Hair, who joined from Turcan Connell,is 'helpful, extremely efficient, clear on costs and very easy to deal with, despite testing situations such as the hurricane'. Matthew Howsonis a notable associate.

Frequently instructed by blue-chip trust institutions,Appleby's BVI private client and trusts practice advises on all aspects of trust law, including the establishment, administration, restructuring and termination of private, charitable, purpose and commercial trusts. The teamworked alongside London solicitors and counsel in a complex piece of trusts litigation; this involved securing the dismissal of claims that a deed of appointment by which trust assets appointed to the firm's client should be set aside.The practice's contentious trusts work is headed by Andrew Willins, while non-contentious trusts advice is provided by BVI-admitted trusts practitioners, who practice from Cayman and are led by global practice group headCarlos de Serpa Pimentel.

O'Neal Websteradvises trustees (as individuals and corporations) and beneficiaries on wealth protection, probate planning, trust creation, administration and termination. The teamrepresented a well-known international bank trustee in the first Hastings-Bass application ever to be heard before BVI courts. Managing partnerVanessa Kingis 'an excellent trusts lawyer' and serves as the current BVI chair of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners. Paul Dennis QCand Nadine Whiteare highly regarded litigators, and senior associate Jenelle Archeradvises on an extensive range of estate succession matters, particularly probate issues.

Walkers BVI'sglobal wealth structuring group has substantial experience in acting for ultra-HNW (UHNW) individuals and their advisers, as well as leading international trustees and other financial institutions. Typical work includes assisting with the establishment, administration and termination of trusts, both private and commercial, and the associated regulatory requirements. The practice also regularly teams up with the firm's trust disputes group, which frequently acts in substantial and complex international trust claims. It recently advised an UHNW client in relation to succession law issues and structuring options that concerned BVI shareholdings.Oliver Cliftonis 'very experienced and not afraid to argue difficult points in court'; the 'incredibly efficient'Rosalind Nicholsonis 'very forceful in court'. Global wealth structuring group head Andrew Milleris based in the Cayman Islands.

Conyers Dill & Pearman's private client team advises on family trust structures and ongoing administration matters, as well as on significantcontentious trusts disputes. Typical work includesinheritance structuring, private investment structures, inter-generational asset transfers and regulatory laws affecting cross-border transactions. The team acted for Lombard Odier Trust (Bermuda), as trustee of a large structure of BVI family trusts, on the complex restructuring and decanting of trust assets, which involved BVI corporate issues and novel classes of trust assets. Associate Matthew Brownregularly advises trustees, beneficiaries, protectors and other office holders on contentious trust and private client-related matters. In the Cayman Islands, counsel Robert Lindleyheads up theCayman and BVI private client and trust group.

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Jordan | History, Population, Flag, Map, & Facts | Britannica.com

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Alternative Titles:Al-Mamlakah al-Urdunyah al-Hshimyah, Al-Urdun, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

Jordan, Arab country of Southwest Asia, in the rocky desert of the northern Arabian Peninsula.

Jordan is a young state that occupies an ancient land, one that bears the traces of many civilizations. Separated from ancient Palestine by the Jordan River, the region played a prominent role in biblical history. The ancient biblical kingdoms of Moab, Gilead, and Edom lie within its borders, as does the famed red stone city of Petra, the capital of the Nabatean kingdom and of the Roman province of Arabia Petraea. British traveler Gertrude Bell said of Petra, It is like a fairy tale city, all pink and wonderful. Part of the Ottoman Empire until 1918 and later a mandate of the United Kingdom, Jordan has been an independent kingdom since 1946. It is among the most politically liberal countries of the Arab world, and, although it shares in the troubles affecting the region, its rulers have expressed a commitment to maintaining peace and stability.

The capital and largest city in the country is Ammannamed for the Ammonites, who made the city their capital in the 13th century bce. Amman was later a great city of Middle Eastern antiquity, Philadelphia, of the Roman Decapolis, and now serves as one of the regions principal commercial and transportation centres as well as one of the Arab worlds major cultural capitals.

Slightly smaller in area than the country of Portugal, Jordan is bounded to the north by Syria, to the east by Iraq, to the southeast and south by Saudi Arabia, and to the west by Israel and the West Bank. The West Bank area (so named because it lies just west of the Jordan River) was under Jordanian rule from 1948 to 1967, but in 1988 Jordan renounced its claims to the area. Jordan has 16 miles (26 km) of coastline on the Gulf of Aqaba in the southwest, where Al-Aqabah, its only port, is located.

Jordan has three major physiographic regions (from east to west): the desert, the uplands east of the Jordan River, and the Jordan Valley (the northwest portion of the great East African Rift System).

The desert region is mostly within the Syrian Desertan extension of the Arabian Desertand occupies the eastern and southern parts of the country, comprising more than four-fifths of its territory. The deserts northern part is composed of volcanic lava and basalt, and its southern part of outcrops of sandstone and granite. The landscape is much eroded, primarily by wind. The uplands east of the Jordan River, an escarpment overlooking the rift valley, have an average elevation of 2,0003,000 feet (600900 metres) and rise to about 5,755 feet (1,754 metres) at Mount Ramm, Jordans highest point, in the south. Outcrops of sandstone, chalk, limestone, and flint extend to the extreme south, where igneous rocks predominate.

The Jordan Valley drops to about 1,410 feet (430 metres) below sea level at the Dead Sea, the lowest natural point on Earths surface.

The Jordan River, approximately 186 miles (300 km) in length, meanders south, draining the waters of Lake Tiberias (better known as the Sea of Galilee), the Yarmk River, and the valley streams of both plateaus into the Dead Sea, which occupies the central area of the valley. The soil of its lower reaches is highly saline, and the shores of the Dead Sea consist of salt marshes that do not support vegetation. To its south, Wadi al-Arabah (also called Wadi al-Jayb), a completely desolate region, is thought to contain mineral resources.

In the northern uplands several valleys containing perennial streams run west; around Al-Karak they flow west, east, and north; south of Al-Karak intermittent valley streams run east toward Al-Jafr Depression.

The countrys best soils are found in the Jordan Valley and in the area southeast of the Dead Sea. The topsoil in both regions consists of alluviumdeposited by the Jordan River and washed from the uplands, respectivelywith the soil in the valley generally being deposited in fans spread over various grades of marl.

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History of nanotechnology – Wikipedia

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The history of nanotechnology traces the development of the concepts and experimental work falling under the broad category of nanotechnology. Although nanotechnology is a relatively recent development in scientific research, the development of its central concepts happened over a longer period of time. The emergence of nanotechnology in the 1980s was caused by the convergence of experimental advances such as the invention of the scanning tunneling microscope in 1981 and the discovery of fullerenes in 1985, with the elucidation and popularization of a conceptual framework for the goals of nanotechnology beginning with the 1986 publication of the book Engines of Creation. The field was subject to growing public awareness and controversy in the early 2000s, with prominent debates about both its potential implications as well as the feasibility of the applications envisioned by advocates of molecular nanotechnology, and with governments moving to promote and fund research into nanotechnology. The early 2000s also saw the beginnings of commercial applications of nanotechnology, although these were limited to bulk applications of nanomaterials rather than the transformative applications envisioned by the field. .

The earliest evidence of the use and applications of nanotechnology can be traced back to carbon nanotubes, cementite nanowires found in the microstructure of wootz steel manufactured in ancient India from the time period of 600 BC and exported globally.[1]

Although nanoparticles are associated with modern science, they were used by artisans as far back as the ninth century in Mesopotamia for creating a glittering effect on the surface of pots.[2][3]

In modern times, pottery from the Middle Ages and Renaissance often retains a distinct gold- or copper-colored metallic glitter. This luster is caused by a metallic film that was applied to the transparent surface of a glazing, which contains silver and copper nanoparticles dispersed homogeneously in the glassy matrix of the ceramic glaze. These nanoparticles are created by the artisans by adding copper and silver salts and oxides together with vinegar, ochre, and clay on the surface of previously-glazed pottery. The technique originated in the Muslim world. As Muslims were not allowed to use gold in artistic representations, they sought a way to create a similar effect without using real gold. The solution they found was using luster.[3][4]

The American physicist Richard Feynman lectured, "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom," at an American Physical Society meeting at Caltech on December 29, 1959, which is often held to have provided inspiration for the field of nanotechnology. Feynman had described a process by which the ability to manipulate individual atoms and molecules might be developed, using one set of precise tools to build and operate another proportionally smaller set, so on down to the needed scale. In the course of this, he noted, scaling issues would arise from the changing magnitude of various physical phenomena: gravity would become less important, surface tension and Van der Waals attraction would become more important.[5]

After Feynman's death, scholars studying the historical development of nanotechnology have concluded that his actual role in catalyzing nanotechnology research was limited, based on recollections from many of the people active in the nascent field in the 1980s and 1990s. Chris Toumey, a cultural anthropologist at the University of South Carolina, found that the published versions of Feynmans talk had a negligible influence in the twenty years after it was first published, as measured by citations in the scientific literature, and not much more influence in the decade after the Scanning Tunneling Microscope was invented in 1981. Subsequently, interest in Plenty of Room in the scientific literature greatly increased in the early 1990s. This is probably because the term nanotechnology gained serious attention just before that time, following its use by K. Eric Drexler in his 1986 book, Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology, which took the Feynman concept of a billion tiny factories and added the idea that they could make more copies of themselves via computer control instead of control by a human operator; and in a cover article headlined "Nanotechnology",[6][7] published later that year in a mass-circulation science-oriented magazine, Omni. Toumeys analysis also includes comments from distinguished scientists in nanotechnology who say that Plenty of Room did not influence their early work, and in fact most of them had not read it until a later date.[8][9]

These and other developments hint that the retroactive rediscovery of Feynmans Plenty of Room gave nanotechnology a packaged history that provided an early date of December 1959, plus a connection to the charisma and genius of Richard Feynman. Feynman's stature as a Nobel laureate and as an iconic figure in 20th century science surely helped advocates of nanotechnology and provided a valuable intellectual link to the past.[10]

The Japanese scientist called Norio Taniguchi of Tokyo University of Science was first to use the term "nano-technology" in a 1974 conference,[11] to describe semiconductor processes such as thin film deposition and ion beam milling exhibiting characteristic control on the order of a nanometer. His definition was, "'Nano-technology' mainly consists of the processing of, separation, consolidation, and deformation of materials by one atom or one molecule." However, the term was not used again until 1981 when Eric Drexler, who was unaware of Taniguchi's prior use of the term, published his first paper on nanotechnology in 1981.[12][13][14]

In the 1980s the idea of nanotechnology as a deterministic, rather than stochastic, handling of individual atoms and molecules was conceptually explored in depth by K. Eric Drexler, who promoted the technological significance of nano-scale phenomena and devices through speeches and two influential books.

In 1980, Drexler encountered Feynman's provocative 1959 talk "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom" while preparing his initial scientific paper on the subject, Molecular Engineering: An approach to the development of general capabilities for molecular manipulation, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 1981.[15] The term "nanotechnology" (which paralleled Taniguchi's "nano-technology") was independently applied by Drexler in his 1986 book Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology, which proposed the idea of a nanoscale "assembler" which would be able to build a copy of itself and of other items of arbitrary complexity. He also first published the term "grey goo" to describe what might happen if a hypothetical self-replicating machine, capable of independent operation, were constructed and released. Drexler's vision of nanotechnology is often called "Molecular Nanotechnology" (MNT) or "molecular manufacturing."

His 1991 Ph.D. work at the MIT Media Lab was the first doctoral degree on the topic of molecular nanotechnology and (after some editing) his thesis, "Molecular Machinery and Manufacturing with Applications to Computation,"[16] was published as Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation,[17] which received the Association of American Publishers award for Best Computer Science Book of 1992. Drexler founded the Foresight Institute in 1986 with the mission of "Preparing for nanotechnology. Drexler is no longer a member of the Foresight Institute.[citation needed]

Nanotechnology and nanoscience got a boost in the early 1980s with two major developments: the birth of cluster science and the invention of the scanning tunneling microscope (STM). These developments led to the discovery of fullerenes in 1985 and the structural assignment of carbon nanotubes a few years later

The scanning tunneling microscope, an instrument for imaging surfaces at the atomic level, was developed in 1981 by Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer at IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, for which they were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986.[18][19] Binnig, Calvin Quate and Christoph Gerber invented the first atomic force microscope in 1986. The first commercially available atomic force microscope was introduced in 1989.

IBM researcher Don Eigler was the first to manipulate atoms using a scanning tunneling microscope in 1989. He used 35 Xenon atoms to spell out the IBM logo.[20] He shared the 2010 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience for this work.[21]

Interface and colloid science had existed for nearly a century before they became associated with nanotechnology.[22][23] The first observations and size measurements of nanoparticles had been made during the first decade of the 20th century by Richard Adolf Zsigmondy, winner of the 1925 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, who made a detailed study of gold sols and other nanomaterials with sizes down to 10nm using an ultramicroscope which was capable of visualizing particles much smaller than the light wavelength.[24] Zsigmondy was also the first to use the term "nanometer" explicitly for characterizing particle size. In the 1920s, Irving Langmuir, winner of the 1932 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and Katharine B. Blodgett introduced the concept of a monolayer, a layer of material one molecule thick. In the early 1950s, Derjaguin and Abrikosova conducted the first measurement of surface forces.[25]

In 1974 the process of atomic layer deposition for depositing uniform thin films one atomic layer at a time was developed and patented by Tuomo Suntola and co-workers in Finland.[26]

In another development, the synthesis and properties of semiconductor nanocrystals were studied. This led to a fast increasing number of semiconductor nanoparticles of quantum dots.

Fullerenes were discovered in 1985 by Harry Kroto, Richard Smalley, and Robert Curl, who together won the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Smalley's research in physical chemistry investigated formation of inorganic and semiconductor clusters using pulsed molecular beams and time of flight mass spectrometry. As a consequence of this expertise, Curl introduced him to Kroto in order to investigate a question about the constituents of astronomical dust. These are carbon rich grains expelled by old stars such as R Corona Borealis. The result of this collaboration was the discovery of C60 and the fullerenes as the third allotropic form of carbon. Subsequent discoveries included the endohedral fullerenes, and the larger family of fullerenes the following year.[27][28]

The discovery of carbon nanotubes is largely attributed to Sumio Iijima of NEC in 1991, although carbon nanotubes have been produced and observed under a variety of conditions prior to 1991.[29] Iijima's discovery of multi-walled carbon nanotubes in the insoluble material of arc-burned graphite rods in 1991[30] and Mintmire, Dunlap, and White's independent prediction that if single-walled carbon nanotubes could be made, then they would exhibit remarkable conducting properties[31] helped create the initial buzz that is now associated with carbon nanotubes. Nanotube research accelerated greatly following the independent discoveries[32][33] by Bethune at IBM[34] and Iijima at NEC of single-walled carbon nanotubes and methods to specifically produce them by adding transition-metal catalysts to the carbon in an arc discharge.

In the early 1990s Huffman and Kraetschmer, of the University of Arizona, discovered how to synthesize and purify large quantities of fullerenes. This opened the door to their characterization and functionalization by hundreds of investigators in government and industrial laboratories. Shortly after, rubidium doped C60 was found to be a mid temperature (Tc = 32 K) superconductor. At a meeting of the Materials Research Society in 1992, Dr. T. Ebbesen (NEC) described to a spellbound audience his discovery and characterization of carbon nanotubes. This event sent those in attendance and others downwind of his presentation into their laboratories to reproduce and push those discoveries forward. Using the same or similar tools as those used by Huffman and Kratschmer, hundreds of researchers further developed the field of nanotube-based nanotechnology.

The National Nanotechnology Initiative is a United States federal nanotechnology research and development program. The NNI serves as the central point of communication, cooperation, and collaboration for all Federal agencies engaged in nanotechnology research, bringing together the expertise needed to advance this broad and complex field."[35] Its goals are to advance a world-class nanotechnology research and development (R&D) program, foster the transfer of new technologies into products for commercial and public benefit, develop and sustain educational resources, a skilled workforce, and the supporting infrastructure and tools to advance nanotechnology, and support responsible development of nanotechnology. The initiative was spearheaded by Mihail Roco, who formally proposed the National Nanotechnology Initiative to the Office of Science and Technology Policy during the Clinton administration in 1999, and was a key architect in its development. He is currently the Senior Advisor for Nanotechnology at the National Science Foundation, as well as the founding chair of the National Science and Technology Council subcommittee on Nanoscale Science, Engineering and Technology.[36]

President Bill Clinton advocated nanotechnology development. In a 21 January 2000 speech[37] at the California Institute of Technology, Clinton said, "Some of our research goals may take twenty or more years to achieve, but that is precisely why there is an important role for the federal government." Feynman's stature and concept of atomically precise fabrication played a role in securing funding for nanotechnology research, as mentioned in President Clinton's speech:

My budget supports a major new National Nanotechnology Initiative, worth $500 million. Caltech is no stranger to the idea of nanotechnology the ability to manipulate matter at the atomic and molecular level. Over 40 years ago, Caltech's own Richard Feynman asked, "What would happen if we could arrange the atoms one by one the way we want them?"[38]

President George W. Bush further increased funding for nanotechnology. On December 3, 2003 Bush signed into law the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act,[39] which authorizes expenditures for five of the participating agencies totaling US$3.63 billion over four years.[40] The NNI budget supplement for Fiscal Year 2009 provides $1.5 billion to the NNI, reflecting steady growth in the nanotechnology investment.[41]

"Why the future doesn't need us" is an article written by Bill Joy, then Chief Scientist at Sun Microsystems, in the April 2000 issue of Wired magazine. In the article, he argues that "Our most powerful 21st-century technologies robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech are threatening to make humans an endangered species." Joy argues that developing technologies provide a much greater danger to humanity than any technology before it has ever presented. In particular, he focuses on genetics, nanotechnology and robotics. He argues that 20th-century technologies of destruction, such as the nuclear bomb, were limited to large governments, due to the complexity and cost of such devices, as well as the difficulty in acquiring the required materials. He also voices concern about increasing computer power. His worry is that computers will eventually become more intelligent than we are, leading to such dystopian scenarios as robot rebellion. He notably quotes the Unabomber on this topic. After the publication of the article, Bill Joy suggested assessing technologies to gauge their implicit dangers, as well as having scientists refuse to work on technologies that have the potential to cause harm.

In the AAAS Science and Technology Policy Yearbook 2001 article titled A Response to Bill Joy and the Doom-and-Gloom Technofuturists, Bill Joy was criticized for having technological tunnel vision on his prediction, by failing to consider social factors.[42] In Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity Is Near, he questioned the regulation of potentially dangerous technology, asking "Should we tell the millions of people afflicted with cancer and other devastating conditions that we are canceling the development of all bioengineered treatments because there is a risk that these same technologies may someday be used for malevolent purposes?".

Prey is a 2002 novel by Michael Crichton which features an artificial swarm of nanorobots which develop intelligence and threaten their human inventors. The novel generated concern within the nanotechnology community that the novel could negatively affect public perception of nanotechnology by creating fear of a similar scenario in real life.[43]

Richard Smalley, best known for co-discovering the soccer ball-shaped buckyball molecule and a leading advocate of nanotechnology and its many applications, was an outspoken critic of the idea of molecular assemblers, as advocated by Eric Drexler. In 2001 he introduced scientific objections to them[44] attacking the notion of universal assemblers in a 2001 Scientific American article, leading to a rebuttal later that year from Drexler and colleagues,[45] and eventually to an exchange of open letters in 2003.[46]

Smalley criticized Drexler's work on nanotechnology as naive, arguing that chemistry is extremely complicated, reactions are hard to control, and that a universal assembler is science fiction. Smalley believed that such assemblers were not physically possible and introduced scientific objections to them. His two principal technical objections, which he had termed the fat fingers problem" and the "sticky fingers problem, argued against the feasibility of molecular assemblers being able to precisely select and place individual atoms. He also believed that Drexlers speculations about apocalyptic dangers of molecular assemblers threaten the public support for development of nanotechnology.

Smalley first argued that "fat fingers" made MNT impossible. He later argued that nanomachines would have to resemble chemical enzymes more than Drexler's assemblers and could only work in water. He believed these would exclude the possibility of "molecular assemblers" that worked by precision picking and placing of individual atoms. Also, Smalley argued that nearly all of modern chemistry involves reactions that take place in a solvent (usually water), because the small molecules of a solvent contribute many things, such as lowering binding energies for transition states. Since nearly all known chemistry requires a solvent, Smalley felt that Drexler's proposal to use a high vacuum environment was not feasible.

Smalley also believed that Drexler's speculations about apocalyptic dangers of self-replicating machines that have been equated with "molecular assemblers" would threaten the public support for development of nanotechnology. To address the debate between Drexler and Smalley regarding molecular assemblers Chemical & Engineering News published a point-counterpoint consisting of an exchange of letters that addressed the issues.[46]

Drexler and coworkers responded to these two issues[45] in a 2001 publication. Drexler and colleagues noted that Drexler never proposed universal assemblers able to make absolutely anything, but instead proposed more limited assemblers able to make a very wide variety of things. They challenged the relevance of Smalley's arguments to the more specific proposals advanced in Nanosystems. Drexler maintained that both were straw man arguments, and in the case of enzymes, Prof. Klibanov wrote in 1994, "...using an enzyme in organic solvents eliminates several obstacles..."[47] Drexler also addresses this in Nanosystems by showing mathematically that well designed catalysts can provide the effects of a solvent and can fundamentally be made even more efficient than a solvent/enzyme reaction could ever be. Drexler had difficulty in getting Smalley to respond, but in December 2003, Chemical & Engineering News carried a 4-part debate.[46]

Ray Kurzweil spends four pages in his book 'The Singularity Is Near' to showing that Richard Smalley's arguments are not valid, and disputing them point by point. Kurzweil ends by stating that Drexler's visions are very practicable and even happening already.[48]

The Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering's 2004 report on the implications of nanoscience and nanotechnologies[49] was inspired by Prince Charles' concerns about nanotechnology, including molecular manufacturing. However, the report spent almost no time on molecular manufacturing.[50] In fact, the word "Drexler" appears only once in the body of the report (in passing), and "molecular manufacturing" or "molecular nanotechnology" not at all. The report covers various risks of nanoscale technologies, such as nanoparticle toxicology. It also provides a useful overview of several nanoscale fields. The report contains an annex (appendix) on grey goo, which cites a weaker variation of Richard Smalley's contested argument against molecular manufacturing. It concludes that there is no evidence that autonomous, self replicating nanomachines will be developed in the foreseeable future, and suggests that regulators should be more concerned with issues of nanoparticle toxicology.

The early 2000s saw the beginnings of the use of nanotechnology in commercial products, although most applications are limited to the bulk use of passive nanomaterials. Examples include titanium dioxide and zinc oxide nanoparticles in sunscreen, cosmetics and some food products; silver nanoparticles in food packaging, clothing, disinfectants and household appliances such as Silver Nano; carbon nanotubes for stain-resistant textiles; and cerium oxide as a fuel catalyst.[51] As of March 10, 2011, the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies estimated that over 1300 manufacturer-identified nanotech products are publicly available, with new ones hitting the market at a pace of 34 per week.[52]

The National Science Foundation funded researcher David Berube to study the field of nanotechnology. His findings are published in the monograph Nano-Hype: The Truth Behind the Nanotechnology Buzz. This study concludes that much of what is sold as nanotechnology is in fact a recasting of straightforward materials science, which is leading to a nanotech industry built solely on selling nanotubes, nanowires, and the like which will end up with a few suppliers selling low margin products in huge volumes." Further applications which require actual manipulation or arrangement of nanoscale components await further research. Though technologies branded with the term 'nano' are sometimes little related to and fall far short of the most ambitious and transformative technological goals of the sort in molecular manufacturing proposals, the term still connotes such ideas. According to Berube, there may be a danger that a "nano bubble" will form, or is forming already, from the use of the term by scientists and entrepreneurs to garner funding, regardless of interest in the transformative possibilities of more ambitious and far-sighted work.[53]

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Ethereum Price Analysis: ETH Relatively Muted, Next Move …

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Ethereum price is confined in a tight range against the US Dollar and bitcoin. ETH/USD is likely setting up for a major move in the coming sessions either above $120 or below $114.

Yesterday, we saw a bearish reaction from the $119-120 resistance zone in ETH price against the US Dollar. The ETH/USD pair declined below the $116 level and revisited the $114 support area. There was even a close below the $116 level and the 100 hourly simple moving average. However, there was a strong buying interest near the $114 support area. Moreover, the 61.8% Fib retracement level of the last upside from the $111 low to $120 high acted as a support. The price bounced back and it slowly moved above the $115 and $116 levels.

Besides, there was a break above the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the recent decline from the $120 swing high to $114 swing low. At the outset, the price is approaching key resistances near $117, $119 and $120. More importantly, yesterdays highlighted declining channel is intact with resistance near $117 on the hourly chart of ETH/USD. The 100 hourly SMA is also positioned just near the trend line and $117. Finally, the 50% Fib retracement level of the recent decline from the $120 swing high to $114 swing low is near $117.

Looking at the chart, ETH price is recovering, but it remains below the key hurdles such as $117, $119 and $120. A successful break above these is needed for a push towards $130. If not, the price could drop back to $114 or $110.

Hourly MACD The MACD for ETH/USD is slightly placed in the bullish zone.

Hourly RSI The RSI for ETH/USD is placed just above the 50 level, with a flat structure.

Major Support Level $114

Major Resistance Level $119

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Ethereum Price Analysis: ETH Relatively Muted, Next Move ...

Buy and Sell Ether With The Peer-to-Peer Ethereum Marketplace …

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Buy and Sell ETH With The Peer-to-Peer Ethereum Marketplace LocalEthereum

You need to enable Javascript in your web browser settings to access localethereum.com's marketplace.

LocalEthereum is how people exchange ETH peer-to-peer

Money in your account within minutes.* Use any payment method in 130+ countries.

A trading interface built for all audiences. No KYC requiredbegin trading in 30 seconds!

The only marketplace thats self-custodial and end-to-end encrypted.

Choose from more than 30 payment methods.

* Most trades complete in a few minutes, however this largely depends on the chosen payment method.

LocalEthereum is the fast and secure way to make Ethereum trades.

Thanks to LE, I can earn money securely and save myself from hyperinflation.

Consider the offers. Anyone in the world can post a bid to buy or sell ETH. Offers can be filtered by payment method, currency, location and popularity.

From bank transfers to gift cardsevery payment method is allowed.

Find an offer youre happy with and open a trade with the user. Choose the amount you want to buy or sell, and lock the rate in.

After the seller puts the ETH in an escrow account, the buyer pays the seller outside the platform. Payment details are discussed using encrypted messages.

Once the seller confirms payment, the ETH is released from escrow to the buyer.

The escrow account is a decentralized Ethereum smart contract. Rather than trusting a centralized authority to hold your ETH, LocalEthereum's escrow system is trust-free.

Every conversation is protected by a unique secret key which self-destructs after completion. We can only decrypt your messages if the key is volunteered; e.g. during a payment dispute.

Optionally, you can log in without a password by using a compatible Ethereum wallet. Most popular wallets including imToken, MetaMask and Ledger are compatible.

Tested with these Ethereum wallets.

Stay up to date with the latest crypto-news and connect with other traders and staff in our official Telegram groups.

LocalEthereum

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Buy and Sell Ether With The Peer-to-Peer Ethereum Marketplace ...

What is Ethereum? | The Ultimate Beginners Guide

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Ethereum is an open-source blockchain-based platform that essentially enables hundreds of decentralized cryptocurrencies and projects to be built and deployed without having to build their own blockchains.

With the second largest market cap in the cryptocurrency world, Ethereum has drawn a lot of attention from investors and crypto enthusiasts alike.

Ethereum not only presents a significant change to the status quo, it also allows for the quick development and deployment of new applications presenting niche solutions for various industries.

While Ethereums utility is obvious to programmers and the tech world at large, many people who are less tech-savvy have trouble understanding it. Weve designed this guide to appeal to both crowds and expose anyone from complete crypto beginners and intermediates to this potentially world-changing cryptocurrency.

If youre interested in Ethereum, chances are you have some sort of foundational knowledge of Bitcoin.

All cryptocurrencies inevitably get compared to Bitcoin, and it frankly makes understanding them much easier.

Bitcoin launched in 2009 as the worlds first cryptocurrency, with the single goal of creating a decentralized universal currency. This currency would not require any intermediary financial institutions, but would still ensure safe and valid transactions. This was made possible by a revolutionary technology called the blockchain.

The blockchain is a digital ledger, continuously recording and verifying records. Its used to track and verify Bitcoin transactions. Since the global network of communicating nodes maintains the blockchain, its pretty much incorruptible. As new blocks are added to the network, they are constantly validated.

Similar to Bitcoin, Ethereum is a distributed public blockchain network. While both Ethereum and Bitcoin are cryptocurrencies that can be traded among users, there are many substantial differences between the two.

Bitcoin, for example, utilizes blockchain to track ownership of the digital currency, making it an extremely effective peer to peer electronic cash system. Ethereum, on the other hand, focuses on running the programming code of an application. Application developers largely use it to pay for services and transaction fees on the Ethereum network.

Both Bitcoin and Ethereum are decentralized, meaning they have no central control or issuing authority. Respective miners run each network by validating transactions to earn either bitcoin (for Bitcoin) or ether (for Ethereum).

If youre still having trouble making the distinction, the words of Dr. Gavin Woodone of Ethereums Co-Foundersmight help:

Bitcoin is first and foremost a currency; this is one particular application of a blockchain. However, it is far from the only application. To take a past example of a similar situation, e-mail is one particular use of the internet, and for sure helped popularise it, but there are many others.

Ethereum is simply the application of blockchain technology for a completely different purpose.

Simply put, Ethereum is a blockchain-based decentralized platform on which decentralized applications (Dapps) can be built.

Ethereums appeal is that its built in a way that enables developers to create smart contracts. Smart contracts are scripts that automatically execute tasks when certain conditions are met. For example, a smart contract could technically say, pay Jane $10 if she submits a 1000 word article on goats by September 15, 2018, and it would pay Jane once the conditions are met.

These smart contracts are executed by the Turing-complete Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), run by an international public network of nodes.

The cryptocurrency of the Ethereum network is called ether. Ether serves two different functions:

If youre still a little confused, dont worry. The underlying technology is complicated even at a surface level.

By the end of this guide, youll have a better understanding of Ethereum than 99.999% of people out there and thats a pretty good start!

Well go over things such as how Ethereum functions, Ethereums history, and some of the exciting dapps running on the Ethereum platform.

In 2011, a 17-year-old Russian-Canadian boy named Vitalik Buterin learned about Bitcoin from his father.Buterin became a co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine and a leading writer for the publication.Buterin currently serves on the Editorial Board of Ledger. As a peer-reviewed scholarly journal, Ledger publishes original research articles on cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. The publication shows interest in any topics relating blockchain to mathematics, computer science, engineering, law, and economics.

In 2013, after visiting developers across the world who shared an enthusiasm for programming, Buterin published a white-paper proposing Ethereum.

In 2014, Buterin dropped out of the University of Waterloo after receiving the Thiel Fellowship of $100,000 to work on Ethereum full-time.

In 2015, the Ethereum system went live.

In 2017, Ethereum hit a cap rate of $36 billion dollars.

Whether youre looking at this from an investment standpoint, tech perspective, or witness to history; Ethereum is extremely exciting.

Buterins goal was to bring the same decentralization from Bitcoin to more than just currency. This could be accomplished by building a fully-fledged Turing-complete programming language into the Ethereum blockchain.

The Ethereum white paper goes into detail for some of the potential use cases, all of which could be built through decentralized apps on the Ethereum network. The list goes on and on:

By building these apps on the Ethereum network, these dapps can utilize Ethereums blockchain instead of having to create their own.

The core Ethereum founding team in 2014 consisted of Vitalik Buterin, Mihai Alisie, Anthony Di Iorio, and Charles Hoskinson, additionally attracting the attention of Joseph Lubin to join the team. Lubin moved on to found the now near 1,000-employee Brooklyn-based venture production studio ConsenSys.

Rumored to be one of the top buyers in the Ethereum crowdsale, Lubin, who had been funding ConsenSys with his stash of Bitcoins, says he began selling some of his Ethers last year to fund the firms development

Early blockchain applications like Bitcoin only allowed users a set of predefined operations. For example, Bitcoin was created exclusively to operate as a cryptocurrency.

Unlike these early blockchain projects, Ethereum allows users to create their own operations. The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) makes this possible. As Ethereums runtime environment, the EVM executes smart contracts. Since every Ethereum node runs the EVM, applications built on it reap the benefits of being decentralized without having to build their own blockchain.

Smart contracts are strings of computer code capable of automatically executing when certain predetermined conditions are met.

Instead of requiring a single central authority to say yay or nay, these contracts are self-operated. This not only makes the entire process more effective, it also makes it more fair and objective.

For example, a simple smart contract use case would be:

Using the smart contract, theres no need for Jim and Sarah to trust each other. They just have to trust the data feed.

Keep in mind that this is only a very simple example. Many smart contracts are extremely complex and can work wonders.

The takeaway: Smart contracts can automate a variety of tasks, without requiring intermediaries. All a smart contract needs is the arbitrary rules written into it.

Handling financial transactions alone presents hugely complex problems in terms of reliability and security. And since the Ethereum network comprises a general purpose blockchain that handles assets other than money, more complex challenges arise beyond mere financial transactions. Moving into the future, Ethereum confronts issues of scalability, energy consumption, security, privacy, and decentralization.

As a general purpose blockchain, Ethereum needs a mechanism to represent assets other than money. The ERC-721 standard has been created to transact unique items of value. The ERC acronym stands for Ethereum Request for Comment and provides a formal process for the Ethereum Foundation to improve its product. The ERC-721 standard originally drove the development of the highly successful CryptoKitties collectibles, but it allows for the representation of any digital asset.

Any blockchain relies on a trustworthy, fair, secure, and reliable consensus protocol for placing transactions onto the system. Like Bitcoin, Ethereum uses a Proof of Work (PoW) approach, but the Ethereum blockchain plans to implement a Proof of Stake (PoS) algorithm.

The Casper finality gadget implements PoS as an independent module. As an independent module, Casper lives on top of the current PoW system, making the Ethereum network a hybrid system of both PoW and PoS. Also as an independent module, this allows the PoW portion of the network to be removed at a later date.

The Casper PoS protocol utilized game theory incentives to maintain the integrity of the system. It also provides benefits of greater security and reduces the massive energy consumption required by PoW mining.

Scaling presents a great challenge for Ethereum, as it does for other blockchains. Scaling defines a systems ability to handle a large and growing workload without showing strain or stress to the system. Think of this both as a systems power and efficiency to complete tasks and also as a user experience challenge. If a user waits too long for a response after clicking a button, frustration results, and users give up on the system.

The web confronted this problem in the early days as well. In the first web applications, every action a user took on a web page resulted in the entire page having to be reloaded from the server and rendered again on the clients browser. Web 2.0 came along, introduced the ability to refresh only the relevant part of the page, and responsive user interfaces became the norm on the internet.

Vitalik Buterin identifies scaling as a primary concern that needs to be addressed in blockchain technology. He made the following comments in September 2017 in an interview with Naval Ravikant at the Disrupt SF 2017 conference.

Bitcoin is currently processing a bit less than three transactions a second; and if it goes close to four, its already at peak capacity. Ethereum over the last few days, its been doing five a second. And if it goes above six, then its also at peak capacity. On the other hand, Uber on average 12 rides a second, PayPal several hundred, Visa several thousand, major stock exchanges tens of thousands. And if you want to go up to IoT, then youre talking hundreds of thousands

What the Lightning Network brings to Bitcoin, Plasma brings to Ethereum. Joseph Poon (the creator of the Lightning Network protocol) and Vitalik Buterin jointly design and architect Plasma.

Efforts like Lightning and Plasma ease stress on the network by taking work offline to a side chain. Users engage in multiple transactions over time on a channel on the side chain without utilizing the main blockchain at this point. After a number of transactions complete, the final state of these transactions moves over to the main blockchain as a single transaction with a single fee. Multiple interactions to process thereby reduce to a single action on the blockchain, consequently reducing strain on resources and improving scalability.

Computer science boils down to the art of putting something somewhere, then retrieving it when you want it. Storing only what you require in a manner that makes retrieval simple and elegant, and retrieving only what you need, and doing it all as quickly as possible defines efficiency. Sharding presents a technique for storing data in an efficient manner to improve retrieval. And efficiency determines scalability.

Sharding basically defines ways to break data into separate pieces and store them separately. Consequently, you only have to deal with the small piece containing the data you are interested in and not wade through every piece of data contained in the entire system. Database technology has long utilized sharding to increase scalability, and now the Ethereum Foundation researches how sharding can improve blockchain technology.

Similarly, Raiden also presents side chain capability similar to Lighting and Plasma. Raiden is not a project of the Ethereum Foundation but a product of an independent company.

Most of us have a pretty good understanding of what an application (app) is. An application is formally defined as a program or piece of software designed and written to fulfill a particular purpose of the user. We use apps every day: Apps allow us to check our bank balance, scroll through a live feed of pictures, or even launch a Flappy Bird into oblivion.

Now take this definition and ~*~decentralize~*~ it. Dapps serve similar functions, but run on an entire network of nodes rather than a central source. The fact that they are decentralized gives dapps an enormous advantage over traditional apps.

You know when Instagram is down because the server is down? This doesnt happen with dapps. How about when Zomato got hacked and exposed the information of 17 million people? This doesnt happen either.

Moreover, Dapps are:

In many cases, front-end users cant even distinguish dapps from regular apps. Dapps typically use HTML/JavaScript web applications to communicate with the blockchain, appearing the same to users as many applications youre already using today.

While Bitcoin provides a network for financial transactions, Ethereum aspires to provide a platform for decentralized application development. Ultimately, a programming platform requires good applications built on it to be taken seriously. CryptoKitties gained popularity for a while, but we continue to wait and see how well Ethereum serves as a foundation for application development.

Quartz asked Vitalik Buterin What decentralized apps do you find interesting? on September 14, 2017. He answered as follows:

There are a few categories that are flourishing already. Some of them are various financial applications, financial contracts, derivatives, things like Maker. Games are another one. In the non-financial space, identity verification is getting to be a big one. With prediction markets, Augur and Gnosis are going to be fairly successful. Also in the not-quite financial space theres an interesting thing called Akasha. Its an Ethereum-based forum that uses ether-based cryptocurrency mechanisms to manage things like upvote and downvote and spam prevention.

Fasten your seatbelts and get your Twitter-fingers ready, its finally time for the most exciting part of this guide.

Ethereums intersection with the real world is paved with innovation and disruption. There are already a huge number of projects, both live and in development, built on the Ethereum network. Here are just some of the most successful and promising of these dapps.

Golem: The Golem project aims to make a global supercomputer easily accessible to anyone. Its essentially the first decentralized sharing economy of computing power. As a global market, users would be able to make money by renting out their idle computing power, or spend money to have access to a supercomputer. Hold up, have you ever used a supercomputer? Supercomputers cost between a million dollars and a good fraction of a billion dollars. The modern Tianhe-2 Supercomputer has the power of roughly 18,400 Playstation 4s. Golems goal is to make this sort of power easily accessible anywhere in the world at an infinitesimal cost.

Check out our Golem Beginners Guide.

Augur: Augurs goal is to utilize a decentralized network to create a powerful forecasting tool using prediction markets. Augur would reward users for correctly predicting future events. While at a surface level it may just seem like a decentralized betting platform (which is still worth a lot), Augur could potentially provide powerful predictive data for virtually any industry. Prediction markets are more accurate at forecasting than individual experts, traditional opinion polling, and surveys.

Check out our Augur Beginners Guide.

Civic: Civic aims to protect users identities and provide blockchain-based, secure, low-cost, on-demand access to identity verification. This would not only prevent and provide users with assistance for identity fraud, but it would also remove the need for constant personal information and background verification checks. Think about how many times youve left your social security number with someones assistant and you can see the benefits of Civic.

Check out our Civic Beginners Guide.

OmiseGO: OmiseGO vision is to solve the problems and inefficiencies of financial institutions, processors, and gateways by enabling decentralized exchange on a public blockchain at a lower cost and high volume. This means anyone will be able to conduct financial transactions such as payments, payroll deposits, B2B commerce, supply-chain finance, asset management, and loyalty programs without having to rely on a single server and without exorbitant fees! The system is built in a way that allows the best currency (whether fiat or decentralized) to win.

Check out our OmiseGO Beginners Guide.

Storj: Storjs aim is to make it possible for users to rent out their excess hard drive space in exchange for the crypto STORJ. Users could therefore also use Storj to rent additional hard drive space.

These are only a handful of different dapps all running on the Ethereum platform. What really stands out with dapps is how their founder are able to raise real capital by selling tokens. Whereas traditional apps have to seek outside investment or IPO, a dapp can simply ICO and raise the capital they need to build their company. While this removes friction from the financing processes, it has unfortunately also made it possible for many sub-par dapps to ICO and take advantage of eager speculators.

Check out our Storj Beginners Guide.

For more dapps, check out the State of the Dapps.

Now that you have a decent understanding of what Ethereum is and how it functions, its useful to revisit how it compares to Bitcoin at a technical level.

While the two cryptocurrencies serve different purposes, Ethereum provides a number of benefits over Bitcoin:

Ethereum arguably currently functions better than Bitcoin as a currency. With Ethereum, you can reliably send transactions faster, pay lower transaction fees, and mine at a more profitable rate (although it still has its downfalls for miners).

Read: Is Ethereum Mining Profitable?

However, Bitcoin does have a relatively more stable priceand therefore functions as a better value storage optionfrom a trading and value storage perspective. Ethereum is much younger but has covered a substantial amount of ground in recent years. Although Ethereum certainly shows promise as a currency, its true potential lies in features nonexistent in Bitcoins code.

The most famous DAO was simply known as The DAO. The nearly identical name causes a lot of confusion for people and gives DAOs a bad reputation.

The DAO was a decentralized autonomous organization primarily functioning as its own investor-directed venture capital fund. It didnt have the conventional management structure or board of directors, was not tied to any particular government, and instead ran on open source code. The DAO was set up to give funders the power to vote for which dapps deserved investment through DAO tokens.

Dapps had somewhat of an approval process:

The DAO is most famous for the largest crowdfunding campaign in history, raising over $150 million in ether from more than 11,000 investors. The DAO is also most infamous for getting hacked for $50 million. This hack inevitably caused a split in the Ethereum community, creating what we now know as Ethereum (ETH) and Ethereum Classic (ETC).

The hack happened because of The DAOs Split Function. Funders who wanted to exit The DAO could use its Split Function, which would give them back the ether they had invested. The only stipulation was that existing funders had to hold their ether for 28 days before they could withdraw them.

On June 17th 2016, an unknown person or group of people took advantage of a lapse in the Split Functions security with a simple recursive function. This frustratingly easy hack allowed the hacker(s) to repeat their request to withdraw the same DAO tokens multiple times before the system registered it as $50 million.

The news of this hack created chaos in the Ethereum community. While this hack had nothing to do with the Ethereum platform and everything to do with The DAO platform, many members of the Ethereum community were invested in The DAO. The community as a whole had 28 days to come up with a solution, which ended up being to forkstop the current blockchain entirely and create something new from scratch.

The new Ethereum (ETH) is the result of the fork, and is essentially the blockchain before the hack. The old Ethereum (Ethereum Classic ETC) is still running the original blockchain with the hack included.

The vast majority of the Ethereum community including the Ethereum founders pivoted along with ETH, with a small minority staying loyal to the original blockchain.

Software never stops changing until people stop using it. The Ethereum Foundation follows a roadmap of future modifications and enhancements to the system. No system ever runs fast enough, so scaling continues to develop. Privacy remains paramount, and research into zero-knowledge proofs continues. Decentralized systems demand constant attention to security. Many aspects of the future remain unknown. Some new and popular application not yet on the market may well demand new capabilities from the system. As the world changes, Ethereum continues to evolve.

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What is Ethereum? | The Ultimate Beginners Guide

Ethereum Classic – A smarter blockchain that takes digital …

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WHAT IS A BLOCKCHAIN?

Put simply, blockchains provide a way to keep track of digital assets (money, things) without the need for intermediaries, such as banks and other financial institutions.

Ethereum Classic (ETC) is a smarter blockchain, it is a network, a community, and a cryptocurrency that takes digital assets further. In addition to allowing people to send value to each other, ETC allows for complex contracts that operate autonomously and cannot be modified or censored.

This may be best explained with an analogy, imagine Bitcoin as a landline phoneit does one thing very well. ETC is like a smartphoneit can do everything Bitcoin can and much more.

If the Internet was simply a bunch of interconnected computers, and didnt have any users or creators making websites, it would be largely useless. In much the same way a blockchain needs users and creators. ETC has both and were working on solving real world problems of interconnecting people and their devices.

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Ethereum Classic - A smarter blockchain that takes digital ...

Bankruptcy – Wikipedia

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ArgentinaEdit

In Argentina the national Act "24.522 de Concursos y Quiebras" regulates the Bankruptcy and the Reorganization of the individuals and companies, public entities are not included.

In Australia, bankruptcy is a status which applies to individuals and is governed by the federal Bankruptcy Act 1966.[16] Companies do not go bankrupt but rather go into liquidation or administration, which is governed by the federal Corporations Act 2001.[17]

If a person commits an act of bankruptcy, then a creditor can apply to the Federal Circuit Court or the Federal Court for a sequestration order.[18] Acts of bankruptcy are defined in the legislation, and include the failure to comply with a bankruptcy notice.[19] A bankruptcy notice can be issued where, among other cases, a person fails to pay a judgment debt.[20] A person can also seek to have themself declared bankrupt by lodging a debtor's petition with the "Official Receiver",[21] which is the Australian Financial Security Authority (AFSA).[22]

To declare bankruptcy or for a creditor to lodge a petition, the debt must be at least $5,000.[20]

All bankrupts must lodge a Statement of Affairs document with AFSA, which includes important information about their assets and liabilities. A bankruptcy cannot be annulled until this document has been lodged.

Ordinarily, a bankruptcy lasts three years from the filing of the Statement of Affairs with AFSA.[23]

A Bankruptcy Trustee (in most cases, the Official Receiver) is appointed to deal with all matters regarding the administration of the bankrupt estate. The Trustee's job includes notifying creditors of the estate and dealing with creditor inquiries; ensuring that the bankrupt complies with their obligations under the Bankruptcy Act; investigating the bankrupt's financial affairs; realising funds to which the estate is entitled under the Bankruptcy Act and distributing dividends to creditors if sufficient funds become available.

For the duration of their bankruptcy, all bankrupts have certain restrictions placed upon them. For example, a bankrupt must obtain the permission of their trustee to travel overseas. Failure to do so may result in the bankrupt being stopped at the airport by the Australian Federal Police. Additionally, a bankrupt is required to provide their trustee with details of income and assets. If the bankrupt does not comply with the Trustee's request to provide details of income, the trustee may have grounds to lodge an Objection to Discharge, which has the effect of extending the bankruptcy for a further five years.

The realisation of funds usually comes from two main sources: the bankrupt's assets and the bankrupt's wages. There are certain assets that are protected, referred to as protected assets. These include household furniture and appliances, tools of the trade and vehicles up to a certain value. All other assets of value are sold. If a house or car is above a certain value, the bankrupt can buy the interest back from the estate in order to keep the asset. If the bankrupt does not do this, the interest vests in the estate and the trustee is able to take possession of the asset and sell it.

The bankrupt must pay income contributions if their income is above a certain threshold. If the bankrupt fails to pay, the trustee can issue a notice to garnishee the bankrupt's wages. If that is not possible, the Trustee may seek to extend the bankruptcy for a further five years.

Bankruptcies can be annulled prior to the expiration of the normal three-year period if all debts are paid out in full. Sometimes a bankrupt may be able to raise enough funds to make an Offer of Composition to creditors, which would have the effect of paying the creditors some of the money they are owed. If the creditors accept the offer, the bankruptcy can be annulled after the funds are received.

After the bankruptcy is annulled or the bankrupt has been automatically discharged, the bankrupt's credit report status is shown as "discharged bankrupt" for some years. The maximum number of years this information can be held is subject to the retention limits under the Privacy Act. How long such information is on a credit report may be shorter, depending on the issuing company, but the report must cease to record that information based on the criteria in the Privacy Act.

In Brazil, the Bankruptcy Law (11.101/05) governs court-ordered or out-of-court receivership and bankruptcy and only applies to public companies (publicly traded companies) with the exception of financial institutions, credit cooperatives, consortia, supplementary scheme entities, companies administering health care plans, equity companies and a few other legal entities. It does not apply to state-run companies.

Current law covers three legal proceedings. The first one is bankruptcy itself ("Falncia"). Bankruptcy is a court-ordered liquidation procedure for an insolvent business. The final goal of bankruptcy is to liquidate company assets and pay its creditors.

The second one is Court-ordered Restructuring (Recuperao Judicial). The goal is to overcome the business crisis situation of the debtor in order to allow the continuation of the producer, the employment of workers and the interests of creditors, leading, thus, to preserving company, its corporate function and develop economic activity. It's a court procedure required by the debtor which has been in business for more than two years and requires approval by a judge.

The Extrajudicial Restructuring (Recuperao Extrajudicial) is a private negotiation that involves creditors and debtors and, as with court-ordered restructuring, also must be approved by courts.[24]

Bankruptcy, also referred to as insolvency in Canada, is governed by the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act and is applicable to businesses and individuals, for example, Target Canada, the Canadian subsidiary of the Target Corporation, the second-largest discount retailer in the United States filed for bankruptcy in January 15, 2015, and closed all of its stores by April 12. The office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy, a federal agency, is responsible for overseeing that bankruptcies are administered in a fair and orderly manner by all licensed Trustees in Canada.

Trustees in bankruptcy, 1041 individuals licensed to administer insolvencies, bankruptcy and proposal estates and are governed by the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act of Canada.

Bankruptcy is filed when a person or a company becomes insolvent and cannot pay their debts as they become due and if they have at least $1,000 in debt.

In 2011, the Superintendent of bankruptcy reported that trustees in Canada filed 127,774 insolvent estates. Consumer estates were the vast majority, with 122 999 estates.[25] The consumer portion of the 2011 volume is divided into 77,993 bankruptcies and 45,006 consumer proposals. This represented a reduction of 8.9% from 2010. Commercial estates filed by Canadian trustees in 2011 4,775 estates, 3,643 bankruptcies and 1,132 Division 1 proposals.[26] This represents a reduction of 8.6% over 2010.

Some of the duties of the trustee in bankruptcy are to:

Creditors become involved by attending creditors' meetings. The trustee calls the first meeting of creditors for the following purposes:

In Canada, a person can file a consumer proposal as an alternative to bankruptcy. A consumer proposal is a negotiated settlement between a debtor and their creditors.

A typical proposal would involve a debtor making monthly payments for a maximum of five years, with the funds distributed to their creditors. Even though most proposals call for payments of less than the full amount of the debt owing, in most cases, the creditors accept the dealbecause if they do not, the next alternative may be personal bankruptcy, in which the creditors get even less money. The creditors have 45 days to accept or reject the consumer proposal. Once the proposal is accepted by both the creditors and the Court, the debtor makes the payments to the Proposal Administrator each month (or as otherwise stipulated in their proposal), and the general creditors are prevented from taking any further legal or collection action. If the proposal is rejected, the debtor is returned to his prior insolvent state and may have no alternative but to declare personal bankruptcy.

A consumer proposal can only be made by a debtor with debts to a maximum of $250,000 (not including the mortgage on their principal residence). If debts are greater than $250,000, the proposal must be filed under Division 1 of Part III of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act. An Administrator is required in the Consumer Proposal, and a Trustee in the Division I Proposal (these are virtually the same although the terms are not interchangeable). A Proposal Administrator is almost always a licensed trustee in bankruptcy, although the Superintendent of Bankruptcy may appoint other people to serve as administrators.

In 2006, there were 98,450 personal insolvency filings in Canada: 79,218 bankruptcies and 19,232 consumer proposals.[27]

The People's Republic of China legalized bankruptcy in 1986, and a revised law that was more expansive and complete was enacted in 2007.

Bankruptcy in Ireland applies only to natural persons. Other insolvency processes including liquidation and examinership are used to deal with corporate insolvency.

Irish bankruptcy law has been the subject of significant comment, from both government sources and the media, as being in need of reform. Part 7 of the Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2011[28] has started this process and the government has committed to further reform.

This section needs to be updated. Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (December 2016)

The Parliament of India in the first week of May 2016 passed Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016 (New Code). Earlier a clear law on corporate bankruptcy did not exist, even though individual bankruptcy laws have been in existence since 1874. The earlier law in force was enacted in 1920 called the Provincial Insolvency Act.

The legal definitions of the terms bankruptcy, insolvency, liquidation and dissolution are contested in the Indian legal system. There is no regulation or statute legislated upon bankruptcy which denotes a condition of inability to meet a demand of a creditor as is common in many other jurisdictions.

Winding up of companies was in the jurisdiction of the courts which can take a decade even after the company has actually been declared insolvent. On the other hand, supervisory restructuring at the behest of the Board of Industrial and Financial Reconstruction is generally undertaken using receivership by a public entity.

Dutch bankruptcy law is governed by the Dutch Bankruptcy Code (Faillissementswet). The code covers three separate legal proceedings.

Federal Law No. 127-FZ "On Insolvency (Bankruptcy)" dated 26 October 2002 (as amended) (the "Bankruptcy Act"), replacing the previous law in 1998, to better address the above problems and a broader failure of the action.Russian insolvency law is intended for a wide range of borrowers: individuals and companies of all sizes, with the exception of state-owned enterprises, government agencies, political parties and religious organizations. There are also special rules for insurance companies, professional participants of the securities market, agricultural organizations and other special laws for financial institutions and companies in the natural monopolies in the energy industry.Federal Law No. 40-FZ "On Insolvency (Bankruptcy)" dated 25 February 1999 (as amended) (the "Insolvency Law of Credit Institutions") contains special provisions in relation to the opening of insolvency proceedings in relation to the credit company. Insolvency Provisions Act, credit organizations used in conjunction with the provisions of the Bankruptcy Act.

Bankruptcy law provides for the following stages of insolvency proceedings: Monitoring procedure or Supervision (nablyudeniye); The economic recovery (finansovoe ozdorovleniye); External control (vneshneye upravleniye); Liquidation (konkursnoye proizvodstvo) and Amicable Agreement (mirovoye soglasheniye).

The main face of the bankruptcy process is the insolvency officer (trustee in bankruptcy, bankruptcy manager). At various stages of bankruptcy, he must be determined: the temporary officer in Monitoring procedure, external manager in External control, the receiver or administrative officer in The economic recovery, the liquidator. During the bankruptcy trustee in bankruptcy (insolvency officer) has a decisive influence on the movement of assets (property) of the debtor - the debtor and has a key influence on the economic and legal aspects of its operations.

Under Swiss law, bankruptcy can be a consequence of insolvency. It is a court-ordered form of debt enforcement proceedings that applies, in general, to registered commercial entities only. In a bankruptcy, all assets of the debtor are liquidated under the administration of the creditors, although the law provides for debt restructuring options similar to those under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy code.

In Sweden, bankruptcy (Swedish: konkurs) is a formal process that may involve a company or individual. It is not the same as insolvency, which is inability to pay debts that should have been paid. A creditor or the company itself can apply for bankruptcy. An external bankruptcy manager takes over the company or the assets of the person, and tries to sell as much as possible. A person or a company in bankruptcy can not access its assets (with some exceptions).

The formal bankruptcy process is rarely carried out for individuals.[29] Creditors can claim money through the Enforcement Administration anyway, and creditors do not usually benefit from the bankruptcy of individuals because there are costs of a bankruptcy manager which has priority. Unpaid debts remain after bankruptcy for individuals. People who are deeply in debt can obtain a debt arrangement procedure (Swedish: skuldsanering). On application, they obtain a payment plan under which they pay as much as they can for five years, and then all remaining debts are cancelled. Debts that derive from a ban on business operations (issued by court, commonly for tax fraud or fraudulent business practices) or owed to a crime victim as compensation for damages, are exempted from thisand, as before this process was introduced in 2006, remain lifelong.[30] Debts that have not been claimed during a 3-10 year period are cancelled. Often crime victims stop their claims after a few years since criminals often do not have job incomes and might be hard to locate, while banks make sure their claims are not cancelled. The most common reasons for personal insolvency in Sweden are illness, unemployment, divorce or company bankruptcy.

For companies, formal bankruptcy is a normal effect of insolvency, even if there is a reconstruction mechanism where the company can be given time to solve its situation, e.g. by finding an investor. The formal bankruptcy involves contracting a bankruptcy manager, who makes certain that assets are sold and money divided by the priority the law claims, and no other way. Banks have such a priority. After a finished bankruptcy for a company, it is terminated. The activities might continue in a new company which has bought important assets from the bankrupted company.

Bankruptcy in the United Kingdom (in a strict legal sense) relates only to individuals (including sole proprietors) and partnerships. Companies and other corporations enter into differently named legal insolvency procedures: liquidation and administration (administration order and administrative receivership). However, the term 'bankruptcy' is often used when referring to companies in the media and in general conversation. Bankruptcy in Scotland is referred to as sequestration. To apply for bankruptcy in Scotland, an individual must have more than 1,500 of debt.

A trustee in bankruptcy must be either an Official Receiver (a civil servant) or a licensed insolvency practitioner. Current law in England and Wales derives in large part from the Insolvency Act 1986. Following the introduction of the Enterprise Act 2002, a UK bankruptcy now normally last no longer than 12 months, and may be less if the Official Receiver files in court a certificate that investigations are complete. It was expected that the UK Government's liberalisation of the UK bankruptcy regime would increase the number of bankruptcy cases; initially, cases increased, as the Insolvency Service statistics appear to bear out. Since 2009, the introduction of the Debt Relief Order has resulted in a dramatic fall in bankruptcies, the latest estimates for year 2014/15 being significantly less than 30,000 cases.

The UK bankruptcy law was changed in May 2000, effective May 29, 2000.[31] Debtors may now retain occupational pensions while in bankruptcy, except in rare cases.[31]

The Government have updated legislation (2016) to streamline the application process for UK bankruptcy. UK residents now need to apply online for bankruptcy - there is an upfront fee of 655. The process for residents of Northern Ireland differs - applicants must follow the older process of applying through the courts.[31]

Bankruptcy in the United States is a matter placed under federal jurisdiction by the United States Constitution (in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 4), which empowers Congress to enact "uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States". Congress has enacted statutes governing bankruptcy, primarily in the form of the Bankruptcy Code, located at Title 11 of the United States Code.[32]

A debtor declares bankruptcy to obtain relief from debt, and this is normally accomplished either through a discharge of the debt or through a restructuring of the debt. When a debtor files a voluntary petition, their bankruptcy case commences.[33]

While bankruptcy cases are always filed in United States Bankruptcy Court (an adjunct to the U.S. District Courts), bankruptcy cases, particularly with respect to the validity of claims and exemptions, are often dependent upon State law.[34] A Bankruptcy Exemption defines the property a debtor may retain and preserve through bankruptcy. Certain real and personal property can be exempted on "Schedule C"[35] of a debtor's bankruptcy forms, and effectively be taken outside the debtor's bankruptcy estate. Bankruptcy exemptions are available only to individuals filing bankruptcy.[36]

There are two alternative systems that can be used to "exempt" property from a bankruptcy estate, federal exemptions[37] (available in some states but not all), and state exemptions (which vary widely between states). For example, Maryland and Virginia, which are adjoining states, have different personal exemption amounts that cannot be seized for payment of debts. This amount is the first $6,000 in property or cash in Maryland,[38] but normally only the first $5,000 in Virginia.[39] State law therefore plays a major role in many bankruptcy cases, such that there may be significant differences in the outcome of a bankruptcy case depending upon the state in which it is filed.

After a bankruptcy petition is filed, the court schedules a hearing called a 341 meeting or meeting of creditors, at which the bankruptcy trustee and creditors review the petitioner's petition and supporting schedules, question the petitioner, and can challenge exemptions they believe are improper.[40]

There are six types of bankruptcy under the Bankruptcy Code, located at Title 11 of the United States Code:

An important feature applicable to all types of bankruptcy filings is the automatic stay.[41] The automatic stay means that the mere request for bankruptcy protection automatically halts most lawsuits, repossessions, foreclosures, evictions, garnishments, attachments, utility shut-offs, and debt collection activity.

The most common types of personal bankruptcy for individuals are Chapter 7 and Chapter 13. Chapter 7, known as a "straight bankruptcy" involves the discharge of certain debts without repayment. Chapter 13, involves a plan of repayment of debts over a period of years. Whether a person qualifies for Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 is in part determined by income.[42][43] As many as 65% of all U.S. consumer bankruptcy filings are Chapter 7 cases.

Before a consumer may obtain bankruptcy relief under either Chapter 7 or Chapter 13, the debtor is to undertake credit counselling with approved counseling agencies prior to filing a bankruptcy petition and to undertake education in personal financial management from approved agencies prior to being granted a discharge of debts under either Chapter 7 or Chapter 13. Some studies of the operation of the credit counseling requirement suggest that it provides little benefit to debtors who receive the counseling because the only realistic option for many is to seek relief under the Bankruptcy Code.[44]

Corporations and other business forms normally file under Chapters 7 or 11.

Often called "straight bankruptcy" or "simple bankruptcy," a Chapter 7 bankruptcy potentially allows debtors to eliminate most or all of their debts over a period of as little as three or four months. In a typical consumer bankruptcy, the only debts that survive a Chapter 7 are student loans, child support obligations, some tax bills and criminal fines. Credit cards, pay day loans, personal loans, medical bills, and just about all other bills are discharged.

In Chapter 7, a debtor surrenders non-exempt property to a bankruptcy trustee, who then liquidates the property and distributes the proceeds to the debtor's unsecured creditors. In exchange, the debtor is entitled to a discharge of some debt. However, the debtor is not granted a discharge if guilty of certain types of inappropriate behavior (e.g., concealing records relating to financial condition) and certain debts (e.g., spousal and child support and most student loans). Some taxes are not discharged even though the debtor is generally discharged from debt. Many individuals in financial distress own only exempt property (e.g., clothes, household goods, an older car, or the tools of their trade or profession) and do not have to surrender any property to the trustee.[42] The amount of property that a debtor may exempt varies from state to state (as noted above, Virginia and Maryland have a $1,000 difference.) Chapter 7 relief is available only once in any eight-year period. Generally, the rights of secured creditors to their collateral continues, even though their debt is discharged. For example, absent some arrangement by a debtor to surrender a car or "reaffirm" a debt, the creditor with a security interest in the debtor's car may repossess the car even if the debt to the creditor is discharged.

Ninety-one percent of U.S. individuals who petition for relief under Chapter 7 hire an attorney to file their petitions.[45] The typical cost of an attorney is $1,170.00.[45] Alternatives to filing with an attorney are: filing pro se,[46] hiring a non-lawyer petition preparer,[47] or using online software to generate the petition.

To be eligible to file a consumer bankruptcy under Chapter 7, a debtor must qualify under a statutory "means test".[48] The means test was intended to make it more difficult for a significant number of financially distressed individual debtors whose debts are primarily consumer debts to qualify for relief under Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code. The "means test" is employed in cases where an individual with primarily consumer debts has more than the average annual income for a household of equivalent size, computed over a 180-day period prior to filing. If the individual must "take" the "means test", their average monthly income over this 180-day period is reduced by a series of allowances for living expenses and secured debt payments in a very complex calculation that may or may not accurately reflect that individual's actual monthly budget. If the results of the means test show no disposable income (or in some cases a very small amount) then the individual qualifies for Chapter 7 relief. An individual who fails the means test will have their Chapter 7 case dismissed, or may have to convert the case to a Chapter 13 bankruptcy.

If a debtor does not qualify for relief under Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code, either because of the Means Test or because Chapter 7 does not provide a permanent solution to delinquent payments for secured debts, such as mortgages or vehicle loans, the debtor may still seek relief under Chapter 13 of the Code. A Chapter 13 plan often does not require repayment to general unsecured debts, such as credit cards or medical bills.

Generally, a trustee sells most of the debtor's assets to pay off creditors. However, certain debtor assets will be protected to some extent by bankruptcy exemptions. These include Social Security payments, unemployment compensation, limited equity in a home, car, or truck, household goods and appliances, trade tools, and books. However, these exemptions vary from state to state.

In Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the debtor retains ownership and control of assets and is re-termed a debtor in possession (DIP).[49] The debtor in possession runs the day-to-day operations of the business while creditors and the debtor work with the Bankruptcy Court in order to negotiate and complete a plan. Upon meeting certain requirements (e.g., fairness among creditors, priority of certain creditors) creditors are permitted to vote on the proposed plan.[50] If a plan is confirmed, the debtor continues to operate and pay debts under the terms of the confirmed plan. If a specified majority of creditors do not vote to confirm a plan, additional requirements may be imposed by the court in order to confirm the plan. Debtors filing for Chapter 11 protection a second time are known informally as "Chapter 22" filers.[51]

In Chapter 13, debtors retain ownership and possession of all their assets, but must devote some portion of future income to repaying creditors, generally over three to five years.[52] The amount of payment and period of the repayment plan depend upon a variety of factors, including the value of the debtor's property and the amount of a debtor's income and expenses.[53] Under this chapter, the debtor can propose a repayment plan in which to pay creditors over three to five years. If the monthly income is less than the state's median income, the plan is for three years, unless the court finds "just cause" to extend the plan for a longer period. If the debtor's monthly income is greater than the median income for individuals in the debtor's state, the plan must generally be for five years. A plan cannot exceed the five-year limit.[53]

Relief under Chapter 13 is available only to individuals with regular income whose debts do not exceed prescribed limits.[54] If the debtor is an individual or a sole proprietor, the debtor is allowed to file for a Chapter 13 bankruptcy to repay all or part of the debts. Secured creditors may be entitled to greater payment than unsecured creditors.[52]

In contrast to Chapter 7, the debtor in Chapter 13 may keep all property, whether or not exempt. If the plan appears feasible and if the debtor complies with all the other requirements, the bankruptcy court typically confirms the plan and the debtor and creditors are bound by its terms. Creditors have no say in the formulation of the plan, other than to object to it, if appropriate, on the grounds that it does not comply with one of the Code's statutory requirements.[55] Generally, the debtor makes payments to a trustee who disburses the funds in accordance with the terms of the confirmed plan.

When the debtor completes payments pursuant to the terms of the plan, the court formally grant the debtor a discharge of the debts provided for in the plan.[53] However, if the debtor fails to make the agreed upon payments or fails to seek or gain court approval of a modified plan, a bankruptcy court will normally dismiss the case on the motion of the trustee.[56] After a dismissal, creditors may resume pursuit of state law remedies to recover the unpaid debt.

In 2004, the number of insolvencies reached record highs in many European countries. In France, company insolvencies rose by more than 4%, in Austria by more than 10%, and in Greece by more than 20%. The increase in the number of insolvencies, however, does not indicate the total financial impact of insolvencies in each country because there is no indication of the size of each case. An increase in the number of bankruptcy cases does not necessarily entail an increase in bad debt write-off rates for the economy as a whole.

Bankruptcy statistics are also a trailing indicator. There is a time delay between financial difficulties and bankruptcy. In most cases, several months or even years pass between the financial problems and the start of bankruptcy proceedings. Legal, tax, and cultural issues may further distort bankruptcy figures, especially when comparing on an international basis. Two examples:

The insolvency numbers for private individuals also do not show the whole picture. Only a fraction of heavily indebted households file for insolvency. Two of the main reasons for this are the stigma of declaring themselves insolvent and the potential business disadvantage.

Following the soar in insolvencies in the last decade, a number of European countries, such as France, Germany, Spain and Italy, began to revamp their bankruptcy laws in 2013. They modelled these new laws after the image of Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. Currently, the majority of insolvency cases have ended in liquidation in Europe rather than the businesses surviving the crisis. These new law models are meant to change this; lawmakers are hoping to turn bankruptcy into a chance for restructuring rather than a death sentence for the companies.[57]

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Hedonism – Utilitarianism

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HedonismPhilosophers commonly distinguish between psychological hedonism and ethical hedonism. Psychological hedonism is the view that humans are psychologically constructed in such a way that we exclusively desire pleasure. Ethical hedonism is the view that our fundamental moral obligation is to maximize pleasure or happiness. Ethical hedonism is most associated with the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus (342-270 BCE.) who taught that our life's goal should be to minimize pain and maximize pleasure. In fact, all of our actions should have that aim:We recognize pleasure as the first good innate in us, and from pleasure we begin every act of choice and avoidance, and to pleasure we return again, using the feeling as the standard by which we judge every good.[Letter to Menoeceus]

In A Letter to Menoeceus - one of his few surviving fragments - Epicurus gives advice on how to decrease life's pains, and explains the nature of pleasure. As to decreasing life's pain, Epicurus explains how we can reduce the psychological anguish that results from fearing the gods and fearing death. Concerning the nature of pleasure, Epicurus explains that at least some pleasures are rooted in natural and, as a rule, every pain is bad and should be avoided, and every pleasure is good and should be preferred. However, there is delicate relation between pain and pleasure. Every pain we have is bad, and we should minimize pain when possible. However, sometimes simply minimizing life's pains is sufficient to attain happiness, and we need to go a step further and actively increase pleasure. He argues that we should not pursue every possible pleasure, such as when they produce more pain. Also, argues that the fewer desires we have, the easier it will be to experience happiness.

During the middle ages, Christian philosophers largely denounced Epicurean hedonism, which they believed was inconsistent with the Christian emphasis on avoiding sin, doing God's will, and developing the Christian virtues of faith, hope and charity. Reniassance philosophers such as Erasmus (1466-1536) revived hedonism and argued that its emphasis on pleasure was in fact compatible with God's wish for humans to be happy. In his famous work Utopia (1516), British philosopher Thomas More (1478-1535) explains that "the chief part of a person's happiness consists of pleasure." Like Erasmus, More defends hedonism on religious grounds and argues that, not only did God design us to be happy, but that uses our desire for happiness to motivate us to behave morally. More importantly More distinguishes between pleasures of the mind, and pleasures of the body. He also argues that we should pursue pleasures that are more naturally grounded, so that we do not become preoccupied with artificial luxuries. In the 18th century, the moral theme of pleasure and happiness was more systematically explored by Francis Hutcheson (1694-1747) and David Hume (1711-1776), whose theories were precursors to utilitarianism.

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Hedonism - Utilitarianism

Roger Ver: Fake social media accounts using my name have …

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Roger Ver, the CEO of Bitcoin.com and a major proponent of Bitcoin Cash [BCH], stated that fake social media accounts using his details have been used to scam online users of $6 million in cryptocurrency.

In the January 20 episode from the Bitcoin.com YouTube channel featuring Roger Ver, Corbin Fraser, and special guest Akane Yokoo from Peaceful Warrior, a BCH adoption merchandise website, the trio discussed the issue of Crypto Impersonations, especially the ones using Roger Vers name.

Scams built on using Roger Vers name have been on the rise with multiple fake accounts being used to contact uninformed Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash investors, said Ver. He specifically spoke about the use of Twitter and Instagram to prop up fake Ver profiles.

He stated:

Fake social media Roger accounts (Roger Ver accounts) theyve scammed, that I know of, over $6 million dollars-worth of crypto.

Roger Ver further broke down the aforementioned number as $5 million being attained from a single company, a million from another scam, and a few thousand dollar scams from other individuals.

Twitter scams have decreased after the social media website provided Ver with a verified symbol, decreasing the threat of impersonations. However, fake profiles of the Bitcoin.com CEO are still rampant.

Instagram users have to be cautious of the Roger Ver accounts that contact them, as his profile is not verified despite him submitting his passport for verification. Ver stated that his account on Instagram is @roger, with all other accounts being fake.

In light of the above scams, Ver affirmed in the interview:

Im never ever ever going to contact any of you guys asking for money or asking to invest in something via direct message on any of these social media platforms.

Ver even suggested the idea of a Proof of Human (PoH) concept on the blockchain that will help the masses identify genuine and fake social media accounts. He even invited entrepreneurs to build such a network which he thinks is necessary for the market.

A post on Steemit, the social media platform that rewards people for content creation, detailed an encounter with a fake Roger Ver profile in order to scam a user. The post, published by a mrdeleted, stated that the fraudster got .08 of a Bitcoin [BTC] from the user by using Vers fake profile.

Crypto-impersonations were on the rise in 2018, with several top influencers profiles being misappropriated in order to swindle millions. In addition to Ver, fake profiles of Elon Musk, Vitalik Buterin, Erik Voorhees, Barry Silbert, and John McAfee have all been faked to run scams.

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Roger Ver: Fake social media accounts using my name have ...

Roger Ver: Maybe Ive Been Fooled by Craig Wright

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Early cryptocurrency adopter and outspoken Bitcoin Cash evangelist Roger Ver said that he is having second thoughts about his former alliance with self-described Bitcoin creator Craig Wright.

Ver, the owner of crypto wallet service and bitcoin cash mining pool Bitcoin.com, stated in a newly-uploaded YouTube video that Wright whose firm, nChain, is the developer of BCH software implementation Bitcoin SV had fooled him.

Its never easy to admit that youve been fooled, but maybe Ive been fooled, Ver said while sharing a screenshot of an email that Wright had allegedly sent him after he publicly backed BCH development group Bitcoin ABC not Wrights SV in the debate over the impending BCH hard fork.

Wright allegedly wrote:

Side with ABC, you hate bitcoin, you are my enemy. You have fking no idea what that means. You Will. I AM Satoshi. Have a nice life. You will now discover me when pissed off. And, no. You Could have had proof. Your choice. Fk you.

Ver and Wright had already been feuding for several months in the lead-up to the hard fork, so it was no surprise when Ver publicly backed Bitcoin ABCs vision for Bitcoin Cash or when the characteristically-bombastic Wright lashed out by accusing Ver of wanting to promote child pornography.

Hover, Ver claimed that his spat with Wright is about more than personal insults and political differences. He said that, over time, he had become skeptical about Wrights technical acumen.

Some things Craig says, I think are really spot on, but other things, he has no clue what hes talking about, Ver said, adding later that Wright had refused to engage in a technical debate at a recent BCH mining conference.

It seems strange to have Craig refuse to engage in any sort of technical debate there, and my suspicion at this point is that he cant. And Ive seen a bunch of things happen that make me skeptical very, very, deeply skeptical.

Thats a significant departure from comments about Wright that Ver has made in the past. While he had shied away from outright stating that he believes Wright is Satoshi, he had praised his vision for cryptocurrency as consistent with the one laid out in the Bitcoin whitepaper.

Satoshi or not, the things Craig Wright is saying are exactly the things that caused me to sign up for Bitcoin in the first place, Ver told Motherboard last year. They are also the the things that led to its success.

Now, though, Ver said that even incontrovertible proof that Wright is Satoshi would do nothing to change his opinion of him or his vision for BCH. Paraphrasing Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, Ver said that if Wright did turn out to be Satoshi, it would lower his opinion of Satoshi not elevate his opinion of Wright.

Featured Image from CoinGeek/YouTube

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Roger Ver: Maybe Ive Been Fooled by Craig Wright

Bitmain, Roger Ver, Kraken Sued as Bitcoin Cash Nightmare …

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Roger Ver, Bitcoin.com,Bitmain, and Kraken are all sued by UnitedCorp over an alleged complot to hijack the Bitcoin Cash network for their own personal gain.

If the Bitcoin Cash fork fall-out that made November one of cryptos most volatile months on record wasnt bad enough, the nightmare continues. Although, some might say, this time its justifieddepending on which camp you belong to.

Telecommunications and IT development company UnitedCorp is suing the big guns over an alleged plot to control the Bitcoin Cash network.

Who is involved in the complot? Well, according to Florida-based United Corp, that would be Bitcoin.com, Roger Ver, Bitmain, and the Kraken Bitcoin Exchange. The suit was filed yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida and alleges that the defendants worked together to abuse the BCH network.

They apparently pooled their collective resources to practice market manipulation for their own benefit and for the detriment of BCH stakeholdersUnitedCorp in particular. According to the 27-page lawsuit:

This action involves a scheme by a tight-knit network of individuals and organizations to manipulate the cryptocurrency market for Bitcoin Cash, effectively hijacking the Bitcoin Cash network.

It goes on to add that it was a well-planned scheme that effectively caused the market to collapse and lose more than $4 billion, leading to many Bitcoin holders suffering irreparable harm.

The Bitcoin Cash network underwent a controversial update on November 15, which split the BCH community down the middle. The two camps became those in favor of Bitcoin Cash ABC and those who supported Bitcoin Cash SV. And the uncertainty over the future of both networks caused higher crypto volatility and a general market plunge, even days after the fork.

The ongoing hash war between BCH and BSV further damaged the market as the blockchains continued to battle it out for common hash power.

The plaintiff UnitedCorp alleges that the defendants made use of rented hashing to control the network immediately after the upgrade and that this behavior is:

In violation of the accepted standards and protocols associated with Bitcoin since its inception.

UnitedCorp points out that this additional computational hashing power had not contributed to the network prior to the upgrade and was withdrawn shortly after. The sole purpose of it, then, was to give Bitcoin Cash ABC an artificially longer chain and essentially amounted to human manipulation. This was, according to UnitedCorp, orchestrated the small group of corporations and individuals mentioned above.

The company that manages a portfolio of patents and its own proprietary technology in blockchain goes on to say that on November 20, a full five days after the fork was completed, the Bitcoin ABC team put out a Deep Reorg Prevention, which they call a poison pill into the blockchain to further strengthen their controland that this will give them additional control over future network updates.

Short of a full market recovery, what exactly is it that UnitedCorp is seeking from the defendants? Compensation and the cessation of continued actions against the BCH network right nowand into the future. The value of the compensation sought by UnitedCorop has yet to be determined.

Bitcoin Cash is one of the cryptocurrencys most important networks and also one of its most controversial. Since the confidence in the network is derived from its decentralization, the Bitcoin Cash fork brings up questions of whether individuals can gain enough hash power to centralize the network.

Upon the news, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) 00 registered significant losses. Today it is down by over 16% and trading at $104 at time of writing. Bitcoin SV (BSV) 00, meanwhile, has made gains of nearly 20% over the past 24 hours.

Bitcoinist reached out to Bitcoin.com for a comment but a representative said thatthe company does not have any comments regarding this subject at this time.

Is the lawsuit valid? Will it hold up in court? Share your thoughts below!

Images courtesy of Shutterstock, SFOX

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Bitmain, Roger Ver, Kraken Sued as Bitcoin Cash Nightmare ...

Roger Ver Promotes Bitcoin Cash On CNBC’s Fast Money – UNHASHED

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Roger Ver, a highly debated public figure in the cryptosphere, went on CNBCs Fast Money recently to offer insights into the current cryptocurrency market. Despite being one of the earliest adopters of Bitcoin and an outspoken advocate for cryptocurrency, Ver has stirred up controversy in recent years after abandoning support for Bitcoin in favor of Bitcoin Cash (of which he is now suspected to hold tens of millions of dollars worth).Bitcoin Cash first launched in August 2017 as Bitcoins first hard fork, and has lost nearly 30 percent of its value over the course of the last month. Ironically, CNBC has given Ver the title of Bitcoin Jesus, a name that might be just as easily replaced with Bitcoin Judas by his opponents in the space.

Ver told CNBC that in his opinion, much of Bitcoins struggles following its price crash earlier this year can be attributed to Bitcoins inability to be used in commerce.

The fees became high, the transactions became slow and unreliable, and people like myself and everybody else who was actually trying to use it for commerce stopped and switched to something else, said Ver.

Suggested Reading : Learn more about Bitcoin Cash and how it differs from Bitcoin in our beginners guide.

Ver continued:

I remember when I bought my first Bitcoin for a dollar and it went all the way up to 30 dollars that summer in 2011. It then dropped all the way back down to two dollars. It lost 90 percent of its value over the next year. But in investing, like in hockey, you dont skate to where the puck is currently, you skate to where its going to be in the future. Its very clear that all the adoption by the merchants and all the businesses are being built on top of Bitcoin Cash at this point. So for the future I think Bitcoin Cash is going to be the best investment standpoint.

Despite an unsurprising push for Bitcoin Cash, Ver does encourage investors to diversify their portfolios. He insists that it is important to not put all of your money into a single cryptocurrency.

Diversify is the name of the game when it comes to investing, said Ver. In addition to Bitcoin Cash, Ver reveals that he also holds Monero, Dash, Ether, Zcash, Ripple, Stellar and a little bit of Bitcoin.

Ver stated that he used to only hold Bitcoin before the BTC Team decided to sabotage the network, making it impossible to scale in his opinion. He then called the Bitcoin developers absolutely insane for recent decisions made to the network. Ver believes that the high fees on the Bitcoin network will continue to go up, and Bitcoin will continue to lose market share.

The full interview can be seen below:

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Roger Ver Promotes Bitcoin Cash On CNBC's Fast Money - UNHASHED

Roger Ver Now ‘Pretty Damn Skeptical’ of Craig Wright Being …

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A new video released by Bitcoin.com puts their CEO Roger Ver firmly in the camp of people who do not believe that Craig Wright is Satoshi Nakamoto.

Ver appeared in the video with lawyer Daniel Kelman to discuss the goings-on of Bitcoin Cash following the hard fork that took place last Friday. Several shots were fired at the Bitcoin SV camp, the first of which was related to the stability of the other Bitcoin Cash fork. Ver said that he was 100% in favor of locking down the protocol so that businesses can build on and rely upon it, and that while the SV folks (eg Craig Wright and Calvin Ayre) were good at saying the same thing, their actions spoke to the opposite.

The pair reported that the difficulty of Bitcoin Cash ABC is about 53% more than the difficulty of Bitcoin SV, which demonstrates that much more hashpower is being directed at the one than the other. Difficulty re-targets faster in Bitcoin Cash than it does in regular Bitcoin, and it increases the more miners are attempting to find block rewards.

Ver addressed the continuing angst in the wider Bitcoin community against Bitcoin Cash, saying that people should redirect their ire toward fiat money which manipulates billions of people all over the world.

Why are you mad at any digital currencies? Be mad at the fiat currencies that are used to manipulate people all over the world. Thats the currency you should be mad at. Not at Bitcoin Cash.

Ver also noted that many exchanges have gone as far as listing the Bitcoin ABC fork as the official BCH symbol, meaning that SV tokens will be the outlier on those exchanges. He also specifically stated his intention to sell off his SV tokens which would be significant and acquire more regular Bitcoin Cash.

But the most interesting part of the video appears later on, beginning when Ver notes a recent allegedly signed message from Satoshi Nakamoto decrying Segregated Witness. The alleged message has a questionable cryptographic signature which at least one person who appears to know what theyre talking about says anyone can do.

Kelman says that, in his opinion, the only valid signature would use the genesis block of the Bitcoin blockchain, something which everyone is 100% sure was mined by the creator of Bitcoin himself.

Ver added that at this point, as Vitalik Buteirn has famously said, it doesnt matter if Craig Wright is Satoshi or not.

Like Vitalik [Buterin] said, if it turned out that Craig were Satoshi, that would just lower my opinion of Satoshi at this point.

From there, Ver says that he has already thanked whoever Satoshi was for what they created.

And Craig, if you did play a role or part in that like, thank you for that. If you did. I dont know. Im pretty damn skeptical at this point but truth is stranger than fiction sometimes. But I dont think he did. Thats my opinion. If you want to prove otherwise just sign something with the genesis block. Its that simple.

Ver had previously been open to the idea that Craig Wright was Satoshi Nakamoto, but more recently he has walked back his support of Craig Wright, saying recently that he could have been fooled. He, of course, was not the only person to buy into the idea. Former Bitcoin Core lead developer Gavin Andresen famously backed Wright as Satoshi when he first came out as such and later recanted his statement, calling it a mistake.

Featured image from Youtube.

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Roger Ver Now 'Pretty Damn Skeptical' of Craig Wright Being ...

Roger Ver and Richard Heart Bitcoin debate.

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Time stamps:2:24 Ver's position9:43 Bitcoin use cases14:30 Vitalik originally wanted to built Ethereum on Bitcoin19:40 Chain rollbacks21:14 Evidence of what has worked for years for Bitcoin (Increasing block size)24:01 Chinese miners do not communicate with Bitcoin community/Fear of Chinese control25:53 Blockchain over satellite transactions already happening27:45 Options to discuss28:51 Satoshi is a sellout or dead30:32 1 MB limit & fees killed Bitcoin adoption34:58 No one actually using Bitcoin37:48 Blockstream wants high fees/Blockstream is not a monolith39:23 Centralization is the result of large block size/Empty blocks42:27 Miners catch on fire if they stop mining43:30 Transactions disappeared after NYA - Not real transactions44:07 "Bcash"46:46 Bcash fork "stole" hashpower & Wix website risks50:35 Ver sold a dozen Bitcoin for Bcash the day before51:00 Stealing brand awareness/Blockstream ditching Satoshi's block size view54:20 Becoming the evil that you hate as moderator/ r/Bitcoin overmoderated/Fanboys58:26 If you believe censorship is bad, you must account for extremism1:01:00 r/BTC could get attacked by altcoin/ICO shills1:03:07 Hate for altcoins/ICOs and how to discourage them1:10:28 Gone off the Bitcoin roadmap/Next step on Core's roadmap was larger block1:12:16 Lightning network/Craig Wright should model if it would work/Craig invited to show1:14:32 Craig Wright failures1:15:57 Satoshi put in the 1 MB limit to prevent spam1:17:14 Ver didn't know about Bitcoin cash, did NOT create it1:18:32 Bcash wallet insecure "Electron cash"/risks/Richard created secure tutorial1:21:44 Bcash should've started own brand1:22:51 Blocks scale linearly1:24:09 Pay someone to model lightning network to prove if it would work or fail

Excerpt from:

Roger Ver and Richard Heart Bitcoin debate.

Bitcoin Cash Hard Fork Controversy: Roger Ver vs. Craig Wright

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Hard forks and lack of governance were a huge issue during the rise of cryptocurrency back in late 2017. It seems this hasnt changed in 2018, as we have just encountered a new Bitcoin Cash hard fork controversy.

Hard forks are required for large blockchain network updatesand require all nodes running the network to switch over to the new chain at a designated block number. Unfortunately, not every node running the network agrees with the direction of the project and decides to start its own fork with other nodescreating a new forked chain and new digital currency.

Hard fork splits in 2017 brought about the digital currencies Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Bitcoin Gold (BTG), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Bitcoin Diamond (BCD), Monero Classic (XMC), and Monero Original (XMO).

On November 15th, Bitcoin Cash underwent its second scheduled protocol upgrade. However, a competing proposal emerged that was not compatible with the original roadmap and caused the BCH community to be split into three fractions: Bitcoin ABC, Bitcoin Unlimited, and Bitcoin SV.

Bitcoin ABC represents the conservative approach to the update, which aims to preserve Bitcoin Cash from radical changes. ABC is ledby Roger Ver, CEO of Bitcoin.com. Bitcoin ABC is also backed and represented by Binance, Coinbase, and Bitmain.

>> Bitcoin Hits Lowest Level AgainThis Time Last Year Things were Very Different!

Bitcoin SV, or Satoshis Vision, was founded last Friday by a blockchain firm that is associated with Craig Wrightwho has in the past deemed himself as Satoshi Nakamoto and has often been mocked by the crypto community. Bitcoin SV seeks to increase the block size of BCH from 32MB to a max of 128MB in hopes of increasing the networks capacity and scale.

Bitcoin Unlimited is a neutral fork and the leaders are looking for a compromise betweenBitcoin SV and Bitcoin ABC, asking for a vote between all the miners.

Currently, Bitcoin ABC has the most support but Craig Wright isnt backing down.

This just shows the need for proper governance and voting within these blockchain projects, because this Bitcoin Cash hard fork controversy has become a circus.

Featured Image: Depositphotos/ olly18

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Bitcoin Cash Hard Fork Controversy: Roger Ver vs. Craig Wright