Daily Archives: April 28, 2017

1 CleanThis VC Is Sure Venture Capital Is About To Be Disrupted Don't forget to take the Unchained Podcast survey!http://surveymonkey.com/r/unchained Blockchain Capital's recent BCAP token offering is a harbinger of things to come in venture capital and private equity, says the firm's managing director... 4/18/2017 Free View in iTunes 2 CleanWhy Bitcoin May Split In Two And How To Prevent It Please take the Unchained podcast survey!https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/unchained The bitcoin community is mired in a civil war. In this episode of the Unchained podcast, supporters of opposing sides -- former Bitcoin Core developer Jeff Garzik... 4/4/2017 Free View in iTunes 3 CleanBobby Lee, CEO Of BTCC, On Why The Chinese Probably Aren't Using Bitcoin To Evade Capital Controls Bobby Lee, CEO of BTCC, one of the world's longest-running cryptocurrency exchanges, talks about whether Chinese people are using bitcoin to evade capital controls, how bitcoin trading in China has changed since a government crackdown in early... 3/21/2017 Free View in iTunes 4 CleanWhy The First Employee Of Coinbase Launched A Hedge Fund Olaf Carlson-Wee is the founder of Polychain Capital, a hedge fund that has invested $15 million into digital assets and has gotten backing from storied venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures. In this episode, Carlson-Wee... 3/7/2017 Free View in iTunes 5 CleanWhy Nasdaq Is Even More Optimistic About Blockchain Than It Was 3 Years Ago Fredrik Voss, Nasdaq's head of blockchain initiatives, discusses what the company has accomplished with the technology and how his firm evaluates whether potential projects could benefit from a blockchain solution. He also reveals what is likely to... 2/21/2017 Free View in iTunes 6 CleanWith Deadline Looming, Will The SEC Approve A Bitcoin ETF? The SEC will make a decision on a proposed bitcoin ETF by March 11. Will it approve? An optimist and pessimist weigh in, touching upon bitcoins liquidity, the impact recent events in China have had on its trading, as well as proposals for bitcoin... 2/7/2017 Free View in iTunes 7 CleanIs The IRS Justified In Demanding Information On Millions Of Bitcoin Users? The IRS found three entities using bitcoin to evade taxes and has now demanded the records of millions of users at Coinbase, the largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange. An accountant and an attorney specializing in cryptocurrency discuss whether the IRS... 1/24/2017 Free View in iTunes 8 CleanWhat Is One Of The World's Largest Derivatives Exchanges Doing With Bitcoin? CME Group handles three billion contracts worth about $1 quadrillion annually. So why is it making a foray into bitcoin, whose market capitalization is a mere $16 billion? Sandra Ro, CME's head of digitization, explains its first cryptocurrency... 1/10/2017 Free View in iTunes 9 CleanFederal Prosecutor Kathryn Haun On How Criminals Use Bitcoin -- And How She Catches Them Kathryn Haun put away the DEA and Secret Service agents who tried to make off with more than $800,000 in stolen bitcoin while investigating the darknet Silk Road marketplace. She talks about how the blockchain technology underlying Bitcoin made it... 11/1/2016 Free View in iTunes 10 CleanHow Coin Center Is Helping Define The 'Big Fuzzy Gray Area' Of Blockchain And Cryptocurrency Law As blockchains and cryptocurrencies evolve, there are times when the technology outpaces the law. That's when Coin Center steps in. The non-profit, which represents the technology, not the industry, and aims for regulators to keep a mostly hands-off... 10/18/2016 Free View in iTunes 11 CleanWhat Does Cornells Emin Gun Sirer See As The Main Security Threats In Cryptocurrency? Everything Cornell University computer science professor Emin Gun Sirer, an influential figure in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space, describes his ideas for improving security in the space, his skepticism about how to scale these networks, and how the last... 10/4/2016 Free View in iTunes 12 CleanWhy A Wall Street Journal Currency Reporter Didn't Understand Money Until He Learned About Bitcoin Michael Casey, senior advisor at MIT's Media Lab and author of the Age of Cryptocurrency, spent 18 years at the Wall Street Journal -- a good portion of that covering currency markets. But he says it wasn't until he learned about Bitcoin that he... 9/20/2016 Free View in iTunes 13 CleanWhy Tyler And Cameron Winklevoss Fell In Love With Bitcoin Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, CEO and President, respectively, of cryptocurrency exchange Gemini, talk about the importance of regulation in a sector once associated in popular culture with illicit activity. The twin brothers, who were the first to... 9/6/2016 Free View in iTunes 14 CleanBlockchain 101 With Andreas Antonopoulos: How Bitcoin Makes Each Of Us As Powerful As A Bank Shifting from a perspective of 'only humans control money' to 'machines and software control money' is really radical and it changes a lot of things, says the popular blockchain and Bitcoin author and speaker Andreas Antonopoulos. Antonopoulos... 8/23/2016 Free View in iTunes 15 CleanHow The Blockchain Alliance Helps Law Enforcement With Bitcoin Crime And Developments Like The DAO Jason Weinstein and Alan Cohn, partner and of counsel, respectively at law firm Steptoe & Johnson, discuss their work with the Blockchain Alliance, a coalition of both blockchain and cryptocurrency companies as well as law enforcement agencies... 8/9/2016 Free View in iTunes 16 CleanChain's Adam Ludwin On Who Is Best Poised To Benefit From Blockchain Technology As blockchain technology remakes financial services, some companies will be better positioned than others, says Adam Ludwin, CEO of Chain, which has partnered with incumbents like Visa, Citi and Nasdaq. Ludwin describes which types of firms will... 7/26/2016 Free View in iTunes 17 CleanWant to Diversify Your Portfolio? Try Bitcoin, Say ARK's Chris Burniske And Coinbase's Adam White Invest in oil and gold? In this episode, the co-authors of a compelling white paper explain the four reasons why they believe you may soon be investing in digital oil and digital gold instead. Find out why their analysis prompted Burniske to say of... 7/12/2016 Free View in iTunes 18 CleanMaiTai Global's Bill Tai On Why Blockchain Is The 6th Wave Of Technology Bill Tai, a venture capitalist who got his start as a computer chip designer in the 1980s, places blockchain in the context of the broader technological revolution of the last three decades. He also reveals how Bitfury, a company in which he's an... 6/28/2016 Free View in iTunes 19 CleanBloq's Matt Roszak on Necker Island: Connecting Multiple Blockchains, China and Tech Cooperatives Matt Roszak, a venture capitalist for 20 years, discusses how his new company Bloq, cofounded with former Bitcoin core developer Jeff Garzik (from talks they began on Necker Island last year), serves enterprise clients and envisions a multi-chain... 6/14/2016 Free View in iTunes 20 CleanBitPesa's Elizabeth Rossiello on Necker Island Elizabeth Rossiello talks about how she went from being a credit ratings analyst for microfinance investors to heading up an "international mobile money" company for sub-Saharan Africa that uses Bitcoin's rails. Along the way she reveals how... 6/14/2016 Free View in iTunes

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Investopedia

Cryptocurrency Market Cap Reaches Record High of $30 Billion ... Investopedia This week, for the first time, the market capitalization of cryptocurrencies reached about the $30 billion point. While the cryptocurrency industry has been ... Cryptocurrency Market Cap > $30 Billion, an All-Time HighCryptoCoinsNews Cryptocurrency Inflation vs DeflationThe Merkle Cryptocurrency Market Cap Hits an All-Time High $30 BillionInside Bitcoins Hacked -Investing.com -CoinDesk all 14 news articles »

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Cryptocurrency Market Cap Reaches Record High of $30 Billion ... - Investopedia

The University of Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance has partnered with Visa to publish the first Global Cryptocurrency Benchmarking Study.

The study collected data from companies and individuals to provide detailed information regarding cryptocurrency usage.

All cryptocurrencies were included in the study, including Ethereum, Dash, Monero, Ripple, and LiteCoin.

The study examined a number of factors, including cryptocurrency payments, wallets, security, and mining distribution.

Luno, one of the biggest Bitcoin exchanges for South Africa, contributed to the global study.

While many South Africans use Bitcoin exchanges and own cryptocurrency, the majority of cryptocurrency companies are distributed throughout North America, Europe, and China.

The study found that the Asia-Pacific region and North America contain 80% of the worldwide cryptocurrency market.

South Africas contribution to the global cryptocurrency market is negligible.

A map detailing the distribution of study participants across global regions is shown below (click to enlarge).

They study showed that only 4% of overall cryptocurrency users were based in the Middle East and Africa region.

A significant portion of cryptocurrency users are from North America, whilethe majority are based in either Europe or the Asia-Pacific region as shown in the graphic below.

The study also found that a large portion of cryptocurrency miners were based in the Asia-Pacific region.

According to the data, only 6% of global transactions are cryptocurrency-to-cryptocurrency exchanges, with the majority (67%) of transactions consisted of national currency to cryptocurrency transactions.

Cryptocurrency payment companies said the biggest obstacle they faced was the difficulty of obtaining banking and money transfer operator (MTO) relationships, along with the high cost of regulatory compliance.

The study looked at which national currencies were supported throughout the world, providingan idea of local demand for services provided by cryptocurrency payment companies.

The South African rand falls below the Kenyan shilling and the Nigerian naira in terms of payment service support for African countries.

The full list of national currencies supported by the surveyed payment companies is below (Click to enlarge).

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Bitcoin and cryptocurrency - South Africa vs the World - MyBroadband

Ground floor Bitcoin Coffee is Paraleln Poliss attempt to embody the open exchange of ideas in the digital age

Prague has long been home to opulent coffeehouses, where everyone from Kafka to Einstein gathered to debate the burning issues of the day. Fast forward to the 21st century and the tradition of the coffeehouse as radical hub continues in the form of Paraleln Poliss Bitcoin Coffee in the suburb of Holeovice.

Founded by anarchic ethical hacker collective Ztohoven, the cavernous ground floor space is fitted with the industrial light fittings and paper honeycomb furniture found in hip cafes, but theres a difference the only form of payment accepted is the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. Barista Albta Svobodov even has a chip implanted in her wrist so shes never without her virtual wallet. We want to introduce Bitcoin to people from the street, she explains. The cafe is a tool to do that.

Not ready for a subcutaneous chip? Cash can be exchanged in the Bitcoin converter machine at the entrance; or load your Bitcoin on to an app such as Mycelium or a special plastic card. Rate fluctuations can be monitored in real time via the flat screen on the wall.

Nordbeans, a speciality roastery based in Liberec, north-east of Prague, sources the sustainable coffee. Expect to find all the usual espresso-based brews, as well as cutting-edge filter preparation methods, such as V60 and Aeropress on offer at the free-standing bar intended to embody the open exchange of ideas in the digital age that Paraleln Polis espouses.

paralelnipolis.cz

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Prague's cryptocurrency cafe: a perfect brew of beans and bitcoins - The Guardian

It is not entirely surprising to learn Bram Cohen the inventor of BitTorrent wants to create his own cryptocurrency. Even though there are already several thousand currencies in existence, Cohen feels his creation will bring something new to the table. In fact, he will devote all of his time to developing and maintaining this new currency, which has not received an official name just yet.

There are quite a few reasons as to why people are attracted to the concept of creating a cryptocurrency. This is especially true for people who are actively involved in distributed and peer-to-peer technology as well. Bram Cohen, the creator of the BitTorrent protocol, has shown a keen interest in cryptocurrency for several years now. That is not surprising, considering both types of technology focus on the same aspects.

Cohen feels now is the timeto create a completely new cryptocurrency, although not too many details are known about it yet. He told Torrent Freak:

My proposal isnt really to do something to BitCoin. It really has to be a new currency. Im going to make a cryptocurrency company. Thats my plan.

Given his focus on peer-to-peer connectivity and decentralized technology, Cohen is in a prime position to experiment with developing a new cryptocurrency. Moreover, it is doubtful he would be in it for the money, as he simply wants to bring amazing new technologies and concepts to the masses.

Over the past few years, Cohen has taken the time to share his opinions regarding the state of cryptocurrency. In fact, he recently presented a new paper on proofs of space and proofs of time, which was well received by the attendees of the Stanford blockchain conference. This goes to show Cohen knows what he is talking about and how he feels cryptocurrency can be further improved moving forward.

It is worth mentioning Cohen will not be looking to make any contributions to bitcoin or any of the existing cryptocurrencies whatsoever. Instead, he will create a cryptocurrency company, which could indicate he is not necessarily looking to cater towards most cryptocurrency enthusiasts. It appears this new currency will try to focus on storage-based solution and solving the 51% attack vector that looms overhead for bitcoin and other currencies.

It has to be said, cryptocurrencies focusing on storage are nothing new under the sun right now. Various similar projects exist already, although Cohen will certainly look to do much better compared to the other developers. It remains unclear how he aims to do so, though, as most of these other projects have a large team of developers and contributors helping out. Cohen will need to establish a team of developers to contribute to his upcoming project.

Further information regarding this project is expected to be revealed in the coming months. Cohen will first focus on wrapping up some other work related to the BitTorrent protocol before dedicating himself full-time to this new cryptocurrency venture. It will be interesting to see what we can expect in the future, that much is certain.

If you liked this article, follow us on Twitter @themerklenews and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to receive the latest bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and technology news.

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BitTorrent Creator Will Switch to Full-time Cryptocurrency Development Soon - The Merkle

This is a stellar week for cryptocurrency traders with both bitcoin and many altcoins reaching record highs based on some very strong trading volumes. The first and leading blockchain is now worth in total more than $21 billion, with the BTC/USD exchange rate above the $1300 price level.

The London Summit 2017 is coming, get involved!

Despite this amazing feat by bitcoin (priced higher than an ounce of gold while the threat of a hard fork is still looming over it) its dominance in the overall crypto market is in fact diminishing. This is due to the rapid rise of competing cryptocurrencies, which some bitcoin purists are calling the altcoins bubble.

While BTC increased by about 7% over the last week, sometop ten blockchain tokens by market value grew in a much greater rate. Ethereum grew over 11%,Ripples XRP over 8%,Litecoin about 50%,NEM (XEM) over 67% and Ethereum Classic (ETC) jumped over 57%.

For the first time ever the market cap of all cryptocurrencies is now worth $32 billion and there are now sevencryptocurrencies with a market cap of near or over half a billion USD each. Besides Bitcoins previously mentioned$21 billion market cap,Ethereums market cap is now $5 billion, Ripples market cap is $1.2 billion, Litecoins market cap is $750 million, NEMs market cap is $470million and Ethereum Classics market cap is over $450 million.

Due to this, Bitcoins market value dominance now stands at just 65%. And even more so, its trading volume dominance is at just about 47% with a daily trading volume of $355 million out of over $755 combined daily trading volume for allcryptocurrencies in circulation.

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Cryptocurrency Ecosystem Now Worth $32 Billion as Top Altcoins Jump Over 50% - Finance Magnates

South Koreas central bank has published a new working paper analyzing a dual-currency regime by pitting cryptocurrencies against traditional fiat currencies.

Penned by economists and academics from the Bank of Korea and Seouls Hongik University, the working paper, titled Crowding out in a Dual Currency Regime? Digital versus Fiat Currency, [PDF] was published earlier this week.

[W]e examine the impact of a privately issued digital currency and fiat currency using the simplest framework, with which we may derive the most straightforward implications, reads the introduction of the paper. More specifically, we attempt to answer the question of whether digital currency will crowd out fiat currency.

The authors claim their research employs the simplest model of monetary economics to drive these straightforward implications with the minimum number of assumptions. The research considers dual currency regime, one which sees the coexistence of privately-issued digital currencies and fiat currencies issued by the government. Bitcoin is underlined is a notable example of a private digital currency.

Making note of a number of efforts with central banks exploring the possibility of issuing their own digital currencies, the researchers point to the example of the Bank of England which has publicly revealed its effort to do so. Such an attempt could drastically change our monetary system the authors write.

According to the researchers, the costs associated with both fiat and digital currencies will see both of them function together with each others drawbacks. High costs in using one could inturn spur demand for the other, and vice-versa, allowing both fiat and digital currencies to co-exist. They state:

High costs of using fiat currency increase the demand for digital currency. Similarly, high costs of using digital currency relative to fiat currency raise the demand for fiat currency. In a world of imperfect currencies with uncertain costs associated with the use of a currency, it is unlikely that the relative costs of using digital currency will be low enough to drive out and accordingly crowd out fiat currency entirely. Our results rather suggest that the threshold of equating the demand for fiat currency with that for digital currency will allow the co-existence of both currencies.

Fiat currencies have been historically known to decrease continuously, the authors confirm, due to inflation and the factor of new money pumped in to the supply by the central bank, also known as quantitative easing.

Bitcoin, in stark contrast, has a fixed supply which would imply a deflationary bias, the authors note.

This could lead to a situation in which Bitcoin drives out fiat currency as a store of value, the authors speculate, before quickly adding:

However, security or trust issues the decentralization of digital currency and the absence of insurance provided by governmental authorities may prevent digital currency from being used as a store of value. Instead, digital currency may be used as a medium of exchange dominantly.

The authors also point to future research possibilities, such as covering the topic of digital money appreciating due to ever-increasing demand and the possibility of a triple currency regime, one which would see private digital currencies like bitcoin, central bank digital currencies and fiat currencies operate together.

Bank of Korea image from Shutterstock.

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Bank of Korea: Cryptocurrency Costs Unlikely to Crowd Out Fiat Currencies - CryptoCoinsNews