Daily Archives: July 3, 2017

NATO and Cyberwar: Will Britain Invoke Article 5? – American Spectator

Posted: July 3, 2017 at 7:55 am

On November 19, 1919, Congress rejected the Versailles Treaty ending World War I and with it the charter of the League of Nations which was a key part of it. Principal among the reasons for the treatys rejection was a provision that committed the United States, along with the other members of the League, to the mutual defense of any member that was attacked militarily. Because treaties are the supreme law of the land second only to the Constitution Congress refused to surrender its power to declare war.

Almost thirty years later, Congress ratified the NATO Treaty despite the fact that Article 5 of that treaty contains the same mutual defense commitment. By ratifying that treaty, Congress declared war pre-emptively against any nation or non-state actor that attacked a NATO member.

With the accession of tiny Montenegro militarily as capable as the Duchy of Grand Fenwick minus the Q bomb NATO now has 29 member nations the United States is committed to defend.

Since 1949, the only time Article 5 has been invoked was after the 9/11 attacks on America. NATO, or at least most of its members, has joined us in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some NATO troops remain in Afghanistan after nearly sixteen years of war.

The threats of war that were recognized in 1949 have evolved as much as war itself. Every NATO member, including the U.S., has ignored the need to adapt the NATO Treaty to the 21st century.

As we celebrate our independence from Britain, we need to remember that they are now one of our most important allies. What they say deserves our attention and thought.

Last week UK Defense Minister Sir Michael Fallon, speaking about the recent cyberattack on the UK Parliament, suggested that his nation might respond to future cyberattacks with airstrikes or other military action. The clear implication is that the UK might invoke Article 5 to obtain NATO support for such military action.

No one considered cyberattacks when the NATO Treaty was signed because computer technology was in its infancy. But that is not to say that Article 5 is inapplicable to cyberattacks. The question boils down to this: When does a cyberattack constitute an act of war? There is no definition of a cyberattack in the NATO Treaty or elsewhere in international law.

Cyber espionage is a commonplace. U.S. defense contractors and government networks, including those of the intelligence agencies, are subjected to thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of cyberespionage attempts each day. Some succeed because every defense to them is penetrable eventually.

But cyberespionage is not cyberwar for one principal reason: it does no physical harm. Espionage only benefits the spy who remains undetected. People arent injured or killed, computer networks arent destroyed, and neither military nor civilian targets aircraft, the electricity power grid, and such are destroyed or damaged. Obviously, the cyberespionage or hacking that penetrated the UK Parliament email system wasnt an act of war.

Everyone who saw the Bruce Willis movie Live Free or Die Hard knows that cyberterrorism is not cyberespionage. The former can take down power grids, disrupt or rob financial networks, and kill people.

But theres a great deal more that cyberterrorists or nations acting against their adversaries can do. Some of those cyberattacks can and probably should be classified as acts of war.

Lets get organized. Cyberespionage isnt cyberwar. We do it as much as every other nation (and, I hope, more). Its the cost of doing business on the internet.

Leakers arent the issue. Leakers are traitors and should be caught and punished whenever possible. When CIA Director Mike Pompeo said that WikiLeaks was acting as a hostile intelligence service he was precisely right. But WikiLeaks, and others like them, are only as good as the leakers who feed them documents and data.

Hacking is a term that has lost its meaning because of its ubiquity. For the purposes of this discussion, lets exclude the innocent (or criminal) acts of individuals, governments, and terrorists gaining access to others emails and browser histories. As bad as they may be, theyre not acts of war.

But there is precedent for a definition of cyber acts of war.

In April 2007, the government of Estonia was subjected to a sustained cyberattack that lasted for weeks and effectively prevented Estonias government from functioning. The attack was almost certainly made by Russia, which naturally denied its involvement.

Estonia had become a member of NATO three years earlier. It didnt have the capability to retaliate against Russia but it could have invoked Article 5 of the NATO treaty to require participation in any military strike against Russia by the U.S. and other members. But the Russian cyberattack was, at worst, a marginal case under Article 5. Moreover no one, least of all the NATO members who are woefully deficient in defense spending, wanted to go to war over what the press characterized as a hacking incident.

Other cyberattacks were more clearly acts of war. For example, in 2007 the computer controls of many of Irans uranium enrichment centrifuges were penetrated by what reportedly was the Stuxnet computer worm that caused the centrifuges to run at excessive speed, destroying themselves. Other Iranian computer networks were also affected, bringing them down for a time.

Its almost certain that the Stuxnet attack emanated from either the United States or Israel and perhaps both. Stuxnet went far beyond espionage or hacking by materially damaging, and thus setting back, Irans nuclear weapons program. Because of its effects, the Stuxnet attacks were acts of war but Iran didnt claim them as such mainly because, at the time, it didnt have the capability to respond militarily.

Lets set the baseline. Our nation spends billions of dollars a year trying, with only middling success, to protect our cyber networks government, commercial, and private in a way that reduces but clearly doesnt eliminate the worst threats of cyberwar, including sabotage.

In setting the baseline we have to recognize that everything from most cars produced in the past ten years, to nuclear reactors, satellites, and fighter aircraft the F-35 is probably the best (i.e., worst) example are susceptible of cyberattack that can literally take over their controls and prevent them from performing their most essential missions. That vulnerability is limited only by the effectiveness of enemies efforts to penetrate their cyber defenses.

In March 2015 Adm. Mike Rogers, NSA Director and commander of U.S. Cyber Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in open session that the U.S. governments efforts to deter enemy cyberattacks werent working. Further, he said that we needed to increase our offensive cyberattack capabilities in order to create a deterrent effect. As a statement of the problem and not as an afterthought, Rogers said that then-President Obama hadnt delegated to him the authority to deploy offensive tools.

There is no reason to think that much has improved since then.

Now, we have one of our principal allies saying that at some point they may respond to a cyberattack with military action that would implicate all NATO members under Article 5. Thus, Article 5 needs to be amended to define what cyber events constitute an act of war on which the invocation of Article 5 can be justified.

This is not a trivial exercise, but lets take a crack at it.

To constitute an act of war, thereby justifying the invocation of Article 5, a cyberattack should be defined as an act by a nation or non-state actor such as a terrorist network that: (a) is performed by an identifiable actor and (b) attempted to cause or succeeded in causing physical injury to people or property (including damage to computer software) on a significant scale or (c) had the effect of preventing a government from employing its defense assets in peacetime or otherwise defending some or all of its citizens from harm.

The definition I propose is relatively simple. If a nation, or a non-state actor such as a terrorist network, commits a cyberattack that kills or injures people on a large scale or damages or destroys a significant amount of government or personal property, the event should be defined as an act of war. Taking control of an F-35, preventing it from navigating, using its weapons or even causing it to crash, would fit the definition. The Stuxnet attack on Iran would also fit.

Amending Article 5 to include a definition of cyberattacks would both limit it to properly prevent member states from using it to justify military action on baseless grounds and put enemy states on notice that certain cyberattacks are off-limits. As war evolves, so must the law of war.

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NSA Property Holdings Acquires Tri-State Self Storage in Castle County, DE – Inside Self-Storage

Posted: at 7:55 am

NSA Property Holdings LLC, an affiliate of real estate investment trust National Storage Affiliates Trust (NSAT), has acquired a three-property Tri-State Self Storage portfolio in Castle County, Del., from Tri-State Realty Associates L.P. The facilities sit on approximately 28.3 acres of land, according to a press release from SkyView Advisors, the investment-sales and advisory firm that brokered the deal.

Overall, the properties comprise 264,237 rentable square feet of storage space in 2,428 units, 568 of are climate-controlled. They also contain 109 parking spaces and miscellaneous units, the release stated.

Its not often that a portfolio of this size becomes available in this region of the country, and it garnered multiple bids from national self-storage buyers, said Ryan Clark, director of investment sales for SkyView Advisors and a broker in the transaction.

Last month, NSA Property Holdingsacquired Stor-N-More Self Storage in Tampa, Fla., for $19 million. The property comprises 117,655 net rentable square feet in 1,105 units.

SkyView is a boutique firm specializing in self-storage acquisition, development, facility expansion and renovation, refinancing, and sales. Based in Tampa, the firm also has offices in Cleveland and Milwaukee.

Headquartered in Greenwood, Colo., NSAT is a self-administered and -managed REIT focused on the acquisition, operation and ownership of self-storage properties within the top 100 U.S. Metropolitan Statistical Areas throughout the United States. The company has ownership interest in 456 storage facilities in 23 states. Its portfolio comprises approximately 28 million net rentable square feet. It's owned by its affiliate operators, who are contributing their interests in their self-storage assets over the next few years as their current mortgage debt matures.

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What you need to know about the 5th Amendment and … – ABC News

Posted: at 7:55 am

Former national security adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, through his lawyers, today invoked the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and refused to hand over documents subpoenaed by a Senate committee.

The Senate Intelligence Committee subpoenaed Flynn's personal documents on May 10, after he declined to cooperate with its April 28 request in relation to the panel's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible ties to Trump campaign associates. Before the April request, Flynn said through a statement from his lawyer that he wouldn't submit himself to questioning from the committee "without assurances against unfair prosecution."

The Fifth Amendment gives criminal defendants the right to refuse to testify at trial. No person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, according to the U.S. Constitution.

Although a congressional investigation is not a criminal matter, Flynn would still have the right to invoke the Fifth Amendment with regard to certain questions that could potentially incriminate him in a future criminal case. But he does not have the right to refuse to testify before Congress altogether.

As a general matter, the Fifth Amendment applies only to testimony and does not give criminal defendants or witnesses in congressional investigations the right to refuse to turn over subpoenaed documents. But there is an exception when the act of producing a document is itself incriminating.

The fact that the content of the documents are incriminating does not give you a Fifth Amendment right not to produce them, explained Michael Seidman, a criminal law professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. But the mere act of producing them can be incriminating if the government doesnt know that they exist or that you have them.

If the government already knows that certain documents exist, it could turn into a complicated legal question about whether Flynn must release them, said Seidman.

In a letter to Sens. Richard Burr, R-North Carolina, and Mark Warner, D-Virginia, and the Senates Select Committee on Intelligence dated May 22 obtained by ABC News, Flynns lawyers argued that [p]roducing documents that fall within the subpoenas broad scope would be a testimonial act, insofar as it would confirm or deny the existence of such documents.

The context in which the Committee has called for General Flynns testimonial production of documents makes clear that he has more than a reasonable apprehension that any testimony he provides could be used against him, the letter reads.

Seidman said this is a standard legal strategy and that any competent lawyer would tell Flynn that if he might have a Fifth Amendment privilege he should assert it. Also, if he produces documents and makes statements, he risks inadvertently waiving his rights against self-incrimination as the Russia investigation progresses, Seidman said.

Legal experts also pointed out that if Flynn is granted immunity from criminal prosecution, then he would no longer have Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and could be compelled to answer all questions and release all documents.

In the same way that immunizing a low- or mid-level person in a crime ring can lead to fingers pointed all the way up to the Don, said Akhil Amar, a constitutional law professor at Yale Law School, who said the Don pun was intentional.

Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee said today that they would use all available tools to get information from Flynn, including holding him in contempt of Congress, which could open him up to criminal charges.

We're going to keep all the options on the table, Warner told ABC News.

We're going to help honor the constitutional rights but we still have to be able to get to the facts. We can't just step back and say, Oh, OK we can't get it, added Sen. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma, another member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Lankford also suggested that the committee will still try to negotiate with Flynns lawyers to get access to the information he is currently refusing to share.

Warner added that there might be a legal gray area that prohibits Flynn from using the Fifth Amendment to protect his refusal to provide documents, versus his clear constitutional right against testimony that might incriminate him.

We know there's a Fifth Amendment right on testimony but I think there's an open question on documents and we're looking into that right now, he said.

ABC News' Ali Rogin and Mary Bruce contributed to this report.

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Justin Amash Explains His Vote Against ‘Kate’s Law’ – The Libertarian Republic

Posted: at 7:54 am

LISTEN TO TLRS LATEST PODCAST:

By: Elias J. Atienza

Representative Justin Amash (R-MI) baffled many Republicans and others when he voted against HR3004, known as Kates Law, an immigration bill passed by the House that toughens up punishments against illegal immigrants. As noted byBreitbart,a pro-Trump website, Amash was the only Republican to vote against the law, while 24 Democrats voted for it. The bill passed 257-167.

Amash voted against the bill because it stems from a provision that denies Fifth Amendment due process to certain criminal defendants.

Amash wrote:

As its text makes clear, the Fifth Amendment applies explicitly to all person[s] within the United States, including suspected illegal aliens who are arrested, charged, and tried within the United States. The Constitution uses the word citizen in other provisions whenever that word is intended. This interpretation of the Constitutions applicability is shared by the Supreme Court, including among the conservative justices.

Furthermore, he writes that the bill unconstitutionally eliminates the opportunity for those charged with illegal re-entry to challenge the validity of a removal order which, in his opinion, violates the Fifth Amendment.

He writes:

If a defendant never has a meaningful opportunity to have a judge review her removal order and, under this bill, she is prohibited from challenging her removal order during the criminal proceedings for illegal re-entry, then she could be convicted of a felony without ever having had the chance to challenge whether the order to remove herwhich is an element of the crime!was legally valid. As the Supreme Court held in United States v. Mendoza-Lopez, 481 U.S. 828 (1987), this would be a violation of the defendants due process rights.

The Hillsummarized the bill:

The bill includes a provision that ensures immigrants in the U.S. illegally who are charged with a serious crime are detained during their deportation proceedings. It also requires that localities comply with Immigration and Customs Enforcement requests to detain suspects for extra time, since some jurisdictions currently dont always cooperate. The extended detentions allow immigration enforcement authorities to pick up suspected criminal immigrants from local jails.

Many people in the comments section opposed him, with one commentator saying that he should have voted for the bill and let the Supreme Court deal with the constitutionality of it. Amash hit back, writing,First, thats not how our oath of office or our system of government works. Second, the Supreme Court already has held that this is unconstitutional. Theres an opinion cited in my explanation that is directly on point.

Amash also voted against the HR3003, which was theNo Sanctuary for Criminals Act, which he claims violates several amendments of the Constitution including the 1st, 5th, and 11th. He has voted for defunding sanctuarycities in the past.

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Columnist Jonathan Tucker: Nation needs reasonable gun regulations – GazetteNET

Posted: at 7:53 am

The recent Second Amendment event in Belchertown has spurred some community discussion, if not a lot of real dialogue, and some introspection (Second Amendment rally in Belchertown draws toughest sheriff, gun rights activists, June 19).

Gun owners who belong in neither of the obvious camps have mostly been silent. But I dont think we can justify that silence any longer, so here goes. Understand that I am an enthusiastic gun owner. I am fascinated by their history (a significant window into the history of the Valley), and even their aesthetics. I love to hunt. I enjoy shooting at local ranges. Some of the best times of my life have been spent with friends and family out in the field or at the range.

However, the rules of gun ownership I learned when young came with a powerful and absolute message about responsibility. Gun safety is always the central issue. If less-than-responsible gun ownership threatens peoples safety, that perverts what gun ownership is about and it has to be addressed, including through reasonable regulations.

Im a historian, too, and have been interested in guns for a long time, so Ive researched the Second Amendment. Almost everybody who talks about the Second Amendment misunderstands or misrepresents what it means, often on purpose. Its not that complicated, but its not what youd expect. The Second Amendment was added to the Constitution for two reasons.

First, as part of the Bill of Rights, the Second Amendment was intended to reassure citizens nervously considering ratification of the Constitution. The Constitution proposed a strong central federal government. The Bill of Rights was added to show that citizens that their most important individual rights would be protected under that new form of government. So, among other individual rights, the Bill of Rights affirmed the existing common law right of individual citizens (mostly white male property owners, at the time) to keep and bear arms for legitimate individual purposes self-defense, defense of the home and property, hunting, and recreation. Doing so helped to get the Constitution ratified.

Secondly, by affirming that individual right, the Second Amendment sought to ensure that citizens could be armed, and familiar enough with arms that, at need, they could defend their legitimately constituted government as members of an organized and trained (well regulated) militia. That well regulated militia preamble was a hoped-for outcome. It was not a precondition for or a limitation on the individual right, which stood on its own. Despite a brief judicial vogue for the militia-only theory during the mid-20th century, the Second Amendment was never intended to restrict the keeping and bearing of arms to militias or their members. It was always first and foremost an individual right the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

The Second Amendment was also never intended to be a means by which disgruntled citizens could take up arms against their legitimate government. The exact opposite is true, as both the Whiskey Rebellion and Shays Rebellion demonstrated. Thomas Jeffersons fiercely fanciful notion that the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants and Hamiltons (and others) discussions of the deterrent effect of armed citizens on the ambitions of those who would be kings by force has been twisted into a we-have-guns-so-we-can-stop-anybody-we-think-is-a-tyrant notion. Thats a perversion of the framers intent, unsupported by any of our history or our case law on the Second Amendment.

Unlike other framers like Washington and Hamilton, Jefferson never had to take direct personal responsibility for the consequences of armed conflict. As ambassador to France during the French Revolution, he supported that revolution long after its ideals had dissolved into grotesquely vengeful blood-letting. He never came to terms with that failure, and it shows in his bloodier musings.

Finally, even the most recent Supreme Court opinion (Heller v. D.C.), penned by the late Justice Antonin Scalia, explicitly states that the Second Amendment is (and has always been) subject to reasonable regulation, just like every other individual constitutional right. We cant regulate individual constitutional rights out of existence (though some may try), but we are required to balance individual rights against the needs of society at large. It has always been a moving, precarious balance. It always will be.

Those who rallied in Belchertown to praise disgraced Sheriff Joe Arpaio were mostly making up what they wanted to be true about the Second Amendment and the world. For the most part, they simply got it wrong. But so do those who, appalled by the toll of gun violence (but without any real background in the matter), agitate for just getting rid of the awful thing and making it go away.

Neither of those sides is ever going to win, because neither is seeking a collective future based on what is real in our history and law, or on what is politically or practically possible. What must happen and I believe will happen, after years of hard work is the development of reasonable, consistent gun regulations nationwide. It is something the Second Amendment allows and the Constitution expects.

The conflict over what gun rights are or ought to be is not going to go away. As the Belchertown event showed, constitutional rights become a vehicle for peoples identities. Proposing to change them in fundamental ways becomes an intolerable assault on personal identity and the America that people insist their own world view defines (this happens with the First Amendment and the rest, as well).

With respect to the Second Amendment, those of us who claim to be informed and responsible gun owners are going to have to carry most of the freight during the years of effort it will take to create reasonable, consistent gun regulations. In the process, we can expect to catch bad words, mud, stones, and worse things flung by folks on all sides of the question who can only tolerate the notion of a future society formed around their own preferences. Its better to know that going in. But we have to go in.

In the end, being an American is about being a responsible citizen in a diverse, pluralistic society. Thats not at all a modern notion its what the framers were talking about all along. And while gun ownership is an important part of citizenship for some of us, being a responsible citizen is a much bigger, more complicated, and challenging task. Simply owning a gun is not enough.

Jonathan Tucker, of Florence, is a native of Amherst and a writer, musician, ecologist and historian.

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STATE OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT – Burlington Hawk Eye

Posted: at 7:53 am

Every year the First Amendment Center of the Newseum Institute conducts the State of the First Amendment survey, which examines Americans views on freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly and petition, and samples their opinions on contemporary First Amendment issues.

The results of the 2017 survey show that, despite coming out of one of the most politically contentious years in U.S. history, most Americans remain generally supportive of the First Amendment. When asked if the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees, 69 percent of survey respondents disagreed.

However, there are ideological divisions in attitudes toward the First Amendment, with liberals and conservatives disagreeing on the amount of protection the First Amendment should provide in certain scenarios. Conservatives were more likely than liberals to believe government officials who leak information should be prosecuted and the government should be able to hold Muslims to a higher level of scrutiny. However, liberals were more likely than conservatives to think that colleges should be able to ban speakers with controversial views and people should not be able to express racist views on social media.

This year, 43 percent of Americans agreed that news media outlets try to report the news without bias a significant improvement from only 23 percent in 2016. However, a majority of Americans (61 percent) expressed a preference for news information that aligns with their own views, demonstrating that many Americans may not view biased news in a negative light. The 2017 survey also attempted to assess the impact of the fake news phenomenon. Seventy-four percent of Americans did not think that fake news reports should be protected by the First Amendment, and about one-third (34 percent) reported a decrease in trust in news obtained from social media.

Regarding freedom of religion, 59 percent of Americans believe religious freedom should apply to all religious groups, even those widely considered as extreme or fringe. The age group least likely to agree with this is Americans between the ages of 18 and 29: Just 49 percent of them supported protection for all religious faiths, compared to more than 60 percent for every other age group.

On free speech, 43 percent of Americans felt that colleges should have the right to ban controversial campus speakers. Those who strongly agreed or disagreed with this tended to be current students and/or activists (people who had participated in political actions during the past year, such as signing a petition or attending a protest) on both sides of the political spectrum. Other Americans even those in the 18 to 29-year-old millennial demographic were more lukewarm on this issue.

We were glad to find that most Americans still support the First Amendment, although its troubling that almost one in four think that we have too much freedom, said Lata Nott, executive director of the First Amendment Center. Its also troubling that even people who support the First Amendment in the abstract often dislike it when its applied in real life.

Survey conducted and supported by Fors Marsh Group, and contributing support provided by the Gannett Foundation.

Read the full report: http://www.newseuminstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/FAC_SOFA17_report.pdf

First Amendment Center

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ElliottWaveTrader launching cryptocurrency service – CryptoNinjas – CryptoNinjas

Posted: at 7:52 am

It was announced recently from ElliottWaveTrader.net (EWT), a live Trading Room of market analysis, based on Elliott Wave principle, that due to high demand and many requests, they will start a cryptocurrency service based onElliott Wave analysis. To lead this new service, the firm has brought on Ryan Wilday.

Ryan has over 17 years experience trading equities, futures, and options. He was introduced to cryptocurrency in 2013 by a programmer friend and began mining and trading shortly thereafter.

The EWT team stated:

Though he read Prechters Elliott Wave Principle in the early 2000s, he didnt make practical use of the theory until joining EWT in 2015. Today he melds his deep knowledge of the cryptocurrency market with Elliott Wave theory and Fibonacci Pinball.

Ryans service will be opening in August of 2017, more information will be forthcoming on the launch.

ElliottWaveTrader benefits traders looking to anticipate the direction of U.S. & world equity indices, stocks, bonds, precious metals, energy & forex over a time horizon of several days to several months.

The site also features insights and interaction by its community of traders, many of them professionals, as members are encouraged to post questions and contribute their own analysis in the interactive room.

How the cryptocurrency market and certain assets within react to Elliot Wave analysis will be quite interesting to observe.

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The Rise of Decentralized P2P Crypto-Currency Lending – NEWSBTC – newsBTC

Posted: at 7:52 am

Cryptocurrency lending is about to boom. Today, crypto-currency lending is a field that does not have a plausible service provider due to the pseudo-anonymous nature of crypto-currency. The underlying issue with crypto-lending is the repayments of loans. How do people that do not know each other trust each other?

Trustless lending. ETHLend is a decentralized crypto-currency lending application that runs on Ethereum network, which is accessible through MetaMask, an Ethereum network browser. ETHLend solves the issue of trust by allowing the borrower to secure a crypto-loan with ERC-20 compatible Ethereum-based tokens. ERC-20 tokens can represent any value (such as shares or commodities). If the borrower does not repay the loan, the pledged tokens are transferred to the lender, who can sell the tokens on exchange to regain any losses.

Today, tokens are used mainly for fundraising. However, there are tokens that represent value from the real world, such as the DigixDAO token. Each DigixDAO token represents 1 gram of gold by tokenization. Even if tokens are associated with volatility, factually tokens are sufficient for securing a loan. First, the market price of tokens are usually available at different exchanges. Secondly, the volatility can be assessed and taken into account.

Alternatively, ETHLend provides another option, where the borrower can use Ethereum Name Service domain (ENS domain) as a collateral for the loan. ENS domains by design locks Ether (ETH) when the domain name is auctioned. Since ENS domains are transferrable, they can be easily used as a collateral against Ether loans. For example, borrower has ENS domain that has locked 10 ETH. The borrower cannot use this locked Ether. However, the borrower can pledge this domain for a loan to receive 10 ETH. If the borrower does not repay the loan back, the ENS domain is transferred to the lender (who can auction it to regain any losses).

Decentralized lending removes barriers and lowers costs on interest. ETHLend aims to provide a global liquidity pool between peers. The decentralized model and the use of crypto-currency is the proper solution to achieve ETHLends goal. Global liquidity pool means that a borrower in the US would not be limited solely to local lenders and US banks. Instead, the borrower can access funding from all parts of the world, such as Asia and Europe. Moreover, ETHLend wants to remind that there is 2 billion people without the access to any banking system. Lending crypto-currency would mean additionally access to finance for the unbanked.

Big plans for ETHLend. According to the white paper, there are lot of technical upgrades coming up for ETHLend, such as unsecured lending where borrower does not need a collateral to get a loan. Moreover, lending reputation system is about to be launched, where the borrower is rewarded with ETHLends native Credit Token (CRE), which can be used as a collateral by sparing other ERC-20 tokens.

We interviewed the Founder of ETHLend, a law student from Finland and a blockchain developer, to get more insights over the project.

Who are the people behind ETHLend?

We are a dedicated team of 14 people. We are working hard to provide blockchain technology for the mainstream. We want to democratize lending. This means that we want to remove interest rate differences between different countries and provide liquidity to lower interest rates in general. This would mean that borrowers would pay less in interest costs when there is more competition in a global scale. Moreover, we want to serve people that the banks are not serving due to the lack of banking infrastructure.

Is lending secure on ETHLend?

ETHLend is a decentralized application that runs on Ethereum blockchain network. We use Smart Contracts for the loan transactions. This means that each loan that is deployed on Ethereum blockchain cannot be changed, stopped or compromised by a third party (not even ETHLend).

Moreover, since all transactions are decentralized, we do not hold any assets or data. All assets such as ETH, ERC-20 tokens or ENS domains are held by the Smart Contracts. Any lender or borrower can explore loans on blockexplorer, therefore we are transparent by design.

What crypto-currencies can I borrow and lend?

Now, Ether (ETH) lending is available. We chose to use ETH since that is the native token of the Ethereum network that we have built our application on. We are planning to add other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Litecoin and other altcoins. To get ETHLend to the mainstream, we think that Bitcoin is essential.

Why did you build on top of Ethereum network?

We decided to use Ethereum for three reasons. First, Ethereum has well established Smart Contracts, which allows to perform complex transactions such as lending and handling the collateral. Secondly, by using ETH, we do not have to communicate with two blockchains, which would not be ideal way to start a simple DAPP development. Lastly, even though ETH has a different purpose than Bitcoin, ETH is widely used as cryptocurrency.

How ETHLend differs from other blockchain projects?

We started by developing the application. We first created the decentralized application, instead of writing a white paper and opening a flashy website. I personally wanted to understand how decentralized lending would work in practice. As coming from a legal background and not from technical, I wanted to try it first and then write an analysis on my practical findings, the white paper.

Moreover, we have an amazing team working on ETHLend. I have never seen such extensive collaboration that we have at ETHLend. Practically we are all living in different parts of the world, but initially we have the same goal: to provide fair lending for all by using blockchain technology. We are also happy to have more people involved through our Slack.

What is your focus on the development?

Since we have an Ethereum-based application that runs stable, we are now focusing on adding more functionalities and user experience. Our goal here is to make decentralized lending as easy and accessible as possible. We want to keep the learning curve as low as possible. As a part of the user experience, we are adding more languages and ways to easily calculate the value of the collateral to avoid unnecessary loan requests.

Is there going to be an ICO?

We are going to have a token sale on early September. Our aim is to fund the further development of ETHLend and provide the largest lending market that works on a global scale. We want our future token holders to be part of it.

How the tokens are distributed?

We are distributing 1 billion Credit Tokens (CRE) for sale. There will be no follow up sales and all unsold CRE is burned. Additionally, 300 million CRE is allocated to the development fund as an incentive for our founders and developers to remain with the project. The development fund tokens will have a 24-month vesting model, which means that during this period, tokens are gradually released from lockup on each 6-months-period.

Getting ready for token sale. According to Stani, the ETHLend team is preparing for the upcoming token sale. The aim is to provide decentralized, secure, fair and democratic token sale. ETHLend is currently developing the Smart Contract for the token sale. However, the precise date of the token sale is not disclosed. ETHLend will inform the date of the token sale within couple of weeks.

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The Rise of Decentralized P2P Crypto-Currency Lending - NEWSBTC - newsBTC

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Ethereum Price Drops Below $300 Amid Technical Issues and Cryptocurrency ICO Hype – The Merkle

Posted: at 7:52 am

Things are not looking all that great for Ethereum right now. The popular cryptocurrency suffereda major crash not too long ago and it remains the market is still recovering. The past two days have heralded another downturn for Ether, making it highly doubtful Ethereum will pass Bitcoin in market cap anytime soon. It seems safe to say more volatility is on the horizon for Ethereum holders.

Looking over the Ethereum price charts leaves traders and investors disappointed, as their hopes for challenging Bitcoins crown subside. More specifically, the ETH price has taken another beating, as it declined by 7.65% over the past 24 hours. This puts the value of one Ether well below the US$300 mark and it is possible this value will keep heading toward US$270 or lower over the coming days. This momentum is not entirely surprising given Ethereums bullish trend throughout the first half of 2017.

It is not hard to forget once ETH was worth under US$11 back in early January of this year. Things have certainly picked up over the past few months, culminating in an Ether price peak of nearly US$400, according to Coinmarketcap. Such a spectacular price increase can only be met with future price volatility, which is what we are seeing on a daily basis right now. Even so, the Ether value increase has been nothing short of impressivethis year.

Ethereum enthusiasts have referred to a phenomenon known as the flippening all year. This trend would occur once Ethereums market cap surpasses that of Bitcoin. Although both currencies were only separated by just US$8bn, the gap has widened once again. More specifically, Bitcoins market cap is close to US$41bn right now, whereas Ethereums is only US$26.32bn. The flippening will not be happening anytime soon at this rate.

The bigger question is why Ethereum is facing such a setback right now. Shifting market conditions are likely the culprit. Moreover, the Ethereum blockchain and its technology are weighed down by the influx of cryptocurrency ICOs. Transactions are confirmed far slower when a big ICO happens, and smart contracts used by these projects often contain issues which need to be fixed later on. The technology is still premature, yet investors also see this can become a much bigger problem if things arent resolved quickly.

Speaking of cryptocurrency ICOs, they have quickly become the main use case of the Ether currency. That is not necessarily a positive development either. With so many projects raising funds in Ether, the chances of a market dump will increase as well. When teams need funding, they will convert ETH to fiat currency, creating negative pressure across the exchanges. When more projects sell off their raised funds, the price per ETH will undoubtedly continue to go down quite quickly. It is unclear if that is part of the ongoing price drop right now, but it is something to keep in mind.

It is unclear what the future will hold for Ethereum right now. The Ethereum price is very volatile, which is only to be expected at this point. However, Ethereum is not a store-of-value by any means. With so many dumb money flowing into Ethereum to participate in cryptocurrency ICOs, it is virtually impossible to determine the real value of the existing coin supply. Technical issues are becoming a major problem as well. If this trend keeps up, the flippening may never happen at all. These are interesting times for Ethereum to prove its value, but so far, the projectleaves quite a bit to be desired.

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Ethereum Price Drops Below $300 Amid Technical Issues and Cryptocurrency ICO Hype - The Merkle

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A golden crypto currency you can invest in for as little as $45 – Sun … – The National

Posted: at 7:52 am

Ibrahim Mohammed is the founder and chief executive and OneGram, a new digital currency, at the company's offices in Emirates Financial Towers in the DIFC area of Dubai. OneGram is partnering with GoldGuard, a Dubai-based online gold trading platform to build one of worlds largest gold vaults inside the Dubai Airport Free Zone. Christopher Pike / The National

As the founder and chief executive of OneGram the Dubai-based technology company behind the first digital currency completely backed by gold - Ibrahim Mohammed is confident his cryptocurrency will be a success, even as competition in the digital currency sphere hots up.

He says with 100s of new coins releasing every day, it is OneGrams unique selling point - the fact that the currency is fully Sharia-compliant - that will set it apart.

The company has already launched an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) offering, which aims to raise more than US$500 million in capital; the tokens were launched on May 21 and will be available to buy until September 22.

OneGram has partnered with GoldGuard, a Dubai-based online gold trading platform, for the offering, with each token backed by one gram of gold, held in a vault at Dubai Airport Free Zone. Only 12.5 million tokens are available to buy in total.

The OneGram currency was created using blockchain technology, a digital method of recording data that underpins the digital currency bitcoin.

While one bitcoin today is currently worth about US$2,500 (or $2,438 at the time of writing), to buy a OneGramCoin would set you back $45 at current market prices.

Almost six weeks after the OneGram coin first went on sale, Mr Mohammed, a British Dubai resident with 10 years of experience running companies whose specialisms have included debt collection and business formation, explains how the new digital currency works and how investors can get on board:

Why did you set up OneGram?

Because of the ruling that happened in November 2016 from the Accounting and Auditing Organisation for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) with regards to the gold standard. It was the first time gold was deemed to be a sharia-compliant product and it got us thinking. It evolved into digitisation ofgold but then having bigger returns rather than just waiting for the market to go up - so we combined it with a digital currency.

How does OneGram work?

Its like bitcoin; its a digital currency but the major difference to any other crypto is that its backed with physical gold. Putting it very simply, if you have one bitcoin today thats worth about US$2,500 and if it crashes and went to zero youd lose all your money. With OneGram, if you buy today you pay about $45; $41 of that is in physical gold but $4 is in the coin, so if OneGram crashed you would potentially lose $4 and still have $41. Essentially its a digital token - a digital form of payment.

So how can you use this form of payment?

Globally, these kinds of tokens are mainly used in the crypto community by people that believe in [the concept] and are willing to hold it. What we are trying to develop over the next 12 months or so is a payment solution that retailers can adopt to accept payment. At this stage (until the OneGram coin is listed in September), its like holding stocks or shares. The demand is there and the prices are increasing; if you follow the crypto market at all it was worth $20 billion in 2016 and this year its worth $100bn as we speak. Most of that jump has happened in the last five months.

What is driving that?

People see the potential in it. Most governments now are talking about how to regulate the market and control it and bring it into mainstream. The growth is phenomenal. I dont think investors are risk takers because the model of crypto currencies has been proven. Japan has legalised bitcoin; its inevitable that others will follow suit.

How does OneGram work?

Register at GoldGuard.com and where you go to buy you will see the live spot price of gold and it will be a live spot buy. Underneath it you will see the coin value of $4 - thats 10 per cent of the actual transaction and thats the coin fee. You will see a total price of $45; its approximate on the site as its linked to the Allocated BullionExchange's live gold fee. You can transfer funds or buy through bitcoin but we wont accept bitcoin directly as we dont know the source of funds, so we use a company called BitPay in the United States. They do all the verifications, as they are regulated by the US government and they will accept the bitcoin and wire us US dollars.

Is the $4 a fee then?

Its a kind of administration fee because typically in crypto currencies you are paying the whole amount - so if we didnt have gold youd be paying $45 and wed have all money. But we only take 10 per cent which covers operations, staffing, support, marketing, development, blockchain etc. With typical cryptos, if they are selling at $45 they may pay 30 to 40 per cent commission on transactions and theyll sell out in a day or two. Weve adopted a real business model as opposed to a "lets loot type of crypto." So there is a 10 per cent mark up on the price to give our investors the best possible chance of higher returns and that 10 per cent will cover our costs to operate.

What happens when you list?

Then you will have your own wallet and you will hold it on your own iPad, phone or desktop. The coin will be listed on a few digital currency platforms, so any buying or selling happens through those platforms and it goes into the secondary market. In terms of where the price can be at launch and where it can be in 24 months is completely beyond our control. Some analysts have said OneGram is the closest coin that has ever come to knocking bitcoin off its pedestal.

Who are your investors?

As well as crypto tech investors, were getting people that have never invested in cryptoor digital currencies before but because of the gold aspect and the sharia regulatory aspect they are very comfortable. We get customers buying for $100 and in the same day someone will buy $200,000. There is massive interest from Africa and Pakistan, countries we never expected. We now have 4,000 to 5,000 registered users and the majority are non-Muslims;another surprise.

What happens if you dont sell all the 12.5 million coins?

Anything that is left will be burnt wiped away. If we dont sell all of them then it's likely the price will go up as there will be less in circulation. We left the first month open for anyone to buy. Now we have our affiliates, partners that will also sell the coin. The first affiliate is $100m, there are a couple more after that. We are not in any doubt that the coin will sell out.

How many have you sold so far?

Twenty-two per cent of the ICO has already been assigned thats about 2 million coins.

Once the coin is listed what happens to OneGram?

Our ongoing role is to maintain the blockchain and security of it so that the coins can trade. And we make 1 per cent of every trade, the typical fee within blockchain.

Who are you licensed by?

Cyptos are not licensed but the part that needs licensing is GoldGuard, which is a gold trading platform. That is licensed by Dubai Airport Free Zone so we are licensed to trade gold.

Can investors see the gold?

Our vaulting partner may have security issues with that but once we have our own vaulting systems we will be open to anyone that wants to inspect. For verification that the gold exists, our auditors PwC have to physically go and count the gold along with our sharia advisers so I think the investors can rest assured that the gold exists. We buy through ABX and within three days they physically store it for us.

How could it all go wrong?

Its very difficult to go wrong because the exposure is very limited its 90 per cent in gold, 10 per cent in the coin. The demand is there and the market is there so unless someone turns the internet off

Whats next?

Were in discussions about ATM machines. You could have an ATM machine in Dubai, Hong Kong or London where OneGram can be bought and sold across the globe.

ahaine@thenational.ae

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