Boxmining v2

Author: michael

  • Blockshow Asia sends strong positive signals for crypto

    Blockshow Asia sends strong positive signals for crypto

    Attending Blockshow Singapore, I only have one question in my mind – is the Blockchain scene still alive? Conferences are great for answering this question because unlike fake trade volumes, attendees cannot be faked.

    Who’s Attending Blockshow – any new investors?

    Upon arriving at the Marina Bay Sands Conference center, I was pleasantly surprised at the number of attendees: more than 3000 blockchainers packed the conference halls. Both conference halls had over 70% of the seats filled, which was a good sign as people were actually listening to the talks. The organizers made some cheeky “optimizations” by booking a smaller venue:  the main conference hall packed around 300 people instead of the usual 600 seen in other conferences. 

    I’m watching out for new investors. High numbers of new faces to the blockchain space would mean that the scene is heating up again. It could also potentially signal an end to the year-long bear market. Unfortunately, CEO of Blockshow Addy Crezee stated that there are few new investors coming into this conference. 

    Strong Development Focus

    You’re going to need different types of people – can’t just be engineers. You’re going to need branding, marketing, financial consultants … everybody

    Jeffrey Huang, Co-founder of Mithril

    For once in a Blockchain conference, attendees are no longer comparing “top ICO deals” or “hottest altcoin tips“.  Unproductive ICO deal discussion dominated the conversation space at Consensus in New York this year, a conversation topic that breeds unwanted speculation into this space.

    Read more about Mithril and Binance Partnerships in Mithril Coin Guide

    During Blockshow, discussions matured and revolved around about “what a team is developing?“. In addition critical debates were held over how to advance blockchain technology. This sends a strong positive long-term signal as we are guided towards health growth and advancements in this space. 

    Working Products

    I was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the SBTG Shadow Fury with Vechain anti-counterfeit technology. Scanning the trainers with the Vechain Pro app will verify the unique ID on the shoe and match with records on the Vechain blockchain. (Diazepam) The tag is directly sown into the tongue of the shoe and cannot be duplicated due to the strong encryption used. 

    Read more about Vechain in our Vechain Coin Guide

    I have to say, seeing products in real life is much better than looking at drawings and whitepapers. The next step is to take this technology mainstream and into major brands (Nike is trialing this) and other products such luxury handbags. 

    Security Token Offerings (STO)

    CEO of Blockshow Addy Crezee gives a rundown of the conference

    Security Token Offerings (STOs) have become a hot topic this year, with ICO engineers look to STOs as a way to reignite the fundraising fever. STOs offer direct value to token holders – by offering an equity share of the company, it solves many of the problems of Utility Tokens face. Token holders no longer need to as “what are the tokenomics” or “what makes this token valuable in the long term“.

    However, there is catch: extremely limited accessibility, especially in the US. Security tokens can only be traded between accredited investors who have more than $1 Million USD net-worth. 

    There will be new terms like Token Security – which I always talk about. (Token Security) has an underlying asset that is a security, which already has an legal entity.

    Professor David Lee, Blockasset Ventures

  • Crisis at Steemit Inc (STEEM) : 70% Employees laid off

    Crisis at Steemit Inc (STEEM) : 70% Employees laid off

    Steemit Inc announced that 70% of their employees were laid-off due to the company restructuring. It is clear that there are major issues at the company. We did some analysis on the reasons for the layoffs and also took a deep dive into the future plans of the company. 

    Reasons for the Lay-offs

    • Market Collapse – Unfortunately, the price of STEEM dropped 97% (from $7.31 dollars in January 2018 to $0.24)
    • Budget Shortcomings – Steemit Inc held substantial amounts of the cryptocurrency STEEM. As employees are paid out in fiat, this meant the company couldn’t cash out enough STEEM to pay for the employees
    • Company direction – the company focused on two fronts – blockchain development AND website development. Unfortunately they couldn’t master both. 

    Long Term problems

    CEO Ned Scott explains layoffs at Steemit Inc
    • The company is doing too much blockchain development – developing blockchain features (Database migration, Smart media tokens (ie ICOs on Steem)), Developing DAPP (steemit.com),
    • Costs of API maintenance – the company maintains APIs for free (Steem API) which is expensive
    • Steemit.com is a full-blown social media project and is hard to maintain.
    • they don’t have resources/management skills to manage both sides well

    Solutions

    • Cut down the scope of new features (Steem Media Token ~ lite edition). 
    • Sunset on Steemit.com website / Dapp.
      • Ned said the infrastructure of can never scale to compete vs Instagram 
      •  “Destiny” a new app to solve core issues with steemit.com is now abandoned because of the lack of resources

    Future Goals 

    • Goals to improve the adoption of blockchain – transfer of value / store of value
    • encourage other applications on steemit that further censorship resistance
    • Increase usage of Steem as currency. how to grow the currency

    Competitors

    Various competitors in the social media space have also sprung up this year. One of them is Mithril, an ethereum based social network which focuses on fair-reward for content creators. Other social media services such as Dlive have migrated away from the Steem blockchain in favor of alternatives like Lino. 

    Conclusion

    Steemit Inc had to make some tough decisions. After setting the core direction of blockchain development, everyone else was cut. Moreover,CEO Ned Scott was unnerved during the livestream Q & A session, especially considering a majority of their employees are leaving leaving. This sets a dangerous precedent at the company and goes to show that financial management and prudence – including not speculating on their own currency is key to the successful running of any company. Questions over how the company can generate income to sustain long-term development remains. 

  • Lightning network explained – is it Bitcoin 2.0?

    Lightning network explained – is it Bitcoin 2.0?

    The Lightning Network promises free transactions on the Bitcoin network that can be confirmed instantly. This is exactly what is needed for Bitcoin to gain mass-adoption and move away from fear of major congestion (transaction cost exceeded more than $100 USD the network peak in January 2018). 

    It’s hard to understand because it breaks what we normally understand of the Bitcoin network. Bitcoin network is limited to 10-minute blocks – that is transactions take up to 10 minutes to confirm, and a high fee is required to guarantee a confirmation on the next block.

    Regular Bitcoin Transactions

    When we send Bitcoin and broadcast a transaction we need to wait for confirmations that only come every 10 minutes. The block groups all the transactions that are announced and puts it into a ledger called the blockchain. You get one confirmation for each block that forms after the transaction, so if you want to wait for 3 confirmations, you must wait for 30 minutes. In contrast, the Lightning Network promises instant transactions.

    How the Lightning Network Works

    The Lightning Network works by creating payment channels off the blockchain. This means that you don’t need to wait for the 10 minutes to confirm each block. However you do have to deposit a certain number of bitcoins so now you’re proving ownership of these bitcoins. You’re effectively handing over these bitcoins to the network a little bit like that and it works with multi-signature wallets. There are failsafe protocols in place, so if something happens and the transaction fall through, you are still protected.

    The concept works kind of like a tab at a bar. You can maybe put down a few thousand dollars and create a tab and every time you buy a drink, instead of paying directly with visa or cash every time, you can use your tab. This cuts down a lot on the fees with using visa for each transaction and this likewise can be applied to bitcoin and the blockchain transaction fees.

    Current State of the Lightning Network

    Lightning Network right now it mostly commands prompt based so it’s like we’re still quite far from a good wallet and good user-friendly graphical interface. Right now it’s mostly kind of the text command based and there have been tests of the Lightning Network over international regions. We’re at a stage where we know that the concept works but we’re still developing the software and making sure that it works very well and securely. Recent hacks of the Party Wallet has shown us that software stability and robustness is absolutely vital. As a result, development on lightning has been quite slow because it’s highly complicated and any bug in the code would maybe be quite catastrophic. On top of that, a good user-friendly interface is also vital.

  • Monero (XMR) in a Nutshell

    Monero (XMR) in a Nutshell

    Monero is a rather unique member of the cryptocurrency family thanks to its focus on privacy and absence of the traditional open blockchain network like those found on Bitcoin. It is, in a nutshell, a system that makes use of three key technologies — Ring Signature, Stealth Address and Ring CT (Confidential Transaction) — to ensure that the sender, receiver and transaction amount are concealed from view.

    On a traditional blockchain, you can freely click to see who sent any transaction, how much it was, and who the receiver is. For many this was the logical way to do things because an open book meant less suspicion of dubious activities on the network. Going into “stealth mode”, as you can choose to on some platforms, is a sure-fire way to attract raised eyebrows. Monero tried to eliminate this problem by making its transactions 100% private.

    Advantages and Disadvantages of Monero

    + Users don’t have to worry about fraudulent chargebacks or multi-day holding periods. What’s more, there are no capital controls which restrict flow for traditional currencies. The user truly is in control.

    + Protection by CryptoNote’s hashing algorithm, “CryptoNight” makes it more resistant to ASICs (but not 100% ASIC-proof). The thinking is that it would be so costly to produce an ASIC for Monero that the benefits couldn’t possibly be worth it.

    + For better or worse, privacy is more attractive to more users. Privacy has always been a hallmark of any online industry’s success. Online shopping, for instance, was never going to be a reality unless people had ways to conceal their purchase histories and keep things private.

    – On February 19th 2017, the CryptoNote currencies, including Monero, were subject to a bug that allowed for stealthy creation of an unlimited number of coins, untraceable unless the viewer, too, knew about the flaw and what to look for. Fortunately, after scanning their system, Monero found it had never been exploited using this flaw, and by February 21st the problem was patched. To be fair to Monero, they have been open and disclosed full details of the error and all measures taken to rectify it.

    – The privacy element means there are view or no wallets available for full viewing, and so it’s impossible to know about past transactions and what’s really going on in the network. It may be a pro for existing users, but for newcomers it can be a little unsettling.

    It’s clear that one of the biggest pulls of Monero is the ability to remain anonymous without the same suspicion being leveled at you on other platforms where “stealth” is optional (and only used for dodgy transactions, people think). But, after the open-ledger and dominance of more “typical” cryptocurrencies, Monero represents a radical, even revolutionary approach that has a potent allure.

    RandomX CPU mining

    RandomX is a new cryptocurrency mining algorithm designed improve the distribution of mined cryptocurrencies more evenly to a broader base of users. The idea is that everyone with a computer has a CPU, and hence an algorithm that favors the CPU will be more inclusive. Random is is designed to only function on CPUs, with strong resistance to both GPU and ASIC mining. This is achieved by making use of functions only available on modern day CPUs, such as virtualization. RandomX has already been audited and is currently deployed on Epic Cash and will be deployed on Monero.

    Monero – How does it work?

    So how does it work? Each piece of aforementioned tech is used to protect a different element of the transaction.

    The sender is protected by the “Ring Signature,” which attaches multiple names to each transaction, forming a ring around the true sender and obscuring their true identity.

    The receiver is protected by the “Stealth Address,” which sends transactions to a single-use address that will flag up as non-existent should anyone try to look into who the transaction was going to.

    The amount of each transaction is concealed by the “Ring CT,” which only shows each exchange as being more than zero and valid — that’s it!

    The conscious crypto user who wants to be anonymous for innocent reasons, but doesn’t want to arouse suspicion, will find the perfect partner in Monero. Privacy is a right, and Monero is one of the platforms offering it openly and genuinely. Not everyone agrees. Some people see universal anonymity as limiting, as it makes it impossible for new users to look into past transactions and determine if everything is kosher. There are even additional tools like their “Kovri” tool which masks IP addresses. To the experienced observer of the Bitcoin ledger, this secrecy can be rather off-putting.

  • China’s crypto-exchange bans become “Permanent” – ViaBTC, BTCC, Yunbi

    China’s crypto-exchange bans become “Permanent” – ViaBTC, BTCC, Yunbi

    Exchanges have updated their shutdown status and included the word “permanent” into the announcements. This comes at a time where no new announcements have been made by the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), however, there have been rumors that authorities have been talking directly with the exchanges. The circulating document titled “北京互金整治办：比特币交易平台15日晚必须发公告明确停止交易时间” sets a deadline for exchanges to announce their closure by the end of the 15th of September.  Where is an aggregated list of the announcements so far:

    BTCC

    BTCChina has updated its phrases to say it will “completely shut down” its exchange business (previous “stop all trading“). Seems like they needed to include some finality (at least for now).

    YunBi

    YunBi has made an official announcement on their customer service zendesk that they will be permanently shutting down “永久性关闭” on the 20th of September.

    1. 云币网将于北京时间 2017 年 9 月 20 日 00:00 永久性关闭所有品种交易功能；

    ViaBTC

    Via has issued an announcement today that they will close their website by the 30th of September. The reason for the shutdown is due to the ICO regulations put forth on the 4th of September, and no new legislation has been quoted on the shutdown notice.

    OKCoin

    Stopping RMB trading announcement 

    Huobi

    Stopped RMB trading. 

    Will it really be “Permanent”

    One of the major cultural differences between the East and the West is that China tends to use stronger language. Hence making something “illegal” or “permanent” doesn’t mean it will always be so. We saw with the ICO ban that after making it illegal, Chinese National TV CCTV-13 had a feature section where a chinese official came out to say the the ICO ban was just a “halt” rather than a “permanent ban”. Currently there is massive pressure to make things look good before the “19th National People’s Congress” on the 18th of October.

    Sources

    Coindesk

  • ViaBTC to close website by 30th of September

    ViaBTC to close website by 30th of September

    The Chinese Exchange ViaBTC partly responsible for Bitcoin Cash, has issued an announcement today that they will close their website by the 30th of September. This is the second exchange to do this, as BTCChina has also announced that they will stop all trading by the 30th as well. The reason for the shutdown is due to the ICO regulations put forth on the 4th of September, and no new legislation has been quoted on the shutdown notice.

    On September 4th, China’s central bank together with six other departments released a public statement  on regulation policies and warning the risks of ICO projects. As a responsible cryptocurrency exchange platform, ViaBTC (www.viabtc.com) has made a serious decision to carry out the spirits of the policy – we will officially close the website www.viabtc.com for exchange business in Mainland China on September 30th. Before that we will complete processing of all withdrawal requests of CNY and cryptocurrency assets. ViaBTC mining pool (pool.viabtc.com) and cloud mining services will not be affected.
    The arrangements are as follows:
    Sept 25th: Closing of registration, asset deposits and all trading pairs
    Sept 30th: Closing of website www.viabtc.com
    Please make sure to withdraw all your assets including CNY and cryptocurrency before September 30th, after which ViaBTC website www.viabtc.com will be officially closed in Mainland China.
  • Rumors to Reality: BTCChina to suspend all trading by 30th of September

    Rumors to Reality: BTCChina to suspend all trading by 30th of September

    After a week of endless rumors from China, starting with the original announcement on Caixin calling the “end of exchanges in China“, the rumors have become a reality when it comes to BTCChina. BTCChina has announced today that they will stop all trading on BTCChina (The chinese version of BTCC) on the 30th of September.

    The reason they gave for the was the Sept 4 announcement – the ICO ban. This means no additional announcements have been made from the government regarding closing exchanges. It might be that they are announcing the end of trading as a precaution, or they might be in contact with different government departments and cannot disclose the details. OKCoin and Huobi PR said they have not received notice from regulators and are operating normally

    Cashing Out:

    Immediately after the announcement, there was a flurry of trade activity on BTCC, with the price of Bitcoin falling to as low as $2600 USD. Currently prices on BTCC are around $450 USD cheaper than the international price.

    Other Exchanges:

    Binance: Service for international exchange not affected. Chinese not allowed to trade since sept 6th

    Yunbi: Rumored to shut down in 3 months

  • Chinese Exchange Yunbi rumored to close within 3 months

    Chinese Exchange Yunbi rumored to close within 3 months

    After reporting the demise of cryptocurrency exchanges in China, Chinese financial paper CaiXin followed up a rumor that exchange YunBi will close within 3 months. Journalists from CaiXin interviewed Xiaolai Li (李笑来) who indicated that YunBi will Progressively shut down in 3 months (There are no other official sources to back this up, other than the Caixin Journalist). Xiaolai Li is known to be a major investor in YunBi and is known to have investments in the ICO platform, ICOINFO. It is important to note that YunBi is the only large exchange talking about a potential shut-down, other exchanges such as BTCC, Huobi, OKCoin, Btc38 and Viabtc have all come out to say they haven’t received any notices from the government.

    “Xiaolai Li:Yunbi is winding down in 3 months”

    BTC is trading for lower on Yunbi

    Coin Market Cap trading information

    A look at Coinmarketcap shows that BTC is trading at a lower price than competitors such as OKcoin. Currently Yunbi is trading at $3950 USD per bitcoin whilst OKcoin is trading at $4102. This might be sign that OKcoin users are more concerned and choosing to sell their Bitcoin. It is important to note that the current trade volume for Yunbi is only at 1. (https://northeastohiogastro.com) 2 Million USD, which is ranked #141 in terms of trade volume.

    ICO connection?

    It is possible that YunBi is under additional scrutiny because of its ties ICO trading. They previously unlisted coins such as QTUM, GXS, EOS, ANS, DGD, 1ST, GNT, REP, SNT, OMG, PAY, LUN, VEN. Their investor Xiaolai Li is also connected to ICOINFO, so this might make them a larger target for potential government control. The government explicitly wanted to break up the connection between ICO platforms and Exchanges, hence separating the streamlined ICO listing process.

    Additional sources:

    8BTC: Li Xiaolai: Yunbi Is Winding Down In 3 Months 

    8BTC: “It Will Take Two or Three Years Before all Exchanges Are Shut Down in China”

    韭菜日报:李笑来称云币网将在三月内逐步关闭；聚币网普通交易区或将全部暂停；3ICO 将于12日关站，请投资者尽快提现

     

  • Chinese “exchange ban” cause sell-off

    Chinese “exchange ban” cause sell-off

    A new article appeared on Chinese news media outlet caixin, claiming that Chinese authorities are looking to close cryptocurrency exchanges due to risks of money laundering. Caixin.com posted an article titled “虚拟货币交易所时代结束” (the age of crypto exchanges is over) and sparked off a massive sell-off that caused Bitcoin and ethereum prices to drop 5-10%. Whilst it was previously discussed that rumors are sometimes the precursor to legislation, this should be taken with a grain of salt. Due diligence needs to be done as to where the rumors come from (eg. state run media or just regular media). In this case, this rumor was posted on regular media with very little sources of information (no new quotes from government officials etc).

    Here is how Twitter responded to this situation:

    What we know so far:

    • Article was posted at 9:56PM, an unlikely time for real government announcements
    • Similar news was posted on Tencent news, perhaps interpreting same article?
    • BTCC, okcoin and Huobi have reported no notices or changes from the government
    • Article did not state any additional sources
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=427netuOvEM

    Other media interpretations

    Quartz : https://qz.com/1073049/the-ethereum-eth-price-and-bitcoin-btc-prices-are-crashing-on-a-china-trading-ban/?unique_ID=636405021008563934
    8BTC: http://news.8btc.com/game-over-bitcoin-exchanges

  • China ICO ban is temporary, will introduce licensing soon hints Chinese Official

    China ICO ban is temporary, will introduce licensing soon hints Chinese Official

    The FUD over the China ICO ban seems to be over. After causing a global panic on Monday with the announcement of an ICO ban, a Chinese official has clarified the position saying that China will look to resume ICOs in the future after establishing licensing regulations. This was done via an interview on CCTV-13, a state run national television channel in China. When asked about whether the ban could stop innovation in the Blockchain Space, the official responded that this was not the intention of the ban and it was meant to protect investors. The explicitly said this was a “Stop” and not a “Forbidden” . The interview proceeded to mention Fintech and the benefits of it. One important take home is that talk about “regtech” – regulation technology, something that might be implemented in the future to allow ICOs that really need the money to be controlled and licensed.

    Check a video recording of the CCTV-13 interview:

    http://finance.chinanews.com/shipin/2017/09-06/news730639.shtml

    China ICO ban Timeline (Source Measurable Data Token)

    Who was interviewed and it matters?

    The interviewee, Hu Bing is from 中国社会科学院金融研究所 ( Institute of Finance and Banking, an academic research organization that’s only loosely affiliated with the State). This is important because he is not a major government official and the choice of the speaker is very strategic. Depending on how you interpret it, the speaker could represent the current line of thought for the government but also allow room to change their opinion if things go awry.

    Discussion on Boxmining 

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTcvO0bKCxY