Monday, September 29, 2014

MaxCoin v0.9.3.1 Release Notes

The MaxCoin protocol will be modified on Thursday 18th September 2014 (GMT) to address a fix for the wallet synchronisation issue and will change the target block time to 60s from block 635000.



Updated branding and a new wallet security menu have also been added. The total number of coins to be mined will remain unchanged at 100,000,000. A checkpointing protocol will be implemented in order to provide additional security to the blockchain.


A VirusTotal link has been provided here as, on occasion, Chrome will block downloads due to the IRC bootstrapping and mining code within MaxCoin. The problem is known and we’re in contact with Google about possible solutions.


To prevent loss of your coins DO NOT send any transactions using the old MaxCoin wallet software after block 635,000. You must update your MaxCoin wallet by downloading the new version from either github or maxcoin.co.uk prior to sending coins from your wallet, or they may be lost. If you are keeping your coins on an exchange (while not advisable) you will not have any problems as long as you eventually withdraw the coins to the updated wallet software.


Technical Changelog


Increased block time to 60s

Reduced block reward to 16 MAX

Added automatic-checkpointing

Fixed ‘copy transaction ID’ bug in UI

Added dumppubkey RPC call

Improved sign/verify UI

Changed sign/verify to use hex encoding

Changed makekeypair to use hex encoding

Backup and safety measures

Create a backup copy of your wallet.dat file before upgrading! Follow the directions on this page to find the location of your wallet.dat. This is the only file you need to recover if anything goes wrong. Before running the new wallet make sure to remove these commands (“checkpointenforce=false”, “-reindex”) from your shortcuts or maxcoin.conf configuration file!



source: http://maxcoinnews.net/maxcoin-v0-9-3-1-release-notes/



MaxCoin v0.9.3.1 Release Notes

DarkCoin prepares to OpenSource

Security researcher Kristov Atlas has concluded his code review and security audit of Darkcoin.



He was solicited by the developers of Darkcoin, based on 4+ years of professionally reviewing C/C++ software, to review the code and suggest any changes which could improve the software. Kristov Atlas concluded that Darkcoin’s claims of functional anonymity are well-founded. He did suggest a few concerns, which the Darkcoin team immediately fixed (the fixes will be released Monday as part of the next scheduled update to the Darkcoin client). Mr. Atlas’ primary concern was that a bad actor could launch a so-called Sybil attack against the network. Evan Duffield, lead developer of Darkcoin, closed this potential attack vector and in doing so also found a way to increase the overall anonymity of Darkcoin transactions.


The new update to Darkcoin, “Release Candidate 5″ (RC5), will be made publically available Monday, September 22. It fixes the concerns raised by Mr. Atlas, increases anonymity, fixes bugs, and improves the user experience by implementing a new interface. After eight months of continuous improvement, the developers of Darkcoin are confident that the currency is finally ready to meet the scrutiny of coders world-wide. Duffield has announced that on September 29, the source code of Darkcoin’s Darksend technology will be opened and published. This is the final piece of the overall system to be opened up. Darkcoin will then become the first fully open-source, decentralized, anonymous crypto-currency in the industry.


Future plans include the adoption of a new Instant Transactions technology which Duffield has described in his whitepaper [https://www.darkcoin.io/downloads/InstantTX.pdf]. This technology will allow Darkcoin to compete with other nearly instantaneous transaction systems such as credit cards. If successful, such an idea could revolutionize crypto-currencies by providing a decentralized payment system usable in retail stores and other face-to-face situations. The delay between sending and confirming transactions would be reduced from one hour (with currencies such as Bitcoin) to as little as twenty seconds. A future press release will describe the system in greater detail.


The Darkcoin client and more information can be obtained at their website: http://www.darkcoin.io.


About Darkcoin:


Bitcoin works with an unprecedented level of transparency that most people are not used to dealing with. Every transaction that has ever happened is stored permanently in a ledger that is made public for the world to see, forever.


Darkcoin solves this problem by implementing an ahead-of-time CoinJoin implementation called Darksend. A user that wants to be anonymous can use the built-in technology to utilize the Masternode network to make their transaction nearly impossible to track.



source: http://www.cryptoarticles.com/crypto-news/darkcoin-passes-security-review-prepares-to-open-source



DarkCoin prepares to OpenSource

Litecoin into the Retail World

Bitcoin has a huge advantage over other altcoins for one simple reason: Because other cryptocurrencies such as Litecoin or Dogecoin are rarely if ever accepted by merchants for retail purchases. They have been used either for investments or storehouses of value.



Bitcoin on the other hand has recently been added to the payment options of some of the largest retail and services businesses in the world. But now, users of the new and free ShapeShift platform can order any products or services from any company that accepts Bitcoin and use altcoins instead to pay.


It was just last week that PayPal announced that its merchants would now be able to accept Bitcoin, which opens the popular cryptocurrency up to potentially eight million businesses worldwide, and now Litecoin might be able to take advantage of this service by piggybacking Bitcoin.


ShapeShift is a groundbreaking new idea that has the potential to level the cryptocurrency playing field. To date, Bitcoin has held its dominance because of merchant acceptance and by being first on the crypto scene. Butthe fact is that Litecoin is much less cumbersome to use unless you are buying a new Mercedes Benz or Lake House.


Litecoins were designed, according to founder Charlie Lee, to work with smaller purchases, and to supplement, not replace Bitcoin. Meanwhile, Bitcoin serves perfectly for larger purchases and as a secure asset storage vehicle. ShapeShift, however, allows its users to store assets in Bitcoin and spend them using the more liquid Litecoin.


ShapeShift Founder Beorn Gonthier is from Switzerland and has been a finance and economics hobbyist for some time. He became addicted to the idea of Bitcoin in 2011 and the idea for ShapeShift came to him in February of 2014. He quickly realized that the task of setting up different accounts and buying various coins was simply too difficult for most people and that there needed to be a way to buy one coin while being able to spend them across a wider spectrum of coins if desired.


According to its founder, ShapeShift does not deal with fiat currencies in any way. The company keeps a supply of various coins, distributing them as needed. Thus, it is a consumer oriented trading platform that acts as an instant exchange and payment platform simultaneously. If a customer has Litecoin for instance, they will trade Bitcoin to ShapeShift and ShapeShift will first make the trade and the pay the merchant in BTC. Large orders do however require a single step confirmation process.


Since fees are always an issue, so Gonthier explained the charges that users may incur:


First, our system is looking around the various altcoin markets and determines a price at which we’re willing to sell our coins (this is our exchange rate). This price we offer includes any profit we make (so there are no extra fees). However, our profit is not exact, because we’re buying coins separately to replenish our reserves if they get low.


So, sometimes we make less, sometimes more, and sometimes we even lose money on a trade. But our algorithms for handling this risk are one of ShapeShift’s advantages. Our margins are pretty small though, the site won’t really make money any time soon.


Our goal is to ensure that our pricing is always competitive, so if people look around in the market they’ll generally find ours attractive. One great advantage of buying on ShapeShift is that there is no price slippage… so if you buy 10 Litecoins you know exactly what rate you get on the full order. A traditional exchange website has slippage, where you may get 2.421 LTC for a certain price, and the next 1.5322 for a slightly worse price, and so on, based on the depth of the market. If you put in a specific bid order on a normal exchange, you will know the price you get, but you may have to wait a minute, or a week, for the order to fill.

ShapeShift employs Gonthier, three developers and marketer as well as a few other team members. Currently still in Beta testing, ShapeShift is currently only exchanging Litecoin and Bitcoin but has plans to move forward apace with adding a full spectrum of virtual currencies to their list. Beta testing is expected to end in October and, if all works well, this new service promises to be groundbreaking.



source: http://cointelegraph.com/news/112615/altcoin-merchant-boost-shapeshift-brings-litecoin-into-the-retail-world



Litecoin into the Retail World

Sunday, September 28, 2014

BlackHASHlet, mining fund project by BlackCoin

The BlackCoin team is running a new and interesting initiative in order to add more buy pressure on exchanges.



Their new project is called BlackHashlet, and is a combination of cloud mining contracts, earnings of which are used to set up buy orders on exchanges.


A BlackCoin Mining Fund has been set up, where people can donate either BlackCoin or Bitcoin to specific addresses. So far, over 0.3 Bitcoin and 13500 BC have been donated to the fund, which uses these donations to purchase cloud mining contracts from various sources.


These sources are ZenMiner, Genesis Mining, ZeusMiner and Multi-Hash. Some of the contracts are mining Bitcoin directly, while others via Scrypt. ZenMiner is currently at 19MH/s, Genesis Mining at 60 GH/s for Bitcoin mining, Multi-Hash at 1 MH/s and ZeusMiner at 1 Zeus (no official hashrate reported).


Considering all of these contracts are between 7 and 21 days old, depending on which service/manufacturer you are looking at, an average of 0.0285 Bitcoin per day through mining is not a bad start. In total, 0.2697 Bitcoin has been generated by the BlackCoin Mining Fund.


The current buy pressure is a BlackCoin buy order sitting at the price o 0.00013200 Bitcoin, for a total of 1477,69 BC. Keep in mind this spreadsheet hasn’t been updated today as of yet, but it still gives a good indication of what the plan is.



source: http://www.cryptoarticles.com/crypto-news/meet-blackhashlet-blackcoins-new-mining-fund-project



BlackHASHlet, mining fund project by BlackCoin

The Rise and Rise of BitCoin

1) WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO MAKE A FILM ABOUT BITCOIN?



My brother, Daniel Mross, became very involved in Bitcoin mining in 2011 and it was all he could talk about. As a filmmaker, I decided to start capturing his story, and I quickly developed an interest in Bitcoin myself. The film just expanded from there as the popularity of Bitcoin grew, and we traveled all over, meeting the top Bitcoin entrepreneurs and enthusiasts.



2) FOR SOMEONE WHO IS NOT FAMILIAR, CAN YOU TELL US IN LAYMAN’S TERMS WHAT IS A BITCOIN?


Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer digital currency, meaning it is controlled by individuals and not tied to a central authority. It is a fully transparent monetary system, where each transaction is posted to a public ledger which is shared and maintained on a network of computers. Using Bitcoin, you can send money over the internet to anyone in the world as easily as you can send an email.


3) WHAT DO YOU THINK MAKES BITCOIN SUCH A FAST-GROWING REVOLUTIONARY CURRENCY AND TECHNOLOGY?


Bitcoin is a great advancement as a payment system, especially for the billions of people around the world who don’t have access to a bank account. But just as important is the cryptography behind Bitcoin, which has the potential to significantly change the way our society functions.


A technology like this has never existed before, and the idea of taking control away from centralized authority structures and bringing it back to individuals is very powerful. Think of how Email or Facebook changed communication, and now imagine that happening with money…



4) WHAT KIND OF PREPARATION AND RESEARCH DID YOU DO PRIOR TO SHOOTING?


The majority of my research actually occurred while we were shooting. Bitcoin is such a complex subject that I was constantly learning more about it as filming progressed. In addition, our documentary unfolded as time went by so I was constantly chasing the latest story and news related to Bitcoin and therefore preparation was never ending.


5) WHAT ARE SOME OF THE DIFFICULTIES YOU AND YOUR TEAM FACED DURING PRODUCTION, AND HOW DID YOU OVERCOME THEM?


The biggest challenge in making this project was learning the ins and outs of Bitcoin, so that we were able to make the most comprehensive documentary possible. Bitcoin was, and continues to be, an ever-changing subject matter with an unknown future. Because of that, we filmed anything and everything we possibly could and never turned down an opportunity. New developments were happening practically every day, so by the end of production, the challenge became, “When do we stop filming?”


Gaining the trust of the Bitcoin community was probably the other most difficult challenge we faced during production. Many Bitcoiners are naturally guarded and private with their lives, but we were lucky enough to break through that barrier and capture the true story.


I think the big factor here was that we were filming early enough so people didn’t see us as a “band wagon” documentary, but instead, filmmakers that truly cared about the potential of Bitcoin.


6) HOW WAS IT WORKING WITH YOUR BROTHER, DAN MROSS, AND TELLING HIS SIDE OF THE STORY?


My brother and I have wanted to work together on something for the longest time, and this turned out to be the perfect collaboration. I won’t lie, we had our moments when having a camera constantly rolling became a little old. It can be tough mixing filming and family life, but we knew this was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and my brother was always willing to go the extra mile for the greater good of the project.


7) HAVE YOU COME ACROSS ANY ANTI-BITCOINERS DURING THE FILMMAKING PROCESS? AND WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO TELL THOSE PEOPLE WHO ARE INITIALLY SKEPTICAL ABOUT BITCOINS?


We reached out to a few skeptics of Bitcoin and included some of their opinions in the film. They were hard to find, and many who are anti-Bitcoin wouldn’t be on camera because of the risk of Bitcoin proving them wrong. Bitcoin can be an extremely intimidating concept to grasp and it’s still in an experimental stage, so most people are understandably cautious. Many have predicted the end of Bitcoin, but time and time again it’s proven resilient and only grown bigger and stronger.


One of our biggest goals in making this film was to help the general public expand their knowledge of Bitcoin in an informative and entertaining way.


8) WERE THERE ANY FOOTAGE OR SPECIFIC SCENES THAT WERE LEFT IN THE EDITING ROOM THAT YOU THINK WOULD HAVE BEEN BENEFICIAL TO INCLUDE IN THE FILM?



Absolutely! Bitcoin is too big a topic to condense to a 90 minute story. We have hours upon hours of extra footage that unfortunately couldn’t make the final cut, and hopefully we’ll get a chance to release those stories as well.


9) DURING THE FILMMAKING PROCESS, WHAT WAS ONE THING YOU LEARNED OR SURPRISED YOU? WHAT WILL YOU TAKE AWAY FROM THIS EXPERIENCE?


Oddly, the one thing that surprised me the most was how willing people were to be on camera. Sure, we had plenty of people ask to not be filmed, but we had many more that were enthusiastic about the opportunity to be in a documentary on Bitcoin. I think because the subject matter is so cutting edge and there’s so much momentum behind Bitcoin, people were just excited to be a part of it.


10) WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE THE AUDIENCE TO TAKE AWAY FROM THE FILM AND BITCOIN?


Bitcoin is incredibly innovative and has the potential to bring positive change to millions around the world. We hope the audience will learn about the possibilities of digital currency and the early innovators fighting to make it happen. Ultimately, we made this documentary for the faithful Bitcoin community, and hope they enjoy watching it as much as we enjoyed making it.



source: http://www.cryptoarticles.com/crypto-news/kewe9br6y5mnob3eeop6lnw7em2w13



The Rise and Rise of BitCoin

INTERVIEW WITH PRODUCER OF ‘IAMSATOSHI’

During London’s Inside Bitcoin Conference earlier this month, I was able to get in contact with Tomer Kantor, the producer behind the video projects of “IAmSatoshi.”



Kantor is a film maker with a reverent presence. In speaking with him, it was immediately clear that this film came from a deep and personal understanding of Bitcoin’s truly global potential.


“It’s a personal project that started about year and a half ago. Originally, I just wanted to make a feature length documentary film about Bitcoin, kind of an observant style.

The more I got into it, I decided that I don’t really want to make an observant documentary, I actually want to make an exposing documentary because I do have an opinion after sitting with these people for so long.”


Along the way, he’s produced literally over a hundred videos and has been exploring many unknown parts of the Bitcoin world. These include interviews, conferences, meetups, and more.


One of his most recent works has landed him in the forefront of media attention: Bitcoin in Kenya. The 15-minute short-documentary sheds light on a part of the world that would benefit substantially from financial liberation and certainly the integration of Bitcoin. However, Tomer Kantor reveals that Kenya already uses a form of digital money: M-Pesa. Watch the short film below.


“I wanted to see what it’s like and I realized that it’s not even close to what our media is making it like, but at the same time, there is such a huge potential for Bitcoin. [...] You know I got a lot of criticism for not being so ‘bitcoin-friendly’ but I think the video actually is an eye-opener for a lot of people that want to go and start something in Kenya; [T]he potential is just phenomenal and there aren’t many people doing stuff in the space, so go ahead and do it.”


For Kenya, many are used to the idea of using their phones to transfer money and this has only risen to this level in the past 3-4 years and the financial institution there is also used to the idea, but there are still huge pitfalls to using M-Pesa. Safaricom, the parent company of MPesa is a centralized business like PayPal and 10% owned by the government. When you use MPesa within their service, you have to pay huge fees, there are no verifiable paper trails, meaning Safaricom is unaccountable, and it goes to supporting a crony form of corporatism. Bitcoin could offer them a way out.


Bitcoin in Kenya is being submitted to the BitFilm Film Festival in Berlin, Germany. It may also be submitted to the Thessaloniki International Film Festival in Greece, as the theme this year is based on activism. It would be a big opportunity for publicity, but CCN is still waiting on details.


Kantor is considering releasing a second piece to Bitcoin in Kenya. In the original, seen above, the film focused on the M-Pesa System. With a second one, Tomer could focus more closely on Bitcoin’s potential and where it is now.


The project of IAmSatoshi has evolved a lot and instead of being a straightforward documentary, it is more of a floating idea: While Kantor continues producing great media content, he continues to explore more and more of the Bitcoin world and the more he finds, the more he may put into the project and the more the project evolves.


Tomer Kantor is quick to point out that IAmSatoshi will be very different from other documentaries being made right now. A major critique of ‘The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin’ is that it is full of white, middle-class male Americans, which made the film very one sided, but Kantor doesn’t fall in the same trap.


“Another thing that is shown from other Bitcoin documentaries is that everything is very american-centric, where I have a spread where about 1/3 of my interviews come from Americans, where I also have Africans, Asians, Europeans, and Australians. [...] I really went out of my way to try and get different perspectives worldwide and not to get stuck with mainstream american thought – not because I think there’s anything wrong with that, but just because I wanted to show a bigger picture.”


Central to the narrative is a strong viewpoint and understanding of Bitcoin. Many people who are trying to sell the idea of Bitcoin to the mainstream are pussyfooting the incredibly revolutionary dynamic that Bitcoin introduces to the established power structure. Kantor assures us that IAmSatoshi will not follow suit:


“A lot of people always say that Bitcoin is neutral when it comes to politics, which is fine; it’s not issued by any country, but it’s a very political statement because you’re undermining state currency by using Bitcoin.”


While a lot of details for the project’s finishing and release are still in the air, expect the film to be up for crowdfunding later this year to aid post production and a possible initial release for crowdfunding participants in early Spring, with a full release to the public in late Spring/early Summer. In the spirit of Bitcoin, Kantor tells us the film will be released under creative commons – he wants it to fuel more dialogues, discussion and media buzz.


Before we wrapped the interview, I asked what his most powerful experience with Bitcoin has been:


“I was on holiday in Portugal and I did a Bitcoin seminar. [...] This one lady comes up to me, a Bolivian lady I believe, and she works with refugees on the border between Mexico and the United States. They are not allowed to have a bank account and they have to use Western Union and she was telling me ‘the people I work with that are very very poor, have to pay 10% on transferring money back to their families. [...] I’ve never heard about this Bitcoin thing until you talked about it. Can you tell me how I can start using so refugee people can start using it?’ “


Blockchain technology is allowing communities to organize and bring people together and that’s something that we must not lose focus on. Sometimes, we may be distracted by the price, investments, and scandals, but above all, Bitcoin offers a way out of oppressive systems that have a problem with certain people living a normal life and can give people a new life.


“This project has completely changed my life. I’m eating, breathing, living bitcoin and I’ve met some of the greatest people I’ve ever met, I have some really close friend that have come out of it and they’ve all slowly become a part of the narrative of the project. Thank you to all the people who have helped me so far.”



source: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitcoin-films-exclusive-interview-with-producer-of-iamsatoshi/



INTERVIEW WITH PRODUCER OF ‘IAMSATOSHI’

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Introduction to DarkNote

On Friday, the developers of the former altcoin duckNote announced they had rebranded their coin, which is now going to be known as darkNote.



DarkNote is a fork of Bytecoin, the first implementation of CryptoNote, and its developers have hung their hats on the coin’s anonymity features, its ASIC resistance and its distribution model.


It has since gotten an upgrade.


“With the new name XDN received new DarkNote-only unique features, like encrypted messages, encrypted transaction comments, GUI wallet transfers aggregation, lots of source code and network improvements,” DarkNote developers wrote on Bitcointalk.org. That made DarkNote look like a familiar Internet banking system, but decentralized and privacy protected.”


Now, with what its developers refer to as a “quantum leap,” DarkNote has added new anonymity and mining features. Here is the full list of new features:


Encrypted transaction comments

Encrypted messages, sent via the DarkNote client on every XDN network address

Tweaks to the GUI wallet

A wallet pool miner that lets you start mining with the literal push of a “Start Mining” button

The blockchain was moved out of RAM

The former duckNote had taken a tumble this week, along with many other cryptocoins. With this announcement from the rebranded DarkNote team and the excitement it generated all week long from duckNote users, this might be a chance for XDN to gain a bunch of new users. DarkNote has been hovering in the mid-30s among all cryptocoins on CoinMarketCap.com with a market cap of about US$730,000 at the time of writing.


“Freedom is [the] heart of DarkNote,” its developers wrote on Bitcointalk.org. “You and nobody else know your DarkNote address balance, incoming and outgoing transfers, and only [the] receiver of your transactions can decrypt your transaction messages. DarkNote blockchain has an analysis resistance, unlike Bitcoin, DarkNote is a fully anonymous and you stay protected against hackers, gangsters and any kind of censorship. [In] fact only you know how many XDN funds you have and nobody can stop you to spend it, but all transfers are confirmed by decentralized Proof-of-Work network.”


The Bytecoin Connection


Crucial to point out is the fact that DarkNote’s development team includes at least one person from the Bytecoin dev team. It’s been rumored that DarkNote is serving as a testing bed for CryptoNote itself.


Miners


DarkNote has one of the highest volumes of people mining it among all the CryptoNote coins. Already, there are nearly 10,000 different CPU miners on the DarkNote network, more than even on Bytecoin.


Anonymity


DarkNote using ring structures to obscure and anonymize transactions. That means it’s impossible to trace whether Bob sent DarkNotes to Alice, Alice’s sister, or whomever. Another anonymity feature of DarkNote is its unlinkable transactions, explained as follows on the website:


“The sender can produce only the public part of the key, whereas only the receiver can compute the private part; hence the receiver is the only one who can release the funds after the transaction is committed.”


ASIC Resistance


DarkNote also uses what it calls “CPU-efficient egalitarian proof-of-work,” which means that the coin would be indifferent to an ASIC arms race among miners. “It is a pure proof-of-work system that uses CPU and only CPU computing power for producing fast, secure and untraceable worldwide transactions,” developers said on the coin’s original Bitcointalk.org announcement.


Distribution


In the first year, 80% of all darkNotes ever will be mined. The reward structure works like Bitcoin’s, halving every month.


“With 320,000 XDN block rewards on first 11,000 blocks height, duckNote will reach 150 XDN minimum block reward approximately after 1 year of mining with about 80% of XDN in circulation,” duckNote developers told CoinTelegraph in August. “After that moment, reward will always stay 150 XDN until blockchain existence. With maximum 8 589,869,056 duckNote units it will takes more than 77 years to reach that amount.


“So, being CPU – efficient Egalitarian Prof of Work cryptocurrency, with fully decentralized network and fair blockchain start, duckNote will have main amount of coins in open market circulation after one year. That makes duckNote cryptocurrency easy usable for real economy needs as well as good investment asset, predictable, based on market and media laws.”


Resources for DarkNote Users


Homepage:


http://ducknote.org/#home (This does not appear to have changed at the time of writing.)


GUI Wallet:


Windows 64 bit

Windows 32 bit

MAC

DarkNote Communities


http://darknotetalk.org


Exchanges:


HitBTC

Bittrex

Poloniex

Blockchain explorers:


Chainradar.com

Minergate.com

xdn.cryptostats.org/

Mining pools:


For a list of mining pools, go to the DarkNote [ANN] thread on Bitcointalk.org.



source: http://cointelegraph.com/news/112583/altcoins-we-are-excited-about-an-introduction-to-darknote



Introduction to DarkNote

XCurrency - ticker XC

XCurrency, ticker XC, is a coin that showed up around five months ago with some pretty startling claims about itself.



Since then, the creators have gone on to make it into one of the top coins priding itself on anonymity, while also making a name for themselves by running code reviews of other altcoins – which the community has taken very, very seriously. Dan Metcalf does not fool around.


Before we get too far though, the basics of XCurrency:


– 5.5M total coins through PoW

– 125K XC pre-mined

– 3.33% yearly PoS

– 8 Hour min / 30 Day max stake time

– BitcoinTalk Ann Thread

– Website

– Developed by Dan Metcalf and Christian Howe

– Too many interesting features to put in bullets


So why talk about XCurrency today? Big news on their part, as they launched the XMixer, a highly anticipated piece of technology that you can read about here.


In general, XCurrency has stood tall for one reason and one reason alone: strength of code. Probably the best reason to support an altcoin out there. XCurrency is not just innovative, it is successful at implementing the ideas it wants to put into practice. The difference may not be immediately apparent, but it is very significant. The XC community should worship their developers, as they are truly committed to the project, and will be a large portion of the reason for XC’s theoretical success.


But let’s break it down to specifics. The big obvious pros of XC are:


– Extremely strong development team

– XC Tor Stick (an upcoming device to make it easier to use XC over Tor, increasing privacy and security)

– Strong and well-built website and social media presence, with a team behind them

– XChat on the XC Computer Wallet, called the “XC App,” which I have found confusing – to be clear, there is no mobile version yet, although it is in development. XChat is an end-to-end encrypted messaging service over the XC Blockchain that has been quite popular since its release.

– Multipool (not as big a deal anymore, but still nice)


And then there are some more points of discussion whose benefit is a little more subtle. The first is the XC developer’s approach to open-source. They share the source code in a delayed fashion – which is interesting for investors on two levels. First, they get the benefit of having open-source coin code – specifically, the code is reviewable and they can be confident that older features are not vaporware. Second, they get the benefit of closed-source code: no copycats – or, at least, no up-to-date copycats.


Past that, the elephant in the room: the big new announcement, XMixer. What does an XMixer do?


Let’s start with Xnodes. They, like Darkcoin’s masternodes, mix transactions. However, unlike the masternodes, any running copy of the XC App is treated as an Xnode.


XMixers are essentially larger Xnodes which also process transaction when their owner is not actively making a transaction. They require a full 1000 XC in order to operate, and they work in tandem with the Xnodes to provide anonymity to users. Through the use of both nodes and mixers, all transactions are fragmented and distributed essentially willy-nilly, and then reconstructed upon exiting the nodes and/or mixers they have passed through in order to reach their end destination. This process is claimed to provide complete anonymity to users, while also being very efficient and, in the case of Xmixers, incentivizing large holders to keep their coins in order to run Xmixers. It’s a clever solution that seems to be an evolutionary improvement upon Darkcoin’s masternode system, allowing for a more distributed system of transactional obfuscation.


But there’s still a big question at the end of all this discussion.


The highlander rule.


There can be only one completely anonymous cryptocurrency that succeeds, most likely. The network effect is particularly useful for these anonymity solutions – the more transactions, the more clouded the history of each particular transaction will be, and thus the more utility provided to users by the anonymity.


So, can XC be the one? Darkcoin is the current frontrunner, but can XC oust it?


Maybe. It’s a technological arms race. Darkcoin’s closed source and recent failed masternode release vs. XC’s pseudo-open-source code and impressive development progress.


Darkcoin has much more coverage in the mainstream media, and a simpler name – one people often connect to Dark Wallet, which receives the most media attention of all the proposed anonymity solutions.


But Darkcoin doesn’t have much in the way of serious social media efforts, while XC has focused some efforts there. XC also has some pretty nice flashy graphics – seriously, don’t underrate the potential value of a sharable infographic.


So, in short? XC needs to play catchup to Darkcoin. If it can catch up in the public consciousness, and in market capitalization, then it becomes a question of technology. If it becomes about technology, then XC is in a decent position – maybe even ahead.


But as it stands now, Darkcoin is 5.5 times the market cap of XC, and is way closer to mainstream attention. If one or both of those change, we could be looking at an upset – but for now, my money’s on Darkcoin.



source: https://coinreport.net/little-altcoin-sanity-xcurrency/



XCurrency - ticker XC

Mastercoin & MaidSafeCoin

To start with, an asset issued on a platform I haven’t discussed, Mastercoin.



The asset is MaidSafeCoin, and it is the largest asset issued by market cap – by a significant margin, coming in at almost 24,000 BTC, 4 times the next largest asset. What is MaidSafeCoin? It’s the asset issued for use with the Safe network, a development project aimed at building a decentralized and open internet. Instead of websites being hosted by single servers placed somewhere or by rented centralized server farms, MaidSafeCoin and the Safe network allow for hosting and provision of content through a decentralized rentals of computer processing services. Essentially, any one who would like to participate can offer up whatever spare resources they have – they are then paid out automatically for them through MaidSafeCoin. MaidSafeCoin’s value is tied to the demand to use the Safe network, and in theory, as its value grows, the supply of resources available on the Safe network will also grow. It’s a self-supporting ecosystem of a very simple and clever variety, that hopes to create a censorship-free web – free not just of censorship akin to China’s great firewall, but also of censorship like that that claimed the servers of many different illicit or revolutionary activities. With the Safe network, hosting is decentralized, so there is no physical server location for anyone to gain access to and shut down. It’s a very impressive development, and it’s clear why MaidSafeCoin is the top asset at current.


My one criticism: It’s issued on the Mastercoin network, which is abbreviated MSC. MaidSafeCoin should also be acronym’ed MSC. Yeah. It’s a small criticism, I agree.


What else is out there in the wide world of crypto-assets, though? A lot of scams. But also some bright – perhaps blindingly so – ideas. SuperNET is one of those.


jl777 is an oddity for the cryptocurrency community. He has his haters, just like everyone else does, but most people view him as an honest individual. Comparing anyone to Mircea Popescu is the sort of statement that could be taken the wrong way – as MPOE has one of the most polarized reputations I’ve ever seen – but I have an immense respect for MPOE, much the same as I do for jl777. As always, though, take what you read with a grain of salt.


jl777 is the architect of the SuperNET project, one of the most ambitious projects to date – and one that most people with foresight could see coming. The network effect is the most powerful driving force behind the adoption of new technology. Bitcoin has a huge headstart on network; Litecoin (now teamed up with Dogecoin) trailing somewhere far behind it. SuperNET is just the logical next step to the Litecoin/Dogecoin pseudo-merge. Allow coins to band together while still remaining heterogenous. By doing so, everyone benefits – each added coin network is a benefit to all participants in the SuperNET, thanks to the network effect. There are no detrimental effects, thanks to the maintained heterogeneity. This project has very real and impressive possibilities, and I can’t spare the words to describe fully everything it could mean once realized, so please consider looking into it in more detail yourself. Here’s a link to get you started.


Third, an easier to describe asset, this time issued on the BitSharesX (BTSX) platform. Not actually really only one asset, but we’re discussing BitUSD to start off. BitUSD is one of what could be considered a small family of BitSharesX assets – BitUSD, BitCNY, and BitBTC, with others likely to come.


BitUSD is an asset which makes up a decentralized autonomous corporation, the only purpose of which is to allow people to go short or long on the price of BitSharesX vs. USD. That might not seem impressive, but it’s actually INCREDIBLY influential. It’s a methodology for allowing the market to fix the price of an asset to the relationship of two other assets. It’s decentralization of discovering exchange rates, in other words. I’d recommend this 10-minute video for anyone who wants a rundown of what this means and the basics of how it works.


What’s the use of this? With some clever work on behalf of programmers and so on, this is a method for “owning” US dollars without actually owning them. BitUSD is essentially an asset that will nearly-perfectly track the value of USD – as such, assuming a sufficiently liquid market that was capable of programmatically responding quickly enough in order to meet demand to buy or sell USD using BitUSD, BitUSD is a cryptocurrency with the stability of the dollar.


It allows for the printing of digital dollars. Let me repeat that.


By itself, this system, given enough use, testing, and development around it, could LITERALLY be used as a cryptocurrency replacement dollar. No risk to any participants. Everything decentralized. The assets are on a blockchain. BitUSD itself is a decentralized autonomous corporation. The pricing of BitUSD/USD and BitSharesX/USD is managed by the market – a decentralized authority. Everything is decentralized and trustless, and it’s faster, more secure, and lower hassle than the actual dollar is.



source: https://coinreport.net/little-crypto-asset-sanity-maidsafecoin-supernet-bitusd/



Mastercoin & MaidSafeCoin

PayPal supporting LiteCoin & DogeCoin

Now, the CEO of GoCoin confirmed that Bitcoin won’t be the only cryptocurrency benefiting from the PayPal partnership; PayPal is supporting Dogecoin and Litecoin payments as well.



 


PayPal’s integration of these services into their PayPal Payments Hub platform for digital goods is an enormous step forward for all three digital currencies. PayPal is not announcing a 100 percent bitcoin, dogecoin and litecoin integration with their main gamut of services, but they are looking to a long-term partnership along with a way to ease into cryptocurrency altogether.


PayPal’s Senior Director of Corporate Strategy, Scott Ellison, explained in an announcement yesterday:


“PayPal has always embraced innovation, but always in ways that make payments safer and more reliable for our customers. Our approach to Bitcoin is no different. That’s why we’re proceeding gradually, supporting Bitcoin in some ways today and holding off on other ways until we see how things develop.”


“PayPal also needs to follow the laws and regulations in every market we operate. For this reason, virtual currency exchangers and administrators interested in working with PayPal in the future must secure the appropriate licenses and put anti-money laundering procedures in place.”


While these three currencies aren’t completely implemented just yet, PayPal’s integration into their digital goods hub is the first step. PayPal will not be processing these transactions, but will take a referral fee because they will be allowing it through their platform; a move that cryptocurrency users may or may not experience themselves.


PayPal Closing the Social Gap


The partnership announcement is huge for users of other cryptocurrencies, specifically Litecoin and Dogecoin, because it closes the social gap between Bitcoin and the rest of the alternatives. It wouldn’t be farfetched to say that Litecoin is now, without a doubt, the current number two in social perception. It also wouldn’t be crazy or silly to claim Dogecoin as number three, moving into a bit more serious area of existence.


The argument that there are plenty of other cryptocurrencies worthy of PayPal integration is valid. It’s easy to find a laundry list of other currencies that are higher in price than Dogecoin, and maybe even more driven than Litecoin. But the partnership with GoCoin shows that PayPal seems to have chosen their top three; whether it be direct or indirect.


Dogecoin and Litecoin communities should celebrate this financial victory, but other cryptocurrencies should not give up hope or become visceral. Competition is the best thing to happen to the financial realm, and while PayPal may be one of the largest payment systems, it is not the only one. Finding a way to negotiate and collaborate with other payment processors, such as the new Apple Pay and others, may be the key to pushing healthy competition off the bitcointalk forums and into the real-world-application market.



source: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/paypal-supporting-litecoin-and-dogecoin-gocoin-ceo-confirms/



PayPal supporting LiteCoin & DogeCoin

Paypal partnership enables limited Bitcoin payments

Paypal is teaming up with three major Bitcoin payment processors so that certain retailers will be able to receive payments in the virtual currency via the firm’s payment hub.



The three processors are BitPay, Coinbase and GoCoin.


The service has gone live and will initially be available to sellers of digital goods based in North America.


However, the payments will not be processed by Paypal itself, the company confirmed.


“We’re proceeding gradually, supporting Bitcoin in some ways today and holding off on other ways until we see how things develop,” wrote Scott Ellison, senior director of corporate strategy in a blog post on the Paypal website.


“Paypal has always embraced innovation, but always in ways that make payments safer and more reliable for our customers. Our approach to Bitcoin is no different.”


Last month Paypal announced that its subsidiary unit Braintree, a payment processor used by firms such as Uber and Airbnb, was also looking at ways to handle Bitcoin payments.


Scott Green, founder of UK Bitcoin price comparison site Bittybot, said the new partnership was significant.


“I think we will look back at this announcement from Paypal as being a major turning point in the mainstream adoption both of Bitcoin and its payment system being taken seriously by businesses,” he told the BBC.



source: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-29341886



Paypal partnership enables limited Bitcoin payments

Sunday, September 21, 2014

BitHalo / BlackHalo Tutorial

BitHalo/BlackHalo Tutorial 5 – Create a joint account



 




BitHalo / BlackHalo Tutorial

Cryptonomics: Bitcoin Technical Analysis

Inaugural episode of the Cryptonomics Podcast! Brandon Moore (@bemoretoday) & Zach Chester (@zerovalueinc) discuss the recent CITI bank statement, bitlicensing, BTC price volatility, the SYS IPO, risk management, and Zach does some T/A on the alt coins FIBRE and GB.



 






Cryptonomics: Bitcoin Technical Analysis

How To Trade Hot IPOs Like Alibaba

My students & I made solid $, especially http://tim.ly/supertrader subscribers, off the SYMPATHY plays to Alibaba, not Alibaba itself.





How To Trade Hot IPOs Like Alibaba

Saturday, September 20, 2014

BlackCoin - Black Auctions in Public Beta

What’s is BlackAuction’s vision?




BlackAuctions goal is to provide an auctioning / sales platform to the crypto community that takes full advantage of BlackHalo’s smart contracting capabilities as well as offering additional (charge-back secure) payment options such as eWallets. The addition of eWallet payments will make it easier for “first adaptors” to purchase their first coins while being ensured that they are buying from a reputable or verified seller.


Taking advantage of BlackHalo in combination with Black Auctions will not only allow members to build an actual reputation and trust level (via BA’s feedback and rating system) but also add additional transparency and security to all parties involved.


BlackHalo has been already added as an “offline payment” method. BlackHalo can be selected as option when creating a new listing and members may add their public BlackHalo email address to their profile. This will allow the seller to quickly create a smart contract once an auction has completed.


Beta Roadmap (all listings are LIVE listings!):

Beta participants listing goods for sale (10 BC sign-up bonus)

Adjustment to Categories (Suggest categories from your members are)

Adjustment to the sign-up and profile pages to only show relevant information

Testing of listing features, display of auctions across site and store layouts

Testing of completed auctions using BlackHalo

Testing of completed auctions using alternate payment gateways (Skrill, Paypal, bank transfer etc)

Develop custom blackcoin payment gateway for instant payments of digital goods / music downloads etc

If you would like to participate in the beta feel free to sign up now. Your account will be credited with 10 Blackcoins that can be used for listing enhancements and more. Feel free to send us your feedback to blackauctions@edextera.com or join us on the freenode IRC #BlackAuctions


NOTE: All auctions are live auctions. If your item is sold you’re bound to ship it. Please don’t list your house, your wife, her mum or other items that you “should” not sell or don’t actually want to sell.



1976 Ford Taunus Ghia


1976 Ford Consul Coupe


1979 Ford Granada cosworth


1982 Coleman-Milne Dorchester


1991 Ford Scorpio cosworth


source: http://www.dailyblackcoin.com/black-auctions-public-beta/



BlackCoin - Black Auctions in Public Beta

DarkCoin DarkSend opensource

DarkCoin team will be releasing a whitepaper soon about Instant Transactions. I’m really looking forward to finding out more, as instant transactions would be groundbreaking in the world of cryptocurrency.



The main feature of DarkCoin’s RC5 will be a basic version of enforcement which, when activated, will guarantee masternode payments are present in a block. From the testing results so far, the code appears to be working and some final bugs are being ironed out. In case there are DRK mining pools who do not upgrade to the new client, their found blocks will be rejected by the network.


A lot of people will be pleased to hear DarkSend will be made open source a week after the release of RC5, which will be on September 29th. Just in case the code needs some updating before releasing it to the general public.


The DarkCoin developers are thinking ahead as well, even though there are no pressing matters in regards to DarkSend at this time. The Instant Transaction implementation will commence immediately following the RC5 release, but no official ETA was given at this time.



source: http://www.cryptoarticles.com/crypto-news/darkcoins-rc5-launching-next-monday-darksend-to-go-open-source-september-29th



DarkCoin DarkSend opensource

KoreCoin VOIP feature

There is some important KoreCoin news I wanted to talk to our readers about, but I didn’t get around to doing so earlier this week due to travelling back from London after attending Inside Bitcoins. The alpha version of KORE’s VoIP feature has been released!



 

As you may remember from our previous KoreCoin article, which you can find here in case you missed it, the alpha version of the VoIP feature does not include video calls. However, the functionalities which are available, deserve to be looked at a bit more in-depth!


Voice calls are available for testing, and can be done between two addresses. You can give the address you want to reach a nickname though, so that makes life a bit easier.Once done, select their details, and click “Call”. Easy peasy!


One of these disabled features is instant messaging. If you have people in your friends list (with their KORE address and a nickname), you can double-click their details, and open up an IM window. This feature will be available in the next release.


Users can only be reached through one address at a time, so in case you have multiple KoreCoin addresses, pick one where other users can call you on. In order to do so, simply go to the “Receive Coins” tab, right-click the address you want to use for VoIP and click on “Set VoIP Account”. A really easy process, which only enhances user-friendliness.


In order to use the VoIP feature yourself, click on the VoIP tab in your KORE client, open the debug window, and click Register; Once that is done, you are online on the PBX part of the network, and can start using the VoIP feature.


In case you want to go offline again, the process is relatively simple as well. Open the debug window again when you’re on the VoIP tab, and click “Unregister”. It doesn’t always have to be complicated , you know?


If you are experiencing trouble while using KoreCoin’s VoIP feature in regards to voice calls only going one way, there is a solution for this. Users will need to open up port 5060 on their router or firewall, which should fix the issue.


Ever since the KoreCoin VoIP Alpha client was released, there have been some bugfixes, and the latest client was released yesterday. The buddylist is now fully working, a ringing sound has been added to incoming calls and the icons are fixed. Grab the latest KORE client here.



source: http://www.cryptoarticles.com/crypto-news/korecoin-releases-alpha-version-of-voip-feature-instant-messaging-coming-soon



KoreCoin VOIP feature

Xcurrency privacy advancement

XC’s final instalment to its privacy technology is a breakthrough on three fronts: privacy, scalability, and mobility.



 

XCurrency has released the central and final component of its privacy-centric payments solution, and much like the multifaceted ingenuity in Satoshi Nakamoto’s invention of the Bitcoin blockchain, it is a single protocol with far-reaching implications. Its immediate function is to allow any app on the XC network to communicate on behalf of other apps without the others having to trust them; however its implementation has game-changing aspects.


Put briefly, when someone makes a private payment using the XC app, the transaction is split into fragments, which are sent to several other nodes also making payments. These nodes form ad hoc mesh networks with each other that exist only for the duration of each transaction, in which no node functions as a hub or “server.” The nodes mix transactions in a manner analogous to coinshuffle, where no node knows which other node’s coins they’re forwarding, and no link exists on the blockchain between sender and receiver. The effect of this is true privacy: due to forwarding, the senders’ and receivers’ identities are concealed, and due to transaction-fragmentation, the amounts sent are concealed. In fact, since all nodes can forward transactions, nodes cannot even tell whether a given fragment originates from the node it receives it from or whether that node forwarded it from somewhere else.


While “trustless multipath mixing,” as the above is called, has the direct purpose of making transactions truly private, what is of greater value is that it sets new paradigms for distributed content servers, mobile blockchains, and private web browsing. It is the true foundation of XC’s web 3.0 plans. How this is possible is as follows:


A “CoinJoin killer”


It has often been assumed that the next major advance in cryptocurrency would be a cryptographic one. It turns out, however, that XCurrency’s major breakthrough is as much an extension of advanced networking technology as it is a cryptographic innovation. One of the most popular techniques for anonymising transactions is CoinJoin, however in comparison to XC’s trustless multipath mesh, it is at a decisive disadvantage:


CoinJoin is vulnerable to a denial-of-service attack: if a single node fails (or refuses) to sign a transaction, then every participating node has to re-sign. In contrast, by design XC’s mesh is continually and dynamically altering its topology, and has no trouble of this sort.

CoinJoin has no intrinsic way of disciplining bad nodes, whereas XC’s mesh is capable of discovering bad nodes and excluding them from the mesh.


Nodes participating in a CoinJoin transaction generally know the sender, receiver, and amount sent. Thus, even though the blockchain does not record a link between sender and receiver, the information can be extracted from a node. XC’s trustless mixing conceals links between sender and receiver even from forwarding nodes, and its multipath fragmentation conceals the amount. Thus even if nodes are hacked, they cannot reveal sensitive information.

CoinJoin generally requires a mixing server or some form of semi-centralised supernode (cf. DarkCoin “masternodes”). XC’s mesh networks are entirely distributed, even with the recent addition of Xmixers.


A TOR replacement


The Onion Router, an aging US-government initiative with several vulnerabilities, is the de facto, though imperfect, means for the privacy-conscious to conceal their IP addresses. However a trustless mesh network is ideally suited to conceal IP addresses, since nodes mix content and are not able to discover the nature of the content, and because its distributed topology renders it highly resilient to attacks against any one node or collection of nodes. As such, XC nodes make an excellent foundation for next-generation IP-concealment. This feature can be expected in future XC developments. Added to the privacy features above, it results in 100% privacy for XC users.


Ideal for mobile


In order for a cryptographic platform to go mainstream, it is absolutely essential that it be truly mobile-friendly. This is directly where XCurrency is headed. Trustless multipath mesh networks are ideally suited to this purpose, as can be seen from analogous technologies like mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), which are continuously self-configuring, infrastructure-less networks adept at handling the fluctuating signal strength and changing locations of mobile devices.

XC founder and lead developer Dan Metcalf is a leader in distributed wireless network design, as his LinkedIn profile suggests. When founding XCurrency, he perceived that his core contribution to the advancement of cryptocurrency would be to use this expertise to improve the privacy and mobility of blockchain-based technologies. XC’s trustless multipath mesh networking will excel on mobile devices, and the blockchain will be as much at home on mobile as it is on PCs and servers. Mobile apps will form ad hoc networks upon demand, require no servers, secure XC’s network, and trustlessly mix transactions just as PC- and server-based apps do.


Web 3.0


XCurrency recently announced its plans for a distributed content delivery service, and a trustless multipath mesh is the ideal delivery vehicle for such a service. Any device, mobile or not, will have the capacity to store and serve content even though its signal strength fluctuates and its connections to its peers change continuously. And for clients, service delivery will remain robust regardless of any one node’s quality of service, and the system’s distributed nature makes it effectively invulnerable to attack.


XC’s plans for web 3.0 will be further enhanced by being able to recruit mobile devices as content servers. Furthermore, XC users will gain another source of revenue from running XC on their mobile devices. By simply installing XChat (instant messaging with true privacy), users will thereby gain a source of remuneration.


XCurrency is preparing to launch publicly, and trustless multipath meshes are an integral part of its approach. With the final piece of its privacy puzzle in place, XC is optimally positioned to deliver a platform for next-generation distributed apps and services.



source: http://www.cryptoarticles.com/crypto-news/xcurrencys-revolutionary-privacy-advancement-trustless-ad-hoc-mesh-networking



Xcurrency privacy advancement

Vericoin near term strategy

The first VeriCoin-related release we can expect is a sleek-looking desktop client, which is sharp, intuitive, and as simple to use as an email client. Novices and investors will appreciate something that is easy to use, especially when combined with VRC’s cutting edge technology.



As you may remember, the VeriCoin Android Wallet was released not too long ago. The developers are currently working through Apple’s review process, and the VRC iOS wallet will hopefully show up in the App Store veri soon.


Even though purchasing VRC is easy for most of us, the process can always be more refined and simplified. The team is currently looking into a way allowing users to purchase VeriCoin from the wallet in just a few clicks. This service will be codenamed “bitVeri” , and will remove all technological barriers when it comes to purchasing VeriCoin.


DId you know VeriCoin has partnered up with SuperNET? Said partnership will allow VRC to build itself across some of the best cutting edge exchanges and services. Not to mention being positioned centrally in an up-and-coming digital asset ecosystem!


VeriSend will receive an upgrade as well , as a fully decentralized and streamlined version is being developed, which will achieve even greater privacy. Accounts can be identified on an optional basis, while maintaining user privacy. Sounds very, very interesting!


Combined with this VeriSend upgrade, a new service called VeriName will be created. VeriName is a fully decentralized and private username system. Sending funds to an alias without exposing details about either party’s budgets is something everyone should be interested in.



source: http://www.cryptoarticles.com/crypto-news/vericoins-near-term-strategy-includes-a-lot-of-new-features



Vericoin near term strategy

Friday, September 19, 2014

Andreas Antonopoulos steps down from Bitcoin Foundation

Andreas Antonopoulos has stepped down from the Bitcoin Foundation due to “Complete lack of transparency”. This isn’t the first time a member has stepped down due to the organization being secretive and shady.



 

Andreas’ Tweet can be viewed here. The need for removing the Bitcoin Foundation has increasingly grown as the amount of information about what they are doing has decreased. For a Transparent network of transactions, Bitcoin should have a transparent leadership. Olivier Janssen’s bounty to create software that would remove the Bitcoin foundation was successfully completed. Extensive testing will need to be done before the platform is ready to launch. It will likely cause a large amount of turmoil when the software is launched. One interesting thing to note is the fact that the software selected by Olivier Janssens will give everyone the oppurtunity to be part of the decision making process, as well as be able to see every proposed change and every step of that change as it goes along.



source: http://cryptocoinchronicle.com/2014/07/andreas-antonopoulos-steps-bitcoin-foundation/



Andreas Antonopoulos steps down from Bitcoin Foundation

Tokyo, Interview with Mark Karpeles.

Q: Everybody in the bitcoin community talks about you in Tokyo. Who are you and where do you come from?



I’m a 29 year old geek, an entrepreneur, and mostly, I’m curious. In other words, when I see something, I like to know how it works. My main activities are coding and sending e-mails. I think coding is a bit of an art form. You code, the same way a writer writes his book and the painter paints his picture. When you are inspired, you can’t stop doing it. And sometimes, you force yourself as much as you can, it just won’t come.


I was born in Dijon, France. I did most of my school education in France. When I was 3, I started to do basic programing on a 5 lasers spectrum, a very easy computer that the general public was familiar with at the time. Between 3 and 7 years old, my mother got me game programs, and when I pushed the record button I could see the program itself and I could entertain myself by modifying them or doing other things with them. I did not get a completed school education. In fact I was not very good at school, because the teachers put me in a literature class because that was the only place where they found a place to put me. That was not necessarily the best environment for me. But in math classes I scored 19,5/20 in average, and the teacher always took 0.5 points from my tests because my writing was crappy, and he was maybe right to do so because I really have a crappy handwriting. I used to dismantle a calculator to understand how it works. My profile is not really “literature,” I’m purely a math and science guy. I can easily remember some numbers I typed on my computer few days earlier, but regularly, I do something and I forget about it. For example, if you ask me what I did yesterday, I really need to think hard. I have no memory of what I did or whom I met. I have a memory that is very much based on numbers and much less based on elements. If I want to create a password, I type it 2 or 3 times, and that’s it, it’s registered in my brain.

My mother didn’t have an easy situation to raise a child, so sometimes I lived with my grand mother, who had very old values, and it had some impact on me. At some point I was put in a private school that taught children in small groups and where the kids evaluate their own score by using different colors. When I was 10 years old I was suddenly put in a public school, and that also had a certain effect on me. I consider myself someone who is quite logic and I do have good understanding of computer engineering and I have a particular affinity with programing.


When I was about 17, I was homeless for about a week. I used to distribute flyers to advertise for a cyber cafe near Chatelet, in Paris. The money I made allowed me to buy the evening food.


My big life adventure started in 2009 in Japan. But way before that, I left France for Israel, where I lived 9 months. I had prepared a plan to get from France to Japan in four steps: France, Israel, Australia and from there, I wanted to get to Japan. But everything didn’t go as I planned. In Israel, the war in Gaza started. Somebody blew the power plant in a terrorist attack, and we had half a day of power shut down. For an IT company, that’s the worst thing that can happen. That day, it blew all my plans. What I was trying to create there did not happen, so I returned to France. Selling services in foreign countries is a good business in Israel. Israel is seen as a spotlight for technology, particularly for the US. But the problem of the hazard of terrorist attacks, power plants shut downs, unstable electricity, slow Internet connection, and so on, were things that I didn’t expect. And Australia is also a bad country for Internet connection. So I returned to France. I had nowhere to go, but a friend hosted me and told me that someone was looking for a PHP developer. I was interested. That’s how I got to work in this company in France during 4 or 5 years, prior to moving to Japan. That French company bought several branches, including some in Japan, so I did everything in order to be transferred here. I arrived in Japan in 2009 and I founded the company called Tibanne on October 29th of that same year. Tibanne does web hosting and development. I did web hosting and different services all by myself. Tibanne is the name of my grand mother’s cat by the way. When she died, I inherited that cat.


Q: What is your particular attraction for Japan?


Well, I like the standard of living that we have in Japan. First of all, you don’t find conbini (convenient stores) in Paris. Paying your bills in a convenient store, and that it actually works. Also, I used to forget my laptop on a park bench numerous times, and each time I got it back. In Paris, just forget it, people would mostly steal it. All the service sectors in Japan, such as the delivery system are very efficient I think. In France, it took me 2 hours to get a vital card whereas in Japan, it took me 20 min to get a kokumin hoken, or social insurance card at the town hall. Otherwise, I think you find a lot of Japanese culture in manga, animation. And the nature and politeness of the Japanese people makes it easy to integrate in their society. In the subway train in Japan, when people are not necessarily in a good mood, they will nevertheless be courteous, whereas in France, it’s a bit the opposite (laugh). Every morning I took the metro until Opera, in Paris and from there I took the RER A, every morning I had my hand on my bag to make sure no one was going to steel it from me. I’ve seen guys who enter the Metro and start barking at each passenger inside. People are so courteous here in Japan, so it inspires me to do the same. Once I was in Shibuya in a parking lot with some of my employees and we found a fat wallet on the floor, and we went to bring it to the closest koban or police box. The goal is not only to be in Japan, and to take advantage of the nice people, but it’s also about being part of the whole.


Q: How did you get into bicoins? Is it because you have a great understanding of finance and the banking systems? Do you follow a philosophy, if so, is it libertarian, anarchist, or futuristic?


For me, basically I am more a geek. I’m a computer guy, more than a politician or a finance person, so I was not very well informed about those sides of bitcoin. It all started in 2010, when a French friend of mine in Peru, who was one of our clients, asked me, “Could I pay in bitcoin?” I said, “sure.” And started to look into it, how it works etc. What interested me in bitcoin was the technology part. In other words, the fact of maintaining a global data base in a secured way, the way it works, the fact that each client has a secured private wallet, the possibility to exchange values with other clients without any security problem, to have an entirely decentralized system, capable of exchanging data between two people. Also, bitcoin allows to have a database that is public. A database where everyone knows which keys has what, but without knowing who is which key. So there is a whole concept that was invented behind bitcoin, that is extremely well done, in fact. That was basically what interested me in the very beginning. The anonymity of the bitcoin was not my main interest. Bitcoin requires an extremely rapid communication between all the parties concerned. And the joint database, or the account book of bitcoin, is made in a way that everybody can look into it and at any time. Everybody can update it anytime they want and globally track a new transaction. There are a lot of technical problems that are very interesting challenges to meet as an engineer in the network or as a programmer. The beauty of the technical challenge itself is a sufficient motivation for many people like me. And that is really what motivated me in the start. To have a database that is updateable by several million of people, at the same time, and instantly is an incredible challenge, especially to do this on the Internet.


Q: What are the 5 things you like the most and the 5 things that you hate the most?


I like computers, courtesy, Japan, apple pies and cooking, and also driving around in a car, or travelling. I can’t really take an airplane at the moment. I am more secure in Japan, and if I want to travel abroad I have to get a permit from the Japanese court that put Mt Gox into bankruptcy. And unless there is a strong reason for me to travel, it is very unlikely that they would say yes. Otherwise, I love dismantling old computers or electronic devices and try to make them work. I also love cooking my grand mother’s apple pie, a family recipe from Burgundy.


It’s more complicated to find the 5 things I hate the most. I hate mushrooms, most fish, except tuna and salmon when I have sushi. I never lived near the sea, so I think that’s why. That’s for the food I hate. Otherwise, I hate press conferences. I had only one experience in giving a press conference, if it was possible, I would like to avoid doing another one ever.


Q: Is there anything that people do that you don’t appreciate?


I don’t like egoism. It’s so pleasant to share, so I don’t see why we wouldn’t do it.


Q: Do you think you are generous?


I think I am. But then it’s a question of doing what I can do and that it doable.


Q: Who is your hero? Who is the person, real or fictive, that you admire the most, whom you want to be?


It’s complicated, each people have different interesting aspects and skills. Putting all the good things in one person is something difficult. I admire Neil de Grasse Tyson, the astrophysicist and author of “Space Chronicles and Inexplicable Universe.” My hero is Iron Man. (Laugh.) He’s a good example, because he does a lot of things. Again, I like the action of inventing and innovating.


Q: What do you think life gave you? And what did people give you?


Until now, I think I was really lucky, because not many people can have the same things that I do. And at the same time, I think I am unlucky when I look at how it all ended, it’s actually quite horrible. And I really hope we are going to find out what really happened. What we are seeing now, maybe in the near future we will be able to say that we were part of an economic revolution. Bitcoiners are making history. When I landed in Japan the first time, I didn’t possibly think all this would happen. But among bitcoiners, there are some who are quite extremists, I would say, but somehow that is something important, because in general when you try to achieve something, suppose that you can only achieve half of it. Let’s suppose you are trying to do something and you get only half way through, it means you achieved half of the impossible. Now, if you try to achieve the impossible and suppose you can achieve half of it, that means you can do the entire possible things. That’s why you always have to aim for the moon. Because even you can’t reach the moon, you will still reach the stars. Never hesitate. When you wake up in the morning, you have two types of people, those who will go back to bed because it’s the morning and those who will put their dream in action.


Q: Who are the people you saw the most, these last years?


The last 5 years, and especially when I had Mt Gox, it was house/work, work/house. Mt Gox used my entire energy. I didn’t really have the choice. As of 2012, we started to encounter the governments, and then I had no time to go out and take some relaxing time. I feel somehow better now than then, because I spend less time at work and because I didn’t really know how I could improve the situation anyways. That said, I still have a lot of things to sort out, and most of all, it leaves a bad aftertaste to be pirated and to have been stolen so much bitcoins.


Q: Is there something that you have now, that you didn’t have when you were running Mt Gox?


I now have time. It’s something positive. I feel liberated. It makes a big difference on that level. With Mt Gox, I sometimes had 8 meetings in a day. Evening meetings with the lawyers in Europe, and night meetings with the lawyers in the US. I was indeed put under huge pressure and stress. I gained 30 kg. And nothing improved with time. When we managed to solve one problem, others appeared one after the other. For example, at some point the French government seized one million Euros from us, and that was very stressful. A year ago we managed to get that money back. And we were relieved for a moment, but then the problems came along with the Americans.

Before, when I woke up in the morning, my day looked gray in perspective. But now, whenI don’t have any meetings, which happens more often than before, I think to myself, “Gosh, today I can work on this or that.” And I feel excited about my day. Nowadays, sometimes I wake up and I arrive to the source code, and it happens to me to think, “Well I am going change that entire code.” And I end up spending my entire morning re-writing an entire system. And it pisses off every one at the office because suddenly I change the entire thing, (laugh.)


Q: Were all these problems related to bitcoin? Some believe that bitcoin is the future. Some say that governments will always find ways to enforce new laws to frame bitcoin because bitcoin is not a concept that goes along with central banks and the very existence of governments. Tell us about your views.


At the moment, the best enemy of bitcoin are the people who love bitcoin. Particularly the pirates and all these sorts of people, who spend their entire time trying to attack the services that are trying to make bitcoin user friendly, like Mt Gox for example. As I am speaking to you, I do not think that it is possible to have a bitcoin exchange service unless you have a team that works 24 hours to detect attacks and that kind of things. It requires a budget that not many people have access to. I think we will see another Mt Gox next year, and the next year. And my opinion is that each time we will see that, the losses will increase. In 2013, you had the collapse of Bitcoinica, the first collapse of an important bitcoin exchange company, because of hackers. After that you had Mt Gox. And there will be another one soon. It might be BTC-E, it might be Coinbase. But it will strike harder next time. However if bitcoin works, it can be extremely interesting. Those who are enthusiastic about bitcoin should be more careful about the harm.


Q: What is your landmark, what keeps you going, what makes you feel secure?


When I’m home with my cats, I feel much more quiet and peaceful. But I also have my company and all my employees. We know each other well, and we have been together for quite few years now. And we do what we can.


Q: What are the first things you do when you wake up in the morning, and what are the things you think about most of the time?


The first thing I do, is I go the room next to my bedroom and I switch on the screen, (my computer is always on,) I check what happened. I take a shower, put my clothes on and go to my office or I continue working from home. Depending on my inspiration, I go to bed very late when I do coding. I am now dealing with a case in the US with CoinLab who is trying to sue us. This week, our lawyers made an announcement, where we stated that CoinLab is a joke. Five million dollars was stolen from Mt Gox, and we’re being sued by CoinLab, who manages the Bitcoin Foundation in the US. I can see no other words but “cheeky” to qualify CoinLab. Otherwise, most of my time, I think about a code, a network, a piece of apple pie, going out on a little trip. I also find myself inevitably thinking about who could have pirated Mt Gox.

Initially, the contract that we had with CoinLab was to subcontract CoinLab for all the financial parts in the US, so that we wouldn’t need to have a license in the US, because it was impossible to get it. Four different financial services experts found 4 different answers to whether a license was needed or not. Some had said that bitcoin is not regulated. Another said that a LTB license was required. We thought, “It’s too complicated in the US. We will let some local companies handle this, because they are there and they will make it.” There are regulations that exist, and we were not sure whether they applied to bitcoin. We tried to be on track, but the problem was that different parties told us a different story. For example the MTB license cost almost 50 million dollars, and we didn’t have 50 million dollars to inject right away. So we decided not to do all this by ourselves. That’s why we contacted CoinLab. And CoinLab, based in the US and they told us, “No problem, we can deal with your license.”


Q: Against what does a startup have to fight most of its time in order to exist?


A good question to ask yourself is, “What is the average age of a politician?” Politicians are usually not so young, and instead of thinking about innovating, their goal is to maintain things stable at the least during their term. So if there are any problems, they will want to leave to the next generation. For example, in order to get the most expensive license, which is the NTB license, you have to have a physical office in each State. And what we do is we provide online services. So the license says you have to have a physical office in each State, and each state has a slightly different system. Bienvenue in the USA! One thing I love doing is also giving lectures on bitcoin. I’m quite good at doing that. I gave some lectures at Chuo University in Tokyo and you had bankers coming along with the students. I could have had a career as a university Professor I think, I would have been excited doing that job anyways. I’m capable to explaining what “mining” is in a way that anyone can undertsand. (Laugh.) One thing I wish I had done in my life is I wish I went to university. I actually never had a university education.


Q: You said you felt liberated that everything is over with Mt Gox, do you still think about it?


Maybe it’s too strong to use that word, but being pirated, in other words, to have someone who enters your server and you don’t know about it, it’s close to be a rape. You have your space, where you do your things, and while you are not watching, someone enters inside it, does what he wants. It might not be the appropriate word, but that’s how I feel. I think I spent too much of my time dealing with the governments and the banks. All the precious time I should have spent coding and maintaining the system, I was spending it at meetings with lawyers, bankers, and lobbies. That is finally a lot of time wasted in dealing with regulations and stuff that oppose what we do, whereas my time could have been more efficiently spent. When Mt Gox was still in my agenda, I had only meetings with bankers and lawyers who were worried because they didn’t understand bitcoin, and I was practically doing nothing that dealt with technical parts. With 8 intensive meetings per day, I would go home at night and I was exhausted. And the next day I had to start it all over again with new meetings. I spent months and months without really having a decent life. I think there are many things that go against innovation. When you want to do innovation without borders, you will see many people who have their little comfort and who don’t want you coming out and destroying their comfort. Banks are typically the first to be worried about bitcoin, because their international banking system is currently functioning. Despite some problems like high risk loans, where they end up, and all the stories we hear with the mafia passing their money through the normal banking system, you see banks that have to pay impressive amounts because of that. But globally, their system works. So they don’t welcome someone like Satoshi Nakamoto who forces them to re-learn what they are doing. With bitcoin, they suddenly have their banking system that’s not up to date. It represents a huge change and a lot of cost if all the banks in the world have to learn how to do their job from scratch.


Q: What is your favorite song?

I have a billion of favorite songs but those that show up the most are Rhamstein, and for example, “Seven Nation Army” by The White Stripes.


Q: What are the thing that you desire the most today?


I would like to be less lonely. That could mean different things, but a big problem I have is that I don’t have many people who understand me, and it isn’t always easy. I am not a very social person, I used to be worse, but now I learned how to detect the flaws I have and I am more capable of interacting with people.


Q: Are you a “white hat” or a “black hat,” Mark?


You are talking about hackers. The fundamental difference between a white hat and a black hat is as follows. Imagine two kids who are playing and they are trying to open a lock with a little hairpin. The white hat will test his knowledge, opens the lock and demonstrate that the lock is vulnerable and report it to you and tell you to change your lock. The black hat will come at night, open your lock, empty your house and disappear. It applies to the security breech in computer engineering. The white hats are those who want to publish a maximum of reports in order to improve the situations, whereas the black hats are those who is use their knowledge to reach a more lucrative business, I would say. You have those two mentalities, those who don’t understand or did not take the time to assimilate the entire environment around and to conform to the rules. And often, in certain cases, the rules that are defined don’t necessarily make sense.


After the bankruptcy of Mt Gox, the Japanese police opened an investigation on this case. Foreign creditors including Japanese reporters who cover the cyber crime beat believe that the Japanese police haven’t got the skills to solve this issue. A team of 4, lead by @wiz aka Jason Maurice from Wiz Technologies launched an independent probe on their own, and Roger Ver, aka “Bitcoin Jesus” launched a bounty to find the culprits. What do you think of this initiative?


I think that those who think that the Japanese police is “incapable” slightly underestimate them if they think that they are not advancing. I don’t have all the details, but I have more details than usual people. So I have seen things that others won’t ever see. And based on that, I think the Japanese police are quite efficient. But I totally support the idea that several people start their own investigations. It is generally a good idea to have different people having different way of seeing the same problem. The police does not report into details on what they are doing, that’s why it might seem like they are not doing anything but they are actually working on this. As for understanding the situation, I think I gave them enough training so that they can now go on. It is a recurrent fact that the Japanese police arrest innocents and make them confess that they did the thing. So, I simply hope that they won’t do anything insane. That is something that is not guaranteed though.


( See previous coverage on this topic in Daily Beast, “cat collar crime” )


Personally, I support the fact of finding the culprit or the culprits. The method used is less important for me than the result.


Q: Have you read the book of Satoshi?


No. I haven’t read “the” book. These days I read more books like, “What If ? : Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions,” by Randall Munroe. And I try to imagine all possibilities to frame a problem.


Q: Who is your favorite Japanese comedian and your favorite French comedian?


Mr. Downtown, aka Hitoshi Matsumoto, who does the show called “Waraccha ikenai 24 jikan,” (“the forbidden to laugh 24 hours.”) And my favorite French comic is Fernand Raynaud.


Q: We say that bitcoin can obstruct governments to finance wars, is it true?


Well, it’s not credible. Nowadays, governments finance wars with taxes. If we didn’t have taxes, which is improbable, I would see how bitcoin could obstruct financing wars, maybe. But as I am talking, people who are using bitcoin are ready to pay taxes. If we stop paying taxes, we won’t have the firefighters, the ambulances, many of the things that we need in the end. What we could do is to experiment a society where we put all these people who don’t want to pay taxes together, they create their “bitcoin nation,” and if it works, that’s good. I totally support experimentation. However, taking in account the information we have available at this point in time, I do not believe it is a realistic thing to do.


Q: What’s good about bitcoin?


It allows a financial system that is entirely independent and it has the advantage of not being under the control of a country or an entity. Therefore, it is a much more robust system. I explained earlier that I had the intention to do replace one of our systems for Swift. Well, as I am taking to you, the entire international banking system that uses Swift depends on Swift, which has its headquarters in Belgium. If someday for some reason, the company decided to cut everything, although they cannot really do it because all their shareholders are all the banks in the world, but suppose that there is a problem with an entity or that the Belgian government decides to do something. Well, suddenly you can have all the world’s banking system cut. Bitcoin does not have that kind of problems or risks. And we could technically do a system that is similar to bitcoin that would allow banks to exchange messages in a decentralized way. It would reduce costs, because currently, each time a bank sends something to another bank, it has to pay a little fee to Swift. It will not only reduce the costs but it will also create a robust system.


Q: Will the world be a better place then?


Maybe not, but at least it will be slighty better than how it is now. What is fascinating with technology is that we improve systems little by little, and although perfection does not exist, what we can do is to improve things along our way.


Q: New York just just launched its bitcoin license, what do you think about it?


I think it’s constraining, on one hand you have the requirements that have been defined and that are a bit absurd, like the fact that you have to collect names and addresses each time, whereas for normal payments you only need the names and the countries. However in other cases, I think the text needs to be much tougher. Particularly regarding safety requirements. Because storing bitcoins for your users, is the same as storing gold. So, you have someone who gives you gold and tells you, “I would like that gold to still be there when I come back in a week.” In Order to do that, you will use guards 24/7, you will put surveillance in front of your strong room, that’s usual business. However the bitcoin businesses say, “It’s fine, we are hackers, we won’t be pirated.” And the next day you have someone who actually hacks you. Or for example someone who physically enters your offices, install keys on the computers. Like someone who gets hired as a cleaning agent, and takes advantage of a moment when the offices are empty and do the things I just mentioned. You see that in movies, but it exists also in reality. I think it’s not very complicated to get hired as a cleaning agent in a building where you have a bitcoin business. So, when you get that job and you clean the offices, you have access to the building at hours when it’s generally empty, because you usually clean places when no one is working. It’s a way like any other way to access an office that manages billions of dollars in bitcoin, when the office is empty. That is something that should not be possible. But it is, for many companies it is. You can ask your employer to vacuum his own space to counter that issue. But sometimes you can have an employee who gets hired and whose real intention is just to get access to what you have. This is not a fact, it’s just my opinion. We are dealing on a level where our little hackers who are protected behind their screens, are not anymore on a par to face all the possible cases. If you want to do a bitcoin business nowadays that is secure and safe, you need a security team 24/7 on a computer science level and a 24/7 security team on a physical level, in other words, guards who are in your office 24 hours per day and who keep a close watch on the movements of everybody who gets in and out of the office. To have a security system that you can control and that is efficient, with access cards, badges etc, you have to have audits, in other words, if possible, to have someone who verifies in real time, all the in and outs, like identifying whether this or that person is supposed to be here or there at this particular moment of the day. For example, if the cleaning lady who usually cleans the office in 30 minutes, suddenly takes 2 hours to clean, that’s weird. I say the cleaning agent, because it’s the most usual case. It’s easy to bribe them, for example, at night after work you tell someone, “I have a problem with that woman, I think she cheats on me, could you bring me her garbage so I can verify that? And in exchange I will pay you 100 $. The guy will do it 2 or 3 times, and after several times, you tell him, “If you don’t want me to report you to the police, you will give me the garbage of everyone in it, and then you will plug this on each of their computers.” You ask for a little favor and then you turn it into a blackmail, that’s how theses guys proceed. Those small cleaning people usually don’t have bodyguards and they can sometimes be put in a situation where they don’t have the choice. They are helpful and then they don’t want to loose their job and then above all, they don’t want to be reported to the cops, these people would do anything. Suddenly, the tone of the exchange is not asking for a favor but it becomes an order. It’s easy to do, and then usually no one thinks about that. Someone who cleans the offices in your building is someone you see every day.


Q: Do you trust your little cleaning lady now?


Now we don’t have any important things in our offices, we don’t have bicoins anymore. So it’s simple.


Q: What is a question that you wished a reporter would have asked you and that no one ever asked you?


That’s a good question. Well, I wished that someone had asked me how I’m doing. I think everyone sees me as “Mr. Mt Gox,” and not enough like a human being, or just a person. Although I don’t always agree with what human beings think, or the way they react, it’s sometimes disappointing, everyone needs human interaction.



source: http://nathalieandkyoko.wordpress.com/2014/09/18/tokyo-interview-with-mark-karpeles-ceo-of-mt-gox/



Tokyo, Interview with Mark Karpeles.

Thursday, September 18, 2014

Chinese investment into BlackCoin

Just last week, CCN profiled Blackcoin’s the moderate price rise which pulled the altcoin out of a significant price downtrend.



On September 11–when CCN last examined the Blackcoin price–the coin was valued at 9,736 satoshis, a 14% rise over the previous day. The Blackcoin price continued to increase over the next two days, peaking at 13,227 satoshis before cooling off to 11,083 on September 14.


At 10:00 pm EST on September 14, Blackcoin was trading at an average of 10,911 satoshis. By 11:15, the coin had increased 9% to 11,986. The price remained fairly consistent until 4:30 am on September 15. At that point, the Blackcoin price began to explode.


Within 3 hours, Blackcoin’s value increased an astounding 20% to 14,911 satoshis. The price continued to increase until 9 am, where it peaked at 17,082 satoshis.


Earn Bitcoin Points by Creating a User on CCN & Join the Discussions!


Following this dramatic rise, the Blackcoin price declined a bit to its current position at 15,712 satoshis. Despite the mild decline from its recent peak, Blackcoin’s September 15 price-rally is nothing short of impressive. Over a 24-hour span, the Blackcoin price increased nearly 43%. Blackcoin’s market cap increased to ~$5.7 million, placing it thirteenth in market cap and just $600,000 behind twelfth-place Counterparty.


Blackcoin Price Analysis


The recent Blackcoin price increase was ignited by an infusion of Chinese investments. More than 64% of Blackcoin’s 24-hour volume is centralized on the Chinese BTC38 exchange. At present, Blackcoin comprises nearly 11% of BTC38’s total volume, trailing only Dogecoin (51%) and BitSharesX (17%).


The increased Blackcoin exchange volume has raised Blackcoin’s CoinGecko metric score as well. On September 11, Blackcoin’s scored 47% with a 42% community, a 62% developer, and a 43% liquidity score. Blackcoin’s community and developer scores remain unchanged since then, but the extra exchange volume increased the coin’s liquidity score to 43% and its overall score to 49%.


CCN’s last article on Blackcoin noted that the coin’s metric score was five spots higher than its market cap ranking, which can sometimes indicate a coin is out-performing its market cap and could be poised for a price rise. In this particular case, the Blackcoin price trend confirmed that theory, as Blackcoin rose to thirteenth in market cap–just behind its twelfth-place metric rank. Since Blackcoin is now ranked comparably to its overall coin health, traders should not invest on the assumption that Blackcoin is underperforming.


Investors should also be wary of a cooling-off period, which is liable to happen after frantic price rises such as the one Blackcoin has experienced. After the coin’s value rose more than 40% in a single day, many investors will be tempted to sell their holdings at a huge profit. Short-term investors should keep this in mind before buying Blackcoins at what could be a temporary price-peak, and long-term investors should remember this before panicking if Blackcoin undergoes a moderate price-correction.



source: http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/chinese-investment-fuels-blackcoin-price-explosion/



Chinese investment into BlackCoin

Peershares develper annouces secret project NUBITS

After undergoing a decline for most of the year, the Peercoin price catapulted by nearly 40% in a single day.



The impressive price increase followed the announcement of a release date for a secret project that will purportedly reduce Peercoin volatility. Many investors have placed speculative investments in Peercoin, but is this a good idea? CCN examines the massive Peercoin price rise to help investors make informed trading decisions.


Peershares Creator Jordan Lee Announces Release Date for Secret Project NuBits


For the majority of 2014, the Peercoin price trended steadily downwards. That changed on September 15, when Peershares (a project based on the Peercoin protocol) developer Jordan Lee announced his team’s secret project, NuBits, would release on September 23. Lee’s announcement, which first appeared on PeercoinTalk, revealed few specific details about the project, other than that it “completely solves the volatility problem cryptocurrencies have experienced.”


Last September I published a preliminary outline of the design for Peershares to the Peercoin community for review. In January, funding was finalized to accelerate the creation of Peershares and a specialized implementation of Peershares that I had designed. Since then, my team has been working hard every day to bring you this stunning innovation in decentralized finance. As the crypto-economy has experienced a slump in pricing, morale and interest, my highly talented team has consistently exhibited a phenomenal level of motivation and dedication to seeing our vision become a reality. We have worked together quietly until now, but that is about to change.


I’m proud to announce that our product, NuBits, will be available to the general public on September 23rd at 14:00 UTC. Complete details about our implementation will be available on nubits.com. Until then the site will display a countdown.Our solution completely solves the volatility problem cryptocurrencies have experienced. It does so with zero counterparty risk using a decentralized network. Much of the network revenue will be delivered to shareholders in the form of Peercoins. The network is an exciting advance I am pleased to have the opportunity to unveil.


Peercoin Price Analysis


The Peercoin price surged following the NuBits announcement. For the two weeks prior to the announcement, the Peercoin price hovered around 151,500 satoshis, which gave Peercoin a market cap of ~$16.5 million. From September 13-14, the Peercoin price inclined slightly, almost reaching 170,000 satoshis. But this brief price increase would not compare to the explosion that would take place on the heels of Jordan Lee’s NuBits post.


As the 24-hour CoinGecko price chart to the left indicates, the Peercoin price shot upward at roughly 12:30 am EST, rising to 203,500 satoshis. A brief decline followed, but within 5 hours the Peercoin price had surpassed its previous daily high and continued to rise. This cycle would continue throughout the day, raising the Peercoin price to 238,891 satoshis at press time. Peercoin’s wild ride resulted in a 24-hour market cap increase of 39%, vaulting Peercoin to a $24.3 million market cap and a 7th-place ranking among all cryptocurrency market caps.



source: http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/peercoin-price-surges-after-peershares-developer-announces-release-date-for-secret-project-nubits/



Peershares develper annouces secret project NUBITS