Ripple Cryptocurrency Aims to Make Global Assets Liquid

One one level, Ripple is another cryptocurrency in an ever-growing list of fledgling products, hoping to earn a place in the wider world of business and finance. While the value of Ripple's currency, XRP, is well below $1 per unit, making it a mere fraction of the value of Ethereum or Bitcoin, Ripple nonetheless sports the third-largest portion of market capitalization as compared with the rest of the cryptocurrency industry. But aside from its growing position as a currency, Ripple is drawing more and more attention from banks and financial institutions around the world for another crucial reason, too: the blockchain technology behind the currency itself.

Ripple Aims to Build an "Internet of Value"

A recent profile on Ripple by American Banker reveals that the San Francisco-based startup has its sights set on creating an "internet of value," a worldwide network system for financial transactions. Ripple's goal is nothing less than the ultimate freeing of monetary value, allowing assets to flow instantly and seamlessly between mobile systems, public blockchains, and bank ledgers. The goal is a massive one, and yet Stefan Thomas, Ripple's chief technology officer, stands behind his company's ability to enhance banking around the world. "We're not the disruptors, we're not the guys who come in and tear everything down," he stresses.

But in the Meantime…

For the time being, though, Ripple seems to occupy at least two different spaces. First comes the chryptocurrency side, and success in that area has not come as quickly as some would have liked. John Light, a consultant working with multiple startups that have integrated Ripple's technology into their systems, indicated that Ripple has "had something of an identity crisis about who their customer is, and what problem they are trying to solve."

First, the company aimed to build a new currency that would improve upon Bitcoin. This was a key component of the instantaneous transactions goal, as Bitcoin has been racked with problems relating to the system's processing capacity which has left some users waiting for days for their transactions to clear. Beyond that, though, Ripple differed from Bitcoin and other digital currencies further, even at its earliest stages. Ripple's leaders disagreed with other chryptocurrency enthusiasts who suggested that the new currencies could replace banks or even government currencies. Rather, Ripple aimed from the beginning to work with banks to make global assets even more liquid.

With roughly 60 financial institutions around the world sporting Ripple technology, the company is seeing its vision begin to take shape. However, the fact that the currency itself has not gone away makes the list of offerings that Ripple presents somewhat confusing. If banks and investors around the world are to continue to gain interest in Ripple, it seems that the company will be best served by streamlining its offerings further into the future.

David Ogden
Entrepreneur

Author: Nathan Reiff

David Ogden – Http://markethive.com/david-ogden

How To Grow Bitcoin

Grow Your Bitcoin

How to grow Bitcoin

Bitcoin is the leading chryptocurrency and is starting to change the way people use money and invest in the future. The coin is a limited resource which some compare to Gold and certainly at the moment it is holding its own value wise.

Unlike traditional coins chryptocurrencies have many more decimal places which mean you can purchase sell or earn a bit of a coin, just like in ancient times where physical coins were cut into pieces.

Bitcoins have become popular in developing countries, where they are perceived to be better value and safer to use than traditional currencies which are controlled by Governments

I started earning bitcoin a few month ago, completing online survey and earning 74to 359+ bits for 5-30 minutes work. It may not be much, but I puts you on the road to prosperity. Currently I have some 100 ukpd worth of coins in my wallet.

Rather than leaving you Bitcoin in a wallet, You can invest and trade them online, which can be risky if you do not know what to do, the basic aim is to buy on the lows and sell on the highs.

You will see many companies which offer to multiply you coins by hype methods offering high returns which are not sustainable and often lose down without notice.

I have found two companies who actually trade chryptocurrencies using specialized trading algorithms, which greatly reduce the risk of loss. One company has a excellent track record, however you need to keep you coins invested for a year, compounding your gains.

The second company based in the Far East has only been trading for a short while but is very reactive to changing conditions, which have forced its competitors to shut down, it also transfers the interest you earn into your personal wallet, which is then under your own control.

There will be many people who claim that both of these companies are a scam, but frankly most do not know what they are talking about. I used to be a currency trader many years ago and know for a fact that automated trading programs do work. Chryptocurrencies are more volatile so one can see that doubling your money in 60 days is not an unreasonable target.

David Ogden
Entrepreneur

David Ogden – Http://markethive.com/david-ogden

Ethereum Tokens Are All the Rage. But What Are They Anyway

Ethereum wants to create an ecosystem where everything works together seamlessly as part of its vision for a 'world computer' – and that includes the tokens required to power it.

Launched in 2014 by a band of coders and an upstart teenager, ethereum was designed to make it possible for anyone to code nearly any type of app and deploy that on a blockchain. Many of these decentralized apps (or 'dapps' for short) needed their own token that could, among other things, be sold and traded easily.

To that end, nearly 18 months ago, the ERC-20 token standard was born.

It's hard to overstate how important that interface has been. By defining a common set of rules for ethereum-based tokens to adhere to, ERC-20 allows developers of wallets, exchanges and other smart contracts, to know in advance how any new token based on the standard will behave.

This way, they can design their apps to work with these tokens out of the box, without having to reinvent the wheel each time a new token system comes along.

As a result, almost all of the major tokens on the ethereum blockchain today, including those sold in the recent surge of ethereum-based initial coin offerings (ICOs), are ERC-20 compliant.

Tokens 101

Before delving deeper, it's important to spell out what a token actually is and how it differs from ether, the native currency driving the ethereum blockchain.

As they relate to the ethereum network, tokens are digital assets that can represent anything from loyalty points to vouchers and IOUs to actual objects in the physical world. Tokens can also be tools, such as in-game items, for interacting with other smart contracts.

But put simply, a token is nothing more than a smart contract running on top of the ethereum blockchain. As such, it is a set of code (functions) with an associated database. The code describes the behavior of the token, and the database is basically a table with rows and columns tracking who owns how many tokens.

If a user or another smart contract within ethereum sends a message to that token's contract in the form of a 'transaction,' the code updates its database.

So, for instance, when a wallet app sends a message to a token's contract to transfer funds from Alice to Bob, this happens:

First, the token's contract checks that the message was signed by Alice and that Alice has enough funds to cover the payment

Then, it moves funds from Alice's to Bob's account in the database

Finally, it sends a response, letting the wallet know the transaction was a success.

In contrast to tokens, ether is hard coded into the ethereum blockchain. It is sold and traded as a cryptocurrency, and it also powers the ethereum network by allowing users to pay for smart contract transaction fees. (All computations on the ethereum network have a 'gas' cost.)

When you send tokens to an exchange, for example, you pay for that transaction (in this case, a request to the token's contract to update its database) in ether. This payment is then collected by a miner who confirms the transaction in a block, which then gets added to the blockchain.

Early on in ethereum's history, standards were part of the overall plan to create a user friendly and broadly accessible system. But like all standards, ERC-20 took time to evolve over a series of long discussions and careful considerations.

So, sometime before DevCon1, the first big ethereum conference in 2015, Vitalik Buterin, the founder of ethereum, introduced the initial standards token.

Later that year, Fabian Vogelstellar, one of the developers working on ethereum's Mist wallet, took that standard, changed a few things, and proposed it to the community as ERC-20 to initiate a formal conversation around how the standard should be implemented.

Then in April, due to changes in how the Ethereum Foundation was organizing its GitHub, the ERC-20 standard was moved to a Github pull request.

What's inside?

ERC-20 defines a set of six functions that other smart contracts within the ethereum ecosystem will understand and recognize.

These include, for instance, how to transfer a token (by the owner or on behalf of the owner) and how to access data (name, symbol, supply, balance) about the token. The standard also describes two events – signals that a smart contract can fire – that other smart contracts 'listen' for.

Together, these functions and events make ethereum tokens work the same almost everywhere within the ethereum ecosystem. As a result, nearly all wallets that support ether, including Jaxx, MyEtherWallet.com and the official ethereum wallet, now also support ERC-20 compliant tokens.

According to Vogelstellar, who spoke to CoinDesk about the importance of ethereum's token standard, this interoperability lays the groundwork for big changes to come.

He said:

"I believe we are just at the beginning of tokenizing everything. Maybe in the future, you will be able to buy a share of the chair you are sitting on, the paint inside your house or a fraction of equity in a huge building complex."

Bumps in the road

One thing to keep in mind, though, is that ERC-20 is formally a draft, meaning it is not being enforced and still needs to be fully blessed by the ethereum community. Regardless, Vogelstellar said, every new token will likely conform to its set of rules.

He cautioned, however, that the standard is still young, so there will be bumps in the road. One of those bumps is that sending tokens directly to a token's smart contract will result in a loss of money. That is because a token's contract only tracks and allocates money. When you send tokens to another user from a wallet, for example, that wallet calls on the token's contract to update the database.

As a result, if you attempt to transfer tokens directly to a token's contract, the money is 'lost' since the token's contract cannot respond.

So far, $70,000 worth of tokens have been lost in this manner.

But solutions are in the works. As an extension to ERC-20, ERC-223 attempts to resolve the issue by suggesting a token's contract implement a tokenFallback function to prevent the contract from holding tokens sent directly to it accidentally.

Vogelstellar argued this is all just part of developing a solid system, though, saying:

"Driving with these prototypes can be rocky at times, but ultimately they provide the necessary learning that will bring us to the future of blockchain and smart contract interactions."

David Ogden
Entrepreneur

Author: Amy Castor

David Ogden – Http://markethive.com/david-ogden

Top 3 Reasons Not to Use an Exchange Wallet to Participate in a Cryptocurrency ICO

Even though cryptocurrency ICOs have been going on for quite some time now, a lot of basic questions continue to show up. It appears there is a lot of confusion as to why one should never send funds to an ICO from their exchange wallet directly. There are several good reasons as to why this should not be done, though, as we outline below.

3. TRANSACTION DELAYS CAN COST MONEY

Contrary to what some people may think, exchange wallets do not always send out withdrawals right away. In some cases, it can take an hour or longer until your withdrawal is effectively processed. Depending on which cryptocurrency we are talking about, it may take even longer to get the necessary network confirmations. This is anything but a fun experience, especially when it comes to dealing with a cryptocurrency ICO.

These ICOs often provide early investors with some sort of a bonus. Having to wait until the exchange sends out your funds can result in buying less ICO tokens than initially anticipated. It is not something anyone wants to deal with. Even if an ICO is scheduled to last multiple days, there is no reason not to transfer funds to your own wallet first before participating in a crowdsale.

2. AN EXCHANGE WALLET IS NOT YOUR WALLET

It may be hard for novice users to understand this principle, but a cryptocurrency wallet is not like a bank account. With a bank account, you rely on a third-party service provider to safeguard your funds. That is exactly what exchange wallets are, yet they do not let users spend their funds as they want. You always need “permission” from the exchange wallet service provider to move funds around, which is both annoying and risky.

There is a big difference between an exchange wallet and a private wallet. With a private wallet, you are the only one controlling the wallet address and its associated private key. An exchange wallet is generated on your behalf, yet you have no control over it whatsoever. Although you can freely use an exchange wallet, it is not your digital property by any means. Unless you own its private key, it’s not yours, nor is any of the money associated with it.

1. YOU WON’T GET YOUR TOKENS (RIGHT AWAY)

Perhaps the biggest complication that arises when using an exchange wallet is how the purchased ICO tokens are not yours to control by any means. In most cases, a cryptocurrency ICO smart contract will send money back to the address the deposit was made from. If that wallet is an exchange wallet, the exchange is the actual owner of the tokens you purchased using their wallet. That is a rather disturbing way of buying ICO tokens, yet the end user cannot claim ownership of the tokens, as they do not own the wallet’s private key.

Granted, in some cases, exchanges will eventually support these ICO tokens and return the purchased amount to the customer. However, one has to keep in mind they have no legal obligation to do so by any means. If you send money to a cryptocurrency ICO address from a wallet, you do not fully control as the sole owner, it is your own fault. All ICOs clearly warn users not to send funds from an exchange to avoid any complications.

David Ogden
Entrepreneur

Author: JP Buntinx

David Ogden – Http://markethive.com/david-ogden

Bitcoin prices likely to continue wild ride

SAN FRANCISCO — What goes precipitously up, often comes crashing down to earth.

So it was with bitcoin on Thursday, when the price of the digital currency plunged 19% — its steepest drop in more than two years — after a record run. The volatility remained on full display late Thursday and, as of Friday evening, bitcoin rebounded to $2,484.59.

The cryptocurrency, which flirted with $3,000 on Monday, sunk as low as $2,076.16 in intraday trading early Thursday amid a confluence of bad omens. Tech stocks have recently taken a thumping over concerns about their lofty valuations. Ominous reports from Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley suggested bitcoin was due for a reversal in price and required government regulation. The Federal Reserve hiked interest rates Wednesday.

Compounding worries, digital currency exchange Coinbase experienced an outage Monday because of high-trading volume. Another exchange, Bitfinex, on Tuesday said it was under DDOS attack.

Meanwhile, prices for digital currencies ripple and NEM declined the past week, though Ethereum, the second-largest currency, has soared 20% on speculation it will be the top currency. At $371.36, it lags far behind bitcoin in value.

CryptoCurrency Market Capitalizations

"Bitcoin and other digital currencies are experiencing rapid growth these days," says Guy Zyskind, CEO of Enigma, a start-up in cryptocurrency investing. "For this to be sustainable over time, the market has to correct itself from time to time."

The market's wild ride this week underscores "the ebbs and flows of an entirely new asset class," says Bill Barhydt, CEO of Abra, a peer-to-peer payment service.

"While the bitcoin price will likely recover and continue to rise, what we should see in the future is bitcoin becoming a solid store of value, much like gold," says Mihir Magudia, executive director of LEOcoin Foundation. "It will be relatively easy to liquidate but will not be used to commonly pay for goods and services."

David Ogden
Entrepreneur

Author: Jon Swartz , USA TODAY

David Ogden – Http://markethive.com/david-ogden

Traders Plan for Correction as Crypto Market Falls Below $100 Billion

The total value of all publicly traded cryptocurrencies may be at an all-time high, but trader confidence isn't keeping pace.

After rising more than 1,500% from just over $7bn on 1st January, the market is beginning to show signs that its rapid ascent in 2017 may be slowing.

According data from CoinMarketCap, the cryptocurrency asset class fell from a high of $117bn yesterday to just under $100bn today, a period in which more than 80 of the top 100 cryptocurrencies have seen double-digit declines.

While this decline may just be a speed bump in the world of cryptocurrencies, some analysts report it is sufficient enough that they are beginning to reassess their positions in light of recent activity.

Hedging for a crash?

Indeed, several traders spoke with CoinDesk about the strategies they're currently using to hedge against a potential decline in cryptocurrency prices, with some indicating they're employing simple strategies by reducing their holdings.

For example, Charlie Shrem, a bitcoin entrepreneur and over-the-counter (OTC) trader, is in this camp. He reported he's been buying more bitcoin lately, with "less than 10%" of his portfolio in alternative assets.

Marius Rupsys, a cryptocurrency trader and co-founder of fintech startup InvoicePool, took a bolder approach, telling CoinDesk he liquidated his entire cryptocurrency portfolio and has started shorting bitcoin, actively betting its price will go down.

Rupsys predicted:

"There should be larger correction at some point which will cause altcoins to fall and bitcoin to fall at the same time."

While several traders identified portfolio management and active trading strategies as ways to hedge against a cryptocurrency price crash, cryptocurrency trader Kong Gao offered a different solution.

One way to hedge against this decline, he said, is to begin mining on alternative asset protocols, and simply hold the coins they receive instead of selling them.

Irrational exuberance

Elsewhere, Rupsys spoke to how he believes the increasing price has been largely caused by highly optimistic newcomers, a prospect that leads him to believe the bull run could soon fade.

"Many of these new traders are retail traders that have little knowledge of crypto-assets or trading in general," Rupsys told CoinDesk.

He added, many people have contacted him interested in getting rich quick.

Tim Enneking, managing director of cryptocurrency hedger fund, Crypto Asset Management, also spoke to the exuberance in the market.

While cryptocurrencies have been experiencing sharp gains, they will reverse direction at some point, Enneking predicted. Crypto Asset Management has set up stop loss orders to liquidate positions in certain cryptocurrencies should these digital assets suffer an "abrupt crash", he said.

And according to Charles Hayter, co-founder and CEO of cryptocurrency exchange CryptoCompare, a crash is likely. The attention alternative asset protocols have gained lately have highlighted some of this overconfidence, he said.

While there may be no clear signs yet, Hayter is still putting his money where his mouth is, noting CryptoCompare is going so far as to reallocate its active positions in the market.

David Ogden
Entrepreneur

Author: Charles Bovaird

David Ogden – Http://markethive.com/david-ogden

Is Bitcoin or Other CryptoCurrency a Good Investment

Despite all denials of the techies, the Bitcoin continues to fly under the pressure of marketing that makes it a form of Russian roulette that benefits those who know the manipulation. Since March 26, the Bitcoin has increased from $ 973 to $ 2,795. A real explosion of prices which can only be explained by fraudulent maneuvers. It went from $ 16 billion to $ 43 billion.

But behind this surge, there are formidable manipulators who have means that are the exchanges of bitcoins of which several leaders are in prison. The founder of the world’s largest depository based in Bitcoins, now based in Zug, Switzerland, predicts that the value of a Bitcoin will surpass the million dollar mark in 10 years, taking by surprise the whole assembly and even the most Optimists in the sector. Some see the replacement of gold. We are in full delirium.

On several occasions, these dramatic increases came from the conversion of dirty money into Bitcoin. We do not know what causes these mood swings that fall quickly. Do they pose a fundamental question: Beyond the technology behind the object, from where comes the value of $ 32 billion?

No regulation of false rumors or manipulations

There is a lot of talk about the Bitcoin right now, as well as a few other crypto-currencies, but are they really good investments? Recently I read research which describes why Bitcoin are a good investment for the future. They also provide detailed analysis and data to showcase their study. So I am exploring based on that and my personal opinion on crypto-currencies.

I will divide this question into three points:

1. Are crypto-currencies really an investment?

2. What currency crypto choose?

3.Are crypto-currencies really an investment?

Nowadays, virtually everything is called an “investment”. In the case of crypto-currencies, trading (trading) and investment are again confused, even by financial professionals.

An investment is when you buy an asset that produces something, and that by extension creates income.

For example, if you buy a tractor and lease it, it will allow someone to dig to then put the foundation of a house, pull farm machinery, and much more. In exchange for the productivity of your assets, you receive an income.

The question is, therefore: does the crypto-currency produce something?

The main added value of crypto-money is that it can make anonymous transactions, so it increases economic activity (albeit generally illegal).

That said, it produces nothing tangible for you because its overall productivity is drowned in the pool of all transactions.

Your only hope is therefore that its overall productivity in the form of a currency function is growing so that you can “freak out” your crypto-currency.

Basically, crypto-currency does not produce income for you, and your only option to make money is that its demand increases.

When a profit is generated not by production but by the difference between the purchase price and the selling price, it is called trading and not an investment.

What does it actually mean that it is trading and not an investment?

Trading is speculation and it’s not complicated, 95% of people lose at this activity.

Investing is a much safer way to get rich. You simply need to be aware of what you are doing with your money, and not speculate in thinking that you are investing.

Which crypto-currency to choose?

Bitcoin? Zcash and Zcoin? SafeCoin? Syscoin?

Admitting that you understand that you are speculating, the only crypto-currency I would negotiate personally is the Bitcoin, for two reasons:

Reason # 1: Everyone knows the Bitcoin

This point seems banal and simplistic. However, it should not be forgotten that the value of crypto-currencies is based on people’s trust. Indeed they are “fiat currencies”, like the Canadian dollar, the US dollar, and virtually all currencies in the world.

People have a tremendous confidence in the Canadian dollar and particularly the US dollar, which is the world’s reserve currency. What about crypto-currencies?

How do people trust you, the Bitcoin, the Zcoin, or the Syscoin? Obviously, people have more confidence in the Bitcoin, and one can easily assume that it will only go by increasing over time.

However, there is always resistance, and people do not have enough confidence in the Bitcoin to move away from the Canadian dollar or the US dollar.

In particular, the critical point or the Bitcoin could explode in price is when people will have enough confidence to use another function of the currency: the reservoir of value.

When people have confidence in Bitcoin to use it as saving, as an entity where they can retain the value of their work, then everything will change.

But how could the Bitcoin reach this level? How to develop this trust? These questions lead me to the second reason.

Reason # 2: The Bitcoin is the only crypto-currency that has a real chance

The Bitcoin is the only crypto-currency that has a real chance of what? To become an official currency, endorsed by the government and the financial system.

A strong and unshakeable confidence in the Bitcoin can only exist if governments and the financial system give it their approval.

In fact, it seems that in Canada the government is increasingly ready to incorporate the Bitcoin into daily transactions. This is not cast in concrete, and the future is still vague at the legislative level.

One of the barriers to official currency status for Bitcoin is that the government cannot legalize a private currency, which would limit its ability to tax transactions.

Can another crypto-currency based on the blockchain possibly be adopted rather than the Bitcoin? Yes, but precisely, there lies the whole aspect of speculation: we must try to predict the future.

In summary, invest in crypto-currencies or not?

Honestly, the majority of people do not even have $ 2,000 in an emergency, according to an article I read, so I do not see myself buying Bitcoins.

In this situation, I would buy stocks, bonds, gold, and real estate well before buying Bitcoins.

So unless I have a full RRSP and a TFSA, stuffed with income-producing assets, I cannot justify buying crypto-currencies.

I understand the desire to hit a home run with the Bitcoin, the desire to make 10 times his initial bet. This may be suitable for some people, but I cannot endorse this strategy because it makes a lot more losers than winners.

The strategy to get rich that works for me and in general is to get rich in the long run, walking by walk, so surely find myself at the top of the stairs.

Aashish Sharma

The article above is quite interesting but many people do not realise you do not need to to purchase a wholw bitcoin, there are ways and means to earn bits for free completing surveys, or by investing in Trade Coin Club

David Ogden
Entrepreneur

David Ogden – Http://markethive.com/david-ogden

Is China Waking up to Ethereum

On May 27, Huobi, one of the three leading bitcoin exchanges in China alongside BTCC and OKCoin, officially integrated support for Ethereum trading. The Huobi development team announced that users will be able to trade Ethereum starting from May 31.

In its announcement, Huobi revealed that the company has come to a consensus to integrate support for Ethereum due to its exponential growth, high market liquidity, stability and increase in the demand toward Ethereum in both China and internationally.

Local sources including CNLedger reported that Huobi’s integration of Ethereum was an important milestone for the Chinese Ethereum community and market as the market liquidity for Ethereum within China was substantially low due to the lack of support from local exchanges.

Previously, exchanges including OKCoin did express their enthusiasm toward Ethereum and hinted at the possibility of integrating Ethereum support in the near future. In fact, OKCoin representatives told CNLedger that OKCoin has been planning to list Ethereum and that the company plans to integrate Ethereum at an appropriate time.

Thus, it is likely that other major bitcoin exchanges such as OKCoin will soon integrate Ethereum support following the footsteps of Huobi, which serves millions of users in China alone.

Although Ethereum has been enjoying an exponential growth in Asian markets including Japan and South korea, Ethereum is relatively unknown to the majority of Chinese cryptocurrency traders that have been investing in bitcoin and Litecoin. Cryptocurrency traders have only begun to take interest in Ethereum after the formation of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance and the Ethereum Foundation’s visit to the country.

Earlier in May, Consensus Systems (ConsenSys) head of global business development Andrew Keys attended the Global Blockchain Financial Summit with other members of the Ethereum Foundation including Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. Prior to the Global Blockchain Financial Summit, Keys and the rest of the Ethereum Foundation visited Ethereum communities in Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing and Hangzhou.

Keys discovered that the Ethereum adoption throughout China has been increasing at a rapid rate. Large conglomerates have started to build applications on top of the Ethereum protocol and universities have been researching into Ethereum’s potential within the finance market.

Even government-owned companies including the Royal Chinese Mint, the subordinate unit of China Banknote Printing and Minting, have started to utilize Ethereum to digitize the RMB. Keys explained that the Royal Chinese Mint is currently utilizing the ERC 20 token standard and Ethereum smart contracts to digitize the RMB.

More to that, CryptoCoinsNews also reported that Ant Financial, the subsidiary company of e-commerce giant Alibaba, is also utilizing the Ethereum protocol to develop various applications and platforms. Ant Financial is the company behind the $60 billion financial network Alipay, which is used by 450 million users in China.

Keys noted:

“The services provided by Ant Financial and its affiliates cover payment, wealth management, credit reporting, private bank and cloud computing. Ant Financial is experimenting with Ethereum technology to improve their global payment platforms.”

The rapid rise in the demand toward Ethereum and the adoption of the Ethereum smart contract technology could allow China to become one of the larger Ethereum exchange markets in the world. At the moment, South Korea is the largest Ethereum exchange market with over 40 percent of the global market share. If China continues to sustain such growth rate, it will see its Ethereum market outpace other regions.

Ethereum Foundation members including Vitalik Buterin are actively encouraging companies and users in China to utilize the Ethereum protocol to build decentralized applications.

David Ogden
Entrepreneur

Author:Joseph Young

David Ogden – Http://markethive.com/david-ogden

Bitcoin is going wild â here’s what the cryptocurrency is all about

Bitcoin is going wild â here's what the cryptocurrency is all about

Bitcoin is going wild — here's what the cryptocurrency is all about

Bitcoin is a currency just like the US dollar or Mexican peso. It's also back in the headlines after soaring in value. One bitcoin was worth $2,800 on May 25, up from $1,200 at the end of April.

In countries that accept it, you can buy groceries and clothes just as you would with the local currency. Only bitcoin is entirely digital; no one is carrying actual bitcoins around in their pocket.

Bitcoin is divorced from governments and central banks. It's organized through a network known as a blockchain, which is basically an online ledger that keeps a secure record of each transaction all in one place. Every time anyone buys or sells bitcoin, the swap gets logged. Several hundred of these back-and-forths make up a block.

No one controls these blocks, because blockchains are decentralized across every computer that has a bitcoin wallet, which you only get if you buy bitcoins.

Why bother using it?

True to its origins as an open, decentralized currency, bitcoin is meant to be a quicker, cheaper, and more reliable form of payment than money tied to individual countries. In addition, it's the only form of money users can theoretically "mine" themselves, if they (and their computers) have the ability.

But even for those who don't discover using their own high-powered computers, anyone can buy and sell bitcoins, typically through online exchanges like Coinbase or LocalBitcoins.

A 2015 survey showed bitcoin users tend to be overwhelmingly white and male, but of varying incomes. The people with the most bitcoins are more likely to be using it for illegal purposes, the survey suggested.

Each bitcoin has a complicated ID, known as a hexadecimal code, that is many times more difficult to steal than someone's credit-card information. And since there is a finite number to be accounted for, there is less of a chance bitcoin or fractions of a bitcoin will go missing.

But while fraudulent credit-card purchases are reversible, bitcoin transactions are not.

21 million

Bitcoin is unique in that there are a finite number of them: 21 million. Satoshi Nakamoto, bitcoin's enigmatic founder, arrived at that number by assuming people would discover, or "mine," a set number of blocks of transactions daily.

Every four years, the number of bitcoins released relative to the previous cycle gets cut in half, as does the reward to miners for discovering new blocks. (The reward right now is 12.5 bitcoins.) As a result, the number of bitcoins in circulation will approach 21 million, but never hit it.

This means bitcoin never experiences inflation. Unlike US dollars, whose buying power the Fed can dilute by printing more greenbacks, there simply won't be more bitcoin available in the future. That has worried some skeptics, as it means a hack could be catastrophic in wiping out people's bitcoin wallets, with less hope for reimbursement.

The future of bitcoin

Historically, the currency has been extremely volatile. But go by its recent boom — and a forecast by Snapchat's first investor, Jeremy Liew, that it will hit $500,000 by 2030 — and nabbing even a fraction of a bitcoin starts to look a lot more enticing.

Bitcoin users predict 94% of all bitcoins will have been released by 2024. As the total number creeps toward the 21 million mark, many suspect the profits miners once made creating new blocks will become so low they'll become negligible. But with more bitcoins in circulation, people also expect transaction fees to rise, possibly making up the difference.

David Ogden
Entrepreneur

Chris Weller

David Ogden – Http://markethive.com/david-ogden

Billion Dollar Cryptocurrency Club Swells to Six Members

Bitcoin’s market cap surpassed $37 billion today when the price hit $2271.16, commanding more than a billion in trade volume in a 24-hour period, according to coinmarket.com. The total value of the coin market is now at $81.3 billion, as the last two days added more than $10 billion to the capitalization.

Bitcoin’s value has almost doubled in the last month, even while its market share has fallen below 50%, thanks to the gains of other cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin’s gains have been steadier than most of the altcoins, but collectively, altcoins are rising at a faster pace.

Asian Trading Remains Key

Rising demand for bitcoin by Chinese and Japanese investors combined with falling stocks and other factors to push bitcoin to new heights. Because the Japanese yen holds the largest share of bitcoin trading, Asian trading pushes the prices higher.

The Nikkei Asian Review today reported, “Bitcoin going mainstream as Japanese business signs on,” signaling bitcoin’s growing popularity in Japan, which recently recognized bitcoin as a method of payment.

Asian interest in bitcoin increasingly carries over to other currencies, as indicated by the gains for Ripple and NEM, the two most popular altcoins in Japan in terms of demand and trading volumes.

Japanese regulators also decided to abolish the 8% consumption tax on transactions of bitcoin bought from exchanges, which is set to go into effect in July this year.

Progress On Scaling Continues

Today’s announcement that a majority of bitcoin miners have reached a consensus to deploy the Segwit2Mb protocol upgrade for bitcoin also bodes well. Bitcoin’s rise has benefited from an alleviation of the fear that a “hard fork” will be needed – dividing bitcoin into two currencies – to improve bitcoin transaction times. A successful deployment of an alternative scaling solution indicates the hard fork that would have resulted in two separate currencies in order to speed up bitcoin transactions may not be required.

Wences Casares, CEO of bitcoin wallet Xapo and a member of PayPal’s board of directors one bitcoin would hit $1 million before the next ten years while speaking at the Consensus 2017 conference in New York.

Ethereum Continues To Amaze

Ethereum, the largest altcoin, hit more than $16 billion market capitalization with a $179.68 price, followed by Ripple at more than $13 billion. The top three cryptocurrencies — bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple — are the only players to boast more than $10 billion market cap.

Ethereum has witnessed the fastest growth of any digital currency ever. Not even two years old, the platform is now worth more than $16 billion with its trading spaces consistently attracting more online active users than even bitcoin’s.

Ripple, designed for enterprise use and can be used by institutions for on-demand liquidity for cross-border payments, also continues to post rapid gains. Banks and payment providers that use XRP will secure better access to emerging markets at lower settlement costs.

Ripple recently committed to placing 55 billion XRP in a cryptographically secure escrow account at the end of the year, addressing concerns that it will eventually sell its 61.68 XRP as it seeks to strengthen XRP’s exchange rate against other currencies.

NEM, number four commands a $2.299 billion cap, followed by Litecoin at $1.575 billion and Ethereum Classic at $1.02 billion.

There are now six cryptocurrencies with more than $1 billion market caps.

Altcoins Keep Shifting Position

Aside from bitcoin, the rotation shifts fairly frequently among the billion dollar players. A day ago, Litecoin, Monero, and Dash displaced Ethereum and NEM, with gains of 15%, 20%, 25%, respectively.

NEM, number four, commands a $2.299 billion cap, followed by Litecoin at $1.575 billion and Ethereum Classic at $1.02 billion. There are now six cryptocurrencies with more than $1 billion market caps.

NEM has also made significant gains over the past few months. A major factor that has allowed NEM to transform into one of the most popular altcoins in Japan is its development team and company composed of Japanese founders and talents. NEM was initially developed and introduced in Japan by Makoto Takemiya, the co-founder and CEO of Soramitsu, the company that has also introduced the Iroha blockchain project to the Linux foundation’s Hyperledger Project.

Litecoin, one of the oldest altcoins, gained visibility this month because of its successful activation of SegWit, a scaling solution that circumvents the need for a hard fork.

David Ogden
Entrepreneur

Author Lester Coleman

David Ogden – Http://markethive.com/david-ogden