Core magazine july 2018 by Crypto Core Media

BLOCKCHAIN

NEWS

MAGAZINE JULY 2018

The Impact of the Winklevoss Brothers In The Crypto Space

T h e purp o s e of blockcha in techn olo g y

Meet Jon Matonis â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the man who Met Satoshi

https://cryptocoreradio.com/

Index Aelf is Here To Solve Your Blockchain Problems

Meet Jon Matonis – 22 The man who Met Satoshi

Huobi and OKEx – Chinese Exchanges Having Similar Roots

Melanie Swan | A High Ranking Believer in Blockchain

William Mougayar and His Impact on Blockchain Technology

Craig Steven Wright and the Bitcoin Puzzle

Ardor aka “Nxt 2.0” | Pioneers In the Cryptocurrency Space

Blockchain World Conference featuring John McAfee, Adryenn Ashley

Reason Why Valery Vavilov had to start the Bitfury Group

Storiqa Beta Marketplace Launches, CEO Predicts "Crypto Shopping" in Future

Do you REALLY know the Difference between Proof of Work VS Proof of Stake?

Bitcoin to Consume 0.5% of World’s Electricity Supply by end of 2018

How Cryptocurrency Markets Are Affecting The GPU Industry

UNICEF uses Cryptocurrency Mining to Raise Funds for Refugees

Preserve the EARTH for future generations

The Health Sector Gives Blockchain Technology Ultimate Seal of Approval

Daniel Roberts and his Contributions to Online Content Creation

EOS and TRON Blockchain Projects - Lots of Promises to Deliver

Why you should know How Ethereum Smart Contracts Function

Interview | Sunny Singh Launches VAN HAWKE SPORTS - A New Dawn In Crypto Advertising

Waves Wallet Platform - Not Like Ethereum

All Sports | Blockchain for the $2 Trillion Global Sports Industry

EOS Stealing ETH from Users

Bitcoin Cash | Soon Cashing Out, or Still More Time to Go?

CRYPTOCUP | Win Tokens Predicting the 2018 World Cup

Selling Digital Currencies can be likened to Selling Apple Products in 2001

SAP Launches Cloud Blockchain platform, jumps on DLT Bandwagon

Do you know the Uses of Cryptocurrency in Third World Countries ?

Maker | Run on Ethereum to Maximize Your Purchasing Power

India's Bitcoin boom is Fueling a Surge in Cryptocurrency Crime

Will Ripple and Bitcoin Recover from this Crash that Has Lasted for Months?

Bitcoin Transaction Fees Records Lowest Rate in Seven Years

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IOST Blockchain Whitepaper Needs Proofreading, Brings Nothing New

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Reasons why Cryptocurrency can't Replace Established Currencies

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Why a Decentralized Internet is Important For Society

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Overview: the basics of the Komodo ecosystem

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Blockfolio adds BarterDEX to its list of exchanges in the app!

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Earth token

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Allan – Managing Director at Earth Token discusses Environmental Sustainability

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Earth Token | Crypto Marketing Manager

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Theta Network Rewards Viewers for Watching Streaming Videos

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WONO Blockchain Set To Revolutionize Sharing Market Sector

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StreetCred Creating Decentralized Google Maps

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Ethereum and NEO | Competing for dApps

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Bitcoin Price Manipulation – How it Happens, How to Avoid it

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Blockchains of Today have Paved the Way for the Future of Business

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Enigma | Paradigm Change in Data Analysis & Private Computation

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Ethereum might be the Most Valuable Digital Currency by end of 2018

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Reasons why Cryptocurrency can’t Replace Established Currencies

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What’s Holding Traditional Investors Back?

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Telling Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash Apart

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Apple makes Developers Happy by Revising Crypto App rules

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Bitcoin’s Intrinsic Value – Explained

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Do You Know How State Channels and Sidechains Differ?

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John Mcafee | The Last Crypto Cowboy

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Deep Onions | Anonymous Crypto?

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James Tabor’s Media Protocol breaks Content Creators Free from the Shackles of Uniformity

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Can Blockchain Help Solve Moldova’s Human Trafficking Challenges

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The Real Use Case For Dash

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What’s the point of Ripple?

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Making Sense of Corralo’s BIP

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GlobalData Says Blockchain is not Everything

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Akon to Launch his own Cryptocurrency to help develop the African Continent

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Psychological Factors Affecting Cryptocurrency Adoption

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Hyperinflation in Developing Countries, How Crypto Can Help Alleviate the Problem

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MaidSafe reveals How Internet is More Dangerous Than we may Think

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Tron Vulnerable Legally and Technically

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Are Big Data and Artificial Intelligence Useful in the Crypto World?

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Blockchain Only ‘ONE’ Type of Distributed Ledger Technology

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Do You Think Cryptocurrency Will Boost Your Business Performance?

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EDITORIAL

Elikem Kofi Attah Boniface Odinakachi

The much anticipated July edition of our monthly magazine is here again. This month witnessed a lot of tremen-

penings in the cryptocurrency world.

dous things in the cryptocurrency world with major crypto investors voicing out there opinion about the future of cryptocurrency. During the month, our team of experienced writers wrote articles on the happenings in the crypto world. Reading the many articles on offer would update you on the latest news on cryptocurrency across the globe.

ous decrease in the price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The bearish trend, as expected, has led to a sharp decrease in the number of crypto enthusiasts sticking around. Also, this month witnessed a number of notable fraud cases in the crypto world like the hack of Bithumb, a top South Korean Exchange.

At CCMedia, we strive to bring to your attention to both the positive and negative impacts of cryptocurrency with unbiased reportage. We interviewed some major cryptocurrency enthusiast, blockchain developers during the month in order to get their opinion about the latest hap-

This month also witnessed a continu-

In spite of the major scams that happened during the month, there were so many other things to celebrate. The month witnessed some major positive news for the cryptocurrency community. News of social media giant, Facebookâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s plans to launch their own cryptocurrency and rumors of a bid to acquire Coinbase are the

kind that reminds crypto enthusiasts that the bearish sentiments do not necessarily mean the end is anywhere near. Another reassuring news is the introduction of Bitcoin Automated Teller Machines in South Africa. This month also saw some countries paying attention to cryptocurrencies. The likes of Israel, Singapore, Moldova plan to invest on cryptocurrencies. CCMedia appreciates the time and energy that you would invest in reading our articles this month. We are certain that it would be worth it for you.

FOR THE GOOD OF HUMAN ITY

DIRECTORY

VINCENT PEREIRA Core Executive Official

ANGELO TIMONERI

Core Technical Official

DANIEL BAILEY

OMAR FARIDI

Core Information

Core Operations

Official

MARLON DIAZ

Core Design Official

ELIKEM KOFI ATTAH

BONIFACE ODINAKACHI

Editor/Journalist

ANGEL FIGUEROA

Editor/Journalist

TOLUT

Graphic Designer

Research Journalist

Journalist

IGNACIO FIGUEROA Senior Designer

CONTRIBUTORS STEVEN HALLER

KADHIR VELAVAN

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The Impact of the Winklevoss Brothers In The Crypto Space 10

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The Impact of the Winklevoss Brothers The more Bitcoins we have in cold storage, the fewer coins available for sale on the market. The fewer coins up for sale on exchanges and over-thecounter markets, the higher the Bitcoin price. This means we have hodlers to thank for the increase in the Bitcoin price over the years. If we are appreciating long-term holders, we canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t leave out the Winklevoss brothers. The twins used to be known for their legal fight with Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook. They also took part in the rowing event of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. It is, however, their involvement in Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency world that they are well known for in recent times. Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss are top holders of Bitcoin with about 1% of all Bitcoin in existence. Their contributions to the cryptocurrency space are discussed in this article.

Holding 1% of all Bitcoin In 2011, after ending their lawsuit against Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, the twins came out with $20 million dollars in cash and some Facebook equity. This could be considered some sort of victory, considering the fact the price of Facebook shares has appreciated greatly over the years. Also, by holding the shares they received in the settlement, they became owners of Facebook, which they claimed was their idea. In the end, it was how they used the cash received in the settlement that turned out to be the best story. The Winklevoss brothers invested a huge chunk of the monies into cryptocurrencies with the target of holding roughly 1% of the Bitcoins that exist. If you sometimes worry about the safety of your cryptocurrencies then you can imagine the headaches holding Core Magazine

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about a billion dollars in Bitcoin could cause. To allow themselves to sleep well at night, the Winklevoss brothers took cold storage to the next level. The private keys to their Bitcoins have been split and stored in different safe deposit boxes in the United States.

Investing in Crypto Businesses The Winklevoss brothers were not satisfied with just investing in crypto. Their conviction in the technology is further demonstrated by their investments in a number of early cryptocurrency businesses. There are currently lots of businesses in the cryptocurrency ecosystem but this wasn’t the case some years ago. The few businesses that existed back then played very crucial roles and contributed to the growth of the technology. The fact that businesses like Mt. Gox were offering far from quality services but still got lots of business shows how much such services were needed in the ecosystem. By investing in Cryptocurrency businesses, the Winklevoss brothers were contributing immensely to the growth of the technology and the ecosystem. Nathaniel Popper covers interesting stories of the twins’ business partnership with Charlie Shrem and Eric Voorhees in his book, “Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money.” In 2013, the twins invested $1.5 million

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in the now-defunct Bitinstant through Winklevoss Capital. Bitinstant, which was co-founded by Charlie Shrem, allowed clients to transfer fiat currencies to Bitcoin exchanges at the time. In line with their mantra of asking for permission and not forgiveness, the twins secured a license for Gemini in 2015, making it the first licensed cryptocurrency exchange and custodian. The exchange allows clients to buy, sell and store cryptocurrencies. In December 2017, the exchange launched the first Bitcoin futures contract with the Chicago Board Operations Exchange (Cboe). Winklevoss Capital has also invested in Earn.com which was recently acquired by Coinbase. The website allows users to monetize their time by participating in paid surveys and other tasks. Other cryptocurrency investments made by the duo through Winklevoss Capital are Changecoin, Vault12, and Xapo. Changecoin helped facilitate online Bitcoin micropayments or tips. Vault12 decentralizes the process of storing digital assets with a network of trusted individuals and devices. The said network is cryptographically secured. With Xapo, the service provided is a Bitcoin wallet and a cold storage vault. The family office also invests in Bitcoin and Ethereum.

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Beyond the Investments Apart from making investments in the cryptocurrency space, the twins have also acted as advocates for cryptocurrencies and been trailblazers in various ways. Apart from being the first to launch Bitcoin futures contracts on Gemini, they have continuously pushed for the approval of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) for Bitcoin. Two attempts made by the brothers in 2013 and 2017 were rejected by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of the United

References: http://fortune.com/2017/12/04/ winklevoss-twins-bitcoin-billionaires/ https://www.theguardian.com/ technology/2011/jun/23/winklevoss-twins-end-facebook-lawsuit https://www.investopedia.com/ news/how-winklevoss-twinsstore-their-crypto-fortune/ http://fortune.com/2015/10/05/ gemini-winklevoss-bitcoin/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Gemini_(digital_currency_exchange) https://winklevoss-

capital.com/portfolio/ States. The Bitcoin ETFs, had they been https://www.investopedia.com/news/ approved, would have given investors sec-blocks-bitcoin-etfs-now/ another opportunity to invest in Bitcoin without having to worry about the holdElikem Kofi Attah ing actual Bitcoin. The is, however, still elikem@coregroup.info a chance for Bitcoin ETFs to become a reality in the future if the SEC becomes convinced that their concerns about certain risk factors are no longer problems. In short, the Winklevoss brothers have been promoting Bitcoin and backing their words with real work in the space. They have invested millions of dollars in Bitcoin, started crypto businesses and also worked towards helping cryptocurrencies jump various regulatory hurdles.

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One Third of Germans See Cryptocurrency as an Investment Opportunity According to a survey that was carried out in Germany by a retail outlet known as Postbank, one out of every three people in Germany are of the opinion that cryptocurrency offers some of the best investment opportunities that are available in the country. This survey was carried out between February and March in 2018 and is believed to give a lot of insights into the belief of the German people in the

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efficacy of cryptocurrency even when most governments as well as world authorities are still very strongly opposed to the use of digital currencies. It is not stated in the survey if any digital currency in particular was chosen over others as an investment opportunity. However, one thing remains obvious: a significant number of Germans are cryptocurrency supporters.

Cryptocurrency is Supported More by Germanyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Younger Population After the survey in Germany by Postbank, it is now generally believed that the German population is in support of cryptocurrency. Although this is quite true, it

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Germany

33% See cryptocurrency as an investment e

14% of them have already showed interest in buying as well as mining cryptocurrency in the coming year.

Cryptocurrency might not actually be the Best investment opportunity in Germany

According to Postbankâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Chief Digital Officer, Dr Thomas Mangel, investments that have anything to do with cryptocurrencies pose a lot of uncertainty and are therefore not worth investing in for young

is not a perfect representation of the situation on ground. The reason for this is quite straight forward. This survey was carried out between two different age groups in Germany. One group is aged 18-34 while the other group that was involved in the survey is a little older. Although the people that were interviewed from the group of people aged 18-34 made up only 46% of the total number of individuals that were surveyed, results proved that more young people were interested in cryptocurrency. Going by the results of the survey, the German population might not necessarily be interested in cryptocurrency. The group of people in Germany that is actually interested in cryptocurrency are the young people. Now, of these young Germans that are interested in cryptocurrency,

adults. He also went on to say that the German media has given digital currencies more hype that they deserve, ultimately leading to an excessive belief in cryptocurrency irrespective of associated risks. Conclusion This survey about the interest of Germans in cryptocurrency was carried out at a time when Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are going through a negative phase. Regardless of this, a lot of Germans still see it as a perfect investment opportunity. This simply implies that when cryptocurrencies recover from the free-fall that they are currently experiencing, the percentage of young Germans that are willing to put all their investments in cryptocurrency will most likely increase. Boniface Odinakachi ben@coregroup.info Core Magazine

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Aelf is Here To Solve Your Blockchain Problems

Aelf aims to offer “Resource Segregation”

he Aelf platform aims to offer a decentralized cloud computing system built using blockchain technology. High network performance is achieved on Aelf by operating full nodes through cloud based servers. Moreover, the platform offers what its developers call

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“resource segregration”, which according them is the ability to execute smart contracts on their own blockchains. As is typical for a number of blockchainpowered platforms, network governance and maintenance, in addition to ongoing development is managed by token holders of the platform. The whitepaper of this projects starts by highlighting the current problems that blockchains of today face. Those be-

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ing, according to the Aelf team, that today’s blockchains are not scalable because they say that their performance is dependent on the mining capabilities of only one node. Also, according to the platform’s team, there’s “interference between smart contract executions” because resources are not “segregated” for each smart contract. Moreover, they claim that the blockchains we see today do not come with an established consensus mechanism that’s able to handle updates to its network and incorporate additional functionality.

Linux Type Blockchain Whether these claims regarding the current state of blockchains are valid or not, what we can say is that the immutable, distributed ledger is still in its rather primitive stages of development, as many experts in the crypto space would confirm. Now, what the Aelf team proposes is the creation of a Linux type network and supporting tools/features. And you guessed it…all on a Blockchain. Moreover, the developers of this platform aim to do what has already been done quite a

few times by platforms such as Ardor. This being that they plan to

“focus on defining and providing the most basic, essential and time-consuming to develop components of the system and on making significant improvements for existing Chains in the market. The system allows developers to customize Chains to meet their own needs, particularly commercial requirements for various industries.”

Is This Truly a Unique Solution? Alright, so this still does not seem something out of the ordinary as platforms like Komodo provide much of the same types of added functionality. However, the team notes some important features: separate chains for every use case, messaging between other blockchains such as that of Bitcoin and Ethereum, and “parallel processing for non-competing transactions and cloud based service.”

Additionally, the Aelf creators aim to minimize “data complexity” as well as provide a way to customize blockchains through the creation of application-specific smart contracts. Stakeholders of the platform will also, according to the project’s whitepaper, be able to recommend modifications to Aelf’s protocol, which may include suggesting ways to change or alter the way consensus is reached on the platform. This article serves as only a snapshot of what the Aelf platform promises to offer. The interested reader should refer to the in-depth and highly technical whitepaper published by this project’s development team: https://grid.hoopox.com/ aelf_whitepaper_EN.pdf?v=1 Check out Crypto Core Radio DISCLAIMER: This article is not meant to influence any investment related decision. It’s purely meant for informational purposes and to spread awareness about cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. Omar Faridi omar@coregroup.info

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SPECIAL ARTICLES

T h e purpose o f bl o ckchain te chn olog y

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SPECIAL ARTICLES

QUESTION: Why do blockchains not work without an intrinsic valuable asset that is the basis for a game theoretical model of security

ANSWER: A Blockchain as a structure, a data structure is a fairly inefficient data structure The reason we use blockchain is to achieve decentralization. In order to achieve decentralization you have to be able to validate transactions without giving anyone the power of Veto or the power to control the network. You have to decentralize the process of validation and the best mechanism we’ve found so far for decentralizing the process of validation is by having a consensus algorithm that depends on competition whether that’s PoW or PoS.

You need something of value that people are trying to get, which keeps them playing fairIf you don’t have something of value, then you don’t have a basis for that competition without the basis for that competition, you don’t have security, without security, you have to control validation centrally and without decentralization there’s no point doing a blockchain. You might as well use a replicated database it’s going to be far far more efficient. The purpose of blockchain technology and consensus algorithm is to decentralize control to provide censorship resistance neutrality on a global open platform, and in order to do those things you need some mechanism to decentralize validation.

in order to have competition you need to have risk and reward and in order to have a reward that’s meaningful, you need an intrinsic token,

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Meet Jon Matonis â&#x20AC;&#x201C; The man who Met Satoshi 22

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ot many people claim to have met Nakamoto Satoshi, the name that is generally believed to be behind the invention of Bitcoins. Well, if there is any one that has openly claimed to have met Satoshi, then, that person is Jon Matonis. According to Matonis, he got to know Satoshi sometime in March, 2010. Their relationship started after he got a mail from Satoshi Nakamoto which brought his attention to a bitcoin publication. He goes on to talk about how he was encouraged to go ahead and mine as well as transact in Bitcoins.

Who is Jon Matonis that met with Satoshi Nakamoto Jon Matonis might be many different things to various people. However, one thing that is generally accepted by everyone that knows Jon Matonis is that he is an e-money research guru. Ranging from crypto economics to digital currencies and blockchain, Jon Matonisâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; world revolves around cryptocurrency. Mato-

nis is an economist, the former director of Bitcoin Foundation, an e-money research, and the 68th most influential person in blockchain for the month of May on Richtopia. Over the years, Matonis has held quite a number of positions in cryptocurrency institutions. He has functioned as a board director to various firms that are into mobile payments, Bitcoin, and Blockchain. He has also been a guest in some world famous media houses. Some of them include CNN, Bloomberg, Aljazeera, CNBC, Virgin Radio, RT, NPR, etc.

Bitcoin Foundation The Bitcoin Foundation, one of Americaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s non-commercial organizations was established in September. The main aim of establishing this corporation was to boost the use of cryptocurrency and Bitcoin. The Bitcoin Foundation has its headquarters in Washington D.C, United States, and is majorly funded by grants that are gotten from firms that are dependent on Bitcoin methodology.

This foundation is considered by Richtopia, a company based in the United Kingdom to be one of the most influential blockchain organizations. It was not stated by Richtopia why the Bitcoin Foundation made it to the list of the top 100 most influential blockchain organizations. However, the fact that this organization had Jon Matonis, an influential person in blockchain as its former director is proof that it deserves to be on this list. Although a lot of folks in the Bitcoin community believe that Satoshi Nakamoto is either faceless or is Nick Szabo and have evidence to back up these claims, Jon Matonis claims he has met Satoshi and that the face behind the name Satoshi is none other than Craig Steven Wright. Crypto Core Media on Steemit Boniface Odinakachi ben@coregroup.info

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Huobi and OKEx – Chinese Exchanges Having Similar Roots

uobi and OKEx are two important exchanges that have roots in China. Both of them are big exchanges that compete globally in terms of trading volume. In addition to trading, they offer future contracts to hedge against coins. Let’s have a detailed look at these two major cryptocurrency exchanges.

Huobi Exchange Huobi was once based in China (now operated from Singapore after China imposed the ban on exchanges) and was founded by Leon Li in 2013. It is one of the three biggest exchanges in the world. The exchange is focusing primarily on China and

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Southeast Asia. They also support Tether (USDT) like Bitfinex or Poloniex. Huobi.pro was designed for non-Chinese traders and more features were brought in to facilitate trading from around the world. Huobi Pro was designed for trading cryptocurrencies and tokens while huobi.com is an exchange to convert fiat to cryptocurrencies. The platform is very intuitive and user-friendly. It’s also considered to be fairly robust and supports more than 200 coins. Huobi has its own token called “Huobi Token“. It is an ERC20 token on the Ethereum blockchain. The token can be used for paying trading fees on

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their exchange and those who use the token get huge discounts on the trading fees; the discount can go up to 50% in some cases. Huobi Token is not an ICO, but they were distributed to the users who bought ‘Point Card‘ on Huobi Pro. Point Card is a pre-paid card that can be topped up and used as trading fees on the exchange. Every year 20% of the Huobi tokens will be brought back from the users and invested back into the Huobi Investor Protection Fund (HIPF). HIPF is like insurance for the users who will be compensated when the risk occurs in the platform. This will ensure stability and trust in the exchange.

OKEx Exchange OKEx is the global cryptocurrency exchange that is focused on crypto-crypto trading and its parent OKCoin is used to buy coins using fiat. It can be compared with GDAX to Coinbase, in which Coinbase is the main exchange that is used for buying crypto using fiat while GDAX is used for crypto-to-crypto trading. OKEx is the second largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world in terms of volume. It also has the provision to trade futures for BTC, LTC, ETH, ETC, BCH, XRP, EOS, and BTG. The exchange recently moved to Malta due to friendly regulation prevailing in the island country. OKEx restricts citizens from a few countries that have regulatory restrictions for its citizens. This itself illustrates how much OKEx respects other coun-

tries regulations and laws. OKEx also has its own native token called OKB that is used as an incentive for trading in their platform. The total token supply is 1 billion and 70% of the tokens are locked up. Traders can avail discount in fees if they use OKB tokens for trading and buying coins in their exchange.

Similarities Between Huobi and OKEx Huobi and OKEx have a lot of similarities between the two since they both have their root in China. Below are some of the similarities between the two exchanges. • Both have futures trading enabled in their platform • They both started in China and moved away due to exchange ban. • Huobi and OKEx exchanges have their own tokens and give discounts for traders using the tokens for buying coins. • Both these exchanges come in Top 3 in the world in terms of trading volume. • Huobi.pro and OKEx are for global traders while Huobi.com and OKCoin are exchanges for local traders in Asia. The above two exchanges are very important and are global leaders in terms of trading volume. They form the gateway for massive adoption of cryptocurrencies globally. Let’s wait and watch if they can take over the world and become one of the largest exchanges in the world in terms of trading volume and number of registered users. Kadhir Velavan Ramasubramaniam kadhir@coregroup.info

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Melanie Swan | A High Ranking Believer in Blockchain

eyond a shadow of a doubt, there are millions of people that have accepted the concept of digital currency. And, Melanie Swan is among a number of other notable believers in blockchain. The reason for this is not far-fetched. While a lot of people in the blockchain sector enjoy its application in the area of cryptocurrency, a lot of people remain unaware of how powerful blockchain really is. This, therefore, implies that most people that enjoy the

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use of blockchain in the area of cryptocurrency do not have an idea of how vital it is to the world of technology. Well, Melanie Swan, as a believer in blockchain has written a book called “Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy”. This book was written in an attempt to educate people on the power and efficacy of blockchain.

Melanie Swan Influential Women in Blockchain

Melanie Swan is the 100th most influential person in blockchain according to Richtopia, a UK based firm. She is a technology Futurist, an academic researcher, a believer in blockchain, and a best-selling author. As an author, she is popular for the best seller “Blockchain: Blueprint for a new economy”. Melanie has established quite a number of startups in the technology world. Some of them are the institute for blockchain studies, the MS Futures Group, Group

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Purchase, and the DIYgenomics. Melanie has an MBA in finance from the University of Pennsylvania. She also has an MA in contemporary Continental Philosophy from the Center for Research in Modern European Philosophy at Université Paris 8 and Kingston University London, an MA in philosophy from the Mew School for Social Research, New York, and a BA in French and Economics. The Man Who Met Satoshi? The book, Blockchain: Blueprint for a new economy was

written by Melanie Swan and was released in January, 2015. This book is an exposé into the power of blockchain and how little it has been taken advantage of. In this book, Melanie Swan explains how blockchain can become the fifth computing prototype after the internet, PCs, Mainframe, and social media if its power is properly harnessed

Not Everyone is so Enthusiastic About Blockchain… While there are many blockchain professionals who advocate the use of the distributed

ledger in just about every imaginable industry from healthcare to education, there are those who have called it “bullshit”. Yes, bullshit. However, this should not be taken out of context, and deserves more careful examination. Many, such as JPMorgan’s ex-head of blockchain efforts Amber Baldett have equated the blockchains of today 1960s internet. Admittedly, crypto and blockchain are in their infancy, so we should always stay in touch with reality as it pertains to the current state of these technologies. Boniface Odinakachi ben@coregroup.info

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William Mougayar and His Impact on Blockchain Technology

illiam Mougayar

is the founder of startup management. He is an author, venture capitalist, and a token specialist. Mougayar, as an intelligent author, uses his research skills and vast knowledge of Blockchain, tokens, and Bitcoin to mentor people on how they can build their startups and venture in

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any business that uses the Blockchain technology to function.

Mougayar’s Impact on Blockchain illiam Mougayar has groomed investors and recruited more investors into the world of Blockchain and Bitcoin. He

is an author of the book, “The Business Blockchain.” The book, talks about the business implications of Blockchain. The book titled ”the business Blockchain” is one of the best-selling books on the subject. It was quickly sold out because it was the first of its kind that gave out such vital information. It gave investors, or intending investors the loop

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holes to look out for before investing in Blockchain. Everything in the book is in-depth and vital as William Mougayar who is also a researcher and an investor in the Bitcoin and Blockchain technology. He has a blog which he writes personally. The blog is called startupmanagement.org. He writes this blog and gives in-depth analysis on tokens, Blockchain and Bitcoin. William Mougayar has helped to shape a lot of top companies, for the benefit of both the investors and the company. William Mougayar is a consultant, advisor and board member in a variety of top companies that are involved in the Blockchain, such as the Coin Center, Ethereum Foundation, Steemit.com, OpenBazaar, OMERS Ventures, and a variety of other technology. William Mougayar merges his experience to mentor Bitcoin, and Blockchain companies plus investors. Mougayar has helped sustained the Bitcoin, and Blockchain space with his knowledge and has helped all its investors get their return of investments, (ROI).

With all this knowledge, William Mougayar, has spoken expertly in different places: schools, seminars and communities.

William Mougayar Impact on China Mougayar was one of the influencers who gave a voice to the signing of Blockchain, and Bitcoin into the law of China. With his writing skills and the power of his blog, he wrote letters to the authorities, and wrote about the need for Blockchain, and Bitcoin revolution in China. Now, the Bitcoin and Blockchain revolution is successful worldwide partly because of his skillful influence and contribution to the cause. Generally Mougayar has helped to identify the state of current Blockchains, and the â&#x20AC;&#x153;missing blocksâ&#x20AC;? in the Blockchain space.

Boniface Odinakachi ben@coregroup.info

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Craig Steven Wright and the Bitcoin Puzzle

ince the invention of Bitcoin in 2009 by an unknown person with the name Satoshi Nakamoto, there has been lots of speculations about who the inventor of Bitcoin really is. The many unanswered questions about who Satoshi Nakamoto is have led to the Bitcoin puzzle. In

an attempt to solve this puzzle and hence, reveal the identity of Satoshi, lots of guesses have been made. While a number of cryptocurrency devotees think that Satoshi could be Nick Szabo, one person has openly claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto. Although Craig Steven Wright claims to be Satoshi, this claim

is without proof and as a result, is inconclusive.

Craig Steven Wright Craig Steven Wright was born in October 1970 in Brisbane, Queensland. He is a businessman, an author, a cybersecurity nerd, an Core Magazine

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inventor, and a computer scientist. Craig came into the limelight after he claimed to be the face behind Satoshi Nakamoto. After this claim, Craig moved from being perceived as a nobody to one of the most famous people in the cryptocurrency sector. This swift change in his status happened when Gizmodo alongside Wired claimed that there are possibilities that Craig could be the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto. Apart from claiming to be Satoshi, Craig Steven Wright also claims to be a key part of the team that created Bitcoin.

The bitcoin puzzle For quite some time now, computer wizards as well as journalists have searched tire-

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lessly for the person behind the name “Satoshi Nakamoto”. This search has been on for so long that it has even birthed a book which got sold for 20 Bitcoins. The Bitcoin puzzle almost got solved in 2014 after it was reported that a California based engineer who was known as Dorian was the face behind Satoshi. Although this report was believed initially, it turned out to be wrong. Two years after reports claiming that Dorian was the real Satoshi went public, some articles were published by Gizmodo and Wired. According to these articles, Craig Wright was the inventor of Bitcoin and hence, the face behind Satoshi Nakamoto. After this article was published, Craig openly declared he was indeed Satoshi. However, after his claims were

questioned by cryptocurrency experts, Craig apologized via his blog and claimed that he lacked the courage to prove that he is indeed Satoshi. While we may or may never know who Satoshi Nakamato is, it’s worth noting that he intended for Bitcoin to have a certain type of anonymity about it in addition to not being controlled by a central authority. Therefore, the real inventor likely kept his own identity a secret so that nobody would look to him to be the “central” figure who controls Bitcoin, which is decentralized. Boniface Odinakachi ben@coregroup.info

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Ardor aka “Nxt 2.0” | Pioneers In the Cryptocurrency Space

rdor and Nxt Pave the Way for Crypto Some time back last year, a Steemit user explained why cryptocurrency traders and investors should look into the Nxt and Ardor digital currency platforms. And, to do it “before it is too late.” Introduced in 2013, the Nxt platform was dubbed “Cryptocurrency 2.0”, however, at the time this crypto failed to receive the at-

tention many crypto devotees and experts thought it should have. This could have been largely due to the fact that the Nxt platform was considered to

be “ahead of its time.” Moreover, the Nxt ICO reportedly only raised a meager 21 Bitcoins (BTC), but it did not take too long for crypto traders to notice its unique features and soon the investments began pouring in. In fact, the Nxt platform has managed to ac-

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cumulate hundreds of million of dollars in market capitalization since then. There were many critics of the platform though who claimed that the majority of the platform’s funds belonged to just a few monopolizing “whales.” This eventually led to creation of the New Economy Movement (NEM), but this article is not about all what NEM aims to offer – which has been previously covered here.

Crypto Platforms Inspired By Previous Ones Instead, as stated, we’ll take a brief look into both Ardor and Nxt and why investors should maybe consider giving them a closer look. Before going into this, it is worth noting that NEM

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began as pretty much a copy of Nxt . Notably, even the first NEM client resembled the Nxt client initially. Eventually though the creators of NEM developed a unique and legitimate digital currency platform of their own. The interesting thing to note here is that this short lesson in crypto history teaches us that great ideas and “old-school” platforms like Nxt paved the way for more innovation in the cryptosphere. Inspired by Nxt, Ardor can be thought of “Nxt 2.0”. But what exactly is Ardor? It’s described as a Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) platform that enables users to leverage Nxt’s blockchain technology through the use of “child chains.” The bulk of the computing and

maintenance of security is handled by Ardor’s main chain, so those who are running child chains are not burdened with all the network management work associated with running a typical blockchain. Instead, Ardor users are able to access and take advantage of all the notable features of Nxt such as “decentralized phasing, voting, and trading” by simply running child chains.

The Spread of Blockchain As a Service (BaaS) Additionally, users have the option to communicate and work with other child chains running on Ardor. Notably, the first child chain to be implemented on Ardor is IGNIS. To-

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up their funds fairly easily with other funds being circulated on the platform to hide transaction details. There’s even a built-in decentralized and anonymous voting mechanism and a marketplace where traders can buy/ sell physical or digital assets. Plugins can also be installed on the platform to offer added functionality. Last but not least, there’s something called Phasing that network participants can use to execute automated conditional or unconditional day, BaaS is offered by a number of big name companies, but Ardor might have been one of the first platforms to offer a legitimate BaaS solution. Within the Ardor network, anyone with a decent programming background can launch their own child chains, and not be limited to just creating their own digital assets or tokens.

also timestamped. One of the First to Offer Multi-Sig Perhaps also for one of the first times in crypto history, Ardor and Nxt offered/offer robust Account Control features such as multi-sig to protect accounts from unauthorized access. Furthermore, there’s a built-in Monetary System on Ardor through which users

Basically, all Nxt features are accessible to Ardor child chains. These features include Aliasing, which is marking transactions with easy to remember names instead of long and complex sequence of arbitrary symbols. Then you have something called the Data Cloud that can be used to safely and securely hold data on a private or public blockchain. Each data entry is

can issue customized tokens and native child chain tokens as well. Plus users are able to send encrypted messages and files through a decentralized network. Transaction privacy features such as CoinShuffle are also available on child chains, similar to the way it is on Nxt. This lets network users jumble

transactions execution.”

“with

deferred

Although there are now numerous cryptocurrency platforms that have similar and even more advanced features, every cryptocurrency devotee should know that Nxt, Ardor, and IGNIS are among one of the pioneers in the digital currency space. DISCLAIMER: This article is not meant to influence any investment related decision. It’s purely meant for informational purposes and to spread awareness about cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. Omar Faridi omar@coregroup.info

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Blockchain World Conference featuring John McAfee, Adryenn Ashley

he Blockchain World Conference, scheduled to be held between the dates of July 11th and 13th at the Harrah’s Resort in Atlantic city, New Jersey, promises to be the world’s “first truly global” blockchain event. And, its promoters say that missing this event would be the equivalent of “Crypto Suicide.” The promoters of the Blockchain World Conference channel are easily contactable via their official Discord and Telegram channels. as well as via the live chat feature on the event’s official website.

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The 3 day conference is also dubbed the “largest crypto event in history, ever held anywhere on the globe!” There’s even a live countdown to the event and at the time of this writing, there are just 38 days left till the start of this Global Conference. The conference organizers state:

“Never before has an event succeeded in bringing together more titans, experts, scientists, analysts, educators and

business leaders on one stage. There is simply nowhere else where you can learn more over the course of 3 days than at the Blockchain World Conference.” There are now reportedly just over 200 seats remaining to be filled for this event. Computer programmer John McAfee who has over 800k Twitter followers will be a keynote speaker for the conference. There are also a number of other notable crypto

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and blockchain personalities who will be speaking at the Blockchain event. Deedcoin CEO Matthew Herrick, CoinYou co-founder Sean Morgan, colead for Blankrome Blockchain and Digital Currency Michelle Gitlitz, and author of Minting the Future Adryenn Ashley are just some of the prominent blockchain and crypto professionals schedule to speak during this blockbuster event. Become A Speaker at the Blockchain World Conference If you feel that you have what it takes, meaning the credentials and experience in this evolving space, then you can still enroll to speak at this event. You’d simply have to email the conference organizers a short bio, a professional photo, and

what you plan to speak about at the conference. Moreover, the Blockchain World Conference is being promoted as a “family friendly” event and will be held at the Harrah’s hotel and casino out in Atlantic city, New Jersey. To their credit, the event organizers of this star-studded conference have reportedly 30 years of experience in setting up “world class trade shows”, educational conferences, and various other conventions. The agenda of the conference will revolve around regulations for blockchain and crypto, leading and innovative projects in this evolving space, and what’s being done to educate and promote awareness in the crypto community.

Also, for the “first time in history”, blockchain influencers will be acknowledged and appreciated for their contributions by holding the “first ever” Blockchain Industry Achievement Awards. Moreover, the conference intends to feature everyone’s favorite…ICOs, leading blockchain academics, accredited investors, and developers. The attendees for the conference will represent 52 countries and all 50 states in the USA. So, what are you waiting for? Come join the fun: https://bwcevent.com/ (main event website) https://twitter.com/BWCevent Omar Faridi omar@coregroup.info

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Reason Why Valery Vavilov had to start the Bitfury Group

fter the collapse of the Soviet Union on the 26th of December, 1991, Valery Vavilov sought for ways to improve the living conditions of people living in the Soviet Union and in other parts of the world. As a passionate enthusiast of

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the Blockchain sector, Valery Vavilov couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think of a better way to improve the living conditions of people all around the world than to set up a Blockchain technology firm which he called the Bitfury Group. The Bitfury Group, a Blockchain security provider is one of the results of Vavilovâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

15 years of experience as an entrepreneur as well as his experience in various technical posts

Valery Vavilov Valery Vavilov is the CEO, Board Director, and the Found-

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er of the Bitfury Group. After years of experience as an entrepreneur, Valery Vavilov founded the Bitfury Group in 2011. Valery is a Latvian national and has an MSc in computer science from the Transport and Telecommunication Institute, Latvia. The 38-year-old entrepreneur has a crypto net worth of $500 to 700 million and is also the co-founder of 212.ua.

The Bitfury Group The Bitfury Group is one of the biggest and most successful Blockchain technology companies in the world at the moment. It was established in 2011 by entrepreneur, Valery Vavilov. This firm started as a company that was into the mining of Bit-

coins and is the biggest industrial miner of Bitcoins apart from China. With its headquarters in San Francisco, California,United States, the Bitfury Group is a firm that is committed to ensuring stability as well as security on the Blockchain platform. Although the Bitfury Group was established in San Francisco, it has grown to have offices in London, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, the Republic of Georgia, Iceland, Canada, and Norway. This firm has saddled itself with the responsibility of ensuring that both the hardware as well as the software that is needed by organizations, businesses, and governments for efficient running are developed. This is to ensure that assets are moved confidently

through the Blockchain platform. The Bitfury Group is made up of a team of communication, security, and technology experts and has Exonum as its first ever software. Since the development of Exonum, the Bitfury Group has built quite a number of other software.Some of them include lighting network, property rights registration, a chain hub, digital assets PaaS, and Data analytics. This firm has also developed hardware such as immersion cooling, data centre construction, micro electrics, data centres in marine containers and semiconductors. Boniface Odinakachi ben@coregroup.info

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Storiqa Beta Marketplace Launches, CEO Predicts "Crypto Shopping" in Future

he Storiqa project managed to raise $25 million from token sales and secured investments from from over 55,000 investors, which have further helped boost its market cap by tens of millions of dollars. Reports have now surfaced that the platform will now be releasing the beta version of MVP. Basically, the Storiqa platform leverages blockchain technology to

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transform the traditional model of a marketplace into a more efficient and transparent version. The platform uses smart contracts to detect and filter out “fake reviews” while calling itself the “#1 crypto marketplace.” It reportedly offers a way for people to buy and sell goods and services using their cryptocurrencies. Furthermore, visiting the Storiqa website

reveals that their marketplace aims to operate without the restrictions of financial borders. Cross-border payments and how to make them faster, more convenient, and cost-effective has already been proposed and even implemented to a certain extent by Stellar and Ripple. In addition to providing more efficient crypto based, international payment channels, users of the Storiqa platform will be

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testing out the proprietary filtering system. Mainly, the Storiqa marketplace will cater to “quality craft” products developed by SME (small-to-medium enterprise) businesses. Storiqa CEO noted:

even be able to monetize their reviews. Payments on its network will be processed using fiat currencies, the native STQ token, and cryptocurrencies of course. At present, potential users are being requested to test the platform’s marketplace by launching their own store or dashboards and loading items to be traded on its beta version.

Storiqa in Preliminary Stages of Development and Testing Even at this stage, buyers can reportedly avail various discount offers and promotions, cashback opportunities, while also

“Blockchain implemented in e-commerce is a relatively new idea. Buyers will be safeguarded due to … usage of a smart contract system. Our beta version offers the chance to test all the platform features and become the first users of the disrupting technology. Gradually Apple Pay has become an everyday easy payment, surprising users with the ease of usage. Technologies, however, move on and it’s great time to try shopping with cryptos.” It’s worth noting here that the CEO mentioned that it’s time to TRY shopping with cryptos and not that they can be relied upon fully for all e-commerce transactions. While Storiq and

other cryptocurrency platforms should be commended for their efforts, the current state of crypto-technology is clearly in its experimental stages. For now, this new crypto marketplace platform is offering a 2 month free trial to anyone willing to selling products using their network. The creators of the blockchain-powered trading network promise low usage fees and will allow the use of debit or credit cards for payment processing through its multicurrency e-wallet. Per the platform’s development team, their native STQ token will be self-sustaining while also helping to provide a fast transaction network. Currently, the beta version features products whose prices are denominated only in the STQ token. After more ongoing development, it’s expected that many of the major cryptocurrencies and fiat currencies will be supported on Storiq. Its team is now hoping for valuable feedback from testers of its beta launch with its CEO predicting that “crypto e-commerce” will become an everyday thing in the future. Omar Faridi omar@coregroup.info

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Mining Section

MINING SECTION

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Mining Section

Do you REALLY know the Difference between Proof of Work VS Proof of Stake? When analyzing proof of work (PoW) and proof of stake (PoS), these are high level of software algorithms used in cryptocurrency platforms for reaching consensus on Blockchain networks. The three most popular cryptos are Bitcoin, Litecoin and Ethereum which are using proof of work to mine coins and other cryptocurrencies.

MINING Before we go into how PoS and PoW really work, letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s briefly cover a related concept: cryptocurrency mining. Mining refers to the process which verifies the transactions on a Blockchain and then adds the validated ones to a public ledger. Mining is important because it helps to create more coins,

like with Bitcoin (BTC), so that miners can earn rewards for their work. With for instance Bitcoin, coins come into circulation as miners continue to process transactions on its network, while the total supply is locked up and fixed at a maximum total supply â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 21 million with BTC. How cryptocurrency mining works:

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• A group of transactions are bundled into a memory pool (mempool). • Miners verify each transaction in the mempool to check if they are legitimate by solving a mathematical puzzle. • The first miner to solve the puzzle gets rewarded with newly minted Bitcoin (BTC) (the block reward) and network transaction fees. • The verified mempool, now called a block, is attached to the Blockchain.

Proof of work (PoW) As the name implies, proof of work (PoW) refers to work performed by processor(s) of a computing machine in order to validate transactions on a cryptocurrency platform. A good number of cryptocurrencies make use of this method to validate and confirm the authenticity of the chain. In the world of crypto, there is need for transactions to be validated and confirmed and there is a reward for the miner who does that. However, one of the major problems encountered by miners, and the overall environment, are the electricity

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usage costs. This is interestingly one of the major reasons why many cryptocurrency miners are based in China and a number of other places because of the cheap electricity costs. These requirements can make it quite costly for many crypto miners and not everyone can afford it, which makes the mining world relatively exclusive and small.

Cons of proof of work It requires a lot of electricity which increases mining cost. It usually requires a very high amount of computing power hardware, which makes it difficult to afford When more coins are minted, mining more coins becomes difficult as the coin becomes scarce and hence the reward of the miners go down.

Proof of stake (PoS) This is another method of validating and confirming transactions on the Blockchain. Here the validator, who is equivalent to the miner in the Proof of Work system, is

selected based on his stake (number of coins) they have and depending on how long it has been since the coins were staked. The coins held and staked by a validator show how committed the validator is. The length of time it has been since a validator has been staking his coins can be referred to as the maturity date. A person with more amounts of coins which he holds for a long period of time will have greater chances to validate a block. Hence a more distributed network is formed with loyal validators. The validators benefit from the transaction fees. The end goal of both the processes is the same, but the method to achieve it is entirely different. Unlike in Proof-ofWork, there is no block reward in case of Proof of Stake and there is no mining equipment to worry about. One of the major things is that in Proof of Stake, more people potentially have the opportunity to become a miner and it is considered by some to be more decentralized in comparison to Proof of Work.

Mining Section

Pros of Proof of Stake: • The validators don’t have to spend on hardware, just a computer with internet access • There is no need to spend on electricity which further helps to reduce costs • Validations are faster

Similarities between PoW and PoS As mentioned earlier both proof of work (PoW) and proof

of stake (PoS) are algorithms which are used in achieving consensus on the Blockchain. They help in validating and verifying the Blockchain based transactions.

Recapping the Differences between the PoW and PoS • PoW makes use of miners while PoS makes use of validators which are basically the equivalent of a miners.

• • In PoW complex algorithms are used to validate a blockchain, while in PoS there is no need for expensive equipment and any one can be a validator. • In PoS the validator gets the transaction fees as a reward and it’s all done by having your desktop wallet opened. • In PoS, every validator has some stake in the respective network Boniface Odinakachi ben@coregroup.info

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Mining Section

Bitcoin to Consume 0.5% of Worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Electricity Supply by end of 2018

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It is a statement of fact that Bitcoin, the world’s most established digital currency, consumes very close to the amount of electricity supply that some nations do. One of such nations is Ireland. Although it is very interesting to know how Bitcoin consumes so much electricity already, it is believed that by the end of 2018, the mining of Bitcoin will lead to the consumption of 0.5% of the world’s electricity supply.

this, every computer that is being used in a Bitcoin process performs lots of endless calculations.

Now, if Bitcoin alone is expected to consume as much as 0.5% of the world’s supply of electricity, then, when combined with other digital currencies, the electricity consumption of cryptocurrencies will be far more than that of Ireland and will easily surpass 0.5% by the end of 2018.

The implication of this is pretty simple; the longer computers function continuously, the more their electricity consumption increases.

How is this Possible? The quantity of electricity that Bitcoin consumes and is set to consume might seem impossible; however, this is not far-fetched based on the way that Bitcoin functions. Basically, Bitcoin relies on computers to function. These computers tirelessly compete for the privilege to make the subsequent block of transactions. As a result of

All these are in a bid to be awarded newly minted Bitcoins (BTC), and this occurs in a process that is known as Bitcoin mining. Now, while only a single computer can get the much coveted 12.5 coins at a time, there are lots of computers that are part of the struggle for the much needed 12.5 coins.

Although to the average person, Bitcoin electricity consumption is very high because of the number of computers that are involved in the process of Bitcoin mining; that is not the only reason why the electricity consumption of Bitcoin is extremely high and is expected to be up to 0.5% of the world’s electricity consumption by the end of 2018. One other reason is this; the bigger the computing powers of a Bitcoin mining process, the more likely its chances of being awarded the 12.5 coins. This, therefore, leads people to increase their computing power, thereby,

leading to an increase in the consumption of energy.

How Much Electricity Supply Does a Bitcoin Transaction Consume? According to calculations, the least amount of current that is made use of by the Bitcoin network is 2.55 gigawatts. To break it down into smaller units, the amount of electricity that is used by a single Bitcoin transaction is equal to the average monthly electricity consumption of a household in the Netherlands. It is estimated that by the end of 2018, Bitcoin will be consuming a staggering 7.7 gigawatts of the world’s electricity supply. This equals the electricity consumption of Austria and is half a percent of the world’s electricity consumption. Although this might not seem huge to some folks, as Bitcoin gains more ground, it is believed that this electricity consumption might be as much as 0.5% of the world’s electricity. Whilst this is not a good thing, its effect on the climate is even worse. Boniface Odinakachi ben@coregroup.info

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Mining Section

How Cryptocurrency Markets Are Affecting The GPU Industry

How cryptocurrency markets are affecting the GPU industry As you may know, buying a GPU these days is nearly impossible. That’s because prices have skyrocketed, in some cases, even doubled, and stocks running out the second they are shelved. It can even be

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considered ill advised and a big hassle to be in the market for a graphics card. Moreover, the cryptocurrency mining frenzy seems to be the main culprit. Due to the establishment of mining mega-farms for “cryptocoins” in countries like Russia, China, Iceland, and so on, the local and international markets have been shook.

Damage report Take for example, NVidia’s

flagship graphics card; the GTX 1080ti. This is the most powerful graphics card available on the market today (save for the Titan V, which is on a whole other level). It is revered by both PC gaming enthusiasts and miners alike, due to its 11GB of VRAM and overclockable chip. As this card has a good price to performance ratio and the highest hash rate, meaning it’s powerful enough to mine on and earn a buck, it is sought af-

Mining Section

ter the most. The original price for this GPU was $700-$800, not counting the special editions. This price made the card feasible to purchase, as flagship GPUs usually last 3-4 years, without breaking a sweat. After the mining craze shot up, this very card is being sold for nearly $1500. That’s twice the amount it originally cost and as if the cost wasn’t enough, nearly every major PC parts store runs out the second they restock. Some retailers have even taken measures to curb this by limiting the amount of graphics cards sold to one person, and by monitoring transactions that appear suspicious. It seems as if retailers are starting to understand the plight of gamers.

The Casualties Another field that has been impacted by the GPU shortage is space exploration. Yes, space exploration. Aaron Parsons, an astronomer at UC Berkeley who mainly works with radio telescopes, is hoping to upgrade his gear. Radio telescopes work by combining hundreds of radio antennas that are designed to pick up even the smallest signals coming from outer space. The data received by these antennas needs to be

processed by supercomputers in order to create a virtual map of the sky that helps locate stars and other celestial bodies. This data has to be processed in real time, so the computer needs to be packing some serious heat. The supercomputer takes the assistance of GPUs to perform its calculations. Since GPUs have the raw processing power needed, they are often used for high intensity applications like these. Aaron says the GPUs he requires have doubled up in price, from $500 to $1000 each. The overall cost for the upgrades will be $32,000, money that could be used to paying new student researchers. The price hike could spell trouble, as it may force Aaron to “downscale” and build a smaller telescope. This would not have the clarity or the resolution of a large telescope and may even result in fundamental questions about the universe to be left unanswered.

Rescue efforts The GPU market does appear to be stabilizing by the day. It seems as if the “GPU hungry” beast has now moved on to using ASICS. An ASIC is an “application-specific integrated circuit”. It is far more profitable and reason-

able to be mining using ASICs as these devices have far more power than conventional GPUs. ASICs are made up of an array of plates, each holding a single chip that is designed to do one thing only, mine. Not only are they easier to set up, but they also have a smaller footprint, making clever use of space with their cuboidal design. As of now, the largest company that makes ASICs is Bitmain. Bitmain specializes in manufacturing Bitcoin mining gear and ASIC chips. Their miners are known for their high efficiency and ROI. Bitmain is also home to Antpool, which is one of the largest Bitcoin mining pools in the world. Other companies have also taken ventures and are now making ASICs, with their numbers increasing rapidly. Sure enough, this shift may mark the end of the GPU shortage. It is only a matter of time before the next generation of GPUs comes rolling out and hopefully, the “freshmen” would be spared. Waleed Iqbal

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Mining Section

UNICEF uses Cryptocurrency Mining to Raise Funds for Refugees

he United Nations International Children Education Fund (UNICEF) has joined the league of individuals, Start-ups, entrepreneur, organizations that make use of cryptocurrency mining to raise funds. UNICEF has started a fundraising campaign in which people are asked to contribute their computerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s processing power for the sole aim of cryptocurrency mining. This occurrence is perhaps the first of its kind

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by a charity organization. The launch was carried out by the Australian chapter of UNICEF. This was done by setting up a webpage which is known as the Hopepage. Through this webpage, visitors have the alternative of donating between 20 to 80% of their computing power. This is to enable the mining of a cryptocurrency which is known as monero.

How is this Occurrence Expected to Work out? The Australian branch of UNICEF is concerned about the countless number of crises that are taking place in various parts of the world and is looking to leverage on the presence of latest technologies to create awareness about these numerous humanitarian crises. In addition to creating awareness, UNICEF is hoping to come to the aid of

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stays on the webpage that is set aside for this donation, the more the processing power that is contributed. As more processing power is donated, more algorithms are unravelled and more cryptocurrency is earned. When earned, the cryptocurrency gets donated to UNICEF Australia and is converted to funds and then used to support children that are affected by crises. This is done by getting them vaccines, food, and good water.

What is the Response Like?

children that are affected by these crises. Now, seeing that one of the latest technologies today is cryptocurrency, UNICEF is hoping to take advantage of the acceptance of digital currency to raise some funds for children that are affected by the crises in Myanmar. This will be done by mining cryptocurrency and then raising funds from the generated units of cryptocur-

rency.

How Cryptocurrency Mining is used to Raise Funds

As it stands, well over 6,700 people have already donated their processing power, and this number is increasing as the days go by. Although this process of raising funds is known to consume a lot of electricity, the fact that the proceeds are used to help the less privileged definitely counts for a lot for this project. Boniface Odinakachi ben@coregroup.info

According to Hopepage, cryptocurrency algorithms are solved by taking advantage of donorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; computer processing power. The more times a donor

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Preserve the EARTH for future generations

https://www.earth-token.com/

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The Health Sector Gives Blockchain Technology Ultimate Seal of Approval

roponents believe that Blockchain can revolutionize certain data analysis and also increase responses to health problems. These health problems include ensuring safe patient data exchange, improving clinical test performance and drug traceability and reducing costs.

These are just some of the important boosts for global healthcare. The widespread utilization of Blockchain technology, even in its relative infancy, could meet many of the expectations of the health sector. The

countless

potential

applications of advanced technologies utilized by cryptocurrencies, which is being lead by Bitcoin, are making their presence felt gradually, although at this time they have low and different doses. The Blockchain technology uses data fragments through

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a distributed book or ledger technology to enable inflexible, secure, and transparent sharing of almost any kind of information. This concept brought the Forbes magazine to notice recently that the Blockchain technology seems to have an impact on virtually every industry. Sectors already infiltrated by the Blockchain platform The Blockchain technology has constantly infiltrated sectors ranging from cybersecurity and finance to logistics, from energy to agro-business and to air traffic. In the health sector, several test projects are already evaluating data in order to guarantee the safety of medical systems and manage patient’s digital files.

“Blockchain technology is already being used in pilot programs for analyzing health data, the safety of medical devices and electronic medical documentation,”

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said French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi in a recent note. In addition, there is the possibility of applying blockchain technology to make clinical trials more efficient, faster approval of new therapies,and increasing the transparency of costs.

IBM Watson Health’s reason for using a Blockchain technology In the U.S, IBM Watson Health co-operates with the US Food Safety Authority, and the Food and Drug Administration to create a Blockchain technology based secure and data exchange system. IBM Watson Health also works alongside the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCs) in order to determine how Blockchain technology can facilitate secure data sharing. The idea is to use Blockchain for the revolution of data analysis through improved cognitive

computing, as well as epidemiological responses to health crises like that in 2014, when the CDCs was criticized for its response to four Ebola laboratory confirmed cases in the U.S.

How MyHealthMyData uses Blockchain technology In Europe, MyHealthMyData makes use of a Blockchain model which is compatible with the new tough privacy laws in the EU that came into force last month on the protection of personal online data.

“We store information links only in Blockchain, not the information itself,” MyHealthMyData coordinator David Manset disclosed to AFP. Boniface Odinakachi ben@coregroup.info

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Daniel Roberts and his Contributions to Online Content Creation

aniel Roberts is a senior writer at Yahoo finance. He is also a well-known critic and uses his journalism experience to add value to the world of Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies and sports. His main niche is online where he deals with online materials such as blog posts, audio, videos, etc. Daniel has used his skills to create online content for the worldwide use

of Bitcoin, and sports investors. Daniel Roberts attended college at Middlebury. He later proceeded to a graduate school at Columbia.

Robertâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Contribution To Digital Content Creation Daniel. B Robert is a staff writer at Yahoo Finance. He

creates and covers content on Bitcoin, sports, business, media, and a variety of other things. This content he shares online meaningfully contributes to online content growth. Roberts also is a host of a podcast, and a video series known as Sportsbook. By this, he creates online audio content for the internet. Before

fully

working

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Yahoo, Daniel Roberts, worked for Fortune, where he spent five years. At Fortune, he wrote magazine profiles on major companies such as, Adidas, DraftKings, MasterCard, Yelp, and Anheuser-Busch InBev. These profiles were also added online, which created quality and meaningful content for the web. Over the years Roberts has carried out intense interviews for celebrities such as David Chang, George Foreman, Will.i.am, Leigh Steinberg, Cal Ripken, Dwayne Johnson, and Louis Freeh. These interviews he documented and shared digitally in

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form of content types such as audio, videos, and blog posts. Daniel Roberts was one of the people who co-managed the 40 Under 40 Fortune franchises, where he had to digitally research and create content for each of the profiled candidates. In 2013, Daniel Roberts wrote a book called Zoom. The book sold out and was really helpful and aided to groom young entrepreneurs. In a few months, he made the book available online in form of an eBook. This made the book accessible worldwide, and created more vital content for the web. Daniel Roberts is also a TV

host. He works with powerful networks such as CBSN, Golf Channel, CBS New York and BBC World news. This video content is also distributed online, thereby creating more online content. Other blogs and companies which Roberts has created content for, thereby sharing vital information includes: Time, The Guardian, Vice, LitHub, The Paris Review, Salon, The Wall Street Journal, NPR.org, and a number of other leading online news media publications. Boniface Odinakachi ben@coregroup.info

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EOS and TRON Blockchain Projects - Lots of Promises to Deliver

OS and TRON are arguably two of the most hyped blockchain projects and their prize and marketcap have gone up considerably after their ICOs were announced. We will be comparing EOS and TRON to see if they are worth the hype and will they deliver on their promises after their mainnet goes live.

EOS Blockchain – Challenge to Ethereum Ethereum opened the Pandora-box for Smart Contracts and dApps. Many decentralized applications built on top of the Ethereum blockchain provided much utility to the public and went on to be called the “World

Computer.” But it also had its drawbacks regarding scalability and the number of transactions it can handle per second. EOS announced that it could solve the problem faced by Ethereum by allowing thousand-times more transactions to be handled per second by its blockchain. EOS has a big ambition of supporting very big applica-

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tions like Facebook and Twitter which handle thousands of transactions per second. Ethereum can handle only 15-25 transactions per second, but this is not sufficient to handle big applications like Facebook that process more than 50K likes and shares per second. EOS claims it has come up with a solution to handle thousands of transactions and also to support multiple large-scale applications. EOS will be using the Delegated Proof Stake (DPoS) instead of the Proof-of-Work algorithm used in Ethereum to handle millions of transactions per second. Also, EOS can handle multiple applications at the same time by processing transactions independently and completely outside the control of EOS blockchain. EOS will not be a centralized entity

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like Ethereum is often said to be, and EOS developers claim that their network will be able handle all types of applications. Each application on EOS will reportedly function independently and autonomously, without any interference from the EOS blockchain. EOS has raised $4 billion in its year-long ICO and has recently launched its mainnet. The marketcap will tell you the amount of hype created for this project which was in testnet all this while and only recently was the latest source code for the project released. The project’s mainnet was supposed to launch, but that’s not quite what happened. Despite also critical vulnerabilties spotted in the EOS blockchain, its token is currently placed fifth in marketcap at the time of writing with a marketcap of $13 billion.

The project is built by block.one and its CTO is highly renowned in crypto space, Dan Larimer. he has multiple projects to his credit like Bitshares and Steemit. The price of EOS has been going up considerably due to the launch of its updated source code, but there are still a lot of promises yet to be delivered. One has to wait and watch if EOS can fulfill the expectations of its investors and become a better version of Ethereum.

Tron – Decentralized Content and Storage Network TRON is another ERC-20 token on the Ethereum blockchain like EOS that also promises to have its own blockchain. It promises to be a decentralized content and storage network. The network will allow content

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creators and game developers to raise funds using the TRON network and in turn publish the game on its network itself. TRON is using a different algorithm called “Proof of Repetition” .”PoRep” will reward the users with tokens who contribute storage to the network. They get paid in the TRON token for their storage contribution and if a user watches a video or uses the content on the network, they need to pay in TRON tokens. TRON users also get TRON power if they lock in their tokens for a considerable amount of time. The TRON power a user acquires is directly proportional to the number of tokens they possess and amount of time locked up with them. This is said to encourage users to hoard more tokens over a considerable period of time. TRON is used as a data storage technology and also a blockchain for content development.

TRON can even be used for developing gaming by raising funds using the TRON network and the game can be published on the same TRON network. TRON is developed under the leadership of CEO Justin Sun; he is very ambitious and futuristic. He has worked as Ripple China representative in the past and has vast experience in this field. TRON has also been hyped and has raised billions of dollars through its ICO. The token is quite popular and holds the tenth position in terms of market cap out of thousands of different cryptocurrency platforms, at the time of this writing. Investors have huge expectations from this blockchain project, and they eagerly await to see who the “super representatives” will be that will manage and secure the TRON network, as its mainnet was launched as scheduled on May 31st. We need to wait and watch if it can live up to its expectations and deliver the desired results.

EOS and TRON We have discussed both EOS and TRON in detail, and they both are different in addressing two different problems. Even though they are like Apples and Oranges, one thing that is common between the two is that they both are overhyped and billions of dollars have been invested in these two projects even during their testnet phase itself. It is up to the leadership of these two blockchain projects to work to fulfill the promises and make it more usable. Many projects are vapourware in crypto space, and that should not be the case for them, because investors have huge hopes in them and they do believe that both of them will address the problems faced by Ethereum and eventually replace it by becoming more scalable and useful. Kadhir Velavan Ramasubramaniam kadhir@coregroup.info

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Why you should know How Ethereum Smart Contracts Function

lot has been said about the relevance of Blockchain technology in the technology sector in addition to its obvious relevance in cryptocurrency. Apart from being one of the most secure technologies in todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s world, Blockchain technology is a technology that functions perfectly in the absence of any middleman. As a result of the reliability and transparency of Blockchain technology, it has been made use of in writing

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smart contracts. One form of Smart Contract that exists as a result of the transparency of Blockchain technology is the Ethereum Smart Contracts. Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s get to know what Smart Contracts are really all about.

Smart Contracts are one of the products of Blockchain

ensure that a business deal is smoothly executed and that all the parties involved get all that they think they deserve, these Contracts are used in ensuring the transparent exchange of anything of value in the absence of a middleman. These Contracts function in a way that is comparable to the workings of automated teller machines (ATM) as well

technology. They are also known as Blockchain contracts and digital contracts. Just the same way as regular contracts

as vending machines. With this technology, you can get what you deserve without the services of anyone to ensure

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it was built with the sole aim of making these Contracts. Now, the first time that this contract was ever made use of was in the transfer of Bitcoins (BTC) from one individual to another. While this Bitcoin transaction is a perfect example of the way smart contracts function, Ethereum takes it even further. The Ethereum platform functions in a way that gives programmers the freedom of issuing Smart Contracts that can be used in other business sectors apart from Bitcoin transactions.

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transparency.

Ethereum Smart Contacts Now that we know what Smart Contracts are, getting to understand how Ethereum Smart Contacts function will be a lot easier. Ethereum is a delocalized computing program that is known to generate a

cryptocurrency token called Ether. Ethereum is basically a platform for programmers to write these Contracts which get carried out according to whatever automated scripts that they have written. Ethereum was invented by a 22-year-old computer programmer known as Vitalik Buterin and is often put in the same category as Bitcoin. However, unlike Bitcoin,

Basically, Ethereum can be applied in three ways. They are Financial applications (financial derivatives, subcurrencies, saving wallets, hedging contracts, wills, etc.), semi-financial applications, and Non-financial applications e.g. decentralized governance and online voting systems. If you want to learn more about Ethereum Smart Contracts, you can visit this sites official communication channel below. Boniface Odinakachi ben@coregroup.info

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Interview | Sunny Singh Launches VAN HAWKE SPORTS - A New Dawn In Crypto Advertising

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recently spoke to Sunny Singh, CEO of VAN HAWKE SPORTS, regarding his new venture, which bridges the gap between cryptocurrencies and the sports marketing industry. A brief look at Sunny’s LinkedIn profile will tell you that he has considerable experience working in the marketing field, particularly in the area of foreign exchange services. And now more recently, in the cryptocurrency sector. Many in crypto industry are of the view that to be a successful ICO advisor, you need years and years of experience in that area. However, a closer exami-

nation reveals that ICOs are basically a form of crowdfunding. Therefore, any fintech advisor with the right experience in the inner workings of traditional financial markets would be able to apply that knowledge and concepts learned from that line of work to cryptocurrencies as well. Sunny Singh shares my belief, that cryptocurrencies are moving toward becoming a legitimate medium of exchange. Not only that, but they appear to be well on their way to becoming a sought-after asset class. At this point, those who argue that digital currencies will replace fiat are not being realistic considering that crypto related technology is in its very primitive stages. Despite being in its infancy, there’s already a supportive ecosystem developing around the world’s relatively small crypto economy. And, this is something Sunny Singh looks forward to contributing towards with his new company, VAN HAWKE SPORTS.

When questioned as to the services offered from the new company, Sunny Singh commented:

“VAN HAWKE SPORTS is a full service sports marketing agency which assists brands operating in the Cryptocurrency sector to enhance their marketing efforts via sports sponsorship opportunities, brand ambassadors and activation events.” Having worked in the forex trading and investment world for well over a decade, Sunny Singh focuses on the bottom line: return of investment (ROI). Some people are of the view that profitable ventures and excellent services are not always mutually inclusive. However, that’s a flawed argument because a profitable business model always puts emphasis on the quality of services being offered as well. Should the services fail to satisfy the consumers, then they will also fail to attract investments. It’s that simple, actually.

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In addition to working with the institutional business-tobusiness (B2B) model during the course of his professional career, Sunny Singh has considerable experience in negotiating contracts based on sound knowledge of the FX market, and more recently the cryptocurrency market. He says that cryptocurrency becomes more

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“fascinating” when it’s coupled with sports sponsorship. That’s quite true, actually, when you consider that sports teams and games have a high level of entertainment value and when you add something new onto that, such as blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies, it makes it even more enjoyable to learn and sort of “incorporate”

cryptos into your daily life. Sunny’s line of work requires creating and raising brand awareness for cryptocurrency and blockchain firms on a global scale. With the rising number of inquiries from clients about crypto, traditional businesses have begun adding them to their business model. Notably, LMAX

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Exchange, where Sunny Singh previously worked, has helped clients trade $10 trillion cumulatively in fiat currency since 2010. Recently, the London based exchange added a regulated digital exchange to meet high demand from institutional customers wanting to buy and sell cryptos in a safe manner. Custodian services, which had

been largely absent from the digital currency market, are reportedly now being offered by not only LMAX Exchange but various other traditional forex trading platforms. Sunny acknowledges that the current crypto market is extremely competitive for brands wanting to stand out, as it is already rather saturated with numerous kinds of platforms and services promising to offer just about every imaginable real world use, by leveraging cryptographically secure blockchains or their own crypto token. However, he strongly feels that all brands operating within this space can benefit from the services offered by VAN HAWKE SPORTS to ensure that they are identifiable and distinguishable from their peers. By utilizing sports sponsorship, a very large percentage of the world’s population can be exposed to a crypto or blockchain brand – Sunny Singh notes. Just the way Facebook would expose literally billions of people to cryptocurrencies should the company decide to accept cryptos as payment or even create their own, as they’ve hinted, the opportunity to expose so many people to a product is already there for

legitimate cryptocurrency platforms looking to market their brands to the billions of people who watch soccer. A few easy numbers, mentioned by Sunny Singh, are there are over 4.5 billion people who watch soccer in over 200 countries. Even a single soccer game can attract on average 80 million viewers. Formula 1 racing has viewership levels of roughly 1.4 billion. E-Sports also has hundreds of millions of viewers. These are all quick stats the experienced forex and crypto trading professional pointed out. So, it’s not rocket science really that if a cryptocurrency or blockchain business can market their brand by partnering with billion dollar sports organizations, then their platform will be exposed to literally billions of people. As a newcomer, it might be too early to assess where exactly VAN HAWKE Sports fits, however, more than likely it has a promising future ahead. That’s because all clients are carefully vetted in order to prevent frauds/scams. This is imperative because not only Sunny’s and the agency’s reputation would be at stake, but also that of the huge sports organizations should they decide to let

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a questionable cryptocurrency business be promoted through association with them. We look forward to future correspondence with Sunny Singh and it was our pleasure to interview him today. Here, we leave you with his LinkedIn profile:

Sunny Singh – CEO, VAN HAWKE SPORTS & Guinness World Record Holder Sunny Singh is the CEO and founder of VAN HAWKE SPORTS, the world’s first sports

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marketing agency that assists brands operating in the FX and Cryptocurrency sectors. VAN HAWKE SPORTS leverages proven industry knowledge and expertise to increase brand presence via sports sponsorships, brand ambassadors and client activation initiatives. Before establishing VAN HAWKE SPORTS, Sunny held several senior marketing positions within the Foreign Exchange (FX) industry for firms including, LMAX Exchange, Hantec Markets and ODL Securities. In addition, Sunny

has consulted for a number of startups operating in the Cryptocurrency and Blockchain communities, generating successful route to market strategies. Sunny is also a Guinness World Record Holder, having taken part in the ‘Most Northerly Rugby Match’ alongside other business leaders and Rugby professionals. Omar Faridi omar@coregroup.info

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Waves Wallet Platform - Not Like Ethereum

Since the inception of the Waves platform, there has been a belief by a number of cryptocurrency devotees that this platform rivals Ethereum.

hile very much has not been said about this misconception, it should be noted that the Waves platform is very different from Ethereum

and as such has no form of rivalry between Ethereum and the Waves platform. While

which was built for the purpose of crowd funding and also for currency exchange. As a result

Ethereum is a platform for smart contracts, the Waves platform is basically a platform

of this, it makes use of a virtual wallet which is known as the Waves Wallet. Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s get to know

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what the Waves Platform really is. Please note that the creator of Waves did recently introduce smart contracts, but this new offering has not yet been fully explored. Crypto Core Media Monthly Magazine

The Waves Platform The Waves platform is one of the many amazing platforms that leverage Blockchain technology. It was designed by Alexander Ivanov in 2016 and was set-up with the use of Scala programming language. This platform was built to tackle some of the problems that were experienced by users of Blockchain technology. With this platform, regular individuals have the freedom to transfer, exchange, and create Blockchain tokens without needing a third party.

Waves wallet The Waves wallet is the approved wallet that is made use of by everyone on the Waves platform. This wallet is a tool for carrying out any task on the Waves platform. The Waves

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wallet can be used on Mac devices, Linux, and Windows OS. This wallet is highly recommended for every user of crypto money. The Waves Wallet can work with BTC, Waves, ETH, ZEC, LTC in addition to Euros and the US Dollars.

How does Waves wallet Work Before Waves wallet can be enjoyed and made use of, it first has to be downloaded and installed. This can be done in 6 steps. They are: • Visit the official website of the Waves Platform and select “Download Client (Beta)” • Select your Operating System by clicking on it, this will begin the download process • Now that Waves Wallet has been downloaded, the next thing you need to do is click on “Get Started” • Select any avatar of your choice, and then, create a strong password. After this is done, ensure you have your secret phase saved. • As a result of an increase in the frequency of scam,

the platform will remind you of the need to be cautious. At this point, you should click on I Understand to continue. After this, ensure that you put down your recovery phase and click on “I’ve written it down”. • Get your backup phrase verified and then select “confirm”. As soon as you are done creating an account, you can make use of your Waves wallet securely with your SEED. This is because your account is not connected to your email address. It is also important to note that your secret phrase (SEED) is the most important piece of information that is needed to access your account. If lost, there will be no way for you to access your account. Boniface Odinakachi ben@coregroup.info

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All Sports | Blockchain for the $2 Trillion Global Sports Industry

he All Sports whitepaper notes that the world’s sport industry is a $2 trillion business. So, in one calendar year, the global sports industry earns massively from competitive sports games, recreational sports, and the newer e-sports. Immersed in the sports industry are obviously highly paid athletes, sport equipment manufacturers, sports media, team owners and management, brokerage companies, etc. Due to the rise of the internet, particularly cellular technology,

the All Sports whitepaper notes that sports related content can be spread across the globe faster than ever before. Moreover, IP licensing based sports derivatives and sports betting are now the primary revenue generators for the world’s rapidly evolving sports industry. Notably, the All Sports whitepaper states that the Mayweather and McGregor boxing match made a staggering $600 million while simply the transfer of Neymar to Paris Saint-Germain netted a sensational €220 million. Clearly, there’s big money involved here. There’s an industrial chain operating here

where every contributing member (athletes, sports media) has their respective commercial value. However, the value of each member is dependent on the value of all contributing members to the global sports ecosystem. Simply put, if Mayweather earns hundreds of millions of dollars from boxing, he’s doing so by engaging in an ecosystem where other people are also participating. So, if McGregor did not want to fight Mayweather, then the massive earning opportunity would have never materialized. Obviously, this is Core Magazine

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a very simple concept to grasp.

All Sports Whitepaper To help further increase the global sports industry revenue stream, the All Sports developers aim to:

“use … smart contracts and [a] token system to provide developers with a convenient and complete set of interface protocols for payment and settlement as well as application development … platform for sporting content, online community, IP asset trading and its promoting platform, sports prediction

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platform, sports apps and gaming platforms, etc.” To cater to the sports business owners, the sports-oriented platform intends to:

age blockchain technology and implement its network in a manner that would help engage all contributing parties in the world’s sports ecosystem. The engagement via this platform’s network is supposed to be beneficial to all parties involved. Should this serve as a green light for more investments to pour into this initiative? The short answer is No. That’s because blockchain technology itself is in its very primitive stages. Perhaps the only legitimate use case for blockchain technology at this point is Bitcoin, as distributed systems expert Andreas Antonopoulos has stated. Moreover, presently a blockchain is just a very slow database at best. Omar Faridi omar@coregroup.info

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EOS Stealing ETH from Users Many EOS users are complaining that their wallets are getting invalidated due to several rules enforced by its constitution. Also, users are not getting moved to mainnet if they do not registered their accounts before the deadline. They are calling it “Outright Theft” of their ETH.

Disconnect Between ERC20 and EOS Mainnet Many users bought their ERC-20 token many months ago and had placed them in cold storage. But at the last minute users were asked to “Register” to be included in the mainnet. Many users who were not

aware of this Registration were too late, and they were left out of the mainnet. Some Community members tried to help them recover and move them to mainnet using

their ETH private keys that they used to buy the token). Some users were finally able to recover their tokens without any help from block.one team. But imagine a normal layman who bought the token and was still

the fallback mechanism (i.e., doing reverse engineering and recovering token keys from

storing it in the wallet without knowing that he needs to register to be part of mainnet. Also,

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not everyone can perform this complex recovery that involved exposing your private keys, and that needs to be done on an offline computer.

Users Face Loss of EOS Tokens Many users also complained that they were unable to register to tokens due to lack of at least one single outgoing transactions from their cold storage. The ETH address from where they bought the ERC20 token must at least have one “Outgoing Transaction“. Users were not aware of this information also, and they were unpleasantly surprised when they found out that they were unable to vote because they can’t add their identity to the account. This is unacceptable because users store their tokens in cold storage so that they remain offline and no transactions are carried out from that wallet for

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safety. But EOS constitution forcing users to do at least one outgoing ETH transaction is an “Outright Theft” of their ETH.

Average Joe Suffers Average Joe who holds EOS tokens will be clueless about this highly complex system and will eventually miss out and lose his funds entirely. This is the reason EOS token holders accuse Block.one (Block.one is funding EOS.IOS platform) of stealing their ETH from them. So the tokens that they bought by exchanging for ETH is lost forever but will be held by the EOS team. Only tech-savvy people can recover the tokens and successfully register to the mainnet.

Block Producer Can Help recover According to EOS.IO blockchain constitution (EOS

has set of rules governing its blockchain), there is a concept called Block Producer. Block Producers will be decentralized entities governing the EOS.IO blockchain. Some experts point out that a block producer can help in the recovery of users’ tokens, but it is pathetic for the holders to be at the mercy of the block producers. These rules will lead to centralization, and the core concept of permissionless blockchain is broken. Bitcoin was created by Satoshi to make it decentralized from the government and other central authorities. But EOS is taking us back to the same central authority and enforcing inbuilt rules that are trying to govern its users.

Outright Theft Users buy many ERC20 tokens, and so they cannot keep a connection to every single token and perform a much

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complex registration process to avoid losing their tokens. If they buy an ERC20 token it should forever be available to them, and it should

readily be converted to the mainnet, otherwise, it is an “Outright Theft.” Users accuse that this is an indirect way to steal their ETH by Block.one by enforcing complex process to register to the mainnet.

Twitter Celebs Accuse EOS

Many twitter celebs accuse EOS of stealing ETH from the users, and they were also not comfortable with the EOS having the constitution that allows them to control their users. Below are some of the tweets from some of the crypto celebs. Jackson Palmer (Creator of Dogecoin) revealed that block producers froze several accounts, below are his tweet. Nick Szabo also accused EOS to have “Constitution,” and he dropped the bomb that any stranger can freeze user’s money as per the EOS protocol. He also pointed out that the Constitution has several security loopholes. Below is his tweet. We need to wait and watch if EOS.IO blockchain can relax its rules and provide a permissionless and decentralized blockchain for it to be accepted and adopted by the majority of the people. Kadhir Velavan Ramasubramaniam kadhir@coregroup.info

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Bitcoin Cash | Soon Cashing Out, or Still More Time to Go?

Bitcoin was invented in January 2009 and was perhaps the best thing that happened to technology in 2009.

s a result of its u n i q u e n e s s and potentials, Bitcoin grew very rapidly in

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popularity. Now, due to this rapid popularity, it became increasingly difficult to process Bitcoin. The process of Bitcoin

transaction also became slower in addition to an increase in the cost of transaction. As a remedy to the challenges that

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are associated with processing Bitcoin because of its popularity, Bitcoin Cash was invented. Although it was invented in August 2017, Bitcoin Cash is now one of the highest ranked cryptocurrencies.

people accepted it. This was simply because the presence of more people on the Bitcoin system made it very slow to process and also brought about a hike in transaction fees. To help remedy the issues associated with Bitcoin, two ideas were brought up. The first idea was all about altering the format of each block while the second idea was about increasing the size of each block. Although this two ideas of how to remedy the flaws of Bitcoin were both great, a majority of the participants in the Bitcoin system voted for altering the format of each block. Now, due to the fact that not everyone agreed with the idea of altering the format of each block, there was a disagreement which led to the minority group performing a hard fork and hence the birth of Bitcoin Cash.

The Birth of Bitcoin Cash

What is Bitcoin Cash

Bitcoin Cash is a cryptocurrency that came into existence as a result of disagreements on how the Bitcoin technology can be improved. The need to improve the Bitcoin technology became pressing as more

This is a cryptocurrency that was made available to the public in August 2017. Just like Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash has 21 million coins and was invented to be used in making payment. However, unlike Bitcoin which

is relatively slow, this makes use of a technology which ensures lower transaction fees and faster transactions. Although Bitcoin Cash has been in existence for less than a year, it has made very tremendous progress. One major stride that has been made by this cryptocurrency is being on Coinbaseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s list of cryptocurrencies. Although this might not mean much to non-cryptocurrency enthusiasts, it is considered a huge achievement by every cryptocurrency devotee. The reason for this is Coinbase is one of the biggest exchanges in the world and only lists very few cryptocurrencies.

How to Buy Bitcoin Cash In as much as there are more than one way to buy Bitcoin Cash, the simplest way to buy one is through a broker exchange . You can purchase this through the use of your bank account or by using your Fiat Currency. Boniface Odinakachi ben@coregroup.info

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CRYPTOCUP | Win Tokens Predicting the 2018 World Cup CryptoCup – Fans can win tokens predicting the 2018 Soccer World Cup

n a few days, the attention of soccer fans around the world will focus mainly on one thing, “the 2018 World Cup in Russia.” This time the highly anticipated event will take place between June 14 and July 15, 2018, marking

the first time that an Eastern European country organizes the championship. This year, those with a “special” ability to choose the winning teams could also earn their rewards in cryptocurrencies, and take advantage of the current trend of digital currencies to take Core Magazine

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home cash. This initiative is being called Cryptocup and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the first prediction game based on the 2018 FIFA World Cup that runs through smart contracts on the blockchain. Players can create their own tokens when they make their predictions on the game website using Metamask. The players will make their predictions about the results of each of the 64 matches that will be played during this edition of the World Cup. Predictions will be issued in an ERC-721 token, the so-called Token CryptoCup. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s basically the same non-fungible token technology used with the Cryptokitties, collectible kittens that broke popularity records on the Ethereum network, to the point where they almost made it collapse. Each token will automatically earn points according to the degree of coincidence between the actual results and the established predictions, a task that will execute the intelligent contract that governs the game. Depending on the position of the player at the end of the FIFA tournament in the CryptoCup ranking (compared to the tokens of the other players), the same intelligent contract allocates the established amount of ETH accumulated to whom it should go to. The goal is to be in the top 10

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percent when the tournament finishes, since those players will split the jackpot, which will have a value determined by the number of players that have entered the contest, and the current value of Ethereum. Another innovative feature of CryptoCup is that during the World Cup, players can exchange (buy or sell) their prediction tokens with other users in a secondary market. Some players will be able to set the price of their CryptoCup token and sell it before the end of the tournament, while others may be interested in speculating on future rewards. This gives players the opportunity to sell their token and collect early, if they find someone interested in buying it. Similarly, prospective buyers can search for a potentially valuable token, and buy it by making an offer to its owner. For more details and to participate in this great event, you can visit the Cryptocup website (https:// www.cryptocup.io)

Angel Figueroa angelfigueroa@coregroup.info

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Selling Digital Currencies can be likened to Selling Apple Products in 2001

itcoin has not been around for a very long time. By January

next year, it would have been around for about a decade. In spite of this, Bitcoin has gained worldwide prominence. A lot of people, cryptocurrency enthusiasts inclusive are of the opinion that Bitcoin, as well as other cryptocurrencies, will leave the scene almost as rapidly as they arrived on the

scene. These speculations have prompted a lot of people to want to sell-off all cryptocurrencies in their possession before the price of cryptocurrencies crash totally or so they assume. Well, the craze for people to sell off their cryptocurrencies as soon as possible might be really high. That, however, does not make it a perfect idea. Just like selling Apple products was a thing of choice in 2001, selling off the cryptocurrencies in your

possession is also all about choice. It is not something that you must do.

Why you should only sell-off your Cryptocurrencies only if you have to do so The hype about the impending crash of Bitcoin and all other cryptocurrencies might be overwhelming; that how-

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ever, is not a guarantee that the taken advantage of in many

Apple products not a very good

digital currency era will soon be over. The reason for this is pretty simple. As people got to understand the way the internet works, they had a tendency to want other people in their world to also be aware of the internet. The same can be said about Apple products, as more people made use of Apple products, the use of this product spread. Blockchain technology can be compared to both the internet as well as Apple products. As more and more people get to know about blockchain technology, how it works, and how it can help transform the world, the higher the chances of blockchain technology getting into the worlds of more and more people.

different sectors of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s economy. Apart from its obvious use in medicine and engineering, blockchain technology is also very important in helping to reduce hacking in electoral systems. Now, as a result of the relevance of blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies might last much longer than people assume. As a matter of fact, the stronger blockchain gets, the higher the likelihood of cryptocurrencies lasting the test of time.

idea.

Why Selling Cryptocurrency is likened to Selling Apple Products

cies to themselves, some would

In 2001, before the introduction of iBook, iPods, and the

The many benefits of block- upgrade of the Mac OS, Appleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s chain technology are being stock was low. This made selling

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This,

notwithstanding,

a lot of people still made the choice to sell Apple products. In the same way, the selling of cryptocurrencies might seem a good idea at the moment. However, the truth is things can change very suddenly. This means if you must sell cryptocurrencies, it should be a thing of choice and not as a result of the a lot of speculation. Although lots and lots of people seem to be scared of keeping their cryptocurrenargue that you should only sell those in your possession only if you have to for the purpose of meeting pressing financial needs. Boniface Odinakachi ben@coregroup.info

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SAP Launches Cloud Blockchain platform, jumps on DLT Bandwagon

AP, a multinational software company has launched a Cloud Blockchain platform for service known as SAP Leonardo Blockchain. The company made this report on Wednesday, June 6th. The Cloud Blockchain platform is made to enable corporate clients to build networks and applications

through the use of Cloud Blockchain platform. During the official announcement of this platform, SAP emphasized that the brand new Blockchain service will be compatible with MultiChain and Hyperledger Fabric and will also be built on the data management system of SAPâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s SAP HANA.

What does SAP senior vice president have to say about this Cloud Blockchain platform? SAPâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s senior vice president for innovation and product and also the head of the digital

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customer service initiatives, Gil Perez, however explained that SAP will not devote to any individual core distributed ledger technology to become more flexible as this Blockchain market grows and increases. Also, SAP has accepted 27 new members from sectors such as distribution, logistics, pharmacy, telecommunications and utilities for its cloud Blockchain platform in order to integrate this technology into the internet of productions and also into the production and supply chain solutions.

What do you think are the Advancements made by Amazon and Microsoft? During this spring, Amazon and Microsoft both announced new advancements in their Blockchain technology applications, with the Microsoft Azure launching its application for Blockchain technology while Amazon has launched Ethereum Blockchain frameworks applications as well as Hyperledger Fabric. The company also wants to speed up the adoption of a Cloud Blockchain platform for various businesses as it is usually said that

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“a stitch in time saves nine”. SAP seeks to integrate its services with Blockchain technology with a great launch.

SAP’s expectations for adopting a Cloud Blockchain platform The company has its hopes up and is waiting for the SAP Cloud Blockchain platform to be compatible with Hyperledger Fabric, and also support or be compatible with MultiChain. SAP’s current users can now use the Blockchain to build networks and applications. The company announced that its new offer will use SAP HANA Data Management Suite, and that it will be designed and built on SAP HANA. With reference to the company’s newsroom, it was reported that SAP has worked with more than 60 companies in all sectors to develop Blockchain use cases in various industries, such as transportation, manufacturing and pharmaceuticals. SAP also disclosed in its report that it has established a worldwide Blockchain consortium with about seven founding

members to accelerate Blockchain technology adoption in the company. The founders include HPE, Intel, and A3 by Airbus SE. It is currently being said on the media that use cases, such as transportation or production, are not “fully cooked”, and majority of analysts will still tell you that the Blockchain is overly promoted. However, SAP is convinced that this technology can deeply change business and IT processes. Furthermore, its management is out to ensure the vision and mission of the organization are enhanced through the launching of the cloud Blockchain platform or technology. Nonetheless, this idea should come in handy, as the media already believes it will be a great source of development to the company. To learn more about the latest crypto/blockchain developments, please visit our official communication channel below; Boniface Odinakachi ben@coregroup.info

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Do you know the Uses of Cryptocurrency in Third World Countries ?

orruption, poverty, inflation and high levels of unemployment are some of the common problems facing third world countries. The years of bad governance and political instability have dragged some countries into a devastating economic crisis. With accelerated development and growth in other developed nations of the world, prospects for these third world countries are sometimes dark. However, the introduction of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology has caused renewed enthusiasm for the prospects of revival in these developing countries. The purpose of this

article is to examine possible responses to the big question â&#x20AC;&#x153;how cryptocurrency can be useful to third world countries?â&#x20AC;?

Reduces remittance costs The system

global remittance is almost entirely

dependent on the activities of third world country citizens who are immigrants in the developed countries. From time to time, these people have to send money home. To do this, they must rely on intermediary services such as Money Gram, Western Union, Uni Transfer, etc. These platforms charges fees that significantly increases

transactions cost. According to data published by the World Bank in 2017, remittances derived from developing or third world countries in 2016 amounted to about 441 billion dollars, more than half of the overall registered global remittances. The figures also found out that the global transfer fee for sub-Saharan Africa is $20 for $200 average, and this was the highest rate in the world. With cryptocurrency, remittance costs can be significantly reduced, as well as the stress for receiving international money transfers.

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Improve financial inclusion in third world countries Lack of financial inclusion is a major problem in many third world countries around the globe. With reference to the World Bank, there are more than two billion people without a bank in the world. Most of these numbers live in developing countries around the globe. In countries such as Chad, Pakistan, Niger Burundi, Cameroon and Yimen, less than 15% of the adult population own bank accounts. It was even said that those who have bank accounts were underbanked, which means they do not have access to high-quality banking services. This prevents them from participating in world trade. There is an additional incentive for empowering medium and small sized enterprises. Local traders can start thinking globally in terms of exports and imports. Banks in third world countries, such as Nigeria, are known for their unwillingness to borrow funds to small scale enterprises, even when the appropriate collateral is provided. With cryptocurrency platforms, medium and small sized mer-

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chants and business owners can receive cryptographic loans. This will greatly contribute to their commencement in exports and imports business, which is a fundamental element of national trade.

Fights against corruption Corruption is one of the major disasters of third world countries. Corrupt government officials and the lack of economic democratization demonstrated the design that abandoned the collective commonwealth of these third world countries in the responsibility of few individuals. The middle class is almost gone and above 70% of the population lives below the line of poverty. In developing countries, the illegal allocation of public funds by corrupt officials in the government is a major problem. Lack of compliance with the best contractual practices results in capital projects now being managed by cable that divert funds from the state for their own selfish interests. The use of cryptocurrency especially those based on a smart protocol will enable a more transparent system of contracts. Since the Blockchain technology files are public, citizens will have the

ability to monitor how public funds are used. Also, other ways that cryptocurrency is useful to third world countries include; â&#x20AC;˘ It is one of the easiest ways of making payment. With the advancement of Blockchain technology, people can now make payment with coins with few minutes and the recipient will receive the fund immediately. â&#x20AC;˘ It creates room for accountability. With the advancement of Blockchain technology, people can now see what is inside their wallet without having any doubt. â&#x20AC;˘ Another way is security. There is no doubt that making payment through Bitcoin and other coins is one of the safest ways of making payment. Peoples account will be protected without any issues. Other ways include transparency, reliability etc. These factors and many more have helped third world countries through the invention of cryptocurrency. Boniface Odinakachi ben@coregroup.info

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Maker | Run on Ethereum to Maximize Your Purchasing Power

he Maker platform presents to us, Dai. At first glance, it seems to be trying to offer what Tether (USDT) does, which is:

“Dai is a cryptocurrency

that is price stabilized against the value of the U.S. Dollar. Dai is created by the Dai Stablecoin System, a decentralized platform that runs on the Ethereum blockchain.” – Official Maker Website Moreover, this is what

they the creators of Maker platform claim: With Dai, anyone, anywhere

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has the freedom to choose a money that can place their confidence in. A money that maintains its purchasing power. Admittedly, cryptocurrencies – particularly Bitcoin (BTC) – offer a great solution for decentralized exchange of value. Just today, one of my clients was having difficulty transferring (fiat) money to my bank account out here in Pakistan. Presumably, it’s because the company deals with cryptocurrencies. Notably, the State Bank of Pakistan ordered in April to not serve customers who’re transacting in digital currencies. There might also be other

restrictions that the local banking system might be imposing, which are usually very unfair. Lucky now we have Bitcoin (BTC) to conduct cross-border transactions without the hassle of putting up with the nonsense of a third-party. However, just to be clear, what the creators of the Maker platform aim to offer is money that works best for you based on your circumstances. Practically speaking, I would not be able to buy anything with BTC out here in Pakistan and I would assume it’s the same case in many of the other third-world countries. Therefore, I am forced to convert my crypto to fiat cash in

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order to pay for things. So, how exactly does the Maker platform work to help people get the best value from monetary exchange? Here’s how: MKR Holders govern Dai Maker is a decentralized autonomous organization on the Ethereum Blockchain seeking to minimize the price volatility of its own stable token - the Dai - against the U.S. Dollar. Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) or Distributed Autonomous Companies (DACs) have been a big buzzword for a number of years now. These self-sustaining, usually AI enabled, DAO / DACs, here developed by the Maker platform appears to be using some sort of algorithm to lower the extremely high levels of volatility associated with most cryptocurrencies. Moreover, the MakerDao website says: “The next generation of financial applications become possible with a stable digital currency.” Maker – Super Technical Whitepaper The Dai Stablecoin is a collateral-backed cryptocur-

rency whose value is stable relative to the U.S. dollar. We beleive that stable digital assets like Dai Stablecoin are essential to realizing the full potential of blockchain tehcnology. Maker is a smart contract on Ethereum that backs and stabilizes the value of Dai through a dyna,ic system of Collateralized Debt Positions (CDPs), autonomous feedback mechanisms, and approppriately incentivized external actors. So, here Dai seems to be a “collateral-backed” digital currency designed to remain stable – just like the USD. As noted above in their whitepaper, the development of stable crypto assets is a step forward in beginning to take advantage of all what blockchain could offer us. Although many crypto experts, such as Andreas Antonopoulos, Bitcoin developer Jimmy Song, and even Litecoin founder’s (Charlie Lee) brother, Bobby Lee claim that blockchain is either “bullshit” or does not have “any real world use cases.” While this may be the case to some extent at present, due to the primitive stage of development of blockchains, the whole idea/concept and use of blockchains should not be dismissed so easily. So, let’s give platforms

like Maker the chance at least to prove themselves. The way Maker stabilizes their digital asset, Dai, is by issuing a smart contract on Ethereum that:

“backs and stabilizes

the value of Dai through a dynamic system of Collateralized Debt Positions (CDPs), autonomous feedback mechanisms, and appropriately incentivized external actors.” Of course, it would require more thorough investigation into just who the “external actors” are or would be. Furthermore, CDPs through Maker would also need to further investigation. The interested reader can visit their website (makerdao.com) for details as this article is not meant to be an exhaustive analysis or breakdown of what this platform is about. Omar Faridi omar@coregroup.info

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India's Bitcoin boom is Fueling a Surge in Cryptocurrency Crime

n recent times, India has been faced with quite a number of daunting financial challenges. Most popular among them is an indifferent central bank and an oppressed cryptocurrency. Although these problems that faced by India are enough to cause India some real financial woes, there has been a new problem – cryptocurrency related crimes. The rise in cryptocurrency crimes in India

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is as a result of India’s Bitcoin boom and it does not seem to be going away any time soon Since the Bitcoin Boom in India, there have been a couple of crimes that concern digital currencies. These series of crimes began with and only included phishing and hacking. However, in very recent times, these crimes now include multi-level marketing and Ponzi schemes.

Hacking and Phishing This financial crime is one that makes use of some very old tricks. It usually involves sending an email from an address that appears to be real. Through this mail, investors are asked to select a link and put in personal details. Although these links appear to be absolutely harmless, they are known to come with malware. As soon as they get clicked, the investor’s sys-

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This scenario involved users of Zebpay being asked for some money for a survey in a swap for Bitcoins. Although this message was discovered to be from a counterfeit Twitter account, this Twitter account was actually much related to Zebpay’s Twitter account

Ponzi Schemes Ponzi schemes are perhaps one of the most popular cryptocurrency related crime to hit India since the invention of

tem gets affected and their data cloned. This leads to investors losing their funds. Sometimes, this occurrence involves a seizure of vital files in a system until a ransom is paid in digital currencies.

Counterfeit Apps and Social Media Accounts The use of fake websites as well as fake Twitter handles to dupe unsuspecting investors is now a common occurrence in India’s cryptocurrency ecosystem. One real-life scenario of this fake twitter accounts being used in fraud involved some users of a cryptocurrency exchange in India, Zebpay.

Cryptocurrency. Two of India’s biggest cryptocurrency companies that have been allegedly involved in Ponzi schemes include OneCoin and GainBitcoin. According to Pramod Emjay, a blockchain consultant, any investment that promises to get you rich at the snap of fingers is most likely too good to be true. You, therefore, will be doing yourself great disservice by investing in such.

Who is at Fault for These Crimes As it stands, there are really no bodies or agencies known to regulate cryptocurrency in India. This implies that when bad investments occur, investors have no authority to report their grievances to anyone. Some cryptocurrency firms in

India have come out to say that neither the financial system in India nor the cryptocurrency firms are to be held accountable for these many financial crimes. According to them, the investors that are looking to make quick money are to be blamed for the series of financial crimes.

The Indian Bitcoin Boom The Bitcoin boom in India has attracted investors like never before. As a matter of fact, conservative investors are not left out of the craze for Bitcoin in India. Although this Bitcoin boom is considered to be a good omen, however, just like other systems with lots of money, the Indian cryptocurrency ecosystem has attracted lots of fraudsters and appears to be causing more harm than good to India’s financial sector. Do you think that there is a way to stop these crimes? Please join us on our official communication platform below and share your views. Boniface Odinakachi ben@coregroup.info

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Will Ripple and Bitcoin Recover from this Crash that Has Lasted for Months? In recent times, there has been a sharp decline in the prices of cryptocurrencies. While virtually all cryptocurrencies around the world have been affected, worst hit are Ripple and Bitcoin.

n the last few months, Ripple, as well as Bitcoin, has continued to drop in value. This shocking and unfortunate crash has led to

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many questions by concerned cryptocurrency devotees. Prominent among these questions are â&#x20AC;&#x153;will Ripple and Bitcoin recover from crash?â&#x20AC;?

Since recording an impressive value of nearly $20,000, Bitcoin has gradually dropped in value and is now a little over $7,000. This amounts to a drop

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ous factors that are regarded to be responsible for the crash of Ripple. They are: Regulations and Rumours. While there are quite a number of regulations governing this cryptocurrency, its recent crash is attributed to a rumour. This rumour is known as “the coinbase notification.”

What is Coinbase Notification Sometime last year, there

of over 50% when compared to its value in January 2018. Ripple’s XRP is also not free from this occurrence that is ravaging the world’s biggest cryptocurrencies.

Do you think that Ripple’s XRP will recover from this Crash? “Will Ripple recover from crash?” is the question in the hearts of all cryptocurrency enthusiasts that have invested in Ripple. Well, before this question can be answered, it is important to understand the facts that are responsible for the crash of Ripple in the first place. Basically, there are two obvi-

were some rumours that Ripple trading was going to be added to the Coinbase platform. This rumour led to a surge in the number of people that were willing to invest in Ripple, ultimately leading to a skyrocket in the value of this cryptocurrency. Well, Ripple never got traded on the Coinbase platform, thereby leading a lot of investors to withdraw from Ripple. Now, back to the question, “will ripple recover from crash?” In an effort to get Ripple to where it was before the crash, Ripple has employed the services of a chief market analyst that is expected to make things work in Ripple’s favor. As a result of steps taken by Ripple’s new chief market analyst, coupled with the fact that the rise and fall of cryptocurrency

is considered normal, there are speculations that Ripple will recover from crash and quickly too. Also, Ripple is supported by a firm that many believe will influence regulations in its favor.

Will Bitcoin recover From Crash? Since January 2018, there has been a drop in the value of Bitcoin by over 50%. Bitcoin declined from nearly $20,000 in December 2017 to a little over $7,000. This sudden decline has sparked up fears among investors in this cryptocurrency. While the situation is worrisome, Ran Neuner, the founder of ONchain Capital believes that questions about the recovery of Bitcoin should not even arise in the first place. To support his claim of the Bitcoin crash being normal, he cited an example of how only some months ago, Bitcoin rose to nearly $20,000 from $8,000 in about two weeks. According to the founder of ONchain Capital, it is only normal for cryptocurrency to be unpredictable, as being unsteady is a regular part of its existence and not an indication that anything is wrong. Boniface Odinakachi ben@coregroup.info Core Magazine

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Bitcoin Transaction Fees Records Lowest Rate in Seven Years

itcoin, just like every digital currency is characterized by instability which have led to the reduction in Bitcoin transaction fees. Although the instability that is associated with Bitcoin is one that every cryptocurrency enthusiast should be used to, it appears only a handful of people are used to it. At the moment, Bitcoin is embattled with many challenges. Two of them are:

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• Nose-dive in the value of Bitcoin • The drop in Bitcoin transaction fees Sometime last year, the transaction fees of Bitcoins were so high that they became a subject of discussion. Well, just a few months after, the reverse is the case. Quite surprisingly, Bitcoin transaction fees are now the lowest that they have been since 2011. It’s been reported that Bitcoin miners now

charge lower than one-third of the amount that they charged as transaction fees as of December 2017. This occurrence has left a lot of people wondering what the reason for the reduction in Bitcoin Transaction fees could be. So, could the reason for this reduction in Bitcoin transaction fees be as a result of a decline in the demand for Bitcoin, or are there other reasons for this reduction? Let’s find out.

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Bitcoin transaction fees are basically the costs of transactions Bitcoin runs on software that needs many computers for it to run smoothly. Also, the many computers that run it have to be in accord. For this to be done perfectly, there are limitations to the amount of data that the network can handle a time. This limitation in the amount of data that can be processed leads to congestion which ends up leading to an increase in transaction fees. Since Bitcoin was invented in 2009, it has grown steadily over time with more people joining the network. The drastic increase in the number of people on this system brought about an increase in the cost of transactions which was directly responsible for an increase in Bitcoin transaction fees. Well, in recent times, there has been a sharp drop in the value of Bitcoin. This has led to fewer transactions on the Bitcoin system, and ultimately a reduction in Bitcoin transaction fees.

A Decline in the Cryptocurrency Craze Ever since the decline in Bitcoin transaction fees, it has been rumoured that a lot of people are leaving Bitcoin as a result of its high transaction fees. In as much as this argument appears to hold water, it is not exactly right. According to Bitcoin developer Rosenfeld, there has been a decline in the craze for cryptocurrency lately. This claim is supported by the fact that Bitcoin is not the only cryptocurrency with a drop in transaction fees. Litecoin, Ripple, and Ethereum are also some top cryptocurrencies that have had a drop in transaction fees.

Increased Efficiency in Blockchain Use Over time, as a result of constant usage, there has been an increase in efficiency by individuals that want to start up Bitcoin transactions. This increase in efficiency has led to a lowering of transaction fees. Some factors that are responsible for the increased efficiency in Blockchain use are:

• Segregated Witness (Segwit) • Dynamic estimation • XTXO consolidation • Transaction batching

The Use of Segwit Although this might not be popular, the use of SegWit is a factor that is responsible for a reduction in Bitcoin transaction fees. With SegWit, BTC transactions are separated from their associated signatures. This allows for more transactions to be bundled into a block, while processing the signatures separately. This effectively leads to more transactions being processed at once, thereby leading to a reduction in transaction cost.

Transaction Batching The use of transaction batching involves sending a payment to more than one recipient through one on-chain transaction. This brings about a speed-up of Bitcoin transaction process and hence a reduction in transaction cost. Boniface Odinakachi ben@coregroup.info

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IOST Blockchain Whitepaper Needs Proofreading, Brings Nothing New

OST like most of the newer blockchain based platforms has been developed after studying the ones that came well before it, such as the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains. Both of these platforms have experienced issues with scalability, slow networks, and high usage fees. IOST aims to be “a scalable and secure blockchain app platform for your next big idea.” In addition,

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its creators note that it will be able to process numerous transactions in a short period of time while enabling developers to easily create customized applications. There are now so many variations on spin-offs of proof-ofw0rk (PoW) and proof-of-stake (PoS) algorithms that power blockchain-based platforms that it is now becoming increasingly difficult to determine

which is best. To bring even more confusion to the table, IOST uses what they call “Proof of Believability” consensus protocol and Efficient Distributed Sharding to develop a scalable blockchain.

Proof-ofBelieveablity – Provably Vague According to the platform’s official website:

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IOST Just a “Work in Progress” The “algorithmic randomness” referred to above is reportedly implemented using Biased Resistant Distributed Randomness, according to the IOST official website. The platform’s whitepaper identifies two main problems with existing blockchains:

“We designed the Proof-of-Believability mechanism to eliminate the need for an energyhungry proof-ofwork protocol, which stands as a barrier to blockchain scaling up for widespread adoption. Believability of a node is calculated based on contribution and behaviors; Meanwhile fairness is ensured with algorithmic randomness.”

a) Synchronization: In order to participate in the transaction verification process, a full node must download the entire up-to-date lerger from the network. As the public ledge grows, it would be increasingly hard for new players to enter the game. b) Efficiency: Every participanting node in the network is obligated to handle every transaction; if a transaction ccould be sufficiently verifies with a portion of nodes in the network, it would be a total waste to have all nodes the network

working on the same problem. Basically, the blockchains of today are growing too large in terms of the data they store. For instance, the Ethereum blockchain now stores more than 1 Terabyte of data and it is only going to increase. This, then forces all full-node operators to download the entire blockchain in order to operate. Of course, this will make it difficult and impractical for blockchain networks to effectively and efficiently scale, as we are seeing with Ethereum. Notably, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has said that Ethereum will scale to process 1 million transactions per second. However, currently the platform seems to be far from reaching this level, considering the Ethereum network can only process at most 25 transactions per second. Before I continue explaining / analyzing the issues described above, it is worth noting that while describing “efficiency” for blockchains, the IOST whitepaper author(s) seem(s) to have not taken their time to proofread their whitepaper. If you carefully read the clause above, you will notice that the word “on” needs to placed after “network”. Like this: “to have all Core Magazine

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nodes [on] the network working on the same problem.”

gent there. Let’s get back to IOST.

Considering that IOST now has a market capitalization of nearly $350 million and a daily trading volume in the tens of millions of dollars, you’d think that the people invested in it would at least take some time go through the platform’s product offerings. Admittedly, this might be a very small mistake, but it does bring up a pertinent point. That being that the much

The IOST whitepaper accurately states:

more popular Tron platform, whose mainnet just launched, had pretty much plagiarized their whitepaper from IFPS. This was not even brought to anyone’s attention, except well after Tron had amassed huge profits through its cheap marketing tactics and tall promises. So, it shows that the cryptocurrency market is being invested in by numerous people who have no clue what they are investing in, because they are too lazy to put in the effort to read about where they are “investing” their money. Then, as a result of this, they are quite often scammed, and then they complain. That’s probably what they deserve though for not doing proper research. Sorry for going off the tan-

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Since all the participating nodes are esscentially conducting the same work, the number of transactions the system can process will not exceed that of a single node. Moreover, the growing size of the blockchain increases the requirements and costs of storage space, bandwith and computational resources for a node to fully participate in the network. The increasing mining cost will inevitably make the participation in the network become a privilege for the few. leading us. Due to high networking maintenance costs that full-node operators would have to bear, the “problem of centralization” will surface

again. Actually, it already has considering there seems to be a lingering debate about whether Ethereum is being controlled by who some called a dictator, Vitalik Buterin. While this type of control is not exactly linked to how the technology behind Ethereum itself functions, it is a valid argument that a truly decentralized network should not be controlled by a few central authorities or people. So, here we are seeing centralization with both the founders/creators of crypto platforms such as Dan Larimer, who along with a few other of his associates, is already controlling most of the things that happen with EOS and Steemit – both partly his creations. Apparently, the creators of IOST have a remedy for this. They aim to use a sharding technique, which has been used quite frequently in the more traditional distributed systems. Sharding is able to partition networks into sections referred to as “shards”. With this approach, each “shard” can operate its own consensus mechanism to allow for transactions to be processed simultaneously (or in parallel). The beauty of sharding, if implemented properly, is that not all full-node operators need

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to validate transactions on a blockchain. Instead, as the the IOST white paper states, “subsets of transactions can be handled by various consensus groups” in parallel and at the same time. This, again if implemented properly, can allow for the blockchain network to scale effectively. Furthermore, the creators of IOST, like many of the “next generation” blockchains proposers, claim that their platform will be suitable to run large-scale distributed

as technically strong as Satoshi Nakamoto would not have known what sharding is and that these problems were to surface. So, here we can even question was the Bitcoin protocol or even Ethereum designed with the best intentions in mind? Moreover, David Siegel who graduated from MIT with a PhD in computer science recently remarked that cryptocurrencies would “not hold” value like

Final note: It would not be a good idea to invest in IOST because it’s still “a work in progress” as noted in its whitepaper. Also, they claim they will be able to deliver “100,000 transactions per second”. Any new platform claiming so many transactions per second in general should require a lot more thorough investigation and

applications, in addition to enterprise level commercial applications.

their investors expect them to.

research.

Also, the billion dollar hedge fund manager said that blockchain is fascinating. Although Siegel did give his reasons for why he believes this, at this point it is reasonable to question the motive and credibility of the experts. That’s why it’s best to do your own research and use the best tool that you have, that being YOUR OWN BRAIN. Also, it is best to be receptive to new ideas and information instead of being overly biased, protective, and opinionated. Unfortunately, that’s the flaw in humans because we’re consumed with our own ego and usually make decisions based on our emotions, rather than sound logic. Let’s all learn to be responsible for our own safety and also be

DISCLAIMER: This article is not meant to influence any investment related decision. It’s purely for information purposes and to spread awareness about cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.

Let’s limit our discussion on IOST for now, and the interested reader may refer to the whitepaper document reference link noted below. Also, let’s do a bit of an analysis here…

Investigative Investments and Thought Process While all this does sound impressive and promising, it is worth noting that the data structures and distributed systems concepts that were originally used to implement the Bitcoin protocol were more than likely done with all this stuff in mind. Sharding is not a new concept, and it would be difficult to argue that someone

more responsible with how we safeguard our own assets, be they physical or digital.

Check out Crypto Core Media Magazine References: https://docsend.com/view/ rwgpdxx https://docsend.com/view/ rwgpdxx Omar Faridi omar@coregroup.info

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Reasons why Cryptocurrency can't Replace Established Currencies

eyond a shadow of a doubt, cryptocurrency has affected the world’s financial system in very pronounced ways. However, one thing remains vague; the future of cryptocurrency which is why people doubt if cryptocurrency can replace Established Currencies. Bitcoin, as well as other cryptocurrencies, were invented to meet the financial needs of people that do not trust the systems of central banks. Now, although having financial transactions that do not involve the central bank of a country might seem impossible to some people, Bitcoin was invented

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to function in exactly this way. While it’s true that Bitcoin has not gained worldwide acceptance, it has gained quite some level of prominence in certain countries with failed currencies. Such countries include Zimbabwe and Venezuela. Although this might seem a break from the norm, it is possible because Bitcoins appear to be more reliable than the national currencies of these countries. These happenings might be exciting to cryptocurrency enthusiasts. However, when looked at critically, it can be

concluded that cryptocurrency can’t replace established currencies. Now here’s why Bitcoin cannot replace established currencies;

It can handle only Meager Transactions a Minute Unlike VISA’s credit card network which comes with the ability to support 65,000 transactions in just a second, Bitcoin can handle only seven transactions in one second. While Bitcoin’s inability to handle a lot of

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transactions at once is already a major issue, this particular implementation flaw of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is becoming worse as the days goes by. There have been reallife situations of transactions that remained pending for days. In fact, if you register on the LocalBitcoins exchange, there is a message telling you that Bitcoin (BTC) transaction can even take weeks. Now, the truth remains that Bitcoin’s inability to support large numbers of transactions at the same time might not have gotten to critical levels yet. Although , notwithstanding, it might not be getting any better. If Bitcoin is unable to process more than seven transactions a second in a world where its use is still not generally accepted, then the chances of it living up to expectations when being used as an effective medium of exchange are very slim. Notably, a cryptocurrency analysis report published by Bloomberg noted that cryptos are not yet a reliable way to pay salaries and other everyday expenses.

Cryptocurrency can’t Replace Established Currencies because of Privacy Issues As regards privacy, Bitcoin is still a bit of puzzle to many. It gives both infinitesimal privacy and also excessive privacy. By providing too much privacy, criminal activities can be carried out through the use of Bitcoin, almost without obstruction. There are arguments, though, sound arguments, that the traditional financial system can and is used to orchestrate far more illicit activities that cryptos ever have or possibly could. However, due to the increasing regulatory oversight on digital currencies, this has actually hurt more than helped. It is giving rise to other illegal ways to deal in cryptocurrencies. Also, as a currency that does not give enough privacy, transactions that are carried out through the use of Bitcoins are trackable by a pseudonym.

The Value of Cryptocurrency Fluctuates Excessively Established Currencies are known to have values that

are fixed by central banks. As a result of this, they do not always fluctuate. On the other hand, cryptocurrencies, unlike regular currencies fluctuate excessively. The reason for this excessive fluctuation is: just like stocks, the value of cryptocurrencies is majorly affected by speculations regarding what they are worth. The excessive fluctuation of cryptocurrencies make them a great means for storing value but a very poor means for the exchange of value. Talking about cryptocurrency being a bad means of exchange of value, a Bitcoin which is the most accepted cryptocurrency could be worth a house in the evening and a piece of cake in the morning. Well, maybe not that extreme, but more realistically if you make a $100 BTC payment, then that amount could very well go down to $70 or even go up to $130. But for people who just want to be paid what they were owed, this can and is problematic. However, unlike cryptocurrencies, if one dollar is worth a shirt in the morning, there is a likelihood that it would be worth a shirt in a year’s time. Boniface Odinakachi ben@coregroup.info

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Why a Decentralized Internet is Important For Society The Status Quo Internet giants like Facebook and Google wield a lot of power as a result of their access to the endless sea of their usersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; data.

he fact that such organizations are centralized means the general public or the numerous subscribers are at the mercy of these organization when it comes to how they decide use the information. The problem here is not just a

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matter of intrusion or invasion of privacy, but the potential use of the power of such organizations to manipulate the collective thoughts of groups and as a means of controlling the populace. With the advent of cryptocurrencies, there has been a move to create a decentralized internet that

would allow users to have control over their data. We shall examine the need for society to be protected from the risks that come with huge centralized internet companies.

The Problem Facebook and Google do not only have access to databases

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of data but also how the data interacts with each other. “Knowledge Graphs” is an apt term for what these organizations possess. Complex algorithms are used to analyze and predict what a user might desire with a high degree of accuracy. If you ever felt every ad you run into seemed tailor-made for you, this is why. As stated in the introduction, these resources are very useful but can become dangerous tools when they end up in the wrong hands. Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, had to testify before the U.S Senate on how Cambridge Analytica was given access to data from about 87 million accounts. This data is said to have been used to create targeted political ads during the 2016 elections. From the hearing, we learned that the politicians in charge of overseeing such organizations can do little to rein them in since they don’t have the full understanding of the technology. This is alarming. Google, another internet giant, is said to have about 15 exabytes of data. This roughly the equivalent of storage space of 30 million personal computers. In 2009, the company experienced a data leak that involved

about 0.05% of their data. There have also been concerns about relations between Google and U.S Security agencies as well as their willingness to hand over data to those agencies. Some time has passed and we have less public outcry about the issue of data protection and the call for more oversight of internet giants like Facebook. Facebook also made it clear that it was taking steps to avoid such problems in the future. An example of the improvements was allowing users to be able to see what data of theirs the company was keeping and using. The European Union has also brought into effect new rules on data protection that mean users would have to give consent before certain information about their browsing activities can be collected. These are, however, no guarantees that these steps would prevent the next possible data breach. Once big players on the internet remain centralized, there would always be the great risk of data getting into the hands of the wrong people.

Cryptocurrencies and the Decentralized Internet For every Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, there is now a Diaspora, Steemit Basic Attention Token, and Dtube. We also have more decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges and decentralized marketing platforms being developed. These are all attempts to create decentralized media platforms that would greatly lower if not eliminate the potential exploitation of the user’s personal data. There are also cryptocurrency projects like Ethereum and EOS that are aimed at building a new and decentralized internet. Some of the “decentralized internet” projects named above have taken off successfully and are growing at a steady rate. They are however nowhere close to dethroning the current order. Despite numerous complaints, Facebook, Google, and Twitter are still doing okay. Interestingly, even though lots of criticisms and campaigns have been directed at these centralized companies, very few people actually deleted their social media accounts on these platforms.

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Why the Decentralized Internet Platforms have not taken over yet If we are all really concerned about our privacy and how our personal data is being used, why are the decentralized platforms not gaining ground at a faster rate? Almost all these projects are not widely known beyond the cryptocurrency world. The main reason is that the huge network effect of the existing platforms makes it difficult for users to leave for newer ones. For instance, a video blogger might be interested in using Dtube but would be reluctant to leave YouTube simply because she has a larger audience there. Another reason is that the decentralized internet applications are still a work-in-

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progress at the moment. Most of them are still working on improving their user interface and user-friendliness. For example,

systems for the decentralized version of the internet. To gain more network effect, the systems must have inbuilt incen-

Dtube is less attractive to the average user than YouTube at the moment. In addition, some of these platforms are in many ways still centralized since they are in the early stages of development and in the hands of the creators. Steemit is an example of a supposedly decentralized social media platform which is not actually decentralized. All these factors make it unlikely that the decentralized internet with decentralized applications would be a reality anytime soon.

tives that would attract users to sign up and stay on the various platforms. The existing incentives would have to be looked at and improved upon to attract non crypto savvy users as well.

The Way Forward The way forward for a decentralized internet and freedom from potential exploitation and manipulation of society would have to involve better incentive

It would also take some sacrifice from the current members of the cryptocurrency community. Individuals exposed to cryptocurrencies tend to become more aware of the need for privacy and decentralized systems, if that was not what drew them to the community in the first place. The crypto community would have to continue to lead the charge, build these decentralized systems, use them and spread the word. Elikem Kofi Attah elikem@coregroup.info

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EWS

Overview: the basics of the Komodo ecosystem 1. Privacy: a mighty privacy coin that protects your data and rewards you 5% annually. 5% rewards are easily claimed through the Agama wallet. $KMD can often be used to buy into decentralized ICOs launched on our platform at discounted price. KMD can also be traded with absolute privacy using Komodoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Jumblr tool

What is a privacy coin? Privacy coins implement various protocols to create a layer of privacy between blockchain transactions. This can be utilized to prevent blockchain traceability or provide different levels of privacy for data stored on the blockchain. What is Jumblr? A decentralized cryptocurrency shuffler that allows your transactions to become incognito and protects them from being traced Core Magazine

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through a time or knapsack attack. It adds a privacy layer to your transactions because after your coins are Jumblr’ed, an analysis of the amounts that went in or times that they came out is futile. This function is unique to Komodo and does not require third parties.

2. Security A secure and robust consensus mechanism called delayed Proof of Work (dPoW) that protects your funds and our ecosystem. This unique technology uses a notarization process to create a backup of the entire Komodo blockchain onto the Bitcoin blockchain thereby increasing security

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and resilience. This happens roughly every ten minutes. The backups are then saved (notarized) onto the Bitcoin blockchain because it has the highest hashrate available. So even if Komodo suffered a devastating attack (which is extremely unlikely), the Komodo blockchain would merely revert to the most recently notarized copy of the chain. If Bitcoin loses superiority in terms of hashrate the dPOW mechanism can be switched to another blockchain on demand. Hence, Komodo is the most flexible platform to build on and one of the most secure. What is hashrate? A proof of work blockchain

needs a lot of calculations. Hashrate is the way it is measured. The amount of data hashed in a given time by a machine. It is a unit used to define the amount of calculations made by a machine. When you add all the machines together you have the hashrate for that blockchain (here’s a great chart that illustrates it). It’s like a river of transactions and the broader and wider it is, the harder it is to manipulate it. Hashrate historical chart: https://bitinfocharts.com/ comparison/hashrate-btc-ethbch-ltc.html#1y.

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3. Freedom from middlemen A decentralized exchange (DEX) called BarterDEX, with a fully working order book, powered by our world class atomic swap technology. This reduces risk and transaction fees. Komodo’s atomic swaps work between Bitcoin protocol and ERC20 tokens which means we can support over 95% of all the tokens and coins in existence. Our decentralized exchange offers ‘liquidity power-ups’ which mean that you can place more than one buy order with the same funds (i.e. pick your top 5 coins and if any of them drop below 50% of their value you’ll buy it and

cancel the other orders at the same time) which means your funds have a greater value! On top of all that, Komodo’s DEX has fast transaction speeds and super low transaction fees (0.15%). You can find live BarterDEX and Komodo Stats here. What are atomic swaps? Atomic swaps are a method of trading cryptocurrencies peer-to-peer, directly from one blockchain to another, without the need to trust a third-party. Here is a good article to read that will take you about 11 minutes ‘Atomic Swaps & Etomic Swaps, Explained in Plain English’ written by John Westbrook on Medium. Why do you want an ex-

change to be decentralized? A centralized exchange is a third party and requires you to trust them with your funds. If they’re hacked you’re at risk of losing your funds. Centralized exchanges also require you to trade between pillars (i.e. BTC or USDT) which can involve higher transaction fees and a greater number of trades than necessary to swap the token you have for the one you want (i.e. DOGE sell to BTC to buy KMD is two trades when all you really want is DOGE to KMD).

4. Independence Decentralized ICO crowdfunding and scalability solutions for blockchain startups. Core Magazine

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You can think of a blockchain as a motorway and if you build a project on the same blockchain as other projects you will be impacted by how well the other drives behave, or by the motorway introducing tolls, or you could suffer from congestion (i.e. if you’re familiar with how crypto kitties caused ETH transaction fees to greatly increase and transaction speeds to slow down then you’ll understand multiple projects on one blockchain cause a scalability and independence problem ). Komodo offers parallel chains which mean a project or decentralized ICO is given

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its own chain which uses Komodo’s technology. This also solves the scalability issue because using the motorway analogy we can simply open more lanes for a project with a high amount of congestion. This is possible because of the dPOW notarisation. It allows projects to launch completely independent blockchains. Every independent blockchain created on Komodo Platform is automatically integrated into Komodo’s BarterDEX (DEX) which means they have instant access to liquidity for their token and their community can buy and trade immediately. If you compare this to a centralized

exchange where projects are often met with a list of onerous demands and fees to be listed and risk being delisted then you’ll understand how important this is for any project especially smaller teams and decentralized apps (dAPPS). 5. Universal Wallet: the Agama Wallet is a universal secure, multi-coin wallet to store funds on and claim the 5% reward for your $KMD tokens. There is also a paper wallet available if you would prefer a cold storage option for those who want to maximize their security.

News

Blockfolio adds BarterDEX to its list of exchanges in the app!

BarterDEX, Komodo’s decentralized exchange, has recently been added to Blockfolio! BarterDEX is the world’s most advanced decentralized exchange and is fully powered by Komodo’s atomic swap technology. Atomic swaps are peerto-peer crypto trades, directly from one blockchain to another, so they’re much cheaper and more secure than traditional trades. Over 108,000 atomic

swaps have been performed. BarterDEX supports trading for over 95% of coins and tokens in existence, including direct trading between BTC-based coins and ERC-20 tokens. In order to see the exchange the user must update the app, Sync, then make sure they are looking at a pair trading on that exchange as the app mirrors order books exactly.

On top of all that, a private release of HyperDEX, our new, user-friendly GUI, is currently available. BarterDEX is the engine under the hood that powers HyperDEX, the shiny new exterior for the DEX. Download HyperDEX now and start making atomic swaps!

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Earth token Allan â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Managing Director at Earth Token discusses Environmental Sustainability

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SPECIAL ARTICLES

Earth Token Managing Director Allan has been involved in the IT industry since 1999. Primarily, Allan says heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been working in the area of product marketing and has spent a lot of time working with Oracle; 10 years in fact. I

n addition, heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s worked with Microsoft for 5 years in the product planning department. As a planner for Microsoft, he helped guide some of their investment

related decisions. As Allan explains, his areas of expertise include marketing, business strategy, and product management. Currently, Allan is working for Impact Choice, focusing or product marketing.

Impact Choice is the holding company that has given birth to Earth Token and a Natural Asset Exchange. Interestingly, Impact Choice has been in the crypto game since 2009, and company members have realized that if Core Magazine

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you are really going to make an impact on the environment with initiatives such as environmental sustainability, then you will need to address a lot more than just climate change and carbon mitigation.

rid of a lot of the middleman operating in the process. This also provided them a way to engage the broader populace. With blockchain technology, there’s more transparency and accountability.

To really make positive contributions toward the environment, you have to take into consideration the entire ecosystem, Allan explains. Plus, there’s also a social aspect to all of it. Therefore, to make the

So, as far as implementation goes, Earth Token has been putting in a serious effort integrating blockchain into some of their business processes. Notably, 17th November 2017 saw the launch of the Earth token,

most effective contributions, the whole process should be democratized, according to the experience marketing executive. And, this can be done by involving people at the grassroots level. This can be done in a relatively easy way by getting more companies involved.

with a well-received crowdsale. Simply put, Earth token is a cryptocurrency focused on environmental sustainability, and as a universal medium of exchange can be used by literally anyone to support just about any environment-related project they like.

Allan – Managing Director at Earth Token – Says Blockchain can Bring Transparency Due to regulatory compliance issues, the idea of implementing a blockchain-based natural asset exchange, as Earth token IT Director Wesley Carlson would agree, seemed ideal. That’s because it gets

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The idea is to use the Earth tokens to transact over the Natural Asset Exchange. Presently, the Ethereum blockchain is being used to circulate ERC20 based Earth tokens, but the long-term goal is to really prioritize what the company is doing, Allan notes. This could possibly lead to Earth token using its own blockchain or using a Blockchain-as-a-Service platform, in order to avoid the excessive traffic on Ethereum’s blockchain.

Additionally, Allan notes that in order to really provide value to a crypto token, the right approach is to develop real-world use cases for it. That will not only help the usage and market cap of your tokens grow in the long-term but will also attract the more informed investors, per the marketing manager. Currently, users can access Impact Choice’s Natural Asset Exchange on naturalasset.exchange. No natural assets like oil and coal are actually traded on this exchange, Allan explains. Only projects that have a “measurable positive impact” on our environment and on Earth, such as Carbon avoidance projects, will be traded on the Natural Asset Exchange. Omar Faridi omar@coregroup.info

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Earth Token | Crypto Marketing Manager

Join us on a new crypto radio interview with Allen from Earth Token joins us and gives us his perspective on the markets and a more detailed explanation of how earth token works.

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here it all began Back in 2007, our co-founder and architect, Leonard Harley came to the harsh realization that we as a species were having a profound negative affect on the environment around us. As the earth’s fragile ecosystem is put under increasing pressure to deliver on the demands of an exploding population our environment and natural assets were held in total disregard. We’re getting rid of natural habitats and ecosystems that

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that support our food chain and force indigenous communities to adopt practices that further destroy our environment, such as deforestation and poaching.

Assets and launch initiatives project to protect them.

While climate change is extremely important and relevant, it is only a part of the puzzle, focusing on one area above others distorts the total picture. Fortunately, over the last few years, these issues have cone

Our focus is on Environmental Sustainability, not a specific aspect - it’s about preserving our natural assets and minimizing our impact on the earth for those that come after us, and as a company, impactChoice has been providing Environmental Sustainability solutions since 2009. Our mission is to enable

to the fore and there are many moves afoot to enable governments and institutions to put value on the Earth’s Natural

institutions and individuals alike, to minimize their impact on the environment by providing simple solutions that allow

SPECIAL ARTICLES

them to achieve their environmental goals. From day one, we realized that if we were going to be in any way effective in achieving our vision, there were two things we had to do. One, we had to develop solutions, services and best practices that enabled business to reduce and share the financial burden that is typically associated with environmental initiatives, and two, we had to involve as many folks as possible in sustainability efforts. We built the world’s first Carbon Asset Management platform that allowed business to involve customer in their mitigation efforts at the transactional level. However, we faced enormous market and technological challenges in order to deliver the solution. These included tons of red tape & bureaucracy, lack of transparency & trust and extreme market complexity. We operate in an industry that requires disruptive change and were looking at new ideas and enabling technologies which would allow us to democratize the landscape within we operate.

Why Blockchain & Crypto With blockchain technology maturing in 2016, we realized that we finally had one of the critical building blocks we needed to make our vision a reality. It provides a trusted and transparent platform that reduces complexity and unnecessary overhead, allowing all to participate. In August of 2016 we decided to migrate one of our core systems to a distributed ledger which we launched in April 2017.

generations.

Cryptocurrencies per se were relatively new to us at the time, but code is code and we immediately recognized the enormous potential this presented and were excited to be part of a new disruptive economy. Adding a cryptocurrency to our core systems running on blockchain provided another vital building block needed enable us to achieve our core objectives.

Earth Token is a great name for our token because that’s what it’s all about.

We finally had all the pieces - a platform that eliminates all the complexity we we’re dealing with on a day-to-day basis, and the means via Earth Token to reach a massive audience and incentivize them to actively participate in Environmental Sustainability efforts that preserve the Earth for future

Since the close of our ICO on March 15th 2018, we have been hard at work building partnerships and making strategic acquisitions to build out our platform and ecosystem, and launched the Alpha 1.0 version of the Natural Asset Exchange at the World Travel Market Event in Cape Town South Africa on

Our ICO We launched our ICO on November 17th 2017. To us it was about so much more than just raising capital, it went much deeper. No other funding mechanism could result in a project having an active, engaged, supportive, global, grassroots community that creates a network effect. It was not only exciting but vital to achieving our mission.

The EARTH Token project was launched to create a marketplace that removed current barriers to participation in activities that preserve our Environment and allows all stakeholders (Buyers and Sellers) in the environmental value chain to participate.

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April 19th 2018. EARTH Token and the NAE in a nutshell EARTH Token (EARTH) and the Natural Asset Exchange is set to revolutionize the trade in carbon mitigation products, environmental sustainability products, and other natural assets. Without being bound by cross-governmental agreements or building multiple non-connected markets at different corners of the planet or relying on middlemen that add little or no value to the process, we give providers (Sellers) of Natural Assets that make a tangible positive contribution to our environment access to a blockchain based market. Once verified they load their assets onto the platform ready to trade. There is no minimum buy-in to participate. Loading an asset locks it into the blockchain, set at the price denominated in EARTH on Cryptocurrency Exchanges and makes the product available to an open, universally and globally accessible market that is operating in real time. On the buy side, armed with EARTH Token, buyers

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can be businesses of any size, they can be organizations both public and private, and even individuals. They make their trade and buy a natural asset at a price and size that matches their needs. The purchase is recorded on the blockchain and the environmental asset is transferred to the buyer, no middlemen, no inefficiency, no additional cost layers. EARTH can be earned via incentive schemes or purchased with Fiat currency on Cryptocurrency Exchanges such as QUOINE. Interesting Projects and Solutions • Carbon Mitigation, a solution that enables individuals and organizations of all sizes to compensate for negative effects on the environment resulting from their activities and business operations, obviously remains one of our core competencies and is part of our DNA as a company. Our projects span many industries and we’ve enabled many companies to reach their final goal of attaining Carbon Neutrality. All these companies have stringent environmental polices across all their operations and are internation-

ally recognized for their efforts. Examples include Hotel Verde South Africa, the Greenest Hotel in Africa and Darling Brew, Africa’s first Carbon Neutral Brewery. In addition to expanding our solutions suite that now also enables individuals to mitigate their Carbon Footprint via the NAE (naturalasset.exchange), we’re working with a number of suppliers, brokers and government institutions to establish and broaden environmental project portfolios. • Clean Energy is our other major area of focus, for two reasons; a) Energy generation from the burning of fossil is a major contributor to global emissions, and b) the output from our clean energy projects will be traded exclusively across the NAE in EARTH, resulting in massive transaction volumes across the exchange and driving demand for EARTH Token. This is obviously an area that has required substantial investment from our side and have a number of large and exciting projects in the pipeline which will be coming online in the not too distant future. Solar (Photovoltaic) tech-

SPECIAL ARTICLES

nologies and solutions have a dramatic effect on global emissions as they reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and often overloaded national power grids for energy generation.

ification plants capable of converting any carbon-containing feedstock such as biomass, coal, petroleum coke, or municipal solid waste into synthetic gas (Syngas)

Together with partners, we recently completed a 1.2 MW Solar/PV installation for Ceramic Industries in Krugersdorp, South Africa which yields 1,648,024 kWh per year and roughly equates to 1,632 Metric Tons of avoided emissions per

The Syngas produced by this gasification process is a clean, dry, flexible fuel which can be 1. Burned to create heat and electricity, 2. Passed through any of several different catalysts to produce fluids such as alcohols

year. The system comprises 3,744 solar panels, 39 inverters, and 39 solar surge protection units and has a payback period of just 5 years and 5 months.

Waste to Energy is the process of generating energy from the primary treatment of waste materials and is a form of energy recovery. Waste to Energy technologies and solutions are particularly significant as they not only provide a clean energy source, but also eliminate waste materials that further pollute our environment.

and transportation fuels, including clean burning diesel, or 3. Used to supply pure hydrogen gas for multiple applications. As I mentioned above, we here also have a number of significant projects in the pipeline that will drive significant transaction volumes across the NAE and increase demand for EARTH. Into the future The depressed Crypto market obviously has an affect on how we prioritize our investments in the short term, so are keepings our heads down on building out our infrastructure and ecosystem while waiting for the market to turn.

We are working with a strategic partner (announcement imminent) that provides gas-

Over the next months we will be bringing some of the projects mentioned above online expect

This is the first of many projects we currently have in the pipeline.

to have new versions of the NAE that includes enhanced functionality that could encompass IoT and AI features ready for release. These are exciting times and are looking forward to creating awareness across the global community as to the importance of preserving our planet, while providing the infrastructure necessary for all to take the appropriate action. Allan Saunders Managing Director, impactChoice, Isle of Man

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ChainZilla | B2B an d E nterprise Blockchain Deploym ent Amsterdam, Netherlands (June 15th 2018) â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Yesterday one of the leading voices at Komodo Platform announced the launch of ChainZilla â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a company focused on enterprise solutions for blockchain deployment, ICO management, and p2p app development.

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n 2016, the Komodo project was born out of the need to create true decentralized technology and decrease the co-dependency between blockchains, thus giving rise to blockchain interoperability. Within two years of its inception, Komodo has delivered innovative technology including native tokenization, atomic swaps, and local zero-knowledge tumbling. Presently, the project is laying down the groundwork for executing smart contracts across arbitrary blockchains. Additionally, the project has delivered a full range of practical applications such as the Agama wallet, Utrum and Monaize dico apps, Jumblr, and Barterdex. Other examples of underutilized yet useful applications by other projects include NEM’s Mosaic technology and voting applications. In contrast to their competitors, these applications have little documentation and don’t fulfill enterprise standards. Hence, they have seen little commercial adoption and recognition.

“The blockchain assets of our clients are worthless without any

strategy, execution and organization. We DON’T believe in following the competition; rather, we want to be the ones to SHOW them how it’s done. Our target is to make migration to blockchains and p2p systems a seamless process.” Charles Gonzalez, ChainZilla CEO There is a widening gap between the open source community and commercial use of decentralized technology. ChainZilla’s mission is to facilitate growth and bridge this gap by becoming the global standard for blockchain deployment and p2p app development. Backed by an experienced team, wide range of advisors, and strong leadership, ChainZilla is poised to solve some of the problems faced by Komodo and other similar projects, like Nem and Qtum, that seek commercial and enterprise adoption of their technology.

Enhanced DIY Blockchain Services & Applications In 2008 Satoshi Nakamoto changed the way we view currency and introduced blockchain technology to the world. Ever since then there has been a steady increase in the development of cryptocurrency and p2p platforms. Today projects like Komodo, Iota, Nem, and Ethereum are leading at the forefront of smart contract technology, tokenization, and decentralized applications. A few handpicked applications from these projects will get a complete redesign with a new look and rich ux/ui makeover that makes it easy for any person to use and for developers to customize. The new designs will highlight the new and updated features that were previously difficult to use and can serve a specific project or purpose.

Easy Blockchain Deployment for Companies The blockchain is a public digital ledger, like a database, that creates an unchangeable record of transactions between users, each one time-stamped

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and linked to the previous one so it cannot be duplicated or modified. Each digital record or transaction in the thread is called a block, and the string of blocks are a chain, hence the name. These digital records can be used to transfer value (such as Bitcoin) or transfer simple data. However, most blockchains are isolated to finance-related projects and other sectors like real estate, information, transport, and healthcare have ignored block-

ogy. Chainzilla aims to create a bridge between third party companies and open source blockchain projects. It allows companies to leverage opensource technology for multiple purposes with minimal effort. ChainZilla will be involved in four major fields: fintech, blockchain, academic, and security. ChainZilla believes that each of these groups of clienteles have different pain points and all are heavily isolated â&#x20AC;&#x201C; ChainZilla plans to leverage their expertise

chain completely. This is due to the young age of the technology, and the difficulty of launching a blockchain and maintaining the applications. ChainZilla removes the difficulty and allows companies to launch a minimum viable blockchain within 4 weeks. Their clients and the open source projects will benefit from the increased adoption and usability of the redesigned apps.

in each of these fields to provide what it believes will be the most intuitive and secure blockchain deployment services on the market.

Paving the way for adoption In response to demand from investors, companies, and other stakeholders ChainZilla becomes the first company of its kind in Latin America to offer enterprise blockchain services that seek to pierce the traditional markets with blockchain and p2p technol-

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Team & Partners ChainZilla announced partnerships with several entry-level exchanges and payment processors to facilitate listing services for their clients. Among their associate exchanges are CoinExchange, BarterDEX, CoinGate, and Cryptopia. Additionally, ChainZillaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s blockchain partners include Komodo Platform, Abee Ride, and CryptoGeeks.

Additional Resources ChainZilla Apps: http://support.chainzilla.io/support/solutions/folders/43000048191 Connect with ChainZilla: Twitter, LinkedIn, Bitcointalk, Github Support: support@chainzilla.io What is a minimum viable blockchain: www.medium. com/@st3rling0x/what-is-aminimum-viable-blockchain9c582b2d601d

Ready to Launch? Are you interested in launching a blockchain, decentralized application, or ICO? Get in touch with a ChainZilla representative now: contact@chainzilla.io

Blockchain News

o, in one calendar year, the global sports industry earns massively from competitive sports games, recreational sports, and the newer e-sports. Immersed in the sports industry are obviously highly paid athletes, sport equipment manufacturers, sports media, team owners and management, brokerage companies, etc. Due to the rise of the internet, particularly cellular technology, the All Sports whitepaper notes that sports related content can be spread across the globe faster than ever before. Moreover, IP licensing based sports derivatives and sports betting are now the primary revenue generators for the world’s rapidly evolving sports industry. Notably, the All Sports whitepaper states that the Mayweather and McGregor boxing match made a staggering $600 million while simply the transfer of Neymar to Paris Saint-Germain netted a sensational €220 million. Clearly, there’s big money involved here. There’s an industrial chain operating here where every contributing member (athletes, sports media) has their respective commercial value. However, the value of each member is dependent on the value of all contributing

members to the global sports ecosystem. Simply put, if Mayweather earns hundreds of millions of dollars from boxing, he’s doing so by engaging in an ecosystem where other people are also participating. So, if McGregor did not want to fight Mayweather, then the massive earning opportunity would have never materialized. Obviously, this is a very simple concept to grasp.

All Sports Whitepaper To help further increase the global sports industry revenue stream, the All Sports developers aim to:

sports prediction platform, sports apps and gaming platforms, etc.” To cater to the sports business owners, the sports-oriented platform intends to:

“[give] all business participants transparent application development services and business realisations through operation of blockchain ecosystem chain and tokenisation of assets in order to achieve business goals.” Obviously, this is a poorly written whitepaper, but I think we all get the idea here. All Sports simply wants to leverage blockchain technology and implement its network in a manner that would help engage all contributing parties in the world’s sports ecosystem. The engagement via this platform’s network is supposed to be beneficial to all parties involved. Should this serve as a green light for more investments to

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Theta Network Rewards Viewers for Watching Streaming Videos

he Theta network aims to incentivize video streaming by issuing its own token. The platform’s whitepaper says that users may

“share their redundant computing and bandwidth resources as caching nodes for video streams.”

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Below, is an abstract from the Theta network’s whitepaper: The Theta Network and protocol solves various challenges the video streaming industry faces today. First, Theta Tokens are used as an incentive to encourage individual users to share their redundant computing and bandwidth resources as caching nodes for video streams. This

improves the quality of stream delivery and solves the “last-mile” delivery problem, the main bottleneck for traditional stream delivery pipelines, especially for high resolution high bitrate 4k, 8k and next generation streams. Second, with sufficient amount of caching nodes, the majority of viewers will pull streams from peering caching nodes. This significantly reduces

Blockchain News

content delivery network (CDN) bandwidth costs, which is a major concern for video streaming sites. Lastly, the Theta Network greatly improves the streaming market efficiency by streamlining the video delivery process. For example, advertisers can target end viewers at a lower cost and reward influencers more transparently. Simply put, by sharing their computer’s resources, users are rewarded with the platform’s native token, as they help other internet users to enjoy high quality video streaming at much lower costs. The Theta network allows users to create off-chain “resource oriented micropayment pool[s]” that other platform users can withdraw funds/payments from. Since all transactions are handled off-chain, this should speed up transaction processing times.

Theta Network – Proof of Engagement Using proof of engagement, a way to determine whether users are actually watching the streaming videos being offered, the network rewards viewers with its native token. It’s the advertisers on the Theta network

that reward viewers with the platform’s tokens The platform’s native token is simply an ERC-20 token and its network (blockchain) is scheduled for an upgrade in 4th quarter 2018. Once the upgrade has been completed, Theta network developers claim that its token will be exchangeable at 1:1 with its ERC-20 based token. The

SLIVER.tv

company,

which specializes in cuttingedge video streaming technologies such as for VR, has reportedly been instrumental in developing the Theta network. With the help of SLIVER.tv, the decentralized video streaming platform has managed to raise $17 million in funds. Notably, cryptocurrency exchange Binance recently added the platform’s THETA token to its list of supported coins/tokens.

The Bigger Picture With so many new cryptocurrency related platforms claiming to offer similar services, such as the much more popular and overhyped Tron network, the users could be understandably confused as to which one to invest their time or money in. Perhaps the best course of action would be to try

to learn the best you can about crypto / blockchain related technologies, instead of focusing on making profits off trades. Many crypto traders have been unpleasantly surprised after learning that their cryptocurrency trading gains are now being considered as taxable capital gains. This of course means that traders and investors will have to pay Uncle Sam taxes on their crypto earnings, just like they would with earnings from all other things. At present, the crypto market has dived into a sea of red and many are attributing this decline in prices to crypto traders having to pay taxes. CEO of ARK Invest, an investment management firm, noted:

“Those who have never paid taxes before are shocked. Many people gained a lot from cryptocurrency last year but currently, do not have enough cryptocurrency to pay taxes for their last year’s gains.” Omar Faridi omar@coregroup.info

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Blockchain News

WONO Blockchain Set To Revolutionize Sharing Market Sector

ONO – How a blockchainbased startup is going to make a revolution in the sharing economy market segment No need to explain all pros of a P2P economy. The Internet helped private vendors provide high-quality services to their customers and compete with traditional businesses, mostly winning due to lower prices.

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However, there’s still a long way to make private asset sharing and freelancing more affordable for customers and profitable for vendors. WONO, a blockchain-based startup aims to disrupt monopolies and make sharing decentralized and community-driven. Ironically, the economic sector that supposed to be the most democratic is now one of the most monopolized. OK, you

still have a choice if you want to hire a private car or become a freelancer… But if you wish to rent out or hire a flat or a house, you don’t have one. That’s a pity because lack of competition leads to poor service and higher prices. WONO aims to unite all functions of existing off chain sharing services to build a global peer-to-peer environment for sharing private assets

Blockchain News

of any kind, plus freelancing which is by nature sharing of human resources. While all off chain (and most blockchain!) services divide users into vendors and customers, WONO lets them act in two roles simultaneously. You can rent out your country house, work as a freelance designer and hire a bike for an evening ride at the same time, using a single account. WONO token is utilized worldwide for any type of deals. That’s very handy as you can actually never withdraw tokens and save loads of money on currency exchange and taxes. The latter needs an explanation. By now, in most countries including the United States and European Union, a utility token is a digital asset. All token transactions are non-taxable 100% legally. So until you exchange your earnings into fiat money, you don’t pay anything. This helps vendors offer even better prices. What’s more, due to lower transaction cost in the blockchain, WONO platform can afford to take 1-5% fee, staying a profitable business, instead of charging 10-25% fee as off chain monopolists do.

Returning to the statement made in the beginning, this helps WONO to make sharing more affordable and profitable at the same time due to its unrivalled business model. Money goes to the individual who does the job or owns an asset, not to some intermediaries or bureaucrats. Moreover, a small, fair part of the deal price goes to the platform which makes everything possible. Some critics may ask: if monopolism of particular companies is so bad, why unite everything on one platform. Isn’t it an even worse form of a monopoly?

the platform policy. The community solves all disputes. Even deal insurance is open to anyone who wishes to take the risk and get a bonus if the deal ends successfully. What’s more, all transactions data, user reviews and ratings are transparent and can’t be changed or deleted by the platform administration. WONO proof of concept will be shown to the public at the end of July, shortly before the ICO starts. The market release is scheduled for summer 2019. Media Contact Name: Kirill Pyrev Email: kp@wono.io

First, on the blockchain, the logic “1 market segment = 1 service” doesn’t work. You need to build a global network or don’t build anything. In the world of the blockchain, each service has its own currency. If there would be ten sharing services for ten kinds of sharing, users will have to buy ten types of tokens and continuously exchange them losing time and money.

TG Group Link: https://t.me/ wonoworld Website: https://wono.io Omar Faridi omar@coregroup.info

Second, WONO is a community-driven service. Most of the tokens are held by users themselves and they can influence

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Blockchain News

StreetCred Creating Decentralized Google Maps

StreetCred Is a company trying to tokenize the massive mapping industry. The users will be rewarded with the tokens when they share the locations and photos of the place that they visit.

etâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s look into this new blockchain product in detail that might disrupt Mapping Industry.

Highly Centralized Mapping Industry The Mapping industry is highly centralized with only

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very few companies having all the mapping data namely Google, Yelp, Uber, and Pokemon GO. The applications have a lot of location data; namely restaurants, pubs, offices, streets and even ATM location data. This data is captured by them, and they have taken years

for them to collect and was also very expensive. The information provided by the above companies is also not perfect. Sometimes we end up in a dead-end following the maps and also the restaurants are closed by the time we ar-

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rive, where the timing is wrong in the maps. A new company which wants to capture all the location data is very expensive, and it is nearly impossible to collect all the data captured by Google once again. The Mapping data is not only inaccurate, but also very centralized.

StreetCred Providing Solution for Mapping StreetCred team is trying to create a better solution for this Mapping data by tokenizing it. The users are rewarded in tokens if they share the location data with pictures. Thus, one can easily buy the Mapping data from StreetCred using its tokens. By this way, Mapping industry is becoming decentralized and also rewards its users for sharing the information. This will provide extensive mapping data from across the world since currently Google or any other application does not reward users for their data. CEO of StreetCred Randy Meech explained that if one wants to build another Uber or Google or Pokemon GO, it would be very difficult and highly expensive to gather all the location data. But in StreetCred the location data is captured by users and since they are

rewarded in Tokens, it would be easier to collect millions of points of interests easily in a decentralized manner. Since it is decentralized, it would also be censorship-resistant and the data won’t be hidden like that we see in Google Maps. Team Behind StreetCred Randy Meech is the CEO of StreetCred and he has vast experience in the Mapping industry serving as CTO in MapQuest and also CEO in Mapzen. Mazen is the subsidiary company of Samsung that provides Mapping solution. In Mapzen only Randy met StreeCred’s cofounder Diana Shkolnikov. The company was started due to the sudden shutdown of Mapzen. Even if Mapzen has already been shut down, Randy is not giving up on StreetCred. He argues that since blockchain technology is decentralized, it is not that easy to shut down if they got the protocol and data economy correct. Below is his quote on using blockchain technology to one’s advantage to help the society and people.

“It’s a very natural way to open up and decentralize the data and also to build a

payment mechanism around that.”

StreetCred Explained in Layman Terms StreetCred is nothing but a location sharing app like that of Foursquare and will collect location data from people by rewarding the users with its tokens. So the location data would be stored in the blockchain in a decentralized manner and any companies who want to buy Location data should first buy the StreetCred tokens, and using the tokens, they can buy the data. In layman terms, we can say that it is another Foursquare but in a decentralized blockchain based technology, giving the power to the people. This is one example and use case of the Token economy and many other use cases are slowly getting Tokenized. That why blockchain experts are predicting that “World would be Tokenized in the future.” Kadhir Velavan Ramasubramaniam kadhir@coregroup.info

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Ethereum and NEO | Competing for dApps Dapps and Smart Contracts Ethereum and NEO are two different blockchains offering dApps and Smart Contracts. They both want to compete with each other to acquire more decentralized applications to be run on their blockchain.

Ethereum having the advantage of being the second most valuable cryptocurrency after Bitcoin and thousands of applications running on it, we will see if NEO can dethrone Ethereum in the long run.

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Ethereum â&#x20AC;&#x201C; First Mover Advantage Ethereum has the first mover advantage and that is the major reason for it to acquire thousands of decentralized applications to run on its blockchain.

Most of the ICOs announce their ERC20 tokens that run on Ethereum Blockchain. Ethereum not only has first mover advantage, but it is also widely accepted and it can be easily funded from across the globe. Investors can easily buy ETH

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with fiat currency globally since the Eth-Fiat pair is supported in almost all the exchanges. Ethereum also has a wide range of dApps running on its blockchain that adds value to the ecosystem. They have thousands of decentralized applications that have different functionalities and so it is very difficult to dethrone Ethereum from the top spot. NEO, or any other competitor, would need for its native or associated cryptocurrencies to be more widely used and also offer a more robust blockchain to replace Ethereum. Ethereum also has some major flaws that have seemingly given its competitors the edge to develop better and more scalable blockchain all while also supporting decentralized applications. Scalability and transaction fees in terms of GAS cost are factors that are considered as drawbacks of Ethereum, which it now seems is giving opportunities for other blockchains to compete with it and also campaigning to be “Next Ethereum” or “Ethereum Killer“. NEO is one such newly developed blockchain that is widely called as “Chinese Ethereum” since its founders are in China and the project is

supported by the Chinese government.

NEO – Chinese Ethereum NEO is considered as “Chinese Ethereum” and it is competing with Ethereum directly to acquire more applications and Smart Contracts. NEO follows the advanced Proof of Stake algorithm called “Delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance“. It can handle 1000 transactions per second and they are aiming for 10k TPS. Meanwhile, Ethereum uses proof-of-work and they have also proposed to move to proof-of-stake in future due to scalability issues. NEO is a Smart Contract system that integrates Digital Identity and Digital Assets to become a “Smart Economy“. “Digital Identity” is like KYC on the blockchain and it can help authorities to identify the individuals participating in the token sale. “Digital Assets” are assets that are placed on the blockchain for sale. For example, one can announce tokens for physical diamonds and sell the corresponding tokens to a new user to change the ownership and this sale and the new user details will be verifiable on the blockchain. This is the way

“Smart Economy” is intended to work, thereby attempting to integrate the normal economy into blockchain. NEO also has its own flaws in the form of security and robustness. Its blockchain came to a standstill on 6th March 2018 when one of its consensus nodes went offline. The network stopped functioning when one of the seven nodes needed for consensus went down. This created a lot of bad press for NEO and raised a big question about its reliability. NEO is also very costly for dApps and smart contract developers, compared to Ethereum.

Ethereum and NEO Ethereum and NEO – Both are competing with each other directly. They both have advantages and disadvantages over one another. Below are some of them listed for both Ethereum and NEO.

The Advantage of Using NEO for Smart Contracts: • Scalability issues addressed and can handle 1000 TPS.

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• It is more regulator friendly and so its chances of shutdown due to governmental pressure pressure is less. • It requires less energy since it uses “Proof of Stake” algorithm. • Transaction fees in terms of GAS are very less compared with Ethereum. • GAS is another cryptocurrency and can be acquired by staking NEO whereas Ethereum uses its only token ETH as GAS. • It can support multiple programming languages compared to Ethereum which only accepts Solidity to develop applications.

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Advantages of Using Ethereum for Smart Contracts: • Ethereum has backing from corporate clients and thousands of decentralized applications run on its blockchain. • Its currency Ether is listed on almost all the exchanges for any investor to buy and fund ICOs, whereas NEO is not available that widely. • Both Ethereum and NEO are highly centralized, due mainly to a relatively small group of people making a lot of decisions related to the respective platforms. But we can argue that Ethereum is more decentralized than NEO, due to the fact that

50% of the NEO tokens are still held by the creators of NEO. • Ethereum cannot be replaced that easily since it is very difficult to move all the existing dApps and Smart Contracts from the Ethereum blockchain to another network altogether, even if the new blockchain is more user-friendly and robust. Kadhir Velavan Ramasubramaniam kadhir@coregroup.info

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Bitcoin Price Manipulation â&#x20AC;&#x201C; How it Happens, How to Avoid it

Dapps and Smart Contracts Price manipulation is not a new phenomenon in the financial market, however in the unregulated coin market, it has the tendency to become prevalent if left unchecked.

t is a known fact that regulators are aware this happens in the stock market but have not been able to eliminate it. Bitcoin price

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manipulation is especially a major interest in the crypto ecosystem.

Justice Department Probe There have been speculations that Bitcoin price is highly manipulated. This is the reason

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for the recent Justice Department probe. The Department intends to find out if the price of Bitcoin is being manipulated behind-the-scene by individuals, groups or even exchanges.

Spoofing: Placing Order and Canceling Later A little over a year ago, most people knew nothing about Bitcoin, those that were informed were not aware that the digital currency would become a valuable asset that would be subjected to manipulative tendencies. However, with the surge in price that saw the coin valued at nearly $20,000 by December 2017, all sorts of people developed interest in hodling and trading it, leading to a more complex market and price control. John Griffin, a University of Texas finance professor is of the view that the absence of regulation makes Bitcoin a prime target for behind –the-scene influence. According to him, “There’s very little monitoring of manipulative trading, spoofing and wash trading,” Griffin said. “It would be easy to spoof this market.” In spoofing, traders try to

influence the price of Bitcoin by the placement of orders just to move the price. These orders are placed in exchanges with the intention to move the price in a particular direction. They are cancelled as soon as the market moves in the desired way. For instance, last year, a crypto blogger flagged an order of $1 million as spoofy after the trader failed to redeem it. That was not an accidental occurrence, but a calculated attempt at nudging BTC price creating the impression that demand or supply is higher. This is to lure in other traders and then cancel the order when the price objective of the spoof has been met.

Wash Trading Wash Trading is another way Bitcoin price can be manipulated. This usually entails traders trading with themselves. This could have marked effect on the coin market if exchanges are involved. This happens when the exchange carries out in-house trading just to boost trading volume.

on market forces. When there is higher supply than demand, its price dips, when demand is higher than supply, the reverse happens. Whales are hodlers of large amounts of bitcoins. These are entities whose holdings have the tendency of affecting the price of BTC whenever they move them through an exchange. This is called “whale sightings” in the crypto community. There have been speculations that whales intentionally move Bitcoins through exchanges to influence the price of the coin. Some even say that there might be a network of whales that communicate with one another, although there is no evidence this is true. Bitcoin price manipulation happens because whenever money is involved, people would seek ways of taking advantage of the rest to earn more. Chika Chukwuka

Whales Are Big Price Influencers The price of Bitcoin, like other commodities is dependent Core Magazine

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Blockchains of Today have Paved the Way for the Future of Business The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) is simply not effective when it comes to executing smart contracts. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s because the blockchains of today can only sufficiently handle basic verification, such as document authenticity with Factom. The Factom protocol basically only requires that the information needed to verify a documentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s authenticity be stored on the its blockchain, not the document itself. Running resource intensive DApps on the Ethereum

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blockchain has proven to be very inefficient because it cannot offer adequate computation speeds, or the necessary flexibility to implement the more sophisticated features.

Blockchains of Today are Instrumental for Blockchains of the Future Moreover, the blockchains of today are not suitable for storing data. They are only some-

what suitable for processing transactions by maintaining accurate transactional history, however, even that is questionable considering the rampant 51% attacks. In order to solve some of the issues present with existing blockchains, sidechains have been proposed and even implemented. In many of the projects that propose using sidechains, the main blockchain is used primarily for

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vironment? Probably itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own independently functioning / autonomous operating system, and a downloadable software development kit that is compatible with typical applications running on widely used operating systems such as Android, Windows, and Linux. This would help developers program using the language and operating system of their choice. If this idea can be realized on mobile phones, which are now

executing rudimentary transactions and processing simple payments. Meanwhile, some of the more heavy duty work, such as executing smart contracts, is handled by the sidechains. A few other more sophisticated application features and related services are also dumped onto sidechains. Of course, to realize a blockchain model that incorporates sidechains would require a robust and secure runtime environment. Ideally, all data transmitted over this type of network should be transmitted via verifiable and trusted conduits. This is where the main blockchain can serve its ulti-

mate purpose, as it can be used to authenticate data transmitted to its sidechains. All sets of transmitted data can have a unique ID assigned to them by the main blockchain that serves as a seal of authenticity. Notably, with projects like Elastos, this is the direction many of the newer blockchain projects are headed toward â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a refreshing detour from the primitive blockchains of today.

the most widely used method of connecting to the internet worldwide, then this could potentially help serve billions of users around the world. The beauty of this would be that the mobile phone users would be able to conduct their business without having to go through a trusted intermediary, which in most cases is an unfriendly bank. Omar Faridi omar@coregroup.info

Theoretically, with this approach, the integrity of the main blockchain can be maintained and extended to its sidechains and their runtime environment. So, what exactly can, could, and should constitute a runtime en-

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Enigma | Paradigm Change in Data Analysis & Private Computation

Enigma Aims to be a P2P network allowing for multiple different entities to collectively process computations performed on securely stored data sets.

aintaining the privacy of these data sets is one of the main objectives of this platform. According to the Enigma whitepaper, its “computational model is

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based on a highly optimized version of secure multi-party computation.” The whitepaper further notes that the “multiparty computation” is backed by a “verifiable secret-sharing scheme.”

In order to store confidential and shared information, a “modified distributed hashtable” is used. Management of the Enigma network is done via an external blockchain, which also

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monitors and controls access to the network, in addition to maintaining a “tamper-proof” events log. To incentivize platform users, network usage fees and and security deposits are collected. Just like the Bitcoin network, and most other crypto platforms, Enigma eliminates the requirement of a trusted thirdparty, thus allowing for every network user to independently control their data. Moreover, the platform’s users can share data with other network participants in a cryptographically secure manner. Data queries are processed in a distributed manner by allowing multiple network nodes to access only subsets of a data set, while also collectively computing functions based on inputs from the data set. Only nodes participating in the computation process of a particular data set are able to view the subsets of data assigned to each of them, and the computation related to them. Interestingly, all nodes participating to collectively process a particular data set are not able to derive information (data which has meaning) from what they’re computing as they only have access to “meaningless” data.

The Enigma Whitepaper At A Glance The states:

Enigma

whitepaper

“Unlike blockchains, computations and data storage are not replicated by every node in the network. Only a small subset perform each computation over different parts of the data. The decreased redundancy in storage and computations enables more demanding computations.”

secret.” Moreover, the Enigma developers say that once data has been shared on any of the existing blockchains, the process cannot be reversed, meaning the way that the data is used cannot be controlled. With this platform, this will no longer be a limitation, according to its architects. For more information on this platform, check out: https://s3.amazonaws.com/ enigmaco-website/uploads/ pdf/enigma_full.pdf Omar Faridi omar@coregroup.info

The whitepaper explains that workers in a company can share their salary information and the average of their salaries can be computed by the network, however, each worker would only be able to view their relative rank and the average salary of all the people, including themselves. No single worker would be able to view salary information of other workers. The whitepaper adds, “In practice, any program can be securely evaluated while maintaining the inputs a

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Ethereum might be the Most Valuable Digital Currency by end of 2018

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ccording to Roger Ver, one of the first promoters of cryptocurrency, the likelihood of Bitcoin slipping down the pecking order in the digital currency sector is very high. More so, chances of this slip taking place this year are also strong. Roger Ver, also known as “Bitcoin Jesus”, believes that by the end of 2018, Bitcoin might no longer be known as the most valuable digital currency. His reason is that the emergence of other digital currencies, that are regarded as being technologically better than Bitcoin, might bring an end to its reign. Whilst Roger Ver is of the opinion that Ethereum will overtake Bitcoin by the end of the year, he believes that Bitcoin Cash might have to wait till 2020 before it overtakes Bitcoin on the cryptocurrency pecking order.

What are the Possible Reasons for the Devaluation of Bitcoin? Every

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cryptocurrency

enthusiast is perhaps aware of the fact that there are quite a number of issues with the basic technology with which Bitcoin operates. As a result of some issues with its basic technology, Bitcoin appears plagued by painfully sluggish transactions as well as inflated fees. Although the above-mentioned flaws are two of Bitcoin’s most noticeable, they are definitely not the only flaws that this digital currency possesses. Since the invention of Bitcoin, lots of other cryptocurrencies have been invented. Although only very few have made it to the limelight, all digital currencies that were invented after Bitcoin have a couple of things in common. However, of all the things that these digital currencies have in common, one stands out; the drive to improve on at least one of Bitcoin’s many downsides. As a result of trying to improve on some of Bitcoin’s flaws, these new cryptocurrencies now appear to have an edge over the world’s premier digital currency, Bitcoin. In the last few years,

there has been a 450% increase in the price of Bitcoin (although we are on a downward trend currently). It’s true that this is amazing. However, more amazing is the fact that in this same time frame, the price of Ethereum has increased by close to 1,000%. This implies that at the moment, Ethereum is seemingly gaining more grounds as compared to Bitcoin.

Bitcoin might continue to be the most valuable digital currency “Bitcoin Jesus”, aka Roger Ver, believes that Ethereum will overtake Bitcoin. However, some other cryptocurrency experts are of an opposing opinion. According to them, Bitcoin is way too settled at the top to lose its place as the most valuable cryptocurrency in the world. This group of people admit the fact that Bitcoin indeed has some flaws. They, however, believe that these flaws can be overcome by the many talents in the cryptocurrency sector. Boniface Odinakachi ben@coregroup.info

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Reasons why Cryptocurrency can’t Replace Established Currencies

might seem impossible to some people, Bitcoin was invented to function in exactly this way. While it’s true that Bitcoin has not gained worldwide acceptance, it has gained quite some level of prominence in certain countries with failed currencies. Such countries include Zimbabwe and Venezuela. Although this might seem a break from the norm, it is possible because Bitcoins appear to be more reliable than the national currencies of these countries. These

happenings

might

be exciting to cryptocurrency enthusiasts. However, when looked at critically, it can be concluded that cryptocurrency can’t replace established currencies. Now here’s why Bitcoin cannot replace established currencies;

It can handle only Meager Transactions a Minute Unlike VISA’s credit card network which comes with the ability to support 65,000 trans-

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actions in just a second, Bitcoin can handle only seven transactions in one second. While Bitcoin’s inability to handle a lot of transactions at once is already a major issue, this particular implementation flaw of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is becoming worse as the days goes by. There have been reallife situations of transactions that remained pending for days. In fact, if you register on the LocalBitcoins exchange, there is a message telling you that Bitcoin

Cryptocurrency can’t Replace Established Currencies because of Privacy Issues

(BTC) transaction can even take weeks.

struction. There are arguments, though, sound arguments, that the traditional financial system can and is used to orchestrate far more illicit activities that cryptos ever have or possibly could. However, due to the increasing regulatory oversight on digital currencies, this has actually hurt more than helped. It is giving rise to other illegal ways to deal in cryptocurrencies. Also, as a currency that does not give enough privacy, transactions that are carried out through the use of Bitcoins are trackable by a pseudonym.

Now, the truth remains that Bitcoin’s inability to support large numbers of transactions at the same time might not have gotten to critical levels yet. Although , notwithstanding, it might not be getting any better. If Bitcoin is unable to process more than seven transactions a second in a world where its use is still not generally accepted, then the chances of it living up to expectations when being used as an effective medium of exchange are very slim. Notably, a cryptocurrency analysis report published by Bloomberg noted that cryptos are not yet a reliable way to pay salaries and other everyday expenses.

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As regards privacy, Bitcoin is still a bit of puzzle to many. It gives both infinitesimal privacy and also excessive privacy. By providing too much privacy, criminal activities can be carried out through the use of Bitcoin, almost without ob-

The Value of Cryptocurrency Fluctuates Excessively Established Currencies are known to have values that are fixed by central banks. As

a result of this, they do not always fluctuate. On the other hand, cryptocurrencies, unlike regular currencies fluctuate excessively. The reason for this excessive fluctuation is: just like stocks, the value of cryptocurrencies is majorly affected by speculations regarding what they are worth. The excessive fluctuation of cryptocurrencies make them a great means for storing value but a very poor means for the exchange of value. Talking about cryptocurrency being a bad means of exchange of value, a Bitcoin which is the most accepted cryptocurrency could be worth a house in the evening and a piece of cake in the morning. Well, maybe not that extreme, but more realistically if you make a $100 BTC payment, then that amount could very well go down to $70 or even go up to $130. But for people who just want to be paid what they were owed, this can and is problematic. However, unlike cryptocurrencies, if one dollar is worth a shirt in the morning, there is a likelihood that it would be worth a shirt in a year’s time. Boniface Odinakachi ben@coregroup.info

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What’s Holding Traditional Investors Back?

Where is the Wall Street Money?

rior to the launch of the CME and CBOE Bitcoin futures markets, there was a lot of talk of “Wall Street money” pouring into the cryptocurrency market. The futures market for Bitcoin was expected to further legitimize it as an asset in the traditional financial system and hence, attract many investors who were waiting on the

sidelines. The price of Bitcoin rose to about $20,000 on some exchanges around the time of the launch of the CBOE and CME futures on 10th and 17th December 2017 respectively. Since then the price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have been on a downward trend. A look at the six-month price chart of Bitcoin would make anyone wonder if any part the large pool of funds available to traditional investors actually made its way into the much smaller crypto market. The

price of Bitcoin currently sits at $ 6,513. At the time of writing, the entire cryptocurrency market had a market cap of $279.6 billion The Bitcoin market cap stood at $111.2 billion. Yes, these are huge markets but they are tiny when compared to what the traditional investors are used to. For instance, the combined market capitalizations of only Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley was roughly $200 billion as at January 2018. This

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figure almost equals the entire market cap of the cryptocurrency market at the moment. With such firms controlling huge amounts of money worldwide, any considerable investments made by majority of players in the traditional investment sector would cause very obvious upward movement in the prices of cryptocurrencies. Based on the price movements we have seen in 2018, we can conclude that the money from traditional investors is not pouring in as

considered a security. But there are thousands of other cryptos and what the federal regulatorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s long-term stance on digital currencies will be still remains unclear and unpredictable.

much as expected.

some interested institutional investors would still be playing the waiting game or buying in much smaller volumes.

Possible Explanations It can be argued that most traditional investment firms are not actually buying up cryptocurrencies. A few funds got in before 2018 but it is unlikely that it is on the scale that was expected before the launch of the futures markets. With the SEC and other regulatory bodies still clarifying certain issues like those regarding which cryptocurrencies are securities or not, some big players might still be waiting to make their move. Notably, however, the SEC did recently announce that Ethereumâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ETH token will not be

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In fact, it was highly unlikely that huge financial firms with seasoned analysts and traders would buy in at the top around the time of the launch of the futures markets. With even more bearish expectations in recent times, it is likely that

Another theory is that the waves of funds from traditional investors came in prior to the launch of the futures markets. It is also likely that the few institutional investors that might have got in took their profits before the return to bearish trends. As the popular mantra goes; buy the rumor and sell the news.

What Traditional Investors are Actually Doing in the Cryptosphere One thing that is obvious in spite of the bearish market trends is that businesses dealing with cryptocurrencies in

one way or the other keep springing up. There is no shortage of startups offering services and/or products related to the cryptocurrency space. The acquisition of Poloniex by Goldman Sachs-owned Circle is an example of traditional investors investing in the cryptocurrency market. In almost every industry, we can find a company that is attempting to come out with some application of the blockchain technology. The AI, entertainment, health, logistics and mobile phone industries for instance have not been left out. This is evident even in the developing world. Smaller cryptocurrency exchanges focused on individual countries have been growing over the years. Golix in Zimbabwe and E-Bitpoint in Ghana are quintessential examples. What we can draw from this is that investors are investing in businesses that are providing services and products in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. From this angle, we can still say the money is pouring in any way. The only difference is that much of it is obviously not being used to buy up the cryptocurrencies yet. Elikem Kofi Attah elikem@coregroup.info

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Telling Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash Apart Two Sides of The Same Coin? Hopefully, you are not here because you sent Bitcoin to a Bitcoin Cash address or vice versa. It is true that the two can be confusing for most people who are new to the cryptocurrency world. In this article, the main technical differences between the two cryptocurrencies as well as what these differences mean are discussed.

The Origins of Both Coins Bitcoin (BTC) is the original

cryptocurrency created by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009. The sharp increases in its price over the years followed by increased adoption led to more congestion on the network, which was built to handle only a handful of transactions in a second. The congestion became more apparent and problematic in the latter part of 2017 when the price continued to soar. This congestion came with high network fees since users had to pay higher fees to get their transactions confirmed earlier. Different groups within the Bitcoin community had different

views when it came to how this problem would be solved. This was known as the scaling debate and went on for over a year. The thing about Bitcoin is that it has different uses and means different things to different people. Some people want to be able to use the cryptocurrency for micropayments. Others simply want to protect their wealth from inflation and/or confiscation. For another group of people, Bitcoin is an important tool for making crossborder transactions. There is Core Magazine

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also the day trader who is here for the volatility. For all these different types of users, an improvement in the technology would not necessarily mean the same thing.

of a change in the protocol to increase the 1-megabyte block size limit to 8 megabytes.

Also, what one user considers a serious problem could actually be what another type of user loves about Bitcoin. Those who make more small transactions or merchants accepting Bitcoin as payment would want a less volatile Bitcoin but spec-

As stated earlier, the main reason for the Bitcoin Cash fork were opposing views when it came to solutions to the scaling problem. In the same vein, the main differences between the two cryptocurrencies are updates made to improve scal-

ulators and traders would beg to differ. High fees and a slow network is also not too much of a problem for users who are simply protecting their wealth or trying to avoid censorship. A section of the community led by Roger Ver was keen on going for quick solutions to the scaling problem that would make Bitcoin more suitable to be used as a currency. They rejected Segregated Witness (SegWit) as a solution and opted for a larger block size. SegWit, which excludes signature data from transactions to allow room for the addition of more transactions, was implemented on the Bitcoin network on August 24th, 2017. Bitcoin Cash was created on August 1st, 2017 as a result

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Main Technical Differences and their Implications

ability. On Bitcoin (BTC), we have SegWit which reduces the size of the transaction data that needs to be verified. Later on, in March 2017, the muchawaited Lightning Network was launched on the mainnet. Lightning was to bring instant, low fee transactions to Bitcoin again while keeping the microtransactions off the main chain. The idea was/is that there was no need to overload the already fast-growing blockchain with records of tiny transactions. Bitcoin Cash, on the other hand, stuck to its 8-megabyte block size limit as a means of keeping a decongested mempool and maintaining very low fees. Supporters of this idea do not believe the hardware

requirements to download a huge blockchain is a problem. There have been concerns that the need for more space to download an entire blockchain would in the future lead to fewer people running full nodes and hence, less decentralization. Proponents of the “larger block size” argument have shifted focus from decentralization to censorship resistance. Bitcoin Cash’s leader has maintained that censorship resistance and not decentralization is the purpose of having cryptocurrencies. Ironically, there is very little activity on the Bitcoin Cash blockchain as compared to that of Bitcoin. Unless Bitcoin Cash sees massive adoption in the future, there would be no need to worry about hardware requirements. Bitcoin’s SegWit adoption has continually gone up since it was activated in August 2017, reaching over 30% of all transactions on the network. The second layer, Lightning is still in its early days but has 801 nodes and 2,677 channels at the time of writing. Interestingly, even though Bitcoin fees are currently low, the price isn’t doing as well as it was doing when there were several complaints about the rising fees in late 2017.

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The Future Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash After a couple of years, we could have one coin failing or both coins coexisting. We would, however, not go on and on about which version of Bitcoin is using the right approach.

That is for the individual to decide for himself after looking at what both have to offer. As mentioned earlier, each user’s view of Bitcoin is based on what she uses it for and wants from it. For now, we can continue to watch and learn.

It has to be said, that it is wrong to try to create confusion by referring to Bitcoin Cash as Bitcoin. Elikem Kofi Attah elikem@coregroup.info

Apple makes Developers Happy by Revising Crypto App rules

f there is anything that Apple Inc. is known for globally, then, it’s their strict rules as regards any application that is included in their App store. Interestingly, crypto applications are not left out of this rules. Well, as a result of the hype surrounding cryptocurrency, it appears that Apple’s strict application rules will no longer apply to crypto applications. The reason for

this is that a group that is known as The Developers Union has asked for new crypto App rules for crypto applications. Well, apparently, Apple has granted this request. This is so because Apple is revising all crypto App rules for crypto applications in its store and has recently taken steps to make developers happy.

What are the Reasons for the Changes in Crypto App Rules In making the crypto App rules public, Apple emphasized that applications “change the world, enrich the lives of people and help developers to innovate like never before”. As a result of this, the App store has become an ecosystem for Core Magazine

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millions of developers and over a billion users. In a statement, Apple also said that

“whether you are a large team of experienced developers or a first time developer, we’re pleased that you are developing apps for the Apple App Store and want to assist in understanding our guidelines to make sure that your app is quickly reviewed”.

List of New Crypto App Rules and Guidelines These new crypto App rules and guidelines address everything from ICOs to mining. For instance, for ICOs, Apple’s guidelines require applications facilitated from them to come from security firms, established banks, few commission merchants, and other authorized financial institutions .This policy is also applicable to future crypto transactions and other crypto securities. Apple stated specifically that, as far as mining is concerned, applications cannot mine for crypto, unless the processes are done off the device, for instance,

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cloud-based mining. For other crypto App rules, Apple stated:

“Applications may facilitate transmission or transaction of cryptocurrency on an approved and authorized exchange, provided that they are offered by the exchange itself. Crypto applications may not provide currency to complete tasks like having other applications downloaded, making social media posts, encouraging other users to download them etc.” Just as it is often said that “mining needs a lot of electricity”, Apple wants developers to develop their applications that are of good quality. It is stated that developers who perform mining activities must ensure that their applications do not: – Quickly empty the batteries,

– create excessive heat or make undue pressure on the device’s resources. – Include any third party Ads displayed within them.

The Developers Union It is believed that the group called the Developers Union has proposed these new guidelines. Here’s a sample of the letter sent to Apple: We believe that people who develop great software should be able to earn a living while doing so. So we created The Developers Union to defend the sustainability of the App Store. Today, we asked Apple to make a public commitment in the next anniversary of the App Store to provide for free trials for all applications in app stores. After that, we will begin to advocate for a more reasonable reduction of revenues and other developer-friendly and community-driven changes. What do you think about this changes? Do you think that they are right? Join us at our official communication network below and share your views. Boniface Odinakachi ben@coregroup.info

Blockchain News

Bitcoin’s Intrinsic Value – Explained

itcoin’s intrinsic value is a long debated topic, and many Nocoiners argue that the digital asset doesn’t have any value, and it is only the speculation that is driving up the price. But that is not true since Bitcoin derives its value from the kinetic energy produced by mining and stores it as potential energy for the future. Let’s elaborate on how Bitcoin derives its value from mining activity and why it has enormous intrinsic value.

Natural vs. Artificial Money One needs to understand Natural vs. Artificial money before getting to know about Bitcoin’s intrinsic value.

Natural Money – The Money that is derived from energy and is very difficult to create. Artificial Money – The Money that is

derived by human beings and has future promise. It is easy to create and also loses its value faster. Bitcoin and gold can be categorized under natural money since they need the energy to produce them. On the other hand, fiat currency falls under Artificial money as it can be printed out of thin air and only holds future promise. If we understand how gold is created, we can easily understand

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the concept of intrinsic value and why gold and Bitcoin falls under the category of Natural Money.

Gold’s Intrinsic Value Gold is created out of humans mining it from the ground, but that is what is seems like on the surface. But if we dig deeper, we will understand that the gold atoms (AU) are created by a process called Nucleosynthesis and synthesizing AU atoms requires nuclear fusion over billions of years. So it is very clear that Gold (AU) formation requires an enormous amount of energy and this explains its scarcity. Humans cannot create gold out of thin air since it requires million tons of TNT to create 1 ounce of Gold and it is simply impossible to replicate the Nucleosynthesis process in the laboratory. It is also a complex process that is not economically viable. The above Gold creation process clearly explains the intrinsic value of an object

Proof of Work The intrinsic value is nothing but the amount of energy stored in an object or in other words we can say it is an object’s Potential energy. Now let’s compare this with Bitcoin.

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Gold is created from nuclear fusion while Bitcoin is from hashing SHA-256. Both Gold and Bitcoin require an enormous amount of energy to be created. This process is called as “Proof of Work“. The “Proof of Work” gives both Gold and Bitcoin its intrinsic value. Proof of Work is the algorithm used in Bitcoin to produce blocks and is rewarded with Bitcoins for finding the blocks. This process requires a lot of electricity and the energy requirement (Hashrate) is increasing exponentially day by day.

Bitcoin > Gold Bitcoin can be a better “Store of Value” than Gold or any other form of money since humans might find a way even to create Gold in future using sophisticated technology. If humans can create gold in future, then it will create inflation, and it can be printed out of thin air. Also, scientists have found out that there is an enormous amount of Gold in Universe. In fact, there were reports of cosmic collision creating 10,000 earth masses of precious metals including that of Gold. So in future, even Gold is not scarce and can be printed out of thin air or can be inflated. Bitcoin, on the other hand, cannot be created out of thin

air or manipulated. This is due to Bitcoin’s network property called “Difficulty.”The difficulty is adjusted to limit the rate at which new blocks can be generated by the network to one every 10 minutes. The Bitcoin protocol will readjust its difficulty according to the amount of energy (Hashpower) that is supplied to mine it. So, no matter how much energy is thrown at Bitcoin to mine it, it is going to be increasingly difficult to create new Bitcoins. This gives the intrinsic value edge to Bitcoin. Also, the total supply of Bitcoin cannot be manipulated or inflated. Even Gold supply can be inflated but impossible to inflate Bitcoin’s total supply of 21 million. So we can conclude that Bitcoin is better natural money than Gold. We can go one step further and say that Bitcoin is the Perfect Natural Money humanity has ever created. Kadhir Velavan Ramasubramaniam kadhir@coregroup.info

Blockchain News

Do You Know How State Channels and Sidechains Differ?

he terms state channels and sidechains are often

misused by a lot of people. One major reason for this is the fact that a lot of people do not know the difference between them. Now, whilst sidechains and state channels are two of the major solutions to the issues of scalability that are associated with blockchain technology, they do not function in exactly

the same way. With this article, we can find out why state channels and sidechains differ and what they really are.

What are Sidechains Basically, a sidechain, just as its name states is a peripheral blockchain that is attached to the main blockchain through the use of a two-way peg. With

the presence of a side chain, assets can be transferred between two blockchains (parent blockchain and sidechain).

What are state Channels

A state channel is a means by which a blockchain interaction which can be conducted on a blockchain gets conducted off a blockchain. This gets done even without a significant increase

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in the risk of any of the participants. It is one of the strategies that have been employed in an effort to tackle the issue of poor scalability in blockchain technology.

How State Channels and Sidechains differ

There are quite a number of ways in which state channels and sidechains differ. Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s find out some of them.

Privacy The privacy setting of state channels is considered better than that of sidechains. The reason for this is simple. With state channels, whatever transactions that are taking place usually do not get exposed. They happen between participants. Apart from the opening and closing transactions, all other transactions that occur through a state channel usually occur within a channel. Sidechains, on the other hand, do not have the privacy level that state channels have. Every transaction that occurs on a sidechain usually is publicly broadcasted.

State channels are more instant than Side Chains In the use of state channels to deal with issues of scalability, as soon as an update is agreed on by the parties

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that are involved, there is a guarantee that this update is final and can be enforced. However, with the use of a sidechain, decisions are not usually instant and final. They are usually dependent on the mining power of the involved sidechain.

Availability Sidechains can function properly in the absence of the participants that are involved in a transaction. On the flip side of the coin, for state channels to function, all participants that are involved in a transaction must be available.

Sidechains are Permanent As soon as they are created, sidechains are permanent. When not in use, sidechains are never closed down; their assets are however locked pending the next time that they will be used. State channels, however, have to be created each time there is a need for them. Boniface Odinakachi ben@coregroup.info

Do you want to start an ICO? We can help you office@cryptocoremedia.com

CC Podcast

John Mcafee | The Last Crypto Cowboy

https://soundcloud.com/coremediaradio/crypto-radio-john-mcafee

ohn Mcafee On Crypto Radio

Were all cowboys bad back in the day? Join us as we speak to some modern-day revolutionary freedom fighter that knows fully the abilities

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of where blockchain is about and what we ought to do to make our planet a better place. Let us not throw this present of blockchain technology and bitcoin off simply to keep your life afloat falling deeper and deeper to taxation and regulation after regulation after regu-

lation. Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, tokens, DEX’s, MRU, Komodo and more crypto news discussed within this brief crypto centric conversation…

CC Podcast

Deep Onions | Anonymous Crypto?

https://soundcloud.com/coremediaradio/deep-onions-anonymous-crypto

James Taborâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Media Protocol breaks Content Creators Free from the Shackles of Uniformity https://soundcloud.com/coremediaradio/james-tabor-media-protocol James Taborâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Media Protocol recognizes decentralization, and rewards become a reality that content creators need to be rewarded for it with blockchain technology and get to know a to continue, come join us and discover how AI, great personality in the crypto realm. Core Magazine

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Good news â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Japan Leads G-20 leaders to introduce unified cryptocurrency regulations

he Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international organization that fights money laundering and other illicit activities, is expected to work with Japan, which is the second biggest market for cryptocurrency behind the United States, for the introduction of unified cryptocurrency regulations in the coming months.

Japan is worried about anonymous cryptocurrencies Last month, the Financial Services Agency (FSA) in Japan called on big economies in the G20 to adopt unified cryptocurrency regulations regarding investors and exchanges that are primarily concerned about the increase in the use of anonymous cryptocurrencies like Dash, Zcash, and Monero by criminal associations. On the 14th of May, the most

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influential and oldest Japanese newspaper, Mainichi Shimbun, reported that an organized crime group in Japan called the Yakuza has laundered hundreds of millions of dollars using Bitcoin and Ethereum. Yakuza has reportedly done this with the aid of some Chinese intermediaries and through the services of various cryptocurrency exchanges. This group is said to be using the three anonymous cryptocurrencies listed above for money laundering made from its illegal drugs activities.

Blockchain News

G20 Countries should have unified cryptocurrency regulations A secret investigation, which was conducted by Mainichi Shimbun, reported that the criminal group called the Yakuza had laundered around $273 million since 2016, by launching several transactions on Japan’s most used cryptocurrency exchanges. In response, an FSA spokesperson said:

“It’s very necessary to consider if any registered cryptocurrency exchange should be able to make use of these currencies. This is typical money laundering platform or scheme. In a way, I will not get surprised if you do something that is illegal’’ The official also emphasized that only the Japanese government cannot limit the use of anonymous cryptocurrencies by these large criminal groups and suggested that G20 countries work together to apply

unified cryptocurrency regulations.

“It is almost impossible for Japan to solve the problem alone, and that is why G20 countries should develop unified cryptocurrency regulations to fight against these criminal groups. Even if the trade is limited to only domestic transfers or even if supervision is upgraded, it won’t still be enough to fight against money laundering. It would be better if the whole group of 20 emerging and industrial regions and nations (G20) takes the same preventive measures. ” said the official.

starting discussions on the application of unified cryptocurrency regulations related to digital property exchanges. This would be done to make sure that all exchanges operating in big and leading markets such as South Korea, Japan, United States and Europe are in accordance with international regulations. FATF, which is overseeing 37 G7 established countries, including France, Canada, Germany, Japan, Italy, USA and the United Kingdom accounts for more than 62% of the net wealth of the world. As such, if the FATF does not achieve a consensus for the implementation of unified cryptocurrency regulations, it is possible that the 37 FATF governed countries will adopt identical regulations. Boniface Odinakachi ben@coregroup.info

Unified cryptocurrency regulations as a possibility This week, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has reported that it has plans of

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Can Blockchain Help Solve Moldovaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Human Trafficking Challenges Moldova Moldova is perhaps the European country with the highest rate of human trafficking. This situation is one of the results of poverty and unemployment that has plagued this country for a couple of years.

lthough this appears to be more popular among young adults that search for better lives

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outside Moldova, children are not free from the human trafficking challenges that are faced by Moldova. In the quest for better lives, lots of

young people have left their children in the care of their grandparents and have gone out of the country to get ahead. The children that are left

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How Moldova Plans to put an end to human trafficking In the quest to curb the everrising rate of human trafficking in Moldova, the Moldovan government has turned to one of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s latest technologies. With the use of blockchain technology, Moldova plans to reduce the rate of human trafficking across its borders. It is working in collaboration with

behind spend more time in the streets and become easy targets for child traffickers. The combination of false hopes of high paying jobs and the accessibility of fake birth certificates are some of the most dangerous tools that have fueled Moldovaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s human trafficking challenges. Usually, unsuspecting young women and men are taken across the Moldovan border to other parts of Europe by smugglers that pose as their guardians or parents. The fact that they are travelling with a parent coupled with the presence of a fake birth certificate makes it easy to cross the borders.

a United States-based software company to build a system that will be used to curb the rate of child trafficking. Working with this system, the identities of children will be connected to those of their family members. This will make it difficult for children to be trafficked across the border without valid reasons. Before a child is allowed to cross the border with an adult, the childâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eyes, and fingerprints will be scanned. This will lead to a notification of their parents or guardian, and their crossing will have to be approved before it is allowed to take place.

ing is in a bid to make it glaring that the Moldovan government is committed to the fight against human trafficking.

How effective will this scheme be? At the moment, there are no real conclusions on how this project will be funded and how data will be gotten. Also, there are anti-trafficking groups that believe this development will not be effective in the fight against child trafficking. They gave their reason as: parents/ legal guardians are aware of lots of human trafficking cases which involve children. As a result of this, getting their permission before children are allowed to cross the border will not be effective in the fight against human trafficking in Moldova. Some of these groups further argued that the creation of job opportunities is the only way to solve cases of human trafficking in the impoverished European country. Boniface Odinakachi ben@coregroup.info

The use of blockchain technology in battling child traffick-

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The Real Use Case For Dash

What is the use case? is the most frequent question that you’ll see appear for any cryptocurrency, and there’s a reason for that.

t’s a good question. In fact it’s probably the most important question you’ll ever ask about an investment. If you can’t establish a good reason for people to actually use a coin or token, then there’s no reason to invest in it. Let’s take a look at Dash.

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Better Features? When first looking at Dash, it may be hard to see the use case. Now it just looks like another coin or token. It’s not shiny or fancy, but it definitely has something that other projects don’t have. If cryptocurrency enthusiasts really want mainstream

users to adopt cryptocurrencies in their everyday lives, then the answer is not more features. The focus should be better ones that are easier to use, and that’s exactly what Dash is trying to do.

Blockchain News

Dash has instant confirmations that are

be ridiculous. With Dash however, everyday pur-

current systems utilized by Bitcoin. Dash Evolu-

free from double spending. If this does not seem like a big deal to you, then you’ve never waited for two hours for Bitcoin (BTC) transfers to actually confirm so you could spend your money. The painful wait times of Bitcoin have long been the bane of any crypto enthusiast. It is more than likely, the reason, many merchants shy away from digital currencies. In some instances, you need instant confirmations for purchases. A vending machine could never work with Bitcoin in its current form. Nobody wants to wait over an hour to get their drink, and the fees would likely

chases become a reality.

tion will also allow auto debits for merchants that offer subscriptions, merchants can be publicly accessed and rated on the blockchain and complicated cryptocurrency sending addresses can be replaced with easier to remember usernames to lessen sending errors.

Dash has many other cool tricks including allowing for private transactions. This is possible, thanks to a built in network mixer and community wide governance. They’ve also created the world’s first decentralized API, which allows websites to easily collect Dash payments from their customers in a way anyone can understand.

Dash – Single Click Transactions This also will allow people to perform transactions using only a single click, a dramatic improvement over the

Bitcoin started something great, however, Dash is picking up where it left off. They are creating a technology that people who don’t have an emotional connection to cryptocurrency may want to use. Steven Haller

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What’s the point of Ripple?

ipple aims to provide its users with seamless and hassle free exchange of digital assets. To that end, Ripple’s proposed solution would allow global payments that are instant. This not only provides a great service for normal users, but also for banks. Developing banking infrastructure is very expensive. However, by utilizing Ripple’s new blockchain instant payment network, these banks can expand their services. Expanding into new territories that were previously either too

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expensive or very difficult to set up shop in, would only increase profit.

Old Technology Meets Blockchain Despite the advancements of the digital revolution, the world’s banking systems are severely outdated. While the internet promised us the ability to connect instantly, the financial system seems left out. Your “instant” transfer could take several days, possibly weeks, and you could also be punished with some very unsavory fees

for the privilege. This is particularly true if you need to send money across borders which is still annoyingly difficult and sometimes prohibitively expensive. This potentially creates valuable new revenue streams to boost these corporation’s bottom lines. This technology does not stop at remittance though, as it can also be utilized for digital asset exchanges, corporate capital management, and even payment providers. Virtually any company or

Blockchain News

service that has a requirement for global liquidity could tap into this blockchain in order to speed up their processing times and to cut their fees for doing so significantly.

Partnerships With Other Financial Institutions How have these financial giants responded to this new technology though? Large institutions such as MoneyGram and Western Union recently signed up as partners. They also tested Ripple’s xRapid and on demand

liquidity pool that is built around XRP. These companies were reportedly delighted with the results. Financial transactions that would normally take 2-3 days, cleared in under two minutes. According to them, they actually made a lot of savings during the test. They claim to have saved circa 40-70% of what they would normally pay to other liquidity providers . This is just one test of Ripple’s power, and they have

now that financial institutions are watching them intently, and competitor SWIFT has even scrambled to create their own solution to compete with this industry shake up. Whether you love or hate Ripple, they have helped to make one thing perfectly clear, the Blockchain is here to stay, and it’s good for a lot more than just speculating on various junk ICOs and meme based cryptocurrency assets. Steven Haller

plenty more innovations to come. It’s become very clear

Making Sense of Corralo’s BIP

orralo’s BIP (Bitcoin Improvement Protocol) tackles

Bitcoin’s decentralized nature. We all know that Bitcoin doesn’t have a company or centralized

entity controlling its operations. Hence, it has always been difficult to suggest or make

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improvements to its code. Individuals, organizations and groups, interested in improving Bitcoin’s protocol have no cohesive guideline that enables them to forge ahead.

Corralo’s BIP

Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP)

What Corrallo did was to remove the alternative payment amounts which were present in BIP 0020. Corrallo then suggested that his new mining protocol “BetterHash” should replace “Stratum Protocol” which many clients are currently using.

The lack of formal structures has given rise to the advent of the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP). These proposals

According to Corrallo’s BIP 0021, there should be a URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) scheme which users will use

are similar to design documents. They enable developers to introduce information, ideas or features that could help improve Bitcoin. After submission, the community of Bitcoin users, developers, investors, and miners will vote and agree to either implement the proposal or not.

to make Bitcoin payments. According to him, the URI will improve the ease and speed available to users in order to complete transactions. All they have to do is to scan the QR codes or click the links on the web pages.

Over time, different developers have submitted their respective proposals to the community. One of the notable proposals was submitted by Matt Corrallo. His proposal, BIP 0021, is a modification of an earlier proposal, by Bitcoin Core developer and the founder of Eligis mining pool Luke Dashjr.

He went further to specify some rules that should govern the use of the URI for making payments. Every Bitcoin client, without exception, would need to get the authorization of each user before acting on these URIs. The client should mandate the user to approve every payment manually, and must do so for every transaction individually. In some cases, the user can make the decision automatically. For operating system in-

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tegration, Corrallo states that graphical Bitcoin clients must be registered handlers by default if there is no other registered handler. However, if a handler is present already, they may encourage the Bitcoin user to change it. The general format for Corralo’s BIP, is that the path component will consist of a Bitcoin address, while the query component will provide additional payment options. On transfer amount, the proposal states that BTC must be decimal and there will be no use of periods or commas to separate whole numbers, characters or decimal fractions. Also, clients must always display the Bitcoin amount in a way that the users will understand to avoid deceit. The rationale for Corrallo’s BIP is to ensure that a URI scheme will be a one-time payment and not a platform for exchanging personal information. Steven Haller

Blockchain News

Drawing Parallels between the French Revolution and the Cryptocurrency Movement in Developing Countries

Failed and Outdated Systems, Insensitive Leadership, Frustrated Populace The 1789 French Revolution came about as a result of a

people frustrated with the state of affairs at the time. The years preceding the revolution were characterized by dire economic conditions, poor weather, and poverty. The ruling class was however insulated from the hardship and continued to live lavishly without paying much heed to the problems of the

general public. David Graeber, wrote about a different time in his book, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Debt, The First 5000 years.â&#x20AC;? Graeber covered the third world debt crisis of the 1980s. Once again, insensitive leadership created an economic mess in a number of developing countries. Structural adjustments had to be made to ensure Core Magazine

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loans that were mismanaged by political leaders were paid back. In a classic partnership of the elite of the developing and developed world, the ordinary citizens in the developing world had to suffer the burdens of austerity measures. This too, led to political instability in a number of African countries especially. The debt crisis as well as other economic problems continue to plague the developing world. This is a look at the ways in which cryptocurrencies can be used as tools to bring about economic freedom in the developing world by making comparisons and drawing lessons from the French revolu-

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tion.

Replacing Failed Systems with New Ones Revolutions have always been acts of the people to bring about radical changes to the prevailing order of the time. The motivation for a large group of people to make potentially dangerous acts of defiance usually stems from deep-seated frustrations about the status quo. Simply explaining to people how a better financial system could be built on cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin is not enough to get everyone to rally

behind the course. Perhaps, this explains why it is in countries facing hyperinflation that cryptocurrencies are used out of necessity. Luckily, unlike the French Revolution, the cryptocurrency movement does not have to be a bloody one. Instead, it requires all involved to use the technology, educate others, help build applications and grow the ecosystem. Most importantly, there would have to be new ways to overcome restrictions that might be imposed on the growth of the technology by the current system. The requirements are the same for developing coun-

Blockchain News

tries. To be free, people in the developed world can use cryptocurrencies to perform tasks they could otherwise not get done easily. Such tasks could be sending funds across borders or simply storing wealth.

Forks in the Road Revolutionists in the French revolution did not always agree. There were opposing voices when it came to declaring war on Austria, pronouncing the death penalty on King Louis XVI and the use of terror to control society. In the world of crypto, we have had different cryptocurrencies created to perform functions other than that of Bitcoin. Bitcoin itself has been forked a number of times due to the failure of groups with different interests to agree on the way forward for the technology. Luckily, the forks have not necessarily weakened Bitcoin itself. Forks other than Bitcoin Cash were not contentious but were just a means of taking the technology in other directions. For instance, Bitcoin Gold focused on decentralizing mining by disallowing specialized miners while Bitcoin Private focuses on privacy using technology borrowed from Zcash.

The varying ideas on how cryptocurrencies should work and what they should be used for are not necessarily bad for the movement. The most important thing is to keep an eye on the broader goal of financial freedom for all. This means the developing world is also free to partake and use cryptocurrencies in any way that would be beneficial to them.

Avoiding the Excesses of the French Revolution As mentioned earlier, the cryptocurrency revolution does not have to be a bloody one like the French Revolution. Another way in which the cryptocurrency revolution can get out of hand and lose focus is by only concentrating on making money. Just like the majority of people are unlikely to act until conditions become extremely bad, most people are unlikely to participate simply because itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s for a good course. Money, however, serves as a good motivating factor. The opportunity to get rich has been a good incentive to join the cryptocurrency community. It has also attracted many unscrupulous individuals. As a result, scams and hacks are not

in short supply. There is also the issue of businesses in the ecosystem focusing only on creating wealth for their shareholders without considering the wellbeing of the cryptocurrency community and its broader goals. If cryptocurrencies are going to be successful, such actors in the community would have to be in the minority. We can liken the ongoing cryptocurrency revolution to the tearing down of the Bastille brick by brick. The attempt to bring about change in the existing financial system can be compared with the end of monarchy in France by the French revolution. Cryptocurrency enthusiasts and aficionados should be on guard to ensure that the goals of financial freedom and inclusion are what continue to be the focus of the community. This way, the cryptocurrency movement does not only become a means of enriching a few people but a means of bringing about real change. This change spoken of is much needed in the developing world. Elikem Kofi Attah elikem@coregroup.info

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Should Cryptocurrency be made Part of School Curriculum? Ever since the invention of Bitcoin and other digital currencies, they all have been trailed by one controversy after another.

lthough the many controversies that are associated with digital currencies are more pronounced in the world of business and technology, the education sector is not left out of the many Bitcoin associated

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debates. As a result of the craze for digital currencies, the question that is being asked by cryptocurrency enthusiasts is should cryptocurrency be made a part of school curriculum? Although this question might seem a little out of place to individuals that do not believe in

Bitcoin, to every cryptocurrency enthusiast, this is a question that is worth answering and also very quickly.

Blockchain News

Universities are Already Beginning to Teach Courses on Digital Currencies It might appear a little too early. However, some universities have already started teaching courses on digital currency. Popular among them are the University of California, Stanford University, New York University, etc. Universities are definitely the most popular institutions teaching courses in cryptocurrency at the moment. However, they are not the only institutions of learning that have started teaching courses in digital currency. Digital currency is now being taught at high school level. Although teaching courses in digital currency at university level appears to be quite acceptable, it appears that

not many people are willing to accept this happening at high school level. While the teaching of digital currency courses at high school level is still being debated, Timothy Breza, a New Jersey teacher has given reasons why digital currency courses should be taught at secondary school level. According to him, students are beginning to talk about cryptocurrency. As a result of this, the school system has no choice than to teach it.

Is Including Cryptocurrency in School Curriculum Ideal? According to Nate Flanders, the CEO and Co-Founder of Mandala Exchange, it might not be absolutely ideal for cryptocurrency to be taught

in high schools. However, the teaching of computer programming languages which are essential languages that are made use of in the building of the blockchain platform, should be taught at high school. Nate is of the opinion that cryptocurrencies are yet to find stability; as a result of this, they should not be taught in-depth at high school level. At the moment, it remains inconclusive if cryptocurrency will be made a part of school curriculum in the United States and in other parts of the world. However, to ensure that young people can get the financial lessons that they stand to gain from cryptocurrency classes, a new math curriculum has been introduced. Boniface Odinakachi ben@coregroup.info

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Nick Szabo Says Bitcoin Cash is Centralized

ick Szabo is considered only the next to Satoshi Nakamoto and is a pioneer in Bitcoin development. He has described Bitcoin Cash as a “Centralized Sock Puppetry.” Let’s see the reason for him to call Bitcoin Cash a centralized cryptocurrency.

Alibaba Hosting Half of Bitcoin Cash Nodes It has been found out by researcher Sondre Bjellas that 54% of all the Bitcoin Cash’s nodes are operating in the

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Alibaba data center. There are around 1242 nodes, and among them, 543 contain the name “Alibaba” in them. Of those 422 run in China, 39 in Hong Kong, 35 in Singapore, 45 in the USA, 1 in Japan and 1 in Germany. Bjellas’ research came after BitGo developer Jameson Loop noticing that half of its nodes were Alibaba servers in China. When we compare this with Bitcoin, only 2% of the nodes are operated by Alibaba servers. This can pose a high risk due to this centralization, since if the server fails, then the network will come down. Bitcoin Cash is running the risk of one

point failure and may go down if the servers fail. It is not decentralized and also verification of transactions is not possible due to non-availability of public nodes. There is also a high risk of double spending happening with Bitcoin Cash.

Nick Szabo Comments on Bitcoin Cash Nick Szabo commented on this finding by saying that decentralization cannot be marketed well and is not the selling point, but “Cheap payments” are good catchy words for mar-

Blockchain News

keting, however, a centralized network is doomed to fail. Nick Szabo also mentioned that in the past there were so many projects like Bitcoin Cash. All of them worked similarly like Bitcoin using cryptography and internet, but they all failed due to the centralization of their network. Below is his quote

[T]here were many precursors to bitcoin which worked similarly – insofar that they used the internet and cryptography to function – but they

were all doomed to fail for one reason: they were centralized

Double Signing of Transactions Bitcoin Cash is at the risk of double spending. This is because sender or receiver cannot verify the transactions and they cannot prevent the double signing of transactions. Due to centralization, the payee is not aware of all transactions. This is due to centralization and also due to larger blocks. The larger the block gets, the more incapable it becomes for

all payees to be aware of every transaction. This will lead to double spending and confusion on its network. Bitcoin Cash should focus on solving these issues and make the network more decentralized rather than focusing on marketing and getting it listed in exchanges. Let’s hope these issues are resolved for better decentralized and secure network. Kadhir Velavan Ramasubramaniam kadhir@coregroup.info

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Do you know Africa is a Fertile Ground for Bitcoin Adoption The African continent might not be the first to accept digital currencies. It, however, is a fertile ground for Bitcoin adoption. Since digital currencies gained ground in the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s financial system, they have been used for many different purposes. Some are very beneficial while others are basically fraudulent acts.

ell, irrespective of the many fraudulent activities that are associated with the use of digital currencies, they have continuously gained more acceptances by countries

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in Africa as well as investors of African origin. Some of the major reasons for the level of acceptability of virtual currencies in Africa are: investors in Africa are looking for means to avoid the issues that are associated with fiat money . They are also looking to gather the untouched value that informal markets offer to the economy.

al Labour Organization, Africa’s informal sector is responsible for over 66% of the employment opportunities in Sub-Saharan Africa. As it stands, one of the few established ways of growing the African informal economy is through the use of Bitcoin and Blockchian technology. This has therefore led many countries in Africa to embrace Bitcoin as well as blockchain technology.

Why is Africa a Fertile Ground for Bitcoin Adoption?

Real Life Instances Which Show Africa’s Support for Bitcoin

The amazing acceptance that Bitcoin, blockchain, and other cryptocurrencies enjoy in Africa has left a lot of cryptocurrency devotees amazed at how lots of third world countries are taking advantage of the blockchain technology. The acceptance of Bitcoin by Africa cuts across many countries in Africa. Popular among them are Kenya, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. Now, whilst there are lots of factors that are considered responsible for the huge interest of African countries in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, one major factor that has played a key role in Africa being a fertile ground for Bitcoin adoption is Africa’s huge informal economy. According to the Internation-

Bitcoins have been in existence for less than a decade. Well, in spite of this, Bitcoin Automated Teller Machines are already in existence in some parts of Africa. At the moment, three African countries have installed Bitcoin ATMs. Two of those countries are South Africa and Zimbabwe. Also, there are some entrepreneurs in Kenya that are already into the mining of cryptocurrency as a means of funding their startups. Nigeria is also not left out of the Bitcoin trend. In January alone, the West Africa giant had an average weekly Bitcoin sale of $4.7 million. Boniface Odinakachi ben@coregroup.info Core Magazine

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GlobalData Says Blockchain is not Everything

lobalData – a research firm has come out with a report about Blockchain and its future use cases. In the report named “Blockchain – Global Thematic Research“, it states that the blockchain bubble will burst in two years and it will lose all its shine by 2025. They also mention that the conventional database is more than sufficient for most of the cases where blockchain is recommended. Let’s go through

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the report in detail.

Blockchain Technology – GlobalData Says it is Overrated GlobalData report mentions that the Blockchain technology is not “Magic.” The technology used in blockchain namely “Distributed Ledger Technology” has its drawbacks. They also admit that the DLT technology has value, but they argue that the tech is highly overrated and

cannot replace everything that a traditional database can do. The report from GlobalData argues that in 19-20 cases where blockchain is commonly recommended can be easily replaced with a traditional database. To understand this report and judge their findings, we must first understand DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology). DLT is a technology in which copy of the transactions is maintained in all the nodes that participate in the network.

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The copy of the transactional data is maintained everywhere, and so it is immutable and also removes the third party to maintain and verify the transactions. The ability to maintain records without the intervention of a third party is considered one of the best benefits of blockchain technology. This eliminates third-party interference and also removes the need to trust someone since the system takes care of it completely. But the report submitted by GlobalData argues that it comes at a significant cost and is not efficient at all compared to the traditional database.

Blockchain vs. Traditional Database The GlobalData report also mentions the drawbacks of Blockchain technology compared with the traditional databases used commonly now in record keeping. The report breaks the myth that blockchain technology is cost-efficient. DLT technology only brings down the cost of deploying the third party in maintaining the records, but in fact, DLT is resource intensive and a very costly mechanism.

For instance, the energy used to mine one Bitcoin requires 5k times more energy than single Visa transaction – the report says. The author of this report, Gary Barnett, admits that the Blockchain technology has some value, but it comes with a side effect. He quotes

“Any transaction that requires the coordination of more than one coordinator will always be slower.” The report adds that the Blockchain’s immutability feature is usually seen as a benefit, but that can be used only for transactional data. Medical records and data on intellectual property cannot be shared among nodes and should be stored in a conventional database in an encrypted form. The report also adds one more example of that of songs stored in a traditional database. It would be insane to replicate those songs in all the nodes that required several machines, where it is not needed and can be stored in one single centralized database.

Blockchain Technology – A Fantasy? Barnett – the author of this report by GlobalData, argues that the smart contracts are “A Holy Grail fantasy of Technology.” He argues that the business process incorporated in code is nothing new and blockchain is not the first to invent it. If corporations need them, they can look into SAP technology where the business process is automated in their software. Blockchain technology is seen as a decentralized system that validates the entries without any need of a third party by arriving at a consensus by all participants in the network. This works without a central authority but this can be used only for validating the transaction, and that doesn’t validate everything according to the report. For Instance, if one wants to use blockchain technology to track and audit the path of cocoa beans being harvested from the deep forests of Peru till it is converted into chocolates and sold in another place in North America, one can verify the transactional details at every stage – the route taken by the cocoa beans via train, truck and

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cargo ship. But it is impossible to track the physical presence of the particular cocoa by blockchain technology, and there are many other effective ways to verify the provenance of the product without deploying DLT technology.

Conclusion Barnett does not dismiss blockchain technology completely. He says that the technol-

ogy can be used in cross-border trading where distributed ledger can replace central authority. This includes trading, land registration, gold bullion and other means that involve transactional data.

data. We need to wait and watch if the blockchain is a bubble and whether it will fizzle out by 2025 as per the GlobalData report.

So the report concludes that the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Blockchain Technology replacing everything is a mythâ&#x20AC;? and the scope is narrow and only useful for transactional

Blockchain Research Report

Reference:

Kadhir Velavan Ramasubramaniam kadhir@coregroup.info

Akon to Launch his own Cryptocurrency to help develop the African Continent

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US-based Senegalese singer and producer, Akon has joined the league of celebrities that are a major part of the digital currency craze. Although most celebrities that are associated with digital currencies are only ambassadors of whatever digital currency they represent, Akon has taken it a step further. The singer is about to launch his own cryptocurrency. The announcement of the impending launch of Akon’s cryptocurrency was made known at Cannes Lions. This digital currency will be known as Akoin and will not just be a regular digital currency; it will be the official currency of Akon Crypto City. Akon made it known that one of his reasons for launching his own cryptocurrency is to contribute to the development of the African continent.

How Akoin can help the African Continent The launch of Akon’s cryptocurrency is not the only thing that the R&B star has been up to in recent times. He is also involved in a power project which is known as the Lighting Africa Project. This project is all about making solar power available to people on the African continent.

According to Akon, cryptocurrency, as well as blockchain, can play major role in helping Africa overcome the issues of poverty and insecurity. Akon made it known that cryptocurrency can help transfer power to the people and also restore the security of the currency system. During a panel, Akon also explained that with the help of Akoin, the African people can stop relying on the government to help them with their challenges.

this sounds quite unrealistic, the “Smack Down” singer has responded to lots of questions regarding his involvement in the development of Akoin. He explained that all he does is provide concepts while the geeks try to make something out of the concepts provided. Boniface Odinakachi ben@coregroup.info

How valuable will Akoin be? If Akoin never makes it to the top of the crypto pecking order, it will definitely be valuable on the African continent. According to the Akoin site, a futuristic city known as Akon Crypto City is already being developed on a 2000 acre of land close to Dakar, the capital city of Senegal. This huge piece of land was given to the singer by the Senegalese government and will be the first city to make use of a digital currency as its major currency. The implication of this is that other currencies which are made use of in other parts of Senegal and the world will be of no real value in Akon Crypto City, thereby, shooting up the value of Akoin. Although

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MARKETS SECTION

Psychological Factors Affecting Cryptocurrency Adoption Psychological Factors If we are not here for the money, why do the views on cryptocurrency content go down with the price in bear markets?

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here is no doubt that crypto has become an integral part of the lives of many people who would still be here regardless of how much 1 Bitcoin is worth in dollars. And of course, there are those who have been here from the beginning when there was no sign of cryptocurrencies being profitable. But yes, most people are here for the money too. This explains why videos on technical analysis are popular in the space even though crypto assets have proven to be unpredictable when it comes to price. In this article, the psychological factors affecting cryptocurrency adoption are analyzed.

Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Face it, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Mostly about the Price If it were up to just the sound technology behind Bitcoin and its use cases, the price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies would most likely not perform as well as they have done over the years. With the exception of people living in countries experiencing galloping inflation and those who need to make transactions without going through traditional banks, most cryptocurrency users would generally be okay without their tokens. We have those who are in it for ideological reasons but I doubt they were buying up huge volumes of Bitcoin at $20,000 for ideological reasons.

The truth is, upward price movements can only be sustained for a long period if new buyers enter the market.

For instance, people who bought their Bitcoins below $1,000 per coin are very unlikely to have e bought more when the price went above $10,000. It is agreed that cryptocurrencies are a great invention with interesting technology and great potential to change the world in different ways. However, it is the promise of future

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gains that attracts newcomers to invest any substantial amount in cryptocurrencies. Basically, the price goes up, people tell their friends and family about their gains and get them to buy some coins too. The price continues to go up, more people join and make gains, and the euphoria reaches its peak and even more people with the fear of missing out get onboard the crypto train. It is usually after people get involved that they begin to learn more about the technology and know what it is they bought. This is the reality of cryptocurrency adoption at the moment.

Irrational Behavior at the Peak of the Frenzy Every time the price approaches a new high in a bull run, the sentiments shared across the crypto community are often positive ones. With most people making gains in dollar terms, it begins to feel as if the price taking a downward turn for an extended period of time would be impossible. At this point, it is all success stories and people kick themselves for not buying more. Some take highly risky actions like selling their homes or taking loans to purchase cryptocurrencies.

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Another interesting thing that occurs in such times is that we find people clamoring for cheap coins on social media with comments like,

“I would like me some cheap coins” and “ I would scoop up as many coins as possible if it ever falls to $6,000”. Interestingly, such people are nowhere to be found when prices drop to the said amounts and the bulls run away. Sentiments change and price predictions are more modest and pessimistic. In the midst of all this, there are also those who are less moved by the euphoria. They do not buy because of the fear of missing out or panic sell in bear markets. Even though different investors have different personal traits, it is those who have been around for longer periods that are less likely to make rash decisions based on emotions. This means that if one is able to stick around for a couple of bull and bear markets, one learns the trends, develops nerves of steel and is able to make more rational decisions.

Where we are now and Preparing for the Next Stage of the Cycle From the Wall Street cheat sheet above we see that at the lowest point of the bear market, we have capitulation, anger and depression. I agree with the assessment that we are probably currently at the stage of capitulation. Some might now be experiencing the panic and others might be angry already. It is also true that these times are the best to gain more crypto knowledge and invest as well since it positions one for future gains when the next Bull Run shows up with the next wave of adopters. Are you feeling any signs of capitulation? If so, let me know in the comments so I prepare to buy some more. It has to be said that this is not financial advice. Please do your own research before investing in any cryptocurrency. Elikem Kofi Attah elikem@coregroup.info

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Hyperinflation in Developing Countries, How Crypto Can Help Alleviate the Problem Hyperinflation Hyperinflation occurs when the general prices of goods and services rise by over 50% per month.

he cases of Zimbabwe and Venezuela have been often

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discussed. The list of developing countries that have experienced economic hardships as a result

of hyperinflation goes beyond these two countries. Earlier today, the Times of Islamabad

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soon as possible to avoid having less purchasing power in the future. This leads to further depreciation of the currency in question and less national saving. A continuously depreciating currency also means salary earners earn less as time goes on and have less quality of life as a result. Businesses also struggle to stay afloat. Importers are

reported that the US Dollar had reached new highs against the Pakistani Rupee. In this article, we will examine the effects of hyperinflation on the economies of these countries and the role cryptocurrencies can play in solving the problem.

Hardships Brought About by Hyperinflation The cascading effects of hyperinflation have very severe consequences on the lives of citizens. Due to the rapidly reducing value of the hyper-inflated national currency, people dispose of money they earn as

usually the most severely hit because they would need more local currency to exchange for foreign currency needed to purchase goods from other countries. As a result, the prices of imports go up.

Factors Limiting the Use of Cryptocurrencies as a Solution Cryptocurrencies are not necessarily the perfect answer to the problem. First of all, governments and central banks tend to be hostile to cryptocurrencies since they often see them as a means to undermine their established financial system. Another reason is that cryptocurrencies by nature fall outside the control of central banks, governments or any

organization. In times of economic crisis, governments and central banks take measures to salvage the situation and improve their economies. It is common for governments to place a cap on the amount of money individuals can withdraw from bank accounts or exchange for foreign currencies in times of hyperinflation. These restrictive measures that infringe on the financial freedoms of citizens can be extended to cryptocurrencies. Laws can be passed to ban cryptocurrencies or make it difficult and risky for individuals to use. It has been alleged that the Venezuelan government, for instance, has been harassing citizens using cryptocurrency miners and also prevent the importation of miners by ordinary citizens. Such hostile actions of governments can make it difficult for cryptocurrencies to be freely used to solve the problem of hyperinflation in a legal way. Another limiting factor is the lack of computer literacy among some citizens of developing countries. Most technology averse people would be reluctant to use cryptocurrencies even if they are aware of the advantages. There would be the problem of safely keeping cryptocurrencies and falling for

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the schemes of potential scammers. The volatility of cryptocurrencies makes them equally risky to hold in times of inflation. As the Times of Islamabad reported, the Pakistani Rupee had depreciated by about 14% since December 2017. Bitcoin, on the other hand, has fallen by 31.9% since 1st December 2017. This means wealth being stored in cryptocurrencies in such times could be further wiped away in the short term.

Why Cryptocurrencies are Still Useful as a Solution to Hyperinflation Most cryptocurrencies are designed to have a cap on the total number of coins or tokens that would ever be in existence. As a result, such currencies become deflationary. This characteristic of cryptocurrencies makes them a suitable replacement went for inflationary currencies that are rapidly losing their value partly due to the irresponsible printing of money by central banks. With cryptocurrencies, individuals and organizations that have international operations can easily continue to operate normally in spite of hyperinflation. For instance, importers of goods who might lack access to foreign currency to make imports can use cryptocurrencies to make their cross-border transactions. Even family members can use cryptocurrencies to send remittances and avoid any restric-

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tions imposed on exchanging foreign currencies in such times. As mentioned earlier, the main problem people experiencing hyperinflation face is the erosion of their wealth. Cryptocurrencies are a better option for storing wealth for people in developing countries despite the short-term fluctuations in the price of cryptocurrencies. For instance, in the long-term, with all things being equal, Bitcoin is expected to gain more value than the Pakistani Rupee. Even without hyperinflation, the currencies of most developing countries have performed poorly against the U.S dollar over the years. It, therefore, makes little sense to use such local currencies as a store of value even without hyperinflation. Cryptocurrencies are designed to perform this function better than the inflationary currencies as well as consumer products and durable goods used to protect wealth in hyperinflationary times. Cryptocurrencies have always been used as a tool for financial freedom and inclusion. They become even more useful and necessary in countries where hyperinflation is rendering local currencies worthless. It is necessary for both governments of developing countries and their citizens to take a serious look at how they can benefit from cryptocurrencies in this regard. Elikem Kofi Attah elikem@coregroup.info

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MaidSafe reveals How Internet is More Dangerous Than we may Think

he MaidSafe organization has proposed a revolutionary new type of internet, which is simplistic in its design, as it intends to “abstract away” the technical details of data management. According to MaidSafe, virtually all industries and individuals would benefit from

this new internet. For instance, developers would not need to concern themselves with managing “low-level storage”, thus allowing them to develop robust applications which would not be dependent on the data they process. Moreover, the primer to MaidSafe’s SAFE network ex-

plains that their platform:

“would kickstart the nascent personal information economy in which individuals decide who can see what details about them, for what purpose, and for what Core Magazine

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possible financial recompense.”

MaidSafe Aims to Offer SAFE (Secure Access For Everyone) Network Notably, this kind of system is what the people behind MaidSafe, a Scottish software development firm specializing in decentralized networking, intends to offer. The SAFE (Secure Access For Everyone) network is described as:

“an autonomous peer-to-peer network created by linking together users’ computers and smartphones. It is designed to solve many of the current technical, managerial and societal problems with centralized networks.” According to the Scotland based company, the current internet does not offer a way to ensure one’s privacy and it is not sufficiently secure. There’s also too much censorship and “massive consolidation of control by a few powerful ac-

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tors.” In fact, the SAFE network primer points out that Facebook and Google have monopolized approximately 70% of transactions involving online advertisements. Moreover, behemoth online retailers, like Amazon and Alibaba, continue to use their monopolistic and hegemonic political and international influence to wipe out any form or type of competition. The problems this creates are worsened when these same giants launch services like cloud computing, because then not only do these organizations control how we transact, they also control our data. The SAFE network primer notes:

“Everywhere you look it’s the same story: centralization, consolidation, homogenization and monopolization.” The harmful effects of centralization includes easy ways for governments to conduct surveillance. Most people are familiar with Edward Snowden, a former CIA agent, who came out to reveal how governments worldwide monitor what we do on the internet. And even use

the internet to monitor what we do in our day-to-day lives. The MaidSafe team argues that the internet is even more dangerous than we think, noting that:

“as we become ever more dependent on it, this infrastructure becomes an increasingly juicy target for hostile state actors who not only use it to spread disinformation and discord, but can also take out critical infrastructure with well targeted DDoS and malware attacks with plausible deniability and without having to put a single boot on foreign soil.” Omar Faridi omar@coregroup.info

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Tron Vulnerable Legally and Technically

ron (TRX) is again in the news for the wrong reasons. There were previous reports of Tron whitepaper been plagiarized. This time it is accused of copying code from Ethereum Virtual Machine and Ethereum (J). Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s see this news in detail.

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Digital Asset Research Published Post Digital Asset Research (DAR) published a Medium Post about Tron copying code from other cryptocurrencies. In their Medium Post, theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve mentioned that the project has copied the code from Ethereum(J). The

post states that TRX later added the relevant license (i.e., LGPL license language to its files), but there are still cases of code being copied without giving reference to Ethereum. There are only slight changes to the code, but the majority of it is copied from Ethereum (J). Ethereum (J) is the pure-Java implementation of Ethereum

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with unreliable code and a lot of memory leaks. This is a serious risk for Tron, and they must address it as soon as possible before their platform is adopted by more users. This doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t end here, because the Tron virtual machine is also a copy of the Ethereum virtual machine and the changes that have been made on Tron will attract a lot of hackers who could potentially attack its network. Moreover,

protocol. It is a library that can be embedded in any Java/Scala project to get full support of Ethereum protocol. It was first developed by Roman Mandelei. Since theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re relatively old libraries, it might contain more bugs and could also be unreliable.

Legal and Technical Risks for Tron The copying of code not only opens up legal risks for Tron, but it also brings technical risks with it. As mentioned earlier, Ethreum (J) is an old library

the network uses the Delegated Proof of Stake algorithm which is not considered safer than proof-of-Work algo. Therefore, Tron adoption may not be as smooth as expected and it could be exposed to many technical risks and hacks. There could be many technical issues because the code was modified from an architecture that was built for some other purpose and changing it to cater for its functionality would bring in a lot of bugs.

in China. Tron also acquired Bit Torrent recently, and it saw its price surge shortly after the news was announced. Currently, the migration is happening from the Ethereum blockchain to it Mainnet. Many exchanges are supporting this migration. We strongly hope Tron will address the above issues in order to stay secure with minimal risks of getting hacked. Otherwise, it would be a disaster considering its huge market cap and the number of investors holding its tokens. Kadhir Velavan Ramasubramaniam kadhir@coregroup.info

Highly Centralized Project TRX is highly centralized and a large amount of its tokens are centrally held by its founders. Justin Sun is its founder, and he is also the founder of the mobile app Peiwo, which is used by 10 million people Core Magazine

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Are Big Data and Artificial Intelligence Useful in the Crypto World? A Triple Threat Big data, Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain. These are not just buzzwords but hot areas that are currently attracting a lot of investment and hungry for skilled individuals. This is because all three areas have the potential to bring about a great improvement in almost all spheres of life. As a matter of fact, there is a lot of change already sweeping through vari-

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ous industries with the application of the technological innovation in these areas. There is one thing all three areas have in common. For the ordinary person, projects in this field are often very complex and difficult to understand. In this article, basic explanations of what Big data and Artificial Intelligence are as well as how they are useful in the cryptocurrency world are covered.

What Big Data and AI are about The term Big data refers to huge and complex datasets. The large datasets are analyzed using special data processing applications with patterns generated and identified. Decisions are made by appropriate entities after meaning is drawn out of the data analyzed. Applications of Big data are yielding

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results in the fields of healthcare, marketing, and security. Artificial intelligence, on the other hand, is about creating intelligent machines to perform complex tasks. Big data, as well as technologies like artificial neural networks, machine learning and deep learning, are employed in the creation of the Artificial Intelligence. The military, healthcare, advertising, video game, finance and automotive sectors have all seen applications of Artificial intelligence.

Where do Cryptocurrencies Come in? Blockchain, the technology supporting most cryptocurrency projects, has some characteristics that make it useful in solving some of the challenges that are faced by the Big data and AI industries. Some of these challenges are centered on the storage of the large amounts of data. At the forefront are issues of securely keeping personal information as well as sensitive information. The cryptography used in blockchain systems helps fix this problem. This is because data stored on a truly decentralized blockchain would be encrypted. The data would also not be stored at a single

point since a true blockchain is a distributed ledger. Using the blockchain technology means data can both be securely stored and transferred.

sionals are programmers. The more the blockchain technology is applied in new fields, the more the job opportunities for crypto professionals spring up.

Even the process of creating the intelligent machines, especially the engines could be improved with the inclusion of blockchain technology. The manner in which the engines are fed with data worldwide could be organized over the blockchain. For instance,

Also, the notion that the technology behind cryptocurrencies cannot be truly used for anything beyond the finance sector can be debunked. Most of the applications that are built on cryptocurrencies or using the blockchain technology are not as decentralized as they

Graphpathâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s knowledge marketplace combines, AI, Big data and the blockchain technology to make it possible to have knowledge/data to be traded on the blockchain. A step like theirs would incentivize the sharing of knowledge since value can be derived from doing so. This is expected to greatly expedite further developments in the space.

claim to be. In fact, some do not even need the blockchain for the functions they set out to perform. As stated earlier, there are challenges with Big data and Artificial Intelligence that require the blockchain technology as a solution. Such applications of the blockchain would move us closer to a time when truly needed use cases outside the finance sector would exist in their numbers. With this, the remaining critics of cryptocurrency technology who consider it useless should be silenced.

How Does The Crypto World Benefit? One way the cryptocurrency space can benefit from the combined application of the three technologies is the creation of more employment opportunities. Professionals in the cryptocurrency space are already in high demand. On top of the list of the most sought-after profes-

References: Article on Blockchain, AI by Forbes https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Big_data Elikem Kofi Attah elikem@coregroup.info

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Blockchain Only ‘ONE’ Type of Distributed Ledger Technology The Era of Blockchain Systems Blockchain introduced a new economic era popularly termed as the internet 3.0, simply because it’s the internet of value. It’s almost impossible to surf the internet today without coming across blockchain related headlines. This cuttingedge tool has disrupted the

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internet by influencing major economic sectors and players. With so much technological infrastructure being built on the blockchain today, it’s important to understand that blockchain is only one type of distributed ledger technology. Apart from the confusion of blockchain being the only decentralized ledger technology, there’s also the confusion surrounding decentralization

and the assumption that every blockchain is ‘decentralized’. This isn’t surprising because the whole blockchain shebang became suddenly overwhelming and it’s normal to get confused by all the different terminology, especially when there are no regulatory standards. However, here we attempt to both literally and technically identify the roles each of these newly introduced concepts play

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in the new internet economy. For convenience, it’s acceptable to see blockchain as a ring inside a bigger circle, but it’s not the only ring in there.

What’s Distributed Ledger Technology? A close to home analogy will be an accounting ledger used in many corporate organizations such as banks, to keep track of transactions. A digital ledger in the sense of being distributed has a more refined approach to the handling and validation of data. The files (ledger + data) which are distributed amongst many users (called nodes) can contribute to the data set independently, thereby, building a more resourceful data hub. Breaking down distributed ledger technology as a literal frame is a concept of distributing copies of digital databases across multiple nodes (independent computer systems). Each of these nodes is connected with no central server making the distributed ledger network decentralized. Data entry validation is achieved through a consensus algorithm. In other words, it’s a broader term used to describe the concept on which blockchain applications are derived. Therefore, blockchain is a subset of distributed ledger technology.

What then is the Blockchain? Technically, if the term ‘blockchain’ is to be taken literally, it relatively describes a system of data blocks connected by a string of some sort, such that transactions are logged into a block and continue onto the next block as soon as the current block is filled. However, the more conventional interpretation of the blockchain is a system built after the likeness of bitcoin or trying to accomplish a decentralized system of storing, sharing and validation of data on a shared digital ledger through a consensus mechanism. Each of these new modifications has attempted to use different consensus models to upscale the original concept. This ‘remodeling’ brings about three types of ‘conventional’ blockchains – the public, the private and the federated. And….we will be discussing these types in a later article, so stay tuned! Reference: DLT explained by World Bank Manuel Mcoy

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Do You Think Cryptocurrency Will Boost Your Business Performance? Business Performance Could Improve with Bitcoin Alongside Brexit, Bitcoin was one of the most trending news topics in 2017. The value of this previously unobtru-

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sive phenomenon has made it become well-known. It is surprising that it took nearly a decade for something which was launched in 2009 to gain so much acknowledgement, and its quick growth in value has helped it to move forward. Before we go ahead, I would like

to talk about cryptocurrency, in general, before we discuss if it can boost your business performance.

What exactly is Cryptocurrency?

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a digital currency that utilizes encryption to control

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its uses and to develop its product. Cryptocurrency makes use of blockchain technology to keep records of each transaction, which prevents the same person from spending the same coin. However, it’s also a currency like the dollar, pound, or euro but the difference is that it is simply not regulated by any financial institution, bank, financial authority or government. Bitcoin is the main cryptocurrency brand. It works by using point-to-point exchanges that connect buyers with sellers who set their payment methods and prices. If you want to purchase Bitcoin, you must first of all have a digital wallet. Then you will have to find a recommended trading platform, like Coinbase, before selecting the right Bitcoin Operator based on the type of offers that they have. Moreover, the primary objective was to develop a method of payment that would not have to be in accordance with any government regulation or financial authorization, which would allow a number of benefits that the fiat currency could simply not offer. This was attractive to many, so the number of wallet users increased exponentially.

Are business owners using bitcoin to boost there business performance? More and more companies have agreed to get onboard by using mainly Bitcoin, and also other cryptocurrency. For instance, giants such as Paypal, Microsoft, and Expedia have already accepted it as well as many other smaller outlets, especially those whose main clients are the millennials, which are the ideal demographic for adopting this new currency. Bitcoin can as well be exchanged for when buying goods from Amazon and Nike. Blockchain technology has also been used by catering companies to improve their revenue management and internal processes. The industrial giant TUI Group is one of those companies that are known to be running an underground experiment on this. So now, let’s talk about the advantages of cryptocurrencies. Advantages of Cryptocurrencies Below are some of the benefits your business can achieve

by using cryptocurrencies.

More options for your clients. We all know the saying “buyer is king” and it has never been as true as it is today when the rate at which customers ask for immediacy and personalization are at a very high level. Therefore, the more payment options you can offer, the better for both of you. And, with so many new merchants putting up the sign “Bitcoin Accepted Here”, it’s definitely a trend which you should pay attention to if you want to boost your business performance.

Reducing costs For most companies, the fees charged by their banks are a huge burden to them and they cannot ignore that, especially when they can be charged 5% of their total transactions. However, one of the many benefits of cryptocurrencies is that this figure is usually much lower, and sometimes charges do not exist at all. This is because there are no payment intermediaries. Fortune 100 Companies Leverage Blockchain While Cardano, Bitcoin, Ethereum Advance Core Magazine

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Faster transactions Another nightmare for many companies is the time it takes to go through transactions. Even though we live in the age of 24/7, many financial institutions and banks continue to stick to a number of working days for making payments. However, the blockchain technology which is behind the cryptocurrency implies that these payments can be done in a matter of minutes which will likely boost your business performance .

Disadvantages of Cryptocurrency Having known all the benefits associated with using cryptocurrencies, there are still some disadvantages that you need to know. These include:

Fluctuation in value Cryptocurrency prices can fall and rise at any time like what is happening now, so there is always a risk that you can get caught into when the price drops. Notably, Bitcoinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s price has in a single day dropped more than 40%. CoinGrocer | Buy groceries using your cryptocurrencies

Regulation threat Recently, there are certain regulations guilding cryptocurrencies. But as it gets

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more and more popular, several governments think it will have to be regulated. Until we are certain about what these regulations might be, it is not possible to predict how this will affect businesses. Having seen the advantages and disadvantages of cryptocurrency, it is imperative to know that Bitcoin is waxing stronger. So many financial experts have predicted that Bitcoin will soon be adopted by so many governments as a means of payment. Many people are already of the view that Bitcoin will boost so many businesses mostly in terms of payment. Boniface Odinakachi ben@coregroup.info

Español

Entrevista a An gie Villarreal de Zen Cash

Platica aména con la coordinadora de Zen Cash en México

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¿Cuál es tu rol en el proyecto?

¿Qué es ZenCash?

Para los amigos que se están tratando de meter en este mundo de las cripto monedas, una de las cosas importantes es que hay muchas criptomonedas pero ¿Qué te llamó a ti la atención y que puede la gente encontrar en este proyecto?

ZenCash es una cripto moneda pero más que una cripto moneda es una plataforma de tecnología. Que se inicia en Mayo del 2017 y fuimos naciendo de otras tecnologías como el bitcoin, es decir somos una combinación de tres cripto monedas importantes, porque conjuntamos lo mejor de tres cripto monedas de Bitcoin de Dash y de Zcash donde con nuestra plataforma creamos zencash para poder ofrecer una tecnología de calidad a las personas.

Nosotros nos distinguimos por ser una plataforma que puede viajar en tres espectros, a que me refiero con esto, pues que podemos tener una plataforma pública, de transacciones normales como las de bitcoin u otras criptomonedas, pero también a través de nuestra tecnología podemos hacer transacciones privadas y anónimas, esto quiere decir que si el usuario lo elige, el usuario puede seleccionar si quiere dar a conocer el emi-

Gracias es un placer estar con ustedes, bien yo soy la coordinadora nacional en México de ZenCash, también veo la parte de Latinoamérica, y lo que tiene que ver con las relaciones, el contenido de ZenCash en Español

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sor y el receptor de una transacción y esto hace que nuestra red sea resiliente, sea más segura a través de las transacciones privadas como un agregado a nuestra tecnología.

Para la gente que empieza a hacer comparaciones entre un proyecto y otro, cada proyecto tiene sus características diferentes ¿Cuáles son las características principales de ZenCash y cuales son las diferencias con el Bitcoin? La intención de Zencash es ser una plataforma y al incluir la parte de privacidad con las pruebas de cero conocimiento lo que hicimos también es que hemos creado un programa de pago para los operadores de nodos. Los nodos seguros son estas personas que con tecnología son capaces de aprobar las transacciones de Zencash y que pueden ser recomendados al aprobar transacciones porque lo que queremos es que la gente pueda contribuir de manera descentralizada a nuestra plataforma, ahorita ya rebasamos en número de operadores de nodos en el mundo en com-

paración a bitcoin, tenemos mas de 10,000 nodos y que es gente que quiere participar y aportar con su tecnología para la aprobación de las transacciones y hacer que el proyecto sea más descentralizado. Además tenemos otras aplicaciones que se están desarrollando,

Uno de los retos que tienes es precisamente el cómo llevar el mensaje a la gente de Latinoamérica y ese es el gran reto porque sabemos que mucha de la información esta en ingles y hay que traducirlo y cómo empezaste, ¿Por qué Monterrey en este tipo de ambiente donde la gente con ideas innovadoras tienen muchas ideas y que están haciendo ahorita? Bueno estamos construyendo una comunidad, sin la comunidad no seriamos nada, y como lo mencionas hay mucho contenido de esta tecnología de cripto monedas de la tecnología blockchain y está toda en inglés, pero es también importante

como llevas el mensaje también a otros idiomas no solamente en español y parte de nuestros retos es transmitir estas ideas a las personas a través de un conocimiento previo de nosotros para poder explicar qué significa esto y explicar que hace Zencash, que aporta, porque apostar a nuestra tecnología y porque tenemos proyectos y un equipo de 50 personas alrededor del mundo que trabajan constantemente en la parte técnica y desarrollo de negocios y bueno porque Monterrey. Porque México, México es un país idea para este tipo de cuestiones que ayudan a fomentar la tecnología, el crecimiento y la libertad económica y ZenCash aportan estas nuevas ideas y bueno Monterrey es una ciudad grande y significativa en el país y lo que queremos es impulsar y que la gente conozca más de las herramientas que también nos puede proveer una ciudad tan bonita como Monterrey.

Desde el punto de vista técnico en comparación por ejemplo con el bitcoin ¿Cuántas monedas va a haber, hubo un preminado o no lo hubo, cuánto se tarda el

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bloque en realizar las transacciones? Nosotros no tuvimos preminado, no tuvimos un ICO, esto es bien importante mencionarlo y nuestra fundación Zen fue formada por Robert Viglione y Rolf Versluis y donde ellos aportaron sus ideas, capital y tiempo al proyecto y por tanto no hicimos un ICO sino que nace de este conjunto de ideas y la oferta total es de 21 millones, es la parte que tenemos en conjunto con Bitcoin y que se van a crear en todo el periodo de tiempo. Y bueno que tenemos en relación con Dash, bueno pues Dash tiene un sistema y tesorería descentralizada en donde uno puede someter propuestas

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y con una idea o un proyecto uno puede ser votado para que posteriormente se pueda ejecutar el proyecto, nosotros actualmente estamos desarrollando nuestro sistema de gobernanza descentralizada en conjunto con IOHK que es una empresa en Hong Kong y también nos está ayudando en la parte de investigación y desarrollo y bueno lo que queremos es crear una plataforma, descentralizada con una oferta total establecida, fomentar mucho la investigación y desarrollo y por supuesto tener ese aditivo de privacidad que comentábamos.

El reto que comentábamos de los que tienes y de lo activa que estás y ¿Qué estás haciendo, que terminaron ahora y que eventos tienen en puerta? Estamos haciendo lo humanamente posible para poder estar en todos lados, ahorita en lo que nos hemos enfocado mucho es en el contenido en las redes sociales lo que es Facebook, Twitter e Instagram y estamos constantemente publicando las cosas que estamos haciendo en Español, tenemos nuestro blog en español también, tenemos también contenido bastante interesante, tenemos una comunidad en telegram y que ha

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estado creciendo mucho para personas que hablan español y los invitamos a que formen parte de la comunidad para que se enteren que estamos haciendo porque hay muchas cosas. Que viene, tenemos varios eventos aquí en México planeados, vamos a estar en una reunión en Cancún, posteriormente nos vamos a Brasil al Blockspot en donde vamos a ser patrocinadores y vamos a seguir con una serie de eventos para seguir promocionando y seguir dando a conocer lo que es Zencash. Tenemos ahorita muchas tareas y muchos retos y que si es algo complejo el transmitir este conocimiento pero estamos muy animados y bueno siempre estamos abiertos a invitar a la comunidad a conocer a gente nueva y que tenemos el gusto de conocerte Ignacio y empezar este movimiento que yo le tengo mucha fe y vienen muchas actividades, eventos, reuniones, sorpresas, integraciones y creo que vamos en el camino correcto.

Amigos, si están interesado en investigar acerca de este proyecto, la página oficial de ZenCash es www.

zencash.com ahí pueden encontrar muchísima información y esta muy completa y tiene toda la información y hablando de información Angie, cuéntame la parte de carteras ¿Qué disponibilidad tienen ahorita? Ahorita tenemos ya carteras para Windows, para MAC, para Linux y para Android, estamos ya en el proceso para las cartera de iOS y uno puede tener las dos versiones de las carteras que son el cliente completo donde se tiene que correr toda la cadena de bloques y el cliente ligero que es una versión más pequeña de la cadena de bloques, yo en lo personal tengo mi cartera de Zen en mi computadora y se llama Arizen Wallet y también la tengo en mi celular y es bastante fácil y útil porque puedo revisar mi saldo, puedo ver las transacciones que hago y es bastante útil.

¿Y Cual es el precio de una moneda de ZenCash cuanto es el precio en Pesos Mexicanos? Actualmente está en $500 o $600 pesos Mexicanos pero el valor más alto al que ha llegado es de $1100 o $1200 pesos en

el mayor valor en el tiempo, esto fue en Enero, pero ahora con el mercado y como está un poco mas bajo, mas tranquilo y en dólares americanos en un promedio de $31 dólares

Pues amigos los invitamos a que visiten la pagina y que si quieren hacer se puedan comunicar con ustedes y ¿cuál es el canal si alguna persona de Latinoamérica, de México o de otro país quiere empezar este movimiento en su propia zona ¿Cuál es el proceso? Bueno yo creo que lo más fácil es a través de Facebook y que nos escribieran un mensaje por el chat privado para poderles dar la información de qué canales pueden tomar como por ejemplo en Discord, en telegram, esa sería la vía más rápida y que nos contacten y nos digan hola queremos ser parte de la comunidad y la página también es importante ya que estamos poniendo información constantemente y bueno el blog de Zencash que es blog. zencah.com y lo pueden buscar en internet donde constantemente estamos publicando las noticias de las integraciones,

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en donde pueden comprar, en donde pueden vender zencash y bueno con quien estamos trabajando y también de quienes están aceptando zencash en el comercio electrónico.

Amigos este es un proyecto interesante tiene mucha tecnología y sabemos que cada quincena tienen ustedes una reunión y le dicen a la comunidad que es en lo que están

avanzando y bueno esperemos que nos den la oportunidad de volver a platicar otra vez contigo Angie, metanse, revisen, síganlos en las redes sociales y creo que es un proyecto que va a traer muchísimas cosas positivas porque la relación que tienen con la empresa IOHK tienen muchas cosas interesantes.

Gracias Angie por haber estado con nosotros y ustedes amigos síganos en este canal porque vamos a tener más información acerca de este proyecto, mientras tanto muchísimas gracias. Ignacio Figueroa

Da click aqui para ver el video

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Ol ys e u m | L a pri m e ra red s o ci a l pa ra a m a n tes d e l o s d e por te s ba sa da e n bl o ckcha in

a Copa Mundial 2018 en Rusia ha comenzado, y hay una manera de que usted pueda estar informado sobre todo lo que sucede en este gran evento sin tener que mirar las noticias o leer un periódico. Esa manera es Olyseum. Olyseum es una nueva red social para entusiastas del deporte, con la que los usuarios

pueden tener un perfil donde puedan compartir noticias del campo de deportes y seguir a otros usuarios para ver su opinión sobre temas deportivos, siendo conscientes de todo lo relacionado con los deportes. Esta plataforma será compatible con dispositivos iOS y Android. La plataforma fue anunciada por primera vez en 2016 por los aclamados futbolistas Carles

Puyol, Iván de la Peña y Andrés Iniesta, que actualmente están comprometidos con la promoción del nuevo desarrollo en las redes sociales. A partir del 14 de junio, la aplicación será probada entre los millones de aficionados al fútbol que actualmente están viendo el desarrollo de la Copa Mundial de la FIFA 2018 en Rusia. A través de un comuni-

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cado de prensa, se explica que el período de prueba se llevará a cabo durante todas las semanas de la Copa del Mundo, pero la nueva plataforma, llamada Olyseum, se lanzará oficialmente en el transcurso de este año 2018. Aprovechando la tecnología de blockchain, la plataforma se mejorará e incluirá un programa de incentivos para los fanáticos que se ejecutará a través de contratos inteligentes. De esta forma, las contribuciones de los usuarios serán recompensadas como tickets VIP y experiencias únicas con ídolos.

Comunidades en Olyseum Olyseum busca que cada ídolo tenga una comunidad en la que puedan interactuar con sus admiradores de una manera segura y respetuosa, así como intercambiar productos y darles algunas recompensas. Al crear estas comunidades se logran dos objetivos, el primero es un ingreso para los ídolos de la comunidad y el segundo son las recompensas en los tokens que Olyseum les da a los seguidores. La comunidad de Iniesta es la primera que se ha creado en

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la que Andrés Iniesta, el famoso jugador español del Barcelona Club, compartirá sus experiencias dentro y fuera del campo con contenido exclusivo para la plataforma. Andrés responderá preguntas de sus seguidores e incluso dará lecciones y consejos sobre fútbol. El proyecto será en colaboración con el ingeniero Carlos Grenoir y con la participación de Kevin Mitnick, considerado el hacker más famoso del mundo.

“En Olyseum queremos romper la línea tan gruesa que hasta ahora separaba a la pequeña élite de los deportes de medios de sus seguidores y fanáticos. Aspiramos a ser el ‘coliseo’ deportivo en línea, un lugar donde los atletas y seguidores pueden estar más cerca y llegar a conocernos, enriqueciendo el mundo del deporte “, dijo Grenoir Los gerentes de proyecto esperan que Olyseum se convierta en la próxima comunidad más grande en la escena deportiva,

con miles de oportunidades para expandir el conocimiento de noticias, encuentros únicos con celebridades en el campo y la posibilidad de vincular a más y más fanáticos al campo. los nuevos desarrollos tecnológicos en Blockchain. Angel Figueroa angelfigueroa@coregroup. info

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C r y ptolife , la em p res a co lombiana q u e ven de e q u ipos y co n t rato s d e min erí a d ig it a l

mérica Latina y especialmente Colombia, tiene un mercado en crecimiento tanto en el desarrollo como en la extracción de cripto monedas y proyectos criptográficos. Cryptolife es la primera em-

presa minera de cripto monedas 100% física con sede en Colombia. Carlos Sánchez, CEO y fundador de la compañía, decidió crear un proyecto basado en la tecnología Blockchain o en monedas digitales, cuyos ingresos mensuales estaban completamente asegurados.

Actualmente, realiza actividades mineras para cripto monedas que operan bajo un protocolo de validación PoW (prueba de trabajo), que implica realizar cálculos matemáticos para la producción de nuevo activo criptográfico, verificación de bloques y captura de comisiones asociadas con transCore Magazine

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ferencias. Entre las monedas digitales con las que Cryptolife opera actualmente se encuentran Ethereum, Zcash, Decred, Monero, Siacoin, entre otras. Para llevar a cabo estas operaciones, Cryptolife cuenta con centros e instalaciones mineras en diversas partes del país, en las cuales se utiliza hardware especializado y de última generación para garantizar la mayor rentabilidad posible para el hash generado. Cryptolife ofrece tres tipos de servicios: Minería física: Proceso en el cual los clientes establecen un contrato con Cryptolife bajo la figura del participante inactivo, y se benefician a través del trabajo de dispositivos de minería física totalmente verificables. Proyecto minero: El cliente puede planificar su propio proyecto minero que mejor se adapte a sus necesidades y a sus objetivos esperados, de modo que se brinde asesoramiento, instalación de máquinas, capacitación en el tema y soporte por 3 meses. Talleres: se ofrecen talleres interactivos entre capacitadores y asistentes, en los que se abordan temas tales como

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Blockchain, cripto activod y minería de cripto monedas.

Oferta comercial de Cryptolife Las granjas mineras se encuentran en Bogotá, la capital de Colombia. Se utilizan máquinas mineras o equipos de minería basados en tarjetas gráficas o GPU, y actualmente se realiza una inversión en las máquinas Antminer S9 y T9. La oferta comercial para personas que desean minar bajo un sistema de participación se maneja bajo la figura de contribuciones (participantes inactivos) ya sea para la compra directa de una plataforma minera o para el concepto de participación por un cierto período de tiempo en una de las administradas por Cryptolife. La oferta comercial depende del capital que cada cliente desee aportar y, en función de esto, se generan ganancias diarias de cripto monedas. La billetera de cada cliente se configura directamente en el hardware criptográfico, por lo que recibe automáticamente pagos de la máquina adquirida. No es necesario que las personas hagan retiros de ningún tipo a través de una plataforma.

Carlos Sánchez menciona que su objetivo es ser la empresa de fabricación y ventas más grande de América Latina para plataformas a largo plazo, así como fundar la primera academia de educación en el campo de las criptomonedas y la tecnología Blockchain en Colombia. Además, hay planes para ingresar a la minería de PoS con masternodos, que se llevará a cabo en el mediano plazo. Angel Figueroa angelfigueroa@coregroup. info

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