- The 10 Biggest Myths about Cryptocurrencies - Part 7!
- Zipper: New Blockchain Platform for Smartphones!
- It's a Mindset - a Cool Head in Stormy Crypto Times!
- Bitcoin Cash: ABC and Unlimited announce Roadmap for 2018!
- Innovation through Blockchain in the United Kingdom!
- Tax Evasion: Coinbase must disclose Data from 14,355 US Citizens!
In the series "The 10 Biggest Myths About Cryptocurrencies", I take a closer look at the top 10 claims about cryptocurrencies and their opportunities and risks. In doing so, I will daily explore a new myth and check it for accuracy.
Myth 7: A regulated trade in cryptocurrencies is not possible
The regulation of cryptocurrencies has become one of the central themes in the field of blockchain, especially in the last six months. As a response to the growing popularity of cryptocurrencies on the one hand, and the proliferation of cryptocurrencies by countless ICOs on the other, more and more countries around the world are now urged to think about regulatory measures and create conditions for this growing sector ,
A cryptocurrency as a non-physical, decentralized digital currency naturally presents challenges for central banks and financial regulators around the world. Especially in many legal aspects, the emergence of cryptocurrencies creates precedents that can not easily be classified in the existing legal framework.
About the various procedures of regulation of cryptocurrencies was already written in the second part of this series. If one ignores radical measures of crypto regulation, above all practiced in China, then in the majority of cases constructive approaches on the part of the state can be identified.
One of the most brilliant examples at this point is Japan. At the beginning of October, a wide-ranging regulatory action created measures to enforce a law regulating digital currency exchanges. Rules were adopted to prevent cryptocurrencies and their trading on stock exchanges being abused for money laundering and thus being involved in criminal activities. In addition, the Know Your Customer (KYC) principle has set a standard that entails an annual audit. The same law had also officially declared Bitcoin a legal tender in Japan.
In the course of this, a part of the crypto exchanges operating in Japan was closed. However, those vendors who could meet the requirements imposed by the Japanese government were given official state licenses. In the long term, such a regulatory solution can have a decisive effect on the acceptance of cryptocurrencies and, despite partial restrictions, even contribute to their further growth. A well-defined set of rules that sets a framework for cryptocurrency trading is a prerequisite for mainstream adaptation. Without the necessary legal certainty and consumer protection, it will be difficult to convince broad sections of society and traditional cryptocurrency companies.
So it remains to be noted that regulated trading in cryptocurrencies is possible - it is already happening in Japan. The success there confirms the system right: Japan has become (after the prohibition of crypto exchanges in China) the world's largest market for cryptocurrency trading. In view of this development, it seems only a matter of time before similar laws apply in Europe and the US.
Part 1: Cryptocurrencies are mainly used for criminal business such as money laundering.
Part 2: States can not regulate cryptocurrencies and will sooner or later ban them.
Part 3: Cryptocurrencies price rises are a pure bubble formation.
Part 4: The storage of cryptocurrencies is cumbersome and risky.
Part 5: The tax situation for cryptocurrencies is unclear.
Part 6: Cryptocurrencies are not attractive to institutional investors.
Users of Sailfish OS and Android should in the future be able to use Blockchain services straightforwardly via their smartphone. The Zipper client is said to be easier to use and more secure, and there is a community aspect with tokens that users can earn and trade.
The Finnish companies Jolla and Zipper announced a cooperation at the startup conference Slush 2017 to bring the blockchain platform Zipper on smartphones. The two companies are closely linked: Zippers founder Antti Saarnio is also the founder of Jolla and its chairman.
Zipper is based on Ethereum and should enable the use of a number of blockchain-based services. Users should be able to manage their keys at the same time. This is done according to the principle of Shamir's Secret Sharing.
The Zipper Platform on a Sony Xperia X with Sailfish OS (Image: zipperglobal.com)
A secret is split up into several places, but only part of the clients are necessary for the reconstruction. The Zipper client is located in its own container and is intended to be isolated from the rest of the operating system to increase security. To what extent such a container can avert attacks of an infected host operating system remains to be seen.
First, Zipper can be used under Sailfish OS, the operating system that comes from Jolla itself and is now licensed to various manufacturers worldwide. Users can use Sony's Xperia X for which there is now an official version of Sailfish OS.
Zipper users receive reward tokens
To be not just another blockchain client, Zipper has come up with something special for their platform. In transactions, users can earn so-called ZIP tokens, such as when they share private data with businesses. According to Zipper, this should allow users better control over their own informational self-determination. The tokens should in the future be exchanged with selected partners or let sell to other users.
In addition, Zipper users can use the tokens to count on the expected success of apps selected by Zipper. Who puts on the ultimately most successful, receives the money from the betting pot - who sets wrong loses his token.
Jolla wants to use Zipper for own community
With the tokens Zipper hopes to give users of online communities incentives for a stronger participation. Those who do a lot in the community receive tokens that they can use. For this reason, Jolla is also interested in Zipper: The Sailfish OS community had asked for a kind of reward system, as explained by Sami Pienimäki Jolla.
First, Zipper will be integrated into Sailfish OS, then also in Android. Zipper wants to work with Jollas partners in Asia and South America. The ZIP tokens can already be purchased, the platform for the Xperia X with Sailfish OS is due to be released in early 2018. Due to its open structure, the Zipper makers are hoping for more blockchain initiatives to join the project.
Zipper is not the first Blockchain smartphone project
Zipper is not the first concept for a smartphone with blockchain capabilities. The makers behind the failed Solarin Security smartphone for 14,000 US dollars also want to score with a Blockchain smartphone.
If you are interested, here you can go to the Zipper token pre-sale where selected contributors will also receive 30% bonus and a Zipper platform powered Sony Xperia X smartphone. If you like to read the whitepaper go go here.
Disclaimer:
The information presented in this post is not a recommendation for purchase or sale. It is only an opinion of me the author. They serve merely to describe the project and are not to be understood as an investment analysis.
Not only Bitcoin, the entire crypto-ecosystem is currently quite turbulent - how should we behave now and in case of a possible price drop?
Bitcoin and Altcoin prices rose and went up in June and there was no end to it. When the "big" price crash came, some were almost relieved, but offered this opportunity to buy. In the wake of Chinese prohibitions and negative remarks by Dimon, the situation was repeated at the end of August.
Motivated by the price fluctuations, one requested instructions from different sources on how to behave now in order to make as much profit as possible. To be completely honest, I do not have the recipe for making incredible profits in the current price situation and a consolidation afterwards. Of course, in the price analyzes every sunday, in the market observations and in the crypto compass, I give estimates about the price behavior, but I do not take any action from anyone. In this series of articles, however, I would like to give some basic pointers regarding this action.
Trading and investing - decide!
One question to ask is: am I planning a long-term investment or am I a trader?
Not a few tend to both. You can do this controllably, but you should strictly separate these two approaches, ie have a pot for the long-term investment, another for trading. If you do not do that, you tend to just pursue trading half-heartedly and emotionally. That's a good way to lose money. You then jump emotionally into trades without any real strategy, leave it there and in the end you are disappointed that the price has fallen by 20% - if you had left your money in Bitcoin!
To clarify the question, which you can easily call "Trader vs Holder", for yourself, one more question must first be answered: How much time do I have? For professionals, the long-term investor's approach is often better; You regularly invest money and enjoy the accumulation. Should it come to the seven lean years, you are pleased that you can currently buy cheap.
As a trader, you have to realize that trading is a full-time job as long as you hold positions. Sure, you can control a lot about stop losses and targets, but if you do not want to do algorithmic trading, you have to do something, at least when choosing a good entry moment and updating the stop loss and target.
It is a Mindset - How to keep a course on cryptocurrency trading
I have the impression that many simply do not have the right mindset. "It's a mindset" not only roars Eric Bugenhagen, but applies both in trading as well as long-term investment.
First and foremost, this mindset requires one thing: control over one's own feelings. If you have them under control, you will also be able to develop good money and risk management.
Greed and fear are in the way of many. It is annoying: If you had sold everything in time and you had put everything back in time in crypto! You would be a millionaire!
The problem is that these perfect moments are usually recognizable only in Rüchschau. Of course, trends, indicators and patterns, support and resistance can provide guidance, but often it's your own emotional state that keeps you from selling or shopping. You wait for the dip to go deeper, then you will invest in Bitcoin. You wait until the end of the rally to sell at the maximum. If you act then you are often dissatisfied - if you had sold / bought earlier!
Worse yet, if you act impulsively - you get Bitcoin Cash rising dramatically, you're selling all your Bitcoin in favor of Bitcoin Cash - and the price is falling.
In both cases, in addition to any losses above all one striking: The investor is ruining his day.
Therefore, it should be emphasized once again that one should adjust his mindset first, so that the feelings fear and greed do not control one. The classic advice "invest no more than you can handle" is not just a tip to prevent a private bankruptcy, but rather a tip to avoid exactly these pitfalls. You should therefore think about what you could get over.
The mindset is that you do not sell easily. The rule may be slightly different as a trader than in the case of the long-term investor, but if the price drops dramatically, you will not be nervous in either case. You see, if there is a fundamental reason for the case or if it is the usual fluctuations. Otherwise, you sell when you want to exchange cryptocurrencies in Fiat or spend them on goods - say: if you want to treat yourself or (in the case of the trader) means that you have reached his trading goal.
In terms of mindset, you will also gradually notice that the perception of profit and loss changes: price gains are of course something pleasant, but in the case of price losses, you will see not only the dwindling portfolio, but above all buying opportunities. This view should be cultivated, as it gives you a certain peace in times of price fall.
So far, some thoughts on the mindset. In further articles the way of the investor and the trader should be illuminated even more exactly.
The developer teams of Bitcoin Cash met in London. The two most important of these, ABC and Unlimited, have now presented their roadmaps for the medium-term future. In them you will find exciting, but possibly also daring ideas.
Seven development teams have recently gathered in London to discuss the future of Bitcoin Cash: Bitcoin ABC, Bitcrust, Bitprim, Bitcoin Unlimited, ElectrumX, nChain and Parity. That sounds like more than it is, but illustrates the claim of Bitcoin Cash to be a joint project of different teams.
"We are all excited about a shared vision - that Bitcoin Cash is massively scaled and will become a fast, affordable, global electronic peer-to-peer cash," reports Bitcoin Unlimited on there website.
However, the leading team is Bitcoin ABC, which has so far prevailed in protocol changes. Accordingly, the roadmap recently presented by ABC for the "medium term future" is likely to be the most important. First, ABC is also committed to the vision presented by Unlimited: "Our top priority for Bitcoin Cash is to further improve it as a great money. We want to make it more reliable and scalable, with low fees and ready for rapid growth. It should 'just work', without complications or circumstances. It should be ready for world-wide application by mainstream users, and provide a solid foundation on which companies can rely. "
Specifically, this means that ABC is planning a hardfork twice next year - the roadmap calls it "Protocol Upgrades": May 15 and November 15. The code for this should be available three months before the Hardfork.
For the next upgrade ABC plans the following features:
- The blocksize limit is to be further increased and eventually converted to an "adaptive blocksize limit" similar to what Bitcoin Unlimited already has.
- Next is to set up a canonical order of transactions, which is probably good for scalability, as it would allow features like Graphene.
- In addition, ABC plans to further improve the Difficulty Adjustment Algorithm,
- and reactivate some disabled opcodes.
The so-called "opcodes" are script commands for processing Bitcoin transactions. For security reasons, Satoshi has disabled some of the commands even in the early days of Bitcoin. In order to explore the features enabled by them, ABC would like to switch the codes back on carefully.
The roadmap of Bitcoin Unlimited is similar - and a bit further. The developers already announce that they support the half-yearly upgrade by Hardforks.
- In addition to increasing blocksize, Bitcoin Unlimited also wants to increase capacity by lowering block intervals to 1, 2, or 2.5 minutes. At the same time this should improve the user experience as transactions are confirmed faster.
- The team is also in charge of activating old opcodes,
- but also proposes to implement new opcodes, such as OP_GROUP and OP_DATASIGVERIFY, which should allow "representative tokens and binary contracts".
- Like ABC, BU plans to introduce a new address format in the spring to prevent future confusion resulting from someone sending Bitcoin Cash to a Bitcoin address.
- In addition, BU wants to explore whether "Bobtail" can reduce the variance of the block intervals and improve much, such as the resistance to double spends.
BU also wants to check the canonical order of transactions with the aim of possibly introducing Graphene.
The roadmaps that come together here are dedicated and take up various ideas that are currently circulating around the scalability of Bitcoin. Graphene and Bobtail were recently introduced at the Scaling Bitcoin Workshop in Stanford, you can see the videos of the presentations of these technologies here, I do not know much about it myself yet.
With the idea to shorten the block intervals, I am a bit uncertain. On the one hand, it would certainly make sense, but on the other hand, it is somehow Bitcoin that there is only one block every 10 minutes.
The activation of old and the introduction of new opcodes could be an exciting project that could help Bitcoin Cash to compete with Ethereum in some areas. Tokens created with OP_Group might work roughly as well as ERC20 tokens and, unlike Colored Coins, be directly verified by miners. However, it should be noted here that good, thorough testing will be essential, as new scripts always mean that there are new attacks.
Whether the developers will succeed in implementing this medium-term roadmap, one will have to see. It's at least a start to Bitcoin Cash, going its own way, more than "Bitcoin with bigger but empty blocks".
The UK is increasingly exploring blockchain technology and its potential for innovation. Two recent reports point to possible benefits of the technology. Above all, the communication between government and citizens should be improved.
Blockchain technology and its potential for innovation and infrastructure improvement are at the heart of recent reports. In particular, the House of Lords, in its report "The Future of public service identity: blockchain", pointed out that the technology could change the communication and the relationship of trust between the government and the citizens.
In the report, the initiators emphasize that the blockchain technology can make projects around the topic of digital identity much safer. They compared four existing systems.
Four ways to manage identity
They came to the conclusion that the centralized approach promises the least control by the user. In this approach, a single entity has control over the digital identity.
A second approach is the "federated" approach. Several interconnected instances control identities. This model is currently used by gov.uk.
The user-centered approach, as used by the Estonian government, allows individuals or administrators to control identity across different authorities.
The use of blockchain would now allow governments to pursue a completely self-managed approach to digital identity. In it, individual users could control their identity centrally and at the same time compare it with different authorities and instances, without losing control over it.
In this way, one could organize all involved processes decentrally, which makes it easier to synchronize data. In particular, it can save people who are often in different places from having to go through the same processes of confirming their data. At the same time, the data remains secure.
The government that uses the technology can keep all the rules or laws in smart contracts. These are then automatically executed each time - a high saving of bureaucracy. The identification then runs simply via smartphone app.
More innovation through blockchain
A report by Lord Christopher Holmes points above all to the implications of the technology that can improve the country's infrastructure. The report highlights the benefits in the public sector. This includes the decentralized organization of insurance, border control, taxation and health care.
Among other things, the report recommends the creation of inter-departmental initiatives in public services. It is proposed to start pilot projects. In addition, one should establish an independent organization, which can take care of the necessary insurance-relevant and technical support.
Lord Christopher Holmes explains:
Aside from the potential benefits, the report has also highlighted the risks associated with the technology. Above all, it is not yet fully developed - which is always the case with problems with ICOs.
As you can see, in the UK, not only in the finance sector like Man Group is blockchain technology orientated. In addition to identity management solutions, they also discussed health and legal solutions.
The idea of organizing digital identity using blockchain technology has already come to light elsewhere. A similar proposal was recently made in Canada. In Finland, moreover, one thought about developing identity management for refugees earlier in the year.
Setback for the US crypto exchange market Coinbase. The operators of the trading platform are now forced by court order to notify the IRS of the identity of more than 14,000 investors. All users are affected, as long as their trading volume exceeded US $ 20,000 in one go from the beginning of 2013 to the end of 2015. The tax authority in many cases assumes tax evasion. The news caused considerable price fluctuations on the market.
The dispute between the US tax authority and Coinbase began in November 2016. With reference to the preservation of their investors' privacy, the trading platform refused from the outset to provide extensive information to the employees of the tax authorities. As the verdict shows, the IRS staff initially wanted to collect the data from 500,000 users.
A Californian court now found that Coinbase Inc. may reduce its duty to provide information. However, the names, dates of birth, addresses, tax numbers and account activity of the individuals must now be revealed, provided they have sent, received or sold Bitcoin worth at least $ 20,000 between 2013 and 2015. An estimated 14,355 United States citizens are said to be affected by the ruling. However, only about 900 cases in the tax returns stated that they had generated revenues due to cryptocurrency trading.
Therefore, it will certainly not be the last time that the Treasury gets so much information from US venues. It remains to be seen how the verdict will affect the US industry in the medium to long term. The Bitcoin price slipped at least after the announcement of the news in the short term to about 9,600 US dollars. Meanwhile, the price has recovered and currently stands at 10,986 US dollars.
I wish you all a lovely Saturday and a great Weekend!!!
ⓁⓄⓥⒺ & ⓁⒾⒼⒽⓉ
Best regards
@danyelk
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