Your Crypto News on Steemit November 1, 2017

CME Group announces Launch of Bitcoin Futures Contract!
Earn.com: Social Network that pays its Users!
R3 Consortium introduces Cross Border Payments on Blockchain!
Canton of Zug: Blockchain Paradise in the Swiss Crypto Valley!
healthbase: Blockchain Application for Healthcare!
BITCOIN COURSE CHALLENGE Week 4!

The world's largest derivatives marketplace announced on Tuesday the introduction of futures of the crypto currency Bitcoin. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group (CME) intends to start trading futures of Bitcoins by the end of the year, the CME said. Prerequisite for this is the approval of all competent authorities. According to this the Bitcoin price rose to more than $ 6400, the highest in its history. The price increase is mainly due to the fact that CME announced a few months ago that it did not want to introduce Bitcoin futures. The change of attitude is obviously perceived as a special vote of confidence.

According to Bloomberg, Terrence Duffy, CME's Chief Executive Officer, said in a statement:

The creation of Bitcoin futures is an important step in opening the crypto currency to institutional investors who currently have few options, said Spencer Bogart, head of research at Blockchain Capital, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm Bloomberg. The Bitcoin Investment Trust, currently one of the few opportunities for investors looking for Bitcoin-backed securities, is trading at more than 30 percent over the net asset value. The trust, known as GBTC, is a "physical" fund, so it owns Bitcoin itself.

The futures contracts on the crypto currency are scheduled to be settled in cash. For this purpose, the exchange operator determines once a day a reference value based on US dollars. The trading of the contracts is subject to the rules of the CME.

According to further information, the market value of all crypto currencies now amounts to 183 billion US dollars. Of this, just over half was accounted for by bitcoins. With the introduction of derivatives such as futures or options on crypto currencies, they would be much easier to trade for institutional investors.

Most of the time, we tend to be careless about our data. The tendency is for our virtual images to become independent. Blockchain technology can help. Earn.com is taking a step in the right direction.

21 Inc, former manufacturer of bitcoin mining software is now changing its focus. By renaming in Earn.com you want to set new accents. In the future, the company will offer a social network where users will be paid for their activities. These activities include, for example, creating a profile, but also replying to e-mails or completing surveys and completing small tasks.

According to the initiators, you can enter your profile in mailing lists organized by interests. As companies then pay to send their mail to the network's customers, they are paid to answer it. According to the initiators of the network, the incentive for companies is that the response rate should be much higher than usual due to the monetary incentive.

Earn.com: Paid Spam?

That sounds like paid spam first. The idea behind it, however, seems to be one worth pursuing. Because: If you do not have to pay anything, you are the product. Does not that mean, conversely, that you can be paid even if you're already a product anyway?

In any case, the users already get the tokens for the simple process of signing up. However, the total number of tokens should be limited. In total, there will be 21 million tokens, of which 54 percent will be reserved for users. Another 30 percent are earmarked for employees and sponsors of Earn.com. The remaining 16 percent go to outside researchers and developers.

Finally, the internal crypto currency can not only be used within the network. Rather, it should be possible to pay them off, even in Bitcoin. They should also be traded in crypto exchanges.

Spam or not. As Don Tapscott explains in his TED talk, it is up to each individual to regain power over his "virtual self." The technology that can help is called blockchain. It is to be hoped that in the future more projects will be devoted to these topics.

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.

Fintech company R3 and 22 of the largest banks in the DLT consortium have jointly developed a system to revolutionize international payments. This should allow transactions of Fiat and crypto currencies with the help of blockchain across borders.

Earlier this month, I already reported on the completion of Corda V1.0, the update of the Corda platform for blockchain-based transactions. This was a step towards opening up the project for various applications.

According to a report by the news agency Reuters, the platform was now used to create a cross-border payment system. This will be based on the exchange of tokenized Fiat currencies, which can be transferred between different currency areas back and forth.

R3-CEO David Rutter said:

Among the participating banks are Barclays, BBVA, CIBC, Commerzbank, DNB, HSBC, Intesa, KBC, KB Kookmin Bank, KEB Hana Bank, Natixis, Shinhan Bank, TD Bank, U.S.A. Bank and Woori Bank.

Frederic Dalibard, Chief Digital Officer for Corporate & Investment Banking at the French bank Natixis said:

UBS Wealth Management said in a research note this month that blockchain could add as much as $400 billion of annual global economic value by 2027, and that investing in the technology was akin to investing in the internet in the mid-nineties.

There are now a number of states, cities and city-states that give themselves the title of "Blockchain Country" or "Blockchain City". Meanwhile, the Swiss Canton of Zug has long since become one of the most attractive locations for Fintech companies and is now regarded not only among connoisseurs of the scene as "Crypto Valley".

The Canton of Zug in Switzerland enjoys an impeccable reputation even beyond the borders of the Confederation. Not only is it considered to be the most prosperous Canton in the midst of an already wealthy country, the city of Zug with its beautiful old town is also idyllically situated amidst a valley of rivers and lakes and therefore offers a very high quality of life. German visitors especially appreciate the train service in German-speaking Switzerland. Now, the Swiss town is also in the area of blockchain to play in the first division.

It is estimated that between 50 and 100 blockchain start-ups already exist in the entire Canton - in terms of density this would be unique in the world in terms of population. The reasons for the high attractiveness of the Swiss location are relatively fast: one - compared to Europe - extremely low tax burden for companies coupled with a regulatory framework that relies more on the forces of the market than on the power of the state and also on an exuberant regulation of the blockchain sector waived. Zug has thus found a way in which many other countries around the world are still working on.

Not completely uninvolved in it is Dolfi Müller, longtime mayor of Zug. The filmmaker Manuel Stagars, who shot the documentary "Fintech Made In Switzerland" last year, describes Müller in an interview with the Luzerner Zeitung as a pioneer in the blockchain scene. He says that he is not afraid of the challenges of digitization, but is optimistic and would rather accept new developments than be surprised by them. Thus, the head of government in Zug creates brilliant challenges for Zug.

Crypto Valley

In particular, young companies and start-ups should be lured into Zug in order to further expand the site's superior corporate culture. In the canton, for example, the status of Krypto Valley was proclaimed, in line with the pioneering location for technology start-ups in the USA. Zug is targeting the blockchain sector, whose company is recruiting Zuger Kanton. For example, well-known and internationally operating blockchain start-ups such as Xapo, ShapeShift, Monetas and Etherisc are based in Zug, as well as Ethereum's foundation and management, even though founder and CEO Vitalik Buterin recently moved from Zug to Singapore.

A milestone in the development of Zug to Blockchain location was the acceptance of Bitcoin payments in the city, which was already decided in May 2016. This officially enabled the city's citizens to pay for public services in Bitcoin - a revolutionary major project. Despite the fact that only a fraction of citizens accepted this possibility, the initiative of the Government of Zug sent an important signal to the blockchain and crypto scene: we are open to the new technology and ready to give fertile ground to its further development in our Canton to prepare.

Nevertheless, the canton does not rest on its laurels, but constantly strives to further promote and underline the financial location Zug and its status as innovative hubs for the crypto sector. In order to focus even more on the field of cryptographic investments in the future, the Crypto Finance Conference, which will take place in St. Moritz in January 2018, will therefore primarily address investors who are interested in the further development of the Blockchain Sector. It is already working for a successful future of the Swiss Crypto Valley.

The team behind healtbase has been around since 2014 and has since been working in the city Bonn Germany on a new software solution for doctors and patients. Anyone who recently had a visit to a doctor and was able to get a glimpse of the screens in practice, has revealed the problem: Most software solutions for doctors are not very user-friendly and mostly outdated.

From this and also from the use of different software solutions the problem arises that one must always go personally to different doctors and these possibly relevant data from previous investigations are not yet available. Healthbase wants to solve these problems with new software for physicians and patients. Of course, the data of the patients should be stored safely. Doctors and patients have access to a blockchain-based application that can be used to control access to the data. This pooling of data can also be beneficial for research and development.

Main advantages:

Patient: All health information is available at the push of a button on the Healthcare Smartphone App and can be sent to physicians for holistic treatment. Furthermore, the data may be anonymised to research laboratories or similar. sold.
Doctor / Clinic: As a doctor or clinic, the data of previous and parallel examinations can be easily provided by the patient and receives a modern and user-friendly software for the management within the practice / clinic.
Research: As a laboratory or researcher, it is easier and less expensive to buy anonymous data via healthbase and, conversely, to sell your own findings.

Originally, there was no plan to use Blockchain technology - the team did not know the existence of the technology. When the software went into the test phase and was implemented in two dental clinics with about 160 employees, the feedback was positive, but there was skepticism about the security of the data (data security is essential in the medical sector). In 2017, healthbase then discovered the blockchain technology that can be used to solve the outstanding problems. Through a partnership with the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, the required knowledge is to be acquired here.

The team behind healthbase consists of more than 40 people and 15 doctors and aims for an ICO in the first quarter of 2018. The details are not yet published, but it might be worth keeping an eye on the project.

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