Your Daily Crypto News on Steemit October 17, 2017

Austria has the first Bitcoin Brothel!
Russia announces release of Crypto Ruble!
Byzantium: Metropolis Hard Fork activated!
Tradeshift joins Hyperledger Blockchain Consortium as Premier Member!
BITCOIN COURSE CHALLENGE Week 2

Jochen Kohlweiss is not an untitled page. Numerous stories are around the former pimp, which in the best times, as he himself described "over 100 girls in 9 brothels Austria-wide" operated. It became calmer about Kohlweiss, who now wants to "go a new way" as a consultant in a Klagenfurt brothel. He allows his customers a brothel visit with Bitcoin payment.

"14 girls from Austria, Hungary and Romania are working in the nightclub, which has been in the Sperberweg since 2003," explains Kohlweiss, who is officially a consultant. "The market has changed massively and it is becoming increasingly difficult. Nowadays you have to run three times as much to achieve at least half the sales we achieved years ago, "he concludes. "As a result of the rigorous closure wave in Villach, for example, the business has shifted. Much is now running across runways, which appear as discounter. But there are also girls who offer their services in apartments and advertise with them. In Villach, however, this will be even more pronounced. The use of forbidden squares on the street and illegal housing reform will increase because the town turns all brothels into Villach, "the former pimp sees a change.

Jochen Kohlweiss shows how to pay in the brothel with crypto currencies.

Payment with crypto currencies

"That is why we are going new ways. For example, with payment via Bitcoins or Ethereum. We have always been pioneers and have taken up trends. This time, too, we are the only ones to offer these anonymous payment methods with the payment of crypto currencies all over Austria, "Kohlweiss explains. "A shepherd's lesson in Bitcoin is now at 0.045 Bitcoin", the red light consultant reckons. What Kohlweiss is especially important: "The anonymous way of paying. In the brothel is an ATM where you can buy and sell Bitcoin. The ATM is provided by the CBNK Klagenfurt ".

The ATM in the brothel La Cocotte where you can buy and sell Bitcoin.

Business like any other

Seven "amusement rooms", show program with lap dance and stripper as well as shower shows, the La Cocotte in Klagenfurt offers daily from 17 to 6 o'clock in the morning. "We see this as a serious job as in any other business. With us in Carinthia, the brothel scene is quiet, regulated, especially controlled ". According to him the business lives mainly by regular customers, who are "every two weeks in the brothel. We have a lot of loyal customers who feel cared for here and now they can pay our service in crypto currencies".

This article reminds me on that joke where a guy ask a hooker if he can pay her in Bitcoins and she said no because it goes more up and down then she does.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announces the release of a state-controlled crypto currency called Crypto Ruble, while Bitcoin & Co. have to wait for legalization. Russia wants to preempt the Eurasian Economic Union.

According to the Russian Newssite AIF, Putin officially announced that Russia wants to issue its own "Crypto Ruble". The news was edited by the Russian Communications Minister Nikolay Nikiforov.

According to the Minister's comments, the state crypto currency should not be mingled, but only officially controlled and authorized by the official position. This is to counteract the slipping of the state control of crypto currencies, especially with regard to criminal activities, money laundering, etc.

According to the planned publication it should be possible to exchange the Crypto Ruble at any time against regular rubles. In the event that the owners can not explain where their Crypto Ruble originate, a 13% tax is levied. The percentage is calculated on the difference between the selling and purchasing price of the respective tokens.

The actions of Russia were justified by the fact that they were under pressure: "If we do not, one of our neighbors from the Eurasian Union will get us within the next two months."

The announcement means that Russia, like many other countries, is opening up to the subject of crypto currency and blockchain technology.

The release of Crypto Ruble is, however, a highly regulated opening for Blockchain & Co., since by no means is a legalization of crypto currencies. On the contrary, Putin has recently expressed concerns about possible criminal activities and announced hard measures. The Crypto Ruble is now the only approved crypto currency in Russia, all other coins will stay prohibited.

After a long wait, the Byzantium upgrade was activated yesterday in the early hours of the morning. This is the first step of the Metropolis Hard Fork of the Ethereum network.

For a long time he had been announced, now the first part of Metropolis is finally here. Byzantium was initiated at 7:22 GMT, or more precisely with the mining of the 4.370,000 block of the Ethereum blockchain. The first day the Hard Fork went smoothly, so that a successful upgrade of the entire Ethereum network can now be talked about. Led by the two largest clients Geth (Go Ethereum) and Parity, all nodes have installed the necessary software update to support Byzantium. This sets the course for a closed further development in the direction of the Metropolis.

After Frontier and Homestead, Metropolis is the third of four stages in the progressive evolution of Ethereum. The upgrade itself is divided into two steps: Byzantium and Constantinople. Both involve performing a Hard Fork. Byzantium, the Hard Fork, which has now taken place, introduces the third development stage. Constantinople, for which no date has yet been announced, is to complete the Metropolis upgrade. Originally the Metropolis was already announced for the end of September.

Each full peer of Ethereum - anyone who runs a node - had to install an update to land on the right chain. The updates are Geth 1.7.2, Parity 1.7.6 and Harmony 1.2. Light wallets like Jaxx, Metamask, MyEthereumWallet or Exodus do not need to update, just as little hardware wallets as Trezor or Ledger.

According to the Fork Monitor everything worked smoothly. There was no chain split, the old chain is dead, Geth 1.6.7 hangs at block 4,369,999. And this, even though the Fork has reduced the Block Reward of Miner from 5 to 3 Ether. However, because of the Difficulty Bomb, it does not make much sense to mine on the old chain since the difficulty of the block production there is already significantly higher than on the new chain and would increase further over time.

The Byzantium Fork mainly modifies some technical parameters so that only the initiates will understand their real meaning. The opening of the Smart Contracts is most noticeable for more cryptographic operations, making it possible to use Zkash's known zk-snark zero-knowledge proofs within a contract. This does not mean, however, as sometimes it is suggested that you will soon be able to send completely anonymous Ethereum transactions. Rather, it will make it possible to obscure the content of a contract execution, which can lead to much more privacy in the medium term and also for transactions.

What does Metropolis mean for Ethereum?

The innovation, which is likely to have the most impact in the short term, is the resetting of the Difficulty Bomb. This pre-programmed algorithm ensures that the mining difficulty of ethers increases exponentially over time and serves solely to keep the pressure on the network high and to ensure a hard fork equal to a systemupgrade within a predetermined time window. As a result of the reset, the algorithm has not been lifted, but merely postponed by 18 months, which is to ensure the activation of Constantinople, the second metropolis Hard Fork, during this period. At the same time, the number of ethers emitted per milled block was reduced from 5 to 3.

On the whole, the upgrade also introduces a number of technical innovations in the Ethereum network, which are summarized under the heading "Ethereum Improvment Proposal" (EIP). In addition to the optimization of the Smart Contracts, the use of so-called sk-Snarks is particularly relevant. The sk-Snarks are a variant of Zero-Knowledge-Proofs, an application that makes the exchange of tokens safer. The sk-Snarks are already used with Zcash.

How does it go from here?

It is also interesting to know which upgrade was not done by Byzantium. Thus the change from proof-of-work to prof-of-stake mechanism has been postponed to the activation of Constantinople. This is also under pressure to activate the second part of Metropolis in a timely manner in order to complete the upgrade. The Ethereum network now has 18 months.

In general, it can be said that while the Metropolis upgrade is turning on many sets of screws and optimizing individual things, the Ethereum user does not change anything significantly. On many crypto fans, this may seem to have a pleasantly soothing effect, especially given the possibility of a new Bitcoin decomposition.

Most Ethereum developers will have observed the Hard Fork from Waterloo in Canada. The ETHWaterloo-Hackathon, where around 400 Ethereum developers met, took place here. Different teams had 36 hours to form a dapp or app for Ethereum; the Blitz projects were judged by a jury, including Vitalik Buterin and representatives of Coinbase, Shapeshift, Consensys, Slock.it and more companies.

Here you can find an overview of the Metropolis changes.

Hyperledger, the Linux-based blockchain consortium for corporations, can add another company to its network, because the Startup Tradeshift is a new premium member.

Tradeshift helps companies settle bills through cloud services and is now a premium member alongside others such as Accenture, American Express, Cisco, IBM and JPMorgan Chase.

In a statement, the company explained its motivation for this step. It would like to examine the possibilities of the blockchain for the business-to-business trade closer.

Co-founder and CTO of the company, Gert Sylvest, will trade tradeshift in the Hyperledger board.
He said about the membership:

Brian Behlendorf, Hyperledgers CEO, said the startup would share Hyperledger's vision of a common blockchain technology that would allow organizations to rely on platform applications.

The Hyperledger project has so far over 160 members from different industries. Among other things, companies from the financial world or health care are represented, but credit card providers are among the members.