Cryptos
- by soximo
- 6 posts
-
New Report Warns 87 Percent of Cryptocurrency Exchange Volume Is Potentially Sus... (cointelegraph.com)Almost 90 percent of cryptocurrency exchanges’ reported trade volumes may be incorrect, new research from trading analytics platform The Tie warned in a digest released on March 18.
Reporting on figures gathered from 97 exchanges, researchers found that the vast majority of the volume claimed to come from users may not in fact exist.The revelations came as a result of calculations of lesser-known exchanges versus well-known businesses such as Binance and Kraken.
“In total we estimated that 87% of exchanges reported trading volume was potentially suspicious and that 75% of exchanges had some form of suspicious activity occurring on them,” The Tie wrote in social media comments on the findings. The organization added:“If each exchange averaged the volume per visit of CoinbasePro, Gemini, Poloniex, Binance, and Kraken, we would expect the real trading volume among the largest 100 exchanges to equal $2.1 (billion) per day. Currently that number is being reported as $15.9 (billion).”
Exchanges have often fielded accusations of volume misreporting: a similar reported issued in March 2018 warned of similar problems with data from exchanges.
Then, as now, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) took industry participants to task, arguing listing resources such as CoinMarketCap added to the confusion.“Why do exchanges fake volumes?” he queried on Twitter following The Tie’s report. CZ also wrote:“(CoinMarketCap) is [the] highest traffic website in our space, and [the] biggest referrer for all exchanges. Ranked high on CMC has benefits for getting new users. BUT at the expense of DESTROYING CREDIBILITY with pro users.”
Zhang repeated similar claims about CoinMarketCap which appeared in December, focusing on the the top 25 Bitcoin (BTC) trading pairs.Last month, meanwhile, Cointelegraph reported on how overall exchange volumes had dropped to their lowest levels since May 2017.-
- 1
Francisco Gimeno - BC Analyst Exchanges and websites like CoinMarketCap are as credible as we let them be. They are just centralised websites, and they don't participate in the real exchanges. We need to see the real volume sent on the chains to get a better idea of what the real crypto market is. There is yet much to do to develop better tools and ways to measure the crypto exchange volume.- 10 1 vote
- Reply
-
-
Bitcoin breaks above $4,000, even as the CBOE pulls the plug on bitcoin futures trading. With CNBC's Melissa Lee and the Fast Money traders, Tim Seymour, Brian Kelly, Steve Grasso and Guy Adami.
» Subscribe to CNBC: http://cnb.cx/SubscribeCNBC
About CNBC: From 'Wall Street' to 'Main Street' to award winning original documentaries and Reality TV series, CNBC has you covered. Experience special sneak peeks of your favorite shows, exclusive video and more.
Connect with CNBC News Online
Get the latest news: http://www.cnbc.com/-
Francisco Gimeno - BC Analyst Well, Bitcoin is here to stay. If you can't kill it, try another ways. CBOE earn money on transactions, so maybe the bear market was too much for them and now they will think bullish, instead of bearish as it has been for a long time.
-
-
The New York Times, the second-largest newspaper in the U.S. by circulation and a storied institution in American journalism, is getting ready to experiment with blockchain technology for publishing.
According to a job posting that appeared on the Times’ website Wednesday, the media organization is looking for someone to help “design a blockchain-based proof of concept for news publishers.
”To start the project, NYT is looking for a “forward-looking leader” who would be working on the proof-of-concept’s outline for 12 months within the company’s research and development division, according to the post, which was removed after this article was published.
The new hire “will codify the vision for the research project and share that vision with potential stakeholders at other media organizations” and “help brand and create a public identity and assets for the project.”Another goal will be to form a pool of the project’s stakeholders and find advisors from news organizations, academia and social media companies.
Screen shot of the New York Times job posting.Skill set
The candidate should have previous experience innovating in media organizations and “leading a combination of engineers, designers, journalists” for more than eight years, according to the NYT job posting. Strong skills in communication, writing and presentation, partnerships and collaborations are necessary.
The new blockchain leader should also have an “established track record in real-world application of new technologies” and “a mixed skill set with some experience in at least three of: journalism, product, design, software development, hardware engineering, user research.
”No less important, the job requires “a real passion for The New York Times’s mission.”The NYT project wouldn’t be the first blockchain-media experiment. The most prominent of these is Civil, a token-driven startup backed by the ethereum development studio ConsenSys.
In its editorial operations, the New York Times has been covering the blockchain and cryptocurrency agenda for several years now, including the special project “Demystifying the Blockchain” last June.
The newspaper’s lead reporter in blockchain and crypto, Nathaniel Popper, is also the author of the bestseller “Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money.
”The New York Times didn’t respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment by press time.
The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.- By Admin
- 0 comments
- 1 like
- Like
- Share
-
Smart cities and opportunities that digital transformation and IoT technologies offer can help to improve the quality of life in urban cities.
However, this “smart” urban landscape, with numerous connected devices and vast communication network, opens up a whole new set of security challenges—challenges that cannot be addressed by the existing conventional cybersecurity solutions.
Below we explore the potential of blockchain technology to provide robust scalable solutions and secure large-scale smart cities’ networks from cyber attacks.
The Next-gen Solutions
IoT-powered smart cities consist of several users and numerous different kinds of devices – big and small, enterprise and consumer - connected to central systems and one another.
Not only this, unlike traditional network perimeters consisting of a fixed number of devices, smart city networks are ever expanding and hence require security solutions that can be just as scalable without compromising on quality or efficiency. And that’s where blockchain and other emerging technologies come in.
The technology attributed to the success of cryptocurrencies offers significant potential in securing the millions and billions of connected devices and an ever-growing smart city network.
The cryptographically secure, decentralized and consensus-driven blockchain technology can be used to secure not only end users’ identity, connected devices and critical infrastructure but also offers secure communication and transmission of data across the network.
This, along with other emerging technologies, SDP architecture and approaches including the zero-trust model, offer unique opportunities to secure smart cities in bold new ways.
Digital IDs for all and everything: Assigning blockchain-based digital smart IDs can help securely identify, authenticate and authorize each and every resident as well as every one of the connected devices within a smart city network. These IDs are unique and difficult to tamper with, spoof or clone.
The Smart ID can be used to authenticate oneself and access various services as well as to securely link, store, share and authorize the use of personal information by relevant agencies and service providers.
By its very nature, blockchain is cryptographically secure, helping ensure that all information stored as well as passed around within the network remains encrypted and protected from attempts to compromise it.
Scalability to protect an ever-expanding network of users and devices: Owing to its decentralized nature, a blockchain-powered system effectively removes single points of failure that can be taken down or compromised in a cyber attack.
This feature makes such a solution highly robust while the multi node-based system provides a scalable solution for the ever-widening smart city perimeter. It allows for ease in scaling up and down as large number of users and various kinds of devices are added to or leave the network, without compromising on the efficiency of the security.
Locked down critical infrastructure and isolation of infected devices: Additionally, leveraging software-defined perimeter and a zero-trust security model allow such a solution to ring-fence and render critical infrastructure invisible, ensuring vital utilities are secure while isolating and immediately addressing any potential threats to the system.
Software-defined perimeter architecture can be used to render critical infrastructure in smart cities invisible, by ring-fencing them and only permitting recognized devices visibility and access to these resources. This provides an additional layer of security and prevents the risk of external threats.
The Zero Trust model provides micro-segmentation, allowing for compromised user IDs and infected devices to be quickly isolated from the network and acted upon independently.
Tamper-proof logs record all activity, preventing any attack from going undetected: One of the most powerful attributes of blockchain—the provision to record all access and communication within the network in tamper-proof logs makes it impossible for any potential attackers to hide or erase their attempts to access or misuse information within such a secure smart city network.
The instant visibility ensures that any successful unauthorized attempt is recognized, the infected device can be taken offline and its access to other connected devices in the network can be disabled, preventing further escalation of the cyber attack.
With ever-growing population migrating to urban cities in developed and emerging economies of the world, digital transformation is the only way forward in ensuring that cities’ infrastructure can keep up with the rising demand of its residents.
The opportunities on offer are immense, but cybersecurity is a pertinent threat that needs to be addressed before large scale rollout of smart city programs can be undertaken.
These digital initiatives will require significant investment and effort as well as modern approaches towards security in order to realize their true potential and ensure mainstream adoption.
Emerging technologies, models and methods offer opportunities to secure smart cities in bold new ways. Fortifying connected devices, critical infrastructure and complex networks with truly next-gen security systems will help minimize risk and ensure smart city programs realize their potential in the real world as a viable solution to tackle growing urbanization.
To know the role of blockchain technology in securing smart cities, read here.- By Admin
- 0 comments
- 2 likes
- Like
- Share
-
Revolut launches auto-exchange for cryptocurrency and I cannot find a reason to ... (thenextweb.com)Update, 1850UTC March 9, 2018: An earlier version of this report referred to a Telegraph article that suggested Revolut had switched off part of its anti-money laundering systems.
Revolut has since confirmed that the transaction blocking mechanism related only to sanctions checking.
Online challenger bank, Revolut, has just introduced a new feature which makes it easier to protect yourself from volatile cryptocurrencies.
Earlier this week, Revolut launched what it is simply calling its “auto-exchange” feature, which will allow users to automatically exchange two currency pairs – fiat and cryptocurrency – when the pair hits a specific exchange rate.It’s pretty simple to set up too.
Just navigate to the “rates” page in the app, select the currency you want to convert to and from, and set the price you want to auto-exchange (sell) at.I think this could be improved, it would be nice to see the auto-exchange feature added to each currency’s “account” page, rather than burying it in the exchange rates page.
There are some things to be aware of, though. You’re only allowed to action 30 auto-exchanges per day, and you’re only allowed to exchange up to €10,000 per day. Auto-exchanges also need to be approved, Also, there is a time-delay between an auto-exchange starting and completing.
The amount you get back might not totally mirror the expected amount if you’re dealing in very volatile currencies. That said, if the price – for cryptocurrencies – fluctuates more than 5 percent up or down, Revolut will cancel the exchange and try again when your auto-exchange rate is met.
The rate is 0.75 percent for fiat pairs.Indeed, if all goes to plan with the auto-exchanges it sounds like a great deal. It could very useful when holding cryptocurrency assets in your Revolut account, and using an auto-exchange to protect yourself from “bottoming” out.
I would assume a lot of people would do this though, whether Revolut’s systems would be able to handle a huge spike in exchanges if the market started crashing remains to be seen.
If this all sounds familiar, Binance implemented the age-old concept known as stop limit orders, which automatically sell a user‘s coins if their values drop below the sell limit. That said it took the exchange over a year to do so, when it probably should have done so from day one.It’s also worth noting that you can’t move cryptocurrency into Revolut, or out of it for that matter.
You can only exchange it back to fiat to spend normally, it’s a fully a custodial service which means you have minimal control of your cryptocurrency.But it’s not all good news for Revolut. The challenger bank is facing tough scrutiny as it applies for a banking license due to high staff turnover and a toxic culture, Yahoo reports.
While it seems that the auto-exchange feature is a great idea. Whether to cover your ass if the market plummets, or capitalize if it explodes; the question really is how much you are OK supporting a company like Revolut given its current tumultuous existence.
But I certainly don’t hate this feature. It’s just got to do what it promises.
Did you know? Hard Fork has its own stage at TNW2019, our tech conference in Amsterdam. Check it out.-
Francisco Gimeno - BC Analyst Revolut is not a company where we would put all our money as it is now, but its custodial crypto service (it is called "auto-exchange") is good news, at least as an experiment. With interesting features, it can be worthy for some crypto users.
-