BC Analysis.

Bitcoin’s bad year may be getting worse. The world’s biggest cryptocurrency, which nearly reached $20,000 in December, has lost almost two-thirds of its value since then.

And according to the Directional Movement Index, Bitcoin is on its strongest negative trend since the sell-off earlier this year. The index’s ADX line is currently at 39.3. Anything above 25 is considered a strong trend.

Meanwhile, the index’s DVAN trend line, a divergence analysis that measures buying or selling pressure, is also giving off ominous signals. Data show that the market in June has been holding onto an overall bearish sentiment, characterized by the red band in the top-most chart above, that started around mid-May.

With no end in sight to the selling trend in Bitcoin, the digital currency could test its 2018 low.

Rewardzzz, a rewards app that identifies itself as the “first universal points exchange” and is known for its reliance on blockchain technology and the crytocurrency Stellar, will be introduced in Ithaca this fall.

Hunter Friedland ’19, CEO and founder of the tech startup, elaborated on how blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies function to explain how the app is meant to work.“Blockchain is the technology that powers all cryptocurrencies.

 Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, et cetera. Each cryptocurrency is its own blockchain. That’s one misconception a lot of people don’t understand,” he said.Friedland, who is a student in the School of Hotel Administration, explained further that cryptocurrencies are virtual assets that use blockchain technology as a distributive ledger.

Rewardzzz is built to be fairly straightforward to use — keeping the user away from the backend involvement with the blockchain, according to Friedland.Once users have the app, they can start getting rewards by going to any linked business. The user can get rewards at one business and use them at another — locally as well as internationally.

In Ithaca, Collegetown Bagels, Ithaca Bakery and Agava have already agreed to be a part of the Rewardzzz platform, with more businesses expected to join in the following weeks and months.

“How it works is when you go to a business, you have your linked cards. You swipe one of those card. The point of sale knows that card and automatically sends you the points,” Friedland said.According to Friedland, using blockchain for the app increases efficiency and reduces costs drastically.

“It cheaper for us to use the blockchain as opposed to, say, Amazon web service to power this,” he said.The transparency associated with blockchain also makes it a better prospect for the businesses which Rewardzzz is working with.

We are working with a bunch of independent businesses that don’t want to share their data and want to remain anonymous with each other; using a blockchain allows us to do that,” Friedland explained.

Over the summer and into the fall semester, Friedland is expecting the app to grow and to bring on more businesses as the app gathers attention, with the goal of having 20-25 businesses on the platform by the end of the summer.

http://cornellsun.com/2018/06/18/rewards-app-powered-by-blockchain-technology-to-debut-in-ithaca-are...

By Doug Clinton of Loup Ventures

As part of our work on security tokens, we did an analysis to see how major companies are investing in the general blockchain space.

The analysis consisted of a search on LinkedIn for how many individuals had listed “Blockchain” or “Cryptocurrency” in either their job title or description of work, whether in their current job or a previous job, across the top 247 S&P 500 companies.

While these numbers may not be perfect representations of efforts that companies are making in these fields, as not all employees are on LinkedIn and some projects may be in stealth mode, the data paints a directional picture of efforts being made.

The results tell us that blockchain is still viewed as early a technology in its early days at the world’s largest companies. In the 247 companies that we looked at, we found 928 employees related to “blockchain” and 36 employees related to “cryptocurrency. ”Leading the charge by a wide margin is IBM, with 694 blockchain-related employees.

While this number seems high compared to other companies, IBM has over 500,000 employees on LinkedIn. In other words, just over 0.1% of IBM’s employees are focused on blockchain technology.

Additionally, IBM has arguably made the biggest push to sell blockchain products of any company and some of the employees in the study may be related to sales and operations, not purely engineers.

Another very high-level takeaway is that it appears Amazon is exploring cryptocurrency, perhaps more than most of its peers. This too makes sense given the importance of payment mechanisms to Amazon’s business.Here are the results of the top 10 companies:



Source: Loup Ventures


 While the raw numbers of blockchain employees at major companies are lower than we would have expected, it’s clear that the world’s biggest companies are at least exploring the technology. We expect that exploration to grow over the next several years.

Disclaimer:

We actively write about the themes in which we invest: virtual reality, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and robotics. From time to time, we will write about companies that are in our portfolio.

Content on this site including opinions on specific themes in technology, market estimates, and estimates and commentary regarding publicly traded or private companies is not intended for use in making investment decisions. We hold no obligation to update any of our projections.

We express no warranties about any estimates or opinions we make.

See more from 24/7 Wall st. here: https://247wallst.com/technology-3/2018/06/18/by-the-numbers-whos-investing-in-blockchain/