The future

“Few tangible uses for Bitcoin (BTC) and its underlying blockchain technology have emerged,” according to a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article published Jan.


1.According to WSJ, in 2017 actual crypto development “took a back seat to getting rich.”

The article also states that “at the beginning of 2018, the question was whether Bitcoin could live up to the hype of 2017’s manic rally,” and at the end of 2018 the answer was “no.

”Andy Bromberg — the founder of Coinlist — a platform for running regulatory-compliant token sales, explained that the next step for crypto was figuring out “how we can turn this technology into products for people to use.

” However, according to the article:

“Bitcoin and the hundreds of other digital currencies that have popped up over the years are still largely usable only by developers.”

Developing apps for the Ethereum (ETH) platform is much less intuitive than for other non-blockchain platforms, according to the WSJ. For Ethereum, there are no developer kits which are currently available to build an app for iOS or Android, so “building a similar app for the Ethereum platform involves developing an entire suite of tools to connect the app to the platform itself.

”Still, WSJ admits that new institutional investors could get into the space when Bakkt will be launched by the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the operator of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

As Cointelegraph reported yesterday, the launch timeline for the Bakkt Bitcoin (USD) Daily Futures will be clarified in early 2019.The article states that “despite the entry of some established Wall Street players, scammers abound.

” This idea is in line with the declarations of Jed McCaleb — Stellar’s co-founder — who recently said that “ninety percent of these projects [that aren’t Stellar, Ethereum (ETH) or Bitcoin] are B.S.

”The Wall Street Journal recently published research in December, according to which hundreds of crypto offerings showed signs of fraudulent activity, improbable returns, and plagiarism.

The game isn’t over for Bitcoin yet. And neither is its price volatility, which divides cryptocurrency experts on where bitcoin price is heading next. On one side is the bullish camp, which argues that Bitcoin is still in an uptrend, betting that it will eventually reach $30,000.

Marshall Taplits, Chief Strategy Officer for NYNJA, is one of them. “Speculation on price is always difficult, says Taplits. “However, the trend for Bitcoin is clear - UP, going to about $20,000 USD from zero in 10 years.  Each time Bitcoin corrects, the media wrenches.  However, anyone who has been watching crypto currency since the beginning knows to bet on $30,000.


Daniel Worsley Chief Operating Officer of Local CoinSwap is another Bitcoin bull. “There is no other network that has been as battle tested as the Bitcoin blockchain,” says Worsley.  


“It has resisted serious adversaries, and coordinated attacks designed to disrupt its functioning. It has survived all assaults. It wouldn't surprise me at all to see the price above $20,000 USD this year. Especially given the amount of negative press which is now priced in, and investor expectation of another bull run, it will only take a couple of positive developments to set off the train.”


On the other side is the bearish camp, which argues that Bitcoin is a mania that sooner or later will come to an end, the way every mania ends: falling demand in the face of rising supply (in this case from competing coins). And when these conditions are met, Bitcoin prices could be driven back to $1000.

That’s according to some estimates which set the fundamental value of Bitcoin at $1,142.Still, it may take quite some time before the price of Bitcoin reaches its fundamental value, even in a rational world.

“Rationality of behavior and expectations is not enough to prevent bubbles, as it is not enough to guarantee that the price of an asset is equal to its fundamental value,” explains Christos Giannikos, Professor of Finance at Baruch College....continue reading page 2 of this article here on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2018/04/08/wheres-bitcoin-price-heading-next-1k-or-3...

BY STAN SCHROEDER


In the past month, two major online advertising platforms — Google AdWords and Facebook — have announced a full-on ban of cryptocurrency-related ads, and rumors say Twitter will follow their lead. Few will mourn the barrage of ads for shady ICOs (initial coin offerings) that promise 10x returns.

But the cryptocurrency space is a booming new economy, and such an all-encompassing ban is sure to hurt some legitimate crypto businesses. 

SEE ALSO: This space heater mines bitcoin while keeping your house warmBlockchain might just be the next big thing in finance, and blockchain-based Uber  and Airbnb are already being envisioned. 


In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to find an industry that a blockchain-based startup isn't threatening to disrupt. Surely, not all of these businesses are scams. So why ban them all from advertising on the internet's major platforms?Trevor Gerszt, CEO of cryptocurrency IRA company CoinIRA isn't afraid of the bans, though he doesn't exactly welcome them, either.

"It is frustrating that companies like Coin IRA who offer legitimate investment products and have done everything we have to do to be in compliance are punished along with nebulous ICO schemes," he told Mashable via e-mail. 

Ultimately, however, the "ad bans won’t affect larger, more established, and more reputable cryptocurrency businesses as much as they will affect smaller businesses who are looking to use advertising to gain greater name recognition," he claims. 

That's the trick: For a cryptocurrency startup, the ad ban means it may be harder to get funded via an ICO. And for strictly crypto-related businesses, such as crypto exchanges and wallets, the ad bans are bad news. But blockchain-based startups will be able to advertise their products on Google and Facebook, as long as they don't mention the crypto aspects of it, such as ICOs, tokens, wallets and such. 

I've contacted Google, Facebook, and Twitter regarding the crypto ad ban. "Our new policy applies to the advertisement of cryptocurrencies and related content (including but not limited to initial coin offerings, cryptocurrency exchanges, cryptocurrency wallets, and cryptocurrency trading advice)," a Google spokesperson told me.

"This will include ads for aggregators and affiliates for cryptocurrencies," but the policy "will not apply to other blockchain technologies that are unrelated to cryptocurrencies and ICOs," he said, while noting that the ads also must adhere to Google's other policies. 

Facebook hasn't responded at the time of publish, and Twitter, which hasn't publicly announced any ban yet, had no comment. Interestingly enough, several crypto-related companies I've contacted said they actually welcome the ad ban. Darren Marble, the CEO of fintech marketing firm CrowdfundX, which is marketing the widely publicized KodakCoin, is one of them. 

"The only people who are disappointed in Twitter’s purported ban of crypto ads are the scammers and con artists"

“The only people who are disappointed in Twitter’s purported ban of crypto ads are the scammers and con artists. The big money raised in ICOs is relationship-based, and the most legitimate issuers are well connected to active crypto and blockchain funds. I think the ban on crypto advertising is actually positive change for the industry, and will help clean up a lot of the garbage," Marble told me via e-mail. 

Nicolas Van Hoorder, CEO and co-founder of cryptocurrency tracking app Delta, isn't particularly worried, either. "Twitter, Facebook and Google want a better ad experience for their users, and the cryptocurrency community wants legitimacy as a financial market.

Their restrictions are part of a gradual process to filter out illicit activities from genuine companies with innovative products," he told me via e-mail.  The market will eventually stabilize and "misleading activities" will be weeded out, he claims. Meanwhile, "the focus for companies going through ICOs should be on building great products and showing evidence of their value.

Then platforms should gladly allow advertising for these products, whether it's crypto or not," he says. In a way, it's no wonder that legitimate, blockchain-based startups aren't afraid of the ad ban. Many of them have to actively fend off investors; some, like Theta and Gems have recently cancelled ICOs, largely due to raising too much money in private pre-sales. 

While some startups that don't have access to Silicon Valley's VC wealth will undoubtedly be hurt by the inability to advertise their token sales, it appears that overall, the blockchain space is so hot right now that even a wide-ranging ad ban won't kill or even hurt it — perhaps only slow it down a little. 

Disclosure: The author of this text owns, or has recently owned, a number of cryptocurrencies, including BTC and ETH. WATCH: 'Uber' co-founder Garrett Camp is creating a new cryptocurrency

Just weeks into 2018, cryptocurrencies continue to dominate the headlines while on their way to potentially becoming mainstream. The complexities of these digital financial instruments present significant risks that are little understood, including their potential effect on matrimonial and commercial litigation proceedings.


Although Bitcoin (BTC) has been around for almost a decade, it only recently became a household name. While Bitcoin and several other cryptocurrencies are gaining recognition, there remains a significant level of misunderstanding and misinformation about this new disruptive technology.


As with other disruptive technologies, it takes time for their full implications to be understood. Failing to recognize all the implications and associated risks can be financially disastrous.


To better appreciate the risks associated with cryptocurrencies, it is necessary to have a basic understanding of how the technology works. There are currently over a thousand different cryptocurrencies, but most of them function like Bitcoin. Bitcoin uses a network of individuals and groups that each keep a complete copy of the blockchain (transaction ledger) and securely add new transactions.


They are referred to as “miners” because they compete to uncover the solution to a complex math problem in order to add the next block on the blockchain. When they do, they are rewarded with newly created “bitcoins”; hence, they “mine” bitcoins. All of the miners are competing simultaneously to solve the problem and add the next block of transactions.


Only the first one to successfully solve the problem is rewarded. Each cryptocurrency network determines how much that reward is and how often blocks are mined.One risk that must be understood about cryptocurrencies is that they are developed and run by communities without governmental or corporate oversight. Even the original creator(s) of Bitcoin, known only by the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, remains anonymous.


Sometimes the community decides to change the rules of the network, making it incompatible with the existing rules. This is called a “hard fork,” because anyone who does not update to the new rules can no longer participate in the network.


Sometimes, only part of the community agrees with a change and the community splits, with one faction adopting the new rules and the other faction maintaining the old rules (referred to as a “hard fork split”). When this happens, the network is duplicated and a new cryptocurrency is formed.


Recently, for example, a long dispute about the number of transactions to include in a bitcoin block resulted in a group updating the rules to include more transactions. Not everyone wanted the change, so the hard fork resulted in the first faction splitting off, thereby creating Bitcoin Cash (BCH).


Interestingly, individuals who owned bitcoins prior to the hard fork split were given an equal number of BCC after the split, because the entire blockchain was duplicated on the new network.


Owning a cryptocurrency does not give you a say in how that cryptocurrency is maintained. Theoretically, the community could decide to make drastic changes that are lucrative to one group, but adversely affect the cryptocurrency’s value.


This is especially true with newer, less mature cryptocurrencies.In addition to risks posed by adverse decisions made by the community, there are external security risks to cryptocurrency networks. In 2016 a hacker compromised a smart contract on the Ethereum (ETH) network and stole 3.6 million ether, worth more than $60 million at the time ($2.8 billion today).


Part of the community wanted to restore the ether to the rightful owners, but others did not want to violate a core tenet of cryptocurrencies, which is that transactions can never be reversed. This conflict ended in a hard fork split, with Ethereum Classic (ETC) absorbing the result of the fraud, and the original Ethereum network restoring the coins to their rightful owners.


In November 2017, a self-described Ethereum “newbie” named devops199 took control of more than 900,000 ether worth over $300 million. When he realized what had happened, he tried to reverse the transaction and, in the process, locked those coins, effectively destroying them.


Once again the question the community will need to answer is whether it should undo transactions that are meant by design to be irreversible. Think about the risk of some unknown individual unintentionally destroying $300,000,000 of your assets without any recourse!Unlike other investment vehicles, cryptocurrencies are accessed using encryption keys, called “private keys,” which only the owner knows.


Whoever has access to the private key has complete access to the funds in the account. Unlike in a traditional banking environment, where you can call your bank if you forget your password, no one else has the necessary keys. If the key is lost, the cryptocurrency is effectively destroyed.


People have lost significant numbers of bitcoins. Even Elon Musk tweeted that “A friend sent me part of a BTC a few years ago, but I don’t know where it is.” Recently Chainalysis estimated that between 2,780,000 and 3,790,000 bitcoins are lost and no longer in circulation.


While there are currently exchanges that will store and manage your private keys for you, so far no institutions such as Bank of America or Wells Fargo are providing this service. This leaves individuals with the choice of putting their trust in less well known (and unregulated and uninsured) organizations, or taking on the security risks of storing their keys themselves.


There is already malware that specifically attempts to steal cryptocurrency keys from infected computers. There are also fake online cryptocurrency wallets that steal deposited coins if you store your private keys on those websites.


A cryptocurrency exchange like Coinbase (http://www.coinbase.com) holds the assets of more than 11 million users, making it an extremely rich target for hackers. As we have seen in every industry, digital security is not a simple matter. If an exchange is hacked, it is possible that all of your cryptocurrency could be stolen without any means for recovery.


ValuationAs cryptocurrencies have become widely traded, a market value for the common cryptocurrencies can be easily determined. Although market value provides a relatively simple basis to establish a value for these assets in matrimonial and other litigation disputes, due to the extreme volatility of cryptocurrency values, the date of valuation can have a substantial impact.


 Bitcoin was trading at $19,345 on Dec. 15, 2017, one week later it dropped by 38 percent to $12,034, two weeks later it rose by 41 percent to $16,935, and then 10 days later it dropped back again by 33 percent to $11,358—this is not for the faint of heart!Aside from this extreme volatility, at times of high volatility there are liquidity issues along with large spreads between bid and ask prices.


Cryptocurrency keys and the value they hold are managed with wallets, using either computer software or online via a website. It is a simple matter to transfer cryptocurrency between wallets, with those transfers allowing for a high level of precision.


As bitcoins can be transferred in 0.00000001 increments, this can facilitate settlement of matrimonial matters, as it is possible to transfer an almost exact portion of holdings. Since it is easy and free to create new wallets, it would be advisable to move cryptocurrency assets to new wallets for which only the receiving party would have the private key.


This avoids any risk that accidental disclosure of a private key by one party could expose the assets of the other party to theft.Barriers to GrowthAnother risk to consider with cryptocurrencies is the inherent barrier to growth. Not every network is able to scale to handle increased transactions. Bitcoin is continuing to struggle with its limited block size.


Only a few thousand transactions fit into a block, and it takes 10 minutes for a single block to be added. This is causing a backlog of transactions and slow processing.


Fees per transaction are rapidly increasing because of the demand, which makes the network less tenable for small transactions. Imagine trying to replace the Visa network with something that can only process 15,000 transactions an hour at a cost of several dollars per transaction.


Another result of the small block size is that with the massive network of miners all trying to solve the same block, each transaction on the bitcoin network is estimated to require almost as much electricity as an average house does in a month.


This is because the network is designed to increase the difficulty of the problem everyone is trying to solve as more people are mining, which is why, on average, a block is added every 10 minutes. Without changes, it seems obvious that the bitcoin network cannot grow much larger than it currently is.


Bitcoin and the current cryptocurrencies are the Model T of blockchain technology. Bitcoin, for example, performs one task, which is to securely store a pseudo-anonymous ledger of transactions. Ethereum, currently the second most valuable cryptocurrency, has the capability to run programs on its blockchain, but it is the first iteration of that technology and far from mature.


Now that cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies are becoming mainstream, there will be a massive influx of talent focused on developing the technology.


Large corporations and governments will begin funding research, resulting in rapid improvement and new innovations using the technology. In the future, bitcoin will appear dated compared to new technologies (remember the rotary telephone?).


Cryptocurrency is a revolutionary technology and only part of what the underlying blockchain technology is capable of. We are at the beginning of what is sure to be a wild ride that will lead to incredible innovation. However, it is important to understand that for all of the benefits there are also risks.


Only by understanding the technology and the risks it presents can informed decisions be made. Paul is a partner with Szaferman Lakind in Lawrenceville, specializing in financially complex divorce actions.


Hirschfeld is the managing partner of Marcum LLP’s New Jersey Advisory Group specializing in matrimonial and commercial litigation matters. Baker is a senior manager and head of the Digital Forensics Practice in Marcum’s Philadelphia office.

Discover more from Law.com here: https://www.law.com/njlawjournal/sites/njlawjournal/2018/01/22/cryptocurrency-the-hidden-risks/?slre...


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The XRP Portal is the home for institutional investors and professional market makers to learn about XRP’s role in the Ripple network.

Why Ripple Distributes XRP

The creators of Ripple set out to build a more efficient distributed payment network.Bitcoin and alt-coin systems use mining to confirm transactions and create coins. Mining consumes large amounts of electrical energy, as miners compete with each other to generate coins.Ripple’s method of confirmation, called consensus, doesn’t need mining; therefore, it requires comparatively negligible computing power, confirmation time adapts to network latency, and transactions are immediately irreversible once confirmed.

Because Ripple’s architecture does not require mining, the creators of Ripple had a choice: distribute XRP exclusively via mining or diversify the distribution methods.Distributing value is a powerful way to incentivize certain behaviors. Bitcoin’s mechanism, for example, led to an explosion of processing power devoted to bitcoin mining.

Our goal in distributing XRP is to incentivize actions that build trust, utility and liquidity in the network.If we distribute XRP with these goals in mind, over time we expect to see an increase in demand for XRP that more than offsets the additional supply we inject into the market. Said another way, we will engage in distribution strategies that we expect will result in a stable and strengthening XRP exchange rate against other currencies.

To this end, we currently plan to distribute XRP primarily through business development deals, incentives to liquidity providers who offer tighter spreads for payments, and selling XRP to institutional buyers interested in investing in XRP. If market conditions permit, we expect our company to hold approximately 50 billion XRP by the end of 2021. This schedule is indicative and discretionary....
learn more:
https://ripple.com/xrp-portal/

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