Crypto Guides, Knowledge & Insights

How do cryptocurrencies differ?

The main differences relate to how coins are produced and spent.　　Some coins, like Bitcoin, Dash and Monero, are created in a process called “mining” which involves using powerful computers to solve complicated cryptographic puzzles. When a puzzle is solved, the system rewards the winning “miner” with coins (bitcoins, dash coins, etc.). The miner can then sell the coins in the market.　　Other coins, like NEM (XEM), have other types of algorithms that don‘t require powerful hardware. And then there are currencies such as ripple and IOTA that can’t be mined – theyre produced by an organization that stands behind the currency.　　When it comes to spending, Bitcoin is the cryptocurrency that enjoys the widest acceptance among merchants and service providers. Others, like Litecoin and Dash, are working on giving their holders new spending possibilities. But daily use – buying coffee, clothes and so on – is not the primary goal of some coins. Ether, for example, is meant to be used to pay for the services of the blockchain-based Ethereum platform, to create and use applications on it.　　Other important differences are the privacy and transaction speed that a cryptocurrency offers. At the moment, transactions in Bitcoin are slower and less anonymous, than,

2021-03-09Deep Dive

South African crypto firms warn opaque regulations are harming the industry

South African crypto firms are threatening to move abroad if local lawmakers are unable to provide regulatory clarity to its domestic digital asset industry.　　Speaking to Bloomberg, Sean Sanders, the CEO of local crypto investment platform Revix — who plan to relocate their head office to the United Kingdom, described the South African government as being “incredibly slow” in clarifying regulatory guidelines for the crypto industry.　　“That leads to businesses looking internationally. In an unregulated environment, a customer arrives at our platform with skepticism, and rightfully so,” he said, adding:　　“South Africa seems to go in the opposite direction of some of the more developed market pioneers and innovators in this space. For regulators to apply hundred-year-old securities regulations to the novel cryptocurrency asset class seems lazy.”　　Revix is also planning to launch an additional office in Germany.　　South African crypto firms are claiming the countrys financial institutions are unwilling to provide banking services to them, with Marius Reitz, the African general manager of global crypto exchange Luno, warning the apparent banking embargo will stifle local adoption:　　“This makes it very difficult for customers to buy Bitcoin with their local fiat currency,” he said.　　South African adoption has also been hampered by a recent prevalence of scammers

2021-03-09Deep Dive

Private Blockchain Project Funding Accelerates as Companies Race to Address New Needs

Blockchain operations are increasingly embracing more traditional financing from big-name venture funds to leverage these strategic stakeholders benefits instead of crowdfunding avenues popularized during the last blockchain hype wave.　　Funding Roundup: Concordium, StakeWise, and Automata Reveal Private Capital from Leading Funds　　In a significant departure from the last crypto startup wave focused on raised public capital in the form of initial coin offerings (ICO), token sales, and exchange launches, today‘s advancing blockchain initiatives are increasingly tapping private capital from venture funds. Though the sums awarded aren’t eclipsing the billions raised by projects in previous years, the latest developments are positive for companies, funds, and users at large.　　A blockchain VC investment leverages the expertise and due diligence of the fund itself, lending greater credibility to the underlying project. Accordingly, companies turn to these more traditional funding outlets to bolster project reputations and burnish their credentials.　　Enterprise Blockchain Enters The Fundraising Drive　　As business interest in blockchain continues to accelerate, decentralized blockchain has concluded a €10 million private token sale that is designed to help the blockchain expand its footprint in the enterprise arena.　　Concordium, which recently announced a partnership with Geely Group, plans to deploy the funds to help large companies adopt blockchain across multiple areas

2021-03-09Deep Dive

TOP 4 BLOCKCHAIN RISKS A CIO SHOULD KNOW

Enterprises in every sector are trying to adopt blockchain technology and build various blockchain-based platforms and applications to benefit from its features, such as its decentralized nature, distributed ledger technology, transparency, privacy, etc. Although blockchains technical implementation is increasing every day, so are the blockchain risks associated with this advancement. It is essential to identify blockchain risks and plan security measures to eliminate the threats or mitigate their impact on the entire organization.　　Blockchain technology could be a boon for your organizations technical evolution. However, you might be worried about the blockchain risks that come with it. This blog will cover everything you need to know about the various risks you have to pay attention to achieve efficient and effective results from blockchain products.　　Types of Blockchain Risks　　The four significant blockchain risks are as follows:　　1. Vendor Risks　　With enterprises widely adopting digital ledger technology and decentralization to create blockchain-based platforms and applications, the need to take new measures to provide more security arose. This led companies to use third-party applications and platforms for blockchain payment platforms, wallets, smart contracts, and more. The demand for third-party solutions has gained momentum, but it also suggests that enterprises wishing to use such solutions must verify the

2021-03-09Deep Dive

Landmark Day Marking Cardano’s Full Decentralization Is Almost Here

Cardano is fast approaching one of the important days in its history: March 31. On this day, the Ethereum challenger will become fully decentralized, delegating all the block generation to its community pools.　　Cardano has been working towards becoming fully decentralized for eight months now. In July last year, the project launched the Shelley update, becoming a proof-of-stake blockchain platform. However, at the time, all the block generation was handled by federated nodes owned by IOHK, the company behind the project. This led to concerns over its centralization.　　However, as IOHK notes in a new blog post, the landmark day marking Cardano‘s decentralization is almost here. On March 31, the company will delegate 100% of the projects’ transaction processing to the community.　　In the post, Colin Edwards, a Quantitative Strategist with IOHK stated, “At the end of March, we‘ll reach another significant milestone for Cardano when we’ll see d, the parameter that governs what percentage of transactions are processed by the genesis nodes, get to zero. At this point, responsibility for block generation will be fully decentralized. In other words, Cardanos network of 1800+ community pools will be solely responsible for producing blocks.”　　Since deploying the Shelley update in July, IOHK has been reducing

2021-03-09Deep Dive

HOW DAFI IS RESHAPING CRYPTO INCENTIVE MODELS

Defi token sales are seeing huge demand right now, with everyone looking to capitalize on the release of the latest IDOs from emerging crypto projects. The token launch of an innovative project is just the first step in creating a sustainable ecosystem, with a community of early stakeholders necessary to evangelize the platform.　　The success of cryptocurrency IDOs has been a blessing and a curse for project development teams. They provide access to large amounts of capital, but they also lose many established community members in the process who cannot help but capitalize on the massive gains from the private sale to public listing. With many projects seeing significant price gains after issuing their token on the secondary market, DAFI has created a solution to incentivize early adopters to hold their tokens long term.　　A democratic and open market is essential for users to realize the full value of their assets, but as we‘ve seen, these price gains have a significant impact on a project’s sustainability in the long run. To combat this, DAFI has introduced a program that allows project teams to create synthetic tokens to reward their token holders over an extended period. Using this method, projects can protect against

2021-03-09Deep Dive

EIP 1559: What It Means For The Ethereum Blockchain

In 2013, developer Vitalik Buterin proposed an open-source public service utilizing blockchain technology. The technology would, in Buterins proposal, facilitate secure smart contracts and cryptocurrency trading without third party intervention. This was how the Ethereum Blockchain began its life, launching to its mainnet in 2015, and receiving development upgrades over the years.　　According to publicly available documentation, the most recent proposal for EIP 1559 (Ethereum Improvement Proposal) on the Ethereum blockchain has been approved.　　EIP 1559 resolves a pending problematique in the Ethereum blockchain: the inaccuracy of gas fee estimates. With the update slated for implementation before Q3 2021, Ethereum users will now have a more fairly accurate estimate of the average gas price of a transaction based on the networks internal averages. Before the proposals implementation, the circulating supply of Ether has been regarded as theoretically infinite, opening the blockchain to criticisms of being unstable and inflationary in character.　　The proposal will effectively reduce the circulating supply of Ether by a process of burning or elimination each time it is used to complete transactions on the Ethereum blockchain. The rapid increase in the usage of the Ethereum and decentralized applications built on top of its core blockchain has led to bottlenecks in

2021-03-09Deep Dive

A Debt-Fuelled Economic Crisis & Bitcoin: What to Expect?

It‘s hard to shake the fact that bitcoin (BTC)’s ascent from one fresh all-time high to another in recent months has taken place amid a backdrop of a struggling global economy. The United States GDP infamously tanked by a record 32.9% in Q2 2020 and fell by 3.5% across 2020 as a whole, while the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projected in June that the global economy would shrink by nearly 5% across the same period.　　These are somber figures, yet some economists are suggesting that things could get even worse. Economists at the IMF recently warned that public and private debt — which were already rising in 2019 — could reach tipping point as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, crippling the global economy to the point where it cant properly recover.　　Meanwhile, the US might approve their new USD 1.9trn coronavirus relief package in the coming days.　　Economists and analysts speaking to Cryptonews.com largely agree with this assessment, even if they disagree on the timeline involved in any debt- and coronavirus-fuelled economic crisis. And while some suggest that commodities such as gold and silver may benefit from any acute crisis, others claim that the bitcoin and cryptoasset markets will suffer, as people

2021-03-09Deep Dive

Stellar Foundation CEO: How to Recruit More Women to Crypto

Denelle Dixon is CEO and Karen Chang is VP of Engineering at Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), a nonprofit organization designed to help grow the Stellar blockchain network.　　They are two female executives in an industry dominated by men, but in an organization that has managed to buck the trend. Thirty-nine of SDFs 81 employees are women.　　Dixon and Chang appeared on The Decrypt Daily podcast to discuss how diversity and inclusion can help cryptocurrency companies and organizations—and what they can do to move beyond buzzwords.　　“Its not rocket science that when you have diverse backgrounds and perspectives that actually bring everybody to the table, it allows different conversations to happen,” Dixon told host Matthew Aaron Diemer. “We see it all the time when theres someone missing from the table, that the product actually misses a component of whats needed in society.”　　One practical way of achieving this, she said, is by mandating that diverse candidates be interviewed for each open job. “When you start there and then you just hire the best candidate...the best candidates oftentimes end up being the ones that represent these different perspectives.”　　Yet, while other organizations, such as the NFL, have instituted similar policies, they havent all had similar results. While

2021-03-09Deep Dive

Three Developments For Bitcoin According to Citi

US-headquartered international banking giant Citi just released a mostly bullish 107-page report about Bitcoin (BTC), its achievements and what might happen next, while some other analysts forecast “a downward spiral” for BTC.　　In its report from the GPS series, Citi stressed three developments for Bitcoin:　　“Growing acceptance by businesses, availability at ATMs, and payment services indicate cryptocurrencies are increasingly gaining a presence in the mainstream.”　　“As crypto business models mature and institutional demand increases, existing entities are revamping their offerings and new entrants are emerging to provide enhanced data and exchange, trading, and custody services for institutional investors.”　　“As its global reach continues to expand, Bitcoins borderless design and other features may position it to become an international trade currency in the future.”　　Per the authors of the report, the resistance that BTC faced in its early days “may now be melting away.”　　“The vision of Bitcoin as a force that will transform the world may seem self-evident in just a few more years. The fact this progression has occurred in just over a decade makes Bitcoin remarkable regardless of its future,” they said.　　According to them, its still unknown whether BTC maintains its position and how far the potential transformation it has inspired extends. In either

2021-03-09Deep Dive

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