Most Influential 2019

One of the great things about reporting on the blockchain/crypto industry is the infinite variety of interesting, smart people doing bold, crazy things. From daring entrepreneurs and builders, to inspired thinkers and communicators, this space has no shortage of colorful characters pushing the envelope. It’s in this spirit that we present this year’s Most Influential, a selection of people who did exceptional things in 2019. Whether it was Caitlin Long establishing Wyoming as the “blockchain state,” or Rune Christensen corralling MakerDAO, or David Marcus launching Libra, these people made an impact and shaped the conversation, for better or for worse.

The selection was made in a three-step process. First, staff drew up a longlist. Then, we asked readers to vote for their favorites in a survey. Then, based on all opinions, we made a final choice. Note: People are chosen for having exemplary years, perhaps the most significant year of their careers. This is not an all-time influencer list; some well-known OGs were not included. For instance, Jack Dorsey made the cut this year for not only championing bitcoin in Silicon Valley, but funding a development team to work on its core protocol. Gerald Cotten of Quadriga infamy helped us learn (again) the truth of the old adage: “not your keys, not your coins.”

Whatever your views of this selection may be, we hope you enjoy the discussion it is likely to spark. Debate, bicker, ponder, but most of all, tag #mostinfluential2019 on Twitter. Happy Holidays.

Jack Dorsey

This year, Jack Dorsey emerged as the leading rep of bitcoin culture in Silicon Valley.

The Twitter co-founder and Square CEO is more relatable and trustworthy than Mark Zuckerberg and more rounded than Elon Musk, the weed-smoking mogul with a pop star girlfriend.

When asked if he would consider joining Facebook’s Libra Association, Dorsey replied: “Hell no.” Instead, he is betting on a different approach to mass technology: borderless and permissionless assets.

Caitlin Long

Wyoming residents Caitlin Long and Chris Land drop a bombshell at Consensus Invest, a blockchain industry event in Manhattan on November 12. They do it rather quietly, on a minimally attended panel Long moderates called “Beyond the Vault: The Legal Aspects of Crypto Custody.”

The panelists include general counsel of crypto exchange Kraken Mary Beth Buchanan, former SEC commissioner Annette Nazareth, and Land, general counsel at the Wyoming Division of Banking. They spend most of the panel exchanging legal jargon with digital asset expert Long, who spearheaded the Wyoming Blockchain Task Force’s efforts – where Land was also counsel – until it dissolved this September. The Task Force had realized its goal of making Wyoming the country’s most crypto-friendly state.

“This is untested,” says Land, “but we are feeling confident that the Wyoming Special Purpose Depository Institutions will be able to operate in New York without a BitLicense.”

Andrew Yang

There’s no doubt about it: Andrew Yang has Big Crypto Energy. The 44-year-old appears to be the only current presidential candidate to have an official policy on cryptocurrency. To wit: “Create clear guidelines in the digital asset world so that businesses and individuals can invest and innovate in the area without fear of a regulatory shift.” (Not even Elizabeth Warren, who’s spoken skeptically of crypto, has a plan for that.) Yang advocates for, among other things, clear token definitions and tax rules; he’s vowed to work with sponsors of the Token Taxonomy Act and Wyoming legislators. (He is also a proponent of blockchain voting.) “Other countries, which are ahead of us on [crypto] regulation, are leading in this new marketplace and dictating the rules that we’ll need to follow once we catch up,” Yang wrote in a November blog post.

David Marcus

Can David Marcus convince us to trust Facebook with the future of money? He’s trying, and it might work.

Marcus is the urbane, quick-witted face of the Libra project, the entrepreneur who does not crack under pressure, despite constant haranguing from all quarters. When Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook may not be the “ideal messenger” for Libra, he has Marcus – who is warmer, more cosmopolitan and better spoken than his boss – to take up the mantle.

Friends say he is persistent and resilient. “That type of opposition and that type of resistance, I think it is what fuels him,” says Hill Ferguson, who worked with Marcus at Zong, a mobile payments company, in California.

Sergey Nazarov

Sergey Narazov is the 31-year-old son of Russian immigrants who moved to New York in the early ’90s. Both of his parents were engineers and they weaned him on computers from an early age. He recalls being only around five years old when he first sat in front of a keyboard. He was reading programming manuals in middle school. Growing up, he remembers being obsessed with Legos, taking old cathode-ray televisions apart to see what made them tick, and playing a lot of real-time strategy video games. As a student at New York University, he majored in Philosophy & Management ― but it was clear to him early on that he wanted to be an entrepreneur. In 2010, he served as a teaching assistant to NYU Professor Lawrence Lenihan, the founder of the early-stage investment company Firstmark Capital, and he followed that up with a six-month stint at Firstmark doing technical due diligence on technology startups.

“The reason I took that job over other jobs,” says Nazarov, “was because I wanted to learn how people build technology companies.”

Rune Christensen

In the early days, when MakerDAO was just a loose collective of coders and thinkers, Rune Christensen would hold court and talk for hours about his vision for decentralized finance, or DeFi. So much so that his colleagues came to refer to these long sessions as “Rune Radio.”

As MakerDAO has become the most important project in DeFi, and DeFi has emerged as the most viable corner of the ethereum world, Christensen, who is Danish, 29, and very tall, hasn’t stopped talking. With a mop of distinctive blond hair and a manner that isn’t especially disposed to humor, he is relentless about the project he’s helped create. But then there is a lot to talk about: MakerDAO has a novel and complex structure, which takes time to understand.

Meltem Demirors

When Meltem Demirors was first starting out in the working world, she had two very distinct sides: Corporate Meltem and Fun Meltem. Corporate Meltem was, by her own description, “cutthroat,” highly organized, all about project plans and deliverables. She was working in the oil and gas industry, employed by Deloitte as a strategy consultant, and then for a short time as a corporate treasury analyst at ExxonMobil. The other Meltem was just as intense, but in a different way. “Fun Meltem was like, ‘Let’s explore all of the weirdness in the world and go to music festivals and go live in the desert of Morocco with a goat herder,’” she says.

Muneeb Ali

Muneeb Ali has lived more than a decade in New York City, becoming a feted Web 3.0 entrepreneur in that time and the beneficiary of millions in startup funding. But it hasn’t gone to his head.

Ali set up Blockstack, a “decentralized computing network and app ecosystem,” in 2013. The goal was nothing less than building “the missing link in the internet,” according to Brittany Laughlin, the group’s head of investor relations. Laughlin helped incubate the company during its early phases when she worked at Union Square Ventures, a VC firm known for its early investments in startups like Twitter, Etsy and Coinbase.

Ted Livingston

Ted Livingston is fighting the Securities and Exchange Commission on a point of crypto principle. Call him foolhardy or brave, he hasn’t backed down.

Some background. Livingston is the Canadian founder of Kik Interactive, a messaging app that gained one million users in 15 days when it launched in 2010, well before rivals like Facebook Messenger got off the ground. By the time Tencent, the Chinese internet giant, invested $50 million in the summer of 2015, Kik was valued at $1 billion. Then, in 2017, Livingston made a fateful decision. Rather than raising more VC money, he launched an ICO, selling off kin tokens for more than $100 million

Gerald Cotten

Mystery Man Gerald Cotten died leaving his customers with next-to-nothing. Or did he? Have we learned nothing from the weirdest, most explosive story of the year? “Gerald Cotten, CEO of QuadrigaCx died about a month ago,” said the message, sent to CoinDesk’s news inbox on Jan. 2, 2019, roughly two weeks before the exchange announced Cotten’s exit from this world.

“His death has been kept a secret because there are no funds and the whole company will collapse if a sell off occurs,” said the sender, who claimed to have attended Cotten’s funeral service but did not identify himself.

I sent follow-up questions but got no response back.

Holdlonaut

When Craig Wright tried to intimidate a cat in an astronaut’s mask, bitcoiners changed their avatars to “We are Hodlonaut” in solidarity. We talked to the real Holdlonaut – a man from Norway – about the experience.

The most influential archetype in bitcoin is the pseudonymous man.

In 2019, another mystery man suddenly emerged on Crypto Twitter as a folk hero representing the freedom to speak the truth and maintain one’s own privacy. It was the feline astronaut Hodlonaut.

In April 2019, Hodlonaut took to Twitter to castigate Craig Wright, who claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto despite skepticism and inconclusive evidence. The tweet (now deleted) reportedly called Wright “mentally ill” and a “pathetic scammer.” So Wright and his supporters promptly started preparing to sue Hodlonaut, even offering a bounty to anyone who could discover the space-cat’s identity.

Reference: Coindesk

Tags: #Blockchain, #Crypto, #Cryptocurrency, #Mostinfluential2019

Source: https://xeonbit.com/most-influential-2019/

China: Impounded Nearly 7000 Crypto Mining Machines

CCTV reported on Dec 22nd, Chinese authorities have seized nearly 7000 crypto mining machines, illegally consuming electric power.

The cryptocurrency mining confiscation came as part of an inspection of more than 70,000.00 households, 3,061 merchants, 1,470 communities, as well as factories, mines, courtyards and villages in the Kaiping District of Tangshan city. The inspection was carried out by Tangshan police in collaboration with State Electric Power Department and other authorities looking to inspect suspicious electricity use.

During the investigation, which initially started in April last year, the authorities seized 6,890 ASIC miners and 52 high-power transformers. According to the police, crypto miners were stealing electricity from a nearby village. The police also said that Bitcoin (BTC) mining machines were operating 24 hours a day, consuming electricity at rates up to 40 times those of a regular family.

Crackdown on crypto mining

China, whose BTC miners are currently responsible for as much as 66% of global hash rate, has been actively fighting illicit use of energy by crypto miners. In mid-November, regulators in China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region tightened their grip on crypto mining companies, as they intend to dispatch inspection units to assure the “clean-up and rectification of crypto token mining companies” in the region.

Some other jurisdictions like Abkhazia have also intensified work on the identification of crypto mining farms. The government brought to notice earlier in December that the significantly increased loads on electric networks were aggravated by the emergence of an ever-growing number of illegal crypto mining farms connected to a local power utility.

Reference: Cointelegraph

Tags: #China, #Cryptocurrency, #Mining

Source: https://xeonbit.com/china-impounded-nearly-7000-crypto-mining-machines/

Misunderstanding about Blockchain From Us

Bloomberg announced a 60% decline in blockchain startup investments this year, down to $1.6 billion. But at the same time, large enterprises such as Microsoft, Walmart, IBM and Samsung have either deployed their own blockchains or joined partnerships to use the technology. Ironically, several banks, such as HSBC and JPMorgan Chase, have also developed their own blockchain arms — the same entities blockchain was supposed to replace. What happened? Why are public chains with the true spirit of decentralization fading away while early adversaries have turned into advocates of the technology?

Slow to adopt — but finally adopting

Governments and politicians were regularly called out for their failing to comprehend blockchain technology. Many initially ignored the crypto boom, which led to the scam-filled craze over initial coin offerings in 2017. Then, they started opposing, regulating and shutting down blockchain projects, which hurt the developing industry. But as time has passed, they are slowly embracing the technology in the right way.

One notable example is China, which had initially banned blockchain projects altogether. In late October 2019, President Xi Jinping took a U-turn by requiring China to make a “greater effort” toward blockchain development in order to gain an “edge over other major countries.” While cryptocurrencies were still banned, this showed that the tides were turning in favor of the still-nascent technology.

Public vs. private

It’s worth noting that enterprises have their own versions of the blockchain: “private” or “enterprise” blockchains. These differ on several fronts from traditional, “public” blockchains.

Contrary to public blockchains such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, not just anyone can join a private blockchain. Each node is specifically selected by the enterprise, which might require Know Your Customer procedures in some cases.

For the same reason, “trust” is established much easier. As the nodes are already identified, there is a much lower risk of bad actors trying to corrupt the chain. Even if they try, they cannot do it anonymously.

This leads to scalability. Since fewer nodes are involved and a different consensus mechanism can be used, the transactions become much faster. Hyperledger can run up to 20,000 transactions per second, whereas Ethereum runs 15.

In private blockchains, there is no need for “rewards.” Typical blockchain projects must pay the nodes for the work they do and the energy they consume. There is no point in doing this in a private chain, as the motivation behind the project is different.

Similarly, private chains are easier to update. Public chains require consensus from a majority of the participating nodes — and if there is a disagreement, it can lead to a split, where a new blockchain is born. There are no such requirements in enterprise chains, which means the code can be updated much easier and faster.

For these reasons, it is much easier to launch a private chain. “In the near term, more projects will probably use private to learn the onboarding process and use that first, adopting public blockchains where appropriate or required,” said Nate D’Amico, the chief technology officer of the Nem Foundation, a provider of blockchain technology capable of taking the form of both a public chain and a private solution.

But public chains are favorable for different reasons: for when you need to connect individuals who have no information about each other but still need to collaborate and transact. That was why Bitcoin (BTC) was born — to enable peer-to-peer transactions without middlemen. This begs the question: Do we need enterprise blockchains at all? When we discard the primary characteristics of blockchain, why can’t we just use a distributed database?

The use case of blockchain

It turns out there are some actual advantages in using blockchain technology, even for enterprises. Among them are commercial concerns. Enterprises strictly control the nodes that join their network, but that does not mean they dictate how the system operates. Where several competitors need to collaborate, blockchain offers the ideal medium to cooperate in a less trust environment without giving too much power to one party. This may sometimes even be a political concern, such as when there is no central location to host the database that would be acceptable to all parties. Decentralisation also prevents one side from overcharging for their middleman services.

Finally, there are security concerns. Blockchain comes with built-in redundancy, encryption, synchronization and tamper resistance. “Blockchain architecture is fundamentally designed differently in that openness, collaboration, and data interactions among many parties actually make the database technology more secure and reliable,” D’Amico said. Thus, blockchain offers one of the best methods to preserve data.

But this benefit also has certain drawbacks. “A grey area for both private and public ledger/blockchain adoption are regulations like GDPR and organizations that choose to persist Personally Identifiable Information and other related data on-chain,” D’Amico explained. “Depending on how the network is run, such as globally distributed network, you don’t control where copies of the data reside, and you don’t have any recourse to ‘the right to be forgotten’ as data is inherently immutable and cannot be removed from history.”

The middlemen

Contrary to popular belief, it seems that blockchain is not going to replace central authorities. Rather, the trend suggests that semi-centralised, government-regulated versions will have the highest chance of survival. Startups are learning the hard way that they need to comply with governmental regulations — not because they are submitting to a higher authority, but simply because of public interest. At the end of the day, blockchain requires you to trust codes and algorithms over human counterparts, and some are not ready to do so. Trusting codes and algorithms may work great for simple cases, but edge cases need oracles and human authorities to dispute.

Still, blockchain’s ability to offer an immutable and tamper-proof ledger can help to prevent the authorities from misusing their power. Just like most other technologies, finding a human–computer balance is the best use of blockchain.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views opinions and referencing from Cointelegraph.

Tags: #Blockchain, #China, #HSBC, #IBM, #JPMorganChase, #Microsoft, #Walmart

Source: https://xeonbit.com/misunderstanding-about-blockchain-from-us/

European Central Bank is developing Payment System That Protects User Privacy

Recent research by the European Central Bank (ECB) claims that it is possible to develop a central bank digital currency (CBDC) payment system that protects user privacy.

Per the report dubbed “Exploring anonymity in central bank digital currencies,” the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) established a proof-of-concept (PoC) for anonymity in CBDCs, which came as part of its ongoing research of CBDCs and their potential benefits to the public. The dedicated PoC was developed in collaboration with tech companies R3 and Accenture.

Corda-based PoC

The ESCB used R3’s open-source blockchain platform Corda to develop a PoC featuring four parties such as two intermediaries, a central bank and an Anti-Money Laundering (AML) authority. Each party was represented in the network by a node that operated a CorDapp, which enables assets to be transferred between the entities.

Within
the PoC, the bank built a solution for AML/combating the financing of
terrorism (CFT) compliance procedures, which kept user identities and
transaction histories anonymous i.e. neither the central bank nor
intermediaries other than those chosen by the user could see the data.

“To
protect users’ privacy, the notary has no access to data such as
transaction values, users’ addresses or states’ histories,” the report
read, adding:

“The proof of concept shows
that it is possible, using the Corda platform, to build a simplified
CBDC payment system that safeguards users’ privacy for lower-value
transactions, while still ensuring that higher-value transactions are
subject to mandatory AML/CFT checks.”

Issues to be improved

However,
the bank noted an array of issues that purportedly needed to be
improved including reducing the amount of information visible to parties
that are not involved in the transactions, and users’ ability to access
or spend CBDC balances when the intermediary is unavailable.

The ECB stated that privacy could be further improved by applying mechanisms such as rotating public keys, zero-knowledge proofs and enclave computing.

The
bank further noted that issues of scalability were not addressed or
tested in the PoC and that interoperability with a real-time gross
settlement system must also be researched.

Regulator concerns abound regarding CBDCs

The ECB’s research seems to nominally address concerns previously expressed by world regulators regarding digital currencies. Earlier in December, European Union authorities outlined multiple risks and issues associated with the adoption of stablecoins, arguing that if adopted on a global scale, stablecoins pose a threat to monetary sovereignty, privacy and cybersecurity.

Just recently, the president of the ECB, Christine Lagarde, said that the financial institution should be ahead of the curve regarding the demand for stablecoins. In late August, the ECB released a paper in which is stated that stablecoins with a clear governance framework may be hampered by uncertainty coming from a lack of regulation.

Reference: Cointelegraph

Tags: #AML, #CBDC, #CentralBanks, #ECB, #Privacy

Source: https://xeonbit.com/european-central-bank-is-developing-payment-system-that-protects-user-privacy/

Choosing Centralised Crypto Exchange? Follow 10 golden rules

Choosing the right centralised cryptocurrency exchange may be one of the most important initial tasks an interested trader or investor must complete. Picking the wrong platform could potentially lead down a road riddled with hacks, distractions and wasted effort.

When looking for the right exchange, interested parties must first know what they are looking to accomplish. For example, is the goal to simply invest on a longer term basis, or to trade in and out of positions regularly?

Investors might look to spot exchanges. These are platforms on which one can buy and sell actual digital assets themselves. Spot Bitcoin (BTC), for example, is actual Bitcoin that a person can buy, sell or transfer to any exchange or wallet at will and hold for as long as desirable.

Traders, on the other hand, might find interest in derivatives — trading products such as futures and options that are based on the price action of underlying spot assets.

These products trade contracts based on the price action of underlying assets, and can be settled into cash or digital assets, depending on the exchange. These contracts, however, are local to the exchanges hosting them, meaning they cannot be transferred to other locations.

After the trader has determined his or her objectives, it can be crucial to look into aspects such as country regulations, exchange security and a host of other aspects.

Below is a list of 10 important areas to look into when choosing an exchange.

1. KYC/AML

Different exchanges comply with different laws and regulations, based on their locations, practices and offerings. Some exchanges have Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) practices, requiring participants to submit personal information about themselves during account creation.

These practices and requirements vary from exchange to exchange. Some platforms require KYC and AML to withdraw funds or lift certain limitations, obligating customers to provide copies of photo identification and sometimes a proof or residence. Other platforms require such customer verification during the process of account creation.

Many crypto exchanges nowadays also ban customers residing in certain countries.

2. Reputation

Since the cryptocurrency space is still largely a new industry, it is important to be aware of the reputation of each exchange of interest. Many exchanges have been involved in nefarious activities, hacks and exit scams, leaving users in a less than ideal situation.

It is important to conduct research on different exchanges, searching them on Google alongside the term “scam” and evaluating the results. Searching the exchange on various forms of social media can also be useful, looking to see if any complaints have been posted.

Looking into each platform’s terms and conditions can also be helpful, noting anything that is alarming or out of place.

3. Security

Each exchange has its own chosen methods of security. Check to see if the exchange offers two-factor authentication (2FA). If not, then the exchange may not be acceptable by security today’s standards.

Additionally, look to see what type of 2FA is compatible. Google authenticator, Authy and Yubikey are three common avenues for 2FA as they arguably offer better security than mobile text-based 2FA.

Each exchange also has various other security measures possibly worth checking into, such as cold storage asset reserves and custodial storage services.

4. Insurance fund

Users can also note whether or not their exchange of interest has an insurance fund. Certain exchanges have funds in place to compensate customers under specific circumstances.

Other exchanges are covered under the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which can protect a specified amount of U.S. users’ funds.

5. Fiat exchange

Traders and investors at some point in their careers likely will require a fiat compatible exchange, allowing them to transfer national currencies (USD, CAD, etc.) into the crypto world for trading use, and out of the crypto world to cash out profits.

Some exchanges have different fiat options, compatible with specific banks, and some do not. Checking to see which banks exchanges work with, as well as what types of fiat currencies are tradable, may be necessary.

6. Leverage trading

Derivatives exchanges frequently offer leverage trading. Leverage essentially allows traders to borrow a certain amount of funds for trades, based on the amount of funds they hold on the exchange.

Leverage may be important for traders looking to enter short-term positions with larger size. Multiple exchanges offer anywhere from 1x to 100x leverage, although different platforms may have varying rules regarding liquidation levels and margin calls.

7. Volume

Trading platforms vary based on the number of participants using them at any given time, as well as the amount of each asset being traded. This aspect can be important as it affects how easily users can enter or exit positions.

If a trader is looking to sell 100 BTC, he or she likely will not be able to do so on a low-volume exchange as not enough sellers may exist at the current listed market price, forcing the trader to sell to lower offers on the exchange.

Volume issues often complicate altcoin positions on certain exchanges, making it difficult to buy or sell large amounts of those assets.

Checking volume can be a difficult task sometimes, due to exchanges posting fake volume. One method involves looking at the order book on different exchanges, taking note of what amounts of each asset sit in the order book and how far the price levels are from one another.

Another way to assess volume is to check third-party websites that offer this type of data. Coingecko, Coin360, CoinMarketCap and others more are options that list different types of volume data.

8. Prices

Asset prices also vary across multiple exchanges. Crypto assets might trade higher or lower on one exchange versus another due to participant location (China-based exchanges can sometimes pump more), volume and other factors. Noting these discrepancies can factor into choosing an exchange, especially when altcoins are concerned.

Price discrepancy can also be a red flag that a given exchange may suffer from low liquidity/volume.

9. Asset selection

Top digital assets such as Bitcoin, Ethereum (ETH) and Litecoin (LTC) are widely available on most crypto exchanges. Other smaller cap coins and tokens, however, may not be available on certain exchanges.

Therefore, it can be important to know which crypto assets each exchange offers, selecting the appropriate options.

10. Fees

Most exchanges charge a small fee for each trade. These fees vary based on the platform, and are usually based on a percentage of each trade.

Fees may not be as important to investors as they are to traders. Traders buy and sell more frequently, racking up fees more often, although this depends on the size of each trade versus investment sizing.

Some exchanges also have withdrawal fees and limits.

DYOR

Doing your own research (DYOR) is one of the most important aspects of engagement in the crypto space — not just regarding exchanges, but the entire industry as a whole.

The above 10 aspects can be good examples of things to consider and research when choosing a centralised crypto exchange, although they will vary from person to person based on their goals, values and activities. Moreover, with decentralised exchanges are also similar but there is a short list just because you keep your own assets not the exchange. Skepticism and research may prove more valuable than not in the young and developing crypto industry.

Reference: Cointelegraph

Tags: #CryptoExchange, #DecentralizedExchange, #FDIC

Source: https://xeonbit.com/choosing-centralised-crypto-exchange-follow-10-golden-rules/

What were happening? Hodlers Digest Dec 2nd-8th

Top Stories Last Week

Ethereum completes Istanbul hard fork

It’s happened! Ethereum’s much-anticipated shift to Istanbul has been completed, and the system-wide update came into force when the network passed block #9069000 late on Saturday night. Vitalik Buterin claims capacity now has the potential to reach 3,000 transactions per second. Istanbul is designed to deliver interoperability with the privacy token Zcash and make it cheaper to use zero-knowledge technologies that enhances privacy. Although miners and node operators need to update their client, most people who hold ETH or use the network are unaffected — and ETH prices are unexpected to suffer turbulence. Maxwell Foley, software engineer at CertiK, told Cointelegraph Magazine: “Ethereum, in general, is an exciting project because they’re trying the hardest out of anyone in the crypto space to scale without sacrificing decentralization.”

Upbit hack: Stolen ETH worth millions on the move to unknown wallets

There’s been some new developments after 342,000 ETH was stolen from the hot wallet of major South Korean crypto exchange Upbit. According to Whale Alert, a service monitoring large transactions, one of the addresses involved in the theft has been moving ETH worth millions of dollars to an unknown wallet. Dodgy transfers have been taking place throughout the week in chunks of 10,000 ETH and 1,001 ETH — worth about $1.5 million and $150,000 respectively. After news emerged that the funds, worth about $50 million, had been stolen, some analysts suggested that an “inside job” was more likely than an external breach.

France to test its central bank digital currency in Q1 2020, official says

The Bank of France is going to test a central bank digital currency for financial institutions in the first quarter of 2020. Governor François Villeroy de Galhau said the “digital euro” pilot will not involve retail payments made by individuals — and stressed any such project would “be subject to special vigilance.” The central bank has been clear that France needs to assert sovereignty over private initiatives such as Facebook’s Libra, with the country leading efforts to ensure that the stablecoin is stopped from launching on European soil. The governor has also spoken of his enthusiasm for being the first country in the world to issue a CBDC, allowing France to become an example to other jurisdictions.

“Hodlers are insane” – 64% of Bitcoin supply has not moved since 2018

Given we are, er, Hodler’s Digest, let’s give you some holding news. New research has suggested that a whopping 60% of BTC in circulation hasn’t left its wallet in more than a year. This is particularly telling since BTC/USD ballooned from lows of $3,100 last December to $13,800 just six months later. Markets subsequently reversed downward — shaving 52% off their highs. Rhythm, the analyst who uploaded the statistics, didn’t mince his words by saying: “Hodlers of last resort are insane.” With the trend of dormant BTC as a percentage of total supply sharply increasing in recent years — and remaining intact during bull and bear markets alike — it seems many investors want to save it rather than spend it.

Deutsche Bank research: Crypto to replace fiat currencies by 2030

New research by Deutsche Bank has revealed what the future might look like for crypto in just 10 short years. Its report suggests that digital currencies could eventually replace cash one day, as demand for anonymity and a more decentralized means of payment grows. Hurdles do lie in the way — and the authors say digital assets will need to gain legitimacy in the eyes of governments and regulators for wider acceptance to be achieved. The report also warns that the risk of cyberattacks and digital warfare could also pose huge risks to the stability of financial systems based on digital currencies in the future.

Winners and Losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin is at $7,602.68, Ether at $150.47 and XRP at $0.23. The total market cap is at $205,799,442,442.

The top three altcoin gainers of the week are Energi, HedgeTrade and Enjin Coin. The top three altcoin losers of the week are ILCoin, Silverway and Thunder Token.

Quotations

“Free Ross, baby! Get him out. We need entrepreneurs like that guy! Get him out of jail! Why do we put these really extraordinary people in jail? We need their minds, their energy, their life force. Get him free. Who knows what else he could’ve come up with?”

Tim Draper, investor

“In Japan, the amount of cash outstanding is still increasing, and it does not seem that there is a demand for CBDC from the public at present.”

Haruhiko Kuroda, Bank of Japan governor

“Turkey is a vibrant country that has illustrated one of the strongest demands and fast-growing interest in crypto.”

Changpeng Zhao, Binance CEO

“Hodlers of last resort are insane.”

Rhythm, analyst

“Bitcoin halving in May 2020 won’t do anything to the price. It will be a non-event.”

Jason Williams, Morgan Creek Digital co-founder

“Chair Powell and I have discussed this — we both agree that in the near future, in the next five years, we see no need for the Fed to issue a digital currency.”

Steven Mnuchin, U.S. Treasury Secretary

Prediction of the Week

Halving will be “non-event” for BTC price, Morgan Creek Digital exec says

“The halvening” in May 2020 — when the reward paid to miners falls from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC per block — is widely regarded as an event that will catalyze a bull market. But according to Jason Williams, the co-founder of Morgan Creek Digital, these expectations might be overblown. He believes that the having will have no impact whatsoever on BTC prices, describing it as a “non-event.” With analysts bitterly divided over whether there will be a bull run — and if so, how quickly a reaction will take place — expect many more wild predictions to grace this column in the weeks and months to come.

FUD of the Week

Canada-based crypto mining firm Great North Data files for bankruptcy

Great North Data, a crypto mining company based in Canada, has filed for bankruptcy. The firm operated facilities in Labrador City and Happy Valley-Goose Bay. Bankruptcy documents show that it had $13.2 million in liabilities but just $3.5 million in assets. Reports suggest that the company owed six-figure sums to government bodies. It’s been a difficult time for mining companies, with Washington-based Giga Watt closing down in January because it was “insolvent and unable to pay its debts when due.”

Researchers detect new North Korea-linked MacOS malware on crypto trading site

Security researchers have uncovered cryptocurrency-related macOS malware that is believed to be the work of North Korean hackers known as the Lazarus Group. It is believed that the malware can retrieve a payload from a remote location and run it in memory — something that is not common for macOS. This resultantly means it can be difficult to detect the malware and carry out forensic analysis — with only 10 antivirus engines actually flagging it as malicious. “Clear overlaps” have also been found with malware that was detected by another group of security researchers in the middle of October.

Reference: Cointelegraph

Tags: #Bitcoin, #CBDC, #Deutsche, #ETH, #Ethereum, #Facebook, #France, #Istanbul, #Libra, #Upbit, #VitalikButerin, #XRP

Source: https://xeonbit.com/what-were-happening-hodlers-digest-dec-2nd-8th/

Deutsche Bank: Crypto Will Replace Fiat-Currencies in 2030

By 2030, the demand for alternative currencies will rise, with digital currencies eventually replacing cash, according to the research of Deutsche Bank.

In the “Imagine 2030” report, Deutsche Bank strategist Jim Reid raised awareness of the challenges the existing fiat system has encountered in recent years, specifically with the emergence of cryptocurrencies. Reid stipulated that people’s heightened demand for dematerialized means of payment and anonymity could drive more individuals to digital currencies.

Mainstream adoption and co-occurring challenges

In order to gain wider acceptance, digital assets need to overcome three major hurdles. These include perceived legitimacy in the eyes of governments and regulators, which entails price stability and allows for global reach in the payment market. According to Reid, the establishment of alliances with key stakeholders like mobile apps and card providers will enable this development.

At the same time, Reid pointed out that with mainstream adoption, new challenges will arise. Among major threats to the purported digital currency-based financial system, Reid named dependence on electricity, cyberattacks and a digital war. “As that occurs, the line between cryptocurrencies, financial institutions, and public and private sectors may become blurred,”.

Examine CBDC

In the meantime, world governments have been actively debating the need to develop national digital currencies. Earlier today, Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said that there is no public demand for a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the country. Kuroda noted the increasing demand for cash payments and added that the bank had been conducting technical and legal research into the matter.

The British Virgin Islands has taken a more proactive approach to CBDCs, announcing that the country is developing a digital currency dubbed BVI~LIFE in collaboration with blockchain startup LifeLabs. The currency is part of a broader initiative to grow the local fintech sector. It will be pegged to the U.S. dollar.

The central bank of France plans to pilot a CBDC for financial institutions in 2020.

Reference: Cointelegraph

Tags: #CBDC, #DeutscheBank, #DigitalCurrency

Source: https://xeonbit.com/deutsche-bank-crypto-will-replace-fiat-currencies-in-2030/

50% Discount Coupon Xeonbit Black Friday 2019

Enjoy Black Friday 2019 with Xeonbit by coupon: blackfriday2019 in your cart until Nov 30 2019.

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How to place order by $XNB

Please share, reply and comment if you have any question. Cheer!!!

Tags: #Xeonbit, #XeonbitMembership

Source: https://xeonbit.com/50-discount-coupon-xeonbit-black-friday-2019/

Tight Up Anti-Money Laundering Policy in US

Kenneth Blanco – Director of The US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) ) – said that Anti-Money Laundering (AML) laws will be strictly enforced in the world of cryptocurrencies.

On Nov 15, Blanco made clear that cryptocurrency companies engaged in money service businesses will have to comply with AML laws and share information about their customers.

Travel rule also applies to crypto

Speaking at a conference hosted by Chainalysis, a blockchain analysis company in New York, Blanco told the audience that the so-called travel rule also applied to digital currencies and that the government expects crypto firms to comply. He added:

“It [travel rule] applies to CVCs [convertible virtual currencies] and we expect that you will comply, period. […] That’s what our expectation is. You will comply. I don’t know what the shock is. This is nothing new.”

In what has now become known as the travel rule, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) guidelines require regulators and Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) to collect and share personal data of transactions. The recommendation imposes the same standards on the cryptocurrency sector as are normally shouldered by the banking industry.

Blanco further pointed out that FinCEN has been conducting investigations that include compliance with the travel rule since 2014, adding that it is the most commonly cited violation among money service businesses engaged in digital currencies.

AML laws apply to everyone

In October, spoked at the University of Georgetown where Blanco said that AML laws apply to everyone. He pointed to the key objective of AML policy, which is obtaining information about who is involved in a given payment:

“There is a reason you want to know … the person on the other side of that transaction — they might be dealing in some kind of illicit activity. Whether it’s opioids … or human smuggling on the other side … you want to know who that person is.”

Blanco told the audience at the time that it is not that hard to obtain that information. “All we’re asking for is name, address, account number, transaction, recipient, and amount,” he commented:

“So when you tell me you don’t know who’s on the other side, you’ve got a big problem. Because you are required to know, and that is what our expectation is going to be.”

What’s your point of view? Do you agree with the AML policy? Please comment and let’s discuss more about that.

Reference: Cointelegraph

Tags: #AML

Source: https://xeonbit.com/tight-up-anti-money-laundering-policy-in-us/

Quick Review About Coinmarketcap Capital Event Nov 12th 2019

The end of 2019 is happening with many interesting events. The current Coinmarketcap (CMC) event at Victoria Theater (Singapore) is still bringing more curiosity to the audiences. The founders of CMC (Brandon Chez) and Capital (Sunny King) are shown up with masks and a voice changing system.

New Features of CMC

After the short talk from the founders, we will discover more feature of CMC likes: new UI, earn crypto from crypto, liquidity ranking for exchanges and etc…

Exchange introduction

Of course the giant exchange Binance should be here to introduce his service. Different from previous events, today, CZ (CEO of Binance) shared with us stories about Binance’s beginnings from 2017: 2BTC dinner, Binance’s ICO process, the approach of Binance Malta and so on …

Free gifts from the event

People will forget all the events if there were no free gifts for them. There is a free registration to attend the event, and of course there are free gifts for participants. You can also network to reach your potential customers. Using the Brella event-free app (available on iOS and Android) with coinmarketcap pass. The same password is used for Wifi Capital during the event.

Name tag during CMC event for networking

Free gifts from CMC event

You also can join with Xeonbit for the meet up tomorrow @ MBS
https://www.facebook.com/events/425496758148098/

All the best for the success of Crypto-world

Tags: #Anonymous, #Binance, #Coinmarketcap, #Singapore, #Xeonbit, #XNB, #XNS

Source: https://xeonbit.com/quick-review-about-coinmarketcap-capital-event-nov-12th-2019/

Bitcoin Price Drop Below $9000 Why?

Bitcoin price (BTC) fell 5% today to a new weekly low at $8,660, a point which is also below the 200-day moving average which has been acting as support since reclaiming it in the final week of October.

Almost all other crypto-assets have also suffered a valuation loss against the U.S. dollar, but there has been some resilience shown in both Ether (ETH) and EOS, which have continued to outperform Bitcoin over the last week.

Source: Coin360

Why BTC broke down from $9000

Bitcoin has been trading hard up against historical weekly
support and resistance at $9,550.  This also coincided with the 100-day
moving average (DMA), unable to establish any kind of sustained attempt
to break above. 

The pinch between the 100-DMA acting as resistance and the 200 as support, led to a failure and an immediate drop through the volume gap where price doesn’t have much local history.  The 50-DMA and the previous range high have subsequently come to support price above the 61.8% retracement from the move up to $10K from the mid $7K lows.

This is a technical trading area, which will be of interest to some profit takers and buyers. If Bitcoin is to maintain a move higher in the near term, we should expect to see BTC attempt to retake the previous support at $9,000. 

BTC USD 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

This will be an important weekend for Bitcoin, which could easily lead to further volatility. Reclaiming the $9K range is a clear objective for the bulls over the weekend. Otherwise, a more extended period consolidating likely lies ahead in the $8,000s.

Reference: Cointelegraph

Tags: #Bearish, #Bitcoin, #BTC, #Bullish

Source: https://xeonbit.com/bitcoin-price-drop-below-9000-why/

Photo Instruction How To Place Order And Join Xeonbit Membership

Go to https://xeonbit.com/products/ to select your favourite Products and Memberships

select the Basic Package (Started Xeonbit Package)

Click on Add to cartbutton

You can View Cart by click on the button

Click on Proceed to checkout button to process checking out

Fill up information then Click on Place Order button

System will generate Xeonbit Total due Amountand Pay To Address for Your Payment (Click on the icon to copy the Amount or Address)

Open your Xeonbit Desktop Wallet. Keep the Wallet sync with Network (Connected status) then Paste Amount & Address correctly above toSend

After click onSend button we need to click OKbutton to confirm the transaction

Enter your wallet password and Continue your Sending Progress

After that, your Xeonbit had been sent successful with transaction ID. Just click OK

Be back to Check out Page and Wait for a few minutes when the transaction had been confirmed on network. The transaction Id will be shown as photo

You can go to https://xeonbit.com/my-account/orders to check your order status as Completed

You also can view your Referral URL at Dashboard tab https://xeonbit.com/my-account

Tags: #HowTo, #Xeonbit, #XeonbitMembership

Source: https://xeonbit.com/photo-instruction-how-to-place-order-and-join-xeonbit-membership/

VPN Is the First Layer You Should Pull On

Virtual private networks (VPNs) can be useful for all kinds of things, from streaming foreign sports to protecting your identity from heightened online surveillance. For cryptocurrency users, VPNs are particularly precious, providing access to exchanges that are geo-restricted, and enabling crypto activities to be completed on the web without leaving a privacy-betraying footprint.

The Rise of the VPN

Virtual private networks can be traced back to 1996 when a Microsoft staffer conceived a peer-to-peer tunneling protocol (PPTP). In many ways, the protocol functioned as a precursor to the VPNs we see today, providing a private, secure connection between a computer and the world wide web, as it was then known.

The advantages of having a permanently encrypted conduit to the web are manifold. Think about how often you unwittingly connect to insecure public wifi, for example, with everything from credit card numbers and social media log-ins vulnerable to theft. A VPN, which lets you connect to a remote server while masking your true location, provides peace of mind by safeguarding data from third-party interception. Virtual private networks also block persistent IP tracking, which is trickier to prevent than insidious third-party tracking e.g. from Google.

The Quest to Decentralize the VPN

VPNs can mitigate the worst data intrusions of centralized agencies (be it tech giants or governments), but they themselves are vulnerable to flaws inherent to centralization. This month, it emerged that popular provider NordVPN suffered a data breach in 2018 when a Finnish server in a rented data center was compromised. Although the company has asserted that no usernames or passwords were intercepted, the fiasco proves that VPNs are not invulnerable to the very attacks they endeavor to protect their users against.

Web3 architects intent on decentralizing all the things have naturally turned their attention to VPNs, where they see the potential to create more robust systems that aren’t vulnerable to the whims of central bodies acting unilaterally, be it hackers or law enforcement. Decentralized VPNs – dVPNs – work by apportioning a percentage of users’ upload bandwidth to carrying traffic for other users on the network. Although still very much in their infancy, dVPNS have the potential to obfuscate your crypto transactions and communications while eliminating the need for a central authority.

Why Cryptocurrency Users Should Consider a VPN

While everyday internet users are becoming more assertive with their privacy, motivated by widespread coverage of mass data collection and government snooping, bitcoiners have an even greater need for digital discretion. The cryptosphere, after all, has fallen prey to opportunistic hackers, with spear phishing and SIM-swapping just two examples of security breaches that have left traders out of pocket. A VPN is not a cloak of invisibility, granting its wearer carte blanche to evade or commit cyber crime with impunity, but it does heighten your security in a number of meaningful ways.

By encrypting your data when you trade, a VPN makes it more difficult for hackers to eavesdrop. Because VPNs conceal your IP address and prevent persistent IP tracking, your device’s location will not become connected to your wallet address. What’s more, using a remote server to mask your true location more effectively prevents targeted viruses and malware than many expensive software packages designed expressly for this purpose.

Of course, the advantages of VPN use extend beyond bolstering security. They can also widen your options by unblocking geo-blocked websites such as exchanges forbidden in your homeland. By granting unfettered access to otherwise verboten foreign portals, these networks can dramatically improve your trading experience. They can also prove a lifesaver, should your government suddenly censor access to an exchange in which you hold currency, for example.

How to Choose the Right VPN for Your Needs

There are many VPNs to choose from, some free, some paid, and all with pros as well as cons.

Firstly, make sure you pick a VPN that does not store user logs, which could conceivably be handed over to third parties. Some VPN providers insist that this information is mandatory to guarantee optimal service, but in reality, they often sell your data to advertisers. Needless to say, this runs contrary to the very purpose of using a VPN in the first place. In any case, you certainly don’t want time-stamped details of your VPN sessions – as well as sites visited and files downloaded – falling into the wrong hands.

Once you’ve sourced a provider with a definitive zero-log policy, you should think about connection speed, the number of servers in different countries (prioritizing those with multiple severs in privacy-friendly nations), the level of encryption offered, traffic-restriction policies and customer support. It might also be smart to select a VPN that accepts payment in cryptocurrency, which can further enhance your privacy.

Practise Safe Browsing

Using Incognito / Private Mode while using your Browsers

Privacy absolutists are eagerly awaiting the day when decentralized VPNs become production ready, citing a distrust of centralized gateways’ privacy policies and questions surrounding network stability. Currently Opera Browser has VPN function that you can rely on.

In the meantime, VPNs go a long way to ensuring safety and privacy in our hyper-connected world – and this applies to regular web users as well as those of us in the habit of transacting digital currency. Before you step out into the big bad web, take a moment to clad yourself in a VPN.

Do you think using a VPN provides added security when browsing the web? Let us know in the comments section below.

Reference: Bitcoin

Tags: #Security, #VPN

Source: https://xeonbit.com/vpn-is-the-first-layer-you-should-pull-on/

Scary and Sweet Halloween Facts to Trick

You've got your costume picked out, candy buckets filled, and party all planned — all that's left to do for the best Halloween ever is put your knowledge to the test. How much do you really know about Halloween? Turns out it's not only about who gets the most chocolate or creates the scariest costume.

Over the centuries, the holiday has evolved from a way of begging for food to one of the most commercialized days of the entire year. Here are the Halloween facts you need to know:

The holiday goes back more than 2,000 years

According to History.com, Halloween all started as a pre-Christian Celtic festival called Samhain (which means "summer's end") held around the first of November. It celebrated the final day of the harvest and the crossing of spirits over into the other world. People in Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Northern France would ward off ghosts by lighting sacrificial bonfires, and, you guessed it, wearing costumes.

Trick-or-treating has existed since medieval times

Back then, it was known as "guising" in Scotland and Ireland. Young people dressed up in costumes and asked for food or money in exchange for songs, poems, or other "tricks." Today, the tradition has morphed into children to getting dressed up and asking for candy.

Some Halloween rituals used to involve finding a husband

During the 18th century, ladies would follow Halloween traditions that would "help" them find a romantic match. Women would: Throw apple peels over their shoulder hoping to see their future husband’s initials, competitively bob for apples at parties because the winner would be the first to get married, and stand in a dark room with a candle in front of a mirror to look for their future husband’s face. Thankfully, those traditions have died out.

Immigrants helped popularize the holiday in the U.S

When Irish people fled their country in the 1840s due to potato starvation, they brought with them their Halloween tradition. By the 1920s, vacation, mischief, had reached its all-time high. Some believe that community-based cheating or treatment became popular in the 1930s as a way to control excessive hoaxes.

Sugar rationing during World War II halted trick-or-treating

After the rationing ended, the tradition grew into what we're familiar with today. Candy companies started launching advertising campaigns to capitalize on the ritual.

Now Halloween is the second largest commercial holiday in the country

It comes after only Christmas. Consumers spent approximately $9 billion (!) on Halloween last year, according to the National Retail Federation (NRF). That's A LOT of candy and costumes.

Americans spend about $86.79 on Halloween annual

That includes Halloween decorations, candy, costumes, and cards by the NRF definition. (If you're curious how that compares to Christmas, Americans spent an average of $1,007 on winter holidays in 2018.)

The Irish also brought us jack-o'-lanterns

As the story goes, an Irish man named Stingy Jack tricked the devil and therefore was not allowed into heaven or hell — so he spent his days roaming the Earth, carrying a lantern, and went by "Jack of the Lantern."

Carved out of turnips, potatoes, and beets

Jack-'o-lanterns originated in Ireland, after all. Once Halloween became popular in America, people used pumpkins instead.

Traditional Halloween bread in Ireland

It's called barmbrack or just "brack." The sweet loaf typically contains dark and golden raisins plus a small toy or ring. Similar to king cake at Mardi Gras, tradition dictates the person who finds the item will receive good fortune.

Disney almost made 'Hocus Pocus'

The original title Disney's Halloween House also went along with a much darker and scarier script, according to IMDB. Another fun fact: Leonardo DiCaprio nearly played Max Dennison, but he turned it down to appear in What's Eating Gilbert Grape instead.

Illinois has five times more pumpkins than others

The Land of Lincoln has more than 15,000 acres devoted to gourd growing, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. Those Illinois farms typically grow more than 500 million pounds of pumpkins annually.

 "chicken feed"

The Goelitz Confectionery Company sold boxes with a rooster on the front in order to appeal to America's agricultural roots, according to National Geographic. The sugary recipe has gone largely unchanged since the 1880s.

'Monster Mash' once reigned supreme on the Billboard charts

Bobby "Boris" Pickett reached #1 on the Hot 100 in 1962 just before Halloween and later recharted in 1973 — but this time in August.

Pumpkin patch in Hawaii

Head to Waimanalo Country Farms in Oahu to pick pumpkins while you're on the islands. Looking for squash in Florida? Try the Pickin’ Patch in Dunnellon. (It's a watermelon farm the rest of the year!)

The Michael Myers mask in 'Halloween' has a fascinating backstory.

The famous horror movie villain has surprisingly innocent roots. When shooting the original 1978 film, production designer Tommy Lee Wallace picked up two masks from a Hollywood Boulevard magic shop: a clown and William Shatner as Captain Kirk in Star Trek.

"Tommy came in with the clown mask on, and we went, 'Ooh, that’s kind of scary.' Then he put on the Shatner mask, and we stopped dead and said, 'It’s perfect,'" actor Nick Castle told the New York Times. They spray-painted it white, cut the eye holes bigger, and the rest is history.

16.47 seconds the fastest pumpkin carving

Stephen Clarke holds the honor. The jack-o'-lantern had to contain a complete face, including eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.

New York City throws the biggest Halloween parade in the U.S

It draws more than 2 million spectators and includes thousands participants, but it started out as a simple idea from Greenwich Village resident (and puppeteer!) Ralph Lee — a walk from house to house for his children and their friends. When the local theatre got wind of it, they turned it into a bigger event — and it's gotten bigger (and more theatrical) every year since.

Princesses and Superheroes are the most popular children's costumes

Adults are most likely to dress as witches, according to the National Retail Federation. As for our pets? The most popular costume for dogs in 2018 was a pumpkin.

Skittles are the top Halloween candy

The bite-sized candies outranked M&M's, Snickers, and Reese's Cups, according to 11 years of sales data from CandyStore. And even though candy corn also made the top 10, the tricolored treats also ranked among the worst Halloween candies.

A city in Canada banned teens over 16 from trick-or-treating

According to CBC, anyone over the age of 16 caught trick-or-treating — or even just wearing masks — in Bathurst, Canada, faces up to a $200 fine. The city also has a curfew for everyone else, so even those under 16 aren't allowed out after 8 p.m. on Halloween.

Harry Houdini died on Halloween in 1926

The famous magician, illusionist, and entertainer died from peritonitis caused by a ruptured appendix, but multiple contradicting reports caused quite the mystery around his death.

Suspend black cat adoptions for Halloween

They feared that the animals were in danger of satanic cults in the days leading up to Halloween. Nowadays, some shelters promote black cat adoptions in October and use interviews to weed out anyone with the wrong intentions.

Keene, New Hampshire, holds the record for the most jack-o’-lanterns on display

In October 2013, the city broke the record with 30,581 lit pumpkins around town. Pretty impressive, right?

The night before Halloween is called Mischief Night or Goosey Night in some places

October 30 is a night popular for pulling pranks — some harmless like throwing toilet paper in trees, but others much more dangerous. It really only happens places on East Coast and in the Midwest, as the traditions never really made their way to the West Coast.

What's your Halloween Custome? Share and comment below

Reference: Goodhousekeeping

Tags: #Halloween, #TrickOrTreat

Source: https://xeonbit.com/scary-and-sweet-halloween-facts-to-trick/

Win Christmas Gift and Happy New Year 2020

[RF_CONTEST contest='C23137343233']

Please comment below with your Twitter and Facebook to be eligible as winner.

Tags: #Christmas, #HappyNewYear, #Xeonbit

Source: https://xeonbit.com/win-christmas-gift-and-happy-new-year/

Happy Diwali 2019

Wishing that this Diwali brings prosperity to your business and more opportunities for us to work together!

Tags: #Deepavali, #Dipavali, #Divali, #Diwali, #Xeonbit, #XeonbitToken, #XNB, #XNS

Source: https://xeonbit.com/happy-diwali-2019/

How Fiat System to Accept Cryptocurrency

 Fiat payment gateways are no longer the enemy of bitcoin. Today the fiat and crypto worlds are bridged and doing business. Many centralized payment processors have learned to live with decentralized currency.

Enemies become Frenemies

In the early days of Bitcoin era, traditional fiat payment systems were an unfriend of cryptocurrency. Paypal was the on-ramp for the first bitcoin exchange, though it was a short-lived affair. Cold feet on the part of fiat payment systems, once they caught wind of exactly what bitcoin was, saw crypto payments banned altogether, but in the years since, the tide has turned. Today, centralized and decentralized payment systems are more closely aligned than ever.

The overlords of traditional finance are enamoured with crypto, but they have turned a blind eye to the practice of cashing in and out of crypto using fiat gateways. For most bitcoiners, begrudging acceptance from centralised systems is good enough. Some payment solutions have gone further though, extending a warm embrace to crypto assets, as the following examples show.

Skrill

Founded in 2001 as Moneybookers Limited, then rebranded a decade later as Skrill, it took the online payment platform a further seven years before it started allowing users to buy and sell cryptocurrency, in the summer of 2018. CEO Lorenzo Pellegrino gushed about crypto when the announcement was made, venturing that cryptocurrency trading was “exciting and dynamic” and that Skrill’s digital wallet service lent itself to the environment.

Skrill’s cryptocurrency offering lets users from over 30 countries trade digital tokens including BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH, XRP, and ZRX, after partnering with an unnamed exchange to facilitate the service. Conversion from 40 fiat currencies into crypto is swift, and requires no additional verification. It’s a far cry from the company’s circumspect attitude to crypto in the years since bitcoin launched in 2008. A Skrill blog from earlier this year demonstrated the company’s evolving outlook: “If the past decade was cryptocurrencies’ proof of concept stage, the next decade will see them become rooted in the everyday fabric of life.” Bullish words.

Paypal

It’s possible to deposit and withdraw from crypto exchanges such as Coinbase and Gocoin using Paypal, and has been since Paypal formed a partnership with the companies in mid-2015. The online payments giant was also on board with Facebook’s new Libra cryptocurrency, and although it withdrew from the project earlier this month, it’s evident that Paypal is now pro-blockchain.

Consider, for example, the company’s filing of a patent last year to increase cryptocurrency payment speed by utilizing secondary private keys, thereby cutting wait times for transactions between merchants and consumers. Although bitcoin isn’t a major focus at Paypal, Chief Financial Officer John Rainey notes that the company “have teams clearly working on blockchain and cryptocurrency” and “want to take part in whatever form that takes in the future.”

Credit Card

Credit card giants Visa and Mastercard have blown hot and cold on crypto, and a number of banks that issue their cards have banned cryptocurrency purchases altogether. Through third parties that operate on the financial rails controlled by the credit card giants, however, bitcoiners can cash in and out of crypto using credit and debit cards. Companies like Simplex are also helping in this respect. The Israeli-based payment processor allows crypto merchants to accept payments via credit card, backed by machine-learning algorithms that eliminate fraud, providing protection against chargebacks.

Debit Card

The last two years have seen the emergence of crypto debit cards that combine a cryptocurrency wallet with a conventional debit card that can be funded through liquidating cryptocurrency directly within the app. There have been speed bumps along the way, such as when Visa subsidiary Wavecrest withdrew service for several crypto card companies, but the sector has flourished since that upset. Centralized crypto wallet services such as Wirex and Revolut are now joined by a decentralized counterpart in Monolith. It enables users to retain custody of their crypto right up until the point that they liquidate it to load it onto their debit card.

The New Norm

Today it’s much easier to purchase cryptocurrency than it was 10, five or even two years ago. The aforementioned firms are not the only payment processors keen to satisfy their customers by integrating with decentralized finance, incidentally. Last year, Square, best known for its payment-processing hardware such as chip and PIN readers, was licensed to offer New York residents the ability to transact bitcoin on its Cash App, causing shares of the company to hit a 52-week high.

There are still concerns over excessive KYC, financial surveillance on both the fiat and blockchain sides, and the propensity of fiat gateways to withdraw service at the drop of a hat. Nevertheless, the cryptosphere finds itself in a far stronger position than at any time in its short history. If centralized and decentralized payment systems can learn to co-exist, everyone stands to benefit.

Do you think traditional payment processors are more accepting of cryptocurrency these days? Let us know in the comments section below.

Source: Bitcoin, Cointelegraph

Tags: #Bitcoin, #CreditCard, #Cryptocurrency, #DebitCard, #FiatMoney, #Mastercard, #Paypal, #Revolut, #Simplex, #Skrill, #Visa, #Wirex

Source: https://xeonbit.com/how-fiat-system-to-accept-cryptocurrency/

AML laws apply to crypto

Anti-Money Laundering (AML) laws apply to everyone. The US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) Director Kenneth Blanco spoke at the University of Georgetown where he made it clear.

On Oct. 21, banking trade publication American Banker reported that Blanco said that fintech firms offering cryptocurrency users anonymity must comply with AML laws “just like everyone else.”

Blanco highlights responsibilities and the Bank Secrecy Act

Blanco seemed to direct his comments toward anonymous crypto payment systems that could conceal criminal activity and or enable users to anonymously engage in criminal behavior. 

The FinCEN head pointed in his speech to the key objective of AML policy, which is obtaining information about who is involved in a payment transaction, saying:

"There is a reason you want to know ... the person on the other side of that transaction — they might be dealing in some kind of illicit activity. Whether it’s opioids ... or human smuggling on the other side ... you want to know who that person is.”

Blanco told the audience that it is not that hard to obtain that information. “All we’re asking for is name, address, account number, transaction, recipient, and amount,” he said, adding:

“So when you tell me you don’t know who’s on the other side, you’ve got a big problem. Because you are required to know, and that is what our expectation is going to be."

Earlier this month, the chairmen of the three primary financial regulators in the U.S. released a joint statement warning crypto users of AML and Combating the Financing of Terrorism obligations, reminding crypto companies that they are subject to the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). Blanco said in this regard:

"Your BSA obligations are still going to be there [...] Whether you're stablecoin, centralized, decentralized — [it] doesn’t matter. You’ll still have to be able to comply."

Although Blanco did not address Facebook’s Libra stablecoin, he did make it clear that as far as FinCEN is concerned, there is no distinction between stablecoins and any other types of cryptocurrency. 

FinCEN was directed by Congress to study blockchain tech 

Cointelegraph previously reported that the U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill that calls for FinCEN to study blockchain technology in its fight against financial crime. The bill requires director Kenneth Blanco to carry out a study on the use of emerging technologies, such as blockchain technology, within FinCEN.

Reference: Cointelegraph

Tags: #AML, #AntiMoneyLaundering, #Cryptocurrency, #Facebook, #Libra, #Xeonbit, #XeonbitToken, #XNB, #XNS

Source: https://xeonbit.com/aml-laws-apply-to-crypto/

Privacy Is Key to Enterprise Blockchain Adoption

“Blockchain is going to be the tool that ties together not just individual companies, but whole business ecosystems and networks,” says EY global innovation lead Paul Brody. “Enterprises will not go on to the public mainnet without privacy and security.”

In this interview with Christine Kim, Brody discusses a range of privacy solutions, including Nightfall, EY’s open source code repository. The protocol integrates zero-knowledge proofs with smart contracts, enabling private transactions on the public ethereum blockchain.

Procurements are one particular use case. Any enterprise that can leverage different pricing models often leaves money on the table when making purchase orders. Nightfall, however, can set up smart contracts “without any additional administrative or operational overhead” that execute at the best price, Brody argues.

Reference: Coindesk

Tags: #Blockchain, #Privacy, #Xeonbit, #XeonbitToken

Source: https://xeonbit.com/privacy-is-key-to-enterprise-blockchain-adoption/

How to Use Dex Xeonbit A Step by Step Guide

The privacy-focused DEX Xeonbit, does not have any restrictions, “no name, no document, no document, no email, no bank info.” DEX will support any ERC-20 token and anybody can list their token on it.




This opens a whole new world of freedom for anybody trading any crypto, irrespective of identity, region, regulation.

Log In

• Open https://dex.xeonbit.com/ in your browser.

• Immediately after you log in this pops up. Whitelisting enables you to trade on the platform without any fees.

• If your browser is using Metamask dex.xeonbit.com will automatically request to unlock your Metamask Wallet

• Or else go to the top right and click on Select Account — New account

• Once you click on New account, you will receive your Ethereum Address and Private Key. Keep your private key somewhere safe. Do not share with others.

(There’s no crypto in this account for you to take. Sorry!)

• Once you click OK, you are logged in. See your Ethereum address on the Top Right Corner.

Security Set-Up

Before looking into other features, let’s check the security set up first.

• In case you accidentally log out, you can always import your account

• Use your Ethereum address and saved Private Key to import account.

• You can export your Private Key anytime and keep it safe

• You can also use your Ledger Nano S, to do transactions securely.

DEX

• We can log in from 2 accounts and switch between them.

• Whitelist Checker

• The whitelist checker takes you to the SwitchDex platform where you can check if your Ethereum address is whitelisted.

• The Balance Tab

• Add Token – This option is for companies to add their coin for free in the DEX.

Trade

• The DEX has the following pairs: ETH, DAI, WBTC, TUSD

Reviewing the Orderbook

So, we moved to an Orderbook which has volume. We selected the ESH/ETH trading pair.

Let us look into a buy scenario

• The order price shows the last traded price and not the lowest sell price

• If we manually click on the lowest sale price, it takes the entire volume and the price. It does not actually insert the price in my buy box (like other exchanges)

• So, we will manually insert the lowest sale price (you can also decide your own buy price) and click on buy ESH.

No transfer from the main account to trading account needed (like on IDEX)

It should come up in the order.

• The actual amount will be shown in my balances. (In this example, we have not made an actual purchase, hence balance is zero).

• You can withdraw whenever needed.

• DEX Looks clean and easy to use;
• User Interface needs some sharpening – with the headers in the buy and sell orders not coming up;
• Page scroll function is not complete;
• DEX is slow and should pick up over time;
• BTC trading pair is not present’
• Not much volume right now. It should pick up with time;
• Backend security looks fine as it has overcome repeated DDOS attacks.

“This is just the Beta and we need to just play with it, things should be stable soon.”
John McAfee

We suggest you try your first taste of DEX with small amount of crypto, it might be worth it.




Reference: altcoinbuzz



Tags: #DEX, #McAfee, #Xeonbit, #XeonbitToken

Source: https://xeonbit.com/how-to-use-dex-xeonbit-a-step-by-step-guide/