October 18, 2018
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust."
- Oliver Holmes
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| COIN | PRICE | 24H |
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| BTC | $6,541.89661 | +0.13% |
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| ETH | $206.174277 | -0.45% |
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| XRP | $0.463568 | -0.09% |
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| BCH | $446.583175 | -0.45% |
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| EOS | $5.409337 | +0.46% |
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*Information as of 10:00 AM EST
Developers Have More Power in Crypto Than You Think
Developer’s discretion
In the crypto ecosystem, there are certain players that wield power: whale-size investors, miners, influencers, and developers. Now, a new report from CryptoCompare revealed that developers may hold a lot more power than we think.
After reviewing hundreds of crypto and blockchain projects, CryptoCompare found that 85% of cryptocurrencies on the market can be altered by development teams.
This means that instead of running on a decentralized network, the cryptocurrencies can be controlled at the development team’s discretion.
The state of decentralization
While CryptoCompare’s report revealed the power developers have in the ecosystem, it also broke down the market by decentralization in general.
Currently, within the ecosystem:
- 55% of projects are centralized
- 30% of projects are semi-decentralized
- 16% of projects are decentralized
Note: CryptoCompare's numbers add up to 101%, which may indicate a reporting error.
Taking a look at different categories of projects, CryptoCompare found that utility tokens tend to drift towards centralization over payment tokens. This is most likely because a handful of utility tokens were created to access a platform.
Security scares
Naturally, since CryptoCompare found that over half of projects are centralized, over half of projects should actually be defined as securities in the eyes of the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA).
And FINMA is progressive as far as crypto-related regulations go when compared to other regulators.
It will be interesting to see how financial regulators around the world begin to unwind the cryptocurrency landscape to determine fair regulations.
Monero to Implement 'Bulletproofs', What it Means
An intro to the king of privacy
Monero is most well known for being a best in class privacy-focused cryptocurrency. It was launched in 2014 with three main values, to be the most secure, private, and decentralized cryptocurrency.
According to its website:
“Monero uses ring signatures, ring confidential transactions, and stealth addresses to obfuscate the origins, amounts, and destinations of all transactions. Monero provides all the benefits of a decentralized cryptocurrency, without any of the typical privacy concessions.”
At the time of this writing, Monero ranks as the 10th largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization with a total value of $1.75 billion.
New tech coming to Monero
Today a new technology will begin testing on Monero. This technology is known as ‘bulletproofs’. The purpose of this implementation is to make the blockchain more scalable and reduce bloat on the blockchain.
In order to be so private, Monero needs to store additional data on the blockchain in comparison to traditional blockchains. The additional data comes with consequences related to an inability to scale. Transactions require high fees and it can be expensive to run a node due to the need for more storage.
‘Bulletproofs’ will replace Monero’s current confidential proof technology, known zero-knowledge range proofs. The new technology should be able to trim the size of confidential transactions by as much as 80%.
Chainalysis Partners with Binance to Cut Down on Crime
Cracking down on crime
Cryptocurrency laundering has been a major concern of the technology since Bitcoin was first created.
Despite having a transparent ledger that tracks every transaction, Bitcoin specifically has had to buck critics’ claims, again and again, to prove it isn’t a great money laundering tool.
However, there are some sneaky ways money launderers can successfully clean dirty money and one of the main routes is through exchanges.
Chainalysis to the rescue
Announced yesterday, Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by volume, will partner with Chainalysis, a blockchain analysis software firm, to cut down on money laundering and other illicit activity.
To do so, Chainalysis will provide Binance with its “Know Your Transaction” software to monitor on-exchange transactions in real-time.
Hoping to facilitate a safe environment, Binance CFO Wei Zhou told CoinDesk:
"Criminals are always looking to loopholes in the system, so we are continuously on the lookout for new technologies and methods to combat money laundering and malicious actors."
Binance’s move to cut down on criminal activity follows closely after ShapeShift was accused of having over $9 million laundered through its platform by a WSJ investigation.
Bitcoin Futures Volume Continues Upward Trend
Futures volume gaining momentum
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) is reporting that Bitcoin futures trading volume is on the rise. According to a tweet from the exchange, the average daily trading volume of Bitcoin futures has increased 41% from Q2 to Q3. Also, the number of open contracts increased by 19%.
Where is this volume coming from?
Bitcoin has remained far below its all-time high and relatively not volatile for quite some time. This leads you to wonder what is the cause for the increase in trading volumes.
It may be institutions entering or becoming more involved in the market. Many institutions can’t buy physical Bitcoin, so they look to futures to get exposure to crypto.
It could also be a result of a change of sentiment. Numerous analysts have called bottom and set lofty price targets. This could be investors getting ready for the next wave.
But wait, there's more...
- Confirmed: Decentralized Internet project TRON (TRX) and China's largest Internet search provider Baidu will cooperate on cloud computing resources.
- Japan's Tax Commission is planning to introduce a new system to make it easier for crypto traders and investors to calculate their profits.
- The results of the first Financial Knowledge Index conducted in Chile reveal that only 39 percent of citizens have ever heard of cryptocurrencies
Mixin (XIN)
Mixin is a mobile-first, TEE powered BFT-DAG network that connects all existing blockchains with unlimited throughput.
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