Join team ArkEcosystem

Lively discussions in progress... Just a quick reminder that cryptocruiser@gmail.com invited you to their Slack team, ArkEcosystem. The team now has many members with new discussions taking place daily. Don't miss out — come join the conversation! Join Now What is Slack? With Slack, you can message your team, share files, and get updates from the other tools you use daily. See Slack in action. Made by Slack Technologies, Inc. 500 Howard Street  San Francisco, CA 94105 Our Blog  •   Unsubscribe   •  Policies

Steve Bannon / Ripple / Fake News / William Shatner

Subscribe | View in browser Here are today's ten most important Bitcoin stories, efficiently ranked & summarized by smart humans, not algorithms: $BTC (2:20 p.m. EST): $6,695.52 (5.54%) // 90-day high: $11,849.50 // 90-day low: $6,247.06/ / More… $BCH (2:20 p.m. EST): $898.68 (7.89%) // 90-day high: $1,786.80// 90-day low: $608.37 // More… $ETH (2:21 p.m. EST): $519.72 (10.09%) // 90-day high: $831.65 // 90-day low: $365.43 // More… $LTC (2:21 p.m. EST): $101.60 (8.91%) // 90-day high: $251.03 // 90-day low: $93.45 // More… $XRP (2:21 p.m. EST): $0.56 (6.93%) // 90-day high: $1.20 // 90-day low: $0.47 // More… Here are the 10 most important stories about bitcoin and cryptocurrencies today       1. Former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon has invested in bitcoin and bitcoin-related companies. Bannon confirmed that he had had private meetings with cryptocurrency investors and hedge funds where he discussed working on ICOs through his investment business, Bannon & Company. He remained quiet, though, on the specific nature of these projects, worried the current stigma around his name could torpedo their work. He did say that he currently has a “good stake” in cryptocurrency. –THE NEW YORK TIMES       World’s first and only certificated course on Tokenomics —  register for David Siegel's Token Camp! Tokenomics is the science of the future - we’re beating universities across the globe for a world’s first certified course (with a tokenized certificate). Learn about token design, token business models, ICO strategy, taxes & regulations and much more! ​​​​​​ For an ad-free experience, upgrade to Inside Premium       2. Ripple continued its philanthropic push with a $2 million donation to the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas. The donation will be used to fund research in blockchain technology in an effort to create job-creating technologies. Texas is one of 17 academic institutions to receive funding through a $50 million blockchain education fund that Ripple created. –DAILY TEXAN       3. While the price of cryptocurrencies rebounded some on Thursday, there are still long-term fears that the price could fall again soon. Prices fell Wednesday, coinciding with the publication of a research paper that claims 2017’s price spike came as the result of price manipulation. Analyst Tone Vays believes bitcoin could go a little below $5,000 per coin before the crash stops. Other analysts have suggested that $6,000 is the low point. This comes after bitcoin traded near 20,000 toward the end of last December. -INVESTOPEDIA       4. New York financial regulators have approved Steller Lumens for trade. The cryptocurrency can now be bought and sold on the ItBit exchange. ItBit originally just sold bitcoin to institutional investors, but also received approval from New York’s Department of Financial Services to add bitcoin cash, ethereum, and litecoin to its platform. -FORTUNE       5. A company has built a Chrome browser extension that identifies “fake news” websites. Eyeo, the extension’s German-based creator, has been working with MetaCert Protocol, which runs an anti-fraud URl registry. That registry will be run on blockchain as part of this project, complete with a new protocol and built-in game mechanics to reward submission. MetaCart tokens will also be issued to track rewards and mitigate the risk of bad actors spoiling the data. –TECH CRUNCH       6. Actor William Shatner has aligned himself with Solar Alliance, a company that wants to build a solar-powered bitcoin mining facility. The company, based in Canada, will use an existing factor in Murphysboro, Illinois, to host a solar panel array. Miners can then rent space in the facility, taking advantage of cheaper energy costs. Shatner has been critical of cryptocurrency in the past, but is now lending his name to the project. "The concept is so, I guess the word is bizarre,” he said. “You have to blank your mind and say, 'What is blockchain, again? How does mining operate, again?' The concepts are really strange, and yet when you begin to grasp it, it makes sense.” -COINDESK       7. Two Chinese bitcoin magnates are arguing over a 30,000 bitcoin debt. The alleged debt goes back to 2013 when one allegedly lent the coins to the other to start an online bitcoin casino. -COINDESK 8. Meet Bitcoin Core (BTCC): A cryptocurrency by trolls, for trolls. The coin is a hard fork of a hard fork of bitcoin cash, and was created to undermine Roger Ver, the owner of Bitcoin.com and an ardent bitcoin cash supporter. -COINDESK 9. Bitcoin’s crash could affect the stock market, an analyst believes. There is a fear that bitcoin’s bursting bubble could spill over into equities. -CNBC 10. Blockchain could one day help academic institutions avoid fraud. Universities could create a verified blockchain of alumni that stops people from falsely claiming they graduated from the school. -FORBES       From the Forums Reddit reacts to the William Shatner news. They’ve got jokes. Tim Draper continues to buy more bitcoins. Some thoughts on the price manipulation paper.       Brains and Chains: the AI & Blockchain Conference Join us at the AI and Blockchain Conference to explore these two cutting-edge technological trends. Top minds in AI and Blockchain will discuss how they can be utilized to create opportunities for innovative solutions. (June 28th, New York City). Register today

Copyright © 2018 Inside.com, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Inside.com 767 Bryant St. #203 San Francisco, CA 94107 Did someone forward this email to you? Head over to inside.com to get your very own free subscription! You received this email because you subscribed to Inside Bitcoin. Click here to unsubscribe from Inside Bitcoin list or manage your subscriptions. unsubscribe from Inside Bitcoin

#63: The $4 billion blockchain in the room

Take me to your leaders.

Chain Letter Blockchains, cryptocurrencies, and why they matter 06.14: Take me to your leaders. Welcome to Chain Letter! Great to have you. On Thursdays we take a closer look at one key concept in the world of blockchains and cryptocurrencies. Feel free to suggest topics you think we should discuss in the future. Nothing has embodied the mania around cryptocurrency and initial coin offerings quite like EOS: Its developers raised an eye-popping $4 billion during the past year by selling crypto-tokens for a system that wasn’t even built yet. Now that the network is finally ready to go live, it’s struggling to get its blockchain up and running—and in the process, raising important questions about how best to launch a new blockchain. What—and who—is EOS? The new blockchain system is supposed to be a much faster and more efficient alternative to Ethereum. Ethereum was designed to not only be a cryptocurrency but also a platform for running blockchain-based computer programs called smart contracts. But it’s slow to process transactions, because every node in the Ethereum network must keep track of every account balance and the state of every smart contract. EOS’s developers say that by delegating the responsibility for processing transactions to just 21 “block producers,” which are to be elected by the community of token holders, the system will be able to achieve thousands of transactions per second (compared with just 15 per second for Ethereum). A startup called block.one is spearheading the development of EOS’s software. It’s CTO, Dan Larimer, previously created the blockchain-based financial services platform BitShares as well as Steemit, a cryptocurrency-powered publishing platform. Each deployed a novel consensus protocol called “delegated proof of stake,” which Larimer is also deploying with EOS. No miners: In cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, nodes called “miners” spend lots of computing power competing for chances to add “blocks” of transactions to the chain in return for digital coins. EOS dispenses with mining in favor of allowing token holders to elect block producers, with voting power corresponding to the amount of tokens an individual or organization holds. The approach should speed up transaction processing, but it has also drawn critics. Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin has argued that it makes the system vulnerable to vote-buying and consolidation of power over the network.   Frozen tokens: EOS tokens have been for sale and tradeable on the Ethereum blockchain since June 2017. But they weren’t based on EOS’s blockchain—it hadn’t been built yet, so the tokens were running on the Ethereum network. A couple of weeks ago, Ethereum-based EOS tokens were “frozen” so that their value could be transferred to the real chain. As of this writing, though, they’re still locked up. That won’t change until the network elects its 21 block producers, which can’t happen until holders “stake” 15 percent of all the tokens in the system  to vote for candidates (the tokens aren’t spent; they’re used as digital chits, but returned once voting is over). At the moment, out of 150 million token-votes needed the network is still nearly 40 million short. Voting requires holders to use their private cryptographic keys, which is technically complicated and risky if people aren’t careful. That could be why it’s taking so long—some holders may lack the technical competency to vote, and others may not have access to their private keys if their tokens are held in exchanges. Another theory is that holders with large quantities of tokens have been waiting to see what others do before casting their votes. Central questions: Was EOS mistaken to institute token-based voting? Is the process “decentralized” enough, given that the top 100 holders own around 75 percent of the tokens? Perhaps more importantly, will the entire EOS network be decentralized enough once it has chosen its 21 block producers? And will that even matter if it performs as advertised? Compromising decentralization for the sake of speed and efficiency might actually spur mainstream commercial success. First, though, the network will have to figure out how to govern itself. No pressure: its investors only have $4 billion on the line.​ Join us at EmTech. Our flagship EmTech event will examine this year’s most significant news on emerging technologies. Purchase your ticket today. ​ Loose Change Fill your pockets with these newsy tidbits. • An SEC official says that ether is not a security since Ethereum is “sufficiently decentralized.” (CNBC) • Ripple execs concede that banks aren’t yet ready to use its blockchain. (Reuters) • A price manipulation scheme may have been behind Bitcoin’s big surge last year. (TR) • Blockchain-based markets for expensive real estate plots in virtual worlds are a thing. (Bloomberg) • A court case involving an obscure cryptocurrency called My Big Coin could set limits on US financial regulators’ authority to police fraud in cryptocurrency markets. (Reuters) • The financial services industry is now spending $1.7 billion annually on blockchain and distributed ledger projects. (Bloomberg) The Money Quote “It’s disruptive populism.” —Steve Bannon, on cryptocurrencies, to the New York Times. We hope you enjoyed today's tour of what's new in the world of blockchains and cryptocurrencies. Send us some feedback, or follow me @mike_orcutt.    Know someone who might enjoy reading Chain Letter? Was this forwarded to you, and you'd like to see more? Discover the emerging tech that will change the world. Attend EmTech 2018 September 11-14, MIT Media Lab Cambridge, MA View this in a browser You received this newsletter because you subscribed with the email address: contacto1745.send-mail@blogger.com edit preferences   |   unsubscribe   |   follow us      MIT Technology Review One Main Street Cambridge, MA 02142