Monday, November 26, 2018

600,000 miners

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PORN PAYMENTS: Since raising $6 million in a 2017 initial coin offering (ICO), porn industry startup SpankChain has differentiated itself from the token-sale pack by delivering a platform with thousands of users.

Revealed exclusively to CoinDesk, SpankChain boasted 6,136 active users as of October, and has paid out around $72,422 in cryptocurrency to 31 webcam models since the site launched in April.

And several freelance SpankChain performers say they are now earning more on the platform than any mainstream porn site, as it takes only 5 percent of their earnings compared to the industry standard 50 percent.

“I crunched the numbers,” performer River Sunshine told CoinDesk. “I was making on three sites combined, 6 percent of what I made in the same 30-day period on SpankChain.”

Sunshine and her colleagues are examples of sex industry veterans who were introduced to cryptocurrency through SpankChain. They generally cash out the platform’s ethereum-based SPANK tokens as needed for weekly expenses, storing the rest as some form of digital asset for long-term savings.

“I feel more in control of my money than I did using the banks and payment processors on other sites,” Sunshine said. Full Story

MINER SHUTDOWN: Between 600,000 and 800,000 bitcoin miners have shut down since mid-November amid declines in price and hashrate across the network, according to the world's third-largest mining pool.

Mao Shixing, founder of F2pool, said his firm’s estimate takes into account the total network hashrate drop and the average hash power of older mining machines that are having a hard time generating profits.

Mao explained that those who have halted operations are likely to be using older models, such as Bitmain's Antminer T9+ and Canaan Creative's AvalonMiner 741. These miners have an average hash power of around 10 TH/s and are estimated to be losing money right now.

However, the fact that some mining farms have unplugged doesn’t necessarily mean they are out of the game for good.

“Bitcoin mining is always a dynamically adjusted process,” Mao said, meaning when the hashrate drops, so does the mining difficulty. “The change of bitcoin’s mining difficulty normally has a lag of about 14 days [following a hashrate change]. After this wave of shutdowns, those players who opted to stay in may have a better life.” Full Story

RIPPLE ROLLOUT: Ripple is rolling out a new version of its most popular product, xCurrent, which is more closely integrated with Ripple’s other major offering, xRapid. That product notably uses the cryptocurrency XRP to provide what the company calls “on-demand liquidity” in cross-border transactions.

The roll-out of the new xCurrent 4.0 began in September, a company spokesperson told CoinDesk, and customers – which include American Express, Santander and Itaú – are currently being transitioned to the new version.

Yet the xRapid integration, Birla stressed, is entirely optional, and so far, a Ripple spokesperson told CoinDesk, no xCurrent 4.0 users have opted for xRapid integration, and by extension XRP.

“In other countries, where there’s not good regulatory clearance or digital asset infrastructure, you just continue to use xCurrent as-is, with fiat liquidity,” Ripple’s SVP of product Asheesh Birla told CoinDesk. Full Story

CoinDesk’s Crypto-Economics Explorer aggregates data points across the industry to measure the size and opportunity of crypto markets. In addition to price and market cap, CoinDesk’s explorer provides users with a comprehensive way to view the crypto-economic forces that shape an asset’s market maturity, growth, and potential.

Network interest is important in determining the activity occurring within a blockchain’s internal ecosystem.

Top 5 by Transaction Count:

EOS 7.03M
TRX 1.65M
ETH 529K
BTC 239K
XRP 157K

Use our new tool to learn more.

Jay Clayton
Chairman of the SEC

Kelly Loeffler
CEO of Bakkt

Dr. Mohamed A. El-Erian
Chief Economic Advisor at Allianz

Jeffrey Sprecher
Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange & Chairman and CEO of
Intercontinental Exchange, Inc.

DEFENSIVE PLAY: Bitcoin defended the three-year-long rising trendline yesterday, validating the oversold conditions reported by technical indicators since last week. Further, the 4-hour chart is showing a bullish divergence of the RSI and the falling channel breakout. As a result, a stronger corrective rally to $4,500 could unfold in the next 48 hours. The bullish case, however, would weaken if prices fall back below the long-term rising trendline support of $3,830. Full Story

BEST OF THE BEST

WALL STREET JOURNAL: Since before the creation of his blockchain-based trading platform tZero in 2015, Patrick Byrne, CEO of e-commerce giant Overstock, has been a strong believer in the potential of blockchain to change the future of commerce.

So strong, in fact, that he told the WSJ that he doesn’t mind that the startup is currently burning up money while it seeks regulatory approvals before commercial launch. “I don’t care whether tZero is losing $2 million a month,” Byrne said. “We think we’ve got cold fusion on the blockchain side.”

Byrne’s also planning to sell Overstock’s retail business in a bid to follow his blockchain dreams – he now runs a stable of projects working with the tech.

While that news was already in the public arena, Byrne now says he expects the deal could be closed by February, although he didn't disclose the names of potential suitors.

THE REST

THE NEXT WEB: The Brave browser project launched with the aim of letting users reward content creators via a decentralized browser and as a result side-step the need for online ads and ad-blockers.

However, since the reward – Brave's own BAT token – is tradable on various cryptocurrency exchanges, fraudsters have started exploiting the system to get free tokens. Brave co-founder Brendan Eich acknowledged there's a problem to The Next Web, saying "Brave's hundreds to thousands of fraudulent users" are presently receiving grants – and many of them are bots.

Not only that but Brave has been criticized for having T&Cs that, some claim, allow Brave admins to take “unclaimed” tokens after 90-days. The project’s anti-fraud procedures are also claimed to be preventing some users from claiming their BAT donations for a different 90-day period. So BAT could potentially be grabbed from innocent users.

Eich denied the claims, though, saying, "There's nothing we can do to touch your BAT. BAT in a wallet you control cannot be 'confiscated.'" Further, the project's grant expiration policy is not a way to confiscate BAT, he said.

FINANCIAL TIMES: Mike Novogratz, ex-Goldman Sachs partner and founder of crypto merchant bank Galaxy Digital, says this year has been tough for his company, adding that it “sucks to build a business in a bear market,” according to a piece from the FT.

Still, he predicted that financial institutions will transition from investing in cryptocurrency funds to investing in cryptocurrencies proper in the first quarter of next year. “You’ll see that flip next year. That’s when prices start moving again,” he said.

WHO WON #CRYPTOTWITTER

Consensus: Invest Keynotes

Jay Clayton
Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission

Dr. Mohamed A. El-Erian
Chief Economic Advisor at Allianz

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Navigating the turmoil ⛵️🌊

November 26, 2018

Navigating Through the Turmoil

Hodl has always been just a meme

The first thing you will hear during a market crash is 'hodl'. The strategy of always just holding onto an investment is most often plagued with people trying to convince you to do the same.

Game Theory is very prevalent in financial markets. Everyone will only look out for their own best interests. They will try to convince you not to sell because it benefits them, not you.

Don't listen to others, especially if their advice is simply 'hodl' without any reasoning to back their claim.

Know how the market works

For every seller, there is someone on the other side of the trade buying. Who do you believe is getting the better end of the deal? If you consider this time a great buying opportunity, why would you even think of selling?

Fundamentals are more important than ever before

During the bull run, fundamentals were sadly irrelevant. Every coin was surging no matter its use case or development team backing it.

Now in this market, fundamentals will make a difference and separate the winners from the losers. Projects without a real use case or determined development team will be abandoned and go to zero.

Choose projects that are gaining adoption despite the market conditions and with development teams who are determined to keep building despite the downturn.

Be ready for next time

Be ready for the next time this happens. The market has been through this phase numerous times already. Now it is just happening at a larger magnitude.

There is no reason to be caught off guard when this surely happens again. To be ready for the next time, it is crucial that take profits on the way up. If you believe in a cryptocurrency, now is the best time to have cash ready to enter the market. Listen to Warren Buffett's advice, you want to be the only buyer in a fire sale.

MINING

Bitmain Blasted with $5 Million Lawsuit Over Unauthorized Mining

Sneaking hash power

Bitmain has a new lawsuit on its hands. Allegedly, the cryptocurrency mining giant is preconfiguring mining devices to use customer electricity and mine cryptocurrencies before the equipment is setup.

Because the setup of mining equipment can be confusing and time-confusing for customers, Bitmain had some time to gather their own crypto profits - with zero expenses.

Over $5 million

Now, more than 100 members have joined a class action lawsuit to return over $5 million in damages.

Led by Gor Gevorkyan, the plaintiffs are seeking to get every penny that they lost due to Bitmain's unfair mining practices and are also asking for the company to halt the operation immediately.

So far, Bitmain hasn't commented on the matter.

GOVERNMENT

Ohio Begins Accepting Bitcoin for Taxes

First of its kind

This week, Ohio will become the first U.S. state to begin accepting Bitcoin for tax payments.

The announcement to legitimize cryptocurrencies through the new program came alongside a new payment portal at OhioCrypto.com. The website will use the popular crypto platform BitPay to process payments.

For now, only Ohio businesses will be able to use the system, however, regulators hope individual filers will be able to use the system in the near future as well.

Made by Mandel

The initiative to accept crypto payments came from the state's Treasurer Josh Mandel. Holding office since 2011, Mandel has been interested in cryptocurrencies for several years and even believes Bitcoin will become a "legitimate form of currency."

Previously, the state governments of Arizona, Georgia, and Illinois have all explored cryptocurrency tax payments but pushback has delayed approval.

While Mandel's new win is a small one for crypto, it is a big step that could help encourage cryptocurrency adoption.

BITS

But wait, there's more...

600,000 to 800,000 Bitcoin miners have shut down since the middle of November, according to blockchain.info.
Hardware wallet manufacturer Ledger is expanding to New York with plans to start developing an institutional custody offering.
U.K. financial watchdog has opened investigations into more than 50 different crypto firms suspected of operating without proper approval.

MEME

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$5 Million ICX buyback. Here is everything we know

View email in browser | Visit The Iconist

Alex Tapscott shares his thoughts about ICON and the future of the blockchain industry.

Editor's Notes

It was a tough couples of weeks in the ICON Republic. Trust issues sparked by the perception of poor communication from the ICON team and a furious bear market have caused many ICX holders to take social media by storm with critics, questions and yep, even racist insults.

Not everything is bad though. ICON is taking actions, hiring experts, giving more support to developers and inking partnerships.

What should we cover next? We'd like to hear your ideas. Get in touch on Twitter (@TheIconistNews) or by email at hello@theicon.ist. In the meantime, take a look at our most recent stories below.

Mariana Peralta
Editor @ The Iconist