Category: Blockchain

Will IEOs become the next big trend?

On By mehranmuslimiblogIn Blockchain, crypto, ICOLeave a comment

While it is true that ICOs are not quite yet dead, they enjoy far less hype than they did in 2017. And as interest in initial coin offerings wanes, a new player has arrived on the scene in the form of the Initial Exchange Offering (IEO). What is this beast, you may ask, and how does it work?

The Fetch.AI project is an IEO that has received a lot of media attention, not least because it raised $6 million in 22 seconds. The fundraiser was held on the Binance exchange. BitTorrent also raised $7.2 million in 18 minutes via an IEO. These heady figures are bound to draw the attention of those who feel the air has almost completely leaked out of the ICO balloon.

An alternative to the ICO

However, the need to raise money for blockchain-related projects remains. Which is where the IEO comes in — as an alternative to both the ICO and private placement. With the latter, the project raises funds via a private investor, rather than going to the public with tokens. The downside of choosing private placement is that there needs to be a very high level of interest in the project by investors with very deep pockets, such as those who funded Telegram to the tune of $850 million.

How does an IEO work?

An IEO is “an agreement with an exchange on an initial placement via the exchange,” writes Maria Stankovich on Medium. It is possible to simplify this explanation even further and say it is a token sale held on an exchange, which acts as an intermediary. And that is one key difference between the IEO and the ICO.

The exchange, it could be Binance or one of the others, assesses the project from a technical perspective to ensure it is legitimate, and they look at how attractive they believe the project will be to the exchange’s clients and a wider audience as well. If they are satisfied with the quality of the project, they make an announcement about the token sale on the exchange.

The upside for token buyers is that unlike with an ICO, they don’t need to send funds to purchase tokens via a smart contract; they can buy them directly from their personal account on the exchange.

The benefits of an IEO

There is a big benefit here for the project needing to raise funds, in that an exchange has a ready-made base of potential investors. It also means that the token is listed on an exchange — something that many ICOs have struggled with, despite promises to their followers. And the investors feel a higher level of trust, because the sale is taking place via the exchange that they already have confidence in. They also don’t need to go through more KYC, exchange fiat for crypto etc etc. It’s easier for everyone.

And of course the exchange benefits, or they wouldn’t do it. They potentially get a whole bunch of new customers who want to buy tokens. And these token buyers may stay to become long-term users of the exchange.

At the moment, only a handful of exchanges are offering IEOs. These include Binance, EXMO, GBE, Bittrex and Huobi. The Gibraltar Blockchain Exchangeis another leader in IEOs, and has conducted seven of them so far, using its GBX Grid — Token Launch Centre tool.

It is early days for IEOs, but the way forward seems promising: after all, unlike with an ICO, any proposed project will go through a more rigorous analysis before the sale begins, and that should boost investor confidence in the mechanism and the project.

Hype: a manipulator of the Bitcoin market

On By mehranmuslimiblogIn Bitcoin, BlockchainLeave a comment

From time to time some people get on their high horse about the potential for manipulating the price of bitcoin. And there may be a compelling argument for thinking this. Michael K. Spencer thinks there is, or at least there was.

He writes, “as Bitcoin’s volatility rose from a minority pre 2015 to a hype “get rich” story of 2017 and into 2018 that went a bit mainstream, it was clear to me Bitcoin’s price was and is, incredibly manipulated.” He cites the idea of a ‘Bitcoin World’ that “has its own terms, norms and what’s considered normal might not actually be accurate.”

In his opinion, “Bitcoin’s price was clearly manipulated and vulnerable to pump-and-dump schemes,” and then adds, “The positive social network effect had grave consequences to a sort of collective fraud taking place.” However, as he says, he has been willing to play devil’s advocate with this topic while personally being able to see both sides of the story.

Crypto turns from cool to not so cool

The downturn in the market price certainly had the effect of making Bitcoin less cool than it had previously seemed to many. There was also the issue of the media’s approach to cryptocurrency, which has been either exceedingly negative to overly positive, and in a nutshell, all over the place. There is also the accusation that the crypto-focused media is corrupt and that the mainstream financial media has created a series of clickbait articles that are deliberately negative about Bitcoin and have thus engendered mistrust of crypto amongst readers.

What Spencer is talking about is the manufacture of hype “in an era of existential innovation that always seeks to re-create the wheel, in this case the value, money, transactions, digital assets and investment communities on the blockchain.”

Did the hype scam us all?

He points to a Bitwise study that claims 95% of “spot bitcoin trading volume is faked by unregulated exchanges.” The takeaway question from this and the media behaviour is: Did the hype make the public feel that cryptocurrencies were bigger than they really are?

Spencer also points to another Bitwise finding. In a March 2019 report it said that “substantially all of the volume” reported on 71 out of 81 exchanges was wash trading. This refers to the practice of buying and selling the same stick simultaneously to give the appearance of market activity.

All these factors raise concerns over the potential for abuse of the manipulation of the price of Bitcoin, and as Spencer writes, “If a lot of Bitcoin’s movement was “faked” or was and is falsified data, than essentially companies like Coinbase and Binance grew up in the hype with a heart of a lie.”

It’s certainly food for thought, even if you are a crypto supporter.

3 predictions for the digital financial future

On By mehranmuslimiblogIn Bitcoin, Blockchain, FintechLeave a comment

The financial industry is going through a sea change. So many aspects of it are under scrutiny: from debates over cashless societies, to universal basic income, and the implications of digital currencies. Money has always been a hot topic, but it has become even hotter.

Blockchain changed the conversation

The advent of blockchain technology is in part a reason for this sudden increase in interest. As Lauren deLisa Coleman writes for Forbes, we are seeing financial giants like JP Morgan enter the digital currency space, alongside Facebook and IBM. And she points out, “But amidst such vast activity around digital currency overall, there is a specific and growing interest toward trend shifts pertaining particularly to token exchanges.”

Talking about Token Exchanges

Coleman reports on the discussions at a New York event: Token Exchanges: The promise of liquidity, compliance and stability, where lawyers comprised the majority of the audience. Joel Telpner, partner and Chair Fintech & Blockchain Practice at Sullivan & Worcester LLP, addressed the issue of turbulence in the digital currency space: “We’re all collectively paying the price at the moment, but it’s important to keep in mind that this is not a bad thing. Most all new forms of technology have experienced a high level of unreasonable exuberance in the early days and after that period, business becomes much more stable.”

A more mature environment

Interestingly, he also suggested that now is the time to create a new ecosystem with new players: “”We’re at the end of the beginning,” he remarked. “This is about moving from the wild, wild, west to a more mature level of the digital currency space and tokens. Those that remain have to work hard and understand that success will come from fundamental principles in business and governance, and it will certainly pay off.”

3 key things to watch out for

He then identified what he believed are the three key regulatory areas to watch this year that could be game changers:

1. He believes the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will make a statement about the status of digital currencies and tokens — which are tokens and which are not.

2. The CFTC (Commodity Future Trading Commission) will become more involved in the token space given that this collective regulates commodities.

3. Stablecoins will come under a regulatory spotlight and decisions will be made about how to regulate this particular type of digital currency.

The event also revealed that a consensus of opinion indicates the issue of custodianship will come under focus this year as well. In addition, there will also be an eye to how trade is conducted in this space and how securities are managed securities once they are issued.

But, one of the most hotly debated topics in the industry is which jurisdiction will establish itself as a leader in the space: Telpner’s response to this was: “”But this approach was wrong in 2017, 2018 and still wrong to think like this in 2019, because all countries are working hard to regulate this space. Stop chasing jurisdiction.”

Cryptojacking in 2019 is not dead — it’s evolving!

On By mehranmuslimiblogIn Bitcoin, Blockchain, CyberSecurityLeave a comment

Cryptojackers have shut down university networks and government websites, but there was one case that attracted a lot of attention, and that is the use of Coinhive mining service focused on mining Monero.

With the closure of Coinhive it appeared that cryptojacking might be coming to an end. Coinhive was a cryptocurrency mining service that relied on a small chunk of computer code installed on websites. It released its mining code in 2017, pitching it as a way for website owners to earn an income without running intrusive or annoying advertisements. However, although Coinhive was not an inherently malicious code, it became popular among hackers for cryptojacking. The more people visited a site, the more processing power was siphoned off to mine Monero.

Coinhive malware

The platform had seemed like a good idea until the software went on to form the foundation of the notorious cryptojacking malware that ended up affecting millions of user devices, spiking electricity bills, and draining batteries to secretly and illicitly mine cryptocurrency, as Conor Maloneywrites for CCN. Furthermore, as more and more criminals hacked sites and planted the Coinhive file, the issue shot completely out of control. Maloney writes: “Coinhive was listed as the world’s greatest online malware threat by cybersecurity firm Check Point for 15 consecutive months, and an estimated 5% of all Monero was mined through cryptojacking.”

Coinhive announced that it would be shutting down operations on 8th March 2019, and many thought that would be the end of intensive cryptojacking activity. However, Maloney points out that while the cryptojackers can’t turn to Coinhive anymore, they will look for other means of attack.

The Coinhive vacuum is waiting to be filled

Chris Dawson, Threat Intelligence Lead at Proofpoint, a security company, commented that Coinhive was far from the only cryptojacking malware on the market, adding “the fall of Coinhive leaves a power vacuum waiting to be filled,” as he told Maloney. Dawson sees a thrat coming from other forms of malware, such as “banking trojans, credential stealers and pieces of malware which sit on machines.”

Others, such as Jerome Segura of Malwarebytes, believe the criminal industry is slowing down. He told ZDNet the criminal industry is slowing down: “There are still a lot of hacked sites with Coinhive code, but I have a feeling these are mostly remnants from past hacks. Most of what I see these days is CoinIMP [a Coinhive competitor] and it’s been active again with Drupal hacks recently. But overall, I think the trend is nearing out.”

Is Segura too optimistic? Ransomeware like WannaCry and Petya have dealt catastrophic blows, taking down services at hospitals, car factories, government facilities, and airports as well as infecting personal devices to extract a ransom that is usually payable in Bitcoin. And cryptojacking malware still exists — Cryptoloot being one example, the second most lethal after Coinhive. There is also Emotet, a banking Trojan, which can infect a computer as a malicious attachment and be used to spread other forms of malicious software, plus a host of password-collecting bots.

It may be good news that Coinhive has closed down, but we cannot be complacent and believe the threat of cryptojacking has gone away. As long as there is cryptocurrency for the taking, cryptojackers will be evolving their tactics for getting their hands on it, and we need to be more vigilant than ever.