Category: Blockchain

Is crypto’s 2018 a total washout?

On By mehranmuslimiblogIn Bitcoin, Blockchain, ICOLeave a comment

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So far, 2018 hasn’t been the best year for cryptocurrencies. The bearish sentiment that followed the euphoria at the end of 2017 seems to be running the show, but is this the end of cryptocurrencies, or merely the downside that comes before a resounding turnaround in fortunes?

Yoni Assia, CEO of eToro believs that selling your ryptocurrency now is like selling Apple stock back in 2001, when it was falling in value. It is easy to see why many people are selling off their holdings, especially if you didn’t get into crypto s a long-term investment, but if you do take a longer view of the market, then perhaps there is a good reason to hold on to those crypto assets for a while longer and see how it all plays out.

If we look at Bitcoin’s past trends, it doesn’t seem over ambitious to claim that there is likely to be an upswing towards the end of 2018. If that happens and you sell now, then you stand to lose money.

ICOs are the real ‘bubble’

Assia told Business Insider that one thing to look at in the crypto market is the number of startups issuing tokens in ICOs. He believes that “95% of them will end up as nothing, because that’s startup funding.” What he means is that the majority of tokens will simply fade away, leaving the strongest ones to lead the crypto market. These are probably going to be Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and a few more.

Dominik Schiener, creator of IOTA said earlier this year that he expects less than 10 of the 1,400 crypto projects that have started in the last year to survive. That’s quite a radical figure.

Neither Assia or Schiener are sceptical about crypto; they are both supporters of the sector, but what they are saying is that as with the dotcom era, many projects will get funding but not survive. However, those that do are likely to transform the world and make their investors big money.

What Assia is really saying is that it is ICOs that are ‘the bubble’, not cryptocurrencies or the blockchain. Many of them simply aren’t viable. But their demise will pave the way for true cryptocurrencies to succeed in the future.

We may not be in quite the same situation as Apple stock holders were in 2001, but it has a ring of familiarity. Still, if we remember that correctly, after that massive sell-off, Apple’s stock went on to gain a staggering amount of value, and who is to say that crypto won’t do exactly the same. It might look like a washout at the moment, but give crypto time and you might be glad you held on to your assets.

Blockchain finds fake news

On By mehranmuslimiblogIn BlockchainLeave a comment

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Fake news never used to be an issue; indeed, there was little reason to think it existed. We all knew that different newspapers and news services had particular agendas, but the idea that stories were simply made up never occurred to us. Then came the last U.S. presidential election and suddenly ‘fake news’ was apparently everywhere; at least, Donald Trump seemed to think so.

Russian trolls via social media, allegedly serve most of these ‘fake’ stories, up where they perfectly target a precise readership with the help of firms like the now disgraced Cambridge Analytica. The challenge to the thinking reader has been ever since — how do we spot fake news. Various suggestions have been made, but they are for the most part time consuming, and even if you restrict your news services to those who are historically trusted, like the New York Times, there is a niggling feeling that even the elder statesmen of journalism might have succumbed to publishing the odd fake story. But, there is now another solution to separating the fake from the real — it’s blockchain.

Trusted News on Blockchain

Techcrunch reports that Adblock Plus developer eyeo GmbH is using blockchain technology for its browser extension called Trusted News. Currently this is only available for Chrome and in a beta version at the Trusted News website. It says there that “the browser add-on labels fake news media while marking trustworthy sources and stories. Once added to the browser, the extension displays a small window with a brief description of a news source containing the labels “trustworthy”, “unknown”, “clickbait” or even “satire.” Cointelegraph uses a front page story from the UK’s Daily Mail to show how it works; a good choice as this newspaper is renowned for its bias and its clickbait headlines.

The browser add-on uses data compiled by different sources, for instance with PolitiFact, Snopes, Wikipedia and Zimdars’ List, and works with the MetaCert protocol, which uses an anti-fraud URL registry to maintain the database for the project.

Eventually, Trusted News will be on the Ethereum blockchain and there are rumours that “the company also plans to issue MetaCert tokens to track rewards and to avoid the risk of bad actors manipulating or spoiling data.”

Will the emergence of Trusted News finally prompt Facebook and Google into taking action to alert readers to bias in news stories? Both promised some form of flagging back in early 2017, but we have yet to see Facebook’s ‘trust indicators’ or Google’s News Initiative platform. Until then, we’ll have to use our own judgement — that’s a concept that appears to have become out-of-date way too soon.

Building new nations on the blockchain

On By mehranmuslimiblogIn Bitcoin, BlockchainLeave a comment

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Have you ever considered starting your own country? The constant stream of ‘bad news’ from around the world might well inspire you to create a new nation, not necessarily a utopia, but one that follows a different set of rules and is more efficient and less corrupt than many existing countries.

Bitnation

The blockchain has provided an opportunity to do just that. Bitnation was formed in 2014 and says it is Governance 2.0. You are welcomed to the Internet of Sovereignty, also known as Bitnation Pangea. And here you can create your own Decentralised Borderless Voluntary Nation (DBVN). Choose your Code of Law and Decision Making Mechanism, write a Constitution and provide Governance Services to Citizens. That promises to take up quite a bit of your spare time!

The Free Republic of Liberland

There is also the Free Republic of Liberland with its motto of “To live and let live.” It’s actually a micronation that claims a disputed plot of land on the western bank of the Danube River, between Croatia and Serbia. Its official language is English and it has a flag, a coat of arms, a constitution and laws. It prides itself on offering all its citizens personal and economic freedom and it is accepting applications for citizenship – you can even take a trial to play for its football team. Its economy runs on donations of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash and its founder Vit Jedlicka says, “If you are a cryptocurrency enthusiast and disappointed by the attitude of your country towards the emerging crypto assets, becoming a ‘citizen’ of Liberland can be an option for you.”

The Floating Island Project

And then, if you’re a fan of the sea there is the Floating Island Project in French Polynesia, which puts the concept of ‘seasteading’ at the heart of its philosophy. Founded by The Seasteading Institute, it aims to found an indefinite number of floating cities in and around French Polynesia, with the target-year for the establishment of its first city being 2022. The inaugural island will accommodate 300 houses and be making use of its very own cryptocurrency, named Varyon (VAR).

All of these nations are blockchain based, and each one believes that “we can do better with technology and innovation rather than ideology, politics and argumentation.” And, as Vit Jedlicka said, “It’s easier to create a new country than try to fix an existing one.”

Will existing governments tolerate the building of new nations n the blockchain? Only time will tell, but these first few could inspire many more people to create a micronation where innovation and new ideas can breathe. They may not be viable in the long run, but perhaps people will get sufficiently tired of the old nation-states to consider supporting them.

 

Who will win the Smart Contracts race?

On By mehranmuslimiblogIn Blockchain, EthereumLeave a comment

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Vitalik Buterin’s Ethereum is widely known as the ‘go to’ blockchain technology for smart contracts. But, this week, Ripple’s former CTO Stefan Thomas has thrown down the gauntlet to challenge the leader with a new smart contracts platform.

Thomas left Ripple in May and now he is launching Codius, an open- source project designed by Ripple and released in a beta version back in 2014. So, it isn’t exactly new, but Thomas is positioning it as the core product of his new company Coil.

Coil’s ambition is to change the way websites monetise their content.

Monetising web content is clumsy

According to Thomas, the current way in which web content is monetised is a clumsy workaround that uses adverts, paywalls and data harvesting. His concept uses an interledger. This is an open-source protocol that allows payments to be sent across different ledgers. Basically, it allows users’ browsers to make micropayments to the websites they visit.

How Codius works

How will that work, and how will it affect consumers? Codius allows the use of a “revenue disbursement contract” that will collect revenues when consumers watch a movie, for example. The collected revenue will be paid to all the parties involved in putting that movie online, but it won’t be made in “batch payments’, it will be paid out in a stream of smaller amounts. And, those people who read newspapers with a paywall will make payments via a smart contract that manages payment authorisations and the subscriptions.

Codius has already released an instruction manual for uploading Codius in an effort to get developers to start using the platform immediately, and it seems that the call has been heard.

Who is using Codius?

Telindus, the IT solutions subsidiary of the Belgian telecoms group Proximus has said it will be using Codius to “push forward novel direct e-commerce models.”

Game platforms, Unity, Zynga and Kabam also plan to use it for new gaming platforms. Josh Williams, who invested in Unity et al, and is now creating his own gaming platforms said: “Teams in games and elsewhere are building on Ethereum and running into the cost and scalability issues we’re all familiar with. Codius has great potential in addressing these concerns, and we are eager to work with it.”

Codius offers better scalability

And there is the dreaded word that Ethereum’s team will fear most: scalability. We all know that Ethereum is still working on resolving its scaling issues. It looks like Codius is offering a solution that neatly bypasses that problem. Thomas said: “The people that are reaching out to us are saying, ‘Hey, we’re experimenting on Ethereum. We’re running into scalability issues. It’s too expensive, too slow. It’s not flexible enough. We don’t like writing in this awkward language.’”

It isn’t the only challenger to take on Ethereum, but it looks like it might be one of the strongest contenders to win the race to bring smart contracts into mainstream use.