HTC's Crypto-Friendly Smartphone Will Support Litecoin

 HTC's new blockchain-compatible smartphone will support litecoin, creator Charlie Lee said on Sunday.
Lee announced the news Sunday, adding that he was joining the development team of the HTC Exodus as an advisor. The news comes days after Lee claimed he met with the Exodus' team last week. Lee further confirmed that the Exodus will support the Lightning Network on litecoin natively.
He added a disclaimer that the Exodus will still support bitcoin.
HTC confirmed the news Monday, saying the team was "honored" to have Lee join as an advisor.
The Taiwanese electronics maker first announced the Exodus in May, saying it was developing the world's first cryptocurrency smartphone. The device will serve as both a mobile connecting point to blockchain networks and a storage device for major cryptocurrencies including bitcoin and ethereum, as previously reported by CoinDesk.
HTC chief crypto officer Phil Chen told CoinDesk that the company is hoping to begin distributing the new phone by the end of the year, though he declined to provide a firm date.
Individuals interested in purchasing the Exodus early can participate in a pre-sale with bitcoin or ether, he said.
In July, HTC said the phone will also support the mobile app CryptoKitties.
HTC is not the only company working on a blockchain-dedicated smartphone – Sirin Labs recently raised $157 million in an initial coin offering to build the "Finney."

source: CoinDesk

LEXIT Disrupts The Mergers & Acquistions Industry

                Mergers and Acquisitions (M&As) are transactions in which the ownership of companies, business or their operating units are transferred or consolidated with other entities. Companies undergo M&As to accelerate growth, eliminate costs by downsizing, change the nature of their business, acquire more market share or remain competitive in business. Irrespective of the purpose, the current M&As processes involve myriads of complex issues that must be navigated in order to successfully complete any transaction.

                               Size of Mergers & Acquisitions Industry

Three quarters of the way into 2016, North American and European Mergers & Acquisitions stand at a staggering value of $1.7 trillion. Currently, record amount of deals are being announced. And research having shown that M&A deals can only go up in the long run as companies race to head off disruptive technological threats and accelerate growth, the future is definitely bright for market players in this sector.

              Challenges Facing  The Traditional Mergers & Acquisitions Industry

      Despite the record number of high-profile mergers & acquisitions in the last decade. It is no secret that more than 50% of today’s Mergers and Acquisitions fail. The purpose of mergers can be flawed. Often times, companies overpay for acquisitions as a result of ‘FOMO’--fear of missing out the next technology innovations to the industry competitor or due to the difficulty of estimating a company’s intrinsic value.

 Moreover, factors such as: political complexities (cross-border Mergers and Acquisitions), mountainous layers of bureaucracy, lack of liquidity, centralization by big investment banks (JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs etc.) and the increasingly exorbitant advisory fees contribute immensely to the failures of M&As.

                                      THE LEXIT MARKETPLACE

                

        With the aforementioned challenges hampering the success rates of M&As, #LEXITco, a blockchain startup based in Tallinn, Estonia seeks to revolutionize the Mergers and Acquisitions industry by launching an online marketplace powered by blockchain technology.

       By leveraging the blockchain’s transparent and immutable nature, LEXIT’s round-the-clock marketplace will offer companies/entrepreneurs from every corner of the nations of the world boundless access to a global market where intellectual properties, codes, assets, parts or even a company can be bought or sold at the click of a mouse!

THE PLATFORM 

         Sellers/companies/universities are required to pay a listing fee (at a quarter of costs of traditional M&As) to have their codes, intellectual properties (IPs), assets or startups be listed on the LEXIT’s marketplace. Buyers/investors/companies can browse through the listings, look for certain features based on the information provided by the sellers and place order.

       Then, automated transactions are generated and moved to a secured ‘virtual Deal Phase’ where confidential documents are signed and terms negotiated via smart contracts. The transactions are finalized and the process become traceable on a public ledger, demonstrating a high level of security and transparency.

  Intellectual Properties In Academia

      According to the National Science Foundation (NSF), billions of research funding are expended in the various universities’ laboratories every year. Sadly, less than 20% of the patented inventions from these research leave the laboratories for industry. Since there are no proper channels for universities to monetize these patents other than relying on industry contacts, a good number of them end up in dusty shelves, and are later put up for auction and sold to the highest bidder.

       Often times, these patents fall into the hands of patent trolls--companies that do nothing but amass patents and sue others for patent infringement—consequently stifling innovations.

        Through the LEXIT’s platform, universities will now have unfettered access to a secured marketplace to sell their intellectual properties to companies/innovators sitting in any corner of the globe that most deserve them in a seamless and swift way.

Conclusion

    #LEXITco will not only ensure liquidity and reduce the overall costs of M&As deals by cutting off the middle-men rampant in the industry, it will restore transparency in the system.

      In addition, participants will get a fair deal devoid of over/under payments as price of listings on the platform will be determined by the market forces of demand and supply.

       Startups out there whose failure are not tied to the quality of their projects can bring their products on the platform and sell them

       The M&A industry currently on the suffocating grips of deep-pockets financial firms will be highly decentralized that anyone with an internet enabled smartphone can participate!

 #LEXITco  #TokenSale #Cryptocurrency

For more information,visit: http://www.lexit.co

Internet of People Starts Trading IOP on CoinBene & Releases Mercury Protocol Beta

For decades, the internet as we know it has had an important role in transforming people’s lives. However, groundbreaking developments like the Cloud, social media and the way people develop online apps have led to an increase in processing and operational costs, changing the industry and affecting personal information stored on the web. Online development is a saturated market filled with companies harvesting loads of data they don’t need. Many choose to gather the data to sell it or repurpose it to fit their interest.
Centralized business entities market their transparency, hiding their limitations and posing challenges to the end user. To help free the people from a broken system, the Internet of People has developed a platform that will break barriers. The IoP is a crypto movement that looks to connect people with a node-based environment, thus facilitating the development of truly decentralized apps and creating the internet for the next generation powered by blockchain. The IoP aims to leverage the best parts of centralized cooperatives, community, and corporate structures and combines them into a decentralized ecosystem.
Decentralization for the next generation goes beyond cryptocurrency
The initial goal of the Bitcoin blockchain was targeted at eradicating middlemen, streamlining online transactions, making them faster, cheaper and more transparent for the people. Mass adoption of the technology has made users look for better alternatives than Moneygram and Western Union. However, the ICO boom tamed the crypto space with fake business models and Ponzi schemes, damaging the original purpose and value of cryptocurrency.
To make things better and shift the paradigm of the industry still not being safe enough for mass adoption, IoP enters the scene with a new approach to cryptocurrency. The mission is to restore people’s trust in crypto with the Mercury protocol for decentralized app development and a proprietary IoP blockchain to streamline payments. Almost anyone can run a node on IoP via Libertaria’s pre-configured Titania box. Users can leverage Mercury to bypass middlemen and third parties, and communicate with each other via the p2p system of the network.
By promoting both transparency and privacy, IoP will enable users to connect without losing control of their personal data. The platform will feature its very own token — the IOP digital coin — which is designed to incentivize the IoP community by distributing equal block rewards without wasting excessive mining power.
The Mercury protocol — the number one for dApp developers
Developed on a pioneering p2p network, the distributed network encompassing the
rendering maximum privacy. With truly decentralized and secure communication, the IoP is able to restore the power of the internet back to the people, enabling app development without third parties and transparent social networking.
Mercury resembles a cellular mobile network that provides features like data connections, SMS, push notifications and more. However, it enables provider selection only to trusted parties included in the system and it uses cryptographic keys rather than phone numbers for peer-to-peer encrypted communication.
IoP recently launched on the exchange and also released the first version of its Mercury protocol. According to IoP officials, there will be a maximum of 21 million coins. The goal of the project is to increase its market share, provide better transparency for both users and developers, and ultimately build a truly censorship-resistant

Source : https:// newsbtc.com

Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital to Make Public Debut on Toronto Stock Exchange

Mike Novogratz’s merchant bank, Galaxy Digital, will be going public on Toronto’s TSX Venture Exchange on August 1st, making it one of the first ever public cryptocurrency focused merchant banks.
In an interview with , Novogratz expressed some concerns with the upcoming IPO, mainly centered around the decline in the cryptocurrency markets.
“If I knew what I know now, knew the crypto markets were going to swoon as much, and it was going to take so long, I might have stayed private for another year or so and then gone public. But I don’t think it’s a mistake.”
Novogratz also expressed his frustration towards the demands of Canadian regulators, who caused tremendous delays in Galaxy Digital’s listing due to an overwhelming amount of regulatory demands.
Galaxy Digital, Traditional Baking Services for the Cryptocurrency Industry
Novogratz, who is a billionaire investor and president of Fortress Investment Group, started Galaxy Digital with the intentions of creating an investment ban. The sole focus is to provide institutional-quality banking products for cryptocurrency companies.
According to the bank’s page on , Galaxy Digital’s main goal is to “raise primary capital towards building a best-in-class, full service, institutional-quality merchant banking business in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space.”
The bank has made some high-profile investments in 2018, including a $52.5 million one in
BlockFI, who offers USD loans to customers when they use their cryptocurrency holdings as collateral. In total, Galaxy Digital has raised nearly $400 million since its inception.
An IPO During Rocky Markets
The IPO comes as Galaxy Digital hit a rough spot in earnings due to the state of the cryptocurrency markets.
According to reports, Galaxy Digital lost $134 million in Q1 2018 due to the market decline, mainly due to the bank’s digital assets. Its quarterly
, shows that the bank saw a “net unrealized loss” of $85.5 million on digital assets, and a $24 million loss on investments. The bank also lost a total of $24.5 million from operating expenses and lost income.
These losses were incurred between January 1st and March 31st, and there is no indication of the company’s performance since then. The decline in cryptocurrency prices across the board has also resulted in a loss of interest towards the industry, which will likely affect Galaxy Digital’s future fundraising efforts.
Galaxy Digital’s Toronto listing comes after a series of poorly trading companies listed in Canada. Novogratz explained how this likely impacted the Canadian regulator’s timeline, saying:
“There was a surge of companies that listed in Canada and they all traded really poorly. I think the regulators got a little bit more nervous and said, ‘Hey, wait a minute, let’s make sure we know what we’re seeing here.'”
Although the bank’s listing may be off to a weak start, Novogratz still has big plans, saying that he wants to see future listings in Frankfurt, London, and Hong Kong, adding that: “We’re going to be a global company; we want to be globally traded.”
It is fair to assume that the stock price of Galaxy Digital will largely reflect the health of the cryptocurrency markets, much like other publicly traded companies intertwined with the cryptocurrency industry.
Novogratz warned that due to the unique structure of the company, investors may have a tough time placing value on the company’s assets, leading to an inaccurate share price.

Source : https://newsbtc

Telegram Reveals Personal ID Verification Tools For Sharing Data

The crypto and blockchain industry’s go-to encrypted messenger app Telegram has released a personal identification authorization tool, according to an official statement published July 26.

The tool, dubbed Telegram Passport, reportedly encrypts a user’s personal ID information and let’s users securely share their ID data with third parties, which the Telegram post elaborates on as “finance, ICOs, etc.”

According to the post, users’ ID data will currently be stored on the Telegram cloud, but “In the future, all Telegram Passport data will move to a decentralized cloud.”

The new tool is currently integrated with digital payment operator ePayments, which Telegram refers to in their post as the “first electronic payments system to support registration and verification” via the new tool. EPayments confirmed the integration on its Telegram channel, noting that “verification can be achieved in just a few clicks.”

Recently, CEO and founder of Telegram Pavel Durov was featured in Fortune’s “40 Under 40” annual rankings as one of the most prominent disruptors of global business. Before creating Telegram, Durov founded social media website VK.com.

This March, Telegram completed two $850 million closed funding rounds via the sale of the platform’s pending cryptocurrency TON, bringing its total funding to $1.7 billion. In late May Telegram’s plans to launch a public ICO were been reportedly disrupted due to the fact that the company had raised enough money via the two private ICO rounds.

Launched in 2011, ePayments says it provides payment services to more than 500,000 freelance customers and 1,000 companies worldwide. The London-based digital payment service supports transactions in cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC) and others.

Source : https://cointelegraph.com/news/telegram-reveals-personal-id-verification-tool-for-sharing-data-with-finance-icos

Fatish Internet Group: Bitcoin ETF Is On The Horizon

Fatfish Internet Group: Markets Could ‘Accept’ Bitcoin ETF Within ‘Couple Of Months’NEWS
Global markets will be “ready to accept” a Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) in as soon as a “couple of months,” Fatfish Internet Group CEO Kin-Wai Lau told CNBC on July 29.

Speaking to CNBC’s dedicated cryptocurrency segment, the Coin Rush, Lau expressed a firm belief in Bitcoin’s current price rally, explaining,

“It’s a very strong wave; it’s driven by institutional demand, it’s driven by adoption. [There’s]  lots of interest this time around — trading volume is several times higher than during the lows.”

Bitcoin continues to trade above $8,000 after briefly dipping to around $7,700 late last week. Despite the Winklevoss twins’ ETF receiving a second rejection on July 26, prices bounced back above $8100 shortly afterwards, reinforcing users’ belief in the robustness of Bitcoin’s return to form.

Lau noted that the bounce back is “generally very positive for early adopters and people who have interest in the sector.”

As Cointelegraph previously reported, multiple ETF applications are due for review by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which has already postponed making a decision about an offering from Direxion until mid September.

After the agency rejected the Winklevoss’ ETF petition, SEC Commissioner Hester M. Peirce published a statement of official dissent, arguing that the SEC had overstepped its “limited role.”

Lau told CNBC that he foresees a potential shift in the regulatory atmosphere in the near future:

“I think we’re not far away; I think probably just a couple of months away from being ready for the market to generally accept an ETF.”

Fatfish caused a stir earlier this year when it announced it was entering the cryptocurrency mining market on the back of higher prices. In January, the company invested $1 million for a 51 percent stake in Singapore startup APAC Mining.

Source : cointelegraph

A New York Based Hospital To Explore Blockchain Applications

The New York-based medical school founded by Mount Sinai Hospital has launched a new research center focused on blockchain applications in healthcare.
On Tuesday, The Icahn School of Medicine said the Center for Biomedical Blockchain Research would be created inside the school's Institute for Next Generation Healthcare, which researches the application of artificial intelligence, robotics, genomic sequencing, sensors and wearable devices in medicine, New York-based news organization Crain's reported.
The center's staff will conduct academic research on blockchain in medicine, as well as create their own prototype networks. The possible use cases include drug development and preventing the sale of counterfeit drugs, clinical trials and a better research reproducibility, Healthcare IT News wrote.
The new center will be run by Joel Dudley, executive vice president of Precision Health at Mount Sinai and a former senior data scientist at Pivotal Software, which researches the use of artificial intelligence in biology. Dudley was previously involved in designing predictive models in healthcare.
His new focus will revolve around developing predictive health applications using the information from electronic health records, wearable devices and other digital sources.
The project began with bringing together a database of 144 companies that are working on blockchain projects related to healthcare. They include CoverUs, which works on allowing patients to get paid for their health data via a specialized exchange, and Embleema, which is designed to connect patient-generated health data and electronic medical records in a common secure repository.
The companies on the list have raised a combined $670 million through initial coin offerings, Crain's wrote.

source : ccoindesk

Japan Self-Regulatory Crypto-Exchange Association Considers Trading Limits For Some Clients

The Japan Virtual Currency Exchange Association (JVCEA) will obligate its member exchanges to place limits on the trading activity of some clients, Cointelegraph Japan reports today, July 28.

The self-regulatory body has reportedly established a policy of to require its member crypto exchanges to place maximum limits on the volumes traded by the exchanges’ customers.

The move reportedly aims to prevent investors with “small assets” from suffering heavy losses and facing problems with basic daily expenses. The report does not specifically define “small assets,” nor does it specify the exact limits to be placed.

According to the report, member crypto exchanges will be able to choose from two options for how they establish trading limits.

The first option proposes a universal ceiling that implies establishing one fixed maximum limit for all “small asset” traders. The second option suggests a more individual approach by setting different limits for different customers depending on various factors such as their investment experience, income, the value of their assets, and age.

The JVCEA has also reportedly suggested trading activity limitations for minors, requiring an adult’s confirmation as a measure against money laundering.

Earlier this week, the JVCEA  announced its intentions to put limits on its member exchanges’ margin trading, reportedly with the same intention of preventing customers from significant losses caused by highly volatile crypto markets.

The JVCEA was formed in early March, with 16 crypto exchanges teaming  up to develop and coordinate rules and policies for ensuring security standards for trading cryptocurrencies. The group’s formation came following the January hack of Japan-based crypto exchange Coincheck, with losses totalling more than $534 mln.

The association is reportedly set to regulate the market in conjunction with the local Financial Services Agency (FSA), which has been restructured recently in order improve its handling of fintech-related areas, including cryptocurrencies.

Source : cointelegraph

New Gallup Poll Shows Only 2% Of US Investors Own Bitcoin

The results of a Wells Fargo/Gallup poll published July 27 finds that only two percent of U.S. investors own Bitcoin, but 26 percent are intrigued by it.

The online survey was conducted May 7-14, 2018 amongst  U.S. investors with more than $10,000 in stocks, bonds or mutual funds. The results show that the overwhelming majority of investors who have already heard of Bitcoin will not be investing in the leading cryptocurrency any time soon, with 72 percent saying they “have no interest in ever buying Bitcoin.”

According to the data from the poll, even though 96 percent of investors had heard of Bitcoin, “only about three in 10 investors (29%) say they know something about digital currencies,” with 67 percent saying they have heard of them but don’t know much about them.

Even though the initial intention behind Bitcoin involves its use as a means of payment, or “electronic cash”, it’s high volatility has made it “more popular as a high-risk/high-reward investment than as an online currency — although acceptance of Bitcoin for electronic payments is growing.” The results of the survey show that 75 percent of respondents view an investment in Bitcoin to be “very risky,” with 23 percent saying it was “somewhat risky.”

The statistics on gender and age show that young men are the most likely demographic to “say they know something about bitcoin or other digital currencies.” The report also states that “[r]elated to the age differences, investors with less than $100,000 in investments (who tend to be younger) are more likely to be familiar with the innovation than those with higher asset levels.”

A study on Americans and cryptocurrencies commissioned by Finder.com in February showed that 8 percent, or around 26 mln, of Americans have already purchased cryptocurrency.

A recent report on the top ten crypto projects that raised a minimum of $1 million in 2017 revealed that on average each showed a return on investment of over 136,000 percent.

Source : cointelegraph

Commonwealth Bank Claims Breakthrough In Global Trade Blockchain Trade

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has announced the completion of a cross-border shipment that utilized blockchain to track goods in the supply chain.
The multinational, one of Australia's "Big Four" banks, said in a statement on Monday that some 37,000 pounds of almonds were shipped from Australia to Germany and were tracked via a private blockchain platform developed by the bank on top of the ethereum network.
Participating nodes of the blockchain system included key parties along the supply chain, such as agriculture producer Olam Orchards and logistic carriers, as well as port operator Patrick Terminals and the Port of Melbourne.
The CBA said the blockchain-based system stores the data of containers, documents and financial transactions on a distributed network. As such, different partners can simultaneously view and track information about a shipment in real-time – data including the shipment's status or the temperature and humidity of the containers.
"This level of data provided partners in the supply chain with a greater level of transparency and efficiency regarding the location, condition and authentication of the goods being transported," the bank said in the release.
Olam Orchards' supply chain manager Emma Roberts commented in the announcement:

"Trade inefficiency can be extremely detrimental to our business. It is vital that as an industry, we look at emerging technology for ways to enhance the supply chain to develop a more transparent and efficient platform."

The news follows the banking giant's previous work to test a blockchain system for tracking cross-border shipments of cotton in real-time through a partnership with Wells Fargo. Last year, the CBA also revealed a plan to issue a bond over a blockchain system.
The bank's overall effort to adopt blockchain is part of its wider push for technology advancement. In early 2017, the CBA said it aimed to spend close to $1 billion on technology development in 2017, including a continuous investment on blockchain.


Source:coindesk.comBreakthrough In Blockchain Trading