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Goldman Sachs just poured $45 million into a company picking up Amazon’s slack in the cloud – Yahoo Finance

August 23, 2017 | Author: admin

thor culverhouse skytap ceo

(Skytap CEO Thor CulverhouseSkytap) Amazon Web Services is the big behemoth of cloud computing, followed by Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.

The economies of scale of cloud services mean that it's very difficult for any new players to compete unless they have theglobal reach and resourcesof those tech titans.

Difficult, but not impossible, especially if you zero in on an underserved part of the market. Take, for example, Skytap, a 10-year-old cloud computing service provider based in Seattle.

Skytap started as a project out of the University of Washington. It focuses exclusively on helping huge companies update their existing, old-school software for the modern age. By devoting all its energies to that one corner of the market, Skytap believes it can thrive even under Amazon's shadow.

"It doesn't make sense for us to go head-to-head with Amazon in their areas of expertise," Skytap CEOThor Culverhouse said.

Skytap already has name-brand customers includingGE Healthcare and NBCUniversal. And investors are on board too.

The companyjust announced a $45 million round of funding led by Goldman Sachs. That brings its total funding to over $100 million. If all goes according to plan, the investment will start an 18-to-24 month countdown to an eventual IPO,Culverhouse said.

Amazon Web Services got its start by focusing on winning over individual developers and small startups, including Slack and Airbnb, and reaping the benefits as those companies grew and expanded their usage.To that end, Amazon as well as chief rivals Google and Microsoft prides itselfon supporting the most up-to-date developer tools and methods.

By contrast, Skytap's sales pitch is it offers a cloud computing platform that's designedto behave like an old-school, legacy data center, makingit easier for enterprises to bring their existing large-scale applications to the cloud. And once those applications areinthe cloud, the company can offer customers a slew of benefits,Culverhouse said.

(Amazon Web Services CEO Andy JassyAmazon)

Similar to AWS, Skytapallows customers to easily add or remove computing capacity in line with their needs. And its support for trendy technologies like Docker software containers allows customers toslowly but surely modernize their software.

Skytap is starting to catch on with customers.The company's second-quarter revenue this year was three times higher than in the same period last year, Culverhouse said, although he declined to disclose the actualnumbers. Contributing to the company'sgrowth has beena resale arrangement with IBM, where Big Blue provides Skytap technology to its own customers.

As it ramps up for its IPO, Skytap is doubling down on what it's already doing, Culverhouse said. Currently, the company employs about 170 people; Culverhouse expects that number to double in the next year, with a focus on sales and engineering. Similarly, Skytap plans to grow its international presence.

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(Microsoft Executive VP of Cloud and Enterprise Scott GuthrieMicrosoft)

What Skytap won't be doing is making moves that will put it more directly into Amazon's path, Culverhouse said. Instead, Skytap will continue to focus its energies on helping big enterprise customers bring their existing software into the cloud.

"That's where we can deliver the most value," he said.

Goldman Sachs has been busy in the tech sector of late. In addition to investing in Skytap, the venerable financial firm announced Monday that it also led a $44 million investment in database provider Redis Labs.

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Cloud Computing confirmed for Travers Stakes 2017 – Horse Racing … – Horse Racing Nation

August 23, 2017 | Author: admin

Trainer Chad Brown confirmed Monday morning that Klaravich Stables and William Lawrence's Grade 1 Preakness winner Cloud Computing will enter the Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers Stakes 2017 presented by NYRA Bets, on Saturday, August 26.

By Maclean's Music, a son of multiple graded stakes winner Distorted Humor, Cloud Computing impressively won his debut by 1 lengths on February 11 at Aqueduct Racetrack. Second in the Grade 3 Gotham Stakes March 4 at Aqueduct, he went on to finish third in the Grade 2 Wood Memorial. Despite accumulating 40 points on the Kentucky Derby leaderboard, his connections decided to skip the race.

Making his first Grade 1 start in the second leg of the Triple Crown and sent off at odds of 13-1, Cloud Computing upset Kentucky Derby winner Always Dreaming and outdueled Breeders' Cup Juvenile champion Classic Empire to upset the Preakness with Hall of Famer Javier Castellano aboard.

Returning from his victory in the Preakness to run in the Grade 2 Jim Dandy, the traditional local prep for the Travers, July 29, Cloud Computing briefly put in a bid before weakening on the far turn to finish last as the 3-2 second choice in a field of five.

Cloud Computing has breezed twice over Saratoga's main track since the race, most recently working five furlongs in 1:01.65 last Saturday with Castellano aboard. Brown said he exited the work in good order leaving the trainer confident to enter him in the Travers.

"He couldn't have worked any better," said Brown. "I was very happy with the work and Javier was pleased, and he came out of his work well."

Brown said Castellano will ride Cloud Computing in the Travers, a race he won for a record fifth time when Keen Ice upset Triple Crown champion American Pharoah in 2015. Castellano also won with Bernardini (2006), Afleet Express (2010), Stay Thirsty (2011) and V.E. Day (2014).

With Always Dreaming and Todd Pletcher-trained stablemate Tapwrit, the Belmont Stakes winner, also expected to run, it marks the first time that the individual winners of all three Triple Crown races will meet in the Travers since 1982, when Runaway Groom upset Gato del Sol, Aloma's Ruler and Conquistador Cielo.

Source: NYRA (Najja Thompson)

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Silicon Quantum Computing launched to commercialise UNSW … – ZDNet

August 23, 2017 | Author: admin

A new company dubbed Silicon Quantum Computing (SQC) has been launched to take advantage of and commercialise the work done by the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in the quantum space.

SQC will work out of new laboratories within the Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology (CQC2T) at UNSW, and is slated to hire 40 staff members -- made up in part by 25 post-doctoral researchers and 12 PhD students.

The board for SQC will consist of professor Michelle Simmons, who has been the driving force behind CQC2T; Telstra chief scientist Hugh Bradlow; Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) CIO David Whiteing; and Secretary of the federal Department of Industry, Innovation and Science Glenys Beauchamp, with corporate lawyer Stephen Menzies to serve as its interim chair.

Announced on Wednesday as a new shareholder, but not taking a board seat, was the NSW government, which funded the company to the tune of AU$8.7 million from its Quantum Computing Fund.

The state government funding follows CBA investing AU$14 million, Telstra injecting AU$10 million, the federal government allocating AU$25 million over four years, and UNSW putting $25 million towards CQC2T.

SQC is targeting having a 10-qubit machine commercialised by 2022.

Menzies told ZDNet that the creation of the company would shorten the time to market by three years, and allow for a patent portfolio to be built. He said the company is seeking three more investors to fund it at similar levels to Telstra and CBA, and is currently on the hunt for a CEO.

"We will fund hardware, but from that we will develop a patent pool which we hope will be without peer in the world," Menzies said during the launch.

"In the first five years, we are very focused, the business plan is focused on the patents associated with an engineered 10-qubit device. But beyond that, we see that we have a stage on which we develop across Australia and across Australian institutions, a broad quantum industry."

Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science Arthur Sinodinos said quantum computing was important to the country's future.

"Whatever sector of innovation, we want to be really good in, we need to be world beaters," he said on Wednesday.

"We want to be able to create a competitive advantage, command a premium, and you do that by doing something new, something that others find it hard to replicate, or it takes them time to replicate and by the time they have replicated it, you've moved on to something else."

Previously, Simmons said she believes the work completed by CQC2T to develop silicon-based qubits will win out in the race to a 30-qubit system.

"We do believe that silicon is the one that has longevity; it's a manufacturable material, and it has some of the highest-quality qubits that are out there," Simmons said in June.

"That's why it's very exciting for Australia. We actually believe this can go all the way, and we believe we can build it in Australia."

Telstra chief scientist Bradlow reiterated on Wednesday that Telstra sees itself offering quantum computing as a service.

"I can assure you they are not going to walk in on day one and know how to use these things," he said previously.

"We want to be able to offer it as-a-service to them ... they will need a lot of hand holding, and they are not going to run the equipment themselves, it's complicated."

For its part, CBA is preparing for a quantum future by using a quantum computing simulator from QxBranch.

"The difference between the emulator of a quantum computer and the real hardware is that we run the simulator on classical computers, so we don't get the benefit of the speed up that you get from quantum, but we can simulate its behaviour and some of the broad characteristics of what the eventual hardware will do," QxBranch CEO Michael Brett told ZDNet in April.

"What we provide is the ability for people to explore and validate the applications of quantum computing so that as soon as the hardware is ready, they'll be able to apply those applications and get the benefit immediately of the unique advantages of quantum computing."

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IEEE Approves Standards Project for Quantum Computing … – Business Wire (press release)

August 23, 2017 | Author: admin

PISCATAWAY, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--IEEE,the world's largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancingtechnology for humanity, and the IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA), today announced the approval of the IEEE P7130Standard for Quantum Computing Definitions project. Thenew standards project aims to make Quantum Computing more accessible to a larger group of contributors, including developers of software and hardware, materials scientists, mathematicians, physicists, engineers, climate scientists, biologists and geneticists.

IEEE P7130 will define terms related to the physics of quantum computing including quantum tunneling, super position, quantum entanglement, as well as other related terms and terminology that will be updated as technological advances are made.

"While Quantum Computing is poised for significant growth and advancement, the emergent industry is currently fragmented and lacks a common communications framework, said Whurley (William Hurley), chair, IEEE Quantum Computing Working Group. IEEE P7130 marks an important milestone in the development of Quantum Computing by building consensus on a nomenclature that will bring the benefits of standardization, reduce confusion, and foster a more broadly accepted understanding for all stakeholders involved in advancing technology and solutions in the space.

"IBM is part of quantum information's history, since its foundation more than 30 years ago. And we've been championing important terms, metrics, and scientific methods ever since," said Jerry Chow, manager, Experimental Quantum Computing, IBM Research and IEEE P7130 working group participant. "This standards project will help anyone from students to seasoned quantum scientists nucleate around a common language, while keeping up with the field's rapid pace of change, and further accelerate pioneering experiments and explorations in quantum computing."

"1QBit works with a variety of classical,quantumand otherwise non-standard processors, which necessitates communication between multiple external teams, across a wide range of industries, discussing many different types of computing systems, said Andrew Fursman, CEO 1Qbit and IEEE P7130 working group participant.IEEE P7130 "Standard for QuantumComputing Definitions"provides a valuable service to 1QBit, our partners inquantum computing, and the many industries with which we intersect."

Confusions exist on what quantum computing or a quantum computer means, added Professor Hidetoshi Nishimori of the Tokyo Institute of Technology and IEEE P7130 working group participant. This partly originates in the existence of a few different models of quantum computing. It is urgently necessary to define each key word.

To learn more about IEEE P7130, please visit the Quantum Computing Working Group landing page.

To learn more about IEEE-SA, visit us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, connect with us on LinkedIn or on the Standards Insight Blog.

About the IEEE Standards Association

The IEEE Standards Association, a globally recognized standards-setting body within IEEE, develops consensus standards through an open process that engages industry and brings together a broad stakeholder community. IEEE standards set specifications and best practices based on current scientific and technological knowledge. The IEEE-SA has a portfolio of over 1,200 active standards and over 650 standards under development. For more information visit http://standards.ieee.org.

About IEEE

IEEE is the largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. Through its highly cited publications, conferences, technology standards, and professional and educational activities, IEEE is the trusted voice in a wide variety of areas ranging from aerospace systems, computers, and telecommunications to biomedical engineering, electric power, and consumer electronics. Learn more athttp://www.ieee.org.

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Introducing Australia’s first quantum computing hardware company – CIO Australia

August 23, 2017 | Author: admin

Australia's first quantum computing hardware company launched today, with the goal of producing a 10 qubit integrated circuit prototype by 2022.

Silicon Quantum Computing (SQC) Pty Ltd will develop and commercialise a prototype circuit, which will serve as a "forerunner to a silicon-based quantum computer" the company said.

The company has been formed by existing investors into the Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology (CQC2T); namely USNW (which has invested $25 million into the centre), Commonwealth Bank of Australia ($14m), Telstra ($10m) and the Federal Government ($25m over five years as part of the National Innovation and Science Agenda).

The NSW Government today said it had pledged $8.7m towards the venture, the money coming from its Quantum Computing Fund which wasannounced in July.

SQCs board is made up of Michelle Simmons, UNSW Professor of Physics and director of the CQC2T; Hugh Bradlow, Telstras chief scientist; David Whiteing, Commonwealth Bank of Australias chief information officer; and Glenys Beauchamp, secretary of the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science.

Corporate lawyer and company director Stephen Menzies will act as interim chair.

We have a board which is very corporately focused, on developing and funding the engineering work to develop a ten qubit device. We will fund hardware. From that we will develop a patent pool which we hope will be without peer in the world, Menzies said.

In the first five years were very focused, the business plan is focused, on the patents associated with an engineered 10 quibit device. But beyond that we see that we have a stage on which we can develop across Australia, and Australian institutions, a broad quantum industry.

The company is seeking a further three shareholders to bring the total investment up to $100m.

The company will need additional moneys, and the business plan contemplates it will have additional shareholders who will join. All of whom we hope will bring strategic focus to the business and company, and also will bring their own enthusiasm and passion for quantum technologies, Menzies added.

SQC which will operate within the Centre for QTC at UNSW in Sydney has already started recruiting for forty roles, including 25 postdoctoral researchers, 12 PhD students, and a number of lab technicians.

Huge potential

Telstras Hugh Bradlow reiterated the telcos aim, revealed in June, to offer quantum computing to customers as-a-service.

Everyone knows that Telstra aims to be a globally leading technology company and if were going to do that we have to be at the forefront of 21st Century computing. [When realised] our customers are going to have access to a computer of unprecedented power and theyre not going to have the faintest idea of how to use it. So its Telstras aim to be in a position that, when that happens, we are skilled and knowledgeable about how to deliver those services to our customers. We look forward to taking [SQCs] products and putting them into our cloud services offerings in the future, he said.

Dilan Rajasingham, head of emerging technologies at Commonwealth Bank of Australia spoke of the huge potential of the technology.

Quantum computing is a revolutionary technology. It will transform the world as we know it. Weve invested more than $14m in quantum computing, because we believe in its future promise, we believe in its future capability, we believe in its potential as a differentiator. Not just for those of us involved, but also for Australia in general, he said.

We believe that quantum computing could be the foundation of a new high-tech ecosystem that can comes from Australia, our home, our biggest market and a key part of our identity. More than that though we are creating something newEven though the machine is still a few years away, the time for investment is now.

Senator Arthur Sinodinos, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, said the company would help give Australia a competitive advantage over the rest of the world.

"As a country we punch above our weight when it comes to knowledge creation but we really need to be doing more when it comes to commercialising our great ideas here in Australia. Its very important we do that. Thats not to say we commercialise every idea in this country but too many ideas do go offshore, Sinodinos said.

"Whatever sector of innovation we want to be really good in, we want to be world beaters. We want to create a competitive advantage, command a premium. And you do that by doing something new, something others find it hard to replicate or it takes them time to replicate, and by the time theyve replicated it youve moved on to something else. This is what this is all about, creating a world competitive advantage that we can build on with great upstream and downstream effects over time.

Global race

The SQC is now part ofa global race to build a quantum computer, building on the silicon-based approach of the CQC2T.

That race is hotting up. In July Microsoft cemented its long-standing quantum computing research relationship with the University of Sydney, with the signing of a multi-year investment deal understood to be in the multiple millions.

While nobody has yet built a proven quantum computer, a number of firms have already announced plans to make the technology commercially available.

Researchers at Googles Quantum AI Laboratory said in aMarchNatureeditorialthat the company would commercialise quantum technologies within five years. In the same month, IBM announcedits commercial'Q' quantum computing programwould deliver paid quantum computing services via the cloud to usersbefore the end of the year.

Microsoft, however, told Computerworld in July that it was still trying to figure out a business model for the technology.

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Tags Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology (CQC2T)Arthur SinodinosNSW GovernmentCBAUNSWSilicon Quantum ComputingCommonwealth Bank of AustraliaHugh BradlowTelstraDilan Rajasinghamuniversity of new south wales

More about AustraliaCommonwealth BankCommonwealth Bank of AustraliaDepartment of IndustryFederal GovernmentGoogleIBMMicrosoftNSW GovernmentQQuantumTechnologyUniversity of SydneyUNSW

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Op Ed: Drivechains Could Kill Off the Altcoin Market

August 22, 2017 | Author: admin

Sidechains have been viewed as Bitcoins way of dealing the altcoin market since 2014, when a proposal for a two-way peg between two different blockchains was first proposed in a public setting. Three years later, it appears that drivechains, which are a specific way of implementing sidechains, will be the way in which extensions for Bitcoin are rolled out.

Sidechains remove the need for altcoins by allowing bitcoins to be effectively transferred from one blockchain to another. This means the bitcoin token can be used on any type of blockchain that bitcoin holders demand into existence.

Drivechains were designed by Bloq Economist Paul Sztorc, who started working on the idea after the lack of progress on sidechains slowed down his own project, a decentralized prediction market known as Bitcoin Hivemind.

In Sztorcs view, the security model for drivechains is not much different than that of the main Bitcoin blockchain because the funds on the drivechain are held in escrow by bitcoin miners. Some developers, such as Peter Todd, have shared technical concerns with merge-mined sidechains in the past, but this concept is likely going to be tried out in the wild, whether the contributors to Bitcoin Core like it or not. Sztorc has also attempted to address these technical concerns through the use of blind merged mining.

In terms of the risk of miners stealing the funds held in escrow, Sztorc has pointed out that a similar risk already exists in Bitcoin: A cartel of miners could theoretically defraud a bitcoin exchange by selling bitcoins on the exchange and then later rewriting the chain history in a way obscures or erases the original deposit so that it appears it never took place.

Drivechains can be added to Bitcoin via soft forks, which means they are backward compatible. If there is sufficient demand for a specific type of drivechain, miners should be happy to mine on the additional chain in order to generate more revenue by way of transaction fees.

Features of popular drivechains could theoretically be soft-forked into Bitcoin by way of an extension block or some other measure, but its unclear if this would even be necessary.

The three main niches that have gained interest from altcoin speculators are microtransactions (lower transaction fees), smart contracts and privacy.

Both Ethereum and Litecoin are said to be useful alternatives to Bitcoin because they have lower transaction fees. One of the first intended drivechains is one with bigger blocks which would allow users to transact with lower fees in a manner that does not negatively affect the decentralization of Bitcoins main chain.

Although its still unclear if there is much substance behind the drastic rise in Ethereums market cap, RSK has built a sidechain focused on complex smart contracts that is a hybrid between a drivechain and a federated sidechain. The RSK platform is currently pegged to Bitcoins testnet, and it is expected to launch on mainnet later this year.

In terms of privacy, there are intentions to add a MimbleWimble sidechain to Bitcoin, although the mechanism that will be used to peg the sidechain to Bitcoin is unclear at this time. In addition to MimbleWimble, its also possible that a Monero, Zcash or other privacy-focused sidechains could be released if there is enough demand.

There is a full list of sidechain projects available on the Drivechain website.

While drivechains are likely to drive out the need for altcoins, its still possible that alternative digital assets that are not attempts at creating a new form of money will exist.

Sztorcs own project creates a new token, votecoin, which is required for the decentralized prediction market to work. With this setup, bitcoin is used as the transactional currency while votecoins are used as a sort of stake in the network to get the incentives to work properly.

To me, its unclear how often these sorts of new tokens will be needed, but there should be no reason for competitors to bitcoin as a form of digital money to exist.

One last thing to keep in mind is that a chain split in Bitcoin could invalidate the hypothesis laid out in this article. If there is a split, then the network effects around Bitcoin could be weakened, which would open the door for an alternative cryptocurrency to take Bitcoins place.

The supporters of the SegWit2x proposal intend to activate a hard-forking increase to Bitcoins block size limit later this year, but it is extremely unlikely that this change will be implemented in Bitcoin Core, which means a chain split is a possibility.

The negative effects of such a situation would depend on the severity of the split and how the market reacts.

If a big block drivechain is prepared in time, it may be able to decrease the attraction some in the Bitcoin ecosystem have toward a hard fork.

Thank you to drivechain developer Patrick Murphy for answering a few questions during the writing of this article.

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Nakamoto Institute Daniel Krawisz: I Don’t Like Altcoins, but I Like Forks – Bitcoin News (press release)

August 22, 2017 | Author: admin

This week the founder of the Nakamoto Institute, and the developer of a bitcoin mixing tool called Shufflepuff, Daniel Krawisz, released a Youtube video giving an interesting perspective on the recent Bitcoin network fork. Krawisz is pleased with watching the forks unfold and believes the two competing currencies may discourage the technocracy of ruling developers.

Also read:Tumbling Bitcoins: A Guide Through the Rinse Cycle

Daniel Krawisz is known in the bitcoin community for his many efforts, including authoring many historicalbitcoin essays and opinion pieces at the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute. Further, Krawisz is also well-known for his stance towards altcoins, as he believes they are a scam and altcoin developers are basicallysnake oil salesmen. Now you would think that Krawisz would be vehemently against the recent fork, which spawned the birth of another cryptocurrency called Bitcoin Cash. However Krawisz is very excited to see everything happening For Real.

In general I like forks I dont like altcoins, but I like forks, and the reason is; I think of a fork as being an evolutionary algorithm, Krawisz states in his latest video. You got regular bitcoin running along, and suddenly you got two bitcoins, they split, and theres a mutation. Theres a little bit of difference between them, so now you say Which one do I like better?

Well you can put a little bit of money on either side to influence which one wins.

Krawisz says because everyone is invested in both chains theres a very even playing field for the two competitors. This is not like bitcoin versus an altcoin, Krawisz explains. The reason money is valuable is because of the network effect, and it connects you to other people. So you can have money that is not directly good for anything, but if it is the form of money that society has settled upon, as the one they use by default, its valuable because they are all connected with that money.

The network effect Krawisz details, is what makes money valuable and with a fork, the same investors own the same amount. To Krawisz this kind of removes the network effects power over investors and they can focus more on technical differences. With this technical competition, an investor can now decide which currency they believe is superior.

So if you are good at designing bitcoin then you will make money by choosing the correct fork, Krawisz says. This is a process that rewards good designers, if you are good at designing you get more money, and if youre bad at it, you get less money, and if you dont want to get involved, you dont have to do anything.

To me forks are good because they put the investors in control. Investors are given a choice and they choose which one they like better. One thing that I dont like in bitcoin is when developers have a higher social status than investors. It should be the other way around, developers should be below investors.

Krawisz believes investors should think of themselves as a god, and the two chains represent two groups of people vying for the gods favoritism. He says its better not to be loyal to one side because thats how people lose money. But if one side is technically better, than as a god, you can give one side a little nudge in the right direction. The bitcoin god (investor) decides which bitcoin they will elevate to the heavens, and the other can be dumped into the pit of fire, saysKrawisz.

The video further details what he thinks about the Ethereum situation and the power he believes Vitalik Buterin holds over the community. In this case,Krawisz thinks investors are worshipping their god Vitalik, and looking for him to shepherd them through the darkness. Overall Krawisz seems very pleased with the bitcoin fork, because in his opinion it will lessen the godliness of developers, and remove the technocracy by putting the power back into the hands of investors. Additionally,he explains hes written about the subject before in an essay called Who Controls Bitcoin?

What do you think about the statements and opinions Daniel Krawisz holds towards the fork? Do you agree forks may lessen the problem of technocracy? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Images via Shutterstock, Pixabay, and Twitter.

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Bithumb, Highest Volume Exchange Globally, Adds Monero – Inside Bitcoins

August 22, 2017 | Author: admin

By Jamie Holmes Aug 21, 2017 5:43 AM EDT

The largest South Korean exchange Bithumb announced on August 21 the addition of the privacy-focused altcoin, monero (XMR). The exchange, which commands more than $900 million in volume daily, plans to open up monero deposits on August 23.

Koreans have been pushing a lot of volume into cryptocurrency markets recently. The pump of Bitcoin Cash over the weekend of August 19 was driven mainly by exchanges in South Korea. Ether is also a popular altcoin to trade, with a substantial portion of the volume coming from Bithumb and Coinone, accounting for more than 25 percent of the total volume.

Now monero, a relatively low volume cryptocurrency, will enjoy greater interest and points to a higher price for XMR-USD over the medium term. Currently, more than 30 percent of the volume originates from Poloniex.

Bithumb is encouraging monero trading by running a promotion; between August 23 and August 25, those who deposit XMR at their Bithumb account will receive an extra one percent on top. Furthermore, the exchange is also running a trading competition, whereby the top 50 biggest traders in terms of trading amounts will be given a prize of up to 100 XMR (worth over $7,800 at the time of writing).

The anticipation of monero being opened up to such a market that is enthusiastic about crypto has propelled the altcoin to fresh all-time highs. The market capitalization of Monero broke above the $1 billion mark for the first time on August 21, as XMR-USD breached the $60 and $70 handles with ease, currently trading at $78.73 on the Kraken exchange.

The weekly price action for XMR-USD is shown below. As noted in our Weekly Cryptocurrency Market Outlook August 15, we stated that a move above the high at $53.43 would lead to further gains. The market invalidated the fractal resistance at $53.43 (the fractal was forming, but invalidated last week when monero moved above $53.43) and the weekly candlestick closed at $55.29.

On August 21, the price of monero jumped from the open at $55.41 to fresh highs above $80 as Bithumbs announcement permeated the cybersphere. Notice that this week, we see the conversion line (blue) has moved higher, suggesting the market will also continue in the upward direction and offers support at $51.33. Also, we should see a weekly close above the previous all-time high and fractal resistance at $61.70 by August 28, which will give even stronger bullish confirmation.

XMR-BTC is also looking strong, with a break above the fractal resistance at 0.0198 occurring on August 21. We should see XMR-BTC target the fractal at 0.02526, the high from May 2017. Also, notice that a fractal support looks to form by August 28 at 0.01056, which provides a further bullish indication.

While XMR has a low profile on international exchanges, it is one of the most promising cryptocurrency projects. The addition of the altcoin to South Korean exchange Bithumb means it will join other heavyweights such as Dash and Litecoin. It is also a good sign for improving the liquidity of monero markets as well as the further adoption of the altcoin in the future. If the addition is popular amongst South Korean traders and investors, we could see the price of monero propelled even higher by the end of August.

The post Bithumb, Highest Volume Exchange Globally, Adds Monero appeared first on BTCMANAGER.

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Mark Cuban backs new $20 million cryptocurrency venture fund – CNBC

August 22, 2017 | Author: admin

Onetime bitcoin skeptic Mark Cuban is warming to the digital currency world.

The billionaire is backing a new venture capital fund for cryptocurrency-related investments called 1confirmation. Founded by Nick Tomaino, former business development manager at Coinbase, the fund plans to raise $20 million, according to a Monday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

"It's an interesting space that I [want] to get involved with and learn more" about, Cuban said in an email to CNBC Tuesday. He did not specify the size of his investment.

Cuban's opinion on digital currencies has changed fairly recently. In an Aug. 14 tweet, the Dallas Mavericks owner admitted he "might have to finally buy some" bitcoin, contrasting with a June tweet that said he thought bitcoin was in a "bubble."

"Bias should be up because of finite supply. Until crypto or US politics intrude, and they will," he added in another tweet on Aug. 14.

In late June, Cuban said he planned to participate in an initial coin offering by Unikrn, an online esports betting site in which he holds a stake.

Earlier that month, Cuban tweeted that he didn't know when or by how much the price of bitcoin, which has soared in value this year, would correct. He did acknowledge then that the blockchain technology backing bitcoin had value and that it "will be at the core of most transactions in the future. Healthcare, finance etc all will use it."

IBM announced Tuesday that it will work with major food companies such as Wal-Mart, Unilever, Tyson Foods, Dole and Kroger to "identify new areas where the global supply chain can benefit from blockchain."

However, bitcoin's surge and a rush of funds into initial coin offerings have attracted more investment attention.

Bitcoin has quadrupled in value this year and hit a record last Thursday of $4,522.13 with a market capitalization of about $74 billion, according to CoinDesk. Initial coin offerings, which are fundraising events used by cryptocurrency-related start-ups, have raised $1.37 billion so far this year, CoinDesk data showed.

Source: CoinDesk

The launch of the 1confirmation fund comes amid increased fundraising for cryptocurrency-related businesses.

On Aug. 10, digital currency storage and exchange company Coinbase announced it raised $100 million in private equity funding led by Dropbox investor IVP. That marks the largest single traditional funding round for a public blockchain or cryptocurrency start-up, according to CoinDesk.

Other participants in 1confirmation include Brendan Eich, creator of the JavaScript computer programming language; Balaji Srinivasan, board partner at technology venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, and David Vorick, who is building a blockchain-based cloud storage system called Sia. The fund's founder, Tomaino, is also a principal at venture fund Runa Capital.

Disclosure: CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cable rights to "Shark Tank," which features Mark Cuban as a panelist.

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Mark Cuban backs new $20 million cryptocurrency venture fund - CNBC

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Ransomware Victims Pay Much More Than Just the Ransom – eWeek

August 22, 2017 | Author: admin

Todays topics include an analysis on the true cost of ransomware; Facebook awarding $100,000 for spear phishing security research; Google partnering with UC Berkeley to create an eclipse movie; and Microsoft giving Skype for desktops a mobile look makeover.

Ransomware has been a growing internet security attack tactic over the course of the past yearand the costs to businesses are far more than the ransom they pay to their attackers.

In a ransomware attack, an attacker installs malware that encrypts data on a victim's system and then demands a ransom in order to decrypt the data. In June, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center released its 2016 Internet Crime Report, providing statistics on $1.33 billion in victim losses from a total of 298,728 complaints about various internet-related crimes that were reported during the year. Looking specifically at ransomware, the FBI received 2,673 complaints, with a total of $2.4 million in losses.

The true cost of ransomware is much more than just the ransom payments made by victims, however, as businesses must also take into account the disruption to their operations, which is a non-trivial financial concern.

Facebook awarded the fourth Internet Defense Prize at the USENIX Security Conference in Vancouver on Aug. 17, giving the winning research team a $100,000 award.

The Internet Defense Prize was started in 2014 as an effort to encourage security researchers to investigate and develop new methods for improving internet security.

A team of security researchers from the University of California, Berkeley won the 2017 prize for a new approach to detecting credential spear phishing attacks. Spear phishing attacks, also sometimes referred to as "whaling," involve a targeted fraudulent email that is sent to a specific individual with the goal of tricking the user into clicking on a link or opening an attachment.

Members of Google's Making and Science initiative nd the Multiverse team at the University of California, Berkeley's Space Science Laboratory have teamed up on a project to produce a high-definition, time expanded video of the Aug. 21 total solar eclipse using images from more than 1,000 amateur photographers and astronomers.

The group of volunteer photographers were stationed along the entire path of totality of the eclipse stretching from Corvallis, Ore., to Charleston, S.C.

The teams from Google and Berkeley will stitch together the crowd-sourced photos to create a continuous view of the solar eclipse as it traversed the United States. The dataset from the so-called Eclipse Megamovie Project will be made available to the general public and to the scientific community for further research. The goal of the Megamovie initiative is to study how the sun's corona changes over time.

Microsoft has released a preview version of its Skype software for desktop PCs that owes much of its look and feel to the iOS and Android versions of the app.

"For Mac, Windows 10 November Update and lower, Windows 8, and Windows 7 users, Skype Preview delivers most of the great features of our next generation mobile experience, but is specifically designed with desktop in mind to take full advantage of the larger screen," blogged Microsoft representatives on Aug. 17.

In fact, the new Skype for desktop computers borrows a lot from its mobile incarnations. It inherits many of the streamlined, chat-centric interface elements that previously set apart the Skype mobile apps from their desktop counterparts.

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Ransomware Victims Pay Much More Than Just the Ransom - eWeek

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