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Buoyant bitcoin stirs crypto-bubble fears – CNBC

It is mainly the new "token" cryptocurrencies that are issued in ICOs with no regulatory oversight, which have exploded since the start of the year, that are causing the most anxiety.

One, the "Useless Ethereum Token", which appears to have been set up as a way of showing how worthless many of the ICOs really are, is nonetheless changing hands for 3 cents a unit. "No value, no security, and no product. Just me, spending your money," its website states.

"It's just so easy to raise money on an ICO right now, it just feels like there's a gold rush going on there," said Moffat. "Some of the new currencies - beyond bitcoin and Ethereum - could crash to zero."

By mid-July, about $1.1 billion had been raised in ICOs this year, roughly 10 times more than that in the whole of 2016, according to cryptocurrency research firm Smith + Crown.

The rapid ascent of ICOs prompted the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to warn last month that some ICOs should be regulated like other securities.

This is new digital territory and how the rapidly proliferating cryptocurrency market will play out is anyone's guess.

While critics say the highly correlated nature of the currencies means the weakness of newer entrants could bring the whole house down; others argue market forces will ensure the best players prevail.

"Will some of these (currencies) go away? Of course," said Vias of Ripple.

"We're going to see Darwinism in real-time here. Only the strong will survive."

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Bitcoin is almost triple the price of gold here’s what traders think you should buy – CNBC

Two traders are unfazed by bitcoin's meteoric surge and say that between the cryptocurrency and gold, you're better off trading the yellow metal.

Bitcoin has jumped 240 percent this year to a high of $3,288 on Wednesday, while gold was trading at $1,280. But despite the bitcoin gains, Brian Stutland of Equity Armor Investments and Path Trading Partners' Bob Iaccino believe gold is still a better bet than bitcoin from technical and fundamental perspectives.

"When you look at gold over the past couple of months, [it has] tracked very well [relative] to the cryptocurrency," Stutland said Tuesday on CNBC's "Futures Now." "If you price adjust and volatility adjust, I think gold still has a little bit of catching up to do."

As for Iaccino, he believes that while bitcoin's popularity is indisputable, a takeover by another digital currency could be possible, leading him to believe that bitcoin is more unstable than many may think.

"Bitcoin, right now, is the most popular [cryptocurrency] and it is the most valuable one," he said. "But I don't see it as a store of value, because any [other cryptocurrency platform] could come out with a slightly better technology and completely replace bitcoin."

In order to catch up to all the action bitcoin is seeing, Stutland wants to buy gold at the $1,265 level, targeting a move up to $1,285 by December expiration with a stop at $1,250, a key support level that gold has held, according to the trader.

"The volatility is tremendous, so you're going to see wild swings in here and that is something to be aware of," he said.

Gold actually rose more than 1 percent on Wednesday off threats delivered by President Donald Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong Un to one another, the yellow metal being one of the biggest safety trades in times of possible turmoil. Bitcoin, on the other hand, dropped more than 3 percent Wednesday, reversing some of the cryptocurrency's gains from the week

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As bitcoin comes off its record high, the next step is to avoid a ‘lightning fork’ – CNBC

Currently, bitcoin transactions are validated through a process called mining, where powerful computers solve a complex math problem before the transaction is recorded on the blockchain. A whole confirmed transaction can take up to an hour.

The Lightning Network promises to reduce this process to seconds. It requires participants to agree to a transaction on a separate channel and then the blockchain will update their accounts accordingly. This can be done without the need for miners or third parties such as digital wallet providers.

The developers of Lightning say this means transactions can be instant, will allow for micropayments of bitcoin and enable a larger volume of transactions. It may even help bitcoin be used more on the high street.

"Lightning can be used at retail point-of-sale terminals, with user device-to-device transactions, or anywhere instant payments are needed," the developers said in a summary document.

Lightning will make bitcoin a long-term competitive payment platform and could revolutionize peer-to-peer payments, according to Gatecoin's Menant.

"Particularly with regards to micropayment transactions that may be useful for emerging markets with low-value local currencies," he said.

"It can also be implemented to facilitate machine to machine payments, using its smart contract framework, so that firms running various automated processes can benefit from direct payment relationships between its software and that of its clients or suppliers."

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Bitcoin retreats from all-time high even as Fidelity debuts digital-currency tracking – MarketWatch

Bitcoin saw a modest pullback from its recent record run on Wednesday, but the cryptocurrency enjoyed some upbeat news on the session, with Fidelity Investments announcing that it would start tracking the digital unit for its clients.

A single bitcoin was valued at $3,393.76, off by about 2.5%, based on levels from late Tuesday in New York, according to digital-currency research site Coindesk.com. The total market value for the most popular digital currency was at $55.4 billion, according to CoinMarketcap.com.

Boston-based money-management giant Fidelity Investments said it would, starting Wednesday, enable clients to monitor their digital-currency holdings via their accounts, in partnership with digital-wallet provider Coinbase.

This is an experiment in the spirit of learning what these crypto assets are like and how our customers may want to interact with them, Hadley Stern, senior vice president and managing director at Fidelity Labs, the companys innovation unit, told Reuters.

Fidelity CEO Abigail Johnson has been one of the biggest champions of bitcoin and its underlying blockchain among traditional financial-services companies. Digital-currency blockchains refer to the peer-to-peer digital network designed to transfer and track ownership of he currency.

Recognition by mature, Wall Street enterprises has appeared to both help support demand and reaffirm to some the growing legitimacy of virtual monetary units, even if they are not totally understood or used by average investors.

Bitcoin and its virtual ilk have drawn increased attention from businesses and regulators in recent months, which may also account for its record rally in 2017. Bitcoins value has surged by 250% since the start of the year, compared with a 10.5% year-to-date rise for the S&P 500 index SPX, -0.04% and a nearly 12% gain for the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.17%

Rising geopolitical tensions, headlined by North Korea threatening to launch a ballistic-missile attack against U.S. territory Guam, didnt appear to influence digital currency moves Wednesday.

Read: Guams governor: There is no threat but American island will be defended

Elsewhere in digital currencies, the ethereum networks ether token bought $299.77, up 6.7% from its levels late Tuesday in New York. Ethers total value was at about $28.2 billion.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin Cash was down about 7% at $308.79, compared with its late-Tuesday value. The new digital currency, which emerged out of the original bitcoin Aug. 1, is the result of a small faction of bitcoin developers demand for a version of the currency that allowed for so-called miners, who support the unit, to process transactions in larger increments. The currency is presently the fourth-largest cryptocurrency, with a value at $5 billion.

Also read: Meet Bitcoin Cash the new digital-currency that surged 122% in less than a day

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Bring on the Forks: Bitcoin Traders See Improving Price Outlook for 2017 – CoinDesk

There aretwo bitcoins now?

It's safe to sayuncertainty cast a pall over the cryptocurrency markets last week when on August 1, a group of developers and miners split the blockchain and created a new cryptocurrency.

It was the first (high-profile) bitcoin fork to date, and in response, the price very well could have entered a period of unprecedented churn. With bitcoin and bitcoin cash competing, it wasn't hard to foresee this creating market dislocations and downward pressure on price.

What happened, however, was the opposite, as in the last few days markets have surged past all-time highs. In fact, analysts have indicated a major upswell in confidence and a broad consensus that the upward march of bitcoin's price could continue.

Brad Chun, CEO of blockchain startup Mooti Digital Identity, went so far as to argue that institutional money is likelyto pour into bitcoin as a result.

Chun told CoinDesk:

"For early tech adopters who can't fathom a market cap of over $50 billion or $100 billion for bitcoin, they haven't seen anything yet. While we might see profit taking short-term, I view any dips as buying opportunities."

Chun, who plans to hold bitcoin through the remainder of 2017, has a $5,000 end-of-year price target on bitcoin, a price figure that includes bitcoin cash and any other potential "fork currencies" created as a result of disagreements over the network's future.

Kevin Zhou, of the cryptocurrency fund Galois Capital, is also bullish on the price of bitcoin, particularly after Segregated Witness locked in on the main bitcoin blockchain yesterday and the split went by without incident.

Zhou said bitcoin could see price gains of 200 to 300 percent year-over-year, for the next two years. And added that $3,000 to $4,500 "seems reasonable" as a price target for the year, though he hedges a bit on that range.

Harry Yeh, managing partner at Binary Financial, is more categorical now that the hard fork has passed.

"Expect a big move past $3,500 possibly this week," he told CoinDesk. Yeh believes $4,000 "is on the horizon" for bitcoin by the end of the year.

But perhaps the most prevailing view in the wake of the bitcoin cash fork is that a major headwind has just come off the table.

The argument goes like this: bitcoin survived a fork without a major technical or price catastrophe. As a consequence, the market has stabilized, clearing the way for higher prices in the future.

Yehexplained:

"Traders trade based on technical and fundamental analysis. With the hard fork issue gone and the technicals being very bullish again, long term there is definitely a lot more confidence amongst traders."

Once again, confidence has risen because the downside risks weren't realized.

Tellingly, and in keeping with this thesis, Yeh points out that this is only the case until "the next" fork arises to darken markets.

Here, Zhou's comments reflect how forks can be both positive and negative factors in the market. While forks can create uncertainty and risk, he noted forks also have an upside the ability to spawn new assets.

"I also think after the success of bitcoin cash forking off bitcion, we might see a lot of other forks happening. 2014 was altcoin mania; 2015-2016 was blockchain mania; 2017 is ICO mania; maybe 2018 will be fork mania," he said.

Elsewhere, Petar Zivkovski, director of operations at Whaleclub, struck a more nuanced note on price direction and short-term price targets.

"2017 has been a stellar year for bitcoin. Barring a black swan event (this is a big assumption in the industry), I think the bull run will continue through the end of the year since it's the predominant trend," he remarked.

While Zivkovski has admitted that the price could see a short-term pullback, he said he is watching out for whether the $3,000 price will hold. If it does, he said $4,000 might not be far off.

Interestingly, Zivkovski struck a novel note that none of the other analysts picked up on: The possibility that soaring bitcoin prices could cause a negative feedback loop for the price of bitcoin.

In a nutshell, his thesis is that the "incredible price rise" in bitcoin is attracting the attention of both governments and regulators on a global basis. As a consequence, "a wider crackdown on bitcoin exchanges," he said, could mitigate price gains.

In other words, bitcoin could become a victim of its own success.

Fork art image via Shutterstock

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is an independent media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. Interested in offering your expertise or insights to our reporting? Contact us at [emailprotected].

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Hardware Can Still Make or Break the Cloud – IT Business Edge (blog)

With so much attention paid to building the right virtual and software-defined architectures in the cloud, it is easy to forget that the cloud also needs the right hardware that in most cases is distinctly different from traditional data center infrastructure.

Regardless of whether the enterprise plans to link private clouds to public resources or throw their chips into an all-cloud solution, knowledge of how cloud infrastructure is evolving and why this is important to the data it holds is crucial.

According to CIO Review, cloud architectures are built with scale in mind, and this will almost invariably mean scale-out rather than scale-up. A baseline cloud server usually comprises two 1U servers per rack, such as a dual-processor machine and a twin. Since this often limits cooling capabilities, these servers will most often utilize four to eight low-power cores. Each server will also have appropriate memory to support its core count and the number of virtual machines it can support. A six-core CPU, for example, should provide seamless support for 96 GB of DRAM to service the 96 VMs it can house. But if you plan on implementing containers, you can probably get away with less memory even if the VM count is higher.

Many hardware manufacturers are starting to get the point about building higher-level architectures on bare metal, which is why were seeing increased integration between servers and leading open platforms like OpenStack. Supermicro recently teamed up with SUSE to implement Linux-based cloud workloads on the 1U Superserver. The combo provides a market-ready OpenStack solution that also incorporates hot-swappable NVMe drives to create high-density, high-performance environments. And Server Watchs Sean Michael Kerner points out that this partnership may provide for easier integration into legacy HPE environments given that SUSE was the one that snared the companys OpenStack and CloudFoundry software portfolio last November.

Top cloud providers are also making it easier to incorporate their services into on-premises hybrid clouds using hardware appliances rather than all-software constructs. Microsoft recently unveiled the Azure Stack appliance that acts as an extension of the Azure cloud into the enterprise data center. The company recently started validation tests with Dell EMC, HPE and Lenovo, which means the initial devices should hit the channel next month. ZDnets Mary Jo Foley reports that Azure Stack services will be available on a consumption basis, and users will still be able to use their on-premises Windows Server and SQL Server licenses, which in some cases might cost less than the standard Azure licenses.

Meanwhile, Google is using hardware to make it easier to migrate workloads to its public cloud. The company recently unveiled the Transfer Appliance, which can be loaded up with enterprise data and literally shipped to Google via Fedex. Although it may be low-tech, says Venture Beats Blair Hanley Frank, it can actually deliver workloads quicker, depending on their size. The appliances come in 100 TB and 480 TB versions, which allow organizations to move upwards of 1 PB on a single unit using current compression methods. Amazon has an existing device called SnowBall that ranges from 50 TB to 100 TB in size.

Hardware has always mattered in the cloud, although it is becoming less and less of a daily concern for the enterprise as increasing levels of abstraction separate applications and services from raw infrastructure.

But as mentioned above, whether the goal is to improve the performance of a single cloud or distribute data among multiple clouds, hardware has a way of making these operations very easy or very difficult.

Arthur Colewrites about infrastructure for IT Business Edge. Cole has been covering the high-tech media and computing industries for more than 20 years, having served as editor ofTV Technology, Video Technology News, Internet News and Multimedia Weekly. His contributions have appeared in Communications Today and Enterprise Networking Planet andas web content for numerous high-tech clients like TwinStrata and Carpathia. Follow Art on Twitter @acole602.

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GoDaddy tops Q2 targets, revenue up 22 percent – ZDNet

Small business domain host GoDaddy reported second quarter earnings and revenue Tuesday after the bell.

The Scottsdale, Ariz.-based company reported a net income of $20.8 million, or 10 cents per share, compared to a year-ago loss of $71.3 million. Revenue came in at $557.8 million, up 22 percent year over year. Wall Street was looking for earnings of a penny per share with $551.3 million in revenue.

Overall, the report shows that the company is expanding its customer base and earning more money per user. GoDaddy's average revenue per user was $129, up 2.8 percent. In terms of bookings, GoDaddy saw growth of 22 percent year-over-year to $667.5 million during the three-month period ending June 30.

Elsewhere, domains revenue came in at $263.3 million, up 14.6 percent year over year. Hosting and presence revenue was $214.9 million, up 28.3 percent year over year. GoDaddy said its customer count at the end of the quarter was nearly 17 million, including more than 1.6 million gained from its billion-dollar acquisition of Host Europe Group.

"We are making great progress on our 2017 product and strategic initiatives including growing the adoption of our new mobile-optimized website builder GoCentral, new security offerings and integration of HEG," said GoDaddy CEO Blake Irving. "We remain focused on leveraging our brand and scale to extend our global competitive advantages."

As for the current quarter, GoDaddy expects total revenue in the range of $577 to $582 million. For the full year, GoDaddy raised its revenue guidance to a range of $2.215 to $2.225 billion, representing approximately 20 percent growth.

GoDaddy revealed last month that it will be shuttering its Cloud Servers and Applications business by the end of the year. Launched in March 2016, the cloud portfolio was billed as a suite of Amazon-style cloud computing services to help small businesses build, test and scale cloud solutions on GoDaddy's infrastructure. GoDaddy sold the business for $456 million.

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Cloud job roles soar but salaries not accelerating with it – Cloud Tech

If youre looking for your next break in the cloud computing industry, be warned: salaries are slowing down while job postings soar.

That is the verdict of Experis, a professional IT resourcing provider, whose latest Tech Cities Job Watch looked at the challenges and opportunities in the UK technology job market.

According to the research, which utilised Innovantages recruitment software to analyse more than half a million employer websites, the number of cloud roles almost doubled (97.73% increase) between Q216 and Q217, but salaries for permanent roles only went up 2.7% on average. For contractors, day rates have stubbornly remained at 481 year on year.

So why the disparity? According to Experis, the maturation of the industry is partly responsible.

The data infers that, as more and more companies have made the transition to the cloud, fewer roles for building platforms from scratch are becoming available. Demand for cloud skills is increasingly being driven by organisations looking for more IT professionals to maintain, optimise and enhance their existing cloud platforms, said Geoff Smith, managing director of Experis Europe.

As these skills are often less specialist, businesses appear to be finding it comparatively easier to fill vacant cloud positions causing pay growth in this discipline to slow, added Smith.

As a result, it is up to professionals to skill up in more nascent areas, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning, and mobile applications, if they are to stand out. The diverse cloud requirements that we see as a result of emerging technologies like IoT, big data and mobile are driving the increase in demand, but not all businesses are seeking dedicated or specialist cloud architects, added Martin Ewings, director of specialist markets at Experis UK & Ireland.

Where cloud has been embraced, businesses will be seeking IT professionals to maintain rather than build these platforms.

According to the figures, there were 9,783 permanent cloud-based roles advertised across the UK in the second quarter of this year, representing almost a quarter (24.4%) of all tech jobs including big data, IT security, mobile, and web development, alongside 6,942 contract roles.

Experis added that there are five primary activities which do require specialised cloud knowledge; application development, application deployment, application security, database specialists, and migration specialists. Specific cloud skills in demand this quarter include OpenStack and Rackspace.

You can find out more and read the full report here (registration required).

Read more: The top five in-demand cloud skills for 2017

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Microsoft Reorg Reflects Accelerated Cloud Push – Redmondmag.com

Redmond View

The company must now aim for strong cloud gains that doesn't come at the cost of its legacy business.

Microsoft's customary annual reorg last month went beyond the usual reshuffling of business groups and executive promotions or reassignments. The company let go thousands of employees largely in sales and marketing roles, ranking among Microsoft's largest downsizings to date. But these headline-grabbing layoffs weren't just intended to reduce costs. Effectively, Microsoft has signaled that it's changing the way it does business.

The moves at Microsoft not only portend a new era underway with regard to how customers and partners will interact with the company, but they also mirror many of the changes the company sees taking place within many IT organizations -- or at least would like to see. Microsoft's rationale is that it needs to accelerate and execute upon its new focus on cloud computing services, analytics and digitization.

Consequently, Microsoft has determined it needs fewer salespeople with expertise in traditional software and datacenter technology and more with technical proficiency in its new cloud computing offerings, machine learning, automation and the shift toward software-defined infrastructure.

Microsoft, like IBM, Oracle and other incumbent players, is confronting the challenges presented by more nimble cloud-first companies, such as Amazon Web Services, Google and Salesforce, which don't have the legacy business models to protect.Microsoft has clearly stated that hybrid is here to stay. As Microsoft makes competing more aggressively with its cloud-only rivals a prime priority, the company must be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater in its attempt to accelerate those ambitions.

About the Author

Jeffrey Schwartz is editor of Redmond magazine and also covers cloud computing for Virtualization Review's Cloud Report. In addition, he writes the Channeling the Cloud column for Redmond Channel Partner. Follow him on Twitter @JeffreySchwartz.

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Home Office seeks partner for AWS switch after current hosting … – www.channelweb.co.uk

The Home Office is seeking a partner to move one of its systems toAmazon Web Services (AWS), claiming its current cloud hosting provider has "reached its potential".

In anadvert posted on the Government's Digital Marketplace, the Home Office said it is seeking three suppliers to bid for a six-month contract to move its Digital Capabilities to the public cloud.

The tender states: "The HO (Home Office) Digital Capabilities programme deals with a significant amount of data and our current hosting provider has reached its potential.

"Home Office has determined that the in-house Amazon Web Service platform is the most appropriate location to run these services.

"Problems to be solved are the migration of all the digital services to the new platform within the time frame and with minimal disruption to the live service."

The Home Office is specifically looking for a supplier to provide solutions architects and developers to build the new AWS environment and provide a seamless switch to the new platform.

The closing date for applications is 17 August, with the start date pencilled in for no later than 9 October. The contract can be extended for a further three months if required.

Chris Bunch, head of Europe at AWS partner Cloudreach, claimed that all of the major central government departments are exploring public cloud in one way or another, now that the big providers' UK datacentres are up and running.

"The Home Office ultimately will be big, big spenders on AWS and Azure at least and maybe Google in the future after it announced its UK datacentres as well," he said. "Some of the more headline organisations are using it now.

"If you look at this advert it's for one particular platform. This is the snowball gathering with more and more of these workloads moving to the public cloud and this one isn't just moving, it's a complete re-architecture. What would be interesting to see is a central government department really going all in."

Bunch added that government organisations are increasingly looking to keep the management of these systems in-house, rather than pay out for an expensive IT outsourcing firm.

"It's symptomatic of a trend that they want to build and develop skills in their organisation rather than just outsource it to companies, and it's a trend we very much believe in," he said.

"We call our professional services team the Cloud Enablement Team because we very much want people to learn rather than just outsource a problem. That doesn't really help anyone apart from the old traditional outsourcing companies and their margins.

"We've certainly spoken to some of the central government organisations about how we might help them skill their own managed services team. It's the case with some of our customer that they want Cloudreach to manage it, but in some cases they want to do it themselves because maybe they already have some operational people and they want to give them the opportunity to learn."

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