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Cryptocurrency ICO Education The Basics The Merkle – The Merkle

Over the past few months, there has been an increased focus on cryptocurrency ICOs. These initial coin offerings are a great way for investors to buy into a project at an affordable price. At the same time, the project developers try to raise as much money as possible to finish their creation as soon as possible. It is a well-balanced ecosystem, but a lot of people are still confused about certain ICO aspects. In this series, we will try to address some concerns people still have.

As most people should be familiar with by now, buying into a cryptocurrency ICO is the same as backing a project on Kickstarter or IndieGala. Investors receive a reward for pledging money to the cause, even though not all of these projects may succeed in the end. Unlike traditional crowdfunding campaigns, cryptocurrency ICOs do not accept credit cards or other traditional payment methods. Most projects only accept investments in either Ether or Bitcoin, albeit some projects accept additional currencies and tokens as well.

There is another similarity to cryptocurrency ICOs and crowdfunding projects. It is always of the utmost importance to invest as early as possible. In the case of a cryptocurrency ICO, early investors often received a specific percentage of tokens on top of the regular amount. These bonuses can either be time-based or based on the amount of tokens sold already. As we have seen with a lot of recent ICOs, time to buy in is incredibly limited, though.

Even though these similarities between cryptocurrency ICOs and crowdfunding projects should not be overlooked, that is far as both concepts can be compared. With a crowdfunding project, backers can often get a refund of their money if the project fails to deliver. That is not necessarily the case with a cryptocurrency ICO, although most projects lock funds in a smart contract. By using this technology, it is a lot easier to refund investors if needed, albeit that happens very rarely these days.

Moreover, it is always a good idea to check how many tokens will be generated during a particular cryptocurrency ICO. A lot of projects issue a billion tokens or more, which theoretically makes it impossible for them to gain any major value. That is a common misconception, though, as cryptocurrency ICOs often increase their value a tenfold or more in the first few months. Most of these tokens are quickly listed on exchanges, which means there will be plenty of liquidity as well.

Speaking of the number of tokens being issued, there are two creation models projects can make use of. First of all, there is the static supply option with a predetermined value. This means a fixed number of tokens will be issued which will always be sold at the exact same price. This levels the playing field for both early and late investors alike. It is possible this method will be considered less attractive by speculators, since there is no option to buy cheaper coins. Then again, these tokens often see their value appreciate over time just as well as other projects.

The second option revolves around a static supply with a dynamic funding goal. The distribution of cryptocurrency ICO tokens is made based on how much money has been raised to date. More funds raised will result in a higher price per token. This also means early investors will see the value of their token increase during the remainder of the ICO. These are often the most popular types of ICOs, although they often reach their funding goal in minutes or hours.

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Does the Ethereum Rally Validate Cryptocurrency Potential? – DailyForex.com

By: DailyForex.com

Bitcoin, perhaps the most famous cryptocurrency to date, has enjoyed more than a doubling in price this year, even after last weeks reversal that wiped off nearly $4billion of the currencys value. Ethereum, an open-source blockchain that can be used by anyone as a decentralized ledger, has its own cryptocurrency called ether, has also grown wildly in popularity, with some analysts expecting that ether and the Ethereum network will surpass bitcoin in value and functionality. Ethereum has recently garnered global interest due to a steep price increase, when it hit $227 last week, a 2,747.9 percent increase since January 1, 2017, before starting a noticeable correction. It started the year trading at only $8.

Ethereum technology was designed to support smart contract applications and to automate complicated physical and financial supply chain procedures that involve multiple parties. Among the newest companies testing its applications are aircraft manufacturer Airbus and John Hancock Financial. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of New York Mellon and Microsoft were among the firms early backers.

According to research firm Market Reports Hub, the global blockchain technology market will expand 11-fold by 2021, from $210.2 million in 2016 to $2.3 billion in 2021. However, the challenges to the industry have kept some analysts bullish on cryptocurrencies.

There are several disputes plaguing the digital currency market today. First is the issue of the degree to which public or closed access should be allowed on different blockchains. Most corporations and banks which are concerned about security and compliance favor permissioned blockchains which require granted access for entry. Technology experts tend to favor permissionless models which are considered to be less secure, but to allow the full network of benefits to become available. Those in favor of the permissionless model argue that the success of the worldwide web is so pervasive because of its open model, and that such fluidity is a requirement for blockchain technology to prosper.

The second stumbling block facing all digital currencies, including Ethereum and bitcoin, is the psychological one; the fact that skeptics are concerned that digital currencies will act like the dot-com bubble, and that overinflated prices will be reduced to pennies on the dollar. To overcome this obstacle, regulators will need to convince uses that blockchain networks are safe, and the networks themselves will need to provide reasons and proof that they are here to stay.

Finally, it must be noted that blockchain digital currencies are built upon networks that share market information, and large companies are fearful that this collaborative effort could compromise both security and growth. To this end, some large organizations such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are actively pursuing their own blockchain projects, which could compromise the growth and future success of existing market leaders.

On the other hand, the expansion of the cryptocurrency industry, whatever the reason is, may be advantageous for current industry leaders who can position themselves as solid, reliable opportunities for investors and users. Japans government recently recognized digital currency as a legal form of payment, paving the way for additional countries (and private industries to do the same).

Research about digital currencies has exploded recently, with traders worldwide becoming interested in the opportunities and curious about how things work, and many willing to invest small and medium sized sums as a test. Theres no way to know how the industry will evolve, but if history and current global sentiment are any indication, the sky is the limit.

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Business Watch: Cryptocurrency rally, a shaky sugar deal and more – Reuters

The United States and Mexico reached a new agreement "in principle" to reduce the share of refined sugar Mexico exports to the U.S. while increasing the share of raw sugar. U.S. sugar producers didn't endorse the pact, saying it contains a "major loophole."

Wealth management firm Wahed is looking to claim a largely untapped slice of the financial world: Muslims seeking religiously permissible investments. The New York-based company raised $5 million in seed capital and will offer its automated investment services across the U.S. - with an eye beyond national borders.

Shares of Advanced Micro Devices surged nearly 9 percent, boosted by strong demand for its chips from cryptocurrency miners. A rally in cryptocurrency - Bitcoin, followed by Ethereum and others, increased demand for chips used by people to "mine" it.

What does mining for cryptocurrency mean? It involves using networks of computers to validate transactions and prevent counterfeit by solving complex mathematical problems, writes Reuters correspondent Noel Randewich. New currency is generated as a reward to the computer operators.

The U.S. government may have overpaid drugmaker Mylan N.V. by as much as $1.27 billion between 2006 and 2016 for its EpiPen emergency allergy treatment. Commenting on an analysis of the payments carried out by Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley said: "Taxpayers have a right to know what happened here and to be repaid whatever they are owed." Read more http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mylan-epipen-idUSKBN18R2ZN

In an abrupt move, Ford announced big changes at its helm. The carmaker giant replaced CEO Mark Fields with James Hackett, an executive known for successfully overhauling other businesses such as furniture maker Steelcase and the University of Michigan football program.

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Hitachi Content Platform 8 focuses on cutting storage cost – TechTarget

Hitachi Data Systems' latest object storage upgrade includes revamped licensing and denser nodes to try and convince customers that on-premises cloud storage can cost less than putting data into a public cloud.

Hitachi Content Platform (HCP) 8 launched today, supporting 10 TB helium hard disk drives (HDDs), geographically distributed erasure coding, and KVM hypervisors along with new licensing.

HDS claimed the new HCP version lowers storage costs by enabling 67% higher capacity per storage node and supporting 55% more objects than in the past. Customers can store 1.25 billion objects per node if they use 800 GB mirrored solid-state drives (SSDs) to manage the HCP object metadata database, according to Tim Desai, a senior product marketing manager at HDS.

HDS said the new licensing offers customers the option to pay the lower price between data ingested and actual capacity consumed. The price difference depends on the ratio of deduplication and compression of the ingested data set.

"HDS is looking to dispel the myth that public cloud storage is always cheaper than on-premises cloud storage," said Steven Hill, a senior storage analyst at 451 Research. "Unstructured data is becoming a huge problem for business, and object storage offers the metadata capabilities to help with that."

Object-based HCP is Hitachi's main platform for building private clouds.

"We are seeing HCP evolve to this cloud platform, which is why we're so focused in all the enhancements around optimizing costs for cloud infrastructure," said Tanya Loughlin, director of content cloud and mobility product marketing at HDS. "Erasure coding is your best bet for massive petabyte-scale cloud deployments."

A six-site geo-distributed erasure coded configuration, using the new 10 TB Seagate helium-based SAS HDDs with compressed and deduplicated data, could bring a 400% increase in storage per cluster, Desai said.

HCP object storage is sold through an appliance-based package, a software-only version for VMware's ESXI or KVM, or as a managed service through a cloud-based pay-as-you-go model.

The former licensing model offered three options: "active" for direct-attached array-based capacity; "economy" for the high-volume, low-cost tier with storage server nodes; and "extended" for capacity under management for data tiered off to the cloud or other storage nodes.

HDS is replacing the active array and economy storage server (S node) licenses and with basic and premium options, while keeping the extended license for moving content to the cloud.

Under the new pricing model, HDS will sell new licenses in units of 1 TB of usable storage. A basic license costs 20% less than the premium option and is designed for a single tenant and management plane and includes 10,000 namespaces, REST-only protocols, a metadata database, geo-distributed erasure coding, replication, compression and deduplication.

The HCP premium license supports 1,000 tenants and management planes and all basic features plus REST and non-REST protocols, metadata indexing and search capabilities, legal hold/shredding/retention and SAN storage (zero copy failover). An extended license inherits properties from the premium or basic options and protects metadata only.

Geo-distributed erasure coding facilitates data protection across regions with the potential to reduce build times and use less storage capacity than replication. HDS supports a 20+6 erasure code configuration, where each part of an object is encoded into 20 data fragments and six parity fragments distributed across six storage nodes or sites. The object can be recovered if six data fragments are lost or unavailable due to a large-scale outage or other catastrophic event.

"There are many object storage solutions that support geo-distributed erasure coding. It's becoming more and more of a table-stakes feature for customers," Desai said. "Even if they're not going to use it, they've heard about enough that they want to see in any solution that they're considering."

Hitachi Content Platform previously supported only RAID-based data protection and local erasure coding. Desai said customers used RAID when attaching a SAN to HCP, but they're increasingly using HCP with S nodes, which have built-in erasure coding for data protection. He said customers could move to geo-distributed erasure coding without downtime or a forklift upgrade.

"If you have more than two sites, you're going to begin to see cost savings with geo-distributed erasure coding. When you get up to six sites, it's substantially more," Desai said. He noted that HDS works large media and entertainment companies that get faster rebuild times with large files such as movies using erasure coding.

Support for the open-source KVM hypervisor gives HPC users a less expensive alternative and a dedicated management port to separate user and administrator network traffic for added security.

HDS also recently updated the Hitachi Data Ingestor (HDI) cloud/file gateway and HCP Anywhere file sync and share product that are also part of the HCP product portfolio, along with the Hitachi Content Intelligence search-and-analytics option launched in November. Desai said about half of the HCP customers own more than one portfolio product.

HDI improvements include new multipart file transfer capabilities to enable faster uploads of large files to Hitachi Content Platform. HCP Anywhere enhancements include a next-generation Windows client for cloud home directories and virtual desktop infrastructure and user interface improvements for mobile applications and Web portals.

Object storage can reduce storage complexity

Guidance on building a private storage cloud

Object storage protects against ransomware

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OpenText buys cloud computing firm for US$103 million – TheRecord.com


TheRecord.com
OpenText buys cloud computing firm for US$103 million
TheRecord.com
WATERLOO OpenText is buying a U.S. cloud computing company for US$103 million. The deal for Covisint Corp., announced Monday after the markets closed, is expected to be completed in the third quarter of this year pending approvals by regulators ...

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5 Steps Agencies Can Take to Prepare for Pitfalls in the Cloud (Industry Perspective) – Government Technology

The merits of cloud have long been a point of discussion. Is a public or private cloud more preferable? What should government consider versus the private sector when using a cloud-based content delivery network (CDN)?

The four-hour outage of a public cloud in March, which impacted hundreds of thousands of websites, re-ignited the debate. While this episode seemingly highlighted the pitfalls of the cloud, particularly the public cloud, agencies shouldnt panic there still isnt a one-size-fits-all approach to deployment. Instead, agencies should be educated on all facets of cloud, and understand the pros and cons of every option, as well as contingency plans.

Regulations, strict budgets and aging legacy technology are limiting the capabilities of government at every level, but migrating data to the cloud allows agencies to adapt and adjust. Many government organizations are finding that cloud-based applications and services are an effective way to meet both the current and long-term needs that a government Web portal requires. Cloud computing has the potential to play a major role in addressing the inefficiencies in some government IT environments while improving government service delivery. It can also help agencies coping with the need to quickly deliver highly reliable, innovative services despite strains on resources.

Agencies that have decided to make the move to cloud should evaluate their needs and budget when deciding to opt for the public or private cloud. Most cloud adopters are more likely to select the private cloud over public for apps that handle sensitive information or are highly specialized, which is the case for many government agencies. The stability and security of the private cloud are its biggest benefits. But the flexibility of the public cloud is also attractive services can be quickly turned up and turned back down depending on the storage needs of the organization. The flexibility of the public cloud also offers opportunity for cost savings.

One of the pitfalls of moving applications to the cloud is that theres a domino effect any time there is a problem. No agency is immune to the possibility of an outage. The most common causes of outages are typically software related, or in the recent case, human error. But there are a number of steps that agencies can take to be better prepared for potential issues.

Agencies should not let the outage earlier this year deter them from migrating to the cloud, either public or private, as cloud-based storage holds many advantages. Moving to cloud-based services means that agencies dont need to invest in or maintain the infrastructure, hardware or bandwidth required to deliver Web portal services, instead delivering specific IT capabilities as they are needed. Such an offering is particularly important when a government portal offers services that fluctuate in demand or consume a large amount of bandwidth, all while reducing cost, deployment time and complexity.

Tom Ruff is vice president of public sector for Akamai.

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DigitalOcean Launches Cloud Firewalls to Secure Cloud Platform – SDxCentral

Cloud provider DigitalOcean today unveiled a free firewall service to secure cloud servers, or as DigitalOcean calls them Droplets.

The feature allows developers to spin-up virtual servers within the platform. From there, developers are able to gain insight into the servers using a free monitoring service the company recently announced.

Todays announcement is DigitalOceans first major security offering and allows developers with a large number of Droplets to whitelist which ports are open and which IP ranges, tags, or load balancers can access them, said DigitalOcean co-founder Mitch Wainer.

When a user applies a cloud firewall to a Droplet, all ports are closed by default, except the ones that are explicitly open, Wainer wrote in an email to SDxCentral. If anyone tries to reach a port that isnt on the whitelist, or is from a source that isnt on it, they will be denied access, which reduces the area of attack.

The service also allows policies to be changed in a centralized location and can be applied to Droplets by tagging them through the whitelist approach. By securing Droplets, developers are able to protect the applications they deploy on the platform.

This will especially help engineering teams working with large-scale applications at enterprises, since they can protect all of their Droplets in just a few seconds, Wainer wrote.

Developers on DigitalOceans cloud platform previously had to set firewall restrictions for individual servers, which was time consuming and left open more room for error, Wainer wrote.

The company claims to have several customers using the cloud firewall service in beta. For example, StackPoint.io is a cloud company that makes it easier to manage Kubernetes clusters, and its customers are using the cloud firewall service to secure Kubernetes service ports.

Wyatt Carlson is an Associate Editor with SDxCentral. Wyatt recently graduated from University of Colorado, Boulder with a B.S. in Journalism, a secondary major in philosophy, and a certificate in the Technology Arts & Media program. Wyatt has a background in writing business-news and entertainment. With SDxCentral, he is focused on network performance monitoring, security, and wireless.

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Which Altcoins To Buy This Week (6th of June, 2017)? – Live Bitcoin News

Last week exhibited high levels of volatility across various altcoins markets. Ripples XRP price surged to 14,200 satoshis before dropping down to 10,000 satoshis earlier today. As we expected during our last weeks altcoin picks, MaidSafeCoins MAID price increased up to almost 20,000 satoshis on Poloniex earlier today. Ethereum ETH continued its bullish run recording a high of $261.8 as this article is being written. By far, DigiByte DGB was last weeks biggest gainer as it rose from around 700 satoshis to record a high of around 2,600 satoshis last Saturday.

So, what are the best altcoins to buy for profit this week?

Last week, XRP rose to around 14,200 satoshis before dropping down to 10,000 satoshis earlier today. By examining the 1 day XRPBTC chart from Poloniex and plotting a Fibonacci retracement extending between the low recorded on the 3rd of May, 2017 (3,570 satoshis) and the high recorded on the 17th of May, 2017 (24,364 satoshis), we can see that the upward trend that was in action last week was reversed by the 50% Fibonacci retracement level corresponding to 13,968 satoshis.

If XRP continue dropping, it will most probably receive support around the 76.4% Fibonacci retracement level around 8,478 satoshis.

I recommend buying XRP between 8,500 and 9,000 satoshis and setting a sell order for your bought coins near 14,000 satoshis.

DigiBytes price surged last week to score a historical high of 2,670 satoshis on Poloniex, before dropping down again to 1,880 satoshis at the time of writing of this update. Lets take a look at the DGBBTC 1 day chart from Poloniex, while plotting a Fibonacci retracement extending between the low recorded on the 2nd of May, 2017 (62 satoshis) and the high recorded on the 3rd of June, 2017 (2,670 satoshis). DGB will probably receive significant support around the 1,674 satoshi price level which corresponds to the 38.2% Fib retracement, so the downtrend will be mostly reversed when this level is approached.

I recommend buying DGB between 1,700 and 1,800 satoshis and setting a sell order for your bought coins at 2,055 or even up to 2,670 satoshis.

Golem was dropping throughout last weeks trading sessions recording a low of around 16,700 satoshis, after which it started rising slightly. It seems that the 16,700 satoshi level is supporting price quite well, so GNT will mostly continue rising again shortly.

I recommend buying GNT between 17,000 and 17,500 satoshis and then setting a sell order for your bought coins around 22,000 satoshis.

Charts from Poloniex, hosted on Tradingview.com

About Dr Tamer Sameeh

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US bitcoin conman hit with $12m fine – BBC News


BBC News
US bitcoin conman hit with $12m fine
BBC News
An American conman who ran a bogus bitcoin mining scheme has been ordered to pay a $12m (9.2m) fine. Homero Joshua Garza told investors he would use custom-built computers to mine the virtual currency on their behalf and share the proceeds.
Bitcoin Ponzi schemes slammed with $12 million penaltyZDNet
Person behind Bitcoin Mining Scam Faces $12 Million FinenewsBTC

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MapR diversifies to cloud storage market – ZDNet

In the Hadoop world, we've noted that MapR has always marched to a different drummer. Its core file system is the building block for its Converged Platform, where you can squash the Lambda architecture, running batch, interactive, and real-time on the same cluster. Putting IoT money where its mouth its, MapR also recently added edge processing to extend the footprint of its converged platform.

But MapR doesn't want you to think of it as solely a Hadoop platform. Big on Data bro Andrew Brust previously reported on MapR getting container religion, and then hawking its file system to SAP for providing low-cost cloud storage. Cue the drum roll: that sets the stage for today's announcement that MapR is rebranding its file system to MapR-XD.

MapR-XD extends on the core NFS/Posix-compliant interface of MapR-FS by adding a new object interface to Amazon S3 cloud storage. The target use case is classic data tiering, but extended to the cloud, In this case, colder data is moved to S3 but is managed as a logical single view from MapR-XD. Specifically, the file system metadata remains the same, as are security policies.

The new S3 support from MapR-XD is a response to more tightly interweaving S3 into the online system. Traditionally, S3 was the place where cloud data was stored, but when it was consumed by managed Hadoop services such as Amazon EMR, it was marshaled into its own file system. Amazon on its own has been exposing S3 data through ad hoc SQL query services like Athena, and more recently to Redshift through Spectrum.

The new XD release extends tiering from cool to hot data with new support for Flash storage. We expect that this will be part of a trend that will eventually add support of NVRAM, an emerging form of storage promising nearly the speed of memory with the density (and scale) of Flash.

Covering data platforms, one has to have enough knowledge about storage to be dangerous. As MapR added the option for selling its storage system a la carte, our initial thought was, why enter a mature space already dominated by household names? While MapR's file system share the same Posix-compliance as EMC, NetApp and other enterprise storage stalwarts, it is positioning its offering as a lower priced alternative taking advantage of modern, commodity scale-out hardware. Well, that makes it look a bit like EMC Isilon.

But then again, MapR is positioning this for cloud storage - it's not trying to replace on premise enterprise storage,. But then again, for truly scalable storage, object stores such as S3, Azure BLOB storage, Google Cloud Storage are the default. Incumbents like Dell EMC are also trying to home in on the action.

So MapR is trying to thread a needle. The not-yet public company has had success with its current model, recording 81% YoY revenue growth for the quarter that just concluded at the end of April. That growth has happened in a much smaller fishbowl. When it comes to cloud storage, it's going up against Goliaths whose economies of scale it will never match. MapR is aiming to deliver a scalable storage system that is cost-effective enough to justify its slight price premium compared to cloud object storage. It is doing so as the Amazons and Googles of the world are brute forcing direct access to their cloud stores to make them perform "good enough." But for MapR, tilting against windmills remains part of its core DNA as much as ever.

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