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In encryption push, Senate staff can now use Signal for secure … – ZDNet

May 19, 2017 | Author: admin

The US Senate just got a little bit more secure.

Without any fanfare, the Senate Sergeant at Arms recently told Senate staffers that Signal, widely considered by security researchers and experts to be the most secure encrypted messaging app, has been approved for use.

The news was revealed in a letter Tuesday by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), a staunch privacy and encryption advocate, who recognized the effort to allow the encrypted messaging app as one of many "important defensive cybersecurity" measures introduced in the chamber.

ZDNet has learned the policy change went into effect in March.

The news comes just a week after the Senate's move to switch every page on its domain to HTTPS by default, a long-awaited upgrade that took more than a year to complete.

Read also: Secure messaging: Signal's the best, and then there's the rest | How the founder of the Silk Road made millions on his illegal startup on the Dark Web (TechRepublic) | Rich? This ransomware will charge you more to unlock your encrypted files | The uncrackable problem of end-to-end encryption

The Senate is just the latest across the political world to embrace the popular end-to-end encrypted messaging app.

In fact, many in politics -- in all branches of government, federal, and local -- have taken security more seriously following the hacks that hit the Democratic National Committee during last year's election season, which led to the leaking of thousands of emails to WikiLeaks. Aides close to the New York governor and the mayor are known to be avid users of the app.

But, more recently, aides to President Trump were embroiled in a legal brouhaha that led to some unease about the use of the encrypted messaging app conflicting with presidential record-keeping laws, leading in part to the government's chief archivist issuing fresh guidance to the newly incumbent administration.

Members of the Senate won't have that problem, however -- because they're exempt.

A spokesperson for the National Archives and Records Administration said on the phone Tuesday that for the most part members of Congress are permitted to do as they wish with their records so long as they are not "historically valuable," such as committee documents. That's in contrast to workers of the federal government and those who work directly with the president, both of whom are governed by federal and presidential record-keeping laws.

It's not known which senators and their staff have embraced Signal beyond staff in Wyden's office -- but it would be interesting to find out. Feel free to get in touch.

Contact me securely

Zack Whittaker can be reached securely on Signal and WhatsApp at 646-7558849, and his PGP fingerprint for email is: 4D0E 92F2 E36A EC51 DAAE 5D97 CB8C 15FA EB6C EEA5.

Zomato says it fixed data breach; loopholes in its encryption methods – MediaNama.com

May 19, 2017 | Author: admin

Zomato announced in a blog post today that it had contacted the unidentified hacker from yesterdays data breach.The breach had led to details of 7.7 million users being stolen. The leaked information, listed for saleon aDarknet market (hansamkt2rr6nfg3.onion/listing/93556), was taken down by the hacker after Zomato requested them to do so, the company added.

The food delivery company is also introducing a new bug bounty program for ethical hackers after the hacker apparently advised the company to do so. The hacker has been very cooperative with us. He/she wanted us to acknowledge security vulnerabilities in our system andplug the gaps. His/her key request was that we run a healthy bug bounty program for security researchers. We are introducing a bug bounty program on Hackerone very soon, the company said in the post.

However, several security researchers who claimed to have analyzed the leaked have raised their doubts on Twitter. Zomato was apparently using an outdated encryption standard (MD5) for encrypting passwords, a researcher, Sajal Thomas,claimed. This HackRead report, which claims to have reviewed a sampleof the leaked data, points out that the usernames leaked on the Darknet portal were genuine. MediaNama was not able to independently verify this.

Loopholes Zomatos password encryption method

The MD5 algorithm, used for encrypting passwords by Zomato was deemed as an insecure cryptographic storage method by The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) back in 2007. This put users at risk since the encrypted passwords stored on Zomatos database can be converted into readable formats easily. Thomas, the researcher, claimed on Twitterthat he was able to decrypt the Zomato data taken from the Darknet market in seconds.

Zomato said on its blog that data points including emails, user IDs, names, usernames, email addresses, and password hashes with salt were exposed in the data breach. Your payment information is absolutely safe, and theres no need to panic, the company said.

But there is a possibility of decrypting the hashed (encrypted) passwords, placing bank/card details at risk. Here is how:

Zomato said in its earlier blog that its applied an individual salt per password before encrypting it. A salt is a random 64-bit value which is combined with a password to add an extra layer of security.

Eg. password: Qwerty123. Random Salt Value: 84B03D034B409D4E Password + Hash value: Qwerty123+84B03D034B409D4E (before encryption) Final encrypted password stored on Zomato database (with MD5 hashing): bc03e833386720a479f69562156b541cbc03e833386720a479f69562156b541c

The above cryptographic method is required to help reduce the effectiveness of a brute-force attack or dictionary attack a password cracking method which matches every bit of the password with a random alphabet/character/number until the entire text of the password is matched.

It is unclear whether the salt value for each of the password (kept in clear text) was stored on the same server as the passwords or with the same access controls. If this is the case, then there is a possibility that a hacker can gain access to the salt value, allowing them to easily decrypt the hash and get the password. MediaNama has written to Zomato to confirm whether it used the outdated MD5 algorithm, and whether it stored salt values on the same server as the passwords. We are yet to hear back from them.

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Zomato says it fixed data breach; loopholes in its encryption methods - MediaNama.com

Senate Given The Go-Ahead To Use Encrypted Messaging App Signal – Techdirt

May 19, 2017 | Author: admin

Certain senators have repeatedly pushed for encryption bans or encryption backdoors, sacrificing personal security for national security in a move that will definitively result in less of both. Former FBI Director James Comey's incessant beating of his "Going Dark" drum didn't help. Several legislators always managed to get sucked in by his narrative of thousands of unsearched phones presumably being tied to thousands of unsolved crimes and free-roaming criminals.

It will be interesting if the anti-encryption narratives advanced by Sens. Feinstein and Burr (in particular -- although others equally sympathetic) continue now that senators can officially begin using an encrypted messaging system for their own communications.

ZDNet has learned the policy change went into effect in March.

If this isn't the end of CryptoWar 2.0, then it's at least a significant ceasefire. Senators are going to find it very hard to argue against encrypted communications when they're allowed to use encrypted messaging apps. It's not that legislators are above hypocrisy. It's just that they usually allow a certain amount of time to pass before they commence openly-hypocritical activity.

This doesn't mean the rest of the government is allowed to use encrypted chat apps for official communications. Federal agencies fall under a different set of rules -- ones that provide for more comprehensive retention of communications under FOIA law. Congressional communications, however, generally can't be FOIA'ed. It usually takes a backdoor search at federal agencies to cut these loose. So, members of Congress using an encrypted chat app with self-destructing messages may seem like the perfect way to avoid transparency, but it's the law itself that provides most of the opacity.

If encryption's good for the Senate, it's good for the public. There's no other way to spin this. Even Trump's pro-law enforcement enthusiasm is unlikely to be enough to sell Congress on encryption backdoors. With this power in the palm of their hands, they're more apt to see the benefits of leaving encryption un-fucked with.

The rest is here:
Senate Given The Go-Ahead To Use Encrypted Messaging App Signal - Techdirt

Catapooolt all set to Catapult Crowdfunding in India with an Asian Record – Bizztor (press release) (blog)

May 19, 2017 | Author: admin

Are we all ready to witness the biggest day of the crowdfunding in India? Catapooolt through their initative The Economic Times Catapooolt Changemakers Season 2 is making an attempt to create an Asian Record by launching crowdfunding campaigns of around 35 Startups.

Its a first of its kind initiative in the country with 30+ innovative leaders,50+ startup ecosystem,800+ investors and mentors,1 million+ Indians to crowdfund with an amount of 1 Million USD+ assured crowdfunding.

The competition plunged into their journey through CATAPOOOLT ROADSHOW on first stage travelling to 8 different cities followed by a unique Startup Pitch and LIVE crowdfunding series giving an opportunity to early stage disruptive startup ideas and for all those interested in supporting the next big ideas, to come together and catapooolt to growth! Each Roadshow was spearheaded by a panel discussion by leading startup investors and ecosystem partners on the local startup challenges and growth hacks.

Looks exciting???

This is just the initial hustle, a much bigger picture is yet to come

The Economic Times Catapooolt Changemakers Season 2 is hosting Round 2 which will see winners of 1st round holding opportunity to be given a representative target of Rs 75,000 to be raised via crowd funding as a qualification.

All campaigns will be provided Crowd Funding Coaches and mentors which includes Sudeep Singh-Country Head Start-up Grind, Nitin Bajaj- Country Head f6s, Bhavesh Kothari- Co-Founder Mentorpreneur, Shraddha Patil-Co-Founder Mentorpreneur, Rohit Sardana-Head of BWDisrupt, Shivam Ahuja-Head of Delhi Start-ups, Aprna Mishra-Founder CEO Club Cafebiz,Abhinav Tandon- Co creator at Gurukul.

The mentor guidance will be on deck improvement and how to raise funds via crowdfunding, how to market their product, how to strategise alliance and how to channelize their product. The reward based crowdfunding campaigns on Catapooolt will help them in Market Buzz, Idea Validation and gain new customers.

The startups would be given an opportunity to raise funds on their disruptive ideas from 19th may till next one month and weekly announcement of winners in this one month will be made to keep the spirits high of each startup by providing special advantages. The competition is also in process of making an Asian book of record for having maximum number on campaigns uploaded on a single day. To emphasise round 2 qualified startups will see many advantages, mentioned in brief below-

* Media Buzz

* Marketing

* Idea validation

* Mentor support

* Crowdfunding coach

* Marketing & Takeoff: Guides and webinars

* Special advantage to weekly winners

Post successful completion on raising their successfully targeted goals on round 2,top 15 startups get an opportunity to reach the final stage

Round 3 will have Top15 startup pitch to over 30 serious investors for equity investment. The event will also be graced by A-List Celebrity, Relevant Government Officials, Prominent International Speakers and others.

The top 15 startups who make it round3 will be given a special F6s Alpha Card, any founders of member companies that have graduated from top accelerator programs, or have raised funding automatically qualify for Alpha membership. The program is invite-only and there is no membership fee.

What are the benefits of Alpha membership?

Alpha members get exclusive elevated benefits from partners that are unavailable to the broader F6S community. Only Alpha members are able to access and view these benefits. Additionally, Alpha members get access to exclusive invite-only startup event.

What is the membership card used for?

Members show their cards for priority access to startup events, free entry to co-working spaces around the world, and to redeem certain member benefits. With benefit partners, they can forge mutually beneficial partnerships with leading companies that provide services which are relevant to the startup ecosystem and the needs of our members businesses.

So now you know successful crowdfunding campaigns are not an accident. Surely you need to have a start with the idea but apart from a good idea for a product or service you also need: a great video pitch introducing the product, photos and videos of the product, good branding, customer service system, great perks or updates, a prototype, the price estimate,market planning,community building,media mileage and strategy to penetrate into the market.But above all, you need to present yourself as a professional company in order to instil confidence in your potential.

So if you wish to be the next big change, come join us at Catapooolt Changemakers by witnessing and contributing in being a part of the next big revolution.A new chapter is going to be inscribed, stand a chance to be a part of it. Our country has been preaching the concept of Digital India for quite long now,its high time we put into practise the concept and start contributing to the change.

More here:
Catapooolt all set to Catapult Crowdfunding in India with an Asian Record - Bizztor (press release) (blog)

See bots run – The Hub at Johns Hopkins

May 19, 2017 | Author: admin

By Catherine Graham

The player approaches the ball and prepares to score the goal. The crowd waits anxiously.

The player isn't David Beckham or Cristiano Ronaldoit's a small, blue EduMIP mobile robot. And it's not the final moments of the World Cup. Instead, it's a robotics demonstration in a lab on the campus of Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering.

While the stakes aren't quite as high, these demonstrations are still nerve-wracking for students in the graduate-level Robot Systems Programming course.

"Not all the demos work out perfectly, and that's OK. But you have to try," said Louis Whitcomb, chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering who created and has taught the course for the past four years. Despite many hours of planning, building, and testing the robots, students know that at any given moment, things may not go as planned.

Students in his course spent the last five weeks of the spring semester building and programming their own independent robotic projects. Whitcomb provides equipment and instruction but encourages students to experiment and set their own project goals. On Monday and Tuesday, 12 student teams demonstrated their robots in labs across the Homewood campus.

Students Andrew Dykman, Saurabh Singh, and Allen Jiang built a system that allows five separate EduMIP robots to communicate, move into a swarm formation, and work together to achieve complex tasks. During the demonstration, the team explained how, with some fine tuning, this technology could have many real-world applications.

"Take, for example, self-driving cars," Dykman said. "If every car on the road is running automated systems and communicating with cars around it, we could move cars at a higher speed without crashing, or reduce traffic jams by eliminating human errors."

For their project, students Kevin Yee and Nicole Ortega decided to take a favorite pastime to the next level.

"We know people already like to play chess against a computer, so we wanted to see what it'd be like to play chess against a robot," Yee said.

The pair created a platform that allows users to play chess against a chess engine on a physical board. They built a mobile robot, equipped with an end effector, that can make strategic moves and place chess pieces on target locations. According to Ortega, the robot usually wins.

Other demos included robots that can locate a soccer ball and score goals, a ball-catching robotic arm, a "self-standing" robot that can leap across obstacles, a team of robots that can map a location, and autonomous quadcoptors.

The Robot Systems Programming course gives students the tools to create their own unique vision of what a robot can do. Some will graduate next week and enter the field, and some will continue graduate work in robotics. Either way, Whitcomb said he hopes his students will use these skills to continue to explore what's possible in robotics.

"This course is intended to be a capstone experience for our advanced undergraduate and graduate robotics students," he said, "in which they use and apply the knowledge they have learned in the mathematics, engineering, and physics of robotics to develop real-world robots that can sense and interact with people and the world."

The rest is here:
See bots run - The Hub at Johns Hopkins

Is Bitcoin Safer Than Gold? – TheStreet.com

May 19, 2017 | Author: admin

With President Trump's problems and political grandstanding dominating the daily news cycle, several major stories have been pushed out of the spotlight. A global cyberattack that covered 150 countries, 200,000 computers and major institutions like FedEx (FDX) , the U.K. National Health Service and the Russian central bank has received comparatively limited coverage. At the same time, the alternative digital currency, Bitcoin, which was born in cyberspace, has reached all-time highs. Gold gets honorable mention as a safe haven, but not much more. But where does the real risk, as well as the real value, lie?

In view of the severity of the latest cyberattack, it is only prudent to examine cybersecurity in relation to our financial system. The central bank of Russia, Bank Rossii, was one of the victims of this latest attack, but the Federal Reserve Bank of New York was also a victim of cybertheft as recently as February 2016. That heist of $81 million was linked to Bangladesh and possibly North Korea.

With these types of large international players constantly attacking the core of banking and finance, how safe are all the digital dollars that we have stored in cyberspace? Cybersecurity experts estimate that there are over 200 million attacks on the system daily. Although very few of these attacks succeed, their severity continues to grow, exposing the inherently fragile nature of our highly interconnected financial system. This risk underscores the value of holding a real asset whose value is not dependent upon the financial system.

Bitcoin has got everyone talking these days. Even though it is a relatively new phenomenon (it's only been in existence since 2009), it has captured the imagination of many in the financial community. With an eight-year track record, bitcoin has demonstrated that it has value. The question is, how much value and value measured by what?

Bitcoins can be attained by digitally mining for them or in exchange for other currencies. Its value lies in the qualities it possesses. Like other forms of money, it is a medium of exchange, unit of account and store of value. According to a research produced by Cambridge University in 2017, there are 2.9 million to 5.8 million unique users actively using a cryptocurrency wallet, most of them using bitcoin. Clearly bitcoin has a use as a medium of exchange and unit of account, but will it perform as a store of value? Only time will tell.

Currently bitcoin is valued at 1 bitcoin to roughly $1,850. Quite a valuation for a currency backed only by an algorithmic data mining process married to the good faith and trust of its users. The question remains, will bitcoin users be able to reach into the cybersphere and grab those bitcoins in times of financial stress, or will that wealth simply vanish in a haze of government intervention, cybertheft or internet malfunction.

Where does gold fit into this modern crypto world of finance? For the answer, we return to the basic properties of money. Gold clearly is a unit of account. It is measured and valued against all other major currencies daily. Gold is a medium of exchange. Gold remains a staple of all major central bank reserve assets. It remains valued as a medium of exchange in global trade especially in times of stress. This has been demonstrated most recently by Iran, Venezuela and Greece using gold to settle debts.

The most important use of gold, however, could very well be its property as a store of value. For more than 5,000 years, gold has been synonymous with wealth. Its inherent physical properties have been universally valued. Gold is not tied to any country, financial system or counterparty. It is no one's liability.

In fact, it is the only tangible, liquid, non-financial asset that is practical to own outside the financial system while remaining marketable at transparent prices across the world's financial centers.

This is where the real value of gold lies. It is a store of wealth outside the digital, crypto and cyber worlds of finance. Physical gold greatly reduces, if not totally eliminates, this new, unknown cyber risk. Gold will never just vanish into the ether or be stolen by a phantom hacker on the other side of the planet. So as I watch the news and assess where the risks to wealth lie, I think physical gold is a pretty good place to be. And it sure is nice that it's cheap now relative to most other asset classes.

David Yoe Williams Jr. is a principal at Strategic Gold, a Naples, Fla.-based firm that buys and stores physical gold for investors.

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Is Bitcoin Safer Than Gold? - TheStreet.com

Bitcoins – Are You Kidding Me? – Seeking Alpha

May 19, 2017 | Author: admin

I had planned to put out our research on "Will there be an ETF Bubble?", but two things came up:

One: This is so outrageous, I had to write about it. In my mind, the only way you can treat absurdity is by laughing at it. See article, unless you have no sense of humor.

Two: I have a couple quoted comments from experts coming in, that will be weighing in on ETFs.

So, next week: "The ETF Bubble"

Now, about Bitcoins: Here's a quick guide: (italics and bold, mine)

What is it:

Crypto-currency

What actually is that? A made up name?

Who invented it? Satoshi Nakamoto (an alias)

When did it debut?

2009 - An actual fact.

What's the hook about it?

It's the first decentralized peer to peer payment network that is powered by users with no central authority or middlemen.

Is it a network or a currency, or what? No controls, no backing and no regulations about it.

Who owns/controls it?

Nobody

Is that anarchy or chaos or both?

Where do you get them? There are about 50 Bitcoin exchanges, 2 in the US, 7 "international," the rest in somewhat civilized countries, including one in China. Comfortable yet?

Where do you use it?

It's hard to tell. It's up to the individual businesses. No directories I could find. About 20 countries may have businesses that take it. There is a Crypto-Currency Foundation in Russia. Um not much help, there.

How is its use protected?

There's a Full Node. I can't even go there, it's too easy.

Is it safe?

The Royal Bank of India has been repeatedly flagging concerns on virtual currencies like Bitcoins, stating that they pose potential financial, legal, customer protection and security-related risks. In recent cyber attacks, "ransomware'' hackers held victims hostage by encrypting their data and demanding them to send payments in bitcoins to regain access to their computers. (Economic Times, 5-17-17). So the answer is:

No.

Is it widely used?

Between 3-6 million people use them.

That's a lot of dupes.

So, how do I get them, then?

"Mining"

Get a shovel, in more ways than one.

Who "runs" it?

Somebody named Gavin Andersen, formerly Gavin Bell; maybe Satoshi Nakamoto, who knows?

Is it a good investment?

Stanford and Princeton say bitcoin has volatility seven times greater than gold, eight times greater than the S&P 500, and 18 times greater than the U.S. dollar. My answer:

No.

Some of the hype tossed by Bitcoin sellers include:

Buy bitcoins with your IRA

Seriously? Sure, reverse mortgage your house while you're at it.

It's a new kind of money

Wait, I thought it was a network?

Buy bitcoins in 30 seconds. So I can lose money at the speed of light. We can double your bitcoin value in 100 hours

You just write it down and give it to me, right?

Earn .025% in daily interest

Is that FIDC insured?

Worldwide payments

To whom?

A control against fraud

Wanna Bet?

Low processing fees.

It costs money to use "money."

Fast peer to peer transactions.

Spend it at the speed of light.

If you're a vendor you can sign up to receive bitcoins.

Then what do I do with them?

The Bitcoin network never sleeps.

You can pay for them anytime.

Choose your own fees.

WHAT? How about -0-?

Some effort may be required to protect your privacy

That's reassuring.

Trust and Integrity, not like banks

Enough, already!

So, here's the worst part:

Last month, the SEC trashed an application to list a Bitcoin ETF. Under corporate pressure (from the financial firms, now). NOTE: IF YOU KNOW OF A WORSE IDEA, PLEASE LET ME KNOW. I'M RUNNING OUT OF MATERIAL.

The SEC said they will review that decision.

An ETF that tracks a mythical digital currency bitcoin that has no financial fundamentals, no earnings except for the collectors, and a handful of peculiar markets.

Based on what I read from the proponents, "Bitcoin is a virtual currency that can be used to move money around the world quickly and with relative anonymity, without the need for a central authority, such as a bank or government. A fund holding the currency could bring more professional investors to the asset and push its price higher."

All in the name of profits, right. Do you think the description is self-serving?

What about risk? SEE "VOLATILITY, ABOVE. At least with Krugerrands, there was a country involved; and, they're GOLD! I could not find Bitcoinistan on any global map.

It is virtual.

There's nothing behind it.

What about cyberscamming or cyberstealing?

Governments have not rushed to endorse it, although some merchants have.

China is going to endorse it as a currency. Does that give you comfort?

It apparently sells for something like $1250 or so, now. Did I hear "BUT, IT MAY GO UP THROUGH THE ROOF. I NEED TO OWN SOME"?

Still, some people will buy it as an "investment." In my opinion, Monopoly money is safer.

Next week: "The ETF Bubble" (with experts)

Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.

I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Additional disclosure: I do have serious exclusive research, analysis and opinions on the Marketplace as: The Fiduciary Sale: In Search of the Ethical Advisor. Also see somebodyelsesmoney.com. Thanks.

Read the original here:
Bitcoins - Are You Kidding Me? - Seeking Alpha

Bitcoin Price Analysis: Nearing a Bubble…but We’re Not There Yet – Bitcoin Magazine

May 19, 2017 | Author: admin

Bitcoin has now shown about eight weeks of consecutive buying, leading into new all-time highs (ATHs) for the past three weeks. Trying to stay objective with mild to extreme euphoria in times like this can be difficult. As someone who was a new trader during the 2013 bubble, the chart is beginning to look very similar.

Market capitalization and trading volume both on exchanges and over-the-counter markets have hit ATHs as well.

Despite being in price discovery mode, there is an established, longstanding trend we can compare the current price against, as well as the entire left side of the chart. Past results dont always predict the future, but they can influence it.

There are a few questions we can investigate:

Is the price near an interim top?

Is the price nearing parabolic conditions?

Will the price continue on the previous trend at the same rate?

Looking at the monthly Bitstamp chart, there have not been too many candles of this proportion. This would suggest we are nearing bubble-like conditions.

Price has also begun to close outside of the longstanding trend. This weekly candle has not closed yet, but if it does close outside of the diagonal, it will be the first weekly candle to do so. This again points to breaking the trend strongly to the upside.

Fibonacci retracement and extensions are admittedly partly magic voodoo, but there are plenty of traders who use and watch them to make the resistance and support levels legitimate. Drawing this Fibonacci from the local high established on March 10, 2017, to the low on January 14, 2015, several Fibonacci extensions emerge as well.

These can be seen as resistance levels, the next being the 1.618 at $2,088. Although the horizontal levels are arbitrary, we can confidently predict resistance based on the fit of the previous horizontals. Most of the prior Fibs match the price. This should be seen less as curve fitting and more as levels that just make sense. Based on the Fibonacci levels alone, there is not necessarily evidence for top or bubble just yet.

We can tease apart the trend even further by using the Fibonacci tool on each previous high and low.

In the trend, a consolidation from the previous high to low has yielded a price that has seen resistance at the 2.272 Fibonacci extension. Currently, the price has exceeded the previous 2.272 Fibonacci extension and shown it was supported based on the multiple candle touches. This suggests price is moving faster than the previous trend as well as closer to bubble-like conditions.

For low-timeframe, intra-day trading, there was a long entry signal when the price cleanly broke the consolidation triangle. On the next correction, pullback or consolidation event, Id expect the support diagonal (green) to remain the same.

Remember that splashy gold parity headline? BTC is now sitting several hundred dollars above it.

Summary

Bitcoin is making ATHs by almost every available metric: price, market capitalization, volume, hashrate, difficulty and fee per transaction.

Although $2,000 is the next milestone and resistance target, the price will likely exceed that level based on the strength and rate at which the price is exceeding current trends.

Watch for signs of a large pullback or correction in the near future, two to three months at the latest, based on previous price history.

Trading and investing in digital assets like bitcoin is highly speculative and comes with many risks. This analysis is for informational purposes and should not be considered investment advice. Statements and financial information on Bitcoin Magazine and BTCMedia related sites do not necessarily reflect the opinion of BTCMedia and should not be construed as an endorsement or recommendation to buy, sell or hold. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.

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Bitcoin Price Analysis: Nearing a Bubble...but We're Not There Yet - Bitcoin Magazine

Cryptocurrency Miner FoxMiners Rife With Scam Allegations – CryptoCoinsNews

May 19, 2017 | Author: admin

Note: This is a precursory article, as the company has said they will be shipping units next week, and that there will be reviews and proof after that point. Nonetheless, we have decided to release the details we have now so that aspiring miners can make their own decisions regarding FoxMiners hardware.

The Bitcoin industry is so filled with scam artists, its instant and cash-like nature being attractive to them, that a given firm trying to enter the space is often marked guilty until proven innocent. While that may be what is going on with all the chatter aboutFoxMiners, it seems there are some legitimate reasons to be suspicious:

A company representative has said they will be shipping orders beginning Monday next week. Little of their story makes any sense, but we as journalists are charged with reporting the truth, so we will have to follow the story and see what happens. Our anonymous complainant makes a good point, however, saying:

I never received a receipt for payment, or any kind of notification. As stated, code on their page just rondomises a bunch of preprogrammed wallet codes, so there is no way for them to know who paid what. Generally for a Bitcoin transaction to occur for an online transaction, a wallet address would be generated and unique for each payment, so the supplier would know who is paying. I cannot see anyway that this isnt a scam.

Stay tuned. As far as we can tell, this could either be a great new mining company or another massive mining scam. Unfortunately there are no Bitcoin police, so stories like this will remain common for the forseeable future, and the best we can do is encourage our readers to know your provider, research anything that seems too good to be true, and, when possible, never pre-order anything.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

Original post:
Cryptocurrency Miner FoxMiners Rife With Scam Allegations - CryptoCoinsNews

Benchmarking the Global Cryptocurrency Economy – A Research Study – Live Bitcoin News

May 19, 2017 | Author: admin

The global financial sector and economy have been transforming at a considerably fast rate during the past few years. Digitized assets, cryptocurrencies and innovative financial systems are creating new ecosystems for monetary transactions and formulating alternative assets that have become parts of a modern portfolio. Since its establishment in 2015, the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, has pioneered the analysis and documentation of the present digital economic transformation.

The Cambridge Centre of Alternative Finance has just published a benchmarking study of the current global cryptocurrency economy. By far, this is the first study ever to closely examine the global cryptocurrency economy and its essential components including wallets, exchanges, payments and mining.

The study presented some interesting results, which we will summarize throughout ths article:

There are currently between 2.9 million and 5.8 million unique users of various cryptocurrency wallets. The study reported that there are currently at least 1,876 individuals, all over the world, who work full time in the cryptocurrency sector, yet there are most likely more than 2,000 workers in this sector when considering large mining companies and other businesses, which did not provide the needed headcount numbers.

Cryptocurrency exchanges have the largest number of operating companies and employ more individuals than any other sector in the cryptocurrency industry. Exchanges are dispersed upon a wide geographical area and are not confined to a certain area or continent. Interestingly enough,52% of small cryptocurrency exchanges had a formal governmental license, as opposed to only 35% of larger exchanges. 13% of employees on exchanges were responsible for the security of the platforms. An average of 17% of an exchanges budget is spent on security maintenance.

The study estimated the number of active cryptocurrency wallets to be somewhere between 5.8 million and 11.5 million. The demarcation between exchanges and wallets is considerably blurred, as 52% of wallets were found to offer integrated cryptocurrency exchange options, of those 80% offered a fiat-to-cryptocurrency exchange service. Oppositely to exchanges, most online wallets do not control the private keys of the coins of the users.

Even though 79% of cryptocurrency businesses have relationships with retail banks and payment networks, the difficulty of establishing and maintaining such relationships is still the industrys biggest challenge. Averagely, fiat-to-cryptocurrency payments comprise 66.6% of the transaction volumes of various cryptocurrency payment companies, while fiat-to-fiat transactions and crypto-to-crypto transactions represent 27% and 6% respectively.

70% of large cryptocurrency miners have high influence on protocol development, as compared to only 51% of small cryptocurrency miners. The map of miners shows that big mining facilities are dispersed all across the globe, yet a large number of these facilities exists in certain Chinese areas.

The Cambridge Centre of Alternative Finance has just published the first study of its kind to highlight some of the basic elements of the current cryptocurrency economy. More similar studies have to be conducted periodically to monitor the transformation of the global economy via the blockchain technology during the upcoming years.

Image source:The Cambridge Centre of Alternative Finance

About Dr Tamer Sameeh

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