Crypto Exchange ErisX Planning Launch of Futures Trading

Chicago-based crypto exchange ErisX has notified its members and participants that it will start trading futures digital currency products in a strangely low-key announcement.

On Dec. 16, ErisX reached out to its members, informing them of its intent to start trading crypto futures tomorrow, Tuesday, Dec. 17. The notice is strange, considering that it appeared without the fanfare one would expect of the launch of such a major product, leaving doubt only magnified by the history of the exchange, as well as rival LedgerX.

In July, the TD Ameritrade-backed crypto exchange procured a derivatives clearing organization (DCO) license from the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

Laurian Cristea, General Counsel at ErisX, remarked at the time that when crypto futures become available, the exchange will offer a single platform that accommodates both spot and futures trading. ErisX CEO Thomas Chippas added:

“ErisX is unique in that for our digital asset market, we have divided the trading and settlement functions using traditional DCM (exchange) and DCO (clearing) models [...] This reflects the structure that institutional investors expect from other asset classes and will help drive these markets toward greater relevance and accessibility.”

Just a week before ErisX received its license, competitor LedgerX procured its own DCM license when the CFTC approved the application of LedgerX LLC for designation as a contract market.

However, in a controversy between LedgerX and the CFTC it came out that the Commission had not yet approved LedgerX’s physically-settled bitcoin futures product. LedgerX had said on July 31 that its physical futures offering went live on its Omni trading platform, but the CFTC suggested that this could not have occurred.

In September, the controversy continued when LedgerX’s claimed that the agency’s former chairman, Christopher Giancarlo, obstructed the approval of its amended DCO registration because of personal bias against LedgerX CEO Paul Chou.

PoSToken — World’s First PoS Smart Contract Token

In the world of crypto currency, Proof-of-Work(PoW) and Proof-of-Stake(PoS) are the two most important algorithms, although more and more algorithms are being proposed. Bitcoin is the first p2p crypto currency and is also the first crypto currency to use Proof-of-Work algorithm. Soon after, Peercoin was created in 2012 and is the first implementation of Proof-of-Stake algorithm. In simple terms, coin holders can earn some extra coins just by holding some coins for a period of time in the Proof-of-Stake system. To ordinary users, this is the biggest difference between Proof-of-Stake and Proof-of-Work. Now, PoSToken first implements the Proof-of-Stake mechanism as an Ethereum Token. Holders of PoSToken can get revenues by holding PoSToken for a period of time. It works the same way as Peercoin and any other coin with Proof-of-Stake algorithm do.

POSTOKEN PoSToken is the world’s first Proof-of-Stake smart contract token on Ethereum platform. It’s based on the ERC20 Token Standard and implements all standard methods. As an Ethereum token, PoSToken first implements the Proof-of-Stake mechanism, meaning that every holder can earn some extra tokens just by holding PoSToken for a period of at least 3 days, greater than or equal to The Minimum Coin Age.

Furthermore, the idea of PoSToken is not only to issue a simple Ethereum Token with Proof-ofStake but also to define a brand new Token Standard for Proof-of-Stake tokens. A interface including some standard functions was defined in the code of PoSToken, we call it PoSTokenStandard, which is like the ERC20 standard. PoSTokenStandard is a new Token Standard devised specifically for issuing Proof-of-Stake tokens and maintained by PoSToken Dev Team. Although it’s an unofficial Token Standard, we will do our best to build an entire and healthy ecosystem based on PoSTokenStandard. A series of services and applications that use PoSTokenStandard will be created in the near future. This future of Proof-of-Stake tokens starts here and we believe that a new era of Crypto Tokens is coming.

Website : https://postoken.org/

3 Major Crypto-Mining Challenges and How to Conquer Them

Crypto mining is the process of releasing cryptocurrencies into a network by completing a given set of mathematical computations. And just like any other mining industry -- gold, data, etc.-- it comes with a unique set of challenges.

For the uninitiated, cryptocurrencies are underpinned by a technology known as blockchain. Blockchains are digital ledgers that permanently store information. More precisely, they are strings of blocks containing verified data joined together by "hashes." Hence, to create a blockchain, data has to be processed and verified. This is where crypto miners come in, verifying data and earning cryptocurrency rewards in return. 

Originally, you could easily mine with your personal computers. However, this isn’t the case anymore, especially with an increase in the number of crypto miners. Theoretically, each crypto has its own “block time.” For Bitcoin, it takes about 10 minutes to mine a block, and for Ethereum, it takes about 20 seconds. With this in mind, it means single computers or PCs are disadvantaged. As such, miners are forced to adopt faster processors. To beat the heat of competition, many miners now adopt a special machine known as an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). 

All in all, crypto mining can still be a readily profitable business venture, but it’s very important that you know the three major challenges crypto miners face and how they can be mitigated.

High Energy Costs

To maximize successful mining chances, you’d need to combine hundreds of ASICs together to solve one problem.  Consequently, this would require extremely high power output, which will cost you exorbitantly high electric fees. A CBS News report revealed that Bitcoin mining consumes more energy than 150 countries. But here are possible ways in which this challenge can be solved.

1. Crypto miners can opt for less power-intensive protocols. One of them is the Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus that secures networks through the staking of crypto. Currently, Ethereum and Cardano are leading this shift. (Note: This does not solve the centralization problem, as higher stakes attract more interest. Only those who can afford to hold their crypto, and substantial amounts at that, benefit from the protocol.)

2. Running your mining activities on mining facilities and mining data centers that are powered by renewable hydroelectricity and solar energy. Mining companies like Hydrominers and  Burency mitigate high energy costs by powering mining activities via hydroelectricity, and their mining plants are found around colder regions to reduce heat-dissipation costs.

Vulnerability to Cryptojacking

Beyond creating a democratic space, the essence of decentralization is to assure security, right? Well, hackers are getting more sophisticated at tapping your resources. In fact, in 2017, Auguard reported a 31 percent growth rate in in-browser cryptojacking. Meanwhile, power concentration is not only susceptible to malware attacks, but cyber thieves are now adopting a ransomware-like tactic to remotely mine cryptocurrencies from people’s computers.  

There is no conventional solution to tackle this problem per se, but an improvement to PoS adopted by DigiByte, which uses a hybrid of five protocols on its blockchain platform, is a strong means crypto miners can use to defend against this form of attack. Meanwhile, it is interesting to know that each protocol contributes only 20 percent to secure the platform in this case. So, if one system is under threat, 80 percent remains unaffected. In the same way, this hybrid model helps counter centralization. At any given point, a miner will only control 20 percent of the network, even if they were responsible for 100 percent of mining in a given protocol.

Centralization

ASICs have proven adept at solely mining a specific cryptocurrency. They are so powerful that once a coin-specific ASIC is released, it’s sometimes challenging to mine without one. While this is a great development in the crypto industry, it is also perceived as a problem, because many crypto miners are influencing the way and manner in which ASICs are being created or designed. And since there are very few ASIC manufacturers, the mining space will eventually be centralized. However, there two possible ways to address this problem: Decentralizing the manufacturing process of ASIC miners, and putting into effect a new hash algorithm that would effectively wipe out all existing ASIC miners.

Exit Scam : Dash Core Senior Advisor Disappears with Investor Funds

Has Dash Core Group Senior Advisor MooCowMoo pulled an exit scam with a so-far-unknown quantity of Dash investors’ funds? Here’s what is known so far on Dash Core Advisor MooCowMoo Disappears

What looks to bear all the classic hallmarks of an exit scam came to light yesterday when one Dash user, Erulian, posted a message on the Dash Forum.

However, he had waited plenty of time. Users of MooCowMoo’s shared masternode service were emailed on Aug 10 earlier this year.

They were informed that the Dash Core Group Senior Advisor and owner of a “Masternode Shares” service would be shutting down and returning all funds:

So, to address the stress, I’ll be shutting down shares and sending back all deposits to their origination addresses within a week or two as time permits.

However, it’s now Dec 2 and, it seems, MooCowMoo has vanished into thin air…

Erulian confirmed the silence on the part of the Dash Core Group Senior Advisor and called out to other possible victims. He questioned, “who else has lost money?” And said, “I hope to get some discussion going about this, it’s getting late.”

Another user, scombo, joined in the conversation. He confirmed that he had also not heard a word from MooCowMoo since September.

Scombo reached out to several others in the network trying to reveal the advisor’s true identity, without success. He added:

Also might be worth involving the Dash core group as this reflects really badly on Dash, particularly as he was a prominent member of the team

Bitcoin Is Facing Major Crossroad as Sell-Off Proves Relentless

Bitcoin is nearing a critical juncture as its recent sell-off shows few signs of abating.

The largest digital token is nearing a crucial inflection point as its price inches closer to the lower band limit of the Trading Envelope Indicator. The gauge smooths moving averages to map out higher and lower limits, with a break below the lower band potentially preceding a retreat similar to the one seen on Sept. 24, when the coin fell 12% in one day. A bounce off the lower limit, on the other hand, could signal support at that level and, possibly, a rally similar to the one seen on Oct. 25, when Bitcoin posted a 15% gain.

Whichever way it moves, Bitcoin is nearly certain to see one thing: more trading as its price ebbs closer to the lower level limit, the indicator suggests.

Cryptocurrency prices have been under pressure recently, with Bitcoin losing more than 20% over the past month. Other cryptocurrencies have also sold off after Chinese authorities took fresh steps to crack down on the trading of digital assets. Bloomberg News reported last week that at least five local exchanges there have already halted operations.

Crypto faithfuls got another dose of bad news after U.S. authorities arrested a member of the Ethereum Foundation for violating international sanctions after he traveled to North Korea to give a cryptocurrency talk.

Ethereum's Vitalik Buterin Signs 'Free Virgil Griffith' Petition Despite North Korea Meddling

Ethereum and Bitcoin Magazine co-founder Vitalik Buterin signed a petition to free Virgil Griffith, who was arrested for assisting North Korea in eluding U.S. sanctions through cryptocurrency.

Buterin unleashed a series of tweets to defend Griffith on Sunday, repelling reports that he distanced himself and subsequently threw his arrested friend under the bus. The Russian-Canadian programmer then shared a link to a petition to free Griffith.

"I refuse to take the convenient path of throwing Virgil under the bus, because I firmly believe that that would be wrong. I'm signing. Reasoning below," Buterin tweeted.

Buterin also exculpated the Ethereum Foundation (EF) from Griffith's decision to take the trip in stating that EF "paid nothing and offered no assitance" for it but called it admirable nontheless.

"1. Geopolitical open-mindedness is a *virtue*. It's *admirable* to go to a group of people that one has been trained since childhood to believe is a Maximum Evil Enemy, and hear out what they have to say. The world would be better if more people on all sides did that," he wrote.

Griffith had nothing to gain for what he did in DPRK and that most of what Griffith taught are already publicly available and that there's no "advanced tutoring" or "weird hackery," according to Buterin.

Griffith, who holds a Singapore and U.S. citizenship, was denied permission to travel to North Korea, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney announced, which constitutes breaking federal law. DPRK is one of the countries that the U.S. bans its citizens from traveling.

"There are deliberate reasons sanctions have been levied on North Korea. The country and its leader pose a literal threat to our national security and that of our allies. Mr. Griffith allegedly traveled to North Korea without permission from the federal government, and with knowledge what he was doing was against the law," said FBI assistant director-in-charge William F. Sweeney Jr.

"We cannot allow anyone to evade sanctions, because the consequences of North Korea obtaining funding, technology, and information to further its desire to build nuclear weapons put the world at risk. It's even more egregious that a U.S. citizen allegedly chose to aid our adversary," he added.

Coinbase Custody expands Tezos staking service to all global clients

Coinbase Custody, the cryptocurrency exchange’s storage unit, has expanded its Tezos (XTZ) staking service to all global clients.

Announced Thursday, Coinbase Custody said it is transitioning to an internationally-based staking service, where all of its global clients can have access to the service.

Initially only available for institutional clients, the staking service was recently extended to all U.S. customers of Coinbase Custody and now it has been made available to all investors globally.

Coinbase Custody currently allows staking for only Tezos (XTZ) cryptocurrency, offering rewards of around 5%. It first launched the service in late April. In July, The Block reported that the firm had generated an estimated revenue of $7,580-$8,324 from Tezos rewards during its first two months in operation.

Looking ahead, Coinbase Custody is said to be launching staking service for more cryptocurrencies and blockchain networks that utilize proof-of-stake systems.

CloudStack CLSK Token

CloudStack (CLSK) token has been designed based on ERC20 standard set aside by ETHEREUM cryptocurrency community. CLSK Token were developed with a staking capability based on certain criteria.

This way everyone who own a minimum 600 CLSK on their COINBASE cryptocurrency wallet will get their reward paid via generated token upon staking maturity. Based on the design, staking maturity will be once every 6 days upon the quantity of token hold.

CloudStaking is the process your wallet interact with cloudstaking management server for uses to validate transactions and award you with tokens. When your wallet is staking, the cloudstaking management server will checking transactions to make sure everyone who sends tokens actually owned those tokens and had the right to transfer them. If most of the wallets online agree and the cloudstaking management server acknowledge that a transaction is valid, then it gets accepted by the network.

Token age is the age of your tokens. Imagine you get a new wallet and start out with zero tokens. On Monday, your friend sends you 5,000 tokens. On Wednesday, you decide to buy 10,000 more tokens and deposit them to your wallet. Assuming it’s Thursday, you’ll have two groups of tokens. The first group of 5,000 has 3 days of token age, and the second group of 10,000 tokens has 1 day of token age. When tokens are sent to another address or successfully stake (generate reward), their token age is reset to 0.

You can send CLSK token to everyone who own a verified standard ERC20 wallet with a simple action, just need the recepient ERC20 certified wallet address.

No matter where they lives, it will be a matter of minutes before the token arrived on their wallet with little cost/fees.

This will bring a fast and efficient method for a future International cross-border fund transfer.

https://thecloudstack.org/?u=PIERRE

Crypto-Mining Attacks Fell Sharply in 2019 but Ransomware Is Trending

In the cat-and-mouse game between hackers and users, less-lucrative crypto-mining malware fell out of favor this year.

While security experts at Kaspersky found that the number of “unique malicious objects” rose by 13.7 percent – led in part by a 187 percent increase in so-called web-skimmer files, malware designed to steal credit card information – the total number of mining malware infections fell drastically.

Web-miner infections were down 59 percent year-over-year, from 5,638,828 infected machines to 2,259,038. However, malware like Trojan.Script.Miner.gen, Trojan.BAT.Miner.gen and Trojan.JS.Miner.m are still on the list of top 20 threats. These apps force a user’s computer to mine cryptocurrency, bogging down the user’s computer and essentially stealing electricity.

Related: New Mac Malware Hides in Memory and Masquerades as a Crypto App

“We have observed that the number of ‘common’ attacks against home users is slightly decreasing, but that the number of ‘loud’ public cases of crypto-ransomware infections is growing – for example, just two days ago New Orleans was hit by a ransomware,” said Denis Parinov, a security analyst for Kaspersky.

Parinov believes the hackers involved in mining are moving on to more lucrative opportunities. Interestingly, the company found that even phone scammers were requesting prepaid debit card ransoms rather than cryptocurrencies.

“[Mining attacks] have lost their popularity due to lower profitability and cryptocurrencies’ fight against covert mining,” Kaspersky’s head of anti-malware research, Vyacheslav Zakorzhevsky, said in a statement.

Monero’s role
A few things changed on the security landscape to push crypto into a corner.

Related: Cryptojacking Malware Devs Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison

“One of the most well-known web-mining services, Coinhive, declared that it is no longer economically viable,” he said. “This is due to the Monero hard fork and the severe drop of XMR cost on the market. We suspect this is caused by the market and community reaction to the fact that web mining has been used without user consent in most cases.”

The company found that while crypto-mining attacks fell, there was still interest in crypto-ransomware attacks.

“Crypto-miners and crypto-ransomware operators are still in the game, but their focus appears to have moved to targeted attacks,” said Parinov.

Parinov warns that mining attacks still exist and that users should remain vigilant. He reminded users to watch for unusual network activity or PC slowdowns.

“The main symptom is the slowing down of overall computer or process performance – some freezes or errors can appear on the PC,” he said. “Additionally, crypto mining requires specific network interactions, but these may be hard to spot for the regular PC user.”

Warning: Don't Confuse These Two Kinds Of Digital Assets

If you visit crypto websites or ask casual observers, you might come away thinking there are thousands of "cryptocurrencies" in the world.

Big mistake!

Yes, they're all digital assets. And yes, they look similar on the surface. But less than one-tenth are true cryptocurrencies. So, before you invest another penny, you need to understand not only the differences, but also a few of the nuances.

There are two basic kinds:

Digital assets of the first kind are what we consider true cryptocurrencies. We call them "coins."

They include Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano, EOS and others — digital money, which could someday function like dollars, euros or yen, but with much more transparency, efficiency and monetary discipline.

Physically speaking, they're just data saved on computer hard drives following rules defined by specialized software. But that, in itself, should not be particularly surprising. The same is true for the money in your bank account, brokerage account or whole life insurance policy.

What's unique is that the data is not stored in a central location or owned by a single organization. It's automatically replicated and stored on countless computers all over the internet in a way that's virtually hack-free, accessible to everyone and, ideally, controlled by no one.

These coins live on what's called "public blockchains," or more broadly speaking "public distributed ledgers." There are hundreds of them. And many are supported by serious teams of developers.

Digital assets of the second kind are not true cryptocurrencies. Many people call them "ICOs." We call them "tokens."

They have some of the same physical properties as the coins. But with a couple of exceptions, which we'll get to in a moment, they're little more than receipts for financial donations.

These tokens are touted like stocks that you buy in a company. But most are really like tokens that kids get at Chuck E. Cheese Pizza.

Still, in 2017 and 2018, issuers raised more funds with tokens than was raised by all venture capital firms globally, although this trend slowed down considerably in 2019.

There are thousands in existence, and the overwhelming majority are either failures or scams.

Don't ignore the variations and exceptions!

No naming conventions in the world of cryptocurrencies can ever be as simple as analysts like us would like to make them seem. There are always twists, turns, variations and exceptions. Here are the main ones:

Centrally Managed Coins

The best example is what's happening in the banking industry.

Banks and other financial institutions are large, centrally controlled, highly regulated institutions. They are naturally uncomfortable — and arguably incompatible — with digital assets that are completely open to anyone and controlled by no one.

"How in the heck do we enter into a contract with no one?" they ask. "And who do we go to when there's a glitch?"

The Ripple company is the leader in offering a hybrid solution for these institutions. Ripple's coin, called XRP, is technologically similar to other coins. But it's managed and maintained by the Ripple company. That not only offers banks the advantages of enhanced security, efficiency and speed, but it also gives them an organization they can deal with. Facebook's Libra is another ledger that intends to work along similar lines.

Tokens To Coins

Among the thousands of tokens in the world today, most will always be tokens and nothing more. But there are special-purpose tokens that are very different: They're earmarked to be exchanged for actual coins at a predetermined date in the near future.

Here's an example of how it works: EOS is an advanced coin that boasts faster speeds and better scalability than Ethereum. In June of 2017, its sponsors announced they were going to launch the coin in June of 2018. But they needed to raise funds to finance the development.

So, they held an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) for an EOS token on the Ethereum network and raised $4 billion. Then, when they launched EOS on its own "Mainnet," they swapped the Ethereum-based tokens for EOS coins.

This raises the question: Was the Ethereum-based EOS a token or a coin? In our cryptocurrency ratings model, we treat it as a coin.

Security Tokens

The biggest problem with ordinary tokens has now become blatantly obvious: Most investors thought they would get a chance to participate in the success of a company, like owning common stocks.

Story continues

But too many were taken to the cleaners. They got no ownership shares, no dividends, and no right to protest mismanagement. Not even protection against outright theft.

Now, however, the industry has a very viable solution: They're encoding into the software new features, including investor rights and protections. They're registering the tokens as if they were securities. And they're on their way to creating what could someday be digital common stocks.

So far, there are just a handful. But soon, they're bound to become the norm, replacing tokens in most cases.

Whether project issuers choose to build investor protections and real functionality into their tokens, or whether they choose to register their digital assets as securities is immaterial.

The bottom line is tokens are slowly evolving to become more useful, and some are even starting to emerge as viable investments.

So, stand by for our in-depth reviews of the most promising tokens. But for the most part, stick with our highest rated coins.