XRP Price Analysis Shows the Bulls’ Victory

Willmen Blanco
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XRP Price Analysis Shows the Bulls’ Victory

Coin Metric did a deep analysis of Ripple’s reports to find strong differences between what was announced and what the actual figures are. However, the Blockchain can profit from a recent bullish trend

A lot of information has been published about Ripple [XRP], Ripple Inc and Ripple Labs. The latter is an independent company and the issuer of XRP, the digital currency that is native to the Ripple Consensus Ledger. However, the controversy surrounding its decentralization and escrow strategy are the factors that play a crucial role at the scene. In a damning report from Coin Metrics, a blockchain analysis firm, it is said that Ripple Labs did not report the actual amount of XRP on its deposit.

The nature of Blockchain and most public books led Coin Metric to take a deep dive into Ripple’s reports, after which it found “several important discrepancies between what Ripple publicly reported and what was visible in the XRP ledger.” These included a “custodial tail” that is implemented differently than announced, leading to a faster future release of escrowed funds compared to the announced program: “Other parties, potentially associated with Ripple, are in possession of 55 million XRP in an unknown deposit address disconnected from Ripple’s main deposit account” and “Two quarterly market reports indicated a lower amount of XRP released from the escrow deposit for a total of 200 million XRP.”

In any case, this situation has seriously affected Ripple Labs. The report was launched a few months after Messari said that XRP’s market capitalization had surpassed 48%. In addition, since Ripple Inc is a majority shareholder, “there could be significant and persistent sales pressure in the XRP market, depending on the length and structure of the sales restrictions imposed on the partners that comprise the Ripple market.”

Price analysis XRP / USD

Ripple [XRP] is said to have risen 27.7 percent in the last week, losing 2.1 percent on the last day. While prices are in a strong bullish trend thanks to the large volume increase of May 14th, which increased prices in more than 34 cents, the first resistance level and purchase trigger will be reached once prices close above 40 to 43 cents. Conservative traders may increase in falls of 60 cents or 80 cents.

This is so because, despite the period of the last 5 to 6 months of extended consolidation, the trend is already marked by the bullish bar of September 2018 from which prices range. Therefore, it is from the point of view of effort against the result that the bulls are in an advantageous position. As a result, it is imperative that prices exceed the main resistance level of 40 to 43 cents.

Ideally, behind this closure, the upper level should be higher than the average volumes that exceed 187 million XRP of May 14th. Anyway, according to the candlestick charts, each fall is another purchase opportunity and aggressive traders can load with the first targets at 40 cents and then at 60 cents depending on the levels of participation.

By Willmen Blanco

Explorer Allows Calculating the Degree of Privacy of Bitcoin Transactions

Willmen Blanco
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Explorer Allows Calculating the Degree of Privacy of Bitcoin Transactions

The webpage uses the Blotzmann tool for calculating the degree of privacy of transactions. Users can visualize their transactions and choose one randomly

One of the most valued characteristics of cryptocurrencies is their privacy, since it allows users to make transactions without the need of providing a third party with their personal information. However, the degree of privacy of a transaction within a Blockchain cannot be determined with certainty. A web portal allows Bitcoin users to calculate the level of privacy of their transactions.

The name of the web portal is Know Your Coin Privacy (KYCP), a game of words that ironically refers to governmental KYC (Know Your Customer) rules, which demand users’ personal identification on financial platforms. The webpage works as an explorer, where users can enter their own transactions or choose random transactions within the Bitcoin network in order to prove their degree of privacy.

The identification of a transaction, also known as TXID, is enough for the portal to calculate its metrics of privacy, notifying the levels of entropy of a transaction, its linking ratio, and the amount of deterministic links and the efficiency of the said transaction. According to details on the portal, all of these data are based on the tool of analysis, Blotzmann, which was developed by LaurentMT for Samourai Wallet and is used by the explorer for make calculations in a few seconds.

The explorer has been tested on a transaction made from an on-line wallet on the platform LocalBitcoins. Once the identification of the transaction is entered into the browser, the portal calculates its degree of privacy. It is surprising that the transaction has little entropy, two deterministic links, and a low percentage of efficiency. All these data indicate that the transaction is not as private as it seems, maybe due to the intermediation of the platform.

The webpage also allows visualizing these data through a simulator, suggesting a total of 16 random transactions made from different wallets and Exchange houses. For that reason, even those people that have not made transactions within the network can verify the degree of privacy of certain transactions in comparison with others.

Fighting Espionage

It is important to emphasize that wallet addresses within the Bitcoin network can be tracked by Blockchain analysts, such as has occurred with companies and governmental entities. The transactions within a Blockchain have a sending address, information that can be used for learning information about users, provided that they have linked such information with a particular exchange house or website that has served as an intermediary in the accounting history of a particular cryptocurrency or series of transactions. Due to this, some specialists recommend that the transaction have more than one possibility of interpretation (greater entropy), since in this way it is harder to determine from which computer a specific number of Bitcoins have been sent.

In a context where the community demands a higher degree of privacy, new cryptocurrencies, such as Monero, Zcash and Dash, are created with the aim to offer more private transactions. Likewise, some Bitcoin wallets have been developed to improve the privacy of transactions within the network day after day.

Bitcoin developers have also been discussing the possibility to introduce tools that improve the degree of privacy of transactions, being this one of the most famous denial proposals. Lightning Network also improves Bitcoin privacy, conducting several projects on light specialized tools and clients within this sector, such as in the case of the initiatives Daemon and CoinJoinXT.

By Willmen Blanco

WeChat Bans Commerce with Cryptocurrencies on its Platform

Willmen Blanco
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WeChat Bans Commerce with Cryptocurrencies on its Platform

Initial Currency Offers (ICO) has also been banned within the application. WeChat is very popular in China for making over-the-counter currency transactions so dealers will be seriously affected by this measure

The board of executives of WeChat, which is the most popular multi-purpose messaging, social media and mobile payment application in China, has decided to prohibit formally all activities that involve purchasing and selling cryptocurrencies on its platform. This week the platform updated the current payment policies for traders and in one of those modifications they prohibit trading in cryptocurrencies, issuing tokens and raising funds, according to screen captures of the co-founder of Primitive Ventures, Dovey Wan. In other words, the new norm does not allow performing any operations that involve the purchase or sale of crypto assets or Initial Currency Offers (ICO).

All users that violate this measure will have their accounts within the application canceled, says Dovey Wan on his Twitter account. He emphasizes that this measure could have a tremendous impact on the over-the-counter (OTC) crypto asset market that is currently operating in China, which could reduce liquidity in the region.

WeChat and Alipay are two of the most popular platforms for making peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions in the Chinese territory. As it is widely known, this is one of the countries with the strictest rules and regulations concerning the market of crypto assets, which have affected more than 88 cryptocurrency Exchange houses throughout the region.

According to what was reported last year, these applications are used by both entrepreneurs within the ecosystem and common citizens in order to publish content that is related to the market, make exclusive advertisements and trade without the need of intermediaries (P2P transactions). The said activities could be seriously affected by these explicit regulations that ban cryptocurrency commerce on WeChat’s platform.

The CEO of Binace, Changpeng Zhao, classified the news about WeChat’s ban as being “a short-term pain but a long-term gain”. He said that the platform may have been under the government pressure at the moment of deciding to introduce those regulations. This suggests that the new restrictions could create an opening for crypto companies to benefit from WeChat’s business.

The entrepreneur emphasized that although the P2P cryptocurrency market in China will be affected during these first three months, he considers that this type of censorship and authoritarian measures will only motivate more people to continue believing in cryptocurrencies and bet on their success.

The economic autonomy and the freedom to choose are two of the principles that cryptocurrencies offer their users. In this sense, some members within the community consider that the value of these technologies lies in their possibility of social impact, which would allow reducing the centralization of power and, consequently, avoiding economic blockages.

Since last year WeChat had already shown signs of a possible measure against the trade in cryptocurrency on its platform. The representatives of this application blocked the Bitmain accounts for promoting their products in a private group, and they also closed those entrepreneurial accounts that were dealing with Initial Currency Offers on the platform.

By Willmen Blanco

Curv Secures $50 Million Insurance Policy from Munich RE for its Crypto Wallet

Andres Chavez
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Curv Secures $50 Million Insurance Policy from Munich RE for its Crypto Wallet

Numerous people are enticed by crypto assets and related products, but they remain adamant to fully enter the phenomenon because of associated security issues and the hacking scandals that have tormented the industry in recent months.

After all, hackers are continually lurking around the web to find security breaches that they can exploit, victimizing hundreds, even thousands of users of crypto wallets, exchanges, and other services and products related to the industry.

Curv, a very well known crypto security firm, has secured some piece of mind by obtaining a maximum of $50 million of insurance coverage to its institutional clients from one of its associates, reinsurance firm Munich Re.

Financial Capability to Pay for Losses

The news were announced a couple of days ago, as an add-on to Curv’s Institutional Digital Asset Wallet Service. “Curv will have the financial capability to pay for losses of crypto assets,” according to the partners, who released a press note.

In an effort to provide another layer of security to offer customers, Curv adds that “digital assets cannot be stolen from Curv’s Wallet Service with a single cyber breach or even through insider collusion,” which is always a possibility.

According to the terms of the policy as reported, Munich RE will be providing insurance for Curv against risks of “an external cyber breach or malicious behavior by Curv or one of its employees,” the company said.

An Additional Fee

Wallet users can opt to include the newest coverage agreement if they choose to pay an additional fee, which is based on the number of assets they store with Curv. The insurance company, of course, performed an audit of Curv’s technology.

Among the findings of the audit process, Munich Re found “their approach enables us to underwrite a policy that covers customer-controlled wallets in Internet-connected settings,” according to Ali Kumcu, the company’s head of cyber innovation and services.

The discussed approach dispenses with the frequently used mix of hot wallets (Internet-connected) and cold storage. The report states that “the product applies multi-party-computations to the private key signing mechanism, eliminating the private keys altogether,” according to Itay Malinger, Curv’s CEO. “This brings a distributed security model to the signature mechanism.”

Preventing Attackers from Signing Transactions

Curv recently raised more than $6.5 million (in February, most precisely) from companies such as Team8 and Digital Currency Group.

Curv’s mission is “to enable institutions to store and use digital assets securely and seamlessly. We view this insurance milestone as a major validation of our wallet service and specifically our cloud based, cryptographically-enforced and distributed signing mechanism.”

Thanks to its cutting-edge security system, “Curv can enforce a corporate [access] policy from the cloud and completely out of band, so that an attacker or an insider within Curv or within its customers are unable to sign transactions because they simply don’t have enough cryptographic material. This is also what makes the service insurable,” said Malinger.

By Andres Chavez

Gold is not Bitcoin’s Competition but Grayscale

Willmen Blanco
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Gold is not Bitcoin’s Competition but Grayscale

The campaign could confuse investors who are not familiar with the crypto world. Bitcoin competes against traditional fiduciary currencies and payment systems

The recent campaign of the Bitcoin investment firm Grayscale against gold has triggered an important debate on whether the pioneer cryptocurrency, or any other, is really a competitor for the precious metal.

Of course, the answer is negative, especially not in the terms in which Grayscale seeks to make gold appear obsolete through a promotional video of the campaign entitled “Discard gold”.

The mistake in Grayscale’s proposal is not in overemphasizing the possibilities of Bitcoin, but in that it is a potentially confusing element for those who are not familiar with the crypto ecosystem, since they could consider the attempt at confrontation made to be a mockery. It is like comparing apples and oranges.

First of all, the firm promotes the weight of gold as an advantage for Bitcoin over the former. They have even asserted that “in a digital world, gold should not put weight in your portfolio”. But those who invest in gold do not go down the street with a bag full of ingots, which Grayscale presents in its video.

Regardless the amount of creative license that the campaign uses in that respect, it is still very inaccurate. Promoting the adoption through false messages and unrealistic expectations could only lead people to move away from cryptocurrencies.

The most frequent reaction to the campaign has been one of rejection, and even one of mockery. It is obvious that Bitcoin does not even intend to compete with gold. The competition posed by cryptocurrencies is against the fiat currency, which has been clearly stated until now.

Apples and Oranges

A cryptocurrency, whose registration is done digitally, is not the same as a natural resource such as gold, which has also been used for a long time, not only for its commercial exchange or as a store of value, but also as an issue for technical development.

Bitcoin actually competes against traditional currencies because, essentially, its natural purpose is to become a manner of payment, such as fiduciary currencies, although probably with better levels of security and auditability. The value of both is based on trust and use, which is a consequence of the first element.

On the other hand, gold has a value that if receives from its quality of being a material not only used for decoration, as in the case of jewelry, but also in technological industries, for medical instruments, and even in the aerospace industry. This does not make the precious metal better or worse than Bitcoin, since they are simply two different things.

They are also different from Grayscale’s proposed approach: this is, as an investment. First, their markets are essentially different. A very clear feature to establish that difference is volatility.

In the last three years, gold had its lowest price at US $1,126.95 per ounce, whilst the highest price was US $1,366.25. In fact, on May 9th, 2016, the price was US $1,265.25, and on Friday May 10th, 2019 it was US $1,287.10, according to gold.org.

In the same period, BTC went from US $460 to more than US $6,300, according to LiveCoinWatch figures. However, that is not all about it. During these three years, although it has not returned to the levels of May 2016, it reached very close to US $20,000 and had several ups and downs, until it underwent a bearish trend that led it to be just above US $3,300 last December.

To conclude, investors need to approach both assets in very different ways, since attempting to compare them is basically a waste of time.

By Willmen Blanco

Malta Will Have the First Registry of Companies Based on Blockchain

Maria Rodríguez
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Malta Will Have the First Registry of Companies Based on Blockchain

The country has developed different projects related to Distributed Ledger Technology. It is recognized as a “blockchain island” and its path just begins

Malta, a small country located in a European island, continues to expand its reputation as a “blockchain island”, thanks to its regulatory environment friendly with the technology that drives cryptocurrencies.

In early April, Malta’s Financial Services Authority (MFSA) granted licenses to 14 cryptocurrency agents in order to promote the growth of this sector. This time, the country will become the first one, in the whole world, to have a government agency based on blockchain technology for business registration.

According to a report by The Independent of Malta, The Maltese Registry of Companies has official data and documents related to new and existing companies; including businesses. At the end of 2018, this registry was separated from the MFSA and established as an independent entity. At that time, it was told that the agency must comply with all the obligations it had when it was part of the MFSA.

Although there was not much information regarding the changes that would be applied in the entity, some of these changes were announced recently. One of them is the implementation of blockchain technology, which is one of the most interesting modifications that the new government department will apply.

This week, Silvio Schembri, Parliamentary Secretary for Financial Services, Digital Economy and Innovation, visited the new installation of the agency in Zejtun. He assured that the creation of this independent registry responds to the modifications proposed by the MFSA.

The main objectives of this new blockchain projects are to avoid bureaucracy, streamline processes and strengthen the governance structure. In this sense, Schembri explained that, with the new system, the Authority will be able to focus exclusively on its regulatory functions.

After the separation of the registry from MFSA, there was an investment in a new blockchain system to update the entire registry and offer speed, efficiency and security so that entrepreneurs have a better ease of use when they start.

“The new system will make it possible to offer new services that are not being provided with the current system. This makes the agency the first in the world to operate with a blockchain-based system”, Schembri said.

Joseph Farrugia, Senior Manager of MFSA, said that the new facilities will strengthen the operations of the agency, so that it can overcome its new challenges. According to the official, these changes will also make it possible to offer a better service to customers and operators.

Among the benefits of blockchain technology, it stands out that, since the information stored on the platform cannot be modified without leaving traces, legal security is increased for small, medium and large companies. In addition, it facilitates information management in general and reduces the time needed to create a new company.

The adoption of blockchain technology also takes place very close to Malta. In December, about seven countries of the European Union (EU) made a statement in which they promoted the use of Distributed Ledger technology (DLT) to improve the management of public services. The idea is to apply that kind of technology in sectors, inter alia, such as transport, customs offices, business registration, healthcare.

Later, in January, a mission of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) considered that using blockchain technology in Malta had created significant risks of money laundering and financing of terrorism in the island’s economy. Among its recommendations, the IMF said that the authorities would have to apply more sanctions and improve their understanding of the possible risks and breaches of the rules.

But the Prime Minister of Malta, Joseph Muscat, argued that DLT will transform the range of political, civic and corporate systems. Its potential to solve old problems led the country to be known as a blockchain island, he said, claiming that the island was the first jurisdiction in the world to regulate this technology.

On the other hand, China is already working on the implementation of blockchain in the courts, whilst countries such as Argentina, Brazil, and Canada conducted commercial exchanges thanks to blockchain technology. With these advances, the present and future of the world in fields such as health and economics are based on this new technology.

By María Rodríguez

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