Cryptospace Weekly Overview: August 28 – September 4

overviews
04.09.2016

Bitcoin back onto a growing track again, Monero becoming a darknet “star”, Apple not happy with Dash, and other hot topics in ForkLog’s weekly news digest.

Bitcoin Price

Bitcoin was holding steadily between $570 and $580 over the course of the last week, however, the cryptocurrency exchange rate started climbing up on Saturday. A dashy thirty minutes rally catapulted Bitcoin price to $605 and on to $610 soon afterwards.

Thus, bitcoin gained 6% in 24 hours. As of Sunday morning, Bitcoin was trading at $605 with the market cap standing at $9.479 billion. The 24 hours price increase is about 6%.

Darknet’s New Hero

Monero is certainly this week’s star in the world of altcoins. The cryptocurrency’s sudden popularity upsurge was caused by the news that it had become one of the basic means of settlement at several platforms in the darknet, with sites like Oasis and AlphaBay adding the altcoin.

This has led to the coin’s price growth as well. The token’s early holders may be certainly happy: while at the end of last week Monero’s price stood at around 0.005 BTC ($3.02), this weekend it peaked at 0.0265 BTC.

As expected, pumps and dumps were there as well, and by Sunday the coin’s price reached 0.0197 BTC ($11.57) with the market cap of $148.3 million, which makes it the fifth most capitalized cryptocurrency.

Apple vs Dash

Apple has dealt a blow for Dash users looking to use the cryptocurrency on the iOS platform after telling multi-platform cryptocurrency wallet Jaxx to remove Dash from its iOS app. The motives behind such a requirement remain unknown, however, Jaxx has seemingly removed Dash from its iOS app, while insisting that move does not affect its integration of the cryptocurrency from its other platforms.

This may also cause Ethereum Classic fans to start worrying. The forthcoming full integration of ETC was announced by Jaxx team just a few hours prior to the AppStore’s demand concerning Dash. The war against Dash has certainly inspired wide criticism in the community, including the founder of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin.

Micropayments Integration

The Brave browser team has released the beta version of Brave Payments, a Bitcoin-based micropayments system that can automatically and privately pay one’s favorite websites. Users may specify the amount they’re willing to spend in a month, and the browser will automatically distribute the funds across the selected sites based on the number of impressions.

Meanwhile, founder and CEO of decentralized social network Yours Ryan X. Charles has announced the pilot phase of bitcoin micropayments integration is complete. The first transaction on the testnet proved to be successful. The launch of Yours is expected later this year.

Blockchain, Smart Contracts, Consortia

Executives representing the top-level leadership at a range of blockchain companies and projects have announced a new initiative to develop the technology. The Muskoka Group was created following a two-day governance workshop held Don and Alex Tapscott in Muskoka, Canada.

The Muskoka Group

Meanwhile, Microsoft has announced it created a working group to enhance security level of smart contracts in cooperation with ConsenSys. The group dubbed Kinakuta will seek to create better conditions for data exchange between blockchain industry players.

IBM is launching a new business unit focused on blockchain technology and other emerging areas and putting its global business services chief, Bridget van Kralingen, in charge. The unit, dubbed Industry Platforms, will initially emphasize Watson Financial Services, blockchain technology and strategic partnerships.

Visa in cooperation with BTL Group is working on implementing blockchain in inter-bank transactions system. Currently Visa is inviting organizations to participate in testing transactions with smart contracts based platform Interbit. The project seeks to cut expenses, accelerate settlement, and mitigate credit risks for both domestic and cross-border transactions.

Two more members have joined R3CEV this week: MetLife, one of the world’s leading insurers, and China Merchants Bank. The latter is also a member of Chinese state-run conglomerate based in Hong Kong. At the same time, The Hyperledger Project is expanding as well, with 17 more organizations, including Nxt Foundation, Netki and Energy Blockchain Laboratory, joining the initiative.

Symbiont, a pioneer in the use of smart contracts and distributed ledgers in financial markets, has appointed Caitlin Long as President and Chairman of the Board of Directors. Long will be responsible for commercializing Symbiont’s market-leading blockchain technology, encompassing business strategy and client relationships.

South African startup Custos Media Technologies has raised additional $400,000 to accelerate developing the technology that employs bitcoin to track down pirated copies of digital content. The financing came from Pretoria-based Technology Innovation Agency, and is intended for two years of operation.

The Big Brother

The Sandia National Laboratories with the backing of the US Department of Homeland Security have created a set of requirements for an analysis tool that can be used to fight the use of bitcoin by criminals. The Sandia team is experimenting with algorithms that can de-anonymize illicit Bitcoin users, including a mix of traditional and novel investigative techniques.

Jakob von Weizsäcker, member of the European Parliament, who earlier this year proposed creation of a task force that would focus on studying digital currencies and blockchain technology, estimates that €1m ($1.1m) should be spent on the initiative. According to the MEP, the regulators and lawmakers lack technical expertise and ability to completely understand the technology and its potential. Now von Weisäcker is asking for financial support insisting it be approved in order to position the European Commission at the forefront of an emerging technology.

eAuction 3.0 Conquers Ukraine

Friday, September 2, Ukrainian city of Odessa held an online auction to lease a land plot situated in Shiryayevski District of Odessa Region using blockchain-based system eAuction 3.0. Eventually, the land plot was leased for 230,500 hryvnias (around $8,600).

“In terms of anti-corruption effectiveness and general economic efficiency, there’s no alternative for land plot auctions today. For that reason, this platform for online bidding that seeks to attract as much participants as possible and maintain higher transparency of the process was created,” stated Maxim Martynyuk, the first deputy of Ukraine’s minister for agriculture.

ForkLog Exclusives

This week, ForkLog talked with Oleg Khovayko, CTO of Emercoin, and founders of InChain, Sergei Primachik and Dmitri Lazarichev.

Khovayko told us about how Emercoin tries to avoid all that cryptotrading fuss and shared his views on the Ethereum hard fork. Some future plans for the Emercoin have been revealed as well.

Inchain’s idea is to create a decentralized platform providing users with risk insurance and offering an insurance bonds investment option. The platform is being developed on the Ethereum blockchain, so smart contracts are used to implement the insurance and its service mechanisms.

Finally, Anatoli Knyazev, CEO of EXANTE, an investment services company, shared details about the recent Russian officials meetup with the bockchain community. The event took place at the Presidential Administration office last week and was hosted by German Klimenko, Vladimir Putin’s internet advisor.

 

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