Author: Kayla Turner (Page 12)

The Currency of Trust, DasCoin, is now listed on another public cryptocurrency exchange: IDAX. The announcement of this most recent listing took place on 16th August 2018, making IDAX the fifth public exchange to include DASC.

This listing extends the reach of DasCoin, giving more people access to the coin itself and all the technologies associated with it.

What to Know About IDAX

The exchange in this recent announcement, IDAX, is well-respected and a project that comes from the International Global Blockchain Research Centre in Mongolia. IDAX is among the top 50 exchanges, a fact that should significantly assist with the accessibility of DasCoin and its name recognition. IDAX already has a roster of coins and tokens that includes 40 different options, and continuously adds support for more.

DasCoin is among the most recent additions to the platform.
The fact that IDAX has support for four different languages and high trading volumes also makes it an excellent choice for listing DasCoin. This helps more users utilize the exchange and, therefore, access DASC without scalability concerns.

The Other Listings

Although IDAX is the fifth public crypto exchange to list DasCoin, it was not the only listing to be announced in August 2018. In the same month, DasCoin announced that CoinBene would be listing the coin. Prior to the CoinBene listing, DasCoin was already part of three public cryptocurrency exchanges, all of which it joined in April 2018 as part of the ‘DasCoin: The Evolution of Money’ event, which took place in London. This is when DasCoin announced it was listed on CoinFalcon, EUBX, and BTC-Alpha. Additionally, you can buy and sell DASC via the orderbook on DasExchange, the DasCoin platform’s exchange.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot6Is5fkxIg

Not the Only Recent Milestone

The fact that DasCoin is now on five public crypto exchanges is certainly significant in terms of global reach, but it is not the only recent milestone that this project has achieved. DasCoin has halved the block time associated with its blockchain, bringing it from the already great 6 seconds down to 3 seconds, an industry-leading time. Blockfolio has also listed DasCoin, making it easy for users of this free cryptocurrency portfolio management application to track DasCoin and compare it to other coins.

Paris, France. The l’Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF), the financial markets regulation body for the French government, is seeking to support the development of ICO markets in France’s capital markets. On March 15, the financial regulator initiated a process of drafting proposals to the National Assembly. A French news outlet Les Echos reported that the mission of the regulator is to develop ICO Markets in France. This step is a recognition of ICOs as an emerging approach to capital formation in the world’s fifth largest economy in nominal terms.

This process comes in the wake of March 14 hearings convened by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee of Finance Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Securities, and Investments – The equivalence of AMF. The U.S government is also seeking to enact laws and regulation to govern the ICO Markets in a bid to optimize the benefits that start-up technology firms can reap. The US hearings are primarily consultative and involve a considerable number of multi-disciplinary professionals ranging from the industry managers, financial law experts, and economists. It is widely believed that the US government will endorse ICO Markets and regulate them effectively.

In full support of the AMF, the Ministry of the Economy and Finance in the nation of 65 million people as at 2017 welcomed the move. The ministry lauded the move and called for hasty recognition of ICO Markets as a new channel for capital formation. The ministry officials advised the AMF to consult with all stakeholders such as in the US, to achieve a sound regulatory framework that will not be prohibitive to any market player. The officials, however, cautioned the AMF to approach the matter with caution, as ICO Markets are risky ventures: Not tested against time.

This recent development is surprising to the ICO Markets in France; this is because the AMF had banned some ICO Market’s websites and 15 Cryptocurrencies from operations on suspicion of fraud. Additionally, last week saw the Google ban on all Cryptocurrency adverts from its AdWords advertisement platform effective from June 2018. ICO Markets were skeptical as some countries like China had banned the Cryptocurrency activities, and France was believed to follow suit.

It is now becoming evident that the US and France governments have endorsed ICO Markets and Cryptocurrencies as investment opportunities for the future. With such development, the World Bank may revert its earlier caution on ICOs and instead partner with economies in developing ICOs and Cryptocurrencies.

The AMF expects that by the end of the deliberative process, a system for authorizing ICO Market activities will be in place. The investors of ICOs will also be protected, as the offers will be pegged on guarantees.

More countries are expected to develop frameworks for managing ICO Markets in the coming days. Nations like Russia, Venezuela, Bulgaria, and others have already put in place sound policies to regulate ICO Markets and cryptocurrencies. These success stories will have a significant impact on many governments’ stances to ICOs. With Korea rethinking her ICOs ban, we might see China also uplifting their prohibition.

Initial Coin Offering Regulation Concerns

Following Google’s ban on Cryptocurrency’s advertisements effective June 2018, the Initial Coin Offerings are starting to experience bearish trends characterized by significant value shed offs on Cryptocurrencies, the unit of account in ICOs. These trends come in the wake of the U.S. lawmakers’ concerns about ICOs: Advocating for unexplained policy formulations to guide the ICOs. Washington, on 7th March 2018, raised these concerns about ICOs during the DC Block Chain summit presentation posing a set of concerns about the ICO offerings, currently on offer in many developed financial markets.

James Sullivan, the Deputy President Department of Commerce and International Trade Administration portfolio was the presenter at the summit. He demonstrated that the U.S government was in full support of Blockchains’ role in raising finances for start-up organizations in stock exchanges. He was, however, of the idea that all stakeholders should collaborate in streamlining the trade. His allusions were premised on the U.S. Securities and exchange commission report “Statement on Potentially Unlawful Online Platforms for Trading Digital Assets” that warns investors of fraudster platforms characterized by unregulated activity.

In the summit themed “Examining Cryptocurrencies and ICO Markets,” Republican Bill Huizenga and Democrat Brad Sherman, in a rare show of unity, raised concerns on lack of concrete policies and regulations on ICOs. Unlike the IPOs that were guided by a series of market regulations, requirements and restrictions, ICOs were just operating on self-regulation. Brad Sharman pointed out that ICOs will enable terrorists and outlaws to launder money across borders and affect national securities of America and various nations. On enforcing this sentiment, Bill Huzeinga called for intensive oversight on ICOs and the entire Cryptocurrencies operation.

Reading Between The Lines

The markets did not react to these concerns. Instead, the Cryptocurrency markets were bullish amid increased activity in ICO offering across the globe. Pundits were of the opinion that the Washington concerns had evoked growing investor confidence in ICOs as a real investment option solely by the U.S. government’s recognition. They forecasted that the future trends are likely to be bullish as investors anticipate a highly lucrative and regulated market in the foreseeable future.

Additionally, the Pundits pointed out that the U.S administration was exhibiting clear commitment in collaborating with the market players in policy formulation. The effort was evident as Jihan Wu, Co-Founder of Bitcoin, made a presentation that neutralized the anti-ICOs atmosphere following SEC report of possible fraud. Jihan’s acknowledgment that ICOs were crucial in creating capital for startups and mid-level firms whose money was in the form of Cryptocurrencies resonated with James Sullivan’s assortment that the entire Blockchain has to be improved through concerted efforts.

What to expect

The ICOs will be regulated in the near feature as the U.S. has recognized the role they play in business capital creation. The financial markets will react positively to policies that will be formulated by the administration to streamline and regulate the operations. More investors will be interested in ICOS. The summit will result in a series of discussions that will see U.S. institutions that regulate the financial sectors and legal spheres develop a set of regulations. Most importantly, it is evident that the Cryptocurrencies and ICO Markets will not be declared illegal as the U.S. government is exhibiting positive intentions of regulating and developing these ventures.

The dominant Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, registered signs of improvement in the financial markets on Thursday’s, 15th March 2018, afternoon trading session. Interestingly, this improvement is not precipitated by Google or Facebook withdrawing their ban notices on ICO trades: They have not withdrawn the ban. As Thursday’s trade session nears closure, the Bitcoin is trading at $8,241.52 having achieved a high of $8,788.00 and a low of $7,682.00 in the second half session. Other Cryptocurrencies such as Ether, Bitcoin, Zcash, Dash, Litecoin, Monero, etc. just to mention a few are following suit and registering improvements in the second session: Having shed-off value in the morning session following damaging publicity earlier this week.

What This Means For Initial Coin Offerings

From the Investors perspective, 15th March 2018 afternoon trading session recovery is a promising indicator of future surges in Cryptocurrency coins and token prices. Appreciation of Cryptocurrency values signals investors to participate in ICO trade in financial markets, as the value of tokens/coins will increase leading to higher returns on investment.

Firms who are offering initial coin offering are skeptical about the future of their biddings. With the growing descent from quotas criticizing all Cryptocurrency related activities and many governments deliberating on the way forward in regards to policy formulation, the market is likely to experience more shocks. However, the resilience of the market is quite evident and more firms will consider this factor. Firms like Basic attention, Aragon, and Status Um have raised around $35 million; $30 million and 270 million in record times will inspire more firms to seek funds on ICOs. Most notably, FileCoin, a startup company raised $200 million through an ICO and similar success stores will encourage most forms to issue ICOs.

Additionally, the markets will experience more significant precautionary measure as investors become more aggressive in interrogating the firms’ business ventures to determine their viability. Investors will not only be attracted to the possibilities of Cryptocurrency price surges in the future but also the businesses’ structures. Internal organization, goals, mission, vision, budgets, location, targeted markets, and legal factors will complement the expectations in interest payouts as a factor to consider when investing in ICOs.

The firms will streamline their mode of operations to appeal to prospective investors. Just like the firms that bid their stocks in stock exchanges, these firms offering ICOs will formulate a code of conduct for themselves in anticipation of enactment of regulation laws by governments. These firms will be readily accessible to the public, and they will adopt a culture of openness.

What This Price Increase Means To Regulation Authorities, Google, Facebook, And The Service Industry

The matter of fact is that Google and Facebook services are dominant across regions and have billions of users globally subscribing to them. ICO market analysts had allayed fears that with the damaging bans, the prices of the crypto coins would crash leading to the collapse of ICOs. Investors, Business entities, business developers and financial analyst can now conclude that it is only the policymakers in governments who can directly determine the performance of ICOs in the coming days. Pundits purport that it is difficult to foresee the level of increase in trade volumes in ICO Markets, following intense public outcry for regulations, but one outcome is expected-increased activities albeit depressed.

According to a new report, South Korea is contemplating reversing a ban on Initial Coin Offering in the coming months. The Korean time’s reports of a plan by the authorities to allow ICO and digital token based fundraising and make it possible for domestic investors to make advancements in Blockchain based technologies

The media company, which is one of South Korea’s most popular newspaper accounts of an ongoing discussion, between South Korea’s tax agency, the justice ministry and other concerned government offices, acknowledges possible talks on plans and conditions for a possible revitalization of ICOs in the country.

September’s Decision

If the discussions bear fruit and everything goes as planned, the country could witness a major reversal of the ban announced last September.

Financial regulators had previously banned raising money via any form of virtual currency including initial coin offerings and recommended regulation over the same. The decision in September by the South Korean authorities was attributed to the fact that there existed risks and possibilities of financial scamming. The announcement by China in the previous weeks may also have influenced South Korea’s decision.

Even after announcing the ban, the administration was reluctant to implement the ICO rule and was yet to impose any company into returning ICO funds. But this did not stop the migration of local blockchain startups into crypto-friendly countries and environments like Estonia and Switzerland. However, South Korean citizens remained free to invest in foreign ICOs.

According to Kang Young Soo, an official overseeing Cryptocurrency trading policies, the decision was yet to be made on whether to reverse the decision made in September or not. He, however, acknowledges that they were considering a third party view on the same. Mr. Kang had admitted in a recent industry forum, of plans to advance the blockchain technologies while regulating crypto trading.

Other sources familiar to the country’s tax code confirmed the rumors and expect a U-turn of September’s decision soon as the nation resolved and fixed the legal groundwork regarding crypto trading.

What To Expect?

Well, various sources have given a hint on what to expect. One, the source advised ICO-enthusiasts to expect an imposition of capital gains tax, VAT or both. The source also admits of a possibility of levying corporate tax from crypto exchanges and regulation by issuing of licenses. He, however, acknowledges that the matter was still in discussion and various agencies, including banks and tax agencies, were being brought to the table for transparency. In any case, the government cannot implement the policy on its own without tracking capital inflows into ICO.

ICOs make sense for startups because of their little paperwork and the fact that they let companies solicit money directly from the investors. The ban that didn’t limit trade oversees still worked for the startups, as they were able to raise funds overseas.

Even as the ban was implemented, investors with interest in ICOs grew significantly. This forced the government to rethink its decision. The proposed policy changes are a great deal for investors when it comes to transparency.

Omnitude Initial Coin Offering and its ECOM token link the current eCommerce platforms and enterprise systems to the Blockchain technologies. One of the pressing demands in the technology space is the interoperability that exists between the Blockchain technology and the networks of disparate software systems. A number of software solutions operate in disparate information verticals.

eCommerce websites and other enterprises can easily apply the use of Omnitude without changing the existing system to create a data ecosystem that is more transparent and efficient. As an open-source project, Omnitude has solid solutions that can also be used by a myriad of application developers.

The Value Proposition of Omnitude

Omnitude has been designed around standard APIs and a series of connectors that assists in shuttling data between various Blockchains and software platforms.

It gives the users an opportunity to develop data flows and integrations as a script or just an application.

The eCommerce industry is the main target market for Omnitude even though the use cases of ERP are in limitless in theory.

Omnitude has been created to help in the eradication of the several issues that are faced in the world of eCommerce. These include supply chain inefficiencies, customer onboarding by individual traders, and both seller and buyer fraud.

Omnitude had created three mechanisms that will assist the traders to lower identity theft, and these are the Omnitude Proof-of-Interaction, Single Reputation, and the Omnitude’s Single Identity. Omnitude has plans of launching the ECOM token on its upcoming Omnilayer platform.

Functions of the ECOM Token

The ECOM Token {ERC20} is basically a method of settlement that various parties can apply to access an ecosystem resource. Here are the main functions of the token.

ECOM gives the traders an opportunity to make payments in the ecosystem and subsequently access features such as:
• Omnitude ID
• Delivery Cycle Data
• Shared Product Data and a host of other needs.

It also makes it easy to make payments using Cryptocurrencies, FIAT, or the ECOM token. They can also be rewarded by other ECOM tokens when they take part in loyalty programs and other reviews.

Omnitude works as an incentive for merchants in this space to operate and secure the ecosystem. Its Blockchain has been fully secured by a peer-to-peer, and distributed network of validating nodes that manage the client application of the Omnibus Core. The nodes that will be able to apply the consensus algorithm will be able to get a share of the ECOM block.

The Team

The current CEO of Omnitude is its founder, Chris Painter. Before joining Omnitude, Mr Painter had earlier spent nine years as the managing director for Pixel by Pixel. The senior advisor is one of its co-founders, Robert Belgrave, who also founded Wirehive, a cloud services company.

The Department of Operations is headed by Ben Bennet who has worked in six various firms as the Sales Director.

The Final Verdict

The Omnitude ICO comes with a creative approach that tends to address some of the major problems faced in the world of enterprise system management. It brings some of the most innovative implementations that are needed in this industry.

Over the years, the technology of facial recognition has continued to be applied in several cases. From the collection of consumer data to identification and security, this technology is estimated to hit an industry valuation $7.76 billion by 2022.

The main aim of the Kairos ICO is to introduce their special facial identification methodology onto the Blockchain technology.

The Value Proposition of Kairos ICO

Basically, Kairos is a tech firm that has interest in facial recognition and artificial intelligence. The Initial Coin Offering conducted by Kairos is an opportunity where customers can buy both utility and security tokens for the onchain version of the platform that they currently use for facial recognition.

The system applies machine learning and computer vision to recognize faces in photos, videos, and even the real world. The Kairos utility token is in a very broad scope due to the fact that the architecture is designed to carry out three main duties.

• The first one is identity, which basically helps in searching and also verifying the faces.
• The other facet that this function is built off of is emotions. This is used for the purposes of measuring mood and sentiment.
• The last facet is demographics, which is used to collect demographic data concerning gender, age, as well as ethnicity.

All these three facets are widely referred to as the human analytics. As such, they can either be used at personal levels or in a group to gather information regarding certain persons as they go on with their day-to-day activities.

Apart from helping businesses by gathering for them certain data regarding the kind of customers that visit their stores, Kairos also assists in gathering important information on how the clients react and feel while responding to stimuli. As a matter of fact, Kairos is the only facial recognition service provider in this vast industry.

The Kairos also has a tokenized architecture that is based on two facets.
• The first one is the Kairos Security token {KAIROS}, which offers a great stake in the industry.
• The second one is the Kairos identity token, or utility {FACE}, which assists in gas to powering the main platform.

The holders of the security token will be awarded with one utility token, and this will cause their liquidity to come from the utility token.

The Strengths & Opportunities of Kairos

Kairos is one company that has shown a solid track record for the past six years they have been in service. They had an opportunity of working with IMRSV, an emotion analysis firm, which gave them a technology they included in their product. This is what brought in the branded human analytics item. Its ability to analyze an individual’s ethnic makeup makes it one of the best companies.

The Team

For the six years, Kairos has been operating; Brian Brackeen has been its Chief Executive Officer Brian is the one who founded the company after leaving Apple, where he worked as a Senior Project Manager.

The company’s CTO is Cole Calistra, while the company’s CDO is Ben Virdee-Chapman. Professional guidance to the members of this company is offered by Herwig Konings, who is the founder and the CEO of Invent Ready.

DAV is a transportation platform that works on the Blockchain technology. As an open-source software platform, DAV enables any individual to either purchase or sell services of autonomous transportation in a market that is fully decentralized.

DAV has been designed to consolidate in any kind of autonomous vehicles such as a car, ship or even a drone. This, in turn, gives these vehicles an opportunity to communicate, discover, and carry out business with one another using DAV as the digital currency.

The DAV Network ICO invites merchants who want to be part of a network of autonomous vehicles, which will definitely form the future of transportation.

The DAV Technology

As earlier indicated, DAV is a framework of a free, decentralized marketplace, open-source hardware, and an open-source software where any person can choose to either purchase or sell the autonomous transportation services using the DAV token.

The technology has been made up of three main components, which are listed here:

• Decentralized Discovery – DAV enables these uncontrolled vehicles to discover themselves, and even other clients and service providers that are close to them. Using a peer-to-peer protocol that does not operate with any kind of central server, DAV utilizes a decentralized node discovery. The nodes are instead listed in a distributed hash table that can be accessed more easily.

• Communication Protocol – This is the second component that makes up the DAV technology. For different transportation needs, DAV identifies a list of assimilated communication protocols. The communication is further subdivided into two main groups; off-blockchain communication that is carried out on P2P through the DAV Network’s protocols.

The other one is the on-blockchain communication that is carried out by calling smart contracts via the events they have emitted.

• Trustless Cooperation Tools – This is the last component of the DAV Network. Through using an assortment of specialized smart contracts, DAV is able to achieve trustless cooperation between transportation service traders. These smart contracts allow multi-party contracts that exist between the seller, buyer and even at times, the insurer, and arbitrator. They are connected directly to the DAV token. Thus, they assure great financial resolution for the transactions that are done between different parties without the need of a pre-determined trust.

The Team

DAV Network is managed by a team of professionals. It is currently headed by Dr. Alan Messer who is the current Automotive Advisor. Before joining DAV, Dr. Messer was the General Motors’ CTO. The Aerospace advisor is Dr. Scott Horowitz, who worked as an associate administrator at NASA and a space shuttle astronaut.

 Summary

In the end, DAV Network seeks to offer a fully decentralized system that is not under the control of any financial organization, company or government. This would be the best payment standard that can be used between automobiles and their supporting infrastructure.

DAV also enables an easy-to-verify ledger that contains historical data regarding the autonomous vehicles, their users as well as other service providers. It can even assist other service providers as insurers.

It also comes with a built-in smart mission contract that allows trustless cooperation between service providers and a number of vehicles.

Coti strongly believes that in the near future, digital currencies will take the place that is currently taken up by cash, coins, cheques, and other payment cards. COTI’s main aim is to work as the Internet’s best digital currency that can be used by various customers across the universe.

At the moment, several payment platforms have failed to offer effective commerce transactions, leading to increased fees and reduced rates of approval. COTI introduces a payment system that is created to solve the payment challenges witnessed today and give the consumers greater peace of mind.

Powered by XCT as its native currency, COTI seeks to blend the best of the current processes of payments and blockchain technologies to provide not only the most effective but also a means that is trusted, fastest and easiest to pay with.

The COTI’s Crowd & Token Sale

The creation of COTI was mainly based on the idea of coming up with an advanced network of payment that would be widely used by both sellers and buyers. Its main hope is to be the main promoter of the application of the virtual currencies in use cases that involves payments.

Coti’s token sale is ongoing at the moment, just as the private sale is coming to an end. It has been revealed that a total of 80% of the tokens that had been earlier issued will be offered for sale as well as reserves.

Here are the main strengths of the COTI platform

As a payment platform, COTI is much aware of all the weaknesses that this industry has been facing for a long period. It is therefore determined in offering the users what they have been long waiting for. It has a mission of accomplishing a total of eleven objectives, which would, in turn, ensure that their main payment platform is effective than others that are currently used.

The hedging services and mediators will ensure that various businesspeople are convinced to begin using XCT, COTI’s native currency for digital currency payments.

COTI platform has been strongly built on the Trust Scoring Engine, which will give the merchants the peace of mind and confidence they need as they continue with their services.

COTI’s Team

COTI is made up of a diverse group of persons that have a good background in engineering, particularly software engineering. The current CEO is Shahaf Bar-Geffen, who also co-founded WEB3, a top ranking service provider for digital media adverts.

The Department of Software Engineering and Research is headed by a mathematician known as Erol Hallufgil. Erol has helped several fintech firms to come up with CRM solutions.
The team also has a myriad of advisors.

Last Word

Coti’s main commitment is to offer a positive user experience to its customers. This would, in turn, give the sellers and buyers an opportunity of transacting on a payment platform that has the most reduced fees and improved security.

Although it might take COTI considerable amount of time to be accepted as the best payment option for cryptocurrencies, it would definitely be the leading method across the globe.

We as cryptocurrency enthusiasts know that the banking industry is far behind in technology and needs of consumers. It’s missing out on decentralized technologies, and powerful concepts such as the blockchain, which can certainly revolutionize the cryptocurrency landscape. At the same time, if you want to invest in or trade crypto, management of your assets can be difficult when there’s 20 different coins to keep track of. There are no professional instruments for such purpose available to the masses, and SwissBorg, an ICO company, is going to change that.

SwissBorg ICO, the Cyber Wealth Management Platform

This project attempts to create a platform for efficient management of digital assets, in a fair, accessible and transparent manner. In whitepaper, SwissBorg point out community as the most important link in the chain, thus the aim for a community-centric organisation. Starting off straight with the presentation of its extremely skilled members, you know the company means business. Whitepaper, website and other media provided by SwissBorg seem very professional, and not in a stiff, boring old business guy way. There’s a dash of humor in the presented writing, which makes their image highly likeable.

CSB Token will have its funds dynamically allocated, from 50% to 100% in Indexes Pocket, 0 to 50% in Opportunistic Pocket. The token itself will be distributed in 100% to the users, with no team allocation. No discounts on tokens provides fairness – you get as much as you put in. Unlike in other ICOs, where some investors get better returns because they invested in at a different time in the crowdsale. Many neat features are available for investors willing to take part in this project, but the list is lengthy, and I believe that they require some knowledge of the financial world to fully understand, thus I’ll send you off to read the whitepaper yourself.

The SwissBorg Team

A quite large team with impressive portfolios that doesn’t disappoint. SwissBorg is all about professionalism. The CEO seems like a genuinely cool person that inspires trust. He’s had contact with technology since childhood, and knew that technology would revolutionize modernity. If I were to judge the book by its cover, this one would get a great score. But regardless, Cyrus Fazel has great experience in quantitative investment, and a passion for P2P solutions. CSO, Anthony Lesoismier, has 7 years of experience working in finances at Market Securities LLP and an extensive portfolio. There’s much good to be written about this group, but there is no need, as their LinkedIn profiles speak for themselves.

Social Media Presence of SwissBorg, Summary

This department is another place where SwissBorg shine. Over 24 thousand likes on Facebook, posts with high engagement, and an active Twitter. It’s big, no need to say more. A lot of people in the crypto community seems to be on the lookout for a future with SwissBorg. Surely, a cryptocurrency portfolio manager will find itself an extremely useful tool in the hands of many altcoin trading aficionados and investors alike.