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It is not secret that things are moving pretty fast in the cryptocurrency space. It can sometimes be hard to keep up — unless you are an avid reader of this blog of course. Like with any other industry, however, there are a number of events and seminars that it would be wise to attend if you want to stay abreast of the latest trends and developments in the crypto-space. Events are the places where you can network with like minded professionals and enthusiasts, and where you can learn about new innovations before they go mainstream. We have compiled a list of some of the events you might want to keep an eye on in the last week of July.

Blockchain Visionary Summit

The Blockchain Visionary Summit is, as the name implies, for the visionaries within the blockchain space. The conference features a string of experts in the field, who are working for reputable companies, and will be presenting interesting facts and ideas. The topics that will be covered at the Blockchain Visionary Summit include how to source skilled developers for your blockchain project, how to train your team members so that they are up to speed, how blockchain technology as a whole will affect existing businesses and industries, how to solve some of the recurring problems in the world of cryptocurrency, how blockchain will best be integrated with the Internet of Things (IoT), when and how cryptocurrency will become mainstream, how potential investors assess new projects before funding them, and how to market your project.

NIFTY Conference + Hackathon

The NIFTY Conference + Hackathon is a two-in-one event. Half of it will concentrate on how the gaming industry will be changed with the emergence of blockchain-based platforms. The second half of the event will revolve around the ERC721 standards, and how they affect the gaming industry as well. Overall, the gaming industry will not only see massive changes as a result of blockchain integration, but the huge active audience in the industry will also help propel new blockchain ventures in return.

Crypto Sydney – SWIPECrypto, Edenchain

Crypto Sydney is hosted by BLOCKLabs Incubator, and is a recurring conference series that concentrate on the latest development in blockchain and cryptocurrency. Seen as one of the most popular event of its kind, Crypto Sydney brings together some of the brightest talent in the crypto-sphere. Every month, these bright minds gather at Crypto Sydney to give their opinion on various news stories, and many discussions are sparked around the latest innovations in blockchain technology.

Blockchain Conference 2018

If you are a decision maker in business, then the Blockchain Conference 2018 is the place for you to be. The format of this event is a no-nonsense approach to the cryptocurrency space, where both the positive as well as the negative aspects of it are covered. Any negative aspects are brought up in discussion in order to identify possible solutions to them. A number of experts will be present to give talks on some of the new breakthroughs in the business side of cryptocurrency and blockchain.

Charities

While a lot of cryptocurrency traders get a bad rep due to some of the shadier elements of the community, quite a few of them are actually charitable. The only problem is that up until now, they have had issues with being able to donate to charities. A great example of this is The Pineapple Fund, which donated no less than $55 million to charities last year. In response to this interest from the cryptocurrency community, many charities have now begun to accept donations in the form of crypto-tokens. Other charities have taken a different approach. UNICEF famously set up a website where visitors could lend their processing power to help the charity mine for cryptocurrency.

Freelancers

The gig market economy is booming like never before, and cryptocurrency transactions have proven to be a perfect match for the freelancer industry. In the past, there have been some difficulties for freelancers and employers when it came to negotiating contracts. Now, however, Ethereum’s smart contract technology makes the if/then premise of the contracts freelancing much more transparent. In addition, the fact that cryptocurrency transactions are both cheaper and faster than traditional financial transactions makes it all the more attractive to all parties involved. As an added bonus, the bounty hunting occupation within the cryptocurrency space is a perfect example of microtasking using cryptocurrency.

Criminals

There is always another side to the coin, and the cryptocurrency space is no exception to this. As everyone who has read crypto-news are no doubt aware of, there have been numerous scams, money laundering schemes, and hacking scandals. Although the more popular tokens like Bitcoin actually make it harder for criminals to make transactions, the privacy coins like Monero facilitates it. With privacy coins, it is impossible to see amounts, activities, or user data in a digital wallet. While criminals have taken advantage of this loophole, there is also an upside to this issue. Citizens in countries where the regimes are corrupt and the money is worthless can also benefit from these kinds of tokens.

Finance

Ironically, the finance industry have benefited hugely from the introduction of cryptocurrency. It is ironic, as one of the main rationales behind the creation of cryptocurrencies was to combat the existing financial system. Nevertheless, international banks and Wall Street firms alike have adopted the technology. Not only does blockchain technology provide these institutions with a much safer method of recording transactions, but also helped them save on energy costs. The only downside for the finance industry is that as cryptocurrency transactions become more mainstream, the traditional institutions will lose money on their existing expensive methods of transaction.

E-commerce

E-commerce is perhaps the industry where it makes most sense that cryptocurrency would have a major impact. Many websites offering products and services have been accepting cryptocurrency for years now. Even huge corporations like Amazon have been toying with the idea of accepting crypto-tokens. Places like WordPress and Overstock are already accepting it, and more website will surely follow in the near future.

Much of the media attention is surrounding Donald Trump’s visit to the United Kingdom. However, just before he left the United States this Thursday, he signed an executive order on cryptocurrency investigations.

Cryptocurrency task force

Why create a cryptocurrency task force? The simple answer is ‘fraud’. You will recall all the Internet giants like Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit placing bans on ICO and cryptocurrency advertisements. That was due to the many scams and fraudulent activities in the industry. Now, the president has signed an executive order for a new task force to be formed within the Department of Justice.

The executive order replaces a previous task force that was created back in 2009. The Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force is now outdated in the wake of cryptocurrency.

The mandate the new task force have been given is to investigate and prosecute the criminal elements within the cryptocurrency community. The task force is also responsible for bringing justice to the American people by returning the money that have been stolen or scammed to their rightful owners.

Who are the members of the task force?

Trump seems to have renewed faith in the FBI, after he fired the previous director James Comey. The new director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, will be heading the newly created taskforce. Among the members will also be Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Wray and Rosenstein will be accompanied by various representatives from departments like Securities and Exchange Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Federal Trade Commission.

In addition to the members of the US-based task force, the group will also collaborate internationally in order to address the global issue of cryptocurrency fraud and crime.

What are the primary goals of the task force?

As mentioned, the goal of the task force is to investigate fraud and crime within the cryptocurrency space. This goal will cover not only the American government, but also the general public as well as the financial market. Although the main focus of the task force will be on digital currencies, the task force will cover all aspects of cyber-fraud.

Some of the fraudulent activities that will be investigated are the ‘pump and dump’ schemes common to cryptocurrency exchanges and initial coin offerings. The aim of these schemes is to make a lot of investor pour money into the project by selling cryptocurrency tokens, and then declaring the project to be bankrupt. This way, the scammers get to retain all the money they have made without having to deliver anything to the investors in return.

White House not explicitly against cryptocurrency

On the face of it, it could seem like the president of the US is against the cryptocurrency industry. However, the previous White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon has in the past declared his fondness for cryptocurrencies as a concept. Bannon even made a joke about launching his own cryptocurrency token called the Deplorables Coin. The name was in reference to presidential candidate Hillary Clinton labelling all of Trump’s supporters as ‘deplorable’.

Have you ever thought about how profitable mining Ethereum would be? If so, then you have also probably considered making your own GPU mining rig for Ethereum. Of course, everyone knows that there are many different ways that you would be able to get into mining Ethereum. One of them is cloud mining, purchasing a mining rig that is someone else’s, and also creating your own rig. Of course, those are only the most popular out of all of the options there are. One of the best ways is to build your own Ethereum mining computer.

This is one of the best ways simply because if you did this, you would be able to have total control over the system, all of it. Really, you would only need to know a couple of basic steps in order to create your own mining PC, and a great one at that. Of course, when following the steps, it is very important to pay attention to detail, because every detail can either help or harm the amount of profit that you will be seeing.

The first step that you need to know is very simple, do research on the components and make sure to pick out the best ones that will help in creating the best system. Of course, this means that the next step is to actually build the system. To do this, you will have to make use of all of the components that you have found and researched and put them together. Makes sense, right? Unfortunately, this process takes varying amounts of time. Really, it will all depend on how much research you are going to be doing on the components, delivery or pick up time, and then how long you take to put it all together. Of course, then you have to make sure to configure it properly so as to make sure that it is running the best that it can, which takes varying amounts of time. So, expect to spend anywhere from a few days, to as much as a few weeks building your masterpiece.

Of course, when you are building a Ethereum mining rig, you really are just creating a computer. This means that you will be needing to choose an operating system. Of course, the big debate is if you should use Linux or Windows. Obviously, I personally would say Linux, even though it does come with a bit of a learning curve, as soon as you are able to get used to using Linux, you will notice that your mining rig is benefiting because of how lightweight most of the Linux distros are. Although, you probably already know this, because if you are trying to build your own mining rig, let’s face it, you’re probably already tired of hearing about the battle between Windows and Linux fans, even though some of the jokes are quite hilarious. Anyway, using Windows for this would suck because it has a lot of bloat, and when I say a lot, I mean A LOT! Of course, this means that it will take up some valuable resources and those resources could instead be making you money.

Get The Right Components

Of course, you might hear people talking about how cheap it is to build a mining PC, but the truth is, it is quite expensive. Of course, the better the GPU you build, the more expensive it will be. However, just imagine the profit, and it will make you feel better about the cost!

When it comes to building your own mining rig, you are first going to want to purchase a motherboard. When you take a look at a human, you know that the brain and nerves are the things behind all of the movements and speech of that human. Well, the motherboard is like the nervous system of your rig. This means that all of the hardware that you get will hook up to the motherboard and that is how they will be able to function properly. Of course, this means that the most important choice is what motherboard you choose. If you take a look at the Radeon HD 7950, you will realize that you are able to get three of those babies to fit into one motherboard that has 3 PCI Express slots. Of course, each of these will come with their own hash rate of 20MH/s. When you realize that, then you realize that, that means that you will be getting a hashrate that is 60MH/s. The best GPU you will probably be able to find for your mining rig is the GA-Z97Z Gaming 3.

The hard drive is the next essential component for your rig. This is the piece that you will be putting your operating system on. Make sure to get one that is at least 1TB. The next thing would be the RAM. You should have at least 4GB of ram, but it is even better for you to splurge and get the 6 or 8 GB. Of course, the last part is the power supply. Now, if you were thinking about getting a power supply unit that was cheap, think again, you have to get one that will have a lot of power.
Finishing Touches

Now that you have the need to know on how to build your mining rig and what to get, it is time to get to it!