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Mining cryptocurrencies has been a easy and profitable business or pastime for many people – but that may be changing now.

For those in the know, mining cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, demands a lot of processing power from your computer, and will also very quickly rack up your electricity bill.

Students are ‘dropping out’

For this reason, university students in the US have been at an advantage, because their electricity bill is often included in the rent for their dorm rooms.

This hasn’t changed, but what has changed is the increase in mining costs, combined with a fall in many of the cryptocurrencies being mined.

Crypto-miners are not alone in facing these issues – it affects avid gamers too. The rising cost is linked to the graphics cards used in computers, and these graphic cards alone can easily cost as much as the average person spends on a whole laptop.

Is mining still feasible?

Whereas university students were making quite a lot of money off of mining in the past, these days it can yield as little as $100 per month – which, if they paid for the electricity themselves, would not be a feasible business for the students.

One student reported that he last year managed to mine .00027 Bitcoins daily, but that it cost him 24 kilowatt of electricity to mine. With the soaring price in Bitcoin back then, it seemed like a great idea – these days, it’s a less attractive option.

The simple reason why crypto-mining is becoming more expensive is due to the fact that currencies like Bitcoin are inflation-proof: the system is set up in a way that there is a limit to how many Bitcoins can be in circulation at any one time.

This means that mining Bitcoin, for example, becomes more difficult as time passes. The equation computers need to solve to yield Bitcoins become harder the more Bitcoins are in circulation.

As the amount of Bitcoins comes closer to the limit, mining will only be possible for those with the most sophisticated computers – and those who can afford the incredibly expensive energy bill.

Mining costs around the world

The price of mining Bitcoins varies depending on where you are in the world. In South Korea, for example, the price of mining a Bitcoin is double of what Bitcoins are currently worth. Anyone mining in South Korea would therefore have to be very confident that the value of Bitcoin will go up.

In Venezuela, conversely, the government subsidizes the energy, and so the price for mining one Bitcoin is only around $500 – around 1/20th of the current value of Bitcoins.

The US falls somewhere in the middle – depending on which state you’re in, mining a Bitcoin will cost you around $3,000-4,000. So for the US citizens, mining is still a profitable business.

For those considering to begin mining Bitcoins, there are some good news on the horizon, however. Intel is currently working on a solution that will lower the power consumption of computers used for mining.

Have you been affected by the rising cost in mining? Leave your comments below!

There are many ways to describe the market for cryptocurrencies and blockchain, but “stable” is not one of them. One only needs to glance over any news relating to the popular currencies to see that the coin values go up and down, round and round.

New types of cryptos constantly emerge, and some only last a few months before they fade back into obscurity. Investors bite their fingernails and tear their hair out, as they watch their once-promising investments plummet in a split second – just before they rise in value again.

No, the market for cryptocurrencies is anything but stable.

Why many are still reluctant about investing

Compared to traditional markets, the market for cryptocurrencies is extremely volatile. On the stock exchange, you can maybe see stocks move up or down one percent. On the cryptocurrency market, that number is five times as high.

This alone is one of the reasons why many are still choosing to stay far away from cryptocurrencies. Players in traditional markets know better: the bigger you are, the harder you fall. Investing in a market as unstable as cryptocurrencies means taking too many risks, at too high a cost.

Another reason many stay away is that cryptocurrencies are not tied to anything physical, anything tangible, outside the digital world.

Is Stablecoin the solution?

Enter Stablecoin. A cryptocurrency that comes with the promise of solving this issue. Two of the main players in this space are DAI and Tether. The latter of the two, for example, is tied to the US dollar. That means that every Tether coin is, in effect, worth around $1.

Tether supports this by having one actual real dollar for every Tether coin issued. This concept is much more palatable for those who are used to having the reassurance that they stocks can be redeemed for something physical, that there is a guarantee their currencies will be worth something down the line.

But tying cryptocurrencies to a national currency is far from the only option on offer when it comes to stablecoin. Others are offering, or will be offering in the near future, cryptocurrencies tied to traditional assets like gold and oil.

What this also means is that it is possible to exploit the volatility of cryptocurrencies that are not tied to anything. So if you sell a coin like Ripple (worth $100, for example) for 100 Tethers, and Ripple then falls to $20, you can buy five Ripples back. In this way, many investors are making big bucks.

But is Stablecoin safe?

However, not everyone are equally optimistic about stablecoin. Tether as a company has been the subject of some controversy, and many claim there is a conflict of interest between Tether and Bitfenix– they have the same founder.

Doubt has also started to spread as to whether there are any actual US dollars to backup the enormous amount of Tether coins being issued.

Finally, Tether has, as a company, been reluctant to release their accounts, which has raised further suspicion about their legitimacy as a company.

What do you think about Stablecoin? Are they the solution or just another scam? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

Triple A studios no longer play as important of a role as they did in the 2000’s. With greater awareness and powerful creation tools, it’s easier than ever to start an indie gaming studio. A lot of these independent productions don’t stray away quality-wise from these large, corporate products. Still, what will perhaps never change is that game production is an extremely high effort task that is very time-consuming. Great amounts of money are required to develop a game, and a lack of visible community support can be discouraging. LIX knows a solution to these ails, and wants to provide a decentralized platform where everyone can crowdfund their game.

LIXCOIN Description

In addition to being a platform for game crowdfunding, the coin is supposed to be an in-game micro-transaction currency. The company claims to be composed of avid gamers, but as an avid gamer myself, I can’t help but hate the whole concept of micro-transactions as they shallow out the gaming industry. Not only games are more expensive than ever, with a $100 price tag for a brand new title at times, we’re required to pay for DLC and in-game content! A cheap way for dishonest devs to make a ton of money. But I digress. Game development on LIX will be easier than ever, as LIX will provide a decentralized platform for management and creation of gaming assets. Actually, this sounds like the Unreal Engine 4 marketplace to me, but decentralized. Though, later on in the whitepaper we find out that they rather mean in-game assets, such as weapons and collectibles, instead of assets to produce the game. What strikes me is that despite being colorful and having a professional look, the whitepaper doesn’t read professional at all. And the idea feels like a money grab. I remain sceptical to this project.

Regarding the ICO, unlike most other ICO’s, this is not an ERC20 token, but a standalone cryptocurrency, which I presume is somehow based on Ethereum. Usual 100,000,000 coin supply, name LIX, 69% of funds go to the ICO, rest gets distributed to the team/platform costs, et cetera.

LIX Team

I’d say that I’m not surprised by the composition of this group. For this money-grabby idea with little subtlety, there isn’t a single face that stands out. The Co-Founder has a sociology degree, which, to be frank, doesn’t have a positive connotation in my mind when we’re speaking about a gaming project. Other members have linguistics and psychology degrees. There is very little development or financial education on board. This fortifies my perception of LIX being a money grab, or even downright scam. I sense no shred of serious competence in this project.

LIX Social Media, Summary

Quite good for an ICO like this, LIX has over 1.5k likes on Facebook, and high post engagement. Yet, a short post history, dating only to 12^th December of 2017. Comments are littered with semi-gibberish like “nice project”, “good project”, “awesome project”, giving me the impression that the team bought the likes and comments. Yikes! Twitter has over 3.5k followers, but only 122 likes. Seems like bots don’t like content on this platform. With all of this in mind, I’d stay away from this ICO. It could possibly be a scam.

Despite the recent plunge of Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency still remains popular as ever. Economic and political uncertainties have steered the public towards Cryptocurrencies for private and secure exchanges, you know, instead of relying on traditional currencies. But the finance is not the only industry Cryptocurrencies are targeting; CryptoBnB is a Blockchain-based Cryptocurrency platform that seeks to revolutionize the hospitality industry.

CryptoBnB is a hospitality marketplace that matches travelers looking for accommodation to available short-term rentals wherever they are. CryptoBnB uses technologies such as Big Data and AI in Blockchain as well as smart contract system to help travelers search for proper accommodation efficiently. CryptoBnB doesn’t want to introduce new accommodation spaces; the platform will be using the existing options but will provide better flexibility, lower overall fees, and more efficiency when searching.

CryptoBnB Main Goal

CryptoBnB is basically a hospitality app, but cheaper and more efficient. One of the biggest problems with Air BnB and other hospitality apps is that their services are too expensive. Travelers looking for short-term rentals, say a week or just a couple of days, end up paying the highest accommodation fees. Additionally, with these apps, some tenants end up trashing the host’s place and get away with it for just a small fee even when the damage is big.

CryptoBnB’s main aim is to put an end to some of these problems by improving trust between the host and the tenant. When there’s trust between the two, fees will go down and tenants will be more careful not to destroy anything in the house. Simply put, CryptoBnB uses its smart contract system to increase responsibility on both sides, the host, and the tenant, and incentivize them to work together. Tenants can enjoy better, cheaper services. The hosts, on the other hand, get faster asset turnaround and increased ROI.

CryptoBnB Components

CryptoBnB has a lot of features that are designed to improve service delivery for tenants. Some of the major components of the CryptoBnB Blockchain are its Crypto DNA Smart Wallet, AI-powered peer-to-peer marketing, and an enhanced search engine, these are the features that make CryptoBnB stand out. The smart wallet is CryptoBnB’s best feature; it’s the driving force behind the platform’s enhanced search engines and smart contracts.

The Blockchain also uses AI data to improve the hosts’ ROI and provide a more targeted market campaign with its peer-to-peer mechanism. CryptoBnB is the only blockchain-driven platform to use AI and Big Data to enhance the capabilities of its search engine. CryptoBnB ensures that travelers are matched to their ideal listings with its combination of search data, user preferences, and transaction history.

Conclusion

CryptoBnB is the first hospitality marketplace platform that’s supported by Blockchain, big data, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and advanced tokens. CryptoBnB was designed to be efficient, practical, and simple to use. It gives hosts and users an opportunity to work together and develop a market that’s safe, affordable, and easily accessible for all.