?>

Tag: Cryptocurrency

Amazon Shares Drop 2.6 Percent As Centralization Alienates Suppliers

Amazon Shares Drop 2.6 Percent As Centralization Alienates Suppliers

Amazon suppliers received a lesson in centralization on March 7 after the e-commerce giant abruptly began canceling huge numbers of orders in a profits push. Amazon: We ‘Saw Opportunity’

As Bloomberg reported, quoting a statement from Amazon, the company wants to increase returns at the heart of its e-commerce operations. This has involved fundamentally altering the supply line, forcing even long-time sellers to sell products directly on its marketplace instead of using Amazon as a middleman. This, reports say, results in reduced costs, as suppliers themselves foot the bill for issues such as storage and shipping. Amazon also takes a commission from each transaction. “We regularly review our selling partner relationships and may make changes when we see an opportunity to provide customers with improved selection, value and convenience,” the statement reads.

The knock-on effect for suppliers, perhaps predictably, has already touched a nerve. As Bloomberg notes, given purchase orders agreed months in advance, seismic changes from Amazon can easily trigger chaos. “If you’re heavily reliant on Amazon, which a lot of these vendors are, you’re in a lot of trouble. If this goes on, it can put people out of business,” the publication quoted Dan Brownsher, CEO of a consultancy counting around 50 Amazon vendors among its clients, as saying.

At press time,
Amazon’s share price was down by close to three percent on the day.

                                amazon

Can Decentralization Tackle Monopolies?

As Amazon has grown to achieve a practically worldwide monopoly, the perils of relying on a giant centralized partner will ring true for those businesses which have adopted an alternative ethos. Nonetheless, decentralized marketplaces have yet to achieve widespread popularity. Efforts to take on the e-commerce giants have so far seen little progress, with highly-anticipated offerings such as OpenBazaar failing to dent consumer habits. “You should be able to buy and sell using cryptocurrency… if you get crypto, you should be able to spend it… you and buy whatever you need for your daily activity,” the platform’s founder, Washington Sanchez, told cryptocurrency advocate Tatiana Moroz’s podcast the Tatiana Show in January. Sanchez is overseeing a diversification of OpenBazaar’s core offering, branching out into related software as part of parent company OB1.io.

Article Produced By
Esther Kim

Esther Kim

https://bitcoinist.com/amazon-shares-drop-2-6-percent-as-centralization-alienates-suppliers/

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

Ripple CEO Says JPM Coin Lacks Interoperability: ‘Just Use the Dollar, I Don’t Get It!’

Ripple CEO Says JPM Coin Lacks Interoperability: ‘Just Use the Dollar, I Don’t Get It!’

                                 

Ripple (XRP) CEO Brad Garlinghouse says the recently-announced

digital asset from United States banking giant JPMorgan Chase lacks the interoperability that would make it a significant innovation. Garlinghouse made his remarks during an interview at the 4th Annual DC Blockchain Summit in Washington D.C. on March 6. As Cointelegraph has reported, JPMorgan Chase announced the forthcoming launch of its new blockchain settlement offering in mid-February: a stablecoin dubbed JPM Coin, to be backed 1:1 by the bank’s USD reserves. Alluding to multiple industry commentators’ suggestions that the bank’s coin could be a direct competitor to Ripple’s XRP, Garlinghouse dismissed the coin’s usefulness due to the fact that it remains a proprietary in-house asset, and that its exclusivity is likely to lead each major bank to issuing its own coin. This, according to him, will lead to the exact same fragmentation that characterizes the

financial services industry today:

“This guy from Morgan Stanley was interviewing me last week, and I asked him, so is Morgan Stanley going to use the JPM Coin? Probably not. Will Citi use it? […] Will PNC? And the answer is no. So we’re going to have all these different coins, and we’re back to where we are: there’s a lack of interoperability.”

Garlinghouse further weighed in on JPM Coin’s apparent exclusivity, quipping that:

“Let’s think about this. [JPM] announced the JPM Coin for institutional customers. If you give them a dollar as deposit, they’ll give you a JPM Coin, that you then can move in the JPM ledger. Wait a minute, just use the dollar! I really don’t understand […] what problem that solves.”

Throughout the interview, the sole thing that Garlinghouse conceded to JPM Coin was the potentially positive effect “for the blockchain and crypto industry to have players such as JPM leaning in.” “That’s the one good thing I’ll say about this,” he joked. As previously reported, the research arm of top crypto exchange Binance has similarly judged that as a proprietary and centralized network, JPM Coin is unlikely to be tapped by competitors in the banking sector, who may well choose to release their own native digital tokens in future.

In terms of inter-bank settlement, Binance Research further argued that as a closed network solution, JPM Coin is for now unlikely to directly compete with XRP — given the latter’s ambition to serve as a multi-bank “mediator currency between both fiat/crypto currencies and any fiduciary product.” Binance nonetheless stated that internally, JPM Coin could have a significant material impact in improving the cost and time efficiency of traditional financial services. Garlinghouse has previously stated that JPM Coin “misses the point” of crypto, arguing that introducing a closed network today is like launching AOL after Netscape’s IPO.

Article Produced By
Marie Huillet

Marie Huillet is an independent filmmaker, with a background in journalism and publishing. Nomadic by nature, she’s lived in five different countries this decade. She’s fascinated by Blockchain technologies’ potential to reshape all aspects of our lives.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/ripple-ceo-says-jpm-coin-lacks-interoperability-just-use-the-dollar-i-dont-get-it

 

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

How Brands Use Instagram Stories To Boost Business

How Brands Use Instagram Stories To Boost Business

                                 

The Instagram Stories feature rolled out in August 2016

as Instagram’s answer to Snapchat. It allows users to create or upload temporary publications which are viewable for 24 hours, before being archived. Instagram Stories is a powerful feature which has given brands a space to share with perceived authenticity, while the temporary element allows for a more varied, somewhat relaxed approach to content sharing. Furthermore, archived content can be recycled through sharing again, adding to a highlight, or through the relatively new ‘Memories’ option (similar to Facebook Memories).

Since its birth, Instagram Stories has been developed to roll out several features for content customisation. Brands now have the option to include music, hashtags, mentions, geotags, polls, questions, stickers, feature products, add external links and more. Much like the social media platforms themselves, brands are finding more and more inventive ways of keeping the attention of their customers. With so many ways to vary Instagram Stories content, how are brands using Instagram Stories to their advantage?

We have compiled some of the clever ways brands are using Instagram Stories, so that you can apply your favourites to your own brand’s social media strategy.

Market Research

Market research is the act of gathering information about consumer needs and preferences. Instagram Stories is a brilliant tool for gaining customer feedback, queries and opinions. Creating polls or posing questions gives your brand direct conversation with followers, allowing them to feel heard. Responding to polls and questions also gives your brand an opportunity to share expertise, build community and trust, humanise your brand, and gain information about product preferences and frequently asked questions. NYX Cosmetics took the opportunity of a photoshoot with Nam Vo to do an Instagram takeover. This is when an influencer or public figure is invited to ‘take the floor’ as it were and speak to your followers. They used the questions feature in Instagram Stories, which allowed them to feature their own products while answering viewer questions.

Humanise Your Brand

The expiration of Instagram Stories encourages brands to be a little less formal, which builds trust through authenticity. Using fun additions such as stickers, gifs, music and countdowns can develop a deeper level of connection between the brand and consumer. Brands also use Instagram Stories to give names, faces and character to otherwise ‘faceless’ corporate business profiles. Here is an example of Loreal Pro using Instagram Stories in an informal fashion. Choosing to document an event as it happens shows authenticity, while using mentions and hashtags across several Instagram Stories posts can boost reach and increase sharing opportunities.

Here are some of the ways you can humanise your brand:

  • Sharing footage of events as they occur
  • Sharing behind the scenes content
  • Storytelling
  • Interviewing colleagues

Promote Products

Instagram Stories allows brands to attach a direct link to an external web page. This makes it the perfect place to promote products or services and share new lines. If you have a business account with over 10,000 followers, or have created an advert through Facebook’s Ad Manager to be displayed on Instagram Stories, you can attach a link to your Instagram Stories post. This gives the viewer the to option to ‘Swipe Up’ which will open a link of your choice.

The clothing and lifestyle brand P&Co have cleverly crafted a cohesive product promotion strategy across their Instagram Stories and their main account content, tying it all together neatly with a competition.Notice how P&Co used a competition to grow their followers, reach and brand awareness. They also added the ‘Swipe Up’ link to drive traffic to their website, and were still able to shout about their product in a professional and effective way. In addition to this, P&Co tied everything together with a post on their page, which has their product featured. Using Instagram Stories in conjunction with feed posts is an effective way to increase the likelihood of sales and brand awareness.Another way to promote products in Instagram Stories is to create an advert. This should be done in Facebook Ads Manager and it allows you to reach a targeted audience.

Share Your Brand Through Usable Imagery

Creating interactive, shareable or useable content is an inventive way to connect with your followers, grow interest around your brand and stay in the consumer’s mind a lot longer. Some brands opt for creating fun, fillable questionnaires or ‘would you rather’ tick box templates for followers to add stickers to and share on their own Instagram Stories. With these being easy to copy, fun to complete, and usually featuring the Instagram handle of the brand, this approach encourages the creation of shareable user-generated content, which is an effective way to get a lot from a humble Stories post.

Another example of usable imagery is the creation of stunning phone wallpaper imagery. While some opt for adding branding to the images, others (like the example below) simply share beautiful imagery which the viewer will want to use as their phone wallpaper. Then every time the viewer uses their phone, they are reminded of the brand. Additionally, when the user gets complimented on their phone wallpaper, they have an opportunity to talk about and share the brand.

Announcements

Due to the expiration of Stories posts, this is the perfect place for brands to share announcements which will also expire, such as livestreams or 24 hour offers/deals. Nintendo gives us a great example of how Instagram Stories can provide a place to upload a poster, with all the relevant information, and a direct link to the web page viewers are being pointed to.

Give A Voice To Your Followers

Let’s face it?—?who doesn’t like to be acknowledged by a big company when they’re sharing a photo of a product they love from a brand they rate?! Instagram Stories is the perfect place to share user-generated content of your products, through encouraging the use of a hashtag, so that you can find shareable content easily and show some love to your Instagram community. This is exactly what McDonald’s did with their limited edition Shamrock Shake. Using the hashtag #ShamrockShakeSZN and reinforcing the hashtag use through every Stories post, McDonald’s developed a great string of user-generated content, while strengthening their community and growing excitement around the product.

Think about encouraging conversation through inviting viewers to actively engage.

As you can see through the examples above, brands regularly combine a few of these techniques, either in the same Stories post or across a string of Stories posts with the same message. This is an effective way to reinforce themes and awareness, while making use of the features available. We hope these examples have sparked your creativity with lots of interesting ways you can implement Instagram Stories into your social media marketing strategy. You can track your Instagram Stories, their reach rates, completion rates, full view rates and view the best times to post your Stories with Minter.io – the handy analytics tool that helps you get the most out of your brand on Instagram.

Article Produced By
Sarah Pike

Writer for Minter.io

https://medium.com/minter-io/how-brands-use-instagram-stories-to-boost-business-14ecc12c1877

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

Gen Z Is All About Authenticity

Gen Z Is All About Authenticity

                                 

Born in 1996, I’m either one of the last millennials or I’m among the first of Generation Z

?—?there’s no official consensus. I identify as a millennial, but I am intrigued by the up-and-coming Gen Z. What makes my generation different from theirs given that I’m only a few years (or months) older than them? Many people?—?and brands, governments and organizations?—?are asking that exact question. Understanding what people value and what concerns them enables us to better connect and communicate. Experts for years analysed the Baby Boomers, Millennials and others?—?now, researchers and laypeople alike are analysing what makes Gen Z tick?—?how they think, communicate, and what inspires them to change or act.

For now, my question is at least partially unanswerable, as we still have a lot to learn about what it means to be a member of Gen Z. Millennials, however, are often described by their propensity for wine, left-leaning sensibilities and love of social media, and are now comparatively easy to understand. Some have described Gen Z as just “millennials on steroids,” but that’s a reductive way of thinking about them. Many think about Gen Z primarily in terms of technology and their shortened attention span, but that’s an oversimplified approach as well. Gen Z is difficult to peg down, but that hasn’t stopped people from trying.

One thing we do know is that Gen Z seems to value sincerity. Data reported by CNBC shows that authenticity is an important value for Gen Z, with “67 percent of those surveyed agreeing that ‘being true to their values and beliefs makes a person cool.’” One of the biggest challenges in engaging with Gen Z will be determining how to appear “cool” and change the world while still remaining profitable. The Gen Z preoccupation with authenticity?—?which has driven them away from traditional celebrities in favor of more intimate social media and YouTube influencers?—?makes them scrutinize the motives of large brands, presenting a challenge for today’s marketing and communications professionals.

Data shows that 89 percent of Gen Z “would rather buy from a company supporting social and environmental issues over one that does not.” However, if a company comes out in support of a cause that seems unrelated to their own mission and brand it can have the opposite effect?—?it comes across as a media play for public brownie points, ultimately damaging the brand reputation among a Gen Z audience. To show Gen Z your brand or identity is authentic, you first need to carefully define what that brand is. Only then can you align a cause with your brand’s mission, and be consistent in your support of both.

In order to convince Gen Z that you truly care about a cause you also have to be willing to invest in that cause?—?a commercial with uplifting themes but without substantive action behind it will agitate Gen Z into thinking your brand is capitalizing on issues without supporting change. This practice is known as “goodwashing.” The name is a nod to “greenwashing,” which refers to companies making unsubstantiated claims about valuing the environment.

Just as the younger generation idolizes social media influencers, they are also more receptive to brand messaging on social and mobile media platforms?—?content that is very much so still advertising, but does not look or feel like traditional ads. For Gen Z, print advertising and traditional commercials can feel inauthentic in the same way that hollywood celebrities seem unrelatable. The growing consumer base is shifting as Gen Z enters the fray; 58 percent of consumers are most amenable to brands taking a social or political stance on social media and only 25 percent feel that way about print advertising.

One company whose cause forms the basis of its marketing and branding, is TOMS. TOMS’ “One for One” branding strategy has allowed the company to grow from selling a single-style shoe to include sunglasses, at times coffee and a full-range of footwear. While the idea of giving away as much as you sell does not intuitively seem like a winning recipe for a profitable business, their philanthropic mission has propelled them forward for over a decade. Over the years, instead of shying away from their identity as a company with a cause, they have doubled down and recently adopted the relatively political goal of ending gun violence. While some businesses would worry this could prove too polarizing for their customers, TOMS continues to succeed.

As Gen Z grows up and has even more spending power this type of mission-first business and marketing communication approach will become evermore common and influential. Gen Z might have been born with cell phones in their hands, but, as a generation, they shouldn’t be defined by their devices; they’re a diverse group of young people pushing for social change and greater authenticity?—?not just between people, but in our interactions with brands and organizations Brands can begin to take steps to align themselves with the proclivities of Gen Z. However, we’ll have to see how Gen Z continues to evolve as they become adults and their proclivities and priorities grow up with them.

Article Produced By
Fiona Burke

https://medium.com/clyde-group/gen-z-is-all-about-authenticity-59d863b0bdcf

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

Nasdaq-Powered EU Digital Exchange DX Adds Tokenized ETFs

Nasdaq-Powered EU Digital Exchange DX Adds Tokenized ETFs

                                 

Estonia-based digital trading platform DX.Exchange

has added tokenized Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) to its services, according to press release shared with Cointelegraph on March 6. The move involves the tokenization of popular ETFs, such as SPY, which represents the S&P 500, and QQQ, which backs the Nasdaq Composite at a 1:1 ratio. UWT (crude oil) and UDOW are among other ETFs offered on the platform. The ETFs offered can now be purchased both for cryptocurrencies and fiat during trading hours as well as after-hours.

According to the press release, the introduction of tokenized ETFs on DX.Exchange complies both with the latest guidelines issued by the European Securities and Markets Authority and with the EU Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II. The chief operating officer of DX.Exchange, Amedeo Moscato, stated that he believes that the latest move by the EU-regulated company opens the world of popular financial assets to crypto holders.

His statement reads:

“As of today, there’s over 130 Billion USD worth of Crypto that can now be invested in Digital Stocks and ETFs. Crypto investors who wished to hedge part of their crypto portfolio had only USD stable coins or limited options. Now they can invest in real world assets on the blockchain.”

DX.Exchange states that adding ETF trading to the platform will attract investors seeking to benefit from a lower-cost venue for executing their trades. Moreover, the decision will reportedly allow smaller retail investors or investors from developing countries to enter the market. DX.Exchange first appeared as a concept in May last year and was launched in January of this year. The company uses Nasdaq’s Financial Information Exchange protocol to deliver its products.

As Cointelegraph wrote, the company initially proposed that crypto holders purchase tokens backed by stocks in various major companies, including Amazon, Baidu, Apple, Facebook, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Netflix, Nvidia and Tesla. The trading at the Estonian exchange is currently only available for traders in the European Union. However, the company plans to make trading available to United States-based customers in 2019, according to a tweet from its co-founder and CEO in early January.

Article Produced By
Ana Berman

https://cointelegraph.com/news/nasdaq-powered-eu-digital-exchange-dx-adds-tokenized-etfs

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

Parity CEO Jutta Steiner: New Ethereum Function Would Have Prevented the Parity Freeze

Parity CEO Jutta Steiner: New Ethereum Function Would Have Prevented the Parity Freeze

                              

Parity CEO Jutta Steiner has said that the new controversial Create2 Ethereum (ETH)

function would have prevented the Parity multisig freeze. Steiner spoke on the subject during an interview with Fortune published on March 5. As Cointelegraph reported in November 2017, a user “accidentally killed” the Parity multisig library by activating a vulnerability to become the owner of the library, and then self-destructing it. The incident involved 587 wallets holding 513,774.16 in Ethereum, at the time equivalent to about $152 million and about $65 million today. Create2, the new function added to Ethereum with the Constantinople update that has been rumored to introduce a new attack vector — a claim since denied by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin — could have prevented this attack, according to Steiner.

As she noted during the interview:

“If that functionality Create2 had existed at the time, there wouldn’t have been a vulnerability, basically.”

This function also grants Parity a new argument to use when trying to convince the community to support a hard fork that would reverse the reportedly accidental hack. At the end of April, a vote to reverse the Parity incident and unfreeze the multisignature wallets ended with 55 percent of the votes choosing not to reverse it. The vote was also accompanied by an overwhelming controversy in the Ethereum community, as participants with large amounts of ETH had distinct advantage in influencing the direction of the vote due to the vote staking process. However, as Steiner now puts it, since that the tooling has been fixed, “wouldn’t it be the right thing to do to also fix the issues that arose when we didn’t have the tooling?”

A recent TrustNodes report points out that the Edgeware smart contract platform based on Polkadot, which is a platform similar to Ethereum and capable of running Ethereum smart contracts and DApps, could be of help to Parity as well. The chain is proof-of-stake (PoS), which means that new native coins, called Edge, are minted by staking them. As the project’s minting process for its native token can be done by locking ETH in a smart contract, TrustNodes notes that Parity’s accidentally locked funds may be eligible for the project’s lockdrop contract. Through the initial lockdrop distribution, three percent of the supply is reported to be handed over to Parity.

According to TrustNodes’ calculations, the locked funds paired with the “dots” tokens held by Parity (also eligible for staking) would grant the company close to 10 percent of the entire supply. Also taking staking rewards in the account, TrustNodes estimates that the actual percentage of Parity’s holdings would increase. Polkadot is a blockchain framework meant to create scalable and interoperable blockchains by linking between many types of blockchains, and is slated for release at the end of the current year. The protocol was one of the largest affected parties in the November 2017 Parity funds freeze.

Article Produced By
Adrian Zmudzinski

Adrian is a newswriter based out of Pisa, Italy. He's passionate about cryptocurrency, digital rights, IT, tech and futurology and likes to think about the future in a positive way.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/parity-ceo-jutta-steiner-new-ethereum-function-would-have-prevented-the-parity-freeze

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

Tron and Tether Partner to Issue USDT on the Tron Network by Q2 2019

Tron and Tether Partner to Issue USDT on the Tron Network by Q2 2019

                                 Tron and Tether Partner to Issue USDT on the Tron Network by Q2 2019

Blockchain protocol Tron (TRX) and Tether,

issuer of stablecoin USDT, have announced a partnership to introduce USDT to the Tron network by the second quarter of 2019. The news was shared with Cointelegraph in an email on March 4. The forthcoming TRC20-based USDT — a term that indicates adherence to a technical token standard supported by the Tron blockchain — will be interoperable with all Tron-based protocols and decentralized applications (DApps), and allow for the transaction and exchange of fiat-pegged coins across the blockchain.

The USDT, which launched in 2014, has traditionally facilitated frictionless fiat on- and off-ramping to the crypto markets, allowing users to store and exchange value without the onus of slow fiat transfer processing times. Tron — which positions itself as a competitor to Ethereum (ETH) by coupling decentralized finance with a wider decentralized internet ecosystem — claims that the addition of USDT will therefore “elevate its existing decentralised applications (DApps) ecosystem, improve overall value storage, and increase Decentralised Exchange (DEX) liquidity.”

The press release continues that USDT on Tron will also purportedly make the blockchain as a whole more amenable to enterprise-level partners and institutional investors. As recently reported, Tron CEO Justin Sun had announced the imminent roll out of a hard fork, which took place on Feb. 28, designed to deliver institution-friendly functionality, alongside features such as multi-signature abilities and account management options. The expansion of the Tron ecosystem took a significant step last year with its acquisition of popular peer-to-peer torrent client BitTorrent. The latter launched its native, Tron-based BitTorrent (BTT) token at the start of 2019, which will power the pair’s plans for an evolving decentralized content distribution platform.

As Cointelegraph has reported, the BTT initial coin offering on the Binance Launchpad platform netted $7.1 million dollars, with the sale of 50 billion tokens in under 15 minutes. Tether, which continues to command the lion’s share of the stablecoin market, is nonetheless seeing increasing competition from a steady stream of new fiat-pegged offerings as of last year. The stablecoin has previously faced controversy, after critics had suggested that the dollar reserves did not match the amount of tokens in circulation. Last December, Bloomberg stated that it believes Tether does have the appropriate amount of fiat reserves. Tether has not released an official audit of its holdings.

Article Produced By
Marie Huillet

Marie Huillet is an independent filmmaker, with a background in journalism and publishing. Nomadic by nature, she’s lived in five different countries this decade. She’s fascinated by Blockchain technologies’ potential to reshape all aspects of our lives.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/tron-and-tether-partner-to-issue-usdt-on-the-tron-network-by-q2-2019

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

Coinbase: Former Provider Sold User Data to Third Parties, Prompting Neutrino Acquisition

Coinbase: Former Provider Sold User Data to Third Parties, Prompting Neutrino Acquisition

                                

Christine Sandler, Coinbase’s director of institutional sales,

has defended the crypto exchange’s controversial acquisition of blockchain intelligence firm Neutrino. In an interview with financial news channel Cheddar on March 1, Sandler said that previous client data providers were selling Coinbase user data to outside sources. As reported, major United States crypto exchange and wallet Coinbase first announced the Neutrino acquisition on Feb. 19, saying it would make use of the startup’s advanced blockchain analytics tools, Anti-Money Laundering and Know Your Customer technology.

The move swiftly became controversial as details of the Neutrino’s co-founders’ backgrounds came to light: specifically, their prior involvement with commercial software firm Hacking Team, whose spyware has reportedly been used by a broad canopy of international governments and law enforcement agencies, with authoritarian regimes allegedly among them. In response to the crypto community’s furore over these connections — which spawned the #DeleteCoinbase hashtag — Sandler defended the exchange’s decision, telling Cheddar that it was important to leave their current providers due to their data

selling practices:

"We are aware of the backgrounds of some of the folks that were involved in Neutrino […] It was important for us to migrate away from our current providers. They were selling client data to outside sources and it was compelling for us to get control over that and have proprietary technology that we could leverage to keep the data safe and protect our clients."

Characterizing Neutrino’s technology as “really industry leading and best-in-class,” Sandler said that the acquisition represented a decision to bring these tools in-house — downplaying the importance of the talent and senior employees’ histories. Sandler also gave a mention to Coinbase Pro’s decision to list XRP, whose ambiguous status in the U.S. as a possible security token has hitherto complicated its listing on the California-headquartered exchange. Sandler clarified Cheddar that Coinbase’s acquisition of broker-dealer Keystone in June 2018 enables the platform to list securities,

adding:

“There had been a groundswell of interest in adding the asset to the platform. There was some speculation about whether the asset would be classified as a security or not — we’re not securities lawyers. We felt there were compelling arguments on either side."

As recently reported, Ripple’s head of markets has taken to social media to emphasize that the Coinbase decision to list XRP was an independent one — countering rumors that Ripple had either paid or offered the exchange an incentive to do so.

Article Produced By
Marie Huillet

Marie Huillet is an independent filmmaker, with a background in journalism and publishing. Nomadic by nature, she’s lived in five different countries this decade. She’s fascinated by Blockchain technologies’ potential to reshape all aspects of our lives.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/coinbase-former-provider-sold-user-data-to-third-parties-prompting-neutrino-acquisition

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

Binance Offers Token Rewards for Testing New Decentralized Platform

Binance Offers Token Rewards for Testing New Decentralized Platform

                                 

Major cryptocurrency exchange Binance

is offering a reward for testing the company’s new decentralized trading platform Binance DEX. The news was announced by Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao in a tweet on Feb. 28. In the post, Changpeng Zhao, who also goes by CZ, invites users to test the recently launched exchange and thus help start the mainnet faster. Users will subsequently be rewarded with Binance’s native token, Binance Coin (BNB)

. Zhao wrote:

“To test the hell out of @Binance_DEX, we are giving away roughly $100,000 USD equivalent, in REAL $BNB, as reward for our testnet trading competition. Come and join the fun, and help us launch the mainnet faster!”

In a separate blog post, Binance provided a detailed description of the Binance DEX simulated trading competition which will take place

from March 7 to March 21, 2019:

“All users who hold at least 1 real BNB on their Binance account will be eligible to participate in this Binance DEX Simulated Trading Competition. Each Binance.com account is able to register a maximum of 20 Binance Chain addresses and will receive 200 virtual testnet BNB tokens to each address to use as their starting funds before the Binance DEX trading competition begins.”

DEX is an exchange powered by blockchain and peer-to-peer (p2p) distributed system Binance Chain, whose testnet launch was announced on Feb. 20. Binance DEX will reportedly support secure decentralized software and hardware wallets. Binance’s Trust Wallet will also be integrated with Binance DEX, along with the Ledger Nano S, with more compatible wallets to be added at a later date. Over the past 24 hours, BNB coin has gained nearly 11 percent and is trading at around $11.45 at press time, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Yesterday, cryptocurrency exchange Kraken posted a $100,000 reward in either fiat or digital currency for tips that could lead to the discovery of the missing assets of the major Canadian crypto exchange QuadrigaCX. In the statement, Kraken said that all leads would be forwarded to the appropriate law enforcement authorities.

Article Produced By
Ana Alexandre

Total change in her career took Anastasia into the world of analytics and business information as a researcher and translator in 2010. Some time later she got into FinTech, a dynamically developing segment at the intersection of the financial services and technology. Ana joined Cointelegraph in September 2017.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/binance-offers-token-rewards-for-testing-new-decentralized-platform

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

Binance Research: JPM Coin Unlikely to Directly Compete With Ripple’s XRP, for Now

Binance Research: JPM Coin Unlikely to Directly Compete With Ripple's XRP, for Now

                                

The research arm of top crypto exchange Binance

has published an analysis of JPMorgan Chase’s newly announced stablecoin, arguing that the digital coin brings “minimal direct competition” to Ripple's XRP token in the near term. The study was published on March 1 by Binance Research. As Cointelegraph has reported, JPMorgan Chase announced the forthcoming launch of its new blockchain settlement offering in mid-February: a stablecoin dubbed JPM Coin, to be backed 1:1 by the bank’s USD reserves.

As Binance Research notes, the JPM Coin pilot project will initially focus on settlement and value transfer between financial institutions and is to be issued on the private, permissioned Quorum blockchain network — a fork of the public Ethereum (ETH) blockchain. In terms of inter-bank settlement, JPM Coin is also purportedly for now unlikely to directly compete with Ripple's XRP token — given the latter’s ambition to serve as a multi-bank “mediator currency between both fiat / crypto currencies and any fiduciary product,” as opposed to JPM Coin’s currently closed network solution.

Taking stock of the bank’s vast global client base and $2.6 trillion balance sheet, Binance Research suggests that JPM Coin “could make the institution the largest stablecoin issuer on a blockchain measured by circulating supply and total market cap.” The coin, the study continues, is poised to become a potential “precursor to the third generation of stablecoins,” which will target the world of traditional finance and aim to serve particular purposes and business use cases by means of private blockchain-powered tokens. In the study’s schema, the first generation was spearheaded by stalwart coin Tether (USDT), later followed by a steady stream of “second generation” new stablecoins over the course of 2018. According to the study, while JPM Coin may have significant material impact in improving the cost and time  efficiency of traditional financial services, the study continues, its implications for the public stablecoin market will in the short term

be minimal:

“Large banks and financial institutions […] have a distinct set of advantages in issuing fiat-collateralized stablecoins, but these offerings will not displace liquid, publicly traded stablecoins in the near-term given their closed ecosystems built on private blockchains.”

Moreover, as a proprietary and centralized network, JPM Coin is unlikely to be tapped by competitors in the banking sectors, who may well release their own native crypto tokens in future, the study contends. As reported, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon this week suggested that JPM Coin could eventually find consumer use and evolve beyond internal use cases. Stablecoin innovation continues to gain global traction — with banking titans such as Japan’s Mizuho Financial Group and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group both set to launch their own yen-pegged tokens. Meanwhile, unconfirmed reports suggest that Facebook is also developing its own fiat-collateralized crypto, to be integrated into its messaging services.

Article Produced By
Marie Huillet

Marie Huillet is an independent filmmaker, with a background in journalism and publishing. Nomadic by nature, she’s lived in five different countries this decade. She’s fascinated by Blockchain technologies’ potential to reshape all aspects of our lives.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/binance-research-jpm-coin-unlikely-to-directly-compete-with-ripples-xrp-for-now

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden