What Is the Blockchain Trilemma?

Decentralized cryptocurrency platforms such as the Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH)

blockchain networks have allowed users throughout the world to exchange data and monetary value in a peer-to-peer (P2P) way. Most crypto transactions are settled without the need for middlemen or intermediaries – which can result in reduced costs and greater efficiency. However, the blockchains of today face various challenges including technical design limitations such as their inability to scale effectively. The majority of existing blockchains may also be susceptible to various security vulnerabilities and certain distributed ledger technology (DLT)-based networks such as EOS and NEO have been criticized for being prone to centralization.

Technical Challenges: Scalability, Security, and Decentralization

Commonly referred to as the “blockchain trilemma”, the three main challenges faced by public, permissionless, DLT-enabled networks include scalability problems, security-related issues, and ensuring an adequate level of decentralization. While some developers, including the creators of IOTA, believe that the blockchain data structure itself has inherent limitations that prevent it from scaling, many software architects believe that it’s possible to build scalable blockchains.

Can Proof of Work Blockchains Scale Effectively?

However, most of the newer or second and third-generation blockchains have not been developed using Bitcoin proof-of-work (PoW)-based consensus algorithm. In addition to requiring users to engage in the environmentally harmful process of mining, critics of the PoW consensus protocol argue that it significantly reduces the throughput capacity of a blockchain network. In fact, data from statoshi.info (a website that provides the latest statistics for the Bitcoin network) shows that the PoW-powered Bitcoin blockchain is only processing an average of 3.85 transactions per second (TPS).

Proof of Stake Chains Might Be Scalable, But Are they Secure?

Since most enterprise-grade applications and modern business networks require a far greater throughput, a large number of newer cryptocurrency platforms have moved away from the PoW-based consensus mechanism. Instead, major blockchain-enabled platforms such as EOS, Cardano (ADA), and Tron (TRX) use some type of proof-of-stake (PoS)-based consensus algorithm to validate transactions on their networks. Although PoS-powered networks generally deliver much higher throughput than PoW chains, there can be certain security risks that might discourage users from adopting the proof of stake consensus model.

Block Producers Allegedly Collude, Engage in “Mutual Voting and Payoffs”

In August 2018, Twitter user Maple Leaf Capital, an EOS investor, alleged that certain EOS block producers including Huobi had been colluding by engaging in “mutual voting and payoffs.” In an excel spreadsheet shared via Twitter (at that time), Maple Leaf revealed that Huobi and many other BPs had consistently been engaging in mutual voting in order to “cement” their positions as EOS network transaction validators. Moreover, Maple Leaf claimed that Huobi had been openly voting for a select few BP candidates in exchange for payoffs in EOS tokens. Indeed, these types of incidents raise serious concerns regarding the effectiveness of delegated proof-of-stake (DPoS)-based blockchains in creating a trustless and open network.

Are Proof of Stake Chains Truly Decentralized?

In addition to network integrity and security-related issues with PoS chains, several analysts have argued that large PoS-powered networks such as Tron and EOS are not truly decentralized. According to many crypto industry participants, a cryptocurrency network may become increasingly centralized when there are only a few network participants that are responsible for validating transactions. For instance, there are only 21 and 27 block producers that validate transactions on the EOS and Tron (TRX) blockchains, respectively.

EOS Downgraded for “Serious Centralization Issues”

Although the creators of EOS and Tron claim their BPs are chosen based on a “democratic” voting process by their community members, critics argue that the control and the responsibility of managing a blockchain-based platform should be more evenly distributed among all network participants. In June 2019, Weiss Crypto Ratings, an organization that assigns ratings to different cryptocurrencies based on their performance and technical design, downgraded EOS due to “serious centralization issues.” One of the reasons why EOS may be considered centralized (to some extent) by some users is due to its controversial voting system – which seems to favor users who have a large stake in the network (holding a large amount of EOS tokens).

Are Proof of Work Networks Decentralized?

While the developers of PoS-based blockchains have been criticized for creating centralized platforms, the PoW-powered Bitcoin (BTC) network might also be prone to centralization. In February 2019, the Canaccord Genuity Group, a Canada-based financial services company, confirmed that GHash.IO, a BTC mining pool, had been controlling as much as 50% of the Bitcoin network’s hashrate.

Researchers at Canaccord had argued that the world’s most dominant cryptocurrency could have been “vulnerable” to a potential 51% attack. In these types of attacks, a single entity manages to acquire the majority of a network’s hashpower and then uses it to engage in double-spending or launch other types of attacks on a blockchain network. However, the research team at Canaccord claims that, as of February 2019, no single BTC mining pool controls greater than 20% of the cryptocurrency’s hashrate. Significantly, only five bitcoin mining pools still reportedly control between 10-20% of BTC’s hashrate.

Is It Necessary to Solve the Blockchain Trilemma?

Bitcoin (BTC) maximalists have argued that the security and decentralization of a blockchain network are more important than on-chain scalability. Samson Mow, Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) at Blockstream, has said that BTC transactions need not be fast because the leading cryptocurrency’s main use case is to serve as a store-of-value (SoV). Since many BTC supporters, including former Google engineer Vijay Boyapti, believe that Bitcoin’s value proposition does not depend on its ability to mainly function as a mode of payment, they may not think it’s necessary to solve the “blockchain trilemma.”

Notably, prominent Bitcoin developer Jimmy Song has also stated on several occasions that the BTC blockchain should not be thought of as a technology that requires constant innovation – such as enhancing the network’s scalability. Instead, off-chain, layer-two scalability solutions such as the Lightning Network (LN) are being developed – in order to expedite micropayments made with bitcoin.

Article Produced By
Omar Faridi

https://www.cryptocompare.com/coins/guides/what-is-the-blockchain-trilemma/

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

How blockchain impact the healthcare industry in upcoming years?

Blockchain technology is considered as one of the most disruptive and important technologies

in the world. To innovate the functionalities, many industries are adopting the technology. Among these industries, healthcare industries are also adopting the technology. People are calling this technology “An answer to solve the looming problems of the healthcare industry”. But there is also a problem with blockchain in the healthcare industry that is in the health care industry blockchain will progress in slow motion. Experts are trying to explore the technology in this field and also implementing the various experiments to make it more adaptable by the industry. Let us try to know the impact of blockchain in the healthcare industry in the coming years with some predictions made by experts.

1. Effective and cost efficient
In healthcare industry data sharing in the form of patient records is considered as a very difficult process, but with the help of blockchain this process can be converted into the streamlined and hassle-free process. The technology plays an important role to make possible the cost-efficient, better diagnosis and the better cure methods for the various diseases. The technology allows the industries to work with the shared access so that one single data store can be accessed by the various authorized persons. You don’t need to make different copies of the data for different persons. This is the reason why blockchain analysis is known as the decrease in the cost of the business organization. Agility, uniformity, security and quality are some of the additional benefits of the blockchain.

2. Powerful monitoring
One of key problem to ensure stable and constant healthcare management network. As per the various experiments the blockchain development solutions permits the user for documentation of the transaction in the form of decentralized records. This also helps to enhance the precision and brings the transparent at the same time of saving the crucial resources like cost, time and efforts. In the healthcare industry information, blocks are used as the patient information records and can be shared with one another as per the requirement of the information. The criteria need a set of authorizations so that the authenticity and security of the system remain intact. If anybody can access the files of patients, then they can also misuse with them because, for healthcare, the security of the patient’s data is very important. So to manage all the things here, blockchain networks are considered as the best technology to save the data from unauthorized access.

3. Better Collaboration
The collaboration of the insights with the various parties is the vital healthcare trend for the success of any public and private healthcare institution. With the help of blockchain’s distributed ledgers, the collaboration process became easy and also cost-effective. To collaborate and group researches, the blockchain provides so many different innovative practices to do the same. This integration helps the officials to make a better decision on future policies implementation, and they can also check the progress in the organization. Do you know how it could help every organizational process? Single organization will not have private connection, whereas the bigger one or multi-level companies might suppose to have a private section for their client data.

4. A transparent and organized process
Healthcare is one of the crucial industries, and also it is very important to organize the processes and to make the processes transparent. Along with the high-security system is also very important to provide the users with accurate data with the limited access control according to their role in the organization. Blockchain technology is not only helpful in integrating the healthcare information but also to maintain the traceable records of the work and distributed data. At the backend, the public and private key are taking control of the security processes by removing the data leakages. It also helps to track the moments of drugs transportation from the producer to the patient. Apart from that, technology also helps to avoid the chances of counterfeiting.

5. Easy access and budget control
The connections of the level based authorizations and easy access to the researches providers. With the help of automation, a difficult task can also become an easy process. In the healthcare industry blockchain helps the users to extract the maximum benefit from the technology to decrease the cost. The technology works in different phases and levels to empower the users for easy access to the data. It also put an impact on human creativity and abilities to work and solve problems. Blockchain provides slice the processing facility to divide the tasks between the concerned persons to decrease their efforts to do the particular task.

6. Protection of crucial data
One of the major challenges of the healthcare industry is to keep data secure, and also they do not intend to share the private information of the patient with the outsiders. If the institutions store data in the form of files and hard disks, then the data can be difficult to prevent from outsiders attack. There are so many different risks on data like theft, hard disk crash, fire and other natural calamities. Blockchain is the process which stores the data on the cloud-based technologies which you will be capable of saving the data from any kind of theft and natural calamities. If you are thinking about the hackers, attack then blockchain provides enough security services to protect data from hackers attacks and leakages.

Conclusion
While blockchain is new to the healthcare industries, but it is assumed that with the proper exploration and implementation of the various features of the technology will make it the treasure for the healthcare industry. With the help of the streamline flow, multi-faceted protection and profitable system across the various levels of the Blockchain technology accurately handle the diverse challenges of the industry of the healthcare industry. It helps in extracting the best outputs from the data collection techniques at various levels.

Article Produced By
Muthamil Selvan

https://cryptoradar.org/how-blockchain-impact-the-healthcare-industry-in-upcoming-years/

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

Keychain and Chubu Electric Power conduct verification testing on peer-to-peer trading that uses blockchain technology

On July 1, Keychain, a limited liability company which develops and provides Keychain Data Provenance Infrastructure (DPI)

blockchain-based data security technology, announced that it had conducted verification testing on personal authentication that uses blockchain technology, issuance of digital assets, and peer-to-peer trading using distributed ledger technology at the Technical Development Department (Midori-ku, Nagoya City) of Chubu Electric Power < securities code: 9502>.

The verification testing was designed for three-way trading among a digital asset issuer, users (about 30 users this time), and merchants. According to the announcement, Keychain performed the implementation process between late November 2018 and mid-April 2019, while about 30 employees of the Technical Development Department, Chubu Electric Power carried out verification testing between late April and early May 2019.

The three targets of verification testing were: (1) Verifying the effectiveness of Keychain blockchain as a personal authentication infrastructure; (2) Issuing of digital assets by Chubu Electric Power and verifying double transfer and falsification risks; and, (3) Verifying application of an Android app that can use distributed ledger technology for payments at a cafeteria, peer-to-peer payments, and other transactions. The company reported that verification testing verified blockchain technology functions as a personal authentication infrastructure; digital assets can be issued using distributed ledger technology; and, peer-to-peer trading can be conducted without causing double transfers or falsification.

Article Produced By
Fisco

https://bitcoinwarrior.net/2019/07/keychain-and-chubu-electric-power-conduct-verification-testing-on-peer-to-peer-trading-that-uses-blockchain-technology/

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

IBM Blockchain team reportedly spared worst of firm’s layoffs as it redoubles DLT efforts

Quick Take

Despite IBM dismissing nearly 2,000 employees earlier this month, sources say the firm’s blockchain division escaped any dramatic cuts
Those who were affected were reportedly confined to the consulting side of the blockchain business
Separately, the blockchain project last month saw the departure of one of its leads, Jesse Lund

For all the criticism IBM’s Blockchain project has faced over the years, its ability to grow – and maintain – its team may be one area where it excels. Although IBM laid off 1,700 employees earlier this month, only a “very tiny, tiny percentage” of them came from the blockchain operation, sources close to the team told The Block. “The product team had no layoffs, there was nothing out of development. It was very limited on the blockchain side,” one source who has direct contact with the Blockchain division said.

While IBM declined to give specific details about the degree to which the layoffs had impacted its blockchain operation, Jerry Cuomo, VP of IBM Blockchain Technology, told The Block: “Blockchain skills are the priority…And we’re full-steam ahead of blockchain.” He added: “We plan to grow for a very long time.” Indeed, a quick search of online job-postings reveals blockchain jobs a-plenty at IBM across the world – from Australia to India. This corroborates with the firm saying it wanted to focus its hiring efforts in new businesses like “analytics, security and blockchain,” and that the layoffs elsewhere were part of a “realignment plan.“

That does not mean the blockchain division escaped any culling, however. Another source reported a handful of layoffs on the services (or consulting) side of the blockchain business, but confirmed the engineering side had been kept intact. The consulting arm is one of the blockchain team’s three pillars and reportedly its main “cash-cow.” It is, however, unrelated to the raw technological side of the business, which encompasses the IBM Blockchain Platform and the IBM Solutions products, which cover the Food Trust Network and the Stellar partnership.

IBM’s $34 billion acquisition of software developer Red Hat is also set to close. Sources suggested this may lead to more changes in the blockchain team in the near future, as Red Hat’s 13,000-strong team joins IBM’s Hybrid Cloud unit. Red Hat developers are set to work alongside and to utilise IBM’s blockchain team.

Article Produced By
Isabel Woodford

Isabel is The Block’s London and European reporter. She previously reported for Reuters in Madrid and London, following on from her time as a freelance journalist for the Guardian and the New York Times. She has a Bachelors in War Studies from King’s College London and a Master of Philosophy from the University of Oxford. Conflict of Interest: Edward Woodford, the CEO of SeedCX, is Isabel’s brother. She does not report on any issues related to Seed or advise other authors in any regard.

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/2019/06/20/ibm-blockchain-team-reportedly-spared-worst-of-firms-layoffs-as-it-redoubles-dlt-efforts/

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

Zilliqa Collaborates With Xfers to Bring the Benefits of Blockchain to Southeast Asia

One cryptocurrency project that has engaged in new initiatives

to improve customer service and boost adoption is Zilliqa. According to recent reports making rounds in the crypto space, the public Blockchain platform, Zilliqa has announced a new partnership with Xfers. The goal of this accord is to bring new innovations through Xfers’ enterprise solutions, such as support for payments, built-in digital wallet, and regulatory compliance to name a few. Zilliqa has revealed that it is partnering with MAS (Monetary Authority of Singapore)-approved WA SVF (Widely Accepted Stored Value Facility), Xfers, to develop more Blockchain uses when it comes to payment solutions powered for more than 500,000 users in the Southeastern part of Asia.

About Xfers

Xfers was founded in 2014. The company has an extensive portfolio of big clients in the fintech industry including Tunaikita and Julo two of the largest Southeast Asian peer-to-peer lending platforms. Another of Xfers client’s is Payfazz. Payfazz is an Indonesian based financial platform.

This service is extremely important for people who are unbanked. Take these stats as an example, the entire South East Asia as a whole is home to a mobile connectivity rate of about 133%. This is because some people own multiple SIM cards or mobile phones. However, only about 27% of this population have bank accounts. Cambodia is another region with extreme mobile connectivity rate of about 173%. However, only 13% of the full population of users have bank accounts. However, with the help been offered by Xfers’ payment infrastructure built on the smart contracts layer of Zilliqa, Xfers’ pool of enterprise solutions can come new innovations that offer support for payments, disbursements, regulatory compliance, and add a built-in digital wallet, to name a few.

The Goal is to Create a Digital Financial System in Southeast Asia

Speaking on the new initiative Tianwei Liu, who serves as the CEO and Co-founder of Xfers, said: “The vision of Xfers has been to create a trusted, digital financial system in Southeast Asia. Home to 600 million people, the Southeast Asian market is still predominantly unbanked. At least 70% of citizens have no access to the basic financial system.”

“By partnering with Zilliqa, the goal is to provide cutting-edge solutions that will grant equal opportunities to citizens as well as cost-saving solutions for businesses to run digitally who are looking to come to the region. As we move into the next growth phase for financial innovation, it is only the most robust tech solutions that will allow us to embrace a digital economy fully,” he added. Zilliqa is known as an enterprise-grade open Blockchain platform designed to use sharding as its on-chain solution to help sustain decentralization and allow greater scalability. To date, Zilliqa’s Blockchain can process as many as 2,828 transactions per second.

Singapore Has a Large Base of Xfers Users

Xfers has great value for Singaporeans. Nearly all fiat to crypto bridges in the country use Xfers. Xfers is the preferred payment model on Singapore’s Coinhako exchange. An Xfers account is the sole payment method on the Singapore arm of Binance exchange. Xfers used to be Coinbase’s main payment model in Singapore until its volume became untenable. As of press time, the price of ZIL was trading at $0,024.

Article Produced By
Brian Lubin

Brian Lubin is a Crypto News Reporter for Smartereum. He's well-known for his reports on the crypto markets.

https://smartereum.com/58333/zilliqa-day-2019-zilliqa-collaborates-with-xfers-to-bring-the-benefits-of-blockchain-to-southeast-asia-cryptocurrency-news-cryptocurrency-market-update-zil-usd-live-pric/

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

Gitcoin and ConsenSys Labs partner for Beyond Blockchain hackathon

Gitcoin and ConsenSys Labs will host a three-week virtual hackathon called Beyond Blockchain

from June 24–July 10. The event gives participants the chance to win prizes in Ethereum and ERC-20 tokens posted as bounties on Gitcoin. According to the announcement, the event focuses on bringing blockchain tools and technologies to a wider audience.

Funding open-source projects

$10,000 in prizes are up for grabs in categories like media, healthcare, and decentralized finance and more sponsorships and bounties will be announced as the event approaches. Prizes will be offered as bounties on Gitcoin’s platform using a featured hackathon prize explorer. The virtual hackathon continues efforts by Gitcoin and ConsenSys to develop funding for open-source projects. Interested developers, designers, and entrepreneurs can sign up here. Organizations interested in pitching sponsorships related to the event’s theme of increasing the adoption of blockchain tools and technologies can contact alex.voto@consensys.net. Gitcoin has promised to deliver more announcements regarding prizes and bounties in the weeks approaching the hackathon.

Previous events

The announcement comes just over a month after the close of the Ethereal Virtual Hackathon, and Ethereal Summit New York. Held in partnership with Microsoft, the hackathon saw over 600 participants competing for $67,000 in prizes offered by 14 different companies. Gitcoin offers a crowdfunding platform connecting projects with software developers. The project boasts 20,000 developers who have completed over 4,000 projects for a total of more than $1.5 million using the platform. Gitcoin’s hackathons give participants the opportunity to meet and work with important figures in the open source ecosystem. ConsenSys Labs is the venture arm of Consensys, supporting projects in the Ethereum ecosystem through seed and pre-seed investments and their accelerator.

Article Produced By
Seth Goldfarb

Seth is a Seattle-based writer who helps businesses using blockchain tell the stories of their success. His work has been published in CryptoSlate, Hacker Noon, and Coin Review and clients have included Evernym and Aave. Seth also maintains a calendar of Seattle-area blockchain events at www.pnwblockchain.com.

https://cryptoslate.com/gitcoin-consensys-labs-partner-beyond-blockchain-hackathon/

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

Cardano Updates Its Roadmap â What’s In For Investors?

Cardano Updates Its Roadmap – What’s In For Investors?

Cardano (ADA), the proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain network built on peer-reviewed academic research,

is being developed into a decentralized application (dapp) development platform with a multi-asset ledger and verifiable smart contracts. Cardano’s blockchain aims to be highly scalable, interoperable, and sustainable for real-world applications on an enterprise level to build the economy of the future. While that all sounds amazing, the project still has a lot of work to accomplish, and IOHK (Input Output Hong Kong), the parent company of Cardano, has released an updated roadmap outlaying progress towards its 2020 vision:

Cardano’s 5 Eras

Cardano’s roadmap can be broken down to 5 eras, namely Byron (Foundation), Shelley (Decentralization), Goguen (Smart Contracts), Basho (Scaling), and Voltaire (Governance). Each of the eras is centered around a primary goal with various releases and developments throughout the era to achieve this goal. The eras are completed sequentially, with research and development of future eras overlapped with one another (some of the work is being done in parallel). The first era (Byron) was officially completed this year, and now the primary focus is on completing the Shelley era. Currently, Cardano is in the Gougen era but is still very much focused on Shelley, which is supposed to be completed by the end of the year. Shelley’s mainnet is now live, and as its development continues, research and development for Goguen, Basho, and Voltaire will begin in parallel. Cardano’s roadmap is only updated until the end of 2020. By this time, Cardano’s development is expected to be vastly completed, and the focus will be on the blockchain’s governance (the Voltaire era).

Final Thoughts

As seen in the image above, the era we are currently in (Goguen) is right in the middle. It is intended to be one of the most formative eras of Cardano’s roadmap, as it’s tipped to be the one that brings mass adoption. However, IOHK is still working on finalizing Shelley, and then Goguen is set to be completed in the first half of 2020. By then, it’s expected that Cardano will have achieved a sufficient level of adoption with real-world use cases. A competing cryptocurrency project that has already achieved real-world adoption is Ethereum (ETH), which is being adopted by enterprise businesses such as Deloitte, Microsoft, Amazon, Ernst & Young, and others. Therefore, Cardano has some serious competition, and it will be interesting to see how these two projects compete once their roadmaps and blockchain technology are completed.

Article Produced By
Jeremy Wall

https://www.investinblockchain.com/cardano-updates-its-roadmap-whats-in-for-investors/

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

âDecentralization Is the Essential Foundation of Blockchain’, Exclusive Interview With Cudo Ventures’ Matt Hawkins

‘Decentralization Is the Essential Foundation of Blockchain’, Exclusive Interview With Cudo Ventures’ Matt Hawkins

Matt Hawkins is a serial entrepreneur and founder and CEO of Cudo Ventures,

a company whose GPU mining software is running on machines in over 130 countries around the world. We sat down with Matt to have a chat about crypto mining, the future of Proof of Work, and his views on the dominance of ASIC mining rigs.We all know that Proof of Work coin mining can be easily dominated by ASICs and larger mining companies. How can you compete with them?

Matt Hawkins: While ASICs are highly efficient in certain circumstances, their Achilles Heel is that they can only mine coins on a single algorithm. When the dominant coins change their Proof Of Work algorithm, or drop their block reward as Ethereum did joining the hard fork, the hardware instantly becomes unprofitable and the ASIC unit redundant. In response to this wastefulness, communities have long fought ASIC dominance–Constantinople disappointed Ethereum GPU miners by not proceeding with Progressive Proof of Work, which would have readdressed the ASIC-GPU balance, and other crypto assets such as Monero have declared war on ASICs and are resisting ASICs by changing their algorithm every 6 months.

Many other algorithms are substantially harder to build ASICs for, such as X16R, which changes between 16 algorithms, mining in a different order each time. For this reason, FPGAs have become more attractive for those who can afford the capital expenditure and obtain the Bitstreams required to reprogram them. Cudo Miner is currently focused on mining with GPUs, which have the advantage of being highly flexible and adaptable to changes in workload. Our software helps GPU and CPU miners to adapt to changes on a daily basis–from switching algorithm in the event of a fork, to mining the most profitable coin based upon market dynamics. In the current climate, most people will buy a GPU for gaming and choose to mine. But for the same reason, building a GPU mining rig offers a greatly reduced risk because the graphics cards have a substantially higher aftermarket value than ASICs.

What’s At Stake For Proof of Work?

PdH: Is Proof of Work going out of favor? And if so, will that impact Cudo?

MH: There’s a lot of enthusiasm for Proof of Stake, as proposed by Vitalik Buterin for the Ethereum Istanbul hard fork. NEM’s Proof of Importance is also interesting because it’s designed to be energy efficient and doesn’t require specialist hardware–and its ‘Delegated Harvesting’ rewards contributors for consistent support of the network rather than raw compute power. But that doesn’t mean that Proof of Work is dead. The new Mimblewimble coins Grin and Beam are more lightweight than bitcoin, but they still chose to employ Satoshi Nakamoto’s Proof of Work to create distributed trustless consensus and solve the double-spend problem.

Cudo Miner’s focus is on Proof of Work because mining provides users with monetization of their hardware, but if they are offered alternatives that are more profitable and satisfy their broader aspirations, they will try something new. All decentralized networks rely upon computing resources, and provided there are incentives for participation, there are ways software such as Cudo Miner can help make it easier for enthusiasts who want to support those networks to get started, and for bigger commercial operations to easily manage how their resources are utilized. The crypto technology market is evolving and how you earn revenue is evolving. Cudo is already developing solutions which are not typical Proof of Work. This will make substantially better use of hardware.

The User Friendly Interface of Cudo

PdH: Your interface is very user friendly, and your closest rival lacks the ability for users to adjust the percentage power of their CPUs/GPUs dedicated to mining. Is that a technically difficult feature to add? Because it seems intuitive and obvious, but you’re the first to my knowledge to do it.

MH: We come from a service provider background managing environments supporting hundreds of thousands of servers and millions of users. We see this as how the industry should be, so we designed everything from the ground up this way. It’s about making life as easy as possible for the user. What you see at the moment is just the tip of the iceberg regarding the features we have coming out in the next few months. It’s always a lot harder to retrofit these types of solutions in.

PdH: What are your thoughts, generally, on mining centralization? Is this a threat to the integrity of the network? Is it just capitalism at play? Do you think it’s healthy?

MH: Decentralization is the essential foundation of blockchain, and block rewards are what made it reach critical mass. However, as the market value of bitcoin soared it attracted huge capital investments in ASIC mining which caused centralization of hashing power. This had a knock-on effect making it impossible for widespread GPU miners to compete for a slice of the rewards, so they moved on to mining other currencies. This, as was widely reported, threatened bitcoin with a 51% attack scenario, where the entire validation of a decentralized network is lost.

But as more players come into the space and there is more choice, then greater decentralization follows. Decentralization is key to blockchain. You need people developing platforms and solutions that make life easier for mass adoption of mining and cryptocurrency. As the cryptocurrency ecosystem grows over time, the stability of the networks and their mining foundations is what will bring further adoption. I think designing and nurturing a distributed network is one of the biggest challenges for any crypto asset network, and we will see a lot more innovation because blockchain networks are still very much a technology frontier.

Mimblewimble–Hype or Real Promise?

PdH: What are your thoughts on Mimblewimble coins? Are you excited by the scalability possibilities they offer? Or is it all meaningless hype?

MH: For me, Mimblewimble is an exciting protocol! The confidential transactions enable an improved level of privacy compared to many of the current privacy coins. One of the issues with many of the blockchains is the growth of the size of the blockchain, and specifically the size of the locally stored file. Mimblewimble has a level of pruning built in which will help alleviate this. This can enable faster transactions with less impact on blockchain size.

Of course, at present it has a few drawbacks. For example, it currently does not support scripting, and if this is implemented it would be a substantial benefit. The Beam project has put forward suggestions around this. For the rest of the crypto community, the immediate difficulty is in transferring funds. With GRIN, for example, the receiving wallet must be online at the same time to receive funds. This can be inconvenient, but it also has a security benefit because it reduces the risk of someone managing to get your private key. It’s still early days, but I think the protocol and the current coins have great potential.

PdH: Cudo–I’ve used it myself–is not profitable unless you get free electricity and don’t mind burning through your laptop’s lifespan. Is Cudo addressing this conundrum somehow, or just waiting for the next bull market like everyone else?

MH: The profitability of mining varies hugely depending on what hardware you’re using, how much you’re paying for your energy, and of course what the market is doing. For popular crypto assets, you will need more than a laptop to mine–a gaming rig with a powerful modern graphics card such as a NVIDIA GTX 1070Ti is really the baseline for profitability and new cards such as the NVIDIA GTX 2070 or Radeon 7 are particularly strong for mining.

Right now, the markets aren’t favorable. Ravencoin is currently one of the most profitable coins to mine, but it changes daily, and new coins can present a strong initial reward. There are lots of people equipped with the right hardware and energy tariff, for whom it’s about eking the best out their rigs during the bear run. Anyone who is mining will tune their GPUs and overclock for maximum performance per Watt, within safe heat constraints! The miner’s priority is keeping everything ticking over and having the confidence that they are earning day and night, and not losing money from their mining software crashing or because they joined a dodgy mining pool.

Commercial mining farms tend to cash out in fiat as they go, or at least enough to cover their fees, but GPU rig miners are typically more engaged in the community and choose to mine and hold their preferred currency during the downturn, waiting with the rest of the crypto community for the market to pick up. People need to make their own good choices, and Cudo makes it easier to mine new coins and automatically switch to the most profitable coin. While the market is down, everyone is waiting for it to rally, but Cudo will always give the most transparent and accurate projected earnings for miners, with constant developments coming out and improving profitability every week.

Article Produced By
Paul de Havilland
Paul de Havilland is a fan of disruptive technologies, an active VC investor in promising startups (with exits exceeding $10M), and has experience covering both traditional and emerging asset classes. His passion is violin and opera – he is a long-time student of a protege of Placido Domingo.

https://bitsonline.com/decentralization-essential-foundation-blockchain-interview-cudo-matt-hawkins/

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

GET Protocol announces big new user for its blockchain-based ticketing solution 0 8

GET Protocol, the leading blockchain-based ticketing solution,

is expanding in usage and adoption with the integration of a second ticketing company: ITIX. Smart tickets issued by ticketing companies who make use of GET Protocol are digitally programmable and registered on the blockchain, bringing transparency and accountability to the ticketing industry. The protocol has issued over 200.000 tickets to date, none of which have been re-sold by scalpers.

Quick explainer of GET Protocol.

For each issued ticket, the GET crypto token is needed as a fuel within the protocol. This GET is then bought up from the open market. To read more about GET Protocol or the GET token, read up on the GET Medium blog. Currently ITIX handles ticketing for 23 theaters throughout the Netherlands, and sells more than 2 million tickets per year. Their ambition is to continuously grow and offer innovative services to their clients, of which GET Protocol’s honest tickets is a notable example.

From GET Protocol CEO Maarten Bloemers:

‘Our partnership with Dutch ticketing company ITIX is very exciting in various ways. Not only will we learn how to make the technical onboarding for ticketing companies as easy as possible with a committed local partner, also the opportunity costs for choosing not to service theaters directly but through an established brand are virtually non-existent. GET Protocol is extremely committed in helping ITIX grow in market share with our unique features, to both our benefit.’ The integration of these honest tickets issue by GET Protocol for the clients of ITIX will be done in phases. Starting later this quarter, ITIX will offer their clients the possibility to provide consumers the comfort and benefits of GET Protocol’s digital tickets.

Article Produced By
Crypto Radar PR

https://cryptoradar.org/get-protocol-announces-big-new-user-for-its-blockchain-based-ticketing-solution/

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

Malta AI and Blockchain Summit Spring Addition 2019: Day 2 recap

After a productive day one at the Malta AI & Blockchain Summit,

delegates returned for their second dose of expo floor exploration, sessions, workshops and networking opportunities at the Hilton. While the summit attracted established businesses and entrepreneurs encompassing a number of industries, the intersection of iGaming and blockchain proved to be a particularly exciting area, especially because Malta is a hub for both industries.

“My keynote today was about blockchain and gambling and in my opinion its one of the leading sectors in this space in terms of monetization and actualization and exemplification of blockchain”, Carla Maree Vella of Consultxd shared with CoinGeek.com. “This is not just said by myself, tons of key figures out there that are saying blockchain and gambling, those are going to be the key examples”, she revealed. Vella went on to provide examples of iGaming companies that are using blockchain technology to engage consumers, while also touching on how the immutability of blockchain information takes everything one step further for iGaming.

Ganapati is an example of an iGaming company that is paving the way with its use of blockchain and in fact, they were big exhibitors at the summit and last night’s recipients of “Marketing Campaign of the Year” at the Malta AI & Blockchain Summit Awards. “Through our work as an online slot provider we found a hole in the market that a lot of the casino users didn’t trust the sites and the operators. Now what provides trust, and what provides transparency? Blockchain!”, shared Ganapati COO Juliet Adelstein.

“So we began building our own blockchain platform that our online casino will sit on top of. Along with that, in conjunction we’ve also released a stable coin, G8C, which is a brand new form of stable coin in the iGaming industry”, she explained. As the crypto industry matures, more and more practical uses for blockchain technology continue to make their way to Unlinkthe surface. Vinay Gupta, one of the early minds behind the Ethereum launch, revealed how his organization, Mattereum, is using the blockchain to track memorabilia.

“The problem that we’re solving is provenance of physical object and our first partnership is with William Shatner of Star Trek and many other series fame, to take the collectables and memorabilia and basically produce blockchain proofs that they are accurate, that they are what they are said to be and these proofs have some legal reinforcement”, Gupta shared with CoinGeek.com “So its not just that somebody says they are real, there’s actually a financial aspect to that proof that allows you to recover value if it turns out to be a ringer. So this is new territory and we’re very pleased to have such a high profile first partner”, he added.

As the two day summit came to a close, organizer Eman Pulis shared his thoughts on the blockchain industry in general and how his events are crafted to help push the industry forward in Malta and around the globe. “What characterizes this industry is that its moving so fast”, said Pulis. “So after last November I thought, listen, we can’t wait another 12 months to bring those amazing people back to Malta. So we said lets wait six months and launch the spring/summer addition. So we did”, he said.

“Despite the long crypto winter, despite the bear market, despite the European Union elections happening tomorrow, we still managed to get a buzzing crowd of 5,500 people”, Pulis confirmed. “I think what makes this show special, unlike shows in North America where you have a North American focus, its truly global. Its been the characterization of the November show, also at this show we have delegates from Asia, delegates from North America, delegates from South America, so it is truly a global show where West meets East”, he added.

Article Produced By
Becky Liggero

After four and a half years of iGaming industry experience with Casino City, Becky Liggero joined Bitcoin Entrepreneur and Economic Envoy to the Government of Antigua Calvin Ayre to serve as the Head On-site Reporter for the Calvin Ayre Media Group. Since August 2009, Becky has exclusively conducted interviews with senior level executives and enthusiasts for a while continuing to travel the world and document her adventures for all to watch and read.

https://coingeek.com/malta-ai-and-blockchain-summit-spring-addition-2019-day-2-recap-video/

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