Adding to Bullish XRP Narrative Ripple Bagged This Key Partnership

By | |
Leave a comment

Adding to Bullish XRP Narrative, Ripple Bagged This Key Partnership

Over the past few days, XRP has exploded dozens of percent higher, reaching nearly $0.30 just today. The surge has been attributed to a confluence of technical and fundamental developments, including increases in the price of Bitcoin, the launch of an XRP investment vehicle by leading derivatives exchange BitMEX, and much more. XRP’s bullish narrative gained even more steam recently with news that Ripple Labs, the San Francisco-based fintech company that is often closely affiliated with the cryptocurrency, just bagged a key partnership, increasing XRP’s adoption.

Ripple Secures Key Partnership

According to a recent post from Ripple on Tuesday, the company has just partnered with International Money Express (also known as Intermex), which is a leading money remittance and financial services company listed on the NASDAQ under the ticker IMXI.

This partnership will see Intermex, which operates primarily in Latin America, use Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) product for “faster, transparent cross-border remittance services between the United States and Mexico.” ODL is one of the flagship products of Ripple’s RippleNet, which does the following:

[ODL] relies on the digital asset XRP as real-time bridge between the sending and receiving currencies to enable even faster and cheaper cross-border transactions.

ODL is also being used by goLance, Viamericas, FlashFX, amongst other international payment companies.

Ripple wrote that Intermex integrating ODL is extremely important because the remittance firm is “one of the largest U.S. to Mexico remitter service providers in the world—processing more than 30 million payment transactions a year through a network of 100,000 payer locations.”

Intermex agrees with this sentiment. Company CEO Bob Lisy said the following on this partnership:

We are pleased to have begun the partnership with the Ripple team, and look forward to implementing new solutions on RippleNet and ODL to help drive growth and deliver greater efficiency.

This is Ripple’s latest partnership in a line of many.

Per previous reports from Ethereum World News, Ripple partnered with Siam Commercial Bank (SCB), one of Thailand’s oldest banks at over 100 years old, to “change the lives of their over 16 million customers.” This partnership will see the two entities create SCB Easy, a “mobile application that runs on Ripple to deliver instant, low-cost cross-border payments.”

The SCB intends to expand its operations into Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam—collectively known as the CLMV countries — in 2020, potentially increasing the reach of this new application.

Original article posted on the EthereumWorldNews.com site, by Nick Chong.

Article re-posted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe

Bitcoin Achieves Major Milestone With Half a Billion Transactions Confirmed

By | |
Leave a comment

Bitcoin Achieves Major Milestone With Half a Billion Transactions Confirmed


Image courtesy of CoinTelegraph

            FEB 05, 2020

The Bitcoin network has surpassed 500 million transactions since going live over 11 years ago.

According to blockchain analytics site Statoshi, there have been half a billion transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain as of press time.


Source: Statoshi

Crypto firm Casa CTO Jameson Lopp, co-founder & CTO site Statoshi celebrated the milestone on Twitter, saying:

“Today, as of block 00000000000000000001145bf2e7cb7f04df55feaf3b55d9f6511522bbbf333f at height 616064, Bitcoin surpassed 500 million transactions confirmed on the blockchain.”

From the First Bitcoin Transaction to Today’s Milestone

The first-ever Bitcoin transaction took place on Jan. 12, 2009. Nakamoto and the late Hal Finney were the early contributors to the project. Nakamoto sent Finney 10 BTC as a test, after which the computer scientist began mining blocks himself.

Ten months later, on Oct. 5, 2009, the New Liberty Standard set an initial Bitcoin exchange rate against the dollar. At the time, $1 was worth 2300.03 BTC.

The first-ever transaction of Bitcoin for physical goods took place on May 22, 2010. The famous Bitcoin Pizza saw two pizzas bought for 10,000 BTC by Laszlo Hanyecz. The programmer had offered users on a Bitcointalk forum the BTC in exchange for two pizzas. A teenager named Jeremy Sturdivant, nicknamed Jercos, accepted the Bitcoin and sent Hanyecz two pizzas from Papa John’s. This marks the first commercial transaction for Bitcoin.

ecosystem for entrepreneurs
Markethive Advertisement

After 11 years, Bitcoin is now hitting another major milestone of passing half a billion transactions. As Twitter user Hodlonaut tweeted:

“Bitcoin isn’t talking about this. Or about how revolutionary and unprecedented its traits of censorship resistance and immutability are. Bitcoin just is. And does. Once block at a time.”

Original article posted on the CoinTelegraph.com site, by Ting Peng.

Article re-posted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe

Ransomware Group Hit Five US Law Firms Demand Ransom in Bitcoins

By | |
Leave a comment

Ransomware Group Hit Five US Law Firms Demand Ransom in Bitcoins

By RTTNews Staff Writer | Published: 2/4/2020 9:20 AM ET

Five U.S. law firms have been hit by a dangerous ransomware group called Maze, stealing their data and then encrypting it, a modus operandi they are known for, according to cybersecurity firm Emsisoft. Maze is reportedly demanding a ransom in bitcoins to restore or delete their data with them.

At least three of these law firms have been affected within the last 72 hours, and it is feared that Maze could target more law firms in the days to come. Though currently only U.S. firms have been hit, firms in other countries are also at risk.

Emsisoft believes malicious email attachments were used to infect the networks of the affected law firms. Ransomware can be delivered in a variety of formats, including PDF, ZIP, Word document, Excel spreadsheet and more.

Maze generally extracts a ransom from their targeted victims in return for the deletion of the data stolen from them. For proof, they initially name the victims, and if that does not work, they publish a small portion of their data online.

If the ransom is still not paid, Maze will go ahead and post the remainder of the data on its websites, sometimes on a staggered basis.

In the current attacks, Maze has already posted a portion of the stolen data of at least two of the firms, which includes client information. Maze claims that the stolen data will be deleted upon payment.

Attacks that steal data are considered to be data breaches which, under U.S. law, are treated very differently to malware infections. These data breaches could also lead to the affected firms facing legal action from aggrieved customers.

Emsisoft warns that opening a malicious attachment may deploy the ransomware immediately, or it may enable attackers to remotely execute the ransomware in future. The attachments are delivered via phishing emails.

Phishing is a very common attack vector in which threat actors pretend to be a legitimate entity in order to elicit an action from the target.

Around 400 servers of the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) were affected and the whole computer network was hung in a ransomware attack in 2018.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Article written by an RTT News Staff Writer, and posted on the RTT News.com website.

Article reposted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe

Analysts Expect XRP Price to Continue Breakout Against Bitcoin

By | |
Leave a comment

Analysts Expect XRP Price to Continue Breakout Against Bitcoin

Like it or not, XRP hasn’t fared too well over the past few years. Since its blow-off top in January of 2018, during which the cryptocurrency traded above $3.00, the price of XRP has crashed, falling to $0.24 where it is now and as low as $0.17. That represents an over 90% drop from the all-time high. The cryptocurrency has lost a similar amount against Bitcoin (the XRP/BTC pair).

Yet, analysts are becoming convinced that the altcoin against the leading cryptocurrency may soon move higher.

Cryptocurrency trader “TraderSmokey” noted that XRP’s BTC pair is “looking good,” depicting that the pair has broken out of a long-term falling wedge to only consolidate into a short-term falling wedge, implying an imminent breakout to the upside. He said that this consolidation coupled with the bullish Ichimoku Cloud is setting XRP up to surge around 6-7% against BTC.

Not Only Thing Suggesting XRP To Move Higher

It isn’t only the above that suggests XRP/BTC will continue to surge higher in the coming days.

According to a Telegram channel tracking TD Sequential indicator signals on a number of assets, cryptocurrencies and commodities especially, the XRP/BTC one-day chart saw a “Buy 9” (notably different than the Buy 13 candles seen with BTC, but bullish nonetheless) candle during Friday’s trading session. Should the indicator play out as it does in textbooks, XRP could soon begin to rally against Bitcoin.

Also, per previous reports from this very outlet, analyst Bitcoin Jack noted that the XRP/BTC trading pair has a bullish setup forming, recently forming somewhat of a bottom at key levels. He claims that the cryptocurrency could soon surge from 2,536 satoshis to 2,879 satoshis — a gain of 13.5% over the coming weeks.

On a longer-term basis, TraderXO noted that XRP against BTC has been trading in a manner similar to a chart pattern or schematic described by legendary chartist Richard Wyckoff. The schematic is the Wyckoff Accumulation pattern, and it implies that XRP is currently in Phase C of accumulation, which correlates with a strong surge in prices back to the range high.

Should the Wyckoff schematic play out in full, the price of the altcoin will surge towards 5,000 satoshis, and maybe beyond.

ecosystem for entrepreneurs
Markethive Advertisement

Original article posted on the EthereumWorldNews.com site, by Nick Chong.

Article re-posted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe

Twitter Adds Bitcoin Emoji Jack Dorsey Suggests Unicode Does the Same

By | |
Leave a comment

Twitter Adds Bitcoin Emoji Jack Dorsey Suggests Unicode Does the Same


Image courtesy of CoinTelegraph

            FEB 2, 2020

Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted the newly added Bitcoin (BTC) emoji on Feb. 2 and tagged Unicode, the consortium managing the character standard, in an apparent suggestion to do the same.

Dorsey's tweet showed that, now, whenever a Twitter user writes the Bitcoin or BTC hashtag, an image showing its symbol appears next to it.


Dorsey's tweet showing the Bitcoin emoji. Source: Twitter

Dorsey's apparent suggestion that the symbol be included in the Unicode text encoding standard was appreciated by the community, with Lightning Labs co-founder Elizabeth Stark joining the request.

After Twitter added the emoji to its platform, many cryptocurrency personalities test-tweeted it, including Tron (TRX) founder and Bittorrent CEO Justin Sun.

The official accounts of major cryptocurrency exchange Binance used the emoji and suggested that the cryptocurrency community should join in using the hashtag to get it trending on Twitter. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao also retweeted the message stating, “Let's do this.”

Jack Dorsey's involvement with crypto

This is not the first foray into crypto by Twitter's co-founder, who is also the CEO and founder of crypto-friendly mobile payments application Square. In early December 2019, he also announced that Twitter has a dedicated team to develop a decentralized standard for social media.

Square, on the other hand, was recently awarded a patent for a technology that purportedly cracks a present barrier in cryptocurrency merchant transactions by providing a real-time system that exchanges crypto for fiat money. In November, the firm also issued a letter to shareholders showing that Bitcoin buyers on the app doubled in Q3 2019, but brought low profits.

Original article posted on the CoinTelegraph.com site, by Adrian Zmudzinski.

Article re-posted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe

Bitcoin Bulls Set To Hit 10000

By | |
Leave a comment

Bitcoin Bulls Set To Hit $10000

By Joji Xavier | Published: 1/31/2020 9:50 AM ET

As the first month of 2020 is coming to an end on Friday, Bitcoin came closest to the $10000 mark since it started the steady surge at the new year.

$9552 recorded on Thursday was the leading cryptocurrency’s highest price of the month and the best since October 27.

At the time of writing this, Bitcoin is trading at $9228, up by $1000, or more than 10 percent from its value seven days ago.

Bitcoin has been showing signs of resurgence in the New Year after a relatively dull December, with the bulls entering the market.

After dipping below $7000 on January 2, the coin displayed a strong performance by rising steadily overall, and within the next two weeks, crossing $7000 and $8,000 levels. On Monday Bitcoin surged past $9000.

The next day saw the biggest leap of $414 in a span of just six hours. After rising as high as $9552 on Thursday, Bitcoin could not sustain the momentum.

Ether also made substantial gains in the past seven days. From $161 last Friday, the second most popular cryptocurrency rose to $186 Thursday, marking a 15 percent increase in its value. That was Ether’s best price since November 13.

At the time of writing this, Ether was trading at $176.

On Friday, Bitcoin has a market capitalization of $168.69 billion, and a 24 hour trade volume of $33 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Ether has a market capitalization of $19.53 billion, and a 24 hour trade volume of $13 billion.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Article written by an RTT News Staff Writer, and posted on the RTT News.com website.

Article reposted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe

Sacramento Kings Launch Blockchain-driven Memorabilia Auction Platform

By | |
Leave a comment

Sacramento Kings Launch Blockchain-driven Memorabilia Auction Platform

By RTTNews Staff Writer | Published: 1/22/2020 9:36 AM ET

American professional basketball team Sacramento Kings launched NBA’s first live blockchain-powered auction platform for authentic memorabilia in partnership with New York-based blockchain technology firm ConsenSys.

Sacramento Kings is using ConsenSys’ Ethereum-powered supply chain product called Treum for fans to bid on in-game sports gear that is worn during matches. During Kings home games, fans will be able to participate in a live auction of game-worn gear. Anyone from the fans watching the game in the arena to the fans watching from home can bid on any Kings live auction item.

Kings guard Buddy Hield’s game-worn jersey was the first to be auctioned off during the game with proceeds used for Hurricane Dorian relief efforts. Proceeds from future auctions will go toward the Sacramento Kings Foundation unless specified.

The total value of the U.S. sports memorabilia market has been valued at $5.4 billion annually. There are currently no industry standards for authenticating items and protecting fans from purchasing counterfeit merchandise.

The auction’s highest bidders will receive the authenticated gear, tagged and verified, along with a token, representing proof of ownership and also serves as a Certificate of Authenticity (CoA).

This partnership follows the Kings recent launch of the NBA’s first physical blockchain-powered range of crypto-collectible in professional sports.

The Sacramento Kings, one of the most tech-savvy ownership groups in the NBA, had partnered BitPay in 2014 to become the first sports team in the world to accept Bitcoin payments for match tickets and promotional products.

Recently, it teamed up with blockchain startup Blockparty to launch NBA’s first blockchain-driven reward program for the NBA’s first predictive gaming app called ‘Call the Shot.’

In July 2018, Sacramento Kings had become probably the first professional sports team to foray into cryptocurrency mining and use the funds for charity program ‘MiningForGood.’ They installed crypto-mining machines inside their arena.

In August, Dallas Mavericks became the second NBA team after Sacramento Kings to accept cryptocurrency Bitcoin (BTC) as an additional method of payment for match tickets and merchandise. It teamed up with Bitcoin payment processor BitPay to process all the payments using Bitcoin.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Article written by an RTT News Staff Writer, and posted on the RTT News.com website.

Article reposted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe

World Economic Forum Forms Consortium For Digital Currency Governance

By | |
Leave a comment

World Economic Forum Forms Consortium For Digital Currency Governance

By RTTNews Staff Writer | Published: 1/28/2020 9:31 AM ET

The World Economic Forum (WEF) formed a global consortium to be focused on designing a framework for the governance of digital currencies such as Bitcoin, including stablecoins.

This is the first initiative to bring together leading companies, financial institutions, government representatives, technical experts, academics, international organizations, NGOs and members of the Forum’s communities on a global level.

The consortium will provide solutions for a fragmented regulatory system, with efficiency, speed, inter-operability, inclusivity and transparency to be at the heart of this initiative to form the global framework.

A set of guiding principles will be co-designed to support public and private actors exploring the opportunities that digital currencies present.

The Global Consortium for Digital Currency Governance will aim to increase access to the financial system through innovative policy solutions that are inclusive and inter-operable. WEF said opportunities for financial inclusion will be only unlocked if the space is regulated properly and includes public-private cooperation across developed and high-growth markets.

Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney said, “It is critical that any framework on digital currencies ensures security, efficiency and legitimacy of payments while ensuring fair and open competition.”

Last week, the WEF and some of the world’s major central banks had created a central bank digital currency (CBDC) policymaker toolkit. This will enable policy-makers to understand the process of design and deployment of CBDC’s.

The WEF’s Global Technology Governance Summit will take place in San Francisco from April 21 to 22, 2020 where governance of digital currency will be a core pillar.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Article written by an RTT News Staff Writer, and posted on the RTT News.com website.

Article reposted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe

Deutsche Bank: Cryptocurrencies Won’t Replace Cash Anytime Soon’

By | |
Leave a comment

Deutsche Bank: Cryptocurrencies Won’t Replace Cash ‘Anytime Soon’


Image courtesy of CoinTelegraph

            JAN 27, 2020

Deutsche Bank’s research arm issued a report predicting that cash will be around for a long time despite the surge of digital currencies.

Cash is unlikely to disappear anytime soon despite the decline of its use as a payment method and the surge of digital currencies, Germany’s largest bank believes

Cash is unlikely to disappear anytime soon despite declining use as a payment method and the surge of digital currencies, Germany’s largest bank says.

Deutsche Bank, a German multinational investment bank that previously predicted that cryptocurrencies will replace fiat by 2030, now claims that cash “will be around for a long time” as a preferred method of payment.

Deutsche Bank Research issues three reports on the future of payments

The bank has forecast a tentative future for cash in one of its recent “The Future of Payments” reports carried out by Deutsche Bank’s research arm Deutsche Bank Research. Titled “Cash: the Dinosaur Will Survive … For Now,” the report was issued on Jan. 21 and represents the first part of a series of reports on the future of payments. The second part, called “Moving to Digital Wallets and the Extinction of Plastic Cards,” was published on Jan. 23, while the third and final part of the series, “Digital Currencies: the Ultimate Hard Power Tool,” was issued on Jan. 27.

Despite expressing its confidence that cash will remain a major payment method in the near future, Deutsche Bank admits to a growing role for the ongoing digital payment revolution. The bank wrote in its “Cash” report:

“In this report, we argue that cash is unlikely to disappear anytime soon. However, a real digital payment revolution has been underway for the past ten years. Cash is losing ground as a payment method. Several countries have recently removed large notes worth $100 or more and implemented policies to replace traditional payment methods with digital solutions. In the midst of these changes, non-sovereign cryptocurrencies pose a threat to political and financial stability.”

Over 50% of people in developed countries believe that cash will always be around

As part of the cash-focused report, Deutsche Bank Research conducted a survey indicating that a third of people in developed countries consider cash to be their favorite, while more than 50% are sure that cash will always be around. Additionally, the bank found out that Germans hold the highest average rate of cash among advanced economies, which accounts for 52 euro or about $57 at press time. According to Deutsche Bank, Germany plans to use even more cash in the coming six months.

The world’s two most populous countries encouraging greater use of digital currencies

Deutsche Bank further outlined that the future of cash will greatly depend on further developments in China and India, which are the world’s two most populous countries. Specifically, the bank emphasized that both countries have been encouraging greater use of digital currencies and blockchain. As such, China’s President called for the country to accelerate its blockchain adoption in late 2019, while India’s securities regulator recently urged on Jan. 23 that exploration of the best possible usage of blockchain in securities markets.

As China has reportedly seen progress with its government-backed digital currency, Deutsche Bank warned that the adoption of such a currency poses a serious threat to the United States dollar:

“China is working on a digital currency backed by its central bank that could be used as a soft- or hard-power tool. In fact, if companies doing business in China are forced to adopt a digital yuan, it will certainly erode the dollar’s primacy in the global financial market.”

As to the growing trend of crypto and blockchain industry, Deutsche Bank has also been actively working in the developments in this area. In September 2019, Deutsche Bank joined JPMorgan’s blockchain-based network, the Interbank Information Network to reduce the cost of processing difficult payments and offer better client services.

Original article posted on the CoinTelegraph.com site, by Helen Partz.

Article re-posted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe

Crypto Community Reacts to Ripple CEO’s Hint at Company IPO

By | |
Leave a comment

Crypto Community Reacts to Ripple CEO’s Hint at Company IPO

Yesterday, it was revealed that the chief executive of Ripple Labs, Brad Garlinghouse, made a massive announcement during an event surrounding the World Economic Forum of 2020 in Davos, Switzerland.

At the Wall Street Journal event, Garlinghouse said that he believes in the next 12 months, “you’ll see initial public offerings in the crypto/blockchain space.”

Garlinghouse, touching on the long-held sentiment that Ripple will eventually issue shares on the public market, went on to say that “We’re not going to be the first and we’re not going to be the last, but I expect us to be on the leading side… it’s a natural evolution for our company.”

In other words, Garlinghouse thinks it is a “natural evolution” for his company to issue shares on public stock exchanges.

Of course, this comment quickly elicited a massive response from the crypto community. Some were positive, some were negative, and some were neutral.

Community Responds to Potential Ripple IPO

One of the most notable responses to this news was one from Bully, a cryptocurrency commentator who works as a lawyer. The pseudonymous commentator posted the below tweet, seemingly throwing shade at Ripple’s intent to issue shares on public exchanges, further adding to his point by publishing an image from South Park that says: 1) start up, 2) cash in, 3) sell out, and 4) bro down.

More seriously, prominent XRP and Ripple commentator GreenEggsnHam, who sports over 16,000 followers on Twitter, wrote that this news is disappointing to hear to him. The commentator specifically looked to the fact that Ripple has “half a billion dollars in cash and billions more in XRP escrow,” which would suggest that there is no need for the company to raise funds on public markets. They continued:

This is nothing but a wealth transfer mechanism and I find it utterly disgusting. There is zero reason for Ripple to become a publicly traded company – they don’t need the funds. I expected more from these guys.

This comment garnered hundreds of likes from others in the cryptocurrency community.

On the other side of things, XRP bull and eerily accurate cryptocurrency trader Credible Crypto shared an article from popular Ripple community member Hodor, in which he laid out the potential effects a public listing of shares of the fintech company could have on Ripple itself:

This influx of capital from an IPO is used by the company to expand and achieve far greater levels of growth than they otherwise would…

Hodor suggested that if his calculations of a large multi-billion-dollar IPO is correct, the company could bag big business deals, enlist powerful marketing campaigns, and acquire many companies to help push the adoption of its technology.

This potential demand might not be hearsay. Per previous reports from Ethereum World News, the company was late last year valued at $10 billion in the venture capital markets in a $200 million Series C funding round. This made it more valuable than WeWork.

Original article posted on the EthereumWorldNews.com site, by Nick Chong.

Article re-posted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe