Check Out Cryptos Weekly For Market And Industry News In The Blockchain Space.

by Will Long | Mar 3, 2018 | blog, Cryptocurrency, News, Steemit, Video

This new crypto show should be on your radar. Cryptos Weekly is a new cryptocurrency and blockchain news show hosted by Andrew Berkowitz. cryptosweekly.co launched earlier this year and is gaining traction on both YouTube and Steemit.

“Filtering through the noise to bring you the most important stories, headlines, and market moves in the cryptocurrency and blockchain ecosystem” – cryptosweekly.co

You can subscribe on YouTube where they release a new video every Friday. (Or on iTunes if you prefer) Cryptos Weekly has their very own ICO Correspondent, Will Lowery, who reviews the upcoming Initial Coin offerings.

Berkowitz is also the founder and host of The Global Startup Movement, a podcast uncovering the stories of entrepreneurs, VC’s, and startup scenes worldwide.

Andrew produces great content and we are super excited for the future of @cryptosweekly!

Cryptos Weekly – Wishknish ICO, Coinbase Commerce, and Ripple in bed with Western Union

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Follow Cryptos Weekly On Steemit!

Cryptos Weekly – Arsenal endorses ICO, Robinhood Exchange, and Introducing Blockchain Charlie

What Others Are Saying About Andrew

“Andrew’s ability to connect with people, cultivate incredible conversation, and always create value, has resulted in the creation of the Global Startup Movement. I am grateful to have the opportunity to work side by side with Andrew.”
-Mike Meyers, CEO & Cofounder of Tradeversity

“Andrew has incredible energy. While most people just talk about their ideas, Andrew puts consistent action behind his and executes. I’m FIRED UP to witness what AB produces throughout his entrepreneurial journey!”
– John Lee Dumas, Founder/Host of EOFire

“Andrew is the definition of a purebred entrepreneur. He’s beyond knowledgeable and consistently produces value. He understands people and most importantly, knows how to build long-lasting relationships with whomever he works.
– Josh Davidson, CEO/Founder Chop Dawg

Cryptos Weekly – Launch of Venezuela’s Petro Token, Korea’s Crypto Market, and 22x ICO

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Need For Speed Blockchain Comparison – How Fast Is Steem?

by Will Long | Jan 23, 2018 | blog, Cryptocurrency, Facts, News, Steemit

As demand rises and blockchains grow, they must be able to scale. When doing a blockchain comparison there are several aspects that should be looked at. The speed of blockchain transactions is one of the most important aspects when considering scalability and usability.

The first ever blockchain, Bitcoin is now over 8 years old. It still functions well as a store of value, but the rise of transactional and speculative demand of Bitcoin has severely slowed down the database.

A few weeks ago, community members of Steemit launched a Thunderclap comparing The blockchains STEEM, Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Litecoin.

The results are staggering. STEEM transaction speed is lighting fast compared to the other blockchains. The Thunderclap included the following GIF made by Steem user @kyriacos. Check it out:

If you think STEEM if fast, wait till EOS launches in June 2018! Many of the developers that built BitShares and STEEM are now working on EOS. We believe that everything they learned and perfected on the first two iterations will help EOS be the best blockchain yet.

Learn More About STEEM & EOS:

Tether Just Got Hacked! Thief Runs Off With $31 Million In Crypto

by Will Long | Nov 21, 2017 | blog, Cryptocurrency, News, Video

Just out, The cryptocurrency, Tether has been hacked. And the hacker has run off with $31 million worth of tokens.

Currently Tether is at #20 on coinmarketcap.com totaling $634,400,000. The startup company from Santa Monica, California provides a Dollar backed cryptocurrency. Basically Tether enables traditional currency to be used like digital currency. They facilitate US dollar, Euro, and soon Yen transfers between crypto exchanges such as Bitfinex and Poloniex.

From thehackernews.com:

According to an announcement on the company’s official website posted today, the unknown hacker stole the tokens (worth $30,950,010) from the Tether Treasury wallet on November 19 and sent them to an unauthorized Bitcoin address.

The stolen tokens will not be redeemed, but the company is in the process of attempting token recovery in order to prevent them from entering the broader cryptocurrency market.

The attacker is holding stolen funds at the following bitcoin address:

16tg2RJuEPtZooy18Wxn2me2RhUdC94N7r

About Tether:

Worried About Getting Hacked?

One of the main pillars of the cryptocurrency industry is real ownership. With your private keys you can prove that digital currency is yours and that you control it. With traditional central banks, they hold you money and technically own your account. They control it, not you.

This is a huge advantage and improvement of banking and money systems of the past. However, with real ownership comes real responsibility and stewardship. Do your due diligence and research on crypto projects. Many have secure and decentralized blockchains, but not all.

We suggest diversifying your crypto portfolio to hedge against the loss via hacking. And store you crypto across several wallets. We also advise people to use decentralized exchanges such as BitShares. Centralized exchanges and platform are vulnerable to hacks, truly decentralized systems are not.

Japan Might Launch It’s Own Crypto Called J-Coin

by Will Long | Nov 21, 2017 | blog, Cryptocurrency, Facts, News

The 2020 Olympic Games will happen in Tokyo, Japan and the Japanese want to be ready for the influx of people that will come into the country for the event. Banks in Japan are now hoping to create a digital token and fully replace cash before the Olympic Games. The goal is to make the Japanese financial system more streamlined as cash transactions cost significantly more than digital transactions.

From CoinTelegraph:

“The J-Coin is intended to function in tandem with the Yen, rather than replacing it. The coin would be exchanged at a one-to-one ratio. The service for the coin would be offered freely but would be a means of tracking transactions that is far more complex in a cash-based society.

The coin will likely see release in the coming years, though the infrastructure of the system is not yet clear. It may be based on Blockchain technology, but the specifics are as yet unreleased. Recent reports from the Bank of Japan indicate that it does not consider Blockchain technology ‘mature’ enough to handle transactions.

The suggestion of a government cryptocurrency falls in line with the idea that governments around the world are seeking to start their own proprietary cryptocurrencies.”

Get Ready! Hardware Wallets Are Coming To Exodus – The Full Exodus Wallet Roadmap

by Will Long | Oct 1, 2017 | Bitcoin, blog, Facts, News, Wallets

Exodus is easily one of our favorite Bitcoin and cryptocurrency wallets. The UI is amazing, you can store a multitude of different blockchain tokens and there is a built in exchange tool.

AND EXODUS LETS YOU CONTROL YOUR PRIVATE KEYS 👍

Currently Exodus supports Aragon, Augur, BAT, Bitcoin, Civic, Decred, Dash, EOS, Ethereum, Gnosis, Golem, Litecoin, OmiseGo, Qtum and SALT.

And now It has been confirmed! Hardware wallets will be available for Exodus!

“The Exodus team is very keen to add hardware wallet support (e.g. Trezor, KeepKey, Ledger Nano). I can also tell you that personally JP and I both want hardware wallet support ASAP… We also have heard from a number of high-net worth investors this is the ideal platform with the added hardware auth.“

We can likely expect support for hardware wallets on Exodus sometime in 2018. The roadmap below has all the details on what Exodus plans to work on.

From woobull.com:

The Full EXODUS Roadmap

Feature	Standard Release	Eden^[1]Release	Details
Bitcoin	`2015.12.09`
Litecoin	`2015.12.09`
Dogecoin	`Removed`		Available in the initial 0.4.0 public release (2015.12.09), but removed for users with zero balances in 1.31.0 (2017.08.03) and fully removed from 1.34.0 onwards (2017.09.14) see Reddit post for more details.
Ethereum	`2016.02.12`		ERC20 asset support in v1.23.0 (2017.04.14)
Dash	`2016.04.08`		Excludes InstantX and PrivateSend features.
Golem	`2017.04.14`		Golem is the first ERC20 token to be supported by Exodus.
Augur	`2017.04.27`
Decred	`2017.06.22`		Excludes support for staking, but this is under evaluation for a future release.
EOS	`2017.07.06`
Aragon	`2017.07.06`
Gnosis	`2017.07.20`
OmiseGo	`2017.08.25`
Basic Attention Token	`2017.08.31`	`2017.08.25`
Civic	`2017.09.14`
Qtum	`2017.08.31`	`2017.08.25`
0x		`2017.08.25`
Bancor		`2017.08.25`
Bitcoin Cash		`2017.08.25`
DigixDAO		`2017.08.25`
District0x		`2017.08.25`
FirstBlood		`2017.08.25`
FunFair		`2017.08.25`
Metal		`2017.08.25`
Status		`2017.08.25`
Storj		`2017.08.25`
Wings		`2017.08.25`
Factom		`2017.08.31`	Private beta released 2017.02.10
SALT		`2017.09.20`
Ethereum Classic		`2017.09.23`

Exodus Eden Updates

2017.08.25 : v1.32.0
2017.08.31 : v1.33.1 : FCT
2017.09.20 : v1.34.2 : SALT
2017.09.23 : v1.34.3 : ETC

Future Roadmap

Feature	Status	Details
SEGWIT	`developing`	Support for Bitcoin SegWit transactions, currently under development, will reduce transaction fees.
Ripple	`developing`
NEO	`developing`
Monero	`2017`	Monero remains on the Exodus roadmap and we are excited to include this asset. Unfortunately, the UI/UX of Monero remains difficult and is still not ideal. Today novice users continue have difficulty with transaction notifications from the current beta GUI wallet from the Monero core team. Because Exodus does personal one-on-one support for each Exodus user we feel including Monero too early would cause a massive support burdon and confuse casual digital asset enthusiasts. Good news is we are getting closer and we do expect Monero to be included in 2017. Although pros and technical users may like bleeding edge technology, until Monero is rock solid, tested and “dog-fooded” internally Exodus will not release Monero until it is ready for “normal” (non-technical) digital asset consumers. Exodus posted an update on Reddit regarding the history and details on XMR integration (Jan 31, 2017).
ICONOMI	`2017`	Iconomi is an ERC20 token and expected to be released in 2017
Omni	`2018`	Likely in 2018. Omni, Maid, Tether all fall in the same body of work for Exodus
Maidsafe	`2018`	Maid is an Omni token and was expected to be released in 2017, but now delayed until 2018. These assets are built on the Bitcoin blockchain and will be contingent on the hard fork outcome in Q4 2017.
Tether	`2018`	Tether is an Omni token was expected to be released in 2017, but now delayed until 2018. These assets are built on the Bitcoin blockchain and will be contingent on the hard fork outcome in Q4 2017. We are most excited about Tether because of the ability to have a stable peg inside of the Exodus environment.
2FA	`planned`	2-factor authentication support is on the roadmap, this is likely to precede Hardware Wallet Support
HARDWARE WALLET	`planned`	The Exodus team is very keen to add hardware wallet support (e.g. Trezor, KeepKey, Ledger Nano). I can also tell you that personally JP and I both want hardware wallet support ASAP… We also have heard from a number of high-net worth investors this is the ideal platform with the added hardware auth.
.	.
Siacoin	`evaluating`	Exodus is intrigued with Sia but have not looked the tech to see what the options are.
SingularDTV	`evaluating`	SingularDTV is an ERC20 token.
TenX	`evaluating`
Zcash	`evaluating`	If the Zcash network remains stable and has continual upgrades it is likely we will support this asset in 2017.
.	.
Blackcoin	`excluded`	Exodus will have more interest in integrating staking protocols once Ethereum moves to proof-of-stake with Casper
Bytecoin	`excluded`
Counterparty	`excluded`
GameCredits	`excluded`
IOTA	`excluded`
Lisk	`excluded`
NEM	`excluded`
NXT	`excluded`
Peercoin	`excluded`	Exodus will have more interest in integrating staking protocols once Ethereum moves to proof-of-stake with Casper
Steem	`excluded`
Stellar	`excluded`
Synereo	`excluded`
Waves	`excluded`

UPDATE HISTORY:

2016-09-19: Storj, Siacoin, Blackcoin, Peercoin, Synereo, Bytecoin
2016-09-23: Zcash
2016-09-30: Monero, Omni, Tether
2016-10-07: ICONOMI, Augur, SingularDTV, DigixDAO
2016-10-17: Ethereum Classic
2016-10-25: Waves
2016-11-05: Maidsafe, Omni, Tether
2016-11-13: Monero
2017-01-15: Updates to status of most coins
2017-02-13: Factom
2017-03-07: Factom ETA updated
2017-04-02: Factom ETA updated
2017-04-06: ERC20, Golem
2017-04-17: ERC20, Golem
2017-04-22: Decred, Storj
2017-05-01: Augur
2017-06-05: Ethereum Classic
2017-06-07: Factom
2017-06-22: Decred
2017-07-10: EOS, Aragon
2017-07-20: Gnosis, Dogecoin, 2FA support
2017-08-17: OmiseGo
2017-08-27: Exodus Eden Assets: 0x, Basic Attention Token, Bitcoin Cash, Bancor, Civic, DigixDAO, District0x, FirstBlood, FunFair, Metal, Qtum, Status, Storj
2017-08-27: Roadmap updates: OMNI, Tether, Ripple, NEO, IOTA, SALT, SegWit Txs
2017-09-18: Basic Attention Token, Civic, Qtum
2017-09-21: Factom, SALT
2017-09-24: Ethereum Classic

Exodus.io

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STEEM Launches Smart Media Tokens

by Will Long | Sep 30, 2017 | blog, Facts, News, Steemit

Steemit just released some very exciting news! Anyone can now launch a blockchain token on the STEEM blockchain using what is called SMTs or Smart Media Tokens.

Blockchain tokenization is becoming extremely popular with the rise of ICOs or Initial Coin offerings on Ethereum like the ERC-20 tokens and on BitShares with User Issued Assets.

Now Steem joins the world market for user created blockchain tokens, but with some unique features. Smart Media Tokens utilize a Proof of Brain algorithm by which the cryptocurrency is distributed. This simply describes the upvoting and payout structure for a system like Steemit. Now anyone can create a token for their content based project, just like Steemit.

From the Whitepaper:

Steem’s Smart Media Tokens (SMTs) give anyone the power to launch and sell Proof-ofBrain
[1] tokens, which are tokens distributed by “upvote” and “like”-based algorithms
and can be integrated with websites to align incentives and spur growth, while websites are
empowered to adopt sustainable, currency-centric revenue models. This model has been
tested and continues to be proven by steemit.com, busy.org, chainbb.com, dsound.audio,
dtube.video and other Steem interfaces, which are monetizing content, tokens and media
in a way never before seen. Source: smt.steem.io

The possibilities are vast with this development. ANY PERSON can now launch their own crypto on STEEM wich has NO FEES! That is huge. Established brands, new brands, even a competitor like Reddit could utilize SMTs for their content.

*It is important to remember that growth of SMTs will lead to more transactions on the STEEM blockchain and demand for the STEEM Crypto assets. This is great news for holders of STEEM and STEEM Power.

The News via Ned Scott – CEO, Steemit Inc:

How Smart Media Tokens Work: An Animated Explanation

Shoutout to @dougkarr for creating the video! Way to go! 👍

Steem STMs are similar to “User-Issued Assets” which can be created on the BitShares DEX. Both BitShares and Steem blockchains utilize Graphene 2.0 technology for cryptographically secure decentralized ledgers.

Graphene Technical Documentation

User-Issued Assets on BitShares Decentralized Exchange:

The BitShares platform provides a feature known as “user-issued assets” to help facilitate profitable business models for certain types of services. The term refers to a type of custom token registered on the platform, which users can hold and trade within certain restrictions. The creator of such an asset publically names, describes, and distributes its tokens, and can specify customized requirements, such as an approved whitelist of accounts permitted to hold the tokens, or the associated trading and transfer fees.

*Regulation-compatible cryptoasset issuance

Source: bitshares.org

Read The STEEM SMT Whitepaper