Colleagues, as the debate continues regarding whether cryptocurrencies
are securities or commodities, a parallel debate is emerging which concerns the
legality of including predictive code in smart contracts. The Commodities Futures Trading Commission governs the use of binary options, derivatives and event
contracts for US-based traders and investors. The centerpiece of CFTC
enforcement is protecting the “public interest”. Crypto smart contract security issues, which may lead
to financial losses, are under particular scrutiny by the CFTC. Best practices
concerning smart contracts vary by the Blockchain used by each
cryptocurrency. If your prediction is right, the
contract automatically sends you the remittance as long as it is in the public
interest. The issue of nefarious uses of cryptocurrencies let alone betting on
illicit financial transactions (e.g. money-laundering, evading economic
sanctions and payment for drug trafficking). Smart contract security audits are key to uncovering vulnerabilities in the
underlying Blockchain. The CFTC’s chief concern is the prohibition of so-called
“prediction markets”. Bottom line: When it comes to US-based cryptos and developers
including predictive code in smart contracts raises a red flag by the CFTC.
Until the CFTC issues formal guidelines, our recommendation is to avoid
predictive code in crypto Blockchain. Post a comment today! Lawrence – Cryptocurrency
Academy (https://cryptocurrencyacademy.blogspot.com/)
Our mission is to provide Training and Certification programs to enable Cryptocurrency, Blockchain and FinTech traders and investors worldwide to achieve their career goals.
Thursday, October 18, 2018
Wednesday, October 17, 2018
Fiat to Digital Deposits and Withdrawals for Cryptocurrency Exchanges – Can Binance’s third party method work for smaller exchanges?
Colleagues, unlike Bitfinex the market cap leading Binance
exchanges requires investors to convert their fiat currencies using third party
portals localbitcoins.com, otcbtc.com or Bitfinex. By contrast Bitfinex does allow
direct fiat currency deposits which are then converted to cryptocurrencies …
which if desired can then be transferred to other crypto exchanges. Here is the
issue: What happens to Binance market cap and trading volume if one or more of
their fiat currency “on-ramps” fails? Case in point is the bug in the Bitfinex deposits
processing system last week which rendered their deposits on ramp unavailable. Fortunately,
they have resolved this problem with the implementation of a new “distributed
banking solution”. Ease of use – for both fiat to crypto deposits and
crypto to fiat withdrawals – is yet another critical success factor (primarily
for individual investors) which needs resolution if cryptocurrencies are to
penetrate the mass market. The development of user friendly processes will
greatly benefit the global crypto ecosystem. Post a comment today! Lawrence – Cryptocurrency Academy (https://cryptocurrencyacademy.blogspot.com/)
Tuesday, October 16, 2018
Fidelity Digital Asset Services – One Small Step toward Cryptocurrency Mass Market Adoption
Colleagues, we at the Cryptocurrency Academy view Fidelity’s announced its new Digital Assets Services as one important, albeit fully anticipated,
step toward mass-market adoption of cryptocurrencies. Unlike most other moves
by leading financial institutions this announcement is noteworthy for two key
reasons. First, DAS will provide custody and trading services for institutional
investors trading millions+ of crypto market cap (in stark contrast to
individual consumer traders). Second, we applaud the vision articulated by Fidelity’s Tom Jessup that DAS will grow into “a
full-service enterprise-grade platform for digital assets”. We fully
expect that the next 12-24 months will see similar announcements coming from
BlackRock, Schwab, Templeton and BNP Paribas … just to name a few. We also
foresee that the private sector firms will far outpace sovereign central bank
adoption of digital assets … with the US Federal Reserve, ECB and PBoC topping
the list. So what comes next in the global cryptosphere? Look for one or more
global 100 firms such as Amazon, Facebook or AramCo to introduce their own
“private labeled” cryptocurrencies. Post a comment today! Lawrence – Cryptocurrency
Academy (https://cryptocurrencyacademy.blogspot.com/)
Monday, October 15, 2018
What is the scope and impact of Bitcoin time warp attacks cyber criminals? Should the software bug be fixed?
Colleagues, crypto time
warp attacks occur when miners collude to report incorrect timestamps that are farther
apart, messing with the rate at which blocks can be mined. Incorrect timestamps
are do occur and can be innocuous. Chain Analysis reports that timestamp errors have steadily
decline since 2018. However, specific manipulation by miners who bends the
rules with the goal of creating illegitimate tokens is cybercrime … pure and
simple. Bitcoin (along with Litecoin) are most susceptible to time warp
attacks. However, some argue that the same Blockchain bug which allows these
attacks have favorable unintended positive side effects … faster transaction speeds and attraction of
more users. By contrast, if the
difficulty of creating a new block is low, a cyber-criminal can mine many fast
coins, or in the case of a small chain, a criminal with 51% hash power could reduce the difficulty to one and mine a new fork from the original block.
The debate continues within the Bitcoin developer community. While consensus
will be hard to reach, the community needs to reach at least a majority vote or
risk a division, which split BTC into Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash in 2017. Post a comment today! Lawrence – Cryptocurrency
Academy (https://cryptocurrencyacademy.blogspot.com/)
Friday, October 12, 2018
PBoC vs. US Federal Reserve - Will China outpace the US in central bank cryptocurrency adoption?
Colleagues, last week we reported that the US
Fed’s Jim Cunha, Vice President
for Treasury and Financial Services,
speculated that the US central bank could issue a digital asset within the next
five years. By contrast the People’s Bank of China is aggressively entering the
R&D phase of a planned launch of a sovereign digital asset in the next 2-3
years. Herein we see two very different perspectives on cryptocurrencies. The
US is understandably concerned about security of the underlying Blockchain
technology. The PBoC is
actively hiring technical staff to build and test a cryptocurrency and has filed
41
patent applications. This situation has many similarities with the
two countries’ race to adopt 5G
telecommunications infrastructure. Bottom line: Despite a highly
centralized bureaucracy and conservative political system, China seems poised
to be the move mover when it comes to central bank cryptocurrency. Do first
movers necessarily have a competitive advantage? When it comes to a sovereign
digital asset this trend may not be valid. Post a comment today! Lawrence – Cryptocurrency
Academy (https://cryptocurrencyacademy.blogspot.com/)
Thursday, October 11, 2018
Cryptocurrencies with lower market capitalization have the greatest risk of 51% mining attacks
Colleagues, the threat of 51% attacks loom
large in the global cryptosphere. However, findings suggest that the potential
for a 51% mining attack has an inverse correlation to the market cap of a given
cryptocurrency. Attacks by a group
of miners controlling more than 50% of
the network's mining hashrate or computing
power of the currency’s Blockchain. Two factors drive the propensity of a
cryptocurrency 51% attack. First, cryptos with smaller market caps typically
have fewer active miners. It is easier to gain control over 1000 miners of ZCoin, which ranks 100th
in market cap by CoinMarketCap at some $60m USD #1 ranked Bitcoin valued at roughly
$114t USD with perhaps 1,000,000 active miners worldwide. Second, the
availability of relatively low-cost mining pools enable cyber criminals the opportunity to “rent”
GPU power from multiple
pools simultaneously while subtly approaching the 51%+ threshold for
controlling hashrates. Pre-emptive measures include making code changes at the Blockchain protocol level, boycotting likely attackers, increasing the
number of confirmation requirements and unleashing a DDoS attacks on suspected hackers. Bottom line: There is no
fail-safe strategy become a victim of a 51% Attack, however, investing in Tier
1 cryptocurrencies (e.g. the CoinMarketCap’s top 10 cryptos) provides optimal security
and peace of mind. Post a comment today! Lawrence – Cryptocurrency
Academy (https://cryptocurrencyacademy.blogspot.com/)
Wednesday, October 10, 2018
Will Stablecoins help transform cryptocurrencies from early adopter to mainstream stable in trans-border transactions?
Colleagues, price volatility has been the
Achilles heel of cryptocurrencies in 2018 and a major impediment to their mass
market adoption … particularly among institutional investors. Enter Stablecoins
(SCs). Unlike pure play cryptos which are essentially fiat digital assets,
Stablencoins are pegged to an underlying asset – gold, silver, crude oil or
sovereign bank currencies such as the US dollar and Japanese yen. Stability is
the key driver behind the launch of a wave of Stablecoins including an Australian
dollar-pegged SC, Gemini
US dollar pegged SC, GMO’s
planned yen-pegged SC which is scheduled to come to market in early 2019. All
of these developments lead to the obvious question: If SCs are pegged to an
underlying asset why not simply invest directly in the asset (e.g. oil futures)
itself? Let us offer a two-fold answer: First, investors in SCs are legally entitled to the underlying assets if a problem occurs
with the digital asset. Second, SCs offer big benefits to the remittance market. Remittances
are trans-border transactions made by people who work overseas who send their
wages to their families in their country of origin. In turn, SCs, like regular
cryptocurrencies are Blockchain-based which increase the speed of transactions
and lower costs. Bottom line: The Cryptocurrency Academy
believes Stablecoins appear to have a viable real world use case, yet will in
no way undermine or limit the adoption of cryptos such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin. Post your comments today! Lawrence – Cryptocurrency
Academy (https://cryptocurrencyacademy.blogspot.com/)
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Colleagues, crypto time warp attacks occur when miners collude to report incorrect timestamps that are farther apart, messing with the ...
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