EU-level regulation for cryptocurrencies and ICO market may send Bitcoin and other coins to fresh lows

EU finance ministers call for crypto and ICO regulation on EU level.
Brussels-based Bruegel suggests tighter regulation or even ban.

The Brussels-based think tank Bruegel prepared a document for EU finance ministers with the aim to promote EU-level regulation of digital assets and initial coin offerings, according to Reuters. It is supposed to be discussed by the ministers on Friday during their meeting in Vienna.

EU authorities have been making noises about risks related to highly volatile crypto market, prone to scams and vulnerable to hack attacks. However, they avoided comprehensive regulation due to the small size of the segment, but the growing popularity of digital assets in the European countries might force them to change their mind.

"Now the possible expansion of the crypto exchange business in Europe and considerable interest in ICOs in EU countries, which account for 30 percent of the global market in terms of projects funded, is pushing regulators to take a closer look," Reuters reports.

Malta, for example, strives to create a favorable regulatory environment for blockchain projects in hopes that they will support the economic development. The efforts of the Maltese was rewarded as many companies including Hong Kong-based Binance, one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges, flocked to Malta.

According to Bruegel, the authorities should focus on regulating or even banning entities that deal with cryptocurrencies and tokens. The think-tank noted the restrictive Chinese approach towards the industry.

Tanya Abrosimova

FXStreet

David

A Bullish Sign Returns For Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, EOS, And Other Cryptocurrencies

Major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple and EOS have been on fire lately. Over the last seven days, Bitcoin is up 21.80%, Ethereum is up 39.36%, Ripple is up 40.89% and EOS 51.84%–see table 1.

Table 1

7d Price Change For Major Cryptocurrencies

Cryptocurrency %7d

Bitcoin 21.80

Ethereum 39.36

Ripple 40.89

EOS 51.84

Source: Coinmarketcap.com 4/13/18 at 10:30 a.m.

The cryptocurrency rally extends across the entire chain. Only one cryptocurrency out of the top 100 dropped in the last seven days, while 99 advanced–see table 2.

Table 2

Number of Cryptocurrencies That Advanced/Declined In The Top 100 Ranks

Cryptocurrencies Advance/Decline Number

Advance 99

Decline 1

Source: Coinmarketcap.com 4/13/18 at 10:30 a.m.

And that’s the return of a bullish technical indicator that helped cryptocurrencies stage a big rally back at the end of last year.

Some cryptocurrency experts aren’t surprised by the renewed interest in cryptocurrencies. Matthew Spoke, CEO of AION and Founding Board Member of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance is one of them. “The fundamentals have not changed,” says Spoke. “A large portion of the crypto market value is reflective of the real innovations happening around the world. Although investor confidence will sometimes falter, long term growth across the market will continue if you zoom out far enough. I’m very bullish for 2018.”

Larry Temlock, CFO and Co-Founder, Sun Exchange is another cryptocurrency bull. “In recent months, volatility masked the rising average intrinsic value of the top coins gained during the 4Q17 boom,” says Temlock. “All it took was a few events like Cambridge Analytica and an FBI raid to spur reversion to the (rising) mean. Advances like Lightning Network and other second layer tech will just keep those intrinsic value gains coming.”

Shidan Gouran sounds rather skeptical on the recent cryptocurrency rally, attributing it to the end of the taxing season.

"The recent upward swing in cryptocurrencies is an apparent symptom of tax season,” says Gouran. “It all follows a pretty logical pattern; people got their paychecks for the end of March, paid their bills, and realized they would need to have a certain amount of funds handy to pay their taxes – which many crypto traders will owe. If they'll come up short, they need to sell off some of their cryptocurrencies to pay their taxes. Hence, the big drop at the beginning of April, which was likely because of an excess of supply. Now that we're less than a week away from the April 17th deadline for US taxes, most people will know if they're getting a refund (or may even have gotten it already).“

And apparently, they rushed to invest that refund back into cryptocurrencies at “bargain” prices.

[Author. note: Investing in cryptocoins or tokens is highly speculative and the market is largely unregulated. Anyone considering it should be prepared to lose their entire investment. Disclosure: I don't own any Bitcoin.]

That means that new money is flowing into the entire sector rather than to major currencies only.

Author Panos Mourdoukoutas

Posted by David Ogden Entrepreneur
David ogden Cryptocurrency Entrepreneur

David

Top 10 Alternatives to Bitcoin

top 10 alteratives to Bitcoin

Top 10 Altenatives to Bitcoin

Blockchain currency is revolutionizing money. Since Satoshi Nakamoto unveiled his cryptocurrency in 2008, we’ve witnessed a proliferation of digital cash companies and codebases. Utilizing his public, distributed ledger, dozens of promising currencies have emerged. Only a select few have proven themselves as true contenders to Bitcoin, however.

Here are the top 10 altcoins on CoinMarketCap (note that the list is changing constantly, especially in the tail part, with other altcoins like MaidSafeCoin, Golem and Augur playing musical chairs with others):

ETHEREUM

J.P Morgan Chase, Microsoft and Intel allied in order to create the fiercest rival to Bitcoin in circulation today: Ethereum. The main purpose of the endeavor was to program binding agreements into the Blockchain itself. This incarnated into the now-popular smart contract feature.

Interestingly, Ethereum is not just a currency. It’s a Blockchain platform powered by the Ether cryptocurrency. The New York Times describes the technology as “a single shared computer that is run by the network of users and on which resources are parceled out and paid for by Ether.”

RIPPLE

Ripple attracted a great deal of venture capital during its inception. The Google-backed altcoin startup managed to pull in upwards of $50 mln from banking institutions, gathering an impressive $90 mln in total funding. Ripple is unique in that it allows for transacting with any unit of value, from fiat currency to frequent flier miles.

“Ripple provides global financial settlement solutions to enable the world to exchange value like it already exchanges information giving rise to an Internet of Value (IoV). Ripple solutions lower the total cost of settlement by enabling banks to transact directly, instantly and with certainty of settlement,” reads the company’s copy on their official website.

Initially a middling contender, Ripple has gained momentum in the cryptocurrency market, seeing a marked surge earlier this year. In fact, Ripple experienced a 100 percent increase in value within a 24-hour period in late March.

LITECOIN

Former Google engineer Charles Lee created this altcoin in an effort to improve upon Bitcoin. Namely, the speed to generate a new block is improved dramatically. Transactions are much faster. By the same token, however, this speed makes Litecoin’s Blockchain larger and more prone to producing orphaned blocks.

DASH

Dash, a combination of the words “digital” and “cash,” is the Internet’s cash-in-hand. Dash is quick. Its transactions are instant. “Your time is valuable. InstantSend payments confirm in less than a second,” Dash claims. By comparison, Bitcoin’s transactions can take up to an hour to process.

GPU/CPU mining is no longer cost effective. In order to mine, you’ll need specific hardware, computers known as ASICs to complete Dash’s proof-of-work puzzles.

NEM

NEM is written in Java; built on an entirely new codebase separate and apart from Bitcoin’s open-source code. There are a few other intriguing differences from Bitcoin as well. In NEM, you harvest rather than mine. It’s essentially the same as mining in Bitcoin, only that multiple people profit – albeit in much smaller quantities – from a generated block.

NEM introduced the proof-of-importance algorithm to the digital ledger. A user’s wealth and number of transactions are used to timestamp transactions.

NEM has seen rapid growth in its valuation since the beginning of 2017 as the altcoin is currently being embraced in Japan.

ETHEREUM CLASSIC

A parallel Ethereum platform exists and sustains a sizeable usership with a market cap hovering just below $430 mln.

Why do two versions of the same platform exist?

The Ethereum community fractured when a disagreement over how a technically legal theft of funds should be handled. The majority of users wished to change Ethereum’s code in order to get the lost funds back. A minority believed that Ethereum should not be tampered with or altered by third parties. Even in cases of users exploiting the smart contract feature to trick others, the Blockchain must remain “immutable.” Thus, the minority created the Classic version of Ethereum, which still survives and thrives.

MONERO

Monero is geared toward those who desire greater anonymity. The cryptocurrency allows you to “send and receive funds without your transactions being publically visible on the Blockchain.” Transactions are completely untraceable due to Monero’s leveraging of ring signatures. Unfortunately, because of Monero’s emphasis on privacy, it has seen adoption by the darknet and other criminal organizations.

ZCASH

Zcash, like Monero, offers greater privacy to users. Unlike Monero, transactions are shielded rather than made completely private. Meaning, the details of the transaction itself, such as the users involved and the amount traded, are hidden. Zcash does this by using a “zero-knowledge” proof that allows for parties to exchange funds without revealing each other’s identity.

DECRED

Decred’s primary aim is to focus on “community input, open governance and sustainable funding and development.” The currency melds proof-of-work and proof-of-stake mining algorithms to ensure a minority of users do not own the majority of the funds and that decisions are led by the community rather than a handful of developers or early investors.

PIVX

PIVX stands for Private Instant Verified Transactions. Another open-source decentralized Blockchain currency, it is built upon Bitcoin Core. Like Zcash and Monero, PIVX boasts its heightened privacy and security.

“We believe that you have the right to exchange privately and securely, without interference from corporatocracy pressures, governmental influences, prying eyes, and nefarious individuals and movements,” PIVX contends.

PIVX is highly volatile, experiencing massive spikes in trading volume and valuation as of March of this year. Again, because of the currency’s emphasis on privacy, PIVX is susceptible to criminal activities.

Cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and the altcoins it has spawned, may bring about a new global economy. They allow us to transact in a peer-to-peer fashion, without third-party bodies governing us. Bitcoin introduced the Blockchain, but other developers are quickly improving upon Nakamoto’s idea. Some currencies have focused on speed, as is the case with both Ripple and Litecoin. Others have honed in on privacy, currencies like Zcash going so far as making all transactions private and untraceable. Each altcoin comes with its own strengths and weakness. Surely, we’ll discover more as time goes on. For now, these 10 currencies are at the top. Their fate could turn, however, at a flip of a coin.

David Ogden
Entrepreneur

Source: cointelegraph.com

David