CNTV

Visit https://consensusnetwork.io for more!

Consensus Network Weekly Crypto News Headlines: 11/14/18

Cryptocurrency Market Capitalization: $188 billion

Bitcoin Price (Coinbase): $5588

- Bitcoin Bloodbath!

- Is Satoshi’s Vision Causing the Bloodbath?

- SEC Chief Puts Decentralized Exchanges on Notice!

As bitcoin, blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies become more mature, you will see a lot of the same financial models as you do for traditional assets like real estate and stocks—models that have been around for a long time.

For example, the earliest recognized futures trading exchange was the Dojima Rice Exchange established in 1710. And now, the Chicago Board of Options Exchange sells bitcoin futures contracts.

Not too far in the future, you will see bitcoin treated like any other commodity in the financial markets. Whether that’s good or bad for crypto can be argued. But the irony is that the very system to which bitcoin was a response, the system run by the big banks, will also lead to its value exploding over the next few years.

Obviously lending is a big part of the traditional finance world and it has already become an industry within the world of digital assets. One of the trailblazing companies leading the charge in this area is BlockFi—which has the support of many of the big players in the blockchain space like Mike Novogratz of Galaxy Digital.

If you are a crypto HODLR like me, you are going to love this discussion. It’s a great option to hold on to something tax free and still use it keep your money moving into other investments.

Visit https://consensusnetwork.io for more

Consensus Network Weekly Crypto News October 31, 2018

Today is the 10th anniversary of the Bitcoin white paper!

 

Wednesday October 30th, 2018

Cryptocurrency Market Capitalization: $203 billion

Bitcoin Price: $6308 on Coinbase

 

JP Morgan Chase to Tokenize Gold Bars: Yes. You heard that right. Chase, who’s CEO called bitcoin a fraud and said he would fire any of his employees who traded it, seems to have capitulated to the reality that blockchain and cryptocurrencies are actually real and can be very useful. Specifically, JP Morgan will use their enterprise blockchain network Quorum, which is ethereum based, to tokenize gold bars. They also see the tokenization of many other commodities as a reality. Jamie Dimon—what a f’ng hypocrite!

 

Coinbase raises another $300 Million to Fix Bitcoin’s Problems: Coinbase raised another $300 million in funding with institutional investors giving it a value of $8 billion. According to coinable officials, they are going to use that funding to “accelerate the adoption of cryptocurrencies and digital assets.”

Plans include:

Global expansion to increase the number of cryptocurrency users.

Expanding the number of coins in offers.

Creating applications for bitcoin and crytocurrencies.

Bringing established financial institutions into the digital asset space.

Coinbase says it will continue to build infrastructure between fiat and crypto in regulated markets around the world and will add features and crypto assets to it’s custody offering.

 

Bitcoin Becomes Less Volatile than Amazon! According to data released by Chicago Board of Options Exchange (CBOE), the current volatility of bitcoin is as low as that of Apple stocks and more stable than Amazon and Netflix.  Of course I believe that’s just because of lower trading volume right now. We actually did see a bit of a sell-off yesterday. But let me take this opportunity to talk about volatility. Bitcoin’s market capitalization is literally 1/10th of Amazon and Apple. Therefore, we expect it to be more volatile. When bitcoin has a market capitalization of $1 trillion or more, I fully expect it to have a far less volatile profile over-all. That’s what the critics of bitcoin as a store of value are missing. They say it’s too volatile to be a store of value. I agree with that… right now. But when it grows by 10X or 100X, you won’t see the same issues. It’s math.

 

A Bitcoin Wrapped in an Ethereum Smart Contract? Last week we talked about how Goldman Sachs made a huge investment into crypto custodian BitGo. BitGo recently announced that it, along with partners, are launching a fully ERC20 bitcoin token called WBTC.

My first response to hearing this was…why? Is it like the Crunchwrap Supreme at Taco Bell where they put a soft tortilla around a crunchy taco to make it taste that much better?

In all seriousness, there is value to this WBTC thing. First, it will allow BTC trades on decentralized exchanges and also facilitate various transactions on the ethereum network. Ethereum has an extensive smart contract developer ecosystem which bitcoin does not (it’s digital money not a contract).

Launch will be in 2019. Let’s see if it takes off.

 

That’s it for this week on Consensus Network’s Weekly Crypto News!

Make sure to send you questions and comments to [email protected]

As always, visit https://consensusnetwork.io for more crypto content.

There is more to blockchain than bitcoin. And there is more to distributed ledgers than blockchain.

Blockchain describes only one type of decentralized consensus mechanism. Although it is really the dominant system in this new distributed world, it’s not the only one.

I’m no computer scientist by any means and I suspect you aren’t either. But I will say that from what I have learned, the major challenges in using blockchain technology so far have been related to scaling.

Blockchain is inherently slow. Bitcoin takes 10 minutes to reach consensus—hard to wait that long making a transaction at Starbucks. Lightening network will likely change that but those are the facts now.

Ethereum is faster at 15 seconds per transaction. But where do we need to be in order to go prime time with cryptocurrency? Well, Visa does about 5000 transactions per second so let’s think of that as the gold standard for speed to incorporate something new into daily financial transactions.

I’m not saying that you can’t get there with blockchain and sidechains, but as we say in the non-technical world. There is more than one way to skin a cat (don’t ask me why we say that).

One project that got my attention a couple years ago was hashgraph. Hashgraph uses a completely different consensus mechanism with apparent lightening speed and asynchronous Byzantine fault tolerance—something that many computer scientists believe to be the gold standard for security in distributed systems.

That in and of itself is exciting but and idea or white paper can only get you so far. As an investor, I always look at the team first. When you look at Hashgraph, you see one of the most impressive teams in all of the cryptocurrency projects out there.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Mance Harmon, CEO of Hashgraph a few months ago before it’s presale and when we this week I will play it for you!

This is a token you will see in circulation next year that you should keep an eye on.

Last week on the news I told you about how Yale University has decided to get into the crypto market through its endowment.

It’s just another sign of the inevitability of this technological phenomenon. The major universities have accepted that it’s real. We already know that Wall Street has as well.

Now, let’s go back to the University thing. Of course, they want to teach things that are relevant to students right?

Well, sure enough, you are seeing blockchain and distributed ledger courses pop up at Universities left and right. That doesn’t mean they know what they are talking about but they are trying, that’s for sure.

The University of California, Berkeley has been on the cutting edge of many new technological and social movements so it is not surprising that my guest today, Greg LaBlanc is one of the instructors of the latest course introducing Berkeley students to blockchain.

Greg comes at this from a pretty unique perspective as a financial historian so make sure to tune in to this interview.

Consensus Network™ Weekly Crypto News for 10/24/18

Cryptocurrency Market Capitalization: Approx. $210 billion

Bitcoin Price: $6423

Bakkt Announces Launch Date.

CBOE meets with SEC to discuss ETF.

Goldman Sachs makes Huge Investment in Crypto Custodian.

Coinbase DOMINATES the Crypto World.

Japan Grants Cryptocurrency Industry Self-Regulatory Status.

Email your questions to me at [email protected] or go to consensusNetwork.io and leave me a voicemail that I can play on the show!

Learn more on Consensus Network:

https://www.consensusnetwork.io

Market Cap about 211 Billion

Bitcoin: 6444

1) Fidelity Announces a New Custody and Trading Service

2) Tether is Untethering

3) Is Bitcoin Correlated to the Markets?

Say Hi to Buck and ask your questions at https://consensusnetwork.io

You've probably heard of people buying virtual items online like crypto kitties for example. They live only online so why in the world would you buy one?

Well, what if you spend several hours per day on the internet. Is your cyber-bling any less important than the ones we consider "real"?

If you start to understand this, you will see very quickly an entire world that is unfolding quickly. Some of this is being aided by the rise of distributed ledger technology.

WAX, Worldwide Asset eXchange™, is a project that I am convinced will become a major player in a $50 billion industry. In other words, I think holders of WAX token have a good chance of doing quite well over the next few years if they get in early.

To help you understand my enthusiasm for the project, this week on Consensus Network, I have invited Malcolm CasSelle, president of WAX, to explain this new world and why it might make sense to invest in it.

Here are the headlines for the Consensus Network Weekly Crypto News:

Today is Monday October 8th, 2018

The crypto market cap is about 221 billion.

Bitcoin is trading at around $6650.

Yale University gets into the Crypto World

Competition for BAKKT

Institution buyers are making their move!

Joining us on this week's episode of Consensus Network is Tone Vays.

 

Like many ex-wall street guys, Tone came to cryptocurrency after the fallout of 2008. We had an in-depth conversation on the libertarian aspect of cryptocurrency and its fundamental impact on the world, not only financially but also culturally. 

 

Tone is also a firm believer in Bitcoin - but not so much in other projects, and he has some sound reasoning behind his belief so make sure to tune in to this week's episode of Consensus Network. 

 

Shownotes:

[03:30] Buck introduces Tone Vays

[06:30] Bitcoin class of 2013

[10:30] Bitcoin vs Gold

[17:30] what if the government tries to take your Bitcoin?

[23:30] Does the involvement of banks dilute the libertarian aspect of Bitcoin

[29:00] The Lightning Network

[39:00] Tone’s one and only

[45:00] Find out more about Tone:

tonevays.com