Coin News

• Symphony, a messaging service used by some Wall Streeters, is being integrated onto OpenFin's platform of financial-services apps. 
• The integration could allow Wall Streeters to create their own pick-a-mix platforms, combining Symphony's chat function with trading and data apps already on OpenFin. 
• That could pose a threat to Bloomberg's terminal business and Thomson Reuter's Eikon. 

Symphony, a messaging service that has gained some traction among Wall Street firms, has been integrated into OpenFin, an operating system built for financial-services, the two companies announced Thursday. 

OpenFin hosts more than a hundred applications on its platform, and the integration means Symphony will be "interoperable" with those apps, the same way social media apps on your phone are able to talk with one another.

“By enabling Symphony to run on the OpenFin operating system, we are making it easy for our mutual customers to unify the Symphony desktop experience with their other OpenFin-based apps," Mazy Dar, chief executive of OpenFin, said of the news. 

In total, Symphony has 230,000 users across 200 firms, whereas OpenFin can be found on more than 100,000 desktops across the Street. Symphony, a unicorn, announced a $63 million fundraise in May, bringing the total amount the company has raised to $234 million. OpenFin finished a $15 million round of venture funding backed by JPMorgan in February 2017. It has raised $22 million in total funding.

In a way, Symphony replicates the messaging feature of a Bloomberg terminal. Many of its backers, including Goldman Sachs, got behind the company to put pressure on the industry data giant, which charges its users more than $20,000 per year for a subscription to its signature terminal.

OpenFin has ambitions to be to Wall Street what iOS and Android are to the mobile application world. In so doing, it's creating the possibility for a Wall Streeter to create his or her own pick-a-max terminal-like platform by matching Symphony with other OpenFin apps relevant to their business at a much lower cost. Symphony charges $20 a month for its messaging service, while OpenFin's platform is free for firms. 

For Dar, however, the integration is more about making Wall Street resemble Silicon Valley.

"At our core, OpenFin is a technology company cut from the same cloth as the giants of Silicon Valley, but with a focus on the world’s financial hubs," he said. "A commitment to open source software has been a massive contributor to the success of those companies and we’ve always strongly supported the[Symphony] Foundation’s efforts to bring that ethos to finance."

SEE ALSO: A little-known startup that has quietly amassed 100,000 Wall Street users just scored a big investment

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The post What Are Stablecoins and Why Are They Poised to Impact the Crypto-Economy? appeared first on CCN

While the notion of a non-volatile, price-stable cryptocurrency is often bandied about in economic literature, there are numerous organizational and algorithmic roadblocks associated with this technology. “Stablecoins,” as they are called by the greater blockchain community, are digital tokens (much like Bitcoin and Litecoin) that are intended to provide measurable stability and security. According to

The post What Are Stablecoins and Why Are They Poised to Impact the Crypto-Economy? appeared first on CCN

The post What Are Stablecoins and Why Are They Poised to Impact the Crypto-Economy? appeared first on CCN

While the notion of a non-volatile, price-stable cryptocurrency is often bandied about in economic literature, there are numerous organizational and algorithmic roadblocks associated with this technology. “Stablecoins,” as they are called by the greater blockchain community, are digital tokens (much like Bitcoin and Litecoin) that are intended to provide measurable stability and security. According to

The post What Are Stablecoins and Why Are They Poised to Impact the Crypto-Economy? appeared first on CCN

The post Colored Bitcoin Exchange Coinprism Has Shut Down appeared first on CCN

Users on the Coinprism platform have until March 31 to withdraw funds and redirect them to another wallet or export private keys. Dublin-based Coinprism, a wallet service founded in 2014 as an early blockchain startup, is closing down, according to an alert on the company’s website. Both the Coinprism block explorer and the Coinprism API will

The post Colored Bitcoin Exchange Coinprism Has Shut Down appeared first on CCN

The post Russian Engineers Caught Using State Supercomputer to Mine Bitcoin appeared first on CCN

Employees of the Russian Nuclear Center in Sarov have been caught using the facility’s supercomputer to mine Bitcoin. The two engineers managed to connect the offline machine to the internet, applying its’ vast computational power to the Bitcoin network. However, it appears to pair did not get far. The RFNC-VNIIEF press-service announced that the operation … Continued

The post Russian Engineers Caught Using State Supercomputer to Mine Bitcoin appeared first on CCN

• Startups raised over $5 billion issuing their own digital currencies last year and there are now over 1,400 in circulation.
• "In 2018 what’s going to happen is some consolidation of the market," cofounder of cryptocurrency IOTA tells BI.
• "I think there will be a shake-out of these ICOs," private equity veteran and cryptocurrency enthusiast Doug Barrowman says.

LONDON — Cryptocurrency market participants are predicting a fall in the number of digital currencies in circulation this year as the projects behind them fail to gain traction or consolidate.

2017 saw a boom in so-called "initial coin offerings" (ICOs), where startups issue their own digital currencies — structured like bitcoin — in exchange for real money to build their businesses. Startups raised over $5 billion through ICOs last year and there are now over 1,400 cryptocurrencies in circulation. These coins can be traded on online exchanges, unlike equity in early stage, private businesses.

Regulators around the world have warned that these investments are highly speculative and investors risk losing all their money. China and South Korea have banned ICOs, while executives from the World Bank and the ECB have compared the crypto market to Ponzi schemes.

Surprisingly, even cryptocurrency market participants are skeptical of many of recent ICOs.

"The market environment that we’re in right now is just everyone wants to get a Lamborghini," Dominik Schiener told Business Insider. "They’re primarily focused on making money real quick."

Schiener is the cofounder of IOTA, a cryptocurrency aimed at being the currency of the internet of things. IOTA created a cryptocurrency back in 2015 — practically ancient history in the cryptocurrency world. MIOTA, the currency, is now the 11th biggest cryptocurrency by value.

"In my opinion, in 2018 what’s going to happen is some consolidation of the market," he said. "Projects that don’t really add any concrete value or have a unique selling point will definitely fall out."

Bitconnect, the company behind a controversial cryptocurrency lending and exchange platform, closed its doors last month after an ICO in 2016. It could be perhaps the first example of what is to come for the market.

Doug Barrowman, a private equity veteran who got involved in the cryptocurrency world two years ago, told BI: "I think there will be a shake-out of these ICOs, of the 1,400 or so that have been done."

He believes the market has been over inflated by unskeptical investors simply hoping to make short-term gains speculating on coins, rather than backing long-term projects.

"No one is actually looking and saying, is the ICO any good? Speculators are just trading altcoins," Barrowman, who is conducting his own ICO, said.

"A lot of global crypto investors, they don’t even care what the ICO is. The white paper comes out, it’s been thought about for five minutes, and then everyone plays the same game — they pump it high, they dump it, they buy back when its dumped, then they pump it again on some more news."

Business Insider highlighted the prevalence of "pump and dump" scams in cryptocurrency secondary markets last year.

Scheiner said: "Market manipulation has really hurt IOTA since the beginning. All you have to do is spread a lie and have your Twitter and Reddit trolls and bots go lie. Then it quickly changes the public perception and then the market just crashes. Then you issue a correction and say hey that’s not true. That’s how those people make money."

Dom Williams, the lead developer of the DFINITY, told BI: "The Ethereum ICO was very successful but it brought in a lot of bad actors. I think most of them have got zero chance of delivering what they’ve been promising."

Williams has been working on the DFINITY network, a crypto-based cloud 3.0, since 2014, when Ethereum held its ICO. DFINITY recently raised $61 million from venture capitalists and Williams told BI they didn't do an ICO because they worried about "being guilty by association."

US regulators have moved to shut down $600 million ICO scam last month and another scam replaced its website with just the word "penis" after trying to raise money through an ICO. Thankfully, it only raised $11.

Charlie Lee, the founder of litecoin, told Business Insider recently: "I think there's a bit too much scam in the space, in terms of people getting in just to get rich quick."

Schiener said: "I’ve only participated in two ICOs in my life — Ethereum and IOTA."

His relative conservatism matches that of the founder of Chinese bitcoin exchange BTCC, who told Business Insider last month he "wouldn't touch" ICOs.

"I don’t know if we’re going to be 250 successful ICOs out of 1,400 or what," Barrowman said. "There’s going to be a shake-out, there’s no doubt about it.

"Ultimately after the euphoria of this ICO boom, people are going to say, what does that ICO actually bring to the world?"

Schiener's prediction is even more drastic: "I personally think only some 5 to 8 projects will be able to establish themselves and continue to raise. Most of the projects serve no concrete purpose in my opinion."

Join the conversation about this story »

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• Startups raised over $5 billion issuing their own digital currencies last year and there are now over 1,400 in circulation.
• "In 2018 what’s going to happen is some consolidation of the market," cofounder of cryptocurrency IOTA tells BI.
• "I think there will be a shake-out of these ICOs," private equity veteran and cryptocurrency enthusiast Doug Barrowman says.

LONDON — Cryptocurrency market participants are predicting a fall in the number of digital currencies in circulation this year as the projects behind them fail to gain traction or consolidate.

2017 saw a boom in so-called "initial coin offerings" (ICOs), where startups issue their own digital currencies — structured like bitcoin — in exchange for real money to build their businesses. Startups raised over $5 billion through ICOs last year and there are now over 1,400 cryptocurrencies in circulation. These coins can be traded on online exchanges, unlike equity in early stage, private businesses.

Regulators around the world have warned that these investments are highly speculative and investors risk losing all their money. China and South Korea have banned ICOs, while executives from the World Bank and the ECB have compared the crypto market to Ponzi schemes.

Surprisingly, even cryptocurrency market participants are skeptical of many of recent ICOs.

"The market environment that we’re in right now is just everyone wants to get a Lamborghini," Dominik Schiener told Business Insider. "They’re primarily focused on making money real quick."

Schiener is the cofounder of IOTA, a cryptocurrency aimed at being the currency of the internet of things. IOTA created a cryptocurrency back in 2015 — practically ancient history in the cryptocurrency world. MIOTA, the currency, is now the 11th biggest cryptocurrency by value.

"In my opinion, in 2018 what’s going to happen is some consolidation of the market," he said. "Projects that don’t really add any concrete value or have a unique selling point will definitely fall out."

Bitconnect, the company behind a controversial cryptocurrency lending and exchange platform, closed its doors last month after an ICO in 2016. It could be perhaps the first example of what is to come for the market.

Doug Barrowman, a private equity veteran who got involved in the cryptocurrency world two years ago, told BI: "I think there will be a shake-out of these ICOs, of the 1,400 or so that have been done."

He believes the market has been over inflated by unskeptical investors simply hoping to make short-term gains speculating on coins, rather than backing long-term projects.

"No one is actually looking and saying, is the ICO any good? Speculators are just trading altcoins," Barrowman, who is conducting his own ICO, said.

"A lot of global crypto investors, they don’t even care what the ICO is. The white paper comes out, it’s been thought about for five minutes, and then everyone plays the same game — they pump it high, they dump it, they buy back when its dumped, then they pump it again on some more news."

Business Insider highlighted the prevalence of "pump and dump" scams in cryptocurrency secondary markets last year.

Scheiner said: "Market manipulation has really hurt IOTA since the beginning. All you have to do is spread a lie and have your Twitter and Reddit trolls and bots go lie. Then it quickly changes the public perception and then the market just crashes. Then you issue a correction and say hey that’s not true. That’s how those people make money."

Dom Williams, the lead developer of the DFINITY, told BI: "The Ethereum ICO was very successful but it brought in a lot of bad actors. I think most of them have got zero chance of delivering what they’ve been promising."

Williams has been working on the DFINITY network, a crypto-based cloud 3.0, since 2014, when Ethereum held its ICO. DFINITY recently raised $61 million from venture capitalists and Williams told BI they didn't do an ICO because they worried about "being guilty by association."

US regulators have moved to shut down $600 million ICO scam last month and another scam replaced its website with just the word "penis" after trying to raise money through an ICO. Thankfully, it only raised $11.

Charlie Lee, the founder of litecoin, told Business Insider recently: "I think there's a bit too much scam in the space, in terms of people getting in just to get rich quick."

Schiener said: "I’ve only participated in two ICOs in my life — Ethereum and IOTA."

His relative conservatism matches that of the founder of Chinese bitcoin exchange BTCC, who told Business Insider last month he "wouldn't touch" ICOs.

"I don’t know if we’re going to be 250 successful ICOs out of 1,400 or what," Barrowman said. "There’s going to be a shake-out, there’s no doubt about it.

"Ultimately after the euphoria of this ICO boom, people are going to say, what does that ICO actually bring to the world?"

Schiener's prediction is even more drastic: "I personally think only some 5 to 8 projects will be able to establish themselves and continue to raise. Most of the projects serve no concrete purpose in my opinion."

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Netflix is headed for a huge profit milestone in 2018

• Exchange-traded funds are useless in a downward market, according to David A. Rosenberg of Gluskin Sheff.
• In fact, they have contributed to the mindless runup that is now unwinding.
• "The masses don’t want to pay fees for making critical decisions on their behalf. This may work in a market that is a straight-line up but sure doesn’t work when the going gets tough and the bull market gets punctuated with volatility and corrective behavior," he told clients.
• "Over 50% of the rally in the Dow in 2017 came down to just five stocks and over 80% of the advance was centered in ten names. That concentrated character was exactly the same in the opening weeks of the year up to the all-time highs. So many ETF investors believe they are in diversified safe strategies when the exact opposite has been the case," he argues

If your retirement savings are invested in an exchange-traded index fund (ETF), you're probably hurting from last week's stock market collapse. The S&P 500 Index has fallen more than 10% from its high in the last few weeks.

ETFs are designed to track indexes like the S&P 500, so that you get the same rate of return as if you had bought the market as a whole. In most years, that works out better than giving your money to an active investment manager — because most managers, notoriously, underperform the market as a whole. Investors also like them because they offer a diversified portfolio: You're buying every stock in the index.

ETFs have become really popular in the last 10 years. Today, ETF indexes represent 25% to 30% of trading volume on any given day, according to the Financial Times.

The fear is that passive investment — when retirement savers let their 401(k)'s and private pension plans pour a slice of their salaries into ETFs, month after month — has driven up the value of the entire stock market through thoughtless buying.

Last week's massacre exposes another problem: ETFs have never really been through a down market at this scale. Cash inflows into ETFs are now worth a total of $1.4 trillion.

ETF holders generally only have two choices in a bear market, and both of them are bad:

• Continue to hold the funds, and take the loss in value.
• Or sell the funds, take the loss in value, and accelerate the downward price momentum.

David A. Rosenberg, the chief economist and strategist at Canadian wealth management firm Gluskin Sheff is pretty angry about this. In a note to clients last week, he argued that the crash exposes a huge flaw in ETFs:

"What has been exposed is the pitfalls of passive ETF investing. This has triggered massive unconstrained and undisciplined buying activity because the masses don’t want to pay fees for making critical decisions on their behalf. This may work in a market that is a straight-line up but sure doesn’t work when the going gets tough and the bull market gets punctuated with volatility and corrective behavior."

"These investors go and buy a basket that they believe to be diversified but that is far from the case. Remember how concentrated this market has been in recent times — over 50% of the rally in the Dow in 2017 came down to just five stocks and over 80% of the advance was centered in ten names.

"That concentrated character was exactly the same in the opening weeks of the year up to the all-time highs. So many ETF investors believe they are in diversified safe strategies when the exact opposite has been the case. Time for a rethink when they see a couple of stocks in the basket they invested in end up exerting such an outsized negative influence on what they own in aggregate."

Gluskin Sheff is an active manager, so Rosenberg is biased. He thinks investors should "rely on brains rather than buttons, which, by the way, is our edge."

Nonetheless, he says: "ETF investors who get their next statement, may be shocked that the market has not continued to move ever higher. They may want to start thinking about that as we enter this entirely new bull market in two-sided trading and heightened volatility."

SEE ALSO: VIX: The 'fear index' has only been this high on 3 prior occasions

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NOW WATCH: Ken Rogoff on the next financial crisis and the future of bitcoin

The post Cryptocurrency Market Records Minor Correction as Bitcoin and Ethereum Fall 10% appeared first on CCN

Within merely 24 hours after recording massive gains and peaking at $450 billion, the cryptocurrency market has fallen, recording a minor correction. Major cryptocurrencies including bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, and Bitcoin Cash all fell by over 10 percent. Bitcoin and Ethereum Fall 10% As CCN noted in yesterday’s report, in periods of extreme volatility, the vast … Continued

The post Cryptocurrency Market Records Minor Correction as Bitcoin and Ethereum Fall 10% appeared first on CCN

The post Cryptocurrency Market Records Minor Correction as Bitcoin and Ethereum Fall 10% appeared first on CCN

Within merely 24 hours after recording massive gains and peaking at $450 billion, the cryptocurrency market has fallen, recording a minor correction. Major cryptocurrencies including bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, and Bitcoin Cash all fell by over 10 percent. Bitcoin and Ethereum Fall 10% As CCN noted in yesterday’s report, in periods of extreme volatility, the vast … Continued

The post Cryptocurrency Market Records Minor Correction as Bitcoin and Ethereum Fall 10% appeared first on CCN

• UAE Exchange joining Ripple's RippleNet network for cross-border payments.
• The deal comes amid skepticism from some over recent rise of Ripple's cryptocurrency XRP.
• It's not clear if UAE Exchange will use XRP in its processes.

LONDON — Foreign exchange giant UAE Exchange has signed a deal with San Francisco fintech players Ripple on cross-border payments.

UAE Exchange is joining the startup's RippleNet network, which uses blockchain technology to power real-time international payments.

UAE Exchange CEO Promoth Manghat said in a statement: "Incorporating Ripple’s blockchain technology into our payments systems will bring customers an enhanced, new payments experience.

"The early adoption of this game-changing technology allows us to offer a competitive service, as it will have an impact on the speed and cost of cross-border transactions."

Manghat described himself as "a big champion of Blockchain" in an interview with Arabian Business last October and said: "The average consumer may never know about blockchain, but indirectly he will reap the benefits of the efficiencies it brings forth across industries in his everyday life."

UAE Exchange, whose billionaire owner also owns Travelex, claims to have a 6.75% share of the $575 billion global remittance market and is aiming to increase that to 10% by 2020. It has 800 branches stretching over 3o countries.

The deal is a boost for Ripple, which has faced recent skepticism in the press. The company's cryptocurrency, XRP, rocketed to a high of $3.65 before Christmas, leading the New York Times to examine how many businesses were actually using it. (XRP has since fallen to around $0.85, as of Friday.)

It is unclear whether UAE Exchange will actually use XRP in its processes. The cryptocurrency is used by Ripple for offering liquidity to institutions but not for international transfer. This nuance is not always made clear.

Dilip Rao, global head of infrastructure innovation at Ripple, said in a statement: "Adding a market leader like UAE Exchange to RippleNet will bring instant, certain, low-cost payments to the millions of retail customers in the UAE who send money abroad."

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