We've all heard how the big players in tech are all battling over the self-driving (or autonomous) vehicle future.

Companies like Google, Lyft, Uber, Apple are all pouring billions into development, and companies like Amazon, Domino's Pizza, and Waymo' Taxi's are already experimenting with commercial use of autonomous vehicles.

But all these companies are fighting for dominance using their own proprietary, closed
and non-inclusive tech.

Now imagine, in the future you own a self-driving car.  Will you just leave it sitting in your driveway while it's not in use overnight? Or sitting in your office parking lot all day while at work? Or if possible, would you put it to use while you aren't using it - and get paid for it?

This presents a perfect use case for smart contracts, blockchain tech, and cryptocurrencies!

One company called DAV (Decentralized Autonomous Vehicles) is going to be taking this task on in 2018. DAV is a software platform that allows anyone to buy or sell autonomous transportation services in a decentralized market.

They aim to create a large network of these vehicles, tied in with a network of supporting services such as power charging stations, repairs, rescue, and cleaning.

But don't limit your thoughts to just cars - drones, trucks, and even boats are some of the autonomous vehicles that will soon be entering the mainstream - in fact there are already 8,416 commercially registered drones already in the USA registered with the FAA, many of which can become delivery capable with little or no modifications.

So it works like this - a consumer can pay for services from these vehicles in tokens, this service can be anything from delivering a package via drone, or having a self driving car pick them up.

For those on the provider end, they can earn these tokens by providing their car or drone for use on the network, or providing infastructure or services like docking stations, charging, etc.

There's no debate here in Silicon Valley that the future tech to be watching today is AI, autonomous vehicles, and blockchain. Now we're seeing how some of these will work hand in hand with eachother.

More info on DAV's project can be found at https://dav.network

I'll start this post by just being honest - i'm torn on the whole issue personally.  But I think people should hear out all concerns - just understand i'm not endorsing, or disagreeing with any of the thoughts of others I am sharing here.

Now first - in defense of Ripple, I must say - can we be surprised that a cryptocurrency endorsed and used by major banks has popped up?  Absolutely not.  Were people expecting banks say "well, now that cryptocurrency is here, we're clearly not needed!" and just close their doors? That's a fantasy.

I understand this was the wet dream a lot of early cryptocurrency advocates had - some kind of complete overthrow of the powers that be... but let's be real, a dream unlikely to come true.  Don't get me wrong, i'm fully on board with cryptocurrency becoming a massively popular alternative to the big banks though.

Now here's the legitimate question we need to be asking: even if I accept that a company like Ripple would eventually exist (and does) and gain some momentum - do we welcome them with open arms and include them and their investors in the community?

Or, is it more like - "Ripple is over there, with the governments, and bankers"... and we draw a line, and look at them as some outsider, shunned by the cryptocurrency community, and give their supporters the same treatment? Basically, label Ripple and it's supporters the new enemy.

Well, as I said in the opening - I don't know how to proceed from here, but what I do know is i'm always for hearing out dissenting voices. 

If you're new to Global Crypto Press news, before getting mad that i'm only posting things against Ripple below - understand that other reporters from our outlet have already done positive pieces about Ripple, if you missed those that's not my problem.

So, here's some thoughts worth considering:

XRP is the governments preferred crypto. There is nothing the global elites would want more than for the citizenry to be duped into using Ripple as a cryptocurrency. I don't trust it for multiple reasons.

— Roy Sebag (@roysebag) December 29, 2017

If #XRP goes to Coinbase I’m going to continue to HODL. If it doesn’t, I’m going to start questioning why they are not allowing anyone to purchase their tokens with USD as it’s driving down the other currencies, which is a legitimate concern we need to pay attention to.

— Ripple Mafia (@ripplemafia) December 30, 2017

Ripple - Centralised Solution; Trust in One Company - Worth $100Bln?

Bitcoin - Decentralised Solution; Trust in Mathematics and Cryptography - Worth $235Bln?

There is a clear mispricing here between the PAST and the FUTURE

— George Kikvadze (@BitfuryGeorge) December 30, 2017

If you really believe Ripple, which isnt even a blockchain project, is the future of cryptocurrencies... then I have some Bitconnect and Onecoin to sell to you.

— WhalePanda (@WhalePanda) December 30, 2017

I will be cursed and abused for saying this, but the people investing in @Ripple are not one of us. We are in a revolution against centralization of money. This is a revolution and the people buying ripple are against us.

— Christina Wite (@KrrisWite) December 30, 2017

For those casual investors who aren't on the social networks and forums, and may have just been watching the charts - now you have the full story. 

Everyone may need to decide where they stand soon.

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Creating games for the online gambling world can be a time consuming and difficult task, often with low reward and a lot of regulations surrounding it.

Bigger developers typically have their own team of coders, and rarely license games created by outside, smaller independent programmers, leaving potentially new cool ideas and up-and-coming game developers stuck out in the cold.

On the players end, this means less options. But an even bigger issue for player - trust.  Current online casino's offer virtually no transparency.

There's also been a lag of adoption by the younger generation for these reasons - growth in online gambling from those falling into the 'millennial' demographic has been slow.  The reasons they cite are - the games don't seem interesting, they don't trust the sites that host them - and they want anonymity and transparency.

That's where a blockchain based solution like JoyToken can step in.

With game integration and hosting for the developer, the developer is then paid in JoyToken's as players play, JoyToken will also handle all the compliance, legal and licensing requirements of the games they develop in all relevant markets.

JoyToken isn't new to this space, they already operate PlayCosmo Casino which is licensed in the UK, Malta and Curacao and allows developers to test their games before general release to other operator’s casino websites.

Their CEO Andrew MacDonald has 20 years of experience in Retail and Online gaming working for major blue-chip companies. Successfully applying marketing retention techniques focusing on the individual player as well as ensuring quality game offerings to promote business growth

The JoyToken ICO begins in March and you can keep updated on https://joytoken.io

Two huge milestones today for Ripple (XRP).  First, it dethroned Ethereum to take over the #2 spot in market size, now with a total market cap of over $94 Billion!

Secondly, just over a week after breaking the $1 per coin mark - it's more than doubled again, sitting at $2.44 at time of publishing this post.

An explosion in popularity in the Asian market, as well as new banking partnerships are to credit for the recent rise.

The team behind Ripple still maintains control of a little over 60% of their tokens - valuing the tokens they hold at roughly $136 billion - making the San Francisco based company now the richest startup in Silicon Valley in recent history.

Now, the community is split on two options as to what happens next. 

Could CoinBase/GDAX, America's most popular exchange add Ripple to it's trading platform, once again sending the price soaring upwards? Rumors are flooding every social network - but it's important to remember - CoinBase has said nothing to even hint at it happening. They have said they are adding more coins in 2018 though, and given Ripple's new position at #2, it's probably more likely than ever.

Or,  is a correction coming? They typically happen after an uptick like this, but Ripple has now had 3 of them - without the typical correction following.

This is why Ripple has been possibly the hardest cryptocurrency to predict - lessons we learned from other coins haven't been applicable to Ripple thus far.  Will it keep defying the rules? Or will typical market trends catch up?

All we can do is wait and see!

Tilman Fertitta owns the NBA team Houston Rockets, Bubba Gump's Shrimp, Casinos in Vegas and Atlantic City, and too much more to name here. He also stars in his own TV show "Billion Dollar Buyer".

Speaking to CNBC today Tilman said he could see his businesses accepting cryptocurrencies in the near future, saying;

"I think it's going to happen... I mean, I remember somebody walking into my office and saying,  'The world's going to change. There's this thing called the internet.' And that wasn't that long ago. So we have to remember this. It's just something new and everything moves at a quicker pace today."

But he also expressed concern over the lack of FDIC insurance on cryptocurrencies, which in a nutshell is the government guaranteeing the money exists if and when someone wants to convert a digital balance to paper cash. Citing that if he wanted to take out just $1 million in cash from a bank, the bank likely doesn't hold that much in paper money:

"They don't have the money. It's just paper. That's all bitcoin is, is paper, but it's not insured by the FDIC today. And until it's insured, a lot of people are never going to buy it."

This highlights the massive gap currently between cryptocurrency advocates wanting as little government involvement as possible, and big business that hesitate to dive in without government assurances.

In my opinion - this is the battle that's likely to take place in 2018.

Due to heavy pressure from crypto adherents, exchanges, developers and every other corner of the earth (and God himself chastised me in my dreams last night), the "Coin of the day" will become "Coin of the week" starting immediately. You can look for it every Monday morning.

— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) December 26, 2017

So, look out for the "coin of the week" now instead.

Critics have said this method only draws people looking to make a quick buck, and makes it harder for long term investors to evaluate the true value of the coin after McAfee promotes it.

John McAfee is best known for creating the worlds first commercial antivirus software, but left the company he founded in 1994 and has since been involved in mobile apps, alternative medicine, and cryptocurrencies.

VIA Bloomberg: Bitcoin is the 'smallest, least-held Bubble' seen by Tom Lee, head of research at Fundstrat Global Advisors, as he discusses Bitcoin's plunging value over the past few days. He speaks with Bloomberg's Jonathan Ferro on "Bloomberg Daybreak: Americas."

You may have heard before how in countries like Zimbabwe, Bitcoin's go for hundreds and sometimes thousands more than US/Asia/EU exchange rates. At first glance it just sounds like insane over-pricing, but the reasons behind this are valid, and actually pretty sad to hear.

After near total economic collapse in 2008 with their currency experiencing 11.2 million percent hyperinflation and fears of it happening again, the government has taken a "full control" stance on everything financial, even locking their citizens out from using any credit card transactions.

This has sent people flocking to bitcoin for financial security, all while at the same time fears of new rounds of hyperinflation circulate.

In other words - after being locked out from Visa and Mastercard, and a government providing totally untrustworthy paper FIAT cash that could become worthless at any time, Bitcoin is a shining beacon of hope.

A similar dynamic is happening in Venezuela, it's being called "Bitcoinization" - basically, when a government screws up so badly, people stop looking towards them all together and turn to the blockchain to provide the oversight their government isn't.

Just a couple weeks ago, we covered a story where the government of Venezuela even began blaming Bitcoin miners for city wide power outages, as the popularity of cryptocurrency grows while the value of their dollar declines.

In a surprising twist - this has made actual daily use of cryptocurrency common in countries like Venezuela, buying a beer at a bar or even paying for a doctors appointment in bitcoin is part of daily life there now.

And it shows in their transaction volume - this time last year about $200,000 week was being spent within Venezuela - that number is now at $2,100,00!

Surprisingly, some 3rd world countries have even gotton creative, creating what is basically cryptocurrency out of other digital assets like cell phone minutes. In poor nations where cell phones function on pre-paid minutes, want a gallon of milk? You can pay for that by transferring 60 minutes of cell phone time from your account to the sellers.

In developed nations while we're experiencing a battle and endless debates over crypto VS fiat - these underdeveloped nations are ready to make the switch now.

That's where crypto companies like BABB (GetBABB.com) are stepping in, reaching out to the 2+ billion who have access to a phone, but unreliable, or no banking at all.

BABB however is taking things up a notch from simply allowing the sending and receiving of cryptocurrency - they're turning the user into a bank themselves, and are giving the ability to have friends, family, neighbors open accounts in their new virtual bank - and even issue them cards.

We've seen examples of this before, where nations skip entire portions of usual development.  In 3rd world countries where cell phones are common - land lines are not.  Corporations never came in and built the infrastructure needed for land lines - but cell phone companies did come in and put up towers.  The same could happen with banking and cryptocurrencies.

These nations may never see a physical bank built in their city - but soon may have fully functional banking on their phones - thanks to the blockchain.

There's literally no 'experts' in the crypto world in a panic, but there's also no shortage of new investors freaking out over the market corrections these past couple days.

If you're one of those new investors losing your mind - let me say, you can relax.

It was just last month, we were celebrating just the possibility of Bitcoin reaching $10,000.  See this article: Forbes: Bitcoin could hit $10,000 in time for Christmas!

That's right - it was just last month we were hopefully wishing Bitcoin would be $10,000 - It's $15,000 now (at the time of publishing this).  We are well ahead of last months best expectations.

Remember - now more than ever, average everyday people are putting money into cryptocurrency.  This is Christmas week - the week they spend the most.

So what's really happening? Basically, nothing.

What will happen next?  Well, millions of highschool and college age people get a little Christmas cash from Grandma, Grandpa and Aunts and Uncles. 

Now - guess what they'll do with it.

Get ready for the post X-Mas rally folks!

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Today we look at Salarium and SALPay a payroll and e-banking platform that already provides services to hundreds of companies, and over 10,000 employees. Most of these employees already use SALPay - their debit MasterCard paired with an e-wallet.

Their ICO is live now - so we spoke with their founder and CEO Judah Hirsch to learn more!

So let's start with some background, SALPay is new, but the company behind it, Salarium, is not.  Tell us about it.

SALPay is also not new and has been around for about 2 years. What is new is SALPay adding a blockchain storage and remittance service for our existing (and growing) customers.

Salarium started in 2013 as a payroll SaaS company. After commercially operating for about a year we added SALPay originally as an add-on product to the payroll but quickly saw that customers loved it and so in 2016 we pivoted the company and changed the model slightly.

Now we provide our payroll software for free to companies if they pay their employees on our e-wallet and debit mastercard. As far as we know we are the only company in the world that is acquiring customers this way. And it is a fantastic way to acquire them since the company is the one ensuring there is always money in the ecosystem. In the pat 18 months we have signed up 500+ companies and 15,000+ employees. From this wallet we now offer basic services like bills payment, sending money, buying prepaid load credits, but we also have a microloans platform and every month are offering thousands of loans.

You're going after crypto's big problem - using it in the real world on a day to day basis, how does SALPay enable someone to do that?

Yeah this is the big problem is still adoption. Our plan is not just to make a card and wallet (we already have this) but for a network of exchanges that will work in a kind of loop for our business clients to move money across borders and directly into our SALPay system where they are already placing funds now. The key is to wrap the whole experience for them. Our clients already give us millions of dollars in Fiat in the Philippines (Pesos) and wait a couple of hours to see the money credited in the company stored value wallet. Now this service will work almost identical to that, except instead of them worrying about moving their money cross border and then loading it into SALPay, we just move it directly into SALPay from foreign currency and remove the forex costs.

This will be a physical mastercard, paired with a mobile app - tell us about how those are used together to manage, and spend funds...

So the wallet app has the standard features you would expect and is paired with a physical mastercard (we will be adding Visa in January) and just by having their money organized people already save it. But we have micro-financing platforms on our wallet and next year we will be rolling out micro-insurance and micro-mutual funds. And we have big project we're working on which is a kind of AI that will help you not spend money by helping to plan and reminding you of your budget.

So you're a South East Asia based company, a place where a lot of US and EU companies outsource to - would this be used for a US/EU company to pay a South East Asia based worker?

Absolutely, this the businesses that we already cater to. About 50% of the companies that use us today are outsourcing companies. They approached us with the problem, which was moving money into the Philippines (and other countries) to pay employees. Since they end up putting the money into SALPay, they asked us a way to make SALPay take Euros or Dollars and do this service. So we are building this service based on existing client demand.

What are the current fees and payment transaction times for these payments? And then, what are they if people switch to SALPay?

Currently when a company brings in its payroll they expect to lose about 2-2.5% and plan about 3-5 days to transfer the funds. With SALPay token it will be near instant and we will charge a maximum 1% for this movement with no forex loss.

Tell us a bit about the team behind the project...

Salarium and SALPay are fairly well established companies , we have about 60 staff and are growing pretty quickly. Of course myself as the CEO I have several companies that I was the manager for and started my first company Triple i Consulting 10 years ago. Triple i is an accounting and legal firm here in the Philippines and was how I went into payroll. Our CTO Russell Shepherd was previously the CTO of Rappler which is the largest digital news platform in Philippines, prior to that he worked for US dept of defense. Our project Director Fadzly Yusof has been in the internet/gaming space for the past 20 years and was one of the first 10 employees at Razer. After that he worked with some telcos and was CEO of his own games company which was acquired.

Your ICO is live now, when does that end, and what's next after the ICO is complete?

Our ICO ends on Dec 31 so time is coming up soon. First thing will be to finish our applications with the governments in Philippines, Aus, Singapore (Start on US and EU) for licensing the exchanges. While working on that we will finish the development of our exchange. We have a working version of it but we'll make a nicer frontend and smoother experience. And start localizing the payroll software for the Australian and Singapore markets since eventually every country where we have an exchange node we will also operate the full model of Salarium (Payroll, E-wallet, Financing, Etc.)

There's no debate, Ripple (XRP) has been kicking ass, and today passed the $1.00 mark for the first time. For some perspective - a month ago it was $0.28

So what's driving the increase, and what precautions should investors at least be aware of?

Ripple has been reaching out to some big, and respected players in traditional finance.  A partnership with American Express was announced last month, and just today it was announced banks in both Korea and Japan are conducting tests of Ripple's tech for use in international transactions.

Also driving the price up - massive rumors that CoinBase will add Ripple to their trading platform.

But that's where caution needs to come in.  Full disclosure - I do hold some Ripple.  So before any claims that i'm just spreading fear and doubt - I'm not. All responsible investors need to look at every investment they have and also ask "what could go wrong?".

Here's why CoinBase could go either way.

CoinBase released their framework for how they will decide what new coins to include, and frankly - Ripple's centralized structure doesn't meet the requirements.  However - CoinBase made sure to emphasize - these rules are not set in stone, and they're free to make exceptions.  You can look at their framework here.

Secondly, some new Ripple investors may not be aware - but the Ripple on CoinBase rumors started long ago, this isn't new. The first round of rumors revolved around some now clearly fake, photoshopped images.

But i'm not out to crush your hopes.  One thing CoinBase has done is structured their business to pass any potential future regulations on the market. Basically ready if new laws are passed, they won't have to change much, if anything - and so has Ripple!

This is a massive factor in Ripple's favor.

Another factor in Ripple is the amount of coins in circulation, with more coming.  With over 38 billion coins in circulation now, and 100 billion total supply - don't expect a $100 Ripple to be something we ever see. 

But that doesn't mean there isn't still plenty of room for growth - just keep those expectations realistic.

Their twitter feed is currently an odd, and abnormal string of Bitcoin Cash hype - 5 tweets in a row at the time of writing this article.

5 Bitcoin Cash tweets, in a row.

When asked why, they tweeted back to one user - "Deal with it" - taking a break from the usual professionalism, and now literally trolling twitter for Bitcoin Cash.

deal with it

— CNBC's Fast Money (@CNBCFastMoney) December 20, 2017

Leave it to internet detectives to find suspicious connections - a man named "Paul Wasensteiner" is the founder of a London's "Bitcoin Cash Meetup" - and his wife is none other than a CNBC employee, Gaby Wasensteiner.  Who can be seen on her little-known Twitter with few followers re-tweeting her husbands Bitcoin Cash plugs ( @gwasensteiner )

To be fair - there's no smoking gun to say there's definitive foul play. But there is enough odd factors to warrant suspicion.

On a lighter note, after the endless promotion, it appears their audience isn't impressed, as 79% voted against Bitcoin Cash in what they're calling a "civil war".

POLL: Which side of the bitcoin civil war are you on: #Bitcoin or #BitcoinCash?

— CNBC's Fast Money (@CNBCFastMoney) December 20, 2017

We'll be tuning in to see what they do next.
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A quick follow up to my article yesterday posted here. CoinBase's CEO has announced they are launching an investigation into the activity that occured shortly before Bitcoin Cash went live on their platform.  In a blog post reading:

Given the price increase in the hours leading up the announcement, we will be conducting an investigation into this matter. If we find evidence of any employee or contractor violating our policies — directly or indirectly — I will not hesitate to terminate the employee immediately and take appropriate legal action.

But let's take a moment to accept how unlikely it is this will result in anything. 

The trades would have occurred on other exchanges, with no way for CoinBase to tell who made those purchases.  Even if a CoinBase employee leaked information, they're likely smart enough to tell a friend and not have done this trading from a personal account. 

Just delete any relevent text messages - and all evidence is gone.   I wouldn't advise getting your hopes up that this will lead to any action.

In a surprising post just made to reddit, Charlie Lee has sold all his Litecoin.  He maintains he's more confident than ever in Litecoin's future though, and says he's still fully dedicated. 

Here's how he explained his decision...

Over the past year, I try to stay away from price related tweets, but it’s hard because price is such an important aspect of Litecoin growth. And whenever I tweet about Litecoin price or even just good or bads news, I get accused of doing it for personal benefit. Some people even think I short LTC! So in a sense, it is conflict of interest for me to hold LTC and tweet about it because I have so much influence. I have always refrained from buying/selling LTC before or after my major tweets, but this is something only I know. And there will always be a doubt on whether any of my actions were to further my own personal wealth above the success of Litecoin and crypto-currency in general.

For this reason, in the past days, I have sold and donated all my LTC. Litecoin has been very good for me financially, so I am well off enough that I no longer need to tie my financial success to Litecoin’s success. For the first time in 6+ years, I no longer own a single LTC that’s not stored in a physical Litecoin. (I do have a few of those as collectibles.) This is definitely a weird feeling, but also somehow refreshing. Don’t worry. I’m not quitting Litecoin. I will still spend all my time working on Litecoin. When Litecoin succeeds, I will still be rewarded in lots of different ways, just not directly via ownership of coins. I now believe this is the best way for me to continue to oversee Litecoin’s growth.

Please don’t ask me how many coins I sold or at what price. I can tell you that the amount of coins was a small percentage of GDAX’s daily volume and it did not crash the market.

UPDATE: I wrote the above before the recent Bcash on GDAX/Coinbase fiasco. As you can see, some people even think I’m pumping Bcash for my personal benefit. It seems like I just can’t win.

You can view the post here.

CoinBase/GDAX are currently taking a lot of heat from users on twitter, facebook, reddit as well as some slack and telegram channels... well, basically anywhere people are discussing crypto.

Their announcement of supporting Bitcoin Cash on their platform quickly came to a grinding halt, as trading was suspended just minutes later.

According to posts on their own status page, they managed to function only a disappointing 4 minutes before halting:

17:20 PST - Trading is now enabled on the BCH-USD order book 

17:24 PST - The BCH-USD order book is back in post-only mode. We will post an update shortly.

Accusations of more serious foul play are flying around as well,  as people noticed what they say were abnormal purchases of Bitcoin Cash shortly before CoinBase's official launch - and it has some claiming there was insider trading.  With thousands of tweets making claims like:

I dont care how you slice it, this is INSIDER TRADING! Someone with alot of Bitcoin knew @coinbase would add Bitcoin Cash BCH and took one BIG chunk of profit from the #flippening. Whoever you are you are your making crypto look like wall st. Shame on you. pic.twitter.com/g9YU9jGm0T

— CryptoSoldier (@NoTimeToSearch) December 20, 2017

Which even prompted CoinBase to tweet to critics:

Coinbase maintains a strict trading policy and internal guidelines for employees. Coinbase employees have been prohibited from trading in Bitcoin Cash for several weeks.

— Coinbase (@coinbase) December 20, 2017

There was indeed an uptick in Bitcoin Cash purchases just minutes before CoinBase's update, although no definitive proof of why.

Currently traders on Coinbase and GDAX are out of luck, the last word from CoinBase at time of publishing this article is:

 "All BCH books will enter cancel-only mode, and all existing orders will be cleared. While in cancel-only mode, no new orders will be accepted. We will post an update shortly. "

In the meantime, this is leaving many questioning what the actual price of Bitcoin Cash is - at one point GDAX listed it at $9500, but on other exchanges it's going for extremely lower - around $3400.

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The Crypto Company has been forced to suspend trading of it's stock by the The Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Crypto Company describes itself as having a "diversified portfolio of digital assets" with plans to "rollout of a full scale, high frequency cryptocurrency trading floor."

But movement in it's stock and proposed splits caught the eye of regulators.  Following a 160% rise over the last week - giving them an $11 Billion value at $575 a share.


This caused the CEO to announce a plan for a 10 to 1 split of the stock, in order to lower the entry price for a round of new investors - making the stock $57.50 per share. CEO Mike Poutre said it's "the responsible thing to do" and cited companies like Apple, and Mastercard, which also split shares to make their stock accessible to everyday investors.

The SEC has now halted trading citing "concerns regarding the accuracy and adequacy of information" - the suspension will expire January 3rd, where it can either be extended or fully lifted depending on the outcome of the SEC's investigation.

And an odd bit of information - the company went public in June of this year by acquiring the already public company "Croe"... which makes fitness bra's for women.

Fort Knoxster is launching the worlds first blockchain based privacy communications app.

Not just chat, but a whole suite of features -  inbox, voice/video calls, and file transfers. All files and communications are encrypted in the senders browser before they are sent to the servers, where they are then stored in a decentralized storage area.

Decentralization of communications means first, it's harder for hackers to find where the data is to begin with, then once they do - they'll just find fragments instead of a data jackpot.

Something else we like hearing - they have a product before the ICO.  The demo can be seen here and the mobile versions for iPhone and Android go live at the beginning of 2018.

The app will be free with limited features and storage, but pro-users and corperations will want to upgrade to increase storage and gain access to advanced tools. This and user rewards are where their token will be implemented.

Fort Knoxster's pre-sale begins Feb 5th 2018 and more info can be found at fortknoxster.com

It's a typo that'll live in infamy.  On this day in 2013 a Bitcointalk user posted his rant titled "WHY I AM HODLING" and the crypto scene hasn't been the same since.

For those new to the crypto world, "HODL" just means "hold" - as in "don't sell your coins yet, just hodl".

Speaking to Fox News regarding the new Bitcoin futures market now giving disbelievers the ability to bet against Bitcoin, Cameron Winklevoss said:

"We’ve been working really hard to give Jamie Dimon an opportunity to short bitcoin... anybody who says that you know, it’s a fraud or a bubble, you can go now put your money where your mouth is, and bet against it”.

Jamie Dimon is JP Morgan Chase's CEO, and famously said back in October:

"If you’re stupid enough to buy it, you’ll pay the price for it one day".

Recently the Wall Street Journal reported on rumors that JP Morgan is looking into giving their clients access to Bitcoin futures through CME Group.

No word on if Dimon will "put his money where his mouth is".

The Winklevoss twins are the founders of the Gemini exchange, but better known as the twins who sued Mark Zuckerberg claiming they were the actual creators of facebook, as seen in the movie "The Social Network".

VIA CNBC: Erik Finman, bitcoin millionaire, discusses his strategy for buying bitcoin.

As of about an hour ago, the Bitcoin futures market has launched with the world's largest player in the field - CME Group.

As CME opened their futures market from their Chicago headquarters today at 3pm (EST) - the overwhelming numbers so far show institutional investors placing their bets that Bitcoin will go even higher!  So far, comfortably predicting a price around $21,000.


Similar results were seen last week, when CBOE (a firm much smaller than CME Group) launched their Bitcoin futures as well.

What does this mean long term for Bitcoin? The honest answer is, nobody knows.  Expert opinions range from futures giving Bitcoin the legitimacy it needs to reach $100k, with others saying eventually Wall Street will turn on cryptocurrencies and flood the market with short sells when they believe the 'bubble' has reached it's peak level.

They're known within the darknet underground as "The Lazarus Group" but intelligence sources say they're North Korea's digital army. You may have heard the name before in the infamous 2014 hack of Sony Pictures.

But their latest operation has a new target - cryptocurrency, and was discovered by cyber security company Secureworks.

The focus of the attack is executives at financial firms that hold and manage cryptocurrencies, and it works like this - an executive receives an e-mail, which states there's an opportunity to move up in the ranks, and become the company's Chief Financial Officer.

There is an attachment in the form of a Microsoft word file.  When opened, they recieve a notification "editing must be enabled to view the docunent" and when the user clicks "ok" it launches an embedded script that does 2 things.

First, it creates then opens harmless document - an actual job description to keep the user distracted and unsuspicious.

Cybertrust aims to turn Bitcoin into securities, so banks can handle crypto assets without making major changes to their internal IT and security infrastructure.

Currently, banks in many nations cannot purchase Bitcoin for legal and regulatory reasons, because they do not now how to handle assets within their existing systems.

That's where Cybertrust hopes to step in - holding their assets on their behalf, acting as legal custodians of cryptocurrency assets.

Using their token to allow accredited investors to aquite major cryptocurrencies at a much lower rate than the competition, prioritize the broader public as opposed to just institutional investors or professional traders and develop the foundation for future derivative cryptocurrency products.

The timing to launch such a service is ideal, as the banking industry seems to be coming to terms with the fact they won't be able to ignore cryptocurrency much longer.

Cybertust will offer their services for Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Ethereum holdings to start, and aims to expand to over 20.

More info, and their whitepaper can be found at www.cybertrust.io

Via CNBC | Buying fine art with Bitcoin! 

Breaking today - the NYC based financial software, data, and media company Bloomberg has added 3 more currencies to their terminal indexing service.

The 3 joining Bitcoin will be Ethereum, Litecoin, and Ripple!

The updated terminal from Bloomberg.

The terminal service is used not only by large banks, but major investment houses worldwide.

Many have been wondering, with Wall Street's new fascination with Bitcoin - what currencies will they be eyeing next? Tonight, we may have an answer.

First, researchers at MIT and Boston University discovered the ability forge some of these signatures, in a post on GitHub stating:

We present attacks on the cryptography used in the IOTA blockchain including under certain conditions the ability to forge signatures. We have developed practical attacks on IOTA’s cryptographic hash function Curl, allowing us to quickly generate short colliding messages...

Then just a couple weeks later, Nick Johnson, one of Ethereum's core developers published a document titled "Why I find Iota deeply alarming" where he outlined his belief that IOTA valued copy-protection over security stating:

Iota is a bad actor in the open source community.... Sergey Ivancheglo, Iota’s cofounder, claims that the flaws in the Curl hash function were in fact deliberate; that they were inserted as ‘copy protection’, to prevent copycat projects, and to allow the Iota team to compromise those projects if they sprang up.

It honestly astounds me that anyone would think this justification redeems them; it’s an admission of hostile intent towards the open-source community, akin to publishing a recipe but leaving out a critical step, rendering the resulting dish poisonous to anyone who eats it. 

If Iota wish to discourage copycats, they can license their code in a manner that prohibits the kinds of reuse they are unhappy with, or keep it closed source, as they have done with their centralised coordinator. That, of course, would lose them the approval of the open source community — but so should their actions here, in booby trapping the code they release.

Since discovery IOTA has patched these exploits, and their co-founder openly admits it's in a “very early-stage beta.”.

IOTA has hired a 3rd party to help improve on their existing tech, and at a time when investors are throwing money into anything having an upswing, it's important people know the current 'experimental' status of the project.

Symatri, LLC, Announces the public crowdsale of the new Kala token. After the private presale sold out in just over four hours, the public now has a chance to purchase the Kala utility token for a low .02 per token.

Group 1 of the token sale raised $7,500,000 in 4 hours. It is expected that Group two will sell
out quickly as well.

Group 2 is now officially launched at $.02 per token. There will be 1.5 billion available in this
group. After group two sells out, the rate will go to $.03.

So what’s all the excitement about?
Immediate inherent value sets Kala apart from other ICO offerings
What makes any medium of exchange valuable is whether or not owners can use it to for real
world transactions. Kala will have value from the onset, because shortly after issuance, Kala
users will be able to purchase discounted products, services, and gift cards through Symatri’s
online marketplace called REACH. As Symatri expands its ecosystem, the economic possibilities
for users are heightened. REACH will also contain the most versatile of purchases – gift cards to
retailers like Amazon, Walmart, Apple, Google Play, Target, Nike, and more.

Simple for everyone to earn Kala

It’s very easy to earn Kala tokens after the ITO. Anyone with internet access can earn Kala with
Symatri’s unique way of “mining” through Proof of Effort. This makes the token accessible to
the masses.

People earn points by completing activities like taking surveys, testing products, downloading
apps, etc. through Symatri’s CORE platform, then transfer those points into Kala. There’s no
roomful of servers, no expensive buy-in to mining pools. It doesn’t take special knowledge or
equipment. In fact, anyone with a computer or smartphone can participate.

Secure and Robust Platform
Symatri chose to build Kala on the ERC20 specifications of the Ethereum blockchain. This
allows Kala to take full advantage of the benefits of the Ethereum network, and will make it
easier to add to exchanges.

After the close of the ITO, the sold tokens will be issued. Those who participate in the ITO will
be ready to use Kala as soon as it’s fully integrated into the Symatri Ecosystem. Kala will be
fungible, transferable, and expected to trade on exchanges. In addition to using Kala to
purchase items online at Symatri’s marketplace, Kala owners can take advantage of the
fluctuations in value that is a fundamental characteristic of all cryptocurrencies.

Tested and Proven Technology
300,000 members in 140 Nations already use the CORE platform.
Next, unlike many cryptocurrencies which are created for technology or projects that are still
being developed, Kala will integrate within an already existing ecosystem with more than
300,000 members in over 140 countries. Symatri’s CORE platform and marketplace are being
used, tested, and improved before integrating Kala. In fact, people can already participate
before the first Kala Token is even issued.
Safety of Funds

All funds will be held in escrow during the ITO. When the crowdsale ends, before the final
number of Kala tokens sold will be created and distributed, we will do an audit of deposits to
ensure accuracy. Where possible, two-of- three multi-sig addresses will be used to secure funds.

For more information on Kala, the ITO, to sign up for early access, and to view the full white
paper, visit https://go.kalatoken.io/

The big 3 each took turns climbing up over the past week.  Last week, Bitcoin soared, then litecoin followed, but today it's all about ether!

At the time of publishing this article Ethereum is sitting at $750.

There's no one clear reason for today's spike - although there's many possibilities.  New investors flooded in to Bitcoin over the last couple weeks, and naturally, after people get their start in Bitcoin they start researching other coins - and learn Ethereum is part of most seasoned investors portfolios.

Then, there's also the buzz over Ethereum's pending upgrade, called Casper - expected to hit soon. We talked about Casper a few weeks ago here.

BankEx aims to bring together the worlds of traditional finance and blockchain tech.

This all revolves around the concept of "Inital Smart Asset Offerings" (ISAO). ISAO's open the world of blockchain to traditional brick and mortar businesses - allowing them to tokenize their real world assets.

That means industries you wouldn't typically think of being on blockchain get their chance to jump in, and get the financing that comes with it.  Industries such real estate, natural resources, finances, and even non-profit organizations.

BanxEx has already gained some massive industry support, including Microsoft - which awarded them a $120,000 grant through Microsoft Azure.

The BankEx team is chock-full of experts with a proven track record, including Sergey Sergienko of Chronobank, Sasha Ivanov of Waves, Nehemia Kramer an early advocate of Ethereum, Chris Skinner a leading financial markets strategist, and Peter Cramton Professor of Economics at Maryland University.

BankEx was also recently included in top 50 world fintech startups, has partners in the stock exchange and over 10 banks, leading traditional-assets depositories and is a Silver member of Symphony Foundation.

BankEx raised $1.5 Million in their ICO pre-sale, and their public ICO is now live at www.BankEx.com