by Lid

Lid’s August Altcoin Picks

As we now enter August, the Crypto market is continuing its slow-bleed since January’s highs. Many altcoins are completing full retraces, while others are reaching critical support. These are the times nobody wants to buy as people are in distraught about their portfolios, or they simply have no spare BTC to purchase these juicy dips. If you’ve held spare BTC for times like these, then well done.

Gone are the days where every altcoin could be listed on one page of Coinmarketcap. In contrast, we are now in a time where hundreds of new coins are introduced every month, and if we’re being honest, it’s getting more and more difficult to filter out the scams from the gems. One way to limit your risk when buying altcoins is to not touch coins that are far from their bottom, but instead are near strong support where the price has bounced from in the past. Here are some coins I’ve been looking at:

KOMODO (KMD) $150m MCAP

Where to set bids? 16k-17k sats
Long term target (sir?) 90k sats

 

ARK (ARK) $100m MCAP

Where to set bids? 9.5k-12k sats

 

NEXUS (NXS) $70m MCAP

Currently NXS is sitting on 15k sat support, and it isn’t a bad idea to start scaling your position from here. However, there’s a good chance we’ll see lower.
Where to set bids? 9.5k-12k sats

 

ARDOR (ARDR) $145m MCAP

Where to set bids? 1550 sats – 1750 sats

 

STRATIS (STRAT) $240m MCAP

Where to set bids? 30k sats and below is a good buy zone to start scaling in your position
EDIT: Seems like STRAT support might fall through – I’d be wary at this point and look for a lower entry to limit risk 🙂

We are currently in an uncertain time of the market, limit the risk of your investments by setting ambitiously low bids (for those panic dumpers) and look for coins heading for critical support. There is much more risk in buying coins that have risen and are not near their bottom.

Trade safe and DYOR!

by oldcryptogeek

Oversight of New Assets in the Digital Age

The U.S. House of Representatives held a hearing this morning to gather more information about Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to help further build a base of knowledge to inform new regulations.

The committee heard from industry leaders such as CEO and Co-Founder of Clovyr.  Ms. Baldet has been pushing for an increase in clarity and proper framework to protect consumers without stifling inovation, and she was not alone.

Joining her were Mr. Gorfine from the CFTC, Mr. Kupor of Andreessen Horowitz, Mr. Lowell Ness of Perkins Cole LLP, the Honorable Gary Gensler of MIT, and Mr. Fairfield; a professor of law.

The chairman noted the increase in attendance at the hearing, as well as addressing the question of why the agriculture committee is dealing with Bitcoin and distributed ledger technology in the first place.

 

“While digital assets are often thought of as payment systems or digital gold, I believe the promise that token networks hold is more universal and more exciting, quite frankly, than that.”

“For the first time we have a tool that enables individuals to reliably exchange value in a digital realm without an intermediary.  We can have assets that exist, can be created, exchanged, and consumed in digital form. The promise of being able to secure property rights in a digital form may fundamentally change the way how people interact with one another.”

The first step is to apply the Howey test and determine whether a token is a security.  If it’s not, there’s a good chance it’s a commodity and would fall under the Commodities Exchange Act. The problem is the Howey test is not always able to make a clear determination regarding cryptocurrencies.  The chairman also noted that Congress may want to consider developing a new framework “that takes into consideration the diverse characteristics and unique economic relationships embedded in many of the types of digital assets that can be represented by tokens.”

“Providing clear guidance to enable developers to determine the nature of their tokens, and then suitable rules to enable them to develop their project is essential to both protecting the public and promoting innovation.  How we regulate these projects and those that develop them won’t determine if they are developed or used, but it will determine where they’re developed and used.”

“We want that innovation done in our country.”

The price of Bitcoin has been rallying after confirming support near $6000 USD.

https://www.tradingview.com/x/67NZ1QwJ/

by y0g1x

Saturn.Network

SATURN DAO: A decentralized exchange protocol ready to perform

The saturn.network website, asserts the team’s commitment to decentralization at all levels, and returning value to the DAO participants, by engaging a multi-blockchain development strategy and distributing revenue to token holders.

“Saturn Network is a protocol that allows access to a decentralized order book in just one transaction, allowing decentralized exchanges to share a liquidity pool and feel the benefits of a much higher trading volume. It requires no deposits and runs completely on the Ethereum blockchain, making it always accessible to everyone. Furthermore, it has been built with shared ownership in mind to ensure there are no imbalances of power: holding SATURN tokens means you are part of the Saturn DAO. You will be able to vote on binding protocol changes or even be paid dividends from exchange fees. Finally, our protocol can run on any EVM blockchain, with Ethereum Classic and Callisto already on our roadmap, to be followed by releases on RSK chains such as Bitcoin, Litecoin and Verge, we will achieve decentralized cross chain trading.”

 

Radex.ai, is a decentralized echange, built by the Saturn Network team, for ERC-20/223 tokens. The exchange is live, with 11 currently listed token pairs tradeable, including the Saturn token for the Ethereum Classic blockchain. Once the Saturn protocol is launched, Radex will be the first exchange to adopt it and promote its growth, which will further boost exchange volume and liquidity.

Currently being developed for the Radex.ai platform is a standalone desktop app which will improve stability, anonymity and security, a trade explorer which will allow for easy access to full order book historical trade data at any point in time and a read-only API server for order book and current price information. This API will enable Radex and any other website that’s built on top of it, to run on a mobile phone’s browser.

Trading tokens on Radex.ai can be done via the Saturn wallet, which allows seamless interaction with dApps on the Ethereum and Ethereum Classic blockchains. You can easily swap between both networks with one click, managing your wallets across both blockchains with just one tool. The Saturn wallet is installed as a Goggle Chrome extension and works with the exchange to facilitate transactions effortlessly and intuitively, and is yet another component of the network, that demonstrates impressive vision and developer competence. Whilst one can use any other dApp wallet, such as the ETH chain metamask, trust wallet, Cipher browser and Toshi, to trade on the Radex.ai exchange with plug and play convenience, having put the Saturn wallet through it’s paces, we are suitably impressed. The Radex.ai exchange and Saturn wallet have been intentionally designed to coexist nicely with all other players in the market, providing a powerful range of tools, for this fast developing, decentralised infrastructure.

Complimenting Radex.ai and the Saturn wallet, Rados.io supports and integrates users of the Saturn Network further, by delivering an information and community hub, news blog, and forum where all things blockchain are discussed amongst the community. Going forwards, there are plans to offer financial services on top of the Saturn Protocol, such as Trading bots, Decentralized fund management, Decentralized ETFs & a token payment system.

The Saturn Network also plans to make it easy to implement bots for experienced market traders, as well as keen coders who may be looking at getting into programmatic cryptocurrency trading. The aim is to foster a community that exchanges knowledge and best practices with each other. The types of bot support that that Saturn Network envisages offering are:

  • Market making bots that provide liquidity for token-token trading pairs.
  • Decentralised exchange arbitrage bots that make sure users benefit from the best prices.
  • SDK’s for developers.

Another area in which the Saturn network aims to provide valuable services for it’s users is through decentralised money management. Saturn will initially develop a DMM protocol in four stages:

  • Stage zero: HODL contracts – that allow you to use smart contracts to ensure that you don’t panic sell during the dip. “We will provide an easy interface for you to HODL your tokens in smart contracts for a predefined period of time, from days to years. You choose!”
  • Stage one: Humans – Deposit your funds in a smart contract and then choose a trader to manage them inside a smart contract via the Saturn Protocol, for a pre-defined percentage of the profits, that are calculated relative to ETH value. The trader will not be able to withdraw funds from the smart contract. Only their profits end up in their pocket. “Beginners can let someone knowledgeable manage their funds in a secure and trustless way, and professional traders can monetize their skills by managing other people’s money and earning a percentage of the profits that they can generate”
  • Stage two: Trading bots – The same smart contract money management system, as described in stage one, can be extended across to trading bots. “Trading bots will participate in the same trader leaderboard and will compete with humans for our users’ funds”
  • Stage three: Marketplace – When the infrastructure and tools for writing trading bots for Radex is in place, the helper libraries needed to develop a bot will become open source. Once that is done, Radex will open up a trading bot marketplace, providing users a selection of professional human traders, official Rados bots, and bots developed by the community. “Best of all, the users are guaranteed that their funds are safe, while traders and bot developers are guaranteed that they get paid fairly for their services and they can stay anonymous while doing so, which is a big deal if you are a skilled and capable trading bot writer.

Saturn Network, as per their name, are aiming beyond the moon with the infrastructure that they are building out, but perhaps the 2 offerings that excite us the most, are atomic arbitrage and decentralised ETF’s.

Atomic arbitrage is possible via the power of smart contracts. Smart contracts allow for the automation of certain actions, bundled into one transaction. This means that a smart contract will execute both buy and sell trades in one transaction, without letting any other trader intervene, take the profitable trade that has been found, and cause the dreadful slippage.

Here’s a visual representation of how it will work-

“Executing this smart contract function will either succeed and provide you with a guaranteed profit, or fail entirely, and the initial trade on Saturn Protocol will simply be reverted”.

“Atomic Arbitrage is only possible on decentralized exchanges that exist on the same blockchain, which is why we think that decentralized exchanges not necessarily compete with each other, but provide different user experience and different privacy/speed tradeoffs, ultimately seamlessly sharing liquidity with each other and forming one large liquidity pool for traders.”

Writing such trading bots to bridge 0x, EtherDelta (ForkDelta), IDEX, Kyber, Bancor and other decentralized exchanges with Saturn Protocol is an important project on the roadmap. The Saturn Network plans to open source these bots and teach users how to set up atomic arbitrage smart contracts as soon as they are ready.

ETFs, or Exchange Traded Funds are instruments used to track the price of companies traded on the same stock exchange, and have long been recommended as a supreme method of long-term investment in traditional markets, allowing for efficient investment across a basket of stocks.

The Saturn Network are also working on bringing Decentralised ETF’s to the blockchain. These dETF’s will comprise of baskets of assets; indexed and packaged as ERC223 tokens that are tradable on the Saturn Protocol.

There are an unlimited number of potential dETF’s that can be created with this technology.

One example of dETF’s is for things like top 20 ethereum tokens by market cap, decentralized exchanges and prediction markets. In the context of Ethereum-like blockchains, a dETF can itself be represented by a token.

 

Picking one of the indexes from the example above, if you wanted to invest in the industry of decentralized exchanges, Rados have prepared a dETF for that, called DEX dETF, that tracks the price of the following basket: 1 ZRX, 1 SATURN, 5 KNC.

Traders that have these three tokens can mint their own DEX dETF token by interacting with the dETF smart contract.

“The dETF coin can be represented by an ERC20 or ERC223 token that you can trade on a whole number of decentralized exchanges, or simply transfer them wallet to wallet.

Any trader that has a DEX dETF token can unwrap it and receive its collateral (1 ZRX, 1 SATURN, 5 KNC) by interacting with the dETF smart contract”

“If the market value of the ETF coin falls below the value of its underlying assets, holders will be able to disassemble the ETF coin and get the underlying assets back. ETFs will make it easier for investors to take advantage of investing in multiple coins at once in one transaction. Trading bots performing arbitrage will ensure that ETFs are always competitively priced”

This is one of the services that we are most excited about, on the Saturn Network; as it will provide a very simple way for people to invest in multiple projects at the same time. A provision that allows us to invest in particular areas that we anticipate accelerated growth within, without having to trawl through dozens of similar ICO papers, to pick a few favourite projects, only to miss out on the dark horse who takes home the prize, is a real gift to investors, especially in this often symbiotically evolving market.

“The holy grail of decentralized cryptocurrency trading is a system that allows for trustless exchange of value between multiple blockchains”

All of the products mentioned will be primarily targeted at the Ethereum blockchain. However, with minimal modifications, Radex, Saturn Protocol and the Saturn DAO can be replicated and executable on any EVM[​ ​60​]​ compatible blockchain. Examples include:

  • Ethereum
  • Ethereum Classic
  • Callisto
  • Qtum
  • Ubiq
  • Ethermint
  • IBM HyperLedger
  • Quorum
  • Rootstock​, a sidechain smart-contract protocol for bitcoin-like blockchains, such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Verge

“Other blockchains will be considered if there is demand from our community. Each of these blockchains will get its own ​SATURN​ token to govern its own order books and its own DAO”

As we put all of the pieces together, a project with groundbreaking scope comes into view, and offers us a truly inspiring vision of the future of crypto-asset exchange and governance.

by oldcryptogeek

Patrick Byrne speaks at Freedom Fest

Billed as the largest gathering of free minds, Freedom Fest 2018 is wrapping up today.  Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com and early Bitcoin adopter, was there and gave some thoughts on the ways that blockchain can improve society.

“Society has all kinds of institutions that we’ve come to understand we can trust, or not trust, to various degrees.  A lot of those institutions can be replaced by blockchain, and so we are going to be able to achieve trust, without relying on institutions that have betrayed us, in different ways, over time.”

“The political system has gotten bent, and now we can go to world where we don’t have to trust those actors anymore, we can trust mathematics.”

While Byrne shied away from using the term “corruption” when discussing the current system, he posited that many problems faced by the United States could be solved with trustless systems, or those guaranteed by code instead of people.

He went on to say that,

“the voting system has a lot of fraud, or a couple percent fraud, and all of that can be eliminated.”

“Really, I’m pro-freedom. It was about seeing the opportunities for blockchain, it isn’t Bitcoin itself, but how blockchain is going to change society.”

When asked which cryptocurrency project he was most excited for Byrne replied,

“Ravencoin!  It’s Bitcoin 3.0”.

Time will be the judge.

 

by oldcryptogeek

Cardano on Coinbase?

 

IOHK, the company hired to develop the Cardano project, recently announced that they have launched a new testnet for the KEVM, which means smart contract capability on Cardano is just around the corner.

The KEVM is the result of a lot of hard work on the part of Grigore Rosu and his team at Runtime Verification, the company contracted by IOHK to develop a system based on formal semantics.  Rosu has already built mission critical software systems for major industry players like NASA and Boeing, and now he has applied his own technology to blockchain for the first time.  The result is something very special.

Rosu applied his K framework to study and formally model the semantics of the EVM, the “virtual computer” that all Ethereum code runs on.  That model, in turn, has been used as a base for developing IELE, which is planned for testnet phase July 30.

Grigore said: “We designed IELE from scratch as a formal specification using K and generated the VM automatically from the specification. Therefore, there is nothing to prove about the VM in terms of correctness, because it is correct-by-construction.” He added: “We retrospectively analysed the EVM specification which we defined previously, and looked at all our attempts to verify smart contracts with it and then stepped back to think how should have a virtual machine been designed to overcome all those problems. We came up with IELE. This is an LLVM-like VM for the blockchain. For me as the designer of K, this is a hugely important milestone, and is the first time a real language has been defined in K and its implementation automatically generated.”   –source

As noted on cardanoroadmap.com , the development phase is quickly moving into wide scale testing.

We are launching a testnet version of IELE on the Ethereum Mantis client so that developers and the wider community can test and evaluate our implementation of smart contracts. The aim of the testnet release is to receive feedback on the IELE virtual machine and smart contract functionality. A specific toolset to support developers will be provided with this testnet launch.

The availability of a testnet will enable developers to test smart contracts and familiarise themselves with how they work before deploying them to the mainnet. This private test network can be used to test out code and discover any integration issues early on. Feedback can be gathered on usability to help us to make improvements where required at an early stage.

 

Meanwhile, as if on cue, Coinbase today sent out this tweet:

The price of ADA jumped 13% in an hour on the news before traders sought to lock in short term profits.  Not bad for an hour’s work.

https://www.tradingview.com/x/d6Y3LO8X/

https://www.tradingview.com/x/XGmXPKBi/

We like to keep a long term outlook during these events, and remind our newcomers that volatility can be your friend, if you have patience and foresight.  Cardano is one of my favourite projects, and a long term hold for me, at these levels I am accumulating more.