CCN GIFTO – Enter the blockchain Andy Tian has been labelled a ‘traditional’ entertainment man coming as he does from the world of online, mobile, gamified entertainment. ‘That was before I moved into the blockchain arena,’ he says, ‘it is funny to think that pre-blockchain is considered traditional.’ He has the last laugh, however, with the ICO for GIFTO, the virtual gifting protocol, closing out in one minute to the tune of $30million. ‘Two third were institutional investors and the last $10million came in one minute.’ GIFTO was the fastest selling ICO in Asia. It was four times over-subscribed and it will be the largest non-crypto adoption of blockchain technology by a mile. Tian expects a minimum of 5million users and 100,000 content creators when the product launches in Q1 of next year. How can he be so confident? As CEO of AIG, Asia Innovations Group, Tian brings a wealth of ‘traditional’ gaming experience to the table. Previously he was head of Zynga China and there he learnt the business of gaming. ‘The millions made in the gaming industry are from virtual purchases and assets.’ He explains. ‘Gamers buy virtual swords, armour, tools – all […]
Continue readingCategory Archives: crypto
Trying To Bring Order And Analysis To The World Of ICOs, Dmitry Machikhin, Cofounder Of ICObench
CCN ICObench, trying to become the Forbes of the ICO world. Only formed in August 2017, already ICObench is cornering the market as the ratings agency for the ICO world. With more than 1500 ICOs listed on their pages, 100 waiting for review per day and 1000 more in the pipeline, the platform is growing faster than it can almost cope. ‘We are looking to automate much of the qualifications of the ICOs,’ says CEO and co-founder Dmitry Machikhin from St Petersburg. ‘We have six editors working full time but we have our hands full.’ It might be argued indeed that the burgeoning ICO industry needed a ratings system or platform to try and manage the difficult task of measuring the numerous offerings. While most companies use uniform website layouts, similar white papers and often share advisers, there was no formal rating system to offer a quick and easy guide for investors and industry watchers. Machikhin’s background is maths and linguistics. He worked for Cointelegraph and used coinmarketcap.com as a ready reference but felt there was something missing – something that would bridge the gap. ‘We wanted to provide a platform where we could inform interested parties of the quality […]
Continue reading
CharityStars, Aiming For The Stars
CCN ‘We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars.’ Oscar Wilde Four years ago Francesco Nazari Fusetti set up CharityStars, a fund raising platform for charities. It linked celebrities with charitable causes, delivering funds to charities in a transparent, online manner. Initially Fusetti approached celebrities, looking to get them to donate their time, possessions or support for charity. Over time, this has changed and charities began instead to approach the CharityStars platform to post their projects with their own celebrity ambassadors; CharityStars having proven an ability to deliver – matching causes, celebrities and donors – the latter now numbering 40,000 active people. Fusetti is very proud of his organisation pointing to the $10 million raised since the formation of the company with mainstream charities benefitting such as WWF, UNICEF and Save the Children. With the original office located in his native Italy and still accounting for more than 30% of all income generated, new offices have been opened in the UK and US. This is important as while the donors and bidders are worldwide, many of the celebrity experiences on offer are geographically based – such as lunch with a star or a […]
Continue reading
Cryptocurrencies Bring Greater Freedom To Individuals, David Drake, Global ICO Expert
CCN “The beauty of Cryptocurrencies is that they offer the same freedom to the individual as that traditionally enjoyed by large corporates” It must be the Swedish nature of David Drake that lends him to want individuals to enjoy the same tax and privacy privileges of large corporations. ‘Isn’t that the beauty of owning Bitcoin,’ he says on the line from New York. ‘Anyone can enjoy the lack of intrusion or censorship operated by countries – it’s all about freedom.’ Drake is the CEO and founder of LDJ Capital, a Multi-Family Office that looks after the wealth of UHNW (ultra high net worth) individuals and families. An independent financial institution, LDJ Capitals claims to offer its clients financial advice that is uncomplicated by franchises or connections. And recently Drake has been chatting about the benefits of cryptocurrencies on public platforms and in interviews. ‘Although I do not give trading advice,’ he emphasis, ‘I am not a trader.’ Having said that Drake scored highly on the ICObench people list – at a cool 51.6 – topping the poll of ICO bench people where he is also linked to more than 10 ICOs, both as investor and adviser – including Ambrosus (November […]
Continue reading
Wall Street Comes To Crypto Street, Bringing Financial Technologies To Cryptocurrency Markets, Alexander Kravets
CCN It was late Spring 2016 that Alexander Kravets first stumbled over cryptocurrency. Driving around looking for a real estate deal, a news item flashed up on his phone. It said that Ether had jumped from $80 to $130 in a matter of weeks. Intrigued Kravets had no idea what Ether was and so he rang around his friends, his trading friends, he even rang Deutsche bank but no one knew there either. ‘It was a seminal moment,’ recounts Kravets. ‘I started trading cryptocurrency the following week but it was painful. I mean it took a whole week to even open up a trading account.’ Why is this important? Well, Kravets’ early career reads a bit like The Wolf of Wall Street. While at college he got a part time job as a day trader. He got up at 6am, travelling ninety minutes to Flushing Queens outside New York and worked from 9am until 4pm, at which point he went to college not finishing until 10pm at night. This went on for some seven months with little or no success. He was threatened with firing, which as a student, did not bother him overmuch, until he got the hang of it and […]
Continue reading
Why Hashgraph Could Replace The Blockchain – Dublin Meetup Sparks Interest
The first meetup for hashgraph enthusiasts in Dublin happened last night in the Bank of Ireland Workbench in Montrose. Ably fortified by pizza and coffee, approximately 20 people showed up to listen to Conor O’Higgins, content manager in Ireland for hashgraph. A show of hands at the start showed the audience was already aware of the technology with over half hailing from an engineering background. There were some cryptocurrency traders attending as well. Conor stepped through the interesting aspects of the technology, talking though the consensus algorithms, Byzantine Emperors and the gossip about gossip protocols. For more information on the technology visit this article. (November 29). Questions from the meetup concentrated on how hashgraph charged per transactions – looking at the mining approach from Blockchain. O’Higgins pointed out that currently, hashgraph is only deployed in private, permissioned-based networks. ‘Real use examples included CULedger,’ he explained, ‘which is a credit union consortium supported by the efforts of the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) and the Mountain West Credit Union Association (MWCUA).’ Other engineers present were familiar with the Credit Unions example. ‘It’s a situation where individual Credit Unions don’t know or trust each other but they need to transact,’ said one engineer. ‘Hashgraph offers the […]
Continue reading
Will New SEC Regulation Shut Down ICOs? Munchee Forced To Abort ICO
CCN With $2billion raised in ICOs so far this year, it is not surprising that regulatory bodies are not only looking hard at the products and companies, but they are now starting to step in and test the veracity and legality of crypto fundraising. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently formed a Cyber Unit to fulfil this task. Last month it filed fraud charges against PlexCoin and it also forced Munchee, a distributed restaurant review ecosystem on the blockchain, to abort its ICO. Earlier in the month, as a result of the SEC Cyber Unit’s warning to Munchee, the ICO was cancelled. It had only run for two days and had attracted 40 investors. On the Twitter account plans were been made to return funds as soon as possible as of November 2. Munchee had aimed to raise $15million to provide development, grow the management team and market the product. Now, the sale is stopped, investors refunded and despite tweets from November 2 saying the company hoped to relaunch the ICO, it has gone quiet; unless you count the filing of the ‘cease-and-desist’ papers by the SEC against Munchee yesterday. This action tallies with a statement made by […]
Continue reading
The Difference Between A TGE And An ICO, Gabriele Giancola Explains More
CCN We find out more about loyalty programs on the Blockchain delivered by qiibee, a decentralized, Ethereum blockchain-based loyalty ecosystem. Its name, which is derived from qii for energy and bee for the one of the world’s most important insects, is not the only different thing about this company. It is also looking at a Token Generation Event (TGE) next year. A TGE is different from an ICO in legal terms according to co-founder and CEO Gabriele Giancola. Incorporated in Zug, the heart of the Crypto Valley outside Zurich, Giancola says that the Swiss like to keep things above board and that hosting a TGE is easier to run than an ICO and certainly it makes issues like regulation much more straightforward. Currently there is a hardcap of 70,000 ETH to be raised in Q2 of next year. The token is a qiibeePoint or QBX. qiibee is a classic example of a traditional technology solution pivoting onto the blockchain for two main reasons: scalable data capture and security. qiibee began life trying to solve the loyalty program platform. Giancola and his brother, both co founders, looked at the loyalty program space and saw a lot of problems. Loyalty Programs are […]
Continue reading
The Crypto Valley Of Zug, Why Switzerland Is The Place To Be For Bitcoin, Ethereum And Blockchain Initiatives
CCN Coming to a city near you… At first glance it might seem an unusual choice for the hottest tech location in Europe, if not EMEA, but Zug, named for its fishing rights is both a town and canton in Switzerland and home to a little under 30,000 residents. It is an affluent area, a low tax region and a base for several multinational companies. In 2001, it first sparked to international recognition when a disgruntled gunman shot 15 people, including himself, in the Zug Cantonal Parliament in what became known as the Zug Massacre. This year, Zug was very much back in the news for quite different reasons. In January 2017 a not for profit organisation was formed: the Crypto Valley Association (CVA) headquartered in Zug and formed for the express purpose of attracting and supporting blockchain companies and organisations to Switzerland. Prior to the formal establishment of CVA, the Crypto Valley in Zug had been the brain child of Johann Grevers who based his cryptofinance startup Monetas in Zug in 2013. He outlined all sorts of positive reasons why Switzerland was attractive for blockchain companies and soon attracted broad support from numerous individuals, startups, corporates, service providers, industry […]
Continue reading
Indorse – Spelling The End Of The Dishonest CV…
Just how do you know if what people claim in their CV is true? For a time, google seemed to deliver an endless source of data on other people. You could search for people online and see where they had worked. Then social media made it even easier to track people – or so it seemed. In the last few years prospective employees have been warned that when they attend interviews, the company looking to hire will include a trawl of their social media to see if what they say is true or to ascertain the calibre of the person. Of course there have already been cases where legal claims have been made against individuals abusing social media, but even harmless activities may be seen as detrimental to prospective employment. Applying to a company where the CEO is teetotal? Then perhaps don’t post those post party pictures on FB. Looking to work in a company that works in pet supplies? Perhaps posting pictures of you supporting the local hunt might not be so clever. The list is endless. However, while verifying your character online is one thing, verifying your career details is another. Most CVs have referees which a thorough […]
Continue reading