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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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