CCN The X8Currency ICO closed early. It reached its hard cap of €3.4million on Saturday, a full week before the closure date. Founder and CEO Gregor Koželj, whose voice is worn out through speaking so much, is very happy. His project, an ultimate safe haven for crypto investors, is a way to provide an alternative to the current financial system. ‘I don’t want to replace the traditional financial systems,’ he explains. ‘Replacing systems always involves too many hurdles, I want to transcend the current financial system – to offer a real alternative.’ Currency and its fluctuations played a big part on Koželj’s upbringing. Living in Slovenia, he witnessed the deflation of his native currency, the tolar – as a child his savings to purchase a bike were downgraded to only a tyre when the tolar lost its value – and he remembers the value of foreign currency when given as a present by visitors. ‘As a result I have always been fascinated by currency,’ he says. As a grownup he followed his passion and worked in trading and investment. As head of asset management for a major brokerage he started to notice some unusual results. ‘When working with large […]
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Why Binance Is The Number One Cryptocurrency Exchange, Exclusive Interview With Changpeng Zhao, Aka CZ
CCN Binance has exceeded all expectations, including those of the CEO and founder Changpeng Zhao, or CZ as he is known, to reach the number one cryptocurrency exchange in just six months. Binance is arguably also the fastest ever Unicorn reaching double the valuation required (hitting $2billion) and is moreover profitable. ‘If you had asked me a month ago when we would hit the number one spot,’ says CZ from Tokyo where he had not stopped working all over the holidays, ‘I might have answered six to nine months. If you had asked me about unicorn status, I might have thought the same period. This growth has surprised even me.’ Binance may be an overnight success but CZ has certainly put in the time and there is very little left to chance in this booming exchange. With three lines of business: trading, incubation labs and Binance’s ICO Launchpad, things are moving very quickly. Two ICOs have already been rolled out on the Launchpad; GIFTO and Bread. The two ICOs raised $3million and $3.5million respectfully in a matter of minutes. ‘We are building a community of trust,’ says CZ. ‘Part of that is the release of ICO funds.’ In an exclusive […]
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The Pineapple Fund, Using Bitcoin Profits For Crypto Good
CCN When Bitcoin hit the $20,000 high in late 2017 there was endless talk of how much money people holding coins had made. It was reminiscent of Dublin during the Celtic Tiger where dinner party conversations were dominated by the rising price of houses. On the face of it, these Bitcoin conversations were all about greed. However there are exceptions. While there are many people making money from Bitcoin, there are also do-gooders who are donating Bitcoin to charities and causes. We have covered some of these people and organisations here (Paxful) and here (CharityStars). One of the largest donators to hit the press ever in the history of Bitcoin is an unknown man or woman who goes by the name ‘Pine’ and has set up ‘The Pineapple Fund’. The name The Pineapple Fund comes from the fact that if you eat too much pineapple your mouth can become sore and you can develop a temporary intolerance to them. While anonymous, he or she quoted on their website: “I’ve always liked Pineapple but since it contains bromelain [an enzyme that digests protein] your mouth becomes tender if you eat too much of it. Then, like now, is a good time […]
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Did You Realise Coinhive Has Been Using Your CPU Power For Altcoin Mining?
CCN Coinhive mining – a victimless crime? Coinhive delivered a clever piece of software in September with very little fanfare. Website owners were asked to create an account with Coinhive and then run their application on their websites. The software was an in-browser java script app that allowed the host website use the visiting people’s CPU’power to mine for alt coin Monero. Visitors were unaware of this CPU filtering, or stealing, and may only have spotted that their machine had slowed down or their fans suddenly revved up. Typically the additional electrical costs per stolen CPU ran in the region of a few dollars per month, but it all adds up of course for the website miner if they can get multiple visitors ‘donating’ their CPU. Sophos Senior Technologies Paul Ducklin is calling out the practice. ‘Here at Sophos we don’t agree with the subterfuge,’ he says. ‘We are calling it parasite-ware. The donating CPU may not be actually damaged and the energy costs next to minimal in most cases, but it is permission-less and therefore unacceptable.’ Ducklin compared it to an employee driving to a restaurant for lunch and the loaning the company car to a stranger to run […]
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What do dogs, shoe shiners, taxi drivers and now gang members have in common?
It used to be the dogs in the street. Then it was the shoe shiners. Joe Kennedy famously said that when his shoe shiner gave him stock market tips, then it was time to quit the market. After that it was taxi drivers with the Troika taken to task when Irish journalist Vincent Browne questioned just what Klaus Masuch’s taxi driver understood. What the classic video here of the banker, Vincent Browne and the taxi driver Now the traditional media are conflating Bitcoin with money laundering and the darknet. It’s an easy jump to make. Pick something you don’t understand, demonise it and then blame it for all sorts of seedy stuff – without any evidence. Today it happened in the Irish Times, Ireland’s paper of record. A major drug sting in Amsterdam resulted in eight arrests, three of which are Irish nationals and known to the local Irish police as gang members. The paper detailed the swag found which included Bitcoin Mining equipment. The article ran the mining equipment as the main headline and then went on to say that Bitcoin could be used for money laundering. No mention of the cash and its use in money laundering. So, […]
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Dashing Over Bitcoin, Why Dash Gained 40% In Value, Fernando Gutierrez Explains
Original post on CryptoCoin.News Last week the cancellation of the Hard Fork in Bitcoin had the markets jumping and in particular the altcoins gained a lot of ground (60% in some cases) before things levelled off. Dash was one of the alt coins to be so positively affected and while it jumped all over the place it settled back to a comfortable gain of a net 40% to lie at the $430 mark. Given its gain in value since the start of the month this might be argued to be a function of more than just the cancellation of the SegWit2x or at least the head of legal at Dash, Fernando Gutierrez would argue as such. Based in Spain, Gutierrez has been involved with Dash for three years. The first non-developer to be appointed to the board, Gutierrez is genuinely cryto-curious, a specialisation from general curiosity before. ‘My wife is relieved,’ laughs Gutierrez. ‘Previously my curiosity led me to online learning constantly. I was doing all-nighters taking online courses on everything from sociology to physics. Now I am just concentrating on cryptocurrency.’ Gutierrez is self-deprecating as he is also a fully-qualified lawyer, economist and owner of a number of successful […]
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