Comparative Review of Privacy Token and Token Economics Contributed by @Dennis_Z This article encompasses pretty much everything you need to know about the Landscape of Privacy Tokens. It is a bit long and feel free to use Table of Contents to jump to specific sections. If you think the article is helpful, please Follow Me and Clap 50 Times [yes, you can clap multiple times]. Table of Contents: 1. Why Privacy Token? 2. Review of Privacy Tokens 3. Privacy Token Economics 4. Dilemma — Regulatory Surveillance vs. Privacy 1. Why Privacy Token? Blockchain is a network allowing peer-2-peer transactions without authorities while keeping transaction counter-parties anonymous. Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves, or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively. However, every transaction is broadcasted and viewable to all on a public ledger. Based on transaction pattern of certain wallet with known identity, the account owner can be profiled using social engineering. Just like in movie Ready One Player, "no one tells his real name in the Oasis!" For Privacy, it means several things as follows and PRIVACY MATTERS in blockchain. The following table summarizes major privacy token functionality. Sender Privacy [Wallet/Address Privacy] Cryptographic Privacy [Transaction Privacy] Balance Visibility [Data/Content Privacy] 2. Review of Privacy Tokens There have been a few privacy tokens using different technology to address privacy issues mentioned above, including Dash, Monera, Zcash. There have been a few others, including PIVX, Grin, Verge, NavCoin. Also, traditional tokens, such as LTC, contemplate adding privacy features to the token to gain some comparative advantage as key player for transaction and payment. This section will discuss each privacy token individually. 2.1 Dash (DASH) DASH was founded after a Bitcoin fork in 2014 and is not cryptographically private. Dash guarantees security through Mixing, using an adjusted variant of CoinJoin — a strategy at first made to "anonymize" Bitcoins. Dash is a Proof-of-Work framework that has two kinds of hubs on the system; masternodes and diggers. Masternodes give moment send and private send capacities. CoinJoin is a technique to anonymize exchanges proposed by Gregory Maxwell. CoinJoin depends on the standard of collection together exchanges to make joint installments. CoinJoin-based blending techniques increment security for all clients since it is never again likely that all contributions to an exchange originate from a solitary wallet, and henceforth can never again be dependably connected with a solitary client. 2.2 Monero (XMR) Monero is considered one of the best privacy cryptocurrencies in the cryptocurrency space. Created from a hard fork by Bytecoin in 2014, Monero uses encoded transactions that hide both the addresses and the quantities transferred, also adding fraudulent transactions that make it impossible to know the contents of the operations. The coding has used Ring CT to maintain an anonymous transaction and wallet. The team also integrated Tails, an operating system passing transactions through the TOR network, to further protect privacy. In addition, Monero also uses a network of stealth addresses to allow users to hide their wallet address. A stealth address is a one-time use address that is created for every transaction. Monero users also have a public address that is published on the blockchain, but most (if not all) of their transactions will be passed through unique stealth addresses. Basically, Dash groups up small transactions while Monero breaks down into small transactions for privacy. Therefore, Monero heavily relies on network resources. They are different from Bitcoin in that regular PC can run Monero's node service. 2.3 Zcash (ZEC) Zcash is another Bitcoin-forked privacy coin with privacy features using zk-SNARKs. zk-Snarks, aka Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge, is a technology to allow miners to verify transactions without knowing who sent/received the coins. The protocol team has implemented zk-Snarks on Quorum for JP Morgan, which is an enterprise-focused version of Ethereum. The team has worked with other teams to add the privacy feature to their project/platforms. 2.4 PIVX (PIVX) PIVX is a re-brand of the Darknet Coin, and stands for private instant verified transaction. PIVX is a fork from Dash, implementing Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIP), and utilizing PoS to secure the network. PIVX users are allowed to run master nodes with at least a stake of 10,000 tokens (while Dash only requires 1,000 DASH). 2.5 GRIN (GRN) Mimblewimble is a new privacy-focused blockchain project that is based on Bitcoin's design. On July 19, 2016, "Tom Elvis Jedusor" dropped the whitepaper into a Bitcoin research channel and disappeared. Later, "Ignotus Peverell" started a Github project called Grin and began turning the Mimblewimble paper into a real implementation. Mimblewimble refers to the tongue-tying curse in Harry Potter. Tom Elvis Jedusor is Lord Voldemort's French name and Ignotus Peverell is the original owner of the invisibility cloak. Mimblewimble/Grin is an improvement upon confidential transactions and CoinJoin from Bitcoin. Key features include no public addresses, complete privacy, and a compact blockchain. There has been a lot of excitement around Grin mining lately since Grin coins, like Bitcoin, can only be created through PoW mining. Grin uses the Cuckoo Cycle PoW algorithm, which was originally designed to be ASIC-resistant but is now considered to be ASIC-friendly. Key Features of Grin: Complete privacy as its default Scalable transactions Tried and tested cryptography Easy design for person to person transaction Community-driven — aimed at decentralized advancement and mining Other interesting privacy coins that are relatively early in their development include MobileCoin and BEAM. 2.6 Verge (XVG) Verge Coin started its journey as DogeCoinDark in 2014, named after the world's most popular meme cryptocurrency. In 2016, the coin was rebranded to Verge Cryptocurrency, and has since been gaining enormous traction in technology and investment communities. Verge coin is mineable. But Verge miners can choose one of three mining methods to get their Verge, rather than the expensive and limited options afforded to Bitcoin miners. Verge allows for everyday payments. But where Bitcoin payments are not anonymous, Verge coin transactions are masked with TOR and i2P, for fully private transaction. Verge is decentralized money. But Verge is also in the process of adding smart contract functionality, allowing it to develop for the needs of the world better than Bitcoin. Verge has several key partnerships, including porn industry giant MindGeek, whose subsidiaries include Pornhub and Brazzers. 2.7 Litecoin (LTC) Litecoin is getting tired of standing in Bitcoin's shadow. After many years as Bitcoin's second fiddle, Litecoin core developers are getting more interested in following the likes of privacy coins such as Monero (XMR) and Zcash (ZEC). Charlie Lee opened a discussion on fungibility and hinted at the addition of Confidential Transactions in a "future release of the full-node implementation" in 2019. This will let LTC gain more comparative advantage as media of transaction and payment. 2.8 NavCoin (NAV) NavCoin is a decentralized cryptocurrency that was forked from Bitcoin. It aims to solve 2 problems that are typically found in blockchain platforms: Data is made public on the blockchain, leaving it vulnerable to malicious attacks by illicit users. Most blockchains use "roll backs" as the solution to data vulnerability. They reset the blockchain to a backed-up point after a data breach, meaning transactions made leading up to the roll back are erased. The NavTech system is a combination of the traditional Bitcoin blockchain and a NAV subchain. Using two chains allows users to send transactions with complete anonymity. 2.9 CloakCoin Cloak is a veteran privacy coin that is growing slowly, although it has been active in the privacy niche for approximately 4 years. The blockchain is operated using a Proof-of-Stake consensus protocol. It has relatively short blocktimes and quickly processes transactions. The platform also offers 2 different methods of making your transactions untraceable. First is their onion-routing privacy protocol. Onion routing involves encrypting messages with many layers (similar to an onion). It also offers the Enigma process to provide additional privacy cloaking on transactions. Enigma cloaking is applied when a user requests a cloaked enigma transaction. 2.10 Enigma (ENG) The Enigma project is entirely separate from the Enigma cloaking process used in CloakCoin transactions. Enigma is not a cryptocurrency nor a blockchain; instead, it is a privacy protocol that can be deployed on blockchains and decentralized applications. Therefore its token, ENG, is a distinct addition to the list of top privacy coins. The Enigma network provides privacy by making nodes unable to see the data that they compute. Although they are unable to clearly see exactly what they are working on, these nodes are still capable of verifying that their computations have been run correctly. With the data masked like this, Enigma hopes to open the door for what they call a new type of smart contracts — "secret contracts" — wherein the underlying data processed in a smart contract remains encrypted at all times. 2.11 DeepOnion DeepOnion is a new privacy coin project that is generating some interest in the community. Like a few of the other coins in this list, DeepOnion uses TOR to send untraceable transactions. It also uses a mix of Proof-of-Stake and Proof-of-Work protocols to offer fast confirmation times. DeepOnion also employs stealth addresses to keep transactions private. The DeepOnion team is currently working on DeepSend and DeepVault. DeepSend will use a multi-signature method to prevent payments from being traced. DeepVault is an information storage service that allows users to store data in the blockchain forever. In order to verify the integrity of a file, a user only needs to compare their current version of the file with the backup. This can be beneficial for the purpose of verifying the integrity of important documents. 2.12 ZenCash Zencash is more than a privacy cryptocurrency because it also contains a messaging platform, a Distributed Autonomous Organization (DAO). Users can send tokens anonymously ("Z" address) or pseudonym ("T" address). Even Zencash, a hard fork by Zcoin, wants to make an exchange with the same degree of privacy. 2.13 Zcoin Zcoin also uses the Zerocoin protocol. Zcoin is burned in a Zcoin transaction and Zerocoin are created and transferred, but since they have no history, they are not traceable. This costs a 0.01 Zcoin fee. Those who receive money only know that they have received them. 2.14 Bytecoin (BCN) Bytecoin is probably the oldest cryptocurrency to deal with privacy problem, given that its birth dates back to 2012, but has recently had a flashback. As a security system, it combines a Stealth system for addresses joined to the Ring CT, with a protocol called Cryptonote. This privacy token is the father of Monero. 2.15 Bitcoin Private Bitcoin Private comes from a hard fork and a fusion, i.e. a hard fork of Bitcoin and then a merger with Zclassic, in turn, hard fork of Zcash in which the prize for creators was canceled. Bitcoin Private also implements the zk- Snarks. 2.16 SpectreCoin (XSPEC) Spectrecoin (XSPEC) was created in December 2016 as a fork of ShadowCash (SDC), with its initial difference being that it ran over the tor network for added privacy. Since then, it has continued to make strides, developing into an even more user-friendly and anonymous cryptocurrency. These advancements include OBFS4 Bridges, Wallet UI improvements, improved stealth addresses, updated tor, and better syncing. At just over a year old, the project has come a long way and has big plans for the future, such as stealth staking (a first for any crypto) and the implementation of Android and iOS mobile wallets. Key Features: Tor to hide the location and make tracking more difficult Stealth addresses to keep the receiver anonymous Ring Signatures to keep the sender hidden 3. Privacy Token Economics Due to different technology stacks to realize the privacy features, the token economics designs can be different to incentivize various ecosystem stakeholders. In this section, we will discuss the different token economics design for DASH, and Enigma Protocol. First, let's summarize some techniques used by Privacy Token. CoinJoin — Join multiple transactions a group so that the transaction cannot be linked to a single wallet/address. It is a Mixing-based privacy solution. TOR Network — TOR make the transaction untraceable. Another way to understand TOR is VPN. It transacts using multiple layers of proxy to hide the identity behind the transaction counter-parties. [check the 2-min video here] i2P — The Invisible Internet Project (I2P) is an anonymous network layer (implemented as a Mix Network) that allows for censorship-resistant, peer to peer communication. Anonymous connections are achieved by encrypting the user's traffic (by using end-to-end encryption), and sending it through a volunteer-run network of roughly 55,000 computers distributed around the world. RingCT — RingCT stands for Ring Confidential Transactions, makes transactions harder to trace by obscuring the output of the true sender in a set of n other outputs on the blockchain, indistinguishable with respect to their amounts. It is a Mixing-based privacy solution. Stealth Address — Stealth Address means that the created stealth address will be used only once for the transaction. That being said, each transaction corresponds to one stealth address, which makes it impossible to link the transactions to single wallet/address. zk-SNARKS — zk-SNARKS stands for Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge. It is a cryptography algorithm to verify the transaction without revealing the address and balance. Mimblewimble — Mimblewimble uses elliptic-curve cryptography that requires smaller keys than other cryptography types. In a network that is using the Mimblewimble protocol, there are no addresses on the blockchain, and the network's data storage is highly efficient.[a quick example] 3.1 DASH Dash works a little differently from Bitcoin, however, because it has a two-tier network. The second tier is powered by masternodes (Full Nodes), which enable financial privacy (PrivateSend), instant transactions (InstantSend), and the decentralized governance and budget system. Because this second tier is so important, masternodes are also rewarded when miners discover new blocks. The breakdown is as follows: 45% of the block reward goes to the miner, 45% goes to masternodes, and 10% is reserved for the budget system (created by superblocks every month). As of February 2019, the holders of DASH that run a masternode receive ~ 7% annual block rewards. https://masternodes.online/currencies/DASH/ is a great resource for real-time DASH network metrics. The current block reward is 3.35 DASH, or 1.5075 for miners, 1.5075 for masternodes, and .335 DASH for the DAO per block. Dash features a block interval of ~ 2.5 minutes and ~ 550 blocks per day. Each masternode requires 1,000 DASH as collateral. The 1,000 DASH are used as bonded collateral and required to earn the inflation funded block rewards. The collateral is always safe and never forfeited during masternode operation. Since masternode rewards are fixed at 45% of the block reward, or 1.5075 DASH per block, and the number of active masternodes on the network is dynamic, expected masternode rewards will vary according to current total count of active masternodes. Masternodes are currently yielding ~ 7.01%. The average Dash masternode reward frequency is just shy of nine days. 3.2 Enigma Enigma is a protocol related to process information securely. Its token must be purchased in order to run a node on their network. After buying the Enigma token, you can receive rewards for processing data. But in order to process data, each node must make a security deposit. If the data is tampered during the verification process, the deposit will be split between any nodes that processed the data without error. In effect, owning ENG allows people to get started using the network. ENG also serves as a reward for participation in the network. Other factors affecting the Token Economics include: randomness of miner/node selection, front-cost of providing mining service (e.g., ASIC vs. PC) and also coin reward number and coin prices. 4. Dilemma — Regulatory Surveillance vs. Privacy Recently, there have been different voices on SEC approving BTC ETF proposals. For people who don't think it will come soon [Brian Kelly]. Over 2018, the SEC has received multiple Bitcoin ETF applications from various players, such as the Winklevoss twins, but is yet to approve any one of them. Expanding on his point of view, Kelly said that the agency is unlikely to change its opinion in the near future, as "there is too much that is unresolved." SEC officials have demanded better cryptocurrency surveillance and custody before approving BTC ETF applications for multiple reasons: Concerns about hacking events and market manipulation Concerns of money laundering without transaction traceability Concerns of linking transaction with wallet/address for taxation reasons. Here is the dilemma between regulatory surveillance vs. privacy. Until a balance/compromise is reached, the next bull market might be delayed as long as possible. Disclaimer: All of the information of projects are sourced from online materials and do not necessarily reflect the current state of the projects. The information here does not constitute any advice on investment or consequence of any investment. Reference https://hackernoon.com/an-overview-of-privacy-tokens-19f6af8077b7 https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@develop.unicorns/privacy-tokens 078d0d7 https://masterthecrypto.com/privacy-coins-anonymous-cryptocurrencies/ https://www.investinblockchain.com/top-privacy-coins/ / https://cryptonomist.ch/en/2018/06/04/privacy-tokens-2/ https://www.bitstarz.com/blog/introduction-to-grin-coin https://zcoin.io/zcoins-privacy-technology-compares-competition/ https://coinlist.me/altcoins/verge/ https://medium.com/@staked/dash-staking-guide-e8d671d0ce03 .+Masternode 2019 Privacy Token Review was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story. [Telegram Channel | Original Article ]

Penguin FA — Republic Protocol ($REN)Crypto PenguinBlockedUnblockFollowFollowingJan 15This article was first released to the CryptoBirb Exclusive Moon Club. For more information, visit discord.gg/emw5Npb.Website | Lite Paper (Q1 2019)| White Paper (Dec 2017)| Twitter | Telegram | Reddit | Github | MediumCirculating/Max Supply: 631,984,400 /1,000,000,000Mineable ❌Masternodes ✅ (Darknodes)Table of ContentsOverviewToken UtilityToken EconomicsTeamRoadmapCompetitionConclusionRecommended ResourcesOverviewSource: https://youtu.be/kjX72sHFZhI?t=238Republic Protocol started out with a mission to build a protocol for a decentralized dark pool that allows traders to buy and sell large amounts of cryptocurrencies without announcing their intentions through an open order book. It currently supports Bitcoin, Ethereum, and ERC20 tokens, with plans for expansion to other cryptocurrencies.Republic Protocol’s description from their original white paper (left) and from their new Q1 2019 Litepaper (right)In a November 2018 presentation and their January 2019 update, the team revealed that in their quest to create the most private dark pool possible, they ended up creating a new virtual machine called RenVM. Their new algorithm allows a decentralized network of computers to work with data while maintaining end-to-end privacy.Their ultimate aim is now to become a platform for privacy-preserving decentralized applications. In the short term though, Republic Protocol will still be focused on creating a private decentralized dark pool.Dark PoolsFacilitating OTC cryptocurrency trading has the potential to be highly lucrative. In April 2018, Reuters reported Genesis Trading as handling $75–80 million daily trading volume on average. Circle Trade handled $24 billion in volume in 2018. A dark pool is a form of OTC trading that offers greater privacy.Normally, a trader announces their intention to buy or sell by placing an order that is displayed in an order book. Other traders can then see that order and raise or lower their prices to fulfill it.Rich whales can have trouble filling large orders on regular exchangesIf you are a whale trying to get in and out of large positions though, placing large transparent orders can be problematic. It provides information to other traders who could try to copy or undermine your efforts. Market prices can also be affected by traders who react to the large order. This is why some exchanges offer the option to place hidden orders.But hiding the order alone is not enough for large orders to be filled without affecting market prices. Traders can still determine the existence of a hidden buy or sell wall if large numbers of trades go through but fail to make a difference in the market price. A sudden increase in trading volume can change the price as traders react, resulting in slippage.This is why whales and traders with large positions often turn to dark pools, where large hidden orders can be discreetly matched and filled by other hidden orders. This usually requires a third party that has to be trusted to match these hidden orders while keeping information about these orders hidden from others.But how do you know if you can trust these third parties?Source: https://www.sec.gov/news/pressrelease/2016-16.htmlMany existing dark pools have been fined by the SEC for lying about how they operated and failing to keep order information confidential. As long as the party operating the dark pool has access to order information, there will always be the possibility that they will try to profit from it.A Decentralized Dark PoolRepublic Protocol is planning to solve this problem by creating a protocol that allows orders to be matched without any knowledge about the details of the orders. This makes it impossible for any third party to reveal information about orders submitted to the dark pool.Through the use of the Shamir’s Secret Sharing algorithm, orders are split into fragments and distributed to different nodes that then work together to match orders. Privacy is maintained because no single node has the full order information. Ethereum smart contracts are also employed to help maintain privacy and verify computations. Once orders are matched, traders can then perform atomic swaps to exchange assets directly with each other.RenVM — A Privacy Preserving Virtual MachineCTO Loong Wang explains the benefits that RenVM will bring to their dark pool (Source)In order to make their dark pool more secure, stable, and private, Republic Protocol created RenVM, a virtual machine where privacy can be maintained for all inputs, outputs, and even for generated data.CTO Loong Wang says that RenVM can be used to build privacy-preserving apps in areas like voting, financial, or sensitive data analysis (Source)RenVM makes it possible for a dApp running on Republic Protocol to work with sensitive data (such as financial or health information) and calculate a result (such as filling an order or conducting medical research) without ever exposing that sensitive data to anyone.There will be several different components to Republic Protocol’s new platform built on RenVM. So far the team has revealed three components, which are:zkTransactions Layer: RenVM can create private keys on different blockchains that are unknown to everybody. These blockchain-specific private keys are each controlled by dapps called zkTransactors. Users can deposit funds through these zkTransactors. From that point on, trades and transfers can be made while keeping balances and transactions secret. When the users wish to reclaim their funds, they can simply withdraw the cryptocurrencies back to their own blockchain-specific wallets.Note: The Lite Paper states that this “makes private transactions possible for any blockchain”, but it does NOT specify any way of hiding deposits, withdrawals, and public keys for public blockchains. This means private transactions and balances are only possible as long as the funds remain in the Ren ecosystem. Depositing and withdrawing a conspicuous amount of BTC through a zkTransactor in a short period of time will probably make your transaction easily traceable.Interoperability Layer: Different zkTransactors are created for different blockchains(e.g. a BTC zkTransactor, an ETH zkTransactor, an LTC zkTransactor). These zkTransactors are compatible with each other. As long as both parties have deposited their funds into zkTransactors, they can freely perform cross-chain atomic swaps, trading freely between different cryptocurrencies.Dark Pool Layer: This is the previously mentioned decentralized dark pool, a protocol that privately matches orders in a hidden order book. Eventually this will be open to allow third parties to build their own dark pools with customizable rules to meet various requirements.The Application Layer allows dApps to be built using all of RenVM’s technology. So far the team has revealed two dApps that will be built on RenVM.RenEX: Republic Protocol’s dark pool is currently up and running in beta form, but will be migrated to RenVM over the course of 2019 to take advantage of its end-to-end privacy and interoperability features.SwapperD: This will be a wallet that interacts with RenVM and an interface that allows users to access Ren’s private cross-chain atomic swap features.CTO Loong insists that the dark pool is still their main focus (Source 1)(Source 2)RenVM was created to allow their dark pool “to offer privacy at every level” (Source)Despite the massive potential opened up by the creation of RenVM, CTO Loong Wang maintains that Republic Protocol’s main focus is still on creating their dark pool, and the creation of RenVM is merely a result of their dedication to making that dark pool as private as possible.At least in the short term, it seems likely that Republic Protocol will continue to focus on launching their dark pool. However, CEO Taiyang Zhang’s closing remarks in their latest update seem to suggest much loftier long-term goals:“As the ecosystem grows, and the core components are completed, Ren will introduce development tools to support the open development of private applications of any kind, as well as new products, paving the way for unstoppable privacy.”— Taiyang Zhang, 18 Jan 2019Token UtilityREN’s main use at the moment is for the right to run a Darknode. 100,000 REN is required to run each Darknode.Right now, these Darknodes help match orders that are submitted to the dark pool and are rewarded with transaction fees. This makes REN’s current value highly dependent on the volume of dark pool trading taking place on Republic Protocol.All Darknodes will be rewarded for contributing to RenVM (Source: Lite Paper)In the future, Darknodes will be rewarded for facilitating RenVM’s privacy preserving computations. For each computation, all Darknodes will receive an even split of an upfront fee and a variable incentivization fee that can be raised to get special priority from Darknodes.CTO Loong Wang explains how REN trading fees will be chargedWith the use of zkSNARKs, traders will NOT have to submit a large refundable bond in order to access the network as stated in the 2017 white paper. However, a small REN fee, payable by the trader or a third party, will still be needed to open an order.REN will no longer be required for all trading fees as suggested in the 2017 white paper. The team announced in April that nodes can be rewarded with the Ethereum or other cryptocurrencies used in the transaction instead.Token EconomicsSource: e is a fixed supply of 1 billion REN tokens with no inflation.Republic Network raised 35,500 Ethereum from their February 2018 ICO. The token price was $0.0513 USD/0.000055 ETH (private sale) and $0.0561 USD/0.0000581 ETH (public sale).Token Distribution is as follows:Private Sale: 56.6% (Including 5% early adopter tokens)Public Sale: 8.6%Team and Advisor Tokens: 9.9%Community Development and Partners: 5%Reserve: 19.9%Contrary to what is stated in their ICO FAQ, the team tokens do NOT have a 2 year vesting period. Instead, the team and advisor tokens will start being unlocked in February 2019 and will continue to be unlocked every four months until February 2020.Source: https://t.me/republicprotocol/116573The team is using some of their reserve tokens to run bootstrapping Darknodes to help maintain the network. This will also give them some revenue as trading volume picks up.Overall the team and advisors control 34.8% of the total supply. 56.6% of all tokens went to private sale buyers. This could make it easier for whales who control the majority of the supply to manipulate prices.TeamThe website lists 13 team members and the majority of them had little professional experience prior to joining Republic Protocol. All seven members of the development team (including the CTO) were educated at The Australian National University and many of them only recently graduated around 2018. This is definitely a very young development team that’s looking to prove itself through its code.Here is some information on some key members of the team:CEO Taiyang Zhang has two years of experience as a software engineer, 3 years of experience as director/co-founder of software development company Neucode, and is a co-founder of the cryptocurrency trading fund Virgil Capital. Though he has accomplished more than most people his age, Taiyang is only in his early 20's and is still relatively unproven as a CEO.CTO Loong Wang has a computer science degree, 1 and a half years of experience as a software developer for Neucode, and 7 months of experience as a researcher at the Australian National University. He also seems quite young and inexperienced, but has the right background and education for his role.Software developer Jaz Gulati was the co-founder of Neucode along with Taiyang Zhang.Backend developer Divya Mary has 2 years and 8 months of experience working as an Application Engineer at Oracle India.Darren Toh is their Head of Communications and Compliance. He has a diploma in corporate law and corporate tax, plus many years of experience in various legal and compliance roles. Since Republic Protocol’s solution will have to be customizable enough to comply with various dark pool regulations in different countries, it is important that they have access to this kind of legal expertise.There are some notable advisors listed, including:Loi Luu, co-founder and CEO of Kyber Network, describes himself as Republic Protocol’s Technical Advisor. Loi’s expertise should come in handy, since Kyber Network is working on a protocol for decentralized token swaps and Republic Protocol is working on a protocol for ‘dark’ decentralized cryptocurrency trading.Prabhakar Reddy is an investor at venture capital firm Accel Partners, co-founded a successful audio and video-on-demand business that was acquired by BookMyShow, and has an MBA from Harvard Business School. He should be able to give Republic Protocol some valuable business management advice.Advisor Anup Malani is a professor at the University of Chicago Law School teaching law and economics. Anup’s guidance combined with Darren Toh’s legal experience give Republic Protocol a very solid edge on the legal front.Overall the team has a lot of developers with university training in relevant fields, though they are somewhat lacking in terms of experienced blockchain developers. As their technology continues to mature, they would also benefit from the addition of more members focused on marketing and business development.RoadmapTrading Pairs currently available at Ren ExchangeWhen Republic Protocol showed up in late 2017/early 2018, it was still basically a white paper ICO project. Since then, they have delivered a testnet release, mainnet beta release, a working dark pool exchange built on their protocol, created RenVM, secured a partnership with OTC trading service Wyre, got listed on Binance, and have recently announced the launch of public Darknodes.Ren Development Plan outlined in their Jan 2019 postThough they have accomplished quite a bit in one year, there are some important updates still to come for Republic Protocol. Some important milestones are highlighted below, but more details can be found in their Roadmap Update #1 and January 2019 Update.RenEx’s user referral program is still not available to the general public (Source)Q4 2018: User Referral Program for RenExThough it was planned for the end of 2018, the user referral program for Ren Exchange is still not available to the general public as of January 2019. When this launches, we can expect to see increased marketing activity for RenEx.An updated white paper should be on its way (Source)Early 2019: RenVM Updates, Updated White PaperRepublic Protocol have only started releasing details about RenVM with their latest post and release of their Lite Paper. More technical details and an updated white paper are expected. This is still relatively new information and many investors may not yet be aware of Republic Protocol’s new scope. A well-written release or promotional content promoting RenVM could attract many investors to REN.Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) will be an ERC-20 token backed by BitcoinJan 2019 : WBTCAnnounced in October 2018, the Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) project by BitGo, Kyber and Republic Protocol will create a new ERC-20 token (WBTC) that is backed 1:1 by bitcoin. Republic Protocol will be able to use this new WBTC token to open up more trading pairs between WBTC and other ERC20 tokens. This could help increase trading volume on Ren Exchange and boost income for Darknodes. The plan is for WBTC to be up and running within January of 2019.CTO Loong Wang offers a sneak preview of SwapperDQ1-Q2 2019: SwapperD Full ReleaseNo specific release date has been set for SwapperD, but their development plan timeline has it listed before 3rd Party Dark Pools (which should come out by Q2 2019). A pre-release version has already been posted on their Github. This ‘atomic swapper’ tool is an important step towards making atomic swaps accessible and easy for both RenEx and any third parties that want to build on Republic Protocol.Late Q2 2019: Third Party Dark PoolsRepublic Protocol’s RenEx is currently the only dark pool running on their protocol. By the end of Q2 2019, third parties will be able to create their own dark pools using Republic Protocol. This should drastically increase the earning potential of Darknodes and increase $REN’s value.Q3 2019 and Beyond: zkTransaction Layer, Interoperability Layer, Third Party RenVM dAppsNo dates have been set for the release of these features, but these are important milestones that will affect both Ren’s dark pool and privacy-preserving dApp platform. Announcements regarding these technological developments or confirmation of third party dApps (which will pay fees to Darknodes) on Republic Protocol can all be potential price catalysts for $REN.CompetitionCentralized OTC/Dark Pool ServicesIn terms of decentralized dark pools, Republic Protocol currently has no competition. However, there are many exchanges and services that are already offering various OTC and dark pool trading options.Cryptocurrencies available for OTC trading at GenesisSome of them include:Genesis (since May 2013)Kraken Dark Pool (announced June 2015)Bitfinex OTC Trading Desk (announced Dec 2016)Circle Trade (Switched focus to OTC only BTC trading in 2016)Koi Trading (Created Aug 2018, Got $3M investment from Binance Labs)Coinbase Prime (launched November 2018)Bittrex (launched January 2019)These third party services can be regulated by authorities and could provide traditional investors with more peace of mind. They also have the advantage of providing direct fiat options. Investors with large amounts of fiat can send money directly through these brokers to purchase their desired cryptocurrencies.As a decentralized dark pool, RenEx does not have a bank account that investors can wire their dollars to. However, they did partner with TrueUSD so investors with fiat have the option of converting to TUSD before they can trade on RenEx.Loong explains how USD-BTC trades can be matched without the need for a stablecoinThat being said, RenEx is not the only exchange that can run on Republic Protocol. Third party brokers and exchanges can build their own dark pool offerings that use Republic Protocol as a private, secure way to find matches for orders before facilitating the trade in whatever manner they choose.The main advantage Republic Protocol has over traditional third party services is that it is decentralized. Since everything runs on code, there is no way to bribe somebody to receive preferential treatment. Since nobody knows the full order information, it cannot be leaked to anyone to give them a trading advantage. This provides a guarantee of privacy that no regular OTC desk or centralized dark pool could ever offer.As a global decentralized dark pool, Republic Protocol could also offer the potential for much greater liquidity than current OTC desks that may still need to rely on personal calls and connections, or have to wait for counterparties to come to their desks before they can fill a large order.However, if these OTC services decide to use Republic Protocol, they could become customers instead of competitors.EnigmaThe Enigma team is working on creating a protocol that can perform secure multi-party computations, allowing for private smart contracts and privacy-preserving dApps. At the moment, Republic Protocol’s focus is still on creating the best decentralized dark pool protocol they can, but their recent announcement of RenVM makes them a potential competitor for Enigma in the medium to long term future.Ren’s medium post detailing RenVM was released shortly before a sharp decline in Enigma token pricesInvestors certainly seem to view these two as potential competitors. Following Republic Protocol’s post explaining their plans for RenVM, Enigma token prices fell sharply.In Loong’s speech at Buidl Seoul 2018, he mentions potential uses for RenVM that sound very similar to what Enigma describes on their website, such as privacy-preserving finance and health apps.Loong discusses the differences between Enigma and RenVM (Source)Loong points out in the Republic Protocol telegram that RenVM will be more optimized than Enigma to process data streams (such as the stream of orders that will be placed on their dark pool protocol) while Enigma is more focused on general computing. Ren’s Lite Paper even advertises itself as “powering zero-knowledge financial applications”.Loong also claims that RenVM is more efficient and stable than Enigma, where any node can become a single point of failure.Enigma CEO Guy Zyskind: “we randomly select a single worker to execute each computation” (Source)Enigma CEO Guy Zyskind confirms in this post on the Enigma forums that the current testnet implementation of Enigma does allow for a node to become a single point of failure, though he says they plan to address this issue in future updates. Director of Engineering Victor Grau Serrat also clarifies in a subsequent post that a single node going down only results in a delay in the computations (not a total failure).Enigma’s main focus is the creation of their privacy protocol. It has multiple senior software engineers on their team that each have more than a decade of work experience. Enigma already has many launch partners that are planning to integrate their private smart contract technology. It also has one dApp, Catalyst, that has been built using their platform. Yet Enigma is still not truly production ready. After the delay of their mainnet in September 2018 in order to build more functionality before release, no new mainnet launch date has been set.Republic Protocol is currently mainly focused on their decentralized dark pool and has a relatively young team. Ren’s Lite Paper also talks more about powering financial applications rather than powering privacy dApps in general. No partners for RenVM have been announced yet.Enigma seems to be further along in terms of business development and could still have some breathing room while Ren builds out its dark pool, but Ren looks to be quickly catching up in terms of technology.ConclusionRepublic Protocol’s goal of creating a decentralized dark pool has a lot of great potential. Their young development team has accomplished a lot in the past year, creating a working product in the form of RenEx. Their new RenVM technology has even more potential and can open up many more doors in the privacy-preserving dApp space.The Ren token’s main use as bonds for Darknodes does not give it much value at the moment due to the low trading volume on RenEx and the Republic Protocol. As support for third party exchanges arrives and third party dApps powered by RenVM are announced, the value of REN should increase greatly.Current REN prices are well below the ICO private sale price of $0.0513 USD.Investors who are interested in profiting from the lucrative OTC cryptocurrency trading market or believe in RenVM’s potential can look into securing the 100,000 REN needed for a Darknode as a potential option.Recommended ResourcesRepublic Protocol Introduction Medium Post:Republic Protocol: An IntroductionAn open-source decentralized dark pool for trustless cross-chain atomic trading of Ether, ERC20 tokens and Bitcoin…medium.comEpicenter Interview #230 Loong Wang & Taiyang Zhang: Republic Protocol — A Decentralized & Trustless Crypto Dark Pool:Republic Protocol Update on RENVM and Lite Paper:Ren — The Evolution of a ProtocolIntroducing our broader vision for Ren from its beginnings as Republic Protocolmedium.comCTO Loong Wang talks about RenVM at Buidl Seoul 2018:CryptoBriefing Republic Protocol Code ools/The Birb Nest publication is a facet of the CryptoBirb community. For more information please visit https://discord.gg/kUpraEH

The MB size limit per Block is for the Bitcoin's blockchain. In Ethereum, there is theoretically no limit for the block size. However, blockchain is not meant for data storage and storing large documents will be very expensive. Here are some instances where people hacked into the Bitcoin Blockchain and stored some unexpected data. You would have to compress and store the doc/pdf/audio in Hexadecimal format. That said, many blockchain-like solutions designed just to store data were developed recently. STORJ seems to be famous and well developed. Filecoin is another such solution which is yet to materialize. Enigma is one more initiative which is being developed in the MIT Media Lab. Like you mentioned, blockchain might be used to maintain Distributed Hash Table(DHT) which contains hashes of the data files stored off-chain. This is to ensure integrity of data. These are the costs for storing data on Ethereum public blockchain as of June 7th, 2016: This is Solidity code for creating contract with Kilo Byte of data. If we run this code in the online compiler, we get an estimated transaction cost of 5925085 gas. The gas price today is 23731285772 Wei (10^18 Wei 1 Ether $15). So, storing Kilo Byte of data in the public blockchain, as per conversion rates on June 7th is approximately $2.11. Similarly, reading Kilo Byte of data costs 284396 gas, which is approximately $0.1. This price might increase if there is an increase in the Gas value or Ether value. More information about gas prices can be found at “Appendix G. Fee Schedule” of the Ethereum yellow paper.

Russia Exposes British Lies On Skripal, But Trail Leads To USFacebook Moves 1.5 Billion Users' Data Out Of Europe To Circumvent New Privacy LawEx Chief Adviser For The UNs Child Labour Program Arrested For PedophiliaDems Sue For Hillary Loss, Comey Leaks Investigated, North Korea Suspends Nukes & The Marijuana RebellionThe Hemp Deception: The Stolen Future Of The American PeopleDemocratic Party Sues Russia, Trump, Wikileaks For Conspiring To Hurt Hillary In 2016 ElectionThe Top Ten Marijuana Myths That No One Should BelieveWhat Are 'Assad Apologists'? Are They Like Those 'Saddam Apologists' Of 2002?After spending several years developing my own theory as to whats wrong with the world, often flip-flopping back and forth between different schools of thought, there has been one theme in particular that constantly stands out as quite possibly the root cause of all the dysfunction. It seems pretty clear to me and a growing number of individuals that the ever-increasing tiptoe of society towards power centralization is at the root of most of the worlds problems.If one is to look at almost any type of market, whether its banking, government, media, big business, or even culture, everything is falling under centralized control; meaning society is becoming increasingly controlled by fewer people and fewer institutions. Another way to think about it would be the idea that fewer are gaining control over a larger group of people, hence the idea of a New World Order, where a small global network exercises jurisdiction over a large percentage of the worlds functions. It seems we have evolved from tribes, to towns, to cities, to states, to nations, and now to a one-world-system. This concept is discussed in-depth in a previous article.While having a globalized world of people who are interconnected isnt necessarily a bad thing, and in fact could be considered healthy for growth as a species, one has to wonder whether having a centralized design to society is healthy not only for humans, but the entirety of life on this planet. Yet, is it really ideal for everyone to fall under the umbrella of one system, when the world as we know it is so incredibly diverse? In my humble opinion the answer is definitively no. We all know that conflict arises when people are forced outside their will, so constraining everyone into the same box is sure to manifest a whole host of negative feedback patterns; who is in control of designing/maintaining this system? As Lord of the Rings,brilliantly pointed out, having too much power in one spot naturally breeds corruption, especially if that throne has the power to impact the world at large.With that in mind, the obvious antidote to this predicament would be decentralization of power, aka more power being placed into the hands of more people. Its basically like going from a singular society, controlled by a few select elite, to a multifaceted society controlled by its people, with everyone having the ability to control their own destiny. Fortunately, there is an ever-increasing amount of people who are catching on to this trend towards centralization, hence the popular meme the 1% vs. the 99%. As a result, those awake have begun to feverishly work on ways to decentralize power and give opportunities to the disenfranchised citizens of the world, so that they can become their own compasses and leaders in life. Power is beginning to shift.Before the world got introduced to Blockchain technologies, there were many pioneers in the move toward decentralization that rose up and paved the way. Some people refer to these pioneers as part of the peer-to-peer economy, collaborative economy, sharing economy, or just simply the peoples economy. Whatever name you want to go with, the basic premise is facilitating ways in which people can interact directly with each other, hence the name peer-to-peer, instead of relying on third parties or middlemen to conduct transactions through. It cuts out unnecessary legislation, which cuts costs on both sides of the transaction.Most people, without even realizing it, are already familiar with many of these businesses/institutions. Some of the most recognized ones today include: eBay, a peer-to-peer e-commerce platform; craigslist, a peer-to-peer classifieds/trading platform; Uber, a peer-to-peer transportation platform, Airbnb, a peer-to-peer hotel platform, Kickstarter, a peer-to-peer capital-raising platform, and many others not mentioned.Its not just these companies alone that have laid the foundation for the peer-to-peer economy either. Its also the explosion of farmers markets all over the world, the build-up of worker co-ops, which allows workers to directly own the company, and its peer-to-peer file sharing and communication through the use of the Internet; arguably the greatest tool in the history of mankind with the unprecedented ability to decentralize the control of information and ideas all over the world. Never in our known history have people been able to interact with each other directly and instantaneously, without the need for any type of institution to help facilitate it. The Internet is an ever-expanding reservoir of knowledge, and by far the biggest reason for this shift towards decentralization.All of these platforms have been paramount in the shift towards a decentralized social and economic model within society. However, like all fields, innovation can lead to new ideas that take everything within that space to new heights. In this case, blockchain technology is that innovation; and has the ability to totally revolutionize the way we structure a decentralized society. In many ways, blockchain is the next layer to be placed upon the Internet, hence the name Internet 3.0. Blockchain has the potential to be the future foundation of the peer-to-peer economy.Blockchain technology was the next logical step after the Internet in the progression towards a world owned by the people. What is so transformational about Blockchain technology is that it allows people to build collectives without the need to live close by, trust each other, or put in place some form of highly centralized control. Essentially, its allowing people to form new economic and governmental systems through the use of open source mathematical algorithms (blockchains) that represent the structural framework of how the businesses and organizations function. It also gives people the capacity to interact directly with each other all over the world, rather than go through unnecessary middlemen or regulators, who often take cuts along the way and require that people put trust in them. Blockchain makes everyone their own bank and gives people their own voice within collective systems.One of the other major areas Blockchain aims to solve is that of money, which happens to be one of the biggest problems facing humanity. Its not necessarily money itself that is the problem, because money is nothing more than a representation of value that makes trading in collectives easier, but its the distorted value of money and the lack of alternatives, which has brought about tons of negative ramifications on prices. Simply put, the exchange of value all over the world has become skewed. Basically, some people are getting more value then they should from trades, while others are getting less value then they should from trading. Many energy inputs dont match the economic/monetary outputs, which undoubtedly creates tension amongst people and societies. Blockchain is attempting to solve these problems by propping up new, open source currencies, giving power to individuals to control their own transfer of value, and allowing decentralized groups the ability to operate without central controllers. Blockchain technology could become the new legal structure of the Internet, where no throne is needed to watch over and dictate. For better or for worse, it could be the backbone for the Internet of Things.To help those unfamiliar with the blockchain space or advance the understanding of those already acquainted, I wanted to introduce eight blockchain companies that are already laying claim in this new space. The foundation of a new paradigm is literally taking shape right before our very eyes, so I suggest people wake up and start to pay attention if they want to ride this wave before the rest jump on board.Note: This is not an endorsement of any of these products/companies. Many have strong competitors and their own legitimate hurdles to climb before they are anything but a passing fad. Do your own research and come to your own conclusions. This is just to introduce people to some of the ideas and businesses being floated around in the space. There are many more important ones either not mentioned or that have slipped past my limited time and knowledge base. There is literally something new happening everyday in this space, so its impossible for any one person to have their mind fully wrapped around it.Its impossible to mention the realm of blockchain without mentioning Bitcoin, the first successful application of such a technology. Bitcoin is not only a pioneer in blockchain technology, but its the first successful crypto-currency. I would liken Bitcoins niche in the decentralized economy to being primarily a payment system and currency, which allows people from all over the world to financially transact with each other directly and cheaply, without the need for third party intermediaries, taxes, or legislation at the borders. It really is the first digital currency of the world that allows people to freely move value amongst one another peer-to-peer.In many ways, Bitcoin is like the gold of the crypto-currency space because it is both secure, limited in supply, and has the longest track record of success. Given this comparison to gold, Bitcoin is kind of like the weight that everything is tied down to within the space. Though its still young at only seven years in existence, it has given the entire blockchain space credibility and is one of the biggest catalysts behind a potential explosion in the decentralized economy. While it has serious infighting issues about how to scale that it must resolve before competitors capitalize, its pretty reasonable to assume that Bitcoin isnt going anywhere in the near future if it can resolve its difference and come to together as a community.Launched just over a year ago, Ethereum has taken blockchain technology to the next level through the use of smart contracts, which allow contracts to be programmed into the blockchain. This ability to create self-executing contracts on the Ethereum blockchain, has given rise to the formation of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), which are basically decentralized organizations of people who come together around a common goal, yet are bound together through the contract they all agreed to. In the simplest sense, the open source smart contracts that are programmed into the blockchain act as the legal framework for the business structure. Since they are self-executing, there is no need for middlemen and legislation to interpret or act as agents of trust in the transfer of value. There is sometimes no need for a central business or authority to exist at all since the smart contract is the business itself and nothing more than a program.There are so many use cases for Ethereum, like developing decentralized voting structures, creating online databases for wills and land contracts, or even creating digital locks for all types of content and services. Ethereum has already risen to number two in market cap amongst crypto-currencies and offers great flexibility for developers to build upon. However, its still very early in its growth process and very much still recovering from its mini-venture capital fund, The DAO, being hacked, which resulted in the Ethereum blockchain being hardforked into two. Nonetheless, it has shown great promise in terms of design and has the very real possibility of becoming the perfect open source platform for building all types of decentralized autonomous organizations upon.Only released just a few months ago, Steemit has become the first social media platform to be built upon the blockchain. What has blockchain community buzzing so far is that Steemit appears to have found a way to monetize social media, whether its by paying the posters of content or rewarding the curators of content. Essentially, Steemit is a social media platform (especially blogging) that users can get paid for using, unlike Facebook and Reddit where people post and curate content for free. There also seems to be no censorship or central control on the platform, which is a huge plus for many in the alternative mediaand liberty movements who are desperate for a way to escape the heavy censorship/demonetization coming down the pipeline through many of the major social media outlets. Steemit is built upon a Graphene blockchain, which allows it to handle thousands of transactions a second. It has also become a great space for those open-minded individuals to not only share ideas, but to make a little money from it. Its popularity has grown so fast in a few months that its already up to the number four spot in terms of market cap among crypto-currencies. However, Steemit is still in Beta and there are many questions that need to be addressed, such as how it will maintain value in the long-term. Despite the fact, Steemit has sparked an idea in the community, that we the people can profit from our own social media, as well as find ways to keep it open and free. If Steemit can successfully blossom into a widely used platform with good content, then it has the potential to capitalize on this new form of social media.Whether people like it or not, the derivatives market is here to stay and very much an important part of the financial system. Businesses need to lock in costs ahead of time in order to stay on budget, so a derivatives market has been created to provide businesses with the financial flexibility they need to maintain budgets without affecting their cash flow. With crypto-currencies being volatile due to the relative newness of the space, Bitshares has developed Bitassets to allow companies to hedge against this volatility by entering into derivatives contracts for crypto-currencies. As a result, companies who may deem Bitcoin too risky to hold on their balance sheets can now purchase derivative contracts to hedge against price volatility, giving them greater financial flexibility to maintain tight budgets.While Bitshares is very new and started off a bit slow, this kind of idea is essential to the crypto-space. Price volatility is one of the major hurdles keeping companies from holding crypto-currencies in their portfolios, so bringing in price stabilizing derivatives to bridge the gap between mainstream finance and the crypto-space is fundamental to its growth. Bitshares also has the ability to stomp out a lot of corruption that takes place in the derivatives markets by reducing the credit limits and decentralizing losses. Bitshares has the potential to carve out a niche market in derivatives, but it will be interesting to see how it and Ethereum interact with each other, given they both specialize in smart contracts and use/plan to use a Graphene blockchain. Ideally, they both will carve out areas of value.Many people are now aware of Uber, and recognize fairly easily just how powerful it has been in challenging the current paradigm of the taxi market. Its true that Uber has done many great things in terms of providing employees with more money and customers with lower prices. However, a new wave of competition is set to hit the scene called Arcade City, which is built upon the Ethereum blockchain. Essentially, Arcade City is fairly similar to Uber in that is pairs drivers with riders, but unlike Uber, Arcade City is based on blockchain, which cuts costs tremendously on both sides of the transaction. Blockchain allows drivers greater autonomy to set their own prices, accept many forms of payment, and take home more profits, as Arcade City takes little to no cuts along the way. With many starting to realize the increasing costs being tacked on by Uber, Arcade City is poised to capitalize on this trend if it can bypass many of the legal battles it currently faces and will continue to face. The apps global launch is September 1, 2016, so its going to be a company to watch very closely moving forward. Someone will capitalize on this market.Slock.it is another technology built upon the Ethereum blockchain, which is essentially a smart contract company that will specialize in digital locks. For example, Airbnbcould be completely automated through the use of Slock.it, or renting a bike could be completely automated through Slock.it, or even Wi-Fi routers could be rented out and automated through Slock.it. Basically, it allows you to rent, share, sell, or share just about anything without any middlemen. It really has a niche for facilitating the P2P sharing economy, without any central management of it.However, it will be interesting to see how Slock.it will recover from the recent hack of The DAO, being that some in the community are quite unhappy with them for producing sloppy coding, which they claim is partially to blame for the theft. This could lead to competitors like ConsenSys coming in and taking over the platform. One thing is for certain: The use of digital locks in the sharing economy is coming; its just a matter of who will step and deliver the vision.Logistics is an important part of the global economy, especially since products are moving all over the world at all times of the day. So it would only make sense that blockchain technology would revolutionize the logistics space. According to their website, Provenance is a platform that empowers brands to take steps toward greater transparency by tracing the origins and histories of products,all through the use of blockchain. The story/origin of the product can follow the product anywhere online, giving buyers and sellers more accurate information to conduct trade with.The real benefit of Provenance is that people can better understand where the products they want to buy are coming from. This is especially important for people who are conscious of certain ethical criteria in products, such as who made it (slave labor?), how its made (material), or the quality of it (organic/fresh). Provenance could provide a database for certificates that authenticate products as well as give consumers faith in companies. Provenance is still in its early stages of testing, but its already clear the tracking items all over the world through blockchain will become a reality in the future.Finally, the blockchain space wouldnt be complete without a spot for e-sports and betting. According to its website, Peerplays is the worlds first decentralized tournament management and wagering platform built entirely on the blockchain. Whats enticing about Peerplays is that there is no house, meaning the odds are not skewed towards the house. Instead, those on the system develop the structures of the games and how their rewards are to be given out. The blockchain simply holds the funds in escrow and divvies them out according to the smart contracts programmed in.Peerplays has the ability to take over fantasy sports leagues, online gambling like poker, online gaming (like Counterstrike, Dota, Fifa)and really any type of game people decide to create. Also supporting a grapheme blockchain, Peerplays can handle thousands of transactions per second. While Peerplays has many hurdles to climb just like the others, its clear that gaming will become fully integrated by blockchain technology in the foreseeable future, especially since it already takes place online. Why pay middlemen when gaming peer-to-peer?Note: Other ideas to check out include: Monero, Enigma, Waves, Ripple, Litecoin, Dash, Namecoin, IPFS, OpenBazaar, Bitfury, and many more I didnt list.As you can see from the hefty list of blockchain technologies entering the space (yet small compared to the overall picture), the entire economy could very well become connected to a blockchain in one way or another. It seems to me that nothing is safe, and given more time for the technology to grow and our knowledge of it to expand, it really appears to be the future of global economies and social structures. That doesnt mean there is not many major problems that must be conquered, especially as it relates to: 1. Scaling In order to handle a complex global economy with millions of different transactions.2. Regulation From governments who want to control trade throughout the world3. Security So regular people trust the platform enough to switch over and are protected from theft/hacking4. Decentralized Consensus Seeing if decentralized groups can work together orderly and peacefully, without sabotaging each other or suffering from inefficiencyAll four of these barriers are major threats to everyone in the space and many questions surrounding them will need to be answered as we move forward. There is no way to sugarcoat it; until we conquer these barriers, there will not be enough use cases to point to for mainstream society to decide and adopt blockchain on a larger scale.However, despite the numerous problems, blockchaintaking over seems an inevitability as more people wake up. The transition will be very bumpy, and even downright nauseous for some who are strongly attached to the old ways of doing things, but the old paradigm cannot go on and will not go on. All systems become obsolete and must give way to bigger and better things. This is how the free market is supposed to exist.The Internet gave us the age of information, which has led people on a path of pattern analysis and self-empowerment. As people become empowered, they inevitably want more control over the value they produce and how its exchanged within society. It seems now that blockchain is one of those revolutionary technologies that is going to give people the power they desire to be the boss of their own economic activity and create a truly decentralized economy of peer-to-peer activity. There may come a point where we dont need institutions anymore, because we can all become our own self-economic engines.The only question now is whether you want to get involved and help it manifest or you want to sit on the sidelines and watch it play out. I would suggest jumping in, because why wouldnt you want to get involved with a game-changer as big as blockchain. Lets change the world together and create a peer-to-peer economy to the benefit of us all. This is true freedom and real change that we dont need a third-party to do for us.(Reply)Hi Tim, Good article. Did you imply that Ethereum is planning on using Graphene somehow? (See Bts summary towards end). What did you mean by this? Thanks(Reply)I was thinking that Ethereum would switch to a graphene blockchain in order to handle huge transaction amounts, possibly when it switches over to proof of stake mining, or so they say they are making that switch eventually. Im looking more into it now and maybe i was actually mistaken on it. I thought that I have come across that and/or heard it in some of the videos from developers, but maybe Im wrong though. I will try and look more into it.Like i said, Im not perfect in this field so maybe I made a mistake on that line of thinking. If you have good info on it, please feel free to share. Thanks!(Reply)Hi Tim,Although Ethereum would benefit in ways technologically from switching to Graphene, realistically I do not think it will happen because they are perceived as direct competition. I suppose anything could happen though; this industry is often unpredictable and illogical. Perhaps a side chain will be developed between the two, before Ethereum undergoes such major surgery?Cheers and thanks again for the snapshot.(Reply)Hey Tim,Looks like you are right and Ethereum is switching to POS: http://www.ethnews.com/proof-of-work-vs-proof-of-stake-explainedNo doubt they took some notes from Graphene it would be the smart thing to doCheers This work by The Last American Vagabond is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, and may be reposted as is, with attribution to the author and TheLastAmericanVagabond.com.Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at Ryan@thelastamericanvagabond.com. 3","type":"audio\/mpeg","title":"Dems Sue For Hillary Loss, Comey Leaks Investigated, North Korea Suspends Nukes & The Marijuana Rebellion","caption":"Dems Sue For Hillary Loss, Comey Leaks Investigated, North Korea Suspends Nukes & The Marijuana Rebellion","description":"Dems Sue For Hillary Loss, Comey Leaks 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Blockchain","meta":{"artist":"Talent Name","album":"Podcast Title here","title":"Syria Update, Reports Of Israeli Attacks On Iran, Trump To Rejoin TPP & YouTube Losing To Blockchain","genre":"Podcast","year":"2018","date":"April 14, >audio\/mpeg","title":"Everyone Claims Proof In Syria, Trump Overrules Sessions & Google Loses \u2018Right To Be Forgotten' Case","caption":"Everyone Claims Proof In Syria, Trump Overrules Sessions & Google Loses \u2018Right To Be Forgotten' Case","description":"Everyone Claims Proof In Syria, Trump Overrules Sessions & Google Loses \u2018Right To Be Forgotten' Case","meta":{"artist":"Talent Name","album":"Podcast Title here","title":"Everyone Claims Proof In Syria, Trump Overrules Sessions & Google Loses \u2018Right To Be Forgotten' Case","genre":"Podcast","year":"2018","date":"April 13, ld>\/mpeg","title":"Mattis Admits No Evidence Of Recent Syria Attack, Syrians Speak Out & 8mil Kids on Psychiatric Drugs","caption":"Mattis Admits No Evidence Of Recent Syria Attack, Syrians Speak Out & 8mil Kids on Psychiatric Drugs","description":"Mattis Admits No Evidence Of Recent Syria Attack, Syrians Speak Out & 8mil Kids on Psychiatric Drugs","meta":{"artist":"Talent Name","album":"Podcast Title here","title":"Mattis Admits No Evidence Of Recent Syria Attack, Syrians Speak Out & 8mil Kids on Psychiatric Drugs","genre":"Podcast","year":"2018","date":"April 12, ress\/Vagabond-Square-Logo.jpg","width":144,"height":144}}]}

Blockstream's Austin Hill: confidential blockchains can remove systemic risk from finance By Ian Allison Updated November 18, 2015 14:49 GMT Austin Hill, chief instigator of the highly regarded Blockstream project, believes confidentiality of data on blockchains will lead to hitherto unseen levels of confidence in the financial system itself.Hill, whose background is in zero knowledge proof applications and cypherpunk technologies for privacy in electronic cash, thinks blockchain users should be able to have their cake and eat it: the efficiency of a shared ledger system without sacrificing the privacy of transactions therein.Confidential Transactions is one element within the sidechains project, which Hill says has garnered a lot of interest from Wall Street. He explained how retaining privacy through some cutting edge encryption can leverage the real time audit capabilities of the blockchain, strengthening integrity generally in many use cases.Hill told IBTimes: "In some use cases you might want to prove a leverage ratio for an asset class and the issuing of new assets against a base asset. You may want to say - we do not have insurance contracts that are above and beyond our core assets, or we don't have fractional lending going on above a certain ratio."You could prove that without having to show what the underlying assets are. So using these technologies I think there's a lot of potential for removing systemic risk and improving confidence in our finance system."Blockstream's Confidential Transactions does not disclose the value of a transaction but allows the network to check that inputs add up to outputs and things balance; the network understands that encrypted 3 + encrypted 5 = encrypted 8. The actual amounts are only disclosed to the sender and the recipient, and potentially their auditor. It uses one-way homomorphic encryption which uses less in the way of computational power than two-way homomorphic encryption."There is a small size trade-off in terms of the size of transactions. But traditionally one-way homomorphic encryption is a lot more manageable than two-way homomorphic encryption which is still very bleeding edge science. In fact there is a range of values that you can hide using this technology. You can do multiplication, you can do greater than/less than, you can do all sorts of mathematical operations."This is a very new area of cryptography. It's based off a lot of other research and is a very powerful tool for striking an appropriate balance between corporate confidentiality and leveraging public blockchains. We have seen a lot of interest among major companies who want to use this technology.Blockstream aims to bring innovation to Bitcoin and follows the spirit of fairness of public blockchains. However, Hill and co-founder Dr Adam Back saw the huge potential beyond Bitcoin and Sidechains Elements have been developed accordingly."Sidechain Elements is like a Lego tool kit for building blockchains. It doesn't define what the end blockchain looks like, but it gives a whole bunch of new powerful tools that allow you to construct blockchains according to whatever rule set you desire. In some situations those are going to be public, openly available blockchains, in other situations they might be federated blockchains," said Hill.Corporates trading with multiple partners and transferring stock, bonds or loan products would constitute such a private blockchain environment, due to corporate confidentiality and protecting customers' records."In many cases you may not want to reveal that information. There is an information advantage to people who data mine the blockchain, who may be able to do things like front running of transactions, where they understand the flow of money or the flow of transactions and they can then predict certain moves in a market place."Blockstream recently announced Liquid, the first commercial deployment of sidechain technology which uses a pegged federated system to move bitcoin rapidly between exchanges in a rarefied environment of added privacy, without existing capital reserve requirements and risks.Hill said: "The whole concept of Sidechains is that you can build multiple blockchains that are all interoperable. Confidential Transactions could potentially be included in the Bitcoin blockchain but I suspect that would take a lot of time and would be a major change because all wallets, everything that talks to the Bitcoin blockchain would have to upgrade and there would be a very long period of testing."In its current form the target is not to roll it [Confidential Transactions] into the Bitcoin blockchain, but rather let sidechains like the Liquid chain be able to deploy it, such that certain trading partners may want to have a network that has different properties than the Bitcoin blockchain."Participants who choose, who are part of this network and consortium can automatically transfer bitcoin in a very rapid way, but they also have the assurance now that bitcoin transfers from one exchange to another are not publicly available for other people to monitor."You can either deploy it in a federated model or eventually, once we actually make some changes to Bitcoin core, you will be able to do it based on merged mining, where you leverage all the same hash rates," he added."Right now we use a federated two-way peg, and eventually in the future we look forward to a time when the two-way peg will just be a normal supported feature in Bitcoin. So you won't need to use a federated peg, you could just automatically move coins from one network to another and that would be supported by all the miners."Hill likes to use an analogy from the early days of the internet to illustrate Blockstream's goals. "Imagine you had to go to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the standards group, if you had a new idea for a service you wanted to build on TCP/IP - imagine you needed to get everyone to upgrade their protocol, every time you wanted to make a change. That would have completely slowed down and really hampered the speed at which we got things like streaming audio, steaming video, interactive websites."The idea is that people can now innovate in permissionless way. They can go out and deploy a sidechain that has the features they want, and we can let the free market decide which ones are popular."As well as Wall Street's banks, Hill has also seen interest from other areas of financial services such as insurance companies. He also said he was familiar with what the R3 project is doing adding that "many of their customers and R3 themselves are looking at our tool kit and looking at some of our opensource work to see if fits their use cases".Providing privacy to blockchains is a hot topic with a number of noteworthy players in the space such as MIT's Enigma project, ZeroCash and Hawk.Hill said: "This is an exciting time. We are at the very beginning of the rise of these types of technologies. Some of this has been researched in academia before, but now we have not only a proving ground, but in Sidechains we actually have a model that can say, how will you get these deployed?"Some are trying to bootstrap new networks, and that's a different approach. We believe fundamentally that it's much easier to build a parallel sidechain, where you are leveraging all of the existing work that's done and allow people to move coins in and out of that network freely. We think that gives a really good environment to make some of these technologies actually commercially viable."More about Blocksteam Blockstream announces Liquid movement of Bitcoin quickly and securely between exchanges Godfather of Bitcoin Adam Back explains how blockchain will prevent another banking crisis

When information hit the crypto-verse that the CBOE change had withdrawn its utility for a rule trade on the SEC to believe a Bitcoin ETF, many investors had held their breath anticipating the price of BTC to fall a couple of hundred issues or even perhaps retest $3,200. The information most effective led to BTC losing from $3,600 to round $3,567: a decline of 0.91%. The King of Crypto is these days buying and selling at $3,600 indicating that the scoop had little impact on BTC.Looking on the general marketplace capitalization, we discover that it fell from $120.6 Billion to $119.1 Billion because of the scoop. This is a drop of one.24%. The general marketplace capitalization is these days again to $120.346 Billion indicating that the scoop didn’t do a lot harm.Numerous theories were floated round within the more than a few social media platforms. Four explanations that have been dominant have been as follows:Further elaborating at the 4 imaginable the explanation why the scoop of CBOE’s withdrawal of the Bitcoin ETF had little marketplace impact, we discover within the first state of affairs the these days ongoing govt shutdown has affected the purposes of many federal companies such because the SEC and CFTC. In the case of the latter, the CFTC has the only authority to resolve the way forward for Bakkt. Crypto traders and investors had possibly hooked up the dots and concluded there could be dangerous information in the case of the Bitcoin ETF because of the continued Shutdown. This then explains why there was once no panic promoting.The 2d state of affairs issues to the indifference many crypto dealer and traders these days have against the approval or rejection of an ETF utility. This is hinged on the truth that 2018 was once marked via the crypto markets been shaken via a number of ETF rejections. With time, investors have evolved an immunity for dangerous information from the SEC. There may be the added undeniable fact that many crypto idealists imagine that Satoshi Nakamoto didn’t intend for Wall Street to become involved within the purposes of Bitcoin.Thirdly, every other batch of CME Bitcoin futures expire the next day, January 25th. The present worth of BTC and different cryptocurrencies had already factored in this match thus the CBOE withdrawal didn’t have an effect on the markets as expected. Perhaps if the scoop arrived previous on within the month, there would possibly were severe panic promoting.The fourth concept that has been postulated is an extension of the second one: crypto investors and traders have dealt with the current bear market for over a yr and feature evolved an immunity to dangerous information. The ones nonetheless buying and selling or hodling have weathered the hurricane and feature develop into proof against any exterior adverse information.What are your ideas at the crypto markets no longer falling as anticipated when information broke that CBOE had withdrawn their Bitcoin ETF utility on the SEC? Has the ETF misplaced all relevance to crypto investors and traders? Please tell us within the remark phase beneath.Disclaimer: This article isn’t intended to offer monetary recommendation. Any further opinion herein is solely the creator’s and does no longer constitute the opinion of Ethereum World News or any of its different writers. Please perform your personal analysis prior to making an investment in any of the a lot of cryptocurrencies to be had. Thank you.Like what you learn? Give us one like or proportion it for your buddiesoriginal post…Galaxy Digital Raising $250 Million to Offer Loans to Crypto Firms: ReportYour email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *The tZERO buying and selling platform has simply introduced that secondary buying and selling of its safety tokens that were distributed to traders previous this month, is now are living. Accredited traders can now business tZERO safety tokens with different accepted traders via a virtual securities brokerage account at Dinosaur Financial Group, LLC. The latter will acts as a broker-dealer. The company has partnered with PRO securities, LLC, which is a subsidiary of tZERO.Earlier on within the month, groups at each Overstock and tZERO had notified the investor neighborhood that the buying and selling platform would get started operations by means of the tip of this month. The CEO of Overstock.com, Patrick Byrne, defined that the release of tZERO has been 4 years within the making. With secondary buying and selling now are living, what stays is the overall release of the online platform.The ICO increase of 2017 and 2018 led many regulatory our bodies around the globe to step in to give protection to traders from fraudulent actions and the corresponding losses incurred from such investments. In the case of the American SEC, route used to be a little bit sluggish however they in the end issued a directive that some ICOs fall under the category of securities offerings. This led many willing marketers and corporations, to notice that Securities Token Offering (STOs) would be the subsequent large factor on the planet of crowdfunding.tZERO CEO Saum Noursalehi, defined why safety tokens have been a lot more secure than different tokens got from the standard ICOs.The global of safety tokens has lacked a regulated venue for secondary buying and selling. The buying and selling of our personal safety tokens is the crossing of the Rubicon for the brand new global of virtual property. This will create liquidity, democratize get right of entry to, convey transparency and potency to international markets and boost up the adoption of safety tokens.The Nasdaq powered DX.Exchange went are living on the 7th of this month. Users of the change can now business the cryptocurrencies of Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), XRP , Bitcoin Cash (BCH), EOS (EOS), Digibyte (DGB), Enigma (ENG) and Litecoin (LTC). They additionally be able of buying and selling tokenized variations of conventional shares equivalent to Apple, Facebook, Tesla, Microsoft, Amazon, Netflix, Descartes Systems Group, Baidu, Intel, Google and Nvidia.Earlier this week, the crew at Zilliqa and MaiCoin introduced their partnership to paintings at the new Hg Exchange. The imaginative and prescient of latest change is to offer common traders get right of entry to to high-growth startups equivalent to Uber, Airbnb, Space X, Grab and Didi Chuxing.What are your ideas of extra exchanges providing buying and selling of tokenized securities? Is this a glimpse of the way forward for making an investment? Please tell us within the remark phase underneath. Disclaimer: This article isn’t intended to provide monetary recommendation. Any further opinion herein is solely the creator’s and does now not constitute the opinion of Ethereum World News or any of its different writers. Please perform your personal analysis prior to making an investment in any of the a large number of cryptocurrencies to be had. Thank you.Like what you learn? Give us one like or proportion it on your palsoriginal post…The group at Robinhood knowledgeable the crypto and investor communities that that they had acquried two licences vital for his or her operations within the state of New York. The fee loose alternate has gained a digital forex license, often referred to as the BitLicense, and a cash transmitter license in NY. With those two licenses, citizens of New York can use the platform to put money into cryptocurrencies once Robinhood completes putting in the provider for its customers within the state. An precise timeline has no longer been given however they’ve promised it’ll be reside within the coming months.The announcement through Robinhood additionally defined their willpower in complying with regulatory necessities of each state they need to function in.As we introduce new monetary merchandise, we’re dedicated to partnering with regulators to verify compliance with trade necessities. Today’s announcement is proof of this dedication.We’re excited to convey commission-free cryptocurrency buying and selling to New York, and stay up for coming to extra states quickly.Robinhood is recently to be had in 30 American States with further plans of growth around the United States. The platform currently supports buying and selling of the next 7 cryptocurrencies.Robinhood recently be offering products and services to customers will to put money into shares, ETFs, choices and cryptocurrencies. The web site additionally mentions a long run Cash Management provider. The buying and selling is fee loose and out there by way of telephone or desktop.What are your ideas on Robinhood getting the related licenses to function in New York? Will this bring in different probabilities for the company? Please tell us within the remark phase under. Disclaimer: This article isn’t intended to present monetary recommendation. Any further opinion herein is solely the writer’s and does no longer constitute the opinion of Ethereum World News or any of its different writers. Please perform your personal analysis sooner than making an investment in any of the a large number of cryptocurrencies to be had. Thank you.Like what you learn? Give us one like or percentage it on your palsoriginal post…This is a sequence of weblog posts that specialize in Youtube crypto influencers the place we will be able to function thrilling Youtubers that target the arena on cryptocurrencies.The international of crypto is repeatedly evolving, and the group is rising at a fast tempo. There’s numerous jargon and in the market and too many of us making noise. So we’ve searched and scoured the entire of youtube to provide the maximum related channels you want to be careful for. We’ve interviews those channels and did the heavy lifting in order that you received’t must.Hackdroid Crypto: Simplifying advanced blockchain and crypto centered tasks so the typical particular person can perceive their generation and undertaking.ACF: How and why did you get into cryptocurrencies?Hackdroid Crypto: I were given into Bitcoin in January 2013 and feature been buying and selling ever since. The concept of being in entire keep an eye on of your price range is bad, empowering, and above all necessary for humanity.ACF: Is there a specific blockchain undertaking that excites you? If so, what’s it and why?Hackdroid Crypto: AC3 https://ac3.io/ is my undertaking that excited me extraordinarily. We’ve constructed our personal blockchain (now not on Ethereum or pre-existing networks) to decentralize the core basis for virtual content material. AC3 will position keep an eye on into the arms of content material creators like myself and permit them to totally keep an eye on their content material rights, distribution, and monetization.ACF: Where do you notice cryptocurrencies five years from now?Hackdroid Crypto: Bitcoin will disrupt 50% of gold’s marketplace capitalization. Institutional traders globally will start to cut up their investments into the blue chip crypto tasks treating them as a commodity (silver, gold, metal, and so on) BTC will probably be above $100okay in five yearsACF: What recommendation would you give to somebody who desires to speculate, business or get into cryptocurrency?Hackdroid Crypto: Coinbase Index fund goes to assist novices put money into all of the business which I like to recommend. I’ve referred over 100 folks that experience invested on Coinbase and I believe that they’re going to convey hundreds of thousands of “mom & pop” traders into the distance with their suite of gear. Also {hardware} wallets are nonetheless extraordinarily undervalued with child boomers changing into within the area.OJ Jordan: Crypto Corner is my video podcast devoted to all issues Crypto. I do a whole lot of tutorials and all the time attempt to simplify issues to permit those that are new or now not very tech-savvy. I additionally evaluation cash and feature visitors from the business to assist develop the crypto group.ACF: How and why did you get into cryptocurrencies?OJ Jordan: I heard about Bitcoin again in 2011 after which in 2013 however at time I discovered it too difficult to pay money for. Finally in 2015 I discovered Coinbase and it opened the door for me.ACF: Is there a specific blockchain undertaking that excites you? If so, what’s it and why?OJ Jordan: I’m really not precisely a Bitcoin maximalist however that is the only I care about essentially the most. As for altcoins, I check out to not get emotionally hooked up. My favorite coin is the one who provides me the most efficient benefit this week.ACF: Where do you notice cryptocurrencies five years from now?OJ Jordan: I’m hoping to peer the marketplace succeed in no less than $three bln marketplace cap and person adoption to be on a far larger scale than these days. Things take time to increase so I’m really not anticipating a complete new international simply but.ACF: What recommendation would you give to somebody who desires to speculate, business or get into cryptocurrency?OJ Jordan: When you listen a couple of coin, please take time to look at it and its marketplace efficiency as a substitute of shopping for in an instant. Word of mouth generally is a very bad factor on this business. For instance, each and every time Ripple or Ethereum bounce to a brand new All-time prime, I see an enormous spike in folks dashing to shop for. That’s simply the other of what a dealer would advise. Make certain you aren’t purchasing the hype.ACF: How and why did you get into cryptocurrencies?ACF: Is there a specific blockchain undertaking that excites you? If so, what’s it and why?Hardcore Crypto: NEO as a result of programming language flexibility.ACF: Where do you notice cryptocurrencies five years from now?Hardcore Crypto: Mass adoption. BTC to one million bucks.ACF: What recommendation would you give to somebody who desires to speculate, business or get into cryptocurrency?Like what you learn? Give us one like or proportion it in your palsoriginal post…The crew at Neo (NEO) has partnered with a lot of media corporations to prepare the NEO DevCon 2019 summit that can be hosted in Seattle, Washington. The match will happen at the 16th and 17th of February; which is precisely 3 weeks away. The Summit is supposed to deliver in combination builders, DApp creators and trade leaders from more than a few industries to percentage concepts at the present and long term growth of the trade.The Agenda of the DevCon contains discussions within the subjects of a sensible financial system, the way forward for NEO, blockchain software within the Internet of Things, decentalization and extra. The crew at NEO has promised to make essential bulletins as neatly us supply an up to date Roadmap of the challenge. The crew states the next.At the convention, NEO Foundation and its subsidiaries will announce roadmap and plans for the longer term. Industry mavens from most sensible tech corporations and main students will percentage their insights on “decentralization”, “Layer 2” , “distributed storage” and different blockchain-related frontier subjects.The NEO Devcon web site has long gone forward and supplied the next record of influential folks in generation, blockchain and industry, as visitor audio system on the match.What are your ideas at the Developer Conference in Seattle, Washington, being hosted by way of the crew at NEO? What are your expectancies of the development? Please tell us within the remark segment beneath. Disclaimer: This article isn’t supposed to offer monetary recommendation. Any further opinion herein is solely the creator’s and does no longer constitute the opinion of Ethereum World News or any of its different writers. Please perform your personal analysis prior to making an investment in any of the a lot of cryptocurrencies to be had. Thank you.Like what you learn? Give us one like or percentage it on your palsoriginal post…The international of cryptocurrencies can incessantly be complicated to newbies. Not best do they’ve to grasp an enormous choice of new phrases, how the whole lot works, and methods to discover a excellent challenge to spend money on, however additionally they need to care for problems which might be once in a while difficult to grasp even for the ones with revel in.Perhaps the most productive instance of ways advanced the crypto world can in point of fact grow to be from the second one greatest cryptocurrency by means of marketplace cap, XRP.The very first thing to grasp — which may be one thing that a large number of buyers in finding difficult — is that XRP isn’t the similar as Ripple.XRP is the second one greatest coin within the crypto international. It used to carry the 3rd position, however its growth and greater utilization secured further budget, and the coin controlled to overcome Ethereum, which used to be strongly impacted by means of bearish marketplace and intense festival. Now, XRP is 2nd best to Bitcoin.XRP used to be evolved by means of an organization referred to as Ripple Labs, and as a result of this, it used to be at the start referred to as Ripple. However, because of the confusion that adopted, the place it used to be tough to inform whether or not others are speaking concerning the coin or the corporate, it used to be renamed to XRP.Today, this can be a local cryptocurrency of the XRP allotted ledger, which is open-source and, in keeping with Ripple Labs, decentralized.When it involves Ripple Labs, this can be a corporate introduced by means of Ryan Fugger and Jed McCaleb. Since its introduction, about 8 years in the past, the company evolved XRP, in addition to a number of merchandise used for making fast bills any place on this planet. These merchandise — xCurrent and xRapid — have been temporarily known as complex fee techniques by means of banks world wide, and lots of of them made up our minds to go into a collaboration with Ripple to be able to exchange their outdated techniques, which incessantly take days to finish transactions. In comparability, Ripple’s merchandise can organize the similar in best four seconds, and their TPS is just about the similar as that of primary card firms.Another factor to notice about Ripple merchandise is they switch the cash by means of turning it into XRP, no less than for the aim of touring in the course of the community. Other than this, XRP is allegedly unbiased of Ripple, and its creators declare that the coin would live on even though the corporate have been to vanish.While that is evidence of the coin’s decentralization to many, others weren’t satisfied, and each XRP and Ripple needed to face a large number of accusations of centralization, coin manipulation, or even accusations of the coin being safety. This has resulted in a number of complaints, particularly in 2018, and XRP changed into a middle of a large number of controversies.However, as time stepped forward, so did the coin and the corporate, and this present day, maximum of the ones controversies are forgotten. XRP and Ripple completed a large number of luck on their respective battlefields, and each are well known and well-respected this present day.In reality, many have prime hopes for XRP and imagine that the coin could be the only to guide cryptocurrencies to mainstream utilization. Others speculate that it could grow to be the consultant of the 3rd era of cryptos. It is unknown what would possibly occur at some point, however for now, no less than, XRP appears to be dependable, extra solid than maximum cash, rapid in the case of acting transactions, and entirely unbiased.For the newest cryptocurrency information, sign up for our Telegram!Disclaimer: This article will have to now not be taken as, and isn’t meant to supply, funding recommendation. Global Coin Report and/or its associates, workers, writers, and subcontractors are cryptocurrency buyers and every so often would possibly or won’t have holdings in one of the crucial cash or tokens they duvet. Please habits your personal thorough analysis sooner than making an investment in any cryptocurrency and skim our complete disclaimer.Like what you learn? Give us one like or proportion it on your buddiesoriginal post…Whether you’re a beginner or had been buying and selling for moderately a while, discovering a bunch of compatible buyers may also be a good way to additional your finding out. Discord teams are a method of having pointers & alerts, and in addition an effective way to validate a industry thought you will have. As they are saying, two heads are higher than one.Before we proportion among the very best discord buying and selling teams, a handy guide a rough be aware on buying and selling “signals”. “Crypto signals” are necessarily recommendation on when to shop for and promote specific cryptocurrencies. The factor with following this recommendation blindly is that you just’re susceptible to falling sufferer to a pump and sell off during which the organisers of the scheme are normally the one ones to benefit. It’s our place that nobody must apply buying and selling alerts blindly, however as a substitute do your individual research and make a decision for your self.With that during thoughts, listed below are among the very best discord crypto teams that you’ll use to be informed extra about buying and selling and get new buying and selling concepts.This is a neighborhood powered listing of the entire Discord teams which can be cryptocurrency / blockchain comparable. They observe what number of customers are in each and every team, the outline of the gang in addition to sizzling/chilly teams.This is the professional discord server for the Cryptocurrency subreddit. It’s a big discord with a whole lot of knowledge and dialogue round quite a few cash. Join right here: https://discordapp.com/invite/GdVCYvrThis huge, 10,000+ discord team makes a speciality of connecting coin research, buyers, miners and builders discussing anything else and the entirety cryptocurrency. Join right here: Ftag%2FcryptoAgain, we don’t counsel purchasing on any alerts – ever. However, it’s attention-grabbing to look what buyers are taking a look into and the way they arrive to their selections via technical research and extra. Join right here: https://discord.me/cryptosignalsIf you don’t thoughts paying a little bit for some further excellent recommendation, then CoinMarketResearch is a brilliant possibility. While they do supply a loose chat house to talk about, the actual advantages of this team is the superb analysis and research that this staff completes. In addition to paid alerts, they supply elementary research in addition to ICO insights. Join right here: http://CoinMarketResearch.infoPremium alerts is some other huge discord providing dialogue, loose alerts and in addition a paid subscription carrier for “advanced” buyers. With common updates and an engaged neighborhood, this discord is bound that can assist you strengthen your buying and selling. Join right here: https://premiumsignals.info/This is a smaller discord team that talks about cryptocurrency comparable information, scams, upcoming ICOs and extra.. It has a couple of channels and has a big neighborhood which can be useful for sharing concepts and discussing your buying and selling. Join right here: https://discord.me/cryptopediaLast however under no circumstances least, sign up for our Altcoin Fantasy neighborhood and proportion your concepts. Our energetic neighborhood is right here to assist any questions in terms of our fable cryptocurrency buying and selling competitions, in addition to dialogue of all issues buying and selling! Join right here: https://discord.me/altcoinfantasyThe advantages of becoming a member of a few of these discord teams is that you just’re in a position to additional your finding out about cryptocurrency buying and selling and making an investment. The strategy of finding out to industry isn’t a easy one and so we suggest trying

[Editor’s note, see http://www.iqdupont.com/ and H/T Žarko Almuli] It was April 10th, 2013 and the price of a single Bitcoin surged past 250 USD on the Mt. Gox exchange. A few months prior I had purchased seven Bitcoins for just under $200, and now they were nearing $2000 in value (Figure 1). But, just as fast as the market went up, it came down. Ever the amateur gambler, I panicked and sold too early. But, I was lulled by my humming money machine, permuting cryptographic codes by the millions every second. I was not the only one interested in playing the Bitcoin market, and the increasing price of Bitcoin was due to a number of factors, including a sustained distributed denial-of-service attack on Mt. Gox, and other people like me gambling in the latest crypto-anarchist adventure. It was April 10th, 2013 and the price of a single Bitcoin surged past 250 USD on the Mt. Gox exchange. A few months prior I had purchased seven Bitcoins for just under $200, and now they were nearing $2000 in value (Figure 1). But, just as fast as the market went up, it came down. Ever the amateur gambler, I panicked and sold too early. But, I was lulled by my humming money machine, permuting cryptographic codes by the millions every second. I was not the only one interested in playing the Bitcoin market, and the increasing price of Bitcoin was due to a number of factors, including a sustained distributed denial-of-service attack on Mt. Gox, and other people like me gambling in the latest crypto-anarchist adventure. Like many other modern currencies, Bitcoin is fiat money. But, unlike traditional fiat money, Bitcoin is cryptographic and electronic. There is no “physical” substrate to Bitcoin; the “coins” exist only as cryptographic representations stored in digital wallets. In the simplest caricature of complex economics, fiat money has no intrinsic value and thus requires people to trust that it will retain value. Usually government backing provides this semblance of trust, but when this trust is eroded (e.g., a weak government), value often plummets. Technical flaws also cripple the trust that sustains fiat money, such as rampant fraud, counterfeiting, or hyperinflation. Trust in Bitcoin rests on a range of technical advantages supplied by cryptography. According to advocates, cryptography is secure (safe from technical or mathematical error).iii When applied to economic apparatuses, counterfeiting and double-spending is prevented through the use of public key cryptography, and hyperinflation is kept in check because the cryptographically-secure mining protocol ensures the measured production of money (with a maximum number of coins produced). Yet, as with general discussions of cryptography, complicated political issues often transform into a binary of state versus personal power. On the one hand, when cryptography is used for Privacy Enhancing Technologies it is seen as a block against government snooping. On the other hand, these same cryptographic technologies are often used against the people. This debate is particularly important for crypto/cyber-libertarians,iv who often believe that Bitcoin’s lack of government backing is a virtue (J.M.P., 2013). Described generally, cryptography is typically understood as a means to ensure “information security” or “information secrecy” (see e.g. Kohno et al., 2010). Here, security and secrecy are understood in terms of social relations (c.f. Bellman, 1979). Modelled in its simplest formulation, a secret is some information that I possess and you do not, while information security might be described more abstractly as control of information within a relationship. Or, the encyclopaedic definition: “the aim [of cryptography] is secrecy and confidentiality: the practice of keeping secrets, maintaining privacy, or concealing valuables” (Bauer, 2005). Though the conceptual analysis usually stops here, cryptography also functions more deeply, in ways rarely appreciated by those developing the technology. Understanding how cryptography functions at this deeper level is essential to understanding how Bitcoin functions. I argue that cryptography is central to Bitcoin and yet produces a set of non-secret powers for its social (and economic) effect. This paper suggests that cryptography can be reimagined and reconceptualised, putting forth an alternative to the dominant view that cryptography is secrecy. The long history of cryptography is abbreviated to show that cryptography previously functioned in many different ways, but has been systematically black-boxed. By opening up this black box and reconceptualizing cryptography I argue that we can attend to the history of cryptography yet retain analytical rigour by viewing cryptography as a discrete notational system. Then, returning to Bitcoin, I describe the specific cryptographic mechanisms as used in Bitcoin. Building on this foundation I offer a description of a full Bitcoin transaction. My method for understanding this technical foundation was to engage in praxis, and so, returning to my introductory story about my own experiences with Bitcoin I describe the lessons I learned by running a Bitcoin mining machine. Finally, I take up Gilles Deleuze’s suggestion to “look for new weapons” in our control society. By drawing on my reconceptualization of cryptography as a discrete notational system I suggest that Bitcoin functions as a new weapon in a logic of order. Given the important role that cryptography plays in our lives, it is surprising how little attention it receives outside of the academic worlds of mathematics/engineering and privacy/law. A few authors outside of these fields have explored how cryptography intersects with other domains, but for the most part, cryptography has been a mathematical and legal concern.v Perhaps the most useful of these authors is Kahn (1967) who provides a history of cryptography,vi identifying how the golden age of Western cryptography started with Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472). Reaching far beyond mathematics and law, Alberti identified cryptography as an intriguing mix of technologies and practices: the “occult arts,” “mysteries of nature,” “strange characters with unusual meanings,” ”movable type,” and secrecy (Alberti, 2010). Over the next six centuries these themes played out in interesting ways. In the 17th century, John Wilkins (1614-1672) developed a proposal for an unambiguous, universal/philosophical language (1668) after developing the ideas in Mercury (1694), the first English-language cryptography manual.vii Athanasius Kircher (c. 1601-1680), similarly, reworked Johannes Trithemius’ (1462-1516) troubled work on cryptography for his universal language scheme (Figure 2).viii Francis Bacon (1561-1626) worked out a method for universally signifying nature with his bilateral cipher before launching his “great reformation” of scientific interpretation (Bacon, 1762). And Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) contributed to discrete mathematics after writing his dissertation (1989) on the cryptographic combinatorics of Raymund Lull’s (1232-1315) occult and cabalistic science (Gardner, 1958). The richness of these historical themes has now, in contemporary cryptography, practically disappeared. Cryptography has become operationalized and nearly univocal—gone are the vibrant connections to language, science, and art. Today, our most influential conceptualization is Claude Shannon’s (1945) linked notion of secrecy and information. Prior to his famous Mathematical Theory of Communication (Shannon and Weaver, 1948), Shannon had been working on war-time encryption systems.x Shannon’s cryptographic work stemmed from a long line of influences and prior work (e.g., Nyquist, Hartley, and Wiener) (Thomsen, 2009), as well a richer, multivocal, and open conceptual backdrop (Cherry, 1953; Geoghegan, 2008). Research on cryptography set the stage for Shannon’s more general, and more rigorous portrayal of information. It was in working out the coding issues for cryptography that Shannon developed his theory of information.xi In contrast to much of the engineering work being done on information transmission at that time, Shannon focused on discrete rather than continuous signals (Thomsen, 2009). Drawing on Hartley, Shannon bracketed the issue of meaning, and discussed only how much information can pass through a channel. This conceptualization, combined with Nyquist’s observation that information transmission obeys a logarithmic rule, allowed Shannon to generalize the issue and show that information accords to physical properties of the world (Aspray, 1985; Hayles, 1999). Despite being central to his study, Shannon left his understanding of “secrecy” implicit. The closest we get to a description of secrecy is that it arises from the “a priori probability associated with… choosing that [enciphering] key” (Shannon, 1945). The a priori probability is a function of the statistics of the transformation from one (information) space to another. In ideal situations, secrecy becomes a matter of making guesses in the presence of a stochastic phenomenon. Before Shannon “won” the battle for our history—how we come to think of cryptography—the field of possibility was more open (Cherry, 1953). Competing conceptualizations existed but none were better prepared than Shannon’s for the coming changes in cybernetics and informatics (also made possible, in large part, by his work on the Mathematical Theory of Communication). By identifying “secret information” as the endpoint of cryptographic conceptualization, however, we risk teleological explanations that make it difficult to understand cryptography’s non-secret role in contemporary society. If we start to reconfigure our understanding of cryptography—open the socio-technical black box—we stand to gain a deeper appreciation, and may be better able to understand the politics of technologies that use cryptography. In order to open the black box of cryptography our metaphors must also be rethought. The analysis of cryptography rarely penetrates beyond metaphors, so it is especially important to dispel any mistaken notions. There are two closely related classes of metaphor most often used to describe cryptography: the dead, and the missing or hidden. The metaphor of death is most common in literary accounts, if for no other reason than the association of “crypt” and “cryptography.” On this account cryptography “buries” (Derrida, 1998; Turing quoted in Mackenzie, 1996) and even communes with the dead (Poe, 1991; Rosenheim, 1997). The metaphor of being “hidden” is likely due to the perceived semiotic shift that occurs when a text gets encrypted: at one moment it is there and seen by all, and (like a good magic trick) the next moment it is gone (until conjured up again in decryption). Here the language used is “hidden” (Schmeh, 2012), “veiled” (Cooke, 1983), or perhaps text containing a “false bottom” (Glidden, 1987). These metaphors are evocative but lacking. As will become clear below, a more useful metaphor is “discreet,” in the sense of being circumspect, but also “discrete” as separate or distinct.xii I argue that cryptography can be re-conceptualized as a generic notational system, quite appropriately sharing the ambiguous name “code.” To get to this conclusion, I argue that cryptography is unspeakable in the sense of being a written language without syllables (which perhaps disqualifies it as a language at all). Due to the curious nature of being unspeakable, cryptography shifts from mimetic to algorithmic representation. Algorithmic representation permits the transposition and combination of its symbolic elements, but only when made of disjoint, articulate, and unambiguous marks. This system of marks is a discrete notational scheme. Additionally, because algorithmic representation permits the rearrangement of its symbolic structure it can be used to order the world, in subtle but powerful ways. “Literature has nothing more to say,” remarks Friedrich Kittler, “because it all ends in cryptograms” (1999). This is only true if we take Kittler very literally, that literature has been silenced and can no longer speak. Kittler reminds us that speaking written words is not natural and immediate. First, the Greeks needed to “invent” vowels so as to create a storage system able to capture the wealth of articulable knowledge (Winthrop-Young, 2011). Second, in what Kittler (1990) called the Discourse Network 1800, the Mother’s Mouth must teach children how to speak these written marks. Kittler goes on to accuse those languages lacking written vowels as being unable to perfectly capture the world’s information. Written languages that lack vowels are not as expressive, Kittler problematically suggests, and so are not as mimetic (Winthrop-Young, 2011). Kittler remarks, “nobody knows how the heretic king Akhneten called his N-f-r-t-t when they were making children” (Kittler quoted in Winthrop-Young, 2011, p. 91). But, of course, this is a challenge for history, not the Egyptians. The Egyptians were able to speak the name that was recorded as N-f-r-t-t because they added the appropriate vowels, that is, they created syllables in speech. It is hard to underline this important point in the written form—I suggest you try speaking the letters, but out loud: N-f-r-t-t. The punchline is that in order to be voiced, syllables must be created, making sounds like “nef eff arr tee tee.” In the audio book version of E.A. Poe’s The Gold Bug (2013) this same comedy plays out when the poor narrator is forced to articulate a long series of cryptographic symbols, so that 5 3 ‡ ‡ † 3 0 in the text becomes “five, three, double dagger, double dagger, single dagger, three, zero” in the audio book (and to great comedic effect, this goes on for half a page). While the narrator demonstrated that it is possible to speak a cryptogram in some fashion, it no longer counts as speech in the sense of meaningful language. This is the lesson that the Mother’s Mouth must teach her children, separating the grunts of animals from those of human language (Kittler, 1990). The reason cryptography cannot be spoken is because it has very particular syntactic requirements. These requirements where formalized by Nelson Goodman (1976) in his analysis of notational schemes. Roughly, a notational scheme requires that marks can be interchanged within a class of marks without difference, and that one can in theory determine what character a particular mark belongs to. The result of this analysis is that a number of forms of writing, upon inspection, share a common ancestor. In addition to cryptography, notational schemes include musical notation, Morse code, and binary (e.g., compiled software code). Although Kittler’s accusations that consonantal written languages are less mimetic than their vowelized cousins is problematic, this lack becomes very real when writing transforms into a notational scheme. The smooth contours of the world are not well represented in a notational scheme. In Kittler’s media triptych, the gramophone and film camera are highly mimetic in that they record every gradient of nature, whereas the typewriter eradicates the “continuous movement of the hand” in handwriting (Benjamin quoted in Kittler, 1999, p. 196). The representation of likeness or verisimilitude is easy to imagine with a photograph, and yet even a typed, well-crafted story can also be very mimetic, as though the reader is transported into the scene. So the typewriter can, of course, be used to write a mimetic story, but it excels when it reduces the world to discrete symbols. Putting aside, for the moment, Kittler’s (1999) penchant for inaccurate but provocative history, it is a short historical step from typewriter to cryptogram, with the transformation of Nietzsche’s Malling typewriter into the German crypto-typewriter, the Enigma machine (Figure 3). Unlike the gramophone and film camera, recording N-f-r-t-t is no trouble for the typewriter. While the typewriter cannot capture voiced syllabification, it perfectly represents the alphabetization of language. And for the typewriter so too for cryptography: when encrypted, N-f-r-t-t readily becomes A-S-E-G-G. While notational schemes are poor at mimetic representation, the ease in which parts can be split and rearranged make them ideal for what I call “algorithmic” representation. Algorithmic technologies are powerful because they chop the world up in to discrete pieces and then re-arrange the results.xiii These technologies order the world rather than model or recreate it. To underline the point, all cryptography is just the simple substitution cipher, shuffling symbols about in determined, ordered ways. And the same principle is at work in all notational systems, where complex and surprising uses abound. Conceptualized in light of a notational scheme, cryptography surpasses the typical narrow conceptualization as secrecy. For example, Kittler’s barbarian Spartans invented a writing technology called the skytale. The skytale is a leather strap along which letters are written that, once wrapped around a wooden rod of a particular diameter, reveals a message. The device was once thought to facilitate a kind of primitive encryption, but recent research has shown it to be something else (Kelly, 1998; West, 1988).xiv How this technology was actually used is unknown, and somewhat beside the point: the skytale exemplified an early algorithmic machine, made of Kittler’s alphabet but impossible to phonetically speak. In fact, there is good evidence that the device may have been used to ensure silence, as a way of guarding against the accidental articulation of bad omens and the like (c.f. Lateiner, 2005; Montiglio, 2000). The skytaleis, perhaps, the first device to destroy syllabification, and to depart from mimetic media and move towards ordering language and the world. Another important aspect of cryptography is that it decomposes language into identical, modular pieces. This fact works equally well for other applications of the discrete notational scheme too. A thousand years after the Spartans, Alberti ushered in a new notational method for architecture that replaced the older craft-oriented way of building (Carpo, 2011). This notational system permitted architects to become designers, not makers, and enabled the construction of identical but modular buildings. So close is the connection between the notational schemes of architecture and cryptography, in fact, that Alberti generalized his architectural advancements and applied the same thinking to language to develop polyalphabetic cryptography (Alberti, 2010; Kahn, 1980). Similarly, Leibniz employed a notational scheme when he established the groundwork for discrete mathematics, and specifically, the mode of mathematics that we now use to analyze and model cryptography, known as combinatorics (what Leibniz called “complexions”). In Leibniz’s early work, Dissertation on the Art of Combinations (Dissertatio de arte combinatoria) (1989), he develops Raymund Lull’s cabalistic method of interrogating language and the natural world, setting it on firm mathematical and logical ground (Figure 4).xv To do so, Leibniz derives his metaphysical analysis of order from the existence of natural parts and wholes (or “unities”). Leibniz writes, “let the whole be ABC; then AB, BC, and AC will be smaller wholes,” which “by reason of order” results in “abcd, bcda, cbab, dabc” (calculated to be “arranged in 24 ways”) (Leibniz, 1989, p. 78). Leibniz’s development of order ultimately leads to modern symbolic logic, and by way of Stanhope, Jevons, and others to the calculating machine (Gardner, 1958). Eventually, it can be surmised, Turing’s machine would read a tape of Leibniz’s letters and re-order the input, perhaps (after von Neumann) according to a particular programmed algorithm. Although Shannon recognized the importance of discrete symbol processing (as noted above), it was Turing that really advanced this position by seeing the potential in ordering discrete symbols (Figure 5). The link from Alberti to Turing arrives by way of representational machines that employ a discrete notational scheme. When this representation is set in motion, the complex ordering is not limited to language. Cryptography has long been used to investigate the natural world or create art, and is now poised to order the economy. Before showing how Bitcoin orders the economy we must understand how cryptography functions in Bitcoin. The cryptography used in Bitcoin is not unusual or exemplary; in fact, there are no cryptographic innovations in Bitcoin (in computer security terms, this is a virtue of the system). Bitcoin uses a standard SHA-256 hashing algorithm. This hashing algorithm is put to some seemingly strange uses, but nothing unique to the history of cryptography since the development of public key cryptography in the 1970s. For the vast majority of the history of cryptography—its development from substitution ciphers and code systems to polyalphabetic and keyed algorithms—the encrypting mechanism was unitary. With the invention of public (or asymmetric) key cryptography in the 1970s it became possible to create a system that “split” the cryptographic key.xvi Splitting the cryptographic key (explained below) ushered in new uses for cryptography, and was well timed for the coming advance of the Internet and popularization of point-to-point electronic communication. In simple “code” systems (often called “nomenclators”) a letter, word, or entire phrase may be replaced with an alternative, with the substitution presumably kept private between the two communicating parties (Kahn, 1967). The basic principle is captured by so-called substitution ciphers, which exchange one letter for another in a deterministic manner. From this mechanism more complicated forms of cryptography were invented. Polyalphabetic cryptography uses multiple alphabets for the substitution, sometimes jumping from one alphabet to another according to an agreed-upon secret “key.” For much of the history of cryptography no notion of cryptographic “key” existed. In more recent usage the key became analytically separated from the cryptographic algorithm, as a result of “industrial” uses of cryptography that require reusable ciphers. We now generally speak of an immutable (public) algorithm, and a mutable (private) key. In fact, the key is no more important than the set of transformations (and should be characterized as part of the system of transformation). For purposes of cryptanalysis (“codebreaking”) a key is only as valuable as knowledge of the corresponding mechanism or set of transformations. Yet, in recent years cryptographic best practice requires keeping the key secret and the mechanism public (working on the assumption that the mechanism will eventually be discovered and reverse-engineered anyway). Symmetric-key cryptography employs the same key for encryption and decryption, so the shared secret item is identical among parties. The obvious downside is that to maintain secret communications all parties must ensure that the shared key is kept private from any so-called adversaries. Modern forms of symmetric-key cryptography work on digital bits, either encrypting the bits one at a time (or, more realistically, encrypting byte by byte or in prescribed bit-length “words”), or grouping the bits into blocks (and adding padding as needed so that each block includes the same number of bits). Other non-cryptographic features may be present in a modern cryptographic system, such as error detection, compression, and so on. The symbolic transformations in symmetric-key cryptography are fundamentally the same as that of asymmetric-key cryptography—in fact, symmetric-key primitives can be used to build asymmetric-key systems. The sole (but critically important) difference between symmetric-key and asymmetric-key cryptography is that rather than sharing a single (unitary) secret key, asymmetric-key). This paper showed how the traditional (secrecy) conceptualization of cryptography is wanting; in its place, I argued for a new conceptualization as a notational system. As Leibniz and Turing understood, a notational system can order the world in powerful ways. Reading the politics of Bitcoin in light of a reimagination of Deleuze’s control society (replacing modulation with order) I suggested that cryptography is a powerful “new weapon,” functioning as an ordering machine. I argued that Bitcoin is at the forefront of advancing this ordering logic, updating the economic system for our new control society. Quinn DuPont quinn.dupont@utoronto.ca Faculty of Information, University of Toronto i Mt. Gox was the most popular bitcoin exchange, and dealt primarily in USD, although many other exchanges are available (some with regional or jurisdictional foci). Mt. Gox started as a trading card exchange for the online game Magic: The Gathering Online, but eventually rebranded to focus exclusively on bitcoin. ii This was the first spike in value for 2013; the second (much larger) spike occurred a few months later when bitcoins were trading above 1000 USD/bitcoin, often swinging more than 50% in value in a matter of hours. iii The recent revelations of US military contractor Edward Snowden perpetuate this ideology, even if they eroded the universal trust in cryptography. For many, the response was simply a need for better cryptography, seemingly safe from the revealed fact that US Intelligence services can readily crack or circumvent available cryptography. iv The Electronic Frontier Foundation advocates the widespread use of cryptography (Opsahl et al., 2013); see below for evidence of bitcoin’s origins on the Cypherpunks mailing list. v See for example Rosenheim (1997) and Shoptaw (2000) on literature and poetics, Ellison (2011, 2008) on textual studies, Gleick (2011) on information, Pesic (2000a, 2000b, 1997) on science, Blanchette (2012) on documentation, Eco (1986) on semiotics, and Zielinski (2008) on media. vi See the journal of record, Cryptologia, for the history of cryptography. While many of the articles published in Cryptologia are the only source of history and should be applauded for their trailblazing work, most are published by hobbyists or experts in engineering who have an interest in historical matters. Even Kahn himself, who over the years has become a highly capable self-trained historian, started as a journalist. These histories, correspondingly, usually suffer from the evils of bad historiographical methodology: “impact” accounts of technical change, over-reporting of military technologies, and whiggish, teleologically-driven narratives. vii Although written prior to his famous Essay, Mercury was published posthumously. viii For an assessment of universal and philosophical language schemes, with occasional reference to the role of cryptography, see (Cohen, 1954; Formigari, 2004, 1993, 1988; Maat, 2004; Rossi, 2000; Salmon, 1971, 1966; Slaughter, 1982; Wilding, 2001). ix Note that Glidden (1987) argues that the French version (here pictured) of Trithemius’ Polygraphiae contains a slightly artificial “reinforced” link to Lullian and cabalistic influences. x Cryptography is often twinned with war. At times these associations can be productive (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987; Kittler, 1999), but far too often they constrain our thinking, leading to discourse (and associated models) of “adversaries,” “man-in-the-middle,” “attack” and so on. The bellicose nature of cryptography cannot be dismissed—it is a war machine—but I think we should derive, not assume, such connections. xi Although only occasionally recognized, the histories of information and cryptography are intimately tied (see e.g., Gleick, 2011). xii “Discrete” and “discreet” share the Latin origin discretus. xiii For a more extensive description of the dialectic of mimetic and algorithmic technologies see Takhteyev and DuPont (n.d.). xiv The skytale has been disqualified as cryptography simply because it doesn’t offer plausibly good secrecy. As I have been trying to argue, we need to think more expansively about our conceptualization of cryptography, and may want to return to the original understanding of the skytale as an encryption device, but one that offers something other than secrecy. xv It is worth noting that Alberti’s cryptographic work was also influenced by Lull (Kahn, 1980). xvi Asymmetric-key cryptography was initially invented in 1973 at the Government Communication Headquarters in the UK by James Ellis, Clifford Cocks, and Malcom Williamson but kept secret; it was then publically re-invented in 1976 by Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman (Levy, 2002). xvii More complicated three-pass schemes are possible too, in which I encrypt a message and pass it to you, then you encrypt the already-encrypted message and pass it back, I then decrypt my encryption and pass it back to you, at which point you can finally decrypt your encryption and read the message—successfully transferred in public while remaining encrypted. xviii At this point the anarchist/libertarian undercurrents are completely at the fore, Dai (1998) starts his proposal, “I am fascinated by Tim May’s crypto-anarchy.” xix Of course, this is the ideal scenario. 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