Having come from a Bitcoin background, I was struggling to get my head around the notion of zero knowledge proofs.

We decided to complete a handy write up which we hope is a good enough introduction to the topic for those who have some knowledge of cryptography and mining.

https://www.coinbureau.com/education/zero-knowledge-proofs-zksnarks/

Is there anything else you guys think we should add?

Proof of capacity is a relatively new mining protocol currently in use by only one cryptocurrency (Burstcoin).

It has often been touted as the mining algorithm that can help solve the energy crisis that we face with PoW mining. It can also allow for greater decentralisation that PoS mining.

Proof of Capacity mining makes use of hard drives to precompute solutions that are stored until the consensus round.

https://www.coinbureau.com/education/proof-of-capacity-explained/

Do you guys think that it can actually scale? Any views on the possibility of further coins using the algorithms?

Hackers are exploiting poorly configured Memcache Servers in order to launch massive DDoS attacks on victim machines. These are sometimes amplified many multiples in size as UDP packets flood the servers.

In this case, it is not just about bringing down a server but the hacker has inserted a little note in each one of the Data packets. The note is demanding 50 XMR in order to stop the attack.

https://www.coinbureau.com/news/latest-crypto-ransom-threat-coming-to-a-server-near-you/

These attacks are similar to the ones that have been responsible for the Github DDos. It is also unlikely that paying the ransom will yield any results. This is because it is a multifaceted attack to many victims. It would be hard for the attacker to confirm who exactly sent the payment.

Is this a sign of more to come? Are hackers going to try and use any attack vector in order to secure their crypto spoils?

As many may know, there is quite a bit of uncertainty surrounding the Tether USDT tokens in the market. There were numerous accusations of connections between Tether and Bitfinex which had a great deal of people concerned.

In order to calm these fears, they agreed to have a full audit of the USD that was backing up the Tether holdings. This was supposed to be completed by auditors, Friedman LLP.

However, it seems as if these auditors have now decided to pull out and resign from the Audit.

https://www.coinbureau.com/news/tether-bitfinex-drama-continues/

This has caused a great deal of speculation in the community that it could mean that they have found something irregular in the books and are not putting their name to it.

Should we be worried about this and what it means for the integrity of the Tethers? How could this affect market prices in the short term?

Our cryptocurrency holdings are mainly kept in the hope of capital appreciation. We hope that we can sell it at a profit sometime in the future.

However, what if you could earn interest on these holdings? What if you could have a passive income on your crypto holdings?

Celsius Network is the New York based startup that wants to use the power of the Ethereum network and smart contracts to disrupt the current lending model.

https://www.coinbureau.com/ico/earn-interest-on-cryptocurrency-celsius-network/

They also want to make it easier for consumers to get credit from hodlers of that cryptocurrency. Obtaining credit from traditional financial institutions can be quite an extensive process.

The Celsius network is now offering investors the opportunity to take part in a crowd sale that is happening currently. They will have a native token (CEL). It could be an interesting token to include in your portfolio if you are interested in long term value.

We all know that this week Bitconnect collapsed when the cryptocurrency markets came down. This left many investors down and out.

However, it seems as if Bitconnect is trying to start over as a new scam ICO this time. They are currently raising funds through a new ICO called BitconnectX.

https://www.coinbureau.com/ico/bitconnectx-attempt-scam-investors/

There is almost 0 transparency over this project. There are no developers, leaders nor do they even have information on the company or any legal disclaimers.

Most importantly though, for an ICO they don't even have a whitepaper! Just some vague references to PoW and PoS mining.

Looks like a legit scam to me. What are your guy's thoughts?

The developers at Siacoin were producing a mining processor that was able to mine SC using the blake(2b) algorithm. They were selling this with great success last year with delivery in June.

https://www.coinbureau.com/news/softfork-siacoin-obelisk-threaten-bitmain-antminer-a3/

However, Bitmain has suddenly released their Antminer A3 ASIC. This is ready for shipping within 10 days so many people decided to buy this. They definitely aimed to undercut the developers of the Obelisk miner.

Now, the devs at Obelisk have threatened that if they institute a softfork, their mining chips can still mine the coins. This means that the Antminers will become useless.

However, it will have to be a UASF. Do you think that the community should fork the network just because of this? Will forking the network not mean the choice of one centralised party (obelisk) over the other (Bitmain)? What about the unfortunate people who bought the Miners already?

There was a scam phishing website that was making the rounds on Facebook. Someone had paid for facebook sponsored posts that was offering deals on the new S9 miner.

https://www.coinbureau.com/news/antminer-scam-advertising-facebook-watch/

To the untrained eye, the domain would have appeared to be that of the Bitmain shop. Unfortunately, the domain employed a homograph attack that replaced one of the letters with a suspicious domain.

Users who were tricked by the phishing site though that they were buying the miner, were in fact handing the scammer $2,700.

There have been so many of these scams recently and this one even had a SSL certificate. Always be careful when buying something with crypto, entering your private keys or exchange login details!

If you are to take a look on Upwork and other freelancer sites, there are a dearth of people who are looking for cheap developers to complete entire cryptocurrency projects and ICOs.

How much would you think that they would be asking for projects of this size? 100k? 80k?

https://www.coinbureau.com/ico/man-wants-cryptocurrency-upwork/

Well, the first project had a opening offer of $5 because the person posting wanted some time to "gather the best proposals".

There were any number of examples on Upwork. More disconcerting though is the evidence that there are a number of fiverr sellers that specialise in writing White Papers for ICOs.

Does this point to a new laziness in an era of scammy ICOs? How do we effectively screen for these types of projects?

Yes, markets are crashing. Yes, it feels pretty depressing to see digital wealth collapsing in the front of your eyes.

Yet, this goes against the notion of the HODL entirely. If one were to look at the entire history of Bitcoin and crypto, there have been similar corrections. These always usually happen around January. The market shakes out the newbies and those that panic tend to get flushed out.

https://www.coinbureau.com/analysis/virtues-hodl-market-crash/

There are also suspisions that these could be large whales that are trying to spook the market and profit on large short futures that are currently on.

Either way, the Hodler does not let fear and short term market movements drive his / her investing decisions. I know Warren Buffet does not like crypto a lot but he said "if you cant lose 50% of your investment in a stock and still be confident in it, then you shouldn't be in that stock"

Are there any fellow hodlers here?

Bitpays.biz is a new investment program that pays up 350% per hour. For anyone who knows compound interest can see that this is a 100% ponzi scheme.

https://www.coinbureau.com/review/bitpaysbiz-ponzi-scheme-returns/

They claim that they are registered in Canada which clearly does not exist. They also operate a Multi Level Marketing scheme with levels of referral fees.

Moreover, they have something called "deposit locks" which holds up the funds. Other things that point to the scammy nature of the site is the lack of operator details. No names, company information.

This is also quite a new investment scheme that seems to have started up over a month ago.

With the collapse of Bitconnect recently I think it is helpful to expose similar types of schemes.

Cryptopia is a relatively small exchange out of New Zealand. What they lack in volume they more than make up for in volume, it more than makes up for in range of altcoin assets.

In fact, there are some coins that one can only get on this exchange. They seem to have grown recently as demand has outstripped supply. They even had to close the exchange recently to new users.

https://www.coinbureau.com/review/cryptopia-exchange/

There are many complaints online though of rather poor customer service. Perhaps this was a result of the exchange buckling under user demand.

What are your views of the exchange? Security and reliability?

Tomorrow at 5pm Shanghai time, the whitelist for the latest ICO to raise on the NEO platform opens up. This is the APEX ICO.
 
This is an ICO that is being run by a large and established company called Chinaplex. They already have a large and established presence in B2B business.

https://www.coinbureau.com/ico/review-apex-cpx-ico-everything-need-know/

The idea behind APEX is to give the power of consumer data back in to the consumer. They allow consumers to interact with their enterprise data analysis tool called the "Nexus". Consumers can earn their tokens for offering up their data to "trusted" partners.

They already have an established business together with a  number of partners who have joined in order to advance the ICO.

What are your thoughts on APEX ICO? Would you invest in it in the ICO or wait for it to prove itself?

Enigma was originally developed by researchers at MIT labs. It has not branched out and is trying to solve two problems plaguing blockchains, namely privacy and scalablitiy.

They have developed something called "Secret contracts" which borrows technology from Ethereum's smart contracts but  fully encrypts them.

https://www.coinbureau.com/review/overview-enigma-secret-contract-cryptocurrency/

What is genius behind the protocol is that the nodes are able to verify that the computations are done correctly without revealing too much about the content of the contract.

They also have tools such as Enigma catalyst which allows users to work with big data and blockchains.

How do you think that this could compete with other proven technologies such as RCT at Monero or zero knowledge proofs at Zcash?

A large blockchain based compliance data service and client on-boarding firm is just completing its ICO and selling access to its AMLT tokens.

Coinfirm has already established itself as the name in blokchain compliance for a number of ICOs and cryptocurrency exchanges. They want to create an ecosystem or in app purchases of blockchain KYC data.

https://www.coinbureau.com/ico/early-look-examining-coinfirms-ongoing-amlt-ico/

People can earn AMLT tokens by providing information and data to the network. They can also buy with the tokens,

Do you guys think it is a worthwhile ICO? It seems it already has a strong and established business model that could be greatly expanded with this new functionality.

Power Ledger is an interesting blokchain startup that completed a large ICO large year. They plan to democratise and distribute the trading of power. 

Unlike many of these other cryptocoins that have market caps in the billions based on a white paper and pipe dream, Power Ledger is an actual company distributing energy around Australia. They have even got government funding and have raised funds from other institutional investors to the tune of $1bn.

https://www.coinbureau.com/review/power-ledger-powr/

 Since the ICO the POWR coin has been rather stagnant which could be as a result of all the buyers chasing one hit wonder coins. What are your views on POWR? Do you think the price is a buying opportunity?

There is a privacy conscious cryptocoin that is gaining quite a bit of attention lately. It is a coin called Particl and it has a well known backer in Charlie Shrem.

https://www.coinbureau.com/analysis/particl-part-new-privacy/

The coin has rallied quite a bit recently and could be a good investment for returns in 2018. Unlike other privacy conscious crypto coins, Particl does not have its own blockchain but is a dApp.

Particl is also a Proof of Stake (POS) coin which means that you can earn funds merely from holding your tokens. This is in contrast to Monero for example which is PoW.

Would you invest in Particl? The market cap is still quite small which means it has a great deal of upside if the use case is there.

According to a company called Ethereumblue, MyEtherWallet (MEW) was compromised. Obviously, as someone who regularly uses MEW, it caught my attention in a big way.

They claimed that there was a DNS hack on MEW which implies that the hackers were able to drive users to a malicious website. However, all of this was debunked by MEW. They don' t know what the etherumblue was talking about.

https://www.coinbureau.com/news/myetherwallet-not-compromised/

Was this something that you guys also were alerted to?Do you think it was mere carelessness on the part of Ethereumblue, malicious intent or mere senseless FUD?

The Bitfury group, which is a large mining company, has recently disclosed that they have developed an algorithm that is able to track Bitcoin transactions.

More particularly, the algorithm expands on traditional blockchain auditing software and uses "transaction clustering" in order to identify a collection of addresses and associate them with one entity.

https://www.coinbureau.com/news/bitfury-unveils-technology-track-bitcoin-transactions/

While they say they are doing this in order to track crime on the blockchain, many view it as an invasion of privacy on the network which leads to mistrust in other participants. 

What are your views? Do you think that it is more indication that users should consider privacy conscious coins?

The Kik Kin token has had one really strong rally going into 2018.

However, there does not seem to be any news which is driving this rally. It could just be renewed optimism in the project as people try to get a hold of the tokens that they missed out on in the crowd sale.

There was also news from Kik that they would be moving to another platform, namely Stellar, in response to the slow network on Ethereum.

https://www.coinbureau.com/analysis/kin-token-prices-reach-dizzying-heights-bull-run/

Do you guys think that the Kin token will continue? Are there other things which seem to be having an effect on price or is it just FOMO?