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One of the many goals when crypto currency (CC) was first invented was to establish a secure digital system of transaction.  The technology used was Blockchain, and still is.  Blockchain systems were designed to be impervious to problems often found with online financial systems using older technology – – problems such as account hacking, counterfeit payment authentications, and web site phishing scams.

Blockchain itself runs on peer-to-peer global record-keeping networks (distributed ledgers) that are secure, cheap, and reliable.  Transaction records all around the world are stored on blockchain networks, and because these records are spread out over the whole community of users, the data is inherently resistant to modification.  No single piece of data can be altered without the alteration of all other blocks in the network, which would require the collusion of the majority of the entire network – – millions of watchdogs.  BUT – what if a website looks like it is providing you a gateway to a legitimate crypto coin exchange or crypto wallet product, but is really a website designed to trick you into divulging information?  You don’t have the security of Blockchain at all – you just have another phishing scam, and there is a need to be protected from all this.

MetaCert is a private company that says it is dedicated to keeping internet users safe, and its main security product can be used to protect enterprises from a range of malicious threats, and now they have a product designed to keep CC enthusiasts safe.  This new product is called “Cryptonite” and it is designed to be installed as a browser add-on.  Current browsers rely on SSL certificates that show users a small padlock in the browser address bar. Users have been told for years that SSL Certificates assure you that a website is authentic – not so fast – phishing sites use SSL Certificates too, so users can be fooled into thinking a website is legitimate when it is not.  Once added to your web browser Cryptonite will show a shield next to the address bar.  This shield will turn from black to green if a website is deemed to be “safe”.  MetaCert says they have the world’s most advanced threat intelligence system with the world’s largest databases of classified URL’s for security.

Staying safe is always a good thing, but more safety products may be needed in future as technology marches forward, at an ever increasing pace.  On the horizon is Quantum Computing (QC), which is showing great promise.  QC is touted by many to be one of the biggest technological revolutions of the modern era. By harnessing the power of quantum mechanics, QC machines will be able to take on much more complex tasks, and to achieve speeds previously unattainable. Traditional computers are based on a binary model, using a system of switches that can be either on or off, represented with a 1 or a 0.  QC’s are different in that their switches can be in both the on and off positions at the same time, which are called ‘superpositions.’  This ability to be in two simultaneous states is what makes QC’s so much faster.  Google announced over two years ago that the quantum prototype they possess was 100 million times faster than any other computer in their lab.  The development of this technology is pushing ahead at an increasingly fast rate.  The first marketed quantum computer was produced in 2011 by the California based company D-Wave.  D-Wave’s machine was equipped with a processor that contained 16 quantum computing units, called QUBITS.  Since then, industry leaders like IBM and Microsoft have announced their own quantum programs.This trend will lead to an exponential scaling up of the number of QUBITS these new machines can handle over the next several years.  While quantum computing holds the potential for significant advancements in many spheres, and for providing innovative solutions to some of the most complex problems, it will surely generate a need for improved security, as these machines will also have the power to assist hackers with their dastardly deeds.  Protection and security will always be needed in the crypto currency space, same as with all other on-line spaces.

At Trend Disruptors, we will keep you up to date with new technologies, and investment strategies that lead to success.

Stay Tuned!

Investors in crypto currency (CC) are a brave bunch, and are still relatively few in number.  CC investor reluctance is based on several fears and misgivings, such as:

• extreme volatility
• unknown or unfavourable tax treatment by governments
• tenuous legality imposed by governments
• complex access to, & use of, brokerages for CC transactions
• complexity & lack of understanding of Blockchain technology
• short history of Blockchain technology & trust in it

We have in past articles discussed some of these issues, however, the extreme volatility issue has never had a proposed solution – until now.  A group of famed economists & financial innovators have proposed the creation of “the first non-anonymous blockchain-based digital currency” … named SAGA (SGA).  It is being developed by The Saga Foundation, a Swiss non-profit. The advisory board members have some very impressive credentials:

• Jacob Frenkel, former Governor of Bank of Israel, & Chairman, JP Morgan International
• Myron Scholes, economics Nobel laureate
• Dan Galai, co-developer of VIX, the leading measure of market volatility
• Leo Melamed, chairman emeritus of CME & pioneer in financial futures

Think of SAGA as a CC without those things that cause regulators, central bankers, & most people to be nervous – wrenching volatility – an ambiguous notion of value – anonymity.  So, how could SAGA possibly work to contain the extremes of CC volatility?

To achieve low volatility & notional value SAGA will use some traditional finance methods, such as fractional reserves & deposit reserves.  SGA will be pegged to the IMF’s Special Drawing Right, an international reserve asset that is a basket of currencies, dominated by the $US & the Euro.  SGA’s money supply will be adjusted algorithmically, based on the size of its economy, so that when its economy expands a smart contract will increase SGA token supply.  There will also be a “price band” that will act as another check on volatility.

SGA holders must complete “know your customer” & anti money laundering documents under Swiss national law, which will eliminate anonymity.  This may seem contrary to some initial CC objectives, however, many CC exchanges already have strict customer identification measures, & are under some form of government control.  Anonymity is a 2-sided coin, & mainstream investors almost always agree to being identified.

SAGA coin (SGA) sales are predicted to start in quarter 4 of 2018, & can be purchased with ETHER or bank transfers.  We will monitor progress on the foundation’s website.

Another coin trying to achieve price stability is TETHER, whose makers claim is fully backed by $US reserves.  There is about $2.3 billion worth of TETHER circulating in the CC markets, but it is unknown whether the cash reserves actually exist.  TETHER has fired the auditor hired to verify their cash reserves claims, so there is suspicion.  And there are other players in the “stable coin” market, such as BASECOIN and DAI Token, both trying algorithm-based methods to gain stability & credibility.

It remains to be seen if traditional financial processes will be successful in stabilizing any part of the CC market space – – we all know that these very same methods have led to crashes, failures, and massive bailouts in the past.  Let Crypto Trend be your guide to the winning technology investments in this emerging market sector.

Will crypto become a safe-haven play? 

We have labeled the crypto sector as the ‘wild west’ for a good reason, it has displayed an enormous level of volatility. Looking at the following chart of bitcoin, we can see that within the last year we saw bitcoin rise over 1925% from March 2017 to mid-December, then decline 54% from that December high to today’s level at $8.952.

Bitcoin remains volatile today but has been trading in a tighter and tighter wedge pattern in the last two months, where we should get an idea of which direction it will move.

The more conservative equity markets have not been acting well since the highs in later January, with the S&P 500 down over 10% since that high. It’s not just trade war fears either, we also saw the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta recently lower its growth forecast from over 5% to under 2%. Also, tensions in the Middle East are heating up. All in all investors have been getting more and more concerned and have been moving  their capital out of equities.

On a day where equity markets declined over 2% we saw bitcoin up .50%. It is still very early in the crypto sector, but it will be interesting to see if crypto ultimately becomes a safe-haven play.

Stay tuned!

Governments and institutions all over the globe are increasingly paying attention to Crypto Currencies (CC’s) and the technology that underpins them all – Blockchain.  Some of the attention is negative, but on balance, it is clear that more and more of the attention is positive, supportive, and exploitive.  As the business and investment world becomes more aware of having a disruptive force in its midst, it becomes imperative to examine business processes in this new frontier and compare them to the relatively old, slow, and expensive processes they have now.  New technologies need new investment capital to grow, and with such growth comes spurts, false starts, and controversy.

Developments in the world of CC’s and Blockchain are coming along fast and furious as governments and institutions make efforts to harness the technology, tax all profits, protect their investments, and protect their constituents and customers – – a complex balancing act that goes a long way in explaining why many seem to be going in different directions, and changing directions frequently.  Here are a few of the latest developments that serve to illustrate that CC’s and Blockchain are gradually being accepted into the mainstream, but still grappling with regulation, control, and stability:

• Uzbekistan will publish its plans to regulate Bitcoin in September 2018, with a Blockchain “skill center” set to begin operation in July.
• Kazakhstan has signaled its desire to copy Singapore’s Blockchain permissiveness.
• Belarus has announced it wishes to create a hospitable environment for Blockchain, as an innovative financial transactions technology.
• Venezuela has created the “PETRO”, a CC created to raise cash as Venezuela approaches economic collapse.  The hope is that it will be a way around sanctions that prevent Venezuela from raising money in the global bond markets.  President Nicolas Maduro claims that the PETRO raised $735 million on its first day, a claim that has not been substantiated.  Maduro sees the PETRO as “the perfect kryptonite to defeat SUPERMAN” – his analogy of the US imposed sanctions, thinking that this currency frees his country from the grip of banks and governments.  Perhaps he does not see that the PETRO was initiated by a government – his.
• TD Canada Trust has become the first Canadian bank to join with some UK and US banks in banning the use of credit cards to purchase CC’s.
• South Korea is heading towards legalizing Bitcoin, indicating that it will be considering Bitcoin as a liquid asset.  Being that South Korea is at the forefront of the CC marketplace, the impact of their decisions will be significant and global.  Japan has already taken those steps, making Bitcoin trades more transparent, more regulated, and 100% legal.
• BlackRock, the world’s largest investment company, continues its bullish forecast for CC’s, saying it sees “wider use” in the future.
• Romeo Lacher, chairman of Switzerland’s stock exchange, believes there are a lot of upsides to releasing a crypto version of the Swiss franc, and his organization would be supportive, adding that he “doesn’t like cash.”
• China’s largest online and brick and mortar retailer JD.com has announced the first four startups for its Al Catapult Blockchain incubation program. The Beijing-based program, which has seen candidates from as far afield as Australia and the UK, aims to use the company’s vast Chinese infrastructure to develop new Blockchain and artificial intelligence applications.

With all of the global to and fro activity, it is clear that Blockchain is the disruptive technology of this era, and CC’s are just a facet of the possibilities enabled.  Just like the Internet investment explosion of the 90’s, Blockchain and CC’s investments will have winners and losers, however, we do not want this to turn into the huge bubble that burst destructively with many early DOT COM investments in the 90’s.  What we do want to see is a well reasoned approach to Blockchain developments and investments. Crypto Trend will serve as your guide in this young market space, providing well reasoned recommendations and appropriate cautions.

Volatility will continue to be the norm in this market space for some time, as we see increasing acceptance, innovation, and regulation.  Failures will happen and successes will emerge, driving governments, institutions, investors, and innovators, to continually adjust their processes and their thinking.  Volatility is normal and healthy at this stage.

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Stay tuned!

The news this week is that several banks in the USA and the UK have banned the use of credit cards to purchase crypto currencies (CC’s).  The stated reasons are impossible to believe – like trying to curtail money laundering, gambling, and protecting the retail investor from excessive risk.  Interestingly, the banks will allow debit card purchases, making it clear that the only risks being protected are their own.

With a credit card you can gamble at a casino, buy guns, drugs, alcohol, pornography, everything and anything you desire, but some banks and credit card companies want to prohibit you from using their facilities to purchase crypto currencies? There must be some believable reasons, and they are NOT the reasons stated.

One thing that banks are afraid of is how difficult it would be to confiscate CC holdings when the credit card holder defaults on payment.  It would be much more difficult than re-possessing a house or a car.  A crypto wallet’s private keys can be put on a memory stick or a piece of paper and easily removed from the country, with little or no trace of its whereabouts.  There can be a high value in some crypto wallets, and the credit card debt may never be repaid, leading to a declaration of bankruptcy and a significant loss for the bank. The wallet still contains the crypto currency, and the owner can later access the private keys and use a local CC Exchange in a foreign country to convert and pocket the money.  A nefarious scenario indeed.

We are certainly not advocating this kind of unlawful behavior, but the banks are aware of the possibility and some of them want to shut it down. This can’t happen with debit cards as the banks are never out-of-pocket – the money comes out of your account immediately, and only if there is enough of your money there to start with.  We struggle to find any honesty in the bank’s story about curtailing gambling and risk taking.  It’s interesting that Canadian banks are not jumping on this bandwagon, perhaps realizing that the stated reasons for doing so are bogus.  The fallout from these actions is that investors and consumers are now aware that credit card companies and banks really do have the ability to restrict what you can purchase with their credit card. This is not how they advertise their cards, and it is likely a surprise to most users, who are quite used to deciding for themselves what they will purchase, especially from CC Exchanges and all the other merchants who have established Merchant Agreements with these banks.  The Exchanges have done nothing wrong – neither have you – but fear and greed in the banking industry is causing strange things to happen.  This further illustrates the degree to which the banking industry feels threatened by Crypto Currencies.

At this point there is little cooperation, trust, or understanding between the fiat money world and the CC world.  The CC world has no central controlling body where regulations can be implemented across the board, and that leaves each country around the world trying to figure out what to do. China has decided to ban CC’s, Singapore and Japan embrace them, and many other countries are still scratching their heads. What they have in common is that they want to collect taxes on CC investment profits.  This is not too unlike the early days of digital music, with the internet facilitating the unfettered proliferation and distribution of unlicensed music. Digital music licensing schemes were eventually developed and accepted, as listeners were ok with paying a little something for their music, rather than endless pirating, and the music industry (artists, producers, record companies) were ok with reasonable licensing fees rather than nothing.  Can there be compromise in the future of fiat and digital currencies?  As people around the world get more fed up with outrageous bank profits and bank overreach into their lives, there is hope that consumers will be regarded with respect and not be forever saddled with high costs and unwarranted restrictions.

Crypto Currencies and Blockchain technology increase the pressure around the globe to make a reasonable compromise happen – – this is a game changer.

 Crypto Trend Premium

If you are ready to make a speculative investment into these disruptive technologies and want to receive all current and future recommendations from Crypto TREND Premium, we are keeping our Early Bird Special offer to give our readers the opportunity to get started at a $175 discount, meaning you pay only $525.00. To take advantage of this special offer, click here.

Stay tuned!

As stated in our last update, we are increasing our scope to include discussion of new technologies, and those companies that benefit directly and indirectly from them.  We will cover blockchain projects, and other projects and companies that are involved with today’s game changing technologies.

One of those game changers is 5G – the 5th generation of mobile communication networks, and it looks to be revolutionary.  More than all previous network upgrades, 5G will take us to a completely NEW era in mobile technology.  New phones will be needed in order to use 5G, and here’s what’s in store:

• more data and higher download speeds – 100 times faster than 4G
• reliance on cloud storage, reducing the need for and use of internal memory
• pervasive connectivity, to access the cloud from everywhere
• latency improvements resulting in 30x the responsiveness of 4G, reducing the need for memory buffers (RAM).

Given that hardware memory needs are reduced significantly, the pricing model for 5G phones could change from being based on hardware memory needs, to being based on cloud memory needs.  The speed improvements alone should tempt us dramatically, and may lead to everyone buying new 5G phones.

We note that several companies are poised to benefit from new technologies like blockchain and 5G, as they are providers and developers of the enabling hardware, software, and firmware.  There is even more technology expansion on the horizon, and we will be zeroing in on the companies that are in the best positions to harness all this activity and innovation, generating potential great returns for investors.  We will include discussion of more emerging and expanding technologies in future editions of Crypto Trend.

Let Crypto Trend be your guide to successful investing in today’s world, where the speed of change continues to accelerate, being made possible by new and exciting technologies.

Crypto update

Another wild day in the world of crypto currencies as Coincheck, one of Japan’s largest crypto currency exchanges, was hacked and had 526 million of the crypto currency XEM ($400 m) stolen, Lon Wong, President of the NEM.io Foundation stated.

“As far as NEM is concerned, tech is intact. We are not forking. Also, we would advise all exchanges to make use of our multi-signature smart contract which is among the best in the landscape. Coincheck didn’t use them and that’s why they could have been hacked. They were very relaxed with their security measures,” Wong said.

Coincheck is looking into compensating its customers, its executives announced.

Just a note that even with all this volatility, the average return for our 5 recommendations is still 62% at the time of this writing.

As we have constantly stated, the crypto currencies are very volatile, and although they can produce massive gains, many of them may be worthless in the years ahead, much like most internet start-ups no longer exist today.

What today’s story highlights is that not all exchanges are the same, and if they do not use all the tools that blockchain provides, they are vulnerable to these kinds of attacks.

It is why we believe it is the underlying blockchain infrastructure and applications that will give subscribers to Crypto Trend Premium the best long-term gains.  Our team is actively analyzing dozens of companies, looking to identify the ones that we believe could be real winners in this game changing technology. Announcements of new recommendations will be sent out to subscribers soon.

If you are ready to make a speculative investment into these disruptive technologies, and want to receive all current and future recommendations from Crypto TREND Premium, we are keeping our Early Bird Special offer open for a little longer, to give our readers the opportunity to get started at a $175 discount, meaning you pay only $525.00 . To take advantage of this special offer, click here.

Stay tuned!