Scott Purcell, the founder and CEO of the embattled crypto custodian Fortress, has stepped down amid broader staffing issues.

Fortress CEO Scott Purcell steps down after crypto custodian’s sale to Ripple falls through

Purcell has a rocky record in the digital asset space. He previously was the CEO of Prime Trust, a different crypto custodial service, or business that holds crypto assets such as Bitcoin on behalf of clients. In July, Prime Trust went into receivership ...

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BitGo, a wallet infrastructure provider and digital asset custodian, has purchased HeightZero, a provider of software tools tailored for wealth managers interested in diversifying their portfolios with crypto and digital assets.

Bitgo changes course, acquires HeightZero instead of Prime Trust

This sale serves as the unofficial kickoff to holiday shopping, allowing Prime members to get a head start on buying gifts before Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Get a head start on upgrading your ...

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Nishad Singh told a jury on Monday that his September meeting with Bankman-Fired was the first time he realized that Alameda, FTX’s sister trading firm, had spent billions of dollars of FTX user deposits,

SBF Trial: FTX Exec Felt ‘Suicidal’ in Crypto Exchange’s Final Days

All Singh had to do was confirm emails from his bank, Prime Trust, that the massive sums of money flowing out of his account were not fraudulent. "After some point in time, my role was to click a ...

Bankman-Fried’s straw donor machine: Testimony reveals how customer funds were funneled to campaign contributions

All Singh had to do was confirm emails from his bank, Prime Trust, that the massive sums of money flowing out of his account were not fraudulent. "After some point in time, my role was to click a button," Singh testified. In February, Singh also entered an ...

TrueUSD has not yet responded to Cointelegraph’s request for comment. TrueCoin recently distanced itself from Nevada-based Prime Trust right after the latter abruptly halted all fiat and cryptocurrency deposits and withdrawals. TrueUSD announced that ...

TrueCoin’s third-party vendor breach potentially leaks TUSD user data

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Digital Securities Market Research 2019 by Kepler Finance

Especially during turbulent times, stablecoins are becoming a very important part of the overall crypto asset ecosystem. While the prices of tokens on exchanges have a tendency to fluctuate wildly (and often in a highly correlated manner), stablecoins are designed to keep a steady store of value, allowing crypto traders and investors to mitigate risk and escape market volatility when a sudden drop hits the whole market or to lock-in gains as the bears eat everyone’s portfolio piece by piece. How do stablecoins manage to stay a calm island within the raging market seas? It’s not as complicated as you may think. Under a traditional valuation model, an asset’s price on a market is determined by : its inner value (how useful it is in the real world), and its potential of becoming more useful or generating more profit for the investors. This combination is always reevaluated by the market, and that gives us volatility. Stablecoins operate differently, because the whole point of their existence is to maintain a steady store of value. two factors While some stablecoins maintain stability strictly algorithmically (there’s nothing backing them), many of the most promising projects are pegged to the price of an asset and — in the best case scenario — are actually redeemable and backed by that asset. Take the case of a token pegged to the dollar and redeemable for dollars, for example — TrueUSD and USD Anchor both implement this approach. Because the pegged price of the coin is equal to 1 US dollar and the token is redeemable for a dollar, were the value of the token to drop below that price any smart investor could buy and sell it for 1 dollar on the open market or they would redeem it directly through the issuer, profiting from the simple arbitrage opportunity that existed in the open market. This is the simplest case, because the price of the token is pegged to the value of the asset backing the token. However, in such a model, the centralized nature of the project requires a lot of faith in both the actors involved and the institutions storing and regulating their operations. To build trust among its token holders, reputable companies can allow their funds to be systematically in order to ensure that the claimed collateral does exist. But this alone doesn’t eliminate the risk that things could change in the future, and underlying assets could be mismanaged or face seizure/other issues in a rapidly shifting environment. audited In any case, the more crypto asset markets grow and attract new capital, the more room there is for stablecoins — specifically those that appeal to the more risk-averse investors sitting on the sidelines. Currently, there are already developed, and there are a lot more in development, but if recent capital increases are any indication, the market is clearly hungry for more. One such promising project is USDVault. more than a dozen stablecoins A new gold-backed, redeemable, 1:1 USD-pegged stablecoin , the Canadian-Swiss smart-contract platform, recently announced its partnership with the blockchain-driven trust company . Under the partnership, Prime Trust will act as a fiduciary and custodian of the LBMA gold bullion behind , which will launch in Fall 2018. Vault Prime Trust Vault’s gold-backed and redeemable, 1:1 USD-pegged stablecoin, USDVault The new partnership positions Vault’s USDVault token as a viable alternative to market-leading fiat-backed stablecoins, and it also signals Prime Trust’s first move into the world of precious metals — a move that bridges the two asset classes that have a special appeal to investors seeking opportunities outside the conventional markets. Vault is backed by a consortium of precious metals focused on private equity funds, explorers, miners, and refiners. The company’s upcoming USDVault token is ERC20 compliant and issued on the Ethereum blockchain. It also acts as an “evidence of a deposit,” giving investors the ability to redeem the tokens for $1 USD or its equivalent in gold. It is able to remain gold-price neutral and stay pegged at 1:1 to the US dollar through a sophisticated gold-hedging process that is to be executed by Vault’s precious metals partners. Under the partnership, Prime Trust will act as the fiduciary partner and custodian for all assets related to Vault’s USDVault token. After passing KYC/AML compliance checks, token buyers will transfer funds to Prime Trust, which is then responsible for executing the operational protocol provided by the Vault Platform. This includes the purchase of gold bullion and a specific hedge with Vault’s designated financial partners to maintain price stability vis-a-vis the US dollar. All transportation and storage of the gold bullion will be conducted by a fully insured vaulting company in Switzerland. “Together, Vault and Prime Trust will offer cryptocurrency investors something previously unheard of — a secure, investment-worthy stablecoin that gives token holders a legal claim to the USD equivalent worth of gold or fiat currency,” says Vault CEO and Co-founder, . “Leveraging our respective strengths, we hope to provide the gold standard of stablecoins for institutional investors.” Ranjeet Sodhi Conclusion The market still needs better, more sophisticated stablecoins that meet the needs of more discerning investors. The whole market turnover for Tether is 1.5x than its supply on a daily basis — recently hitting $4.2 billion in trading volume versus a $2.76 billion circulating supply. Especially in times of market uncertainty, the demand for stability is high, and more and more investors are looking beyond Tether for a reliable stablecoin option. bigger USDVault combines the stability of a 1:1 USD-pegged price with the security of having LBMA-grade gold bullion stored in insured vaults in Switzerland. Will they be successful? Will the market accept this idea? We can’t say with certainty, but with Vault rapidly approaching their launch date in the fall and forging solid partnerships for all levels of its operations, the project is certainly positioning itself to compete favorably amongst the major players in this space. Looks like we’ll find out when autumn comes. About the author: — Founder of Geekforge.io and Howtotoken.com. Interviewing the top 10,000 worldwide experts who reveal the biggest issues on the way to technological singularity. Join my . Kirill Shilov #10kqachallenge: GeekForge Formula All materials are for informational purposes only. None of the material should be interpreted as investment advice. Originally published at howtotoken.com on September 10, 2018.

Why Crypto Market Needs Asset-Backed Stablecoins During Turbulent Times

The future is bright for the disruption of finance. A lot of people may not find it a big deal when they hear that it is now possible to use Bitcoin as a form of payment for investing in US securities issued using the new exemptions Regulation Crowdfunding or Regulation A+ that allow companies to raise capital from the general public. After all, haven’t people been using Bitcoin to buy everything from pizza to tokens in an ICO for years now? However, these people may be missing something of vital importance: these two regulations require investments to be placed into escrow managed by a qualified intermediary. In layman’s terms, this means you need a bank that is willing to receive the Bitcoin payment and hold it in trust until the transaction meets the regulatory requirements and is then disbursed to the company selling the securities. A few words from some of the entrepreneurs now accepting Bitcoin on StartEngine Let’s look into this a little further. Until now, there were no banks who were willing to act as a custodian of digital assets. , which is a Nevada-based trust company (which is a bank), agreed to be the first institution of its kind to permit the custody of cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin. Prime Trust’s CEO Scott Purcell is an innovator and a banker with the ambition to be the regulated plumbing for enabling transactions in the crowdfunding and ICO world. In fact, Prime Trust recently for a new stable coin, in which Prime Trust will be responsible for holding the capital backing the new stable coin called USD Anchor. Prime Trust announced a partnership with IBM Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency, is now accepted for Regulation Crowdfunding. So why is it a big deal that a bank wants to hold cryptocurrencies in trust? Simple. One of biggest hurdles for any company handling Bitcoin is the risk that the handler can be hacked, in which case the investor loses all of their money. Think of Mt Gox and ” that were hacked. They had no custodian of the assets and no insurance, so when they were hacked, the Bitcoin was gone. End of story. the dozens of websites or “exchanges With Prime Trust, the game has changed. The investor can rest assured that their Bitcoin in trust is FDIC-insured because it is received into the bank’s custody and then eventually converted into US dollars. This is the first time a bank is guaranteeing the safety of Bitcoins. No one has ever done that. A few words from some of the entrepreneurs now accepting Bitcoin on StartEngine Yes, the so-called exchanges have been saying, and will say, they are keeping Bitcoin safe in cold storage, but ultimately they are not a bank. There is no FDIC insurance, which insures deposits of up to $250,000 in a single bank (if an investor wanted to deposit more than that amount, it would have to be split among more than one bank). Prime Trust has innovated and broken the necessary barrier to growing the cryptocurrency marketplace by providing this investor protection. Let’s explore the benefits of this new solution. Regulation Crowdfunding is one of the most promising forms of raising capital for companies in the United States. It can be used for ICOs or more traditional crowdfunding structures. (full disclosure: I am the co-founder & CEO at StartEngine) shows a nascent marketplace helping hundreds and soon to be thousands of companies raise capital for their businesses. The StartEngine Index The regulation as published by the SEC requires the funding portal, such as WeFunder, StartEngine or SeedInvest, to use a qualified intermediary or bank to hold the investor funds in escrow until the company raising capital on that portal has successfully met its minimum investment. Until today, none of the funding portals have been able to legally accept Bitcoin as a form of payment because no escrow was able to take it. A few words from some of the entrepreneurs now accepting Bitcoin on StartEngine This is no longer the case now that Prime Trust is accepting Bitcoin. Funding portals like StartEngine have now announced their support for Bitcoin, which will mean companies can raise capital through Bitcoin on a funding portal and raise up to $1.07M per year. This amount may not seem big, but it is significant because it is legal. A company can now sell tokens to the general public accepting Bitcoin in return and can simultaneously raise capital using Regulation D 506(c) to sell above the $1.07M limit to accredited investors. Voilà. ICOs are being brought out of the shadows into a regulated marketplace thanks to the JOBS Act and to innovators like Prime Trust. It is clear by now that cryptocurrencies and blockchain applications are going to revolutionize finance, as well as other industries, but it is also obvious that this must be, and can only be, done by following the established regulations and laws in the United States. With Bitcoin now an accepted payment for Regulation Crowdfunding, the JOBS Act and the blockchain community continue to come closer together. The future is bright for a total disruption of the finance industry. Thanks for reading. If you liked what you read, please give it a clap and follow me on Medium.

You Can Now Use Bitcoin to Invest in Securities for Real

I cringe every time I have to step into a bank. I dislike every aspect of the experience from the polluted lighting, long queues, lack of privacy, to their demeanor of probing why I want to access my money. It’s a nightmare, but that’s only a small part of the problem. The world’s current financial infrastructure is littered with inefficiencies that contribute to high transaction costs, slow money velocity, and lack of global inclusion. These gaps have curtailed growth of communities and leaves billions of people financially underserved. One of my favorite projects that is solving these problems is the Stellar Foundation. They realize that society needs a worldwide financial network that is open to anyone, has internet like speed and cost for money transfers, and ensures integrity of transactions. I believe that they are offering new elements that can augment or enhance existing financial systems to modernize the global financial infrastructure. Basics: The Stellar project based out of started in July 2014 San Francisco. The Stellar is an open-source, decentralized protocol for digital currency to fiat currency transfers which allows cross-border transactions between any pair of currencies. A unit of digital currency on their blockchain is referred to as Lumens. Price: $.10Ranking by Market Cap: 7Market Capitalization: $2,026,558,238 Circulating Supply: 19,127,012,671 XLMMax Supply: 104,642,624,134 XLM24hr Trading Volume: $90,391,551 Ticker: XLM Team: The Stellar team is lead by legendary . His previous work includes creating the first bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, and cofounding Ripple. Jed McCaleb The Stellar’s CTO is . Previous to Stellar, he helped build large scale systems at Microsoft and Salesforce. Nicolas Barry The Stellar core team has an additional 7 blockchain developers and engineers. Rounding out the Stellar core team are 4 business developers, strategists, and marketers. to the Stellar project include: Advisors CEO of Stripe Patrick Collison: Founder of AngelList Naval Ravikant: President of Y Combinator Sam Altman: Drivers of Growth: Stellar uses a new consensus model called . FBA is able to overcome adverse conditions through , which means consensus can be reached if an adequate number of nodes conclude that a transaction is valid. , similar to the way individual networks’ peering and transit decisions now unify the Internet. Federated Byzantine Agreement (FBA) quorum slices Slices bind the system together FBA sets the stage for the to confirm and validate transactions, which allows it to enjoy Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP) four key properties simultaneously: — . Anyone is able to participate and no central authority dictates whose approval is required for consensus. Decentralized control — In practice, nodes can reach consensus at timescales humans expect for web or payment transactions — i.e., a few seconds at most. Low latency. — Users have the freedom to trust any combination of parties they see fit. For example, a small non-profit may play a key role in keeping much larger institutions honest. Flexible trust. — Safety rests on digital signatures and hash families whose parameters can realistically be tuned to protect against adversaries with unimaginably vast computing power. Asymptotic security. 4. The Stellar network can handle more than 1,000 transactions per second compared to Ethereum’s 25 TPS. 5. Stellar has , that is helping them develop their . has also as a unit of account for their payments infrastructure. established a strong partnership with IBM Blockchain World Wire product or Universal Payment System IBM’s blockchain division confirmed that they will be using the Stellar Lumens (XLM) 6. The Stellar foundation has recently had the , which means that New York Financial Regulators approve trading for Lumens Lumens is not considered a security. 7. , has fully launched in September for public use. StellarX positions itself as a fiat onramp, which allows individuals to deposit U.S. dollars directly from a U.S. bank account. They are marketing themselves StellarX similar to Robinhood, as StellarX, a Stellar-based zero-fee decentralized crypto exchange Stellar promises to refund all network fees for their users. 8. Through the Stellar/IBM collaboration, , especially in the Asia-Pacific region. IBM’s head of Blockchain Solutions, claims that they are . There is a fair chance that the IBM has already partnered with dozens of private and central banks very close to helping a central bank move fiat currency onto the Stellar blockchain IBM/Stellar partnership could replace the decrepit SWIFT/IBAN payments infrastructure. 9. A renewal energy startup, is partnering with Veridium is working on integrating their native token, VERDE, with oil and gas trading platforms to automate the process of offsetting carbon emissions. Veridium, IBM and Stellar to tokenize the global carbon credits market. 10. Stellar based project, , is helping develop a . Stronghold accepts deposits in the form of USD, and can issue tokens of any kind on the Stellar network, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and USD. Stronghold is also to secure the funds, which helps legitimize the project. Stronghold USD stable coin for the network partnering with PrimeTrust 11. , a European money transfer company, successfully transitioned to the Stellar network. This means that anyone who owns XLM can send money throughout the Tempo network directly from a Stellar wallet. The service is being Tempo tested in the Philippines, which is one of the biggest remittance markets in the world. Also, Tempo has where lumens are now for sale with their network currently active in Tempo’s partnership with Stellar may mean that Stellar is now the cryptocurrency with the largest real-world network. 300 locations across Europe 120 countries and utilized by 195,000 affiliates. 12. Other notable blockchain projects based on the Stellar Network: All doing cool things to expand the Stellar network. Open Garden, TillBilly, Slice, Sure Remit, Smartlands, Chynge, Modius. 13. Stellar executed a , now referred to as Interstellar. Chain allows the Stellar network to have payment channels that enable two parties to carry out transactions between themselves privately, instantly, and securely. These transfers are not charged a fee as they are not executed on the main chain. clever acquisition by purchasing Chain 15. Stellar has also entered into a , a top banking and financial service provider in India. India offers Stellar a very tactical advantage as they have one of the world’s largest populations, most of which are unbanked. formal collaboration with The Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India (ICICI) Lumens could very well be the vital bridge currency for transactions involving banking the unbanked in India. Headwinds: Stellar does face real competition from another blockchain based startup, Ripple. However, it’s still very early in the space so both of these project can coexist and thrive. The success of this project will not only be determined by how good Stellar’s product is but also whether it will be user friendly. In other words, will they be able to reduce the barriers to entry enough to bring in less technical people. Since regulation will always trail innovation, the digital currency space can be subject to new regulations in the future. Conclusion: The Stellar project is transforming the way cross border payments work, by modernizing the global financial rails. This allows financial institutions to send and settle payments in a matter of seconds, while eliminating the inefficiencies that have hampered the growth of so many global communities. By leveraging Lumens, Stellar is able to integrate payment instruction messages, settle proposed transactions, and exchange value in near real-time at a fraction of the cost of traditional banking. For more insights be sure to check out my website: www.MasiDigitalVentures.com

15 Ways Stellar is Modernizing Global Financial Institutions

“Banking is necessary, banks are not,” said Bill Gates in 1994. In 2009, Bitcoin came along. Blockchain technology has opened up new possibilities to build better financial products that operate without the need for central authorities or banks. I started Constant to build financial products based on P2P technologies. Our products belong to our users — they collectively operate, secure and enrich everything we build. Everything is open-source. Anyone can take part. What follows describes our first product: decentralized, fully-secured P2P lending. Access to capital is key — to start or grow businesses, fund personal goals, support relationships, and pursue a higher quality of life. The more affordable capital we can provide, the more helpful we can be. The evolution of lending You are a lender whether you like it or not. happens once you deposit money into a bank. Your bank immediately loans it out to others via products like credit cards, charging predatory interest rates of up to 30% APR. The bank keeps most of these profits. You earn the national average of 0.8%. Subject to yearly inflation of around 2%, we’re effectively paying banks to store our money. Traditional lending in the UK in 2005, and have since emerged as a popular alternative to traditional lending. However, they come with their own set of problems. Most offer risky, unsecured loans that have resulted in substantial losses for investors. P2P lending platforms began with Zopa In China, for example, the once booming P2P lending industry has since . Many platforms have either gone bankrupt or been unable to repay investors. In extreme cases, employees have simply run off with investor funds. Regulation has struggled to contain the problem, leaving many people out of pocket. fallen victim to scammers and rising defaults With the introduction of blockchain technologies, we now see a number of — Dharma, Compound, and Constant — working on building better P2P lending platforms. crypto P2P lending platforms While our approaches differ, we all aim at building fully secured peer-to-peer lending platforms that replace reluctant trust with cryptographic proof, allowing any two anonymous parties from anywhere in the world to lend and borrow directly to and from each other, without the need for a trusted third party. Loan management, collateralization and repayments are carried out collectively by the users of the network, protecting them from any single point of failure. This unique P2P property bypasses the need for a central party and allows for new, exciting use cases. The traditional loan agreement has been replaced by an unstoppable Ethereum smart contract. It runs exactly as programmed — to return collateral to the borrower after repayment — without any possibility of downtime, fraud, or third-party interference. Once investors and borrowers commit to a loan, it is irreversible. Repayment is guaranteed. All this happens . If these platforms disappear, the smart contracts will continue to perform their function, collectively powered by all the nodes of the Ethereum blockchain. without a central authority or a bank Fully-secured, blockchain-enabled P2P lending is our contribution to a bankless banking system. Of the three competing business models, which is the superior? Shortcomings of current crypto P2P lending platforms While there are a few crypto P2P lending platforms today, their products are designed for a small, niche audience: crypto savvy traders. Constant is built more broadly for the everyday user. We aim to reduce friction and ease transition into decentralized finance, by first building bridges between the existing financial system and its new alternatives. As of May 15 2019, the combined loan volume of the two largest platforms, Dharma and Compound, is just shy of a modest $10 million. . The right product will migrate users and trigger mass adoption. Global debt has just reached $215 trillion Let’s take a look at the shortcomings of current blockchain-based P2P lending solutions that stand in the way of mass adoption. Lack of fiat support Current solutions are exclusively crypto-to-crypto, as one might expect from P2P lending platforms built on blockchain technology. However, most of the current volume is generated by the crypto-trader community who long or short cryptocurrencies. Very rarely do these solutions impact other demographics. Constant operates using USD stablecoins — cryptocurrency that is 1:1 pegged to USD. The platform hosts conversion of USD to stablecoins, as well as stablecoins to USD. As such, Constant makes crypto lending with USD stablecoins logistically identical to investing and borrowing USD. Loans can be easily put towards real-world use cases, such as buying a car, consolidating debt, or paying for a vacation. Investments appreciate steadily, without the typical volatility characteristic of the wider cryptocurrency market. Lack of collateral choice Current solutions offer a limited number of crypto assets as collateral (mostly BTC and ETH). We believe that more and more real-world assets will be tokenized. The more assets we support, the easier it will be for our users to get liquidity from their assets. Constant’s engineers are working hard to add as many collateral types as possible. In addition to BTC and ETH, we are onboarding many additional ERC tokens. We’re also working with other blockchains to bring their tokens onto Constant, such as EOS, TRON, and TOMO. Centralized interest rates Other solutions are decentralized to varying degrees, but interest rates are set by the company, just like banks do. In our view, interest rates are a critical component and must also be decentralized. Constant peer-to-peer lending offers an order book solution. On Constant, the users, not the platform, set their own investment and loan rates. It’s 100% market driven. High margins Current solutions set fixed rates and earn the difference. For example, if the interest rate for investors is set at 4%, and 10% for borrowers, the platform absorbs the 6%. This is also how banks work. Banks set their own rates and earn the difference. Constant doesn’t work this way. Constant simply matches investors and borrowers at the rate they agree on, and charges a minimal service fee. Lack of cross-border use cases Current solutions are somewhat insular, located mostly in the US. Constant’s team is located in both the US and Asia. We believe that bridging developed economies and emerging markets is the way forward, essential to building a global P2P lending network. Developed economies have plenty of low-cost capital but enjoy almost no returns on their savings. People in emerging markets suffer from high interest rates and lack the means to obtain traditional requirements for borrowers, such as credit scores and background checks. Introducing Constant: a Crypto P2P Lending Platform The Order Book In a , the tradable asset is a , and traders trade on (e.g. sell 100 shares of Apple at $200 each). stock exchange share share unit prices In a , the tradable asset is a , and traders trade on (e.g. buy 2 Bitcoin at $7,000 each). coin exchange coin coin unit prices Similarly, in a , the tradable asset is , and traders trade on . fully secured peer-to-peer lending platform cryptocurrency the interest rates of that cryptocurrency A P2P lending market trades on interest rates Running on top of the Ethereum blockchain, Constant is a peer-to-peer lending platform that provides a simple way for anyone to: Place an or . Invest Order Borrow Order Be a (set the interest rate) or a (take the interest rate). Market Maker Market Taker instantly. Borrow money Secure collateral with a . Smart Contract The Constant Pro web interface gives professional traders insight into the Constant P2P lending market The Matching Engine The Constant algorithm matches investors with borrowers glad to pay their rates. It then secures investor funds and borrower collateral in an unstoppable smart contract, and facilitates the entire transaction from beginning to end. Unlike P2P lending platforms like LendingClub, all loans on Constant are fully secured. Constant’s lending mechanism is designed to bring people together to do business on their own terms Automatic Liquidation If the collateral value falls to 110% of the principal plus interest to date, Constant automatically sells it to pay back investors, and refunds the borrower the difference. In this scenario, investors get the principal back, plus their profit to date. They are able to then re-invest and find a new match. Early repayment Borrowers have the option to repay early before their collateral value hits the threshold for automatic liquidation. If less than 75% of the term has elapsed, they pay full interest for the time before repayment, and 50% of the interest due for the rest of the term. If more than 75% of the term has elapsed, they pay 100%. In this case, investors also get their principal back, plus their profit to date. They then have the option to re-invest and find a new match. Here’s an example: Jon invests $10,000 at 12% APR for 6 months. Annie accepts his terms for her loan. Three months later, Annie decides she wants to repay early. Annie repays the loan of $10,000, and the interest due — 12% APR for 3 months, and 6% APR for 3 months — bringing the total amount due to $10,450. Jon has earned 12% APR for 3 months, and now has the option to withdraw $10,300, or re-invest and find a new borrower. Noncustodial Collateral is stored in a smart contract. All parties — the investor, borrower, or Constant — cannot move the collateral at any time, unless it meets the programmed conditions such as a repayment or default event. Coins Constant supports stablecoins, as well as fiat currencies which are converted automatically into stablecoins in the backend. Constant will add more stablecoins over time, but only those with liquidity. At the time of writing, Constant supports the following stablecoins: On the investment side, USDC TUSD PAX GUSD USDS Invest in fiat or stablecoins — the choice is yours , Constant supports multiple collateral types. Constant will add more coins over time, but only those with significant liquidity to ensure the smooth running of the platform. At this time, Constant accepts the following coins as collateral: On the borrowing side BTC ETH BNB BAT REP OMG HOT ZRX VET TOMO ENJ ZIL DGD DGX KCS FTM IOTX LRC NULS Constant supports diverse coin portfolios Multiple devices Constant provides cross-platform web interfaces for: Desktop Mobile iOS Android Seamlessly switch between all your devices Multiple languages The initial release will be in English and Vietnamese. More languages will be added over time, including Spanish, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. API Constant will provide an open REST API for other platforms to integrate with ours. Here are some potential use cases: Integrate with wallets, creating “Instant Borrow” and “Instant Invest” buttons Integrate with PoS (Proof-of-Stake) chains to earn interest on staked collateral Integrate with exchange reserves Oracles Oracles play an important role in the design of Constant. They feed diverse external data (such as the current BTC price) into Constant, removing single points of failure. They enable real-time percentage updates of the value of collateral used to secure the loan, and allow for liquidation to kick in accurately. Multiple oracles ensure we have accurate data Oracle Network The Constant oracle network consists of a number of circles. Each circle contains a number of oracles. Oracles within a circle work together to report on a piece of data (i.e. the current price of Bitcoin or Ethereum). An oracle can join and leave a circle as it wishes. Oracle circles Each circle contains the following fields: The sources of data The (i.e. number of oracles) size of the circle The : mean, median, or mode reduction method Oracles combine to provide important data to the Constant platform Reduction Method: Median An oracle has the following fields: Oi is the value provided by Oi Vi is the timestamp of the last update from oracle Oi Ti is the number of times Oi submits wrong values Wi is the quorum (initially, 10 oracles) Q is the valid timestamp range (initially, 10 seconds) T is the maximum number of times an oracle could be wrong (initially, 2) W is the acceptable error margin, |Vi — Vj| < e then Vi = Vj e The is the median of the set S = { V1, V2, …, VN }, where value V |S| > Q now() — Ti < T Wi < W Let Scorrect be the set of values between the 25th and 75th percentile. An oracle Oi whose value is not in Scorrect is considered a wrongly submitted value (hence their wrong score Wi), and will have 1 added to it. Add/Remove Oracle Initially new oracles are added by the Constant core team. While this is somewhat centralized, it’s critical to keep the data feed accurate. Current solutions are simple and straightforward, designed to avoid Sybil attacks. In the future, we may replace this with a more decentralized solution. An oracle Oi is immediately removed from the network if Wi > W, or if it is voted out by the board. Incentive / Payout The incentives are structured around base payouts and commissions: is base payout per update, set by the Constant team B is commission payout per update, set by the Constant team C is total payout Oi, paid per update Pi The payout for Oi ∈ Scorrect is: Pi = B + C * | Δ — 2 * (Vi — V) | / Δ Δ = | V25% — V75% | Fees Matching fees Constant charges service fees for matching borrowers with investors. The current fees are 1% for borrowers, and 0% for investors. Deposit & Withdrawal fees Most deposits and withdrawals are free. We charge minimum fees for fiat deposits and withdrawals, to cover operational costs incurred by working with the banking industry. Bank wire transfers continue to be the most expensive method of transferring money Risks & outstanding issues There are many risks involved in operating a decentralized finance product. User fund security Many financial products have failed due to poor security implementation, resulting in lost user funds. Our team mitigates the security risks in these ways: Fiat currencies are held in FDIC-insured trust accounts insured up to $130M. The collateral is held in Ethereum smart contracts that securely lock the assets. Users have the option to store their collateral with our independent crypto custodian partner that offers up to $100M in insurance. Dissolvement of Constant Many financial platforms have failed and caused losses for their users. Constant protects users In the unlikely event that the team is dissolved; the technology it is built on ensures users’ funds remain protected and the loan contract runs as programmed. No smart contract support for BTC While most Constant loans are backed by smart contracts, BTC-collateralized loans are not, simply because Bitcoin doesn’t have a smart contract language. Our team mitigates the security risks in the following ways: Use an independent party to manage the BTC collateral such as BitGo or PrimeTrust. Implement a 2-out-of-3 multisig BTC address to manage the collateral (under active research and prototyping). Constant is designed to protect both investors and borrowers. For investors, if borrowers default, collateral is sold to refund the investor. If collateral falls in value, it is sold at a threshold. It’s all automated by an unstoppable smart contract — investors will always get their principal and their profit. For borrowers, borrower collateral is stored safely in a smart contract escrow, powered by the Ethereum network. This runs exactly as programmed, independent from human intervention — no one can touch these assets. As long as borrowers repay, they will always get their collateral back. We hope that Constant will be helpful to a lot of people. <a href="https://medium.com/media/3c851dac986ab6dbb2d1aaa91205a8eb/href">https://medium.com/media/3c851dac986ab6dbb2d1aaa91205a8eb/href</a>

How we built Constant: a secured P2P lending platform that puts customers in control

ICO’s Have All But Completely Exited Stage Left. Enter The Security Token? As the great cryptocurrency winter of 2018 extends its grip by yet another month, at various blockchain conferences worldwide has been rife that a is on the cusp of forming. This new breed of digital assets is one that seeks to comply with existing regulators, rather than to subvert. Security tokens are are programmatically designed to be compliant with relevant regulations. In the words of influential crypto podcaster and fund manager : anecdotal evidence security token wave Anthony Pompliano If cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are considered “programmable money” then you can consider Security Tokens a version of “programmable ownership.” With recent examples of assets being tokenized ranging from the , to a , to a Picasso painting (facilitated by a certain ), to private shares of startups from and , momentum is clearly favouring this nascent development. Whisper it, but we may even be witnessing the first shoots of a transition from the wild west that was ICO-mania making way for a ‘Security Token Offering (STO) spring’. St. Regis Aspen Resort New York real estate fund John McAfee Germany Brazil Setting The Scene Before I proceed any deeper — and without suggesting that STOs will necessarily step in to fuel yet another market-wide bull run (out of scope for this piece), I would highly recommend that you revisit this great introductory piece on tokenization: _Not everything will be tokenized, but those that can be will be._hackernoon.com How does tokenization work, anyway? Followed by this other persuasive piece which lays out the full transformative potential for the security token space: _Last summer I wrote Traditional Asset Tokenization, in which I hypothesized that a broad array of assets will move to…_hackernoon.com The Security Token Thesis In short, there are a whole host of benefits driving the security token thesis for mainstream adoption, including 24/7 markets, fractional ownership, rapid settlement, automated compliance and asset interoperability. The purpose of this article is to provide the reader with an understanding of what we define as the — think of it as a series of production line steps which are necessary to create and trade a security token — and an overview on how the ecosystem is shaping up around these layers, especially in markets with more developed regulatory frameworks relevant to STOs such as the United States. security token value chain The Security Token Value Chain (aka Yet Another Stack) The following provides a layered structure of how we’ve classified the various security token ecosystem players today (from bottom to top): hamburger Deal Flow Origination Issuance Platforms Services Secondary Market Trading Defining The Security Token ‘Ecosystem Stack’ Today While the above provides some form of general structure around the process, do note that some of the activities (e.g. auxiliary services) may overlap across multiple other layers, and/or differ entirely in various other flavours as designed by the platform stakeholders. Deal-flow Origination We begin with the very bottom of the security token hamburger stack. Simply put, deal-flow origination refers to the process of matching the demand and supply of capital for investments. The degree of customer accessibility to these investments vary along a spectrum. On one end there are more open platforms such as Kickstarter where the average retail investor Joe may participate in funding the development of cool product ideas; while on the other end there are platforms such as where only accredited investors are able to join in on equity investments in Silicon Valley-based technology startups. AngeList As a rule of thumb, the general requirements for an aspiring investor to partake becomes more onerous as factors such as deal exclusivity, target capital raise, average cheque size and financing complexity increases. Said requirements usually entail attaining investor accreditation status, more disclosure requirements and sometimes higher fees. Current notable deal-flow origination platforms involved in the STO space include , and . Indiegogo — most notable among the examples for having been in the traditional crowdfunding space for about a decade — lent its credible reputation to back the ambitious by being the platform through which investors could participate in the initial STO. Most platforms have side-stepped requirements to file for traditional securities offerings by allowing only accredited investors to participate, while some such as Republic allows for regular retail participation via relying on an alphabet soup of ( ). Republic Crypto SeriesOne Indiegogo St. Regis Aspen Resort tokenization project SEC regulatory exemptions more on that later Fancy purchasing a fraction of a fancy ski resort? Issuance Platforms and Core & Auxiliary Services Moving along to the meat within the security token stack, we come to the issuance platforms. These players specialize in providing the technical smart contract know-how necessary for the primary issuance of programmable security tokens. They provide solutions that handle for things like investor accreditation, KYC/AML requirements, capital raising taxation, as well as the myriad of other more specific shareholder provisions (e.g. first rights to refusal, residency requirements, shareholder ownership concentration rules, etc.). They aim to address as far as possible the common needs of the majority of asset issuers. The goal for these solutions would be to automate compliance while maintaining immutability and process transparency. Implemented well, such solutions will ensure that situations such as the — whereby human error during various ledger reconciliation processes resulted in duplicate shares of Dole Foods being issued on various ledgers — does not wastefully occur. Dole Foods case Most issuance platforms come bundled with services aimed at meeting the common requirements of potential STO issuers in a bid to make up a full-service solution. This would include dashboards for token issuers, and functionalities to allow for them to easily conduct corporate actions such as shareholder voting, rights issue, dividends, interest payments, revenue share distribution and ESOPs, with the aid of document signature tools for token-holders. Examples include , which enabled the tokenization of the Aspen project on Indiegogo, as well as Coinbase-backed startup , which had facilitated the tokenization of two blockchain investment funds, and . Templum Securitize Blockchain Capital SPiCE VC Rounding off the list of services necessary are trust companies and custodians — a category of companies that are absolutely integral to making tokenization tick, especially in the case of most assets that are not (i.e. today’s “ ” assets such as stocks, real estate and art). Their jobs as custodians are to ensure that these assets — be it the stock certificate, property title deed, physical painting — are being held in a secure location, with token-holder ownership rights being clearly defined and legally upheld, and that the tokens in issue that represent them are always counter-balanced in a 1:1 ratio by the underlying asset. Key players to have established this niche for themselves are and . natively-digital real-world PrimeTrust BitGo Secondary Market Trading Finally at the very top, secondary market trading is the layer which provides security tokens with their much-heralded benefits of liquidity and 24/7 trading & settlement. An intuitive, easy-to-use trading interface constitutes table stakes for any form of digital asset exchange product these days. For any STO exchange to materially value-add to the user experience, they will have to be cognisant of the rules of the legal jurisdiction that they operate in, as well as that of its customer clientele. For instance, they may automatically facilitate reporting on capital gains taxes applicable for American users who have profited through trading on the secondary market, but not for Singaporean users (where capital gains taxes do not apply for retail investments). Other differentiating factors relate to the user experience journey. Exchanges can be set up such that they give users the option of self-custody of their own digital assets, or — for those who are less savvy technically with managing private keys — provide them with just a simple, user account plus password system. Exchanges can also help reduce the time taken for trade settlements on their platforms through the use of . Stablecoins will allow for such trades to happen atomically, which implies that I receive my sales proceeds the moment that my sell order gets paired with an interested buyer, with my security token going the other way in one single, simultaneous action. This is an exponential improvement over the settlement speed for securities trading in existence today, where T+2 represents the gold standard (cross-border stock trading settlement sometimes require T+5 days even!). stablecoins A couple of juggernauts have already made their mark. has raced ahead on the partnerships front, forming a to list the tokens issued by an assortment of niche issuance platforms. , a blockchain subsidiary of NASDAQ-listed company Overstock, has built up a sizeable war chest after the conclusion of its own US$134M in August. Purchasers of their tokens are promised regular dividend payouts tied to the profits generated by their exchange business. OpenFinance Network whole slew of collaborations tZERO STO round The Land Grab Race Is On Calling the space fragmented would be an understatement at this point in time; slide not an exhaustive representation of all notable players The current landscape remains largely fragmented with players finding their niches and gradually establishing partnerships. While there are unique cases of projects such as that are seeking to provide a complete end-to-end solution for potential STO issuers — or rather ETO (equity token offering) issuers, as they have chosen to term it, most are specializing within a certain layer within the stack , before partnering with other projects that complement them. For example, — a tokenized fund specializing in investing in blockchain startups (deal-flow) has partnered with Securitize for the issuance of their tokens, and also with OpenFinance Network to enable the of their tokens. Neufund SPiCE VC future subsequent trading Another observation to make would be that the structure of most of these blockchain startups are rather akin to that of a “traditional” tech startup, operating on a service revenue-based business model. Exceptions include those which have made use of STOs to coordinate platform incentives and/or raise capital (e.g. Neufund, SPiCE and tZero) from investors in exchange for the promise of future dividends, along with several others which have done ICOs (e.g. Polymath, Rate3 and TrustToken) or have distributed their tokens via mining incentives (e.g. Ravencoin). Finally, it is also noteworthy to mention that the large majority of these players are based in the United States, highlighting the immaturity — as well as the consequent potential — of the asset tokenization space in other markets. Still Early Days On The Regulatory Front While acknowledging that there have been several forward-thinking, tokenization projects that have made news headlines recently, one cannot stress enough on the infancy of the entire security token space as a whole. Most of the marquee, flag-bearing tokenization proof-of-concept projects so far are just that — PoCs that are being sold to a small, of investors only, in order to stay on the right side of regulators. Mass retail adoption are still some significant way off. ‘real-world’ select group accredited Having said that, it is apparent — and heartening — that the clarity of regulatory exemptions available within the United States has resulted in many security token ecosystem projects and partnerships flourishing there. Ken Nguyen, founder and CEO of Republic was recently interviewed in a great podcast, in the process demystifying the various US regulatory exemptions which STO projects could seek: It does not appear long before other Asian ‘pro-crypto’ jurisdictions such as Singapore and Japan start embracing STO innovations on their shores as well, allowing for the retail investor masses — — portfolio exposure to security tokens serving as proxies for investments which they may never have got the access to otherwise. not just accredited investors This is a thought which truly excites me; imagine the multi-fold returns of having been able to invest in one of the early rounds of equity fundraising for startups such as Grab or Gojek. Think of the whole new design space which issuers could work with to increase customer engagement and loyalty, such as, for example, allowing for priority booking for token-holders. With jurisdictions like the United States laying the groundwork for others to observe and adapt, what was once solely the domain of the rich and connected may soon become within touching distance of the masses within the near future. Disclosure: I work at Rate3 Network , a protocol that handles asset-tokenization and identity management across both Ethereum and Stellar blockchains.

Why You Need To Know The Security Token Value Chain (aka Yet Another Stack)

Can we predict the future? Of course not. Can we understand the socioeconomic forces that shape the future? Yes, but it requires some digging. When you parse the historical literature, you find that history gives us many examples of highly-disruptive time periods – commonly called Revolutions. The more examples you dig into, the clearer the patterns become. This article places Bitcoin in the context of radical paradigm shifts we’ve seen throughout history, uncovers the preconditions that led up to them, and gives us a fresh lens that goes way beyond the asset’s current price. Trust in our central institutions has a huge leak that can’t be patched The failures of central institutions have never been more front and center. Never before have so many people been publicly questioning the competency and character of elected officials. It’s too prominent to ignore. The "core characteristics of historical disruption" – as described by University of Michigan Professor of Greek and Roman History David Potter in his book – tend to have the following ingredients: Disruption: Why Things Change Major losses of confidence in a society’s central institutions Previously-fringe ideas made their way to the center of the socioeconomic order A strong, committed group of leaders driving the change Let’s apply some historical context to The Peaceful Bitcoin Revolution, shall we? Constantine’s disruption in ancient Rome Most people don’t know that was one of the main drivers of the Roman Empire’s switch to Christianity during the 4th century. Constantine For hundreds of years prior, the empire suffered through episodes of disease, military failures, and devastating inflation. And unsurprisingly, most leaders dealt with these problems by trying to make old, stale systems work better. These centuries of boiling hardship led to a situation that made Rome a fertile ground for socioeconomic disruption: Citizens lost their faith in the imperial government The previously fringe idea of Christianity made its way to the center of the political order Constantine formed a cohesive leadership group that initiated the change to grow their community Knowing that religious persecution wouldn't work, Constantine incentivized people to change how they think. By introducing Christian ideologies, he opened up paths of advancement to everyone, not just wealthy elites. The idea that anyone, regardless of societal status, could obtain moral improvement in the eyes of God was considered extremely fringe at the time. In making Christianity front and center, Constantine permanently restructured the empire, and in doing so broke stale ideas about religious authority with a fresh new model that gave the masses the feeling society was evolving towards something better. But what ultimately set Constantine apart from his predecessors was his abundant clarity on citizen choice. The reason his message resonated so deeply with commoners is that it gave them the decision-making power to opt-in or opt-out. Martin Luther’s disruption of the Catholic Church kickstarts the Protestant Reformation Fast forward a little over a millennium later, and is famously hammering his on the door of the church at Wittenberg, Germany. The pages argued that the church’s Catholic teachings and selfish overspending on indulgences were not benefitting the people. Martin Luther 95 Theses The idea that there was an intellectual world outside the church is what drove the Protestant Reformation to sweep through Europe in the 1500s. Similarly today, ’s discovery is allowing people to understand that an entire monetary system can exist outside of the state. Satoshi The same psychology applies to Roger Banister's breaking of the “ ”. After many years of the record being considered “impossible”, it suddenly became possible. Since 1954, thousands of people have run a four-minute mile. Four-Minute Mile Barrier The French Revolution shows us how violent disruptions fail There is perhaps no better example of a failure to reform than 's Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. His regime's approach was to with the threat of execution via the guillotine. He already made the choice for citizens. Maximilien Robespierre enforce "virtuous behavior" Aside from the violence, Robespierre provided no lasting alternative to the existing system. Contrast this with Bitcoin’s non-violent properties, such as removing the vectors by which governments can enforce more violence on their people by financing wars through inflation. As governments around the world fail to change themselves to meet new circumstances and propose different versions of the same old, unworkable systems (CBDC pilot projects), it’s Bitcoin’s job to sit there like a rock and continue to offer the world a viable, politically-neutral alternative. Above all else, is what makes Bitcoin highly likely to pan out as a positive disruption choice Every successful historical example we've looked at has one common denominator: freedom to choose which side of the disruption you're on. The stark difference between Constantine and Robespierre, for example, was that the community was given the choice to opt-in or opt-out without punishment. Unlike Robespierre, Constantine obsoleted failing systems and put a stronger structure in their place. Christianity’s introduction to Roman society was largely based on inclusion and education instead of hatred and violence. The first socioeconomic disruption in history that’s based on lack of trust As we've seen throughout history, the solution to these losses of faith in centralized institutions has been to place that faith in a different centralized institution. Satoshi used a fundamentally different to discover a solution that doesn’t require trust in a central institution to begin with. Game Theory Instead of relying on a different crop of fallible humans to enforce the new rules, Bitcoin uses incorruptible distributed software to enforce predetermined consensus parameters. Put simply, Bitcoin is the sound money humanity desperately needs – and that’s it. Thus, we’re seeing the emergence of a new Anti-Violent Digital Establishment that’s creating a ripe space for Bitcoin to radically redefine the distribution of financial power in our world. Only time will tell how this unfolds. Fascinating times are ahead of us, that’s for sure.

Bitcoin, The Anti-Violent Digital Establishment

AI Automated Investing: Friend Or Foe?

There’s a growing demand for online learning in higher education. Universities, colleges, and other educational institutions are capitalizing on the convenience and cost-effectiveness of virtual learning. However, as the Internet continues to grow, and so does the concern about its use for fraudulent activity such as plagiarism. The ease of using the web for educational purposes has made it a popular tool for students in elementary schools through universities to cheat on exams and papers. It’s good to always ensure that your online learning is safe without unnecessary restrictions or costs. Read on to learn more about the importance of plagiarism checkers, how to choose the best, and how they can help you create an effective online learning environment while reducing the risks of cheating or plagiarism. Why it’s important to use plagiarism checkers Before we dive into how to choose an online plagiarism checker tool, let’s discuss the reasons why it’s important to use a plagiarism checker in the first place. Plagiarism means taking someone else’s words and passing them off as your own, whether it’s in writing or online. It’s considered unethical and against educational standards, as it uses someone else’s work as your own. This can be a serious issue for both your academic career and reputation. It can also lead to more serious consequences, such as being sued by the author of the work you used without properly crediting the source, and even criminal charges depending on the laws in your country. Determining the best online plagiarism checker Once it’s clear why you need to use plagiarism checkers in your online learning, it’s time to look at how to choose the best online plagiarism checker for your needs. While there are many plagiarism checkers available online, it’s important to choose the right one for your needs. There are different plagiarism checkers available online. With different features and pricing, it can be challenging to find a plagiarism checker that best suits your needs. Here are some tips to consider when searching for an online plagiarism checker: 1. Detection Accuracy Accuracy is important when choosing a plagiarism checker. It’s important to find a plagiarism checker that provides trustworthy results. Ideally, you want to find a plagiarism checker that has a high accuracy rate while also being relatively inexpensive. 2. Number of Citations Required A high accuracy rate combined with a low number of citations can make for a . However, if your paper is only a few pages long, a high accuracy rate may not be as important. It’s important to choose a plagiarism checker that satisfies your citation needs while also having an affordable price. trustworthy plagiarism checker 3. The Licensing Agreement Plagiarism checkers will have different licensing agreements. Some licensing agreements allow you to use the tool to check the papers of your students, while others can only be used for academic papers. Knowing the licensing agreement of a tool is important when selecting a plagiarism checker. 4. Ability to detect multiple types of plagiarism. The most popular plagiarism checkers detect only textual plagiarism, but if you frequently use images or video clips, you may want a plagiarism checker that flags those as well. How professors choose their anti-plagiarism tools Professors are encouraged to use plagiarism checkers as part of their anti-plagiarism strategy. Students who are caught plagiarizing are likely to stop engaging in the offense. Plagiarism checkers provide professors with a simple way to identify and prevent plagiarism, ensuring the integrity of their course materials. There are many reasons why professors choose . Some choose plagiarism checkers because they want to ensure the integrity of their lectures and notes, while others want to prevent students from plagiarizing their assignments. plagiarism checkers for their online learning In some cases, professors may want to use plagiarism checkers to identify students who are not writing their assignments correctly and may need extra assistance. A plagiarism checker for professors is useful in ensuring that students are creating content that follows academic standards. Conclusion With the ever-growing demand for online learning, universities are looking towards technology as a solution to meet this demand. However, this comes with its risks as many universities have also reported cases of plagiarism due to the ease of posting and sharing content online. Safe and effective online learning is possible by following these tips for choosing the best plagiarism checker for your needs. It’s important to remember that plagiarism can have serious consequences, including failing a course, receiving a lower grade on a paper, and losing the chance to apply for certain scholarships or enter a profession that requires a degree. With this in mind, it’s important to ensure that online learning is as safe as possible by choosing the right plagiarism checker for your needs. With these tips in mind, you can reap the benefits of online learning while staying safe from the risks of cheating and plagiarism.

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