A secret recording of the biggest Chinese bitcoin Tycoon Li Xiaolai has emerged yesterday on Chinese social media. In this recording, he calls out many big names in the crypto space as “cheaters” and scammers. Has caused a huge uproar in the Chinese Crypto scene.

https://www.asiacryptotoday.com/chinese-bitcoin-billionare-li-xiaolai-secrectly-recorded-outing-many-big-names-in-crypto/

ZB EOS is suspected of openly engaging in vote-buying.

Does not violate the new EOS constitution apparently as Larimer believes vote buying is too ambiguous to hard code into the constitution (!?).

The South Korean government is drafting major new industry classification standards for the domestic blockchain industry, local crypto news outlet The BChain reports Thursday, July 5.

Three Korean ministries - the National Statistical Office, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Ministry of Information and Communication - are said to have been working since the end of last month to produce the final draft of a new blockchain industry classificatory scheme by the end of July.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/south-korea-legitimizes-blockchain-industry-with-major-new-classification-standards

Blockcloud
Website: block-cloud.io
Telegram: https://t.me/BlockcloudTeam
Whitepaper: www.block-cloud.io/blockcloudtechnicalwhitepaper.pdf

- Internet of Things (IoT) defines the interconnection of devices embedded in everyday objects, enabling them to send and receive data. Blockcloud is building a blockchain-based advanced TCP/IP architecture that aims to fix connectivity, scalability, trust and security issues.
- Blockcloud wants to design proof-of-service consensus for reliable verification of IoT services and develop CoDAG for fast recording of IoT transactions.
- It also wants to create a marketplaces to enable new enable new peer to-peer economic models: anyone can publish a service to Blockcloud, and anyone can subscribe a service from Blockcloud. There is no central party to stop someone from doing so. The truthful continuous double auction (TCDA) will ensure fair pricing and matching of services.
- Token utility: service providers are rewarded with tokens for contributing to the network and miners for verifying the network.
- Roadmap is very long: Q4 2018 for testnet, and Q2 2019 for main testnet (?). Mainnet? Unknown. That is almost a year between the token sale and even the testnet. Hardly a “utility token”.
- Hardcap is not excessive at $15M, but given they have no product at the moment but only a 19 page whitepaper - thats about $800k per page. Which is a fair valuation for using LaTex. To be fair Blockcloud claims its network has connected more than 8 million users and 7 million devices - but not using blockchain.
- The team is experienced in IoT and blokchain and has a good technical, academic and business background. Zhongxing Ming the CEO and Dai Pan the COO are connected through Shenzhen Oudmon Technology which focuses on R&D and manufacturing intelligent health risk detection products (on of the intented applications of Blockcloud) and whose core team comes from top Chinese universities Tsinghua University and Peking University. Rest of the team has Berkley, Wharton, Princeton, Alibaba, Baidu,... connections. The Technique Advisor is all you could want for this type of project and the Business Advisor Board has Roger Lim from NEO Global Capital.
- Current notable investors are Genesis Capital, OK Blockchain Capital, Kucoin, Neo Global Capital, Node Capital, BlockVC, Signum and Kosmos.
- Team and foundation are keeping 40% of tokens with unknown vesting, and only 20% of tokens are offered in the sale. Private Sales Locking Mechanism: First release 20% before exchange listed, then release 10% every month 2 months after exchange listed, finish releasing in 8 months.
- In summary: top team and reasonable hardcap, but no existing product (not even a date given for mainnet) and low percentage of tokens offered to the public compared to what the team and “family and friends” receive at unknown discounts and with unknown vesting. Potentially top project but raising funds about 6 months too early. If we are talking about selling utility tokens, and the date when the tokens will used is +1 year - then what are we talking about? With current regulations, crypto projects have no actual legal obligations to investors, but if there is not even a way to use the tokens in the foreseeable future - we are expected to buy fairy dust.

Part 1/2

FOAM
Website: foam.space
Telegram: https://t.me/foamspace
Whitepaper: https://www.foam.space/publicAssets/FOAM_Whitepaper.pdf
Github: https://github.com/f-o-a-m/

- FOAM is an open protocol for decentralized, geospatial data markets. It aims to build a consensus driven map of the world which is meant to be censorship resistant and based off of crypto-economic incentives and rewards.
- Two main players in real world mapping are Google Maps and OpenStreetMap (OSM). Google Map Maker is a closed system where all of the information you submit becomes property of Google. On the other hand, OSM is using a Wikipedia-like model to create free, editable maps of the world made entirely by voluntary efforts. There is no ownership in OSM, but using the blockchain FOAM wants to introduce value and means to reward contributors and incentivize both providers and users of the system. OSM is for example being used by Craigslist, OsmAnd, Geocaching, MapQuest Open, JMP statistical software, Foursquare and partially Apple.
- Token utility:
a) The FOAM Token Curated Registry unlocks mapping in a secure and permissionless fashion and allows locations to be ranked and maintained by token balances. Users can deposit FOAM Tokens into POIs (Points of Interest) on the map to increase attention those POIs might receive. More info: https://blog.foam.space/foam-main-net-preview-token-curated-registries-for-geographic-points-of-interest-af3f0eba5cee
b) Signaling is a mechanism designed to allow Cartographers to incentivize the expansion and geographic coverage of the FOAM network. To Signal, a Cartographer stakes FOAM Tokens to a Signaling smart contract by reference to a particular area. These staked tokens serve as indicators of demand, and are proportionate to (i) the length of time staking (the earlier, the better), and (ii) the number of tokens staked (the less well-served areas, the better).
c) Be rewarded for their own efforts with new FOAM Tokens in the form of mining rewards. Devices and real world contracts can be programmed to designate attestations and track interactions and transactions on the map. With the addition of necessary radio hardware (LPWAN) by individual users, it may be possible for location status to be proved in a different manner. Location could be proved through a time synchronization protocol that would ensure continuity of a distributed clock, whereby specialized hardware could synchronize nodes’ clocks over radio to provide location services in a given area.
- FOAM hopes to foster an ecosystem of applications in an array of verticals to potentially benefit immensely from secure verified location data that can be used to prevent fraud. Potential use cases are supply chain, energy markets, real estates, location based games,... Spatial Index & Visualizer along with the CSC enables anyone to build an application around the FOAM proof of location protocol or independantly for their own needs.
Product: The Spatial Index & Visualizer is currently in beta. You can test it out at https://beta.foam.space.
- Mainnet with Signaling and Static Proof of Location will be launched within a month after the token sale. This is a true utility token as all FOAM Token purchasers must prove their use of the FOAM Token upon receipt of their FOAM Tokens to be able to unlock them. Token holders can do this through either of the two initial utilities: (i) staking to a TCR, or (i) staking to the Signal smart contract on the Spatial Index.
- The token sale has a hard cap of $24 million and a soft cap of $15 million. These metrics will be priced in Ether at the time of the token sale.

— CONTINUES IN NEXT POST —

— CONTINUES FROM PREVIOUS POST —

Part 2/2

FOAM
Website: foam.space
Telegram: https://t.me/foamspace
Whitepaper: https://www.foam.space/publicAssets/FOAM_Whitepaper.pdf
Github: https://github.com/f-o-a-m/

- 25% of the token supply is for Advisors, Partners, Employees, Founders and a Reserve for grants and a foundation. 30% of the FOAM Token supply will be sold to purchasers. 25% of the FOAM Token supply is set aside for compensatory purposes, and 10% will be allocated to a Reserve intended for grants to developers, or other purposes related to use of the FOAM protocol. 35% of the supply is for the mining rewards to Zone anchors.

- 10 person team, 4 engineers, including some formerly involved in Blockapps, Consensys, OSM and others. Most of the team is connected to Blockapps which is a company incubated out of Consensys in 2015 to develop blockchain-as-a-service platform on the market. The rest are connected with urban development and architecture. BlockTower (Ari Paul) are investing, and FOAM joined the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance. However, we would like to see more business and crypto connected people and advisors.

- For better or for worse, FOAM is not a project that will rely on fake hype, dodgy marketing and Quarkchain level of tricks. They are a serious goal orientated blokchain based project (and opposite of 99% of ICOs out there). Mainnet is a starting with the token sale, there are no bonuses, and to unlock tokens you need to use them. Is this the beginning of a new era and a higher standard of ICOs, or a remnant of a time passed by (FOAM was founded in 2015) remains to be seen.

This Is How Easy It Is to Buy ICO Ratings — An Investigation

Newcomers and inexperienced investors are especially trusting ICO rating platforms when looking for information for their investment decisions. However, many rating platforms long ago earned a dubious reputation amongst industry experts. There is constant suspicion that the expert ratings they provide are in no way independent, but can rather be purchased by ICOs. However, is it really so simple to buy ICO ratings and, in so doing, deceive investors? We went in search of clues — with frightening results.

https://medium.com/alethena/this-is-how-easy-it-is-to-buy-ico-ratings-an-investigation-13d07e987394

DADI UPDATE

A cloud platform, with the goal of building a fairer internet, has made its mainnet live — allowing its growing suite of network-ready applications to offer faster and more secure hosting services for websites, APIs, apps and e-commerce stores.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/decentralized-cloud-platform-launches-mainnet-in-challenge-to-big-four-market-leaders

"Crypto gains are better, I don't trade boomer stuff"

INVESTING IS ABOUT EVERYTHING. If you have a favorite, you are doing this ALL WRONG. Your favorite method of trading and investing is not up to you, it is WHATEVER IS THE BEST AT THE CURRENT MOMENT.

There are ways to make money everywhere, at any time. FOMO is an illusion. There are always more opportunities, so open your eyes, expand your mind, wipe that chip off of your shoulder and start studying global economics so you GATHER INFORMATION to CONVERT INTO KNOWLEDGE so you can then invest in new markets to GAIN EXPERIENCE in order to make mistakes and LEARN FROM THEM so you can BUILD WISDOM.

Take a moment, and count up the hours you spend researching and trading crypto. Now multiply that amount of hours by 1 week, 1 month, 1 year, and than multiply that number by your current salary. THAT IS HOW MUCH TIME AND MONEY YOU ARE SPENDING. If you are going to dedicate that much time to this, THEN DIVERSIFY YOUR MIND and study up on HOW THE WORLD WORKS.

Study global politics, ETFs, index funds, hedge funds, venture capital firms, historical days in the markets, options trading, futures, real estate, life insurance, child's education funds, building credit, leveraging debt but also minimizing it depending on the situation, forex, commodities, YOU GET THE POINT.

If you want to sit there and say "Cryptocurrency is going to replace everything and banks will be destroyed and decentralization will take over blah blah blah" then you are LIVING IN A FAIRY TALE. The world is still trying to figure out how to even define these new technological terms and they're having an even harder time regulating it.

This is still very early, so are you gonna sit there and waste time reading ICOs and scanning charts only to find out that over 20% of everything you look at is a scam, have a jolly ol' good time.

Say cryptocurrency EXPLODES right now and we all get tons of money.

Then what? What is your next plan after that? How much % are you hedging with? What % are you taking out? What % is now going into new investments, and which ones? How will rising global conflicts affect crypto? How could a potential economic crisis affect crypto if literally everything crashes? What happens if you get rich and your exchange gets hacked, but you went all in and now have 0 savings to pay for your car that just broke down?

Kooz can keep going, but bear is going to spend his time absorbing information, converting it into knowledge, trying new investments for experience, and using that experience to build wisdom.

What are you gonna do?

QuarkChain testnet launched

https://medium.com/@quarkchainio/quarkchain-testnet-1-0-bottom-quark-2ee8665ce5b1

Understanding blockchain series: Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS)

https://medium.com/loom-network/understanding-blockchain-fundamentals-part-3-delegated-proof-of-stake-b385a6b92ef

China and Blockchain Technology: An Introduction

China has developed an international reputation for being opposed to blockchain technology and crypto-assets in government, enterprises, startups, and investment.

Articles conflate cryptocurrencies with blockchain, and do not understand that actions against cryptocurrency do not mean actions against blockchain technology.

Understanding that China’s restrictions on certain aspects of blockchain technology are not unique to the country, how do we explain the prevalent international prejudice of China as a country not friendly towards blockchain development?

https://media.consensys.net/china-and-blockchain-technology-an-introduction-9e12adf9fd52

Essentia Presale ETH Peg Update:

Due to the confusion generated in these hours, we are here to kindly inform you that the presale allocation has been distributed correctly accordingly by the SAFT that every single contributor signed.

Within that SAFT agreement that every presale contributors signed there is a clause stating specifically that “ If the difference of the ETHUSD rate for any of the participant will be higher than 5% from the day of the contribution to the day before the public sale, all the prices for all the partecipants will be pegged at the average of ETHUSD of the day before the ICO starts.” This was done to protect contributors from volatility. In the case your private sale would’ve been pegged at 400$ per ETH, and then the contributors on the public sale would be pegged at 800$ due to ETH price increase, the bonus for private sale would’ve been essentially gone and diluted if this rule wasn’t in place in the agreement.

Unfortunately not many people paid attention to it, due to the strong FOMO and willingness to get in, resulting in a great deal of confusion when the tokens distributed.

Essentia aim was never the one to create confusion in its people and in its community. Essentia never could imagine so much confusion over something agreed between both parties: them and the contributor(s).

We feel to all this misunderstanding, and a very bad reaction from the community that we never wish to see again, Essentia decided to offer presale contributors only TOTAL EXCLUSIVITY with free Super nodes, with daily token mining and incentives, in the system of Supernodes/Block Producers over the Essentia Galaxy, in implementation and launching soon in testnet (A galaxy of different nodes with different functions for all the Essentia network).

Only private contributors will get these nodes for free, EXCLUSIVELY, acting similarly as block producer on EOS as to make an example.

Source: Essentia telegram

Huobi US strategic partner HBUS (www.hbus.com) launched today

A regulated, compliant, and trustworthy marketplace to trade virtual currency.

Only US users with valid US address are accepted.