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Crypto-Fueled Market Openbazaar to Close Shop Unless OB1 Raises Community Funding

27/09/2020 by Idelto Editor

On September 25, the creators of the decentralized marketplace, Openbazaar, announced that unless the project can gather community funding, the supporting services like seed nodes and the API wallet will shut down. The firm behind the project, OB1 is also removing the Haven app from the iOS App Store and Google Play on October 1.

The open-source decentralized marketplace project Openbazaar started from an idea first conceived at the Bitcoin Hackathon in Toronto in April 2014. The first version of Openbazaar was released on April 4, 2016, and news.Bitcoin.com was one of the first to review the platform the following day.

The marketplace that ran for five years uses cryptocurrencies for payments, a peer-to-peer solution for exchanges, an escrow system, and Ricardian contracts.

On Friday, the development team and OB1’s CEO Brian Hoffman announced the project might be closing up shop soon, unless OB1 can raise funds.

“In 2014 Openbazaar started and today we’re announcing that it is now time to perhaps close this chapter,” Hoffman wrote on September 25. “Unless the community comes together to help. I’m extremely proud of what we accomplished over the years and the principles of what we stood for will remain,” the OB1 founder added.

In the company blog post, the firm said that it did not achieve the level of adoption and user growth it had hoped for when the project was invoked. “As a result, OB1 cannot sustain funding the ongoing infrastructure costs,” the blog post noted. Additionally, OB1 detailed that the company has been relying on donation funds but the money is running low.

“At OB1, we have desperately tried to secure more funding to not only maintain Openbazaar’s support costs but execute the next phase of the protocol that we believe can unlock explosive user adoption,” the company added. “Sadly, we have been unsuccessful and have no choice but to discontinue these supporting services.”

The farewell announcement highlights that during the next week or so, the team will be publishing explainers on how to release funds from Openbazaar nodes. Haven app users are being told to “immediately remove funds from their wallet.”

Further, OB1 said the development team plans to open source the Openbazaar search engine and Blockbook indexer code. This way, those who want to leverage Openbazaar privately can do so with these tools.

A great majority of the crypto community bid the project farewell on social media and crypto forums. Many were sad to see the project throw in the towel and said that the team put in a good effort.

At the end of the announcement post, the OB1 team left donation addresses so the community can help fund the project further. The Openbazaar project is accepting funds in BTC, LTC, ZEC, BCH, and ETH.

The team revealed on Saturday morning (ET) that someone sent 2.5 ETH to the project overnight. The project has received donations from a number of crypto communities and on Saturday afternoon, the team’s official Twitter account cryptically said: “Good news [is] coming.”

What do you think about the Openbazaar team’s recent announcement? Let us know in the comments section below.

The post Crypto-Fueled Market Openbazaar to Close Shop Unless OB1 Raises Community Funding appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Revolut Adds Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin Support for US Customers

01/09/2020 by Idelto Editor

Following the launch of Revolut’s new crypto exchange in the U.S. the company has added bitcoin cash and litecoin support. Alongside bitcoin and ethereum support, the trading platform’s added coins provide Revolut users with the ability to buy, store, and sell four different digital assets.

Six weeks ago, Revolut launched a new exchange in the United States and initially, the platform supported bitcoin (BTC) and ethereum (ETH).

Today Revolut has added bitcoin cash (BCH) and litecoin (LTC) support to the exchange’s roster of listed crypto assets. Revolut says the trading platform frictionlessly allows users to swap digital assets at the tap of a button.

Revolut has 13 million customers worldwide and roughly a million users are trading on a regular basis. “Monthly crypto volumes are in the hundreds of millions of dollars,” the firm detailed during the BCH and LTC support announcement.

Moreover, the company says that around 5,000 daily signups are attributed to its crypto service.

“At Revolut we pride ourselves in being a customer-obsessed brand,” Edward Cooper, Head of Crypto at Revolut said. “Since we launched our crypto offering in the States, we had swarms of customers requesting that we add Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin to the product. So, we took notice, got straight to work, and were able to deliver in just four weeks.”

The company highlighted that it aims to construct a financial super application that “provides customers with a checking account, budgeting tools, instant P2P payments.”

Revolut also allows users to spend and transfer the funds using a real-time exchange rate based on 28 different fiat currencies.

“I have said this before, but crypto has traditionally been inaccessible to the average consumer,” Cooper concluded.

“Traditional exchanges can be clunky and confusing, which immediately puts a lot of people off. We have built a platform that gives you exposure to the world of digital currencies at the tap of a button, and that’s the way it should be,” the Revolut Head of Crypto executive added.

What do you think about Revolut adding bitcoin cash and litecoin? Let us know in the comments section below.

The post Revolut Adds Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin Support for US Customers appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Inter-Blockchain Liquidity: Minting Synthetic Bitcoin Cash With the Ren Protocol

24/08/2020 by Idelto Editor

The decentralized finance (defi) ecosystem has matured quite a bit in 2020 and one project that’s seen some growth is the Ren Protocol. The application that allows people to access inter-blockchain liquidity for a number of defi applications. The following post is a step-by-step guide on how to leverage the Ren Protocol with Bitcoin Cash and a Metamask wallet.

This week news.Bitcoin.com tested the Ren Protocol, another decentralized finance (defi) application that has been making waves within the crypto community. This is because the total value locked (TVL) in the Ren-VM system right now is more than 12,600 BTC ($146 million).

Defi Pulse data shows that the Ren-VM Protocol has around 12,600 BTC locked into the system on August 23, 2020.

The Ren protocol also works with zcash (ZEC) and bitcoin cash (BCH) as well, as it offers cross-chain capabilities with three blockchains and then connects them to Ethereum. In order to give our readers some perspective on how the project works, we tested the Ren Bridge to mint a very small fraction of renBCH.

In order to create Ren-based synthetic bitcoin cash (BCH), zcash (ZEC), and bitcoin (BTC) users need to visit the website bridge.renproject.io/.

Essentially renBCH is just like renBTC, as it is a synthetic form of bitcoin cash. After the tokens are minted they can be leveraged on a number of defi applications like Curve or Uniswap.

The following guide illustrates how easy it is to utilize these defi platforms, but it also shows how Ethereum is suffering from fee issues.

Paying $3 to $6 per transaction is nothing to someone leveraging various defi apps in order to yield off of 6,000 USDC with an intricate flash loan. In my experiment, I only minted $1 worth of BCH to test the system for this article and this is totally not a recommended amount with current gas prices.

On Saturday, August 22, 2020, I minted $1 worth of bitcoin cash (BCH) as a test to see how the platform works. It is recommended by the Ren developers to leverage more than $10 worth of BTC, BCH, or ZEC, but with fees today it’s likely the person should spend a lot more money to make it worthwhile. In this example, it cost $6.52 in gas to settle the smart contract and there’s also a small fee involved in the minting process.

Before even leveraging the Ren Bridge the website explains that the platform should be used for over $10 worth of BCH, BTC, or ZEC. I found with gas so expensive today, it’s probably better to leverage a bit more than just $10, but for this test, I had the audacity to mint $1 worth of bitcoin cash (BCH).

Despite the fact that Ethereum (ETH) has high fees, some traders are able to leverage complex transactions like flash loans that utilize a combination of defi applications in order to profit significantly. A $3-6 gwei fee is meaningless to the person who conducted this transaction making tens of thousands of dollars.

The first thing you will need is some ethereum (ETH), bitcoin cash (BCH), and a Metamask wallet. You will also need a bitcoin cash (BCH) compatible wallet too and then you can head over to the website at bridge.renproject.io/.

From here you can connect with your Metamask wallet and accept the interaction with the Ren Bridge.

Once the wallet is connected, you can then leverage the Ren Bridge to mint renBTC, renBCH, or renZEC. As mentioned above, I decided to mint 0.0035 BCH ($1) into renBCH and the application lets you choose the asset, amount, the destination address, and it also shows you how much you will receive.

The invoice that I sent the $1 worth of bitcoin cash to in order to execute the process.

The window told me I would get 0.002797 renBCH and the next page breaks down the settlement fees. After accepting, the bridge gives you an invoice or bitcoin cash address to send the BCH to in order to continue. I sent $1 worth of BCH from my Bitcoin.com Wallet by scanning the QR code given with the invoice.

15 confirmations adds quite the wait time to the process, but that’s what it takes to mint bitcoin cash (BCH) using the Ren Protocol. Other blockchains like BTC take fewer confirmations.

Paying the invoice takes a while, as the Ren Protocol wants 15 BCH confirmations in order to continue the process.

From here, I walked away for a few hours and came back after my transaction made it through 15 confirmations. Once the wait time is over, the Ren Bridge will ask you to submit the transaction to the Ethereum network.

After the 15 confirmations finished, I submitted the interaction to the Ethereum network. From here after a confirmation, the swap for bitcoin cash (BCH) to renBCH is complete.

After hitting confirm, the Ren Bridge connects with Metamask again and the wallet explained the fee would be $6.52 to process the action. Even though I knew the fees were well above what I minted, I continued the process for testing purposes only.

The $1 renBCH mint completed on Saturday, August 23, 2020.

After the Ethereum blockchain confirmed the transaction, I was the proud owner of 0.002797 renBCH. The Bridge application also allows users to “release” the renBCH and you can get bitcoin cash (BCH) or whatever coin you leveraged during the process back at any time.

Instead, you can also leverage the wide variety of defi applications with the newly minted coins. Defi apps with few or no trust assumptions are available on the open web and renBCH and other crypto synthetics are supported for trade. My newly minted renBCH was identified on Uniswap and other platforms after simply connecting my Metamask wallet.

After minting renBCH, renBTC, or renZEC users can leverage other defi apps like Uniswap, Balancer, Curve, and other applications. (Picture on the left) The $1 worth of renBCH was recognized by the Uniswap version 2 protocol, but $1 worth is too small to trade. If you do have enough coins to trade (as shown in the picture on the right) you can swap for nearly any token created with Ethereum.

Overall the experience was simple to process and as mentioned a few times above, minting less than what it costs in fees is not sustainable. I highly recommend leveraging at least $50 or more, of any crypto asset supported, in order to use the Ren Protocol with gas fees today.

Although, people should research Ren with due diligence and never use more crypto assets than they can afford to lose with any defi application in existence. Even though defi offers solutions with little to no trust involved depending on the protocol, there is always risk involved.

However, those with deeper pockets who do want to leverage these defi applications in order to obtain certain preferable actions are likely willing to pay for such fees.

Users can make a whole lot of money farming yield, executing flash loans, and providing scalable dark pools of liquidity. All three of these concepts can be worthwhile even with $6 gwei prices if the person knows what they are doing.

What do you think about the minting experience using the Ren Protocol? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

The post Inter-Blockchain Liquidity: Minting Synthetic Bitcoin Cash With the Ren Protocol appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Markets.Bitcoin.Com Holds Fort as Coinmarketcap Temporarily Goes Offline

14/08/2020 by Idelto Editor

Coinmarketcap (CMC) temporarily went offline Thursday, August 13 and normal service only resumed some hours later, but not before inconveniencing a number of regular users. Crypto investors accustomed to CMC’s service scrambled to find reliable alternative sources of fresh market data.

During this downtime, crypto traders that are new to markets.Bitcoin.com got a glimpse of what the platform has to offer. Markets.Bitcoin.com matches CMC on most metrics including professional Tradingview charts and Into the Block onchain data. Not only can you keep up to date with the top digital currency market caps, but there’s always a plethora of reliable crypto data available at markets.Bitcoin.com.

Why has coinmarketcap been so slow and constantly offline ever since Binance took over?

— Andy (@OpTelic) August 13, 2020

Markets.Bitcoin.com beats the competition when it comes to unique user experiences tied to onchain stats, trading and earning, and token analytics from a number of blockchains.

For instance, markets.Bitcoin.com provides data and trading opportunities for some 500 of the top listed tokens/coins.

Investors, enthusiasts, and data geeks visiting the markets.Bitcoin.com can seamlessly buy or trade tokens while the swapping of digital assets is also possible with the Bitcoin.com Wallet.

Therefore, CMC’s downtime only inconvenienced users that solely rely on it for crypto asset price-tracking. Additionally, visitors to markets.Bitcoin.com also get a chance to earn with Cred, a licensed California-based lender that provides partners with turnkey crypto lending and borrowing services.

CMC, which is now owned by Binance, only recently added a very different earning feature.

Still, markets.Bitcoin.com offers crypto investors a more comprehensive service because it is part of a larger group comprising specialized service providers.

Cryptocurrency investors visiting markets.bitcoin.com not only get to leverage a noncustodial crypto wallet, trade, or get up to date token data. They also get links to the hottest cryptocurrency news across the globe.

Our markets web portal is part of Bitcoin.com, the site that offers everything under the sun when it comes to this innovative and evolving digital currency ecosystem. Alongside up-to-date crypto news, Bitcoin.com also provides a peer-to-peer trading platform, local.Bitcoin.com, a mining pool, and an online gaming casino as well.

If you are new to crypto assets like bitcoin cash (BCH) and bitcoin (BTC), our web portal also offers a number of educational resources and anyone can get started by gathering knowledge here.

What do you think of markets.Bitcoin.com’s approach? Share your thoughts in the comment section below

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ModiHost’s Token Is Live on HitBTC, the Leading European Bitcoin Exchange

09/07/2020 by Idelto Editor

Switzerland, July 9th 2020 – ModiHost, a hotel management system that uses artificial intelligence to deliver personalised experiences to hotel guests, is proud to announce that its token is live for trading on the HitBTC exchange starting from Thursday 9th.

HitBTC was founded in the early stages of blockchain growth, making it one of the most deep-rooted and reliable exchanges in the industry. HitBTC exchange is the largest spot trading market in the industry with over 800 trading pairs and 500+ spot instruments supported, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, EOS, Litecoin, Tron and others. “HitBTC is an authority in the blockchain world and we are proud to become part of this trustworthy family. Today’s announcement will help to greatly increase the trading volume of ModiHost’s Token as we are partnering up with the leading European bitcoin exchange, HitBTC. Despite this year being particularly difficult for the tourism industry, ModiHost is continuing to expand and reach key milestones” says Stephan Radwitz, ModiHost CEO.

Just two weeks ago, ModiHost announced the availability of its minimum viable product as it successfully onboarded more than 60 hotels across five countries: France, Italy, Spain, the UAE, and India.

With ModiHost, instead of forcing hotels to purchase and hold tokens, hotels can instead borrow tokens from private lending pools to cover operating fees. Pool operators must set the fee they charge hotels low enough so that their tokens are lent frequently, but also high enough to ensure fees give the token holders a competitive reward, while also leaving enough profit for themselves. The innovative pool system may also work as an extra income source for these holders.

The pool mechanism has several advantages: it incentivises token holders to become active participants in the ModiHost ecosystem, it allows token holders to benefit fully from the value of their tokens, and incentivises all parties involved to promote ModiHost, since participation further aligns the interests of holders with adoption of the platform.

After going live on HitBTC, ModiHost expects to boost the attraction of the platform for those looking to trade tokens. This achievement will also allow ModiHost community members to regularly gather information regarding the crypto asset and its competitors from a separate, reliable source.

About ModiHost
ModiHost, a hotel management system, harnesses the power of AI to take the hospitality industry to the next stage in its evolution, using AI to run hotels more effectively than ever before. Thanks to AI technology, Modihost creates an ad-hoc customer profile, making guests feel special by predicting their needs and behaviour, and suggesting services automatically, therefore allowing hotels to increase their sales by up to 25% and improve customer experiences. Additionally, it eliminates outdated procedures, reduces repetitive workload and raises staff efficiency, resulting in lower costs.

About HitBTC
HitBTC is a crypto exchange with over 800 trading pairs. The platform was created in 2013 and provides exchange, custodial and other related services. HitBTC offers a range of APIs such as REST, WebSocket, FIX API. The exchange’s UI was developed to meet the needs of the most demanding and sophisticated traders. Users can take advantage of competitive trading fees via HitBTC’s Trading Fee Tier system.

The exchange listing can be found at: https://hitbtc.com/AIM-to-BTC

This is a press release. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the promoted company or any of its affiliates or services. Bitcoin.com is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in the press release.

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