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How to Avoid Cryptocurrency Scams

2022-03-13T09:44:00.001-07:00

The volatility of cryptocurrencies in recent years has led to an influx of investors looking to cash in on the emerging asset. And cryptocurrency-based assets and systems, like non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and decentralized finance (DeFi), may add to the allure with potential new ways to make money. But with cryptocurrencies becoming more mainstream, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has also seen cryptocurrency investment scam losses skyrocket. Between October 1, 2020, and March 31, 2021, the FTC received 6,792 cryptocurrency investment scam reports, with over $80 million in reported losses.

This potential for fraud might encourage you to use caution when making cryptocurrency investments and managing your crypto portfolio. Here are some of the common cryptocurrency-related scams to watch out for.

1. Phishing Scams

Phishing is a classic scheme in which a scammer attempts to get your personal information, such as your name, address, Social Security number and passwords. Or, if you're a cryptocurrency investor, a scammer's efforts might be focused on nabbing the seed words or private key from one of your cryptocurrency wallets.

Phishing scams can take different forms and may originate from a seemingly innocuous phone call, text or email. Cryptocurrency phishing scams are also common on forums, messaging apps and social media sites.

The scammer will often impersonate someone else, such as an authority figure or company representative. They'll then try to trick you into sharing your info.

For example, if you post that you need help with a cryptocurrency platform, the scammer might reach out to you and pretend to be part of the customer service team. They might ask you to fill out a form or share access to your computer so they can help. Once they get an opportunity, however, they'll take your information and potentially transfer your digital assets to an account they control before you even know what's happening.

2. Giveaway Scams

High-profile celebrities and businesspeople often legitimately discuss cryptocurrencies online. Giveaway scams build on this established trend to extort victims. The scammers will often pose as well-known people, even creating social media profiles with their pictures and bios.

The scammer might declare that they're giving away cryptocurrency tokens. To qualify for the "giveaway," you have to send them money, and then they'll send you back even more. In reality, they'll simply take your money and disappear.

3. Investment Scams

You'll also want to watch out for phony investment pitches. The scammers might tell you to visit a website to learn more about the potential "opportunity," or they may ask you for money directly. They could also be impersonating someone else—scam methods might be built on top of one another or combined to create new scams.

Exit scams and "rug pulls" are two common types of investment scams in the crypto space.

An exit scam could be when a company raises money with an initial coin offering (ICO), but then quickly exits and steals the funds without creating an actual product.
A rug pull is a specific type of exit scam that happens in the DeFi space's decentralized exchange (DEX). With a rug pull, a new coin is created and listed on an exchange—they might try to heavily promote it online as well. Once people swap their cryptocurrencies for the new coin, the coin's developers pull out of the project and leave investors with worthless coins.

You also have to watch out for more traditional scams, such as Ponzi and pyramid schemes, and people who promote projects simply because they have a financial stake. You might even be contacted by an unsuspecting person who got caught up in the scam and doesn't realize they're spreading an illegitimate opportunity.

4. Fake Apps and Websites

Cybercriminals may create fake websites and apps, complete with names that are nearly identical to well-known and trusted cryptocurrency services.

If you mistake these websites for the real thing and enter your personal or account information, the scammers may be able to steal your identity or cryptocurrency. In some cases, you might inadvertently use the service to send your cryptocurrencies directly to the scammers' wallets.

5. Blackmail Scams

Some criminals will try to blackmail you with incriminating or embarrassing information that's either real or entirely made up. For instance, they might threaten to send compromising videos or pictures of you to everyone in your phone or email contact list. Or, they may keep the threat vague, saying that they'll share "a secret" without naming it specifically.

Cryptocurrency comes into the mix because the scammers will often demand payment via Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency. You can report these extortion or blackmail attempts directly to the FBI.

6. Cryptocurrency Twists on Established Scams

Many scams may not target your cryptocurrency assets specifically, but simply use cryptocurrencies as a way to collect money from their victims. These scams usually aren't unique to cryptocurrency investors. Common scams include:

Romance scams: When someone forms a personal (romantic or platonic) relationship with you and then asks for money.
Employment scams: When you're offered a job but have to pay for an initial training, software or other products before you can start.
Marketplace scams: When you're asked to send cryptocurrency for an item you're buying through an online marketplace.

No matter the initial approach, in the end, you'll be asked to send the other party cryptocurrency payments. In some cases, the scammers may ask for more (romance scams can be dragged out for months or years) before they stop responding.

Follow a Few Key Rules

Cryptocurrency scams can be trickier to identify than other scams because the technology and terminology may be unfamiliar to many people. And fraudsters might use victims' lack of understanding about cryptocurrencies to appear more menacing or legitimate. There may also be an added sense of pressure to act quickly—before you "lose out" on an opportunity.

Here are a few guidelines that can help protect you:

Never share your private keys or seed phrases with anyone.
Don't send cryptocurrency to people claiming to work for a government agency or large corporation.
Enable multi-factor authentication when it's an option.
Ignore anyone who promises to give you free money or says you're guaranteed to make money on an investment.

If you're unsure, you can search for the details related to the website, app or cryptocurrency in question and "scam" or "review" to see what other people have reported.

How to Report Cryptocurrency Scams

If you've fallen victim to a cryptocurrency scam, you can report it to the FTC, Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

You may also want to report the scam to the cryptocurrency project or platform that's being utilized in the scheme. If you're approached on a messaging or social media platform, you could also report the person to a group administrator who can ban the user or warn others about the person who tried to scam you.

Monitor and Protect Your Identity

Many scams don't involve complicated hacks or technology. Instead, they rely on social engineering—when the perpetrator tricks you into sharing your information or sending them money. Because cryptocurrency transfers can't be reversed, victims might not have a lot of recourse. All the more reason to be extra careful.

To help keep your finances safe from bad actors, you could look into identity theft protection services that alert you if your personal information is compromised. Some programs, including Experian IdentityWorks℠, also come with identity theft insurance, which can help cover the cost and process of restoring your identity if it's stolen.

Lucky Block Price Prediction: LBLOCK/USD Falls to $0.00516; It’s Time to Buy

2022-03-04T14:44:00.003-08:00

The Lucky Block price prediction drops to touch the daily low of $0.00516 as the price dips for new buyers to surface.

LBLOCK/USD Medium-term Trend: Ranging (4 Hour Chart)

Key Levels:

Resistance levels: $0.0065, $0.0070, $0.0075

Support levels: $0.0040, $0.0035, $0.0030

LBLOCK/USD is now recovering towards the resistance level of $0.0055 after the coin touches the daily low at $0.000516. However, the buyers quickly grab the Lucky Block (LBLOCK) and push it to cross above the 9-day moving average. Therefore, if the sellers bring the market further lower once again, more buyers are expected to buy the dip.

Lucky Block Price Prediction: LBLOCK Ready for The Upside

Looking at the 4-hour chart, the Block Lucky price is now retracing back to the upside, but buyers should watch for the next bearish signals for them to buy the dips. On the other hand, the coin may fall more if the technical indicator Relative Strength Index (14) crosses into the oversold region, the coin may experience new buyers coming into the market. Any further supports may be located at $0.0040, $0.0035, and $0.0030.

However, should the buyers hold the current support of $0.0052 and begin to climb higher; the bulls can expect immediate resistance to be located at $0.0060. Any further bullish movement above the upper boundary of the channel may hit the resistance level of $0.0065, $0.0070, and $0.0075.

LBLOCK/USD Medium-term Trend: Bearish (2 Hour Chart)

On the 2-hour chart, the Lucky Block price may cross below the lower boundary of the channel, but this may give new buyers to enter into the market. Nevertheless, the existing buyers are also expected to buy any dip as the market gathers momentum to begin another bullish movement.

From above, if the buyers push the price above the upper boundary of the channel, higher resistance lies at $0.0060 and above. Moreover, should the coin retreat and slide towards the lower boundary of the channel, another support may come at $0.0045 and below while the Relative Strength Index (14) stays within the oversold region.

Metaverse Land Prices Are Driven by These Five Factors, Says Hedge Fund Investor

2022-03-02T15:15:00.003-08:00

Prices on real estate in the metaverse are mainly determined by the number of people that will get exposed to it, and how well it can be turned into a yield-generating machine for its owners through various monetization strategies, a hedge fund principal who specializes in digital assets has argued in a new essay.

“What does it mean to be a 'neighbour' in the metaverse? Why does it even matter? What if Snoop Dogg had multiple houses in the metaverse? Do land prices near all those houses get a premium? Frankly, nobody knows,” Joel John, a principal at the digital asset-focused investment firm LedgerPrime, opened his essay by saying.

He went on to explain that unlike tokens, which can be divided into smaller parts, digital plots of land in the metaverse generally require significant amounts of capital to buy. For instance, he said the average price of a plot of land in The Sandbox (SAND) is around USD 10,399, while it is approximately USD 11,954 for a piece of land in Decentraland (MANA).

To understand these prices, John wrote, it’s important to first understand what land in the metaverse really is. And according to him, it is nothing more than “a plot where you can express anything digitally.”

More specifically, the professional investor argued that there are five main factors that can impact the value of a piece of digital real estate:

Overall footfall
Memetic proximity
Geospatial context
Financialization
Art.

The first among these, the “overall football” refers to the number of people that will get exposed to a piece of digital real estate, much like how traditional commercial real estate is more expensive in areas where many people pass by.

Then comes what the author calls “memetic proximity,” which he described as the ability to be close to something or someone in the metaverse that is expected to generate attention.

Further, the geospatial context has to do with how someone can earn a reputation by owning the same asset as a well-known person owns, or by owning a piece of land close to a famous person or company.

Next, financialization refers to the growing interconnection between finance and the metaverse, with various investment strategies employed to make profits or generate yields from digital real estate. For example, yield from metaverse land could come from renting land out, or from splitting land up into fractions that people can buy at lower prices, John suggested. Digital land that is more suited for these strategies will be valued higher, he said.

Lastly, the value of metaverse land will always be influenced by the design of the game it is in. If the graphics and internal art of a game are “stunning,” it is likely that developers will auction off plots of land in the game. The landowners could then advertise or otherwise charge fees to other users for using the land or for letting them pass through it, John wrote.

Meanwhile, countering a commonly heard argument that metaverse land can’t be worth much because it can be generated indefinitely, John stated that he believes this argument rests on flawed logic.

“This is the same as saying blogs are not worth much because there are countless blogs. The value of a plot of land in the metaverse is directly proportional to how much attention it gets at different points in time,” he said.

Commenting on the difference between investing in metaverse land and traditional cryptoassets, the investor noted that these two types of digital assets will not trade in the same way. The reason for this, he argued, is that the high costs of digital land pieces mean that most owners will choose to “develop” their land.

“These plots have a high entry barrier, and even when a collective owns them, they are incentivized to develop them instead of reselling them immediately for a quick buck,” he wrote.

John concluded that, in his opinion, the present-day metaverse lands governed through decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) are "symbolic of where the internet may trend in parts and pieces—decentralised, user-owned and slightly crazy," adding:

"The future - in my eyes, is a remix of the past."

Rakuten Launches Rakuten NFT, a New Marketplace and Sales Platform for NFTs

2022-02-28T12:45:00.003-08:00

- Diverse range of NFT content on offer, from sport to entertainment, including music and anime -

Tokyo, February 25, 2022 – Rakuten Group, Inc.
launched the non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace and sales platform Rakuten NFT.

Rakuten NFT is a service that provides a marketplace for users to purchase NFTs, as well as peer-to-peer buying and selling of NFTs, in a range of areas such as sports and entertainment, including music and anime. It also features a unique, one-stop platform which enables IP holders to build their own website for issuing and selling NFTs. Rakuten ID can be used when making purchases, allowing users to earn and spend Rakuten Points. Any NFTs purchased can be added to a collection on the buyer’s own webpage, and can also be put up for sale in the marketplace and sold. A service for peer-to-peer issuing and selling of NFT content is planned for launch in 2023 or later, which will support IP holders in Japan and worldwide to issue NFTs, as well as spur further development of a global market for NFTs. Plans also call for the introduction of a diversity of additional payment methods.

From 9 p.m. JST tonight, an NFT using Ultraman anime CG assets and an NFT of the horse racing-themed comic Kurogane Hiroshi G1 Gekitoshi (2010 Series), containing illustrations by famed manga artist Hiroshi Kurogane, will go to market. Looking further ahead, there are plans for NFTs featuring rare footage including famous scenes from TV Asahi Corporation shows and NFT trading cards* of rock idol group Under Beasty from Daiki Sound Co., Ltd. NFT artwork by contemporary artists from the Art Powers Japan Association and NFTs featuring characters from Tiger & Bunny 2, the popular anime from Bandai Namco Pictures Inc. are also planned. Additionally, plans also call for the release of cultural NFTs from Japanese clothing brand Beams Co., Ltd., music-related NFTs from Up-Front Group Co., Ltd., as well as NFTs using visuals from Estab Life, the original anime project from Goro Taniguchi which is partially funded by Rakuten. Taniguchi is well known as the director of Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion, a popular anime TV series.

Rakuten NFT is also planning to produce and sell the J.League NFT Collection Players Anthem, the J.League official NFT collection, and to develop the Rakuten NFT Art Gallery, a collection of original NFT artwork selected by Rakuten NFT. To mark its opening, the Rakuten NFT Art Gallery will host a selection of digital artwork including works by Orihara, image creator for singer Ado. Sales on Rakuten NFT Art Gallery are expected to commence May 2022 or later.

Rakuten will continue to provide new and exciting entertainment experiences through Rakuten NFT, delivering greater levels of convenience and satisfaction to the widest possible range of users through its services.

*NFT trading cards are digital trading cards that use blockchain.

Overview of Rakuten NFT
Service launch date: Friday, February 25, 2022 (Sales of NFT content start at 9:00 p.m. JST)
Service website: https://nft.rakuten.co.jp/
Overview
・For customers: A marketplace to purchase NFTs in a variety of categories – such as sports and entertainment – and to buy and sell NFTs with other individual users.
・For IP holders: A unique, one-stop platform for issuing NFTs and building websites for selling NFTs.

Content for sale
Launching at 9:00 p.m. on Friday, February 25, 2022 (JST):
・Ultraman
Sale webpage: https://heros-ultraman.nft.rakuten.co.jp/
・Kurogane Hiroshi G1 Gekitoshi (2010 Series)
Sale webpage: https://nikkansports.nft.rakuten.co.jp/
Upcoming launches:
・NFTs featuring rare footage including famous scenes from TV Asahi shows (TV Asahi Corporation)
・NFT trading cards of rock idol group Under Beasty (Daiki Sound Co., Ltd.)
・NFT artworks by contemporary artists (Art Powers Japan)
・NFTs Featuring characters from the anime Tiger & Bunny 2 (BANDAI NAMCO Pictures Inc.)
・Cultural NFTs (BEAMS Co., Ltd.)
・Music-related NFTs (UP-FRONT GROUP Co., Ltd.)
・NFTs featuring visuals from Estab Life, by Goro Taniguchi (© SSF/ESTAB LIFE COMMITTEE)
・Japan Professional Football League licensed products – J.League NFT Collection Players Anthem, the J.League official NFT collection. (Rakuten NFT)
・Rakuten NFT Art Gallery NFT artworks (Rakuten NFT)

Ethereum Gas Fees Slump to 48-Day Low as ETH Struggles with Momentum

2022-02-28T12:36:00.003-08:00

The cost of transacting with Ethereum (ETH) continues to drop, as the gas price to facilitate one transaction has dipped by over 80% from what it was in early January.

According to reports on Monday, it costs an average of 0.0039 ETH or $10.26 to carry out one transaction. In January, it cost an average of $52 per transaction. Notably, the last time ETH gas fees were this low was in late August last year.

As Ethereum gas fees continue to slide since mid-January, so too has the median-sized gas fee. As of January 10, the median-sized gas fee came in at $29 but has since dropped by a whopping 84.31% to 0.0017 ETH or $4.55 per transaction.

Meanwhile, L2 transactions have also dropped lower than on-chain transactions since gas fees slumped. At press time, the lowest L2 fee to send ETH is by leveraging Loopring, which has a transfer fee of only $0.13. For token swaps with Loopring, it costs $0.66 per swap.

On-chain transaction fees on Bitcoin are also significantly lower at 0.000000086 BTC per byte, as of yesterday, which equates to 0.000032 BTC or $1.20 per transaction. Also, the median-sized Bitcoin fee as of yesterday was about 0.0000078 BTC or $0.29 per transaction.

Key Ethereum Levels to Watch — February 28

Over the weekend, ETH fell into a sideways pattern as it struggled to plant a healthy footing above the $2,800 top. After a prolonged failure to achieve this move, the cryptocurrency refreshed its bearish momentum after falling to the $2.570 support again on Sunday.

That said, the second-largest cryptocurrency appears to have regained a mild bullish tone this morning as bulls fight to take the 4-hour 50 SMA at the $2,650 support. With the current bullish tone in the broader market, we could see a healthy rebound to $2,750 – $2,800 axis over the coming hours and days.

Meanwhile, my resistance levels are $2,650, $2,750, and $2,800, and my support levels are $2,570, $2,480, and $2,400.

Total Market Capitalization: $1.73 trillion

Ethereum Market Capitalization: $315.3 billion

Ethereum Dominance: 18.2%

Market Rank: #2

Dolce & Gabbana (D&G) to Launch Exclusive NFT Collection on Polygon

2022-02-27T14:32:00.001-08:00

Italian luxury brand Dolce & Gabbana (D&G) is expanding its NFT collection by partnering with Polygon NFT marketplace UNXD.

The expansion, dubbed “DGFamily NFT community” will use UNXD’s platform as the gateway to the DGFamily’s ability to access its exclusive luxury product line through an entry pass called “DGFamily Box.”

D&G’s announcement via Twitter comes after D&G’s initial debut of its first collection – Collezione Genesi, back in September of last year. The collection, inspired by Venice, served as the world’s first ‘couture NFT collection,’ with nine pieces of artwork.

The most famous of the collection was “Doge Crown” – a digital artwork containing seven sapphires and 142 diamonds. The collection was sold to private collectors for the grand total of over $5.5 million, with Doge Crown selling for over $1.2 million.

“DGFamily is an extension of how we’ve always operated, but extended through digital technology,“ said a D&G executive in a recent Twitter space.

D&G’s first drop via Wrapped ETH

Each piece will have multiple designs in different boxes, giving items in each box a different rarity and adding an additional element of exclusivity. While the prices of the different boxes have not yet been disclosed, in addition to any information relating to its supply, both Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana will design all the items in each box.

However, for purposes of “ensuring a reasonable rarity,” the company says there will be less than 10,000 boxes with the prices to be revealed 1-2 weeks prior to each drop.

“The first drops and experiences will be really special,” said the executive.

The first planned D&G Family Box drop will take place on UNXD on March 26, with sales priced in Wrapped ETH (wETH)through Polygon’s scaling network.

Buyers can acquire wrapped ETH by bridging their Ethereum to the Polygon network. The boxes will be minted on Layer 1 Ethereum and bridge to Polygon for delivery to their respective owners after the sale.

Other luxury brands – DKNY and Louis Vuitton

D&G is not the only household luxury brand to take its elite collections into the blockchain and NFT spaces.

Last year, fashion brand Donna-Karen New York (DKNY) launched an NFT of its logo in partnership with French artists Obvious. The NFT was available on the Rad NFT marketplace.

In that same month, French fashion house Louis Vuitton joined forces with digital artist and graphic designer, Beeple, for its 200th birthday celebration.

Fashion companies have also begun using the blockchain to prevent counterfeiting. UNXD stresses the importance of security for the D&G NFT drop, emphasizing that no drops have gone live yet, and to watch out for counterfeits on OpenSea.

Report: Latin America Freelance Market Grow; More Workers Accepting Crypto

2022-02-27T13:55:00.005-08:00

Global hiring firm Deel released its “State of Global Hiring 2021” report, which revealed that freelancing in Latin America is massively increasing, with more people choosing to accept parts of their paycheck in cryptocurrency.

The report revealed that Argentinians and Latin America are increasingly focusing their hiring strategies on international companies and jobs. The drastic changes in the working industry are attributed most likely to the decline of local economies and jobs stemming from the after-effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Freelance work in Argentina is increasing

As the report continues to explain, Argentina stands out in the region, as there has been a significant increase in workers’ wages – with 21% more working in the marketing, products, and sales sector over the last six months.

With the increasing volume of freelance work, the report also indicated there has been a similar pattern of the number of workers who choose to receive part of their paychecks in cryptocurrency. Specifically, workers are choosing to receive their payments in either Bitcoin (BTC) or Ethereum (ETH), with 90% of crypto payments to the region falling under the two categories.

Volume of crypto withdrawals are increasing

Latin America has emerged as one of the fastest regions adopting Bitcoin and other digital assets, primarily because of the increasing demand to increase financial inclusion rates of its citizens and promote financial stability.

It’s no surprise that the report also makes note of the increasing volume of cryptocurrency withdrawals, emphasizing Bitcoin’s popularity throughout the region.

“We are seeing an increase in cryptocurrency withdrawals, in countries like Argentina,” said Deel COO Dan Westgarth. “We currently offer withdrawals in BTC -the most popular in Latin America-ETH, USDC, and SOL through Coinbase.”

With Bitcoin and other digital assets providing a somewhat viable alternative to their volatile fiat currency, and bridging the gap for Latin American citizens to have access to financial services, Argentina’s freelance market is surely to continue witnessing an upward rise.

Reese Witherspoon Set to Produce Movies Based on an Ethereum-Powered NFT Collection

2022-02-27T07:05:00.004-08:00

Oscar Winner and Hollywood A-lister Reese Witherspoon’s production company is planning to launch a series of TV shows and films featuring women in the male-dominated non-fungible tokens (NFT) space.

As reported by Decrypt, Witherspoon’s media company Hello Sunshine has announced a new deal to develop feature films and a television series based upon the Ethereum-powered NFT collection “World of Women” (WoW).

She told Variety:

“While the crypto and NFT space is largely dominated by men, there are inspiring leaders like World of Women creating incredible communities for women during this massive shift for media and technology. We’re proud to partner with WoW to expand their universe of characters and to develop innovative scripted and unscripted content. We look forward to engaging with the remarkable WoW community at every step of this partnership and creating opportunities for WoW holders to work collaboratively with Hello Sunshine on transforming the WoW art into powerful stories.“

According to NFT marketplace OpenSea, the WoW collection, which was created and illustrated by Yam Karkai, features “10,000 artworks of diverse and powerful women.” At the time of writing, the floor price is 8.498 ETH.

On 2 September 2021, Witherspoon announced on Twitter that she had just bought $ETH for the first time:

Disclaimer

The views and opinions expressed by the author, or any people mentioned in this article, are for informational purposes only, and they do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice. Investing in or trading cryptoassets comes with a risk of financial loss.

Bitcoin (BTC/USD) Price Hovers Around $40,000

2022-02-27T06:33:00.001-08:00

Bitcoin Price Prediction – February 27

There has been a pit-stop following a rebounding motion in the BTC/USD market operations as the crypto-economic price hovers around $40,000 presently. The crypto economy is between the high of $39,277 and a low of $38,221 at a smaller negative percentage rate of 0.98.

BTC/USD Market
Key Levels
Resistance levels: $40,000, $42,500, $45,000
Support levels: $37,500, $35,000, $32,500

BTC/USD – Daily Chart
The BTC/USD daily chart reveals the crypto-economic price hovers around the $40,000 trading level. The 50-day SMA indicator is above the 14-day SMA indicator. The upper bearish trend line touches the psychological resistant points that price has been following to the downside. Presently, the crypto market is encountering a retardant force around the value line. The Stochastic Oscillators positioned somewhat slantingly northbound from the oversold region closely beneath the range of 40. It shows that the momentum to the upside may start getting reduced in a way.

Will the BTC/USD market still feature a bearish trading cycle as the crypto-economic price hovers around $40,000?
The BTC/USD market holds a bearish trading cycle as the crypto-economic price hovers around $40,000. Based on a technical trading approach, traders would have to be on the lookout for an area of exhaustion of a particular volatility movement before considering a launch of an order. Long-position placers may have to be cautious of exerting a position trying to find support.

On the downside of the technical analysis, the BTC/USD market short-position placers may have to continue to fall under a selling force under the trend line of the smaller SMA. The $40,000 psychological level will likely remain the zone that price has to face barriers to impede smooth runs of the market. A full-fledged bearish candlestick against the $37,500 and $35,000 levels will lead to more projections of featuring downs.

BTC/USD 4-hour Chart
The BTC/USD medium-term chart reveals the crypto-economic price hovers around $40,000. The 50-day SMA indicator is above the 14-day SMA indicator. The critical support baseline drawn at the $35,000 The Stochastic Oscillators has crossed southbound from the overbought region, moving to the downside closer to the range of 20. It appears that the crypto-economy is decreasing at a slowing rate. The present situation market needed to run into a volatile motion before observing a position.

Note: Aptchu is not a financial advisor. Do your research before investing your funds in any financial asset or presented product or event. We are not responsible for your investing results.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH/USD) Trade Keeps in a Low-Trading Outlook

2022-02-26T15:10:00.003-08:00

Bitcoin Cash Price Prediction – February 25

It has overly observed that the market movers have not been making volatility in the BCH/USD market operations as the crypto-economic trade keeps in a low-trading outlook. The crypto economy has increased and decreased, giving $304 and $290 points at a minute positive percentage rate of 0.82 as of writing.

BCH/USD Market
Key Levels:
Resistance levels: $350, $400, $450
Support levels: $250, $200, $150

BCH/USD – Daily Chart
The BCH/USD daily chart showcases the crypto-economic keeps in a low-trading outlook in its approaches. There has been a continued featuring of variant candlesticks closely beneath the trend line of the smaller SMA. The 50-day SMA indicator is underneath the 14-day SMA indicator. The Stochastic Oscillators have crossed northbound from the oversold region to touch the range of 40. That reading raises an indication suggesting a buying force to play out in the crypto economy.

Is the BCH/USD market operation worth placing orders on as the crypto-economic keeps in a low-trading outlook?
On the higher trading time frame, placing orders on the BCH/USD market operation appears difficult. The crypto-economic trade keeps featuring in a low-trading outlook force over long-several sessions. Long-position takers still needed to exercise patience to get another round of oversold conditions that will be by the Stochastic Oscillators to reconsider going for a long order.

On the downside of the technical analysis, the BCH/USD market short-position takers have to hold on firmly to their positions around the $300 alongside the 14-day SMA indicator. However, a break of the value line to the upside will be to retest resistance around a higher point of the 50-day SMA indicator before returning into a downward trend to re-satisfy the bearish trading cycle afterward.

BCH/BTC Price Analysis
In comparison, Bitcoin Cash’s trending capability still features a losing nature against Bitcoin. The cryptocurrency pair trade keeps featuring in a low-trading outlook. The 50-day SMA indicator is above the 14-day SMA indicator. The bearish trend line drew closely above the smaller SMA. The Stochastic Oscillators have conjoined their lines, seemingly consolidating southbound from the overbought region toward lower range lines. The formation of candlesticks signifies the base crypto is less in reducing against the flagship counter crypto.

Note: Aptchu is not a financial advisor. Do your research before investing your funds in any financial asset or presented product or event. We are not responsible for your investing results.

Cardano Analysis

2022-02-26T14:47:00.002-08:00

Cardano Rebounds above $0.74 as Bulls Attempt to Reclaim the $1.00

Cardano (ADA) Long-Term Analysis: Bearish
Cardano’s (ADA) price is in a downward correction as bulls attempt to reclaim the $1.00 . After losing the $1.00 crucial support, Cardano has been consolidating above the $0.85 support since February 21. However, on February 24, ADA price plunged to $0.74 low as bulls bought the dips. The cryptocurrency has pulled above $0.85 support and it is consolidating above it. On the upside, if price rebounds above the $0.85 support, ADA will rise and retest the $1.26 resistance. A break above the resistance will catapult the altcoin above the moving averages.

Cardano (ADA) Indicator Analysis
Cardano is at level 35 of the Relative Strength Index for period 14. The altcoin is approaching the oversold region and it is below the centerline 50. The market is capable of a further downward move. ADA is above the 50% range of daily stochastic. The market has resumed bullish momentum as altcoin approaches the overbought region.

Technical indicators:
Major supply zones: $2.0, $2.20, $2.40
Major demand zones: $1.40, $1.20, $1.00

What Is the Next Direction for Cardano (ADA)?
ADA/USD downtrend has eased after falling to the low of $0.74 low as bulls attempt to reclaim the $1.00. The altcoin has resumed its upward move as price rebounds above the current support. Meanwhile, on February 22 downtrend, a retraced candle body tested the 78.6% Fibonacci retracement level. The retracement suggests that ADA will fall but reverse at level 1.272 Fibonacci extension or $0.73.

Note: Aptchu is not a financial advisor. Do your research before investing your funds in any financial asset or presented product or event. We are not responsible for your investing results

SafeMoon Coin price, marketcap discussed. How to buy this new cryptocurrency

2021-04-21T08:08:00.005-07:00

SafeMoon Coin price, marketcap discussed. How to buy this new cryptocurrency

Going “to the moon” is a term popularized recently by the Reddit group WallStreetBets, who use it to describe an asset’s price skyrocketing.

Little is known about the cryptocurrency so far, though developers have held live Ask Me Anything (AMA) meetings to answer some questions. (Photo: Safemoon)

SafeMoon the new CryptoCurrency is gathering interest amongst enthusiasts, search trends show.

Little is known about the cryptocurrency so far, though developers have held live Ask Me Anything (AMA) meetings to answer some questions.

The recently launched SafeMoon claims it will reward people who buy and hold on to the cryptocurrency and issue a penalty to those who sell it on.

To buy SafeMoon, cryptocurrency users have to buy a Binance Coin (BNB) first, and then essentially swap it for SafeMoon.

Going “to the moon” is a term popularized recently by the Reddit group WallStreetBets, who use it to describe an asset’s price skyrocketing.

SafeMoon rewards participants by levying a ten per cent penalty tax on sellers and redistributing five per cent of the proceeds to those who already own the currency.

A whitepaper report that outlines the features of a product such as a cryptocurrency—was reported to be accessible on the website by one Reddit user, but others said they couldn’t find it.

How to Buy SafeMoon

1. Buy Binance coin ($BNB)
2. Make a Trust Wallet account and transfer your BNB into it.
3. Swap your coins to BNB smart chain in the Trust Wallet app.
4. Go to the DApps tab at the bottom, open up pancake swap, connect your Trust wallet, and swap your Binance coins for SafeMoon.
5. It is not officially on the PancakeSwap list, so enter the token (0x8076C74C5e3F5852037F31Ff0093Eeb8c8ADd8D3) or go directly here.

6. Occasionally PancakeSwap will drop an error when swapping to SafeMoon, click the settings icon and set your slipping rate to 11% (or slightly higher if it doesn’t work).

Some cryptocurrency enthusiasts are excited about the coin, whilst some are sceptical.

One Reddit user said: “I completely agree that once they get listed on an exchange this could easily blow up.”

Binance

2021-04-19T07:19:00.004-07:00

Anyone involved in cryptocurrencies has likely heard the name Binance already. It’s the leading global cryptocurrency exchange, plus as you’ll soon learn a whole lot more besides. Since its inception in 2017 it has been led by its founder Changpeng Zhao, and has continued to feature low trading fees, and the innovation that has made it so popular in the crypto community.

In the short time Binance has been around it has launch a mountain of new features, and it also enjoys a vibrant and active community of traders. From adding support for fiat currencies to launching its own Binance Chain and Binance Coin, the exchange is always looking for new ways to bring value to its clients. It’s even talked about morphing into a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) in the future, which would leave its governance to the traders who use it.

As the largest volume cryptocurrency exchange Binance is capable of handling a massive number of trades without seeing a slowdown in its transaction times, however it is also known for some common issues, such as unexpected maintenance and the occasional security vulnerability. Despite these things it remains one of the top cryptocurrency exchanges.

Binance Key Features

Led by the charismatic Changpeng Zhao (or simply CZ), Binance has been running for nearly four years as of the writing of this review. In that short time it has established itself as a dominant force in the universe of cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency trading. Thanks to its innovation there’s little you can’t do at Binance in connection with crypto trading, investing, or savings.

Below is a listing of the many features you can find at Binance. The list may not be exhaustive, and I’ll only cover some of these in more detail in the following review, but I thought it important for you to know about as many Binance features as possible. If there’s anything you’d like to know more about that hasn’t been covered in the review feel free to leave a comment at the end of the review.

Trade over 280 cryptocurrencies on Binance. Binance has one of the largest selections of quality altcoins available to trade. In addition, there are almost 1,000 pairs available to trade.
Binance Fiat Gateway. The Binance Fiat Gateway was an excellent addition, allowing users to purchase over two dozen popular cryptocurrencies with over 40 fiat currencies using bank cards and other methods. It also supports selling crypto for fiat.
Low trading fees. The trading fees at Binance are some of the lowest you’ll find.
Multi-platform support. Binance can be accessed through its web-based platform, via desktop clients for Windows and macOS machines, or through its mobile apps for Android and iOS. There’s also a Binance API available.
Binance Futures with 125x leverage and margin trading with up to 3x leverage. Supercharge your trading with the available leverage offered by Binance.
Around the clock customer support. Customer support is often lacking at cryptocurrency exchanges, but Binance has a dedicated help center, where you can reach out to the support team anytime. There’s also a wealth of written information that includes beginner guides and explanations of all sorts of exchange functions.
Binance Launchpad. The Binance Launchpad was created as an alternative initial listing venue to the ICO model. All of the clients at Binance can take part in the IEOs on Launchpad, and they have become some of the most anticipated and profitable coin launches in the crypto industry.
Binance Finance. Binance Finance gives crypto holders other ways to earn from their coins, such as crypto lending and staking, along with other methods for earning a passive income from crypto holdings.

As you can see Binance has involved itself in all aspects of the crypto ecosystem. It’s innovation has made it one of the most used cryptocurrency platforms, and the work of developers and community members at Binance ensures that the platform is continually improving. It has become an excellent place for beginning cryptocurrency traders and for experienced cryptocurrency enthusiasts.

Note: Binance.com does not allow registration from USA. However, if you are from USA Binance has created an alternative platform at Binance.us and you can use this for trading.

Binance Background and History

With less than four years of history Binance remains quite new, yet it is likely the best known global cryptocurrency exchange. It was created with the goal of providing traders with a cryptocurrency trading interface that is fast, simple, robust, and intuitive. Many would agree that it has succeeded.

Binance was launched in July 2017 by its founders Changpeng Zhao and Yi He in China. Both the founders previously worked for the OKCoin exchange, and Changpeng was a member of the Blockchain.com wallet team since 2013.

Binance may have been destined for greatness. Besides creating one of the most successful cryptocurrency exchanges they also started out with one of the most successful ICOs in the cryptoverse. In July 2017, from the 1^st to the 20^th, the exchange raised $15 million in an ICO for its newly minted ERC-20 Binance Coin (BNB) tokens. The selling price for those tokens was $0.115 each. As of March 2021 the BNB token (which has been migrated to the native Binance Chain) is worth $238.84 and is the fourth largest altcoin by market cap.

Given the success of the ICO it might come as no surprise that the exchange itself has been just as successful. Ever since its launch it has been one of the largest global exchanges in terms of trading volume. It achieved this in just six months from its launch, which is quite an impressive feat. And nearly four years later it remains at the top thanks to its low fees, ease of use, robust ability to handle massive transaction volumes, and its global approach to its business (the platform is available in over two dozen languages).

Binance doesn’t release user figures, but based on various interviews given by CZ there are now over 15 million Binance users. In addition, the exchange settles roughly $4 billion a day, with the busiest days seeing over $20 billion in trading volume. In addition it has also created a huge suite of related products which include the following:

Binance Academy –An open-access learning hub for blockchain and crypto education resources.
Binance Card –A crypto payment card that can be used as a payment option for everyday purchases just like a regular bank card.
Binance Chain and Binance Coin (BNB) –Community-driven blockchain ecosystem with its own native token (BNB) and decentralized exchange (DEX).
Binance Charity –A not-for-profit foundation dedicated to advancing blockchain philanthropy and sustainable global development.
Binance Cloud –Enterprise cryptocurrency exchange solutions for cryptocurrency ventures.
Binance Crypto Loans –A feature allowing its users to take out crypto loans secured by your cryptocurrency assets.
Binance DEX –Binance’s decentralized exchange built on the Binance Chain.
Binance Fiat Gateway –A fiat gateway that lets you purchase cryptocurrencies using various fiat currencies (currently supports nearly 40 fiat currencies.)
Binance Futures –Binance’s crypto-derivative platform that lets you trade futures with up to 125x leverage.
Binance Info –An open-source crypto encyclopedia.
Binance Jersey –A European fiat-to-crypto cryptocurrency exchange that facilitates bitcoin (BTC), ethereum (ETH), litecoin (LTC), binance coin (BNB), and bitcoin cash (BCH) trades for euros (EUR) and pound sterlings (GBP).
Binance JEX –Binance’s cryptocurrency futures and options trading platform.
Binance Labs –Binance’s infrastructure impact fund and initiative to empower blockchain projects.
Binance Launchpad –Binance’s crypto crowdfunding platform for launching initial exchange offerings (IEOs). Binance innovation made Launchpad the first crowdfunding platform for IEO’s in the industry.
Binance OTC – Over-the-counter trading desk for whales and other large-volume traders.
include Ark, EOS, ARPA, TROY, Lisk, LOOM, Tezos, KAVA, THETA, and more.
Binance P2P trading –A peer-to-peer crypto trading platform like LocalBitcoins or LocalCryptos that supports payments via WeChat, AliPay, Bank Transfers, and QIWI.
Binance Research –Institutional-grade research platform conducting analysis for investors in the crypto space.
Binance Savings –Ability to employ your crypto assets by lending them out to earn interest. You can withdraw your funds anytime.
Binance Staking –Binance staking feature lets you stake certain cryptocurrencies and reap up to 16% annual yield. Supported cryptocurrencies.
Binance US and other localized versions of Binance exchange –Regulated versions of Binance exchange dedicated to certain markets based on their specific legal and regulatory requirements.
Binance USD (BUSD) and Binance GBP stablecoin –Binance’s regulated stablecoins, released in partnership with Paxos Trust Company.
Trust Wallet –An official, secure, and decentralized wallet of Binance. Over 5 million users.

Many of the features were developed by Binance, but they have also made a large number of acquisitions to help bootstrap their growth. Some of the largest were the acquisition of WazirX, India’s largest crypto exchange, DappReview, a Chinese dApp analytics platform, and Coinmarketcap, the cryptocurrency market data aggregator.

Future plans include morphing the Binance exchange into a decentralized autonomous organization that will be governed by the community.

Binance Locations

Even though Binance was founded in China, it didn’t stay there for very long. Just a couple months after its founding it moved its headquarters from China to Japan to avoid upcoming regulatory changes banning cryptocurrencies in China. A year later in 2018 Binance opened offices in Taiwan and announced it was moving to the island of Malta, where cryptocurrency exchanges are more welcomed.

Major Binance office locations.

Even though the headquarters for Binance are located in Malta, it is incorporated in the Seychelles and Cayman Islands.

In addition, there are a number of other offices located all around the globe including those in California (United States), London (United Kingdom), Paris (France), Berlin (Germany), Moscow (Russia), Istanbul (Turkey), Singapore, New Delhi (India), Kampala (Uganda), Manila (Philippines), Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam), Jersey, and several other locations across Asia. In total, the Binance team operates from over 40 countries.

Supported Countries and Verification

Besides having offices in over 40 different countries around the world, the exchange and other business units operate in over 180 countries around the world. There are very few countries it doesn’t operate in, and those are the countries that are on economic sanctions lists, or on the “Denied Persons List” of the U.S. Commerce Department.

While U.S. citizens are blocked from using the primary exchange at Binance.com, they do have access to a secondary platform at Binance.us. There are several other jurisdictions with localized versions of the Binance platform which include Binance Jersey, Binance Singapore, and Binance Uganda.

Binance subsidiaries around the world.

Any verification procedures or requirements are based on the jurisdiction of the trader. First time customers will go through the typical Know-your-Customer (KYC) verification process which requires the new client to submit the following documents:

Government ID document (passport, ID or driver’s license)
Residential address document (utility bill)

The verification process is nothing to worry about. It is quite straight-forward and typically is completed quickly. Of course it is possible that delays can occur during very busy times for the Binance staff. Patience may be necessary in some cases. Also, if you’ve ever taken a selfie while holding your ID and another piece of paper you know how tricky it can be to get an accurate shot, so don’t be surprised if you get a request for a re-do on your selfie.

If you choose not to verify your profile you can still make withdrawals, but will be limited to 2 BTC per day. Those who verify their profile can withdraw up to 100 BTC per day. Yes, it really is a huge difference. And those who are unverified may find that the security algorithms at Binance get triggered for mandatory ID verification when trying to withdraw for the first time.

Is it Safe?

With the need for ID verification it’s normal to wonder if Binance is a safe exchange. As one of the largest exchanges in the world Binance has taken the time, effort, and money to harden their security.

As of March 2021 they have artificial intelligence risk control solutions that are state of the art and use both identity and facial recognition. In addition they also use big data analytics and cyber forensic investigations to monitor each transaction taking place on the exchange. All of this helps to identify any suspicious or irregular activity occurring on the exchange.

Binance takes security very seriously. Image via Binance blog.

Thanks to all this security it’s been some time since any hacking attempts at Binance have been successful. In fact, the last successful hack at Binance was in May 2019 when hackers were able to use an attack that relied on phishing, breaking the 2-FA, and accessing a Binance hot wallet. Roughly 7,000 BTC worth $40 million at the time were taken, but you can be sure that Binance learned a lot from the hack. And they also made sure to reimburse any lost funds to their clients.

They were able to do so because in July 2018 they opened a Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU). 10% of all the trading revenue generated gets deposited to this account, and it is used to cover any losses from hacking attempts.

All in all, Binance is a secure exchange, but security is not its hallmark. Even so, it has seemingly taken the time and effort to fix any security holes, and as of March 2021 is likely one of the safest exchanges out there.

Binance Regulation

Tying into the safety concerns at Binance are obviously questions regarding the regulatory status of the exchange. Traders feel much safer when there’s some third-party regulation ensuring a safe trading environment and no bad behavior on the part of the exchange. And when cryptocurrencies are concerned we know that most exchanges operate without any regulation.

In the case of Binance the question of regulation is a murky one. For years there’s been the idea that Binance is licensed and regulated in the jurisdiction of Malta. However in February 2020 the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) released a statement that said Binance is not regulated in Malta by the MFSA.

Once that was clear it was also clear that the parent company Binance is not regulated by any specific regulatory agency, nor are they licensed in any jurisdiction. However, some of the subsidiaries of the parent company are regulated by the specific country in which they operate. For example, in the U.S. Binance.us is registered with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). It is also licensed to operate in most (not all) U.S. states.

Binance UK is operated by Binance Markets Limited, and is regulated by the UK Financial Conduct Authority.

Binance Singapore has applied for a license with the Monetary Authority of Singapore after being granted a six-month exemption from the January 2020 passage of the Payment Services Act. It is unclear if that license has been granted, or how the process might be going.

So, while Binance does claim to work in compliance with local laws, in few cases are they actually licensed or regulated. That said, as far as we can tell Binance does actually work in compliance with the local laws of all the jurisdictions where they operate.

Coin Support

One of the most popular features of Binance that have attracted so many traders is the wide variety of coins they support. There are currently (March 2021) nearly 300 coins supported, and nearly 1,000 trading pairs. So, not only can you trade BTC and other cryptocurrencies against the USD, you can also trade it against the Euro, the British Pound, Tether, and BNB.

Just a small selection of the nearly 300 coins to trade at Binance. Image via Binance.com

There are also a good number of tokens offered on the Binance platform, and the IEOs from Launchpad make it to the Binance exchange immediately following their release. Binance is also pretty quick to add new coins immediately following their initial offering on other platforms. That means traders can often buy newly issued tokens at low prices and make easy profits.

Fiat Support

Purchasing cryptocurrencies on Binance is limited to certain jurisdictions, but the number of countries allowing this is growing. Binance has two platforms that can be used for fiat purchases (and sales) – Binance Jersey for the EU and UK, and the Binance Fiat-to-Crypto Gateway for a number of other countries around the world.

Users who have access to buy cryptocurrencies through Binance will see the “Buy Crypto” link at the top of their account page when logged in. Clicking it will take you to the fiat-to-crypto service page.

If the BuyCrypto button is present you can buy with fiat. Image via Binance.com

Fees (and how to reduce them)

Binance charges no fees at all for deposits, but the same can’t be said for actual trades and for withdrawals. Even so, the fees at Binance remain some of the lowest in the crypto industry, plus there are ways to make them even lower still.

On each trade you make with Binance there’s a 0.1% fee. That’s actually one of the cheapest fees you’ll find at a crypto exchange. As an example, at Coinbase Pro you’ll be charged 0.5% per trade, and Bittrex has a 0.2% trading fee.

One exchange that does match Binance’s fee is KuCoin, while another popular exchange, HitBTC charges 0.1% for market makers, but 0.2% for market takers. Other exchanges such as Kraken and Poloniex are also more expensive, with 0.15-0.16% maker fees and 0.25-0.26% taker fees.

To sweeten things even more, it’s possible to get a significant discount (up to 25%) on your trading fees if you use Binance Coin (BNB) to pay the fees. You can get another significant discount (up to 25%) for referring your friends to Binance. That means you can cut the already low 0.1% trading fee to an 0.05% trading fee. That’s really very little.

Binance futures continues the theme of low fess with a 0.02% maker fee and a 0.04% taker fee. Those are the highest fees you will pay, but they can be lowered even further.

Another key factor to look at when evaluating Binance’s fees is futures funding rate and margin position daily interest rate. These tend to change based on market conditions, and there are no fixed rates, but you can check them at Binance’s website here and here.

Then there are the withdrawal fees to consider. With withdrawals, Binance offers remarkably good value for money. Note that fees do vary from cryptocurrency to cryptocurrency, but that’s hardly unusual. A small sample of the fees for some of the more popular coins is shown below:

As you can see, Binance lets its users withdraw either regular or BEP2 versions of their assets. BEP2 withdrawals are based on Binance Chain and use not an actual crypto asset, but a pegged BEP2 version of it.

To give some perspective on these fees, Kraken and Bittrex each charge a 0.0005 BTC withdrawal fee, while Bitfinex and HitBTC charge 0.0004 BTC and 0.001 BTC respectively.

There are also fees to consider if you’re using the Binance Fiat gateway, and these aren’t inconsequential. While you can buy over two dozen cryptocurrencies with over 40 different fiat currencies through the Binance Fiat Gateway, the fees you pay are going to vary based on the payment method used, and on the floating exchange rate charged by whichever payment processor is used.

As a rough guide, these fiat-to-crypto gateway fees range from 1% to 7% depending on the payment method and processor. Note that bank card transactions tend to be the most expensive.

Overall you’ll find that Binance has some of the lowest fees in the undustry, which is quite refreshing, and is probably another reason why they were able to become so popular and grow so quickly. After all, who wants to pay more in fees when they don’t have to? Certainly not me.

Registration and KYC

You are required to create an account to use the Binance exchange, but the process is pretty simple and straight-forward. Also, there is no requirement to verify a level 1 account, which allows for withdrawals of as much as 2 BTC daily.

If you expect to withdraw more than that you will need to verify your identity in accordance with Know Your Customer rules. That requires uploading a government issued photo ID and proof of residence, but it allows for withdrawals of up to 100 BTC daily.

The approval process typically takes less than 24 hours, but can take longer if the support team at Binance is extremely busy for any reason. It’s also possible to increase limits beyond 100 BTC per day, but you’ll need to contact Binance support directly to arrange for this.

You must verify to increase withdrawal limits, among other things. Image via Binance Help.

Because approvals can be delayed at times be sure to plan appropriately if you are going to deposit and trade large sums at Binance.

Once any registration and KYC requirements are taken care of you can go ahead and make a deposit to fund your account and begin trading. Binance will accept a large number of digital currencies as deposits, but it is usually best to stick with their big four – BTC, ETH, USDT, or BNB.

Deposits / Withdrawals (Fiat & Crypto)

Because the Binance exchange only accepts cryptocurrency all the deposits and withdrawals from the exchange involve the movement of your funds between the internal Binance wallet and your own external crypto wallets.

Deposits

Funding an account at Binance is as easy as logging into your account, and clicking through the “Funds” > “Deposits / Withdrawals” link at the top of the site. You can then search for the currency you are planning to deposit and when you click the “Deposit” button you’ll be given the appropriate wallet address.

Once you have the internal wallet address you can begin transferring cryptocurrency onto the platform to trade with. Note that network fees and transfer times will depend on which cryptocurrency you’re sending since each blockchain does have different block times and different network costs.

If you know how to make a wallet transfefr you’ll have no problem with the deposit and withdrawal at Binance. Image via Binance Help.

Once you’ve transferred some coins and Binance has received them you can go right ahead and begin trading any of the nearly 1,000 cryptocurrency pairs offered on the exchange.

Withdrawals

As fast as deposits are, withdrawals are just as fast. In this case you’ll once again visit the “Funds” link in your account, and then go to “Withdrawal”. This is where you’ll be able to choose the coin you are withdrawing, fill in the amount you’d like to withdraw, and then provide the external wallet address that the funds should be delivered to. Click the “Withdrawal” button and then all you need to do is wait for the transaction to be verified on the blockchain to show up in your wallet.

Crypto withdrawals are a speedy process on Binance. To withdraw your crypto holdings, hover over the “Funds” dropdown menu, click the “Deposits” option, for example, and then type in the desired cryptocurrency to receive a Binance wallet address into which they can deposit it.

Binance Fiat-to-Crypto Gateway

Binance fiat-to-crypto gateway currently lets you buy Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies via a bank card using 65 traditional currencies. In many cases you can also sell your cryptocurrencies to withdraw the fiat currency of your choice. Here are the supported fiat currencies:

Buy Only	Buy and Sell
United States Dollar (USD)	Euro (EUR)
United Arab Emirates Dirham (AED)	British Pound (GBP)
Bulgarian Lev (BGN)	Australian Dollar (AUD)
Swiss Franc (CHF)	Chinese Yuan (CNY)
Czech Koruna (CZK)	Canadian Dollar (CAD)
Danish Krone (DKK)	Argentine Peso (ARS)
Croatian Kuna (HRK)	Brazilian Real (BRL)
Hungarian Forint (HUF)	Colombian Peso (COP)
Indonesian Rupiah (IDR)	Hong Kong Dollar (HKD)
Israeli New Shekel (ILS)	Indian Rupee (INR)
Japanese Yen (JPY)	Kenyan Shilling (KES)
South Korean Won (KRW)	Kazakhstani Tenge (KZT)
Norwegian Krone (NOK)	Mexican Peso (MXN)
New Zealand Dollar (NZD)	Malaysian Ringgit (MYR)
Poland Zloty (PLN)	Nigerian Naira (NGN)
Romanian Lei (RON)	Peruvian Sol (PEN)
Swedish Kronar (SEK)	Russian Ruble (RUB)
Thai Baht (THB)	Turkish Lira (TRY)
Taiwan Dollar (TWD)	Ukrainian Hryvnia (UAH)
Azerbaijani Manat (AZN)	Vietnamese Dong (VND)
Icelandic Kronur (ISK)	South African Rand (ZAR)
Costa Rican Colon (CRC)	Sovereign Bolivar (VES)
Dominican Peso (DOP)	Ghanian Cedi (GHS)
Moldovan Leu (MDL)	Bolivian Boliviano (BOB)
Namibian Dollar (NAD)	Chilean Peso (CLP)
Qatar Riyal (QAR)	Egyptian Pound (EGP)
Uzbekistani Sum (UZS)	Georgian Lari (GEL)
	Lebanese Pound (LBP)
	Moroccan Dirham (MAD)
	Sri Lankan Rupee (LKR)
	Philippine Peso (PHP)
	Pakistan Rupees (PKR)
	Paraguayan Guarani (PYG)
	Panamanian Balboa (PAB)
	Saudi Riyal (SAR)
	Singapore Dollar (SGD)
	Uganda Shilling (UGX)
	Uruguay Peso (UYU)

Binance Key Features

Trade over 280 cryptocurrencies on Binance. Binance has one of the largest selections of quality altcoins available to trade. In addition, there are almost 1,000 pairs available to trade.
Binance Fiat Gateway. The Binance Fiat Gateway was an excellent addition, allowing users to purchase over two dozen popular cryptocurrencies with over 40 fiat currencies using bank cards and other methods. It also supports selling crypto for fiat.
Low trading fees. The trading fees at Binance are some of the lowest you’ll find.
Multi-platform support. Binance can be accessed through its web-based platform, via desktop clients for Windows and macOS machines, or through its mobile apps for Android and iOS. There’s also a Binance API available.
Binance Futures with 125x leverage and margin trading with up to 3x leverage. Supercharge your trading with the available leverage offered by Binance.
Around the clock customer support. Customer support is often lacking at cryptocurrency exchanges, but Binance has a dedicated help center, where you can reach out to the support team anytime. There’s also a wealth of written information that includes beginner guides and explanations of all sorts of exchange functions.
Binance Launchpad. The Binance Launchpad was created as an alternative initial listing venue to the ICO model. All of the clients at Binance can take part in the IEOs on Launchpad, and they have become some of the most anticipated and profitable coin launches in the crypto industry.
Binance Finance. Binance Finance gives crypto holders other ways to earn from their coins, such as crypto lending and staking, along with other methods for earning a passive income from crypto holdings.

Note: Binance.com does not allow registration from USA. However, if you are from USA Binance has created an alternative platform at Binance.us and you can use this for trading.

The Binance US platform is localized specifically for US based traders. Image via Binance US blog.

Now let’s get on to the review.

Binance Background and History

Binance CEO, Changpeng Zhao. The man, myth & Legend. Image via Bloomberg

Binance Academy –An open-access learning hub for blockchain and crypto education resources.
Binance Card –A crypto payment card that can be used as a payment option for everyday purchases just like a regular bank card.
Binance Chain and Binance Coin (BNB) –Community-driven blockchain ecosystem with its own native token (BNB) and decentralized exchange (DEX).
Binance Charity –A not-for-profit foundation dedicated to advancing blockchain philanthropy and sustainable global development.
Binance Cloud –Enterprise cryptocurrency exchange solutions for cryptocurrency ventures.
Binance Crypto Loans –A feature allowing its users to take out crypto loans secured by your cryptocurrency assets.
Binance DEX –Binance’s decentralized exchange built on the Binance Chain.
Binance Fiat Gateway –A fiat gateway that lets you purchase cryptocurrencies using various fiat currencies (currently supports nearly 40 fiat currencies.)
Binance Futures –Binance’s crypto-derivative platform that lets you trade futures with up to 125x leverage.
Binance Info –An open-source crypto encyclopedia.
Binance Jersey –A European fiat-to-crypto cryptocurrency exchange that facilitates bitcoin (BTC), ethereum (ETH), litecoin (LTC), binance coin (BNB), and bitcoin cash (BCH) trades for euros (EUR) and pound sterlings (GBP).
Binance JEX –Binance’s cryptocurrency futures and options trading platform.
Binance Labs –Binance’s infrastructure impact fund and initiative to empower blockchain projects.
Binance Launchpad –Binance’s crypto crowdfunding platform for launching initial exchange offerings (IEOs). Binance innovation made Launchpad the first crowdfunding platform for IEO’s in the industry.
Binance OTC – Over-the-counter trading desk for whales and other large-volume traders.
include Ark, EOS, ARPA, TROY, Lisk, LOOM, Tezos, KAVA, THETA, and more.
Binance P2P trading –A peer-to-peer crypto trading platform like LocalBitcoins or LocalCryptos that supports payments via WeChat, AliPay, Bank Transfers, and QIWI.
Binance Research –Institutional-grade research platform conducting analysis for investors in the crypto space.
Binance Savings –Ability to employ your crypto assets by lending them out to earn interest. You can withdraw your funds anytime.
Binance Staking –Binance staking feature lets you stake certain cryptocurrencies and reap up to 16% annual yield. Supported cryptocurrencies.
Binance US and other localized versions of Binance exchange –Regulated versions of Binance exchange dedicated to certain markets based on their specific legal and regulatory requirements.
Binance USD (BUSD) and Binance GBP stablecoin –Binance’s regulated stablecoins, released in partnership with Paxos Trust Company.
Trust Wallet –An official, secure, and decentralized wallet of Binance. Over 5 million users.

Some of the largest Binance acquisitions.

Future plans include morphing the Binance exchange into a decentralized autonomous organization that will be governed by the community.

Binance Locations

Major Binance office locations. Image via Cryptomaniaks.com

Even though the headquarters for Binance are located in Malta, it is incorporated in the Seychelles and Cayman Islands.

Supported Countries and Verification

Binance subsidiaries around the world.

Government ID document (passport, ID or driver’s license)
Residential address document (utility bill)

Is it Safe?

Binance takes security very seriously. Image via Binance blog.

Binance Regulation

Binance is headquartered in Malta, but not regulated there. Image via MaltaToday.com.mt

Binance UK is operated by Binance Markets Limited, and is regulated by the UK Financial Conduct Authority.

Coin Support

Just a small selection of the nearly 300 coins to trade at Binance. Image via Binance.com

Fiat Support

If the BuyCrypto button is present you can buy with fiat. Image via Binance.com

Users of Binance Jersey are also able to convert crypto to fiat and withdraw fiat currencies directly. For more detailed information regarding Binance’s fiat support visit this page.

Fees (and how to reduce them)

Binance futures continues the theme of low fess with a 0.02% maker fee and a 0.04% taker fee. Those are the highest fees you will pay, but they can be lowered even further.

You won’t find better fees at most exchanges. Image via Binance Help

To give some perspective on these fees, Kraken and Bittrex each charge a 0.0005 BTC withdrawal fee, while Bitfinex and HitBTC charge 0.0004 BTC and 0.001 BTC respectively.

As a rough guide, these fiat-to-crypto gateway fees range from 1% to 7% depending on the payment method and processor. Note that bank card transactions tend to be the most expensive.

Registration and KYC

You must verify to increase withdrawal limits, among other things. Image via Binance Help.

Because approvals can be delayed at times be sure to plan appropriately if you are going to deposit and trade large sums at Binance.

Deposits / Withdrawals (Fiat & Crypto)

Deposits

If you know how to make a wallet transfefr you’ll have no problem with the deposit and withdrawal at Binance. Image via Binance Help.

Once you’ve transferred some coins and Binance has received them you can go right ahead and begin trading any of the nearly 1,000 cryptocurrency pairs offered on the exchange.

Withdrawals

Binance Fiat-to-Crypto Gateway

Buy Only	Buy and Sell
United States Dollar (USD)	Euro (EUR)
United Arab Emirates Dirham (AED)	British Pound (GBP)
Bulgarian Lev (BGN)	Australian Dollar (AUD)
Swiss Franc (CHF)	Chinese Yuan (CNY)
Czech Koruna (CZK)	Canadian Dollar (CAD)
Danish Krone (DKK)	Argentine Peso (ARS)
Croatian Kuna (HRK)	Brazilian Real (BRL)
Hungarian Forint (HUF)	Colombian Peso (COP)
Indonesian Rupiah (IDR)	Hong Kong Dollar (HKD)
Israeli New Shekel (ILS)	Indian Rupee (INR)
Japanese Yen (JPY)	Kenyan Shilling (KES)
South Korean Won (KRW)	Kazakhstani Tenge (KZT)
Norwegian Krone (NOK)	Mexican Peso (MXN)
New Zealand Dollar (NZD)	Malaysian Ringgit (MYR)
Poland Zloty (PLN)	Nigerian Naira (NGN)
Romanian Lei (RON)	Peruvian Sol (PEN)
Swedish Kronar (SEK)	Russian Ruble (RUB)
Thai Baht (THB)	Turkish Lira (TRY)
Taiwan Dollar (TWD)	Ukrainian Hryvnia (UAH)
Azerbaijani Manat (AZN)	Vietnamese Dong (VND)
Icelandic Kronur (ISK)	South African Rand (ZAR)
Costa Rican Colon (CRC)	Sovereign Bolivar (VES)
Dominican Peso (DOP)	Ghanian Cedi (GHS)
Moldovan Leu (MDL)	Bolivian Boliviano (BOB)
Namibian Dollar (NAD)	Chilean Peso (CLP)
Qatar Riyal (QAR)	Egyptian Pound (EGP)
Uzbekistani Sum (UZS)	Georgian Lari (GEL)
	Lebanese Pound (LBP)
	Moroccan Dirham (MAD)
	Sri Lankan Rupee (LKR)
	Philippine Peso (PHP)
	Pakistan Rupees (PKR)
	Paraguayan Guarani (PYG)
	Panamanian Balboa (PAB)
	Saudi Riyal (SAR)
	Singapore Dollar (SGD)
	Uganda Shilling (UGX)
	Uruguay Peso (UYU)

With the currencies listed above you can purchase any of the following 31 cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin (BTC), Binance Coin (BNB), Binance USD (BUSD), Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP), Cardano (ADA), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Basic Attention Token (BAT), BitTorrent (BTT), Compound (COMP), Cosmos (ATOM), Chiliz (CHZ), Chainlink (LINK), Coti (COTI), Dash (DASH), Doge (DOGE), EOS (EOS), Fio Protocol (FIO), Hedera Hashgraph (HBAR), Litecoin (LTC), Maker (MKR), NANO (NANO), PancakeSwap (CAKE), Polkadot (DOT), Polygon (MATIC), Paxos Standard (PAX), Qtum (QTUM), Stellar Lumens (XLM) Tether (USDT), VeChain (VET), and Zilliqa (ZIL).

The Binance Fiat Gateway was made possible through the growing number of third-party partnerships that Binance is involved in. A few of the partners that have made it possible for Binance to offer the Fiat Gateway include Simplex, Paxos, SEPA, and TrustToken.

Note that payment options differ based on the jurisdiction you are resident in, and because Binance is constantly making new partnerships their offerings change over time. Even if a particular payment provider isn’t supported in your jurisdiction now, it could be in the future.

If it says Buy Crypto at the top of your account you can use the Binance Fiat Gateway. Image via Binance Help.

Customers who wish to trade in the supported fiat currencies will need to carry out the necessary KYC procedures by uploading their government issued ID documents such as passport and driving license.

Wei Zhou, Binance’s CFO released this statement at the launch of the Binance Fiat Gateway in July 2020:

We are pleased to introduce this new fiat gateway through Etana Custody. The integration helps make access to digital assets more effortless for people across the European, Asian, North American and Oceanian markets. At Binance, we are committed to furthering global digital assets adoption by launching multiple fiat-to-digital assets gateways. Binance’s fiat gateways covers over 170 countries and regions in the world and we are continuing to add more to make crypto more available across the globe.

Binance Trading Platform

One of the features of Binance is the simple and intuitive trading platform they’ve created. It is very easy to determine the steps needed for trading, and there is a wide variety of cryptocurrencies and pairs to choose from. Besides simply trading BTC or ETH pairs it is also possible to trade in USDT, BUSD, XRP, and TRX pairs. Plus European traders can access a small variety of EUR, GBP, and TRY pairs on the most popular cryptocurrencies.

The platform makes several trading options available and users can choose which one to use based on how much effort they are putting into the trade.

The most basic trading interface is the “Convert” platform. Here the trader simply chooses the cryptocurrency input and the desired output currency and makes the trade. There are no charts, or order books, or fees.

This is an over-the-counter market. There is a spread between buying and selling prices, but this is pretty tight for most popular pairs that have good trading volume. In addition to the 48 cryptocurrencies available in the Convert platform there are also five fiat currencies to choose from – EUR, GBP, BRL, TRY, and AUD.

Convert quickly and easily. Image via Binance.com

The “Classic” trading platform is the original charting and volume display. It gives traders a good deal more information about the activity in the pair they are planning on trading. It also gives full access to all of the cryptocurrencies and trading pairs available on Binance. New traders could be overwhelmed when they first access this platform, but once they use it a few times it becomes easy to see what information is being presented, and how to use the platform most efficiently.

There’s also an “Advanced” charting option, but to be honest we actually find this to be cleaner and less cluttered than the Classic interface. It features the Order Book, which can be a valuable tool for experienced traders. There are also a wide variety of technical analysis tools and indicators that can be applied to the trading charts.

Advanced charting and trade from the order book with Binance Advanced. Image via Binance.com

There’s also a “Margin” choice under the Trade link, which simply filters the trading pairs to those with margin available. Without this filter on you can still see pairs that allow margin displayed with a small 3x, 5x, or 10x icon behind the trading pair. Note that cryptocurrencies are already extremely volatile assets capable of making double digit percentage moves on a daily basis. Adding margin can certainly increase your returns dramatically, but it can also increase your losses just as dramatically.

Check out the margin trading filter. Image via Binance.com

Finally there is a link to the Binance peer-to-peer trading platform, where you are able to make deals directly with other users to exchange cryptocurrencies and pay using your bank account or a number of online e-wallet services. There are nearly 200 different payment options to choose from when using Binance P2P.

Binance Futures

Not content with spot and over the counter trading? Then Binance has derivatives for you. The Binance futures markets allows traders to access cryptocurrencies in an extremely sophisticated manner. Traders can choose from perpetual contracts that never expire on dozens of coins and tokens.

Launched in August 2020 the futures trading platform is enjoying increased popularity because it allows for leverage of up to 125x on the futures contracts. These contracts come in two varieties – USDT-M futures and COIN-M futures.

USDT-margined futures are similar to traditional standard futures, margined and settled with a fiat currency, for delivery of a commodity or asset such as gold. COIN-margined futures are margined and settled with the asset instead (i.e. Bitcoin or altcoin), and are designed after “inverse” contracts which are counterintuitive in traditional finance.

Binance futures offer leverage up to 125x. Image via Binance blog.

Known as ‘Binance Perpetual Futures Contracts’, these operate in a similar nature to conventional futures. However, the key difference is that the contracts never expire. As a result, the trade will remain in play indefinitely until you:

Close it manually
Your stop-loss or take-profit order is triggered
You are liquidated (more on this below)

Obviously the top draw for these derivatives is the leverage that’s made available. If you aren’t familiar with leverage, it is a function that allows you to enter larger positions than you could otherwise given your available funds. The 125x leverage offered by Binance is huge when you consider that in Europe and the UK leverage on cryptocurrency CFDs is capped a 1:2 for retail traders.

However, the derivative products offered by Binance fall outside of these restrictions, not least because you are trading digital contracts that in theory – do not exist. As a result, Binance allows you to trade with leverage of up to 1:125 on Bitcoin and other altcoin futures.

For those who are unfamiliar with how leverage works in practice here’s an example trade that will illustrate how dramatically the rewards and risks can add up.

Binance Leveraged Trade Example

Note that when actually trading at Binance everything will be priced in the respective base currency (e.g. Bitcoin), but for this example I am using USD to show the reality of the risks more clearly and concretely.

Let’s assume you have an account at Binance and there is $1,000 in the account that you are willing to risk on leveraged futures trading. You believe that Bitcoin is currently oversold and will soon rise, so you go long on the BTC/USDT futures contract using the full 125x leverage available to you.

Increasing Your Leverage

To be clear from the start, your $1,000 trade using 125x leverage means the value of your trade is $125,000 and both your gains and losses will reflect this value.

If BTC/USDT increases by 10% you would have made $100 by trading your $1,000 stake normally.
However, since you are using 125x leverage on the trade your profit with a 10% gain in BTC/USDT would be $12,500 since the price change is multiplied by 125x.

That’s really an amazing trade that would take your account balance from $1,000 to $13,500. However imagine if BTC/USDT declined by 10% instead.

Ordinarily, at a stake of $1,000, a 10% reduction in the value of BTC/USDT would result in a loss of $100.
However you are using 125x leverage so just like the winning trade you’ll see your losses magnified by 125x. That means this trade will cause you a loss of $12,500.

Of course you could only lose that much if you actually had that much money available in your margin account. Otherwise the position would have been closed as soon as the futures contract moved 0.8% against you ($8 x 125) unless you deposited more money in your account to cover any potential additional losses.

Derivative trading is a sophisticated and advanced trading technique. While the notion of multiplying your gains by 125x may sound very attractive, it is balanced by the risk of potentially losing everything in your account if a trade goes against you.

Binance Leveraged Tokens

Binance Leveraged Tokens are a type of derivative product that give you leveraged exposure to the underlying asset. Like other tokens, leveraged tokens can be traded on the spot market. Each leveraged token represents a basket of perpetual contract positions. The price of a leveraged token moves along with price changes in the perpetual contract market, and the leverage level moves up and down accordingly.

Binance leveraged tokens are another way to trade crypto with leverage. Image via Binance blog.

Unlike margin trading, leveraged tokens allow you to gain exposure to leveraged positions without having to put up any collateral, maintain a maintenance margin level, or worry about the risk of liquidation.

However, even though you don’t have to worry about the risk of liquidation, there are still risks associated with leveraged token positions, such as the effects of price movements in the perpetual contracts market, premiums, and funding rates.

Binance Downloadable Apps

Besides trading on the web-based app you can also download a mobile version of the app for either Android or iOS operating systems. There are a number of benefits to using the mobile version of Binance, along with a few disadvantages:

Advantages

Convenient when away from your computer;
Instantly access altcoin markets anywhere, anytime;
Fast trading and analysis.

Disadvantages

Limited charting and analysis tools;
Not good for large trades or deep market analysis.

The Binance mobile app lets you trade on the go. Image via Apple App Store.

Basically the mobile apps are meant for smaller trades, or for monitoring open positions when you have to be away from your computer. The app really isn’t powerful enough to do the detailed analysis necessary prior to opening a trade. The app could also be useful for scalping trades if you’re an experienced trader.

In addition to the mobile app there are also desktop versions of the Binance platform available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. This downloadable app gives you all the power of Binance trading in a standalone app.

Binance Coin (BNB)

Another notable feature of Binance is their own cryptocurrency, the Binance Coin, or BNB. It has made early investors very rich as it was sold for just $0.115 at the ICO for the coin in July 2017. Obviously the exchange was just newly launched at the time and no one knew how popular it could become. As of March 2021 the BNB tokens are the fifth largest cryptocurrency by market cap and they are valued at $224.66. That is an incredible return.

The primary function of the BNB token is not speculation (although many use it for that). Instead it is meant to be used to pay for and reduce trading fees. It will also feature heavily in future plans to create a Binance DAO, where it will be used in the governance of the DAO.

Binance supports the value of BNB by buying and burning BNB tokens on a quarterly basis. The latest burn (the 14^th such) was done January 18, 2021 and there were 3.6 million BNB tokens burned, taking out about $165.8 million in tokens from circulation. The prior quarter saw 2,253,888 BNB, equivalent to $68 million burned. By burning tokens Binance decreases the supply and makes the remaining tokens more valuable.

Binance is commited to burning half the total supply of BNB tokens. Image via Binance blog

As part of the latest BNB burn Binance CEO Changpeng commented that the burn rate of BNB will be accelerated.

Over the last three and a half years, we have burned about 13% of the promised amount, with a total USD equivalent value (nominal) of $426,304,000. Even though this is an impressive amount for a three-year-old startup, at that rate, it would take roughly 27 years to finish the burn. So, we thought it’s time we speed it up a bit. Exactly how much faster? We are not 100% sure. The current accelerated burn would put the trajectory to be around 5-8 years to finish the 100 million BNB. But a number of factors could change the accelerated part in the future, including BNB price fluctuations, overall market conditions, and more.

Binance Smart Chain

In September 2020 Binance launched their own low-fee, high performance blockchain that’s compatible with the Ethereum Virtual machine. The solution is just one more innovation in blockchain technology and this one is meant to solve the issues in decentralized finance, such as slow transactions and expensive gas fees. With the Binance Smart Chain developers are free to focus on innovating rather than worrying about the gas costs of their dApps.

Even though BSC has only been live for half a year at the time of writing it is growing at an astounding pace. The latest communication from Binance shares that BSC already features over 60 projects, and the average gas cost is just $0.035 per transaction (as of this writing Ethereum gas prices are over $20 per transaction). The number of unique addresses is reaching 60 million and the average daily transaction total is nearing 2.5 million.

The Binance Smart Chain is changing DeFi. Image via Twitter.

Binance has been focused on the growth and innovation around liquidity pool and AMM recently, and there have been a number of innovations built on BSC that take advantage of this. One of the most notable of these is PancakeSwap, a Uniswap clone that gives users some innovative new ways to yield farm and create other income streams.

Other excellent DeFi focused products launched recently by Binance include DeFi staking and the Binance Liquid Swap. And there are quite a few more which you can learn about in the following section.

Binance Finance Products

In addition to providing trading and exchange services Binance has also expanded to offer decentralized finance products. These include staking, savings, farming, and other financial services tied to the Binance ecosystem and/or the Binance Smart Chain blockchain.

Binance Earn

Binance Earn is similar to savings on the blockchain, and there is no relationship between this product and trading. Instead it includes savings products that fall under flexible ARY, fixed APY, and high-risk products. Basically these products pay out an interest rate similar to savings account, or the dividends you might receive from owning certain stocks.

Flexible Terms

The Flexible Terms accounts have interest rates that can change over time. There are 58 assets that can be deposited (as of March 2021) and interest rates range from 0.1% up to 6%.

Flexible savings has changing yields based on market conditions. Image via Binance.com

The flexible savings also includes the Binance Launchpool, where you can stake BNB tokens to earn some of the newest tokens that have been launched on the Binance Launchpad.

Finally there is the BNB Vault. BNB Vault is a BNB yield aggregator. Depositing BNB means participating in Launchpool, Savings, Defi staking and other projects and at the same time gaining rewards.

Fixed Terms

There are also higher rates available on three stablecoins (USDT, BUSD, and USDC), but it is required to lock them up for a period of time. These locked tokens earn a set rate over the period of time they are locked.

Lock your tokens and lock your APY. Image via Binance.com

In addition to these there are also 41 PoS staking coins that can be locked for a set period to earn a set, fixed interest rate. Also there are 178 “Activity” products, which are similar to farming pools and offer much higher interest rates.

Finally, Binance offers the chance to stake Ethereum 2.0 tokens as a tokenized Ethereum product called BETH. This will remain locked until Ethereum 2.0 is actually launched, which could be for as long as 2 years. Binance is advertising rewards of up to 20% APY, but the actual reward will depend on the amount of Ethereum 2.0 staked.

High Risk Products

The main high-risk product being offered is DeFi staking, which is a form of providing financial services to users through smart contracts. Existing DeFi projects aim to provide higher annualized earnings for specific currencies.

High risk DeFi pools and farming gives you the chance to earn far larger rewards. Image via Binance.com

Also offered is the Dual Investment Pools. Binance Dual Investment lets you deposit a cryptocurrency and earn yield based on two assets. You commit your crypto holdings, lock in a yield, but earn more if the value of your committed holdings increases. It’s basically a way for you to have more control over your risk.

Finally, users can provide liquidity to pools and earn based on the liquidity being provided. While this seems like it should be risk free it is actually high risk. This is known as Impermanent Loss.

Adding liquidity into a liquid pool and becoming a liquidity provider is not risk-free. When the market price of tokens fluctuates greatly, the staking income may be lower than the income of ordinary holding of the tokens, and losses may even occur.

Other Financial Services

Binance Pool – Supplies mining services, with an emphasis on Proof of Work and Proof of Stake. Basically it uses auto switching to move mining power to the highest value chain at any time.
Binance Visa Card – With the Binance Visa Card, you can convert and spend your favorite cryptocurrencies at more than 60 million merchants worldwide. Just transfer crypto from your spot wallet to your card wallet, and you’re ready to go. EUR, BNB, BTC, BUSD, ETH, and SXP are all supported and the card is available in most EU countries.
Crypto Loans – Clients can apply for loans using their crypto assets as collateral, with loan terms from 7 to 90 days. Initial LTV is 55%.
Liquid Swap – A liquidity pool that traders can either contribute to or use to swap two tokens/fiat assets. Adding liquidity into a liquid pool and becoming a liquidity provider is not risk-free.

Launchpad

The Binance Launchpad is the platform used to launch new tokens. It’s goal is to provide a wider audience for new projects, while also providing the cryptocurrency community with the due diligence to vet these projects prior to launching the tokens.

Binance Launchpad has seen some of the top IEOs in the industry. Image via Binance Launchpad.

Binance Launchpad was one of the first crowdfunding token sale platforms, having launched itself back in December 2017. It has had many successful token launches, and is considered to be the most reliable platform for profitable initial offerings. The platform also uses the native BNB token as a way to participate in the Initial Exchange Offerings.

Token Offerings on Binance Launchpad

Binance continues to attract a significant number of users specifically so that they can participate in the new token launches. Those who wish to take part in any token sales do need to complete the KYC verification process as all token sales are carried out in compliance with local jurisdictions.

By visiting the Binance Launchpad website users can see what new projects are coming up, and what the terms of the token sale will be.

Some of the successful IEOs from Launchpad. Image via Binance blog.

Initial Token Offerings on Binance Launchpad use a lottery system for subscribing to the token sale.

The Lottery System

The lottery system used on Binance Launchpad uses the BNB balance of each users account in the 20 days leading up to the sale to determine how many lottery tickets can be purchased, with a maximum of 5 tickets per account.

Binance takes a snapshot of each eligible account on each of the 20 days prior to the token sale. The snapshots provide Binance with the BNB token count, so that they can determine which level the account falls under. If the balance drops into a lower threshold at any time during the 20 days that’s where the lottery eligibility also falls on the lottery date.

How many BNB do you need to get a lottery ticket? Image via Binance blog.

Before the actual lottery date, users are given a 24 hour period to select how many lottery tickets they wish to enter, with the maximum number based upon their BNB holdings over the previous 20 days.

The user is required to pay for any winning lottery ticket they hold at the end of the lottery and the appropriate amount of BNB is deducted from the winning ticket’s account as soon as the ticket is determined to be a winning ticket.

Binance announces the maximum number of potential lottery ticket winners, and the allocation amount corresponding to each winning ticket in advance.

Customer Support

Binance has one of the most comprehensive and detailed FAQ bases of any exchange or cryptocurrency project we’ve come across. You can find the answer to most questions in this database, although it might take some searching. In addition you can submit a support request to the support team through the link at the FAQ database.

Binance also has an online chat function that can be accessed here or directly through the trading platform.

Multi-lingual support is a given at Binance. Image via Binance blog.

One thing that Binance does not provide is telephone support. This can make Binance seem less responsive, but in looking around most cryptocurrency exchanges fail to provide telephone support. Even the more mainstream CFD exchange platforms rarely provide telephone support any longer.

The customer support at Binance is acknowledged to be quite good, and very responsive. That said, during peak periods there are delays experienced by many users in receiving support. Still, the Binance support team is acknowledged as one of the better support experiences with the cryptocurrency industry.

Promotions & Competitions

Binance is quite well-known for its promotions and competitions, which have become very popular among the Binance community. It’s no surprise that these competitions increase the stickiness of the exchange, and encourage increased trading. It’s a method of gamification that we’ve seen work well in many industries.

Binance is constantly launching new promotions. Image via Binance.com

Anyone interested in seeing what the latest promotions are can do so at the Binance Latest Activity Announcements. Here are the three open competitions when I visited:

Binance Futures Launches Mondays & Tuesdays Bounty Promo
SAND Trading Competition – $50,000 in SAND and Limited-Edition NFTs to Be Won!
Binance Futures Spring Tournament – Over $1,600,000 to Be Won!

As you can see there is ample chance to win just by using Binance as your exchange of choice. New promotions and competitions are launched constantly, and on any given week you’ll have a chance to participate in a fun competition and win some valuable prizes.

Areas for Improvement

Honestly, with so many products and innovations it is difficult to make many complaints about Binance. They are involved in nearly every aspect of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, and any of the products they release are generally accepted to be user-friendly and well constructed.

If we had to choose some areas for improvement we would have to note that customer support is always an area that could use improvement. Anytime a customer has to wait more than several minutes for a response is room for improvement. In the same vein it would be good to see telephone support added.

One further area for improvement would have to be security. While Binance has certainly been quite secure, in the cryptocurrency space there is always room for improved security measures. The good news is that Binance also takes security very seriously and they are always working on improving the security and safety of their clients and the funds on their platform.

Finally, it would be great to see Binance finally transition to a DAO as it claims to be planning. In its current form the exchange is pretending to be decentralized, but is really a centralized exchange.

Conclusion

There’s so few downsides to Binance and so many features that recommend it that it’s easy to say you should be trading with them. You’ll get the lowest fees in the industry, and one of the widest selections of coins to choose from in your trading.

Plus you can explore the rest of the Binance ecosystem, which includes pretty much everything in the universe of blockchain and cryptocurrencies. In fact, it might be fair to say that if it’s blockchain related and Binance doesn’t already have it, there’s a very good chance they are working on it.

Most recently we saw this with the release of the Binance Smart Chain, which is a perfect addition to the DeFi ecosystem. It’s faster than Ethereum, it’s cheaper than Ethereum, and it has support for the Ethereum Virtual Machine.

And if you look into the BSC block explorer you’ll see that it’s growing massively. Average daily transactions have gone from under 500,000 on January 1, 2021 to roughly 2.5 million in March 2021. Plus the number of active addresses has gone from 2 million to nearly 60 million in the same time.

With the addition of fiat currency exchange in many countries around the world, and the DeFi farming and saving, plus a crypto debit card, a community that’s actively involved in the growth and improvement of the platform, and the many other innovations from the exchange it’s safe to say that Binance will be a leader in the blockchain universe for some time to come.

RollerCoin Review: How to Play and Earn

2021-03-05T04:22:00.002-08:00

RollerCoin is an online Bitcoin mining simulator game. You can earn cryptocurrency by playing mini-games and then use it to buy crypto miners and start earning a passive income. I recently ranked it as #1 of my Top 6 Best Cryptocurrency Earning Games so let’s find out how to play RollerCoin. This guide focuses on how we can use the platform to Earn Cryptocurrency. Inside, we are going to inspect the earning potential and efficiency of various methods.

HOW TO PLAY ROLLERCOIN

Make a RollerCoin Account

Perhaps this is the first time you’ve heard about RollerCoin. If so, before you read the rest of this article, you can get started right away by using my referral link below.

Start Earning with RollerCoin!
Receive 1000 SAT free by using this link.

Getting started is quick and easy. Your first task is to choose your name and design your character. You can customize it exactly how you want. Afterward, you get to see your room for the first time.

HOW CAN I EARN CRYPTOCURRENCY ON ROLLERCOIN?

The second part of this article about how to play RollerCoin focuses on how to earn. From what I can see of the platform. There are 3 key ways. You can play games, collect virtual miners, and make referrals. The first two raise your hashrate, which allows you to mine cryptocurrency faster. The games temporarily boost your rate whilst the miners give you a permanent increase.

I have discovered with the help of Discord moderator “Captain Crypto-Sensei” from the RollerCoin channel, that 4140 GH/s hashrate provides approximately 0.01 SAT per block. While this number can change marginally, I will use this figure when extrapolating. I will also use this useful calculator created by the same user for calculating returns depending on hashrate, network power, and block reward.

Method 1: Mini-Games to Earn Satoshi

RollerCoin has a selection of 10 distinct mini-games to choose from. You will be familiar with them because of their similarity to other popular titles. You build your mining rate by playing these games, reaching high scores, and completing tasks. In the beginning, each game you play provides near 700 GH/s hashrate. Winning three games will advance its level, difficulty, and rewards. This chart provided with permission by Discord user “letslion” shows us the approximate amounts we can expect from each game at each level.

Which Game is the Best for Earning?

From a powergamer perspective, at the highest difficulty and level progress, the rewards are higher at around 1600 GH/s. The memory game Coin Flip seems to take less time than all the other games at around 30 seconds to play. Just follow a methodical path through the tiles.

You can earn a lot from Cryptonid if you play to level 10 and stop there. However, if you can win Token Blaster consistently at level 10, it will reward you with a very high hashrate. I personally could never complete the difficult level 6.

Upgrading Your Computer

After you have won 10 games, it awards you a new computer. Typically, your hashrate gained from playing games expires after only 24 hours. However, better computers allow you to extend the time this bonus power lasts.

This should be your first target since it makes playing games on RollerCoin far more profitable. The Roller-MacPro extends the bonus power duration from 24 hours to 168. This indirectly places a 7x multiplier on the amount of crypto you earn from games. We should note that to maintain the PC and stop it from vanishing, you must win at least one mini-game each day.

Method 2: Collect Virtual Miners

So what can you do with the satoshis you get from the mini-games? Well, you could stack them up and withdraw them eventually OR you could reinvest the money back into miners and start earning crypto passively. There are several miners available to choose from in the RollerCoin store. Some are purchasable with RLT tokens, the others with SAT. In this section, I will look at the different

Miners Available in the Store

RollerMiner S4
4696 SAT. Hashrate: 1,160 GH/s (0.247 GH/s per SAT)

RollerMiner S7
5970 SAT. Hashrate: 1,320 GH/s (0.221 GH/s per SAT)

RollerMiner 741
15,262 SAT. Hashrate: 2,730 GH/s (0.179 GH/s per SAT)

RollerMiner S5+
18,784 SAT. Hashrate: 4,000 GH/s (0.213 GH/s per SAT)

RollerMiner R4
Cost: 25,828 SAT. Hashrate: 6,000 GH/s (0.232 GH/s per SAT)

Rolleron Miner 761
Cost: 29,350 SAT. Hashrate: 6,500 GH/s (0.221 GH/s per SAT)

RollerMiner S9
Cost: 70,440 SAT. Hashrate: 14,500 GH/s (0.206 GH/s per SAT)

Dragonroller 16T
Cost: 82,180 SAT. Hashrate: 16,000 GH/s (0.195 GH/s per SAT)

Scarabey
Cost: 16 RLT (32,000 SAT). Hashrate: 8,000 GH/s (0.250 GH/s per SAT)

Gold Digger
Cost: 24 RLT (48,000 SAT). Hashrate: 15,000 GH/s (0.316 GH/s per SAT)

Dream Demolisher 3000
Cost: 110 RLT (220,000 SAT). Mining Speed: 70,000 GH/s (0.318 GH/s per SAT)

Extrapolating the Data: The Dream Demolisher 3000

So if you are going free to play the best initial miner purchase is the cheapest RollerMiner S4 at 4696 SAT. In terms of hashrate per SAT, it is the best you can purchase. So let’s say you wanted to invest a small amount for fun. The Dream Demolisher 3000 is the most powerful and highest value for money. It’s no coincidence that all the top players have multiple rooms of this miner.

So, let’s say you want to get your feet wet and buy one. When can you make a return on your investment? Since we determined that 4140 GH/s hashrate provides 0.01 SAT per block, 70,000 GH/s would provide you with roughly 0.16 SAT per 5 minutes. Notably, if you had just 380 GH/s more hashrate, you would receive an extra 0.01 SAT per block. Using the RollerBuddy calculator we can see we would receive 43.64 SAT a day or 15,709 SAT a year.

My Thoughts on the Virtual Mining Rigs

At first glance, the miners aren’t a brilliant investment since there are so many alternative programs to earn interest. However, there are many variables that may or may not influence the return you would receive. Including but not limited to initial cost due to RLT token sales, block rate, special events, and mining pool size.

Against my better judgment, I will reinvest the money earned from games and referrals into miners for the hell of it. I enjoy increasing my mining rate and working my way up the leaderboards.

Method 3: Referrals

I love a good referral program and RollerCoin’s is sweet. You receive 25% of whatever your referrals earn in the game and 10% of any purchases made. Whether it’s from mining rigs or playing games. Because there is no barrier to entry for users, it’s easy to get started. Once your referrals get mining rigs, then you would receive a permanent stream of passive income, however small that may be. Once your referrals make their own referrals, the income can really ramp up.

HOW TO PLAY ROLLERCOIN – OTHER DETAILS

Leaderboard

The leaderboard is a pleasant feature that allows you to see how well you perform in relation to the rest of the players on the platform. However, for most players, it is irrelevant. There is no benefit from being higher on the leaderboard.

Withdrawing

I didn’t encounter any reports of users that hadn’t received payment from withdrawals. Unlike some other platforms, it doesn’t seem to be an issue here.

Minimum Withdrawal Amounts:

BTC: 0.0001
DOGE: 360
ETH: 0.004

Withdrawal Confirmation:

Thanks for reading my article about how to play RollerCoin and I hope you found it both entertaining and informative. Also, a big thanks to the community members that gave permission to use their charts, data, and tools. You rock!

Bitcoin halving 2020

2020-05-10T07:43:00.001-07:00

What is the Bitcoin Halving (Halvening)?

New bitcoins are issued by the Bitcoin network every 10 minutes. For the first four years of Bitcoin's existence, the amount of new bitcoins issued every 10 minutes was 50. Every four years, this number is cut in half. The day the amount halves is called a "halving" or "halvening".
In 2012, the amount of new bitcoins issued every 10 minutes dropped from 50 bitcoins to 25. In 2016, it dropped from 25 to 12.5. Now, in the 2020 halving, it will drop from 12.5 to 6.25.

What is the Significance of the Bitcoin Block Halving?

The halving decreases the amount of new bitcoins generated per block. This means the supply of new bitcoins is lower.
In normal markets, lower supply with steady demand usually leads to higher prices. Since the halving reduces the supply of new bitcoins, and demand usually remains steady, the halving has usually preceded some of Bitcoin's largest runs.
In the image below, the vertical green lines indicate the previous two halvings (2012-11-28 and 2016-7-9). Note how the price has jumped significantly after each halving.

Bitcoin Halving Chart

In the image below, you can see Bitcoin's inflation rate during each period.
Each halving lowers Bitcoin's inflation rate. The orange line is Bitcoin's inflation rate during a given period, while the blue line is the total number of bitcoins issued.

Bitcoin Halving Schedule

The Bitcoin halving is scheduled in block height, not date.
The halving happens every 210,000 blocks. The 2020 halving will happen on block 630,000. The 2024 halving will happen at block 840,000.

What Happens to Miners During Halvings?

Many always speculate that miners will shut down after the halving. The reality is most miners are very smart and price in the halving, so they don't end up shutting down any miners.

When is the 2024 Bitcoin Halving?

The 2024 halving will likely occur between March 2024 and June 2024.

Bitcoin Halving Dates History

This section will take a look at the previous two halvings.

2012 Halving

The 2012 block halving was the first halving and happened on November 28th, 2012. The halving block was mined by SlushPool by someone using a Radeon HD 5800 miner.
New BTC Per Block Before: 50 BTC per block
New BTC Per Block After: 25 BTC per block
Price on Halving Day: $12.35
Price 150 Days Later: $127.00

2016 Halving

The second halving occurred on July 9th, 2016.
New BTC Per Block Before: 25 BTC per block
New BTC Per Block After: 12.5 BTC per block
Price on Halving Day: $650.63
Price 150 Days Later: $758.81

Current Bitcoin Block Subsidy

The current Bitcoin block subsidy is 12.5 bitcoins per block. When block 630,000 is hit in 2020, the subsidy will drop to 6.25 bitcoins (BTC) per block.

Bitcoin Halving Parties

Thousands of Bitcoiners across the world celebrated the 2016 halving. There were parties in tons of major cities and countries like Melbourne, Australia, Montreal, Canada, NYC, USA, London, UK, Dublin, Paris and dozens of other cities.
Here is a video from the 2016 HODL halving party in Tel Aviv:
When party events are posted, we'll keep track of them here!

When Will All 21 Million Bitcoins be Mined?

All 21 million bitcoins (BTC) will be mined by 2140. But more than 98% will be mined by 2030.

Is There a Litecoin Block Reward Halving Countdown?

Yes, check this site. Litecoin is currently projected to have its halving in a few years.

Is There an Ethereum Block Reward Halving Countdown?

Ethereum's block reward does not halve like Bitcoin's, so there is no countdown.

What is the Bitcoin Clock?

The Bitcoin clock has been around since 2011. In 2018, the owner let the domain expire. We revamped the site and restored it to its original vision.

Is the Halving Necessary?

The halving is necessary. This is how Bitcoin controls its supply. Once the block subsidy expires, transaction fees will pay miners for securing the network.

Why Our Estimates Are the Most Accurate

Most of the other halving date estimators use 10 minute blocks to calculate the estimated halving date.
Blocks, however, have been mined at less than 10 minute intervals for almost all of Bitcoin's history.
Our calculator uses data from BTC.com to get the average block time for the past two months. It then uses this block time (currently 10.3125 minutes between blocks as of March 25, 2020) to estimate the halving date.
While most of the other sites estimate the halving for late-May, the more likely outcome is an early What is the Current Bitcoin Block Reward?

Currently, there are 12.5 new bitcoins issued per block.

What Does Bitcoin Halving Mean?

2020-05-08T12:10:00.003-07:00

Bitcoin halving is happening in about a week! As we get closer to one of the most awaited technical events in the crypto space this year - bitcoin halving - Our COO, Eric Anziani, is excited to share some thoughts on what it means for bitcoin and the industry.

1/ Expected to happen around May 12th, the #bitcoinhalving will basically cut by half the rewards that miners validating transactions on the network get, from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC. This means the inflation rate for #BTC will decrease from 3.68% to 1.80%.

2/ This will mechanically reduce the new supply of #bitcoin released, and gradually put upward pressure on the price, assuming a stable demand curve as the graph shows.

3/ Reduced supply is the primary driver for positive price pressure as our recent survey has shown (available at: https://bit.ly/2VYMYqK). Increased scarcity reinforces the digital gold narrative around #bitcoin.

4/ Although not statistically significant, historical halvings have resulted in mid-to-long term price appreciation as well as price increases leading to the event. There were also unpredictable short term price movements following each event.

5/ There are of course many arguments on the opposite side of the aisle, such as this event could already be priced-in under the Efficient Market Hypothesis, or that potential “sell the news” effect could occur post event.

6/ One prediction that we can guarantee at Crypto.com is that we will be offering #bitcoin at 50% off on 12th May through our Syndicate platform on the Crypto.com Exchange. Do check it out:

7/ At Crypto.com, we believe that programmable digital scarcity embedded in #bitcoin is irreplaceable, and a fundamental part of building a more inclusive token economics that benefits not only the 1% but the broader society.

8/ That’s why we designed the #CryptoComChain (powered by $CRO) under similar principles, with a fixed token supply, and a progressive distribution to miners and the markets under a decreasing inflationary model.

9/ To provide broad adoption, we included low latency, fast finality and privacy-protection in the #CryptoComChain’s design to ensure it can be used as a store of value as well as for day-to-day transactions.

10/ There are still many lessons to learn from #bitcoin and its remarkable incentive design. This third halving will for sure bring new insights as we continue on our journey to bring #cryptocurrency to every wallet.

Forget Bitcoin: Blockchain is the Future

2020-05-07T06:07:00.003-07:00

Cryptocurrencies of all types make use of distributed ledger technology known as blockchain. Blockchains act as decentralized systems for recording and documenting transactions that take place involving a particular digital currency. Put simply, blockchain is a transaction ledger that maintains identical copies across each member computer within a network. The fact that the ledger is distributed across each part of the network helps to facilitate the security of the blockchain.

While Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies grew intensely popular among the general financial and investment worlds in late 2017 and early 2018, they have since become more of a niche area for cryptocurrency enthusiasts. However, blockchain technology remains a quickly-growing area of growth for companies across a host of industries. It is possible that blockchain technology will ultimately be seen as the most important innovation to come out of the cryptocurrency boom. Below, we'll take a closer look at blockchain and see why this technology could be valuable to businesses of all kinds.

Basics of Blockchain

Depending upon the blockchain, parties may be able to view previous ledger entries and record new entries, although most blockchain networks have complex rules for the addition of new groups of records, "blocks," to the chain of previous records. The blocks and the contents within them are protected by powerful cryptography, which insures that previous transactions within the network cannot be either forged or destroyed. In this way, blockchain technology allows a digital currency to maintain a trusted transaction network without relying on a central authority. It is for this reason that digital currencies are thought of as "decentralized."

While blockchain is most famous for its role in facilitating the rise of digital currencies over the past several years, there are also many other non-cryptocurrency uses for this technology. Indeed, some blockchain proponents believe that the technology could far outpace cryptocurrencies themselves in terms of its overall impact, and that the real potential of blockchain is only just now being discovered. As such, it's likely that financial advisors and many others in the investing world will encounter blockchain technology much more in the years to come, whether it is linked with a specific cryptocurrency or if it's being utilized in any number of other applications.

Cross-Border Payments

Traditionally, the transfer of value has been both expensive and slow, and especially for payments taking place across international borders. One reason for this is that, when multiple currencies are involved, the transfer process typically requires the participation of multiple banks in multiple locations before the intended recipient can actually collect his or her money. There are existing services to help facilitate this process in a faster way, but these tend to by quite expensive.

Blockchain technology has the potential to provide a much faster and cheaper alternative to traditional cross-border payments methods. Indeed, while typical money remittance costs might be as high as 20% of the transfer amount, blockchain may allow for costs just a fraction of that, as well as guaranteed and real-time transaction processing speeds. There are hurdles to be passed, including regulation of cryptocurrencies in different parts of the world and security concerns. Nonetheless, this is one of the most promising and talked about areas of blockchain technology application.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Blockchain technology has far-reaching applications across many industries.
Blockchain is already used to facilitate identity management, smart contracts, supply chain analysis, and much more.
The full potential of blockchain technology likely remains to be discovered.

Smart Contracts

Smart contracts are often seen as a highly powerful application of blockchain technology. These contracts are actually computer programs that can oversee all aspects of an agreement, from facilitation to execution. When conditions are met, smart contracts can be entirely self-executing and self-enforcing. For proponents of smart contracts, these tools provide a more secure, more automated alternative to traditional contract law, as well as an application that is faster and cheaper than traditional methods.

The potential applications of smart contract technology are essentially limitless and could extend to almost any field of business in which contract law would normally apply. Of course, while highly touted, smart contracts are not a magical substitute for old-fashioned diligence. In fact, the case of the Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) is a cautionary tale and a warning to investors to not assume that smart contracts are any better than the information and organization that a user puts into them. Nonetheless, smart contracts remain one of the most exciting ways that blockchain technology has already extended beyond the cryptocurrency space and into the broader business world.

Identity Management

One of the most problematic results of the internet age has been identity security. As diligent as many individuals and organizations are in maintaining their online identities and securing private information, there are always nefarious actors looking to steal and profit off of these digital items. Blockchain technology has already demonstrated the potential for transforming the way that online identity management takes place.

Blockchain offers a tremendous level of security, thanks to independent verification processes that take place throughout member computers on a blockchain network. In digital currency cases, this verification is used to approve transaction blocks before they are added to the chain. This mechanism could just as easily be applied to other types of verification procedures, including identity verification and many other applications as well.

The applications for blockchain and identity management are wide-ranging. For instance, blockchain could potentially be used to aid in maintaining voter information and ensuring proper functioning of the electoral process. Blockchain could be used to securely and efficiently transfer user data across platforms and systems. The technology could also be used to maintain and protect records of real estate ownership, titles, and more.

Supply Chain Uses

For many businesses across various industries, a key to success is a well-functioning, efficient supply chain. Blockchain technology has already been used in multiple industries as a means of keeping tabs on supply chains and ensuring their efficiency. This could eliminate human work and the potential for error from a complex and crucial process.

At this point, blockchain is a technology with an exceptionally broad set of potential uses. Although blockchain is most famous for its connections to the blossoming cryptocurrency world, several other applications have already been explored. Perhaps even more exciting, though, is that new ways of utilizing blockchain emerge every day. As such, whether you are directly involved in the digital currency space or not, it's essential to develop an understanding of blockchain and how it may be used to transform the business and investment worlds.

Everve

2020-04-29T09:28:00.003-07:00

Everve is a Social Measurement Exchange (SME) which promises to increase your online popularity in Instagram, Telegram, Twitter, Vkontakte, Websites/Blogs, and Youtube. It utilizes Artificial Intelligence (AI) within the succeeding level. It aims to enlarge and improve your social signals in the scope of expanded likes, comments, shares which greatly influence major search engines due to perceived social media discernability. Major search engines now especially Google, according to Neil Patel, a leading SEO (Seach Engine Optimization) expert and authority that social media ranking was included in Google way back 2019 and Google consider them as trustworthy backlinks thus greatly affecting page rank. This in turn as a positive result as one white hat technique of SEO, will increase or expand your online business via your websites and/or blogs. All your exigency is this Chrome extension.

Company

The company managing this Chrome extension has the same name and is physically located at 1715 Business District, g.k. Mladost 4, Sofia, Bulgaria.

Their social services are the following :

Instagram: They charge for likes, comments, and followers.

Telegram: They charge per action charge as it is done on your Telegram account.

Twitter: They charge for followers, likes, and retweets

Vkontakte: They charge for groups building, pages increase of membership, likes, and reposts

Websites: They act as manual traffic exchange

Youtube: They can charge you for subscribers, views, likes, and disapproval.

Technical Specifications

They paid for their domain name purchase in August of 2019 from Instra Corporation Pty Ltd., using GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) since Everve is an EU (European Union) company and is currently being protected from DDOS (Denial Of Services) attacks by Cloud Flare, Inc. So the secret is in this Chrome extension that makes your company popular through the utilization of major social media. I’m quite surprised that they did not appended Facebook among social media.

.The Chrome app provides a one-of-a-kind boost of your social piece of work and social actions result in equal social actions on your corporate homepage. It is sort of a “scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” type of a partnership. The app offers built-in delay in between actions, snooze mode, artificial intelligence, start/pause button for each simultaneous task inside the module. The said app is updated every week so you are assured you are operating the latest in social exchange technology.

They also entertain refunds if your purchased items do not exceed 14 (fourteen) days but this refund does not cover gift cards, downloaded software products which in reality this is a downloaded app, health and personal care items.

Statistics

They currently have 89100+ users, 67900+ tasks created, 8592K+ actions executed, and $29889 earnings of users.

Making Money

They have also built-in affiliate systems that can create you a passive income money from registration bonus of U.S.$0.50 to people that you will refer to who will purchase credits to power up this app in Chrome. For example, if this will be effective in increasing subscribers of Youtube which they charge as low as U.S.$0.002 per subscriber. Understandably in business, you can’t gamble all your money in one location. For every like, comment or share, you get corresponding coins that you can exchange or spend on your homepage or blogs. So you need a clear goal here if you want to earn money or for the betterment of your blogs and websites. Choose one from among the goal, lacking this, will confuse you if you pursue this as a business, you can at the same time do online activities plus refer paying people. If you pursue this as website traffic for yourself, then even your accumulated coins you can spend on them paying for their social services.

How Does It Work?

From the looks of it installing the Chrome extension will permit you to like, comment, follow and all other social activities that you are already busy about doing but this time it’s all paid and this money you earn you can spend them on your web sites and blogs to get the equal positive social treatment or you can encash them. I’m curious about how artificial intelligence will take place here since it will all be acted upon by humans. I’m assuming if you like 10 likes on your Twitter tweet, you need to like another Twitter post of another Twitter user, it’s the way it is, it’s an exchange. Their portal or Chrome extension acts only as a middle man so to speak so you can pay them to carry out the online job for your business if you don’t want to do these social activities.

PROS and CONS:

PROS:

– Finally, an Artificial Intelligence guided social media exchange, the first time I encounter.

CONS:

– We can’t all bet and put all our money on social media ranking as this is very new SEO technology since Google, of course, won’t reveal their new algorithm this year 2020.

– Beta Phase since it’s the start of the inception

Litecoin

2020-03-11T15:15:00.001-07:00

Litecoin Review

What is Litecoin?

Litecoin was created in far 2011, becoming one of the first altcoins. Litecoin is a Bitcoin fork (meaning Litecoin uses Bitcoin source code as its foundation). The maximum possible Litecoin supply is 84,000,000 compared to 21,000,000 Bitcoins. More than 62,000,000 Litecoins has already been mined.

From a technical point of view, Litecoin is similar to Bitcoin. It is an open-source, peer-to-peer digital currency. Creation and transfer of coins are based oт a cryptographic protocol. Litecoin has no central authority controlling the network. All Litecoin transactions are recorded in a public distributed ledger called a blockchain.

Litecoin and Bitcoin difference is not that significant (letting alone price, of course). The main technology principles are almost the same. Yet, Litecoin has several key differences.

First of all, it is the transaction capacity. Litecoin network is able to perform 56 transactions per second, while Bitcoin is limited to 4-7 transactions per second. Indeed, Litecoin’s 56 TPS are not that impressive compared to modern blockchains with thousands of transactions possible (like Zilliqa). Yet, Litecoin is much faster than Bitcoin. Besides, even with its limited performance, Bitcoin has significant adoption as a global digital currency.

Secondly, it’s the mining process. Though both Bitcoin and Litecoin utilized Proof-of-Work algorithm, Litecoin is more ASIC-resistant. That means that Litecoin mining process is more open to users with ordinary computers, and not to owners of specially designed mining hardware (ASICs). Litecoin block time is near 2,5 minutes (so each new Litecoin block appears 4 times faster, than Bitcoin’s).

Finally, Liteconin fees are much lower than Bitcoin’s. Tough the ratio may be different at any given moment, Litecoin transaction fees are approximately 10 times lower than Bitcoin’s.

Why is Litecoin called "digital silver"?

Litecoin is often called digital silver and not without reason. Let’s try to find out why Litecoin has earned this name.

Bitcoin serves both for storage of value and transfer of value like gold was. The maximum number of Bitcoins is limited, just like the amount of gold on the Earth. That’s why Bitcoin is widely referred to as digital gold. Both Bitcoin and gold have limitations as payment methods for every-day use. Thus, the demand for another digital currency appear.

Bitcoin tech limitations created the demand was for a cryptocurrency similar to Bitcoin, but more suitable for every-day use. That’s why Litecoin was created.

But why Litecoin is called digital silver? The historical parallel of Bitcoin and Litecoin is the transformation of the monetary system from the gold standard to gold/silver bimetallism. The gold was good storage of value, but unable to satisfy the need of the economy in value transfer. So silver became an alternative to gold. Years later, Litecoin became an alternative to Bitcoin or "altcoin".

Litecoin Team

Litecoin is a decentralized open-source project with innumerable contributors. There are more than 500 contributors to Litecoin source code and many teams\individuals are working independently on Litecoin wallets and other projects.

Perhaps, the most significant role belongs to Litecoin Foundation. This non-profit organization is registered in Singapore. It has members around the globe, developing and promoting Litecoin. Another important role of the Foundation is sponsoring some of Litecoin developers to keep improving Litecoin as a product even further. Litecoin foundation works together with Litecoin Core team.

Let’s take a look at some of the Litecoin Foundation members.

Charlie Lee, Litecon founder and Managing Director of Litecoin Foundation. Before creating Litecon, he worked as a software engineer at Google. Charlie Lee is one of the greatest influencers in the crypto industry.

Xinxi Wang, Litecoin Foundation Director. Also, he is the founder of Coinut, the crypto exchange platform. He obtained a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the National University of Singapore.

Zing Yang, Litecoin Foundation Director. Zing’s experience is mainly related to venture capital and investments.

What makes Litecoin Undervalued

In our opinion, the best thing about Litecoin is its perfect balance between technology, adoption, and liquidity.

Undoubtedly, Bitcoin is the cryptocurrency with the highest liquidity and adoption. Many merchants accept it; crypto exchanges often use Bitcoin to form trading pairs with altcoins. Litecoin’s adoption and liquidity are not that great, yet comparable. And more advanced tech features give Litecoin more potential as a currency.

The third-generation cryptocurrencies (such as Cardano and Zilliqa) offer more features and advanced scalability. But so far, they don’t have the liquidity and adoption of Litecoin, letting alone Bitcoin.

The perfect balance is the thing that, likely, will make Litecoin attractive to new users as cryptocurrencies will continue to reach the global mass-market.

Another notable thing about Litecoin is its established community. Litecoin has stood the test of time because of its large and dedicated community.

The balance and the community power will allow Litecoin to have a place in the alternative to Bitcoin niche, hardly reachable by third-gen altcoins in the nearest time.

Does Litecoin have weaknesses?

Indeed, there are some moments that can be referred to as Litecoin weaknesses.

First of all, Litecoin is not that unique. All Bitcoin forks have, more or less, the same set of features. Litecoin technology is advanced, yet not groundbreaking. However, the development is a continuous process, so the Litecoin tech will likely face improvements in the future.

Secondly, Litecoin is the previous-generation cryptocurrency. Modern blockchain projects were designed to offer more advanced solutions in terms of scalability, interoperability, and so on.

Thirdly, Litecoin as a brand has significant popularity, but it is still far behind the level of recognition Bitcoin has.

Fourthly, the merchant adoption has a boost because Bitcoin has longer confirmation time and higher fees. Should Bitcoin Layer 2 "Lightning Network" become a success, the Litecoin will likely be less attractive a the meaning for micropayments. However, it will hardly affect Litecoin as the storage of value.

Cointiply

2020-03-10T15:35:00.001-07:00

Earn more Coins with Cointiply than every other Bitcoin faucet or rewards site combined.

Cointiply is, I think, one of the most undervalued websites to earn Bitcoin. There are many high paying surveys you can take and earn up to 20.000 coins for each survey. That's why today I am going to write a short review about it.

It's a site that pays out cryptocurrency whenever you make a claim, i.e. a free random roll. And if you roll a prime number, you'll get a bonus, and you can earn another bonus for logging in and spinning the faucet every day. You can refer your friends and get 25% of what they earn from the faucet for life.

Claim from the Faucet every hour

You can go to faucet section and click the "Roll & Win" button to get free coins based on the random number that you roll. Make this site your start screen on your browser (use Brave browser to earn free BAT) to claim every hour. Here is the payout schedule: ( Coins + Cointiplier Bonus)

View PTC Ads

This is actually great. Recently, they have increased the number of ads here. So, go to PTC ads section and view all the available PTC ads to boost your coins. I check twice a day for new ads.

MORE WAYS TO EARN COINS AT COINTIPLY

COMPLETE TASKS: Complete tasks to level up and earn reward points.

COMPLETE OFFERS: Complete quick offers to earn even more Bitcoin each day.

DO SURVEYS: Complete surveys every day to earn thousands of Coins.

You can find high paying surveys’ at the offer walls tab. A single survey can pay as much as 100,000 Coins, with many paying between 3,000 and 20,000 Coins.

I've mostly used the " Theorem Reach" offer Wall. I strongly recommend you not to miss high paying surveys.

WATCH VIDEOS: Watch videos and earn Coins.

Here is my referral link: http://cointiply.com/r/07aj5 to sign up.

COINTIPLY FEATURES

LOYALTY BONUS

Login each day to boost your loyalty bonus all the way to 100%. So, If you check in and roll everyday, you will double each claim after 100 days.

EARN INTEREST

Earn 5% interest on your Coin balance when you reach 35,000 and more Coins.Interest is calculated using an annual interest rate of 5% paid out once a week based on your average daily balance. For example, if you have 100,000 Coins for a 1 week period you will earn 99 Coins interest for that week (100,000 * 0.05126 / 52.14).

DEPOSIT COINS

Send Bitcoin directly to your Cointiply account to earn even more interest.

REWARD POINTS

Earn reward points by completing tasks and boosting your level. Cash in reward points for real prizes.

MULTIPLY YOUR COINS

Play our unique sci-fi themed multiplier game to boost your Coin balance.

COMMUNITY

Chat & share your progress with other like-minded Cointiply users.

FAST PAYMENTS

Withdraw your Coins any time to FaucetHub or your Bitcoin or Doge Wallet.

EXPERT SUPPORT

Our support team is the best in the business and is always available to help.

25% FOR REFERRALS

Earn reward points by completing tasks and boosting your level. Cash in reward points for real prizes.

MULTIPLY YOUR COINS

Play our unique sci-fi themed multiplier game to boost your Coin balance.

COMMUNITY

Chat & share your progress with other like-minded Cointiply users.

FAST PAYMENTS

Withdraw your Coins any time to FaucetHub or your Bitcoin or Doge Wallet.

EXPERT SUPPORT

Our support team is the best in the business and is always available to help.

25% FOR REFERRALS

Earn 25% of all your referrals claims and 10% of their offer earnings. Here is my referral link: http://cointiply.com/r/j38la to sign up.

PAYMENT

It has a Fast payment with Direct Wallet

SOME STATISTICS

OFFERS COMPLETED
* 19,241,711

FAUCET CLAIMS
* 63,279,187

TOTAL USERS
* 674,091

BITCOIN EARNED
* 165.04203742

Cointiply Mobile App

Cointiply launched just recently its mobile app for Android mobile devices via the Google Play store. Click on this link on your mobile device to download it.

If you download it, Cointiply gives you 500 free coins. There are also mobile-only video offers and special bonuses only for mobile users.

It has a Loyalty Bonus program. Log in each day to boost your loyalty bonus all the way to 100%.

You can earn easily by completing real surveys, doing tasks, etc.

You can earn more with a 25% referral commission.

It has a Fast payment with Direct Payments. Cointiply has now smaller withdrawal limits to direct wallet in response to Direct Payments announcement. The withdrawal limit has been reduced from 100,000 coins ($10) to 50,000 coins ($5).

Thanks for reading. I hope you’ve found it helpful.

FAUCETPAY.IO

2020-03-07T03:38:00.000-08:00

FaucetPay is a small microwallet that allows you to earn Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Dogecoin with a low minimum payout.

What’s FaucetPay?

FaucetPay is a microwallet, it’s a small wallet that accepts microtransactions from faucets and stores it into one central place. When you have reached their minimum payout, you’re free to cash out your earnings to your wallet.

Why using a microwallet?

Well, if you’re using faucets to collect crypto, you know that the amount you get is very low. The faucet owner can’t send you that amount to your wallet because it is way too low and the fees are too high. So you need a microwallet where you can store your earnings temporarily and then when you have collected a certain amount, you can send it to your wallet. It’s not advised to keep your funds into a microwallet! Store your funds in a wallet!

How to use FaucetPay?

FaucetPay has a list of faucets where you can start earning from. The site supports two currencies Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dogecoin, Dash (NEW) and Bitcoin Cash (NEW). You can directly start earning from the existing faucets or create your very own faucet with their FREE faucet script (listed under the API menu)!

Creating your own Faucet

As you read before, FaucetPay has its own script that allows you to set up your very own faucet and start paying users from using your faucet with their Faucet Owner Dashboard for FREE!

Games

You can play Multiply BTC to multiply your Bitcoin, Litecoin or Dogecoin 9500 times! That’s a lot.

You can also play Rock Paper Scissors and we recommend the games as you get free Satoshis even when you lose! You will play against another player and when you win you will get 5 satoshis and when you lose, you will get 2 Satoshis.

Referral program

There is now a referral program that will get you 0.50% every time your referral plays Multiply BTC and 2 Satoshis when your referral plays Rock Paper Scissors.

There is also a leaderboard where the top 10 users get rewarded for referring people. So you can earn up to an extra $150!

Withdrawals and Fees

If you have earned enough coins, it’s time to withdraw your earnings. If you have collected Bitcoin you need to have at least 0.00001000 BTC and there is a fee from 0.00000400 BTC. Don’t want Bitcoin? No problem, you can also withdraw your Ethereum when you have at least 0.00100000 ETH and there is a fee from 0.00010000 ETH.

When withdrawing your Dogecoin, you will need to collect 10 Doge and there is a fee of 1 Doge. If you would like Litecoin, you’ll need 0.00080000 LTC and there is a fee of
0.00040000 LTC.

Withdrawing your Dash can be done once you have reached 0.00080000 DASH with a fee of 0.00005000 DASH. When withdrawing your Bitcoin Cash you’ll need at least 0.00050000 BCH and there is a fee of 0.00010000 BCH.

Priority withdrawal

You can now choose the option to get a priority withdrawal. Your funds will be sent in 5 minutes to your wallet at the cost of a higher fee. If you don’t want this, you can keep the normal withdrawal method, this will take 8 hours to process.

Are you a Faucet Owner?

~~There is a deposit fee of 1.50% on deposits for Bitcoin and Ethereum.~~

There are no fees for deposits!

Conclusion

FaucetPay is a Legit microwallet and we have got a payment proof of 9.84 Doge received within 6 hours of requesting. We recommend this microwallet because it has a very low withdrawal requirement and no deposit fees for faucet owners.

HitLeap

2020-03-02T14:42:00.001-08:00

HitLeap Review

Website: HitLeap.com
Products: Traffic Exchange Service
Price: Free to Register, Price varies for different add-ons.
Owner: HitLeap Ltd
Suitable for: Online Marketers who like to test traffic sources.

Overview: HitLeap is a Traffic Exchange Service started in 2008 that helps deliver traffic to your website. But you must “earn” the traffic by first visiting other’s website.

Alternatively, you can simply buy a traffic package from HitLeap to have traffic delivered to your website.

HitLeap Review – How does it work?

As depicted in the image above, in 3 simple steps.

Submit your website at HitLeap.
Watch other’s websites.
They will watch yours.

When you are watching other’s websites, you earn “Minutes” which you can use to exchange for a certain amount of “Hits” to your website.
HitLeap is not like other traffic exchanges where you can view member’s websites without the need to download and install a viewer locally on your computer.
At HitLeap, you have to download the HitLeap Viewer in order to view websites from other members to earn your “Minutes”.

Alternatively, if you do not wish to download an alien software and runs on your computer, you can choose to buy traffic packages directly from HitLeap.

HitLeap Review – How much does the Traffic Pack cost?

Let’s take a look at the different types of Traffic Pack and it’s cost.

You can choose the duration that the visitors must stay on your website by sliding the time-slider above. There are 2 options where you can fix a duration e.g. 20secs, or choose a range of random durations e.g. 15secs to 25secs.
As you increase the durations, the number of hits will reduce and vice versa.

HitLeap Review – Other ways to increase your HitLeap Traffic.

#1 Increase your HitLeap Viewer Slots

As a free member, you are entitled to 2 Viewer Slots. But what does Viewer Slots means?
According to HitLeap, Viewer Slots is
“You can run up to this many instances of the HitLeap Viewer.”
Thus, Viewer Slots is the number of HitLeap Viewer (the program you downloaded earlier) instances you can run at one time.
In simplicity, the number of windows you can open to view other’s website concurrently at one time! In this way, you can earn “Minutes” faster with more Viewer Slots.
How much do Viewer Slots cost?

#2 Increase your Traffic Exchange Ratio

As a free member, your Traffic Exchange Ratio is 70%.
According to HitLeap, Traffic Exchange Ratio is
“You can earn back this much of the time you keep HitLeap Viewer running.”
This means that you can earn “Minutes” just by running your HitLeap Viewer.
You can increase this ratio to 100% by upgrading your account to Premium.

HitLeap Review – Premium Account

Let’s take a look at the Premium Account’s benefits.

The cost of a Premium Account is $8/mth and you can enjoy the benefits you see above.

Traffic Exchange Ratio – Percentage of the minutes earn by running the HitLeap Viewer.

Website Slots – Maximum number of websites you can submit under your account.

HitLeap Viewer Slots – You can run up to this many instances of the HitLeap Viewer. If you want to run more, you can always buy extra slots.

Monthly Minutes Bonus – Amount of minutes received with each payment.

Customize Traffic Source – You can enter any URL to receive hits from.

Minutes Commissions – Percentage of minutes received from referral earnings.

Cash Commissions* – Percentage of cash received from referral purchases.

* The maximum amount earned per one purchase is EUR 25.00
It is important to read HitLeap’s Terms of Service too.

HitLeap Review – My Personal Take

I had a good impression of HitLeap’s Website because the design is very simple, clean and easy to navigate. I believe that any new members can easily know how to use HitLeap’s features right away.
However, I have some concerns as follow:

#1 Downloading of a HitLeap Viewer

I find it quite strange at HitLeap that requires you to download and install a Viewer locally onto your computer in order to view other members’ websites to earn your “Minutes”.
All other major Traffic Exchanges Websites do not need an additional viewer! You can simply view other members’ websites within the Traffic Exchange Website.
It is always not safe to download software from an untrusted source. There might be adware or spyware within such software that could breach the security and privacy of your computer.
So, please ensure that you have anti-virus software installed on your computer already before you download the HitLeap Viewer.

#2 HitLeap Viewer Slots

As I mentioned earlier that you can purchase addition View Slots to have more instances of HitLeap Viewer running on your Computer.
So, let’s say you have bought 10 extra slots. You opened up 2+10 = 12 HitLeap Viewer to view members websites to earn your “Minutes”.
Can you focus your attention to all the 12 HitLeap Viewers’ website at the same time?
Are you really interested in viewing other members’ websites, or you are just waiting for the seconds to pass so that you can earn your “Minutes”?
What you can do to others, others can do the same to you too.
Thus I would think though there might be a good quantity of traffic “viewing” your website, but the quality of the traffic is a big question mark.
Are those traffics matches your targeted demographics with buying intent?
Or they are just numbers at HitLeap to show that they have delivered the traffic to you.
There is a really good traffic exchange website around that wants you to focus your attention on the website you are viewing in order to “earn” your website views.
Not by opening as many viewer windows as you can so that “earn” your website views in the shortest time.

Traffup.net

2020-03-02T13:43:00.001-08:00

Traffup.net Review

Located at traffup.net; this service is what is commonly known as traffic and social media exchange tool. In this review, however, I’ve only focused on the feature to generate website traffic from around the world; both free and paid.

The idea is that each user has an account for collecting points by visiting other websites through the traffic exchange interface. Once enough points are collected you can add your own website URLs to the system and use points to get other users to click to your site. New accounts come with 100 points as the sign-up bonus.

To add your URLs that you need visitors to go to the “My Websites” section. You will need to select a title and category for the page.

Available categories are: Architecture, Art, Books, Business, Cooking, Education, Entertainment, Events, Fashion, Food & Drink, Health, Home, Hotels, Humor, Internet, Jobs, Kids, Lifestyle, Media, Nature, Others, Personal, Pets, Photography, Poetry, Portals, Religion, Shopping, Society, Sports, Technology and Travel.

Then set the amount of points you want to give per each visit; ranging from 20 to 50 points. However, setting a low amount of points will decrease your chances of getting visitors & Traffup recommends setting the maximum of 50 points per website.

I have tried it with 20 points and it’s not a realistic way to get visitors.

This will add your URL to a page with a list of websites competing for clicks, ranking the ones with the most points above the rest.

To gain points these are the steps:

Click on a link which opens a website/URL
Wait for 15 seconds per site
Complete a quick captcha (matching a word with an image)
Close the window from the upper corner

Also, you will occasionally need to refresh the list for new sites.

These time-consuming steps are to ensure that the click is from an actual human and not a bot. However, the chances of someone doing this rather tiresome manual work and on top of that actually browsing your website is near zero. Unless you are advertising other traffic tools and programs of course.

For most users, it doesn’t really make difference if the traffic is coming from a human or a bot. The “human” is highly unlikely to engage with your website anyway. And more advanced alternative traffic tools such as the ones mentioned in this post can actually reduce the amount of bounces and be more beneficial in terms of SEO.

That’s why I simply cannot recommend the manual system with Traffup.

I have tested the quality of traffic myself with an irresistible cute cat video. And found out that while Traffup.net has active users, there is not a large enough user base to generate large chunks of traffic.

And according to my tests, every single visit to my website bounced (no one bothered to watch the incredibly cute cat video during the 15 seconds).

What is perhaps most alarming is that the traffic source traffup.net is visible to website analytics; with no way to cloak or hide the website address. This could cause trouble for those who don’t want to expose the real traffic source to others!

With alternatives such as Hitleap and PandaBot, you can set the traffic to look like it’s coming from Google or social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Of course, as with all websites you have beyond free options to purchase points and get the traffic without manual work. And currently the cost is at 2000 Traffup points for $9.99.. which translates to a total of just 40 hits. Needless to say, purchasing traffic is hardly worth it if looking for cheap options, especially when alternatives can provide much more cost-effective hits.

Purchasing points will also give you a so-called PRO status for a very limited amount of time unless you are making very large point purchases. Although going PRO does bring a lot more value to the service; with geotargeting, more visibility in the list of websites and an ability to earn double the points.

AdNow

2020-03-02T04:52:00.004-08:00

AdNow Review for Publishers

AdNow has been in operation since 2014. So much has changed in the last two years and the initial wave of reviews of the company. This is an updated review of the network as of March 2020.

Native: The biggest trend in monetization

Introduction to AdNow

AdNow provides widget-based native ads that publishers can use to monetize their sites. It is an advertising network with over 150,000 publishers at the moment. It is the network to work with when you want high RPM rates especially for those wishing to monetize their sites through native ads.
The advertising network was established in 2014 through a collaboration of digital marketers experienced in RTB and Big Data.
Their goal was to create a hybrid ad format. This unique format combines ads and other engaging website content to enhance user engagement. The network makes it possible to combine native ads and media banners in one campaign, which is quite useful for clients and brands engaged in promotional activities.
The basic idea behind AdNow was the result of its founder’s decades-long experience in RTB, Big Data, PPC, and mobile advertising.
In two years, the network has emerged as one of the most efficient native ad tools serving over 4 billion impressions per month in 107 countries.

How AdNow Works

As a content recommendation network, AdNow provides related posts widgets that publishers can place on their site. The widgets display sponsored content that earns the publisher money when visitors click and view the related content.
The service has over time attracted millions of webmasters who are currently earning good money from the widgets. AdNow is basically a safe content driven platform to monetize your website. The network’s moderators manually check each content before it is released to publishers to ensure it is clean, safe, and relevant. They even provide JS tags that don’t conflict with other ad serving networks, making it quite safe to use AdNow in combination with Adsense and other networks.
The network has several advantages for publishers including weekly payments, easy customization of widgets, prompt multilingual support system, and many more.
Publishers with good sites get approved instantly. However, as a publisher, you have to post at least one informative article every day where AdNow can place their ads.
AdNow is a great place for publishers who may have failed to get approved by other similar networks such as Taboola, OutBrain, and RevContent.
It provides a unique way of monetizing website traffic through relevant and engaging user content that visitors are highly likely to click and view. If you have good traffic for your website, then this is one of the best networks you can use to earn a good profit from your website.
Tracking is a breeze in AdNow as they have an efficient real-time reporting system. Their rates are quite competitive and they even have a good referral program too.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5

What we like about AdNow: They allow non-English websites to join, have weekly payments, competitive rates, works with other ad networks safely including Adsense, Propeller Ads, and Adtomatik, they have a real-time reporting system, and if your website is rejected you can always apply again after fixing the recommended issues.
What we don’t like about AdNow: It is not possible to filter irrelevant or inappropriate ads directly. You have to contact support every time you are served irrelevant or inappropriate ads.

Publisher Requirements

Publisher terms: http://adnow.com/terms
Minimum traffic: None but you must have content.
Language requirements: English and other languages accepted
Prohibited content: Publishers are prohibited from deploying the network’s ads on content that contains pornographic, defamatory and libelous connotations or content that incites violence or demean people based on their age, gender, race, ethnicity, disability, and sexual orientation.
AdNow reserves the right to disable its service on any website that contravenes its guidelines. Read more at http://adnow.com/terms

AdNow Company Stats

Homepage: http://adnow.com/
Network founded: 2014
Employee count: 51-200 employees as of March 2020
Ownership: Private. Partnership No. OC 390789.
Profiles: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn.

AdNow Support and Contact Information

Address: Adnow LLP, Las Suite, 5 Percy Street, Fitzrovia, London, W1T 1 Dg,, UK
Tel: (For publishers) +44 20 380 714 60
Support email: support@adnow.com

Advertisers and offers

Network type: CPM, CPC
Ad formats: Related post widgets, Content Recommendation
Verticals: Most (Check: http://adnow.com/publishers for details).

Tech Implementation

AdNow widgets are completely customizable. Publishers are advised to create separate widgets for desktop and mobile traffic. You have the option of customizing different aspects such as image size, rows, columns, fonts, and much more straight from the widget settings.
After you have done all the tweaks and changes you deem necessary, you can then get the widget code. The network has two types of codes. The first one is for widget placement, which shows you where the widget will appear and the second one is the ad loading javascript.
Publishers can combine both codes and place them exactly where they want the widget to appear.
If you are looking for a better alternative to Adsense, then AdNow is a good option, especially for new bloggers who are intent on giving native ads a try.
Unlike other major players in the native ads arena, such as Taboola and Outbrain, AdNow is quite flexible and does not require a massive amount of traffic to be accepted. To get the best out of this network, you can start with two or three widgets. As stated before, the widgets are customizable and you will start seeing the ads as soon as you install the code in your website. There are different formats of widget placement including:

Sidebar widgets which are ideal for desktop traffic
Widgets placed within the content which work great with mobile traffic
Standard widgets placed at the end of the content

Based on the theme, niche, or content you have, expect a CTR of around 2 to 3% with the abovementioned settings.
If you have difficulties setting up widgets, you can always ask for assistance from your account manager or simply open a ticket stating what the problem is and the support team will respond to you immediately.
A fast and better way of connecting with a publisher support representative is via skype. You can add one of their helpful representatives on Skype using the username raves_adnow.

Publisher reporting

One of the greatest advantages of working with AdNow is the fact that publishers get detailed statistics reports of their performance in real time. The network has an efficient reporting system that shows you the following on a daily basis:

Number of clicks
Number of views
Sources of clicks
Income earned
CTR
eCPM

You can even generate reports from different time zones using stats from network’s reporting system and the number of widgets you have on your site. The system provides hourly stats.

Payment Structure

AdNow Payment Rating: 4 out of 5

Payment Methods Available: PayPal, Bank Wire Transfer
Payment terms: Net 7 (Weekly)
Minimum Payout Threshold: $20
AdNow calculates your earnings on the basis of impressions. You get paid on a weekly or Net 7 basis.

Referral program

AdNow provides publishers with an extra revenue generating option through referrals. You can earn income simply by referring others to join the network through your unique link. The network will then evaluate your referrals’ websites and if they are accepted you start earning 5% of their total revenue each week for a period of 12 months. The revenue you earn from referrals is usually added to your normal billing.

Editor’s AdNow Review for Publishers

AdNow is a large network that has significantly grown in just two years. It currently boasts of over 150,000 webmasters using their platform and making significant amounts of profits from the ad network.
It is easier to monetize content with AdNow because a large percent of the sponsored content the network displays on your site is relevant, safe, clean, and easily clicked or viewed by your visitors. You can rely on the safety of the content they publish on your site because the network has moderators who manually evaluate each piece of sponsored content before it is made available to publishers.
The ad network also provides simple easy to use Javascript tags that do not conflict with other ad servers such as Adsense. You can use AdNow ads together with Adsense on your site without fear of getting banned. The network does not serve adult or other offensive ads, which makes it even safer to use in your site with other ad networks.
The sign up and approval process for an AdNow account is quite easy and hassle-free. Unlike other networks providing similar services such as Taboola and Outbrain, AdNow does not ask for a specific traffic requirement from publishers wishing to join their network. However, your website needs to have high quality content and be receiving some traffic before you can be approved. Every applicant’s site is manually reviewed before approval.
All you need to do to sign up is fill a short form and submit. You’ll get an email verification request after which you can log in to your account and submit your website for approval. The approval process will also require you to verify that you are the owner of the website.
This is a simple process in which you are provided with a small file to upload to your website’s root directory. You can also use a HTML code pasted above the closing head tag for your site for verification.
Once your website is reviewed and approved, you can then place their widgets on your site and start seeing sponsored content on your site immediately. You’ll earn money when visitors click or view the sponsored content. Their approval process is quite fast. On a good day you can even get a response within 3 hours after submission.
One point to note though is that AdNow does not accept content that contains pornographic, defamatory and libelous connotations or content that incites violence or demean people based on their age, gender, race, ethnicity, disability, and sexual orientation. If you are looking for a way to monetize a website with adult content, then AdNow is not for you. There are other networks that allow adult content if you that’s your niche.

Ad Formats

AdNow is a content recommendation network so it only provides related content widgets that contain sponsored content which publishers can use to monetize their websites.

Stats and Reports

One of the great advantages of AdNow over other networks is their detailed and efficient stats reporting system. Their system shows you the number of clicks, views, clicks from other resources, income, eCPM, and CTR on a daily basis. You even get a chart showing you your daily clicks.
You can use this stats reporting system to generate reports of different time zones as well as other filtering options including widgets, websites, impressions, clicks, and income. The system provides you with real-time stats and reports.

AdNow Pros

The network accepts non-English websites too
Allows you to monetize worldwide traffic
Can safely be used together with other ad networks such as Adsense and Propeller Ads
Weekly payments that are paid on time
Has a real-time reporting system
Has a rewarding referral system

AdNow Cons

Publishers cannot filter ads that they feel are irrelevant or inappropriate for their websites
The widgets sometimes post irrelevant content

Conclusion

As a content recommendation service, AdNow is one of the best options publishers can use to monetize their website traffic. The ad network provides you with related posts widgets that show sponsored content to your visitors. You get paid every time visitors click or view the sponsored content.
There are many benefits publishers get from AdNow such as weekly payments, low minimum payout, multilingual support, varied payment methods, clean and safe ads, and easy customization of widgets just to mention a few. If you have sufficient traffic, this is one of the best native advertising networks to work with.

A-ADS

2020-03-01T06:38:00.001-08:00

A-ADS Review:

This text will tell you how the A-ADS bitcoin ads network helps advertisers to promote their products on Crypto traffic. A-ADS (former Anonymous Ads) is one of the oldest Bitcoin advertising networks on the Internet. It is the first crypto advertising network working since 2011 and providing high-quality crypto traffic to its advertisers. They accept publishers from all over the world and don’t have strict requirements for publishers to join their ad network.
The A-ADS main payment model is a daily budget (that is the cost per day or CPD). It means that their system is not based on fixed CPM, which is a major difference from other ad networks. You can also work on CPM bids and CPA

A-ADS.com is an excellent alternative to the Coinzilla and Cointraffic ad network. Here in this article, I will share with you the major pros and cons, so you can see why A-ADS Network is a great choice.

The network claims that they don’t store any personal information of publishers and advertisers and that is why they are called Anonymous Ads Network.

This is one of the fastest-growing crypto advertising ad networks. According to their statistics, they get more than 70 million impressions per day, more than 60 thousand clicks. Here is a step by step guide for advertisers and publishers on how to join the A-ADS network and profit with them.

Here are the facts about A-ADS Network that you need to know:

Available payment Schemes: CPD (cost per day), CPM bids and CPC.
Ads Format: Banner Advertising.
Accepted Ads: no guns, no drugs, no CP.
Support: 24/7 Live Support.
Live chat: Yes,
Accepted Websites: All kinds of sites.
Traffic: Worldwide.
Top Geos: USA, Brazil, India, Russia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, China.
Referral Bonus: 10% of affiliate advertiser’s budget (or ½ of A-ADS fee);
Payment Method: Bitcoin.
Payment Frequency: Automatic, daily.
Minimum Payout for Publishers: 1 satoshi to ExpressCrypto.io or 0.001 Bitcoin directly to bitcoin address;
Minimum Deposit for Advertisers: No restrictions;
Minimum sum to start an Ad campaign: no restrictions;
Accepted Payments: Bitcoin, Ripple, Qtum, Tether, NEO, Bitcoin Gold, Ethereum Classic, Tron, Verge, BitTorrent, GameCredits, DigiByte, Komodo, Zcoin, Ravencoin, Bitcoin Cash, Dash, Dogecoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Zcash, BitcoinDiamond, Horizen, PIVX, Stratis, Vertcoin;
Official website: https://a-ads.com/
How Does A-ADS Work?
A-Ads.com allows its publishers to monetize their websites and blogs by displaying ads and thus earn bitcoins. They have advertisers from all over the world who keep looking for new sites to advertise. If your website is getting a certain amount of organic traffic, then you can monetize it with this fantastic Ad Network.Advertisers can promote their product on thousands of sites listed on the A-ADS catalog. Usually, they pay on daily budget terms – this means they pay a certain sum a day and receive a proportional amount of targeted traffic. There are CPM bids for those who like fixed CPM. There’s CPA too, so A-ADS advertisers can advertise on their publisher’s websites and pay only when they get results.

A-ADS offers banner advertising only. This means no pop-ups, no video pre-rolls, no push-ups. The reason is the A-ADS team believes that advertising must be not annoying for Internet users, they stand for ethical advertising and making the Internet better.
It’s comfortable to work with A-ADS because they don’t cheat and they don’t spy. They have a perfect business reputation and maintain it since 2011. Payments to publishers are always on time. And if there are some technical issues on their fault, they’ll probably make refunds.
And I say they don’t spy because they don’t require any personal data from users. This means you can work with them absolutely anonymously if you want, not providing even an email! If you create anonymous campaigns or ad units, you won’t face those dull verifications and filling in long questionnaires, nothing of the sort.

More, A-ADS doesn’t spy publishing site visitors. The only info they need to know about them is their IP.

.

More A-ADS Features:

Great anonymity.
Non-intrusive advertising, not annoying banners, “ethical advertising”.
Payments are always on time.
They don’t cheat.
Publishers can filter undesired ads.
Advertisers can filter undesired sites.
Realtime statistics.
A-ADS doesn’t put cookies on publishers’ websites.
High CPM for Bitcoin traffic.

How A-Ads Helps You With Advertising Your Business Online?

A-ADS acts like a helping hand for advertisers by improving their business and increasing their sales. You can create an advertising campaign, and it will deliver your ads to the right audience. If you have any difficulties, just ping their helpdesk – they’ll guide you step by step to reach the best results. Skype chat is also available on demand.
A-ADS has tons of crypto traffic for you. This means millions of crypto involved visitors that will see your proposal. You can use geo-targeting, so you can get traffic from any location you want. You can choose sites by category or just pick any set of websites from the catalog of publishers to advertise only there.

It takes somewhat 3 -5 minutes to start a campaign. The process is super fast and easy. If you face any difficulties, just ping their helpdesk and you’ll receive help really fast. If you ask, they can create and manage your campaign for you.
You can pay in most popular cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Ripple, Qtum, Tether, NEO, Bitcoin Gold, Ethereum Classic, Tron, Verge, BitTorrent, GameCredits, DigiByte, Komodo, Zcoin, Ravencoin, Bitcoin Cash, Dash, Dogecoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Zcash, BitcoinDiamond, Horizen, PIVX, Stratis, Vertcoin.
Another awesome feature is estimative numbers for your campaign: after you adjust your campaign you’ll have rather a precise prediction on impressions and clicks you’re going to get.

Benefits For Advertisers:

Here are some benefits that A-Ads provides to its Advertisers:

Super fast and simple campaign creation;
All Campaigns are approved faster than at any other Ad networks;
Traffic is usually cheaper than on other networks;
Tons of traffic from thousands of sites;
A large variety of crypto sites with 100% crypto involved users;
Traffic from all over the world top Geos: Brazil, USA, India, Russia, Indonesia, China, Thailand, Europe;
Geo-Targeting is available.
You can pick any publishing sites you like, e.g. by categories, or you can choose exact sites you need;
You can set max CPM for your campaign and exclude too expensive traffic from your campaign;
You can receive help from their help desk 24/7, skype and telegram chat also available on request;
You can ask for a personal manager that’ll help you to adjust your campaign the best way and will guide you;
Real-time statistics with colorful graphs;
No minimum budget to start a campaign (you can run it with cents, no joke);
Advertising options are CPD (cost per day), CPM bids, CPA;
You can try can CPM bids and receive tons of amazingly cheap traffic.

A-ADS For Publishers:

A-ADS accepts new websites as well as old ones, publishers or bloggers from all over the world can join their ad network. Tumbler and Blogspot sites are allowed. Faucets and PTP sites are allowed too, but they are likely to get sufficient rewards only if they bring real purchases to advertisers. So if you own a blog or a website and you have human traffic, then you are welcome to join this network.
A-ADS is perfect for small publishers, including those with low traffic volume but genuine human traffic. You can just place an ad unit code on your site and collect satoshis. Sites don’t need approval, the process of ad unit creation and placement is super fast and easy.
A-ADS maintains non-intrusive advertising, so their banners are not annoying and not likely to spoil the impression from your site. The banners are extremely lightweight, a banner is just a plain iframe with no javascript in it. So they won’t slow your site performance and won’t cause any security issues for your site.
A-ADS acceptable banners suit Acceptable ad requirements (https://acceptableads.com/), so you can hope to be added into AdBlock white list with A-ADS banners on your site in future.
Here are a few requirements that you need to follow before joining Anonymous Ads.

You must have quality traffic that benefits advertisers;
Bot traffic is prohibited.

Why you should join A-ADS network as a Publisher:

A-ADS is one of the oldest Crypto Advertising Networks that is known as a good way to monetize a site. No matter even if you are a small publisher, they will give you great opportunities and fantastic monetization options to earn bitcoin from your website. It is also one of the best Ad Networks for Small Publishers. Here are some fantastic features of this network and why you should join this network:

Proved fairness;
Punctuality in payments;
Anonymity;
Perfect for small publishers;
Sites don’t need approvement to join the network;
Super easy and fast process of ad unit creation;
Non-intrusive ads, static banners not likely to annoy your site visitors;
Lightweight banners (plain iframe with no javascript);
24/7 helpdesk;
Advanced dashboard to track your impressions, clicks, and earnings in real-time.

A-ADS Monetization Methods:

A.Ads provide 4 kinds of Advertising options and offers.

CPD – Cost Per Day.
CPM bids – stakes with fixed Cost Per Mile.
CPA – Cost Per Action.
Affiliate program.

A-ADS Affiliate Program:

A-ADS offers Affiliate Program which allows you to invite new advertisers and receive ½ of A-ADS campaigns fee (usually it’s 10% from campaign spending). This is an excellent way to earn extra money by just inviting other advertisers to A-ADS Ad Network. Affiliate programs are the best way to make extra cash by inviting other people.

How to Join A-ADS Ad Network:

It is very easy and simple to join this ad network. Just go to https://a-ads.com/ and create a user account. All your ad units and campaigns will be available there.
You can also create anonymous ad units and campaigns without creating a user account. A-ADS is called Anonymous Ads for not collecting no one’s personal data. You don’t really need to provide any information about you (not even email!) if you don’t want to, no matter whether you are a publisher or an advertiser. By the way, A-ADS also doesn’t track visitors’ activity on A-ADS publishing sites; no info but IP is collected.
To create an anonymous ad unit click on “Earn”, fill this form and add your payments details:

Once you are done with this, then you can get an HTML code and place it on your website to earn bitcoin. The more your website gets traffic, the more you will receive. The higher is your traffic quality and the better it converts into purchases, the more you get. You can also benefit from the A-ADS affiliate program.
They also have a fantastic dashboard where you can track your clicks, Impressions and real-time reporting.

Payment Details:

Here is a summary on A-ADS Payments:

Minimum Payout: ฿0.001 or 1 satoshi to Faucethub.io
Payment Method: Bitcoin
Payment Frequency: Auto Withdraw, daily
Deposits Currencies: Bitcoin, Ripple, Qtum, Tether, NEO, Bitcoin Gold, Ethereum Classic, Tron, Verge, BitTorrent, GameCredits, DigiByte, Komodo, Zcoin, Ravencoin, Bitcoin Cash, Dash, Dogecoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Zcash, BitcoinDiamond, Horizen, PIVX, Stratis, Vertcoin.
Minimum Deposit: no limits;
Minimum Daily Budget: no limits;
Minimum CPM Stake: no limits

A-ADS doesn’t normally offer fixed CPC and fixed CPM terms, but the average cost of a click all over the network is somewhat $0.01 and the average CPM is about $0.15. Numbers will be bigger for Bitcoin-related traffic. CPA rewards are really high and if you’re lucky to attract an advertiser to the network, you’ll take 10% of his spendings. It’s really worth trying! See the next paragraph for details.

Do I Recommend A-ADS Ad Network:

Yes, I do recommend A-ADS Ad Network for both publishers and advertisers. Because this is the first crypto advertising network in the world, it has been operating since 2011. It’s really a long period, and A-ADS has gained a perfect business reputation since the very beginning, they’re honest guys and won’t cheat with your money. And they don’t spy. A-ADS provides high quality targeted traffic to its advertisers for the last eight years. They also offer high payouts to their publishers and many more benefits. That’s why I do recommend A-ADS.
If you have a website related to the crypto niche and you want to monetize your site, then this is the best option for you. All the same, if you’ve got a crypto-related business to promote. The good thing they don’t have any requirements to join this ad network. They have advertisers from all over the world, which means they accept traffic from all over the world.
The interfaces are clear and comprehensive, the process of creating an ad unit or starting an ad campaign is super fast and easy. If you face any difficulties, you’ll receive prompt help from their helpdesk team.