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Chaque jour nous vous présenterons une nouvelle Startup française ! Notre pays regorge de talents et d'entrepreneurs brillants ! Alors partons à la découverte des meilleures startup françaises ! Certaines d'entre elles sont dans une étape essentielle dans la vie d'une startup : la recherche de financement, notamment par le financement participatif (ou crowdfunding en anglais). Alors participez à cette grande aventure en leur faisant une petite donation ! Les startups françaises ont besoin de vous !

#USA Consolidation is coming to gaming, and Jam City raises $145 million to capitalize on it

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A slew of banks are coming together to back a new roll-up strategy for the Los Angeles-based mobile gaming studio Jam City and giving the company $145 million in new funding to carry that out.

There’s no word on whether the new money is in equity or debt, but what is certain is that JPMorgan Chase Bank, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and syndicate partners, including Silicon Valley Bank, SunTrust Bank and CIT Bank, are all involved in the deal.

“In a global mobile games market that is consolidating, Jam City could not be more proud to be working with JPMorgan, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Silicon Valley Bank, SunTrust Bank and CIT Group to strategically support the financing of our acquisition and growth plans,” said Chris DeWolfe, co-founder and CEO of Jam City. “This $145 million in new financing empowers Jam City to further our position as a global industry consolidator. As we grow our global business, we are honored to be working alongside such prestigious advisers who share Jam City’s mission of delivering joy to people everywhere through unique and deeply engaging mobile games.”

The new money comes after a few years of speculation on whether Jam City would be the next big Los Angeles-based startup company to file for an initial public offering. It also follows a new agreement with Disney to develop mobile games based on intellectual property coming from all corners of the mouse house — a sweet cache of intellectual property ranging from Pixar, to Marvel, to traditional Disney characters.

Jam City is coming off a strong year of company growth. The Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery game, which launched last year, became the company’s fastest title to hit $100 million in revenue.

Add that to the company’s expansion into new markets with strategic acquisitions to fuel development and growth in Toronto and Bogota and it’s clear that the company is looking to make more moves in 2019.

Jam City already holds intellectual property for a new game built on Disney’s “Frozen 2,” the company’s newly acquired Fox Studio assets like “Family Guy” and the Harry Potter property. Add that to its own Cookie Jam and Panda Pop properties and it seems like the company is ready to make moves.

Meanwhile, games are quickly becoming the go-to revenue driver for the entertainment industry. According to data collected by Newzoo, mobile games revenue reached a record $63.2 billion worldwide in 2018, representing roughly 47 percent of the total revenue for the gaming industry in the year. That number could reach $81.3 billion by 2020, the Newzoo data suggests.

Roughly half of the U.S. plays mobile games, and they’re spending significant dollars on those games in app stores. App Annie suggests that roughly 75 percent of the money spent in app stores over the past decade has been spent on mobile games. And consumers are expected to spend roughly $129 billion in app stores over the next year. The data and analytics firm suggests that mobile gaming will capture some 60 percent of the overall gaming market in 2019, as well.

All of that bodes well for the industry as a whole, and points to why Jam City is looking to consolidate. And the company isn’t the only mobile games studio making moves.

The publicly traded games studio Zynga, which rose to fame initially on the back of Facebook’s gaming platform, recently expanded its European footprint with the late-December acquisition of the Helsinki-based gaming studio Small Giant Games.

from Startups – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2TUWwPL

#USA Instamojo raises $7M to help SMEs and ‘micro-entrepreneurs’ in India sell online

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In India, startups are quietly building the tools and platforms to enable a different kind of gig economy: one that allows “micro-entrepreneurs” to tap growing access to the internet to sell goods and services online.

One such firm helping this burgeoning economy is Instamojo, a seven-year-old Bengaluru-based startup, which has pulled in a $7 million Series B as it aims to grow its reach to more than one million SMEs and micro-SMEs in India.

Founded in 2012 as a side project, Instamojo offers independent merchants the means to operate a mobile-optimized storefront, collect payment and even take micro-loans. In an interview with TechCrunch, CEO and co-founder Sampad Swain said the company has some 650,000 merchants, and it is adding a further 1,200 daily. Most of them, he said, tend to earn less than $30,000 in annual sales; with around half selling physical products, such as e-commerce items, and the remainder using Instamojo to invoice for physical services or sell digital items such as courses.

The idea is to tap into those just testing the water of online commerce and give them the tools to ramp up their fledgling enterprise as India’s internet “population” rises past 400 million people.

“A lot of micro-merchants in India are adopting [India’s payment service] UPI [through services like Paytm and PhonePe] but once they become a little more serious, at around 10-20 sales per month, we ask: ‘Can we give you lending, logistics, online store?’” explained Swain, who started the business with co-founders Akash Gehani and Aditya Sengupta.

It’s a market that few banks or financial institutions care about because small loans and sales require enormous scale to be relevant to them. But Swain is bullish, and he believes the company will pass one million retailers this year.

The new funding is led by existing investor AnyPay — the Japanese fintech startup — with other returning backers Kalaari Capital and Beenext, and angel investor Rashmi Kwatra joining. Gunosy Capital, the VC arm of Japanese news app Gunosy, joined as a new investor. The deal takes Instamojo to around $9 million from investors to date.

Instamojo collects revenue through a two percent cut on sales, a fee on successful deliveries and commission on its micro-loan product, which essentially gives merchants advanced credit (same-day or next-day) on their sales. The loans — which Swain describes as “sachet” lending — are from Instamojo’s recently established Mojo Capital unit, which includes partnerships with 12 financial organizations. In just four months, Instamojo has dished out around $4 million in credit — through 50,000-odd dispersions — and Swain predicts it will scale to a $30 million run rate before the end of this year.

“Even I am surprised!” he said of the rapid uptake.

Instamojo founders [left to right] Akash Gehani, Sampad Swain and Aditya Sengupta

Unlike Meesho, a YC-backed micro-entrepreneurship service in India that recently raised $50 million, Instamojo isn’t dominated by e-commerce to friends, family and neighbors. Swain said typical Instamojo sellers look to access audiences outside of people they know, with platforms like YouTube, Facebook, WhatsApp and others commonly used to reach audiences. Instamojo’s big selling point is ease of sale; that’s through a unique link that sellers share with customers for the check-out, therein bypassing some of the challenges of online payment in India, which include somewhat cumbersome steps for card transactions.

“Sellers just create a link and share it with the customer,” Swain explained. “Essentially they click and check out with debit or credit card or other means. Over the years we realized that’s the best beginning for our business.”

That was Instamojo’s first launch, and since then it has built out online store options to manage inventory and product as well as the recent credit launch. Beyond growing its scale, Swain said the next big focus is on developing a community for merchants, where they can share tips, collaborate and more. He is also aiming to increase the tech team and raise Instamojo’s headcount from 120 right now to around 250 by 2020.

For now, Swain said the company isn’t seeking overseas opportunities, although he did admit that the business could expand to regions like Africa or Southeast Asia. But more immediately, he sees a huge opportunity in India, where he believes there are 65 million SMEs, of which 25 million are “micro-merchants,” to tackle initially. The company is planning a Series C round for later this year to finance a deeper push.

Article updated 1/16/19 07:55 PST to correct the names of the company co-founders.

from Startups – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2FHuUdd

#Blockchain Binance Launches Euro and Pound Fiat-to-Crypto Platform in Jersey

European and British investors looking for a gateway to covert their fiat into cryptocurrency have just gotten another venue to trade on. Popular digital exchange Binance has launched a euro and pound fiat-to-crypto trading platform in the British Crown dependency of Jersey.

Also Read: The Daily: New Platform to Offer Tokenized Securities, Ledgerx Launches Volatility Index

Bridging the Crypto-Fiat Channel

Malta-based cryptocurrency exchange Binance announced on Jan. 16 the official launch of Binance Jersey (Binance.je), a fiat-to-cryptocurrency platform for trading the euro (EUR) and British pound (GBP) with cryptos in Europe and the U.K. Trading pairs for the new exchange include BTC/GBP, ETH/GBP, BTC/EUR and ETH/EUR. Users will have to pass account verification procedures (KYC) to trade on the new GBP and EUR fiat exchange.

“Expanding the cryptocurrency exchange markets with fiat currencies in the European region is opening new economic opportunities for Europeans as well as freedom from looming Brexit uncertainty where the pound and euro are also in concern,” said Wei Zhou, Binance CFO. “Through Binance Jersey, we want to help bridge the crypto-fiat channel for Europe and the U.K. as part of our global expansion to support broader cryptocurrency adoption.”

Binance Launches Euro and Pound Fiat-to-Crypto Platform in Jersey

The Other European Crypto Hub

Similarly to Malta, Jersey has taken advantage of the slow pace larger European countries are taking to regulate the market, and established itself as an offshore hub for cryptocurrency ventures as well as ICOs. For this reason, Binance believes that Jersey will be a major driving force for increasing cryptocurrency use in the European market.

In June 2018, the exchange developed a partnership with Digital Jersey to collaborate on initiatives supporting the growing ecosystem in Jersey. Binance Jersey is also part of a cooperative effort to promote growth on the island, such as developing local banking relationships and local talent.

“Jersey has in place an existing legal and regulatory framework for cryptocurrency into which Binance Jersey easily fits,” said Zhou. “Jersey is an undisputed pioneer in blockchain development leveraged by this strong framework and talent pool. Binance Jersey hopes to increase Jersey’s competitive advantage in banking from other jurisdictions competing for cryptocurrency-related business as the island’s cryptocurrency regulation allows.”

What do you think about this new fiat-to-crypto offering? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.


Images courtesy of Shutterstock.


Verify and track bitcoin cash transactions on our BCH Block Explorer, the best of its kind anywhere in the world. Also, keep up with your holdings, BCH and other coins, on our market charts at Satoshi’s Pulse, another original and free service from Bitcoin.com.

The post Binance Launches Euro and Pound Fiat-to-Crypto Platform in Jersey appeared first on Bitcoin News.

from Bitcoin News http://bit.ly/2DepLrh Binance Launches Euro and Pound Fiat-to-Crypto Platform in Jersey

#Blockchain Binance Launches Euro and Pound Fiat-to-Crypto Platform in Jersey

European and British investors looking for a gateway to covert their fiat into cryptocurrency have just gotten another venue to trade on. Popular digital exchange Binance has launched a euro and pound fiat-to-crypto trading platform in the British Crown dependency of Jersey.

Also Read: The Daily: New Platform to Offer Tokenized Securities, Ledgerx Launches Volatility Index

Bridging the Crypto-Fiat Channel

Malta-based cryptocurrency exchange Binance announced on Jan. 16 the official launch of Binance Jersey (Binance.je), a fiat-to-cryptocurrency platform for trading the euro (EUR) and British pound (GBP) with cryptos in Europe and the U.K. Trading pairs for the new exchange include BTC/GBP, ETH/GBP, BTC/EUR and ETH/EUR. Users will have to pass account verification procedures (KYC) to trade on the new GBP and EUR fiat exchange.

“Expanding the cryptocurrency exchange markets with fiat currencies in the European region is opening new economic opportunities for Europeans as well as freedom from looming Brexit uncertainty where the pound and euro are also in concern,” said Wei Zhou, Binance CFO. “Through Binance Jersey, we want to help bridge the crypto-fiat channel for Europe and the U.K. as part of our global expansion to support broader cryptocurrency adoption.”

Binance Launches Euro and Pound Fiat-to-Crypto Platform in Jersey

The Other European Crypto Hub

Similarly to Malta, Jersey has taken advantage of the slow pace larger European countries are taking to regulate the market, and established itself as an offshore hub for cryptocurrency ventures as well as ICOs. For this reason, Binance believes that Jersey will be a major driving force for increasing cryptocurrency use in the European market.

In June 2018, the exchange developed a partnership with Digital Jersey to collaborate on initiatives supporting the growing ecosystem in Jersey. Binance Jersey is also part of a cooperative effort to promote growth on the island, such as developing local banking relationships and local talent.

“Jersey has in place an existing legal and regulatory framework for cryptocurrency into which Binance Jersey easily fits,” said Zhou. “Jersey is an undisputed pioneer in blockchain development leveraged by this strong framework and talent pool. Binance Jersey hopes to increase Jersey’s competitive advantage in banking from other jurisdictions competing for cryptocurrency-related business as the island’s cryptocurrency regulation allows.”

What do you think about this new fiat-to-crypto offering? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.


Images courtesy of Shutterstock.


Verify and track bitcoin cash transactions on our BCH Block Explorer, the best of its kind anywhere in the world. Also, keep up with your holdings, BCH and other coins, on our market charts at Satoshi’s Pulse, another original and free service from Bitcoin.com.

The post Binance Launches Euro and Pound Fiat-to-Crypto Platform in Jersey appeared first on Bitcoin News.

from Bitcoin News http://bit.ly/2DepLrh Binance Launches Euro and Pound Fiat-to-Crypto Platform in Jersey

#USA HyperScience, the machine learning startup tackling data entry, raises $30 million Series B

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HyperScience, the machine learning company that turns human readable data into machine readable data, has today announced the close of a $30 million Series B funding round led by Stripes Group, with participation from existing investors FirstMark Capital and Felicis Ventures as well as new investors Battery Ventures, Global Founders Fund, TD Ameritrade, and QBE.

HyperScience launched out of stealth in 2016 with a suite of enterprise products focused on the healthcare, insurance, finance and government industries. The original products were HSForms (which handled data-entry by converting hand-written forms to digital), HSFreeForm (which did a similar function for hand-written emails or other non-form content) and HSEvaluate (which could parse through complex data on a form to help insurance companies approve or deny claims by pulling out all the relevant info).

Now, the company has combined all three of those products into a single product called HyperScience. The product is meant to help companies and organizations reduce their data-entry backlog and better serve their customers, saving money and resources.

The idea is that many of the forms we use in life or in the workplace are in an arbitrary format. My bank statements don’t look the same as your bank statements, and invoices from your company might look different than invoices from my company.

HyperScience is able to take those forms and pipe them into the system quickly and easily, without help from humans.

Instead of charging by seat, HyperScience charges by documents, as the mere use of HyperScience should mean that fewer humans are actually ‘using’ the product.

The latest round brings HyperScience’s total funding to $50 million, and the company plans to use a good deal of that funding to grow the team.

“We have a product that works and a phenomenally good product market fit,” said CEO Peter Brodsky. “What will determine our success is our ability to build and scale the team.”

from Startups – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2Rt5C9u

#USA Techstars will build and launch startups with new venture studio

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Similar to Y Combinator, early-stage technology startup accelerator Techstars has spent much of the last decade supporting and seeding innovative projects, including Plated, ClassPass, SendGrid and PillPack. Now, it wants to take its service a step further.

Today, Techstars is announcing the launch of Techstars Studio, a new venture that will have the accelerator developing and launching venture-scale businesses with the support of several corporate partners. Leveraging its large network of entrepreneurs, Techstars has invited large companies to co-create startups targeting specific challenges within their industry. Techstars says it has signed on 25 corporate partners so far, each of which will pay an annual membership fee to access an early look at the Techstars Studio projects, as well as updates from the team, as concepts transition into prototypes then to full-fledged companies.

Techstars Studio plans to complete four full spin-outs per year and will identify talent from within its network to lead each venture. The companies will be seeded with a varying amount of capital depending on the business’s needs.

The news is the latest in a series of developments from within Techstars that illustrate the accelerator’s bid to marry corporations and the startup ecosystem. On top of the startup studio, Techstars announced in September a Network Engagement Program, which offers concierge-style connections for corporations looking to build relationships with startups and a 54-hour Innovation Bootcamp, which teaches corporate employees “to rapidly identify and validate solutions for critical business problems.”

“We think of ourselves as the worldwide network that helps entrepreneurs succeed — this will help entrepreneurs in our world be successful,” Techstars co-founder and co-chief executive officer David Cohen told TechCrunch. “We have the history and the talent to do it but this is new for us, so we have to build that muscle.”

Cohen will lead the studio along with portfolio co-founder Isaac Saldana, who will serve as chief technology officer. Saldana co-founded Techstars-backed SendGrid, an email platform acquired by Twilio for $2 billion in October. Mike Rowan, SendGrid’s former vice president, and Sabrina Kelly, Techstars VP of talent, have also joined the new effort.

A slew of Techstars-backed founders have also signed on to advise the projects, including the founders of Remitly, Sphero and DataRobot.

Founded in 2006, Techstars now operates 44 programs in 14 countries with more than 1,600 companies in its portfolio.

from Startups – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2TTeBNX

#UK Science and tech sectors trigger Cambridge property ‘gold rush’

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Scale-up Science & Technology businesses have sparked a fresh gold rush for office and laboratory space in Cambridge – and the smart operators are negotiating pre-lets to ensure their growth plans are not torpedoed by lack of options.

New research from YouGov commissioned by Bidwells reveals that the demand for office and lab space in Cambridge is close to 1.3 million sq ft – the highest level since 2014 when AstraZeneca decided to move from the UK’s North West to the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. This takes account of current pre-let commitments. 

The race for space is set to quicken as S & T businesses plan to dramatically ramp up their spend on Research & Development. The faster they grow their operations and scale headcount, the more urgent becomes their need to broker sufficient space to accommodate them into their expansion strategies.

Bidwells’ director of research, Sue Foxley, told Business Weekly: “Our latest analysis of the Cambridge office and laboratory market finds that 0.6 million sq ft of new space will complete during the first half of 2019. 

“This is the largest increase in supply in over a decade which perhaps sounds alarm bells for some given the apparent slowdown in demand for labs and offices combined to 1.154m sq ft at the end of 2018.

“The reality of the market paints a different picture. The vast majority (85 per cent) of this space is pre-let or already under offer. This, in theory, leaves a total of 91,000 sq ft available during 2019. 

“Given our understanding of current requirements, we expect more than 50 per cent of this space will be let shortly after practical completion.” 

Given such unrelenting demand there is inevitably a price to pay. The pre-letting activity, combined with a slight increase in take-up in 2018 compared to 2017, underpinned a further increase in rents. 

During the second half of 2018 the prime office rent rose to £41.50 psf, with increases also seen for all grades of second hand space. The prime rent for laboratory space rose by 1.4 per cent during 2018 to £34.50 psf.

Foxley added: “These latest lettings figures are consistent with the findings of research undertaken by Bidwells on the location and property requirements of major R & D companies. The research, undertaken by YouGov on our behalf, underlines the importance of location. 

“The ability to recruit highly skilled staff, combined with the requirement to be near the centre of research ideas and innovation are the determinants of location for such businesses. 

“With a global outlook these companies will consider location from an international perspective and therefore are compelled to be exacting in their requirements. 

“These requirements need to be taken seriously: 52 per cent of the global R & D companies participating in our survey expect their R & D budget to grow over the next five years, while 30 per cent think it likely they will take new floorspace, predominately due to expectations of business growth. 

“The availability of property to grow a business was considered extremely important, considerably more so than the cost or lease terms of that space.” 

The top three location considerations for global R & D businesses were:-

  • Ease of recruiting and retaining staff
  • Ultra-fast and high-volume data connectivity
  • Availability of property to grow R & D activity

Foxley added: “This clearly has implications for location decision-making on top of concerns over access to skills and innovation which preoccupy all knowledge based businesses. 

“Given the recent tightness in the Cambridge office and laboratories market, particularly in the accessible in demand locations, it is therefore unsurprising that such companies are opting for pre-lets. 

“With the business priority to keep pace with expectations for “continuous innovation” as noted by many of our respondents, taking the risk on the market to supply the goods, particularly for specialised laboratory space, is increasingly not an option. 

“This long term perspective towards occupational requirements of incoming and expanding companies, combined with pressures from the ecosystem of new businesses in Cambridge’s science and tech sectors in particular, will place further pressure on rents. 

“While the wider economic and political backdrop clearly remains uncertain, we expect these underlying market pressures to underpin prime rental value growth of between 2-3 per cent in 2019.”

• PHOTOGRAPH: Bidwells’ director of research, Sue Foxley

from Business Weekly http://bit.ly/2sxKGza

Posted in #UK

#USA YC-backed Upsolve is automating bankruptcy for everyone

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The popular image of a Chapter 7 bankruptcy might be a large company like Enron failing, or maybe some lazy drifter trying to shirk their financial responsibilities. The reality is anything but those sorts of images. Today in America, the most common reason for bankruptcy is to discharge egregious sums of medical debt [1], which might have been incurred in a short stint in a hospital emergency room.

Bankruptcy allows people to get out from under a debilitating and permanent state of financial crisis — assuming one can afford it. Applying for bankruptcy itself costs money, potentially thousands of dollars depending on the attorney used. The cruel irony is that the people who can least afford to apply are those who are most locked out from the help they need.

Upsolve, one of the three non-profit tech startups in Y Combinator’s current winter batch, is building a unified and efficient software product to allow users easy access to the bankruptcy system. Users go through a series of questions to collect the required information about their financial circumstances, and then Upsolve provides automated bankruptcy forms reviewed by an Upsolve attorney — all for free.

“Our mission is to help the victims of our broken financial system,” Upsolve CEO and co-founder Rohan Pavuluri said to me. “If you are poor, you don’t have access to the same rights.” He describes Upsolve as “TurboTax for bankruptcy” (although to be clear, TurboTax is a for-profit business line of Intuit). Much like tax, bankruptcy is convoluted. “There are 23 forms to file for bankruptcy,” he said.

So far, the software platform seems to be finding traction. Since starting in summer of 2016, Upsolve has processed $16 million in bankruptcies on behalf of 400 people, and has diagnosed debt problems for 5,000 users, according to Pavuluri. We’re “automating a $40k check to these folks…. for three hours worth of time.”

Unlike legal processes like estate planning, which are burdened with handling 50 different state processes, bankruptcy is based on federal law, which means that Upsolve’s solution can work across the country. Today, it supports 47 states, and the startup’s first target markets are New York and Illinois.

Where Upsolve gets really interesting is on the financial side, both in how it approaches revenues from users and also how it funds its operations.

On the revenue side, Upsolve is free. Inspired by GoFundMe and other startups, Pavuluri and his team have created a model where users donate “what they think is fair” for the service. That has worked so far, as “on a unit basis we cover our costs from the tipping model,” he said.

Over time, he hopes to break even using just the tipping model, but today the organization relies on legal aid funds to partially fund its operations. The U.S. government and many state governments have funding set aside to finance civil legal aid, and the Legal Services Corporation is the largest funder to date of Upsolve.

I asked about whether incumbent lawyers are threatened by Upsolve. Pavuluri said that most lawyers don’t want to handle these cases in the first place, because they are not profitable and generally need to be handled pro bono. He said that for simple chapter 7 cases, you (almost certainly) don’t need a lawyer, and “we challenge legal exceptionalism in that sense.” He has spent the last two years criss-crossing the country meeting with bankruptcy groups, judges, bar associations and attorneys to undergird support for the startup’s work.

In addition to Y Combinator, Upsolve has been funded by Harvard University, the Robin Hood Foundation, Schmidt Futures (Eric Schmidt), Fast Forward, and Breyer Labs.

[1] There is a large academic debate on how many bankruptcies are triggered by medical debt. The percentage varies hugely between different studies (from say 4% to 62%), and it really depends on how you define someone’s lead cause of bankruptcy. Most filers with medical debt also have other forms of debt, so what specifically triggered a bankruptcy? Due to stigma, filers will often point to medical debt when other forms of debt may be larger.

TechCrunch is experimenting with new content forms. This is a rough draft of something new — provide your feedback directly to the author (Danny at danny@techcrunch.com) if you like or hate something here.

Share your feedback on your startup’s attorney

My colleague Eric Eldon and I are reaching out to startup founders and execs about their experiences with their attorneys. Our goal is to identify the leading lights of the industry and help spark discussions around best practices. If you have an attorney you thought did a fantastic job for your startup, let us know using this short Google Forms survey and also spread the word. We will share the results and more in the coming weeks.

Stray Thoughts (aka, what I am reading)

Short summaries and analysis of important news stories

Slack’s Financials are quite strong

Zoë Bernard and Alfred Lee at The Information have the scoop on Slack’s financials. Huge revenue growth of about 75% last year to $389 million. The challenge is that Slack’s valuation is still very heady given its revenues, and is currently valued at about an18x multiple according to the writers. That’s expensive, but perhaps still desirable by investors who are otherwise looking at a relatively bleak market of investment opportunities.

What’s next & obsessions

  • I am reading The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein. About half way through – and it’s quite thought-provoking (and depressing).
  • Arman is reading Never Lost Again by Bill Kilday, a history of mapping at Google and beyond.
  • Arman and I are interested in societal resilience startups that are targeting areas like water security, housing, infrastructure, climate change, disaster response, etc. Reach out if you have ideas or companies here.

from Startups – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2Cqc0El

#Blockchain Chatter Report: Pacia Shows Avalanche Regtest Data, Powell Advocates Hardware Wallets

Pacia Showcases Avalanche Regtest Data, Powell and Zhao Express Different Opinions on Crypto Safety

In today’s chatter report, Chris Pacia reveals his BCH transaction using Avalanche on regtest finalized in just 185.822377 milliseconds. Also, Changpeng Zhao advocates storing crypto on reputable exchanges while Jesse Powell advises his followers to store crypto on hardware wallets. Lastly, Eric Wall proposes targeting children to spread crypto adoption. 

Also Read: Jason Cox Extends Open Invitation for Assistance With Development and Review of Bitcoin Cash Code

Avalanche Regtest Results

Recently, Openbazaar developer Chris Pacia was testing the pre-consensus implementation Avalanche on regtest. Pacia was optimistic when sharing his results, as his transaction finalized in just 185.822377 milliseconds.

Chris Pacia: 2019-01-14 18:20:01.776 [INF] AVAL: Starting avalanche for tx 46db02b656673509670b5a952215015bebd4a97155022132d6cb206c046c6178 2019-01-14 18:20:01.963 [INF] AVAL: Avalanche finalized transaction 46db02b656673509670b5a952215015bebd4a97155022132d6cb206c046c6178 in 185.822377ms from btc

In an attempt to lower expectations, lead developer of Bitcoin ABC Amaury Séchet explained that he does not believe that transactions will confirm at the same speed on mainnet, because a round trip around the earth via the internet typically takes 500-600 milliseconds.

When asked by Reddit user “CatatonicAdenosine” if Pacia thinks the numbers will stay this low, Pacia said he doesn’t expect transactions to take more than one to two seconds to finalize. Pacia also stated that he plans to run pre-consensus mechanism Avalanche on mainnet in a few weeks and begin logging data.

CZ’s Advice on Safe Crypto Storage Causes a Stir

In response to Cryptopia exchange being hacked, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao proposed three different options for storing cryptocurrency safely. Many users were critical of Zhao’s proposal to store coins on “reputable” exchanges and raised eyebrows when Zhao criticized the practice of storing coins in noncustodial wallets.

Zhao’s comments were in contrast to those of Kraken exchange CEO Jesse Powell, who advised users to store only the coins they plan to actively trade with, and no more, on exchanges. Powell also advised storing crypto on a Ledger or Trezor hardware wallet instead of an exchange.

Other cryptocurrency community members like developer David Shares also echoed Powell’s advice, advising users to store crypto in a wallet where they control their own private keys.

Targeting Children For Crypto Adoption

Cinnober cryptocurrency lead Eric Wall recently took to Twitter to argue that children should be a target for spreading future crypto adoption. While many in the cryptocurrency space believe that the future of crypto adoption lies with people living in emerging markets, Wall believes the focus should be on children, as they are an unbanked group that are more likely to adopt the technology.

The 17-strong tweet-storm contains some compelling arguments on why children will integrate well with the crypto ecosystem. Wall believes that kids are more sophisticated when it comes to using social media apps because they explore the full functionality of them. They also are better at online marketing as they direct message all their friends instead of just uploading content like adults do. Also, kids today understand virtual goods and in-app purchases because of things like Fortnite V-bucks and WoW gold. Creating crypto-based apps that directly target children, Wall believes, will help to spread adoption and introduce the next generation to cryptocurrencies

What do you think of Eric Wall’s hypothesis? Let us know in the comments below.


Images courtesy of Shutterstock.


Bitcoin.com offers up-to-the-minute charts on bitcoin price and other stats. Our feeds show the bitcoin price index in all three major currencies (USD, CNY, EUR). Also, if you want to dig deeper into how the bitcoin network is performing behind the scenes, check out the statistics page too.

The post Chatter Report: Pacia Shows Avalanche Regtest Data, Powell Advocates Hardware Wallets appeared first on Bitcoin News.

from Bitcoin News http://bit.ly/2FuO3iW Chatter Report: Pacia Shows Avalanche Regtest Data, Powell Advocates Hardware Wallets

#Blockchain The Daily: New Platform to Offer Tokenized Securities, Ledgerx Launches Volatility Index

The Daily: New Platform to Offer Tokenized Securities, Ledgerx Launches Volatility Index

In today’s edition of The Daily, we cover a number of stories that are of importance to cryptocurrency traders. A new trading platform is set to offer tokenized securities, Ledgerx releases a volatility benchmark based on U.S. BTC options, and the police investigate an exchange that suffered a significant security breach.

Also Read: Bitwise Asset Management Files With SEC for New Bitcoin ETF

A New Tokenized Securities Trading Platform

The Daily: New Platform to Offer Tokenized Securities, Ledgerx Launches Volatility Index
Minsk, Belarus

Currency.com, a company licensed in Belarus, has announced the launch of a new trading platform for tokenized securities. Starting with over 150 instruments, the company plans to issue over 10,000 tokens which will track the underlying prices of equities, indices and commodities. The service is in invite-only mode right now, but prospective clients can apply to be added to a waiting list.

Users will be able to buy these tokens with cryptocurrencies, and will have the ability to trade them on margin. The tokenized securities platform will also be supplemented by a service for buying cryptocurrencies using fiat, storing them and making cross-crypto exchanges, as well as with a portfolio tracking app. Currency.com is said to be using the technology of Capital.com, its sister CFDs platform.

The platform is said to implement Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) procedures and verify all transactions with blockchain intelligence services such as Coinfirm, Elliptic and Chainalysis. Ivan Gowan, the CEO of the company, commented, “We are excited to be launching this revolutionary blockchain venture and providing crypto investors with a concrete option to diversify their portfolio by investing in traditional asset classes, without the pressure of exchanging cryptocurrencies into fiat money to do so. Currency.com is committed to providing users with superior security and fraud protection, and preventing any potential risks by leveraging the full traceability of blockchain transactions and adhering to the strictest regulatory standards set by Belarus’s Decree No. 8 ‘On the Development of the Digital Economy’.”

Ledgerx Launches Benchmark Volatility Index

The Daily: New Platform to Offer Tokenized Securities, Ledgerx Launches Volatility Index
The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index (VIX)

Ledgerx, the CFTC regulated digital currency clearinghouse and options exchange, has announced the launch of Ledgerx Volatility Index (LXVX) a volatility estimate for BTC based on live U.S. options trading. The company says that the LXVX is designed to incorporate the level of fear and uncertainty in the crypto market, and thus can be thought of as the “bitcoin fear index”, in the same way the VIX is commonly referred to as the stock market fear index.

“Having cleared half a billion in derivatives, we feel confident that the LXVX is the only credible indicator for future bitcoin volatility,” said Juthica Chou, the company’s co-founder and Chief Operating Officer. “The importance for a volatility estimate is a range of strikes and terms. Ledgerx has active options contracts from $2k to $50k in strikes, out to June 2020.”

“One of the fascinating things about volatility indices is that they’re of interest to a lot of participants, even if they don’t trade the options directly. For example, if you are a large holder of bitcoin or a risk manager, you’d be very interested in how much the market expects bitcoin to move over the next month. To finally have an estimate of volatility for bitcoin is another step in the maturation of the market,” she added.

NZ Police: We Didn’t Storm Cryptopia Exchange

The Daily: New Platform to Offer Tokenized Securities, Ledgerx Launches Volatility Index

Christchurch, New Zealand-based Cryptopia is the latest exchange to get hit by hackers. After initially claiming the service was only taken down for “unscheduled maintenance” on Monday, the company revealed yesterday that it has “suffered a security breach which resulted in significant losses.” The New Zealand authorities updated the public today, Wednesday Jan. 16, that they are working with Cryptopia to establish what exactly happened, which seems to counter the fears of some commenters that the company pulled a $3.6 million exit scam.

“Police are not yet in a position to say how much cryptocurrency is involved, other than it is a significant amount,” the investigative force stated.“A large team, including Canterbury CIB and specialist staff from the police High Tech Crime Unit, have been assigned to the case. There has been a visible police presence at the company’s Colombo Street headquarters throughout the day as police take the steps needed to progress the investigation. While police are unable to go into details about specific steps being taken at this stage, we can say that our focus includes commencing both a forensic digital investigation of the company and a physical scene examination at the building.”

“We are dealing with a complex situation and we are unable to put a timeframe on how long the investigation may take. We are also aware of speculation in the online community about what might have occurred. It is too early for us to draw any conclusions and Police will keep an open mind on all possibilities while we gather the information we need. A priority for police is to identify and, if possible, recover missing funds for Cryptopia customers; however there are likely to be many challenges to achieving this. We would also like to make clear that Cryptopia are cooperating fully with the investigation team and a media report that police ‘stormed’ the building today is entirely incorrect.”

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