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#Coinstar bitcoin machine near me#Coinstar bitcoin machine locations#How to use coinstar bitcoin machine#Coinstar Bitcoin fee#Coinstar Bitcoin atm daily limit#Coinstar bitcoin machine review
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Lowering the Barrier to Bitcoin Entry with Neil Bergquist of Coinme
youtube
I’ve been following Coinme for a long time as I got to see them present at a Seattle crypto conference last year and I’m excited to finally have them on the show.
Today I sit down with Neil Bergquist, the CEO of Coinme to learn more about how they are increasing Bitcoin accessibility with their unique ATM model.
Instead of installing their own ATM machines around the country, the have instead partnered with Coinstar to enable Bitcoin transactions within their currently existing kiosks. You’ve mostly likely seen a Coinstar machine at your local grocery store – which is a machine that allows you to turn all of your loose change into dollars. Now, users can choose to turn that into Bitcoin instead.
Currently, Coinme has partnered with over 4,000 Coinstar machines around the country – and they are just getting started. Coinstar has over 20,000 kiosks around the world.
Neil shares his thoughts on how ATM’s are an important entry point for our industry as it helps give a physical aspect to what people view as “magic internet money” where they are able to physically go somewhere to buy Bitcoin and even have a 1-800 customer service number they can call with questions.
For this reason, the Coinme wallet is custodial so that they have more power to help these new users transition into the space. Their customer service team really focuses on bitcoin education and helps their customers to get more comfortable with taking more control of their own funds.
We also have a great discussion about the power of creating more visual awareness of bitcoin. The fact that people are seeing Bitcoin branding in their local grocery store is of huge value to our industry.
Also, I want to apologize that my audio isn’t as clear as usual. My mic had some issues during this recording and so I had to use my backup audio which isn’t quite as good! Thanks for understanding.
Guest Links: Tweets by Coinme Tweets by neilbergquist
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The post Lowering the Barrier to Bitcoin Entry with Neil Bergquist of Coinme appeared first on BLOCKPATHS.
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How to Buy Bitcoin Anonymously
Buying bitcoin is not a revolutionary act. Nor should it be. And yet the way statists, apparatchiks and politicians bang on, you’d think the mere act of acquiring digital currency was akin to receiving the keys to a pandora’s box in which lurks every illicit artifact known to man. One day, these dinosaurs will begrudgingly concede that buying bitcoin is no more seditious than buying a soda with a $20 bill. But until then, you’ll want to preserve your privacy when acquiring cryptocurrency.
Also read: Wasabi’s Privacy-Focused BTC Wallet Aims to Make Bitcoin Fungible Again
Buy Your Bitcoin, Keep Your Privacy
The reasons why you might want to keep bitcoin ownership to yourself don’t require rehashing. Put simply, though, it’s no one’s damn business what you want to do with your money or how you wish to store your wealth. In the future, governmental scrutiny of bitcoin ownership will look as archaic and benighted as state intrusion into the religious or sexual preferences of its citizens. By the time that day comes, bitcoin may be worth a lot more than it is today. The steps you take to preserve your privacy in the present, therefore, may prove particularly precious in the future. Just think about 2011 bitcoiners who had no need to conceal their ownership at the time, only to find themselves sitting ducks once those bitcoins multiplied 3,000x by 2017.
Anonymously buying bitcoin in small amounts is relatively easy, though getting your hands on larger quantities without having to jump through hoops can be harder. Just as it’s common practice to use fake personal details when signing into public wifi, the same can be done when buying bitcoin through ATMs and terminals such as the newly repurposed Coinstar machines. Doing so will require a burner phone or a secondary SIM card that isn’t tied to your real world identity. Alternatively, search for “receive SMS online” to find links to services that will provide you with a one-time number.
Buying Bitcoin in Person
In addition to BATMs, which can be used to buy a few hundred bucks’ worth of crypto at a time, P2P sites like Localbitcoins.com enable you to locate sellers in your area and meet them in person. Better still, if you have acquaintances who work in the cryptocurrency industry or mine crypto, you should be able to purchase bitcoin directly from them, since they’ll be obliged to periodically liquidate some of their coins for fiat to cover living expenses. Newly mined coins are particularly precious (which is why they’ve been known to fetch a premium on OTC markets) because they have no history associated with them.
Purchasing bitcoin face-to-face (or face-to-ATM) brings its own risks, of course, particularly from a privacy perspective. If you would prefer it that no one knew of your business – not the miner you’re buying crypto from, nor the surveillance cameras watching you feed banknotes into the BATM in the 7/11 – you’d be better served transacting online. While this removes the ability to transact in cash, there are privacy gains to be made elsewhere.
Anonymously Buying Bitcoin Online
Finding a bitcoin marketplace that won’t KYC the hell out of you isn’t easy, but there is one platform that stands out from all the boot-licking exchanges willing to do the government’s bidding. Its name is Bisq, and what it lacks in liquidity and spot prices, it makes up for in privacy. The range of payment methods the P2P marketplace accepts is extensive: face-to-face is even an option, if you’re fortunate enough to live within range of a seller. Generally speaking, you’ll need to make payment using an e-wallet or bank transfer. While this entails certain compromises from a privacy perspective, it’s easy to disguise the nature of the transaction using a generic banking reference such as “Car” or “Video editing.”
Just as Localbitcoins.com will connect you with sellers willing to meet face-to-face, it will link you online in a manner similar to Bisq. Once again, if paying by bank transfer, you can put whatever you like on the pay-in reference, as most sellers do, as putting “bitcoin” on a bank reference is asking for account suspension. (This will change one day, but by the time it does, banks will no longer be relevant and will be begging bitcoiners for business.) It’s easy to set up a Localbitcoins account using a private email account, such as Protonmail, and a fake social media account and burner number if you’re particularly cautious. Hodl Hodl is another P2P market where verification is optional rather than enforced. The number of available offers is low, but Hodl Hodl has a wider range of cryptocurrencies including XMR and EOS.
Buy Privately Then Stay Private
Anonymity measures shouldn’t end the moment you’ve bought bitcoin. It’s an ongoing mindset that calls for using privacy-centric wallets such as Wasabi, avoiding sending funds to exchanges that enforce KYC, and also avoiding address reuse. But those are all topics we’ll cover in one of our next “How To” guides. Like bitcoin itself, privacy is likely to become an increasingly precious commodity in the years to come. The steps you take now to preserve yours will pay future dividends.
What other platforms do you recommend for buying bitcoin without KYC? Let us know in the comments section below.
Images courtesy of Shutterstock.
Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section.
The post How to Buy Bitcoin Anonymously appeared first on Bitcoin News.
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Buying bitcoin is not a revolutionary act. Nor should it be. And yet the way statists, apparatchiks and politicians bang on, you’d think the mere act of acquiring digital currency was akin to receiving the keys to a pandora’s box in which lurks every illicit artifact known to man. One day, these dinosaurs will begrudgingly concede that buying bitcoin is no more seditious than buying a soda with a $20 bill. But until then, you’ll want to preserve your privacy when acquiring cryptocurrency.
Also read: Wasabi’s Privacy-Focused BTC Wallet Aims to Make Bitcoin Fungible Again
Buy Your Bitcoin, Keep Your Privacy
The reasons why you might want to keep bitcoin ownership to yourself don’t require rehashing. Put simply, though, it’s no one’s damn business what you want to do with your money or how you wish to store your wealth. In the future, governmental scrutiny of bitcoin ownership will look as archaic and benighted as state intrusion into the religious or sexual preferences of its citizens. By the time that day comes, bitcoin may be worth a lot more than it is today. The steps you take to preserve your privacy in the present, therefore, may prove particularly precious in the future. Just think about 2011 bitcoiners who had no need to conceal their ownership at the time, only to find themselves sitting ducks once those bitcoins multiplied 3,000x by 2017.
Anonymously buying bitcoin in small amounts is relatively easy, though getting your hands on larger quantities without having to jump through hoops can be harder. Just as it’s common practice to use fake personal details when signing into public wifi, the same can be done when buying bitcoin through ATMs and terminals such as the newly repurposed Coinstar machines. Doing so will require a burner phone or a secondary SIM card that isn’t tied to your real world identity. Alternatively, search for “receive SMS online” to find links to services that will provide you with a one-time number.
Buying Bitcoin in Person
In addition to BATMs, which can be used to buy a few hundred bucks’ worth of crypto at a time, P2P sites like Localbitcoins.com enable you to locate sellers in your area and meet them in person. Better still, if you have acquaintances who work in the cryptocurrency industry or mine crypto, you should be able to purchase bitcoin directly from them, since they’ll be obliged to periodically liquidate some of their coins for fiat to cover living expenses. Newly mined coins are particularly precious (which is why they’ve been known to fetch a premium on OTC markets) because they have no history associated with them.
Purchasing bitcoin face-to-face (or face-to-ATM) brings its own risks, of course, particularly from a privacy perspective. If you would prefer it that no one knew of your business – not the miner you’re buying crypto from, nor the surveillance cameras watching you feed banknotes into the BATM in the 7/11 – you’d be better served transacting online. While this removes the ability to transact in cash, there are privacy gains to be made elsewhere.
Anonymously Buying Bitcoin Online
Finding a bitcoin marketplace that won’t KYC the hell out of you isn’t easy, but there is one platform that stands out from all the boot-licking exchanges willing to do the government’s bidding. Its name is Bisq, and what it lacks in liquidity and spot prices, it makes up for in privacy. The range of payment methods the P2P marketplace accepts is extensive: face-to-face is even an option, if you’re fortunate enough to live within range of a seller. Generally speaking, you’ll need to make payment using an e-wallet or bank transfer. While this entails certain compromises from a privacy perspective, it’s easy to disguise the nature of the transaction using a generic banking reference such as “Car” or “Video editing.”
Just as Localbitcoins.com will connect you with sellers willing to meet face-to-face, it will link you online in a manner similar to Bisq. Once again, if paying by bank transfer, you can put whatever you like on the pay-in reference, as most sellers do, as putting “bitcoin” on a bank reference is asking for account suspension. (This will change one day, but by the time it does, banks will no longer be relevant and will be begging bitcoiners for business.) It’s easy to set up a Localbitcoins account using a private email account, such as Protonmail, and a fake social media account and burner number if you’re particularly cautious. Hodl Hodl is another P2P market where verification is optional rather than enforced. The number of available offers is low, but Hodl Hodl has a wider range of cryptocurrencies including XMR and EOS.
Buy Privately Then Stay Private
Anonymity measures shouldn’t end the moment you’ve bought bitcoin. It’s an ongoing mindset that calls for using privacy-centric wallets such as Wasabi, avoiding sending funds to exchanges that enforce KYC, and also avoiding address reuse. But those are all topics we’ll cover in one of our next “How To” guides. Like bitcoin itself, privacy is likely to become an increasingly precious commodity in the years to come. The steps you take now to preserve yours will pay future dividends.
What other platforms do you recommend for buying bitcoin without KYC? Let us know in the comments section below.
Images courtesy of Shutterstock.
Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section.
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Text
Australian Bitcoin ATM Startup Says Its Raking in $360,000 Per Week
A Bitcoin ATM company from Australia has reported a weekly turnover of $500,000 AUD (roughly $360,000 USD) despite the cryptocurrency bear market.
$360,000 Weekly Turnaround
Auscoin, an Australian bitcoin ATM company, has reported a weekly turnaround of $360,000 in 2018. According to the reports, it’s currently operating 31 ATMs throughout Australia but it’s planning to expand.
Speaking on the matter, Sam Karagiozis, founder at Auscoin, said:
We currently have 31 Auscoin ATMs in Australia… and our turnover is $500,000 a week, which is just insane considering how much the price of Bitcoin has dropped. […] It just shows there really is a market for it and cryptocurrency is seen as a way of the future for many.
Auscoin bitcoin ATM
The company had an underwhelming ICO in 2018 after it managed to raise only $2 million of the projected $30 million. However, it hopes to expand to a network of more than 1200 bitcoin ATMs across Australia.
It’s Getting Easier to Buy Bitcoin
It’s becoming increasingly easier for people to buy Bitcoin at a range of physical locations. According to Karagiozis, accessibility is the main barrier to entry for regular people:
We believe the most significant barrier to entry for everyday people in the cryptocurrency market is accessibility.
Bitcoinist reported that the number of Bitcoin ATMs has doubled in 2018, growing to more than 4,000 in 76 different countries. According to the tracking website Coinatmradar, Australia has 54 Bitcoin ATMs in operation.
At the beginning of the month, France started selling Bitcoin at tobacco shops. The plan is to expand buying bitcoin to 24,000 tobacco kiosks across the country in the near future.
Just a couple of days ago, US-based Bitcoin ATM company Coinme partnered up with international coin counter Coinstar. The initiative has enabled users to buy Bitcoin at 20,000 Coinstar kiosk locations.
Meanwhile, Venezuela is also expected to see its first bitcoin vending machine go live within the next two weeks.
What do you think of the growing popularity of Bitcoin ATMs? Will this have a positive impact on its widespread adoption? Don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments below!
Images courtesy of Shutterstock
The post Australian Bitcoin ATM Startup Says Its Raking in $360,000 Per Week appeared first on Bitcoinist.com.
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Coinstar machines will start selling Bitcoin at the grocery store
You know those machines at the grocery store that transform your gallon jugs worth of change into more usable currency? They’re about to start selling Bitcoin .
To make this impulse shopping dream come true, Coinstar, the company behind those ubiquitous change-counting kiosks, has partnered with Coinme, a startup that operates a small network of cryptocurrency-dispensing ATMs around the country.
“Coinstar is always looking for new ways to offer value to our consumers when they visit our kiosks, and Coinme’s innovative delivery mechanism along with Coinstar’s flexible platform makes it possible for consumers to easily purchase Bitcoin with cash,” Coinstar CEO Jim Gaherity said in the announcement, first reported by GeekWire.
With 20,000 machines around the world, Coinstar operates a pretty huge network that could be enabled to dispense digital currency. As the company’s announcement states, there are “thousands in the U.S. market that can be enabled to accept Bitcoin transactions” though we’d guess it won’t hit those numbers for a while.
Coinme has digital currency ATMs in 11 states, including multiple locations in Texas, Washington and California, among others. While it’s not initially clear exactly how many machines will become Bitcoin-ready, Coinme’s site also states that the partnership will result in “thousands of places to buy Bitcoin.”
The Coinstar Bitcoin locator tool wouldn’t point us to any local kiosks when we tried, but if you can track one down, buying Bitcoin from the updated machines sounds pretty easy. It’s worth noting that you’ll need cash for the exchange — you won’t be able to trade digital money or credit for cryptocurrency here.
After sticking your paper money into one of the machines, the newfangled kiosk will dispense a voucher for a Bitcoin redemption code that points you to Coinme. The limit is $2500 and you’ll need to link a phone number to the transaction, though it’s not clear if you can just make one up to get around that kind of questionable requirement.
After last year’s wild highs and painful if inevitable lows, cryptocurrency’s cool off period might be here a while — particularly if the stock market keeps everyone battening down the hatches. Given that, the kiosks would have been met with more interest during the most feverish moments of early 2018 when everyone was trying to navigate the sometimes complex process of buying their first cryptocurrency. Still, given Coinstar’s ubiquity, the Bitcoin kiosks might pique the interest of some shoppers who just cashed out thirty bucks worth of nickels.
As Bitcoin sinks, industry startups are forced to cut back
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Experts Predict the Next Big Use of Blockchain Technology
Experts Predict the Next Big Use of Blockchain Technology
We’ve heard a lot about blockchain technology in recent times. Blockchain is a critical part of the bitcoin peer-to-peer payment system and its ledger has helped improve transparency for transactions. But what else can this technology do?
There have been a lot of predictions as to the next great use of blockchain tech. Some have even said that blockchain could be the solution to gun control in the United States. So what else could the blockchain be used for? We went straight to the experts to find out.
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Digital Identity
“The most promising application of blockchain that is currently in development is digital identity. In the past few years, we have seen a crisis of privacy and trust in the digital and online environment, with events such as the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal, Equifax breach, and foreign interference via social media in the 2016 presidential election. Legislation like the EU’s GDPR demonstrate the people want more control and ownership over their personal data and digital identities.
Much like blockchain allowed for the first decentralized, user-owned digital money, the technology will also allow for the first self-sovereign digital identities. The term “self-sovereign identity” has been coined to describe the ability for a blockchain-based identity system to give users ownership over their digital selves and personal data. Existing models of digital identity rely on centralized authorities, like Google or Facebook, that manage identities on behalf of their users and can therefore take unilateral action, like locking someone out of their account. If you use Google to login to applications and websites, a simple mistake or intentional censorship by Google can suddenly leave you deprived of the identity you use online.
Blockchain can provide a decentralized infrastructure for digital identity. Only the identity’s owner would have control over the use of their identity, with no need to trust any third party when they wish to prove who they are online. Giving users sovereignty over their digital identities is the first step in returning data ownership to the individual and creating a more user-centric Internet.”
-Locke Brown, Co-Founder and CEO of NuID
Food and Beverage Supply Chain
“I think it will be in the production and distribution of food and beverage products in order to ensure quality, safety and sustainability. A number of high profile applications of blockchain have been in this industry. IBM Food Trust was being used by 10 large-sized food companies such as Nestle, Unilever, Walmart. As of June 2018, the system stored data related to 1 million items in about 50 food categories including Nestlé canned pumpkin, Driscoll’s strawberries and Tyson chicken thighs. As of July 2018, there were more than 350,000 food data transactions on the IBM Food Trust platform. In November 2018, IBM commercially launched its Food Trust. Companies of all sizes in the food industry supply chain can join the network for a subscription fee, which ranges from $100 to $10,000 a month. Carrefour signed an agreement with IBM to use the solution.
Some innovative applications for this sector have been launched by blockchain startups. For instance, Denver-based startup Bext360’s Bextmachine is a Coinstar-like device, which employs smart image recognition technology machine vision, artificial intelligence, IoT and blockchain to grade and track coffee beans. It takes a three-dimensional scan of each bean’s outer fruit. Each coffee bean is also provided a unique ID which can be used to track it throughout the life cycle. Wholesalers and roasters can learn about attributes that may produce certain tastes. They can make future sourcing decisions based on this.
Bextmachines analyze farmers’ coffee cherries and coffee parchment deposited at collection stations and sort them to assess the quality. Farmers that supply bigger and riper cherries are paid more. The Bextmachines link the output to cryptotokens, which represent the coffee’s value. New tokens are automatically created when the product passes through the supply chain. The values of tokens increase at each successive stage of the supply chain. The supply chain is transparent due to this step-by-step and detailed process. It makes sharing the value added among various supply chain participants fairer and easier.”
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-Dr. Nir Kshetri, Cybersecurity Author and Professor at University of North Carolina-Greensboro
Voting
“The next big space where blockchain technology will be implemented is voting. In the United States, which is supposedly the most advanced country in the world, it took us weeks to count voting totals in Florida for both a governor’s and Senate race. How is it possible that we need to be recounting votes and are using paper ballots in the 21st century? There is no reason it should take weeks before a winner is declared. Not only is it the speed of tabulation, but it can eliminate fraud.
A blockchain is an immutable ledger, meaning the votes can never be changed and they can be tabulated in real time–not to mention it gives voters the ability to vote without going into their local school or government building, it gives them the ability to vote anywhere. In the 2016 presidential election, the US had voter participation of only 55 percent, which is stunningly low compared to other developed nations. We also see a number of voters in the US who are disenfranchised because they feel voting is ridden with voter fraud and their votes not being counted.
Blockchain has the power to make voting easier, safer, more accurate, and increase participation. This could potentially change the course of the US. I cannot think of a bigger use case than that.”
-Kyle Asman, Co-Founder of BX3 Capital
Payments Industry
“We believe that the next big use of blockchain technology is in the payments industry. The current credit card authorization and settlement system was designed in the 1970s, and it hasn’t been updated for today’s world. The technology is slow and dated, transactions are hard to track, fraud is rampant, and there are many steps and players involved when moving money internationally. International transactions take days, with multiple players each taking a fee. Dominated by banks that control and dictate fees, it only becomes more expensive to move money each year.
In the last year or so, merchants from a wide variety of industries began offering cryptocurrency payments, and the technology has come a long way in a short amount of time. Not only are merchants now able to accept payments in crypto online, but also in retail settings through the use of QR codes.
Cryptocurrency payments are a game-changer because it allows the 1.7 billion people who do not have access to a bank account to finally shop online. With crypto payments, all you need is a smartphone and an email address.
Additionally, mobile wallet usage will increase as smart phone purchases continue to rise. This will open the potential for a fully compatible crypto and credit card mobile wallet to be introduced. Imagine one wallet on your mobile device that stores your cryptocurrency and traditional currency. This would be a huge push into a cashless society.”
-Eric Brown, Founder and CEO of Aliant Payment Systems
Smart Business Contracts
“Imagine a health insurance claim that automatically pays out as soon as your hospital uploads proper documentation of your illness or surgery. In the same way a real estate deal can conclude once your bank electronically verifies the loan. Smart contract-based applications that immutably, transparently perform routine tasks (like closing on a house) may not only render title companies obsolete, but also represent a significant cost- and time-savings for everyone from loan originators to closing agents.
The days of PDFs and electronic signatures for documents are gone. For smart contract-based insurance, the chief technical challenge is how to bring off-chain events, such as accidents, major diagnoses, death, etc. into the contract. This is the Oracle problem, but fortunately there’s a solution for it. “Smart Business Contracts” can automate many aspects of business interactions that are done by humans today, including insurance policies. For example:
To manage customer identity and data privately and securely
To store important financial records in a decentralized (and encrypted) network
To reduce human error and make processes (such as dispute resolutions) much more efficient
The use case of blockchain 3.0 is analogous to automated escrow accounts in the real world. The smart business contracts allows strangers to build trust without centralized insurance companies. Driven by a greater number of individuals and organizations, blockchains are now better equipped to enable this type of economic progress.”
-Dr. Michael Yuan, Technologist and Chief Scientist of The CyberMiles Foundation
dApps and Centralized Solutions
“What is the foundation of the blockchain technology? Two things:
Ability to tokenize any assets.
A database with unique rules on reading and recording of the database records (hence can’t erase the records).
Applying these aspects in different configurations (decentralized and centralized solutions), we see two clear trends:
Decentralized applications (dApps). For example, decentralized storage solutions, decentralize exchanges, decentralized prediction platforms, and other public sector solutions where the authority itself is a problem (due to privacy and trust issues) and is addressed by the blockchain on a fundamental level.
Centralized solutions for enterprise sectors, which allow companies to tokenize the assets yet set the trust rules, so business parties can trust each other not just based on the brand name/personal relationship, but based on irreversible historical data stored in blockchain based databases and smart contracts. Think medical applications, banking sector, and overall B2B relationship-based business solutions.
As we move forward, dApps have a high potential to lower the authority’s influence in the world and to democratize not only storage, trading, betting, but the election, bill passing, and other public affairs/services. As for the centralized solutions – it just getting started and we’re yet to see the real market applications. If these two trends succeed then it’ll be a golden age of the blockchain based technologies and cryptocurrencies too. If these two trends fail (too much regulation) then the blockchain will stay at the niche level or die out completely.”
-Alexey Semeney, CEO and Founder of DevTeam.Space
Security Tokens
“Right now, it’s clear to me that the next big use case for blockchain is Security Tokens. Security Token Offerings, or STOs, are investment vehicles that allow for the tokenization of real-world assets, such as real estate, stocks, bonds, intellectual property, fine art, bars of gold, stores of oil–you name it. Each token is backed by a fraction of an asset. As an example, in August 2018, the St. Regis Aspen hotel was successfully tokenized. Tokenization has the power to add greater liquidity to these markets by making these investment opportunities more accessible. Another example, instead of an average person investing in a $500k bar of gold bullion, they could invest ~$50 in 1 gram of a bar of gold.
STOs are similar to ICOs, or Initial Coin Offerings, which were hyped in 2017, but deflated in 2018 as the SEC and other global jurisdictions began to crack down with new regulations. The beauty of the ICO was that almost anyone could take advantage of those investment opportunities, not just accredited investors. I believe that STO is the new wave, adding regulation, security, and a real store of value to the token while taking advantage of all the positive qualities of ICOs.
Using blockchain to facilitate trades of stocks, bonds, and equity makes perfect sense to me. It adds greater transparency and ease of transactions to traditional finance markets, and allows for truly global markets that can be accessed 24/7. Based on my conversations with a few credible US securities lawyers, it’s starting to become clear that within decades, all trading of this nature might run on blockchain.”
-Rhiannon Payne, Founder and CEO of Sea Foam Blockchain Media & Technology Studio
Source link http://bit.ly/2tnhSde
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Experts Predict the Next Big Use of Blockchain Technology
Experts Predict the Next Big Use of Blockchain Technology
We’ve heard a lot about blockchain technology in recent times. Blockchain is a critical part of the bitcoin peer-to-peer payment system and its ledger has helped improve transparency for transactions. But what else can this technology do?
There have been a lot of predictions as to the next great use of blockchain tech. Some have even said that blockchain could be the solution to gun control in the United States. So what else could the blockchain be used for? We went straight to the experts to find out.
Tech moves fast! Stay ahead of the curve with Techopedia!
Join nearly 200,000 subscribers who receive actionable tech insights from Techopedia.
Digital Identity
“The most promising application of blockchain that is currently in development is digital identity. In the past few years, we have seen a crisis of privacy and trust in the digital and online environment, with events such as the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal, Equifax breach, and foreign interference via social media in the 2016 presidential election. Legislation like the EU’s GDPR demonstrate the people want more control and ownership over their personal data and digital identities.
Much like blockchain allowed for the first decentralized, user-owned digital money, the technology will also allow for the first self-sovereign digital identities. The term “self-sovereign identity” has been coined to describe the ability for a blockchain-based identity system to give users ownership over their digital selves and personal data. Existing models of digital identity rely on centralized authorities, like Google or Facebook, that manage identities on behalf of their users and can therefore take unilateral action, like locking someone out of their account. If you use Google to login to applications and websites, a simple mistake or intentional censorship by Google can suddenly leave you deprived of the identity you use online.
Blockchain can provide a decentralized infrastructure for digital identity. Only the identity’s owner would have control over the use of their identity, with no need to trust any third party when they wish to prove who they are online. Giving users sovereignty over their digital identities is the first step in returning data ownership to the individual and creating a more user-centric Internet.”
-Locke Brown, Co-Founder and CEO of NuID
Food and Beverage Supply Chain
“I think it will be in the production and distribution of food and beverage products in order to ensure quality, safety and sustainability. A number of high profile applications of blockchain have been in this industry. IBM Food Trust was being used by 10 large-sized food companies such as Nestle, Unilever, Walmart. As of June 2018, the system stored data related to 1 million items in about 50 food categories including Nestlé canned pumpkin, Driscoll’s strawberries and Tyson chicken thighs. As of July 2018, there were more than 350,000 food data transactions on the IBM Food Trust platform. In November 2018, IBM commercially launched its Food Trust. Companies of all sizes in the food industry supply chain can join the network for a subscription fee, which ranges from $100 to $10,000 a month. Carrefour signed an agreement with IBM to use the solution.
Some innovative applications for this sector have been launched by blockchain startups. For instance, Denver-based startup Bext360’s Bextmachine is a Coinstar-like device, which employs smart image recognition technology machine vision, artificial intelligence, IoT and blockchain to grade and track coffee beans. It takes a three-dimensional scan of each bean’s outer fruit. Each coffee bean is also provided a unique ID which can be used to track it throughout the life cycle. Wholesalers and roasters can learn about attributes that may produce certain tastes. They can make future sourcing decisions based on this.
Bextmachines analyze farmers’ coffee cherries and coffee parchment deposited at collection stations and sort them to assess the quality. Farmers that supply bigger and riper cherries are paid more. The Bextmachines link the output to cryptotokens, which represent the coffee’s value. New tokens are automatically created when the product passes through the supply chain. The values of tokens increase at each successive stage of the supply chain. The supply chain is transparent due to this step-by-step and detailed process. It makes sharing the value added among various supply chain participants fairer and easier.”
FREE WEBINAR – March 12, 2019 11am EST
Managing Multiple Database Roles: How Many Hats Do You Wear?
REGISTER NOW
-Dr. Nir Kshetri, Cybersecurity Author and Professor at University of North Carolina-Greensboro
Voting
“The next big space where blockchain technology will be implemented is voting. In the United States, which is supposedly the most advanced country in the world, it took us weeks to count voting totals in Florida for both a governor’s and Senate race. How is it possible that we need to be recounting votes and are using paper ballots in the 21st century? There is no reason it should take weeks before a winner is declared. Not only is it the speed of tabulation, but it can eliminate fraud.
A blockchain is an immutable ledger, meaning the votes can never be changed and they can be tabulated in real time–not to mention it gives voters the ability to vote without going into their local school or government building, it gives them the ability to vote anywhere. In the 2016 presidential election, the US had voter participation of only 55 percent, which is stunningly low compared to other developed nations. We also see a number of voters in the US who are disenfranchised because they feel voting is ridden with voter fraud and their votes not being counted.
Blockchain has the power to make voting easier, safer, more accurate, and increase participation. This could potentially change the course of the US. I cannot think of a bigger use case than that.”
-Kyle Asman, Co-Founder of BX3 Capital
Payments Industry
“We believe that the next big use of blockchain technology is in the payments industry. The current credit card authorization and settlement system was designed in the 1970s, and it hasn’t been updated for today’s world. The technology is slow and dated, transactions are hard to track, fraud is rampant, and there are many steps and players involved when moving money internationally. International transactions take days, with multiple players each taking a fee. Dominated by banks that control and dictate fees, it only becomes more expensive to move money each year.
In the last year or so, merchants from a wide variety of industries began offering cryptocurrency payments, and the technology has come a long way in a short amount of time. Not only are merchants now able to accept payments in crypto online, but also in retail settings through the use of QR codes.
Cryptocurrency payments are a game-changer because it allows the 1.7 billion people who do not have access to a bank account to finally shop online. With crypto payments, all you need is a smartphone and an email address.
Additionally, mobile wallet usage will increase as smart phone purchases continue to rise. This will open the potential for a fully compatible crypto and credit card mobile wallet to be introduced. Imagine one wallet on your mobile device that stores your cryptocurrency and traditional currency. This would be a huge push into a cashless society.”
-Eric Brown, Founder and CEO of Aliant Payment Systems
Smart Business Contracts
“Imagine a health insurance claim that automatically pays out as soon as your hospital uploads proper documentation of your illness or surgery. In the same way a real estate deal can conclude once your bank electronically verifies the loan. Smart contract-based applications that immutably, transparently perform routine tasks (like closing on a house) may not only render title companies obsolete, but also represent a significant cost- and time-savings for everyone from loan originators to closing agents.
The days of PDFs and electronic signatures for documents are gone. For smart contract-based insurance, the chief technical challenge is how to bring off-chain events, such as accidents, major diagnoses, death, etc. into the contract. This is the Oracle problem, but fortunately there’s a solution for it. “Smart Business Contracts” can automate many aspects of business interactions that are done by humans today, including insurance policies. For example:
To manage customer identity and data privately and securely
To store important financial records in a decentralized (and encrypted) network
To reduce human error and make processes (such as dispute resolutions) much more efficient
The use case of blockchain 3.0 is analogous to automated escrow accounts in the real world. The smart business contracts allows strangers to build trust without centralized insurance companies. Driven by a greater number of individuals and organizations, blockchains are now better equipped to enable this type of economic progress.”
-Dr. Michael Yuan, Technologist and Chief Scientist of The CyberMiles Foundation
dApps and Centralized Solutions
“What is the foundation of the blockchain technology? Two things:
Ability to tokenize any assets.
A database with unique rules on reading and recording of the database records (hence can’t erase the records).
Applying these aspects in different configurations (decentralized and centralized solutions), we see two clear trends:
Decentralized applications (dApps). For example, decentralized storage solutions, decentralize exchanges, decentralized prediction platforms, and other public sector solutions where the authority itself is a problem (due to privacy and trust issues) and is addressed by the blockchain on a fundamental level.
Centralized solutions for enterprise sectors, which allow companies to tokenize the assets yet set the trust rules, so business parties can trust each other not just based on the brand name/personal relationship, but based on irreversible historical data stored in blockchain based databases and smart contracts. Think medical applications, banking sector, and overall B2B relationship-based business solutions.
As we move forward, dApps have a high potential to lower the authority’s influence in the world and to democratize not only storage, trading, betting, but the election, bill passing, and other public affairs/services. As for the centralized solutions – it just getting started and we’re yet to see the real market applications. If these two trends succeed then it’ll be a golden age of the blockchain based technologies and cryptocurrencies too. If these two trends fail (too much regulation) then the blockchain will stay at the niche level or die out completely.”
-Alexey Semeney, CEO and Founder of DevTeam.Space
Security Tokens
“Right now, it’s clear to me that the next big use case for blockchain is Security Tokens. Security Token Offerings, or STOs, are investment vehicles that allow for the tokenization of real-world assets, such as real estate, stocks, bonds, intellectual property, fine art, bars of gold, stores of oil–you name it. Each token is backed by a fraction of an asset. As an example, in August 2018, the St. Regis Aspen hotel was successfully tokenized. Tokenization has the power to add greater liquidity to these markets by making these investment opportunities more accessible. Another example, instead of an average person investing in a $500k bar of gold bullion, they could invest ~$50 in 1 gram of a bar of gold.
STOs are similar to ICOs, or Initial Coin Offerings, which were hyped in 2017, but deflated in 2018 as the SEC and other global jurisdictions began to crack down with new regulations. The beauty of the ICO was that almost anyone could take advantage of those investment opportunities, not just accredited investors. I believe that STO is the new wave, adding regulation, security, and a real store of value to the token while taking advantage of all the positive qualities of ICOs.
Using blockchain to facilitate trades of stocks, bonds, and equity makes perfect sense to me. It adds greater transparency and ease of transactions to traditional finance markets, and allows for truly global markets that can be accessed 24/7. Based on my conversations with a few credible US securities lawyers, it’s starting to become clear that within decades, all trading of this nature might run on blockchain.”
-Rhiannon Payne, Founder and CEO of Sea Foam Blockchain Media & Technology Studio
Source link http://bit.ly/2tnhSde
0 notes
Text
Experts Predict the Next Big Use of Blockchain Technology
Experts Predict the Next Big Use of Blockchain Technology
We’ve heard a lot about blockchain technology in recent times. Blockchain is a critical part of the bitcoin peer-to-peer payment system and its ledger has helped improve transparency for transactions. But what else can this technology do?
There have been a lot of predictions as to the next great use of blockchain tech. Some have even said that blockchain could be the solution to gun control in the United States. So what else could the blockchain be used for? We went straight to the experts to find out.
Tech moves fast! Stay ahead of the curve with Techopedia!
Join nearly 200,000 subscribers who receive actionable tech insights from Techopedia.
Digital Identity
“The most promising application of blockchain that is currently in development is digital identity. In the past few years, we have seen a crisis of privacy and trust in the digital and online environment, with events such as the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal, Equifax breach, and foreign interference via social media in the 2016 presidential election. Legislation like the EU’s GDPR demonstrate the people want more control and ownership over their personal data and digital identities.
Much like blockchain allowed for the first decentralized, user-owned digital money, the technology will also allow for the first self-sovereign digital identities. The term “self-sovereign identity” has been coined to describe the ability for a blockchain-based identity system to give users ownership over their digital selves and personal data. Existing models of digital identity rely on centralized authorities, like Google or Facebook, that manage identities on behalf of their users and can therefore take unilateral action, like locking someone out of their account. If you use Google to login to applications and websites, a simple mistake or intentional censorship by Google can suddenly leave you deprived of the identity you use online.
Blockchain can provide a decentralized infrastructure for digital identity. Only the identity’s owner would have control over the use of their identity, with no need to trust any third party when they wish to prove who they are online. Giving users sovereignty over their digital identities is the first step in returning data ownership to the individual and creating a more user-centric Internet.”
-Locke Brown, Co-Founder and CEO of NuID
Food and Beverage Supply Chain
“I think it will be in the production and distribution of food and beverage products in order to ensure quality, safety and sustainability. A number of high profile applications of blockchain have been in this industry. IBM Food Trust was being used by 10 large-sized food companies such as Nestle, Unilever, Walmart. As of June 2018, the system stored data related to 1 million items in about 50 food categories including Nestlé canned pumpkin, Driscoll’s strawberries and Tyson chicken thighs. As of July 2018, there were more than 350,000 food data transactions on the IBM Food Trust platform. In November 2018, IBM commercially launched its Food Trust. Companies of all sizes in the food industry supply chain can join the network for a subscription fee, which ranges from $100 to $10,000 a month. Carrefour signed an agreement with IBM to use the solution.
Some innovative applications for this sector have been launched by blockchain startups. For instance, Denver-based startup Bext360’s Bextmachine is a Coinstar-like device, which employs smart image recognition technology machine vision, artificial intelligence, IoT and blockchain to grade and track coffee beans. It takes a three-dimensional scan of each bean’s outer fruit. Each coffee bean is also provided a unique ID which can be used to track it throughout the life cycle. Wholesalers and roasters can learn about attributes that may produce certain tastes. They can make future sourcing decisions based on this.
Bextmachines analyze farmers’ coffee cherries and coffee parchment deposited at collection stations and sort them to assess the quality. Farmers that supply bigger and riper cherries are paid more. The Bextmachines link the output to cryptotokens, which represent the coffee’s value. New tokens are automatically created when the product passes through the supply chain. The values of tokens increase at each successive stage of the supply chain. The supply chain is transparent due to this step-by-step and detailed process. It makes sharing the value added among various supply chain participants fairer and easier.”
FREE WEBINAR – March 12, 2019 11am EST
Managing Multiple Database Roles: How Many Hats Do You Wear?
REGISTER NOW
-Dr. Nir Kshetri, Cybersecurity Author and Professor at University of North Carolina-Greensboro
Voting
“The next big space where blockchain technology will be implemented is voting. In the United States, which is supposedly the most advanced country in the world, it took us weeks to count voting totals in Florida for both a governor’s and Senate race. How is it possible that we need to be recounting votes and are using paper ballots in the 21st century? There is no reason it should take weeks before a winner is declared. Not only is it the speed of tabulation, but it can eliminate fraud.
A blockchain is an immutable ledger, meaning the votes can never be changed and they can be tabulated in real time–not to mention it gives voters the ability to vote without going into their local school or government building, it gives them the ability to vote anywhere. In the 2016 presidential election, the US had voter participation of only 55 percent, which is stunningly low compared to other developed nations. We also see a number of voters in the US who are disenfranchised because they feel voting is ridden with voter fraud and their votes not being counted.
Blockchain has the power to make voting easier, safer, more accurate, and increase participation. This could potentially change the course of the US. I cannot think of a bigger use case than that.”
-Kyle Asman, Co-Founder of BX3 Capital
Payments Industry
“We believe that the next big use of blockchain technology is in the payments industry. The current credit card authorization and settlement system was designed in the 1970s, and it hasn’t been updated for today’s world. The technology is slow and dated, transactions are hard to track, fraud is rampant, and there are many steps and players involved when moving money internationally. International transactions take days, with multiple players each taking a fee. Dominated by banks that control and dictate fees, it only becomes more expensive to move money each year.
In the last year or so, merchants from a wide variety of industries began offering cryptocurrency payments, and the technology has come a long way in a short amount of time. Not only are merchants now able to accept payments in crypto online, but also in retail settings through the use of QR codes.
Cryptocurrency payments are a game-changer because it allows the 1.7 billion people who do not have access to a bank account to finally shop online. With crypto payments, all you need is a smartphone and an email address.
Additionally, mobile wallet usage will increase as smart phone purchases continue to rise. This will open the potential for a fully compatible crypto and credit card mobile wallet to be introduced. Imagine one wallet on your mobile device that stores your cryptocurrency and traditional currency. This would be a huge push into a cashless society.”
-Eric Brown, Founder and CEO of Aliant Payment Systems
Smart Business Contracts
“Imagine a health insurance claim that automatically pays out as soon as your hospital uploads proper documentation of your illness or surgery. In the same way a real estate deal can conclude once your bank electronically verifies the loan. Smart contract-based applications that immutably, transparently perform routine tasks (like closing on a house) may not only render title companies obsolete, but also represent a significant cost- and time-savings for everyone from loan originators to closing agents.
The days of PDFs and electronic signatures for documents are gone. For smart contract-based insurance, the chief technical challenge is how to bring off-chain events, such as accidents, major diagnoses, death, etc. into the contract. This is the Oracle problem, but fortunately there’s a solution for it. “Smart Business Contracts” can automate many aspects of business interactions that are done by humans today, including insurance policies. For example:
To manage customer identity and data privately and securely
To store important financial records in a decentralized (and encrypted) network
To reduce human error and make processes (such as dispute resolutions) much more efficient
The use case of blockchain 3.0 is analogous to automated escrow accounts in the real world. The smart business contracts allows strangers to build trust without centralized insurance companies. Driven by a greater number of individuals and organizations, blockchains are now better equipped to enable this type of economic progress.”
-Dr. Michael Yuan, Technologist and Chief Scientist of The CyberMiles Foundation
dApps and Centralized Solutions
“What is the foundation of the blockchain technology? Two things:
Ability to tokenize any assets.
A database with unique rules on reading and recording of the database records (hence can’t erase the records).
Applying these aspects in different configurations (decentralized and centralized solutions), we see two clear trends:
Decentralized applications (dApps). For example, decentralized storage solutions, decentralize exchanges, decentralized prediction platforms, and other public sector solutions where the authority itself is a problem (due to privacy and trust issues) and is addressed by the blockchain on a fundamental level.
Centralized solutions for enterprise sectors, which allow companies to tokenize the assets yet set the trust rules, so business parties can trust each other not just based on the brand name/personal relationship, but based on irreversible historical data stored in blockchain based databases and smart contracts. Think medical applications, banking sector, and overall B2B relationship-based business solutions.
As we move forward, dApps have a high potential to lower the authority’s influence in the world and to democratize not only storage, trading, betting, but the election, bill passing, and other public affairs/services. As for the centralized solutions – it just getting started and we’re yet to see the real market applications. If these two trends succeed then it’ll be a golden age of the blockchain based technologies and cryptocurrencies too. If these two trends fail (too much regulation) then the blockchain will stay at the niche level or die out completely.”
-Alexey Semeney, CEO and Founder of DevTeam.Space
Security Tokens
“Right now, it’s clear to me that the next big use case for blockchain is Security Tokens. Security Token Offerings, or STOs, are investment vehicles that allow for the tokenization of real-world assets, such as real estate, stocks, bonds, intellectual property, fine art, bars of gold, stores of oil–you name it. Each token is backed by a fraction of an asset. As an example, in August 2018, the St. Regis Aspen hotel was successfully tokenized. Tokenization has the power to add greater liquidity to these markets by making these investment opportunities more accessible. Another example, instead of an average person investing in a $500k bar of gold bullion, they could invest ~$50 in 1 gram of a bar of gold.
STOs are similar to ICOs, or Initial Coin Offerings, which were hyped in 2017, but deflated in 2018 as the SEC and other global jurisdictions began to crack down with new regulations. The beauty of the ICO was that almost anyone could take advantage of those investment opportunities, not just accredited investors. I believe that STO is the new wave, adding regulation, security, and a real store of value to the token while taking advantage of all the positive qualities of ICOs.
Using blockchain to facilitate trades of stocks, bonds, and equity makes perfect sense to me. It adds greater transparency and ease of transactions to traditional finance markets, and allows for truly global markets that can be accessed 24/7. Based on my conversations with a few credible US securities lawyers, it’s starting to become clear that within decades, all trading of this nature might run on blockchain.”
-Rhiannon Payne, Founder and CEO of Sea Foam Blockchain Media & Technology Studio
Source link http://bit.ly/2tnhSde
0 notes
Text
Experts Predict the Next Big Use of Blockchain Technology
Experts Predict the Next Big Use of Blockchain Technology
We’ve heard a lot about blockchain technology in recent times. Blockchain is a critical part of the bitcoin peer-to-peer payment system and its ledger has helped improve transparency for transactions. But what else can this technology do?
There have been a lot of predictions as to the next great use of blockchain tech. Some have even said that blockchain could be the solution to gun control in the United States. So what else could the blockchain be used for? We went straight to the experts to find out.
Tech moves fast! Stay ahead of the curve with Techopedia!
Join nearly 200,000 subscribers who receive actionable tech insights from Techopedia.
Digital Identity
“The most promising application of blockchain that is currently in development is digital identity. In the past few years, we have seen a crisis of privacy and trust in the digital and online environment, with events such as the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal, Equifax breach, and foreign interference via social media in the 2016 presidential election. Legislation like the EU’s GDPR demonstrate the people want more control and ownership over their personal data and digital identities.
Much like blockchain allowed for the first decentralized, user-owned digital money, the technology will also allow for the first self-sovereign digital identities. The term “self-sovereign identity” has been coined to describe the ability for a blockchain-based identity system to give users ownership over their digital selves and personal data. Existing models of digital identity rely on centralized authorities, like Google or Facebook, that manage identities on behalf of their users and can therefore take unilateral action, like locking someone out of their account. If you use Google to login to applications and websites, a simple mistake or intentional censorship by Google can suddenly leave you deprived of the identity you use online.
Blockchain can provide a decentralized infrastructure for digital identity. Only the identity’s owner would have control over the use of their identity, with no need to trust any third party when they wish to prove who they are online. Giving users sovereignty over their digital identities is the first step in returning data ownership to the individual and creating a more user-centric Internet.”
-Locke Brown, Co-Founder and CEO of NuID
Food and Beverage Supply Chain
“I think it will be in the production and distribution of food and beverage products in order to ensure quality, safety and sustainability. A number of high profile applications of blockchain have been in this industry. IBM Food Trust was being used by 10 large-sized food companies such as Nestle, Unilever, Walmart. As of June 2018, the system stored data related to 1 million items in about 50 food categories including Nestlé canned pumpkin, Driscoll’s strawberries and Tyson chicken thighs. As of July 2018, there were more than 350,000 food data transactions on the IBM Food Trust platform. In November 2018, IBM commercially launched its Food Trust. Companies of all sizes in the food industry supply chain can join the network for a subscription fee, which ranges from $100 to $10,000 a month. Carrefour signed an agreement with IBM to use the solution.
Some innovative applications for this sector have been launched by blockchain startups. For instance, Denver-based startup Bext360’s Bextmachine is a Coinstar-like device, which employs smart image recognition technology machine vision, artificial intelligence, IoT and blockchain to grade and track coffee beans. It takes a three-dimensional scan of each bean’s outer fruit. Each coffee bean is also provided a unique ID which can be used to track it throughout the life cycle. Wholesalers and roasters can learn about attributes that may produce certain tastes. They can make future sourcing decisions based on this.
Bextmachines analyze farmers’ coffee cherries and coffee parchment deposited at collection stations and sort them to assess the quality. Farmers that supply bigger and riper cherries are paid more. The Bextmachines link the output to cryptotokens, which represent the coffee’s value. New tokens are automatically created when the product passes through the supply chain. The values of tokens increase at each successive stage of the supply chain. The supply chain is transparent due to this step-by-step and detailed process. It makes sharing the value added among various supply chain participants fairer and easier.”
FREE WEBINAR – March 12, 2019 11am EST
Managing Multiple Database Roles: How Many Hats Do You Wear?
REGISTER NOW
-Dr. Nir Kshetri, Cybersecurity Author and Professor at University of North Carolina-Greensboro
Voting
“The next big space where blockchain technology will be implemented is voting. In the United States, which is supposedly the most advanced country in the world, it took us weeks to count voting totals in Florida for both a governor’s and Senate race. How is it possible that we need to be recounting votes and are using paper ballots in the 21st century? There is no reason it should take weeks before a winner is declared. Not only is it the speed of tabulation, but it can eliminate fraud.
A blockchain is an immutable ledger, meaning the votes can never be changed and they can be tabulated in real time–not to mention it gives voters the ability to vote without going into their local school or government building, it gives them the ability to vote anywhere. In the 2016 presidential election, the US had voter participation of only 55 percent, which is stunningly low compared to other developed nations. We also see a number of voters in the US who are disenfranchised because they feel voting is ridden with voter fraud and their votes not being counted.
Blockchain has the power to make voting easier, safer, more accurate, and increase participation. This could potentially change the course of the US. I cannot think of a bigger use case than that.”
-Kyle Asman, Co-Founder of BX3 Capital
Payments Industry
“We believe that the next big use of blockchain technology is in the payments industry. The current credit card authorization and settlement system was designed in the 1970s, and it hasn’t been updated for today’s world. The technology is slow and dated, transactions are hard to track, fraud is rampant, and there are many steps and players involved when moving money internationally. International transactions take days, with multiple players each taking a fee. Dominated by banks that control and dictate fees, it only becomes more expensive to move money each year.
In the last year or so, merchants from a wide variety of industries began offering cryptocurrency payments, and the technology has come a long way in a short amount of time. Not only are merchants now able to accept payments in crypto online, but also in retail settings through the use of QR codes.
Cryptocurrency payments are a game-changer because it allows the 1.7 billion people who do not have access to a bank account to finally shop online. With crypto payments, all you need is a smartphone and an email address.
Additionally, mobile wallet usage will increase as smart phone purchases continue to rise. This will open the potential for a fully compatible crypto and credit card mobile wallet to be introduced. Imagine one wallet on your mobile device that stores your cryptocurrency and traditional currency. This would be a huge push into a cashless society.”
-Eric Brown, Founder and CEO of Aliant Payment Systems
Smart Business Contracts
“Imagine a health insurance claim that automatically pays out as soon as your hospital uploads proper documentation of your illness or surgery. In the same way a real estate deal can conclude once your bank electronically verifies the loan. Smart contract-based applications that immutably, transparently perform routine tasks (like closing on a house) may not only render title companies obsolete, but also represent a significant cost- and time-savings for everyone from loan originators to closing agents.
The days of PDFs and electronic signatures for documents are gone. For smart contract-based insurance, the chief technical challenge is how to bring off-chain events, such as accidents, major diagnoses, death, etc. into the contract. This is the Oracle problem, but fortunately there’s a solution for it. “Smart Business Contracts” can automate many aspects of business interactions that are done by humans today, including insurance policies. For example:
To manage customer identity and data privately and securely
To store important financial records in a decentralized (and encrypted) network
To reduce human error and make processes (such as dispute resolutions) much more efficient
The use case of blockchain 3.0 is analogous to automated escrow accounts in the real world. The smart business contracts allows strangers to build trust without centralized insurance companies. Driven by a greater number of individuals and organizations, blockchains are now better equipped to enable this type of economic progress.”
-Dr. Michael Yuan, Technologist and Chief Scientist of The CyberMiles Foundation
dApps and Centralized Solutions
“What is the foundation of the blockchain technology? Two things:
Ability to tokenize any assets.
A database with unique rules on reading and recording of the database records (hence can’t erase the records).
Applying these aspects in different configurations (decentralized and centralized solutions), we see two clear trends:
Decentralized applications (dApps). For example, decentralized storage solutions, decentralize exchanges, decentralized prediction platforms, and other public sector solutions where the authority itself is a problem (due to privacy and trust issues) and is addressed by the blockchain on a fundamental level.
Centralized solutions for enterprise sectors, which allow companies to tokenize the assets yet set the trust rules, so business parties can trust each other not just based on the brand name/personal relationship, but based on irreversible historical data stored in blockchain based databases and smart contracts. Think medical applications, banking sector, and overall B2B relationship-based business solutions.
As we move forward, dApps have a high potential to lower the authority’s influence in the world and to democratize not only storage, trading, betting, but the election, bill passing, and other public affairs/services. As for the centralized solutions – it just getting started and we’re yet to see the real market applications. If these two trends succeed then it’ll be a golden age of the blockchain based technologies and cryptocurrencies too. If these two trends fail (too much regulation) then the blockchain will stay at the niche level or die out completely.”
-Alexey Semeney, CEO and Founder of DevTeam.Space
Security Tokens
“Right now, it’s clear to me that the next big use case for blockchain is Security Tokens. Security Token Offerings, or STOs, are investment vehicles that allow for the tokenization of real-world assets, such as real estate, stocks, bonds, intellectual property, fine art, bars of gold, stores of oil–you name it. Each token is backed by a fraction of an asset. As an example, in August 2018, the St. Regis Aspen hotel was successfully tokenized. Tokenization has the power to add greater liquidity to these markets by making these investment opportunities more accessible. Another example, instead of an average person investing in a $500k bar of gold bullion, they could invest ~$50 in 1 gram of a bar of gold.
STOs are similar to ICOs, or Initial Coin Offerings, which were hyped in 2017, but deflated in 2018 as the SEC and other global jurisdictions began to crack down with new regulations. The beauty of the ICO was that almost anyone could take advantage of those investment opportunities, not just accredited investors. I believe that STO is the new wave, adding regulation, security, and a real store of value to the token while taking advantage of all the positive qualities of ICOs.
Using blockchain to facilitate trades of stocks, bonds, and equity makes perfect sense to me. It adds greater transparency and ease of transactions to traditional finance markets, and allows for truly global markets that can be accessed 24/7. Based on my conversations with a few credible US securities lawyers, it’s starting to become clear that within decades, all trading of this nature might run on blockchain.”
-Rhiannon Payne, Founder and CEO of Sea Foam Blockchain Media & Technology Studio
Source link http://bit.ly/2tnhSde
0 notes
Text
Experts Predict the Next Big Use of Blockchain Technology
Experts Predict the Next Big Use of Blockchain Technology
We’ve heard a lot about blockchain technology in recent times. Blockchain is a critical part of the bitcoin peer-to-peer payment system and its ledger has helped improve transparency for transactions. But what else can this technology do?
There have been a lot of predictions as to the next great use of blockchain tech. Some have even said that blockchain could be the solution to gun control in the United States. So what else could the blockchain be used for? We went straight to the experts to find out.
Tech moves fast! Stay ahead of the curve with Techopedia!
Join nearly 200,000 subscribers who receive actionable tech insights from Techopedia.
Digital Identity
“The most promising application of blockchain that is currently in development is digital identity. In the past few years, we have seen a crisis of privacy and trust in the digital and online environment, with events such as the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal, Equifax breach, and foreign interference via social media in the 2016 presidential election. Legislation like the EU’s GDPR demonstrate the people want more control and ownership over their personal data and digital identities.
Much like blockchain allowed for the first decentralized, user-owned digital money, the technology will also allow for the first self-sovereign digital identities. The term “self-sovereign identity” has been coined to describe the ability for a blockchain-based identity system to give users ownership over their digital selves and personal data. Existing models of digital identity rely on centralized authorities, like Google or Facebook, that manage identities on behalf of their users and can therefore take unilateral action, like locking someone out of their account. If you use Google to login to applications and websites, a simple mistake or intentional censorship by Google can suddenly leave you deprived of the identity you use online.
Blockchain can provide a decentralized infrastructure for digital identity. Only the identity’s owner would have control over the use of their identity, with no need to trust any third party when they wish to prove who they are online. Giving users sovereignty over their digital identities is the first step in returning data ownership to the individual and creating a more user-centric Internet.”
-Locke Brown, Co-Founder and CEO of NuID
Food and Beverage Supply Chain
“I think it will be in the production and distribution of food and beverage products in order to ensure quality, safety and sustainability. A number of high profile applications of blockchain have been in this industry. IBM Food Trust was being used by 10 large-sized food companies such as Nestle, Unilever, Walmart. As of June 2018, the system stored data related to 1 million items in about 50 food categories including Nestlé canned pumpkin, Driscoll’s strawberries and Tyson chicken thighs. As of July 2018, there were more than 350,000 food data transactions on the IBM Food Trust platform. In November 2018, IBM commercially launched its Food Trust. Companies of all sizes in the food industry supply chain can join the network for a subscription fee, which ranges from $100 to $10,000 a month. Carrefour signed an agreement with IBM to use the solution.
Some innovative applications for this sector have been launched by blockchain startups. For instance, Denver-based startup Bext360’s Bextmachine is a Coinstar-like device, which employs smart image recognition technology machine vision, artificial intelligence, IoT and blockchain to grade and track coffee beans. It takes a three-dimensional scan of each bean’s outer fruit. Each coffee bean is also provided a unique ID which can be used to track it throughout the life cycle. Wholesalers and roasters can learn about attributes that may produce certain tastes. They can make future sourcing decisions based on this.
Bextmachines analyze farmers’ coffee cherries and coffee parchment deposited at collection stations and sort them to assess the quality. Farmers that supply bigger and riper cherries are paid more. The Bextmachines link the output to cryptotokens, which represent the coffee’s value. New tokens are automatically created when the product passes through the supply chain. The values of tokens increase at each successive stage of the supply chain. The supply chain is transparent due to this step-by-step and detailed process. It makes sharing the value added among various supply chain participants fairer and easier.”
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-Dr. Nir Kshetri, Cybersecurity Author and Professor at University of North Carolina-Greensboro
Voting
“The next big space where blockchain technology will be implemented is voting. In the United States, which is supposedly the most advanced country in the world, it took us weeks to count voting totals in Florida for both a governor’s and Senate race. How is it possible that we need to be recounting votes and are using paper ballots in the 21st century? There is no reason it should take weeks before a winner is declared. Not only is it the speed of tabulation, but it can eliminate fraud.
A blockchain is an immutable ledger, meaning the votes can never be changed and they can be tabulated in real time–not to mention it gives voters the ability to vote without going into their local school or government building, it gives them the ability to vote anywhere. In the 2016 presidential election, the US had voter participation of only 55 percent, which is stunningly low compared to other developed nations. We also see a number of voters in the US who are disenfranchised because they feel voting is ridden with voter fraud and their votes not being counted.
Blockchain has the power to make voting easier, safer, more accurate, and increase participation. This could potentially change the course of the US. I cannot think of a bigger use case than that.”
-Kyle Asman, Co-Founder of BX3 Capital
Payments Industry
“We believe that the next big use of blockchain technology is in the payments industry. The current credit card authorization and settlement system was designed in the 1970s, and it hasn’t been updated for today’s world. The technology is slow and dated, transactions are hard to track, fraud is rampant, and there are many steps and players involved when moving money internationally. International transactions take days, with multiple players each taking a fee. Dominated by banks that control and dictate fees, it only becomes more expensive to move money each year.
In the last year or so, merchants from a wide variety of industries began offering cryptocurrency payments, and the technology has come a long way in a short amount of time. Not only are merchants now able to accept payments in crypto online, but also in retail settings through the use of QR codes.
Cryptocurrency payments are a game-changer because it allows the 1.7 billion people who do not have access to a bank account to finally shop online. With crypto payments, all you need is a smartphone and an email address.
Additionally, mobile wallet usage will increase as smart phone purchases continue to rise. This will open the potential for a fully compatible crypto and credit card mobile wallet to be introduced. Imagine one wallet on your mobile device that stores your cryptocurrency and traditional currency. This would be a huge push into a cashless society.”
-Eric Brown, Founder and CEO of Aliant Payment Systems
Smart Business Contracts
“Imagine a health insurance claim that automatically pays out as soon as your hospital uploads proper documentation of your illness or surgery. In the same way a real estate deal can conclude once your bank electronically verifies the loan. Smart contract-based applications that immutably, transparently perform routine tasks (like closing on a house) may not only render title companies obsolete, but also represent a significant cost- and time-savings for everyone from loan originators to closing agents.
The days of PDFs and electronic signatures for documents are gone. For smart contract-based insurance, the chief technical challenge is how to bring off-chain events, such as accidents, major diagnoses, death, etc. into the contract. This is the Oracle problem, but fortunately there’s a solution for it. “Smart Business Contracts” can automate many aspects of business interactions that are done by humans today, including insurance policies. For example:
To manage customer identity and data privately and securely
To store important financial records in a decentralized (and encrypted) network
To reduce human error and make processes (such as dispute resolutions) much more efficient
The use case of blockchain 3.0 is analogous to automated escrow accounts in the real world. The smart business contracts allows strangers to build trust without centralized insurance companies. Driven by a greater number of individuals and organizations, blockchains are now better equipped to enable this type of economic progress.”
-Dr. Michael Yuan, Technologist and Chief Scientist of The CyberMiles Foundation
dApps and Centralized Solutions
“What is the foundation of the blockchain technology? Two things:
Ability to tokenize any assets.
A database with unique rules on reading and recording of the database records (hence can’t erase the records).
Applying these aspects in different configurations (decentralized and centralized solutions), we see two clear trends:
Decentralized applications (dApps). For example, decentralized storage solutions, decentralize exchanges, decentralized prediction platforms, and other public sector solutions where the authority itself is a problem (due to privacy and trust issues) and is addressed by the blockchain on a fundamental level.
Centralized solutions for enterprise sectors, which allow companies to tokenize the assets yet set the trust rules, so business parties can trust each other not just based on the brand name/personal relationship, but based on irreversible historical data stored in blockchain based databases and smart contracts. Think medical applications, banking sector, and overall B2B relationship-based business solutions.
As we move forward, dApps have a high potential to lower the authority’s influence in the world and to democratize not only storage, trading, betting, but the election, bill passing, and other public affairs/services. As for the centralized solutions – it just getting started and we’re yet to see the real market applications. If these two trends succeed then it’ll be a golden age of the blockchain based technologies and cryptocurrencies too. If these two trends fail (too much regulation) then the blockchain will stay at the niche level or die out completely.”
-Alexey Semeney, CEO and Founder of DevTeam.Space
Security Tokens
“Right now, it’s clear to me that the next big use case for blockchain is Security Tokens. Security Token Offerings, or STOs, are investment vehicles that allow for the tokenization of real-world assets, such as real estate, stocks, bonds, intellectual property, fine art, bars of gold, stores of oil–you name it. Each token is backed by a fraction of an asset. As an example, in August 2018, the St. Regis Aspen hotel was successfully tokenized. Tokenization has the power to add greater liquidity to these markets by making these investment opportunities more accessible. Another example, instead of an average person investing in a $500k bar of gold bullion, they could invest ~$50 in 1 gram of a bar of gold.
STOs are similar to ICOs, or Initial Coin Offerings, which were hyped in 2017, but deflated in 2018 as the SEC and other global jurisdictions began to crack down with new regulations. The beauty of the ICO was that almost anyone could take advantage of those investment opportunities, not just accredited investors. I believe that STO is the new wave, adding regulation, security, and a real store of value to the token while taking advantage of all the positive qualities of ICOs.
Using blockchain to facilitate trades of stocks, bonds, and equity makes perfect sense to me. It adds greater transparency and ease of transactions to traditional finance markets, and allows for truly global markets that can be accessed 24/7. Based on my conversations with a few credible US securities lawyers, it’s starting to become clear that within decades, all trading of this nature might run on blockchain.”
-Rhiannon Payne, Founder and CEO of Sea Foam Blockchain Media & Technology Studio
Source link http://bit.ly/2tnhSde
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Experts Predict the Next Big Use of Blockchain Technology
Experts Predict the Next Big Use of Blockchain Technology
We’ve heard a lot about blockchain technology in recent times. Blockchain is a critical part of the bitcoin peer-to-peer payment system and its ledger has helped improve transparency for transactions. But what else can this technology do?
There have been a lot of predictions as to the next great use of blockchain tech. Some have even said that blockchain could be the solution to gun control in the United States. So what else could the blockchain be used for? We went straight to the experts to find out.
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Digital Identity
“The most promising application of blockchain that is currently in development is digital identity. In the past few years, we have seen a crisis of privacy and trust in the digital and online environment, with events such as the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal, Equifax breach, and foreign interference via social media in the 2016 presidential election. Legislation like the EU’s GDPR demonstrate the people want more control and ownership over their personal data and digital identities.
Much like blockchain allowed for the first decentralized, user-owned digital money, the technology will also allow for the first self-sovereign digital identities. The term “self-sovereign identity” has been coined to describe the ability for a blockchain-based identity system to give users ownership over their digital selves and personal data. Existing models of digital identity rely on centralized authorities, like Google or Facebook, that manage identities on behalf of their users and can therefore take unilateral action, like locking someone out of their account. If you use Google to login to applications and websites, a simple mistake or intentional censorship by Google can suddenly leave you deprived of the identity you use online.
Blockchain can provide a decentralized infrastructure for digital identity. Only the identity’s owner would have control over the use of their identity, with no need to trust any third party when they wish to prove who they are online. Giving users sovereignty over their digital identities is the first step in returning data ownership to the individual and creating a more user-centric Internet.”
-Locke Brown, Co-Founder and CEO of NuID
Food and Beverage Supply Chain
“I think it will be in the production and distribution of food and beverage products in order to ensure quality, safety and sustainability. A number of high profile applications of blockchain have been in this industry. IBM Food Trust was being used by 10 large-sized food companies such as Nestle, Unilever, Walmart. As of June 2018, the system stored data related to 1 million items in about 50 food categories including Nestlé canned pumpkin, Driscoll’s strawberries and Tyson chicken thighs. As of July 2018, there were more than 350,000 food data transactions on the IBM Food Trust platform. In November 2018, IBM commercially launched its Food Trust. Companies of all sizes in the food industry supply chain can join the network for a subscription fee, which ranges from $100 to $10,000 a month. Carrefour signed an agreement with IBM to use the solution.
Some innovative applications for this sector have been launched by blockchain startups. For instance, Denver-based startup Bext360’s Bextmachine is a Coinstar-like device, which employs smart image recognition technology machine vision, artificial intelligence, IoT and blockchain to grade and track coffee beans. It takes a three-dimensional scan of each bean’s outer fruit. Each coffee bean is also provided a unique ID which can be used to track it throughout the life cycle. Wholesalers and roasters can learn about attributes that may produce certain tastes. They can make future sourcing decisions based on this.
Bextmachines analyze farmers’ coffee cherries and coffee parchment deposited at collection stations and sort them to assess the quality. Farmers that supply bigger and riper cherries are paid more. The Bextmachines link the output to cryptotokens, which represent the coffee’s value. New tokens are automatically created when the product passes through the supply chain. The values of tokens increase at each successive stage of the supply chain. The supply chain is transparent due to this step-by-step and detailed process. It makes sharing the value added among various supply chain participants fairer and easier.”
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-Dr. Nir Kshetri, Cybersecurity Author and Professor at University of North Carolina-Greensboro
Voting
“The next big space where blockchain technology will be implemented is voting. In the United States, which is supposedly the most advanced country in the world, it took us weeks to count voting totals in Florida for both a governor’s and Senate race. How is it possible that we need to be recounting votes and are using paper ballots in the 21st century? There is no reason it should take weeks before a winner is declared. Not only is it the speed of tabulation, but it can eliminate fraud.
A blockchain is an immutable ledger, meaning the votes can never be changed and they can be tabulated in real time–not to mention it gives voters the ability to vote without going into their local school or government building, it gives them the ability to vote anywhere. In the 2016 presidential election, the US had voter participation of only 55 percent, which is stunningly low compared to other developed nations. We also see a number of voters in the US who are disenfranchised because they feel voting is ridden with voter fraud and their votes not being counted.
Blockchain has the power to make voting easier, safer, more accurate, and increase participation. This could potentially change the course of the US. I cannot think of a bigger use case than that.”
-Kyle Asman, Co-Founder of BX3 Capital
Payments Industry
“We believe that the next big use of blockchain technology is in the payments industry. The current credit card authorization and settlement system was designed in the 1970s, and it hasn’t been updated for today’s world. The technology is slow and dated, transactions are hard to track, fraud is rampant, and there are many steps and players involved when moving money internationally. International transactions take days, with multiple players each taking a fee. Dominated by banks that control and dictate fees, it only becomes more expensive to move money each year.
In the last year or so, merchants from a wide variety of industries began offering cryptocurrency payments, and the technology has come a long way in a short amount of time. Not only are merchants now able to accept payments in crypto online, but also in retail settings through the use of QR codes.
Cryptocurrency payments are a game-changer because it allows the 1.7 billion people who do not have access to a bank account to finally shop online. With crypto payments, all you need is a smartphone and an email address.
Additionally, mobile wallet usage will increase as smart phone purchases continue to rise. This will open the potential for a fully compatible crypto and credit card mobile wallet to be introduced. Imagine one wallet on your mobile device that stores your cryptocurrency and traditional currency. This would be a huge push into a cashless society.”
-Eric Brown, Founder and CEO of Aliant Payment Systems
Smart Business Contracts
“Imagine a health insurance claim that automatically pays out as soon as your hospital uploads proper documentation of your illness or surgery. In the same way a real estate deal can conclude once your bank electronically verifies the loan. Smart contract-based applications that immutably, transparently perform routine tasks (like closing on a house) may not only render title companies obsolete, but also represent a significant cost- and time-savings for everyone from loan originators to closing agents.
The days of PDFs and electronic signatures for documents are gone. For smart contract-based insurance, the chief technical challenge is how to bring off-chain events, such as accidents, major diagnoses, death, etc. into the contract. This is the Oracle problem, but fortunately there’s a solution for it. “Smart Business Contracts” can automate many aspects of business interactions that are done by humans today, including insurance policies. For example:
To manage customer identity and data privately and securely
To store important financial records in a decentralized (and encrypted) network
To reduce human error and make processes (such as dispute resolutions) much more efficient
The use case of blockchain 3.0 is analogous to automated escrow accounts in the real world. The smart business contracts allows strangers to build trust without centralized insurance companies. Driven by a greater number of individuals and organizations, blockchains are now better equipped to enable this type of economic progress.”
-Dr. Michael Yuan, Technologist and Chief Scientist of The CyberMiles Foundation
dApps and Centralized Solutions
“What is the foundation of the blockchain technology? Two things:
Ability to tokenize any assets.
A database with unique rules on reading and recording of the database records (hence can’t erase the records).
Applying these aspects in different configurations (decentralized and centralized solutions), we see two clear trends:
Decentralized applications (dApps). For example, decentralized storage solutions, decentralize exchanges, decentralized prediction platforms, and other public sector solutions where the authority itself is a problem (due to privacy and trust issues) and is addressed by the blockchain on a fundamental level.
Centralized solutions for enterprise sectors, which allow companies to tokenize the assets yet set the trust rules, so business parties can trust each other not just based on the brand name/personal relationship, but based on irreversible historical data stored in blockchain based databases and smart contracts. Think medical applications, banking sector, and overall B2B relationship-based business solutions.
As we move forward, dApps have a high potential to lower the authority’s influence in the world and to democratize not only storage, trading, betting, but the election, bill passing, and other public affairs/services. As for the centralized solutions – it just getting started and we’re yet to see the real market applications. If these two trends succeed then it’ll be a golden age of the blockchain based technologies and cryptocurrencies too. If these two trends fail (too much regulation) then the blockchain will stay at the niche level or die out completely.”
-Alexey Semeney, CEO and Founder of DevTeam.Space
Security Tokens
“Right now, it’s clear to me that the next big use case for blockchain is Security Tokens. Security Token Offerings, or STOs, are investment vehicles that allow for the tokenization of real-world assets, such as real estate, stocks, bonds, intellectual property, fine art, bars of gold, stores of oil–you name it. Each token is backed by a fraction of an asset. As an example, in August 2018, the St. Regis Aspen hotel was successfully tokenized. Tokenization has the power to add greater liquidity to these markets by making these investment opportunities more accessible. Another example, instead of an average person investing in a $500k bar of gold bullion, they could invest ~$50 in 1 gram of a bar of gold.
STOs are similar to ICOs, or Initial Coin Offerings, which were hyped in 2017, but deflated in 2018 as the SEC and other global jurisdictions began to crack down with new regulations. The beauty of the ICO was that almost anyone could take advantage of those investment opportunities, not just accredited investors. I believe that STO is the new wave, adding regulation, security, and a real store of value to the token while taking advantage of all the positive qualities of ICOs.
Using blockchain to facilitate trades of stocks, bonds, and equity makes perfect sense to me. It adds greater transparency and ease of transactions to traditional finance markets, and allows for truly global markets that can be accessed 24/7. Based on my conversations with a few credible US securities lawyers, it’s starting to become clear that within decades, all trading of this nature might run on blockchain.”
-Rhiannon Payne, Founder and CEO of Sea Foam Blockchain Media & Technology Studio
Source link http://bit.ly/2tnhSde
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Text
How to Buy Bitcoin Anonymously
Buying bitcoin is not a revolutionary act. Nor should it be. And yet the way statists, apparatchiks and politicians bang on, you’d think the mere act of acquiring digital currency was akin to receiving the keys to a pandora’s box in which lurks every illicit artifact known to man. One day, these dinosaurs will begrudgingly concede that buying bitcoin is no more seditious than buying a soda with a $20 bill. But until then, you’ll want to preserve your privacy when acquiring cryptocurrency.
Also read: Wasabi’s Privacy-Focused BTC Wallet Aims to Make Bitcoin Fungible Again
Buy Your Bitcoin, Keep Your Privacy
The reasons why you might want to keep bitcoin ownership to yourself don’t require rehashing. Put simply, though, it’s no one’s damn business what you want to do with your money or how you wish to store your wealth. In the future, governmental scrutiny of bitcoin ownership will look as archaic and benighted as state intrusion into the religious or sexual preferences of its citizens. By the time that day comes, bitcoin may be worth a lot more than it is today. The steps you take to preserve your privacy in the present, therefore, may prove particularly precious in the future. Just think about 2011 bitcoiners who had no need to conceal their ownership at the time, only to find themselves sitting ducks once those bitcoins multiplied 3,000x by 2017.
Anonymously buying bitcoin in small amounts is relatively easy, though getting your hands on larger quantities without having to jump through hoops can be harder. Just as it’s common practice to use fake personal details when signing into public wifi, the same can be done when buying bitcoin through ATMs and terminals such as the newly repurposed Coinstar machines. Doing so will require a burner phone or a secondary SIM card that isn’t tied to your real world identity. Alternatively, search for “receive SMS online” to find links to services that will provide you with a one-time number.
Buying Bitcoin in Person
In addition to BATMs, which can be used to buy a few hundred bucks’ worth of crypto at a time, P2P sites like Localbitcoins.com enable you to locate sellers in your area and meet them in person. Better still, if you have acquaintances who work in the cryptocurrency industry or mine crypto, you should be able to purchase bitcoin directly from them, since they’ll be obliged to periodically liquidate some of their coins for fiat to cover living expenses. Newly mined coins are particularly precious (which is why they’ve been known to fetch a premium on OTC markets) because they have no history associated with them.
Purchasing bitcoin face-to-face (or face-to-ATM) brings its own risks, of course, particularly from a privacy perspective. If you would prefer it that no one knew of your business – not the miner you’re buying crypto from, nor the surveillance cameras watching you feed banknotes into the BATM in the 7/11 – you’d be better served transacting online. While this removes the ability to transact in cash, there are privacy gains to be made elsewhere.
Anonymously Buying Bitcoin Online
Finding a bitcoin marketplace that won’t KYC the hell out of you isn’t easy, but there is one platform that stands out from all the boot-licking exchanges willing to do the government’s bidding. Its name is Bisq, and what it lacks in liquidity and spot prices, it makes up for in privacy. The range of payment methods the P2P marketplace accepts is extensive: face-to-face is even an option, if you’re fortunate enough to live within range of a seller. Generally speaking, you’ll need to make payment using an e-wallet or bank transfer. While this entails certain compromises from a privacy perspective, it’s easy to disguise the nature of the transaction using a generic banking reference such as “Car” or “Video editing.”
Just as Localbitcoins.com will connect you with sellers willing to meet face-to-face, it will link you online in a manner similar to Bisq. Once again, if paying by bank transfer, you can put whatever you like on the pay-in reference, as most sellers do, as putting “bitcoin” on a bank reference is asking for account suspension. (This will change one day, but by the time it does, banks will no longer be relevant and will be begging bitcoiners for business.) It’s easy to set up a Localbitcoins account using a private email account, such as Protonmail, and a fake social media account and burner number if you’re particularly cautious. Hodl Hodl is another P2P market where verification is optional rather than enforced. The number of available offers is low, but Hodl Hodl has a wider range of cryptocurrencies including XMR and EOS.
Buy Privately Then Stay Private
Anonymity measures shouldn’t end the moment you’ve bought bitcoin. It’s an ongoing mindset that calls for using privacy-centric wallets such as Wasabi, avoiding sending funds to exchanges that enforce KYC, and also avoiding address reuse. But those are all topics we’ll cover in one of our next “How To” guides. Like bitcoin itself, privacy is likely to become an increasingly precious commodity in the years to come. The steps you take now to preserve yours will pay future dividends.
What other platforms do you recommend for buying bitcoin without KYC? Let us know in the comments section below.
Images courtesy of Shutterstock.
Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section.
The post How to Buy Bitcoin Anonymously appeared first on Bitcoin News.
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Bitcoin ATM Firm Coinme to Sell Bitcoin at Coinstar Coin Counting Machines
United States Bitcoin ATM (‘BTM’) operator Coinme has entered a partnership to sell Bitcoin (BTC) at coin counting kiosks owned by Coinstar, the company confirmed in a press release Jan. 17.
Coinme, which was the first BTM operator to receive a license in the U.S. in 2014, will reportedly add thousands of locations via the move, which has already seen integrations go live.
CEO and cofounder Neil Bergquist commented in the press release:
“Bitcoin is now accessible at your local grocery store via Coinstar kiosks, and this offering will make it even easier for consumers to participate in this dynamic new economy.”
Coinstar offers coin-to-cash conversion kiosks in various countries throughout the world. It remains unknown whether the Bitcoin feature will expand beyond the U.S., while the company did not provide figures on how many machines will offer it.
“Coinstar is always looking for new ways to offer value to our consumers when they visit our kiosks,” Coinstar CEO Jim Gaherity added.
According to industry monitoring resource CoinATMRadar, there were 4187 known BTMs worldwide as of Friday, of which 2516 (about 60 percent) were in the U.S.
The market has grown considerably in recent years, with various operators vying for control of what they believe will become a highly popular on-ramp for cryptocurrency usage.
A report published in September last year indicated that BTMs would grow to constitute a $144.5 million industry by 2023.
With increased presence comes increased risk, however, researchers last year also warning about the appearance of dedicated malware for the machines.
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Coinstar machines will start selling Bitcoin at the grocery store
You know those machines at the grocery store that transform your gallon jugs worth of change into more usable currency? They’re about to start selling Bitcoin .
To make this impulse shopping dream come true, Coinstar, the company behind those ubiquitous change-counting kiosks, has partnered with Coinme, a startup that operates a small network of cryptocurrency-dispensing ATMs around the country.
“Coinstar is always looking for new ways to offer value to our consumers when they visit our kiosks, and Coinme’s innovative delivery mechanism along with Coinstar’s flexible platform makes it possible for consumers to easily purchase Bitcoin with cash,” Coinstar CEO Jim Gaherity said in the announcement, first reported by GeekWire.
With 20,000 machines around the world, Coinstar operates a pretty huge network that could be enabled to dispense digital currency. As the company’s announcement states, there are “thousands in the U.S. market that can be enabled to accept Bitcoin transactions” though we’d guess it won’t hit those numbers for a while.
Coinme has digital currency ATMs in 11 states, including multiple locations in Texas, Washington and California, among others. While it’s not initially clear exactly how many machines will become Bitcoin-ready, Coinme’s site also states that the partnership will result in “thousands of places to buy Bitcoin.”
The Coinstar Bitcoin locator tool wouldn’t point us to any local kiosks when we tried, but if you can track one down, buying Bitcoin from the updated machines sounds pretty easy. It’s worth noting that you’ll need cash for the exchange — you won’t be able to trade digital money or credit for cryptocurrency here.
After sticking your paper money into one of the machines, the newfangled kiosk will dispense a voucher for a Bitcoin redemption code that points you to Coinme. The limit is $2500 and you’ll need to link a phone number to the transaction, though it’s not clear if you can just make one up to get around that kind of questionable requirement.
After last year’s wild highs and painful if inevitable lows, cryptocurrency’s cool off period might be here a while — particularly if the stock market keeps everyone battening down the hatches. Given that, the kiosks would have been met with more interest during the most feverish moments of early 2018 when everyone was trying to navigate the sometimes complex process of buying their first cryptocurrency. Still, given Coinstar’s ubiquity, the Bitcoin kiosks might pique the interest of some shoppers who just cashed out thirty bucks worth of nickels.
As Bitcoin sinks, industry startups are forced to cut back
source https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/17/bitcoin-coinstar-coinme/
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Text
Coinstar machines will start selling Bitcoin at the grocery store
You know those machines at the grocery store that transform your gallon jugs worth of change into more usable currency? They’re about to start selling Bitcoin .
To make this impulse shopping dream come true, Coinstar, the company behind those ubiquitous change-counting kiosks, has partnered with Coinme, a startup that operates a small network of cryptocurrency-dispensing ATMs around the country.
“Coinstar is always looking for new ways to offer value to our consumers when they visit our kiosks, and Coinme’s innovative delivery mechanism along with Coinstar’s flexible platform makes it possible for consumers to easily purchase Bitcoin with cash,” Coinstar CEO Jim Gaherity said in the announcement, first reported by GeekWire.
With 20,000 machines around the world, Coinstar operates a pretty huge network that could be enabled to dispense digital currency. As the company’s announcement states, there are “thousands in the U.S. market that can be enabled to accept Bitcoin transactions” though we’d guess it won’t hit those numbers for a while.
Coinme has digital currency ATMs in 11 states, including multiple locations in Texas, Washington and California, among others. While it’s not initially clear exactly how many machines will become Bitcoin-ready, Coinme’s site also states that the partnership will result in “thousands of places to buy Bitcoin.”
The Coinstar Bitcoin locator tool wouldn’t point us to any local kiosks when we tried, but if you can track one down, buying Bitcoin from the updated machines sounds pretty easy. It’s worth noting that you’ll need cash for the exchange — you won’t be able to trade digital money or credit for cryptocurrency here.
After sticking your paper money into one of the machines, the newfangled kiosk will dispense a voucher for a Bitcoin redemption code that points you to Coinme. The limit is $2500 and you’ll need to link a phone number to the transaction, though it’s not clear if you can just make one up to get around that kind of questionable requirement.
After last year’s wild highs and painful if inevitable lows, cryptocurrency’s cool off period might be here a while — particularly if the stock market keeps everyone battening down the hatches. Given that, the kiosks would have been met with more interest during the most feverish moments of early 2018 when everyone was trying to navigate the sometimes complex process of buying their first cryptocurrency. Still, given Coinstar’s ubiquity, the Bitcoin kiosks might pique the interest of some shoppers who just cashed out thirty bucks worth of nickels.
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Via Taylor Hatmaker https://techcrunch.com
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