The DIRT Protocol blockchain tech startup has secured $3 million (USD) in seed funding from some of the most prominent venture capitalists and angel investors in all of Silicon Valley – and the crypto and initial coin offering (ICO) space at large.

On Wednesday, Yin Wu (Founder, DIRT Protocol) – an alumnus of YCombinator and Stanford who had her previous company acquired by Microsoft – uploaded a blog post declaring the successful $3M seed-stage raise.

She described DIRT as “a protocol for decentralized information curation.” Their mission? To “organize the world’s information and to make it freely accessible.”

Coinbase Co-Founder, Leading Crypto VCs Get DIRT-y

As for who participated in the $3M seed round, Wu reeled off a string of a dozen venture capital firms, angel investors “and others;” most of whom have proven to be highly active in the vibrant blockchain and crypto space – with some having even invested directly into ICOs.

Noteworthy funds that invested in DIRT Protocol’s seed round were Pantera Capital, Digital Currency Group (DCG), General Catalyst, and Greylock Partners.

There were multiple angel investors who participated, also. Included in the blockchain startup’s seed-stage raise were some of the crypto industry’s most familiar names, including Fred Ehrsam (Co-Founder, Coinbase), Linda Xie (Co-founder, Scalar Capital; Ex-Product Manager, Coinbase), and Avichal Garg (Managing Partner, Electric Capital).

Where to Now for Cashed-Up DIRT Protocol?

The California-based team at DIRT will now focus on developing their blockchain protocol and establishing alliances with early-stage partners. Also, their whitepaper will be released “in the coming weeks,” per Wednesday’s announcement.

Upon completion of their mainnet development, DIRT will hope to have built a protocol capable of curating information based on a native token-staking mechanism that incentivizes honesty. It proposes to be similar to Wikipedia (as well as blockchain-based Everipedia), in so far as any member of the public can contribute information to DIRT.

Where DIRT begins to distinguish itself, however, is by enforcing the requirement that contributors will “need to deposit (i.e., stake) tokens to write data.” This means that DIRT – which is a protocol to build Token Curated Registries (TCRs), and not itself a TCR – will make it “economically irrational for misinformation to persist in a data set.”

1/ Hello world. Today we are announcing that we’ve raised $3M to build the protocol for decentralized information curation. https://t.co/e1udMVfNmb

— DIRT Protocol (@DirtProtocol) July 11, 2018

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John McAfee is one of the most colourful and controversial figures in the whole cryptocurrency space and his promotion of ICOs has become notorious in the sector. Last month he revealed that he was charging $500,000 to promote an ICO… per tweet. And he claims to be worth it. His Twitter account is described by his team as “by far the most influential in the field of cryptocurrency,” and a “single tweet” can bring in “more than a million dollars of investment.”

However, it seems that those days might be over. McAfee tweeted today that due to “SEC threats” he was done with promoting ICOs. What’s more, he suggested that regulators had killed the sector and that “those doing ICOs can all look forward to arrest.” Rather than pursue a model which seems doomed to failure due to regulatory interference, he informed his followers that he was “writing an article on an equivalent alternative to ICOs,” a new model which “the SEC cannot touch.”

Due to SEC threats, I am no longer working with ICOs nor am I recommending them, and those doing ICOs can all look forward to arrest. It is unjust but it is reality. I am writing an article on an equivalent alternative to ICOs which the SEC cannot touch. Please have Patience.

— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) 19 June 2018

This reversal is particularly surprising as McAfee had previously seemed eager to take the fight to regulators. Just last week he said that he would never submit to the SEC’s stance that ICOs are securities. In fact, he would, “fight with every last breath to ensure that this absurd overreach by the SEC will not stand!”

“All ICOs are Securities”!
.
I will not now, nor will I ever, accept this as a reality. I am submitting, now, to this law, but I will fight with every last breath to ensure that this absurd overreach by the SEC will not stand!! It will not stand!https://t.co/7l2l8pryPh

— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) 14 June 2018

Earlier this month he had encouraged his followers to contact the SEC directly and demand that SEC chair Jay Clayton debate him on the issue .

McAfee Predictions and Promotion

McAfee made his name in the crypto space with his bold predictions about the future price of Bitcoin. Last summer he predicted that Bitcoin would be worth $500,000 by the end of 2020. Then, in November, with the market booming, he revised that upwards to $1 million.

When I predicted Bitcoin at $500,000 by the end of 2020, it used a model that predicted $5,000 at the end of 2017. BTC has accelerated much faster than my model assumptions. I now predict Bircoin at $1 million by the end of 2020. I will still eat my dick if wrong. pic.twitter.com/WVx3E71nyD

— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) November 29, 2017

His impact on the ICO and altcoin world increased with his “Coin of the Day” picks. Last December he shelved the initiative “due to heavy pressure from crypto adherents, exchanges, developers and every other corner of the earth.” The feature had been widely seen as a causing market turbulence with bots and short term traders engaging in pump-and-dump schemes based on his predictions.

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The news media is in crisis, with falling revenues, lower public trust and declining morale. According to a Gallup poll in 2016, the American public’s confidence in mass media to “report the news fully, accurately and fairly” has reached a historic low point. Only 32% of respondents reported feeling a great or fair amount of trust in the media.

The situation is now so bad that Collins Dictionary chose “fake news”, defined as “false, often sensational, information disseminated under the guise of news reporting,” as its word of the year for 2017.

This erosion of confidence has profound consequences for our democracies and public institutions. The writer G.K. Chesterton said that when men “choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.” The same might be said of losing faith in public information.

Clearly a new model is needed to restore the public’s faith in unbiased and accurate reporting. DNN, the Decentralized News Network, is building a solution to re-empower news media, and re-energise our public debate.

The News is Broken

DNN likens the U.S. media landscape to the country’s telecom and cable industries. There is “little-to-no regulation or transparency” while a few enormous corporations have turned the market into an oligopoly, squeezing out choice for consumers. Furthermore, those corporations are “motivated by overt political agendas which erode public trust.”

The increasing concentration of media power in the hands of a few players can be seen in the startling decline of smaller organisations in U.S. news. In 1983 50 different companies accounted for 90% of news coverage. That has now plummeted to just six conglomerates: Comcast, News Corp, Walt Disney, Viacom, Time Warner and CBS.

Though the internet has allowed anyone to express and publish content ignored by the big six, it has also blurred the lines between fact and fiction. It is increasingly difficult to distinguish what is relevant, what is unbiased, and what is true.

The Decentralized News Network

DNN’s mission is to “create news content that is both empowering for our readers, as well as representative of the integrity of our writers.” The benefits of the platform “extend to news consumption, news creation, and fact-checking.”

Using the Ethereum blockchain means that DNN’s infrastructure does not have a single failure point, making it resistant to government censors and creating an infrastructure “that is virtually impossible to infiltrate or take down.”

DNN is open to submissions from any writer. This content is then appraised for accuracy by a team of anonymous reviewers. Stories which pass this stage will be published to the viewing public. Thanks to the use of blockchain there is no risk that the stories will be taken down due to pressure from powerful interest groups.

The platform is therefore free to present accurate information, free of the “corrupt incentives or hidden agendas, which plague most news corporations.”

Readers will receive a more balanced, less censored news picture, as well as having greater confidence in what they read. Writers will have more control over their work and publications and news agencies can take advantage of “an additional layer of fact-checking for their content.”

The ecosystem is powered by the DNN token. Writers earn DNN for their work, reviewers are paid in DNN, and readers can add to their DNN balances by suggesting articles or spotting inaccuracies.

The Distributed News Network ICO is currently in private pre-sale. The date of its public sale will be announced this week.

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Disclaimer: The content of this article should not be taken as investment advice. CryptocoinSpy does not endorse any product on this page and although we aim to issue our audience with the most important information available all readers should complete their own research. 

No business exists in isolation. Each has customers, and suppliers. Each collaborates with other businesses on new opportunities. These networks, these relationships, need to have trusted pathways to share the right data, while ensuring that other data are protected.

Under the current models billions of dollars are lost each year from data leakage, limited access to the correct data and disputes over contracts. ZDNet has estimated that data leaks alone will cost the global economy $2 trillion USD by 2019.

There is a golden opportunity here for the implementation of new technology to make these processes smarter, more efficient, and more secure.

Loyakk

One new ICO thinks it has the answer. Comprised of veterans from businesses like SAP, Oracle and IBM, Loyakk is building the “Vega Enterprise Relationship Platform”, powered by the LYK token. It is envisioned as the foundation for the “next generation (of) enterprise business networks” which will “enable businesses to collaborate and thrive in the decentralized economy.”

The company’s patent-pending blockchain technology will allow for the platform to “support permissioned sharing of data” through “standardized communication interfaces.” By using smart contracts to consistently apply security and business rules there will be “greatly improved security, efficiency and distributed governance across any business network.”

Not only will businesses be able to share data with confidence, but the smart contracts embedded in the LYK token will drive automatic processes and allow worldwide collaboration through the platform.

Indeed, it is the use of smart contracts which is the key differentiator of the Loyakk platform.

Not only does the LYK token protect and track data as it crosses business networks, it also manages permissions about who can see that data and how it might be shared, allowing for full cross-company auditing.

The combination of secure data-sharing, automatic processes and smart contracts allows for all members of a business network to “get on the same page,” and will thus “accelerate revenue generation, reduce transaction times, decrease processing costs and improve overall experience and satisfaction for customers and all ecosystem members alike.”

Loyakk sees its mission as transforming “how businesses create and deliver value in the new decentralized economy,” and has brought in an impressive roster of advisors, including Anthony Thomas, the Global CIO of Nissan Motors and Patricia Hatter, the former CIO of McAfee.

This integration of blockchain with enterprise needs is surely the next stage in the development of the industry. Research and advisory company Garner predict that by 2025, “the business value-add of blockchain will grow to more than $176 billion by 2025”.

Loyakk v2 is currently being built, for release later in the year. Customer acquisition will begin in earnest in 2019.

The ICO is currently in progress and will run until July 22nd.

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Disclaimer: The content of this article should not be taken as investment advice. CryptocoinSpy does not endorse any product on this page and although we aim to issue our audience with the most important information available all readers should complete their own research. 

The online education market is seriously big business. Forbes valued it at $165 billion in 2016 and predicted that it’d be worth as much as $240 billion by 2023. The recruitment industry is even bigger, bringing in $150 billion in 2016 in the USA alone.

However, both sectors are also riddled with inefficiencies and are ripe for disruption by the correct technology, properly applied. The Open Source University believes that it can transform two industries in dire need of overhaul.

The need for a better system is obvious to anyone who has applied for a job, taken a course or tried to hire a new employee.

Glaring inefficiencies in the current system

Potential employees have to spend their time presenting themselves in the best light, and constantly have to update and redraft CVs rather than being free to concentrate on building their skills.

Recruitment is expensive and time-consuming for both employers and future employees. Businesses must sift through piles of applications from unqualified candidates, while applicants can all too easily miss an opportunity which perfectly matches their skills and experience.  

Then there are the difficulties in being able to trust the information presented by candidates. Verifying credentials can take weeks so can only be undertaken for a few select applicants. Meanwhile, job-seekers may be wasting their time developing skills which are unwanted by business; if they knew what employers actually valued then they could choose where to put their attention.

These problems can be grouped into two types. The first is information problems, which are down to certain pieces of knowledge (for example, the skills that businesses want from their employees) not being adequately shared with academia and job candidates. Then there are the verification problems: the difficulty in knowing that someone really has the skills they have claimed to have.

The Open Source University Solution

Into this mess comes the Open Source University. Described as the world’s “first Distributed University,” it plans to leverage “distributed ledger technology to provide acquisition, verification and validation of knowledge and skills.”

Broadly speaking its solution comes in two parts: a blockchain verification system and an online marketplace, powered by the EDU token, which uses “sophisticated matching algorithms” to partner the needs and opportunities of businesses, academia, students and employees.

Candidates’ achievements are saved to the blockchain and are therefore much more trustworthy than the claims made on current employment sites which are expensive and time-consuming to verify.

The second part of the model is as a global marketplace for talent and education. Currently there are thousands of online courses and MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) spread over hundreds of websites. OS.University puts everything in one place, opening up “access to high-quality education and career development opportunities to hundreds of millions.” This “distributed university” will start with integrating “700+ of the world’s top universities and 60+ million MOOC learners.”

Algorithms will match students with courses likely to meet their goals, while also identifying potential employees for businesses. This will reduce search costs and inefficiencies for all parties in the ecosystem.

For the Open Source University this amounts to a re-engineering of the current model and creates a new “system to enable smarter transactions of information and value through institutional and national borders.”

The ICO is currently in progress, with EDU tokens available at a 15.3% discount until the end of the week.

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Disclaimer: The content of this article should not be taken as investment advice. CryptocoinSpy does not endorse any product on this page and although we aim to issue our audience with the most important information available all readers should complete their own research. 

On Tuesday, it was announced that Wanchain (WAN) – an interoperable blockchain – has agreed to officially partner with one of its six WANLab accelerator projects, CryptoCurve (CURV), “to become the ‘Front-End of Wanchain.’”

From Wanchain’s perspective, the decision to permit CryptoCurve the responsibility to handle its front-end design, user-experience (UX), amongst other things, appears sound. Indeed, CryptoCurve (see: pitch deck) exists so as to help expedite “the mass adoption of blockchain technology” by making UX as simple and streamlined as possible; an element the crypto industry has so far struggled with.

And so, as Wanchain continues working toward an early–mid July public launch of the highly anticipated Wanchain 2.0 – which will allow for cross-chain functionality with the Ethereum protocol – CryptoCurve will soon take to publicly releasing their own products; each of which promises to uniquely complement the Wanchain ecosystem.

Per Tuesday’s announcement, these upcoming products coming out of CryptoCurve are:

MyCryptoCurve Wallet – a Wanchain-friendly offline wallet

CurveMask – an interoperable Metamask based on Wanchain

Wanchain Block Explorer – complete with a streaming API service and node clustering to live stream data from the Wanchain blockchain

As an outcome of today’s partnership announcement, “any cryptocurrencies registered and compatible with Wanchain” will, via the Curve wallet, automatically be made available for decentralized, liquid exchange.

What’s more, users of this soon-to-be-released Curve wallet will have the ability to invest directly in Wanchain-specific ICOs; all achievable simply by using the dApp. These users will also be able to “stake CURV tokens for airdrops and create or join ICO pools seamlessly.”

Tuesday’s announcement certainly seems well-timed, for there are a host of ICOs preparing for launch atop the Wanchain blockchain. Of course, April 16^th saw Wanchain unveil its very own blockchain accelerator and incubator, WANLab.

Six projects accompanied this WANLab launch announcement, and you can’t help but think that most, if not all, are awfully close to commencing their respective ICO campaigns. Aside from CryptoCurve, the other five WANLab projects revealed upon launch were UTour (UTO), AllSpark (ASK), GameBank (GBC), Abacus, and Freedium.

#CryptoCurve is excited to announce its partnership with @wanchain_org & their strategic agreement for #CryptoCurve to become the ‘Front-End’ of #Wanchain. Any cryptocurrencies registered & compatible w Wanchain will be available for exchange once the #CurveWallet releases pic.twitter.com/6AyPXHhzOL

— CryptoCurve (@Crypto_Curve) June 12, 2018

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The market for cloud storage has exploded in recent years, and with a compound annual growth rate of 23.7%, it’s expected to reach over $88 billion by 2022. Businesses benefit as it allows them to minimise capital expenditure while offering their workforces increased mobility. Within the sector, data archiving solutions are predicted to grow the fastest: i.e. long-term secure storage of data kept for future reference or to comply with regulators.  

However, cloud storage has a major problem: how do you keep your data safe?

For most businesses, the cost of trying to ensure cyber-security exceeds the cost of storing the data. $30 billion is spent each year on cloud storage, and $120 billion is spent trying to protect that data. Worse, this expenditure is clearly ineffective as the losses from cyber crime are even higher. Cyber crime costs the world economy $750 billion per year and this figure is growing at 30%.

The biggest problem with cloud storage is its centralisation. Cloud storage providers are huge “honeypots” for hackers to target. If they can get past the defences then there is an enormous amount of data for them to access.

Award -winning ICO Cryptyk has an answer for this problem, decentralizing cloud storage with blockchain technology.

The Cryptyk Solution

Cryptyk have come up with an ingenious solution to the hacking problem. Rather than trying to prevent security breaches, which are likely inevitable, it has created a system which ensures that anything hackers can get their hands on is useless so “hacking now becomes a cost-inefficient or unprofitable pursuit.”

The Cryptyk platform will offer a complete cloud storage and security solution to individuals, small businesses and enterprise. It is comprised of two complementary technologies, VAULT and SENTRY.

VAULT is “safe-to-hack”. That means that it assumes that “unwanted breaches will remain frequent and inevitable” so it makes sure “that any stolen data is rendered useless to external hackers.” Each file is encrypted and “sharded” into 5 different parts. Each of those parts is encrypted again, and then stored with a 3rd party storage provider like Amazon Web Services or Google Drive. Every file will have six associated encryption keys, to be stored on the user’s personal devices, not on the cloud.

This Decentralization and storage node redundancy means that VAULT protects your data from external threats such as hackers, viruses and operational failures. SENTRY offers protection against the internal threats — bad actors in your organisation — and intercept threats, someone accessing your data not while it is in storage, but when it is moving from one location to another.

SENTRY keeps a permanent record of all relevant events like user access and file sharing through the blockchain. Not only that, it allows companies a way to encrypt their email and messaging and “offers offline key back-up, digital leak protection, threat analysis, data geo-fencing and user quarantining for network administrators.”

The SENTRY network will use the CTK token to track files, verify users and audit security functions. The CTK token will also have an associated economy, offering other benefits. It will both encourage the growth of the customer base while also incentivising third parties to develop new plugins and integrations for the platform.

Cryptyk is currently conducting a private pre sale for its CTK token. $3 million has already been raised and the minimum purchase amount is $5,000. The public sale will launch on July 18th, with a minimum purchase of 2,000 CTK, or around $250. The ICO hard cap is $25 million and the sale will close on August 31st.

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Disclaimer: The content of this article should not be taken as investment advice. CryptocoinSpy does not endorse any product on this page and although we aim to issue our audience with the most important information available all readers should complete their own research. 

With the World Cup just around the corner everyone’s thoughts are turning to football. For many, those thoughts are also turning to gambling. Something to make the less exciting games just a little more interesting.

Online gambling is a huge global industry. The market was already worth $30 billion by 2013, and this figure looks set to double by 2020. By being able to use computers, and particularly phones, the idea of placing a bet has become normalised for many people who may not feel comfortable going to a casino or bookkeeper.

The big trends in the industry are an increasing popularity among younger players, the use of cryptocurrency and ever easier internet access. According to sports network ESPN, “The  typical  sports bettor  is a 30-year-old  married guy living  in the suburbs, with  a household income of $74,000  a year.”

Online gambling in need of disruption

However, there are also serious problems in the industry. First of these is centralization. Online gambling firms are vast depositories of customer data, including financial data, making them hugely attractive targets for hackers. The centralized nature of the industry also makes it vulnerable to sudden changes in regulation, or pressure from government. Accounts may be closed, or funds frozen, without notice or explanation.

Then there are the costs. Gambling firms must acquire expensive licences for all of their markets. They must also keep large reserves of capital to cover their users’ bets. In addition, they will have to use third parties for payment processing, which will have fees and waiting times of their own. These overheads are passed on to the customer in fees, which are usually as high as 10-15%.

The industry is ripe for disruption, and Canadian startup meVu think they have the answer.

Enter meVu

meVu offers a decentralized version of the online gambling model. Users will make bets directly with each other, rather than with a centralized bookie. For meVu this allows, “betting  based competition  without reliance on  payment processors, reduces  operational regulatory burdens,  and protects against organizational  corruption such as fraud and embezzlement.”

Running on the Ethereum blockchain meVu will hold the stakes from both sides of a bet on a publicly viewable escrow, with winnings immediately paid out on the result of the bet. Funds are kept on the blockchain with no individual, company or institution able to interfere with those funds.

Keeping all bets in ETH, rather than converting to fiat, means that fees can be reduced to as low as 2%, while transaction times are considerably increased throughout the system.

At launch two types of bets will be available. The first is the kind of sports betting familiar to most people: football, baseball, boxing etc. The second type is custom or social bets. meVu allows its users to bet on anything which has two outcomes.

Friends could decide to make a bet on who will win a game of table tennis, or who can lose weight the fastest. Making these bets through meVu is cost-effective and prevents players from welching. Any dispute will be settled by an “Oracle”, someone who has acquired meVu tokens in the ITO, who will receive ether for their trouble.   

MeVu is currently conducting its private pre sale, and recently announced a major investment from Blockstake, a “next generation utility company” which provides the infrastructure services, such as masternode operations and proof of stake mining, needed by blockchain networks and ICOs.

The public sale will start September 10th 2018.

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Disclaimer: The content of this article should not be taken as investment advice. CryptocoinSpy does not endorse any product on this page and although we aim to issue our audience with the most important information available all readers should complete their own research. 

Every day more people are entering the cryptocurrency world. At time of writing the total market cap for crypto assets is around $330 billion. According to some estimates that may grow to be as large as $40 trillion by 2030.

Alongside this growth comes an exploding demand for crypto financial services, and today’s banking institutions are ill-suited to cope.

The Baanx ICO plans to meet this need by creating a platform for crypto-banking and fintech innovation.

Baanx Chief Operating Officer Sean Salloux says that our current financial institutions are “slow, they’re based on old legacy technology.” Actions which should “only take seconds, like transferring money, take days.”

Existing systems ill-suited to crypto

As described in the Baanx white-paper, the current financial system is “based on 1960 and 1970s technology- mainframe computers, massive central databases, and slow antiquated systems.” Not only are they slow, they are “inflexible and expensive to maintain.”

Designed for a world without cryptocurrency, these systems are ill-suited to absorb these new technologies.

Customers today want their banking to be quicker, cheaper, and more personalised. And more and more of them want those banking services to include cryptocurrencies.

For Salloux, “one of the reasons we started Baanx in the first place is we were crypto-enthusiasts but we wanted to see mass adoption.” For that to happen, “we need a better, faster and less expensive infrastructure.”

The “Amazon Model” for Cryptobanks

The Baanx ICO team is made up of veterans from major financial institutions like JP Morgan, UBS, MasterCard and the London Stock Exchange and has considerable experience in the banking industry, having delivered millions of dollars worth of loans in the last few years. Together they aim to create the world’s first crypto-banking network: the “Amazon model” for cryptobanks.

The goal is to “ensure that everyone has access to full-service cryptocurrency banking services they need.” To achieve this, not only will Baanx offer services such as debit and credit cards, secure wallets and lending, but by sharing its banking licenses it will allow brands or fintech startups to offer their own financial services through the Baanx OpenAPI© platform.

Baanx is licensed with the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK and through an E-money license in the EU. It plans to expand into Asia and the USA next year, with South America and Africa coming in 2020.

These licenses will be shared with partners “within a rule-based and highly compliant system utilising smart contracts,” allowing those brands to “offer their existing clients and potential customers add-on financial services in a low risk and manageable approach.”

The platform will be powered by Baanx’s BXX token. The BXX ICO pre-sale is currently in progress, with the first million dollars worth of tokens being offered at a 60% discount.

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Disclaimer: The content of this article should not be taken as investment advice. CryptocoinSpy does not endorse any product on this page and although we aim to issue our audience with the most important information available all readers should complete their own research. 

The first ICO to ever launch on the VeChainThor (VET) blockchain has been revealed: an all encompassing decentralized gaming and content platform called Plair.

The Plair ecosystem is looking to create a completely new, amateur and most of all decentralized eSports market. Streaming, an in-game betting system and communication functionality will all be implemented, as well community management support.

VeChain brings to the table a powerful combination of professional advice, resources and community backing that is needed as a premium blockchain partner. We are excited to work together to pioneer a way to better serve gaming enthusiasts,” said the CEO of Plair Foundation, Patrick Tung.

Plair will also have support from VeChain’s ICO Incubation team, with Sunny Lu, VuChain’s CEO, assisting as a strategic advisor.

There is a hard cap of US$30million for the ICO, there is a strong chance of high amounts of interest being shown as this is the first time long-term VET holders can use their tokens for an initial coin offering.

The private sale phase of the offering will begin on May 25.

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