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The fact that Singapore has become a shining example of a government steadily adopting, and encouraging the adoption of a new technology like blockchain despite its reputation of being extremely stringent in its policies does not come as a surprise for two reasons. First, it is one of the few first world countries in South East Asia, making its affinity for all things pro-advancement quite expected; second, the recent crackdown on cryptocurrencies and ICOs in Beijing has sent investors looking for fertile ground elsewhere. Singapore, already the world’s third-largest ICO launch pad after the United States and Switzerland in terms of money raised, was a natural choice.

Of the scores of enterprises converging to this nation to ride the blockchain boom, California based software development company HashCash has taken its operations halfway around the world and set up a base there. The response, as reported by its senior management, has been astounding. HashCash, already a prominent name in the industry for providing blockchain based banking solutions, has its range of products and services in use in 26 countries. It has also been recognized as the largest producer and vendor of White Label products globally.

One of the first major moves this company made on entering the Singapore shores was to partner with Singapore based Investment Evolution Coin Ltd, which gave their team the initial understanding the pace and flavor of the domestic market. Not only are the bigger firms taking risks with the new technology and willing to bear the financial burden of giving their existing technical infrastructure an overhaul, the small and medium-sized enterprises are also viewing blockchain as a mechanism crucial to future profitability. The potential for business, partnerships, and associations is visibly immense.

In the past few years, the increasing incorporation of the decentralized digital ledger to increase efficiency, security, traceability, and accountability has made it indispensable across industries including finance, medical research, space exploration, and entertainment media, among others. ICOs have, to a significant extent, replaced VCs as the chosen mode to fund startups, and blockchain companies are increasingly aiding in digitizing the value of a varied line of products through cryptocurrencies. In fact, the use of cryptocurrencies, one of the primary functionaries of blockchain, will see an immense growth in Singapore, given the immense volume and whirlwind rate of exchange of fiat currencies the nation sees on a daily basis, mainly owing to the prime tourism spot it markets itself as.

 

Source: https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/hashcash-expands-base-in-singapore-the-new-land-of-blockchain-boom-1027577604

Bigger countries have always been on the forefront of the blockchain game – some going out of their way to embrace it, and others going the other extreme of putting a ban on it all together. On one end of the spectrum are countries like Switzerland working to establish itself as a haven for blockchain companies, and on the other end is China doing the complete opposite.

Somewhere in between the two extremities lie countries that are working on laws to regulate blockchain technology and companies that are developing it, and countries that are striving to adopt blockchain into their already existing body of legislation. The latter group includes budding nations such as Bermuda, Estonia, and Liechtenstein. Malta can be said to spearhead this initiative by recently declaring itself a blockchain island, whereby all their government regulations have now become blockchain based.

Bermuda has recently devised plans to implement amendments to their Banking Act which would lay the groundwork for a new class of banks dedicated to offering services to local blockchain organizations and FinTech.

In its bid to make blockchain feel welcome, the Estonian government digitized its services by using blockchain technology. This move to embrace the potential of the game-changing technology has resulted in easing the process of start ups to build their own innovative projects, where it takes about a week to complete the process of company registration.

California based software development company, HashCash, specializing in creating blockchain powered banking services and products, is collaborating with entrepreneurs to set up their businesses in these countries. Their expertise in cryptocurrency trade and exchange, cross-border remittances, white label products, among others, has made them a go-to name for enterprises seeking top-of-the-line solutions suited to their industry. HashCash has gained renown for its successful collaborations with regulators and prominent corporates in USA, UAE, India, Philippines, Luxembourg, and Malta, among others, to aid in effectively managing and evolving the new market.

The lack of a global standard for cryptocurrency and blockchain regulations makes it difficult for companies to freely select a geographic location to set up shop in. Market watchers speculate that a united force for regulations could culminate from the G20 2018.

SOURCE : https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/hashcash-plans-to-aid-with-the-adoption-of-blockchain-in-smaller-nations-1027472393

Blockchain permits the establishment of the network when any data of value has to be transferred from one person or enterprise to another.  Each block is linked cryptographically to the previous block right up to the genesis block. Any member who chooses to be the validator must have the copy of the database of the complete blockchain transaction ledger. This makes tampering with the blockchain database quite difficult. All the active members of the network can validate their copy of ledger if in case the blockchain is intercepted.

Blockchain, at its core, is essentially the combination of cryptography and distributed databases. Both technologies were around for a long time. So blockchain is not actually a new technology. It is the combination of these two technologies and its application in transferring currencies and assets that make it a game changer.

We often come across public and private in the context of blockchain networks.

According to Raj Chowdhury, MD of HashCash, “The bitcoin network is the genesis as well as the largest implementation of a public blockchain. Private blockchain implementations typically involve a group of banks and corporates that got together to form a blockchain network.”

Public Blockchain enables a user to join and contribute to an open network.  The network of public blockchain is entirely open so that anyone can join and work in different core activities. Also, anyone on a public blockchain can run a node without any conditions on the terms of admission into the network. Public blockchains, typically use miners to validate transactions. The process of mining consumes electricity and computing resources to solve the proof-of-work.

Private blockchains typically do not employ proof-of-work for validation.

In a private blockchain, it is enough to know who in the network attempted to play foul. Private blockchains are guided by business policies which can levy a fine for a participant who attempts to add an invalid or double spent transaction.

Recently, a third type, known as permissioned blockchain has gained prevalence among banks and corporate houses.

But what are permissioned Blockchain?

A permissioned blockchain is operated by known entities such as stakeholders of a given industry. It is a mix of both private and public blockchain. In this type of blockchain network, a participant may not need permission to join the network, but needs permission to transact with another network participant.

One of the best examples of Permissioned Blockchain is HC Net, created by California-based Company HashCash. This network allows anyone to join or become a validating node. However, if a member wants to transact with a participant on the network, they need to extend a trust line.  This trust line further needs to be approved by the other member, for bilateral transactions to happen on the network.

It appears that the invention of permissioned blockchain takes the best of public and private blockchains to strike a balance between network liveliness and security.

More or less, all bitcoin mining companies are well-versed in the traditional process of mining bitcoins. But recently, a variety of eco-friendly bitcoin mining techniques have come up in the market which is grabbing the attention of miners from all over the world.

The whole story behind bitcoin is to democratize the economy of the whole world. Due to the processing power requirements and an increase in the mining costs, the creation of a number of bitcoin mining pools has taken place recently. These mining pools are run by different data centres which belong to different companies. These companies invite different customers to invest for a significant share of Bitcoin as rewards.

The most crucial operation in the economy of Bitcoin is mining which is solely responsible for verifying and registering dealings on the blockchain. This kind of mining operation needs a huge amount of processing power in order to make it energy intensive. A particular hardware, known as the ‘Application Specific Integrated Circuits’ (ASICs) supplies the processing power.

Due to the growth in the number of bitcoin and its transactions, the mining of bitcoin is getting more and more difficult. For this reason, there is a high demand for processing of power which is a necessity in the bitcoin mining mechanism.

There is a good news for the companies who mine Bitcoin mining is that they can select places in order to set up their data centres where they can acquire alternative energy. In this way, they can maximize profit by reducing energy costs.

When the matter comes to price, electricity produced from renewable sources is always cheaper when compared to various other common sources.  In the present time, the production of renewable energy is restricted to solar energy and harnessing the wind energy. A more efficient way of converting energy into electricity is by wind turbines.

Cryptocurrency is also encouraging homeowners to get solar panels if they want to mine their own currency. SolarCoin is a type of cryptocurrency which is mainly designed in order to encourage people to buy solar panels.

HashCash is partnering with Energify World, a solar company based out to bring renewable energy for Cryptocurrency mining for its enterprise clients.  

The company, NastyMining was established in 2012 in Arizona that uses both wind and solar energy to mine bitcoin. A US solar power company, SunPower, donated 29 panels for this project. OgNasty, the founder, created this platform for a pool of small-scale miners. He tries to keep mining fun and not only for the purpose of earning profit.

HydroMiner, another crypto mining company, was initiated by 2 sisters, Nadine and Nicole. These sisters were self-taught and they mine various types of cryptocurrencies using harnessed green energy from hydropower stations from the Austrian Alps. The main goal of this company is to produce the lowest carbon footprint for the company. They also plan to acquire other hydro plants hoping that small investors will be able to join this profitable mining operation.  The company uses water from power plants in order to cool their mining equipment and claims that it is 85% cheaper than the average cost in Europe.

A number of companies are establishing their data centres in places such as Iceland where energy is generated using green and renewable energy programs. The solar panels and wind turbines are also penetrating the market with affordable prices. All these factors when put together will soon democratize the activity of mining like it was originally meant to be. All of us can now welcome miners using greener alternatives than traditional ways of bitcoin mining.

A great deal of speculation has been made by different experts about Bitcoin and its future. While many of them say that it will continue to depreciate in value, others say that it will break all its record and will enjoy a high value.  Here is the recap of how different experts are acknowledging price predictions of bitcoin.

Nicholas Colas

Co-founder of DataTrek Research, Nicolas Colas, thinks Bitcoin to be bubble based and has a lot of interest in it. He urges different investors to be careful as the interest towards bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are declining. Due to this reason, the possibility of emerging new money is killed before it can enter the market.  He also noted that the underlying technology of bitcoin is growing rampantly.

Ran Neu-Ner

Ran Neu-Ner says that investing in Bitcoin is safe as interest towards this field is not decreasing. In 2017 there were more than 27,000 startups of blockchain which was surpassed in the first 2 quarters of this year. On June 2018 he said that the market of bitcoins will go down and this is a great time to buy bitcoins as the value of this cryptocurrency is decreased recently.

Raj Chowdhury

Raj Chowdhury, MD at HashCash Consultants, a California-based blockchain technology company, stated that there will be two competing factors that will determine the price of bitcoins. On one hand, the popularity of cryptocurrency among institutional investors will bring cryptos further into the mainstream. At Hashcash we are noticing that financial enterprises are creating complex instruments with cryptocurrencies such as index funds, securitization of crypto-based assets, a variety of utility coin offerings.

On the other hand, we are noticing an avalanche of new cryptos competing with Bitcoins that are flooding the marketing. So traders will have more investment options other than bitcoins.

For example, cryptocurrency HCX is being used as a mechanism to settle cross-border payments is head-on with Bitcoins. Overall, crypto is going to see a bull market. It appears that Bitcoins prices are going to stabilize at around USD 12,000 by the end of this year.

Mohamed El-Erian

Mohamed El-Erian, the chief economic advisor of Allianz who touched the needs of people believes truly in Bitcoin. He said that prices are declining now whereas, in 2017, a large number of investors jumped with great confidence into this cryptographic world.  He truly believes that in the future the world of digital currency is very strong and the government will be largely involved in it.

Arthur Hayes

The CEO and Co-founder of Bitmex, Arthur Hayes, said that there is a possibility that we have come to a point which is stable now. This is because due to the drop in price, the volatility is seen less.

Brian Kelly

The CEO and founder of BKCM LLC, Brian Kelly said that bitcoin is not only a single option where people can think of a long-term investment. He added that Ethereum has performed better than Bitcoin in the present digital era.

Tom Lee

Earlier this year, Tom Lee predicted that by the end of 2018, the price of Bitcoin will be $25,000. He added that Bitcoin is still a great option to invest in. The reason behind this presumption is three-fold:

•         the cost of mining
•         difficulty is rising
•         by applying previous averages,

Hence, the value of bitcoin comes roughly around $22,000.

These are the recent price predictions on Bitcoin by the cryptocurrency industry experts.