CryptoCurrency News: 2018: The Year We Democratize Blockchain

Cryptocurrencies may be in a market mania, but that interest will spark a new wave of blockchain growth according to Deloitte's top blockchain lead.

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CryptoCurrency News: South Korean Banks Face Scrutiny Over Crypto Exchange Ties

South Korea's financial regulators began inspecting commercial banks to monitor their compliance with new cryptocurrency exchange rules.

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CryptoCurrency News: SEC Branch Trolls Blockchain Stock Pumpers

The Securities and Exchange Commission's Fort Worth branch joked about the recent fad of companies adding "blockchain" to their names on Twitter.

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CryptoCurrency News: ViaBTC Announces Shutdown of Crypto Mining Contract Market

Chinese bitcoin mining pool ViaBTC has announced that it will close its marketplace for mining contracts this week.

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How To Get Ripple

Ripple, or XRP, is both a protocol and a cryptocurrency. As a protocol, it is designed to facilitate inter-bank foreign exchange transactions. Ripple is designed to allow banks to send money to each other without a central counterparty and it’s based on the open source Interledger protocol. Ripple is also designed to allow integration with payment providers.

As a cryptocurrency, Ripple is currently fourth in terms of market capitalization: it appears fourth after Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin Cash. It’s current value, at time of writing, is US$0.77. In terms of trading history, the past year has brought some volatility with significant price spikes and drops.

How is Ripple Different

Ripple is designed for speed and scale – the network handles 1,500 transactions per second and payments get settled within four seconds. Compare that to the 3-6 transactions per second for bitcoin and payment settlement of bitcoin of an hour.

Unlike other cryptocurrencies, you cannot mine Ripple. The supply of Ripple was created when Ripple hit the market in 2012. While some Ripple is in circulation, about 38 billion Ripple, 55 billion Ripple is held in escrow for release at a future time. As a result, the only way to get Ripple is to buy it from an exchange.

How to buy Ripple

The following exchanges support Ripple, or XRP: Bitstamp, Kraken, GateHub and Changelly. In most cases you can exchange US dollars for Ripple, however, you can also exchange bitcoin for Ripple. Moreover, you’ll have to be verified by the exchange before you can by XRP – verification often involves uploading some form of identity documents. You may be required to make a bank transfer if you want to fund using US dollars and fees may apply – the individual exchanges provide you with all of the details. Changelly allows you to buy Ripple using a credit card.

Ripple Wallets

In terms of wallets, you have several options. The most secure option is to use a hardware wallet like the Ledger Nano S which supports Ripple. We discuss the Ledger Nano S in detail in another article about Hardware Wallets. In addition, there are no per-transaction costs when using a hardware wallet.
Coinpayments allows you to transfer between coins yet it also provides you with a Ripple wallet. The site accepts over 90 altcoins and charges a fee of 0.5% for transfers between altcoins. The fee gets changed only when you perform a transaction so there’s no fee to store your Ripple in their wallet. Withdrawals from the wallet are free too, unless you’re using it as a method of payment.
GateHub is an exchange yet it also provides a Ripple wallet. The advantage of having your wallet with an exchange is that you can easily view the value of your Ripple in US dollars. GateHub also sends you an email whenever you spend or transfer Ripple to help you keep up to date on your transaction.
Rippex is a decentralized exchange that also offers a Ripple wallet. The website is in Brazil, yet everything is in English. Be aware that Rippex asks you for identity documents when signing up. Because it is a decentralized exchange, you’re responsible for maintaining the private keys for your wallet and help with a forgotten password is not available. See our Decentralized Exchange article for details about how a decentralized exchange works.

Conclusion

This article introduced the Ripple cryptocurrency, explained how it’s different from Bitcoin, and explained how you can store Ripple.

CryptoCurrency News: Vermont Could Collect Taxes in Crypto Under Proposed Law

A state legislator in Vermont has proposed a bill to create a regulatory framework for blockchain tech, including a transaction tax payable in crypto.

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CryptoCurrency News: The Crypto Market Just Dropped on One Data Adjustment

CoinMarketCap, perhaps the go-to source for cryptocurrency market data, has sparked an uproar after it moved to exclude South Korean exchanges from its price average calculations. The unannounced move to remove data from Bithumb, Coinone and Korbit from its average calculations sparked confusion given that its front-page suggests a broad decline in the cryptocurrency market, […]

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[FOREX NEWS] Pound ignores the negative indicators – for how long?

GBP/USD enjoyed the initial weakness of the US dollar to rally and stalled at a high level of resistance, 1.3615. And as the dollar recovered, cable retreated but never went too low.  There are reasons for the pound to go lower, but it currently ignores them. Will Sterling fall with a delay? Or was it [...]

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[FOREX NEWS] USD/CAD resumes its falls after the upbeat BOC report

The Canadian dollar enjoyed a big boost from the excellent jobs report. It was the second superb report: a gain of around 79K positions in Canada. This is comparable to two consecutive months of 700K jobs gained in the US. USD/CAD fell from around 1.25 to just under 1.2360. With a new week in play, [...]

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CryptoCurrency News: SEC Suspends Trading of Hong Kong Blockchain Firm's Stock

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has halted trading of a Hong Kong-based firm UBI Blockchain.

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CryptoCurrency News: Ripple Down 30 Percent as Bull Run Fades

Ripple's XRP token is down more than 30 percent today, amid losses across the wider cryptocurrency market.

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CryptoCurrency News: Banks and the Blockchain Blues

Banks excited about their blockchain work may do well to monitor their signal-to-noise ratios in 2018.

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CryptoCurrency News: Delaware State's Blockchain Lead is Leaving

The founding director of the government-backed Delaware Blockchain Initiative has departed for a consultancy based in the state.

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CryptoCurrency News: Overstock Leads $2 Million Funding for Blockchain Voting Startup

Medici Ventures, a subsidiary of online retail giant Overstock.com, has led the seed funding round of mobile voting platform Voatz.

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CryptoCurrency News: Bitcoin Faces Bear Move as Price Drops Toward $15K

Bitcoin is looking weak today after prices failed to hold above $17,000 levels at the weekend.

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CryptoCurrency News: Indian Lawyer Files Petition Demanding Cryptocurrency Regulations

An Indian lawyer has filed a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking to force action on the regulation of cryptocurrencies in the country.

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CryptoCurrency News: IBM, Comcast Back New Blockchain Startup Fund

IBM and Comcast Ventures are backing a blockchain investment fund aiming to scale early stage start-ups focused on enterprises.

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CryptoCurrency News: I Love Bitcoin. That's Why I Sue Exchanges

The lawyer who's filed more crypto class actions than any other speaks out on his outlook on the blockchain industry.

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[FOREX NEWS] Ripple price: fails to recover, loses second-place

After Ripple dethroned Ethereum as the second cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization, the gap just widened and widened. Ripple’s value exceeded $150 billion and according to some calculations, its CEO became one of the world’s richest people.XRP/USD surpassed $3.30 at some point. Yet the quick ascent was followed by a quick descent. The move [...]

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[FOREX NEWS] EUR/USD slips under 1.20 on extended USD recovery, weak German data

EUR/USD was unable to break above 1.20 after the disappointing Non-Farm Payrolls report from the US on Friday. What cannot go up, probably must come down. The pair is now slipping under the very round 1.20 level which it held onto so nicely last week. The low so far is 1.1985. Support awaits at 1.1910, [...]

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CryptoCurrency News: Weathering the Altcoin Shitstorm (And Investing for the Next One)

The crypto markets may be divorced from fundamentals, but that doesn't they're devoid of patterns and rhythms you can read.

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