Month: December 2018

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Zclassic

What is Zclassic?

Zclassic is a decentralized and open source cryptocurrency created to offer optimal privacy and selective transparency to users. In their website, Zclassic development team markets it as a fair and impartial coin that provides users with optimal value and privacy.

Zclassic was forked from Zcash in 2016 by Rhett Creighton. Creighton was concerned that the 20% of the native Zcash coins (ZEC) that went to founders after mining compromised the whole idea of decentralization. He removed the 20% founder’s reward (about 22 lines on the Zcash’s code) to create a new coin referred to as Zclassic (ZCL). Therefore, Zclassic is a replica of Zcash minus the founders’ reward.

Like Bitcoin, Zclassic has a total of 21 million coins that will only exist in its network. Besides, it uses proof of work consensus protocol and equihash hashing algorithm.

In the white paper, Creighton pointed out that the primary goal of Zclassic is remaining as similar as possible to Zcash but to ensure that all the rewards from mining go to miners. Though this could look like a great idea, it also has a downside because there is limited cash to support development. This could translate to very poor experience.

  • A closer look at Zclassic price history

The price of Zclassic (ZCL) in the markets can be traced back to November 2016 after Creighton forked Zcash and released the coin into the market. Zclassic did not have a problem of initial distribution because it was distributed through an airdrop to all ZEC holders.

Immediately after hitting the market on November 10th, 2016, the price of ZCL was $5.27. Then, it dropped by about 800% to $0.56 and remained below $0.6 until February 2017. In May 2017, the value of ZCL rose to $8.6 before falling to $1.7 by mid-2017.

Between mid-November and January 7th2018, the value of ZCL shot up to unprecedented levels of $235. This growth resulted from Creighton’s announcement that he was going to team with another ZCL developer to revitalize the coin. He also released a manifesto on Zclassic pointing that he planned to merge Zclassic with another Bitcoin fork.

NOTE: The suggestion to merge Zclassic with Bitcoin Private (another coin) did not go well with developers. Creighton was accused of taking advantage of the blockchain ecosystem and was kicked out of the Bitcoin private project.

In February 2018, the value of ZCL dropped steadily to hit a low of $88.88 before climbing to $169 on March 18th, 2018. After the second peak, the price of ZCL crashed in days hitting a low of $7.8 on March 6th, 2018 and sank further to $4.6 in 11th April 2018.

The price continued on a downtrend in the remaining part of 2018 to hit a low of $1.43 by the close of November 2018. This is lower than the point when ZCL entered the market. It will be interesting to see the direction that Zclassic will take after the community is increasingly becoming concerned about Creighton’s love for forks.

What is the problem that Zclassic solves?

The blockchain technology has been evolving at a rather fast rate. However, issues keep emerging at every step. The following are the main issues that Zclassic solves:

  • Centralization of resources in crypto networks

As new blockchain networks hit the market, it is easy for the larger community to fail reading through the finer details of operations. However, even with the impressive design of Zcash network, one cryptographic expert, Rhett Creighton, was quick to note that a lot of resources were being directed to the founders as opposed to miners.

At Zcash, 20% of the miners’ rewards are directed at rewarding the founders.  This means that 20% of the coins that will be mined about 4 years after launch would go to founders. It also implies that the founders will have an upper hand in the decisions made about the blockchain.

Rhett Creighton felt that this model was going against the original principal of decentralization as espoused by Satoshi Nakamoto. However, concerns have been raised about simply scrapping the rewards because the network could end missing funds for development.

  • Lack of privacy in blockchain systems

One of the main challenges that have dogged the blockchain networks in the globe today is lack of privacy. The primary goal of creating decentralized networks was to ensure that people could send funds without worrying about third-party seizures. However, this has become a mirage as technology evolves making it easy to pull individual details of people in various networks. We demonstrate this using the largest network, Bitcoin.

When Bitcoin was created in 2009, people joining it thought that they could easily run transactions without worrying that third parties could know about them. However, you can no longer claim that transactions are secret when operating on the Bitcoin network.

The Bitcoin network uses pseudonyms that only hide the user’s name. However, other details such as IP addresses are not hidden. This implies that transactions from a specific location, home, computer, and address can be filtered to know about a specific user.

Third parties can also carry transaction graph analysis to uncover hidden transactions. This means tracing multiple transactions directed to a specific address. If one of the senders transacting with a specific address is known, it will be easy to uncover others.

Lack of privacy in top networks such as Bitcoin has resulted in migrations to other coins such as Zcash and Zclassic that put a lot of weight on anonymity.

  • The high cost of sending value in the crypto networks

If you send funds through a conventional financial institution such as a bank, the cost is high. Banks and credit card companies are designed with a profit based model. Therefore, they always look at avenues to increase the transaction fee as a way of optimizing value.

Remember that the transaction charges are also targeted at helping to help the institutions meet costs such as wages and rent. The Zclassic founder felt that people were paying too much to send funds but rarely got value for services. In some cases, transactions take up to 4 days because conventional financial service providers have to comply with anti-money laundering (AML) and know your customer (KYC) requirements.

How does Zclassic solve the problem?

To address the above issues, Zclassic founder and entire development team adopted a raft of measures that also targeted to position the coin strategically amidst fast-growing competition. The team was especially focused on presenting itself as a better option than the immediate competitor, Zcash.

  • Zclassic did away with the 20% founder’s rewards

Rhett Creighton forked the Zcash code by clearing away the lines that effected 20% founders’ reward. This implies that miners working on the Zclassic system take the entire reward for mining new blocks. In the first four years, the miners’ reward is 12.5 ZLC. This reward will half after every four years.

The improved rewards to miners imply that there will be more nodes supporting and securing the Zclassic system. However, this could also mean a potential challenge when the miners’ rewards halves after every four years. The same miners that Rhett Creighton wanted to impress could opt for other coins with more rewards.

The development team is also likely to suffer from poor motivation because of limited funds available to drive their operations. Unless Rhett Creighton and the development team address the issue, the chances are that Zclassic could get overtaken by others for poor user experience.

  • Zero-knowledge proof technology

Like Zcash, Zclassic employs encryption technology referred to as zero-knowledge proof to guarantee users of optimal anonymity. This technology is a method of authenticating transactions without exchanging passwords. Therefore, an attacker cannot simply target hacking your system to acquire a password and pull out personal details.

In Zclassic, the zero-knowledge protocol allows one party (prover) to prove to another party (verifier) that he knows a specific value (call it X), without giving other info apart from the fact that he knows the value of X. The basic principle of the technology application in Zclassic is that other details apart from knowing the value being transferred are trivial.

Using the technology, people Zclassic system are assured that when they relay transactions, there is no way they can be followed back. Even if it is a trader who has sold items to a client, there is no method that can be used to follow the buyer.

  • Complete decentralization

The problem of centralization in the financial system has made cryptographic experts look for alternatives that can help to pull down the cost of transactions. Zclassic is a completely decentralized network. This means that it relies on nodes spread on its system to store data, confirm transactions, and secure it.

Complete decentralization implies that when you send funds, they are relayed on a peer2peer basis. This model implies that the transactions are completed faster and are cheaper. Indeed, it does not matter whether you are sending funds from one continent to another. The transaction will be instant. The only thing that you will need is to have both the sender and receiver in the same network.

What makes Zclassic better than it’s competitors?

When Zclassic was created, it wadded into a fast-evolving industry. In about ten years from 2009 when Bitcoin was launched, more than 1600 have entered the market. Here are the main things that make Zclassic better than competitors.

  • Zclassic is a completely anonymous coin. This means that users can send and receive funds without worrying of getting discovered by third parties.
  • The Zclassic system provides users with a cheaper and faster platform for sending value across the globe.
  • As a completely decentralized system, the Zclassic network provides users with total freedom of operations. This implies that unlike the conventional systems that remain closed in weekends and holidays, the Zclassic system is always open to users.
  • Zclassic is one of the secure coins in the market. By the close of November 2018, no hacking attack had been reported in its network. This is a demonstration that its core code is strong and the development team committed to keeping it as secure as possible.
  • The cryptocurrency platform is led by a tech team that is capable of crafting unique resolutions to the industry. This is one of the reasons why the Zclassic community is optimistic that ZCL will become the ultimate coin in the crypto niche.

How can Zclassic’s be categorized?

Zclassic can be categorized as a completely decentralized and private coin. The platform relies on nodes spread on the network without favoring any party including the founders when decisions about the coin are being made. Besides, the application of zero-knowledge protocol has made it possible for users to operate in total anonymity.

What is Zclassic’s vision on security?

The Zclassic’s vision on security is to make the platform the platform the most secure and reliable system in the niche. The development team built on the already tested and proven Zcash system and enhanced the following features.

  • Use of advanced encryption
  • The application of the zero-knowledge protocol
  • Zclassic team progressively reviews and updates the platform to clear vulnerabilities

Examples of Zclassic use cases/ applications

To know the effectiveness of a cryptocurrency, one of the best methods is checking its applications. When Rhett Creighton forked Zclassic from Zcash, he targeted at increasing the use cases because more people could make direct purchases without worrying of getting discovered by third parties such as authorities. Here are the main use cases of Zclassic.

  • You can use ZCL to trade in the markets that list it. Good examples include Cryptopia, Bittrex, and Safe Satoshi.
  • Like other coins such as Bitcoin, ZCL can be used to buy goods and services from stores that accept it. Note that even in those stores that do not support Zclassic, it is still possible to make a purchase by converting the token to the supported coin.
  • Zclassic is a reliable method of sending value across the globe on a peer2peer basis.
  • If you want to save funds anonymously, you can use ZCL. The application of zero-knowledge proof implies that even government authorities cannot know about your transactions.
  • Zclassic native coins can be used to pay for government services in countries that accept the coin. Good examples include Arizona and Singapore.

https://cryptovest.com/news/bitcoin-private-team-ousts-rhett-creighton-for-suggesting-another-obscure-coin-fork/

https://coincheckup.com/coins/zclassic/charts

https://coincheckup.com/coins/zclassic/news

https://coincheckup.com/coins/zclassic/analysis

https://coincheckup.com/coins/zclassic/purpose

https://coincheckup.com/coins/zclassic/discuss

https://zclassic.org/pdfs/whitepaper.pdf

 

 

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Bitmark

What is Bitmark?

Bitmark (abbrev BTM) is a decentralized and peer2peer cryptocurrency forked from Bitcoin. The coin was created by a Taiwan based company referred to as Bitmark Inc. By the close of November 2018, the company was headed by Sean Moss-Pultz who also served as the CEO.

BTM is a proof of work (PoW) coin that employs scrypt hashing algorithm. Though it is a Bitcoin fork, Bitmark has 27.5 million coins while the former has 21 million. Other important parameters include a block time of 120 seconds and block reward of 20 BTM for every block. The block reward haves every three years as opposed to 4 years in Bitcoin network.

  • A closer look at BTM performance in the market

When BTM was released into the market in August 2014, its value was $0.096. Then, it grew steadily to hit $0.77 by 22nd September 2014. Then, the value took a downward trend hitting a low of $0.024 by July 2015. The value remained within the range of $0.01 and $0.08 between July 2015 and July 2016 when it took a steady bullish trend.

By 24th September 2016, the value had grown to $0.4. In June 2017, the value of BTM broke through the $1 mark to hit a high of $1.62. After dropping to $0.4 by November 2017, the value started took an upward trend again and rose to $3.39 on January 6th, 2018. This was a huge growth of about 3400%. It was also the highest mark in the BTM history.

The good show recorded by the close of 2017 and early January 2018 did not last. Immediately after hitting the peak of 6th January 2018, the price took a steady downtrend and hit a low of $0.8 by the close of February 2018. But the drop did not stop there.

By mid-April, the value of BTM had dropped to $0.4 before going down further to $0.02 by October 2018. This is indeed lower than the starting mark of August 2014. If you target to invest in the coin, it is important to closely follow the price performance and compare it with other coins before buying the tokens.

What is the problem that Bitmark solves?

When Bitmark entered the market in 2014, the pioneer crypto networks were starting to experience major issues that threatened their success. Here are some of these issues that Bitmark solves.

  • Poor adoption of cryptocurrencies in the market

If you take a closer look at the cryptocurrency niche, one could be tempted to think that everything is okay because of the long list of coins entering the market every year. For example, there were more than 1600 crypto coins in the market by the third quarter of 2018. However, the same growth is not reflected in people’s lifestyles.

If you have some coins and want to purchase an item downtown, only a few stores will be supporting it. The truth is that when a new coin is released into the market, the buyers who rush to purchase are investors who purchase in bulk. Then, they sell to others when the price goes up.

The target of Bitmark is making more people to join the niche and enjoy the benefits of decentralization. It targets to make crypto coins as effective as the fiat currencies in different areas ranging from shopping to investment.

  • Centralization of financial services

The conventional financial services such as banks and credit card companies operate as completely centralized systems. Transactions are processed by staff or automated systems in centralized locations. For example, the workers in your bank have to look at all transactions before approving them.  While this is the model preferred by governments, it comes with a number of issues.

One, the centralized system is an easy target for attackers. It can also be easily damaged by disasters such as fire or weather and cause huge losses.

Two, centralized systems can be a subject of mismanagement. By entrusting the management of clients’ funds to a few individuals, there is a risk of losing personal savings in the event of mismanagement that result in bankruptcy.

  • The high cost of sending value

This is perhaps the most notable issue in most centralized financial systems. To raise the funds for paying staff, rent, and optimize profits, most banks opt to raise the cost of transactions. By passing this cost to customers, some of them are forced to only send lower amounts in order to meet the transaction costs.

Notably, people have been complaining that even with the high cost of sending money, they do not get the value they anticipated. For example, the transactions take long before they can be processed. In some cases, it can take up to four days before the recipient gets the coins

How does Bitmark solve the problem?

  • Marking

Marking system was adopted in the Bitmark system to help users note traders who are trusted and those who are not. As more traders adopt the digital coins, some have started abusing the notion of anonymity. For example, since transactions are irreversible, some opt to send the wrong or substandard items to users.

The marking system is a system to help advance the use of BTM and other coins by marking such traders so that other users can easily note them. Traders with positive markings are trusted and, therefore, reliable top buy from. Do not risk your funds by purchasing from traders who cannot be trusted.

  • Bitmark operates as a completely decentralized network

This is the main method that Bitmark uses to solve the above problems. Unlike the centralized financial organizations that store user data and run transactions from a centralized place, the Bitmark system is completely decentralized. This means that all transactions are run by nodes spread in the system.

When a user initiates a transaction, it is taken over by the miners on the platform. The nodes follow back the transaction initiator to confirm he has ample funds to use and prevent double spending. If everything is okay, they add the transactions to the next block and attach it to the public ledger.

Use of decentralized nodes implies that there is no centralized point of failure. The data and all transaction details are stored in different computers so that users are assured it will always be available no matter the time of the day or night. Even if one node is offline or falls off, the data will still be available from other nodes.

  • Application of Scrypt algorithm

Scrypt mining algorithm is a memory-intensive hashing algorithm created to help advance the concept of even coin distribution. The idea was to lower efficiency of ASIC equipment so that more people could mine and use the native coins.

Though Scrypt was very effective when it was first deployed at Litecoin, the discovery of scrypt ASICs made it less effective. Top examples of the mining equipment include the Antminer L3+ and Bittech L1.

What makes Bitmark better than it’s competitors?

When Bitmark entered the market in 2014, the competition was not as severe as four years later when more than 1600 coins had entered the market. Therefore, the development team had to craft a winning strategy and progressively review it to remain competitive. Here are the things that male Bitmark better than competitors.

  • The marking model used at Bitmark helps to put users in greater control of their digital operations compared to other coins in the market today.
  • The platform allows users to join and own the network. When you become a node on the Bitmark system, you can send value, mine, and participate in its governance through voting.
  • Birmark provides users with a reliable and secure way of sending value across the globe.
  • The transactions on the platform are encrypted so that users can send value or invest without worrying about third-party seizures.
  • The Bitmark network has been in operation since 2014. This implies that its features and structures have been tested and proven to work. The crypto community is always skeptical of new projects because it is difficult to tell whether the designs are pump and dump schemes.

How can Bitmark’s be categorized?

Bitmark is a completely decentralized and an ambitious project that seeks to empower users more by allowing them to mark enterprises and traders based on trust. The founders appreciated that even though the ideas of decentralization and anonymous operations are helping people to match to the next level faster, there is a danger of scammers hiding in the system.

Though the unique model did not help to push the price of the BTM up especially in 2018, it could ultimately turn out to be the stepping block for the crypto success. The team holds the view that people will be able to follow on the marks of different operators the way it happens in many e-commerce sites.

What is Bitmark’s vision on security?

The Bitmark’s vision on security is offering users a reliable and secure platform for sending value at the local and international level. The target is helping people to feel secure to invest their money in the coins and run transactions without worrying of attacks or losing their coins.

Here are the main methods used to keep the network secure:

  • Advanced encryption
  • The development team reviews the platform and releases new updates regularly to clear vulnerabilities
  • Bitmark network is completely decentralized to facilitate even distribution of native coins to prevent the risk of 51% attack

Examples of Bitmark use cases/ applications

The primary goal of Bitmark of extending its use cases is manifested in multiple use cases. Here are the main use cases of the Bitmark.

  • Bitmark can be used to send value on a peer2peer basis to any place across the globe. Unlike other financial providers such as banks that are centralized and take long before transactions can be completed, users on Bitmark can send value faster because both the sender and recipient are on the same network.
  • The Bitmark native coins can be used to pay for goods and services in stores that support the coins. As more stores start supporting digital coins for direct payment, it is possible to make payments for products in a store downtown or e-commerce platforms using digital coins. Even in the event that a store only supports a different coin, it is still possible to complete payment by converting BTM to the accepted coin in an exchange that lists it.
  • BTM can be used to trade in the exchanges that list them. Like other coins such as Bitcoin, you can trade BTM in exchanges such as Cryptopia and Bytex. Note that these markets require users to open trading accounts and verify them before they can start trading.

Note that when trading in the exchanges, you will be required to provide additional information about yourself before trading can begin. You need to be prepared for this because the encryption that guarantees privacy in the Bitmark system is absent in centralized exchanges.

  • Bitmark can be used to pay for government services such as taxes and utility bills in jurisdictions that support cryptocurrencies such as Singapore and Arizona. Take the case of Arizona. In April 2018, Arizona passed HB 1094 that mandated the tax department to accept cryptocurrencies. If a resident pays tax in BTM, the coins are converted to USD and credited to his account.
  • BTM is a reliable coin for saving and investing in cryptos. If you have interest in venturing into the cryptos, the first step is buying a potential coin such as BTM. The performance of BTM in the market has been impressive and the community is optimistic that the value will finally take an uptrend in the coming years.

It is important to appreciate that the expected positive growth is only speculative. There are many factors that come into play to determine the price trend of a coin. For example, the looming legislation in various countries such as Russia, the EU, and the US are expected to affect the crypto prices negatively. Therefore, it is advisable to only invest a small number of your native coins to avoid and closely follow the emerging trends.

https://coincheckup.com/coins/bitmark/charts

https://coincheckup.com/coins/bitmark/analysis

https://coincheckup.com/coins/bitmark/news

https://coincheckup.com/coins/bitmark/events

https://coincheckup.com/coins/bitmark/resources

https://www.bitmark.io/

https://bitmark.com/assets/bitmark_technical-white-paper.pdf