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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.

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

 

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Zennies

What is Zennies?

Zennies is a cryptocurrency and a decentralized platform created to help facilitate secure transfer of value across the globe. The coin name, Zennies, takes from a Japanese term ‘Zeni’ that means small change. It is one of the new coins in the niche having entered into the market in March 2017.

By the close of November 2018, the coin was valued at $247,583 well ahead of other more popular coins such as FORCE and Dinastycoin with market capitalization of $231,741 and $219,991 respectively. Here is a closer look at the coin’s price performance in the market.

  • The price movement of Zennies since its establishment

While the operational model of Zennies is impressive, its value between the time of entry into the market on April 18th, 2017 and close of November paints a concerning decline of about 900%. When Zennies entered the market in April, its value was $0.002 before falling to $0.001 in early May and then climbing back to $0.002 on May 6th, 2017.

In the subsequent one month, the value of Zennies rose steadily to hit the first peak of $0.004 before falling to $0.002 in early May and rising again to hit another peak of $0.003 in August. Again, the price declined to $0.002 in September before rising to $0.004 in January 13th, 2018.

In 2018, the value of Zennies has been on a bearish trend culminating to the lowest mark of $0.0002 by the close of November 2018. Though the price started showing signs of recovery by the close of November 2018, it will be interesting to see how it will perform in the highly competitive market in the coming years.

What is the problem that Zennies solves?

When Zennies entered the market, it sought to address the financial sector’s issues that had dogged the niche for years. Here are some of the problems that Zennies solves.

  • Centralization of financial services

When Zennies was launched, most financial transactions in conventional institutions were run in a centralized manner. If you are sending value using the conventional banking system, it is processed by the staff in the respective institution. The bank pools the user data and deposits in centralized vaults that are run by the organization’s management.

The main issue with centralized financial models is that the risk of failure is very high. For example, the data is an easy target for hackers because it is centralized. The funds can also be mismanaged by the banking leadership resulting in bankruptcy. In such a situation, there is a danger of losing your funds or getting it locked over a long time.

The centralized model of operation also implies that the banks and credit card companies have to follow all the procedures described by their licensing authorities. These include anti-money laundering (AML) and know your customer (KYC) rules. These procedures make processing transactions lengthy and can at times last up to 4 days.

  • Lack of privacy when saving or sending funds through conventional services

When a bank runs transactions, all the users’ details get exposed. Your info is easily accessible to the cashiers, bank management and financial planners of your jurisdiction. But this is not all. A court of law can also order for the transactions in case a lawsuit hauls its way to your doorsteps. The effort to use blockchain networks to guarantee users privacy has also not been very successful.

If you take the case of Litecoin and Bitcoin, the advancing technology is making it easy to know the details of individual nodes. For example, IP address analysis allows investigators to follow the specific computers that initiated or processed transactions. It is also possible to analyze individual transactions to narrow down to the individual user. Zennies targets to enhance the privacy of users when they invest and run transactions.

  • The high cost of sending value at the international level

When banks and credit companies are designed, the primary goal is optimizing returns on investment. For the management, the higher the returns they make, the better. They keep adjusting the cost of transactions upwards to ensure that shareholders can get ample return on investment. But this is not the only reason for the high cost of sending transactions.

Most banks have to be positioned strategically to make it easy for clients to access services. This means running multiple branches downtown. The bank managements have to charge high interest rates to meet the high cost of rent, pay wages, and run multiple marketing campaigns. Zennies target to eliminate all these costs and make the transactions as cheap as possible.

  • Poor adoption of cryptocurrency at the lower level

If you take a closer look at the crypto market, it is easy to conclude that everything is going on well. But that is incorrect.

If you draw closer, you will realize that most of the coins are in the hands of a few people. When new coins are released into the market through initial coin offerings (ICOs), those who are fast and buy them are investors with a lot of money.

The initial buyers hold the coins for sometime and only release them when the price moves up. This is the reason why you can walk downtown and lack a store that accepts payment in digital coins. Zennies targets to ensure that more people can join and start using the cryptos in their daily lives.

How does Zennies solve the problem?

To address the above issues, Zennies took a multi-dimensional approach to reach more, demonstrate value, and encourage users to continue using digital coins in their lifestyles. Here are some of the strategies adopted by the platform.

  • Complete decentralization

Zennies operates as a completely decentralized network. Unlike the centralized banking systems that rely on centralized data centers and staff, Zennies uses a network of nodes spread in its system. When a user initiates transactions, they are picked by the nodes that follow back to confirm they have ample funds to use and prevent double spending.

Use of centralized nodes further means that there is no single point of failure. Unlike banks that can easily be compromised if one staff decides to damage documents, such an attack is impossible on the Zennies system. Because the blocks are stored by different nodes in their computers, clients’ info will always be available no matter the time of the day or night.

Even if one node falls off or is offline, the details will easily be accessible from other nodes. This model gives users the peace of mind that they will never lose their financial transactions. The decentralized approach has made the blockchain to become attractive even to companies that fear losing user data.

  • Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus model

After Bitcoin launched its operations, most of the subsequent crypto networks followed its consensus model of proof of work (PoW) model. However, proof of work protocol has become a major cause of inefficiency because a lot of nodes are required to come to a consensus before new blocks can be added to public ledgers. PoW has also resulted in high power demand and centralization of mining.

To address the issue, Zennies went for a different consensus model referred to as proof of stake (PoS). Unlike the PoW model that requires users to generate a lot of computing power to confirm transactions, proof of stake requires one to only own some coins. You simply need to own some stake in the Zennies network to be able to mine the native coins.

By employing proof of stake protocol, Zennies has made it easy for more people to join and mine the network. For example, you only need a standard CPU or GPU to be able to mine the Zennies platform. Proof of stake protocol also helps to make the network more secure because those who have some stake cannot conspire to damage the platform.

  • Targets multiple niches of application

To attract more people to use the cryptocurrency networks, the Zennies development team opted to diversify the native coin’s application. Unlike Bitcoin or Litecoin that only targeted helping users to send value, Zennies has an extended application. Though it is also a money transfer platform, it is projected at the gaming community.

What makes Zennies better than it’s competitors?

By the close of the third quarter of 2018, there were more than 1600 crypto coins in the market. This means that all coins especially the new ones have to craft winning ways to beat the current competition. Here are the main things that make Zennies better than competitors.

  • The Zennies system allows users to send value on a peer2peer basis. Because they bypass the centralized banking and credit card systems, transactions are faster and cheaper.
  • The Zennies coins make it easy to send value anonymously across the globe. The network use advanced encryption that ensures you can save funds and send value without worrying about third parties knowing about it.
  • The platform is led by a very dedicated team that progressively improves the network to keep user info safe and secure. The community is relying on the strong core code and development team of Zennies to help restore the native coin to a positive growth trend.
  • The Zennies system uses proof of stake protocol that makes it easy for more users to participate without requiring advanced mining equipment. This implies that more people can join and use the network even with standard computers
  • As a truly decentralized network, it implies that users also own the network. This means that you do not simply send value or use the network and walk away. Rather, the stake you have in Zennies system means that you can be called upon to vote when a governance issue comes up.

How can Zennies’ be categorized?

Zennies is a completely decentralized platform created with the primary goal of helping users to see the value of going crypto. Whether it is buying merchandise from the local stores or online, the Zennies creates a new way of running transactions in a private, secure, and reliable way.

The community is especially enthralled by Zennies use of proof of stake protocol because more people can associate to it. The protocol has also helped the coin to enter the market and start competing with others in the market. For example, it was position 457 with a market capitalization of $247,728 by the close of November 2018.

What is Zennies’ vision on security?

Zennies’ vision for security is providing people with a secure and reliable  platform for transferring value on a peer2peer basis. Though it is relatively young compared to others such as Litecoin and Bitcoin, the development team’s focus on security has made it very secure. Here are the main methods used to keep the network secure:

  • The network uses advanced encryption to keep users’ info private and secure
  • The Zennies’ development team regularly reviews the platform to identify and close vulnerabilities
  • The  platform uses proof of stake protocol that helps to evenly distribute the native coins and  keep the system free from 51% attack

Examples of Zennies use cases/ applications

  • Use Zennies coin to pay for goods and services in stores that support it.
  • If you are a resident in jurisdictions that support cryptocurrencies such as Singapore and Arizona, it might be possible to pay for government services with Zennies coins.
  • People who want to trade in the crypto markets can trade Zennies coins by pairing it with other tokens such as XRP and Loopring.
  • Zennies can be used as a coin for storing value on the blockchain network. Simply buy the coins and hold until such a time when the price will move up.
  • The Zennies coin can be used to send value on a peer2peer basis across the globe. Note that both the sender and receiver must be in the Zennies network or have supported coins for the transfer to be complete.

NOTE: If you target to invest in Zennies, it is important to carefully compare with others because the price has been on a negative trend in 2018. The price tag by the close of November was lower than the starting price in 2017. Therefore, it is advisable to exercise caution or spread investment in different assets.

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