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XRP price prediction: Ripple’s outlook for the year

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Ripple’s fundamentals

A few weeks ago, Ripple’s XRP shook an already shaken crypto verse by taking the second spot by market capitalization over form Ethereum. It didn’t last too long. XRP went back to its usual (and quite worthy) third place again before too long. This could be just a random anecdote or taste of what’s in the future.

The XRP cryptocurrency has considerable leverage over the crypto verse because of several reasons, one of which is the platform that supports it. That’s Ripple. Unlike most of the other digital coins in the cryptosphere, XRP and Ripple have been moving for years towards a particular long-term goal which is adoption by the world’s banking and remittance system so that friction in international transfers is lessened or eliminated entirely.

In that sense, Ripple and its coin have a character that you don’t find in other blockchain projects. Think about projects like Litecoin or Bitcoin Cash. They are merely Bitcoin in a different, lighter flavor.

So while they have something to offer (more energy efficiency, basically), they’re mostly the same as Bitcoin, so their innovative credentials are null. Ripple, on the other hand, is different in its purpose, technology, and almost every other imaginable way.

Ripple’s focus

The Ripple project was founded in 2012, and even back then it already had a focus on the transfer of value between banks and beyond borders. And in this case “value” doesn’t mean fiat money only but all kinds of other financial instruments. Ripple even had a smart contract platform ready for deployment before Ethereum (which is essential because that’s the technology that became Ethereum’s claim to fame), but it dropped the project to concentrate in its flagship project.

Banks were not overly enthusiastic about Ripple’s currency, network or technology. The crypto verse wasn’t any friendlier as crypto purists resented a blockchain project helping the very system that Bitcoin is supposed to bring down. But after almost seven years of hard work and many successes under the firm’s belt, have persuaded many of the world’s more influential banks and, over the last few months, new banks have been lining up to work with Ripple.

Economists have famously said that any economic crisis is an excellent opportunity for creativity to surge. It must be noted that they’re painfully correct and the long crypto winter has indeed boosted innovation in the crypto environment, and Ripple has been among the primary beneficiaries.

Ripple’s technologies for the facilitation of payments (xRapid, xCurrent) are gaining adoption at least as testing programs in hundreds of banks in the world, and this affects XRP noticeably. The coin has a user base that, unlike the rest of the cryptosphere, is not comprised of retail investors or individuals but of banks and large institutional users which is a substantial and stable base. This is a massive advantage over every other cryptocurrency (with the possible exception of Stellar Lumens’ XLM, more on that later) in the world.

Stellar Lumens

Ripple was alone in its ambition until recently. Stellar Lumens has been trying to disrupt the very same market as Ripple. Both projects are very alike for several reasons. Stellar started as a fork in Ripple’s technology and blockchain, and it was founded by Jed McCaleb who left Ripple (which he also founded) to start Stellar. So Stellar knows Ripple almost as well as it knows itself and it’s now in direct competition against it.

Stellar Lumens’ technology is inferior to Ripple’s to be sure. But IBM has adopted Stellar as its blockchain of choice, so every future interest IBM could have for blockchain projects will be developed and deployed using Stellar. This is huge.  Do you remember what IBM’s support did for Intel or Microsoft? Well, by that token (pun intended) IBM’s influence alone could turn Stellar Lumens into the crypto verse’s Intel or Microsoft.

Both technologies could complement each other as Stellar has the consumer aspects of its technology very well developed while Ripple has achieved some outstanding results in the enterprise side of things.

Both are cheaper and faster for customers and banks than the available traditional options. So between both technologies, they could take over the market in the future. And that will increase dramatically the trade volume for both coins as well as the demand. That’s how a token’s price goes up steadily.

In brief: Ripple’s fundamentals are the most solid in the crypto world (with Bitcoin being the only possible exception). And that’s why it overtook Ethereum at the second spot a few weeks ago.

Also, it’s been the most profitable cryptocurrency for two years in a row, and it could reclaim the title for this year. So, all other things being equal, Ripple keeps reporting great news, announcing new partnerships. It will be a good year for Ripple as a company and for XRP as a cryptocurrency.

Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Disclaimer: The presented information is subjected to market condition and may include the very own opinion of the author. Please do your ‘very own’ market research before making any investment in cryptocurrencies. Neither the writer nor the publication (TronWeekly.com) holds any responsibility for your financial loss.

Crypto Industry joins the campaign to rebuild Notre Dame

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On Monday this week, the whole world saw a serious tragic incident before their eyes on multiple news outlets when historic Notre Dame Cathedral, which sits at the heart of Paris, France, caught fire while undergoing renovation and restoration – and completely destructed the monument’s spire and most of its wooden roof.

According to the French authorities, the structure of the 900-year-old Catholic Church famously considered as the symbol of rich heritage, incredible architecture, and art, is somehow still holding; however, sever vulnerabilities have been identified.

As of this moment, the actual cause of the fire has not been ascertained, though investigators said that initial investigation insinuates it seems to be an accident, that is possibly linked to restoration work.

In the wake of this devastating and grievous incident, the whole world has got together in sharing grief with the people of France and the Catholic community.

Restoration of the Cathedral and Crypto Industry

On April 16, the President of France, Emmanuel Macron addressed to the nation vowing to rebuild the historic Gothic monument “even more beautiful than it was” in coming five years. He said,

“We will rebuild the Notre-Dame cathedral even more beautiful than it was, I want that to be finalized in five years. We can do it.”

It is noteworthy that the initial budget approved for the restoration and renovation, before the fire, was about $170M (150 Million Euros) which may need to be increased to 450 million Euros now.

The France government launched a website on Wednesday, which is linked with four approved organizations to amass fiat currency donation to repair the twelfth-century Cathedral Church.

Predictably, the donation has already started to arrive from different parts of the country. Prominent French businessmen and companies, the likes of the family behind L’Oreal and LMVH, have already pledged a combined 600 million Euros. The crypto community also joined the cause of the restoration and launched campaigns to raise cryptocurrency.

Binance, the leading cryptocurrency exchange in the space, announced on Wednesday via its official Twitter handle that they are launching a donation program to help rebuild the Notre Dame cathedral.

The exchange’s CEO, Changpeng Zhao came forward urging the whole crypto industry to help rebuild the historical monument and prove to the entire world that Bitcoin can be a force for good.

As we write this, 61 donations have been recorded in Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum(ETH) and Binance’s native token Binance coin (BNB), which equals to the total of 3.1816 Bitcoin ($16,752).

Blockshow, an international blockchain event backed by CoinTelegraph, also came forward with crypto charity initiative to assist the reconstruction. The announcement was made on April 15.

According to the French Minister for Digital Affairs, Cedric O, there is no way proposed yet to receive donations in the form of cryptocurrencies directly, but, they are certainly open to discussing with crypto authorities, to allow contributions in digital currency to rebuild Notre Dame that meet their required criteria. In his own words:

“The same conditions would apply for digital currency donations as for traditional ones: there must be no commissions, information must be collected for tax deductions, and the money must find its way to the four approved organizations.”

It is apparent that the crypto industry’s drive for the of the historic Gothic Church rebuilding has started running slowly now; however, a successful campaign would go a long way in displaying the real value of cryptocurrency.

Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Disclaimer: The presented information is subjected to market condition and may include the very own opinion of the author. Please do your ‘very own’ market research before making any investment in cryptocurrencies. Neither the writer nor the publication (TronWeekly.com) holds any responsibility for your financial loss.

USDT-Tron is going to be a game changer for the crypto verse

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Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s founder and leader, is not Justin Sun (Tron’s Founder and CEO for Tron and BitTorrent) biggest fan. In fact, the feud between them is well known for all those who follow either of them on Twitter, especially since Tron left Ethereum behind to launch it’s very own Main Net.

While this is all about personal opinion (for now), it would seem that Mr. Sun is getting the best of Mr. Buterin, at least going by appearances. One of Tron’s latest developments will be launching the USDT-Tron cryptocurrency, a stable coin that’s backed by a physical USD for every token issued. Could this new token be the thing that finally puts Tron ahead of everybody else?

Mr. Sun is quoted saying that Tron’s main objective was to leave Ethereum behind in terms of decentralized applications and smart contracts. That prompted a somewhat mocking answer from Mr. Buterin, but it seems that Tron is getting there.

Mr. Sun has lined up several ducks to achieve Tron’s goals. Among those is the BitTorrent acquisition. But also securing many strategic partnerships with many of the industry’s most prominent players. In a recent Tweet, Mr. Sun announced that Tron boasts 267.000 dApp users.

That makes Tron the network with the most dApp users in the world (and wait until BitTorrent merges into Tron’s network and that figure goes to hundreds of millions). EOS is next with 197.000 and Ethereum lags behind with 151.000 within the same period.

The numbers do not come from Tron’s own surveys but from a reliable third party, DappReview, so even Mr. Buterin can’t complain about bias or about Mr. Sun ringing his own bells. As thing stand, Tron is the world’s foremost decentralized app platform in the world.

What’s a stablecoin, anyway?

Tron partnered up with Tether. Together they will take Tether’s token (USDT) and relaunch it as a Tron-based token called USDT-Tron. This is a different kind of cryptocurrency called stablecoin. It’s called that because its value is pegged to the USD.

That’s what a stablecoin is, a cryptocurrency that’s backed by some kind of physical asset (USD, Euros, gold, etc.). This kind of token is not as volatile as purely virtual cryptocurrencies, and they aim to imitate the behavior found in fiat currencies, especially the most liquid and stable ones. That should make for better token scalability and safer transactions.

Because the usual pegging is of 1:1 to a particular fiat currency, stable coins are not as volatile as other digital assets, but you can still trade them in trade and exchange platforms.

The new USDT will be issued using Tron’s TRC-20 token technology, and it will become supported by the whole Tron network to the same extent to which it supports the native token, Tronix (TRX).

The vision for these new kinds of cryptocurrencies pegged to some asset or commodity is to become the foundation for a new worldwide system of payment that would be an improvement over current methods. It would be secure, transparent, decentralized, fast, reliable and cheap. It would use digital cash (cryptocurrencies) as means for value transfer. That could help the Tron network to reach peak efficiency.

Stablecoins and Volatility

It’s no secret that the price of every cryptocurrency fluctuates daily, even hourly. And sometimes it’s just wild. Stablecoins provide an option to hedging your bets and protect yourself from extreme fluctuations in price. According to some analysts, it’s not just an option but the only one.

The original Tether token (USDT) is based on Bitcoin, and it runs on a blockchain called Omni. According to Mr. Sun, the point in the Tron/Tether partnership is to move the token into Tron’s network which is much faster. Mr. Sun thinks that the move will benefit not only Tron but also other blockchains as Bitcoin and Ethereum so efficiency will improve in many networks other than Tron’s.

In his own words,

“The stablecoin is the most important thing when we come to the infrastructure and the whole industry. I think it will benefit the whole industry. Most of the congestion and the bad experience of the stablecoin comes from the Omni blockchain because this is an obsolete solution with costly, slow and also unreliable infrastructure for the stablecoin.”

The new version of the USDT stablecoin is barely a week old so it’s still too young and it’s premature to imagine too much about its current and future use cases, but some options seem very clear, let’s explore them a little.

Tronix as a currency

As its adoption widens, Tronix or TRX could be used as any other currency (virtual or fiat) to pay for goods and services of all kinds. It will have the extra advantage of being a digital currency. Stablecoins are particularly useful to settle international payments as they obviate the cumbersome exchange of fiat currencies. Transactions are carried out almost in real time, and fees are much lower than the standard services.

So why will the USDT help TRX? Because it’s going to be a TRC20 token, which means it will be based on TRX as a base currency and that will enhance demand and usage for Tron’s native token. Anything you can do with USDT-Tron, you can do using TRX as well, it’s as simple as that.

Peer to Peer payments. Recurring payments

Stablecoins can also be used to satisfy the terms of smart financial contracts, which are electronic contracts issued on a blockchain whose terms are enforced automatically by a software system. No third party or central authority has any hand in managing the contract.

Smart contracts are autonomous, the transactions they prompt are automatic and traceable, they’re transparent and irreversible. That makes them perfect as a tool for paying wages, loans, rent, and subscriptions.

Remittances

Cryptocurrencies can be a driving force in helping equality in the world by facilitating value transfer between countries. Ripple, Cardano, and Stellar Lumens are already working hard on that and Tron could join that enterprise helped by the new USDT-Tron currency.

Migrant workers all over the planet need to send money back home to their families. The primary way to do that has been through the services of remittance services such as Moneygram or Western Union. These services are faster and cheaper than international bank transfers (which are prohibitive for gig workers because of costs and the need to have a local bank account).

But they’re still slow and expensive for people that do not earn that much money because the fee they must pay is not negligible compared to the amount of money they’re moving.

Value crash protection

Fiat currencies crash in value every now and then. The Venezuelan Bolivar is a case in point currently. TRX could allow people who find themselves watching how their local currency goes down like a led balloon could use any cryptocurrency backed by USD or Euro to make sure their hard-earned savings do not lose all its value overnight, or that hyper-inflation renders their previously valuable salary worthless. This would be a great use case for both USDT-Tron or TRX alike.

Also, the stability of USDT could facilitate the pairing of TRX with many of the world’s fiat currencies thus facilitating the process of protecting value.

Crowdfunding

Launching a crowdfunding campaign based on digital assets could be a terrible idea as market fluctuations could make the whole thing an exercise in futility (or make you rich in a heartbeat… which is possible but highly unlikely).

With USDT as a stabilizing and hedging resource, Tron could deploy decentralized crowdfunding apps that could collect funds in a crowdfunding campaign while making sure that the donations keep their value even if the market behaves in its usual roller-coaster fashion.

Microfinancing and Lending

Peer to peer lending could be an option too. A dApp could asses a borrower’s risk profile and reputation, negotiate a return rate on borrowed funds and manage a microloan from beginning to end including interest payments, dates of payment, penalty systems, etc.

The technology already exists for Bitcoin, but the volatility factor was bad enough to prevent a successful implementation because lenders risk losing more value than what they earn in interest because of fluctuations.

Justin Sun on what’s next for the project and the new currency

A digital asset as stable as USDT-Tron is expected to be, running on a much better network than Orion could change the game in payments and trades by bringing stability and seamlessness to the table. Because it’s based on Tron’s TRC20 token technology, it’s fully compatible with the Tron network which means that it can be used in smart contracts.

And soon, Tron-based tokens will offer enhanced privacy options for TRX holders (but also to any Tron-based coin). If you put all of those things together, you could have institutional investors into the picture.

“We’re getting lots of interest from these institutional investors. I think we’ll do everything to fulfill their requests because when the institutional investor gets into this industry, they have lots of requests. Lots of institutions don’t want people to know they’re buying cryptocurrencies. They don’t want people to know their accounts or how much money is in their accounts.”

The project consists of a second stage too. It involves cross-border payments settlement for consumers. Mr. Sun sees use cases there that will put Tron in the same league as Stripe and Square whose market is in mobile users and e-commerce for merchants and shoppers.

There’s even a possible collaboration with arch-rival Ethereum in the works. “I think even within this year, we will see Tron even collaborate — officially collaborate — with Ethereum doing something good for the industry.”

Last but not least, Tron will update the main net to enhance scalability at some point during this year’s Q2. Mr. Sun says that the upgrade will reduce fees while improving performance by a hundred times in TRX transactions. That sounds too good to be true.

But Mr. Vitalik Buterin is quoted criticizing the promised features that the new Tron network would have as too good to be true as wells. That was about a year ago, and Mr. Buterin had to eat his words when the Main Net was finally launched because it delivered on every promise. That’s what we’ve come to expect from Tron so, if Mr. Sun is talking about a 100x increase in performance, we think his word is just as good as a USDT-Tron in the bank.

What’s in it for Tether?

We’ve talked a lot about the benefits Tron and Tron users will enjoy because of the new token, but this is not a unilateral thing but a partnership that includes Tether. So how will it benefit? In several ways.

First of all, the Tether token will enjoy the use of a good network. That will enhance the coin’s use because transfer fees will go down and transfer speeds will go up. You see, until now there’s been little controversy about Tether’s coin’s value. But because the network was slow and the fees were relatively high, there was a lot of doubt about its viability as a real-world payments system. Re-deployment over the Tron network will change that for good.

Also, the partnership will create use cases that USDT can’t reach on its own because it’s been existing in almost complete isolation. The new use cases will increase demand for the token. And that will enhance the project’s reputation in the crypto verse and among institutional investors, as well as Tron’s.

So keep a vigilant eye about the Tron/Tether partnership. It seems to be one of those rare partnerships in which everybody wins. And so could you.

Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Disclaimer: The presented information is subjected to market condition and may include the very own opinion of the author. Please do your ‘very own’ market research before making any investment in cryptocurrencies. Neither the writer nor the publication (TronWeekly.com) holds any responsibility for your financial loss.

Cashshuffle’s new technology enables Bitcoin Cash users to mix up millions

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Cashshuffle is a service for Bitcoin Cash (BCH) users that enhances privacy for them and their digital assets. It’s a decentralized protocol that gets a bunch of coins from Bitcoin Cash users and mixes them up. The point in the mixing is to obfuscate the blockchain’s transaction history in such a way that even a serious analysis of the chain it’s thoroughly challenging to do.

So forensic analysis on a user’s transaction history becomes a nightmare, almost impossible. The service appeared about two weeks ago, and it’s already supported by several popular cryptocurrency wallets.

This kind of development speaks volumes about the type of loyalty and bullish sentiment that Bitcoin Cash has been able to instill in its users. Blockchain projects such as Monero (XMR) have privacy features hardwired into the blockchain, the network, and the token.

One would think that the easy way to go about keeping nosy individuals (or institutions) confused about the way you use your digital capital would simply be to adopt that kind of digital asset, at least in a transient exchange, and then go back to the cryptocurrency of your choice. But Bitcoin Cash holders seem to prefer to keep operating in BCH even if taking care of their privacy needs a third-party service.

During the two weeks in which Cashshauffle has been online, it’s gained a lot of attention and users. It’s shuffled 8,825 BCH tokens as per the data from last week, and it’s settled about 2.000 transactions. It’s proving popular.

“I shuffle all the time.”

Traction is on the new platform’s side. Those nearly nine thousand BCH tokens are worth USD 2,6 million in the market. It’s an impressive trading volume for such a short history. A BCH developer tweeted information about the total amount of Cashshuffle transactions since it went online and the number is 1,917. Early support from Electron Cash wallet hasn’t hurt either.

The new protocol is not your ordinary cryptocurrency shuffling service. The usual story for those is that you, as a user, need to trust the service not to lose your coins in the mixing process, and pay a fee, which is usually rather steep. Cashshuffle is way cheaper than any of its competitors. It’s open source, and the fact that none of the individual parties involved can know how inputs and outputs are related makes it safer than other similar products.

An alpha version was released on Electron Cash (EC) as a plugin extension. Now it’s a standard feature.

The security and code analysis consultants Kudelski reviewed the source code and the compiled software thoroughly as well. Their report was very encouraging. The firm tried to find any common vulnerabilities, bugs and to assess the code’s overall security.

“We did not find any critical shortcoming in these components,” Kudelski Security informed in the published audit. The firm added that,

“It seems that the Coinshuffle protocol and the Cashshuffle implementation provide a practical solution to the problem of mixing transactions without the risk of funds being stolen in the process.”

The BCH community helped Cashshuffle come true

Donations have been a big part in the funding, maintaining and improvement of the protocol. They’ve been critical in keeping the developers going and doing the excellent and innovative job they’ve done. Just in the last day or so, the Cashshuffle team has raised about USD 14.000,00 in donations from the community. Some of that came from the Bitcoin Unlimited development team in the form of 15 BCH units. That was yesterday.

And there’s even further progress. Jonald Fyookball, who serves as Electron Cash’s lead developer, announced that EC v 4.0.0 will include Cashshuffle and will be available for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux.

Mr. Fyookball was also vocal in thanking the community for their help in supporting the protocol. He also praised the developing team and all those who helped pay for the critical security audit. The EC’s 4.0.0 version includes new features such as coin control as well as additional logic that turn the wallet into a better tool for ensuring privacy.

Nilic the Grim (an EC developer) thanked some of the developers by name (Acidsploit, Emergent Reasons, Imaginary Username, Mark Lundeberg, Josh Ellithorpe, Clifford, and Calin Culianu) for their essential help with the freshest version. But he didn’t hesitate to say that most of the support came from the BCH community.

“This community is the MVP — Really I swear, so many people helped out from suggestions to testing to finding esoteric bugs, to organizing stuff like the audit and finding funds for it — It was a community effort beyond the devs 100%.”

The BCH community loves the new Cashshuffle protocol because of the new and unprecedented level of privacy it guarantees for the BCH environment. Amaury Sechet, one of Bitcoin’s ABC leading developers, thanked the EC developers as well for the great work they did and assured them and the community that the voyage is only beginning “There is more to do before that thing is as secure as it could be given the auditability of the chain.”

Other BCH fans have hailed the new protocol as a real pioneering effort that puts the BCH network right on the limit of the Cryptosphere’s most advanced technology. The amount of support, the rapid expansion of the user base, and the money the project has collected in donations seem to support the good vibes about the project.

Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Disclaimer: The presented information is subjected to market condition and may include the very own opinion of the author. Please do your ‘very own’ market research before making any investment in cryptocurrencies. Neither the writer nor the publication (TronWeekly.com) holds any responsibility for your financial loss.

Tron CEO Justin Sun donates USD 1.5 Million to Hupan University

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Jack Ma and Hupan University

Jack Ma is famous as the billionaire founder of Alibaba.com. That’s no mean feat, of course, but Mr. Ma has done a lot more than Alibaba. Among those things was the foundation of Hupan University in China where he has taught some courses personally.

Among the new University’s graduate students is none other than Justin Sun, founder of Tron, and CEO of BitTorrent and the Tron Foundation. He was personally invited by Mr. Ma to study at the new educational institution, and he attended Mr. Ma’s lectures in the flesh. From then on, the two tycoons are thought to be close friends, and Mr. Sun has enjoyed Mr. Ma’s protection. Mr. Sun is credited with being the first millennial to attend and graduate Hupan.

While we can’t really tell how influential his time at Hupan University has been for Mr. Sun’s trajectory, he’s one of the most recognized and successful young entrepreneurs in China. Besides Tron and BitTorrent, he founded PEIWO which is a hugely popular messaging and voice live streaming app in China. He’s also been distinguished by Forbes as one of the prestigious “30 under 30”. So his track record is beyond any doubt.

On top of all that, Tron is obviously one of the better-managed blockchain projects in the world in every possible aspect from marketing and PR to technical matters.

The donation

But we shall assume that Mr. Sun did learn some essential things from Mr. Ma’s university because he’s now willing to show how grateful he is to the institution by giving back something. Cointelegraph announced a few days ago (April 8th) that Mr. Sun donated USD 1.5 million to Hupan Unversity.

Mr. Sun’s generous contribution will help the next class in the institution. It’s comprised of 41 students that represent 14 different Chinese industrial sectors. About half of them come from internet companies while the rest are involved in more traditional economic activities.

Mr. Sun had something to say about the university‘s relevance for professional development:

“Hupan University made a huge impact and difference to me and the company. Without Hupan, Tron will not be what it is today. My entrepreneurship was enlightened and developed there.”

Universities in the world are slowly but surely including blockchain technology as a study subject and as a tool to solve problems in a decentralized way. MIT even created a cryptocurrency of its own. Last February saw the collaborative creation of an encrypted database for educational proficiency documents, fruits of the joint efforts of electronics giants Sony and Fujitsu. The platform enables Japanese speaking schools to compare certificates with data stored in the blockchain to authenticate the documents.

Also in February, the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta and TalentSpirit (a trading platform) launched an advanced course on fintech and blockchain technology. It will start next month, and it’s designed to attract management and finance professionals and give them skills to deal with the current fintech explosion and its potential influence over the traditional financial system.

Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Disclaimer: The presented information is subjected to market condition and may include the very own opinion of the author. Please do your ‘very own’ market research before making any investment in cryptocurrencies. Neither the writer nor the publication (TronWeekly.com) holds any responsibility for your financial loss.

Tron Weekly charity-oriented mining program: Here is all you need to know

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Wish you could mine Tron Weekly token? That’s possible, already, and comes with a good cause. Last March 21st, Tron Weekly Journal officially launched its Mining program. It is a weekly activity where the payout is given every Thursday. In this post, we’ll provide you with details of this awesomely ‘rewarding’ crypto mining program.

Folding@Home

Folding@Home is a distributed computing project which is being operated in Pande Laboratory at Stanford University. Its main purpose is to study the causes of protein misfolding which results in several diseases including but not limited to Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and Huntington’s disease, and cancer.

The project uses idle processing resources of the computers being used by the volunteers to simulate protein folding and to examine why it misfolds.

They are the pioneers in using graphics processing units (GPU), Message Passing Interface (used for computing on multi-core processors), Sony Xperia smartphones, and PlayStation 3s for distributed computing and scientific research. In 2007, Guinness World Records recognized Folding@Home as the most powerful distributed computing network, with a computing power of 135 petaFLOPS (135 quadrillion floating point operations per second), as of 2018.

The Tron Weekly Mining Program

Tron Weekly Journal joined thousand of teams volunteering on the cause of finding cures and in improving drug design to several illnesses. We at TronWeekly encourage our users to join and share their computer’s computing power to the research and in return, give rewards to the participants as per certain terms. Hence the term “mining”.

The mining has a weekly cycle and it resets every Thursday at 1 PM SGT (UTC+8). After that, the payout rewards for each participant get calculated and sent within 1 hour. The rewards pool starts in a specific amount and it increases once we reached milestones per stage. We are currently in the third stage of mining.

Tron Weekly

Also, the participants who will be in Top 2 for two consecutive weeks will be eligible for a surprise reward. Moreover, there will be surprise rewards to be added to the reward pool once we cross every million points.

How to Mine and What’s in it For You

To Mine Tron Weekly, you just need to go to their downloads page and pick what’s applicable to you. The folding software, FAHClient, is available for Windows (64-bit and 32-bit), for MacOS (10.6 and up), and for Linux (32-bit and 64-bit). Alternatively, you can also mine using your Google Chrome browser. You just need to go to this link to start. Once you are ready, you just need to input your “Identity” as your wallet address and the “team” as 234953 and then click on start.

Joining the mining program will not only make you eligible to receive Tron Weekly based on your weekly points but also by running the folding software, you are contributing to a noble cause of computing research and finding cures to the illnesses which are affecting millions of people around the world.

Based on a BrainTest.com, there are approximately 46.8 million people having Alzheimer’s disease alone. So by sharing your idle computing resources to the network of Folding@Home simulation, you are getting involved and playing a big part in developing the drug for treating these degenerative diseases.

For more information about the Folding@Home project, you may visit their official website at https://foldingathome.org

Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Disclaimer: The presented information is subjected to market condition and may include the very own opinion of the author. Please do your ‘very own’ market research before making any investment in cryptocurrencies. Neither the writer nor the publication (TronWeekly.com) holds any responsibility for your financial loss.

Biopspace.com, Tron and the ALS Association launch the VoiceYourLove campaign for ALS awareness

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Tron is going to join forces with Biospace.com and the ALS Association to create awareness for ALS. They are going to take advantage of the good wishes that are common during Valentine’s in many of the world’s countries to work together and make a difference.

In this article, we’ll tell you quickly who these three players are, and a little about the initiative as well so you can be aware and join it if you consider it a worthy cause.

Biospace.com

Biospace is an online platform that champions the industry of the life sciences by providing a hub for news and careers. While it’s now a fully digital resource, it’s been around since 1985, providing insights, opportunities, and connection tools for organizations and talented professionals who work on improving health and quality of life in the planet.

The website is the most comprehensive source for news and information in the life sciences. It breaks the news daily and helps investors and scientist to be up to date with the essential information on the medical device, pharmaceutical and biotech industries. As such, it’s quite an influential website that can generate traffic, relevance, and awareness for all the subjects it deals with.

Tron

Tron is a third generation blockchain-based programmable platform that allows for the development and deployment of decentralized applications and smart contracts. The platform includes a native cryptocurrency called Tronix (also known as TRX).

The Tron project was founded by Justin Sun, who already had fame and credibility as a technology investor and creator, and it has a very definite objective. It wants to decentralize the world wide web using its blockchain.

It’s become one of the most famous blockchain projects in the cryptosphere in a concise time (about a year and a half), and it’s managed to grow in a time in which most of the other projects in crypto are either shrinking or losing value.

The ALS Association

ALS is an illness better known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. The association is committed to create awareness about it and fight it. In order to achieve those objectives, they look for all kinds of help. They’re especially adept at PR since that facilitates getting donations that can be used for the scientific research that could help eradicate ALS.

The campaign for ALS awareness

The new campaign is called “VoiceYourLove,” and it includes the help of several blockchain technology players (the Binance Charity Foundation will also help), several celebrities and some Silicon Valley giants.

Former “Friends” star Courtney Cox kind of launched the campaign by issuing a video in her Twitter account:

“@CourteneyCox
When was the last time you told someone you love them? Today we’re launching the Voice Your Love campaign to raise awareness about #ALS and bring a little more love into the world. @alsagoldenwest
#VoiceYourLove “

We wish the campaign great success. It will not only help the ALS community, but it will help crypto as well because it will show the world how the blockchain technology can be a force for good in the world (which remains a doubtful proposition for a lot of people on the earth).

You want to Join Tron in this kind endearue and donate? Excellent. Here is the official donattion page where you can donate TRX to support the cause.

Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Disclaimer: The presented information is subjected to market condition and may include the very own opinion of the author. Please do your ‘very own’ market research before making any investment in cryptocurrencies. Neither the writer nor the publication (TronWeekly.com) holds any responsibility for your financial loss.

Editor’s Note: The article was updated to include the official donation page link.

DISH becomes one of the earliest mainstream company to accept Bitcoin

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In the past, skeptics have disputed the fact that Bitcoin as a currency has no distinguished value, due to the fact that it hasn’t been widely accepted as a means of payments. Indeed, Bitcoin arrived at the international and financial scene when the world’s financial markets were witnessing a slump.

For many, Bitcoin is relevant and a game-changer for the financial industry. It is now seen as a store of value – somewhat a digital gold which also has the potentials of being a reserve currency. Even as Bitcoin’s use-cases increase and continue to go against all odds, one of the biggest pay-Tv provider, DISH, is making use of Bitcoin as a means of payment for subscribers.

Not only that, DISH is known to be the first pay-tv provider to offer cryptocurrency as a means of payment for subscriptions. However, DISH executive vice president and chief operating officer, Bernie Han had something to say:

“We always want to deliver the best and deliver choice and convenience for our customers and that includes the method they use to pay their bills. Bitcoin is becoming a preferred way for some people to transact and we want to accommodate those individuals.”

DISH Network Corporation offers more than 14 million pay-tv subscribers with the best technology and programs with a great value as of 2014. Subscribers on DISH are offered more than 200 channels with high-definition programs. The network also prides itself by supplying 110,000 hours of disaster relief in the form of broadband and TV-services.

Additionally, Coinbase has been the medium chosen by DISH to process BTC payments from subscribers who wish to pay their TV subscriptions from their BTC wallet. Bitcoin payments on DISH is being facilitated by Coinbase’s Instant Exchange™ to U.S dollars.

DISH subscribers are given the opportunity to choose between Bitcoin as a payment option or debit cards or bank account for their TV-subscription. These mediums are to provide an easy way for subscribers that want to make an instant payment online.

No doubt, cryptocurrencies are gradually becoming an important means of payments, thus, getting the same recognition as fiat currencies. Cryptocurrencies (like Bitcoin) reduces credit card fraud and they are inexpensive for merchants who want to make payments.

Bitcoin’s use-cases are significantly increasing and people are starting to pick up the notion that the digital asset is real and can make a huge change in the second and third-world countries dealing with hyperinflation.

Notable crypto-enthusiasts: Anthony Pompliano and James Anthony Williams have quoted the significance of Bitcoin’s use-cases and other cryptographic technologies. Also saying that Bitcoin will one day be some sort of a store of value very soon.

Bitcoin can be used a means of payment; in making donations, tips and so on. This, however, has opened doors to its numerous use-cases nowadays and it keeps spreading day-by-day.

Undeniably, Bitcoin’s utility as a means of exchange keeps increasing despite its price swings and volatility. The cryptocurrency still has more potency to bring a positive change to every economy; it will become apparent as new use-cases become prevalent and widely known.

Image courtesy of Pixabay.

TRON blockchain suits charity purposes best, here are the reasons why

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Philanthropy in layman’s terms is being human, which leads to caring and giving to people in need. This is one of the behaviors which differentiate us from other living organisms on this planet. The urge for giving grows as we evolve and move up the maslow’s hierarchy. With the passage of time more and more people are getting involved globally in this noble cause of giving, leading to the creation of an organized sector called – CHARITY.

Approximately 1.4 billion population is contributing to charities leading to an approx fund of $1.2 trillion being raised annually globally. As per the latest statistics, Indonesia, Australia, NewZealand, USA, Ireland are the top 5 countries contributing to the philanthropy domain. The major segments in which charity is raised currently are Education, Childcare, Women protection, Healthcare, and Environment.

As with any industry Charity domain too now needs to evolve to cater to future requirements and to set up systems which help the humankind at large. Challenges which this domain faces currently are trust, transparency, reach and awareness, the speed of execution, processing and fundraising cost to name a few.

The Blockchain solution:

Blockchain technology can help legit charities overcome these problems thus contributing to enhancing the global happiness index.

Trust, transparency, and accountability: The biggest problem in the charity domain is trust as the individuals/corporations who are donating sometimes are not sure if their contribution is reaching the end user. Blockchain using its distributed ledger process ensures 100% transparency as the accounts are in public view and anyone can crosscheck the flow of funds to the last mile.

Reach and awareness: Blockchain because of its borderless feature connects the global population and allows anyone sitting even at home to connect seamlessly to the global audience thus allowing a global platform to reach out to anyone they intend to help.

The speed of execution: This is another strong value proposition Blockchain provides to Charities. In traditional mode of fundraising the banking channels consume a lot of time and fee as well, sometimes this even extends to days for international transfers. Blockchain reduces this timeframe from days to seconds and that too at a lower fee making it a win-win situation for both the donor as well as the charity.

Cost of fundraising: As per the latest statistics only approx 67% of the funds raised reaches the intended use; the rest is lost regarding fees, administration fundraising cost, etc. Blockchain can bring down this 33% substantially thus ensuring the better utility of the funds raised.

Why TRON?

TRON protocol is an emerging Blockchain solution which aims to create decentralized internet. Charities choosing to use the TRON platform would end up gaining the following benefits along with already mentioned benefits of Blockchain as mentioned in the previous segment.

Ease of Use: Creating an account on TRON platform is super easy and takes less than a minute. Also, a lot of Dapps are launching their mobile wallets thus making it very convenient to use. Charities can create accounts in less than a minute on www.troncan.org and get started, the same is applicable for any user as well who wishes to donate.

Leveraging Technology: Developers in the TRON system are continuously working to provide user-friendly solutions. They have developed bots which helps in tipping to any charity possible even on social media like telegram, twitter. Seedit, Robominer are few of the prominent bots already in use.

High Liquidity: TRON is available in 160+ trading pairs across multiple exchanges as per the latest CMC data making it practically available to everyone.

Speed: The transaction is lightning fast which means it takes just a few seconds to transfer funds across the globe. Mobile, website, social media are few platforms which can be used to complete any transaction.

Scalability: TRON platform has the capacity to process 748 TPS (transactions per second) while the current usage is approx 20-25 which gives enough space to accommodate future increase in volume and still maintain the current performance level.

Global Community: People eventually are the heart of any charity initiative, TRON with its rapidly growing community offers a huge audience spread across the globe. As per tronscan date, there are already 1.34 million accounts live with TRON and its increasing exponentially (1st million took approx six months, next 0.34 million has happened in less than a month).

Ease of Creation: TRON protocol also provides an easy to use system for any project to create a TOKEN on its platform. The cost for the same is also very nominal. This low entry barrier allows projects which have a great idea but limited resources to also get started and subsequently work hard to convert their idea into a working proposition.

There are already few charity projects which have understood this potential and have launched on TRON platform. KsumNole, Alivio, TreeOfLife are few for the noticeable projects which are already live on TRON eco-system. KsumNole among these has garnered the highest support and interest with some unique concepts to filter and identify real supporters and philanthropists.

Future

Considering the above parameters, the future looks very promising for Blockchain in Charity domain. The current penetration of Blockchain in the complete Charity eco-system is less than 1% thus there is a huge upsurge in adoption growth expected. The Millennial and GenXers are gradually increasing their contribution in charity, and they also happen to be the flag bearer of enhancing Blockchain usage.

What needs to be done now is to work hard in creating awareness and build systems which are legit, scalable and solves real-life problems. Honesty and Transparency are going to be the critical ingredient for long term success.

As the saying goes ‘The world calls for and expects from us, the simplicity of life, the spirit of prayer, charity towards all, especially towards the lowly and the poor, obedience and humility, detachment, and self-sacrifice. Without this mark of holiness, our word will have difficulty in touching the heart of modern man.~ Pope Paul IV’ all we need is a good heart to make a difference.

Sources:

https://www.cafonline.org/docs/default-source/about-us-publications/caf_wgi2018_report_webnopw_2379a_261018.pdf
https://www.pressconnects.com/story/news/local/new-york/2017/11/29/how-much-your-donations-actually-go-charity/108107792/
https://www.501commons.org/services/learning-programs/Philanthropy.PNG/image

Image courtesy of PixaBay.

LoveHearts token migrating to Tron TRC20 technology

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The TRC20 technology is one of two Tron-based cryptocurrency technologies (TRC10 being the other one) that any Tron community member can use to issue his/her very own cryptocurrency or ICO, much in the same way in which Ethereum also allows almost anybody to create a new coin. Even Tronix, which is now independent, started life as an Ethereum-based coin.

Yesterday LoveHearts, a very particular cryptocurrency, disappeared from all decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges because it started the process of migrating from its current technology to Tron’s TRC20. So not to worry, the coin is still there, and it will resume trading as soon as the migration is completed, but you won’t find it in the market for now.

https://twitter.com/LoveHeartsToken/status/1082638587441627136

It’s a digital asset that you can send in a Twitter or Telegram message to anyone you want. “Sending LoveHearts shows you really care” according to the coin’s website.

The project calls its users the “Heart Army” and it encourages them to send some tokens in Twitter instead of just giving likes in Twitter.

You may think this is cheesy at first, but it actually has a use case. LoveHearts has a strategic partnership with HummingPay.io (a remittance service that has also partnered up with Tron), so those LoveHeart tokens can indeed be turned into actual fiat money.

Also, there is the LoveHearts Lounge. It will be an online shop in which you can trade your tokens for goods and services. It will all start with a British sweet manufacturer that is very well known for its involvement in charities and charitable causes. That partnership is supposedly already in the bag, and more agreements are expected to follow soon.

The digital asset’s current supply is of 2 billion tokens after several token burns have taken place.

The TRC20 migration means that LoveHearts will join the Tron ecosystem in full so you’ll be able to trade it at Tron’s decentralized exchange for Tronix (TRX) tokens or for any other of the Tron-based tokens available. That, in turn, will enable you to join many of the other Tron-based projects and websites in which you will be able to do lots of things like playing online games or to gamble online at fair odds.

LoveHearts has been around since October 2018, and it’s been very active since then supporting some charitable causes. It became listed at two exchanges this month, so now it has a price determined by supply and demand.

Further plans for the project include a 60 million token donation to a charitable cause next month, and to keep selling tokens for the next two months until it reaches a 5 million TRX soft cap.

It currently has 130240 users, with 1,131,879,563 tokens in circulation. The total number of coins is 100 billion, but 80% of them are frozen and shall remain so until next year. The available supply is of about 2 billion because 18 billion coins have been burned so far.

It’s anybody’s guess how LoveHearts will do in the cryptosphere. It’s a bit like hallmark cards turned cryptocurrencies, but as long as it’s associated with the Tron token technology, it will be a useful asset for sure.

Image courtesy of PixaBay.