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Steem community remains optimistic following acquisition 

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Steem members have come out with mixed responses on Justin Sun’s acquisition of their platform. Some of them took to Steemit to back Justin Sun while others are calling for a “fork”. But fork from what? The fact of the matter is, Tron and Steemit team members have clarified that there’s no immediate change over to Tron blockchain, although the direction is unclear. It’s important to note that Justin Sun has reconfirmed the current team will stay and collaborate with Tron devs. Which, in uncertain terms, is a confirmation that there’s no major changes round the corner and Sun wants to focus on a collaborative approach.

As per an interview given by @andrarchy, the head of communications of Steemit, to @exyle, Steemit was so broke that they had only a few months of funds left to survive as a business. If you read between the lines, Justin Sun and Tron rescued Steemit from a financial collapse. Two of its co-founders Ned Scott and EOS founder Daniel Larimer had changed directions long back. Larimer had left to form EOS. Although Ned stuck around, his teammates, including @andrarchy feel Scott spent more time on his other projects. Scott himself cited personal reasons at last weekend’s AMA. Scott also confirmed that he’s more excited about “other projects he’s working on” currently. We don’t know yet what these projects are. Steem and Steemit were almost an abandoned ship with a few witnesses doing their bits to steer it on a course.
There’s no denial that Steemit is a great product and community fears are justified. Sifting through bloggers views on the acquisition, it’s evident that there’s a sense of optimism in the air. There’s also a warning from some members that if Steemit moves away from a decentralised platform with interference from Tron and Justin in its functioning, then a fork is inevitable.
Here are some interesting quotes from Steemit members on the acquisition:
@gerbino: Tron has something Steem needs desperately — marketing capabilities. There are many ways I can see this acquisition going very well for both Tron and Steem. Steem has really proven itself to be the vehicle that reshapes how social media is done. We’ve had so many engineering successes and very little hype. All this could change in the near future and that is very exciting.

@andrarchy: I believe that we have not yet scratched the surface of Steem’s transformative potential, and nothing is more important to me than working with you all, the community, and my Steemit teammates to reach that potential.

@blockbrothers: Witnesses should know that it’s impossible to just copy a blockchain like Steem and paste it onto Tron. Witnesses should be calm and assertive and act like leaders until they have the facts. You can’t go around creating FUD.

@jaguarforce: We didn’t invest years of our time to be migrated to a shitchain run by a shil…Let’s show Justin what a PR nightmare we can be if he continues on this path. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the time to fight the good fight. Lets go!

@taskmaster44500:  It looks like business as usual for the Steemit Inc team and the community at large. The big difference is there is a new owner.

@steempress: As a Steem witness, we want to ensure that the expectations of the community are represented and fought for. Our current user base and stakeholders have stayed with Steem through a long bear market looking forward to the promises that were made to them in the form of communities, SMTs, and the other core values of Steem.



Crypto.com lists Zilliqa powered SGD stable coin

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Payments and cryptocurrency platform Crypto.com has announced that it is the first company to adopt XSGD, the Singapore-dollar backed and pegged stablecoin. Issued by Xfers, under the project name of StraitsX, the XSGD token is collateralized with the Singapore Dollar and is pegged 1:1 to SGD. In Singapore, Xfers is a holder of the Major Payment Institution license to carry on e-money issuance. XSGD is powered by Zilliqa, the high-throughput, high-security blockchain protocol. XSGD will be among 50+ cryptocurrencies listed on the Crypto.com mobile app.

With over 1 million users on its platform today, Crypto.com provides a powerful alternative to traditional financial services, turning its vision of “cryptocurrency in every wallet” into reality, one customer at a time.

Crypto.com has been partnering with Xfers, the payment processing gateway facilitating online bank transfers and credit/debit card processing, to provide easy access for customers to buy digital assets with fiat.

Founded in 2015, Xfers is Southeast Asia’s leading Fintech platform for digital businesses, enabling open banking for Southeast Asia.

Binance applies for Singapore license

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Leading crypto exchange Binance has applied for a license in Singapore under the country’s new Payment Services Act, according to Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao.

The new legislation requires firms operating in Singapore to be licensed under one of three licenses: money-changing license, standard payment institution, or major payment institution license.

After May halving, mining Bitcoin may soon cost over $12,500

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A Blockchain analytics firm has estimated that the cost to mine bitcoin will rise to over $12,500 following May’s halving event. Galaxy Digital CEO Michael Novogratz meanwhile says that he sees Bitcoin hitting $20,000 highs by year-end.

According to the report, May’s halving event, which will cut the supply of newly minted bitcoin by half, will significantly increase the breakeven cost for miners. Researchers estimate that commercial mining operators were able to achieve a healthy profit margin throughout most of 2019, with the rising competition in hash rate corresponding to an increase in bitcoin’s price.

‘The barrier to staking Decred has just vanished’: KuCoin starts Soft Staking

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Seychelles-based KuCoin has announced soft staking for Decred holders on their platform. Soft staking will start for Decred holders on Kucoin from 19 February.

KuCoin’s Soft Staking means there’s no staking period, or staking amount. You get a return on what you have in the wallet.  KuCoin’s Soft Staking allows customers to access their coins at anytime. However, withdrawals may not be instant always. KuCoin allows its users  to use their  tokens to earn while still being able to “adapt to fluctuations in the market”.

Single nodes are expensive to run and not always profitable for individual. KuCoin’s Soft Staking will help individuals with limited balance to earn passive income.

Kucoin has advised Decred owners to remove their Coins from Decred wallets on Kucoin by 19 February  if they do not want them to enter into  soft staking. Apart from Decred, KuCoin offers Soft Staking options for Tron, Deep Onion, Energi, Eos, Iotex and more.

Decred’s market cap rank is 35 and it’s currently trading at $20.39. The all time high for Decred was  $129.37.  A Decred enthusiast celebrated the staking option that’s opened up on KuCoin. Dusty Decred said: ‘This is massive. The barrier to staking $DCR just vanished”

KuCoin customers can withdraw their Decred returns when the amount of the Decred revenue is above 0.000001.

StakeCube has similar features on their staking platform on several POS and masternode coins.

New version of Steemit this week. No sudden token swap: Justin Sun

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During the much anticipated AMA aired by Tron founder Justin Sun and Steem co-founder Ned Scott on 16 February, Sun said his focus will be on the product and financial growth of Steem tokens and that he won’t rush into a “sudden token swap”. Steem and Steemit according to Sun was largely an “experiment with social media on blockchain” which will further benefit from Tron’s large ecosystem and resources. “Steemit’s new version has been on beta version for a long time, including lots of new features. Users will have features to moderate content too.”  Tron Foundation and Steemit Inc had announced their “strategic partnership” first on 14 February.

Ned Scott cited personal reasons for selling his shares to Justin Sun. He also admitted that Tron’s large ecosystem will be a plus for Steemit and its users. Justin Sun promised Steem community to consult Ned Scott on all future decisions that are important to Steem. It’s unclear if Scott still holds some shares of Steemit. There are no details of the actual acquisition apart from the AMA and tweets by Sun and Scott.

Sun  said there are “new innovations and products” that will be part of the new version of Steemit. Although the joint AMA addressed many questions in the minds of both Steem and Tron community, many questions still linger on. There’s still no clarity on the timeline for the token swap. Crypto exchange Poloniex tweeted after the AMA that they will carry out token swaps on their exchange. There’s also no clarity on how many Steem tokens till be airdropped to Tron holders. The idea of airdropping Steem to Trx holders has caused concerns among Steem holders who worry about inflation and price decline of an already deflated Steem.

A day after the AMA, Justin Sun tweeted: “Steetmit to shift its proprietary blockchain and token to tron network”. Currently there are 695 Dapps on Tron network and once you move Steem-based dapps onto Tron blockchain, Tron can be a clear contender for the number 1 spot for gaming and media Dapps. Steemit is already a leading media Dapp for built on Steem blockchain and has over 500k on-chain users and 8 million monthly traffic. Steem network also has 90 plus Dapps on its network according to Dapp.com.

During the bull market, Steemit had started monetising its content through advertising. There’s not a lot of data out there on Steemit’s advertising revenue, but it cannot be negligent with 8 million users. Steemit community is waiting to see if Justin Sun would have plans in the pipeline to share advertising revenue with Steemit users.

Ethereum Classic developers work in improving security

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Ethereum Classic developers are now working on a way to increase security of the Ethereum Classic network, preventing 51% attacks and creating new ways to interact with the blockchain.

The proposal includes a change to the Keccak algorithm as it is being felt that the current algorithm, Ethash, is no longer suitable for the Ethereum Classic. The change to Keccak would lead to an increase in ETC’s hash rate and the inclusion of hardware dedicated exclusively to the ETC mining.

A change to SHA-3 software is also expected to attract the interest of new miners and stimulate the growth of ETC’s hash rate. With over $70 million of mining rewards, ETC would represent the largest network that is profitable to mine with FPGA devices.

Currently, 6 million GPUs are mining Ethereum. In comparison, only 800,000 GPUs are mining the Ethereum Classic.

The ETC community though has expressed concerns about the time it may take to develop these SHA-3 ASICs.

Meanwhile, ETC has recorded a 535% increase in its number of active addresses, according to data from Coin Metrics, to reach 100,862 active addresses.

Bitcoin makes its move on Africa

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Bitcoin’s future lies in Africa; Jack Dorsey is making sure of that

Jack Dorsey’s intention for Bitcoin has always been for it to achieve “currency status”. However, rather than woo central bankers and financial institutions, Dorsey’s intention is to build a use-case with Bitcoin in the market that needs it the most—Africa.

Dorsey has told the media that he believes Africa will ‘define’ the future, especially the Bitcoin one. Building the prophecy, he revealed that Africa will be his home for a great deal of 2020.

He tweeted: “Sad to be leaving the continent…for now. Africa will define the future (especially the bitcoin one!). Not sure where yet, but I’ll be living here for 3-6 months mid 2020. Grateful I was able to experience a small part.”

Given this proclamation, his future residence, and his understanding and underpinning of Bitcoin as currency, Africa’s financial future will be heavily influenced by Bitcoin and Dorsey’s financial services company, Square.