Tron and Neo weren’t the only crypto projects interested in acquiring BitTorrent in fact, CoinDesk has learned, five others were tempted to buy too.
CryptScout #BitFeed RSS – Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency News 24/7
Op Ed DApps Can Increase Audience Engagement for Creators and Influencers
n nn nn Many of us are familiar with the term DApp, which stands for decentralized application.Foundationally, a DApp is an application that runs using blockchain technology on a decentralized network of computers instead of on a central database. Transactions via a DApp require the consensus of all users on the blockchain. For example, a financial transfer transacted via any DApp cannot be completed unless validated by all computers in the network, sometimes refe
CryptScout #BitFeed RSS – Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency News 24/7
Digital Content Platform to Connect Creators and Customers Without Intermediaries
Wemark, a VC-backed startup has launched an alpha version of its digital content marketplace on a blockchain, aiming to give creators an opportunity to transact with the customers directly. The platform release happened before the company ’s token generation event, taking place in July-August 2018.
The internet is much about sharing digital content nowadays, such as photos, music, and video. All it is made by thousands, or even millions of creators, and no less people buy their content.
However, photographers and other professionals have to sell their content through centralized platforms which control the distribution of digital content. It means that creators are usually forced to share their revenues, control, and most of their rights over the content they create with distribution giants like Getty Images or Shutterstock. This control often results in the content creator receiving only a small portion of the actual price paid by the customer.
Wemark was founded by Tai Kaish, Pavel Elkind and Roy Meirom . The company is developing a solution which could remove intermediaries between creators and customers of digital content for the benefit for them both. One of the key features is to decentralize the whole licensing process. From accepting payments and providing access to the content, to the registration of licenses and distribution of revenue, all using a blockchain-based system which isn’t controlled by any 3rd party.
To realize their idea, the company has raised over million in equity financing from Palo Alto’s NFX Fund, Elevator Fund, Sarona ventures and private investors.
Now, Wemark has launched an alpha version of its curated marketplace of commercial images with the help of partners – including top-selling image producers such as Monkey Business, Caia Image, and CAVAN. They will make their collections available through Wemark’s new licensing protocol. Although not all images have been uploaded to the marketplace yet, Wemark’s collection currently contains over 1 million photos, and the number is quickly increasing.
The platform utilizes blockchain, which allows direct trade between content creators and customers. “Digital content licensing is a perfect use-case for smart contracts which facilitate payments and licensing directly between creators and customers”, says Tai Kaish, Wemark’s CEO.
Wemark’s licensing protocol accepts payments directly from customers, registers a license and automatically distributes the funds to the photographer.
As the Wemark representative commented, stock photography is the most centralized vertical in the digital content industry, where major players keep up to 85 percent of revenues. The Wemark in its turn has a fixed fee of 15 percent for payments, which means the lion share is taken by the photographer.
“Wemark’s blockchain-based marketplace allows creators to benefit most of the advantages of distributing their content directly, while still providing customers with a single platform to access all the content in the network. And of course, the confidence and stability of licensing their content with a system that cannot increase their fees or change their content pricing without their consent”, added Kaish.
According to a Wemark’s roadmap, the marketplace will not be limited to just photos – support for other types of content such as illustrations, vectors, video, stock music and 3D models is claimed to be added, starting Q1 2019.
Besides investors, Wemark also has attracted professionals in the photo industry as advisors. The list includes founder of Picasa Lars Perkins, co-founder of Forbes.com Miguel Forbes, and former Shutterstock executives Keren Sachs – director of content development – and Michael C. Lesser – vice president and general counsel.
“The world’s leading content providers have entrusted us with their photos before we have even licensed an image. They believe in what we are building and the future of the content licensing on the blockchain. We are honored and invigorated by the support from the creative community”, said Keren Sachs.
The marketplace launch allows potential customers to experience the full platform, except the licensing and downloading of images which can only be done with Wemark tokens (WMK).
WMK will become available after the company’s token generation event, scheduled for July-August 2018.
The post Digital Content Platform to Connect Creators and Customers Without Intermediaries appeared first on NewsBTC.
Content Creators Can Have a Tough Time — But Blockchain Can Help
Creating content and educational materials for your followers online can be extremely rewarding. It’s common to hear stories of people who make a great living by publishing content to social media or sharing videos.
YouTubers like Pewdiepie are almost household names and make millions of dollars a year from their passion. To those on the outside, it can seem like a dream lifestyle. But being a content creator can be tough, especially when your income depends on it. For every mega-successful YouTuber or Instagram celebrity, there are many, many others who are struggling to make ends meet.
There are lots of reasons for this. Being a content creator comes with many risks and challenges, from finding somewhere to publish your work to fighting off plagiarism. One of the biggest problems is sustainability — it can be hard to generate a reliable income every month.
There could be a way to make things easier though, and it involves blockchain technology and a new company.
First, though, let’s take a deeper look at the challenges facing content creators today.
The problems with being a content creator
Content creation, and educating others online, is evolving fast. Lots of content creators rely on existing platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube to publish their content. Since these sites already have enormous user bases, it’s a ready-made audience.
That means huge potential, and the chance to make life-changing amounts of money doing something that you’re passionate about. Unfortunately, there are downsides too. These platforms tend to take a big cut of your profits — Facebook’s Watch feature takes 45% of all revenue, for example.
There’s clearly a huge market for educational and entertaining content, but unfortunately reaching that market is difficult without relying on big, expensive platforms. Those platforms are well aware of this fact, and they make sure to profit from it.
There’s also the issue of plagiarism. Designers, writers, and other content creators can work for hours on something, only to have it stolen by an opportunistic thief. Often it’s very hard to get justice and reclaim the work, especially if the thief is a big organization.
So what’s the solution?
Blockchain’s solution
The key to a fairer and more rewarding ecosystem for content creators could lie with blockchain technology. Because of its decentralized nature, blockchain is the ideal antidote to centralized monopolies like YouTube and Facebook that control the content-sharing market.
If done properly, blockchain could be used to give content creators and educators much more control over what they publish, and share it in a better way. It’d make it easier to monetize content and have more freedom over it.
A new promising project called AC3 hopes to make life easier for content creators and educators. It’ll allow them to share their work with their audience directly, and use a more secure and transparent system to avoid plagiarism.
Unlike many other blockchain companies, AC3 didn’t go down the ICO route when funding their project and chose to focus instead on building the technology. The platform is straightforward: fans and followers pay with AC3 tokens to access content, and creators can also sell their content for these same tokens. They can be used as currency to buy things like design and programming courses within the platform.
AC3 also focuses on fighting plagiarism.
The platform uses its own wallet software, so each user gets their own secure wallet. The content they send and receive on AC3 is protected, using blockchain technology and cryptographic hashes to make sure nobody can use it without their permission.
It’s certainly a noble goal and is filling a need that’s becoming harder to ignore. As more and more people turn to the internet to share content and make a living, platforms like AC3 can help this become a viable lifestyle and remove many of the drawbacks.
By fighting plagiarism and offering an alternative to giant content platforms, blockchain technology could give content creators a level of freedom they haven’t experienced before, along with the peace of mind of a regular income.
The post Content Creators Can Have a Tough Time — But Blockchain Can Help appeared first on NewsBTC.
Blockchain Based Rewards Benefit Independent Content Creators
Independent content providers have a difficult path to earning a living from their work but some new Blockchain based reward networks are changing this.
Content creators to get their due
Anyone who has spent years and countless hours developing independent content across multiple platforms knows how hard it is to actually generate any revenue from the work.
While Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram rely on user-generated content the revenue that streams in from ads goes directly to the platform, only rarely dripping into the pockets of those who put the time and energy into drawing the traffic.
Author and founder of Good Audience, Sherman Lee, believes decentralization and Blockchain ledger technology are a perfect combination to bridge this gap in creation and reimbursement.
As she recently wrote in Forbes ‘Every single piece of unique content could be recorded on the Blockchain along with impressions, likes, and comments. Content creators would have transparency into the impact they are making for brands or social networks and be properly rewarded for it.’
Virtual rewards networks already exist and some of them are funneling revenue back to the original content creators.
Blockchain-based rewards taking off
Steemit allows content creators to be rewarded in STEEM tokens based on votes from users. These tokens can then be exchanged for fiat currency. The platform that started in March of 2016 has paid out million to 50,000 users as of November 2017.
The downside to Steemit is that users are only rewarded for content on that platform. All of the hard work a creator may have put into building their Twitter or Instagram feeds cannot be rewarded through this.
Gifto, a Hong Kong-based rewards protocol, has solved this by allowing users to award virtual gifts across all platforms. These gifts can then be exchanged for GTO tokens which in turn can be exchanged for fiat currency. These gifts can be awarded on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or any social network platform.
CEO of Asia Innovation Group creator of both Gifto and Uplive, a live streaming network in Asia, has been looking at gamification for a long time. He believes that virtual gifts are a way to keep users engaged and creators continuing to put out high quality and sometimes groundbreaking content. According to Asia Innovation Group Uplive generated over 0 million in revenue for content generators in 2017. Gifto will replace Uplive for 2018 and is projected to go over 300 Million in virtual gifts.
There are other Blockchain based rewards networks out there such as the Basic Attention Token (BAT) which allow users of the browser to reward websites directly for their content using the BAT token. Irrespective of which one gains the greatest adoption the ultimate winner will be the independent content creators who have been traditionally left out of the revenue loop.
The post Blockchain Based Rewards Benefit Independent Content Creators appeared first on NewsBTC.
Po.ets Frost Launches Blockchain-Based Solutions for Bloggers, Content Creators
If you are one of the 81 million people who use WordPress to publish content, youll soon be able to automatically timestamp your works within the WordPress content management system using the new Po.et plugin.February 8, 2018 marked the launch of Frost, an open API and set of developer tools from Po.et that will enable content publishers and developers to more easily register their creative works on the blockchain. The new API will enable integrations and decentralized applications, including
CryptScout #BitFeed RSS – Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency News 24/7
SPECTRE Creators Propose ‘PHANTOM’ Blockchain Protocol
The researchers behind the SPECTRE project have developed another blockchain scaling solution called the PHANTOM protocol.
CoinDesk
Creators of Bitcoin Futures Defend Practices Against Regulation
Executives of two bitcoin futures exchanges defended their practices as not unduly risky to the Commodity Futures Committee as it considers tighter scrutiny of cryptocurrency derivatives.
Advocates argue for self-regulation
As reported by Forbes CboE Global Markets President and Chief Operating Officer Chris Concannon contended that before launching Bitcoin futures in December they had extensive contact with Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) staff, futures commission merchants, and other market participants.
Kathleen Cronin General Counsel for the CME Group argued CME’s rigorous efforts in developing its Bitcoin Futures.
“We are quite comfortable with the risk profile. It is no different from other contracts that have exhibited volatility”
These comments were made at a CFTC advisory group session convened to analyze the possibility of manipulating cryptocurrency futures and ensuring an adequate margin requirement.
CFTC chair Christopher Giancarlo has voiced his concern that exchanges bringing their cryptocurrency futures to market without formal CFTC approval may pose potential dangers to investors.
He went on to say that these potential dangers may need to be measured by the exchanges in conjunction with CFTC staff.
CFTC concerned over futures manipulation
Giancarlo’s fellow Republican Commissioner Brian Quintenz said self-certification is going along well for Bitcoin futures and that the introduction of new cryptocurrency derivatives should not be affected by the political considerations of its regulators.
Arguing for stricter controls Democratic Commissioner Rostin Behnam said that CFTC approval should be required because of the potential high risk of cryptocurrency products to investors.
Kari Larsen who acts as an attorney for multiple virtual currency futures exchanges called the derivatives an important measure for investors hedging risk since many virtual currencies are volatile.
The CFTC has taken up the mantle of regulating potential cryptocurrency manipulation while the Securities and Exchange Commision takes a back seat. Both Giancarlo and SEC Chairman Jay Clayton will be testifying on virtual currencies before the Senate Banking Committee Tuesday.
The debate over Bitcoin futures regulation will most likely continue on in America for some time while it seems like the way has been cleared in Japan with Tokyo Financial Exchange set to launch their Bitcoin futures products early this year.
Not surprising that Japan may lead the way for the cryptocurrency futures market as it is still one of the few countries to recognize Bitcoin as legal tender.
The post Creators of Bitcoin Futures Defend Practices Against Regulation appeared first on NewsBTC.
Ransomware Creators Having Funds Stolen; Victims Locked Out
Ransomware distributors and other cybercriminals expecting an easy payday are having their illicitly obtained “earnings” stolen by likeminded individuals, who are hijacking the ransom payments before they are received and redirecting them into their own cryptocurrency wallets. At first glance, this may not seem like a huge problem — attackers getting a taste of their own medicine in becoming victims of cyber-theft themselves. But these attacks are also preventing ransomware victims from unlocking their encrypted files, because, as far as those distributing the malware are concerned, they never received their ransom payment.
Ransomware is a huge problem for internet users across the globe. It’s a form of malicious software —malware — which encrypts documents on a computer or across a network. Victims can often only regain access to their encrypted files and/or networks by paying a ransom to the criminals behind the ransomware.
Uncovered by researchers at Proofpoint, this scheme is believed to be the first of its kind. So how are these attacks actually happening? Cybercriminals are using a Tor proxy browser (Tor is a web browser designed for anonymous web surfing) to carry out middle-man attacks, stealing the cryptocurrency payments the victims of ransomware are attempting to send to their attackers.
The attacks take advantage of the way ransomware distributors have victims use Tor to buy the cryptocurrency they need to make the ransom payment. While many ransomware notes provide instructions on how to download and run the Tor browser, others provide links to a Tor proxy, regular websites that translate Tor traffic into normal web traffic (so the process of paying is as straightforward as possible for the victim).
What’s been happening is one of the Tor gateways being used is altering cryptocurrency wallet addresses in the proxy, and redirecting the payment into other accounts, rather than those of the ransomware attacker. Proofpoint researchers uncovered that the proxy can redirect payments made by victims of several forms of ransomware, including LockeR, GlobeImposter, and Sigma.
As noted above, the victims, like the state of Alabama, are the ultimate losers in this scenario. Not only are they paying thousands of dollars in ransom demands, they’re not even getting their files back. These middle-man attacks mean the ransomware distributors don’t get the funds they demand from the victims and therefore don’t help said victims unlock their encrypted files.
The post Ransomware Creators Having Funds Stolen; Victims Locked Out appeared first on NewsBTC.
Dogecoin Market Cap Hits $1 Billion, to Its Creator’s Dismay
Dogecoin has set all-time high after a long period of stagnation. Yet the joke currency’s founder worries the rally is a sign of market excess.
CoinDesk