Saturday, June 20, 2020

kuailian Decentralized Protocol

http://app.kuailiandp.com/auth/register/ref/eb574fde-2893-45cd-badc-a45773539821
Kuailian Investment Bank is a European based Digital Bank . The Bank is offering a Cryptocurrency based investment fund which is a flexible solution for investors to add dollar-denominated securities.

The initial minimum investment amount is $100. It is an open-ended  investment that allows investors scale up their investments in units of $100. It provides an opportunity for individual and institutional investors to diversify their portfolio and hedge against currency fluctuations. 

One of the objectives of the investment is to help investors achieve income generation, capital preservation and portfolio diversification in the short, medium to long term.

It is designed to deliver significantly higher returns than the average Government securities like treasury bills as well as call deposits such as fixed deposits in commercial Banks in Nigeria . Dividend is paid daily in dollars. There are two investment forms , the Low and Medium Risk with rates from 0.17% -0.4% daily  and  0.50 -0.75% daily and respectively. Payment is for 1,000 days. Return on Investment on the average is about 12- 15% monthly . 

Investment is hosted via SMART CONTRACTS on the Blockchain. The Blockchain is a single source of truth and smart contracts are irreversible contracts on the digital space. Therefore investment is for 1,000 days before Principal is recalled automatically without any human intervention. The Transparency of the process is unbeatable and indescribable.

Members of the public who have future dollar obligations like health ,tourism, education fees and vacations can use the Investment to save towards their goals.

The low initial investment amount means more investors can diversify their portfolios and benefit from Kuailan Investment Bank’s years of experience.

http://app.kuailiandp.com/auth/register/ref/eb574fde-2893-45cd-badc-a45773539821

Monday, June 15, 2020

Proof of Stake ecosystem. All you need to know

 
Proof-Of-Stake is a new income opportunity for companies, private investors and common users. We’d like to show you how this PoS ecosystem works and who are the market players.  

Proof-Of-Stake is the Blockchain network security protocol that allows any PoS tokens owner to participate in the network security management and get rewarded for it. Today the PoS ecosystem market is still being formed. Low entry threshold and a relatively simple system suggest that there can be plenty of various players on this market. Let’s divide them into certain groups and take a closer look at each.  

Who holds PoS tokens 
Private investors and investment companies are the main PoS ecosystem representatives. However, most of these tokens belong not to them but to funds and companies that are funding decentralized networks development.  

Organizations working directly with PoS ecosystem crypto assets or organizations financed with them are also one of such players. Projects and companies make their products available on the PoS network, thus improving it.  

To the next group belong third-party services that allow buying, storing and managing PoS crypto assets. They make the decision whether to let clients and their assets participate in the ecosystem work.This group includes exchanges, wallets and other services working with cryptocurrency.  

Among the most important participants of the PoS ecosystem are Staking” providers. These are companies providing the infrastructure for making money on Proof of Stake. Such companies can be called “Bidding pools”, “Delegation services” or “Staking providers”.  

The last group in this ecosystem includes those players who do professional market research and guide investors into services and working methods that are trustworthy and best for them.  
In this picture you can see the PoS ecosystem visualised  
  
Whether it is a private investor or some big company, work always begins with cost and rewards calculation and analysis. Any participant of the process should think about it first. Some can decide to start an independent work while others prefer to delegate it to intermediaries like Staking providers. Let’s see how these groups of token owners and infrastructure representatives are interconnected.  

Private investors 
This group is the most diverse as it includes professional investors, crypto enthusiasts and those who happened to become PoS token owners by accident.  
Investors from this group can participate and make money on the ecosystem in different ways depending on where and how they hold their assets. Some of the investors can manage them on their own while others will pass it to intermediaries in exchange for a certain percentage of their profits. The ones delegating assets management can fall into two more groups - investors, who choose their intermediaries themselves and those who trust the judgement of competent individuals or platforms.  

Institutional investors  
Unlike private investors’ opportunities for working with the PoS ecosystem, those of the institutional ones are in some way limited by certain rules and regulations. These rules and other restrictions determine how crypto assets will be held.  
This group of institutional investors includes venture capital funds that could be investing in PoS projects at an early development stage. To this group also belong hedge funds and other organizations that happened to own and manage PoS tokens for commercial or other reasons.  
These organizations can either put together a team of specialists for crypto assets managing or conclude partnership with a company providing such services. Some of them can even work with custodians.  
Another management option is the use of specially designed delegation protocols and inspecting third-party services by passing their data to different departments.On the market today you can see examples of institutional investors’ various crypto assets management strategies and their partnership with intermediaries.

Blockchain Companies  
Companies working with crypto assets  
Many, for some reason, forget or ignore this group when talking about the PoS ecosystem. In fact, it can have a significant Staking market share. Many companies will or already hold crypto assets involved in Staking. They could receive such assets from ICO or grants. Examples of such companies can be payment gateways holding that kind of crypto assets.  
Some representatives: BitPay, Ripple, Genesis 
Companies building their product on the PoS network  
Many projects and companies holding Proof of Stake crypto assets could be interested in securing the network they hold their projects and assets on. Such companies can split their assets and “Put” them on the PoS network thus showing how safe and reliable it is.  

Funds 
Blockchain community has controversial opinions regarding these funds as they are in control of the larger tokens share. Besides, in the Staking process their share can grow even bigger, thus increasing funds’ control over the network.  

Yet at the same time, all the other market players can benefit from this advantage as for assuring the network security a “major holder” support is needed. What’s more, it’s a great opportunity for constant financing and development of the decentralised network.  
Some representatives: Tezos, ETH, EOS. 

Third parties
 
Wallets 
Cryptocurrency wallets have plenty of options for seizing the Proof of Stake ecosystem opportunities. They can build their own infrastructure or partner with providers of such services. And only then crypto wallets can offer Staking services to their clients.  
The other option might be enabling a delegation protocol so their users could decide how to manage their assets in the Staking process.  
Some representatives: Cobo, TrustWallet 
Cryptocurrency exchanges
The interesting thing about these exchanges is that they can use their clients’ funds and do Staking on their behalf. Or they can resort to creating a different account type in their system that their users can use for participating in Staking.  
Some representatives: Binance, Okex, Huobi 

Custodians 
Some crypto assets owners don’t want to hold and manage PoS tokens on their own so it led to the appearance of certain companies offering representation and mediation services.  
For example, American hedge funds’ crypto assets worth over $150 million should be held by a certified custodian. Besides, it has its impact on the Staking economy.  
Custodians can manage their infrastructure alone or allow clients pass their tokens to partners for Staking. Since these organizations-holders are regulated by law, it is still unclear whether they will be able to do Staking directly.  
Custodians’ activity must be certified by approved regulators.  
Some representatives: CoinBase, BitGO, PolySign. 

Staking providers  
Finally, we’ll talk about the most important, in our view, market players - professional Staking providers.These organizations are engaged in creating and maintaining the Staking infrastructures.  
Almost all of the groups described above are somehow involved in work with Staking providers. StakedWallet is an example of such Staking providers aimed at providing high-quality service for private investors, investment companies and other organizations.  
Some representatives: HashQuark, Certus, InfStones, Chorus,
Stakedwallet.io 

The Proof Of Stake ecosystem has plenty of various representatives but is still essentially simple. However, with such great potential it has already managed to attract considerable amount of funding. It is an undeniable fact that prospects of development are promising both for investors and other players of this market.  
 
 

Sunday, June 14, 2020

Trust and Cryptocurrency


Written by Robert Kiyosaki 

Turmoil in the making
In 1910, seven men held a secret meeting on Jekyll Island off the coast of Georgia. It's estimated that those seven men represented one-sixth of the world's wealth. Six were Americans representing J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and the U.S. government. One was a European representing the Rothschilds and Warburgs.

In 1913, the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank was created as a direct result of that secret meeting. Interestingly, the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank isn't federal, there are no reserves, and it's not a bank. Those seven men, some American and some European, created this new entity, commonly referred to as the Fed, to take control of the banking system and the money supply of the United States.



In 1944, a meeting in Bretton Woods, N.H., led to the creation of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. While the stated purposes for the two new organizations initially sounded admirable, the IMF and the World Bank were created to do to the world what the Federal Reserve Bank does to the United States.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon signed an executive order declaring that the United States no longer had to redeem its paper dollars for gold. With that, the first phase of the takeover of the world banking system and money supply was complete.

Today, the rich are getting richer, but most people are becoming poorer. Much of this turmoil is directly related to those meetings that took place decades ago. In other words, much of this turmoil is by design.

That leads to distrust in the system and distrust in our “leaders".

Let me explain how these occurrences collided to create “government” money and then how that led to the creation of blockchain and cryptocurrencies.

How the banker prints money
People who need money go to a banker and ask for a “loan.” The banker lends out nine of your 10 gold coins. The one gold coin he holds in his vault is the “fractional reserve.” The banker only needs to hold 10 percent—or 1 of your original 10 gold coins—in his vault to meet the “reserve” requirement.

Money has now been printed. Ten coins have become 19 coins through the fractional reserve banking system. Your 10 coins are real money. The nine coins out on loan to borrowers are fake money. Fake money has been printed.

This is where it gets exciting. The person who borrowed nine of your 10 gold coins goes to his or her bank and deposits your nine gold coins. The person who borrowed those nine coins is now issued a CD for nine coins.

The banker holding the nine borrowed coins then lends out 8.1 of the nine coins to the next borrower.

This borrower takes his 8.1 coins and deposits them in his bank. That banker lends out 90 percent of the 8.1 coins to the next borrower… and on and on.

This is known as the Mandrake Mechanism, named after a comic-strip magician character named Mandrake. Mandrake could pull anything out of his hat—exactly as your banker can “pull” money out of thin air.

In this simple example, the original 10 coins have now been expanded to 27.1 coins through the magic of the fractional reserve system of banking. The 27.1 coins are soon 2,710 or more coins through the magic of the fractional reserve system and the Mandrake Mechanism.

The fractional reserve system and the Mandrake Mechanism are how massive amounts of fake money are printed.

Mandrake takes over the world
Think about this: In 1971, the year Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard, the world no longer needed the original 10 gold coins. The Mandrake System of Magic Money took over the world.

Imagine billions of people borrowing and depositing billions of fake dollars in banks all over the world—as Mandrake magically pulls more and more fake money out of his hat.

After the 2008 market collapse, Mandrake the Magician had to pull over $1 quadrillion out of his “hat” to save his Magic World of Money from collapse.

How long can Mandrake keep pulling magic money out of his hat? That’s the question.

The justifiable lack of faith in the Mandrake System and the reality of the corruption of the “controlling elite” who run the Mandrake System through their banks is the reason the world demanded a change… a crypto change.

Ancient money and modern money
Throughout history, “money” has been many different things. Money has taken the form of seashells, colored beads, feathers, live animals, and large stones.

Today there are three types of modern money. They are:

God’s money: Gold and silver

Government’s money: Dollars, Euros, pesos, etc.

People’s money: Bitcoin, Ethereum, ZipCoin, etc.

Central banks are run by the “controlling elite”. These elites do not like gold because central their banks cannot print gold.

Central banks do not like Bitcoin and blockchain because people’s money does not need central banks.

Central banks print government money.

Government money has no integrity.

God’s money and people’s money have more integrity than central bank money.

Today, as I write this, the price of Bitcoin and other cyber currencies are rapidly rising and crashing. Once again, very few people understand how cryptocurrencies or “blockchain technology currencies” are going to affect their lives, their future, and their financial security.

The rising price of gold in 1971 and Bitcoin in 2018 are the rumblings of profound global changes, shifts in global financial tectonic plates, which will cause financial earthquakes and financial tsunamis all over the world.

I do not trust government money. It is fake money. And I do not trust myself. I know I do not know everything. I do not have all the answers. I cannot predict the future, but I know I must prepare for the future. *note if you are interested in knowing the ins and outs of cryptocurrencies you can click here to meet the man who knows more about cryptocurrencies and blockchain than… possibly anyone.



I do not trust the elites who run our governments, banks, or Wall Street. I do not trust anyone who prints fake money.

Bitcoin and cyber money
In 2009, Bitcoin appeared… and cyber money begins to challenge Mandrake’s Magical Money Show.

Mandrake does not like competition. The architects and controlling elite (basically the real Mandrakes) will fight back against cyber money, the people’s money.

People’s money: cryptocurrencies
Bitcoin came on the scene in 2009, just as the banking system was on the verge of collapsing.

One giant advantage of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies is trust and security outside the banking system.

As cryptocurrencies evolve, the power of the banking system— Mandrake’s Magical Money Show—will lose its grip on the financial freedom of the world.

The Bitcoin threat
That is why cyber money, people’s money, is such a threat. Many cryptocurrency miners and developers are driven by an intense desire, a passion (and in some cases a hatred) to bring down Mandrake’s Magical Money Show and the invisible leaders or “controlling elite”.

Today, billions of people are trapped in a central banking system owned by the mega-rich.

The central banks are not elected by the people and do not have to answer to the people. That is why gold and Bitcoin are a threat to central bankers.

Bitcoin is the “gold standard” for cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is a threat to those who print fake money.

The Fed and Bitcoin miners have a lot in common. Both manufacture money. That is why cryptocurrencies are a threat to the Central Bank monopoly on fake money. But, cryptocurrencies are less fake than the fake, government money we already use.

While I am not an expert on cryptocurrencies. I do understand that blockchain technology is the real technology. Blockchain technology is more trustworthy than human beings. Money is dependent upon trust, so I trust blockchain technology more than I do human beings.

Blockchain technology will change the world because blockchain technology is more trustworthy than government money. I prefer gold and silver (God’s money) for the same reason. Gold and silver are far more trustworthy than the people running our governments, banks, and pension funds.

If you’re seeking new and exciting opportunities to achieve your financial dreams, then the world of cryptocurrencies might be a great platform for you to explore. Just know that the future of this marketplace is entirely unpredictable, prices are fluctuating daily and it’s a total gamble at this point. It’s the people versus the government and the controlling elite, so before you jump in, get educated (Click here) to learn from the same teacher I use).

As Benjamin Franklin once said, “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” As with any investment, do your research and make sure you’re educated before you plunk down your hard-earned money.

HOW BLOCKCHAIN IS REVAMPING BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES



Gone are the days when blockchain was solely known for cryptocurrencies, today technology has stepped far beyond just powering Bitcoin. Blockchain is a distributed ledger that has emerged as one of the most groundbreaking applications and has amazing potential to transform almost every sector, including financial institutions, healthcare, supply chain, and many more. Due to its key features, such as transparency, decentralization, and immutability, the most popular domain of blockchain use is in the banking sector. The finance and banking sector has started adopting this technology to shift from conventional banking practices to convenient banking services as blockchain ledgers offer innovative solutions.

Blockchain Over Traditional Banking
Traditional banks and financial institutions have faced several challenges for decades, such as inefficient payment clearing processes, inability to stop fraud, the limited number of currency options, and many other issues. Here Blockchain technology comes into picture that can eradicate all the existing problems.

Blockchain is a series of connected blocks containing a record of data that is governed by different peers, not owned by any single entity, and secured by the cryptography principle. Blockchain ledgers facilitate bilateral settlement by eliminating intermediaries’ failures, collateral costs, delays, minimize credit risks, faster implementation of transactions, enhanced transparency in operations, amongst others.

Major Use Cases of Blockchain in Finance Domain
Over the past few years, the technology has matured for enterprise-grade use demonstrating the benefits like security, transparency, trust, programmability, privacy, high-performance, and scalability. Let’s explore how this technology is utilizing such benefits and revamping banking sector and finance institutions.



Investment Management
Capital firms, real estate funds, private assets firms, and specialty markets are facing demands to improve risk management and address the increasing complexity of ever-changing regulations. Blockchain can efficiently streamline asset and stakeholder management. The technology allows seamless stakeholder engagement with digitized assets and services, automated fund launch, fractionalization, digitization of portfolio and existing holdings for broader market access, customizable built-in privacy settings for transaction confidentiality, and other shareholder rights and obligations programmed into digital assets.

 Payments and Remittances
Today, global payments and remittances are executed by several intermediaries that charge fees for their services and takes several days in transacting. Blockchain can streamline payment and remittance processes, significantly reducing costs and settlement times. It allows secure and accelerated domestic retail payments, wholesale and securities settlement, and secured cross border payments. The real-time gross agreements between central banks, commercial banks, and other independent banks are also smooth and fast. Blockchain has no geographical limitations, thus enables secure P2P transfers globally.

Trade Finance
Trade finance refers to the processes, infrastructure, and funding that support international trade supply chains. The industries depend on paper-based processes that are inclined to secure susceptibility. Single transactions can take a few months to prepare the entire process. Blockchain can be of great use in administering trade finance transactions for the banks. Under the blockchain, all the necessary documents such as Tax invoices, Bill of lading, or shipping can be recorded in a decentralized repository, where all the authorized parties can access the data in real-time. This will improve efficiency tremendously and will allow the authorized parties to track the transactions with ease.

Digital Identity Verification
For online financial transactions to perform, identity verification is mandatory. With blockchain in fintech, users can choose how they identify themselves and with whom they agree to share their identity. Although they still need to register their identity on the blockchain, they do not need to repeat the registration for each service provider if those providers are also powered by blockchain.

Insurance 
Insurance companies engage in a highly competitive environment, where both corporate and retail customers expect the best value for money and exceptional online experience. Blockchain technology represents an opportunity for positive growth and change in the insurance industry. The technique can bring significant efficiency gains along with transparency, cost savings, fraud mitigation, and faster payouts while allowing data to be shared in real-time between various parties in a traceable and trusted manner. It also enables new insurance practices to build better products and market solutions.

Summary
To sum up, we can say that technology offers several benefits for each use case as it can lower the costs and bring faster processing of transactions. It eliminates the concept of intermediaries for transaction authorization and reduces paperwork and bureaucracy. Blockchain can streamline the entire trading process, but whether the technology will replace traditional banks is unanswered. But one sure thing is the technology is capable of disrupting the finance industry and creating something innovative.

HOW MONETARY POLICY AFFECTS YOU AND I

HOW MONETARY POLICY AFFECTS YOU AND I 

You know CBN’s new policy of excluding domestic investors from its Open Market Operations (OMO) and rather allowing only foreign portfolio investors has forced domestic investors to purchase government securities such as bonds and T- bills. With the rush it has killed the coupon rates of bonds and discount rate on T- bills. Rates are not favorable. Commercial Banks have lobbied CBN to exclude private entities from purchasing Govt securities and as such private entities rushed fixed deposits and now the rates have crashed affecting institutions and individuals such as you and I. The CBN wants Banks to fund Agriculture and Infrastructure on a long term basis . 

So that’s why your Fixed Deposit yields a very low interest . 

In a time like this you may wish to diversity your portfolio a little as an institution or an individual. The reason is because for most of us who are employees of small businesses or blue chip companies ,starting an active business in this period comes with a lot of uncertainty. Money in the Bank is loosing value as inflation sets in badly. Futures exchange rate is now N501 to the Dollar . 

Proof of Work (Pow) explained

Proof of Work explained

The Proof of Work protocol is one of the methods used during mining process. During this process, nodes (computers) compete among themselves to make sure that the information contained in each block of transactions is accurate. For these efforts, they receive a reward.

If you are paid $10 for a product, you recognise the value of that currency, and you trust it because it’s backed by the government. These institutions act as guarantors of the value of the currencies they print. The Proof of Work protocol does the same for cryptocurrencies. It ensures the data contained in the blockchain is trustworthy by giving the network nodes an incentive to validate accurate data and reject false information.

All of this happens in spite of the fact there is no central institution backing it. When used in the context of a blockchain, it allows for trust between unknown parties because they share a confidence in the veracity of the consensus protocol.

How does Proof of Work actually work?

If I send you one BTC, that transaction is registered on a block with other transactions with a timestamp and communicated to the decentralised network where different machines, or miners, employ their computing power to validate it (along with the rest of the block).

The network nodes validate the information by competing among themselves to find the solution to increasingly more complex mathematical riddles. They present solutions on a trial-and-error basis until one finds the correct number and communicates it to the remaining machines. When a majority of nodes agree that one miner has solved the problem, a consensus is achieved.

For this work, the miner receives a reward in the form of transaction fees and the block of transactions is added to the decentralised, shared ledger where it becomes an immutable part of the blockchain. When these different nodes compete until they reach a solution on which the whole network agrees, they use up a lot of computational power, energy, and time.

As the problems increase in complexity, so do these costs, which provides a further incentive not to cheat the system. Why would you go through all the effort and cost of investing in powerful computers to then miss out on the rewards?

The proof of work protocol that allows for this validation is brilliant in its inception because it relies on human self-interest to guarantee the integrity of the blockchain. Proof of Work exists so that transactions can’t be falsified.

Why does Proof of Work matter?

Proof of Work is essential because it allows for trust in a trustless environment. When miners agree to compete for the reward for getting the next block right, they implicitly agree to abide by the rules of that community of nodes, instead of manipulating the blockchain for their own purposes.

By increasing the difficulty of verifying each block, this protocol ensures excessive mining doesn’t take place. It preserves the supply of cryptocurrency while incentivising miners to keep the network running.

Since it uses limited resources like time, computational strength and energy, Proof of Work isn’t infinitely scalable.  This often causes controversy. 

An alternative to tackle the resource inefficiencies inherent to this protocol is the Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. In this mechanism, the network values seniority and investment in the cryptocurrency over computational power. Since every time a new block is created the miner has to trade in old units of that crypto for new ones, that miner will be in a weaker position to create the next block.

This ensures a continual turnover in who gets to mine each block while also incentivising the trustworthiness of that crypto by making the largest holders an integral part of the process

Introduction to Masternodes

There are several ways to make money in the cryptosphere. To begin with, you can buy and sell digital currencies for a profit through an exchange such as Coinbase. Secondly, you can run a Masternode.

Perhaps you may have heard crypto enthusiasts mention the term Masternode severally, and all this time you have been wondering what it is or how it works. Worry no more, in this post we shall cover everything you need to know about masternodes.


So, what is a Masternode?


A node can simply be understood as a computer that plays a part in ensuring the integrity of a coin network. The crypto space is not only decentralized but also distributed; therefore it functions by several people running nodes from different parts of the world. 

That said, you require a full node to host a copy of the Blockchain (coin’s ledger) and thus support the network.

A Masternode is a crypto full node (computer wallet) that supports the network by hosting an entire copy of the coin’s ledger in real time. In return, the Masternode will receive crypto coins as a reward. This is another forum of mining

This must be differentiated from Proof of Work (PoW) mining. PoW, is the original consensus algorithm in a Blockchain network. In Blockchain, this algorithm is used to confirm transactions and produce new blocks to the chain. With PoW, miners compete against each other to complete transactions on the network and get rewarded. This would be explained in a latter post