📈 Band Protocol In-Depth Review & Rating is online!

▶️ Read the full review at the following link: https://cryptocalibur.com/band-protocol-review/

Band is an open protocol that functions as an open standard for data management. The project facilitates the governance of data used in decentralized blockchain systems, and aims to solve current issues surrounding data accessibility and data reliability in a decentralized way. As a Web 3.0 component layer solution it resolves issues regarding data availability and reliability for blockchains in the Web3 technology stack.

The project incorporates public smart contract data points that allow dApps to consume data without needing to call on oracles that are external to the blockchain, and Band’s data feeds are community-curated data sources, that provide a framework for both users and developers to moderate, curate and manage the data sources so that they remain trusted and reliable for their intended uses.

✅ Review Rating ✅

Product | 85%
Use of Blockchain | 100%
Documentation | 80%
Development Roadmap | 65%
Business Model | 75%
Company & Team | 80%
Final Rating | 81%

Band Protocol is an interesting project that aims to solve the issues surrounding smart contracts’ inability to directly interact with the outside world and pull in real world data. The decentralized oracle/data feed marketplace is still being established, and as a result Band has a good opportunity to establish itself in what is still a developing market sector. However, the team face stiff competition from ChainLink which may be pulling away from the pack, as well as other projects such as Oraclize, Witnet, Rhombus, and DIRT Protocol.

The team is currently small in number, and mostly based in Thailand. Some members do lack experience; however, it does contain some talented individuals as well. Overall the team is balanced. Most of team actually have decent experience in building blockchain businesses as well as dealing with top-level CEO of other companies. Also being backed by Sequoia allows the team to gain access to wealth of advisors/business partnership. This may allow them to work efficiently and pivot quickly whenever required, although, they will find it challenging to establish their protocol on a global level, and will be expected to develop a community in Asia before moving on to other markets. They will also need to hire seasoned business professionals and market themselves/build relationships aggressively in order to get ahead.

Another challenge facing the team is their multi token system which creates additional levels of friction. The Band token is accompanied by an unlimited number of dataset tokens which can be created by dataset groups and this adds a level of complexity to the project that could possibly have been avoided. However, most importantly, the team’s technical prowess will soon be on display once their mainnet goes live, if they deliver on the tech side as promised, they will give themselves more of a runway to develop their community of clients, partners, and users. Any information relating to a potential tokensale is still to be released, and anyone interested in Band Protocol should keep an eye on the project, and monitor how well the team continue to develop and achieve their stated goals.

Upcoming ask me anything session with DeepCloud AI!

The AMA will take place on July 12th, 2019 from 13:00 to 14:00 UTC in our Chat Room. Add the event to your calendar and make sure you prepare your questions beforehand.

This AMA will give you the opportunity to connect with DeepCloud AI's team who will answer your questions and listen to your feedback.

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🕞 COUNTDOWN 🕞

The AMA will take place in our Chat Room: @cryptocaliburchat

The AMA with DeepCloud AI will begin in 1 hour!

Stay tuned and prepare your questions.

The AMA with Ferrum Network will begin in 5 hours!

Stay tuned and prepare your questions.

🗨 Introducting the Get To Know series!

Crypto Calibur takes a moment to focus in on an individual person from the world of crypto. The aim is to use the personal to garner a bit of insight into the professional, while also considering the development of this emerging space that surrounds us all.

Our first featured guest is Ian Friend, the Co-Founder & COO of Ferrum Network.

Read The Interview: https://cryptocalibur.com/ian-friend/

The AMA with LTO Network will begin in 3 hours!

Stay tuned and prepare your questions.

🗞 Insider Newsletter #5 | July 14th, 2019 🗞

Keeping the same levels that we had on our charts last week, we’re now below the H12 demand, possibly turned into supply now. Given that we had quite a harsh rejection off of the OTE Fibs (0.620 to 0.786) at $13,000, we’re expecting a move down into the liquidity that resides below the swing low formed at $9,660. The next area to look for long entries can be the D1 demand formed right below that swing low. The last chance to bounce before we visit that swing low is probably right now, because the price just entered a demand block that formed right before reversing (we call this a breaker block). However, the reaction so far is weak. (Check out the chart analysis on our website)

In The Spotlight

🕺 Singapore’s Tax Agency Proposes to Exempt Cryptos From GST

😱 Ship Seized In Record $1.3 Billion Cocaine Bust Belongs To JPMorgan

😞 $32 Million Swiped From Cryptocurrency Exchange in Latest Hack

⛔️ Trading Bitcoin Is Illegal in Iran, Central Bank Official Warns

🔥 Blockstack Token Sale Becomes the First SEC-Qualified Offering in U.S. History

🔐 US SEC and FINRA Issue Statement on Crypto Custody Issues

🗨 Wiki’s Co-Founder Larry Sanger on Internet, Blockchain and Knowledge

Many Opinions & Even More Progress

When the financial history entries for 2019 are written, the week of July 7th throughout the 13th will surely go down as one of the more interesting and potentially long-term important of the year. Following recent cautiously positive DLT commentary from incoming ECB Chief Christine Lagarde, as well as the first FAANG entry into the space via Facebook Libra, an opinion from US President Trump himself came across Twitter.

President Trump may not be a fan, but his opinion came just a few hours following testimony from Fed Chairman Jerome Powell in which he seemed to confirm that Bitcoin is digital gold and an established store of value. Meanwhile China has reiterated the fact that they will definitely be joining the digital currency competition, and they’re not alone.

In other areas, some formerly skeptical voices in the media seem to be evolving their own opinions. Following the presidential tweet, CNBC anchor Joe Kernan gave a counter opinion, quoting long term BTC proponent, and entrepreneur Tyler Winklevoss went so far as to say he might need just 10 or 15 minutes to convince Mr. Trump of the value of BitCoin. This change in attitude is pretty important, and also very familiar to those within the long term crypto crowd who have seen many initially suspicious friends and family join ranks.

So, could national governments force centralized solutions at the exclusion of decentralized entities like Bitcoin? This seems very unlikely, and in fact probably also undesirable. The decentralized DLT has already become a piece of the major financial world in form of derivative product, and every competing project is contributing toward much needed economic growth and productivity enhancement. These things are desirable by all.

What can we conclude?

Cryptocurrencies are here to stay, governments want a strong hand in DLT currency solutions, regulations will be part of it, and the Open versus Closed battle will be epic. Grab some popcorn and place your bets.

CryptoCalibur Weekly Wrap-Up

🔥 NOIA Network In-Depth Review | Scored 85% (#2 on Top 10 List)

🔥 Band Protocol In-Depth Review | Scored 81% (#6 on Top 10 List)

📢 Had DeepCloud AI over in our Chat Room for an AMA session | Recap Coming Soon

📢 Had Ferrum Network over in our Chat Room for an AMA session | Recap Coming Soon

📢 Had LTO Network over in our Chat Room for an AMA session | Recap Coming Soon

😍 Upcoming AMA with Band Protocol in our Chat Room | On July 20th from 14:00 UTC

Edgeware managed to attract +$200M worth of ETH and it has a lot of potential to offer

Edgeware is aiming to do ambitious things and push on-chain governance forward, which makes it a project worthy of paying attention to. The innovations Edgeware are promising in the governance space look exciting and encouraging, and the project could benefit Ethereum in the long term through scaling and improved governance. However, the very experimental nature of Edgeware is a double-edged sword; it has a high potential return but also a high-risk of remaining an interesting experiment. As of July 15th, 973,947 ETH ~ $219,732,000 has been locked in by contributors. Considering Edgeware has done very little marketing and is not being discussed much by retail investors we believe many of the participants in the lockdrop are developers and people who have been in the space for many years.

Full Article: https://cryptocalibur.com/edgeware/

Don't forget to follow us on Twitter!

Recap of the DeepCloud AI AMA Session from the 12th of July, 2019

Stay informed!

➡️ Click for Recap ⬅️

Recap of the Ferrum Network AMA Session from the 13th of July, 2019

Stay informed!

➡️ Click for Recap ⬅️

Recap of the LTO Network AMA Session from the 14th of July, 2019

Stay informed!

➡️ Click for Recap ⬅️

Upcoming ask me anything session with Band Protocol!

The AMA will take place on July 20th, 2019 from 08:00 to 09:00 UTC in our Chat Room. Add the event to your calendar and make sure you prepare your questions beforehand.

This AMA will give you the opportunity to connect with Band Protocol's team who will answer your questions and listen to your feedback.

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✅ STARTING IN APPROXIMATELY 2:30 HOURS!

The AMA will take place in our Chat Room: @cryptocaliburchat

🗞 Insider Newsletter #6 | July 21st, 2019 🗞

This week’s market analysis will have the same levels as the previous one. The market respected our levels extremely well and bounced off our buy zone perfectly, then retraced back into the H12 supply, the one that’s holding as of now.

In the event that the H12 supply breaks, it will likely be turned back into demand considering that it acted as a clear SR throughout the time we spent around it. If we reject it now and we start going down, and we think that the next possible support could be the $9,650 swing low printed on July 2nd.

In The Spotlight

👍 Vitalik Buterin: “2/3 Reduction End of Next Year Absolutely Viable”

🇺🇸 U.S. proposes barring big tech companies from offering financial services, digital currencies

💡 Wall Street-Backed Blockchain Company Weighs IPO, Sale

😁 Georgia Exempts Cryptocurrencies From Value-Added Tax

👨‍🔬 UK regulator looking to hire series of cryptocurrency specialists

📛 U.S. Regulator Probing Crypto Exchange BitMEX Over Client Trades

☑️ Bitcoin Declared Legal Commodity In Chinese Court

🇯🇵 Japan to lead development of SWIFT network for cryptocurrency

📑 G7 urges tough Libra regulation, agrees to tax digital giants

Privacy Is A Priority

The fallout from Facebook’s intention to launch their Libra digital currency continues and the recent testimony of Calibra wallet CEO David Marcus faced a generally negative reception from the U.S. Senate. The sustained attention being devoted to digital assets has highlighted the ongoing importance of developing secure and private methods of transacting.

Earlier this week, France’s Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire stated that the G7 remain committed to regulating digital currencies as tightly as possible to ensure they do not upset the world’s financial system. While much of the focus has been directed towards Facebook’s Libra currency, and other potential offerings from top tier companies, Bitcoin and Ethereum as the leading blockchain protocols will be required to step up their ability to maintain privacy in order to allow users to stay one step ahead of blockchain analysts.

Even though it may take a while, there has already been talk of integrating technologies such as ZK-Snarks and MimbleWimble to help to obfuscate Bitcoin transactions, and wallets such as Wasabi and Samurai are helping to bring anonymity to the everyday user. A number of projects are also aiming to bring privacy to Ethereum and Parity has developed the “Secret Store” software which encrypts information while distributing keys to selected authorities who can access it. This allows permissioned clients to create and manage cryptographic secrets on Ethereum. Enigma aims to provide “secret contracts” and allow dApp developers to conceal various data aspects. Furthermore, Keep Network, and Oasis Labs are also working to bring enhanced confidentiality to smart contracts and as the authorities begin to hone in on digital currencies, these solutions are needed more than ever.

CryptoCalibur Weekly Wrap-Up

📢 Had LTO Network over in our Chat Room for an AMA session | Recap

🔥 Edgeware <> +$200M Locked In Ether & A Lot of Potential | Article

✅ FERRUM NETWORK REVIEW UPDATE ✅

▶️ Read the full review at the following link: https://cryptocalibur.com/ferrum-network-review/

Updates:
• Total hard cap has been established at $1,120,000
• UniFyre OTC Wallet has been released
• Ferrum Network will offer 50% of the tokens as ERC-20 and 50% of BEP-2 tokens, with the token bridge in place. For the first 30 days after distribution there will be a 50% fee for converting BEP-2 to ERC-20, decreasing by 1.5% per day until the fee is eliminated.
• Ferrum Network and DAO Maker Announce Social Mining Partnership
• Ferrum Network is Joining Binance Chain!
• Information about all rounds has been released: Seed @ 40% bonus, Private @ 15% bonus, and Private @ 0% bonus
• Implemented the The Traction Based Reserve Model. Put simply, the model means decreasing the amount of tokens sold during the token offering, and locking percentage of unsold tokens in the Traction Based Reserve. But rather than simply releasing those tokens whenever we feel like it, the releases are conditioned on the network gaining utility and traction.

📈 Nestree In-Depth Review & Rating is online!

▶️ Read the full review at the following link: https://cryptocalibur.com/nestree-review/

Nestree is a mobile/desktop messenger service that incorporates blockchain technology and the native EGG token into its ecosystem in order to facilitate the building of reward based messaging communities. The team aim to improve on current P2P communication solutions, and solve the various issues that plague platforms which currently host large communities involved in the creation and consumption of content on a daily basis.

The messenger is specifically aimed at stakeholders who include admins, who manage and moderate communities, as well as content producers/consumers who directly add value to communities by either creating topics for discussion, and/or commenting and sharing content they view online. Advertisers who operate as content producers and specifically target all other stakeholders with the goal of advertising a product or service will also form an integral part of the Nestree ecosystem.

✅ Review Rating ✅

Product | 85%
Use of Blockchain | 85%
Documentation | 80%
Development Roadmap | 80%
Business Model | 70%
Company & Team | 75%
Final Rating | 79%

Nestree is an intriguing project with a strong use case, as the majority of the activity conducted on various platforms such as Telegram, Reddit, Bitcointalk, and Patreon still needs to be synchronised and merged within an easy to use communications platform. A rewards based, fully featured messenger service makes good sense and the app is already developed with over 10,000 downloads. Most importantly, Nestree is not trying to compete with service providers such as Telegram, Whatsapp, and WeChat and will instead aim to integrate with them which helps to further strengthen their market strategy.

In addition, Nestree is a relatively low cap project when compared to other blockchain projects in the same sector and this helps the project to retain our interest in the face of some clear concerns. For example, outside of the core members, the team may be inexperienced, and there is a real difficultly in verifying the employment histories of the South Korean based team. As most members are on the young side, they will face serious challenges when working to establish Nestree internationally and much will depend on their ability to build partnerships, develop their user base, and manage their internal economy. Furthermore, with only 20% of the token supply available for the crowdsale, the wise management of the EGG tokens held in reserve is a prerequisite for maintaining both community trust, and the value of the EGG currency.

Having said that, Nestree is still an interesting project and there are a number of questions which remain unanswered but may help to increase the attractiveness of the project once addressed, these include the team’s stance on privacy and anonymity and how they plan to handle chat histories and user data. While more info on Nestree’s advisors and the venture funds backing the project will significantly help to improve legitimacy in the eyes of the Western crypto community. In short, Nestree is worth keeping an eye on, and may increase in attractiveness depending on the team’s more short term decisions.

Upcoming ask me anything session with Raven Protocol!

The AMA will take place on July 28th, 2019 from 21:00 to 22:00 UTC in our Chat Room. Add the event to your calendar and make sure you prepare your questions beforehand.

This AMA will give you the opportunity to connect with Raven Protocol’s team who will answer your questions and listen to your feedback.

Full Review: https://cryptocalibur.com/raven-review/

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🕞 COUNTDOWN 🕞

The AMA will take place in our Chat Room: @cryptocaliburchat

🗞 Insider Newsletter #7 | July 28th, 2019 🗞

The market presents lots of uncertainty going forward. As we initially been able to bounce the $9,650 level that we mentioned in our market review a week ago, we’ve now lost the level again and revisited the old “buy the dip zone” that we had marked on our charts. So far it managed to form a higher low, but with the constantly decreasing volume there might be a chance that we will lose the level soon. In the event that we manage to reclaim the $9,650 level again, there might be good news for bulls. Read More

In The Spotlight

🇩🇪 German Regulators Approve $280 Million Ethereum Token Sale

🛩 Norwegian Air to accept bitcoin, opening crypto exchange

🙉 The IRS Is Tracking Down 10,000 Crypto Owners to Pay Back Taxes

🇺🇸 US Senate Schedules Another Hearing on Crypto Assets

🌍 Circle Moves to Bermuda to Expand Poloniex Exchange Internationally

👥 Coinbase Added 8 Million New Users in the Past Year

💰 Robinhood Raises $323 Million in Funding Round Led by DST Global

🏎 Mercedes Parent Firm is Building a Crypto Hardware Wallet for Cars

👋 Bye-Bye USA, Apple Legend Steve Wozniak Heads to Malta to Develop New Blockchain: Report

The DeFi Movement Gathers Pace

As the DeFi (Decentralized Finance) movement continues to pick up pace, a number of recent developments highlight that things are still just getting started. Projects such as Compound, Dharma, and DYdX allow people to engage in a host of digital asset based financial activities such as borrowing, lending, and margin trading, and are growing in popularity. While MakerDAO is a project that is attracting significant amounts of funds as ETH holders choose to lock up their holdings and engage in CDPs in order to generate DAI, with over $250 million currently being locked up in the MakerDAO protocol.

The Fluidity project aims to allow people to obtain leverage on real world assets by using the MakerDAO Multi-Collateral Dai (MCD) credit system, and to provide U.S. Treasury securities (Treasuries) as the underlying collateral in the MCD system. This brings the tokenization of real world assets a step closer and connects the DeFi sector with the world of traditional capital markets, and Fluidity’s Tokenized Asset Portfolio (TAP) has been designed to provide both a legally compliant and technically secure infrastructure that will allow the system to flourish.

The decline of the ICO market led to much doubt surrounding ETH’s ability to retain value and DeFi looks to stimulating the digital currency as we move towards Ethereum 2.0. The Ethereum network is the preferred solution for a large number of DeFi projects, and as the movement progresses, there is the real possibility that sources of collateral such as real estate, government backed bonds, and corporate bonds may also soon be incorporated. Germany’s financial regulator, BaFIN recently approved blockchain start-up project Fundament’s proposal to issue tokenized real-estate backed bonds that can be offered to a wide range of individual investors, and with the Fundament team gearing up to conduct a $280 million offering, the DeFi sector is moving towards its goal of attracting significant investment, and spawning a new digitally based, financial ecosystem.

CryptoCalibur Weekly Wrap-Up

☑️ Nestree In-Depth Review | Scored 79%

Recap of the Raven Protocol AMA Session from the 28th of July, 2019

Stay informed!

➡️ Click for Recap ⬅️

🗞 Insider Newsletter #8 | August 4th, 2019 🗞

The bulls managed to defend the lows and the market didn’t print a lower low last week. We’re now very close to print a higher high which will shift the market structure back into bullish. Having said that, we are currently visiting the previous SR flip zone for the first time in two weeks. If we manage to break this resistance, it will likely turn back into support when revisited.

If we don’t print a higher high here, we can simply reverse back into 9650 swing low level and bounce from that, but in that case, the uncertainty will be higher as the market structure would not have technically shifted into bullish. Read More

In The Spotlight

📈 Bitcoin.com to Launch an Exchange

📵 Buying Crypto With The Apple Card Violates Its Customer Agreement

💶 MoneyGram goes live with xRapid, using XRP

✅ South Korea Declares Partial ‘Regulation-Free’ Zone for Crypto Companies

🇺🇸 Americans Buying more Bitcoin Every Quarter Since Q1 2018

📝 Crypto Technology: IOTA to Become Officially Standardised

🏛 The SEC Set To Begin Running Bitcoin and Ethereum Nodes

😏 US Senator: Even If We Wanted To, We Couldn’t Ban Bitcoin

😍 UK’s Largest Newspaper: Bitcoin Supply Shock Could Trigger Massive Rally

Economic Developments Hint at a Bullish Crypto Future

The ongoing trade war between the United States of America and China rose to prominence again this week after US President Donald Trump proposed the imposition of a 10% tariff on approximately $300 billion worth of Chinese goods. The levy is set to come into effect on September 1; however, it may be discarded if China becomes more active in purchasing US agricultural products. At the same time, Bitcoin continues to outperform other more traditional assets and is currently fluctuating close to $10,000 while the United States stock market dipped below its 50-day moving averages as fears that the trade war may escalate begin to grow.

Earlier this week, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates for the first time in a decade, slicing 0.25% off the previous rate. The last time this was done was during the financial crisis of 2008 which acted as the backdrop for the birth of Bitcoin. The lowering of interest rates acts as a traditional method of stimulating spending in an economy, and a portion of the expected increased liquidity should flow into BTC. With increased uncertainty regarding traditional asset classes, Bitcoin can be expected to only increase in attractiveness to investors looking for a hedge from stock or commodity based investment vehicles.

News has also begin to spread that Walmart is considering launching a cryptocurrency. A new patent filing published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) outlines a proposal for a digital currency tied to one unit of a regular currency. As a result, the US retail giant could follow Facebook in launching a digital currency and these developments hint at the potential for a not so distant bullish future for the wider crypto markets.

CryptoCalibur Weekly Wrap-Up

📢 Had Raven Protocol over in our Chat Room for an AMA session | Recap
CryptoCalibur Weekly Wrap-Up

Last week CryptoCalibur had the pleasure to interview Dean van Dugteren 😁

Dean is the Founder & CEO of nOS, a decentralized operating system and dApp ecosphere connecting the legacy internet to the crypto frontier.

Get to know Dean: https://cryptocalibur.com/dean-van-dugteren/

🗞 Insider Newsletter #9 | August 18th, 2019 🗞

In our last newsletter, we were at a crucial point for Bitcoin’s short term price development. Back then, we were just about to make a higher high and shift the short term bearish market structure back into bullish.

Meanwhile, we did just that, and the price ran straight to our next zone of interest in which the bears showed their strength and pushed the price back down. On the way down, our middle level (the H12 breaker block) did not manage to hold us and we dived down into the $9,650 swing low level that we have talked about in the last newsletter. Fortunately, that level held perfectly and we bounced up from there in no time.

Now, our attention shifts back to the middle block (the H12 breaker block), which now might act as resistance. If we reject that, it’s likely that we dive straight into the last line of defence for bulls, as marked on our charts ($8,750 to $7,500). That area is crucial to hold, otherwise we’ll go a lot lower. Read More

In The Spotlight

🔥 Coinbase Custody acquires Xapo’s institutional business, becoming the world’s largest crypto custodian

🚀 Bakkt Says It’s ‘Cleared to Launch’ Bitcoin Futures Next Month

📛 Trade tensions and a weaker yuan drive Chinese crypto demand, market players say

💳 New Zealand legalizes salary payments in Bitcoin

📱 Samsung at Last Adds Bitcoin Support to Its Blockchain Phones

🇰🇷 South Korea’s ‘Bit-Island’ Jeju Announces New Blockchain Initiative

🚨 SEC launches action against crypto “guru” Reginald Middleton and his firm Veritaseum

✅ Over 5 Million Merchants Throughout Thailand Now Accept Zcoin Payments

🇨🇳 China: Shenzhen Special Economic Zone to Include Digital Currency Research

Physical and “Digital” Gold Primed to Trend Upwards

Despite dipping in value over the past seven days, the price of BTC continues to hover above $10,000, while gold prices are at their highest in 6 years. As we alluded to last time around, the growing economic uncertainty surrounding the ongoing trade war between the US and China, alongside poor stock market performance and the FED interest rate cut has left investors looking for alternative options.

Gold has long been viewed as a safe hedge against adverse economic conditions, and Bitcoin with its finite supply of 21 million coins, deflationary nature and value based on the laws of supply and demand, and innovative crypto economics has picked up the nickname of digital gold. Interestingly, Bloomberg has revealed that the correlation between Bitcoin and gold over the past year was at 0.496, and this has jumped to 0.837 within the last three months. Here, a coefficient of +1 indicates perfect correlation, and -1 complete non-correlation.

The spot price of 1 oz of gold has increased by close to 8% in the past 30 days to sit at just over $1,500, while Bitcoin was closing in on $12,000 and the performance of the precious metal is creating a bullish sentiment with analysts from the major finance houses making bullish calls while hedge fund activity has seen net long gold positions reach the highest level since July 2016. At the same time, Bakkt has confirmed that its Bitcoin futures and custody solution for institutional investors will launch towards the end of September, paving the way for renewed institutional activity and both physical and digital gold look set to continue to uptrend over the near future.