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Jelurida, the holder of intellectual property rights for the NXT software and Ardor platform, has partnered with Ardorgate to create an Ardor based Euro pegged child chain token named AEUR. The Netherlands-based Jelurida enables companies to develop their own block chain applications using NXT software and Ardor platform.
The AEUR token facilitates companies to easily enter into the crypto world using the euro. Ardorgate has guaranteed the value of each AEUR token to be exactly equal to €1, while partnering with Mistertango, a Lithuanian bank, for processing payments. The AEUR tokens can be used to trade assets on the Ardor platform and exchanged into ARDR tokens.
Nxt is an advanced open source blockchain platform that builds on the functionality of the cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. The Nxt platform includes many core-level features, such as a Decentralized Asset Exchange, Marketplace, and Voting system. Nxt is permissionless, and gives users complete freedom in many ways.
Jelurida
The Ardor Platform improves block chain performance by reducing bloat and solving the block chain scalability problem. Further, Ardor operates as a Main Chain, securing individual and unique child chains. The platform is built on the proven technology of NXT and offers features like pruning and child chain creation.
Block chain engineer and founder of Ardorgate, Martynas Baceviclus told
“I decided to start this project because I see huge potential on eliminating additional steps, when people exchange crypto to fiat, sell items for crypto, doing ICO, etc. Thanks to Ardorgate many use cases will become available making them faster and easier.”
Co-founder and managing director of Jelurida Lior Yaffe stated
“The entry point into NXT has always been a problem for our European customers, using the AEUR Ardor child chain. we now have a simple solution to convert between the euro and our tokens. We are excited to work with Ardorgate to deliver the best user experience in the block chain industry.”
Jelurida has stated that it will continue to release the Nxt software under the open source GPLv2 license, making it available for free use and modifications.
On Wednesday night, Manchester City recorded their 18th straight Premier League win at Newcastle, recording a 1-0 win courtesy of a Raheem Sterling strike.
The win moved the Citizens 15 points clear of second-place Manchester United at the top of the Premier League table. If you missed what happened on Boxing Day, you can read all about it here.
Anyway, back to City’s extraordinary run of form in the English top-flight. Pep Guardiola’s side has looked unstoppable this season. The men from Manchester have now won 19 of their last 20 top-flight games.
The 1-0 scoreline at St James Park was kind on the home side in honesty. The Citizens had chances to give head home with a far more convincing win. However, Argentinian international striker Sergio Aguero hit the post twice, while Kevin De Bruyne also hit the woodwork.
The all-important one goal the visitors registered arrived on 31 minutes. De Bruyne produced a superb pass over the Magpies defence to find Sterling, who kept his cool in front of goal.
The winger has played a vital role in City’s current run of form, scoring 13 times in the Premier League and producing seven assists. The 23-year-old has now produced four goals and three assists in his last four top-flight outings. Newcastle did offer a moment of danger when winger Rolando Aarons managed to beat Ederson, only for centre-back Nicolas Otamendi to produce a superb goal-line clearance.
Newcastle striker Dwight Gayle also headed wide late in the game. However, in truth, the visitors always looked in control of the game. Unsurprisingly the home side had just 22 percent possession against the runaway league leaders.
While the result leaves City sitting pretty at the top of the table, Newcastle are in a major fight for survival this season. Rafa Benitez’s side are just a point above the relegation zone. The north east side have now won just one of their last 11 games in the top-flight.
Thursday night’s game
The final Premier League match of gameweek 20 takes place on Thursday night at Selhurst Park, as Crystal Palace host Arsenal.
The clash is a big one at both ends of the table, with Palace attempting to stave off the threat of relegation and Arsenal looking to get closer to the top-four spots.
Palace actually head into the game in the better form of the two sides, unbeaten in eight games in the top-flight. Roy Hodgson’s team are also on a good run on home soil, having gone six games undefeated at Selhurst Park in the league.
The Eagles will take heart from the last time these two teams met in the league, as the home side recorded a 3-0 victory that helped secure their Premier League status.
Arsenal have struggled for consistency of late in the top-flight. In fact, Arsene Wenger’s side have won just one of their last six games in the Premier League. The inconsistent run of form has seen the Gunners slip to sixth place in the table, four points behind Liverpool who are in the final Champions League berth.
The Gunners recent away record in the Premier League is not exactly encouraging either, as they have won just two of their last nine away games. Wenger’s side have drawn their last two away games in the league though.This game is definitely a banana skin for the visitors, which they will be hoping to avoid.
Can Manchester City remain unbeaten for the rest of the Premier League season?
As programmers begin to understand the strength of block chain technology, they set up companies to launch their unique concepts, after raising funds through ICO. One of the sectors which is gaining prominence is artificial intelligence (AI).
The sector is currently valued at $200 billion and is expected to rise to $3.1 trillion by 2025. However, the industry lacks a platform to buy and sell artificial intelligence. That will soon change with the launch of SingularityNET, a decentralized market place for artificial intelligence. Notably, the company’s ICO for $36 million was fully subscribed in a matter of 60 seconds.
SingularityNET, the creators of Sophia Robot, has developed the platform to allow anyone to capitalize on the AI industry. The aim of SingularityNET is to become the key open-source protocol for networking AI on the internet.
The crowdfunding was capped at $36 million, after receiving commitments of $361 million from 20,000 investors.
SingularityNET
After the KYC process, the list was trimmed down to 5,000. Further, the ICO cap was changed to $36 million. The offered tokens were sold off in 60 seconds. The Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) tokens will power the SingularityNET platform, which will enable companies and developers in the field of AI to lower costs and increase output.
Even though AI is a booming industry, big players like Google control the market. With the arrival of SingularityNET, AI tools will be easily accessible to anyone. Additionally, investors will also benefit from the platform.
Dr.Ben Goertzel, the CEO, said in response to the ICO:
“Today’s results are powerful evidence that SingularityNET is an idea whose time has come. In discussing the SingularityNET project all around the world, I’ve found that it resonates remarkably with people from all walks of life, and the enthusiasm we’ve seen in our community is awe-inspiring.”
The solid response to ICO indicates that investors have clearly understood the potential of block chain technology. Thus, more such ventures can be expected soon.
Stealth mining is the process of employing the idle computing power to generate online income. However, this innovation is often misused by hackers and cyber criminals. Imagine installing the mining software in hundreds of thousands of computers without the knowledge of those using the systems to generate block rewards. That is what unethical stealth mining is all about.
A cyber criminal who is involved in such an act will have no need to invest in costly mining equipments or spend on electricity, but can receive block rewards in the crypto account. Such a set up was first reported in September 2017 when a popular torrent site, The Pirate Bay, was found using Coinhive’s JavaScript Monero mining software to steal the hashing power of visitors to the site, and mine Monero crypto coin without visitors’ consent. Now, a new kind of Malware was reported by Trend Micro.
According to the blog, the malware, known as Digimine, spreads through Facebook Messenger, infects the Chrome browser, auto-installs, and auto-runs a Monero miner on victims’ computer with Windows operating system.
Monero
The malware, also known as 비트코인 채굴기 bot, was coded in the AutoIt programming language. It is a freeware automation language for Microsoft Windows. The malware is posted as a downloadable video file.
The victim’s computer must run on Windows operating system and the Facebook Messenger must be opened within the Chrome web browser. Only then, the malware, which spreads under the name “video_xxx.zip”, will launch itself. The video file is transmitted in .zip format. The file will have “.mp4.exe” as extension.
Digimine was first identified in South Korea, but has quickly spread to Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Vietnam, Philippines, Venezuela, and Thailand.
The easiest way to avoid downloading the file is to remain alert as the malware spreads through human carelessness.
Purchasing property outside the country of residence is not easy. Physical inspection and clear understanding of local rules is a must to avoid litigations in the future. If the property is situated in a third-world country, investors would certainly hesitate to proceed further. Those concerns will be soon put off by the launch of Zabercoin, which provides an opportunity for investing in emerging markets in a secured manner.
Zabercoin is arguably the only crypto currency backed by a physical asset. It is an ERC20 token (enables developers of all types to accurately predict how new tokens will function within the larger Ethereum system) developed on the Ethereum network. Zabercoin (ZAB) represents a share of the property and thus has intrinsic value right from the beginning. The team behind the Zabercoin is planning to purchase properties in South Africa. That will give value to the coin.
Land will be recorded on the block chain, for the first time in the crypto currency history. That will provide full transparency, along with accurate and complete records of every piece of land. Additionally, the network will also store reviews and chain-of-ownership details. The company has plans to expand into rental properties, such as hotel rooms, in the future. The ICO began on December 1st and extends until January 16.
In a major breakthrough in improving the Bitcoin user experience, developers have confirmed that Lightning Network transactions have been successfully deployed on Bitcoin’s main net. Every advancement in speeding up transaction confirmation time in the Bitcoin network is a good news as investors are getting frustrated by the long queue of unconfirmed transactions and high miner fees of about 1000 Satoshis per byte.
Lightning is a decentralized network using smart contract functionality in the block chain to enable instant payments across a network of participants. It is one of the most eagerly awaited “layer two” upgrade for the Bitcoin Network. The successful deployment of Lightning Network will result in instantaneous transactions at a low cost. Further, the network will also be scalable and facilitate atomic swaps.
Lightning Labs
The testnet platform can be used to create a wallet and get a feel of the technology using test Bitcoins (tBTC). Transactions get completed in a few seconds. Once the technology goes live, payments can be made quickly using Bitcoin. A beta release is soon expected.
As of now, the miner fees can be reduced using Segwit addresses. However, several major wallet providers and payment processors do not support it.
Commenting on the project, Lightning’s co-founder Elizabeth Stark said she
“looked forward to way more of what no one has ever done.”
In a couple of months, we can expect Bitcoin network to have a fully functioning Lightning transaction facility.
In our article on Segwit2X, we had mentioned that several altcoins are about to be created through forking of Bitcoin network in the weeks ahead. One such altcoin named Bitcoin Diamond has received the market’s attention for the wrong reasons. Hardware wallet Ledger and several crypto specialists have warned that it might be a scam to steal Bitcoins from the wallet of users.
Through a series of Tweets, Ledger has cautioned its followers about fake websites, facilitating Bitcoin holders to claim BCD coins. The BCD developers claim to have a main net up and running since December 21. However, splitting the coin is still not possible.
The people behind the project are not known. Further, a user has to enter sensitive security information for claiming Bitcoin Diamond. A detailed scrutiny of the altcoin was recently presented by a crypto specialist in Medium.com. The article has raised the following concerns:
• Twitter account was registered only in November 2017. There is no slack. Only a link to slack is available.
• The Bitcoin Diamond Telegram Group was created only in November 2017 and has no real activity.
• The website of Bitcoin Diamond was registered only on November 3, anonymously.
• The article also raises doubt that Chinese exchange EXX.com is probably behind the scam. The exchange is believed to operate from Hong Kong.
• Developers are only represented by the nicknames “Evy” and “007”.
• There are no source code and wallet support. The word Wallet is spelled as “WALLTETS”. Further, Bitgo is falsely represented as a wallet.
The blog ends with the statement
“If you have Bitcoin Diamond sell them immediately. You are holding Bitcoin Blood Diamonds.”
Investors are advised to remain cautious and take adequate precautions to protect their valuable digital assets.
Usually there is a feast of Premier League football on Boxing Day and the latest edition certainly did not disappoint, with goals galore in the English top-flight.
Here is what happened on one of the biggest days in the English football season:
The first fixture of the day produced goals galore. England striker bagged Harry Kane bagged a brace in the first half, before Dele Alli and Heung Min-son got in on the act early in the second half.
Southampton got a goal back through Sofiane Boufal just past the hour mark. However, Kane restored the home side’s league on 67 minutes. The goal was the striker’s 39th goal of the calendar year, which means he beat the record of 36th scored in one year by Alan Shearer in 1995. Dusan Tadic added a second consolation goal with eight minutes left on the clock, but the game was well and truly up by that point.
The win leaves Spurs fifth in the table and one point behind fourth-place Liverpool, who are the favourites to seal the fourth Champions League spot this season. The Saints are now 14th place in the table and just two points above the relegation zone.
An incredible bottom of the table clash at the Vitality Stadium saw honours even. West Ham took an early lead through defender James Collins.
However, Dan Gosling equalised for the Cherries before Nathan Ake gave the home side the lead early in the second period. That was not the end of the twists and turns though. The visitors roared back, as Marko Arnautovic bagged a brace in the last ten minutes, with his 89th minute looking set to win the game.
However, there was still far more controversy to come. Bournemouth levelled the scores three minutes into stoppage-time. Callum Wilson headed home, but the goal initially looked to be ruled out for offside, while replays showed the ball also hit Wilson on the arm.
Referee Bobby Madley had a long discussion with his assistant before allowing the goal to stand much to the anger of the visitors. The draw still leaves both teams in a relegation dogfight. Bournemouth are 18th, while West Ham are just a point and place better off than the Cherries in the table.
Manchester United had to fight back from two goals down to rescue a point against this seasons surprise package Burnley.
The Clarets took the lead very early in the game through an Ashley Barnes effort. Sean Dyche’s team then doubled their lead on 36 minutes courtesy of a sublime Steven Defour free-kick.
Half-time substitute Jesse Lingard halved the visitors lead 53 minutes through a well-taken goal, after missing a golden opportunity prior to his goal. The Red Devils also had the winger to thank for the second goal, as his half volley levelled the scores in the first minute of stoppage-time.
The draw leaves United second in the Premier League table, 12 points behind leaders Manchester City, who play their game in-hand against Newcastle on Wednesday night. Burnley meanwhile are still seventh place in the top-flight table, but are only five points behind fifth-place Liverpool.
Liverpool once again displayed their awesome firepower in the late kick-off, blowing away the league’s bottom club. Philippe Coutinho opened the scoring on six minutes. Roberto Firmino added a second brace, which sandwiched an effort from Trent Alexander-Arnold. England international Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain completed the rout on 82 minutes.
The win means that Jurgen Klopp’s side are just a point ahead of fifth-place Tottenham. Things are looking bleak for Swansea, as the Welsh side are now five points from safety with the league’s worst goal difference.
Other results from Boxing Day:
Chelsea 2-0 Brighton
Huddersfield 1-1 Stoke
Watford 2-1 Leicester
West Brom 0-0 Everton
Which Premier League team produced the most impressive display of Boxing Day?
The Japan Racing Association (JRA) recently announced that it will be introducing a new system that will allow the family members of online gambling addicts to block users from making online bets. According to sources, the system will be introduced to the public before the end of this year and will begin to accept applications as early as Thursday.
The measure is part of the Japanese government push to try and find a solution to the ever growing gambling addiction problem that is plaguing Japan. Japan legalized the casino industry in late 2016 and is currently in the process of putting together regulations that will govern the industry. So in principal gambling is still prohibited in Japan except for gambling on horse races and certain types of motor sports. The Japanese government also has plans to allow gaming restrictions to be submitted by family members covering bicycle, motorbike and boat racing from April 2018.
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare estimate that 3.2 million Japanese citizens stated they are having problems keeping their gambling in check. There are reports that over 700,000 locals have had issues with problem gambling this year, which is around 0.8 percent of the population. The number one game that gamblers prefer is ‘Panchinko‘, which is a form of gambling as the basic game play allows the player to turn winnings into money. The game allows the players to win metal balls, which in turn can be traded in at the redemption booth for a toy or souvenir, which in the end could be sold to a collector.The Japanese also love betting on horse racing and it is also proving to be an issue for problem gamblers.
Currently the JRA and the National Association of Racing, the company that oversees that local government horse racing, have already put into place a system which would allow problem gamblers to enroll themselves into the new system. Since the introduction of the system, 14 gamblers have been banned from online beating. JRA believes that these regulatory systems will help the company in the long run as they have reported that online betting sales account for about 60 percent of their ¥2.6 trillion annual revenue.
The move by the JRA will be beneficial for families who have members battling gambling addictions. Only time will tell how successful the new system is in helping to reduce problem gambling and offering help to families of concerned problem gamblers.
Dallas Cowboys' starting quarterback Dak Prescott has had a disappointing sophomore campaign to say the least. Just one season after going 13-3 and winning the NFC East, Prescott and the Cowboys have been officially eliminated from the playoffs, after a loss to the Seattle Seahawks this week.
When asked about the season he has had so far, Prescott said that it made him have more respect for the league, the game of football, and the amount of preparation it takes to be great in the NFL. Prescott had an outstanding rookie season and the Dallas Cowboys expected great things from him this season. However both Prescott and the Cowboys could not deliver and find themselves eliminated from the playoffs.
Die-hard Cowboys fans can argue that the team’s performance was impacted by the absence of a number of their top players who were unable to start due to various reasons. Prescott cannot make that same excuse as he has played every game this season so far and has failed to impress with his numbers.
ESPN
The most alarming numbers are the increased interceptions. They climbed up to 13 this year compared to just 4 for all of last season. The other cause for concern is the significant drop in quarterback rating which went down to 86.7 percent from 104.9 percent. These numbers indicate that Prescott has begun to make poor decisions on the field as he is made to be a bigger part of the offense.
These numbers don’t portray Prescott in a good way but it will give the Dallas Cowboys and Prescott an indication as to what they need to work at going forward. Dallas has a long history of successfully grooming young quarterbacks for success, and this season most likely will be contributed to a sophomore slump. The best news for Prescott is that he has the backing of team owner Jerry Jones. When asked about his second year quarterback, Jones stated that Prescott has a very bright future ahead of him.
After the season finale in Philadelphia against the Eagles (13-2), the Cowboys (8-7) will likely have to find several key pieces on the offensive side of the ball to complement Prescott and running back Ezekiel Elliot. The most glaring hole that needs to be plugged for the Cowboys is the wide receiver where an aging Dez Bryant is a shadow of his former self. Prescott remains positive and is confident that the Cowboys will come back stronger next season.
In a statement, Prescott said
We are not giving up on this team. We are not giving up on ourselves. We know we are not making the post-season, but hopefully it will motivate us
