Topic: [ANN][NOTE]DNotes - Celebrating DNotes 3rd Birthday - Forum Now Open - page 93. (Read 814539 times)

Quote from: CryptoBroker79 on December 19, 2015, 01:33:08 AM
Hello everyone,

I'm happy to announce Fire Fighters for Digital Currency NFL Playoff Challenge.

The winner of this Playoff Fantasy Draft will be awarded 10,000 DNotes and 0.1 Bitcoin!

Be sure to register before January 3rd/2016


Register at http://playoffchallenge.fantasy.nfl.com/

Then Join the Group: FF4DC  http://playoffchallenge.fantasy.nfl.com/group/241421


Cryptomoms probably isn't the ideal place for trash talking your teams rival, so feel free to drop in and let a few insults fly at http://ff4dc.com/forum/index.php?topic=767.0

Quote from: Shepherd on December 19, 2015, 02:09:16 AM

Excellent, I hope a lot of people will participate.

Quote from: CryptoBroker79 on December 27, 2015, 11:55:34 PM

Thanks Shepherd, we have 22 registered participants so far and I expect that number to climb significantly.

Quote From Shepherd Today:

That is excellent. I hope many more will be participating.

I also noticed that CryptoMoms gained over 100 new members today and we now have over 15,000 registered members.

There will be one chapter in the book about "The DNotes Story" to tie in all the different projects we have been working on, into a strategically cohesive package. Things will begin to make more and more sense in the coming year. I understand that it always takes time to catch on with big bold idea. We dream and live it every day. So it easier for us to believe and understand our vision and why it takes a rather complex ecosystem to accomplish our long term mission of making DNotes the trusted global digital currency for everyone to participate.

It was a great Christmas Kanus, hope you had a great holiday as well.  

I agree, it was an excellent brief. Ken always does a great job. I was pleasantly surprised when I read this bit:

The Bitcoin Foundation’s Michael Chobanian has been among those spearheading the effort to write the bill. According to him, the objectives of the legislation include securing legal tender status, ensuring reasonable regulation and taxation, and providing Ukrainian commercial enterprises the freedom they need to use digital currency in their operations. The bill would hopefully bring some measure of stability to the nation’s fledgling crypto marketplace, and diminish much of the skepticism that digital currency faces in some government circles.

Hi TeeGee. I am taking a short break and took a quick look at the article. I am surprised by the headline "The Greatest Private Equity Heist". This is done all the time and that is how some people got very rich very quickly. It's one of the fast lanes on Wall Street. Being ethical and competent are not high priorities. Get in and out fast. Be creative, shrewd, and get the best deal. Think near-term and short-term. This involves very different strategies and execution styles compared to investing for the long term as in the case of DNotes.

People at the top are incredibly important, I think the reasons become obvious once control is ceded to somebody less ethical or competent. Take a look at the article below... Absolutely in awe at how this was achieved and how lots of big banks purchased DSE stock to then have it drop 85 percent in value (don't they do analytics?). You can look at it from two angles - an ethical leader would not have done this and the company would not have been in trouble, yet let's not ignore how competent and clever the interim top dog was in maximising profit for his parent company by gutting DSE and still selling at an accounting profit of 52000% after just 2 years.

Dick Smith is an electronics store across Australia and NZ and probably has a couple hundred stores in its chain.

 https://foragerfunds.com/bristlemouth/dick-smith-is-the-greatest-private-equity-heist-of-all-time/

Hope everyone had a great holiday.

Excellent dc brief, Ken. Positive steps for Russia and Ukraine, let's hope they go through.

I don't believe it is hard to find ethical leadership. However, ethical leadership can only last if rules are in place to protect it and means in effect to prevent malicious intent. A 'DNotes foundation' would have to be built in a way where frivolous spending isn't an option and those employed would receive reasonable rates of pay.

That video spooks me as well by the way.

Digital Currency Weekly Recap 12-27-2015

Bill in Russian Duma Could Legalize Cryptocurrency.
Factom’s Microsoft Azure Relationship Sparks 600% Increase in Price.
New GateHub Wallet Announced With Expanded Visa, Mastercard.
Ukrainian Bitcoin Legalization Bill Expected in January.

http://dcebrief.com/digital-currency-weekly-recap-12-27-2015/

Here is a rather rosy prediction for the price of Bitcoin in 2016. Perhaps the most compelling reason is that the block reward for miner will be cut in half in July 2016.

“The digital currency is designed to be scarce. About 15 million of the 21 million bitcoins that are planned to be minted and circulated have already been created. Supplies will be further tightened this summer during what industry insiders call a "halving event." That happens every four years, when the number of coins that bitcoin "miners" mint is cut by half.”

The Chinese demand, representing almost 80% of the trade volume, has remained strong, perhaps due to local currency issues and the Chinese economy slowing down.



2016 Could be a Banner Year For Bitcoin

By JONATHAN BERR MONEYWATCH December 24, 2015, 6:00 AM

The price of bitcoin digital currency, which more than doubled in 2015, is poised to surge even higher next year as investors have regained confidence in its stability after the collapse of the Mt. Gox exchange in 2014.

Bitcoin is trading for about $443, an increase from its $200 level during the beginning of the year. That's better than the 12-month forecast of $400 Wedbush Securities made in July (the firm has since raised its forecast to $600). According to Adamant Research, bitcoin's price has surged more than 900 percent since it began trading 2010.

Opinions vary about how high bitcoin will rise in 2016. An unscientific poll by CoinDesk, which follows the market, found 37 percent of respondents thought prices would hit between $500 and $1,000. Another 26 percent thought it might top $1,000 as demand continues to climb.

But experts such as Michael Sonnenshein, director sales and business development for Grayscale Investments, which sponsors the Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC), were reluctant to provide a forecast. "I am not concerned about a bubble," said Sonnenshein in an interview. "If you go back and look at the bitcoin price chart, it's a series of bubbles and busts."

Bitcoin hit its stride in 2015. Prices surged 80 percent during the last six months and are up 90 percent over the past three. Venture capital investments in the sector hit are running at over $900 million to date, according to Adamant Research. Among the big-named investors that have taken a shine to the online currency are venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who was an early backer of Facebook (FB) and Twitter (TWTR), and PayPal (PYPL) co-founder Peter Thiel.

"In the traditional markets we are seeing increased volatility and insecurity," said Tuur Demeester, Adamant's editor-in-chief and a bitcoin investor, in an interview. "Bitcoin's fundamentals are stronger than ever."

The digital currency is designed to be scarce. About 15 million of the 21 million bitcoins that are planned to be minted and circulated have already been created. Supplies will be further tightened this summer during what industry insiders call a "halving event." That happens every four years, when the number of coins that bitcoin "miners" mint is cut by half.

"The last time this happened, there was considerable movement in the bitcoin price," Grayscale's Sonnenshein said. "It will be very interesting to see how the market digests the halving event."
Expectations for the sector are surging. By 2025, Wedbush expects bitcoin to account for 10 percent of the $5.9 trillion online payments market and 20 percent of the $744 billion remittance market.

Wall Street is also keeping a close eye on the growing interest in "blockchain," the underlying technology used in bitcoin among the financial services sector. Spending on the technology is expected to hit $400 million in 2014, up from $75 million this year, according to consulting firm Aite. And SETL, a U.K.-based blockchain startup, on Wednesday announced the appointment of former Barclay's chairman as its chairman.

Source:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/2016-could-be-a-banner-year-for-bitcoin/

"The real answer to this question is simple: Ethical leadership, directed by the respect for ethical beliefs and values and for the dignity and rights of others, is what Bitcoin needs if the community is to itself grow."

I've wandered about Planet Krypto like a lost lamb, bleating this over and over. If here at Dnotes is where it happens, then here is where I gotta be.

And the following frankly spooks me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHcTKWiZ8sI

Mark (IndiaMikeZulu), Australia

P.s: anyone interested, in general principle, in P2P trading? PM me.

[101 degrees in the shade here today.]

This is a pretty interesting article on CCN, The Necessary Traits For A Bitcoin Leader.

There’s been discussion in the Bitcoin space about the necessary traits for a Bitcoin leader. The idea goes that, with Bitcoin having so many scandals of incompetent/criminal Bitcoin business leaders, there should be a discussion about what it takes to be a Bitcoin leader.

As one recent conference phrased the question, “What does a leader in the Bitcoin space look like, and what traits should today’s budding startups adopt? More than any of the technical aspects of Bitcoin, the development of true leaders in our community will determine whether we evolve independently, or are simply swallowed up as an accessory to the Finance industry.”

It all comes down to personal ethics. If you don’t have a strong ethical code, you don’t have the ability to make truly effective decisions for a community of people, and that includes the Bitcoin community. If Mark Karpeles was not a criminal, then his lack of an ethical compass put him into the situation where he continued to operate though it meant using other people’s money to the point of no return. There was some point in which Karpeles could have taken a step away from the operation and admitted he was in trouble and needed help. This would have been up to his personal ethics to inform him to do this.

So, this question, of what it takes to be a true Bitcoin leader, is mostly demonstrative of the world in which we live and how far gone it is in terms of what’s right and wrong and how individuals should interact with communities. This cultural handicap seems to have major implications for Bitcoin.

The real answer to this question is simple: Ethical leadership, directed by the respect for ethical beliefs and values and for the dignity and rights of others, is what Bitcoin needs if the community is to itself grow. That means Bitcoiners will have to establish themselves as trustworthy, honest, considerate, engaged and fair.

A true Bitcoin leader will value ethical behavior. The ego will not play a driving role in his or her day-to-day. What’s nice is these traits are easy to detect since one must believe them in order to truly live them. A lack of trust is a problem in Bitcoin as past leaders in the Bitcoin space have shown a disregard for the true value of ethics. They often say (or imply) one thing, and do another. These problems aren’t native to the Bitcoin space, but they do exist and since the community is actively discussing this question it’s perceived as an issue.

It is important for the Bitcoin cultural leaders to identify ethics as a Bitcoin virtue so that the code of conduct that naturally develops around Bitcoin dictates ethical expectations. This might not be in the interest of some perceived Bitcoin leaders, however, as this would hold them to the same standard, and if they fail to live up to their advertised ethical code, they will lose their position of prominence.

Without the virtuousness of individuals, in their beliefs, motives and actions, any group of people will become corrupt and ultimately wither on the vine as it loses credibility. The same goes for Bitcoin.

Thanks, Chase. I wish I have more time to share my view. But, briefly, banks and credit card companies are facing a historic challenge from multiple fronts. New financial technologies (FinTech) Bitcoin, digital currency, security chip technology integrated with cell phones, advancement in computing, and telecommunication technologies are all converging too fast for our slow moving bankers. It reminded me how the Chicago Mercantile Exchange reacted during the early days of the internet and online trading just 15 years ago. CME is now gone. Quite a scary reminder. Why is DNotes trying so hard to build a trusted brand with a solid foundation? Because it is invaluable to have a solid brand in financial services and there will be major technical changes in the next 2 to 3 years. The security and mobile payment systems will be so different that everything being developed today will become obsolete. Being our own bank will be the norm. High dependency on banks will be the exception within ten years.

Interesting article on the American Express open forum.  "Your mobile phone will be your branch", "New brands will capture significant market share", and "Global banking brands will emerge" all sound like the author is talking about cryptocurrency (he just may not know it yet).


Small Business Banking in 2016

Banking in the United States is about to change.  Big time.  Over the next five years, a revolution in financial services will take place.

Banking in the United States is about to change.  Big time.  Over the next five years, a revolution in financial services will take place.  It’s already started, but unfortunately many big banks haven’t gotten the message. Consumers and small business owners are empowering themselves through technology to take more control of their money. Welcome to the future of banking.
 
Traditional banks are facing an existential crisis
 
A bank’s main asset has always been its reputation for security and safety.  What other industry can convince consumers and businesses to hand over trillions of dollars for safekeeping based on a promise?  Unfortunately, the events of the past few years have damaged – perhaps irreparably – the reputation of large financial institutions.  Instead of being seen as a safe haven in an insecure world, many banks are now viewed as being complicit in the creation of financial insecurity.
 
This isn’t the first time that the banking industry has faced a crisis.  But this time, it’s different because consumers have alternatives.
 
Technology gives consumers alternatives.
 
According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), as many as 70 million people in the United States are unbanked or under banked.  Unbanked refers to a consumer (or business owner) that operates entirely outside of the traditional banking system.  Underbanked means that they satisfy only a small portion of their financial needs within the banking system.
 
Most of these people aren’t keeping their money under a mattress.  Instead they use prepaid debit cards to pay their bills; use PayPal and other online services to send money, receive money, and pay for purchases; use alternative lending services like Think Finance to cover shortfalls in cash.  Many of these alternatives are expensive, but through competition and innovation even that is changing.

Making matters worse is the fact that most large financial institutions are embracing technological change very slowly.  In banking parlance, reaching a customer through any means other than a physical branch is called an “alternative channel."  This betrays the internal belief that a branch should continue to be the main point of contact.  The reality for most consumers is that checking your balance online or on a smartphone is far more desirable.
 
So what will your bank look like in 2016?
 
Given the pace of innovation in the financial sector, it’s realistic to expect an entirely new banking landscape in 2016.  Expect:
 
Your mobile phone will be your branch.  Now considered an alternative channel, this will become your main point of contact with your bank.  Nokia, for example, has developed technology that embeds directly into smartphone handsets and allows secure financial transactions to take place.  Many large banks now offer mobile banking which represents a limited set of banking services.  Expect all banking transactions – including credit transactions – to be available on your smartphone.
 
New brands will capture significant market share.  Given the growth of companies like PayPal, Xoom, Think Finance, and other innovative financial services companies, it is realistic to expect an entirely new bank (or bank alternative) to capture significant market share.  At the moment, federal policy is to encourage consolidation in the banking industry.  New entrants may opt to offer non-bank financial services to avoid regulatory delays and still capture significant market share.
 
Global banking brands will emerge.  As non-bank financial institutions grow in prominence, many will expand their reach globally.  If your mobile phone is “your branch” and the institution isn’t regulated like a bank, there is no reason for these new banks to limit themselves to one country.
 
Interest rates will become more attractive.  As competition for deposits increases, financial institutions will see their Net Interest Margin (the difference between what they pay on deposits and what they charge on loans) decrease significantly. This will require greater efficiencies from banks, but provide more attractive interest rates on deposits and lower rates on loans to consumers.

https://www.americanexpress.com/us/small-business/openforum/articles/small-business-banking-in-2016-1/

Welcome back kz3d8fc7, and thank you for stopping by to wish us all happy holidays and same to you as well!

I wish happy holidays and prosperous new year 2016 to every DNotes developer, investor and community member!

Keep up the excellent work  !

Thank you CryptoBroker and MarriedWithChildren! Hope you had a great holiday.

Blockchain Weekly Recap 12-26-2015

Australian Bitcoin Startup Sees Payment Transactions Top $1 Million Mark.
ASX Weighing Expected to Adopt Blockchain Tech.
Russian IRI Roadmap Includes Blockchain Regulation.
Nomura Developing Blockchain Proof of Concept for Banking.

http://dcebrief.com/blockchain-weekly-recap-12-26-2015/

Good morning. Hope you all had a great holiday. I had a delightful time, spending the whole day with family. Now I have a lot of catching up to do.

RJF raised a very good question for discussion. Bitcoin and digital currency will be a viable and significant alternative investment. I certainly encourage our community to spend some time on this subject and share with us what you know as well as what you think. Wiser has given us a great start. Don't forget that our family CRISPs are specifically launched for the purpose of providing an alternative self-directed investment savings. We fully expect substantial growth in the coming years.

Thanks wiser, appreciate the info...

I'm really liking the BTC Jam autoinvest program as a Bitcoin investment. Sometimes lending to margin traders on Poloniex works very well, but involves more management and last I checked rate of return was low.

For other coins, Diamond cloud mining is great, but legally it's not considered an investment-yada yada... Neucoin has its growth funds which currently offer out of this world rates of return (NEU is a staking coin).

Don't forget to mention DNotes vault

Merry Christmas!

EDIT: Almost forgot, the rental starter fund on Havelock is another good one. Not super high rate of return, but solid. They have a legal disclaimer about not taking US investments but I have not heard of that being enforced, probably just a necessary CYA statement.

Question:

I'm conducting research on alternative investments that include crypto currency. Has anyone here invested in Bitcoin, in any manor other than simply buying and holding it? I'm talking about legitimate funds and traditional investment vehicles that now include Bitcoin, etc.

Public or private answers are fine, no personal info please.