official BestChange.com - Exchangers and rates Monitor

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Dear forum users,

We want to introduce you BestChange monitor to choose the most profitable digital currency exchange service. It is very easy to use – just choose the currency pair you need.

There is no reason to visit exchangers’ websites by yourself because you may find all the rates on our page.

What do you get with us?

·        Real reviews about exchange services

·        Fast customer support and updated information

·        The most popular currency pairs to exchange

·        Actual reserves and commissions information

·        Automatic exchange rate search

·        Top of the most profitable rates

That’s not so hard to choose a good, secure and time-tested exchanger.

Follow BestChange website and choose the best option by choosing the currency you give and the currency you get. The system would show you the top list of exchangers automatically.

If you need to withdraw your money on card in time or to transfer your money to another currency account – remember BestChange.

Make your choice perfect with BestChange.

Please check out our service and have a great exchanging experience at: https://www.bestchange.com/

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[BestChange ✔️]

Following the summary of the book we have shared this week, we would like to extend the topic and tell you about seven mistakes people make when writing to-do lists and several ways of avoiding such mistakes.

1.Too voluminous lists

We plan to do dozens of things during the day, but all our tasks vary in their urgency, length and time required for their completion. Long lists demotivate, because it is impossible to do every task in them.

Instead, specify 3 most important tasks which will benefit you the most in your carrier, business or you personally, and write them down in order of their importance on a small piece of paper to keep in front of your eyes during the day.

2.Ambiguity and uncertainty

Very often we formulate our goals too vaguely, not setting forth the specific steps we need to take to achieve the result. Instead of writing down: “Work on the presentation”, specify what exactly you are planning to do: “Make a draft of the presentation”, “Define 3 key points of the presentation” and so on.

It is important to understand:
- what the final result would be;
- if it is possible to finish the task in one go;
- what the deadline of the task is.

3.Poor time management

It’s hard to be effective if you don’t know how many hours or days it will require you to complete this or that task. Before getting down to work, estimate how much time you would approximately spend on this task. Even if you make mistakes in your estimations at first, they will help you to better manage your time in the future.

4.Falling for distractions

There are days when lots of unplanned tasks emerge and unforeseen situations take place. That’s why it is important not only to structure your schedule, but also be flexible. Every morning take a look in your calendar to check what you have planned for today and the next few days. During the day allow at least one hour to be spent on solving unplanned situations. This amount of free time will let you considerably decrease  the level of everyday stress.

5.Focusing on tasks which are in fact not so important

There is always a temptation to fill your list with tasks which only seem urgent and important but actually do not play a big role in the long run. To achieve results, you need to see the whole picture and write down tasks with real deadlines (for example, important meetings) and those that have the most influence on your goals (for instance, work on the coming presentation).

6.No connection between tasks and end goals

Motivation depends on how the task is important for you personally. In these cases, we don’t have to summon up our spirits, we get down to work happily. Before starting to write your to-do list of important tasks, think for a moment, why you include this or that point there. If it relates to your long-term goal, you will work on it with more enthusiasm.

7.Torturing yourself with thoughts on undone tasks

At the end of the day, the list of important tasks is not a question of life and death. That’s why don’t torture yourself and start each morning with working on three most important tasks for the day.

- - -

As always, we are trying to be interesting and useful for you, that’s why your opinion matters. Please tell us, did you find this information interesting, would you like to read similar advice in the future?

[BestChange ✔️]

All of us heard many times that cryptocurrencies are only good for trading in the darknet and for laundering money. We sometimes even get requests from journalists to give comments on such questions about illegal deals with cryptocurrencies.

But let’s sort out, can bitcoin be really used for money laundering?

I think there is no need to explain what money laundering is about – it is done to give criminal money legal status and to “cover the tracks”.

Cryptocurrency sphere with its decentralization, anonymity and almost instant transactions may seem to have become the favorite place for all kinds of financial fraudsters. But there are a few problems with that.

1. Volatility of most cryptocurrencies
Although for traders constant price surges serve as a great opportunity to profit, for people using digital currencies as a medium, a fall by 10-20 per cent can be a very serious risk.

2. Difficulty of converting cryptocurrencies into fiat currencies. More and more often the exchangers and exchange markets follow the principles of KYC, CFT and AML. Cryptocurrencies still have a half-legal status in most countries. If a considerable amount of money is transferred into cryptocurrencies, after all the stages of laundering, these cryptocurrencies will need to be transferred back into cash money. That’s how, ironically, half-legal status of cryptocurrencies protects them from criminal activity.

3. The majority of digital currencies are not at all anonymous. All transactions made in blockchain are reflected in a public ledger, where everybody can track from which account the transaction was made, how much money was transferred, and by which account it was received. No, these accounts are not connected to names and surnames, but these are easily trackable by IP. There is a limited number of currencies the main task of which is totally anonymity of transactions (Monero, Zcash, Verge and others). But the result of this anonymity is, as a rule, longer time of transaction and its higher price, and difficulty of conversion due to lower liquidity.

It cannot be absolutely excluded that bitcoin might be used in illegal deals, as any currency in the world, in cash or in a cashless way. But incredibly much more often it is the cash, in particular, dollars, which is used when financing terrorism of laundering money, but the very thought of banning cash sounds absurd.

Notwithstanding all the novelty that comes with cryptocurrencies, the most anonymous and safe way of transaction is giving money from hand to hand. That is why the majority of illegal deals are done with the use of cash. As before, using cash remains more anonymous and complicated for tracking than most of cryptocurrencies.

And what do you think? Do you believe that cryptocurrency is only good for illegal deals?

[nathandev]

I use a directory which is the best Cryptocurrency Exchanges https://cryptolinks.com/cryptocurrency-exchange Found that pretty helpful for me. It's like you have everything in your wallet no need to search for each exchanger site through a lot of searching. Their concept is simple whether you need a crypto exchange, Crypto news or Crypto wallets you can get all in one place.

 

[BestChange ✔️]

On 4/11/2019 at 5:03 PM, nathandev said:

I use a directory which is the best Cryptocurrency Exchanges https://cryptolinks.com/cryptocurrency-exchange Found that pretty helpful for me. It's like you have everything in your wallet no need to search for each exchanger site through a lot of searching. Their concept is simple whether you need a crypto exchange, Crypto news or Crypto wallets you can get all in one place.

 

Give https://www.bestchange.com/ a try and you will see for yourself that trading e-currencies with our platform is super easy and convenient, and saves you time and money!

[BestChange ✔️]

What did people use for trading before money was invented? Find out how the first coins were created, why paper money was first introduced and all the discoveries and social changes that led to our current monetary system.

Before money people used bartered goods as payment; for example, animal hides and teeth. Livestock was the most valuable commodity. Shells were also used; snail shells were very popular in China. Other goods used for payment were tools, beads, salt, crops, weapons and tobacco.

The first standardized coins were created in what is now western Turkey by King Alyattes around 7th century B.C. They were made of electrum, a naturally occurring amalgam of gold and silver. In Rome, coins were minted near the temple of the goddess Juno Moneta, which gave us the words "mint" and "money". Offa, an Anglo-Saxon king, introduced the first English coin known as the penny around 790 A.D. Because of a copper shortage, China introduced the world’s first paper money in the 9th century - 700 years before Europe did so. In the 1500s the St. Joachimsthal mine in what is now the Czech Republic introduced large silver coins called thaler. The Spanish version of the thaler became the first worldwide currency. The English called it the dollar, and the U.S. dollar was based on it.

Modern Money. The first U.S. government-backed paper bills were introduced during the Civil War. The term "greenback" comes from the intricate designs on these bills, meant to prevent counterfeiting. The largest bill in history was the 1946 Hungarian 100 million Pengo; the name was spelled out on the bills since so many zeroes couldn’t fit on the banknote, but it was only worth $0.25! The $100,000 1934 Gold Certificate was the largest bill ever made in the U.S. It was used for Federal Reserve transactions and not released to the public. The largest coin ever minted was in Australia in 2011 weighs about a ton. A U.S. nickel weighs just 5 grams—roughly as much as a hummingbird. As of 2018, there are 180 different currencies used around the world.

Bitcoin, invented in 2009 by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto, became the gold standard--so to speak--for virtual currencies. Virtual currencies have no physical coinage. The appeal of virtual currency is it offers the promise of lower transaction fees than traditional online payment mechanisms and is operated by a decentralized authority, unlike government issued currencies.

Despite many advances, money still has a very real and permanent effect on how we do business today.

[BestChange ✔️]

Back in February, the Shift Card service, which used to issue debit Visa cards with a possibility of using cryptocurrencies, announced their closure.

But the service was succeeded by one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges Coinbase. The representatives of the exchange announced launching debit Visa cards with a possibility of payment with cryptocurrencies from the exchange account of the user.

It is announced that Coinbase Card will support all cryptocurrencies available at the exchange, and the users will be able to spend them on any purchases, whether it would be food in supermarkets or public transport tickets. The conversion process will be automatic and instant at the moment when the user makes a transaction using the card.

The exchange’s clients will be able to choose the cryptocurrency they are planning to spend on purchasing goods with the help of a special mobile app. Moreover this app features an option of receiving a check, viewing transaction and purchases categories.

The British payment operator PaySafe will be issuing the cards. For the time being only the UK citizens can use the service, but in a few months Coinbases is going to implement their innovation in other European countries.

And what about you – would you like to have such a card? Is there a sense in such cards?

[BestChange ✔️]

Today we carry on with our crash course for beginners in the cryptocurrency market. We will tell about technology that underlies almost every cryptocurrency and about the features of this technology.

Blockchain technology differs from a traditional data base by the principle of organizing information. Classical data base is hosted on servers specially designed for it and these servers are controlled by organization that owns this data base. Blockchain is not controlled by a person or organization and its security is ensured by its distributed architecture.

Block technology allows different sides not having trust for each other to exchange data without the central server. Processing and storage of transactions is carried out by all users at once. After adding data to the network by one of the participants, all other nodes of the network are used to check and confirm the correctness of these changes. In a decentralized blockchain the information is stored on all computers of all users at once, and not on a single server, which protects the network from hacking and data spoofing.

The more network participants and nodes, the more data copies. To change data in this situation one need to hack every single node in the network and modify all data simultaneously. Every block in a chain has a certain block of data, and when this block gets filled, the data gets encrypted and written in the network forever. To change data in any transaction, hackers would need not only the current block, but also all the next ones which is not only practically impossible, but also too expensive.

Adding blocks is carried out using cryptographic methods of protection and this guarantees the reliability of data without a universal processing center. However, constantly growing size of the chain of blocks can make its storage and synchronizing more difficult.

If data that is relevant only for the current time, is recorded in the usual database, the blockchain stores operations for the entire history of its existence. The system is designed in such a way that all transactions remain unchanged - they cannot be deleted.

Given its characteristics, the blockchain technology offers the ability to create enterprises and carry out operations that are quite flexible and safe. Today, the blockchain is beginning to be actively introduced into banking systems, property registration systems and various state registries, supply chain management, and in such areas as digital identity, energy, voting, games, the Internet of things and other.

You can find a good exchange rate for buying any cryptocurrency on our website BestChange. com.

Would you like to know more about this technology? Maybe you’ve got some questions about blockchain? Please ask in the comments and we will find the answers together.

[BestChange ✔️]

From the date of its creation in 2009, Bitcoin is an open-source project. But despite all its openness, up to date no one knows, who is the person behind the creation of Bitcoin and who is Satoshi Nakamoto?

Let’s elaborate on what is known so far. The first step was taken in 2007 with the writing of Bitcoin code. In November 2008, a programmer, or a group of programmers, using the name of Satoshi Nakamoto published the whitepaper on the Cryptography Mailing list. It was titled “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” and paved the way for the Bitcoin protocol.

On January 3rd, 2009, the first Bitcoin block ever was mined. A few days later Nakamoto released the updated 0.1 version of Bitcoin software with some minor bug fixes.

In the beginning, a person calling himself Satoshi Nakamoto was heavily involved with the Bitcoin community and helped them modify the underlying bitcoin protocol on the website Bitcoin.org, he – or she – had created. Satoshi remained a mystery, as the person behind this name did not reveal any personal information during the entire time of cooperation with other developers. After two years of active collaboration, Nakamoto handed the reins to Gavin Andresen, and ceased any involvement with the Bitcoin project in December of 2010.

In April 2011, Nakamoto emailed a software developer that he had “moved on to other things,” and that Bitcoin was “in good hands with Gavin and everyone.” From then on nobody has heard anything from Bitcoin’s secretive creator.

The mystery behind Nakamoto’s identity has only grown, as the Bitcoin community eagerly speculates who it could potentially be. Satoshi Nakamoto claims to be Japanese, born on April 5, 1975. To this day, it is unknown whether Nakamoto is male or female, or whether Nakamoto is even a single person or a group of individuals. Satoshi is quite a common Japanese name, and Nakamoto, though not being a top popular surname, still isn’t rare.

But the fact that his Bitcoin documentation hasn’t been published in Japanese and his perfect knowledge of English, with a twang of British English, created some suspicions among other Bitcoiners.

Some community members analyzed Nakamoto’s activity on the bitcoin forum, and their findings reveal that the chart of timestamps would suggest an unusual sleeping pattern for Japan, but be more characteristic of that of in the UK, hence giving away possible location of the posts’ author. The media has also done its digging in looking for the person behind the name Nakaomto. But the candidates they have dug up have rejected any credit for the invention of Bitcoin so far.

One thing is clear, the key to his disappearance and secrecy is possibly his huge wealth. Imagine holding 7.5 per cent of the world’s bitcoin and not being able to spend any of it.

Spending this Bitcoin on an open and transparent blockchain would be akin to coming out. Not only would every government in the world know who you are but also some very unsavoury elements who could cause you real potential harm.

The mystery of the inventor of Bitcoins remains unsolved today, but his cause is continued by the many brilliant developers of the Bitcoin community.

As always, we at BestChange.com are trying to be interesting and useful for you, that is why your opinion matters. Please tell us if you find this information useful and what other topics would you like us to cover?

 

[BestChange ✔️]

On 5/16/2019 at 6:13 AM, Andy Blignaut said:

We should be extremely careful with the exchanges that we do, as that can be very risky if done with unknown. I always prefer ones that are fully trustworthy, safe and secure. I also want to secure that my work is done smoothly. If we manage this then we will be able to get things rolling as well. I personally prefer to use only few options instead of too many, and that only the highest quality Crypto Exchange, which will help.
 

On BestChange.com you can forget about your concerns and fears: we have only trustworthy and verified exchangers, and to choose one you can go through their reviews to make sure your exchanging experience is silky smooth!

[BestChange ✔️]

During the weekend our Chief Analyst decided to calculate how much on average a person could have earned on bitcoin for the last 5,5 years.

Of course, the received data cannot be absolutely accurate — otherwise we would have needed to get an access to all transactions of exchanging, appearance and disappearance of all existing during this time exchanges and exchange offices, information about private exchangings.

Our method is based on comparison of all possible options of purchase and sell for the last 1963 days (during the period between 27/12/2013 and 12/05/2019). We took all 1'925'703 possible options of purchase and sell at the average price on this day and multiplied it on the probability of making a transaction on this or that day. We established probability based on trading volume in this pair of days as relating to all trading volume for 5,5 years. We did not take into account trading within the day and possible private exchange operations. All data is available publicly and can be viewed on the site coinmarketcap.com

According to our calculations, if the number of investors will tend to infinity, then on average all these investors that bought and sold bitcoin on random days for the past 5,5 years, have earned 180 per cent of their capital. It does not mean that you can earn the same in the future, or that the majority of investors have earned, and not lost, on bitcoin in the past. This is just an approximate number the investors could have earned on average during this time (somebody lost 80 per cent, when another earned 1000 per cent).

Currently bitcoin shows remarkable results again and has already overcome the $8000 mark. If you decide to buy bitcoin at the best rate, you can always find the most profitable option with the help of our monitoring BestChange.com.

Would you find interesting calculations for other cryptocurrencies? Maybe you have advice or wishes how to improve our method?

[BestChange ✔️]

Did you know that only one third of mined bitcoins participate in the turnover? The rest of bitcoins do not move among the wallets.

Of course, this can partially be blamed on hodlers, but it is highly likely that the access to inactive wallets was simply lost or the coins were forgotten by users.

The reason for that could be a loss or breaking of private key containers, impossibility to restore passwords from online-service or their closure, incompatibility of hierarchical generation of keys and lots of other options. If you have lost a password/key to your bitcoin wallet, you won’t be able to restore it, this is how the system works.

But what about the fact that every 10 minutes miners create more and more new bitcoins?

There is a limit after which the growth of the total amount of bitcoin in the network will stop, and this limit is 21 million of coins. Moreover, every 4 years the amount of new bitcoins is reduced two-fold.

For the 10 year and a half of bitcoin’s existence there has been generated around 17,7 million of bitcoins, which constitutes around 84 per cent of their total amount. If the access to two thirds of the coins has already been lost, then around 9 million of coins are left in the turnover, 3 million coins out of which do not yet exist.

Even if we do not take into account the possibility of losing an access to wallets in the future, it still turns out that we may face a shortage much larger, that it seems at first glance.

If bitcoin ceases to be a speculative asset and turns into one of the main reserve currencies of the world’s central banks, its total capitalization will be less correlated with the actual amount of available funds.

For instance, if now bitcoin would substitute the US dollar as the main reserve currency and its capitalization was at the level of the USA national debt, then the price of one bitcoin would be a little over $1 million. And if we take into account that the real volume of bitcoins available for turnover currently is about 6 million of coins, then bitcoin would have to have the price of $3,5 million to be compatible with US debt by capitalization.

And do you believe in the future of bitcoin? What price deems fair for the cryptocurrency number one?

If you trust in the future growth of Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, our monitoring BestChange.com is at your service: with our help you can easily find the best exchanging rates for any e-currency and have a safe transaction.

 

[BestChange ✔️]

How Safe are Bitcoin Paper Wallets?

A bitcoin paper wallet is a public and private key printed on paper or a piece of plastic. It is an offline wallet and is referred to as a type of “cold storage”. This means that it is an extra-secure storage that is not connected to the Internet which can be hacked. Although its security can be debatable.

The piece of paper (or plastic) contains printed private and public keys, usually accompanied by QR code, which also serves as the address. You can simply copy and paste the keys onto a text document and print it out (making sure to delete the document from your PC). You can also use free online services that generate the printable wallet. The key generation is usually done in your browser, so they are not transmitted on the internet. But to be on the safe side, you are advised to clear your browser after printing. Keeping an image of the paper wallet on your computer or phone is a definite no-no.

Some paper wallet services offer a handy design that you can cut, fold and seal, making them a lightweight and relatively secure form of storing your bitcoins offline. You send your bitcoin to the public address displayed on the wallet, and then store the paper in a secure place.

The security of paper wallets stems from the fact that they
are absolutely offline, and hackers cannot reach them. But, on the other hand, you need to keep this piece of paper secure to protect your funds.

There is a risk that somebody can find your printout and withdraw your funds without your knowledge.
As an extra precaution measure you can fold the printout covering the private key and seal the fold with a tamper evident seal.

Also, you need to bear in mind the physical vulnerability of the material. To protect the paper wallet from water (for example, in case of flooding) you may want to keep the printout in a sealed plastic bag. But there does not seem to be a good protection against fire.

But these risks are not very likely, use common sense to keep your wallets safe the way you would jewels and ordinary cash. In general paper wallets are by far the safest option to store your digital assets.

Whatever your preferred method of storing e-currencies, you can always buy or sell your crypto money choosing the best rates at bestchange.com !

[BestChange ✔️]

Blockchain and bitcoin based on it, as any new revolutionary technology, have their drawbacks. The mechanism of ‘proof-of-work’ consensus uses enormous volumes of electricity, cryptocurrency is used for speculations and sometimes in illegal activities.

But to say that because of that the technology faces a failure, is the same as saying in 1995 that the Internet will not work because it’s clumsy and unorganized.

Bitcoin has been living for over 10 years now despite numerous predictions of its demise. And it is constantly developing. The first cryptocurrency is no longer a “toy for geeks” as it used to be in 2009. Today Blockstream satellites allow making bitcoin transactions even without Internet.

Blockstream company which deals with bitcoin blockchain pilot projects and New Zealand developer goTenna have united their efforts to improve the project that allows sending and receiving bitcoins without Internet with the help of data translation via satellites using radio frequencies which are supported by goTenna devices.

The users will be able to receive bitcoins via satellite and goTenna Mesh network without direct connection to the Internet. If you do not like the control of the local provider or your connection is down for some reason, for example, because of a natural disaster, you will still be able to make a transaction.

With all the innovative features, this technology is quite easy to use. With an electricity generator, satellite dish, Raspberry Pi, a Wi-Fi point and the necessary software you could make global bitcoin transactions.

At first sight, it sounds rather expensive. But if you divide the expenses among people, for instance, if the whole village chips in for the purchase of the equipment, the costs are not so high. To use this service, you need a small satellite dish that uses USB port to connect to PC or specialized equipment such as Raspberry Pi. To manage connection, you can use free software with open source code, for instance GNU Radio.

And the service itself has demonstrated “excellent” uptime and its network has excess capacity to ensure reliability.

And do you still think that bitcoin does not have any future and nobody uses it?

[BestChange ✔️]

Blockchain is not a financial pyramid.

To see this, one should understand what a financial pyramid (also called an investment pyramid) is. This is a system for receiving profit via constantly attracting money from new participants. That means the profit of the first participants is paid at the expense of funds of their followers.

It is obvious that if bitcoin does not have any dividend yield, that is, if you do not receive additional funds just because you own cryptocurrency, then bitcoin, as most of other significant cryptocurrencies, cannot be a financial pyramid by definition.

Then why such confusion? Most likely that the reason behind such a poor analogy was the poverty of intellect in most cryptocurrency critics after the events of 2017. They did not even try to learn about the principles and technologies behind cryptocurrencies but started without any reason calling them a financial pyramid. Partially they can be understood, because the previously unknown project that made it possible for people to increase their capital several times over a few months sounds very suspicious.

But what happened is that people earned profit due to the increase in the price of the active, and not because of the means of new users. Yes, to some extend it was the dramatic increase of popularity that brought about price increase, but these concepts should not be confused. Situations when demand starts to dramatically exceed supply are always accompanied by similar price increase. These can be company shares, investment fund units or even salt that can rise in price against the backdrop of false rumors. Price increase due to the growth of demand is a typical market situation, and not a disguised financial pyramid.

That being said, blockchain-based pyramids can sometimes be found, for instance, PonziCoin and Bitconnet. But these are particular cases of the misuse of the technology in creating a financial pyramid, and not vice versa.

It should be noted that there are financial pyramids that are disguised as cryptocurrency projects, only exacerbating the suspicion of inexperienced crowd. For example, they can promise profit thanks to a “unique trading robot” that multiplies your investments, or something of this kind. Of course, they have nothing to do with cryptocurrencies, and the illusion of work is maintained at expense of new client’s investments.

We hope that we have made our point clear. And what other unreasonable definitions of bitcoin have you come across? We would be happy to discuss it with you in our next articles.

[BestChange ✔️]

Cryptocurrencies were originally envisioned as a decentralized payment means, independent of fiat money rates and not tied to traditional valuable assets.

This peculiarity adds cryptocurrencies a characteristic feature — high volatility of the rate. Many folks gain thanks to this feature, but the possibility that the rate can dramatically drop or leap hinders the usage of cryptocurrency as a full-fledge payment means.

In order to regulate the rate, it was decided to tie up cryptocurrencies to stable assets that have long been established in the economy. Thus, they began to tie up the value of cryptocurrency to fiat money, gold and oil. Digital currencies can be tied up to any valuable asset or commodity which can make their value more stable.

Cryptocurrencies pegged to physical assets have a lower rate volatility and became known as stablecoins. Stablecoins are a compromise between fiat money and cryptocurrencies. Most often, the value of a stablecoin is pegged to fiat money. The value of these coins is equal to that of fiat currency and represents a sort of a promissory note. Every coin is leveraged to one unit of fiat money, for instance, dollar, which acts as a guarantee and provides for the value of the currency.

The most popular stablecoins are:

Tether (USDT) * USD Coin (USDC) * TrueUSD (TUSD) * Paxos Standard Token (PAX) * Dai (DAI)

And what stablecoins do you use?

 

[BestChange ✔️]

Did you know that in its modern form, credit card appeared back in 1949? Originally nobody took them seriously, but within the next few years they literally conquered the whole world.

The first universal credit card, which could be used at a variety of establishments, was introduced by the Diners’ Club, Inc., in 1950. Another major card of this type, known as a travel and entertainment card, was established by the American Express Company in 1958.

Today billions of people around the world use bank cards. The share of cashless payments is gradually growing, and they become a usual and more convenient method of payment.

According to statistics, for the year 2015, debit card usage accounted for 69.5 billion in payments, dwarfing all other forms of non-cash payments including credit cards (33.8 billion) and checks (17.3 billion). One new debit card is issued in the U.S. every five seconds. There were 471 million Visa debit cards in the U.S. and 1.09 billion in the rest of the world at the end of March 2015.

How many bank cards do you have? How often do you use cash?

[BestChange ✔️]

The Amsterdam Stock Exchange is considered the oldest in the world. It was established in 1602 by the Dutch East India Company, which issued the first shares on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange. It was the first company to issue stocks and bonds and the first to formally begin trading in securities.

In the 1600's, the Dutch, French and British governments all gave charters to companies with East India in their names. At the peak of imperialism, it seemed like everyone had a share in the profits from the East Indian and Asian campaigns except the people living there. Sea trips that brought back commodities from the East were very risky - besides pirates, there were risks of weather and losing navigation.

To minimize the risk of a lost ship ruining their profits, ship owners had long been using the help of investors who would finance the trip - outfitting the ship and crew in return for a percentage of the profits if the voyage turned out a success. These early limited liability companies often lasted for only a single voyage. They were then dissolved, and a new one was created for the next trip. Investors lessened their risk by investing in several different ventures at the same time, thereby playing the odds against all of them ending in disaster.

When the East India companies formed, they changed the way business was done. These companies issued stock that would pay dividends on all the proceeds from all the voyages the companies undertook, rather than going voyage by voyage. These were the first modern joint stock companies. This allowed the companies to demand more for their shares and build larger fleets. The size of the companies, combined with royal charters forbidding competition, meant huge profits for investors.

[BestChange ✔️]

Is a quantum computer dangerous for Bitcoin?

Many researches say that in less than 10 years сomputing machines using quantum principles will threaten blockchain technology which is a basis for cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin and similar systems’ defense algorithm is based on a principle of asymmetric encryption with and open and private keys. Transaction is signed by a private key, and its truth is checked with a help of an open key.

Despite the fact that Bitcoin blockchain uses asymmetric encryption, the users don’t have to worry for the safety of their coins. The open key is not stored openly. Thus, the addresses for coins transferring are not open keys, but just the results of usage of hash-function SHA-256. The hashing function performs one-sided transformation and that’s why it’s stable against quantum computer attacks.

The public key is rendered to the network in the open way just until it receives a confirmation. If an attacker receives an open key during transaction, he will have around 10 minutes to get the private key with the help of a quantum computer and try to make his own transaction from the same address but specifying a larger commission.

By the way, bitcoin mining is also relevantly safe, as the equipment for mining cryptocurrencies in the near future will be more powerful that quantum computers.

It is worth to note, that quantum calculations threaten absolutely all systems of computer security which care based on cryptography with an open key, and not only blockchain. Internet connections to render your password in Internet banking uses a similar encryption technology, same as communication in chatrooms, social networks and lots of other routine actions.

All security systems, including blockchain systems, need to take into account postquantum encryption to ensure data safety. But the most simple and effective way can be changing traditional systems by such blockchain which implements quantum-resistant cryptography.

There are several different ways of encryption with open key resistant to quantum calculations: bases on matrix, on code, multidimensional quadratic functions, and hashing function. But let us not digress into detail math stories.

The main point is that if there is a serious threat to blockchain posed by quantum computer, developers can improve the protection. Moreover, successful research and developments in this regards are being done not for the first year.

What do you think, who will be the first in this race – bitcoin developers or quantum computer developers?

 

[BestChange ✔️]

Sometimes it is necessary to confirm that you are the owner of this or that address. This may be required when, for instance, the seller wants a confirmation of your solvency, when recovering a hacked or lost account, or to prove that it was you who made a transfer and not somebody else.

Only owning a private key can prove your ownership of a bitcoin-address, but at the same time you cannot give away your private key: anybody with an access to it can spend your funds.

To solve this contradiction, a special function was developed – “signing a message”. When you sign a message, you can prove that you own a certain address and manage its funds. At the same time, secret information is not revealed, and no risk is posed for the funds at this address.

Creating a signature for any message is possible with lots of bitcoin-wallets. You will need to specify the address you need to confirm, and a message. The text can be of any nature, but it’s preferable it would tell something to the recipient. We advise you to always put the date and the reason of the message. If you sign any message without the specifics, somebody else might use it and pretend to be the owner of your address.
 
After signing the message, you can give the message with your signature to the other participant which will prove your ownership of the address. To check the signed message, it is possible to use a wallet or other resources.

Have you ever used this function? Have you heard about signing the messages for cryptocurrency wallets?