ICO Portfolio is Down by 66% in the First Half of 2018 2105

In the first half of 2018, 86% of the leading initial coin offerings (ICOs) that listed on a cryptocurrency exchange in 2017 are below their initial listing price and a portfolio of these ICOs is down by 66% since the peak of the market at the beginning of this year, according to a study from EY, Initial Coin Offerings: The Class of 2017 – one year laterthat examined the ICOs’ progress and investment returns.

The study finds 30% have lost substantially all their value. There were gains among The Class of 2017 since their ICO, with most gains (99%) concentrated in the top 10 ICO tokens, the majority of which are in the blockchain infrastructure category.

  • 86% of tracked ICOs are below listing price; 30% lost substantially all their value
  • ICOs claim to have raised US$15b in first half of 2018
  • Top 10 ICOs listed in 2017 account for essentially all of the gains since issuance, with a majority in blockchain infrastructure

The latest study follows an initial analysis in December 2017, when EY analyzed top ICOs representing 87% of the ICO funding last year. It found that a lack of fundamental valuation and due diligence by potential investors was leading to extreme volatility in ICO performance, which is still an ongoing issue. The study announced today found that ICOs claimed to have raised more than US$15b in 2018, compared with US$4.1b1 in 2017.

However, EY found that only 29% (25) of the 2017 ICO projects that EY assessed have progressed to prototypes or working products – an increase of just 13% from December 2017. The remaining 71% have no offering in the market.

Paul Brody, EY Global Innovation Leader, Blockchain, says:

“Despite the past year’s hype around ICOs, there appears to be a significant lack of understanding around the risks and rewards of these investments. In addition, there is a disparity between those who invest in ICOs and the ICO project developers regarding the anticipated timelines of ROI. While ICOs are an entirely new way to raise capital, those participating should understand that there are factors – such as the slow progression toward working product offerings – that can introduce greater risk in ICO investing.”

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Trust Wallet integrates Rango’s API to enhance cross-chain swaps and bridging 3936

Trust Wallet, one of the leading non-custodial cryptocurrency wallets, has integrated Rango’s API to enable seamless cross-chain swaps and bridging.. This significant upgrade empowers Trust Wallet users to transfer assets effortlessly across more than ten blockchain networks, revolutionizing the way they interact with their digital assets.

A new era for Trust Wallet users

Trust Wallet’s integration of Rango’s cutting-edge API marks a major milestone in enhancing its cross-chain capabilities. This development allows Trust Wallet’s expansive user base to conduct seamless transactions between various blockchain networks, offering a new level of flexibility and convenience. With this integration, Trust Wallet users can now transfer assets across multiple chains with ease, eliminating the complexity traditionally associated with cross-chain transactions.

Why this integration matters

The addition of Rango’s API addresses a critical need within the cryptocurrency ecosystem: efficient and secure cross-chain transactions. Historically, users have faced challenges when attempting to move assets between different blockchains due to disparate protocols and technical barriers. Rango’s API simplifies this process, providing a unified solution that ensures smooth and reliable asset transfers. This integration aligns with Trust Wallet’s mission to deliver an intuitive and comprehensive wallet experience.

Trust Wallet features

Trust Wallet is a non-custodial wallet that offers users complete control over their digital assets. Since its inception, Trust Wallet has been at the forefront of Web3 innovation, providing a secure and user-friendly UI for managing multiple cryptocurrencies and NFTs. Key features of Trust Wallet include:

  • Multi-Cryptocurrency Support: Trust Wallet supports a diverse range of cryptocurrencies, extending beyond just EVM-compatible chains. This broad compatibility ensures users can manage a wide array of digital assets from a single platform.
  • Flexible Purchases: Users can buy cryptocurrencies directly from third-party platforms.
  • NFT Wallet: Trust Wallet serves as a comprehensive NFT wallet, allowing users to buy, sell, store, and trade NFTs directly from their mobile devices.
  • Staking and Rewards: The wallet offers staking options for selected cryptocurrencies, enabling users to earn rewards on their holdings.
  • Seamless Wallet Imports: Trust Wallet simplifies transferring assets from other wallets using a secret recovery phrase, private key, or Keystore file.
  • Flexible Fees: The platform offers free downloads and installations, with no subscription fees.
  • In-Built Swap Feature: Trust Wallet includes a decentralized exchange (DEX) for on-chain and cross-chain swaps, such as converting ETH on Optimism to ETH on Ethereum.

The future of cross-chain transactions

The integration of Rango’s API represents a pivotal advancement in Trust Wallet’s commitment to enhancing user experience and supporting a broader range of blockchain interactions. By streamlining cross-chain swaps and bridging, Trust Wallet continues to set a new standard for cryptocurrency management, making it easier than ever for users to navigate the evolving digital asset landscape.

About Rango

Rango is a pioneering web3 company specializing in cross-chain interoperability solutions. Their UI and API provides seamless, efficient, and secure cross-chain swaps, addressing the growing demand for interoperability in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Rango’s integration with major wallet platforms like Trust Wallet underscores their role in driving innovation and simplifying digital asset management.

About Trust Wallet

Trust Wallet is the self-custody, multi-chain Web3 wallet and Web3 gateway for people who want to fully own, control, and leverage the power of their digital assets. From beginners to experienced users, Trust Wallet makes it easier, safer, and convenient for millions of people around the world to experience Web3, access dApps securely, store and manage their crypto and NFTs, buy, sell, and stake crypto to earn rewards, all in one place and without limits.

Tshan Markets, the Revolutionary Online Trading Platform officially launched 4355

Tshan Markets, a leading provider of online Contracts for Difference (CFD) trading services, today announced its launch and its groundbreaking advancements aimed at revolutionizing the online trading experience. These new enhancements promise unparalleled convenience, security, and efficiency for traders globally, setting new standards in the financial industry.

As a top priority, Tshan Markets ensures a seamless 24/7 trading experience with robust background support that guarantees stability and uninterrupted connectivity. This major upgrade comes in response to the ever-evolving industry landscape and growing customer expectations.

As a world-class trading service provider, Tshan Markets is regulated by the MSB of the United States to ensure the conduct of reasonable and legal financial business in the prescribed areas, allowing users to experience formal and convenient financial services.

Tshan Markets, committed to innovation and transparency, continues to lead as a regulated broker. The company invests in cutting-edge technology, customizes services, and enhances customer education. The updated platform features a user-friendly interface and advanced trading functions, reflecting Tshan Markets’ vision to be the world’s foremost online trading platform.

“Tshan Markets is dedicated to providing a superior trading experience for all users, from novices to seasoned professionals,” said CEO of Tshan Markets. “Our innovative tools and comprehensive resources support our users’ trading journeys, helping them achieve financial goals through a secure and convenient online environment.”

Key to these enhancements is the introduction of a swap-free trading method with no overnight fees, significantly reducing trading costs and expanding profit margins for users. Additionally, Tshan Markets now offers a globally accessible registration process, allowing users to verify accounts via email from any country. Offline agents are also available to facilitate a more flexible and efficient account opening process.

Enhanced monitoring and management functions now allow real-time tracking of online status, IP addresses, trading activities, positions, and order modifications, ensuring the transparency and security of transactions. Each agent benefits from an independent official website link and dedicated customer service, ensuring personalized service experiences.

Foreign exchange quotations connected directly with banks ensure smooth and accurate transactions. Agents can schedule daily market condition updates, sharing over 30 fixed market conditions, providing timely and rich market information.

The platform now supports flexible product parameter settings, including handling fees, fee rebates, profit sharing, and spread rebates, allowing for personalized agent settings. Copy trading capabilities have also been enhanced, with support for 1:1 profit and loss orders and the ability to set up signal sources, providing more profit models for agents.

Tshan Markets’ payment and application functions are bolstered by an independent API interface for international online payments. The platform’s native app, available on Apple and Google stores, offers users a more convenient trading experience.

The trading software, compatible with all iOS and Android devices, enables users to trade anytime, anywhere, ensuring they never miss investment opportunities.

Key Highlights:

  • Ultra-fast Execution Speed: With an average execution speed of less than 30 milliseconds, Tshan Markets leverages low-latency optical fibers and industry-leading Equinix LD4 servers, ensuring timely and accurate information transmission.
  • Comprehensive Trading Products: Offering over 250 tools with ultra-low 0.0 spreads, Tshan Markets guarantees no re-quoting, best prices, and zero trading restrictions.
  • User-friendly Trading Platform: Integrating core MT5 functions with a streamlined design and stringent security encryption, the platform ensures convenient and secure trading operations.
  • Customizable Trading App: The Tshan Markets app allows for trading through any common browser on any operating system, meeting urgent trading needs without cumbersome installations.

Tshan Markets’ advancements underscore its commitment to redefining financial trading standards, providing investors with limitless opportunities, convenience, and efficiency. Covering a diverse range of trading products, including foreign exchange, stocks, indices, precious metals, crude oil, and cryptocurrencies, Tshan Markets continues to drive industry progress and meet the diverse needs of users worldwide.

CoinBearer Trading Center: The Future of Decentralized AI 4235

Openness fosters innovation, and recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have showcased its global utility and influence. As computing power increases through resource integration, centralization issues are likely to arise, with entities possessing superior computing capabilities gaining dominance. This centralization could hinder the pace of innovation. Decentralization and Web3 technologies offer promising alternatives to maintain the openness of AI.

Decentralized Computing for Pre-Training and Fine-Tuning

Crowdsourced Computing (CPUs + GPUs)

Supporting Argument: The crowdsourcing model, similar to those used by platforms like Airbnb and Uber, could be adapted for computing. This model would aggregate idle computing resources into a marketplace, potentially offering lower-cost computing solutions for specific use cases and providing censorship-resistant resources for training models that may face future regulations or bans.

Opposing Argument: Crowdsourced computing may not achieve the economies of scale necessary for high-performance tasks, as most high-performance GPUs are not consumer-owned. The concept of decentralized computing seems contradictory to high-performance computing principles.

Decentralized Inference

Running Open-Source Model Inference Decentralized

Supporting Argument: Open-source models are approaching the capabilities of closed-source models and gaining traction. Centralized services such as HuggingFace or Replicate for model inference introduce privacy and censorship concerns. Decentralized or distributed vendors could address these issues.

Opposing Argument: Local inference, facilitated by dedicated chips capable of handling large parameter models, may ultimately prevail. Edge computing offers solutions for privacy and resistance to censorship.

On-Chain AI Agents

On-Chain Applications Using Machine Learning

Supporting Argument: AI agents, which require a transaction coordination layer, can benefit from cryptocurrency payments, as they are inherently digital and cannot utilize traditional banking systems. On-chain AI agents mitigate platform risks, such as sudden changes in plugin architectures by entities like OpenAI, which can disrupt services without warning.

Opposing Argument: Current AI agents, such as BabyAGI and AutoGPT, are not yet ready for production. Additionally, entities creating AI agents can use payment services like Stripe without relying on cryptocurrency. The argument regarding platform risk has been previously used to justify crypto, but it has yet to materialize.

Data and Model Sources

Autonomous Management and Value Collection for Data and Machine Learning Models

Supporting Argument: Data ownership should reside with users who generate the data, rather than the companies collecting it. As data is a crucial resource in the digital era, its monopolization by major tech companies and inadequate monetization are significant concerns. A more personalized internet requires portable data and models, allowing users to transfer data across applications similar to moving cryptocurrency wallets between dapps. Blockchain technology may provide a viable solution to data sourcing challenges, particularly in light of increasing fraud.

Opposing Argument: Data ownership and privacy concerns may not be a priority for users, as evidenced by high registration numbers for platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Trust in established entities like OpenAI may overshadow concerns about data ownership.

Token-Incentivized Apps (e.g., Companion Apps)

Envisioning Crypto Token Rewards

Supporting Argument: Crypto token incentives are effective for encouraging network growth and behavioral engagement. Many AI-centric applications are expected to adopt this model. The AI companion market presents significant opportunities, with the potential to become a multi-trillion dollar sector. Historical data, such as the $130 billion spent on pets in the U.S. in 2022, suggests a strong market for AI companions. AI companion apps have already shown significant engagement, with average session lengths exceeding one hour. Crypto-incentivized platforms could capture substantial market share in this and other AI application areas.

aiOla releases breakthrough AI model that’s 50% faster than OpenAI’s Whisper 4662

aiOla, a leader in speech recognition technology, has announced today the release of its new open-source AI model, Whisper-Medusa. The new model, based on a multi-head attention architecture, outperforms OpenAI’s Whisper, the most popular and best available AI speech recognition model, by performing 50% faster with no loss in performance.

The automatic speech recognition market size is projected to grow to $7.14 billion this year. As voice becomes an integrated feature in most connected devices and AI chatbots, speech recognition has emerged as a vital technology field. Amid this rapid expansion, OpenAI disrupted the automatic speech recognition landscape by releasing Whisper, an open-source model considered superior to any other commercial or open-source speech recognition model available today. Whisper, with more than 5 million downloads per month, has become the gold standard for automatic speech recognition systems and is powering tens of thousands of applications.

aiOla’s new open-source model, Whisper-Medusa, greatly improves the speed compared to Whisper by altering how the model predicts tokens. While Whisper predicts one token at a time, Whisper-Medusa can predict ten at a time, resulting in a 50% increase in speech prediction speed and generation runtime. As a result of this significant advancement, aiOla has decided to release the model’s weights and code today on GitHub and Hugging Face for the community to access.

“Creating Whisper-Medusa was not an easy task, but its significance to the community is profound,” said Gill Hetz, VP of Research at aiOla.”Improving the speed and latency of LLMs is much easier to do than with automatic speech recognition systems. The encoder and decoder architectures present unique challenges due to the complexity of processing continuous audio signals and handling noise or accents. We addressed these challenges by employing our novel multi-head attention approach, which resulted in a model with nearly double the prediction speed while maintaining Whisper’s high levels of accuracy. It’s a major feat, and we are very proud to be the first in the industry to successfully leverage multi-head attention architecture for automatic speech recognition systems and bring it to the public. “

Whisper-Medusa, based on multi-head attention, is trained using weak supervision. In this process, the main components of Whisper are initially frozen while additional parameters are trained. This training process involves using Whisper to transcribe audio datasets and employing these transcriptions as labels for training Medusa’s additional token prediction modules. aiOla currently offers Whisper-Medusa as a 10-head model, with future plans to release a 20-head version with equivalent accuracy.

About aiOla:

aiOla’s patented technology comprehends over 100 languages, and discerns jargon, abbreviations, and acronyms, demonstrating a low error rate even in noisy environments. aiOla’s technology converts manual processes in critical industries into data-driven, paperless, AI-powered workflows through cutting-edge speech recognition.

Tangem Launches World’s First Ring Hardware Wallet 5449

Tangem, a leader in cryptocurrency security solutions, announces the launch of the Tangem Ring, the world’s first ring-shaped crypto wallet. This groundbreaking device is set to transform how people interact with cryptocurrencies. By seamlessly integrating into users’ daily lives, the Tangem Ring addresses key barriers to crypto adoption, offering unparalleled convenience without compromising on security.

The Tangem Ring makes hardware wallets more accessible and user-friendly than ever before. Users can now wear their crypto everywhere, enjoying instant access to over 6,000 assets and a range of services on their fingers. This innovation enhances the daily usability of cryptocurrencies and promotes secure habits by encouraging the use of hardware wallets over software alternatives or centralized exchanges.

Andrey Kurennykh, CEO and Co-founder of Tangem: “Our goal with the Tangem Ring was to create a device that seamlessly integrates cryptocurrency management into users’ daily lives. Tangem sets up new standards for the crypto wallet industry and opens the door to the future of crypto, which is easy, accessible, secure, and has a smooth and enjoyable customer experience.”

Dubbed the future of crypto wallets, the Tangem Ring incorporates all the advanced features and shares the same technical characteristics as the Tangem Wallet. The ring has a CC EAL6+ certified chip, and an NFC antenna encased in a hypoallergenic zirconia ceramic shell. It is highly resistant to scratches, extreme temperatures, dust, and water, making it perfect for everyday usage.

Tangem Ring allows users to buy, sell, swap, stake, connect to decentralized applications, and access decentralized finance—all their cryptocurrency needs in one ultimate, everyday device. This significantly reduces the barrier to entry for new users and drives wider adoption of cryptocurrencies.

The Tangem ring is now available for purchase through its official website. For more information about the Tangem Ring and its features, please visit the Tangem website.

About Tangem

Tangem is a leading provider of hardware wallet solutions for digital assets. Tangem is committed to making cryptocurrency management accessible and secure for users worldwide, with a strong focus on security, innovation, and user experience. Tangem has a proven track record of zero hacks among its products thanks to rigorous security measures. The additional audits and certifications by Kudelski Security and Riscure reinforce this trust, making users more confident in adopting and using the Tangem Wallets for their crypto needs.

Website: www.tangem.com/ring/

sCrypt Launches Chain-Agnostic Developer Platform for UTXO Blockchains 7670

sCrypt, a full-stack Web3/blockchain development platform, has announced the launch of its groundbreaking developer tool kit designed for the Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO) blockchains. The new tools will revolutionise how developers interact with UTXO blockchains, making them more accessible and fostering creativity in the Web3 space.

UTXO is the method the Bitcoin protocol uses to track balances as they move between digital wallets. The UTXO model is essential for maintaining the security and integrity of blockchain networks and solves the double-spend problem.

The sCrypt platform provides comprehensive toolkits such as Software Development Kits (SDK) and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that allow developers to seamlessly integrate UTXO blockchains into their applications. The platform will also integrate a vast ecosystem of JavaScript/TypeScript developers, estimated at 13 million globally. These developers can now leverage their existing skills to build and operate on UTXO blockchains.

By doing so, sCrypt opens a world of opportunities, where developers are equipped with the best tools to drive innovation and success.

The SDK provides libraries in various languages, detailed documentation, and tutorials and offer a flexible and robust framework for leveraging payments, tokens, and smart contracts. Whereas APIs allow developers to read from and write into blockchains, without setting up and maintaining their own nodes and indexers. As a tool kit, they allow developers to focus on the business logic of their dApp (decentralised applications), rather than worrying about the underlying blockchain infrastructure.

The platform is chain-agnostic, allowing developers to focus all their intellectual horsepower on application development rather than blockchain specifics. This industry-first platform is designed to power Web3 growth and empower developers to build and scale their dApp efficiently and effortlessly, by leveraging UTXO’s unparalleled scalability and programmability.

Xiaohui Liu, Founder and CEO at sCrypt said, “Historically, Web3 applications have been largely built on account-based blockchains like Ethereum and Solana. Ordinals have brought renewed development interest back to Bitcoin and UTXO blockchains. With our extensive developer tooling and infrastructure, it is now easier than ever to build on UTXO blockchains, empowering builders to unleash UTXO’s superior scalability and programmability.”

Companies utilising the sCrypt platform include BTC platforms, such as Dotswap, the first BRC20 token swap platform on BTC, offer fast and seamless token exchanges, leveraging a fully functioning Automated Market Maker (AMM) and liquidity pools. It uses sCrypt’s APIs to query the status of tokens, including BRC20 and Runes. TierTopis another cutting-edge BTC trading platform that supports Ordinals NFTs, BRC-20 tokens, and bitmaps which rely on sCrypt’s token APIs.

Other businesses using sCrypt include Tokenovate, which leverages sCrypt’s smart contracts to manage trading lifecycle events of derivatives, such as interest-rate swaps and voluntary carbon credits. Additionally, various innovative applications benefiting from sCrypt’s toolkit are Hodlocker, Order Lock by RelayX, Tokenized, 1Sat Ordinals and Yours Wallet.

The sCrypt platform is poised to be a game-changer for developers working within the UTXO framework, offering them resources to develop next-generation blockchain applications and aiming to become the de-facto development platform for UTXO blockchains.

About sCrypt

sCrypt is a UTXO-blockchain development platform that offers a suite of tools and infrastructure to enhance and accelerate the development process of decentralised applications (dApps). It provides a rich set of APIs and software development kits (SDKs) that simplify blockchain interactions, such as querying blockchain data, sending transactions, issuing tokens, and developing smart contracts. It specialises in UTXO blockchains and supports multiple of them, such as Bitcoin and Bitcoin SV.