Project Targets Fraud in Advertising With Performance-Driven Smart Contracts for Campaigns

A company is creating a smart contract for advertising which it says could potentially ease two major issues that are plaguing the flourishing industry: fraud and a lack of transparency.

SaTT stands for Smart Advertisement Transaction Token, and it has been created by Atayan Inc. Its team believes blockchain could help ensure advertisers are “not be misled by an underperforming publisher or affiliate that does not meet their expectations.”

The platform wants to help the industry “scale up in a more positive, transparent way” by allowing a campaign’s criteria – such as the age and gender of viewers or the number of people an ad must reach – to be woven into a smart contract. Publishers would only be compensated when all these requirements have been fulfilled, with computer programming eliminating the risk of human error and tampering.

Through SaTT smart contracts, the project hopes it will be possible for advertisers to measure performance using metrics beyond impressions and clicks. For example, they would be able to gauge what the reaction on social media platforms has been to the posts linked to a campaign.

SaTT says its infrastructure could help reduce fraud among all parties involved in digital advertising – and this means publishers have something to gain too. It is hoped that payment delays and miscalculations in compensation would be greatly reduced through its smart contracts, and there would be less chance of statistics being manipulated to make a campaign look like it has performed better or worse than it actually did.

The smart contract in action

In its white paper, SaTT says advertisers are going to benefit from a “simple, fast and powerful tool” which will help them establish the best communication medium for their message and discover publishers who will give them the greatest reach and engagement levels.

Businesses that wish to launch a campaign would begin by purchasing SaTT tokens, outlining their objectives and the compensation on offer if these targets are met, and selecting which publishers they want to participate. From here, the progress made towards reaching these goals would be automatically checked and validated by something known as an “oracle” – an example of which could be Google Analytics.

Publishers would benefit because they would receive instant payment as soon as they have fulfilled a campaign’s requirements, a far cry from the weeks and months it can take to receive remuneration from an advertising agency. The SaTT tokens they receive can either be exchanged for cash or used to make purchases on a platform known as PayBySaTT, where they would enjoy “exclusive” products and events.

Built by an established company

The founders of SaTT and Atayen Inc, Gauthier Bros and Stephanie Clement, have been app developers for Facebook since 2008 – and in the main, their business has focused on creating apps that help businesses connect with their customers. Examples include contact forms, sharing tools and automatic newsletters.

Atayen says that it has thousands of paying clients, and its apps are on millions of pages in more than 120 countries. Some of the most notable brands which rely on its apps include Ikea, Disney, Dove, Tesla, Starbucks, Apple, Netflix, Amazon and Nike.

The SaTT smart contract for advertising is set to launch in November 2018, and in the months before this, the company plans to start developing “oracles” which will allow advertisers to keep track of how their campaigns are progressing.

Its presale was successfully completed in less than 24 hours. SaTT’s initial coin offering is taking place in six steps from May 1 to July 1, and a bonus is being issued to investors who make contributions earlier on in the process.

 

Disclaimer. Cointelegraph does not endorse any content or product on this page. While we aim at providing you all important information that we could obtain, readers should do their own research before taking any actions related to the company and carry full responsibility for their decisions, nor this article can be considered as an investment advice.

Coinbase Announces Launch of Coinbase Pro, Paradex Acquisition

Coinbase has announced Coinbase Pro, the new version of its trading platform GDAX, in a blog post Wednesday. The announcement comes on the same day as Coinbase’s acquisition of relay platform Paradex.

According to the Coinbase blog post, Coinbase Pro is an evolution of GDAX, which is specifically designed for individual crypto traders. Coinbase says that the new product was made specifically to suit the needs of individual traders, in addition to making the platform “easier and more intuitive.” Coinbase Pro will offer new features such as simplified deposit and withdrawal processes, in addition to letting customers take advantage of services like staking and protocol voting.

Coinbase will integrate the Paradex relay platform into Coinbase Pro which, according their blog post, will let customers trade “hundreds of tokens directly from their wallets.” This would markedly expand expand the types of cryptocurrencies to which customers will have access through Coinbase. The blog post states that the new service will be made available to customers outside the US before eventually being offered to American clients.

Paradex, which has 10 employees according to Reuters, is considered a decentralized exchange, because it does not hold custody of tokens on behalf of users, rather clients trade ERC20 tokens directly from their wallets. The financial details of the acquisition were not mentioned in the blog post.

GDAX and Coinbase Pro will operate in tandem until June 29, 2018, after which “all customers will be seamlessly rolled over” to the new platform.

In March, Coinbase announced the creation of both the Coinbase Index Fund and Coinbase Index. The Coinbase Index Fund is a “basket of digital assets” including all of GDAX’s four coins: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). The fund requires a minimum investment of $10,000 with a 2 percent annual management fee. GDAX is currently the seventh largest exchange in terms of 24 hour trade volume, which was $365.95 mln at press time.

American Express Integrates Blockchain To Its Membership Rewards Program

Financial services corporation American Express (AmEx) has announced a blockchain application to its Membership Rewards program in partnership with online merchant Boxed, Associated Press reported May 23.

AmEx announced that it is integrating blockchain technology developed by Hyperledger, an open source blockchain project under the Linux Foundation, to let merchants design customized offers for AmEx cardholders in order to increase customer engagement.

AmEx has started with Boxed, allowing the company to reward its clients for purchasing specific items, but AmEx reportedly expects to make the program available to almost all their merchants in the coming months.

Apart from promoting specific items, implementing the new program will reportedly let AmEx and its merchant clients target campaigns to very specific customers. Merchants will be able to make “product-targeted offers” while maintaining their own inventory systems. Chris Cracchiolo, the head of the Membership Rewards program for AmEx, explained:

“They can create programs based on a time of day, day of the week, by incentivizing a customer to download their app. The number of ways merchants can reward customers with Membership Reward points will be exponentially increased.”

In October last year, American Express Travel Related Services Co., Inc., the travel and merchant unit of AmEx, filed a patent for a personalized customer reward system using blockchain technology. The objective of the system is to offer customer-specific types of rewards that include points, a digital currency, or specific items linked to a product.

IBM Announces 1,800 New Jobs in France In Blockchain, AI, and IoT Within Next Two Years

IBM CEO Virginia Rometty has announced that in the next two years the company is planning to create 1,800 jobs in France in the fields of Artificial Intelligence (AI), blockchain, and the Internet of Things (IoT), Le Monde reported May 23.

The announcement was made at the Tech for Good summit in Paris, which was hosted by the President of France Emmanuel Macron.

Pursuing the idea of making France a “center of excellence” dedicated to artificial intelligence, the tech giant is looking to hire 1,800 specialists in France in areas including blockchain, AI, and IoT. This includes at least 400 research jobs that were announced in January. In their efforts to expand operations in France, IBM is cooperating with major clients such as Crédit Mutuel, Orange Bank, Generali, SNCF, and LVMH.

Building on the American classifications of “blue collar” or “white collar” jobs, Rometty said that IBM will bring a training program for “new collar jobs” to France.

IBM has been steadily expanding its involvement in blockchain, applying the technology in a number of projects. In January, the company partnered with Danish transport and logistics company Maersk to create a blockchain-based shipping and supply chain venture. The goal of the project is to commercialize blockchain for all aspects of the global supply chain system.

In March, IBM announced that the world’s smallest computer will use blockchain technology and soon be “embedded into everyday devices”. The company claims that within five years “cryptographic anchors — such as ink dots or tiny computers smaller than a grain of salt — will be embedded in everyday objects and devices.”

Last month, payments and technology company MasterCard announced it will hire 175 new employees in Dublin, Ireland, including blockchain specialists, in order to increase its presence in the country.

Tom Lee Holds to $25,000 Bitcoin Price Prediction, Cites Three Supporting Factors

Co-founder and Fundstrat strategist Tom Lee is holding to his prediction that Bitcoin (BTC) will reach $25,000, CNBC reports May 23. Lee identifies three key factors that make him believe the price will surge past the 2017 high.

On Wednesday, BTC dropped below $8,000 and traded around $7,500, losing most of the gains it made from mid-April to early May. With Wednesday’s plunge, BTC is now down 41 percent this year. Lee believes the drop is only due to “typical crypto volatility”, and explains his bullish stance with three major factors.

The first key factor is the BTC production and replication costs. At the “Futures Now” show on CNBC on Tuesday, Lee said that BTC was “trading at cost”, because the price of production was almost equal to the trading price. Since, according to Lee, the cost production for BTC production was around $6,000 on Wednesday, it is still worth more than its mining cost.

Among the major factors which could trigger a possible price increase, Lee names institutional investors who, while interested in the crypto space, haven’t fully entered the industry due to regulatory uncertainties. He said:

“I think institutional investors have gained a lot of interest, and they haven’t really come into crypto yet because there is still some regulatory uncertainty. But that sort of ultimate allocation into crypto as an asset class is going to be a powerful reason why Bitcoin rallies.”

Lastly, data compiled by Fundstrat shows a historical trend, by which Lee recommends that investors hold on to their BTC. He said:

“Historically, 10 days comprise all the performance in any single year of Bitcoin’s price. If you just took out those 10 days, Bitcoin’s down 25 percent a year. So as miserable as it feels holding Bitcoin at $8,000, the move from $8,000 to $25,000 will happen in a handful of days.”

Earlier this month, Fundstrat Global Advisors revealed research placing the BTC price at $36,000 in 2019 based on historical averages. The analysis of the relation between BTC mining costs and price led analysts to predict the cryptocurrency’s range to be between $20,000 and $64,000 by the end of 2019. At press time, BTC is trading at $7,594.

Tim Draper: Blockchain Could Free Individuals From Inefficient Governments

US investor Tim Draper presented his vision for blockchain-based digital governments in an opening keynote speech at the GovTech Pioneers conference in Vienna, Austria Cointelegraph auf Deutsch reported May 23.

Draper outlined a future in which blockchain technology utilizing smart contracts in conjunction with artificial intelligence will massively change the role and responsibilities of states. “If we combine Bitcoin, blockchain with smart contracts and artificial intelligence, we could create the perfect bureaucracy,” the investor told the audience.

Draper explained his vision for the future using the example of healthcare. According to Draper, citizens could store all relevant health data, such as X-rays, DNA analyses, blood tests, and other findings on a blockchain, where an automated system could continuously analyze them with artificial intelligence and send recommendations and warnings to individuals.

According to Draper, once all this information has been stored on a blockchain, it will enable people to more easily emigrate from places where the government is inefficient:

“Insurance, healthcare, and the real estate industry are offering a terribly poor service and need a lot of money. Governments that burn a lot of money for the worst service feel that first.”

Recently, Draper suggested splitting the US state of California into three pieces so that it would be easier to manage. In an interview with Cointelegraph in mid-April, Draper was critical of what he perceived to be over-regulation of the IT industry in the state. According to Draper, “even though the weather’s awesome and their friends are probably here,” there is little business incentive to stay in California.

Draper continues to see great potential for cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, as he made clear at the Intelligence Squared debate in New York at the end of April. In a debate with crypto-critics, Draper said that the magnitude and importance of bitcoin and the technology behind it surpass major technological epochs such as the Iron Age, the Renaissance, and the Industrial Revolution.

Altcoin Verge Hacked For Second Time In Two Months, Around $1.4 Mln Stolen

Privacy-focused cryptocurrency Verge (XVG) has been the victim of another hack, in which 35 mln XVG were stolen over a period of a few hours, The Next Web reported yesterday, May 22.

Verge tweeted that their mining pools were under a DDOS attack on May 21, noting that they were working to resolve it.

XVG is currently down by a little over 14 percent over a 24 hour period to press time, trading at around $0.041 according to data from CoinMarketCap, which makes the hack currently equal to around $1.4 mln.

Verge was also hacked of 250,000 XVG in the beginning of April, losing 25 percent of its value as a reaction to the news. Verge developers had “resolved” the April hack by accidentally initiating a hard fork, according to Suprnova mining pool’s OCminer comments on Bitcointalk. Verge’s Twitter account was also compromised in March, with hackers tweeting about a fraudulent giveaway of Verge coins in exchange for coins being sent to them.

Verge has not responded to Cointelegraph’s request for comment on the hacks at press time.

OCMiner, who pointed out the first attack, posted again about Verge’s vulnerability on Bitcointalk on May 22, noting that “since nothing really was done about the previous attacks (only a band-aid), the attackers now simply use two algos to fork the chain for their own use and are gaining millions:”

Post

In other Verge news, last month the cryptocurrency announced a partnership with adult entertainment streaming site Pornhub, which will now accept the coin as payment for Pornhub Premium and all Pornhub purchases.

Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, EOS, Litecoin, Cardano, Stellar, TRON: Price Analysis, May 23

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

The market data is provided by the HitBTC exchange.

At the press time, top nine digital currencies are in the red, with the market capitalization down to less than $330 billion, compared to $390 billion just a couple of days back.

Market Cup

Source image: Coinmarketcap

Consolidations are usually volatile and can lead to unexplained rallies and declines. There seems to be no specific reason that has led to this fall; and overall, the fundamental news is positive and encouraging.

Argentinian Banco Masventas (BMV), has tied up with Bitex to facilitate the use of Bitcoin for international payments. It is expected to reduce transfer time by a day. A similar pilot project by Ripple using xRapid platform had announced payment time of just 2 minutes and transaction savings of 40-70 percent.

Various sectors are exploring ways to implement the blockchain technology to improve productivity and accountability. Similarly, the governments are also looking at ways to implement blockchain, whereas, many central banks are toying with the idea of their own cryptocurrency.

With so much happening, the dips should be seen as a buying opportunity, but the traders should wait for the decline to end before taking long positions.

BTC/USD

We had recommended buying Bitcoin closer to the support of $7,941.68 if it held, but today it slumped below $7,700, which shows strong selling pressure. There are two possibilities at this level.

One is that the bulls will pull back above $7,900 level after a quick break, catching the bears off-guard. Another possibility is that prices breakdown of $7,900 and slide to $7,000. It is difficult to predict which one of the two scenarios will play out.

So, how to trade it?

BTC/USD

The best approach is to wait and watch for a couple of days. If the BTC/USD pair breaks down of the support and sustains below $7,900, you shouldn’t buy.

If prices slide below $7,900 momentarily but recover and sustain above $8,000 levels, traders can buy about 50 percent of their usual position size and keep a close stop loss, preferably below the recent lows. Remaining 50 percent position can be added once the digital currency scales above both the moving averages.

The target objective is a move back to $10,000 levels. This is a risky trade but can be taken due to the attractive risk to reward ratio.

ETH/USD

Ethereum broke below the neckline of the head and shoulders pattern on May 22. Today, it has extended the decline, breaking below the 50-day SMA and the 50 percent Fibonacci retracement of the latest rally. There is minor support at $544.45, at the 61.8 percent Fibonacci retracement levels, below which a plunge to $418 is likely.

ETH/USD

The ETH/USD pair will become positive only above the $745 levels. We suggest waiting for the decline to end before attempting a buy.

It is not advisable to catch a falling knife.

XRP/USD

Ripple is fast approaching the bottom of the large range. Though this support of $0.56270 had broken down in end-March of this year, it did not find sellers at lower levels, and prices again climbed back into the range on April 12.

XRP/USD

We believe that the bulls will again attempt to defend the $0.56 levels. If the lows hold, traders can expect the XRP/USD pair to rally to $0.93 and then to $1.22 levels in the medium term.

We suggest waiting for a few days to confirm that the decline has ended before buying because a fall below $0.56 can extend the decline to $0.45, below which the digital currency can plunge to $0.24.  

BCH/USD

Bitcoin Cash broke below the neckline of the head and shoulders pattern on May 16, and the retest of the breakdown levels held on May 20 and May 21.

BCH/USD

The BCH/USD pair subsequently broke below the 50-day SMA on May 22. It should now collapse to $650 levels with minor support at $750.

The $558.3870 level has not been broken since November of last year. Hence, traders can buy once the digital currency stabilizes near the key support levels.

EOS/USD

EOS failed to break out of the descending channel on May 21 and turned down from there. It broke below the 50-day SMA on May 22 and has followed it up with a break of the May 16 lows of $11.8210 today. There is minor support at $10 and below that at the 78.6 percent retracement levels of $9.6136.  

EOS/USD

If both these levels break, the EOS/USD pair can decline to the bottom trendline of the channel at $8.

With prices breaking down of both the moving averages and the 61.8 percent Fibonacci retracement levels of the latest rally, the virtual currency has become negative.

We shall change our view once price breaks out of the descending channel and sustains above it.

LTC/USD

Litecoin has broken below the immediate support of $127.108. The next support on the downside is $115 and below that $107.102, which is the intraday low of February 02 of this year.  

LTC/USD

We anticipate strong support in the zone between $107-$115 because if the low of $107 breaks, it will complete a bearish descending triangle pattern that will be very negative for the LTC/USD pair.

If the support zone holds, we should see another attempt to break out of the downtrend line of the triangle. We suggest waiting until the digital currency takes support at levels mentioned above before initiating any long positions.

ADA/USD

Cardano has broken below the $0.23 levels, which had been acting as strong support for the past few days. It can now sink to the lows of $0.13 with minor support at $0.19.

ADA/USD

Repeated attempts to break below the $0.13 level in March and April of this year failed. Hence, we consider this to act as strong support again this time.   

However, we suggest waiting for a few days before establishing long positions because if the ADA/USD pair breaks down of $0.13, it can sink to $0.08, a level last seen in December 2017.

XLM/USD

Stellar has broken below the neckline of the head and shoulders pattern, which is a bearish sign. Though the pattern targets are much lower, it should now decline to the strong support level of $0.184. This level had held for about a month from mid-March to mid-April of this year, hence, we can again expect some buying to emerge at $0.184.

XLM/USD

If the bulls succeed in defending the support, the XLM/USD pair will also confirm the formation of a range, which can be traded by buying on a rebound from the lows and selling close to the overhead resistance of the range.

Traders can wait for the prices to stabilize and turn up before buying.

TRX/USD

TRX has been falling for the past two days and has broken below the 20-day EMA. It is currently trying to taking support at the trendline. If this breaks, it can fall to the 50-day SMA.

TRX/USD

The TRX/USD pair has not broken below the $0.059 levels since April 25. Hence, a fall to $0.06 levels should attract buying.

Traders should wait for a day or two to confirm that the levels are holding and then buy on a rebound from $0.059. If the digital currency sinks below $0.056, long positions should be avoided because it opens the door for a further fall to $0.04 levels.

The digital currency is the strongest among the top ones we cover because it is the only one still trading close to its 20-day EMA and well above its 50-day SMA. So, we shall look to buy it as soon as we find a bullish pattern on it.

The market data is provided by the HitBTC exchange. The charts for the analysis are provided by TradingView.

Deutsche Boerse: We Are ‘Deep At Work’ Examining Bitcoin Before ‘Moving Forward’

German shares and securities marketplace organizer Deutsche Boerse (DB) said it is “deep at work” examining cryptocurrency integration options, Bloomberg reports May 23.

Speaking at an industry event, the company’s head of clients, products and core markets Jeffrey Tessler told audience members that the company was busy “understanding” the technology behind Bitcoin before “moving forward” with it.

The progress is a step forward from previous remarks in March, when Tessler implied Bitcoin’s volatility prevented DB from entering any related markets at the time.

“Before we move forward with anything like Bitcoin we want to make sure we understand the underlying transaction which isn’t the easiest thing to do. We are deep at work with it,” he said in this week’s update.

While not stating interest or plans relating to offering specific Bitcoin products, Tessler acknowledged that DB was “not at the same stage” as its US rivals CBOE and CME, both of which launched Bitcoin futures last December.

An eventual debut would hence likely focus on a similar launch.

“…[W]e want to understand the volatility and make sure clients are in line and make sure regulators are in line,” he added.

DB is already involved in blockchain experiments, in March partnering with liquidity management firm HQLAx to develop a blockchain-based platform for securities lending using R3’s Corda platform.

AI-Based Youtube Bitcoin Explainer Trained By Real BTC Guides Gets It All Wrong

An AI compilation published on Youtube Tuesday that used pre-existing Bitcoin (BTC) explainers to come up with its own “basic stage training” on Bitcoin has resulted in almost complete nonsense, Mashable reports May 22.

Created by Botnik Studios, which describes itself on Twitter as a “human-machine creative force,” the Youtube video is a voice over of the texts generated by an AI that used “predictive keyboard trained on dozens of Bitcoin explainers.”

In order to introduce the viewer to the coin, the video first explains that “Bitcoin is the most valuable form of electricity.” The AI explainer then teaches the viewer exactly how Bitcoin transactions work according to its generated text:

“Randomly pick a number between one and 30,000. Now spend that amount of money on Ethereum. This is known as hashing the code to get some of that Bitcoin.”

The video also touches on the topic of blockchain, which a user can gain access to by installing “exploit.bin, and it will remind you every day of your biggest nightmares.”

Having Bitcoin – whose most popular form is the “Wild Richard” which can be used to pay for “counterfeit coffee” – is described as having advantages despite its risks:

“One benefit of Bitcoin is that you can upload a version of your future self on the darknet, but it will kill your retirement account, because it is over 1,000 years old.”

The video ends with two warnings to all viewers, the first being that the “safest way to protect your Bitcoin wallet is simply to lose it,” and the second touching on a more personal subject:

“Caution: the last time I mined a fresh Bitcoin, billionaire killer Mark February tried to patent my life.”

Cointelegraph has its own series of explainers that were not created with AI, including ones on Bitcoin, Bitcoin mining, blockchain, and crypto wallets.