What are Trendlines?

A trendline is a line drawn over pivot highs or under pivot lows to show the prevailing direction of price. Trendlines are a visual representation of support and resistance in any time frame. They show direction and speed of price, and also describe patterns during periods of price contraction.

The trendline is among the most important tools used by technical analysts. Instead of looking at past business performance or other fundamentals, technical analysts look for trends in price action. A trendline helps technical analysts determine the current direction in market prices. Technical analysts believe the trend is your friend, and identifying this trend is the first step in the process of making a good trade.

To create a trendline, an analyst must have at least two points on a price chart. Some analysts like to use different time frames such as one minute or five minutes. Others look at daily charts or weekly charts. Some analysts put aside time altogether, choosing to view trends based on tick intervals rather than intervals of time. What makes trendlines so universal in usage and appeal is they can be used to help identify trends regardless of the time period, time frame or interval used.

A similar strategy involves something called a moving average. This involves tracking the typical prices of a crypto asset over a set period of time — and whether it’s a week, 10 days, 30 days or more is up to you. Comparing moving averages over a shorter time frame with a longer one can uncover new trends and enable you to pick up on significant levels of recent growth and decline that a more long-term statistical breakdown wouldn’t reflect too clearly.

Use Trendlines to predict the price movements of your cryptocurrencies or XcelToken Plus on an Exchange site of your choice.

Hard Fork Vs. Soft Fork

A “fork,” in programming terms, is an open-source code modification. Usually the forked code is similar to the original, but with important modifications, and the two “prongs” comfortably co-exist. Sometimes a fork is used to test a process, but with cryptocurrencies, it is more often used to implement a fundamental change, or to create a new asset with similar (but not equal) characteristics as the original.

Not all forks are intentional. With a widely distributed open-source codebase, a fork can happen accidentally when not all nodes are replicating the same information. Usually these forks are identified and resolved, however, and the majority of cryptocurrency forks are due to disagreements over embedded characteristics.

There are two main types of programming fork: hard and soft.

Hard forks

A hard fork is a change to a protocol that renders older versions invalid. If older versions continue running, they will end up with a different protocol and with different data than the newer version. This can lead to significant confusion and possible error.

With bitcoin, a hard fork would be necessary to change defining parameters such as the block size, the difficulty of the cryptographic puzzle that needs to be solved, limits to additional information that can be added, etc. A change to any of these rules would cause blocks to be accepted by the new protocol but rejected by older versions and could lead to serious problems – possibly even a loss of funds.

For instance, if the block size limit were to be increased from 1MB to 4MB, a 2MB block would be accepted by nodes running the new version, but rejected by nodes running the older version.

Let’s say that this 2MB block is validated by an updated node and added on to the blockchain. What if the next block is validated by a node running an older version of the protocol? It will try to add its block to the blockchain, but it will detect that the latest block is not valid. So, it will ignore that block and attach its new validation to the previous one. Suddenly you have two blockchains, one with both older and newer version blocks, and another with only older version blocks. Which chain grows faster will depend on which nodes get the next blocks validated, and there could end up being additional splits. It is feasible that the two (or more) chains could grow in parallel indefinitely.

This is a hard fork, and it’s potentially messy. It’s also risky, as it’s possible that bitcoins spent in a new block could then be spent again on an old block (since merchants, wallets and users running the previous code would not detect the spending on the new code, which they deem invalid).

The only solution is for one branch to be abandoned in favor of the other, which involves some miners losing out (the transactions themselves would not be lost, they’d just be re-allocated). Or, all nodes would need to switch to the newer version at the same time, which is difficult to achieve in a decentralized, widely spread system.

Soft fork

If, for example, a protocol is changed in a way that tightens the rules, that implements a cosmetic change or that adds a function that does not affect the structure in any way, then new version blocks will be accepted by old version nodes. Not the other way around, though: the newer, “tighter” version would reject old version blocks.

In bitcoin, ideally old-version miners would realize that their blocks were rejected, and would upgrade. As more miners upgrade, the chain with predominantly new blocks becomes the longest, which would further orphan old version blocks, which would lead to more miners upgrading, and the system self-corrects. Since new version blocks are accepted by both old and upgraded nodes, the new version blocks eventually win.

For instance, say the community decided to reduce the block size to 0.5MB from the current limit of 1MB. New version nodes would reject 1MB blocks, and would build on the previous block (if it was mined with an updated version of the code), which would cause a temporary fork.

This is a soft fork, and it’s already happened several times. Initially, Bitcoin didn’t have a block size limit. Introducing the limit of 1MB was done through a soft fork, since the new rule was “stricter” than the old one. The pay-to-script-hash function, which enhances the code without changing the structure, was also successfully added through a soft fork. This type of amendment generally requires only the majority of miners to upgrade, which makes it more feasible and less disruptive.

Soft forks do not carry the double-spend risk that plagues hard forks, since merchants and users running old nodes will read both new and old version blocks.

What is Digital Signature

A digital signature is a mathematical technique used to validate the authenticity and integrity of a message, software or digital document. As the digital equivalent of a handwritten signature or stamped seal, a digital signature offers far more inherent security, and it is intended to solve the problem of tampering and impersonation in digital communications. Digital signatures can provide the added assurances of evidence of origin, identity and status of an electronic document, transaction or message and can acknowledge informed consent by the signer.

In many countries, including the United States, digital signatures are considered legally binding in the same way as traditional document signatures.

How digital signatures work

Digital signatures are based on public key cryptography, also known as asymmetric cryptography. Using a public key algorithm, such as RSA, one can generate two keys that are mathematically linked: one private and one public. (for more on Digital signatures work because public key cryptography depends on two mutually authenticating cryptographic keys. The individual who is creating the digital signature uses their own private key to encrypt signature-related data; the only way to decrypt that data is with the signer’s public key. This is how digital signatures are authenticated.

Digital signature technology requires all the parties to trust that the individual creating the signature has been able to keep their own private key secret. If someone else has access to the signer’s private key, that party could create fraudulent digital signatures in the name of the private key holder.

How to create a digital signature

To create a digital signature, signing software — such as an email program — creates a one-way hash of the electronic data to be signed. The private key is then used to encrypt the hash. The encrypted hash — along with other information, such as the hashing algorithm — is the digital signature.

The reason for encrypting the hash instead of the entire message or document is that a hash function can convert an arbitrary input into a fixed length value, which is usually much shorter. This saves time as hashing is much faster than signing. The value of a hash is unique to the hashed data. Any change in the data, even a change in a single character, will result in a different value. This attribute enables others to validate the integrity of the data by using the signer’s public key to decrypt the hash.

If the decrypted hash matches a second computed hash of the same data, it proves that the data hasn’t changed since it was signed. If the two hashes don’t match, the data has either been tampered with in some way — integrity — or the signature was created with a private key that doesn’t correspond to the public key presented by the signer — authentication.

A digital signature can be used with any kind of message — whether it is encrypted or not — simply so the receiver can be sure of the sender’s identity and that the message arrived intact. Digital signatures make it difficult for the signer to deny having signed something — assuming their private key has not been compromised — as the digital signature is unique to both the document and the signer and it binds them together. This property is called nonrepudiation.

Digital signatures are not to be confused with digital certificates. A digital certificate, an electronic document that contains the digital signature of the issuing certificate authority, binds together a public key with an identity and can be used to verify that a public key belongs to a particular person or entity.

Most modern email programs support the use of digital signatures and digital certificates, making it easy to sign any outgoing emails and validate digitally signed incoming messages. Digital signatures are also used extensively to provide proof of authenticity, data integrity and nonrepudiation of communications and transactions conducted over the internet.

Classes of digital signatures

There are three different classes of Digital Signature Certificates:

Class 1: Cannot be used for legal business documents as they are validated based only on an email ID and username. Class 1 signatures provide a basic level of security and are used in environments with a low risk of data compromise.
Class 2: Often used for e-filing of tax documents, including income tax returns and Goods and Services Tax (GST) returns. Class 2 digital signatures authenticate a signee’s identity against a pre-verified database. Class 2 digital signatures are used in environments where the risks and consequences of data compromise are moderate.
Class 3: The highest level of digital signatures. Class 3 signatures require a person or organization to present in front of a certifying authority to prove their identity before signing. Class 3 digital signatures are used for e-auctions, e-tendering, e-ticketing, court filings and in other environments where threats to data or the consequences of a security failure are high.

Uses of digital signatures

Industries use digital signature technology to streamline processes and improve document integrity. Industries that use digital signatures include:

Government – The U.S. Government Publishing Office publishes electronic versions of budgets, public and private laws and congressional bills with digital signatures. Digital signatures are used by governments worldwide for a variety of uses, including processing tax returns, verifying business-to-government (B2G) transactions, ratifying laws and managing contracts. Most government entities must adhere to strict laws, regulations and standards when using digital signatures.

Healthcare – Digital signatures are used in the healthcare industry to improve the efficiency of treatment and administrative processes, to strengthen data security, for e-prescribing and hospital admissions. The use of digital signatures in healthcare must comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).

Manufacturing – Manufacturing companies use digital signatures to speed up processes, including product design, quality assurance (QA), manufacturing enhancements, marketing and sales. The use of digital signatures in manufacturing is governed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Digital Manufacturing Certificate (DMC).

Financial services – The U.S. financial sector uses digital signatures for contracts, paperless banking, loan processing, insurance documentation, mortgages, and more. This heavily regulated sector uses digital signatures with careful attention to the regulations and guidance put forth by the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (E-Sign Act), state UETA regulations, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC).

What is Mimblewimble?

Tested for decades, Mimblewimble uses elliptic-curve cryptography that requires smaller keys than other cryptography types. In a network that is using the Mimblewimble protocol, there are no addresses on the blockchain, and the network’s data storage is highly efficient. Mimblewimble needs about 10% of the data storage requirements of the Bitcoin network. This makes Mimblewimble highly scalable for storing the blockchain, significantly faster, and less centralized. Furthermore, the nature of the protocol allows for private transactions that are highly anonymous (more about this later).

The birth of Mimblewimble

Rejoice, Harry Potter fans! Another reference is coming from the movie fan world. The Mimblewimble Whitepaper was first published on July 2016 in the Bitcoin research channel under the anonymous author name of Tom Elvis Judisor – the French name for Voldemort. Soon after the whitepaper was published – at the end of 2016 -, another anonymous user with the pseudo name “Ignotus Peverell” (the original owner of the invisibility cloak from the Harry Potter universe) started a Github project with the application of the Mimblewimble protocol. This project is called Grin, which released its mainnet on January 15, 2019. There’s also another implementation of Mimblewimble, Beam, that has been already released. We will talk about Grin and Beam later in this article.

Confidential Transactions

This is the point where Mimblewimble comes into the picture. As mentioned before, the protocol proposes a much more efficient system, eliminating inputs and outputs. The UTXO model is replaced by one multisignature for all inputs and outputs which are called Confidential Transactions. If Alice wants to send Bob a coin, both Alice and Bob create a multisignature key that is used to verify the transaction. Confidential Transactions use the Pedersen Commitment scheme; there are no addresses. Instead, the parties share a “blinding factor”. The blinding factor encrypts the inputs and outputs of the transaction along with both parties’ public and private keys. This blinding factor is shared as a secret between the two parties who were engaged in the transaction. Due to the blinding factor replacing addresses, only the two parties know that they were involved in a transaction. This keeps the privacy of the network at a high level. The Pedersen Commitment scheme works as follows. Full nodes deduct the encrypted amounts from both the inputs and outputs, creating a balanced equation that proves that no coins were produced out of thin air. And during the whole process, the node does not know the actual amount of the transaction.

4 Top-Rated Attractions & Things to Do in Ålesund

Famous for its magnificent Art Nouveau architecture, the city of Ålesund is one of Norway’s most popular tourist destinations. Not only is it blessed with one of those picture-perfect Norwegian settings, surrounded by fjords and the high peaks of the Sunnmøre Alps, it has also benefited from the addition of many new cultural and entertainment attractions, byproducts of the incredible increase in wealth the nation has experienced in recent years.

Explore Art Nouveau Ålesund

The picture-perfect Art Nouveau heart of Ålesund, with its stunning architecture, towers, turrets, and other imaginative ornamentation, really needs to be explored on foot. For a fascinating insight into the city’s architecture, the top things to do here include tagging along with an organized walking tour or picking up an informative guide from a tourist office or bookstore.

Ålesund Harbor

Ålesund’s harbor lies between the islands of Nørvøy and Aspøy, and is sheltered by the Skansen peninsula. As wonderful as it is wandering around and admiring the architecture-the picturesque harbor includes many older buildings once used by fishermen-you’ll be tempted to sit awhile and simply watch the boat traffic come and go in this busy port area.

Atlantic Sea-Park

A great place to learn about Norway’s diverse marine life, the Atlantic Sea-Park (Atlanterhavsparken)-one of the largest saltwater aquariums in northern Europe-is just a short shuttle bus ride form the town centre and provides a fascinating look at life under the sea. Established in 1951 and built into the coastline, this spectacular family attraction is crisscrossed with numerous scenic walking trails allowing many great vistas of its fishy inhabitants.

The Ivar Aasen Center

The Ivar Aasen Centre (Ivar Aasen-tunet) is located on the very farm where the famous poet/playwright/philosopher was born in 1813. Revered as the creator of Nynorsk-a language based on Norwegian dialects-Aasen’s home is now the country’s national Nynorsk documentation and experience centre. Designed by architect Sverre Fehn, the building is an attraction in itself, and hosts the annual Festival of New Norwegian Literature, Art, and Music held in the last week of June every year.

Use XcelToken Plus on XcelTrip to visit Ålesund This summer and receive 15% off on your vacation.

Options Contract Explained

An options contract is an agreement between two parties to facilitate a potential transaction on the underlying security at a preset price, referred to as the strike price, prior to the expiration date.

The two types of contracts are put and call options, both of which can be purchased to speculate on the direction of stocks or stock indices, or sold to generate income. For stock options, a single contract covers 100 shares of the underlying stock.

The Basics of an Options Contract

In general, call options can be purchased as a leveraged bet on the appreciation of a stock or index, while put options are purchased to profit from price declines. The buyer of a call option has the right but not the obligation to buy the number of shares covered in the contract at the strike price.

Put buyers have the right but not the obligation to sell shares at the strike price in the contract. Option sellers, on the other hand, are obligated to transact their side of the trade if a buyer decides to execute a call option to buy the underlying security or execute a put option to sell.

Options are generally used for hedging purposes but can be used for speculation. That is, options generally cost a fraction of what the underlying shares would. Using options is a form of leverage, allowing an investor to make a bet on a stock without having to purchase or sell the shares outright.

Call Option Contracts

The terms of an option contract specify the underlying security, the price at which that security can be transacted (strike price) and the expiration date of the contract. A standard contract covers 100 shares, but the share amount may be adjusted for stock splits, special dividends or mergers.

In a call option transaction, a position is opened when a contract or contracts are purchased from the seller, also referred to as a writer. In the transaction, the seller is paid a premium to assume the obligation of selling shares at the strike price. If the seller holds the shares to be sold, the position is referred to as a covered call.

Put Options

Buyers of put options are speculating on price declines of the underlying stock or index and own the right to sell shares at the strike price of the contract. If the share price drops below the strike price prior to expiration, the buyer can either assign shares to the seller for purchase at the strike price or sell the contract if shares are not held in the portfolio.

Blockchain and Digital Identity

Technological advancements in the digital space has revolutionized every aspect of our lives, from shopping to collaborating with colleagues to keeping in touch with friends to entertainment to managing our finances. Since the dawn of the Internet, identity management has been a key concern, with billions of dollars being spent on usability, security and privacy.

The identity and access management market is expected to grow from $8.09 billion in 2016 to $14.82 billion by 2021, representing a 12.9% CAGR. Despite this huge investment, managing digital identities continues to be plagued by three Cs – Cumbersome, Costly and Challenging.

With data driving the world today, digital identity is critical to most business and social transactions. This governs the interaction of users in the digital world. But traditional identity systems continue to be highly vulnerable, with single points of failure, attracting continuous attempts to gain access to the complete repository of high value data.

And, with companies prioritizing cybersecurity, identity protection and compliance management, while customer experience is significantly compromised. As individuals, we shoulder the burden of managing multiple online IDs and passwords, while also handling a host of documents, including passports, driver’s licenses, Social Security cards and medical insurance cards.

Blockchain has evolved significantly from the distributed ledger technology created to track bitcoin ownership. This technology can replace traditional systems with a highly trusted mechanism of managing identities. Blockchain can empower users to have greater control over their own identity. Organizations can use the information only with customers’ consent and no central entity would be able to compromise a consumer’s identity.

Blockchain has facilitated the so-called self-sovereign identity, which is inherently unalterable and more secure than traditional identity systems.

This has the potential to completely change the way we use identities to connect to different online services. Individuals would use their self-sovereign ID to verify their identity, removing the need for passwords. As with every lifechanging innovation, there’s been an extended period of evolution, with experts exchanging ideas and little consensus on what self-sovereign ID means!

It’s a concept that stems from the belief that an individual must have control over the administration of his identity. The ID cannot be locked into one site and there needs to be interoperability of the ID across multiple platforms, with user consent. Experts have been contemplating the summation of various identifying information like demographic and employment related data and even information about the individual revealed by other people.

Difference Between Blockchain and Bitcoin

Part of the confusion around what is blockchain versus what is cryptocurrency is due in part that the terms have come into use. Instead of being introduced by formal definition, the term blockchain developed from “chain of blocks”. Cryptocurrency is a sort-of portmanteau of “cryptographic currency”. But the fundamental difference between these concepts has to do with how distributed ledger technology is used.

When Bitcoin was the only blockchain, there wasn’t much of a distinction between the terms and they were used interchangeably. As the technology matured and a variety of blockchains bloomed, the uses quickly diverged from the pure money aspect. Instead, technologists experimented with ideas like decentralized name registry. Other uses utilized the peer-to-peer aspect to deliver messages in a discrete way. In the end, many of these projects failed to find a good use of the technology. The projects left standing helped demonstrate what was possible with beyond buzzwords.

A blockchain is a distributed ledger technology that forms a “chain of blocks.” Each block includes information and data that are bundled together and verified. These blocks are then validated and strung onto the chain of transactions and information in previous blocks. These blocks of transactions are permanently recorded in the distributed ledger that is the blockchain.

Contrasted with blockchain, cryptocurrency has to do with the use of tokens based on the distributed ledger technology. Cryptocurrency can be seen as a tool or resource on a blockchain network. Anything dealing with buying, selling, investing, trading, microtipping, or other monetary aspects deals with a blockchain native token or subtoken.

It is a token based on the distributed ledger that is a blockchain. Cryptocurrency is a digital currency formed on the basis of cryptography, or by definition, “the art of solving or writing codes.” Although all are considered cryptocurrencies, these tokens can serve different purposes on these networks.

Referring to the token as the technology can be right in the case of Bitcoin, but is very different when dealing with other blockchain projects like Ethereum. In this case, the technology is known as Ethereum, but the native token is Ether, and transactions are paid in gas.

Blockchain is the platform which brings cryptocurrencies into play. The blockchain is the technology that is serves as the distributed ledger that forms the network. This network creates the means for transacting, and enables transferring of value and information.

Cryptocurrencies are the tokens used within these networks to send value and pay for these transactions. Furthermore, you can see them as tool on blockchain, in some cases serving as a resource or utility function. Other times they are used to digitize value of an asset.

Blockchains serve as the basis technology, in which cryptocurrencies are a part of the ecosystem. They go hand in hand, and crypto is often necessary to transact on a blockchain. But without the blockchain, we would not have a means for these transactions to be recorded and transferred.

Proof of Work Explained

As the cryptocurrency space continues to evolve at an accelerated pace, experimentation and implementation of a variety of consensus models is inevitable.

Proof of Authority (PoA) consensus is not necessarily a new consensus mechanism (has been around since March 2017), but has been implemented in some interesting platforms as a compromise between consensus models targeting complete decentralization and more efficient, centralized models.

First, PoA was proposed by a group of developers in March 2017 (the term was coined by Gavin Wood) as a blockchain based on the Ethereum protocol. It was developed primarily as a solution to the problem of spam attacks on Ethereum’s Ropsten test network. The new network was named Kovan and is a primary test network available to all Ethereum users today.

PoA consensus is essentially an optimized Proof of Stake model that leverages identity as the form of stake rather than actually staking tokens. The identity is staked by a group of validators (authorities) that are pre-approved to validate transactions and blocks within the respective network. The group of validators is usually supposed to remain fairly small (~25 or less) in order to ensure efficiency and manageable security of the network.

The main characteristics of a PoA network are a low requirement of computational power, no requirement of communication between nodes to reach consensus, and continuity of the network is independent of the number of the available genuine nodes since they are pre-approved and verifiably trustable through cross verification in the public domain.

PoA is designed to be less computationally intensive than PoW models that require expending electricity to solve algorithms. Further, PoA removes a primary concern within the PoS model that although stakes between two parties may be equal, their value to each party may vary significantly depending upon their holdings. For instance, Alice may have 1,000 XYZ tokens staked and Bob may also have 1,000 XYZ tokens staked, however, Alice has $10 million outside of her stake and Bob only has $10,000 outside of his. Therefore, Bob is much more likely to invested in the success of the XYZ network than Alice since his stake represents a substantially larger portion of his overall finances.

There are 3 basic requirements to become a validator which have important implications on the incentive structure driving their actions towards honest behavior.

Their identities need to be formally identified on-chain with the ability to cross-reference these identities through reliable data available in the public domain (such as a public notary database).
Eligibility to becoming a validator must be difficult to obtain in order to ensure the long-term prospective position of the validator is one of clear incentive, both financially and reputationally, to remain an honest validator.
There must be complete uniformity in the process for establishing validators.

There are a few platforms that implement slightly different variations of the above requirements that all focus on providing a financial incentive for the validator to remain as part of the network in the long-term and reputation as the disincentive to act dishonestly. Any validator who acts maliciously can easily be removed from the validation process and replaced. The end result for that validator would be a public hit to their reputation as well as a loss of future financial earnings. The use of reputation through identity is of especially particular relevance to contemporary times.

From a consensus model designed to overcome some of the inherent problems with the Ropsten test network to a formal validation method of public blockchains focusing on smart contracts, sidechains, and the immense industry of global supply chain tracking, Proof of Authority consensus is an important development in the further advancement of testing and implementing different consensus mechanisms.

Whether or not PoA consensus ultimately ends up primarily used in private and permissioned blockchains, or as a crucial sidechain to a public and decentralized network, is yet to be seen.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Blockchain Technology

Below mentioned are the major advantages and disadvantages of Blockchain.

Advantages–

1. Process Integrity

Due to the security reasons, this program was made in such a way that any block or even a transaction that adds to the chain cannot be edited which ultimately provides a very high range of security.

2. Traceability

The format of Blockchain designs in such a way that it can easily locate any problem and correct if there is any. It also creates an irreversible audit trail.

3. Security

Blockchain technology is highly secure because of the reason each and every individual who enters into the Blockchain network is provided with a unique identity which is linked to his account. This ensures that the owner of the account himself is operating the transactions. The block encryption in the chain makes it tougher for any hacker to disturb the traditional setup of the chain

4. Faster processing

Before the invention of the blockchain, the traditional banking organization take a lot of time in processing and initiating the transaction but after the blockchain technology speed of the transaction increased to a very high extent. Before this, the overall banking process takes around three days to settle but after the introduction of Blockchain, the time reduced to nearly minutes or even seconds.

Disadvantages–

1. Power Use

The consumption of power in the Blockchain is comparatively high as in a particular year the power consumption of Bitcoin miners was alone more than the per capita power consumption of 159 individual countries. Keeping a real-time ledger is one of the reasons for this consumption because every time it creates a new node, it communicates with each and every other node at the same time.

2. Cost

As per the studies as an average cost of the Bitcoin transaction is $75-$160 and most of this cost cover by the energy consumption. There are very fewer chances that this issue we can resolve by the advancement in the technology. As the other factor that is the storage problem might be covered by the energy issues cannot be resolved.

3. Uncertain regulatory status

In each and every part of world modern money has been created and controlled by the central government. It becomes a hurdle for Bitcoin to get accepted by the pre-existing financial institutions. So, this was all about the advantages and disadvantages of Blockchain. Hope you like our explanation of Pros and Cons of Blockchain technology.

Hence, in this Blockchain tutorial, we learned about the various possible advantages and disadvantages of Blockchain technology. Next, we will see the features of Blockchain. Furthermore, if any query occurs, feel free to ask through the comment section.