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Now in its third year, the annual event is being held for key global influencers in technology, civil society, democracy promotion, and innovation. It will be held from July 25-29, 2017 on Sir Branson’s private Necker Island. It is not open to the public which, for a summit advocating pro democracy, does give the event an exclusive and isolationist overtone.

Read more: http://bitcoinist.com/bitfury-host-upcoming-blockchain-summit-sir-richard-bransons-private-necker-island/

Для кого?

Встреча будет полезна техническим специалистам и разработчикам блокчейн-решений. Также встреча будет интересна ИТ профессионалам из смежных областей: проектирование ERP систем, автоматизация процессов в государственном управлении, управление цепочкой поставок и создание технологических стартапов.

О чем?

Exonum – программный фреймворк с открытым кодом, который помогает разработчикам, коммерческим организациям и государствам просто и безопасно воплощать в жизнь идеи блокчейн-проектов. На встрече пройдет презентация фреймворка, показана наглядная демонстрация создания криптовалюты, обсуждены наиболее интересные области применения и уже готовые проекты.

Подробнее: https://bitfury.timepad.ru/event/536706/ 

Почти каждый день у нас просят простых житейских советов относительно формирующейся крипто-индустрии, поэтому мы сделали подборку некоторых сервисов, которые могут быть полезны, если вы соберетесь торговать, накапливать или же просто расплачиваться криптовалютами.

Кошелек

Первым делом вам понадобится кошелек, в котором будут храниться ваши средства. Забегая вперед скажем, что несмотря на то, что криптовалюты и, в частности, Bitcoin – инструмент в высшей степени надежный, взломав ваш кошелек, его тоже можно украсть. Поэтому не стоит игнорировать простые правила безопасности. Относиться к своему биткоин-кошельку надо так же, как вы относитесь к своему портмоне в кармане пиджака. Мы рекомендуем работать с лидерами рынка, наиболее капитализированными игроками, способными уделять своей и вашей безопасности должный уровень внимания.

Вот наш список:

1. www.coinbase.com
Один из популярнейших в мире ресурсов для покупки и продажи биткоинов и других криптовалют. Здесь можно открыть кошелек, а также подсоединить свой банковский счет или платежную карту для обмена цифровой валюты с/на валюту вашей страны.

2. www.xapo.com
На сегодняшний день один из самых безопасных биткоин-кошельков в мире с возможностью управления через мобильные устройства. Также ресурс предлагает первую в мире Xapo Debit Card, позволяющую оплачивать в биткоинах ваши ежедневные покупки и снимать наличные в банкоматах.

3. www.blockchain.info
Этот ресурс, стоящий у истоков Bitcoin истории, называют самым популярным биткоин-кошельком в мире: 100 миллионов+ транзакций, 14 миллионов+ кошельков, 120+ обслуживаемых стран. Также предлагает обзор биткоин блоков и статистику валют.

Настоятельная рекомендация: при регистрации использовать реальные собственные данные. Вводите ту информацию, которую всегда сможете подтвердить документально. В противном случае, если возникнут проблемы, вы можете лишиться доступа к кошельку, а переводы могут быть ограничены.

Российским резидентам функция прямого пополнения этих кошельков пока недоступна, можете закупить криптовалюту, например, на этом ресурсе: https://localbitcoins.net/ Схема действия простая: выбираете способ оплаты, переводите человеку в системе деньги, он переводит вам биткоины на открытый вами кошелек. Этот p2p сервис является крупнейшим по объему торгов и работает во многих странах мира. Кроме того есть большое количество мелких ресурсов – так называемых обменников, например https://www.netex24.net, https://www.nixexchange.com/ и другие.

Каждый из перечисленных выше онлайн кошельков предлагает систему сейфового хранения, однако существуют еще более надежные, с высоким уровнем безопасности кошельки без онлайн-подключения: так называемое «холодное хранение», например, Trezor, KeepKey или Ledger Wallet. Холодное хранение также доступно и в одном из наиболее известных кошельков в мире Coinbase. Изучите информацию о них в интернете и выберете тот, который больше вам подойдет, в случае если ваши аппетиты к крипто-валюте будут исчисляться значимыми суммами. Вы всегда сможете поменять кошелек или использовать одновременно несколько. Биткоины всегда можно перенести на другой кошелек – простым сканированием QR кода другого кошелька.

Адреса кошельков – это комбинация порядка 30 символов. Чтобы кому-то передать биткоины, достаточно ввести адрес и указать сумму. Система взимает небольшую комиссию, не зависящую от суммы транзакции, и человек через несколько минут или часов (это зависит от суммы установленной комиссии за отправку и загруженности сети) получит биткоины. Вообще, транзакции круглосуточные и неограниченные.

Важно учитывать следующее:
– В адресе недопустимы ошибки, иначе биткоины улетят в неизвестном направлении, без возможности возврата.
– Нет необходимости скрывать адрес. Никто не может повлиять на вашу передачу денег на другой кошелек, никто не может украсть у вас эти деньги (если, конечно, нет доступа к уникальному ключу) или заблокировать ваш счет.
– Интересно то, что все транзакции по кошельку есть в открытом доступе: вы перекидываете биткоины и сразу же можете увидеть, что они пришли. В этом главная сила блокчейна – прозрачность транзакций, децентрализация и шифрование.

Трейдинг

Если вас интересуют не только биткоины, но и другие криптовалюты, на этом ресурсе проще всего конвертировать: https://shapeshift.io/

Курсы различных криптовалют можно отслеживать здесь: http://coincap.io/

Для тех, кто заинтересован не только в покупке и хранении биткоинов, но и приобретении других криптовалютах (их принято называть альткоинами), а также трейдинге, индустрия предлагает разнообразный набор площадок.

Можно начать с лидера рынка, американской площадки https://poloniex.com/, которая отличается активными торгами, высокой ликвидностью и понятным качественным интерфейсом. На бирже торгуется более 100 валютных пар, но отсутствует возможность конвертации в фиатные валюты. Биржа также предлагает с одной стороны маржинальную торговлю с ограниченным числом валютных пар и возможность сдачи в аренду криптовалют, использующихся в маржинальной торговле.

Также одним из лидеров рынка по объему торгов является биржа https://bittrex.com, которая дополняет Poloniex в наборе валютных пар. На этих двух биржах сконцентрирована торговля почти всеми криптовалютами с капитализацией более 20-50 млн долларов.

Более традиционные биржи такие как Bitfinex, Bitstamp или Kraken имеют более ограниченный набор инструментов для инвестиций в альткоины, но при этом дают возможность торговать фиатными валютными парами и пополнять/выводить средства в фиатных валютах.

Отдельно отметим биржу BTC-e, которая занимает место в пятерке крупнейших по объему торгов. Верификация пользователя на бирже не требуется, достаточно электронной почты. На этой интернет-бирже проводятся торги криптовалют к доллару, евро и российскому рублю.

Аналитика

Существует немало интересных сервисов для аналитики криптовалют, в нашем обзоре мы хотим представить вам подборку некоторых из них.

http://mapofcoins.com/bitcoin – красивая инфографика по истории криптовалют и протоколов. Есть структурированная выжимка по каждой технологии. Помогает разобрать во всем многообразии технологий и альткоинов.

https://coinmarketcap.com – отличный сайт для оценки основной информации по рынку, где можно найти данные по всем блокчейн активам (839 в данный момент). Есть API.
• Интересные выборки: общая капитализация криптоэкономики, доля биткоина по отношению к остальным крипотовалютам, список новых коинов на биржах, рейтинги Biggest Gainers и Biggest Loosers.
• Исторические снэпшоты основной таблицы.

https://icostats.com – ресурс, позволяющий отслеживать итоги капитализации прошедших ICO в динамике.

https://www.cryptocompare.com – очень много метаданных по всем криптовалютам. Бесплатное API c уникальными данными. Рейтинги кошельков, бирж, пластиковых карт, майнинг пулов.

https://www.coingecko.com/en – уникальность этого сервиса в том, что здесь можно анализировать активность сообщества в соц. сетях и на Github. Все в удобной единой таблице с рейтингом.
• Аналитика активности по криптовалютным сообществам в Reddit: количество комментариев, среднее число пользователей онлайн, среднее число горячих постов за час, число подписчиков в Twitter и Facebook.
• Данные по репозиториям на Github: коммиты, количество заданных вопросов, закрытых вопросов, количество форков, наблюдателей, активных участников, общее количество нововведений за четыре недели.
• Статистика по запросам в Bing.

https://www.tradingview.com ¬– технический анализ в один клик.
• Все необходимые индикаторы для профессиональных трейдеров
• Возможность разбивать график на любые таймфреймы
• Система уведомлений
• Чат
• Система шаринга идей с другими пользователям

https://cryptowat.ch – агрегатор бирж. Удобно смотреть real-time данные: цену, объемы, order book, список совершенных сделок. Coinigy.com – более крутой инструмент, но он полностью платный (хотя предлагается триал).
• Через API есть доступ к историческим данным OHLC по разным биржам
• Поддерживаются только некоторые валютные пары (самые популярные)
• Инструменты для графического анализа
• В платной версии можно создать аккаунт и торговать на многих биржах из одного терминала

https://coin.dance – отличная разнообразная статистика и инфографика по Bitcoin в разных разрезах.
• Политика в Bicoin: легальный статус в странах, внутренняя политика Segwit vs BU
• Объемы торгов по разным странам, в том числе на Localbitcoins
• Google Trends – запросы по разным странам
• Аналитика аудитории: по полу, возрасту, интересам
• Статистика по майнинг пулам
• Исчерпывающая статистика по блокам и нодам

https://blockchair.com – мощный поиск по блокчейну биткоина. Позволяет искать по всем данным в блоке, которые только возможны.

Инвесторам

Для тех, кто планирует инвестировать в индекс криптовалют, есть возможность присмотреться к фондам, инвестирующим в топ-20 или 30 криптовалют пропорционально их рыночной капитализации и постоянно ребалансирующим портфель. Одним из первых таких фондов стал ICONOMI, можно отметить Satoshi.Fund и многие другие фонды, которые все чаще появляются в последние полгода.

Более опытные инвесторы, желающие следить за новыми размещениями криптовалют (ICO – initial coin offering), а также изучать отчеты по уже вышедшим валютам, могут воспользоваться ресурсом icorating.com, который один из первых взял на себя функции рейтингового агентства и проводит due diligence новых размещений, предлагая инвесторам свои отчеты по новым валютам.

Или с биржевой площадки https://cex.io, на которой агрегировано много аналитики и даны котировки аналогичных площадок, таких как bitfinex.com или BTC-E. Но если у вас нет опыта торгов, то стоит углубиться в теорию и опыт профессионалов, прежде чем переходить к практике.

Приложение http://blockfolio.com/ поможет следить за портфелем криптовалют.

Важно помнить главное правило блокчейна: кто контролирует кошелек, тот и владеет его содержимым. Все, как в обычной жизни с наличными деньгами. Поэтому повторим: стоит осмотрительно выбирать ресурс, на котором вы открываете кошелек для криптовалют и внимательно относиться к правилам по безопасности! Удачи ;)

Comments from Alexey Solovyov: "At the initial stage, I face an ambitious task to further strengthen the best team on the venture investment market and adjust all the corporate processes to the level of world standards. The global goal of the Fund’s entire team and, first of all, of its Partners is to build a successful international investment business."

Comments from Gleb Davidyuk, Managing Partner of iTech Capital: "iTech Capital has huge plans. In addition to exits from the first Fund companies and launching the second one, we intend to expand and diversify our business. On the basis of iTech, we are creating a global private asset management company. To meet the challenge, you need an ace-high team and a reliable partner who will take on some of the highest-level management tasks. Alexey is one of the most competent and recognizable managers on our market, and I am confident that our partnership will allow us to realize the ambitious plans iTech faces."

About Alexey Solovyov and Prostor Capital Fund
Alexey Solovyov was the head of Prostor Capital from the moment of its foundation in 2011, and earlier, for two years, he had been working at ru-Net, Leonid Boguslavsky’s investment company. Alexey's previous professional experience related to business development, M&A, strategic development and marketing in the largest IT companies – IBS and Optima. He graduated with a degree in Computer Sciences from the Bauman Moscow State Technical University, and in 2019 will get an EMBA degree from the Chicago Booth School of Business.

Prostor Capital was founded in 2011 with its size of US $20M and the current portfolio of 7 companies. In 2016, the Fund made the first exit by selling UMI.ru project to 1C Company. Recently, there has been the second exit, when the Fund’s portfolio company Dulton Media was bought by one of the largest players of the Russian Internet and media market, Rambler & Co Holding.

Last month, GAIN Capital Holdings made an announcement about the activation of a new product for its US clients – this culminated in a newly launched deal with TradingView to provide its customers with access to the widely acclaimed advanced web-based charting solution.

Whereas the previous agreement with Forex.com and TradingView as relegated to charts, the expanded deal will see a much broader focus on trading resources, including access to TradingView’s trading terminal, its charting library, and web-based front end platform, among others.

Read more: https://www.financemagnates.com/forex/technology/tradingview-expands-partnership-gain-capital-integrating-terminal/

The Singapore market data includes chart data, fundamental data, hotlists and the Stock Screener. TradingView gives free access to live SGX Index and FX Futures quotes. The free market data on stocks, derivatives and commodities is delayed by 15 minutes. The TradingView users with any type of upgraded plan can purchase real-time data.

The company has an ever expanding list of markets data – paid and free, with the latest addition being intraday data from Canadian markets.

Read more: https://smnweekly.com/2017/05/19/tradingview-adds-singapore-stock-exchange-intraday-data-new-forex-cross-rate-widget/

Earlier this year, Tomicah Tillemann, Trust Accelerator co-founder and New America director of the Bretton Woods II program, commented about Georgia’s decision to use the public Bitcoin Blockchain:
“If you think about this happening at a time when a lot of people are struggling to separate what’s real from what’s fake, this is a powerful tool to prove what’s real. Especially when you’re dealing with something as fundamental as your home or property, it’s important to have that added layer of security that’s provided by Blockchain validation.”

Vavilov also said, that there is going to be more services to follow. Since Blockchain implementation, there is no possibility to manipulate the property registration data.

It is not only a government implementation deal for BitFury, on April 13, the Bitfury Group has announced its partnership with the government of Ukraine, to bring a variety of Blockchain solutions to the electronic services of the latter.

Bitfury, a blockchain company with offices in the United States and overseas, will provide the services to Ukraine, CEO Valery Vavilov said in an interview on Wednesday. Ukraine's blockchain initiative underscores a growing trend among governments that have adopted the technology to increase efficiencies and improve transparency.

Ukraine's blockchain initiative underscores a growing trend among governments that have adopted the technology to increase efficiencies and improve transparency.

Read more: http://whtc.com/news/articles/2017/apr/13/ukraine-to-launch-big-blockhain-deal-with-tech-firm-bitfur...

Clickky already operates 5 offices in 4 countries and employs more than 90 professionals worldwide. Clickky offers both self-serve and managed solutions for app developers, mobile ad networks and agencies, SSPs, DSPs and media buyers. The Beijing office will take central role in Clickky’s activities on the Asia-Pacific market.

The office will be headed by Ray Zhou, Business Developer with extensive experience in the Greater China area. Before joining Clickky, he has been successfully leading a business development team at ironSource, working both on demand and supply side. Ray will put his experience in user acquisition and monetization management for expanding Clickky’s presence in the APAC region.

“Clickky’s new office opening is the logical continuation of the company’s own growth strategy,” says Vadim Rogovskiy, founder and CEO at Clickky. “At first, we plan to pay more attention to promoting our API AdExchange and monetization SDK for mobile publishers. We are open to growing opportunities and happy to expand our influence and capabilities in China, leveraging the potential of the market and providing smart solutions for publishers and advertisers alike.”

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/3301920#ixzz4dwk8a7D6

Star speakers
This year MBC will host speakers from Shazam, Looksery, Unity, Avazu and Mail.ru. The list is constantly growing.

Useful contacts
More than 1000 participants, and not one random person: CEO, top managers, app developers, owners of advertising networks and agencies, investors and mobile evangelists.

Unique atmosphere
With the ‘relaxed networking’, Mobile Beach Conference helps developing partner relations. At least that is what the last year participants say from their own experience.

Exhibition
This year the conference will open the exhibition zone for the first time. And it means that there will be a special area where you can get acquainted with the mobile technology innovations and receive consultation from specialists.

Startup battle
From more than 100 participants we will choose 10 brightest mobile startups. Right before your eyes they will battle for the victory. Sorry, but the winner takes it all. ;) Startups will be showcased in a special area — the Startup Alley, where you can discuss all the mobile news over a cup of smoothie. Mobile

Awards
Here we can put +2. We have added 2 more nominations to the last year list of 3. As it has been before, the conference will be a platform for awarding the winners, chosen by the internet vote.

The price degree will increase starting April 1. Make sure you join before it gets hot. Promo-code for our subscribers: iTechMBC2017 (10% discount).

http://mobilebeach.rocks

“We are proud to be joining forces with such a dynamic and forward-looking company like BestSign,” said Valery Vavilov, CEO and founder of The Bitfury Group. “With The Bitfury Group’s full-service blockchain offerings and commitment to expansion of blockchain technology, BestSign will be able to offer its clients additional peace of mind knowing that they have access to the most secure and advanced technology in the world.”

“As a leader in electronic signature cloud platforms in China currently, Shanghangqian (BestSign) has reached a deal with The Bitfury Group, the world’s leading blockchain technology company, to jointly develop electronic contract products based on the underlying technology for blockchain,” said Miss Joy Wan, CEO of BestSign. “This deal can not only facilitate the real use of blockchain technology in the electronic contract sector, advance the application of blockchain technologies such as distributed ledger and smart contract, but also better help our clients by providing them with better products to enable safer contract signature and storage through blockchain technology.”

http://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/news/bitfury-partner-largest-esignature-platform-china...

It hasn’t been that long since TradingView introduced an upgrade of its proprietary trading platform, and the data-driven social network has done it again. The company has just informed its users that it has added a new exchange to its stock screener which expands the product suite to cover a total of seventeen exchanges across eleven countries, according to a TradingView update.

The latest batch of changes allows market participants to garner information and screening stocks from Switzerland’s principal exchange, the SIX Swiss Exchange. According to the web based charting provider, registered users will have access to the SIX data delayed by 15 minutes but with an option to upgrade their subscription to include real-time data. In addition, users will be able to scan the Swiss Market with its Stock Screener and also have access to hotlists such as top gainers, losers, most active and more.

http://www.financemagnates.com/forex/technology/tradingview-expands-stock-screener-cover-six-swiss-e...

The President of Retail at GAIN Capital, Samantha Roady, comments: “TradingView provides one of the most powerful web-based charting platforms available today. In keeping with our commitment to provide the best trading tools to our customers, we are thrilled to be working with the TradingView team to offer their advanced charting to our FOREX.com customers.”

TradingView’s charting solution has gained a lot of popularity in recent years due to the smooth HTML5 charts that encompass a number of asset classes. Before GAIN Capital started providing the tool to its clients, TradingView has already been delivering its services to customers of FXCM and OANDA. More:

http://www.financemagnates.com/forex/technology/gain-capital-partners-tradingview-charting/

Figure out more: http://www.econotimes.com/New-America%C2%A0Bitfury-Group%C2%A0and%C2%A0NDI-announce-blockchain-initiative-for-social-good%C2%A0-224440

The Index is calculated for different countries, two OSes (iOS, Android), non-incent traffic and multiple app categories. The analysis shows market statistics and exactly how much advertisers are ready to pay for their installs. This includes the average CPI by country, by verticals within different countries and by OS (iOS and Android).

More figures here: http://www.pressreleaserocket.net/ecwid-is-first-smb-e-commerce-platform-to-provide-both-fully-automated-and-logic-based-sales-tax-and-vat-calculation/451834/

More: http://smnweekly.com/2016/05/02/tradingview-allows-second-based-timeframes/

More: http://tech.eu/features/4210/50-european-high-growth-tech-companies/

More figures here: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/bitfury-announces-blockchain-land-titling-project-with-the-republic-of-georgia-and-economist-hernando-de-soto-1461769012

More figures here: http://cointelegraph.com/news/bitfury-explains-how-to-securely-store-and-transfer-digital-assets-on-the-bitcoin-blockchain

More figures here: http://clickky.biz/content/blog/clickky-results-2015

http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/21/bitfury-ceo-valery-vavilov-on-increasing-the-size-of-bitcoin-blocks/

Clickky AdExchange is the largest automated mobile ad platform for advertising offers in Eastern Europe.

Leveraging the Clickky API, the platform enables quick and easy ad campaign exchange between mobile publishers, advertisers, ad networks and affiliates.

Clickky AdExchange provides:

• Quick API access to over 20,000 offers at any time
  
• Global reach Fast and easy integration
• Customizable ads
• Access to top offers from multiple networks through a single API 

Clickky launched the AdExchange platform in August 2015 and quickly scaled it up from 5,000 to 20,000 mobile ad campaigns.

FACT 1: Bitcoin Is Not an Electronic Payments System Like PayPal

Many Bitcoin newcomers view the network as yet another electronic system for instant payments, like PayPal or Visa. Right here we have a very substantial difference in opinion. Bitcoin was never designed to confirm instant payments and believing that is its function is a mistake.

As Nick Szabo, the renowned author of smart contracts wrote: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/nick-szabo-if-banks-want-benefits-blockchains-they-must-go-permissionless-1518874v

“Visa and PayPal already exist, and within national borders they do what they do quite well. It’s silly to try to turn Bitcoin into yet another Visa and PayPal.”

I believe, based on the way the system was designed and developed by Satoshi, that it would be disingenuous to expect instant transaction confirmation from the Bitcoin network — it is simply not wired that way. No increase of the block size limit could help make instant Bitcoin transaction confirmation a reality.

Does this mean that Bitcoin cannot be used for instant payments? Not at all. You simply need an additional system operating on top of the Bitcoin Blockchain (with the Blockchain acting as a settlement layer). These systems already exist in custodial wallet services and Bitcoin exchanges. But the larger point is that the potential of Bitcoin is so much greater and transformative than simply hoping it can compete with PayPal.

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To make omnichannel inventory management a breeze, be sure to hook up your Square account to Ecwid in Square App Marketplace. Read more at https://squareup.com/townsquare/managing-omnichannel-inventory-take-out-of-stock-out-of-your-vocabulary/

With the variety of applications now being built, it is difficult to imagine it simply fading away anytime soon.

But the big question remains: Which use case will first bring about bitcoin’s wider acknowledgement?

With this in the background, here are the five companies that I believe will have a considerable impact on the industry this coming year.

Blockstream

One of the more well-funded startups, Blockstream is nonetheless a self-described ‘stealth bitcoin company’ working on accelerating the development of cryptocurrency, open asset and smart contact technology.

The company has been busy in the background, launching a beta of its banner sidechains project and announcing its first commercial product, Liquid, which is aimed at speeding up transfer times between bitcoin exchanges, in 2015.

One of the projects that Blockstream has decided to explore further is the Lightning Network – a proposal that would move smaller bitcoin transactions off the blockchain so they could occur more quickly with reduced fees. It nonetheless recreates the trustless nature of the current network design.

The Lightning Network has the ability to reduce the total number of transactions that need to be settled on the bitcoin blockchain, and thus removes their affect on the necessary total size of blocks.

The network faces technical challenges before it can go live, though, such as the integration of various changes to Bitcoin Core. I believe we will see most of these issues resolved and that Blockstream, or perhaps even a different party, will launch its version of Lightning during 2016.

This will greatly relieve the current buildup of pressure surrounding the block size discussion, and add to the robustness of the bitcoin network.

tØ

tØ is a blockchain-based trading platform created by online retail giant Overstock, first announced in August. Part of the firm’s larger Medici arm, tØ aims to revolutionise securities by making trade and settlement occur simultaneously using blockchain technology.

While the SEC did recently approve Overstock’s plan to issue stock via blockchain technology, Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne said in a recent article by Motherboard that it might not use the bitcoin blockchain as part of its efforts.

"Maybe we're not going to use the bitcoin blockchain ... Maybe there's another blockchain we want to integrate with, with higher throughput," he told the news source.

This comment is in reference to the bitcoin block size, as a limited number of transactions also results in a limited number of instant settlements the company can offer.

Continuing with my belief that the block size issue will be addressed during 2016 in some way, I also believe tØ will utilise the bitcoin blockchain as opposed to a private blockchain due to bitcoin’s decentralised, secure and relatively trustless nature.

If this comes about, this would be the first major security settlement product released that utilises bitcoin, and a key milestone in bitcoin’s history.

OpenBazaar

OpenBazaar is currently working on one of the most compelling consumer applications for bitcoin out there with the development of a decentralised marketplace.

If successful, OpenBazaar would essentially serve as an open-source competitor to eBay that has reduced fees for all parties due to its decentralised nature.

OpenBazaar faces what I believe to be relatively trivial challenges in launching, including the development of a robust reputation system and the classic chicken-and-egg problem of acquiring volume in a new marketplace.

However, with its recent venture capital fundraise of $1m in June 2015, I believe we will see the highly anticipated launch and expansion of OpenBazaar during 2016.

Zapchain

Zapchain is a social media platform powered by bitcoin and is one of my personal favourite companies.

The startup’s integration of on-chain bitcoin micropayments for tipping is a truly revolutionary idea that fosters high-quality user engagement and content creation amongst various self-created communities.

Zapchain’s biggest hurdle lies in its ability to continue its growth, while avoiding spam users.

From what I have seen of Zapchain, though, its ability to curb spammers has proved effective and the platform is currently more popular than ever.

During 2016, I predict Zapchain will continue its growth in non-bitcoin related communities and also become recognised as a top bitcoin news platform. Zapchain embodies the spirit of bitcoin, and also provides a key alternative to some controversially moderated bitcoin communities.

BitFury

The best-funded bitcoin mining company with over $60m raised so far, BitFury announced on 16th December that it will bring a new ASIC chip to market in Q1 2016.

The launch of its new data centre in Georgia could double the total bitcoin network hashing rate, leading some to worry about the integrity of bitcoin’s mining decentralisation.

I believe this risk is perhaps overstated and that the major net effect of BitFury's innovations will be increased (and possibly almost doubled) security for the network.

Furthermore, affecting the integrity of bitcoin’s decentralised nature would act against BitFury’s best interests as a bitcoin company.

BitFury CEO, Valery Vavilov, has also reflected this sentiment, suggesting his company intends to act in the interests of the network as a whole.

Source: Coindesk.com

In 2015, through Aviasales partners sold airline tickets in the amount of about US$ 243 million. To compare: in 2014, according to Forbes' estimates, the same amount was paid in total to 25 highest-paid heads of the largest Russian companies ($ 242 million). This amount was also asked by The US White House to reserve in the US Budget for 2016 to fund cybersecurity measures.

This will help advertisers to choose the most interesting options and add them to their project. A distinctive feature is the ability to pick the choice of words that occur simultaneously at several competitors.

The global network of miners computes about 700 quadrillion hashes, or 700 petahashes, per second. Valery Vavilov, the CEO of bitcoin mining technology company BitFury, predicted in an email to Fast Company the network will soon enter the "exahash era," computing more than one quintillion hashes every second, thanks in part to new speedier mining chips it’s set to release early next year.

While BitFury conducts its own mining operations on a grand scale—the company just opened a massive new data center in Tbilisi, Georgia, last week that Vavilov says will on its own ultimately transform 40 megawatts of power into between 400 and 650 petahash—it also offers its chips for sale to other miners.

At present, bitcoin’s trading roughly 35% higher against the dollar than at this point last year, at roughly $435 per bitcoin, though that’s still far from its peak just over two years ago, when it briefly traded for more than $1,200 per coin.

More: http://www.fastcompany.com/3054944/its-been-a-challenging-year-but-bitcoin-is-still-booming

BitFury Group, the leading Bitcoin Blockchain infrastructure provider and transaction processing company in the world today announced mass-production of its full-custom design 16nm Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) Chip, which will bring unmatched energy efficiency to the Bitcoin network.

After rigorous testing, the new BitFury Chip has demonstrated outstanding computing capabilities. The design target was 40 gigahash per second with power efficiency of 0.06 joules per gigahash. On average, the measured power efficiency of tested engineering samples of the new BitFury Chip ranges from 0.055 joules per gigahash to 0.07 joules per gigahash, thus making the BitFury 16nm ASIC Chip the industry leader in energy efficiency. In addition to its outstanding power efficiency, BitFury’s 16nm ASIC Chip can run with as low as 0.35V power supply voltage.

The static part of the Chip can be functional at as low as 0.28V power supply voltage. This level of productivity was previously unattainable with existing silicon devices and existing silicon design methodologies, with transistors working in active mode, not slow sub-threshold. J / Gh metric in working modes starting from 55 Gh/s up to 180 Gh/s follows an almost linear relationship of 0.0011, while at 40 – 55 Gh/s measured slope converges to plateau.

 Valery Vavilov, CEO of BitFury, said: “We are very excited to launch mass production of our super 16nm ASIC Chip. The final results of our hard work have fully met our expectations. We understand that it will be nearly impossible for any older technology to compete with the performance of our new 16nm technology. As a responsible player in the Bitcoin community, we will be working with integration partners and resellers to make our unique technology widely available ensuring that the network remains decentralized and we move into the exahash era together. BitFury warmly welcomes all companies interested in joining our integration and reseller program.”

Jim Lai, President of GUC, said: “We have worked closely with BitFury’s experienced IC designers and we are glad to assist BitFury to achieve this outstanding result. GUC is proud that the BitFury-GUC partnership resulted in the first 16nm full custom tape-out for both parties.”

Alex Telnov says: “It is a great challenge and promising opportunity for me to show good results at a high competitive VC industry. My main tasks will be further development and capitalization growth of portfolio companies as well as exit strategy execution.“ Alex joined iTech team in 2012, and since then he successfully managed a number of investment deals including such companies as Clickky, BitFury and TradingView. About iTech Capital Founded in 2010, iTech Capital is a venture capital firm focused on growth investments in digital economy businesses. iTech’s pioneer fund, iTech Fund I, LP (“Fund I”) was established in 2011 and is comprised of equity injections in IT companies in in Central and Eastern Europe, Asia and USA.

iTech are raising capital for iTech Fund II, a fund that will invest in core ICT segments such as AdTech, FinTech, SAAS, Online Travel and Big Data. New LPs in Fund II will have the opportunity to invest at favorable terms. A particularly attractive attribute of iTech is their ultra-transparent internal portal that allows LPs to access all data regarding portfolio companies, co-investment opportunities and even trade portfolio positions in a secondary market within the LP network. The team at iTech is anchored by Managing Partner Gleb Davidyuk, a seasoned professional in the private equity and venture capital industries who has worked for a range of well-established groups including Quadriga Capital, Mint Capital and Alfa Capital Partners since 1995. "We are delighted to collaborate with iTech due to their robust reputation in delivering remarkable results for their investors. iTech's team of investment professionals are thorough and knowledgeable, with over 50 years of cumulative investment experience and are passionate about creating success," said Omar Al-Gharabally, President of Greenstone Equity Partners. "Owing to the Middle Eastern investor mentality, venture capital investment has become more and more mainstream over the last decade and with this relationship we are confident that we are introducing solid investment opportunities to investors across the region." "The MENA region has important sources of capital flows and wealth accumulation, and with increased liquidity, local and international investors consider venture capital and all of its sub-sets to be a core part of their investment portfolios," said Gleb Davidyuk, Managing Partner of iTech. "With Greenstone Equity Partners' thorough market knowledge and strong relationships, we believe that we can establish a strong footprint in this region and develop new long-term relationships," he added.

Clickky offers a new technology solution - an Automated mobile ad platform Clickky Mobile AdExchangeTM.

The platform enables quick and easy offers exchange between developers, ad networks, agencies and affili- ates through API.

AdExchangeTM is the biggest platform for mobile adver- tising offers in Eastern Europe.

Advantages of Clickky Mobile AdExchangeTM:

• fast integration;

• no technical restrictions;

• Platform works with traffic and offers from all over the world;

• customize ads for an application access to 5000+ offers.

All players of the mobile advertising market can take the full advantage of the new solution.

App developers will get access to 5000+ campaigns at once. Server to Server Integration with Clickky Mobile AdExchangeTM enables to choose the format of advertis- ing and gives an opportunity to fully manage advertising сampaigns. A very important feature that will appeal to developers is the ability to customize the advertising - the creation of ads in a convenient format for a particu- lar application.

Mobile Advertising Networks and agencies gain access to hundreds of traffic sources for campaigns through the export of all offers to the Clickky server.

Also, Ad Networks will be able to maximize their service by add- ing 5000+ offers to their database.

Affiliates will gain access to 5000+ campaigns that allows to find offers that are most suitable for their traffic.
Thanks to Clickky technical support service you can easily inte- grate with Clickky Mobile AdExchangeTM.

Clickky Mobile AdExchangeTM is already working with partners from 30 countries on all continents. At the moment, we provide more than 5,000 active offers, and their number is constantly growing.

“Clickky Mobile AdExchangeTM is a fresh approach to work pro- cess in mobile advertising and the fastest-growing Ad Exchange at the moment,” commented CRO Clickky Valentin Bondarchuk. “In the nearest future we plan to become the largest platform for mobile advertising offers not only in Eastern Europe but also in the world.” 

The latest edition is the GC Powerlist: Russia, which identifies an array of the most influential and innovative in-house counsel working in the region. Read more: http://www.legal500.com/assets/pages/cc100/2015/nominate_russia.html

16 July 2015, London – iTech Capital, a Europe-based private equity (PE) fund with a focus on the global digital market, has invested US$3 million in TradingView, a growing social FinTech platform that unites traders and investors from around the world.

iTech Capital, who will take a minority stake in TradingView, led the Series A round, which amounted to US$3.6 million alongside other seed investors and angels. TradingView provides a next-gen online platform where thousands of amateur and professional investors and traders share insights and ideas in real-time, free of charge. The site currently features over 500,000 monthly active users from 100 countries, and since launching in 2012, has experienced 10 percent month-on-month organic growth in unique users.

iTech Capital’s Managing Partner, Gleb Davidyuk and Portfolio Manager, Alex Telnov will both join the TradingView Board as executive directors. Along with the management team, their focus will be to identify and execute on future growth opportunities, enhance marketing efforts and build a corporate culture.

In addition to its burgeoning trading community, TradingView produces powerful financial charts with data that are used by over 4,000 financial portals and websites such as Investopedia, InstaForex, DailyFX and more. As a result, five and a half million monthly unique visitors are engaged with the TradingView brand through partner platforms. This round of investment will allow TradingView to develop and launch new services, including localisation, as well as expanding their sales and marketing efforts to enhance customer acquisition activities and implement new data feeds.

Gleb Davidyuk, Managing Partner of iTech Capital, said:

“TradingView is a unique player in the FinTech sector with a powerful mix of user generated charts and investment insights from its community, which helps its large user base to make informative investment decisions. Since its inception, the business model has successfully demonstrated continuous monthly growth in user acquisition and revenues. With the capital and experience provided by iTech Capital, we believe that TradingView can capitalise on the significant opportunity.”

Stan Bokov, co-founder and COO of TradingView, said:

“TradingView is doing in the financial industry what the first iPhone did to old phones. If you are a trader or investor, you’ll just ‘get it’. It’s a completely new way to visualise financial data and analyse it. It doesn’t matter if you are on a phone, tablet, PC, Mac or any other device - it’ll just work.

The platform reinvents investors’ user experience and co-operation - you are never alone with the markets. The additional funding from iTech Capital and their expertise on our Board will help us with business development, marketing and further expansion into new markets.”

Pocket Gamer Connects is one of the leading events in the mobile world, calling together up to 1,500 of the global mobile games industry’s top professionals. This year San Francisco hosted PGC for the first time, and the event has satisfied all expectations.

SAN FRANCISCO–June 9, 2015– BitFury Group, the leading Bitcoin Blockchain infrastructure provider and transaction processing company, today announced it has secured $20 million in funding. Investors participating in the round include DRW Venture Capital, iTech Capital and the Georgian Co-Investment Fund.

Don Wilson, Founder of DRW Venture Capital, commented on the deal: “DRW's investment in BitFury is an acknowledgment of the impressive work Valery Vavilov and the team has done to become a leader in the business of securing the blockchain. By supporting BitFury’s efforts in this regard, and by providing liquidity in bitcoin via its wholly owned subsidiary, Cumberland, DRW aims to facilitate the widespread adoption of the distributed ledger technology.”

Gleb Davidyuk, Managing Partner of iTech Capital, added: “We are pleased with our investment in BitFury, which has solidified its market-leading position by providing its cutting edge technologies to support Bitcoin Blockchain infrastructure. We are confident there are many growth opportunities with Bitcoin technologies and we believe that Bitfury is well-positioned for further expansion.“

The proceeds will support BitFury’s accelerating growth and its technology and business expansion. The company has recently rolled out its market-leading, energy-efficient 28 nm chip, as well as acquired Allied Control, an award-winning immersion cooling technology startup. In addition, BitFury announced plans to expand further in the Republic of Georgia by building a Techno Park to host its new 100 MW data center.

Valery Vavilov, CEO of BitFury said: “Today, we are excited to announce we have secured a funding round of $20 million. The success of yet another funding round validates our business strategy and brings us closer to our ambitious goals.”

According to the independent market analysis [by Organofcorti] BitFury has recently tripled its market share and has been continuously adding significant amounts of computing power to the Bitcoin network. According to the same source, BitFury now processes more blocks than all of the private entities combined.

https://www.datanyze.com/market-share/e-commerce-platforms/ecwid-vs-shopify/ 

iTech Capital, a Europe-based Venture Capital fund with a focus on the global digital market, today announces a US$2 million investment for a minority stake in Clickky, a global mobile app marketing platform.

Clickky is a one-stop mobile app marketing platform which uses in-house proprietary technology to offer user acquisition, traffic monetisation and performance analysis. The platform boasts its own affiliate and offerwall advertising network with more than 10,000 traffic partners, DMP and media-buying technologies. Clickky runs campaigns for clients on multiple traffic sources to reach the whole mobile ecosystem, using in-house targeting and optimisation capabilities.

The investment by iTech Capital will support Clickky in its expansion into the United States, South-East Asia and emerging markets, as well as the launch of new analytics and media buying features and products. Clickky also aims to launch and expand globally its new project, mobile advertising sales agency, MobiLimes, to give app developers and brands the ability to reach their goals by using Clickky’s technology and MobiLimes experienced account and media planning teams. Gleb Davidyuk, Managing Partner of iTech Capital will be joining the Clickky Board of Directors.

Vadim Rogovskiy, founder and CEO of Clickky, said: “With the help of additional resources provided by iTech Capital, we will be able to speed up and improve the implementation of our product and marketing plans as the market for mobile advertising shifts so quickly that we need to be able to adapt accordingly and move fast.”

With offices in Berlin, Moscow and Odessa, Clickky is rapidly growing, having enjoyed a 2014 two-fold revenue increase in the fast expanding mobile app market. Its clients include retail and online brands (Alibaba), marketing platforms (Glispa, MobPartner) digital agencies and advertising networks (InMobi), mobile app and game developers (Wooga, Plarium).

Clickky pioneered the market by being the first platform to provide clients with a Cost per Engagement (CPE) for non-incentivised users, optimising their campaigns to reach relevant audiences in real time.

Gleb Davidyuk, Managing Partner of iTech Capital, said: “The mobile advertising market is rapidly expanding and in 2016, revenues are set to exceed US$100 billion. Clickky is has a huge amount of potential in this industry thanks to a talented management team, as well as a very solid reputation with their customers and peers.”

“Clickky’s team has an impressive amount of technical expertise, showcased in the innovation they are able provide clients in targeting high quality traffic. Along with their continued investment into marketing and their global push, iTech Capital is confident Clickky will continue to grow and become a market leader in the near future.”

Subscription costs is RUR 169 per month, and the application is now available in iTunes. Subscription allows to check possible changes in ticket prices 4 times a day and receive notifications.

The service became the first paid upgrade for Aviasales mobile application. In addition, it is possible to use the notification system as an advertising platform to gain additional income, for example, by adding the list of extra services associated directly with the flights or with some specific destination

Janis Dzenis, the PR-manager in Aviasales, said:

“You need to understand that it’s not an easy task to find a cheap business class ticket. The search history is enough to track prices for economy class tickets. For business class tickets, we have developed a special robot, that checks four times a day the tickets you’re interested in. If the price changes, you will be told”.

However, it’s too early to estimate the expected income from this service immediately after the launch. For Aviasales it’s the first attempt of monetizing mobile apps.

 

Petr Polyakov takes up duties as Investment Director at iTech Capital and he will responsible for ad tech sector strategy in iTech portfolio including such projects as SeoPult, RealWeb and iContext.

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From January, 13 the mobile application is available for smartphones on iOS and Android.

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Aviasales is a leading travel search engine for flights and hotel bookings in Russia. According to the Federal Agency of Air Transport, the Russian passenger air travel market grew by 14.2% in 2013 to more than 84.5 million fliers. Some RUB 240 billion worth of online tickets and hotel reservations were sold, and the sector’s growth is estimated at 40%, according to Data Insight.

SeoPult, Russia’s leading automated search engine marketing platform, has announced its acquisition of uLogin – a service that allows web user authentication through social network accounts. The company was valued at millions of dollars .

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Column by Gleb Davidyuk for Forbes.ru http://www.forbes.ru/finansy-column/investitsii/271771-turizm-v-internete-stoit-li-investirovat-v-servisy-dlya-puteshestv

At iTech Alexander is responsible for sourcing new deals and overseeing companies from existing portfolio. Alexander is a graduate of London Business School. He worked for more than 4 years at KPMG, and then later at several investment funds.

San Diego, CA (May 28, 2014) – Ecwid, the only e-commerce solution that lets retailers add an online store to any web platform and to multiple online sites simultaneously, announces it has closed its Series B investment, which will be used to accelerate its rapid growth which has surpassed 500,000 registered merchants worldwide.

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MFMSolutions is one of the largest players in the Russian bulk SMS market as a software developer, systems integrator and a telecom operator with about a 40% market share. The company develops and implements remote customer service functions using mobile technologies, including an in-depth analysis of business processes and integration with IT infrastructure.

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iTech Capital’s Managing Partner Gleb Davidyuk and Investment Manager Ilya Balandin have become members of the Board of Directors. The money will be spent on developing the service, expanding the team and promoting key products.

Aviasales is a leading travel search engine for flights and hotel bookings in Russia. The service helps users compare airfares and hotel options from dozens of travel sites. Then they are redirected to the airline or OTA website to pay for the booking.

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iTech Capital invested US$ 10 mln in Ticketland which is on track to become the largest event ticketing company in Eastern Europe. 
The group includes three major market players in Russia: United Art Tickets – major provider of tickets for concerts, theatre, shows and sports, a supplier of ERP and e-ticket platforms for venues; MDTZK (Moscow Theatre and Shows Ticket Offices Direction) – the oldest and the largest ticket retail chain in Moscow with 130 outlets; and Arena Group – a sport ticketing processing supplier. The joint company employees number more than 400 people.

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The ad tech leader now holds a 65% share of the Russian digital automated search engine marketing sector with 72,000 active advertisers.
The Pult Group’s platform enables businesses to build effective online marketing channels to attract consumers to their websites by automating SEO, paid search and contextual advertising campaigns.

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iConText is an independent provider of search engine marketing services with a focus on PPC campaigns. Founded in 2002, the company grew into a leading market player with the staff of over online marketing professionals, whose 650 clients include top multinational and local agencies and advertisers: Ozon.ru, UniCredit bank, AVITO.ru and others. iContext is a parent company of online agency Registratura.ru, Internet marketing agency Webprofiters, search engine optimization agency iSeo and social media marketing agency Sociorama. Besides that, iConText is the exclusive Russian reseller of the world-leading technology Efficient Frontier, acquired by Adobe. iContext plans to develop new online marketing services and technologies.

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The article is available in Russian: http://www.forbes.ru/svoi-biznes/istorii-uspeha/240589-kak-zarabotat-na-sozdanii-konkurenta-pochty-rossii

Russian ad tech startup Garpun which developed a box solution to provide digital agencies and corporate advertisers with a full set of tools for professional online ad management, has raised $3,5 million in its first round of funding. The round was led by Moscow-based iTech Capital PE & VC fund. The funds will be used to accelerate product development and to add features for additional online marketing channels including RTB. Nikolay Davidov, iTech Capital Investment Director joined Garpun BoD.

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http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2145080/print