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[Infographic] Cryptocurrency Guide Brought to You by BitcoinIRA.com

UPDATE June 11, 2019: Image updated with the latest coin stats and our newest tokens.

 

If you’re looking to invest in cryptocurrency for your IRA or 401(K) with BitcoinIRA.com, you probably want to know more of the specifics about each digital currency we support. That’s why we created this comprehensive cryptocurrency guide, which breaks down the definitions, key characteristics, and price projections for Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Ethereum Classic.

 

It’s an exciting time to plan for retirement. Thought leaders in the crypto space are predicting price increases for each of these six currencies by the end of year. To get started with purchasing digital currencies in your IRA or 401(k), contact BitcoinIRA.com at (877) 936-7175.

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Ripple Price 2018: Why It’s Projected to Soar

Ripple (XRP) is a real-time gross settlement system, currency exchange, and remittance network. It has the third-largest market cap of any digital currency, and a passionate base of Twitter followers. Recently, the cryptocurrency partnered with a number of different financial organizations and institutions, including MoneyGram, FDT Corporation, Mercury FX, and Western Union.  According to the Ripple website, the digital currency strives to bring payments out of the disco era and into the present world where “three billion people are connected online, cars drive themselves and appliances can communicate.” But does it live up to all of the hype? Let’s take a closer look.

How Ripple Transactions Work

Ripple connects banks, payment providers, and digital asset exchanges via RippleNet. Unlike Bitcoin, where transactions are verified through a proof of work process that typically takes about 10 minutes, Ripple transactions are confirmed with a consensus protocol that typically takes 5 seconds. If someone tries to submit the same payment through multiple gateways, distributed nodes decide by consensus which transaction was made first, thus preventing the problem of double spend. Furthermore, the transaction fee, at 0.00001 XRP, is much less expensive than that charged by banks processing cross-border payments.

Ripple has two primary products for banks: xCurrent and xRapid. xCurrent, Ripple’s settlement solution for banks, allows the originating bank, the correspondent bank and the beneficiary bank to use a messenger system to coordinate information between banks, while the ILP ledger uses the interledger protocol to coordinate funds movement.

Meanwhile, xRapid uses the XRP asset to offer on-demand liquidity. Describing xRapid’s functionality, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said: “The Bank of Andy can sell $1, buy XRP. That XRP can now be moved to an Argentinian digital asset exchange, you can sell the XRP and buy an Argentinian peso, and now you have good liquid funds in less than 10 seconds in another market.”

With the implementation of xCurrent and xRapid, Ripple is striving to transform global commerce as we know it, and a growing number of partnerships indicate that many organizations and financial institutions are on board.

Ripple’s Growing Partnerships

Over a hundred banks are currently using xCurrent, while five customers are currently testing xRapid. These notable companies and institutions include, but are not limited to: money transfer company MoneyGram, currency specialist Mercury FX, telecom provider IDT, and financial services company Western Union. Western Union CTO Sheri Rhodes expressed enthusiasm about experimenting with Ripple’s technology:  “We have a strong platform and system that work well today, but we continue to explore and test whether these technologies could potentially reduce costs and improve the customer experience,” Rhodes recently said, indicating that the momentum for Ripple as both a currency and a global payments solution seems to only be increasing.

Ripple in Your IRA

As Ripple continues to establish itself as a cryptocurrency and an innovative global payments solution, it can also be viewed as a strategic choice for those looking to diversify their retirement portfolio with cryptocurrencies. XRP increased by more than 1,000 percent since the start of December 2017, and bestselling author Craig Beck predicts that the by the end of 2018, the Ripple price is expected to bisect the $2 hurdle at least. 

Trevor Koverko, the CEO of securities token platform Polymath, recently told Forbes: “People feel comfortable with the name and the security of Ripple. A lot of people are beginning to realize how big of an opportunity there is between business and the blockchain, and that’s making Ripple the early winner here.”

To capitalize on this groundbreaking opportunity to invest in Ripple for your IRA or 401(k) account, give Bitcoin IRA a call today at 877-936-7175.

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Blythe Masters, Inventor of the Credit Default Swap Believes Bitcoin Can Save Banks & Society Billions

Picture credit: Thierry Ehrmann

Blythe Masters is a genius economic engineer.

She began her career studying at the University of Cambridge and then quickly joined JP Morgan Chase. Her education made her an expert on risk. Her talent turned her education into genius. She invented a quick way for banks to handle risk with insurance, ensuring internal resilience for JP Morgan’s systems.

Risk is the chance that a transaction will not be completed. Each of us, as institutional entities, interact with the financial web where we build a reputation. When you settle your debts quickly, you become a trusted actor. When you don’t pay your debts quickly or efficiently, you are high risk.

The equation of risk takes into account the time it takes for a transaction to settle. The more time it takes, the greater the risk. The chances of you defaulting are regularly calculated based on an infinite number of data points calculated by computer software. When collections of these debts are bundled together, the risk is spread across the whole portfolio. Now, imagine, you want to take out insurance that the loans will be paid back.

You’d pay a premium for that insurance, right?

This way of managing risk, in a nutshell, is the credit default swap. Blythe Masters designed them at JP Morgan Chase in a career marked by innovation. Today, JP Morgan is known for managing risk well. While other banks failed from mismanaging risk up to the 2008 crisis, JP Morgan continues to lead. Why? Well, Masters knows how to create tools that work and knows how to wield them well. This ability frees up internal bank capital to be used elsewhere in the institution, which in turn flows into the larger economy as a whole.

However, Masters was ridiculed as “The Woman Who Built Financial Weapons of Mass Destruction”  This statement is like saying whoever invented the knife is responsible for all murders caused by knives , while discounting all the nourishing meals that knives help us create. After the dust had settled with the 2008 crisis, Masters thought of ways to undo the damage done by those who had used her tools for evil at less than stellar banks. Naturally, as an economic engineer, she turned to technology to explore these solutions in depth.

Cutting red tape in transactions could free up large amounts of capital for banks to make more loans to society as a whole, open more markets, and create transparency in a largely darkened part of institutional dealing. Instead of transactions marked by slowness of 20 business days, an institution can settle accounts within 10 minutes with previously unknown entities. Can you imagine all the lawyers and escrow services that will no longer be in business?

Blockchain technology, upon which Bitcoin is built, programs trust into the transaction

Like email was to the postal service, so is Bitcoin for the financial system. Masters, after researching this in depth, now runs a firm to create the products banks need to use this technology internally. Now, the tools that Masters and her team create will free up capital more quickly and be used without as much risk.

Instead of mastering risk, banks can focus on performing the function they were mainly created to perform by dispersing money like hearts pumping capital into the arteries of society. Making investments more efficient, quick, and laying out the landscape changes everything for sophisticated actors like banks but also for the average person. Blythe Masters now works to create a stronger immune system for financial markets through distributed technology based on the Internet of finance as Bitcoin. Technology allows us to move into a more collaborative system with incredible resilience through transparency.

The Digital Asset platform uses distributed ledger technology

It allows the mutualization of financial market infrastructure across distinct market participants. It does this while maintaining confidentiality and scalability, both vital for large, regulated markets. The DA Platform eliminates discrepancies between disparate but duplicative siloed data records, reducing the current errors, latency, risk, cost and capital requirements involved in processing financial transactions. Participants in the Platform share a single source of truth which provides continuous data integrity, any desired or mandated degree of transparency and the opportunity for rapid innovation.

The above is an excerpt from the non-technical white paper. You can read it in full here.

What makes Blockchain the future of Databases

Bitcoin is a form of digital currency designed to replace the existing monetary system. Owing to the low transaction fee, non-requirement of a third party and ease of transaction it is being looked as a really good alternative for fiat currencies. It is powered by ledger based technology that depends on high computing power to enable transparency, speed and decentralization.  While the fate of the currency is still in question, the underlying technology has received wide reception for its applications. Technology enthusiasts were quick enough to understand the disruptive nature of Blockchain and immediately hunted for real time applications. Let’s look into the characteristics that make Blockchain so disruptive:

Decentralization:

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On a holistic level, Blockchain technology can be termed as a collection of databases. The only difference in this network is that unlike traditional databases, each database can be operated by different entities. To be more specific, independent nodes can access this network and operate on it. Traditional databases have few limited users who have complete control over the database.  Blockchain network is completely decentralized with the operations requiring approval from each node, making it transparent and democratic at the same time.

Few variations of the same ledger based technology find numerous applications in the field of financial services, ecommerce, supply chain and wholesale industries. With right constraints and access Blockchain is sure to revolutionize many fields in the near future.

Immutability:

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Blockchain has gained quick reputation for applications in Finance owing to its immutability. Data written to a Blockchain is literally data etched in stone. Owing to this immutable or irreversible property, Blockchain can be used to track transactions of an account, products in supply chain and land registries in real estate.

Exchange of Assets:

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A decentralized network that is immutable certainly forms a strong foundation for the development of an exchange platform. That is how Blockchain has served with Bitcoin and it can be extrapolated to serve as an exchange means for other digital assets. Most of the major banks are looking into this aspect to enable quick cross border transactions and trade settlements.