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Square’s Big Week: Crypto Patent, Shares Leap, and Lightning Plug

on August 31, 2018

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Travala.com’s Cryptocurrency Gateway Provides Travel to 82,000 Destinations Members of the cryptocurrency community can now book rooms in over 550,000 properties worldwide by utilizing the accommodation and hotel booking service Travala.com. The company’s crypto payment gateway accepts a myriad of cryptocurrencies so individuals and organizations can travel to 82,000 destinations and pay with their favorite digital asset. Also read: An In-Depth Look at Ethereum’s Maker and Dai Stablecoin Book 550,000 Property Listings With a Myriad of Digital Assets Crypto enthusiasts have been discussing a hotel booking service called Travala.com recently which provides accommodation in a wide variety of countries and cities. Travala accepts 10 different cryptocurrencies including its native token AVA, BCH, ETH, XRP, LTC, TUSD, TRX, NAN, XRB, and BNB. The startup’s native token AVA is a protocol based on the NEO network. At the time of publication, the startup offers bookings to 567,928 properties in 210 countries which add up to roughly 82,311 travel destinations. This includes places like Paris, Rome, Bali, Hanoi, Singapore, Amsterdam, London, Lisbon, New York, Los Angeles, Montreal, and Toronto. Travala launched in July of 2018 with the goal of providing a blockchain-powered travel system. Travala heralds itself as the crypto economy’s equivalent to Expedia because of the abundance of prominent listings the service provides. Unfortunately for crypto enthusiasts, Expedia silently dropped bitcoin core (BTC) payments last year for unknown reasons. This year, Travala started seeing increased traction. For instance, January bookings increased from last December’s numbers by 265 percent. The startup also partnered with a leading travel firm from China, Didi Travel, in order to bolster the firm’s presence in one of the largest countries on earth. The most popular destinations in January included places like the U.S., Italy, Thailand, Spain, Singapore, Sweden, and the Philippines. You can now book 550,000+ hotels worldwide with #BitcoinCash $BCH using the https://t.co/CL8FxAXFXS built in crypto payment gateway. Travel to 82,000+ destinations with your favourite #crypto #BCH #blockchain #travel@Bitcoin @rogerkver @BTCTN @BitcoinCashFans @BitcoinCashA pic.twitter.com/OYQekqC7Zk — Travala.com (@travalacom) February 26, 2019 Travala Hopes to Have 1.5 Million Properties Listed in 2019 On Jan. 31 the company introduced fiat payments to the Travala platform which allows people to pay for bookings with Paypal, and four major credit cards. During the update, the startup said that booking descriptions were improved with a “clear breakdown of room type, meal type, price-per-night, booking price, and the total.” Travala also has a roadmap for 2019 improvements and aims to add things like discounts and loyalty rewards to the system. Additionally, Travala will be adding a referral program, integration with Gimmonix, partner with 15 wholesale suppliers, and hopes to cover 1.5 million properties by the year’s end. Travala will be joining a few other companies that offer hotel bookings, accommodations, and flights as well. Cheapair accepts BCH, LTC, DASH, and BTC for hotels, flights, and car rentals. Bitcoin.travel is a travel agency that accepts BTC and queries a list of flights and hotels through its partners. The New York-based travel agency founded in 2013 provides customers with flight and hotel reservations using BTC as well. Users interested in flights and cruise bookings can utilize Webjet Exclusives and Cryptocribs aims to decentralize Airbnb by allowing booking payments with BCH, ETH, and BTC. Travala wants to be known throughout the cryptocurrency ecosystem as a next-generation travel agency. “A one-stop travel booking platform combining the best of this generation’s online travel agency (OTA) functionality with the incredible benefits of next gen’s decentralized technologies and tokenized incentives,” explains the company’s website. Moreover, Travala claims that the company offers a competitive minimum average of 15% lower than current mainstream OTAs. This is due to the partnership with leading wholesale travel solution partners and a cryptocurrency-based incentivization economy. What do you think about Travala.com’s services? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below. Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the mentioned companies, creators, associates, or any of its affiliates or services. Bitcoin.com and the author are not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article. Image credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, and Travala.com. Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post Travala.com’s Cryptocurrency Gateway Provides Travel to 82,000 Destinations appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Members of the cryptocurrency community can now book rooms in over 550,000 properties worldwide by utilizing the accommodation and hotel booking service Travala.com. The company’s crypto payment gateway accepts a myriad of cryptocurrencies so individuals and organizations can travel to 82,000 destinations and pay with their favorite digital asset. Also read: An In-Depth Look at Ethereum’s Maker and Dai Stablecoin Book 550,000 Property Listings With a Myriad of Digital Assets Crypto enthusiasts have been discussing a hotel booking service called Travala.com recently which provides accommodation in a wide variety of countries and cities. Travala accepts 10 different cryptocurrencies including its native token AVA, BCH, ETH, XRP, LTC, TUSD, TRX, NAN, XRB, and BNB. The startup’s native token AVA is a protocol based on the NEO network. At the time of publication, the startup offers bookings to 567,928 properties in 210 countries which add up to roughly 82,311 travel destinations. This

Vitalik Buterin Proposes Updated Staking Reward for Ethereum Vitalik Buterin has put forth a proposal to increase the staking reward for Ethereum in the upcoming implementation of Proof of Stake (PoS). In a post to GitHub published on April 20, the Ethereum co-founder shared his opinion on the amount of ETH that should be paid out in staking once the currency switches to PoS. According to Buterin, that amount should be higher than what has previously be proposed. Ethereum, like Bitcoin and Litecoin, operates on a Proof of Work algorithm that requires computing power in the form of miners to validate transactions. Users pay a fee to miners to initiate coin transactions, while miners also participate in the minting of new coins at regular intervals. However, PoW has its drawbacks. For one, it incentivizes massive mining pools that are able to achieve profitability by generating a disproportionate amount of the network’s hasing power. Large mining pools also increases the competition for mined coin rewards and transaction fees, leading to an overall increase in the computing power contributing to the network. The end result is a massive investment of resources, in the form of both electricity and processors. Proof of Stake is one method for improving upon the efficiency of cryptocurrency-based blockchain networks, and the algorithm that Ethereum developers have to decided to transition the currency to over the next 16 months. Compared to mining, Proof of Stake employs an incentive system based around users “staking” coins in their wallet. The more coins a user has staked–in this case ETH–the more they contribute to the network functionality, and are rewarded with a payout. Similar to the dividends paid out to investors by certain stocks, staking is a regular compensation in proportion to the number of coins staked. However, as Ethereum moves through the process of transitioning to a PoS algorithm, the currency must contend with decisions such as the percentage of coins that should be awarded for staking. Buterin’s proposal will see the creation of 2,097,152 ether per year when 134,217,728 ETH is staked and serving to validate transactions. The result would be an annual dividend of 1.56% for investors–a small amount by some currency standards, but a reward that also avoids introducing over-inflation to existing ETH. Buterin also gives a breakdown of various payouts based on the Ether being staked. Compared to the former value, which represents a theoretical maximum staking for Ethereum (the circulating supply of ETH is only 105 million), 1 million staked Ether would result in a return of 18.10%, while 10 million would net stakers 5.72%. The value of staked Ethereum will likely fall far short of the proposed maximum, as many investors will choose to forgo tying up their coins in wallets and therefore making them unavailable for trading. Justin Drake, an Ethereum researcher, replied in the GitHub comments with his approval of Buterin’s algorithm. Targeting 32 million staked Ether, which Drake calls an ideal figure for maintaining network security, investors can expect a base return of 3.2%, with yearly inflation to Ethereum being around 1%–far less than the average U.S. dollar inflation rate of 3.22%. The post Vitalik Buterin Proposes Updated Staking Reward for Ethereum appeared first on Ethereum World News.

Vitalik Buterin has put forth a proposal to increase the staking reward for Ethereum in the upcoming implementation of Proof of Stake (PoS). In a post to GitHub published on April 20, the Ethereum co-founder shared his opinion on the amount of ETH that should be paid out in staking once the currency switches to PoS. According to Buterin, that amount should be higher than what has previously be proposed. Ethereum, like Bitcoin and Litecoin, operates on a Proof of Work algorithm that requires computing power in the form of miners to validate transactions. Users pay a fee to miners to initiate coin transactions, while miners also participate in the minting of new coins at regular intervals. However, PoW has its drawbacks. For one, it incentivizes massive mining pools that are able to achieve profitability by generating a disproportionate amount of the network’s hasing power. Large mining pools also increases the competition for mined coin rewards and transaction fees, leading to an ov

Ethereum Anti-ASIC Protocol Delayed As Crypto Developers Mull Ethereum Developers Delay ProgPoW Activation Per previous reports from this outlet, early last month, Ethereum (ETH) developers convened in a meeting that glossed over a number of subjects, including the network’s ASIC-resistant qualities. After some deliberation, the project’s core developers determined that it would be logical to eventually activate ProgPoW, a special Proof of Work (PoW) protocol that equals the playing field between ASICs and GPUs (almost like mining farms v.s. consumers). While an agreement was seemingly struck that the protocol would go live eventually, the timeline was nebulous and barely mentioned. So, when Ethereum’s lead developers, Hudson Jameson, Afri Schodedon, Lane Rettig, among others, met on Friday to discuss the matter, more discussion was had regarding ProgPoW’s activation schedule. According to a debrief from The Block on the subject, ProgPoW was somewhat put on the backburner. The developers determined that they weren’t all too sure whether they should activate the protocol, noting that an audit/external consulting should take place to ensure that not only is the protocol ready to go live, but that the Ethereum community/ecosystem is too. This doesn’t seem to be a bid to delay the protocol to benefit ASICs manufacturers, like Bitmain, as one call participant stated: I don’t know what to do here, expertise [in ASIC/ProgPoW debate] isn’t adequate relative to others… it’s hard to know who to listen to and whose information is right. It’s a decision I’m not excited to make for the network. Constantinople (ETH Issuance Reduction) Still Coming Up Although many Ethereum community members were disconcerted by the delay of ProgPoW’s implementation, there seems to be no exact cause for concern. In fact, since the news broke that the upgrade would seemingly be put on the backburner, ETH has held strong, posting a 0.7% gain in the past 24 hours amid a ‘mixed bag’ market. And with Constantinople still on track to be (re)activated during late-February, some would argue that the prospects for the third cryptocurrency by market capitalization are actually more bullish than bearish. For those who missed the memo, while Constantinople is also focused on providing short-term scaling solutions, like reducing gas costs for smart contract executions, the network upgrade will reduce the amount of Ether issued per block. If Constantinople goes live shortly, the amount of ETH rewarded per block will move from three to two (33% reduction). Considering simple supply and demand economics, many analysts have lauded the upgrade as a potential catalyst for upward price action. Alex Kruger, a New York-based crypto researcher, once claimed that the fork is “decidedly bullish” for ETH’s long-term prospects, as the issuance reduction, or so-called “thirdening,” will likely push the cryptocurrency higher due to simple supply and demand economics. Moon Overlord, a leading crypto trader, touched on this subject matter on Saturday, taking to Twitter to note that block reward reductions and halvings “are the most bullish events in crypto history,” adding that now’s the time to pay attention and start accumulating. This recent comment comes after Overlord took to Twitter to start garnering hype around Bitcoin’s halvening next May, which will see the amount of BTC issued per block fall to 6.25 from 12.5. As reported by Ethereum World News previously, the analyst claimed that as “Bitcoin has traditionally started pumping around one year on average before it’s halving date.” And as the next issuance shift is slated to occur during May 2020, BTC could begin trending higher in May. Title Image Courtesy of Descryptive.com Via Flickr The post Ethereum Anti-ASIC Protocol Delayed As Crypto Developers Mull appeared first on Ethereum World News.

Ethereum Developers Delay ProgPoW Activation Per previous reports from this outlet, early last month, Ethereum (ETH) developers convened in a meeting that glossed over a number of subjects, including the network’s ASIC-resistant qualities. After some deliberation, the project’s core developers determined that it would be logical to eventually activate ProgPoW, a special Proof of Work (PoW) protocol that equals the playing field between ASICs and GPUs (almost like mining farms v.s. consumers). While an agreement was seemingly struck that the protocol would go live eventually, the timeline was nebulous and barely mentioned. So, when Ethereum’s lead developers, Hudson Jameson, Afri Schodedon, Lane Rettig, among others, met on Friday to discuss the matter, more discussion was had regarding ProgPoW’s activation schedule. According to a debrief from The Block on the subject, ProgPoW was somewhat put on the backburner. The developers determined that they weren’t all too sure whether they

Survey Reveals Turkey is Highly Obsessed With Crypto, Especially Dogecoin

The entire crypto industry has been experiencing a winter since the last quarter of 2021. Some cryptocurrency prices experienced a massive price slump, with many declining over 65%. However bad things may look, crypto may not go extinct as its popularity has not reduced. A recent study by CryptoManiaks , a crypto education platform, shows that Turkey and the Netherlands ranked top in cryptocurrency awareness. As per the survey, 5.5% and 8.2% of the population in Turkey and the Netherlands searched for crypto-related terms. Turkey accounted for 4.7 million searches, topping the chart with large numbers. Turkey has made tremendous improvements in crypto adoption since the beginning of 2022. A 2022 research by the Turkish crypto exchange Paribu estimated that at least 8 million people in Turkey engaged in crypto. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke about the benefits of blockchain innovations. In his statement, Erdogan added that Turkey wants to be a producer of digital assets

Bitcoin Price Crystal Ball – What Happens To BTC After Christmas 2022?

Bitcoin and the broader crypto market rapidly reversed course in response to the U.S. Federal Reserve’s announcement of a 50-basis-point increase in interest rates, erasing any gains made before the disclosure. The Federal Reserve has been steadily raising interest rates in an effort to ease the economy and rein in inflation, which has driven prices of basic commodities to record highs. Yesterday, Bitcoin’s price reached a one-month high and had a brief recovery of positive momentum, but a conservative report from the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) and remarks from Fed chair Jerome Powell drove BTC to an intraday low of $17,659. A Whipsaw For Bitcoin After Fed Disclosure According to TradingView data, the BTC price saw a bit of a whipsaw in response to the central bank announcement, rising to an intraday high of $18,377 before falling to a low of $17,663 in a few of hours before bulls pushed it back up above the $17,800 support. Prior to Powell’s announcement, the key index

Bank of Spain Report: Bitcoin Is a Solution for a System Without Censorship

A recent report published by the Bank of Spain states that Bitcoin is a solution for the creation of a system without censorship. This is in contrast to public comments made by most central bankers who are prone to attack cryptocurrency with little insight into why it is needed. Also Read: Survey: ‘Blockchain’ Was Most Overrated Buzzword of 2018 Explaining Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash to Bankers Banco de España, Spain’s central bank and supervisor of the Spanish banking system, recently published a report aiming to explain how Bitcoin works. The document details the functions of the cryptocurrency, as well as analyzing its strengths and weaknesses from the point of view of the established financial order. It also explains that the best way to understand the aims of the new system is by consulting the original Bitcoin whitepaper written by Satoshi Nakamoto. The report mentions that according to Nakamoto the world needs “an electronic payment system based on cryptographic pro

SAND Experiences Increased Selling, But Traders Should Short At This Level

SAND, the SandBox, has been free-falling since the month of August. The coin has registered a severe decline in demand, which has caused the crypto to lose further value. The asset has pierced through various support levels over the past few months. It lost 2.2% of its value in the last 24 hours. Over the past week, the coin has depreciated in double digits, which has caused the coin to reach a multi-month low on the chart. The technical outlook displayed that the coin has received very little demand, and the buyers have exited the market. The consistent fall in demand can be attributed to major market movers faltering on their respective charts. Support from the broader market remains crucial for The Sandbox (SAND) to recover. The technical outlook still points to the coin losing further value, which indicates that sellers can liquidate the asset and purchase it when it dips to sell it again when the value rises. The trading volume in Sandbox declined, indicating that the bears wer

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