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Summary: Everyone knows that when you give your assets to someone else, they always keep them safe. If this is true for individuals, it is certainly true for businesses.
Custodians always tell the truth and manage funds properly. They won't have any interest in taking the assets as an exchange operator would. Auditors tell the truth and can't be misled. That's because organizations that are regulated are incapable of lying and don't make mistakes.
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First, some background. Here is a summary of how custodians make us more secure:
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Previously, we might give Alice our crypto assets to hold. There were risks:

• Alice might take the assets and disappear.
• Alice might spend the assets and pretend that she still has them (fractional model).
• Alice might store the assets insecurely and they'll get stolen.
• Alice might give the assets to someone else by mistake or by force.
• Alice might lose access to the assets.

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But "no worries", Alice has a custodian named Bob. Bob is dressed in a nice suit. He knows some politicians. And he drives a Porsche. "So you have nothing to worry about!". And look at all the benefits we get:

• Alice can't take the assets and disappear (unless she asks Bob or never gives them to Bob).
• Alice can't spend the assets and pretend that she still has them. (Unless she didn't give them to Bob or asks him for them.)
• Alice can't store the assets insecurely so they get stolen. (After all - she doesn't have any control over the withdrawal process from any of Bob's systems, right?)
• Alice can't give the assets to someone else by mistake or by force. (Bob will stop her, right Bob?)
• Alice can't lose access to the funds. (She'll always be present, sane, and remember all secrets, right?)

See - all problems are solved! All we have to worry about now is:

• Bob might take the assets and disappear.
• Bob might spend the assets and pretend that he still has them (fractional model).
• Bob might store the assets insecurely and they'll get stolen.
• Bob might give the assets to someone else by mistake or by force.
• Bob might lose access to the assets.

It's pretty simple. Before we had to trust Alice. Now we only have to trust Alice, Bob, and all the ways in which they communicate. Just think of how much more secure we are!
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"On top of that", Bob assures us, "we're using a special wallet structure". Bob shows Alice a diagram. "We've broken the balance up and store it in lots of smaller wallets. That way", he assures her, "a thief can't take it all at once". And he points to a historic case where a large sum was taken "because it was stored in a single wallet... how stupid".
"Very early on, we used to have all the crypto in one wallet", he said, "and then one Christmas a hacker came and took it all. We call him the Grinch. Now we individually wrap each crypto and stick it under a binary search tree. The Grinch has never been back since."
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"As well", Bob continues, "even if someone were to get in, we've got insurance. It covers all thefts and even coercion, collusion, and misplaced keys - only subject to the policy terms and conditions." And with that, he pulls out a phone-book sized contract and slams it on the desk with a thud. "Yep", he continues, "we're paying top dollar for one of the best policies in the country!"
"Can I read it?' Alice asks. "Sure," Bob says, "just as soon as our legal team is done with it. They're almost through the first chapter." He pauses, then continues. "And can you believe that sales guy Mike? He has the same year Porsche as me. I mean, what are the odds?"
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"Do you use multi-sig?", Alice asks. "Absolutely!" Bob replies. "All our engineers are fully trained in multi-sig. Whenever we want to set up a new wallet, we generate 2 separate keys in an air-gapped process and store them in this proprietary system here. Look, it even requires the biometric signature from one of our team members to initiate any withdrawal." He demonstrates by pressing his thumb into the display. "We use a third-party cloud validation API to match the thumbprint and authorize each withdrawal. The keys are also backed up daily to an off-site third-party."
"Wow that's really impressive," Alice says, "but what if we need access for a withdrawal outside of office hours?" "Well that's no issue", Bob says, "just send us an email, call, or text message and we always have someone on staff to help out. Just another part of our strong commitment to all our customers!"
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"What about Proof of Reserve?", Alice asks. "Of course", Bob replies, "though rather than publish any blockchain addresses or signed transaction, for privacy we just do a SHA256 refactoring of the inverse hash modulus for each UTXO nonce and combine the smart contract coefficient consensus in our hyperledger lightning node. But it's really simple to use." He pushes a button and a large green checkmark appears on a screen. "See - the algorithm ran through and reserves are proven."
"Wow", Alice says, "you really know your stuff! And that is easy to use! What about fiat balances?" "Yeah, we have an auditor too", Bob replies, "Been using him for a long time so we have quite a strong relationship going! We have special books we give him every year and he's very efficient! Checks the fiat, crypto, and everything all at once!"
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"We used to have a nice offline multi-sig setup we've been using without issue for the past 5 years, but I think we'll move all our funds over to your facility," Alice says. "Awesome", Bob replies, "Thanks so much! This is perfect timing too - my Porsche got a dent on it this morning. We have the paperwork right over here." "Great!", Alice replies.
And with that, Alice gets out her pen and Bob gets the contract. "Don't worry", he says, "you can take your crypto-assets back anytime you like - just subject to our cancellation policy. Our annual management fees are also super low and we don't adjust them often".
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How many holes have to exist for your funds to get stolen?
Just one.
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Why are we taking a powerful offline multi-sig setup, widely used globally in hundreds of different/lacking regulatory environments with 0 breaches to date, and circumventing it by a demonstrably weak third party layer? And paying a great expense to do so?
If you go through the list of breaches in the past 2 years to highly credible organizations, you go through the list of major corporate frauds (only the ones we know about), you go through the list of all the times platforms have lost funds, you go through the list of times and ways that people have lost their crypto from identity theft, hot wallet exploits, extortion, etc... and then you go through this custodian with a fine-tooth comb and truly believe they have value to add far beyond what you could, sticking your funds in a wallet (or set of wallets) they control exclusively is the absolute worst possible way to take advantage of that security.
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The best way to add security for crypto-assets is to make a stronger multi-sig. With one custodian, what you are doing is giving them your cryptocurrency and hoping they're honest, competent, and flawlessly secure. It's no different than storing it on a really secure exchange. Maybe the insurance will cover you. Didn't work for Bitpay in 2015. Didn't work for Yapizon in 2017. Insurance has never paid a claim in the entire history of cryptocurrency. But maybe you'll get lucky. Maybe your exact scenario will buck the trend and be what they're willing to cover. After the large deductible and hopefully without a long and expensive court battle.
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And you want to advertise this increase in risk, the lapse of judgement, an accident waiting to happen, as though it's some kind of benefit to customers ("Free institutional-grade storage for your digital assets.")? And then some people are writing to the OSC that custodians should be mandatory for all funds on every exchange platform? That this somehow will make Canadians as a whole more secure or better protected compared with standard air-gapped multi-sig? On what planet?
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Most of the problems in Canada stemmed from one thing - a lack of transparency. If Canadians had known what a joke Quadriga was - it wouldn't have grown to lose $400m from hard-working Canadians from coast to coast to coast. And Gerald Cotten would be in jail, not wherever he is now (at best, rotting peacefully). EZ-BTC and mister Dave Smilie would have been a tiny little scam to his friends, not a multi-million dollar fraud. Einstein would have got their act together or been shut down BEFORE losing millions and millions more in people's funds generously donated to criminals. MapleChange wouldn't have even been a thing. And maybe we'd know a little more about CoinTradeNewNote - like how much was lost in there. Almost all of the major losses with cryptocurrency exchanges involve deception with unbacked funds.
So it's great to see transparency reports from BitBuy and ShakePay where someone independently verified the backing. The only thing we don't have is:

• ANY CERTAINTY BALANCES WEREN'T EXCLUDED. Quadriga's largest account was $70m. 80% of funds are in 20% of accounts (Pareto principle). All it takes is excluding a few really large accounts - and nobody's the wiser. A fractional platform can easily pass any audit this way.
• ANY VISIBILITY WHATSOEVER INTO THE CUSTODIANS. BitBuy put out their report before moving all the funds to their custodian and ShakePay apparently can't even tell us who the custodian is. That's pretty important considering that basically all of the funds are now stored there.
• ANY IDEA ABOUT THE OTHER EXCHANGES. In order for this to be effective, it has to be the norm. It needs to be "unusual" not to know. If obscurity is the norm, then it's super easy for people like Gerald Cotten and Dave Smilie to blend right in.

It's not complicated to validate cryptocurrency assets. They need to exist, they need to be spendable, and they need to cover the total balances. There are plenty of credible people and firms across the country that have the capacity to reasonably perform this validation. Having more frequent checks by different, independent, parties who publish transparent reports is far more valuable than an annual check by a single "more credible/official" party who does the exact same basic checks and may or may not publish anything. Here's an example set of requirements that could be mandated:

• First report within 1 month of launching, another within 3 months, and further reports at minimum every 6 months thereafter.
• No auditor can be repeated within a 12 month period.
• All reports must be public, identifying the auditor and the full methodology used.
• All auditors must be independent of the firm being audited with no conflict of interest.
• Reports must include the percentage of each asset backed, and how it's backed.
• The auditor publishes a hash list, which lists a hash of each customer's information and balances that were included. Hash is one-way encryption so privacy is fully preserved. Every customer can use this to have 100% confidence they were included.
• If we want more extensive requirements on audits, these should scale upward based on the total assets at risk on the platform, and whether the platform has loaned their assets out.

There are ways to structure audits such that neither crypto assets nor customer information are ever put at risk, and both can still be properly validated and publicly verifiable. There are also ways to structure audits such that they are completely reasonable for small platforms and don't inhibit innovation in any way. By making the process as reasonable as possible, we can completely eliminate any reason/excuse that an honest platform would have for not being audited. That is arguable far more important than any incremental improvement we might get from mandating "the best of the best" accountants. Right now we have nothing mandated and tons of Canadians using offshore exchanges with no oversight whatsoever.
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Transparency does not prove crypto assets are safe. CoinTradeNewNote, Flexcoin ($600k), and Canadian Bitcoins ($100k) are examples where crypto-assets were breached from platforms in Canada. All of them were online wallets and used no multi-sig as far as any records show. This is consistent with what we see globally - air-gapped multi-sig wallets have an impeccable record, while other schemes tend to suffer breach after breach. We don't actually know how much CoinTrader lost because there was no visibility. Rather than publishing details of what happened, the co-founder of CoinTrader silently moved on to found another platform - the "most trusted way to buy and sell crypto" - a site that has no information whatsoever (that I could find) on the storage practices and a FAQ advising that “[t]rading cryptocurrency is completely safe” and that having your own wallet is “entirely up to you! You can certainly keep cryptocurrency, or fiat, or both, on the app.” Doesn't sound like much was learned here, which is really sad to see.
It's not that complicated or unreasonable to set up a proper hardware wallet. Multi-sig can be learned in a single course. Something the equivalent complexity of a driver's license test could prevent all the cold storage exploits we've seen to date - even globally. Platform operators have a key advantage in detecting and preventing fraud - they know their customers far better than any custodian ever would. The best job that custodians can do is to find high integrity individuals and train them to form even better wallet signatories. Rather than mandating that all platforms expose themselves to arbitrary third party risks, regulations should center around ensuring that all signatories are background-checked, properly trained, and using proper procedures. We also need to make sure that signatories are empowered with rights and responsibilities to reject and report fraud. They need to know that they can safely challenge and delay a transaction - even if it turns out they made a mistake. We need to have an environment where mistakes are brought to the surface and dealt with. Not one where firms and people feel the need to hide what happened. In addition to a knowledge-based test, an auditor can privately interview each signatory to make sure they're not in coercive situations, and we should make sure they can freely and anonymously report any issues without threat of retaliation.
A proper multi-sig has each signature held by a separate person and is governed by policies and mutual decisions instead of a hierarchy. It includes at least one redundant signature. For best results, 3of4, 3of5, 3of6, 4of5, 4of6, 4of7, 5of6, or 5of7.
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History has demonstrated over and over again the risk of hot wallets even to highly credible organizations. Nonetheless, many platforms have hot wallets for convenience. While such losses are generally compensated by platforms without issue (for example Poloniex, Bitstamp, Bitfinex, Gatecoin, Coincheck, Bithumb, Zaif, CoinBene, Binance, Bitrue, Bitpoint, Upbit, VinDAX, and now KuCoin), the public tends to focus more on cases that didn't end well. Regardless of what systems are employed, there is always some level of risk. For that reason, most members of the public would prefer to see third party insurance.
Rather than trying to convince third party profit-seekers to provide comprehensive insurance and then relying on an expensive and slow legal system to enforce against whatever legal loopholes they manage to find each and every time something goes wrong, insurance could be run through multiple exchange operators and regulators, with the shared interest of having a reputable industry, keeping costs down, and taking care of Canadians. For example, a 4 of 7 multi-sig insurance fund held between 5 independent exchange operators and 2 regulatory bodies. All Canadian exchanges could pay premiums at a set rate based on their needed coverage, with a higher price paid for hot wallet coverage (anything not an air-gapped multi-sig cold wallet). Such a model would be much cheaper to manage, offer better coverage, and be much more reliable to payout when needed. The kind of coverage you could have under this model is unheard of. You could even create something like the CDIC to protect Canadians who get their trading accounts hacked if they can sufficiently prove the loss is legitimate. In cases of fraud, gross negligence, or insolvency, the fund can be used to pay affected users directly (utilizing the last transparent balance report in the worst case), something which private insurance would never touch. While it's recommended to have official policies for coverage, a model where members vote would fully cover edge cases. (Could be similar to the Supreme Court where justices vote based on case law.)
Such a model could fully protect all Canadians across all platforms. You can have a fiat coverage governed by legal agreements, and crypto-asset coverage governed by both multi-sig and legal agreements. It could be practical, affordable, and inclusive.
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Now, we are at a crossroads. We can happily give up our freedom, our innovation, and our money. We can pay hefty expenses to auditors, lawyers, and regulators year after year (and make no mistake - this cost will grow to many millions or even billions as the industry grows - and it will be borne by all Canadians on every platform because platforms are not going to eat up these costs at a loss). We can make it nearly impossible for any new platform to enter the marketplace, forcing Canadians to use the same stagnant platforms year after year. We can centralize and consolidate the entire industry into 2 or 3 big players and have everyone else fail (possibly to heavy losses of users of those platforms). And when a flawed security model doesn't work and gets breached, we can make it even more complicated with even more people in suits making big money doing the job that blockchain was supposed to do in the first place. We can build a system which is so intertwined and dependent on big government, traditional finance, and central bankers that it's future depends entirely on that of the fiat system, of fractional banking, and of government bail-outs. If we choose this path, as history has shown us over and over again, we can not go back, save for revolution. Our children and grandchildren will still be paying the consequences of what we decided today.
Or, we can find solutions that work. We can maintain an open and innovative environment while making the adjustments we need to make to fully protect Canadian investors and cryptocurrency users, giving easy and affordable access to cryptocurrency for all Canadians on the platform of their choice, and creating an environment in which entrepreneurs and problem solvers can bring those solutions forward easily. None of the above precludes innovation in any way, or adds any unreasonable cost - and these three policies would demonstrably eliminate or resolve all 109 historic cases as studied here - that's every single case researched so far going back to 2011. It includes every loss that was studied so far not just in Canada but globally as well.
Unfortunately, finding answers is the least challenging part. Far more challenging is to get platform operators and regulators to agree on anything. My last post got no response whatsoever, and while the OSC has told me they're happy for industry feedback, I believe my opinion alone is fairly meaningless. This takes the whole community working together to solve. So please let me know your thoughts. Please take the time to upvote and share this with people. Please - let's get this solved and not leave it up to other people to do.
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Facts/background/sources (skip if you like):

• The inspiration for the paragraph about splitting wallets was an actual quote from a Canadian company providing custodial services in response to the OSC consultation paper: "We believe that it will be in the in best interests of investors to prohibit pooled crypto assets or ‘floats’. Most Platforms pool assets, citing reasons of practicality and expense. The recent hack of the world’s largest Platform – Binance – demonstrates the vulnerability of participants’ assets when such concessions are made. In this instance, the Platform’s entire hot wallet of Bitcoins, worth over $40 million, was stolen, facilitated in part by the pooling of client crypto assets." "the maintenance of participants (and Platform) crypto assets across multiple wallets distributes the related risk and responsibility of security - reducing the amount of insurance coverage required and making insurance coverage more readily obtainable". For the record, their reply also said nothing whatsoever about multi-sig or offline storage.
• In addition to the fact that the $40m hack represented only one "hot wallet" of Binance, and they actually had the vast majority of assets in other wallets (including mostly cold wallets), multiple real cases have clearly demonstrated that risk is still present with multiple wallets. Bitfinex, VinDAX, Bithumb, Altsbit, BitPoint, Cryptopia, and just recently KuCoin all had multiple wallets breached all at the same time, and may represent a significantly larger impact on customers than the Binance breach which was fully covered by Binance. To represent that simply having multiple separate wallets under the same security scheme is a comprehensive way to reduce risk is just not true.
• Private insurance has historically never covered a single loss in the cryptocurrency space (at least, not one that I was able to find), and there are notable cases where massive losses were not covered by insurance. Bitpay in 2015 and Yapizon in 2017 both had insurance policies that didn't pay out during the breach, even after a lengthly court process. The same insurance that ShakePay is presently using (and announced to much fanfare) was describe by their CEO himself as covering “physical theft of the media where the private keys are held,” which is something that has never historically happened. As was said with regard to the same policy in 2018 - “I don’t find it surprising that Lloyd’s is in this space,” said Johnson, adding that to his mind the challenge for everybody is figuring out how to structure these policies so that they are actually protective. “You can create an insurance policy that protects no one – you know there are so many caveats to the policy that it’s not super protective.”
• The most profitable policy for a private insurance company is one with the most expensive premiums that they never have to pay a claim on. They have no inherent incentive to take care of people who lost funds. It's "cheaper" to take the reputational hit and fight the claim in court. The more money at stake, the more the insurance provider is incentivized to avoid payout. They're not going to insure the assets unless they have reasonable certainty to make a profit by doing so, and they're not going to pay out a massive sum unless it's legally forced. Private insurance is always structured to be maximally profitable to the insurance provider.
• The circumvention of multi-sig was a key factor in the massive Bitfinex hack of over $60m of bitcoin, which today still sits being slowly used and is worth over $3b. While Bitfinex used a qualified custodian Bitgo, which was and still is active and one of the industry leaders of custodians, and they set up 2 of 3 multi-sig wallets, the entire system was routed through Bitfinex, such that Bitfinex customers could initiate the withdrawals in a "hot" fashion. This feature was also a hit with the hacker. The multi-sig was fully circumvented.
• Bitpay in 2015 was another example of a breach that stole 5,000 bitcoins. This happened not through the exploit of any system in Bitpay, but because the CEO of a company they worked with got their computer hacked and the hackers were able to request multiple bitcoin purchases, which Bitpay honoured because they came from the customer's computer legitimately. Impersonation is a very common tactic used by fraudsters, and methods get more extreme all the time.
• A notable case in Canada was the Canadian Bitcoins exploit. Funds were stored on a server in a Rogers Data Center, and the attendee was successfully convinced to reboot the server "in safe mode" with a simple phone call, thus bypassing the extensive security and enabling the theft.
• Over $200m has been stolen impersonating users of cryptocurrency platforms by one group alone. Here's a list of 10 social engineering attacks against corporate companies. Here's an even larger case. While verification methods are improving, so are methods of identity theft and social engineering. We now have sim swapping and deep fake videos to contend with. Hackers have massive database sets of personal information they can utilize. As the sums at stake increase, so to will the level of effort criminals are willing to undertake. Obscurity for an insecure system will only postpone an attack until the "jackpot" is large enough.
• The very nature of custodians circumvents multi-sig. This is because custodians are not just having to secure the assets against some sort of physical breach but against any form of social engineering, modification of orders, fraudulent withdrawal attempts, etc... If the security practices of signatories in a multi-sig arrangement are such that the breach risk of one signatory is 1 in 100, the requirement of 3 independent signatures makes the risk of theft 1 in 1,000,000. Since hackers tend to exploit the weakest link, a comparable custodian has to make the entry and exit points of their platform 10,000 times more secure than one of those signatories to provide equivalent protection. And if the signatories beef up their security by only 10x, the risk is now 1 in 1,000,000,000. The custodian has to be 1,000,000 times more secure. The larger and more complex a system is, the more potential vulnerabilities exist in it, and the fewer people can understand how the system works when performing upgrades. Even if a system is completely secure today, one has to also consider how that system might evolve over time or work with different members.
• By contrast, offline multi-signature solutions have an extremely solid record, and in the entire history of cryptocurrency exchange incidents which I've studied (listed here), there has only been one incident (796 exchange in 2015) involving an offline multi-signature wallet. It happened because the customer's bitcoin address was modified by hackers, and the amount that was stolen ($230k) was immediately covered by the exchange operators. Basically, the platform operators were tricked into sending a legitimate withdrawal request to the wrong address because hackers exploited their platform to change that address. Such an issue would not be prevented in any way by the use of a custodian, as that custodian has no oversight whatsoever to the exchange platform. It's practical for all exchange operators to test large withdrawal transactions as a general policy, regardless of what model is used, and general best practice is to diagnose and fix such an exploit as soon as it occurs.
• False promises on the backing of funds played a huge role in the downfall of Quadriga, and it's been exposed over and over again (MyCoin, PlusToken, Bitsane, Bitmarket, EZBTC, IDAX). Even today, customers have extremely limited certainty on whether their funds in exchanges are actually being backed or how they're being backed. While this issue is not unique to cryptocurrency exchanges, the complexity of the technology and the lack of any regulation or standards makes problems more widespread, and there is no "central bank" to come to the rescue as in the 2008 financial crisis or during the great depression when "9,000 banks failed".
• In addition to fraudulent operations, the industry is full of cases where operators have suffered breaches and not reported them. Most recently, Einstein was the largest case in Canada, where ongoing breaches and fraud were perpetrated against the platform for multiple years and nobody found out until the platform collapsed completely. While fraud and breaches suck to deal with, they suck even more when not dealt with. Lack of visibility played a role in the largest downfalls of Mt. Gox, Cryptsy, and Bitgrail. In some cases, platforms are alleged to have suffered a hack and keep operating without admitting it at all, such as CoinBene.
• It surprises some to learn that a cryptographic solution has already existed since 2013, and gained widespread support in 2014 after Mt. Gox. Proof of Reserves is a full cryptographic proof that allows any customer using an exchange to have complete certainty that their crypto-assets are fully backed by the platform in real-time. This is accomplished by proving that assets exist on the blockchain, are spendable, and fully cover customer deposits. It does not prove safety of assets or backing of fiat assets.
  • If we didn't care about privacy at all, a platform could publish their wallet addresses, sign a partial transaction, and put the full list of customer information and balances out publicly. Customers can each check that they are on the list, that the balances are accurate, that the total adds up, and that it's backed and spendable on the blockchain. Platforms who exclude any customer take a risk because that customer can easily check and see they were excluded. So together with all customers checking, this forms a full proof of backing of all crypto assets.
  • However, obviously customers care about their private information being published. Therefore, a hash of the information can be provided instead. Hash is one-way encryption. The hash allows the customer to validate inclusion (by hashing their own known information), while anyone looking at the list of hashes cannot determine the private information of any other user. All other parts of the scheme remain fully intact. A model like this is in use on the exchange CoinFloor in the UK.
  • A Merkle tree can provide even greater privacy. Instead of a list of balances, the balances are arranged into a binary tree. A customer starts from their node, and works their way to the top of the tree. For example, they know they have 5 BTC, they plus 1 other customer hold 7 BTC, they plus 2-3 other customers hold 17 BTC, etc... until they reach the root where all the BTC are represented. Thus, there is no way to find the balances of other individual customers aside from one unidentified customer in this case.
• Proposals such as this had the backing of leaders in the community including Nic Carter, Greg Maxwell, and Zak Wilcox. Substantial and significant effort started back in 2013, with massive popularity in 2014. But what became of that effort? Very little. Exchange operators continue to refuse to give visibility. Despite the fact this information can often be obtained through trivial blockchain analysis, no Canadian platform has ever provided any wallet addresses publicly. As described by the CEO of Newton "For us to implement some kind of realtime Proof of Reserves solution, which I'm not opposed to, it would have to ... Preserve our users' privacy, as well as our own. Some kind of zero-knowledge proof". Kraken describes here in more detail why they haven't implemented such a scheme. According to professor Eli Ben-Sasson, when he spoke with exchanges, none were interested in implementing Proof of Reserves.
• And yet, Kraken's places their reasoning on a page called "Proof of Reserves". More recently, both BitBuy and ShakePay have released reports titled "Proof of Reserves and Security Audit". Both reports contain disclaimers against being audits. Both reports trust the customer list provided by the platform, leaving the open possibility that multiple large accounts could have been excluded from the process. Proof of Reserves is a blockchain validation where customers see the wallets on the blockchain. The report from Kraken is 5 years old, but they leave it described as though it was just done a few weeks ago. And look at what they expect customers to do for validation. When firms represent something being "Proof of Reserve" when it's not, this is like a farmer growing fruit with pesticides and selling it in a farmers market as organic produce - except that these are people's hard-earned life savings at risk here. Platforms are misrepresenting the level of visibility in place and deceiving the public by their misuse of this term. They haven't proven anything.
• Fraud isn't a problem that is unique to cryptocurrency. Fraud happens all the time. Enron, WorldCom, Nortel, Bear Stearns, Wells Fargo, Moser Baer, Wirecard, Bre-X, and Nicola are just some of the cases where frauds became large enough to become a big deal (and there are so many countless others). These all happened on 100% reversible assets despite regulations being in place. In many of these cases, the problems happened due to the over-complexity of the financial instruments. For example, Enron had "complex financial statements [which] were confusing to shareholders and analysts", creating "off-balance-sheet vehicles, complex financing structures, and deals so bewildering that few people could understand them". In cryptocurrency, we are often combining complex financial products with complex technologies and verification processes. We are naïve if we think problems like this won't happen. It is awkward and uncomfortable for many people to admit that they don't know how something works. If we want "money of the people" to work, the solutions have to be simple enough that "the people" can understand them, not so confusing that financial professionals and technology experts struggle to use or understand them.
• For those who question the extent to which an organization can fool their way into a security consultancy role, HB Gary should be a great example to look at. Prior to trying to out anonymous, HB Gary was being actively hired by multiple US government agencies and others in the private sector (with glowing testimonials). The published articles and hosted professional security conferences. One should also look at this list of data breaches from the past 2 years. Many of them are large corporations, government entities, and technology companies. These are the ones we know about. Undoubtedly, there are many more that we do not know about. If HB Gary hadn't been "outted" by anonymous, would we have known they were insecure? If the same breach had happened outside of the public spotlight, would it even have been reported? Or would HB Gary have just deleted the Twitter posts, brought their site back up, done a couple patches, and kept on operating as though nothing had happened?
• In the case of Quadriga, the facts are clear. Despite past experience with platforms such as MapleChange in Canada and others around the world, no guidance or even the most basic of a framework was put in place by regulators. By not clarifying any sort of legal framework, regulators enabled a situation where a platform could be run by former criminal Mike Dhanini/Omar Patryn, and where funds could be held fully unchecked by one person. At the same time, the lack of regulation deterred legitimate entities from running competing platforms and Quadriga was granted a money services business license for multiple years of operation, which gave the firm the appearance of legitimacy. Regulators did little to protect Canadians despite Quadriga failing to file taxes from 2016 onward. The entire administrative team had resigned and this was public knowledge. Many people had suspicions of what was going on, including Ryan Mueller, who forwarded complaints to the authorities. These were ignored, giving Gerald Cotten the opportunity to escape without justice.
• There are multiple issues with the SOC II model including the prohibitive cost (you have to find a third party accounting firm and the prices are not even listed publicly on any sites), the requirement of operating for a year (impossible for new platforms), and lack of any public visibility (SOC II are private reports that aren't shared outside the people in suits).
• Securities frameworks are expensive. Sarbanes-Oxley is estimated to cost $5.1 million USD/yr for the average Fortune 500 company in the United States. Since "Fortune 500" represents the top 500 companies, that means well over $2.55 billion USD (~$3.4 billion CAD) is going to people in suits. Isn't the problem of trust and verification the exact problem that the blockchain is supposed to solve?
• To use Quadriga as justification for why custodians or SOC II or other advanced schemes are needed for platforms is rather silly, when any framework or visibility at all, or even the most basic of storage policies, would have prevented the whole thing. It's just an embarrassment.
• We are now seeing regulators take strong action. CoinSquare in Canada with multi-million dollar fines. BitMex from the US, criminal charges and arrests. OkEx, with full disregard of withdrawals and no communication. Who's next?
• We have a unique window today where we can solve these problems, and not permanently destroy innovation with unreasonable expectations, but we need to act quickly. This is a unique historic time that will never come again.

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Thoughts?

What is MCashchain?

Mcashchain’s vision is to gather information and store all of them in a decentralized ledger, so as to change payment processes and financial procedures towards being cheaper, more convenient and more room for automation.
Mcashchain focuses on security, lightning-speed, efficient and of highest as well as latest technology transactions; so as to create an all-in-one platform within Midas Protocol ecosystem and global finance.

Platform structure

Throughout 11 years of development, Blockchain has evolved and been upgraded step by step, generation by generation.
Blockchain 1.0: Allows storing, exchanging properties safely and securely. Bitcoin is the pioneer.
Blockchain 2.0: The term “smart contract” was coined. ETH is the pioneer.
Blockchain 3.0: Using the strengths of the previous 2 generations, aiming to employ one specific purpose in digital products, the familiar term “Dapp” was coined.
Mcash Chain: Owns all of the strong points that were developed in each generation, optimizes the algorithms and adds the technologies to guarantee a definite ability of applying to reality; especially with blockchain’s most powerful application: DeFi.
McashChain successfully employed Mainnet, launched Mcashchain even before its introduction to the community and possessed its own coin - MCASH. Obviously, Mcashchain removed the “exists only on paper” part found in most ICO in the market.

Information:

Block closing time: 3s
Can process upto 100.000 tx

Technologies:

dApps
Smart Contract
Anonymous-on-Demand
Smart staking
Others:
POS - DAV Consensus Mechanism.
Comparing MCASH
Exchange fees close to 0.
Smart-fee technology results in cheaper transactions, yet improvised to prevent spam transactions that are dangerous to Blockchain.
Smart staking
Proof-of-Stake (PoH) Consensus Mechanism ranks the chains based on “the amount of MCASH held” and “the number of transactions processed”. Consequently, staking profits (coin digging) are attractive and fair for the stakeholders. Stakeholders - those who possess a large number of coins and Dapps developers are the 2 groups that have brought MCASH success.
Anonymous coin exchange technology - Zero M
Zero M technology allows users to anonymously exchange coins, without showing the detailed amount and information of the senders and the receivers. Yet, that does not mean Mcashchain is an anonymous blockchain, as Zero M technology allows users to switch between anonymous and normal modes whenever they want.
Smartcontract
Smart Contract technology has become a vital function in automating transactions in currently popular Blockchains such as ETH, EOS, TRON, Stellar,…
MCASH of course is no exception, Mcashchain Smart Contract brings safe, automated and optimized exchange options.
The ability to create Token
Token economy is the factor that makes ETH successful, with over 98% crypto available in the market using Dapps - decentralized applicationsứng. Mcashchain Smart Contract allows to create tokens and rewards mechanisms, in cases the token chains have several transactions.
Mcashbank – Ecosystem and DEFI
Blockchain has developed from Satoshi Nakamoto’s vision to a secured properties storing and exchanging platform not under any control. It has also entered a new phase and become the platforms that are very useful in various financial fields worldwide. Hence, the needs to create an ecosystem of applications revolving one blockchain are heightened, so as to prove the feasibility of that blockchain.
Decentralized exchange platform
All currently powerful and popular blockchain platforms possess their own DEX, such as Etherdelta and IDEX of ETH, Binance DEX, Switcheo of NEO, - just amongst others. Decentralized platforms could prove the ability of blockchain. Mcashchain also develops its own platform Unidex, as a platform supports exchanging digital properties easily.

MCASH DEFI PLATFORM

Mcashchain’s vision is to develop decentralised finance products in the future. The solution is a Mcash blockchain platform and a set of tools to build DeFi products right on Mcashchain. A complete DeFi ecosystem: Lending, saving, payment applications, automated accounting system, etc.

Following is a list of P2P exchanges for trading Bitcoin. Common payment methods include bank transfer, cash deposited in the seller's bank account, in-person cash (face-to-face) trades as well as payment networks such as Zelle, Alipay, even Cash App and PayPal, for example.
Any that I am missing?

• Bisq (💵) client [NO KYC] <-- Fully decentralized and non-custodial. Uses Tor, automatically. Guide
• HodlHodl [NO KYC] <-- Non-custodial. Not available in the U.S.
• LocalCoinSwap (💵) [NO KYC] <-- Non-custodial
• LocalCryptos (💵) [NO KYC] <-- Non custodial
• AgoraDesk (💵) [NO KYC] <-- "No Javascript" mode for use with Tor
• Bitcoin.Global [NO KYC]
• Wall Of Coins (💵) [NO KYC]
• BuyCrypto.Today [NO KYC]
• Bitzlato [NO KYC]
• BitValve [NO KYC]
• BitQuick [NO KYC (when trx amount is under $400)]
• Remitano [NO KYC for Seller (only Buyer must KYC)]
• Totalcoin mobile app [NO KYC (other than phone number verification)]
• Mycelium Local Trader mobile app [Map] (💵) [NO KYC]
• Paxful.com (💵) [KYC] <-- Reddit does not permit any link to Paxful
• LocalBitcoins [KYC] <-- No more in-person, cash trading
• Binance P2P (💵) [KYC]
• Huobi OTC
• OTCBTC
• Vertex
• CGem/CryptoGem
• CoinCola
• WazirX [KYC]
• Shiftal [KYC]
• Giottus [KYC]
• BuyCoins [KYC]
• BitBargain.co.uk <-- U.K.
• VEX - Venezuela Exchange <-- Venezuela
• P2P Trading <-- Brazil
• SwapN>Go
• Cash4Cash <-- Take seriously the risks and recommendations in the General Information PSA
• GiftCardExchange <-- Take seriously the risks and recommendations in the GSX Safe Trading Guide
• GCTrading <-- Take seriously the risks and recommendations in the GSX Safe Trading Guide
• BitMarket <-- Take seriously the risks and recommendations in the GSX Safe Trading Guide
• BitHalo software [NO KYC]
• OpenBazaar (💵) [NO KYC] <-- Non-custodial

Altcoin-only P2P Trading exchanges

• CryptoLocally (💵) [NO KYC] <-- BTC(BEP-2) is a coin traded here
• LocalMonero (💵) [NO KYC] <-- "No Javascript" mode for use with Tor
• DAIHard (💵) [NO KYC]
• Dether (💵) [NO KYC]
• Local BCash (💵) [NO KYC]
• Ethfinex Trustless OTC
• Hubi
• KuCoin OTC
• LocalKSM [Coming soon]

AggregatoSearch and Helper Sites

• ExchangeRates.Pro Real-time price comparison

Note: If you use one of the above P2P OTC trade "matchmaking" services, please trade with caution and do your own due diligence.
This list does not include exchanges not in English (e.g., 58Coin), deserted or defunct marketplaces (e.g., Cancoin, and Rahakott), not-yet launched (e.g., OTCBoss), ones that operate only through dark markets, or online-only DEX/decentralized exchanges (another list of DEXes).
Also, there are a number of variants that I didn't list:

• Physical Stores where you can Buy or Sell bitcoin
• Online stores (e.g., Bitsell X [💳] [NO-KYC, requires browser extension], CoinCorner [💳] [NO-KYC when £900 or less, not available in U.S.], CEX.io, Coinify, Jubiter, Bittylicious, BitIreland, Kuna.io Money, LiteBit.eu, Switchere, Conio.com App, CryptoVoucher.io, GetSatoshi.org (⚡), BitQuick QuickBuy [NO KYC (when trx amount is under $400)], Cash App and CoinMama)
• Instant exchanges (i.e., for converting from one digial currency to another)
• Precious metals brokers which buy your gold and/or silver in exchange for bitcoin (e.g., Veldt Gold [NO KYC]).
• Gift card exchanges (e.g., there is CardCoins for paying with a non-reloadable, prepaid GIFT card (VISA/Mastercard/AMEX/Discover), Redeem, CryptoVoucher.io for paying with gift cards for numerous brands, GiftCardExchange, and GCTrading).
• Vouchers (retail) (e.g., Azte.co (💵), FastBitcoins (💵), LibertyX (💵), Rise Wallet (💵), FlexEPin (💵), Neosurf (💵), BlueShyft (💵), Yellow Card (💵), Tikebit (💵), BitIns (💵), and BitNovo (💵))
• Vending (e.g., Bitcoin ATMs (💵), Coinstar (💵) (with 2,100+ locations in the U.S.) and SBB/Swiss Railway ticketing)
• Bill/Invoice swap services (e.g., Lamium, and PiixPay)
• OTC Trading Desks (e.g., Cumberland, SigOne Capital, and several dozen others)

Otherwise, there are a number of other exchanges — with varying attributes. We recommended trying to stick with No-KYC exchanges, including most of the ones listed on:

• KYCNot.me

Additions, corrections, and other feedback welcome and can be submitted as an issue or pull request on GitHub, or via e-mail.
[Note: There is also a corresponding post on Medium with this information as well.]

TokenPocket is a trusted multi-chain wallet that supports multi coins. You can store, send and receive your Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), EOS, TRON (TRX), IOST, Cosmos and Biance (BNB) easily.
With its powerful Web3 browser, you can interact with Decentralized Applications (DApp) and trade your ERC20 tokens, BTC and EOS in decentralized exchanges (DEX), play blockchain games directly inside the wallet.
You can also get free airdrop, get your staking reward through some (PoS) mining pools and join the Decentralized Finance (DEFI) like MakerDAO.

Features of the Multi-Crypto Wallet

1. An open-sourced decentralized wallet, keep your cryptocurrencies safe

• It is an open-sourced and non-custodial decentralized wallet that stores your private keys on users' device, you can store, send and receive all your tokens within the wallet.
• With the "Observation Mode" of TokenPocket, you can access any cold storage wallet - Trezor, Ledger, Yubikey, etc without exposing your private key. You can track all the transactions of your digital assets in a safe and secure method.
• We use advanced biotechnology to ensure the safety of your assets, we can still provide you with secondary protection even if your phone is unlocked.

2. A trust wallet recognized by Block One, the official developer of EOSIO

• As the largest EOS wallet, TokenPocket is recommended by the EOSIO Labs
• The awesome tools developed by TokenPocket are listed on the developer center of BlockOne.

3. Not only a crypto wallet but also the largest DApp Store

• The built-in Web3 browser supports more than 2200 Decentralized Apps perfectly that based on BTC、ETH、 EOS, TRON and IOST. You can access and play the latest and hottest dapps in the wallet directly.
• Trading your tokens in the largest decentralized exchange platforms of EOS and Ethereum on Newdex and IDEX without leaving the wallet.

4. Latest blockchain news and live token price, trading right now

• Check the in-time token price from CoinMarketCap and browse the latest/hottest blockchain articles on TokenPocket
• By using our token swap service, you can easily exchange one token to another withe best-in-class exchange rates, such as exchange Bitcoin to Ethereum in several minutes.
• Additional you can access the trading service from the top exchange of Binance, Huobi, and Okex under one account of the Intermix Exchange, buy and sell tokens based on BTC, BCH, XPR, Ethereum (ERC20), EOS, TRON, and etc tokens easily.

5. Powerful but simple, easy to use with multi-language supported

• Create Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cosmos, TRON, and other blockchain wallets for free
• Send and receive Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other tokens anytime anywhere and get notifications, access the full transaction history
• It's more convenient to send and receive cryptocurrencies via QR Code
• Use 6-digit-pin, fingerprint, Face ID authentication or whitelist functions to simplify the operation
• Provide free CPU & NET resources for EOS users
• Supports 5 languages: English, Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Spanish.
• TokenPocket offers the cryptocurrencies management service for users from 140 countries and regions worldwide.

List of Supported Crypto Coins:

Bitcoin(BTC), Ethereum(ETH), IOST(IOST), Cosmos(ATOM), TRON(TRX), Binance Coin (BNB), Bitfinex LEO Token (LEO), ChainLink Token (LINK), HuobiToken (HT), Maker (MKR), USD Coin (USDC), Crypto.com Coin (CRO), VeChain (VEN), Ino Coin (INO), BAT (BAT), Paxos Standard (PAX), Synthetix Network Token (SNX), TrueUSD (TUSD), ZRX (ZRX), HoloToken (HOT), Reputation (REP), OmiseGO (OMG), SeeleToken (Seele), Mixin (XIN), Bytom (BTM), EnjinCoin (ENJ), Zilliqa (ZIL), OKB (OKB), KyberNetwork (KNC), Tether(USDT), WINK(WIN)

List of Supported Crypto Wallet Capabilities:

Bitcoin Wallet (BTC), EOS Wallet (EOS), Ethereum Wallet (ETH), TRON Wallet (TRX), Binance Wallet (BNB), Cosmos Wallet (ATOM), IOST Wallet (IOST), BOS Wallet (BOS), MOAC Wallet (MOAC), Jingtum Wallet (SWTC)
With this app, you can enter and explore the blockchain world by importing or create a wallet easily in the TokenPocket. If you have any questions, please contact us via [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])

Follow Us

• Website: https://www.tokenpocket.pro/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokenPocket_TP
• Telegram: https://t.me/tokenPocket_en
• Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])

'''
In 2020, due to the dual impact of the coronary pneumonia epidemic and the plunge of US oil stocks, the economic situation in the Asia-Pacific region is very grim. Within a week, U.S. stocks melted twice, and crypto digital assets such as Bitcoin plummeted. This seems to indicate that the direction of global financial markets in 2020 will be extremely unstable. In this situation, traditional financial investment methods are not the most valuable means of financial management. AiOption Blockchain Binary Options Platform provides a new direction for financial investment, predicting the rise and fall of encrypted digital assets such as Bitcoin in a fixed period of time to obtain income.
Recently, AiOption, a professional blockchain binary options platform, announced that it has received tens of millions of dollars in financing. This round of financing was led by the Japanese consortium and the Thai royal family. This round of financing is an important milestone in the continuous increase of market competitiveness. At the same time, AiOption has become the largest platform in China to provide blockchain binary options transactions.
​
[link]¹
This round of financing will help the platform to further strengthen the innovation and research and development of original key core technologies, consolidate the company's leading edge in the binary options industry of the blockchain, and help the company continue to expand more application scenarios and accelerate the blockchain's empowerment of the financial industry. In order to further improve the product experience, we will also introduce local special versions based on user habits in different countries and regions. As soon as it entered the promotion in the Asia-Pacific region in 2020, there were more than 100,000 registered users in the first week, achieving very good results. The platform will also launch more promotion activities in combination with local characteristics. The top investment groups such as the Thai Royal Family and the Japanese Consortium gave AiOption a high rating. It is indeed a black technology star product known as Israeli fintech innovation.
AiOption (AiOption) is a professional crypto asset options trading platform with a solid foundation of blockchain technology. It has achieved significant R & D results in distributed network and blockchain security. It has worked closely with more than 8 countries to provide a very simple way to predict the price fluctuations of encrypted digital assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. The platform collects price data of multiple trading symbols from multiple selected trusted data sources (such as Binance, coinbase, bittrex, huobi, and some other well-known global exchanges) to merge together, and uses intelligent algorithms to identify and Filter abnormal price data and calculate the final price index for a single coin. Use more innovative and fair ways for players to predict the price of crypto digital assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
​
[link]²
Safe, efficient, and high-performance systems
AiOption has top risk control, anti-fraud and segregated witness technologies, comprehensively formulates a security policy system, multi-level risk identification control, and multiple security defense methods. The high-frequency transaction matching engine steadily supports large amounts of data, high performance, and high concurrency. It adopts a distributed architecture, and the market and deep data come online at a fast speed. The front-end adopts a firewall anti-attack mechanism and the back-end adopts a hidden and discrete deployment.
AiOption's binary options trading system is equipped with flexible and convenient trading modes and an extremely secure system to ensure the safety of user assets.
Fair and simple, simple and convenient transaction model
On a general options platform, the bet price is real-time Bitcoin price and can be easily manipulated by the platform. When the player wagers the Bitcoin price on the platform, the wager price is the initial Bitcoin price for each round of the game, and manipulation is not allowed! Ensure fair and fair transactions, convenient user transactions, and easy to master gameplay.

1. The operation is simple. You only need to judge the rise and fall of encrypted digital assets after 90 seconds.
   
2. The rate of return is fast, and the single-round profit can be settled in 90 seconds.
   
3. Transaction time is unlimited, 90 seconds matching, non-stop trading 7 days and 24 hours.
   
4. There is no handling fee, and no dealer control disk.
   

At the same time, the platform has a unique function of depositing money and managing money. By depositing a certain amount of USDT, excellent players and excellent teams can obtain fixed high returns, with a maximum return of four times!
For many years, AIoption has always adhered to the concept of blockchain technology to empower the financial industry, and has concentrated on polishing products and application scenarios. The top-level blockchain team has achieved certain results in the blockchain and financial fields.
Through this financing, we will continue to focus on the development of blockchain technology and continue to develop in the large field of blockchain binary options services. AiOption's vision is to promote the development of blockchain binary options services, provide customers with better services, and continue to maintain its leading position in the domestic blockchain binary options industry.
'''
AiOption (AiOption) receives tens of millions of dollars in financing to help the blockchain empower the financial industry
Go1dfish undelete link
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Author: jackzhang0
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Unknown links are censored to prevent spreading illicit content.

Bitroom
WEBSITE - WHITE PAPER - TWITTER - TELEGRAM EN - TELEGRAM CH - TELEGRAM KO - TELEGRAM RU - Kakaotalk KO
Bitroom Introduction
1. What is Bitroom.io
Bitroom is the world's first membership-based cryptocurrency exchange.
Bitroom.io guarantees to participants in the Launchpad at least 200% return.
Adhering to the original intention of promoting the consensus between the project and investors, mutual benefit and mutual win situation, the first "membership" model, to provide users with safe and convenient digital asset exchange services. By selecting and introducing quality blockchain projects around the world, we are committed to providing our members with a richer market investment option, better experience and more opportunities for high returns.
2. Bitroom Features
Member Priority
Bitroom will select and introduce high-quality blockchain projects around the world, and is committed to providing members with better market investment options, better experience and more opportunities for high returns. On the Bitroom platform, every member has an equal opportunity to participate in the investment of early quality projects. Bitroom will protect the member's investment income and returns most of the platform's revenue to the members.
Open and Transparent
To win the trust of the community, Bitroom is committed to creating an open and transparent virtual currency trading platform. This includes:

• transparency of platform coin issuance;
• transparency of platform coins, both in circulation and in holdings;
• transparency of platform trading and mining;
• transparent mining of platform Proof of Stake (PoS) and Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) nodes.

3. Member Benefits
Upon joining Bitroom，you will be entitled to the following membership benefits:

• Early investment opportunities for quality projects
• Early high-quality project investment fixed income guarantees
• Platform transaction cost allocation
• PoS and DPoS node mining returns

​
4. Conditions of Membership
Users become members, with all relevant membership benefits, once they hold a certain minimum amount of platform currency.
Innovative ITO mode ITO Platform Currency Distribution Method
ITO (Initial Trust Offering) includes three important aspects: fundraising, Token distribution, and fund return. The ITO model is open and transparent and 80% of the funds raised will be returned to the user and can be verified. This model allows the project side and the user to reach a consensus, which is a good solution to the problem of mutual trust.
1. ITO — Introduction
The core Bitcoin concept is based on the building of consensus between a project party and the decentralized investor community. The transaction status and the amount of money held are necessarily open and transparent. Bitcoin earnings are owned simultaneously by long-term holders and the community. Thus, the success or failure of a project depends on their ability to reach consensus. Failure to do so can result from a wrong choice of ICO versus IEO tokens. Or it might be a lack of transparency by the project side in its use of funds raised. This can lead to loss of community trust and ultimately confrontation.
The Bitroom team believes in Bitcoin. In order to reach a consensus between a project and the community, Bitroom has innovatively createdå the Model of Initial Trust Offering (ITO).
Under the ITO model, the project party publicly and transparently raises funds from the community on the blockchain. The project party then announces a fundraising address and a Token distribution address, with all funds raised sent to that address.
Token distributions are all transferred through the same distribution address, Fundraising is carried out on the blockchain, Each transaction and the number of positions at each address can be publicly queried. After fundraising is completed, the project party will return 80% of the money to the community as income. This operation is likewise visible on the blockchain. Each return is visible on the blockchain, as is each return operation. The remaining 20% ​​of the funds raised will be used to support the project to move forward.
It can be seen that each step of the ITO model is open and transparent and that each move by the project party and the community, both, is well documented in the blockchain, thus enhancing mutual trust. After the platform closes, the project side will return 80% of funds raised to the community, with the remaining 20% to be used by the project side for promoting project development. ITO is a great innovation, with real capacity to bring about consensus between the project side and the community.
Bitroom's platform currency will be distributed in the form of ITO.
2. ITO Characteristics

• Open and Transparent Initial Trust Offering (ITO) mainly includes three important aspects: fundraising, token distribution, and funds returned. Each part is carried out on the blockchain. There, each behavior of the project party and the community is well documented, making the transaction process auditable, traceable, and non-tamperable. In other words, truly open and transparent.
  
• 80% of funds raised returned to user community ITO's funding derives from the investor community. In order to consolidate the trust system with the community, 80% of the funds raised will be returned to the community and 20% will be used to cover the project side’s development and operation costs. In this way, the project side and the community are no longer in opposition. Instead, a real consensus has been reached.
  
• Verifiability Bitcoin innovatively proposed the Proof of Work (PoW) mechanism to verify the activities of Bitcoin miners, thus providing Bitcoin a reward. In the ITO process, data such as transaction information in the blockchain are public and transparent, and the blockchain browser is the address for querying blockchain transaction records. Community members can use it to view their own transaction information as well as other stored blockchain information information.
  

3. ITO distribution ITO distribution

• A total of 100,000,000 BMT is used for distribution during the ITO phase.
• 74,565,864 BMT is allocated as ITO.
• 3,000,000 BMT is assigned to Launchpad.
• 22,434,136 BMT is allocated to marketing, partners, airdrops, etc.

ITO rules：Click here
​
BMT Token Allocation
ITO issuance 100,000,000 10% Global partner 50,000,000 5% Equity investor 50,000,000 5% Foundation 150,000,000 15% Team 150,000,000 15% Mining 500,000,000 50%
Team
1. Andrew Miller​ ​— CEO
Andrew holds an MBA from Stanford University, California, USA. He previously worked as ja senior executive at Morgan Stanley Investment Bank. Andrew is Bitroom's master planner of strategic planning and business direction. He is an early participant and investor in the blockchain industry, with over 10 years of management experience. He has a cumulative investment in more than 50 blockchain projects.
2. Walter Brown​ ​— CTO
Walter is a former Google Senior Architect. He graduated from MIT with a degree in Computer Science, and holds a Master's degree in Computer Science from the University of California, San Diego. He is a senior engineer who specializes in big data processing, software development, and virtual trading technology. He has participated in the development of multiple large blockchain underlying systems. He has 11 years of R&D management experience and has performed in-depth research on blockchain security.
3. Robert Garcia​ ​— Architect
Robert is a former Google Cloud Product Group Senior Architect, responsible for architecture security analysis and high-end business customer consulting. He holds a Ph.D. in Network Security from MIT. He has served as the head of network security and architecture projects for several US IT companies.
4. Alex Martinez -- Director of Operations
American currency technology operations expert, and a well-known industry analyst and researcher. Senior Salesforce.com Certified Consultant, Business Data Analysis Specialist. He has served as Director of Operations for several Fortune 500 companies and been involved in the development and marketing of numerous cryptocurrencies since 2015. Zoe Park — South Korea representative Zoe graduated from Seoul National University in South Korea, majoring in journalism and self-employed in the Korean blockchain industry. In 2016, she began work in the blockchain industry, focusing on the Korean market and media services, helping to successfully raise funds for 12 overseas blockchain projects.
5. Gloria Wong — Head of China Market
Gloria graduated from Columbia University, USA, with a Master degree in Finance. In 2017, she entered the blockchain market and already has compiled rich experiences in blockchain investment, market and strategy, helped to incubate 9 blockchain projects, successfully raised funds, and landed on the exchange.
​
​
Bounty is live now: Click here
Bitroom.io Exchange 100,000 $ valued BMT tokens giveaway!
Finish the Task below: Telegram Twitter Facebook Reddit Bitcointalk
​
​
Bitroom.io Launchpad: Click here
Bitroom Launchpad will start at 2019/07/08 20:00(UTC+8), get your own BMT at early stage.
Platform token is proved to be a property with the most worthwhile investment.
BMT investment and return：
•Profits after four days 2.5x •Short-term profits 10x •Medium-term profits 50x •Long-term profits 100X
Having missed the BNB of Binance, do you want to miss the BMT of Bitroom?
​
​
Community Owner plan is live now Click here to share $50,000 valued tokens

 Dev meeting?  Would say so, yes  The people are still exhausted from the payment ID meeting :)  Guess we could ping some people  vtnerd, moneromooo, hyc, gingeropolous, TheCharlatan, sarang, suraeNoether, jtgrassie  Anyone up for a meeting?  Yep I'm here  Here  o/  Perhaps we should just start and people will eventually hop in?   oof   sorry guys, I'm working on the new FFS and I forgot all about this. Got a couple of new volunteers.   This literally might be able to launch tomorrow.  I know that. It's called "flow" :)  I could run if you're out of time?   go for it dEBRUYNE   you guys are going to like this new FFS. We're like 99% done.  Hi  rehrar: someone else do the milestone thing already?  All right, jtgrassie, perhaps you'd to start w/ briefly describing your most recent PR? https://github.com/monero-project/monero/pull/5091   oneiric, xiphon did everything   like....everything  As far as I can see, it allows the user to push his transaction over I2P, thereby masking the origin IP of the sendeuser  great  And it hooks into vtnerd's PR right?  Sure. It basically just builds on vtnerds Tor stuff.  sorry dEBRUYNE  Really not much added.  I have it running and tested.  From the perspective of the user, what needs to be configured exactly?  Nice  Assuming the PR is included in the release binaries  I'm using knacccs i2p-zero duirng testing but will of course work with any i2p setup   sorry dEBRUYNE <= Np  Looks a little like dams breaking, now that we have some dark clouds over Kovri and people take matters into their own hands ...  User needs to run i2p, expose a socks service and and inbound tunnel.  Basically same as Tor  Okay, so should be reasonable as long as we write proper documentation for it (e.g. an elaborate guide)  rbrunner, yes, knaccc credit for jumping on i2p-zero really  dEBRUYNE: documentation monero side is kindof done. i2p side is very much implementation specific.  I suppose we could write some guides for the most popular implementations?  e.g. i2p-zero aims to be zero conf, but i2pd or Kovri would be differnet.  I see, great  vtnerd___: Do you want to add anything?  could amend the current kovri guide for monero use from --exclusive-peer to the new proxy support  Now I have i2p-zero running and tested with the #5091, I plan to jump back over to helping knaccc on getting that polished.  I added support for socks proxy in the basic wallets  ^ excellent  Yes vtnerd___ I havent tested it yet but looks sweet.  So connections to `monerod` over Toi2p are possible within wallet cli and wallet rpc  Awesome  This also implies auth+encryption even if ssl is not in use (when using an onion or i2p address)  All right  moneromooo: are you here? If so, could you perhaps share what you've been working on?  I am.  I revived the SSL PR, more stuff on multi sender txes, an implementation of ArticMine's new block size algorithm.  I presume a multi sender tx works similar to multisig insofar as the senders have to exchange data before the transaction can be performed right?  Yes.  There are 2 SSL PRs. What's the diff?  Theoretically this would also allow the sender to provide an output right? Which would be kind of similar to Bitcoin's P2EP  The second one adds some things like selecting a cert by fingerprint.  Yes.  (for the first sentence)  All right, awesome  For anyone reading, this breaks the assumption of the inputs belonging to a single sender, which makes analysis more difficult  Nice side-effect.  Much work coming for the various wallets to support that  rbrunner: Anything you'd like to share in the meeting btw?  Yes, just a little info  I have started to seriously investigate what it would mean to integrate Monero into OpenBazaar  I have already talked with 2 of their devs, was very interesting  In maybe 2 or 3 weeks I intend to write a report  Too early to tell much more :)  Soon^tm I guess :)  Yep  Currently wrestling with Go debugging  whole new world  moneromooo: Has pony recently shared any insights regarding the upcoming 0.14 release btw?  No.  All right  I would love to see the tor & i2p PR's merged sooner rather than later so we can get more testing done.  ^ +1  Isn't that famous early code freeze already on the horizon?  fluffypony, luigi1111 ^  I suppose I could provide a little update regarding the GUI btw  As always, lots of bug fixes and improvements :-P  selsta has recently added a feature to support multi accounts  dsc_ has revamped the wizard and will now start working on implementing the different modes and a white theme  dsc_ is working fulltime on the GUI already?  yes  :)   dsc_ is bae  In light of the recent payment ID discussion, we've also, by default, disabled the option to add a payment ID unless the user explicitely activates the option on the settings page  rehrar ^  nice   I spoke about this yesterday at the coffee chat, this is not a good decision.  How does it handle integrated addresses? The same way?  rehrar ?   For the next many months, we are still stuck with PAyment IDs in the ecosystem. Making it harder for people to access them will make Monero suck so hard to use for the average person for many months.  i agree with rehrar   Remove the option of Payment IDs when we remove Payment IDs  rehrar: The new GUI release won't be live until probably mid march though  Which is a few weeks in advance of the scheduled protocol upgrade   Payment ID removal comes in October   right, but Payment IDs are not removed in March  Did we not have loose consensus on removing the old, unencrypted payment IDs in march?   they are removed in October  We had discussed a deprecation in March  and a ban in October   ok, then if we are going to do that, we have to commit to it and contact the exchanges like Binance that use them and get rid of them in the next few months  (of unencrypted)   Binance is huge, and if they still use them, then people will be very upset that they can't deposit or use Payment IDs easily   I'm just speaking from a UX perspective.  I thought it was unencrypted in April and possibly encrypted in October  Yes I do agree  Timeline and notes: https://github.com/monero-project/meta/issues/299  impossible to remove them for march, many exchanges still use them  We can defer it to the 0.15 release if needed  Well, that wasn't the impression for them log that I just read today  This was all discussed in the earlier meeting linked above   We have to force the ecosystem off of Payment IDs before we remove them from the UI, is all I'm saying  Remove != make difficult to use  ... or make them more difficult there, right?  ping sgp_   sarang, I understand, and I agreed with you during that meeting. But then I started thinking of it as a UX person, which I am.   And that huge massive problem leapt out at me  i think making them difficult to generate is a good idea but making them difficult to consume and use is a bad idea  well, maybe not a good idea, but a better idea   ^  If we defer the decision to depriciate long payment IDs to october, won't we have the same issue then?  The UI can gave an expandable payment ID field like MyMonero and we can still call it deprecated   It is foolhardy to remove an option that the ecosystem uses. So I suggest we keep the Payment ID in the UI until October when they are completely banned.   no dEBRYUNE, because they will be banned via consensus  sgp_ imo it may be a misdirection of dev resources to add that since things are proceeding in the short term rather than long term  but this is a relatively minor point  Nothing matters til exchanges change  All right   The issue is that consensus will still have them in April, and exchanges won't upgrade because they are still allowed. Thus they must still be in the UI.  endogenic these changes are already merged in the GUI to hide it like you do  ok   But when they are banned, exchanges are forced to upgrade or stop using Monero, so we can remove them safely because they won't be in use  rehrar: that's a strong assumption   sarang that they will upgrade?  yes   if they don't, then they can't use Monero  If exchanges require pid, users need a way to set a pid. Making it hard for the user in the interim is just going to be a nightmare.   we have decided to take our "stand" in October  A way that is not too hard, then  To be clear, we still intend to deprecate long encrypted payment IDs in April right? But no enforcement until October   the term "deprecated" doesn't mean much if it's still allowed, and used in popular places   yes, as far as I understand it   jtgrassie, exactly  True I suppose  dEBRUYNE: we need to be more specific when talking about deprecation   the person who suffers is the user  There are two proposals for GUI deprecation:  1. Hide it in the send screen with a simple option to expand (currently merged iirc)  2. Hide it completely in the send screen unless users enable the field in advanced settings (PR'd but not merged yet iirc)  What are the arguments for 2?   Both are poor options, but 1 is better than 2 by a long shot   Well the people who need to be made to "suffer" are the exchanges. And I don't see a way to make exchanges "suffer" other than by having their suffering customers complain to them constantly that they need to update.  ^  CLI has something similar where users need to set a manual payment ID transfer mode. Not sure if it's merged yet   the way to make the exchanges suffer is when we ban PIDs. They either upgrade or don't use Monero.  exact;y  Agree with rerahr here  have exchanges been provided with clear, practical, sufficient technical upgrade plans for supporting what they're doing with PIDs but with subaddrs?    Both are poor options, but 1 is better than 2 by a long shot <= I wouldn't call 1. a poor option. Have you actually checked how it looks?  Because it states "Payment ID" and a user has to click on the + to expand the field  endogenic: yes the email when out. Blog post coming soon, but contains the same info as the email  also the exhcnages' users are often using wallets that don't support subaddresses  ok great   as well, it should be noted that the timeline for exchanges to upgrade is September, not October when the fork is.  Which wallets are that?  Rehrar: I don't see option 1. causing any issues/confusion  i guess it doesnt matter too much if withdrawing as a personal user the main address should suffice   Because September is when the new versions will be coming out without PIDs in the UI  If there's opposition to 2, 1 is fine. We can still call it deprecated which is the optics we need anyway   exchange users are often just using other exchanges lol. No wallets involved.   dsc_ dEBRUYNE, ok, I trust you guys here then  rbrunner: i was thinking mymonero last i heard  Ok  pigeons: rbrunner yes receiving on subaddresses won't be supported yet  sending to them has been possible though  and yes as learnandlurkin says often they withdraw to other systems like exhcnages that also dont yet support subaddresses  I really can't come up with any good argument for 2. right now  endogenic: seems not much of an issue then. Exchanges will typically support withdrawals to both subaddresses and plain addresses (especially if we are going to force them to use subaddresses)  For deposits, MyMonero works properly if the user sends to a subaddress  Actually the second solution was already merged: https://github.com/monero-project/monero-gui/pull/1866  Maybe not enough eyes watching :)   The important thing is to have done something to justify having a big "DEPRECATED IN APRIL" stamp on PIDs to spook exchanges in the interim  This was for solution 1: https://github.com/monero-project/monero-gui/pull/1855   The Monero Community Workgroup will start making noise everywhere we can to exchanges, and everywhere else that will listen. Try to get on those garbage news sites also.   So everyone knows that deprecated in April, and banned in September  Hey, for solution 1, write "Payment ID (optional, deprecated)" or similar there  rbrunner: noted  rehrar: probably wait until the blog post, but it should only be a few days   Maybe a Reddit sticky post would be useful?   With the blog post   If people are over freaking out about the hashrate  or terabyte blockchain :)  sigh  Any questions for the MRL side?  Is someone checking ArticMine's block size changes for weird behaviour in some cases etc ?  How would such testing work? Private blockchain?  I'm waiting on cost information from ArticMine to complete the model  Or just simulations?  Also, smooth suggested a mean rather than median for the 100000 block op. It would indeed be much nicer if it doesn't make the change worse.  You mean computationally or what?  Nicer ? Yes.  no sorting needed for mean  I'll add a separate sim for that  Well, just nicer. Forger the much.  Forger the Much sounds like the formal name of a Lord of the Rings character  :)  To close the payment ID discussion, in essence, we agree that we shouldn't make it difficult for the user to add a payment ID right (until 0.15 is released)  ?  I don't. I did make it harder.  In the CLI, somewhat other story, I would say  than the GUI  People there are used to juggle with options and CL parameters  rehrar: I recommend opening another issue to reverse 1866 and we can gather feedback on it there  Sounds good, to me at least   Dudes, if I do a Jitsi stream right now to show the new FFS in action, would you guys be interested in watching it?  I'd watch it, if the meeting is formally done  sure  yeah, can I start one and record it?   I'll give it in like fifteen minutes   I'll let you all know, stand by  I have a question on tx_extra if no one else has anything to talk about  People have said you can put arbitrary data in there in whatever format you want as long as you're willing to pay for it. However, do you need to mine the transaction for it to be included? I didn't think nodes would block transactions with arbitrary tx_extra data  It'll be in nodes' txpool when you relay it. A wallet could see it before it's mined.  moneromooo: will it be mined though?  by others  Is it valid ?  assume it's otherwise valid  Does it have a high enough fee ?  assume it does yes  I ran into conflicting information here: https://monero.stackexchange.com/a/3627/42  Then it will probably be mined.  I once had the idea to put "my" MMS messages in there, looked at the code, and found no hard blocks for tx_extra data  That answer looks incorrect.  It is incorrect  If it will be mined, then that meets my assumption. There seems to be some misconception that people will not mine transactions with arbitrary tx_extra. I can add some comments there  And please don't spam it, and don't put fingerprintable stuff in it. It's meant to be here for *useful* stuff that's "uniform" enough.  It will be mined, whether a wallet *displays* the tx_extra is a different question.  I don't think any wallet currently displays that  it soes if its a pid  I think  Yeah, of course :)  Great, that answers my question