If you are taken away only by the Gold-rush train of Bitcoin and its recent skyrocketing surge with new all-time highs every week you might be missing a lot what is happening around.
Ripple (XRP) a cryptocurrency with a centralized enterprise behind the curtains supporting its development and controlling where the token should be led just has experienced a very major climb upwards against the US Dollar – with a market cap of around $8.66 billion and a price (at the time of the writing) $0.2259.

In a trading and investing market – especially cryptocurrency, nowadays it is very difficult to pin-point down the reasons which conclude with this sort of spike, for example Ripple. For future references and help in investing-decision making purposes, down here we will try to explain this particular case.

What played the Role of the Pull-Up Lever for XRP/USD

Just before that, to have a quick heads up – Ripple while working together with financial services, banks and institutions wants to take down SWIFT (entity with a monopoly on border transfers) and disrupt its functionality. According to Thomas – Money should be fast sent and received like data and information now on a global scale.

(To trade cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple or Litecoin, try eToro.)

So for the reasons why the catapult took place:

• The enterprise Ripple is taking its profit and benefit from the XRP blockchain use of Banks and authorities in a world ranger of negotiation and deals. On the other side the big banks are winning transaction speed and security. This allows for effective intra-bank trading as financial institutions are finally able to escape the limitations of the current outdated infrastructure. On top of that digital assets have been sold to help and support banks being established on a lower price to give an opportunity for booming on the “new industry” and help Ripple with its legitimacy.
• The Encouragement of cooperation between China and US for improvements of cryptocurrency via meetings that were held by Ripple and bankers, industry influencers, academics for a better virtual currency future. This as awaited was proportionally paired with a price surge while well known and respected figures of the industry took interest on the project giving it credibility. For ‘could-be’ of the same reason an official from the US State department – Anja Manuel was invited to the board of directors to increase support when it comes to China branching. Next to this, mid-October a meeting to be held by Ripple – Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Dr Ben Bernanke will be guests – one the same room!
• Lastly but of the same importance – Asian, especially Korean Exchanges Record Breaking trading Volume in 24-hours. Around 40 percentage point of all trading in a global scale of XRP (Ripple) was paired with South Korean Won. Their movement from lets say Bitcoin Cash to Litecoin (the late famous BCH Sell-off) or any other occurrence is having significant impact overall on the market.

With the planned Blockchain improvements like Lightning Network for Litecoin, Ripple negotiations and so on, many investors are moving and diversifying their portfolio from the digital currency leader Bitcoin. More than ever now because of the potential upcoming fork happening in November. As for now and the longer term, Ripple is looking more promising than ever to be a choice for the future and a more reliable positioning for traders.
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Just today, Ethereum is swinging wildy again, reaching to highs of USD 345 before retreating to the $328 range. (at the present moment). With its high fluctuations, how can we make money with Ethereum?
Ethereum has grown from a paltry price of $10 to the current $345 within a short period of time. There are several factors behind this price hike. One of the main reasons was Ethereum has been marketed to various potential corporate and government partners are a way of generating revenue through its integration of blockchain technology. Some highly publicized partnership are JPMorgan Chase, Cisco Systems, Inc, Bank of New York Mellon Corp, Microsoft, and other 30 big brands to create a partnership known as the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA).
In order to trade Ethereum, you need to know the various phases of Ethereum planned growth.
Frontier

• Frontier was the initial release of the Ethereum network pushed live in July 2015. It was a bare bone release planning to allow the more technically minded to release their own apps, allow people to mine, and get exchanges up and running.

Homestead

• Homestead was planned to be released after a month of frontier going live as a best case scenario. As of January 2016, the Homestead release is about 80% complete – but the goals have been altered somewhat as frontier took in a large part of its projected development pipeline – for example, the block reward was set to the full 5 ether.
• In its new form Homestead has become more of a patchwork of fixes to remove the risk warning attached to the Ethereum homepage. Homestead, btw, is our current phase.

Metropolis

• Metropolis is the release that opens the gates to the masses. This is where there are fully fledged and tested user interfaces for the non-technical users. Although this is now being performed by individuals – for example, the Ethereum desktop wallet. The hard fork is apparently in September 2017, this year.

Serenity

• Serenity is the last phase and has one key principle – to switch the Ethereum network from proof of work to proof of stake – essentially reducing the power consumption of the Ethereum network. When this is going to take place and under what conditions is of course anyone’s guess – although it is thought to be in the planning for the start of 2018.

So how do we make money with Ethereum?

There are several reasons you should consider buying Ethereum for long-term investments.The technology that underlies Ethereum means that it can be used for a number of other purposes that will be built off of a decentralized and autonomous system. Simply put, it potentially will be a revolutionary technology with the potential to impact a whole spectrum of industries. As the demand for the Ethereum platform and its smart contracts enabled network increases, the value of Ethereum as a cryptocurrency will continue to surge.

Stability – Ethereum had an organic growth, without massive spikes, and it seems to be stable, if not even predictable. The increasing demand and value of a certain cryptocurrency serve as an indicator of its potential. Whatever the reason is, it still increases the demand – meaning a further increase in Ethereum price.

You can choose to buy Ethereum, or if you prefer to have more liquidity, you can opt to trade in Ethereum. I personally prefer eToro as it was an intuitive interface and allows several other cryptocurrencies to be traded as well, as such Bitcoin, Ripple, Litecoin, etc.

You can sign up for an eToro account at http://bit.ly/etoro-ethereum

Bitcoin mining started out with simple CPU and GPU mining that can be done on high-powered home computers before the introduction of ASIC miners overwhelmed the industry resulting in only specialized hardware being capable of any worthwhile mining. The Ethereum blockchain, however, is far more resistant to ASIC miners which result in most of the processing being done on rigs mounted with GPUs.

If you have a high-powered system for gaming then your computer is more than capable of mining Ether at a respectable rate. You can choose to mine Ethereum solo but you’ll probably get better results by contributing your resources to a pool. Personally, I have never mined any myself but I have a good read on Nanopool and they’re easy to use. Thanks to their great help page.

In my opinion, Ether could be at a high price but still not profitable to mine because your electricity costs are so high, or visa Versa. You also have to account for the difficulty increase associated with a price spike.

In any case, we should be seeing Ethereum go up, up and up! Don't wait too long!

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Running a business is a lot of hard work, but when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. The planning for this Micron event started as early as April, when the team was involved in the Livewell Fiesta. The lead came from Marcus' friend, Choon Meng. 

This lead to a series of recces, presentations, as well as many email exchanges. Hence, in a way, there was a sense of anticipation leading to this event. This was coupled by the fact that it was a major event which included a talk on Gut Health by our Doctor Meng, a Pound demo class by Samuel, as well as a product and service fair by the rest of the team. We also helped liaised with Angela of Bits and Bites to cater lunch packs for the audience. 

All in all, we expected a bigger turn out, but for those who attending, some bought products, some signed up WFit, and one customer even bought an Elight one-month package. 

I suppose what was most important was the brand awareness that we were building, and then, the camaraderie that was forged through the hours of hard work spent together. As months pass, I can't help but feel closer and closer to the team. Thank you all for sharing this dream!