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There is an influx of ICOs with startups raising millions of dollars to start or expand their operations. However, funds theft is a common problem affecting many of the startups in the cryptocurrency and blockchain startups. The latest victim is Taylor where the attacker stole all of the money raised in their ICO.
Taylor is a startup company using a blockchain in an effort to link cryptocurrency exchanges with mobile technology, and issued an ICO to fund their design and launch of a dedicated trading app. Dubbed Taylor Smart, the app is an easy to use cryptocurrency trading assistant.
In a blog post, the Taylor team said that the attacker drained all their balance, 2,578.98 ETH, as well as the TAY tokens allocated to the team and the bounty program, bringing the amount of funds stolen to approximately $1.5 million. The only funds left untouched were those locked by a smart contract allocated to the founders and advisers. According to ongoing investigations, the attack seems to be perpetrated by the same attacker who robbed off CypheriumChain.
Failed Security Measures
The Taylor team maintains that they had security measures in place to avoid such an attack, which eventually failed, and they confessed to have been negligent in attending to various security details. After seeing an attempt on IDEX, the Taylor team opted to delist from the platform. While they may never recover the stolen funds, they believe that there is still a future for the Taylor app and are calling on their community to help them overcome the setback and grow bigger and better.
The Taylor team sent an open letter to their supporters, where they revealed that they only have $25,000 left, and they are currently rethinking their future. In a statement give to ZDNET, Taylor’s CEO and co-founder, Fabio Seixas, said that they are thinking about rebranding and issuing an emergency token sale to raise more funds for their operations. Seixas also notes that they are working with various angel investors to inject cash into the project, but it would take months before a deal goes through.
Taylor’s goal with the two funding options is to raise enough to have a sizeable team to work for 12 months as well as paying for pertinent infrastructure and operational costs. The timeline according to Seixas is enough to launch the app, gain its first users, get traction, and start generating revenue.
Growing Skepticism
When a cryptocurrency and blockchain related startups or ICOs claims that they have become cyberattack victims, there is skepticism surrounding it. Most of them disappear with the investor funds while conducting exit scam. Taylor was on the verge of releasing their app in a matter of weeks when the attack happened and they are calling on investors to participate in their emergency token sale.
They have not revealed further information, only that the attack was a highly coordinated and advanced attack. However, before you invest into any token sale, you had better do your due diligence to ensure the security protocols are sound.
Technology is at the center of the modern world, and people are living longer thanks to technology, and do things that were impossible a decade ago. Despite the advanced technology, of which we will see more to come in the future, it does come with a price. One of the greatest technological advancements known to man has to be the invention of electricity, and it powers over 95% of appliances in homes and offices across the world. Few people are willing to give up the luxury provided by electricity, but most of the electricity consumed in the world comes from non-renewable sources such as fossil fuels and water.
As more people connect to the grid, the environmental degradation increases, and the future looks bleak. In this light, the big question has to be what we ought to do if the current and energy demand of the future is not environmentally sustainable. Thanks to blockchain technology, businesses such as GEAR are seeking to promote a sustainable energy cycle leading to a greener world.
Cleaning Up the Cryptocurrency Mining Space
The rising interest in digital assets that is gradually shifting focus from the old-fashioned currencies is driven by blockchain technology. Mining cryptocurrencies requires a significant amount of energy only, which traditionally generated electricity, can provide. With the springing up of mining farms, there is need for them to consider shifting to a closed loop green energy and a renewable network that invest in green energy farms that generate clean energy. The goal is to have a situation where blockchain technology is allowed to scale up with reduced and eventual cease of affecting the environment.
Fact is we need more energy to fuel our lives, with most of it going to power technology. However, the world can continue on the advancing technology but without the detrimental effects, it already has on the environment, especially the water and air. The responsibility of cleaning up the cryptocurrency mining space lies with the creators of blockchain and cryptocurrency project creators.
GEAR’s Mission
Production of green energy is of most concern to GEAR, a green startup company. The founders have dedicated the company to growing the production of green energy for the overall environmental well-being. According to Vik Pathak, GEAR’s vice president, their theme is ‘From Resources to Regenerative’ and what this means is that they are taking on a dirty industry notorious for extracting things from the earth and innovate it into something that gives back to the earth.
When speaking to Forbes, Pathak, added that mining GEAR’s cryptocurrency would be curved back into the creation of green energy assets, including biomass, wind, solar, and tidal. It is calling on all other cryptocurrencies to go green and invest part of their profits into the research and development of renewable energy and green initiatives. According to Larry King, one of the members of GEAR’s advisory board notes that the GEAR token will nurture and incubate the cryptocurrency sector by pushing for the shift of focus from fossil fuels to the use of green energy and renewables.
Cryptocurrencies and blockchain are the current movers and shakers of the industrial revolution and its best survival tactic has to be in ensuring that they play their role in environmental conservation. With the initiative started by GEAR, we can only hope that more cryptocurrencies will step up to disrupt the way people consume energy and pave the way for greener and renewable energy.
EQUI Capital Review
Venture capital fundraising has traditionally been the domain of a small select group of influential firms and individuals. This could very easily be about to change with the introduction of cryptocurrency, however. EQUI Capital is essentially trying to tokenize the traditional venture capital model by creating a platform where investors can fund projects with cryptocurrency. What makes this ICO stand out is the high profile team behind it, which has resulted in a lot of coverage by traditional media like newspapers and TV. Given that the ICO is spearheaded by two of the most influential businesspeople in the UK, who bring over three decades worth of experience with them, it is definitely one to put on the watch list.
What is EQUI Capital?
The concept behind EQUI Capital is quite simple. The team aims to create a platform where regular investors like you and I can utilize a cryptocurrency token to invest in innovative technology startup companies. Rather than doing fundraising rounds like they have done traditionally, the developers will receive investment funds in the form of the platform’s native EQUI token. As the startup progresses and begins to make a profit, this will be shared with the investors in the form of Ethereum’s Ether tokens.
How EQUI Capital it work?
For those of us who spend a long time reading various ICO white papers, the one produced by EQUI Capital is refreshingly professional. It does help, of course, that the concept is very simple to grasp. The EQUI Capital platform will be tethered to the Ethereum blockchain using a suite called Dapps. Dapps will be used to manage the smart contracts used as agreements between the investors and the startup firms. The platform’s users will be divided into three categories. The first one is traders, who are owners of EQUI tokens and hope to trade them on the exchange for other cryptocurrencies as the EQUI Capital platform becomes more successful. Similar to traders will be the holders, who hold the EQUI tokens on the platform itself. As opposed to traders, they will be rewarded by keeping their tokens on the platform as liquid assets. The last category is the investors. As opposed to traders and holders, investors use their EQUI tokens to fund the startups on the platform. Needless to say, investors will be the group of users benefitting most from the tokens, as the platform itself will reward them for keeping their tokens on the platform, and they will also be rewarded when the startups they fund become profitable.
Who is behind EQUI Capital?
One of the big draws when it comes to the EQUI Capital project is the people behind it. Although quite a few ICOs are created by individuals with extensive experience in the cryptography and software development space, EQUI Capital has the added benefit of celebrities. The founders themselves are high profilers, Doug Barrowman and Baroness Michelle Mone. For UK readers, these people need little introduction. Barrowman is a Scottish billionaire who has been in the capital venture space for over 30 years. Mone is a television personality and successful businesswoman. On their team, we find three groups of people. The project group consists of developers, marketers and project managers. The second group is a board of investment directors who come from the legal and finance sectors. The third group is an advisory board made up of blockchain and cryptocurrency experts, as well as a wide range of entrepreneurs.
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Swiss Alps Mining ICO Review
Anyone in the cryptocurrency community is probably familiar with how mining for coins and tokens work. You invest in an expensive mining rig and prepare yourself for the largest energy bill you have ever seen. Depending on which cryptocurrency you are mining for, you might make some profit. Meanwhile, actual mining for raw materials is also an expensive endeavor that consumes a lot of power. Both kinds of mining can potentially be very harmful to the environment. Swiss Alps Mining is an ICO by the company Swiss Alps Energy AG (SAE), and it proposed a solution to the problems with both real mining and cryptocurrency mining. The team has made a plan that includes putting unused buildings in the Swiss Alps to good use, and base their mining operations there. The aim is to reduce energy usage by half, and in this way, help maintain the environment.
What is Swiss Alps Mining?
Swiss Alps Energy AG is the company behind this ICO, and they are the first company to use mining stones that are supported by renewable energy, as well as the waste heat from the mining equipment. This will cut electricity costs down to half of that other mining companies use. One of the aims of the company is to make mining more profitable, save energy, protect the environment, and help maintain the cultural heritage of Switzerland. The funds collected from this ICO will be spent on developing the mining facilities.
How does it work?
Swiss Alps Energy AG is all about cutting costs, and so the distribution-based ledger energy supplier and an operator utilizing a string of unused buildings in the Swiss Alps. This is a win-win situation for the company and the government. The company gets a base of operations where they can work uninterrupted, and in return, they help maintain the buildings.
Who is behind it?
The team behind the company and the ICO come from a diverse range of backgrounds. Some are experts on blockchain technology, others are cryptocurrency miners and yet others are hyper ledger specialists. Blockchain expertise is not enough for this kind of project, however, so the Swiss Alps Energy AG team also includes civil and infrastructure engineers, as well as energy experts.
How did the project come about?
One of the rationales behind this ICO is the extremely high energy costs associated with cryptocurrency mining. Depending on where you are in the world, the costs of mining for coins and tokens can be so high that it is not financially feasible. At the same time, the massive energy consumption is not doing any favors for the environment, given that fossil fuels are still being used to power most of our electricity. With many unused buildings standing, well, unused, the team decided to develop a project that could utilize environmentally friendly mining processes and base their operations in the unused buildings.
What about the tokens?
The native currency for this ICO will be the SAM tokens, which will be using the Ethereum blockchain and its smart contract technology. This means that the SAM tokens will be exchangeable for other cryptocurrencies, as well as fiat money.
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