Shillingham United XI: A dream team of footballers backing crappy cryptocurrencies

Have you been noticing just how many footballers have been signing deals with initial coin offerings (ICOs)?

News broke last week that Didier Drogba, former Chelsea star and Ivory Coast’s all-time highest scoring striker, has become the latest sports celebrity to officially endorse a cryptocurrency startup.

He is the newest ambassador of fledgling crypto-trader social media platform – alle – which has purportedly already raised over $30 million in funding and will be conducting their ICO later this year.

To celebrate this ‘momentous occasion’, we’ve decided to put together a dream team of the most popular footballers to have lent their reputation to shady cryptocurrency startups.

So without further ado, we’re introducing Shillingham United XI:

Forwards: Michael Owen ( GCOX ) , Lionel Messi ( Sirin Labs ) , Didier Drogba (alle)

Midfield: Ronaldinho (c) ( Ronaldinho Soccer Coin ), Luis Figo ( Football-Stars ), James Rodríguez ( JR10 )

Defense: Gianluca Zambrotta ( United Fans ), Carles Puyol ( Olyseum ), Andrés Iniesta ( Olyseum ), Iván de la Peña ( Olyseum )

Goalkeeper: Lothar Matthäus ( TokenStars ) ( NB: Matthäus is technically a striker, but we’ve trusted him as the goalie )

Bench: Lusi Suarez ( Stox ), Sergio Agüero ( All Sports Chain ), Eden Hazard ( All Sports Chain )

Of course, no dream team is complete without a seasoned coach to guide the players in difficult moments. Fortunately, we’ve got the right fit: former Tottenham Hotspur coach Harry Redknapp who blatantly shilled Electroneum in a tweet , before deleting it once pressed on the circumstances.

Shillingham United even has its own home ground: Emirates Stadium. The stadium is home turf to Arsenal FC – but given the club’s endorsement of cryptocurrency betting platform CashBet – we thought they wouldn’t mind sharing with Shillingham United.

All in all, pretty freakin’ stacked. So stacked that Lusi Suarez is on the bench .

Athletes and the blockchain

While the close collaborations between athletes and ICOs might strike you as unexpected, tons of blockchain startups have been seeking to up their branding game by securing partnerships with famous sports personalities.

Boxing legend Floyd Mayweather backed token startup Centra Tech, before the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) eventually indicted the company’s founders for cryptocurrency fraud .

Indeed, the blockchain promo frenzy extended even to the World Cup in Russia, where viewers were briefly blasted with commercials promoting a sketchy blockchain platfrom from Hyundai called HDAC.

Whatever the connection between blockchain startups and (sports) celebrities though, the SEC is monitoring the situation closely – and actively warning users against investing in cryptocurrencies based on their advice.

“Celebrities who endorse an investment often do not have sufficient expertise to ensure that the investment is appropriate and in compliance with federal securities laws,” the SEC wrote in a statement last year. “Conduct research before making investments, including in ICOs.”

So if I were you: I’d do my own research before I lean on Figo for cryptocurrency investment advice.

Disclaimer: Please note this piece is NOT an endorsement of any of the mentioned blockchain startups. The aim of the article is simply to point out a recent trend in the cryptocurrency space which might have negative repercussions for naive traders. Always do your own research.

Coinbase is luring Wall Street with new cryptocurrency investment tools

As the financial industry continues its expansion into blockchain tech, popular exchange desk Coinbase is broadening its line of products to make it easier for institutional giants to enter the cryptocurrency space.

The exchange is launching Coinbase Prime – a new platform specifically designed to provide large institutional investors with a suite of tools for trading cryptocurrencies. The news comes from Coinbase general manager Adam White, who made the announcement on Medium earlier today.

In addition to these tools, Prime will also help out financial behemoths with research and market data. Coinbase plans to roll out all of these services “over the coming months.”

“ At Coinbase, we welcome these developments as they help accelerate the world’s adoption of cryptocurrency by bringing new capital, greater awareness, and additional infrastructure to the space,” White wrote. “This movement requires institutional grade products and services, something Coinbase has been developing with leading institutions and which we are proud to formally launch today.”

The San Francisco-based exchange desk also revealed that it has struck deals with several noted cryptocurrency investment firms. They will be using its Custody service for hedge funds, which now supports third-party auditing and financial reporting validation. The list of partners so far includes names such as Boost VC and Walden Bridge Capital.

White further claims that the Custody service will be fully regulated and compliant with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Along with the other fresh offerings, Coinbase announced it will be opening a new office in Chicago to grow its Markets platform and accommodate the liquidity needs of institutional clients.

To eliminate friction between these platforms, the exchange desk will also be introducing a new Institutional Coverage Group dedicated to helping large institutions with sales trading, research, market operations, and client services support. White says the group will operate from the company’s office in New York City.

Given the recent interest in blockchain and cryptocurrency from giants like NASDAQ , The New York Stock Exchange , Goldman Sachs, and JP Morgan, it is hardly surprising that Coinbase is seeking to diversify its streams of revenue by catering to Wall Street.

But even more significantly, the move is a clear sign that cryptocurrency startups are slowly but surely starting to abandon the hackneyed “disruption” narrative in favor of courting the same institutions that were once labeled the enemy.

Proof-of-Work tech under fire after 51% attacks on Electroneum and Verge

Two cryptocurrencies have recently become victims of the dreaded ‘ 51 percent attacks ’ on their blockchains.  Electroneum suffered a 51 percent attack which was discovered when it was noticed that a massive amount of empty blocks were being constantly mined on the currency’s blockchain one after another, preceded by a sudden drop in hashrate.

Following the Electroneum attack it was reported that Verge’s blockchain had also been compromised by a 51 percent attack. Around 250,000 XVG were stolen by the attacker, as the attacker was able to mine multiple blocks one second apart using the same (scrypt) algorithm. This feat would have had been impossible if not for the bugs that existed in the code of Verge’s blockchain, as pointed out by the BitcoinTalk user ocminer .

Both of these cryptocurrencies have one thing in common: they’re based on the proof of work consensus protocol of Bitcoin. Proof of work allows for the validation of transactions and avoidance of double spend by checking for the processing time used by each node (say, computer). The transaction is considered valid if it’s validated by a majority of the nodes. The entire system relies on the knowledge that no single entity can control the majority of the network power, and therefore can’t have undue influence over the decision.

There are exceptions where these calculations go wrong though, and that’s when a blockchain gets compromised. A 51 percent attack occurs when one entity gains control over 51 percent of the network hashrate. This entity can be one individual, organization, or a group of miners; all they need to have is singularity in decision-making which allows them to tamper with the blockchain.

This entity can now both prevent valid transactions from occurring as well as reverse already occurred transactions on the blockchain. Even a single coin can be spent twice from the same origin with this majority control that can be used to validate the transaction of the same coin twice (called double-spend).

The reason why it is usually considered impossible for the Bitcoin’s blockchain to be compromised in this way is because it will require a lot of hashing power to gain over 50 percent control over it; but Ghash.io, a Bitcoin mining pool, has come too close to it — not once but twice .

A hard fork is seen as the best recourse to a 51 percent attack for any blockchain, and that’s what both Electroneum and Verge are planning to do as well to secure their networks. This is because the hard fork changes the entire mining algorithm in the first place, securing the network and giving it a fresh start.

It’s worth noting, however, that hard forks don’t necessarily prevent the new blockchain from further 51 percent attacks. Extra security measures will still need to be taken to secure the network and to make sure that the attackers don’t strike again.