In my latest article, I talked about the use of blockchain for a great variety of industries, including finances, groceries and real estate. I asked you to do yourselves a favor and get informed about Rentberry, however I will kind of highlight some of the most important parts of this company, in this blog post.

Briefly: Rentberry was founded in 2015 in San Francisco by Alex Lubinski. Their goal was to connect tenants and landlords through a decentralized platform, that would allow for tenants to bid on the apartments. Rental payments would go through the platform itself, while allowing for security deposits to be handled by investors (90%) and of course the tenants (10%)

Continue reading “Long Term Home Rentals Are Undergoing Massive Change” →

There has been a lot of speculation about how cryptocurrencies will impact and influence our life in the coming years. I don’t like using the phrase cryptocurrencies, are not all of these coins are being used for monetary transactions in the way Bitcoin is – but anyway – that’s the language I need to use to communicate.

A lot of people are comparing cryptocurrencies to the Internet, and some go way back to the industrial revolution. Although cryptocurrencies will play a significant part of our every day lives, at the same time, we do need to understand that there is a sense of great optimism and euphoria, that isn’t always based on reality. Bitcoin for example: it’s a cryptocurrency being used by more and more people every day. However the hike in its price/value, is not based on more people buying say T-shirts online using Bitcoin, but rather because of pure panic buying.

Continue reading “Will Cryptocurrencies Change The World?” →

If there is one good thing that has come from the Bitcoin hype, that is bitcoin futures. More and more exchanges are now allowing for bitcoin futures to be traded. What that means is, more dollars being poured into this cryptocurrency. More poured in means it will make it more popular, and provide greater returns to its traders.

But, if Wall Street starts pumping money – as they already have partially – that will attract regulators.  Cryptocurrencies has always been about staying away from government and regulatory bodies. I do not personally think that if Wall Street firms start trading cryptocurrencies and the government gets involved, that it will affect the price of cryptos too much: but it does invite more people to an already crowded party. No matter how much governments try and regulate bitcoin, there will be some other place that is friendly towards the cryptocurrency and will allow trading there. Look at the China situation that evolved during the summer time…the result? People just moved their money to Japan and South Korea.

Continue reading “Should Wall Street Get Involved With Crypto?” →

There has been a lot of talk about bitcoin, ethereum and a ton of other cryptocurrencies. Traditional news outlets and niche related media platforms alike, have been discussing the rise of cryptocurrencies. However, 2017 was not just a big year for cryptocurrencies but also the launch of new companies – the ICOs.

If you recall, back in August China started banning ICOs as there were a lot that were scamming people from their money, in order to just take off with the millions they had raised. 2017 saw a huge spike in the number of ICOs that launched – more than ever before.

Continue reading “2017 A Great Year For ICOs” →

As usual, when an innovative platform is built and when it’s determined to totally disrupt an industry, there are a lot of people that get threatened, evolutionary fear starts climbing in and people start panicking for no absolute reason.

When Rentberry came out as a platform back in 2015, some people thought it was the end of the world. “How can we have an E-bay – like – platform for home rentals? Won’t that just sky rocket the rental prices?”

Continue reading “Rentberry To Pump Or Lower Rental Rates?” →

Unless a rock hit you in the head and you’ve got total amnesia of the 2008 crisis, you probably remember that real estate was responsible for one of the scariest times of our life time. People losing their jobs and savings, homes defaulting, people in panic…it was a mess. Basically, it wasn’t real estate but loans that were pumping up that industry.

Nevertheless, the effects of that crisis are still alive and well today: the national debt of the US has more than doubled since 2008, taxpayers needed to cover for the bank’s reckless behavior and today there is another crisis: student loan debt. It’s at its highest rate, and with jobs fleeing the country, the younger generation has a great combination of both high debt, and no job. So that means that younger people are delaying to buy homes simply because renting is cheaper. That was the same fact for the currently older generation in their time, however reports suggest that they are now delaying close to an extra decade (compared to previous generations) to buy homes.

Continue reading “A Small Statistic Report On The Real Estate Markets (Utilizing Blockchain)” →

If you are scrolling through your Facebook feed, most likely you will get ads of businesses near the place you are currently at. For example, if you are downtown in San Diego, whatever street you are on, most likely you will get an ad about the bakery or grocery story near you. That of course is being determined based on your IP address, but also based on your interests. See, whenever you like some kind of post, Facebook as well as other social media giants, well save that interest of yours, and utilize it to send ads related to that interest.

Same things happens for pretty much any platform you use and submit personal information. And that is kind of the problem, with what we have today (without cryptocurrencies.) Using though cryptos, you are empowered and able to decide how you want to use and share your data. The whole idea of cryptocurrencies is their ability of decentralization and privacy.

Continue reading “The Benefit Of Cryptocurrencies In Information Privacy” →

It is no secret, that Wall Street absolutely despises cryptocurrencies. But the ones that really hate it and will try to do anything to stop it, are Central Banks. Actually, Wall Street has started to embrace the crypto evolution. Not only are they considering ETFs, but Bitcoin futures are now “a thing.”

I was reading a story of an ex banker, that decided to buy into Ethereum Classic when it was trading at just $0.50. According to the report, he thought at 50 cents, it was a good low risk/high reward situation, so decided to buy some for himself. Turns out, Ethereum Classic ran up to $47 (90X) before it fell back down. So it beat the hell out of bitcoin, by A LOT.

Continue reading “Bankers Getting Into Cryptocurrencies (Report)” →

Throughout the past few weeks, I have had people e-mail me, asking me what’s the best way to evaluate an ICO and whether it will be worth anything both short term and long term. Guys, before we get this conversation started let me make one thing clear: if you are looking for short term gains, please just trade cryptocurrencies. It will be a lot faster, safer and you can swing in and out of a bunch of different coins easily, without being locked into a cryptocurrency for a long period of time. At the same time, I personally view trading as gambling.

But for anyone that is really looking to invest in a company (in a similar way someone would invest in an IPO) then I have good news for you. ICOs most of the times attract investors (instead of gamblers) that are looking for the discounts (which is the only reason someone would buy at a token sale stage.) Personally, I tend to prefer ICOs that sell their tokens at a discount of 60% or more. If I am going to go through the risk of buying a coin that isn’t even guaranteed to be trading on an exchange, I need to leverage the situation as much as possible, and lower my risk. So ICOs that are not offering say a solid 50% discount one way or another, I don’t like them too much.

Continue reading “What Is A Good Discount For An ICO?” →

I’m a great fan of cryptocurrencies, just because no government or central bank can have control over that currency. It’s a decentralized and anonymous way of transferring money, without the use of a middle man (with high processing fees.)

At the same time, I think any sane person understands the importance of some regulation. Not to restrict law abiding ICOs and startups, but to weed out the bad ones that give all of the rest a bad name. It isn’t a rare scenario, when some startups build a fake concept and promise riches to investors, but then leave everyone empty handed. Since there is no regulation, you have all sorts of schemes you can imagine in a financial system, all in one place: cryptocurrencies. Right this moment, it is literally the wild west, and companies are free to reign as they want with no serious consequence.

Continue reading “The Wild West Of Cryptocurrencies” →