Justin O'Connell is the founder of financial technology focused CryptographicAsset.com. Justin organized the launch of the largest Bitcoin ATM hardware and software provider in the world at the historical Hotel del Coronado in southern California. His works appear in the U.S.'s third largest weekly, the San Diego Reader, VICE and elsewhere.
Justin OConnell on July 14th, 2017.
Agrello wants users to create their own legally-binding contracts with the power of smart contracts. Further, the company wants to enable users to design such agreements “without coding or legal skills to form legally-binding agreements on the blockchain”. Agrello’s graphical interface is designed to allow users to assemble contracts...
Justin OConnell on July 11th, 2017.
Everex, whose token sale kicks off July 24th, is going back to an early digital asset use-case for its distributed endeavors. Blockchains have become known for quick transaction resolution times. For instance, Ethereum has offered transactions in under one minute. A new token sale looks to tap into this potential. The Everex capital...
Justin OConnell on July 5th, 2017.
EOS.IO software by block.one wants to “Decentralize Everything”. Mr. Larimer has already put two notable blockchain systems live: BitShares and Steem. Both of these systems remain online and recently benefited from increased interest in the crypto-asset space in general. To this date, EOS has raised $200 million in revenue from token...
Justin OConnell on June 30th, 2017.
The Giga Watt token crowdsale provides access to the crypto-mining operation founded by former Microsoft engineer Dave Carlson, who worked on digital assets with the multinational technology firm before the invention of Bitcoin. Giga Watt’s fundraising goal is $11.8 million. “Giga Watt provides turnkey mining services and custom...
Justin OConnell on June 23rd, 2017.
NEO has been called “China’s Ethereum”. The Western market first collectively learned about Antshares, a smart contract and decentralized application (dApp) platform, just ahead of the company’s rebrand to ‘NEO’ – which is Greek for “newness”, novelty and youth. That merely one exchange offers bitcoin-NEO trades...
Justin OConnell on June 20th, 2017.
Since the incipience of blockchains and digital assets, digital identity has been a hot topic. Vinny Lingham, South African internet entrepreneur, foresaw the applications of blockchain technology towards digital identity and founded Civic, his blockchain-based identity platform. This only after he had much success transforming gift...
Justin OConnell on May 7th, 2017.
The Mexico Lower House of Congress just passed legislation on April 28 to legalize medical marijuana in the country. Now the President, Enrique Pena Nieto, must sign the bill into law to legalize cannabis for medical and scientific uses in the country. The bill passed 371-11. The ruling “eliminates the prohibition and...
Justin OConnell on May 3rd, 2017.
100 days. A rather random period of time by which to judge a presidency. The metric came about thanks to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s flurry of New Deal laws in his first 100 days. Studies have indeed found that it’s legislative action tends to come in one’s first 100 days. At the time of writing, Trump’s approval rating is 43.1 percent...
Justin OConnell on December 12th, 2016.
With lingering concerns over ways in which the 2016 election could have been underhandedly swayed in the favor of President-elect Donald J. Trump after Barack Obama requested a report on the matter, a team of blockchain-minded New York University devs have developed a potential answer after winning first prize in a development challenge....
Justin OConnell on November 23rd, 2016.
DARPA sees a real possibility for spaced based conflict. So, it’s hoping to create breakthrough technology to dissuade U.S. adversaries who might consider attacking from space. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency assists national security with efforts in space. It focuses on making space a “real-time operational domain,” as...
Justin OConnell on November 22nd, 2016.
In a Facebook post Friday night, founder of the popular social network Mark Zuckerberg took time to outline the steps the company will take to tackle its “fake news” problem, which has been a hot topic in the wake of the election. One way the social media behemoth plans on doing that is by making sure fake news sites...
Justin OConnell on November 18th, 2016.
California Lt. Gov. Newsom is a favorite to take Democrat Jerry Brown’s place as the 2018 gubernatorial race Democratic candidate, meaning a Bitcoin and technology friendly politician could lead a state that regularly votes Democratic. Newsom currently leads others in the race, from both parties, with 23 percent of registered voters. The...
Justin OConnell on November 9th, 2016.
The FBI released on November 1 a primer on darknet marketplaces, just one week after the Bureau wrapped up, along with other U.S. law enforcement, Operation Hyperion. The Operation intended to disrupt darknet marketplaces on the international level. According to the FBI, the operation started with the Five Eyes Law Enforcement Group...
Justin OConnell on November 8th, 2016.
“Don’t pull anything funny on Election Day, Russia,” New York Daily News wrote last week. Apparently, tensions are high. New York Daily News goes on to outline how U.S. military hackers are preparing secret cyber weapons to hit back if Russian forces try to interrupt US networks on Election Tuesday. Intelligence officials are mum on...
Justin OConnell on October 29th, 2016.
From within a non-descript apartment building on a main thoroughfare in Chula Vista, California – but ten minutes north of Mexico – several computers sit on two desks. Big bay windows lead out to the street below. Once, what witnesses believe were parts of a surveillance drone fell onto the street. It had bird feathers stuck...
Justin OConnell on October 26th, 2016.
While most fallout from the Podesta emails has been political, there are extraterrestrial implications for some of the e-mails released by whistleblower source WikiLeaks. An email on behalf of Apollo astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta turned up in the recent data dumps. The email was sent by Rebecca...
Justin OConnell on October 24th, 2016.
DECENT wants to create a decentralized digital rights management solution for piracy powered by the blockchain. Like so many modern decentralized platforms, DECENT’s platform seeks to remove the middlemen, power abusers, and prevent third party manipulation to ensure content creators and consumers can trade material in a...
Justin OConnell on October 24th, 2016.
The evidence on Google Trends is overwhelming: We’re obsessed with Donald Trump. That’s worldwide, not just in the US. In his native country, Mr. Trump is as hot a topic as there comes. In Canada, Latin America, Europe, Australia and many other nations, Mr. Trump is the center of attention this 2016 US presidential campaign....
Justin OConnell on October 23rd, 2016.
Hacktivism, a phenomenon specific to the digital age, represents the subversive use of computers and computer networks. The term was coined by the Cult of the Dead Cow in 1994. Hacktivists represent a broad range of personalities and goals. They’ve recently played a greater role in the collective conscious as cyber attacks at banks...
Justin OConnell on October 22nd, 2016.
“Attacks that we witnessed today were possible mainly because there is a centralized infrastructure which could have been targeted,” said Piotr Janiuk, CTO of Golem, which seeks to decentralize the internet using peer-to-peer technology. “The attack itself isn’t easy to carry out, but it is obvious that even the backbone...