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CLOUT’s Seasoned Management Team Includes Original Ripple Founder

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Picking an initial coin offering (ICO) to invest in can be tough. There are so many startups looking for seed capital that identifying the most promising is a daunting task. Couple this with the fact that the ICO space is littered with scams and pitfalls and the task becomes seemingly insurmountable.

There is a surefire way to get ahead of the crowd and maximize the chances of backing a winner, however, and that’s by looking for a strong team being in place to drive whatever product or service is being created.

To put this another way, no ICO is going to be risk-free but a great team has a much higher chance of making a mediocre product or service a success than a weak team has of doing the same with even the best product. You can minimize risk, therefore, by backing the team as opposed to the product.

Take this one step further, and you can stack the deck further in your favor by picking a great team with a great product.

We’ve been on the lookout for exactly this combination and one company has caught our attention – Clout.

Clout is a decentralized media platform designed to allow content creators to produce and distribute news and information surrounding the cryptocurrency and blockchain spaces and, in parallel, get rewarded for the content they create. It’s a sort of social media, content aggregator hybrid and, with Clout, the team behind the platform is trying to provide a single, reliable and consistently high-quality destination for both content creators and content consumers in this space – something that, right now, doesn’t exist.

Clout is about to conduct an ICO at which investors can buy Clout tokens and, concurrently, will be awarded CLC tokens on a one-for-one basis. The CLC tokens are the currency that will drive user interaction with the platform, with CLC holders being able to reward content creators in CLC based on the quality of the content in question.

It is a neat model and the white paper is available here for anybody wanting to dig into the platform in a little more detail but, as we’ve said, our focus right now is squarely on the team that is pushing to bring this platform to fruition.

The team in question includes members representing 13 different countries globally, each of which is highly accomplished and has extensive experience with blockchain technology and high growth startups.

Clout’s CEO is David Cohen. Cohen is known in the space for being a member of the IOTA Foundation during the IOTA Token Cryptocurrency launch. Many reading might already be familiar with this launch but, for those that aren’t, it broke all previous records by reaching a $1.7 billion market capitalization on its first day of trading. Cohen is also a well-established and respected speaker at numerous big-name events and venues, including MIT, TEDx, Consensus and Blockchain 100X.

If you want to bring a product like Clout to market quickly and effectively you need a strong CEO and Cohen looks to fill that role perfectly. This is something that many of the currently ongoing ICOs fall short on and, in turn, is something that sets Clout apart from some of its peers in the space right now.

Clout’s Chief Advisor is another familiar name – Ryan Fugger.

Fugger founded the Ripple project back in 2004 that subsequently merged with OpenCoin in 2012 to form Ripple Inc. (XRP). Bill Gates of Microsoft just announced that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is set to use Ripple Inter Ledger technology in a mobile payment system that is designed to make financial transactions within easier for the poor and unbanked.

Fugger’s value here is primarily rooted in the network of contacts that he brings to Clout going forward. This space, as it stands, is all about reputation and Fugger is one of the most well-known and most respected people in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space as a whole, both from an operational execution standpoint and from one of technological implementation.

The four co-founders are Sean Kirtz, Frank Lucido, Dean James and Simon Josef. Each of these brings with him a wealth of experience in blockchain technology, marketing in the sector and entrepreneurial execution.

The company intends to raise $32 million by way of its ICO, which is set to kick off on October 27, 2017. The platform should be in Beta by March 20, 2018, which is an aggressive but, looking at the caliber of the team behind the product, a very much achievable, goal.

The bottom line here is that as an ICO participant you are always going to need to take on a degree of risk but one of the best ways to limit this risk is to look for individuals that can make key contributions to startup development.

With the guy behind the IOTA launch and the guy behind Ripple onboard, it’s tough to see Clout going too far wrong.

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Bitcoin Price Dumps Below $41,000 Amid Uncertainty

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Bitcoin price dumped hard on Monday, briefly slipping below $41,000, erasing gains recorded in the previous week. The premier cryptocurrency seems to have exhausted its recent rally propelled by industry vulnerabilities. At the time of writing, the world’s largest cryptocurrency was trading slightly lower at $41,385. Bitcoin’s total market cap has dipped by 2% over the past day, while the total volume of BTC tokens traded over the same period climbed by 58%.

Fundamentals

Bitcoin price has been facing retracements and a rollercoaster over the past few days after recently rocketing to a 20-month peak. On-chain data has suggested that many investors used the opportunity to take some profits, leading to a decline in the asset’s price.

Bitcoin’s price slump is mirrored in the wider crypto market, with the global crypto market cap decreasing by 1.85% over the past 24 hours to $1.55 trillion. The total crypto market volume has increased by 32% over the same period. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index has plunged from a level of extreme greed to a greed level of 70, suggesting a decline in risk appetite.

Ethereum, the largest altcoin by market capitalization, is currently trading at $2,167, down almost 3% for the day. Meme coins have been hit hard by the market slump, with Dogecoin and Shiba Inu down by more than 4% over the last day.

Last week on Thursday, cryptocurrency experts took notice of…

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Bitcoin Price is in Consolidation Mode Despite Market Optimism Post-Fed Decision

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Bitcoin price edged lower on Thursday despite optimism in wider markets on the back of the Fed’s interest rate decision. The flagship cryptocurrency has been consolidating above the critical level of $42,000 after briefly topping $44,000, its highest level in 20 months. Bitcoin was trading 0.71% lower at $42,569 at press time. BTC’s total market cap has increased by more than 3% over the last day to $832 billion, while the total volume of the asset traded over the same period jumped by 22%.

Economic Outlook

Bitcoin price has been trading sideways over the past few days, suggesting a pause in its recent rally towards $45,000. The premier cryptocurrency has decreased by 4% in the past week but remains 15.22% higher in the month to date. The digital asset has staged a significant recovery this year after a torrid 2022 in which a string of scandals, including the collapse of FTX, led to a market meltdown, undermining the credibility of the sector.

The crypto market has been buoyed by the Fed’s latest interest rate decision. The US Federal Reserve on Wednesday held its key interest rate unchanged for the third consecutive time, in line with market expectations. With the easing of the inflation rate, members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) voted to keep the benchmark overnight borrowing rate in a targeted range between 5.25%-5.5%.

Additionally, the central bank indicated that three rate…

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Bitcoin Price Blasts $44K in Spectacular Surge as Spot Bitcoin ETF Approval Looms Large

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Bitcoin price has been hovering above the $43,000 psychological level over the past two days amid anticipation about the potential approval of a spot bitcoin ETF. The flagship cryptocurrency has climbed more than 16% in the past week and nearly 170% in the year to date. Bitcoin’s total market cap has increased by nearly 5% over the past 24 hours to $858.9 billion, while the total volume of the token traded rose by 43%. The Bitcoin price was trading at $43,914 at press time.

Fundamentals

Bitcoin price has posted significant gains over the past few days, climbing to its highest level since April 2022, before the crash of a stablecoin that started a litany of company failures, pummeling crypto prices. The world’s largest cryptocurrency briefly topped the crucial level of $44,000 on Wednesday amid rising momentum despite being massively overbought.

According to analysts, with no spot bitcoin ETF approvals yet and the halving event five to six months away, the market is riding on FOMO. Capital has been flowing in the Bitcoin market amid enthusiasm that the launches of spot ETF will bring in billions of dollars of new investment into the crypto sector.

Investors have already started providing capital as seed money for ETF products. Notably, a recent report by CoinDesk showed that the world’s largest fund manager, BlackRock, received $100,000 in capital from a seed investor for its spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund…

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