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Cyber-thieves from the Bitfinex hack of four years ago continue to cash out, this time transferring the equivalent of $4.1 million in bitcoin to an unknown wallet address. Crypto tracking tool Whale Alert reports that hackers moved 416 bitcoin (BTC) on June 11. The funds, valued at $4.1 million at the time of the transaction, were sent in 20 separate transactions, each bearing between 15 and 33 BTC. This is perhaps the biggest pay day yet for the hackers. When the stolen money first moved in June and August 2019, about 170 BTC and 300 BTC worth around $2.3 million and $2.7 million at the time, respectively, flowed. More recently, the thieves last moved $800,000 or 77.64 bitcoin on June 2. Another transfer of 28.4 BTC valued at $255,000 was executed on May 22. The coins are likely sold to unsuspecting buyers off the market. Ever carried out in small quantities to provide a false sense of security, the transactions are typically timed to coincide with every increase in the price of bitcoin. BTC spiked sharply on Wednesday to just under $10,000, but the benchmark cryptocurrency once again faced strong resistance at that key level. The digital asset has since slumped nearly 6% to $9,331 over the last 24 hours, according to data from markets.bitcoin.com. Bitcoin has repeatedly struggled to scale past the $10,000 barrier since the May 11 supply cut event, also known as halving. The point is regarded as key towards unlocking the long-anticipated bull run, something that has tended to come with every previous halving. All the three transfers by the Bitfinex hackers over the past three weeks happened almost simultaneously with the BTC price threatening a rise beyond $10,000. Hackers have chipped away at their multi-million-dollar stash since making off with 120,000 BTC from Hong Kong-based crypto exchange Bitfinex in 2016. Valued at $72 million at the time, that stash of bitcoin is worth over $1.1 billion at current prices. What do you think about the Bitfinex hackers’ moves? Let us know in the comments section below. The post Bitfinex Hackers Move Another $4.1 Million Bitcoin in Their Biggest Pay Day Yet appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

On June 11, 2020, the cryptocurrency payment services provider, Bitpay announced the firm is launching a prepaid Mastercard that can be loaded with a variety of digital assets. The Atlanta-based company says the card can be spent anywhere Mastercard is accepted and users can “instantly convert cryptocurrency into fiat currency.” For quite some time now, the Atlanta-based Bitpay has offered a prepaid Visa card that allows users to load cryptocurrencies in exchange for USD. On Thursday, Bitpay revealed the company has partnered with Mastercard (MC) and the new product is the “first [MC] prepaid card in the U.S. market for the blockchain community.” Unfortunately, the company’s Visa prepaid Bitpay card services will end on December 31, 2020. “This program termination means that all Bitpay prepaid Visa cards will expire and stop working on December 31, 2020, regardless of the expiration date printed on your card,” the firm explains. Spends will end in December, while July 31, 2020, will be “the last day you will be able to load funds to your card including converting cryptocurrency to fiat for use. Please redirect any recurring bank deposits, such as payroll, before this date.” Bitpay will instead offer prepaid cards that wield the American multinational financial services corporation’s logo, which means it can be used anywhere MC payments are accepted. “The Bitpay Card offers new benefits and features for consumers making it easier to convert Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies into a spendable balance without currency risk,” Stephen Pair, co-founder, and CEO of Bitpay explained during the announcement. Pair further added: We are excited to work with Mastercard to expand crypto’s use, while making it easy for businesses to attract new customers who want to spend Bitcoin and offer more places for customers with Bitcoin to shop. Just like the firm’s flagship Visa prepaid card, people will be able to load BTC, BCH, ETH, XRP, and the stablecoins USDC, GUSD, PAX, and BUSD. Similarly, Bitpay MC prepaid card users can “also use their cards online for purchases and to withdraw cash from (automated teller machines) ATMs.” The Atlanta company says that the card is “safe” and features an “EMV chip” as well. The Bitpay MC prepaid card’s EMV chip bolsters security and enables contactless-payments too. Loaded funds are made available after one blockchain network confirmation, and the card also tracks and manages card spending. “At Mastercard, we’re committed to offering differentiated financial services to consumers on a global scale,” said Sherri Haymond, executive vice president, Digital Partnerships at Mastercard. “We’re excited to be working with Bitpay to offer consumers greater choice and flexibility when it comes to managing their finances,” Haymond added. The prepaid MC cards are also issued in the United States are supported in all 50 US states. Bitpay says that prepaid MC customers have to be 18 years or older, and they also must “successfully complete identity and residency verification.” What do you think about the Bitpay prepaid Mastercard? Let us know in the comments section below. The post Bitpay Reveals Crypto-to-Fiat Prepaid Mastercard, Firm’s Flagship Visa Card Ends in December appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Russia’s Ministry of Economic Development has informed parliament of its disapproval of the bill to ban cryptocurrency. Experts say a ban will be ineffective as people can use technology to bypass it, leading to the creation of an “uncontrolled black market.” Russian Ministry Criticizes Bill to Ban Crypto The Russian Ministry of Economic Development has sent a letter to the State Duma, the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia, criticizing the bill that seeks to ban cryptocurrency in the country. Local publication Kommersant reported Wednesday that it has seen the letter. Russian officials detailed that the bill proposes a complete ban on the issuance and circulation of existing cryptocurrencies in Russia, penalizing legal entities and individual entrepreneurs engaged in these activities. The ministry explained that the existing legislation for cross-border transactions does not protect the rights of cryptocurrency users, asserting that this will push all operations outside Russia, which will lead to losses for the country’s economy. In its letter, the ministry stressed the need to change the text of the bill to provide for “the creation of mechanisms for the controlled circulation of cryptocurrencies.” They may include establishing requirements for the issuance and turnover of cryptocurrencies and their operators. Procedures for allowing these operators to carry out crypto-related activities should also be established. The letter continues, “Sub-legislative regulation of this issue is proposed to be attributed to the powers of the government of the Russian Federation (together with the Bank of Russia).” Russia’s parliament is currently considering a bill to ban cryptocurrencies, with jail terms for violations. However, the Ministry of Economic Development criticizes the bill which could lead to the creation of an “uncontrolled black market.” Anatoly Aksakov, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Financial Market, told Kommersant that he had not yet seen the letter from the Ministry of Economic Development. Nonetheless, he said: “It’s good that they criticize, we don’t need approval, we need criticism.” According to him, the country’s central bank, the Bank of Russia, “generally supports the bill with some changes.” Public comments on the proposed legislation will be collected until mid-June. The draft law “On Digital Financial Assets” was adopted in the first reading back in 2018 after long discussions. However, it does not address how existing cryptocurrencies are to be treated, the publication noted. Meanwhile, the central bank has repeatedly spoken out against the circulation of cryptocurrencies in Russia. Alexander Zhuravlev, chairman of the Commission for Legal Support of the Digital Economy of the Moscow Branch of the Russian Bar Association, commented that “In the context of the crisis of the Russian Federation, one should not give up opportunities, one should choose the right administration, and not a prohibitive approach.” He elaborated that “even with the legal prohibition of crypto assets, users will have the opportunity to bypass it through technical means (VPN, etc.),” adding: The prohibitive approach will not solve the security problem of citizens, but will actually create an uncontrolled black market. The Director-General of Moscow Digital School, Dmitry Zakharov, believes that Russia already missed a lot of opportunities by not providing a comfortable legal environment for cryptocurrency when it was needed. He emphasized that if this new bill is adopted and cryptocurrencies are banned, Russia will miss out on big opportunities, including substantial revenue loss from taxes and crypto mining. Most importantly, he said the country will lose innovators, entrepreneurs, programmers, and lawyers who work in this sector. Do you think Russia will ban cryptocurrency? Let us know in the comments section below. The post Russian Ministry Slams Bill to Ban Crypto — Experts Warn Easy to Bypass, Creates Black Market appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

History repeated itself on Thursday, after the Ethereum blockchain processed another transfer with fees of $2.6 million – the second such unusual, record-fee transaction in 24 hours. A user sent 350 ether (ETH), worth about $86,400 and paid 10,668 ETH, or $2.6 million, in transaction fees. The latest transaction was mined on block 10241999 by the Ethermine pool, a unit of Bitfly. Notably, this is a transaction that originates from the same address, of the same customer who paid the same amount of fees yesterday to send just $134 worth of ethereum. Sparkpool mined the first transaction. Data shows the same account is holding roughly $9 million worth of ether, meaning it could repeat the mistake three more times. “We believe that this was an accident and in order to resolve this issue the tx sender should contact us…immediately,” tweeted Bitfly, on June 11. Both Sparkpool and Ethermine have frozen the funds as investigations into the suspicious transactions continue. But that has not prevented the crypto community from going into overdrive, with rampant speculation surrounding the mysterious successive deals. One theory attributed the first transaction to an innocent mistake. Yet, others suspected underhand dealings, pointing to attempts at tax avoidance or money laundering. But the fact that two different miners processed the two transactions pours cold water on this later assumption. Alex Manuskin, researcher at digital asset wallet Zengo, seems to offer a more plausible explanation. Manuskin posits that the transactions may be the result of a bug. “A possible explanation could be a mix in the bot code between the sent value and the gas price,” Manuskin was quoted as saying by industry publication The Block. “This sender used to send a transaction every 1 minute or so, so this did not look like a human operator. Might be some sort of a trading bot, for some exchange, repeating the same operation,” he added. In a tweet, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin appears to back Manuskin’s theory, suggesting that a protocol upgrade will improve the network and eliminate the need for users to set fees manually. “Definitely a mistake. I’m expecting EIP 1559 to greatly reduce the rate of things like this happening by reducing the need for users to try to set fees manually,” he said. What do you think about this repeat Ethereum record-fee transaction? Let us know in the comments section below. The post Speculation Rife as User Pays a Second $2.6 Million Fee in Ether Transaction appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Switzerland, 11th June 2020. Swiss-based crypto platform Eidoo has today burned almost one third (1/3rd) of the total supply of utility token $EDO as they prepare for its June 18th token upgrade, in collaboration with sister company Provable Things. In one of the largest-scale token burns in the history of cryptocurrency, this burn of 28 million $EDO will see the Eidoo project remove approximately 80% of their company-owned tokens. The upgraded $EDO token will be relabelled as $PNT and upon launch will have a total supply of just below 60 million tokens.This $PNT token will power an industry-first DAO, and can be used to stake, vote and earn interest via the new pNetwork ecosystem – the decentralized network powering the pTokens solution. Provable Things are the main development team behind the pTokens solution, which enables cryptocurrency to “move” across different blockchains. The first of the pTokens series to launch was pBTC, making Bitcoin compatible with Ethereum and EOS DeFi ecosystems, without users having to sell or trade their Bitcoin. The upgraded $PNT token extends the utility of $EDO, providing access to services within the pNetwork (pTokens) ecosystem, as well as continuing to power Eidoo’s industry-leading features such as the Eidoo Card cashback program. The token upgrade will begin on June 18th and will take a few days to complete.The first step is to take a snapshot of Block #10289700 with all Ethereum addresses holding EDO tokens. This will happen on June 18th around 11am UTC time. For more technical details on how this works please refer to the Eidoo blog. The upgrade is supported by a number of exchanges which already list $EDO on their platforms, to be announced shortly. All $EDO token holders will see the upgraded $PNT token appear in their accounts soon after the upgrade. “We’re excited to kickstart a new token economy which allows different DeFi communities to unite, demonstrating the potential of a truly democratic DAO” says Thomas Bertani, CEO of Eidoo and founder of the pTokens project. The pNetwork When launched as a governance token, the circulating supply of approx. 60 million $PNT will be distributed across more than 7000 blockchain addresses. This will make it one of the largest DAOs in the DeFi space when launched in the coming weeks; majority control of the project will be in the hands of the community, achieving a truly decentralized governance system. Anyone holding $PNT will be able to join the pNetwork DAO, and can vote on different improvement and development proposals. For example, members can vote on which new pTokens “bridges” should be developed next, such as pLTC on Ethereum. All those who stake and actively vote using their $PNT will receive an interest rate of 42% in the first year, and 21% in the second year. This reward incentive is designed to give back to the community and grow the network in its initial stages. Up to 28,350,000 $PNT tokens are dedicated to this initiative, which are generated through an inflation mechanism. Learn more at p.network and pTokens.io Media contact Savannah Lee slee@eidoo.io About pTokens pTokens is a cross-chain solution which enables Decentralized Financial DApps to be compatible with any crypto asset. pBTC was the first pTokens to be released, a 1:1 pegged ERC777 Bitcoin representation on Ethereum. designed to move any asset into any blockchain. The main development team behind the pTokens solutions is Provable Things, founded in 2016 in London. Provable uses cutting-edge decentralized and Trusted Computing technologies to provide services for modern DApps. The first Provable product to launch has become the longest-running blockchain oracle service industry-wide. About Eidoo Eidoo is your gateway to the exciting new world of decentralized finance (DeFi). As an app for mobile and desktop devices, it’s the easiest and most secure way to participate in the blockchain economy. A Swiss-based company founded in 2017, the Eidoo ICO raised more than $20 million and was one of the few projects to launch with an already existing product. Eidoo is part of Poseidon Group, a blockchain innovation leader in Switzerland, Italy and across Europe. Poseidon’s team is made up of world-renowned consultants, lawyers and executives with backgrounds in Big 4 business, asset management and emerging technologies. This is a press release. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the promoted company or any of its affiliates or services. Bitcoin.com is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in the press release. The post Eidoo Burns 28 Million $EDO in Preparation for Governance Token Upgrade on June 18th appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

On June 10, 2020, the Human Rights Foundation (HRF) launched a fund that is dedicated to the development of tools that make the Bitcoin network “more private, decentralized, and resilient.” HRF’s initial gift of $50,000 will be given to the UK-based developer, Chris Belcher, who has been working on a project called Coinswap. This week the well known, Human Rights Foundation (HRF), announced the launch of a fund that bolsters codebase development of coin mixing applications for bitcoin (BTC). The New York City-based HRF is very well known and is also the organization behind the Oslo Freedom Forum. HRF’s gift of $50,000 will help fuel Coinswap development led by the well known developer Chris Belcher. Coinswap is a mixing protocol that leverages Coinjoin and it was introduced in 2013. Additionally, “in the protocol, all parties are assumed to have private communications channels,” explains the concept’s creator Greg Maxwell. The Coinswap Github repository says: A Coinswap implementation for massively improving Bitcoin privacy and fungibility. Further, HRF will be funding other types of bitcoin (BTC) development in the future. “The fund’s next gift, already earmarked for another developer working on strengthening Bitcoin pseudonymity at the network level, will be announced in the near future,” HRF’s announcement explains. HRF chief strategy officer Alex Gladstein says that the organization is proud to help fund tools that promote financial privacy. “HRF is pleased to support Chris in his quest to make Bitcoin more usably private,” said Gladstein. “Human rights defenders and reporters around the world face increasing financial repression in the form of frozen bank accounts, restrictions on foreign funding, payment surveillance, and general difficulty in earning income or receiving donations. Bitcoin can be a powerful tool for them to use moving forward alongside encrypted messaging apps like Signal and projects like Tor Browser and Securedrop,” the HRF chief strategy officer added. Gladstein further stated: At the moment, the Bitcoin network is improving but is far from as usable and private as it needs to be with authoritarianism and surveillance on the rise in many countries. With more support, developers like Chris can make it possible for activists to receive donations and continue their important work under increased pressure. The move to help fund bitcoin mixing applications that improve privacy is being done in the face of adversity. Governments worldwide and other entities have made the public fearful of using mixing applications that obfuscate crypto transactions. Global law enforcement and regulators have warned against using shuffling crypto apps, even though they are not illegal. During the first month of 2017, The Basel Institute on Governance met with various global lawmakers, Europol, Interpol, and authorities from Qatar in order to discuss crypto transactions, exchanges, and mixing applications. At the time the Basel Institute said: All countries are advised to take action against digital currency mixers/tumblers. Such services are designed exclusively to anonymize transactions and to make it impossible for law enforcement agencies to detect and trace suspicious transactions. The existence of such companies should not continue to be tolerated. People can donate BTC to the new HRF Bitcoin Development Fund, as well as donating USD. Developers can also send proposals to HRF, if they want to obtain some funding for Bitcoin development improvements. Gladstein hopes that the fund will invoke other organizations to help improve bitcoin and financial privacy rights. “In today’s world, Bitcoin developers are often free agents, relying almost exclusively on the generosity of exchanges and corporations,” Gladstein concluded. “Hopefully, HRF’s fund can inspire other organizations in the non-profit and academic space to support Bitcoin research and software development.” The HRF funding also follows the recent fundraising initiated by Bitcoin.com and the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) community. Over $100,000 was raised on April 5, 2020, so Cashfusion developers can obtain a codebase audit from Kudelski Security. Cashfusion is a touch different than traditional UTXO mixing applications, as the data analyst James Waugh noted: “[Cashfusion] is far more practical than [traditional] Coinjoin protocols. ” What do you think about the HRF funding? Let us know in the comments section below. The post Bolstering Privacy: Human Rights Foundation Donates $50K Toward Bitcoin Mixing Development appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

A new survey of about 800 institutional investors in the U.S. and Europe shows strong cryptocurrency adoption, particularly bitcoin. About 80% of institutions said they find cryptocurrency appealing, and 60% believe cryptocurrencies have a place in their portfolios. Crypto Appeals to 80% of Institutions Surveyed Fidelity Digital Assets, the cryptocurrency arm of Fidelity Investments, announced Tuesday the results of a survey to better understand institutional interest and adoption of cryptocurrencies as well as key barriers to investing in them. It was conducted from November 2019 to March 2020. Fidelity Digital Assets offers a full-service, enterprise-grade platform for securing, trading and supporting cryptocurrencies. A total of 774 institutional investors participated in the survey, 393 of which were in the U.S. while 381 were in Europe. Respondents include financial advisors, family offices, pensions, crypto and traditional hedge funds, high net worth investors, endowments, and foundations. This is the second consecutive year Fidelity has surveyed U.S. institutions but it is the first time it surveyed European investors. According to the results: Almost 80% of institutional investors find something appealing about digital assets. Fidelity Digital Assets conducted a survey of 774 U.S. and European institutional investors and found that about 80% of them find cryptocurrency appealing in some way. Breaking down the number, 74% of U.S. institutional investors find cryptocurrency appealing, while 82% of European investors do. “A notable contrast is that 25% of European investors find the fact that certain digital assets are free from government intervention to be appealing, whereas only 10% of investors in the U.S. feel this way,” the report further reads. Moreover, 36% of respondents — 27% in the U.S. and 45% in Europe — revealed that they are currently invested in digital assets. Bitcoin continues to be the cryptocurrency of choice with over a quarter of respondents holding BTC while 11% have exposure to ETH. “Looking out five years, 91% of respondents who are open to exposure to digital assets in a portfolio expect to have at least 0.5% of their portfolio allocated to digital assets,” the report adds. Three characteristics of cryptocurrencies are most compelling to both U.S. and European institutional investors. 36% of respondents said “uncorrelated to other asset classes,” 34% are compelled by innovative technology, and 33% by the high upside potential. The report notes: The majority of institutional investors (6 in 10) feel digital assets have a place in their portfolio, though opinions vary on precisely where. Despite growing interest among institutions, obstacles remain to cryptocurrency adoption. 53% of respondents cited price volatility as the main reason, 47% said market manipulation, and 45% said “lack of fundamentals to gauge appropriate value.” Fidelity Digital Assets president Tom Jessop commented on the survey findings: “These results confirm a trend we are seeing in the market towards greater interest in and acceptance of digital assets as a new investable asset class. This is evident in the evolving composition of our client pipeline, which spans from crypto native funds to pensions.” What do you think about institutional interest in cryptocurrency? Let us know in the comments section below. The post 80% of US and European Institutional Investors Find Cryptocurrency Appealing: Survey appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

A record ethereum transaction fee has been paid today: $2.6 million to transfer $134. The user probably mixed up the fields on the value of the transfer and the fee, eventually paying 10,668 ETH in fees, or $2.6 million, on a transaction mined by Sparkpool. A nightmare come true, the customer sent 0.55 ether, worth $133.95, according to a record of transactions broadcast on the Ethereum (ETH) network. The money was sent to an address on the South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb. The funds may be lost forever. Most blockchains are built to prevent transactions from being reversed once the sender confirms it. Moreover, the fee may have since been distributed to the different miners under Sparkpool as a reward for processing transactions. Sparkpool said in a tweet on June 10: “We are further investigating the incident of unusually high tx fee…There will be a solution in the end.” The Chinese miner has previously repaid a user half of the 2,100 ETH accidentally paid as fees in a 0.1 ether transfer. There is suspicion of underhand dealing, with some members of the Ethereum community alleging manipulation of the transaction by Sparkpool, or that it was an attempt at evading tax, or money laundering. In general, the average ETH transaction fee is up more than 637% since January, as the network became congested due to a high number of transactions passing through it. Transactional errors are not uncommon in the crypto industry, but they don’t often come as big as the latest ether gaffe. In 2017, someone paid 50 bitcoin (BTC) in transaction fees to send just under 10 BTC. Some analysts suggest that blockchain networks should be able to reject transactions if the fee exceeds the average highest fees of the previous 10 blocks mined, just in the same way, say, the Bitcoin blockchain rejects fees that are too low. What do you think about errors in cryptocurrency transactions? Let us know in the comments section below. The post Nightmare Come True: User Pays $2.6 Million in Transaction Fees to Send $134 of Ether appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

On Wednesday, the market valuation of all 5,000+ cryptocurrencies is worth around $277 billion after a few coins gathered decent gains during the morning trading sessions. Today, bitcoin is trading for over $9,783 per unit and many traders believe the asset will surpass $10K once again. However, there is a significant amount of resistance at the psychological $10K zone and it’s going to take a strong bull charge to break it. Crypto Market Cap Holds Above $275 Billion Crypto asset prices are seeing some gains today, as most of the top ten coins are up between 0.5% to 2% on Wednesday afternoon. At the time of publication, bitcoin (BTC) is swapping for $9,783 per BTC and the market is up 0.68% today. BTC has a market capitalization of around $180 billion and there’s $4.6 billion in global BTC trades today. Ethereum (ETH) markets are up a hair and each ether is trading for $244 per coin. The market valuation of ETH markets is around $27.2 billion on Wednesday and there’s $1.32 billion in trades. The third-largest market cap belongs to XRP and each unit is trading for $0.20. With an $8.7 billion market cap and $191 million in XRP trades, XRP is down 0.47% this afternoon. Tether (USDT) is the fourth largest market cap and the stablecoin’s market is valued at $5.75 billion this week. USDT captures a touch less than two-thirds of the global crypto swaps against a myriad of different crypto assets. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) Market Action While BTC and other coins have been rising in value, bitcoin cash (BCH) has been growing in value as well. A single BCH is worth $253.96 per unit and there’s around $300 million in global trades. The top trading pair with BCH today is USDT and tether represents 62% of all bitcoin cash trades. Other pairs include BTC (16.7%), KRW (2.13%), USD (3.33%), ETH (2.16%), GBP (1.08%), USDC (0.70%), and PAX (0.56%). The overall market valuation of BCH is around $4.68 billion on Wednesday. Blocktown Capital Managing Partner: ‘Crypto Economy Could Reach $10 Trillion’ On Wednesday, Blocktown Capital managing partner Joseph Todero said that the capitalization of the entire crypto-economy could reach $10 trillion when retail investors join. ”When retail money really starts flowing back into crypto I wouldn’t be surprised to see a $10 trillion+ market top,” Todero tweeted. However, not everyone believed Todero, as one person replied: “’When?’ Heard this for what three years now? Retail isn’t coming back whilst the market is this cruel.” Todero did respond to the critic and said: “Cycles take time.” Blockstream’s Adam Back Claims Bitcoin Could Reach $300K Without Institutional Adoption The CEO of Blockstream, Adam Back thinks that BTC will surpass it’s all-time high. Back was recently accused by the Youtube channel, Barely Social, as possibly being Satoshi Nakamoto. Although Back has denied the accusation and the Barely Social host explained that he or anyone could leverage “plausible deniability.” Just recently speaking with the financial news outlet, Bloomberg, Back explained that he thinks BTC could touch $300K.”[Bitcoin] might not require additional institutional adoption [to reach $300,000] because the current environment is causing more individuals to think about hedging [and] retaining value when there’s a lot of money printing in the world,” Back told Bloomberg. Number of Bitcoin Addresses With More Than a Hundred Are On the Rise This week data from the crypto aggregator, Santiment, shows that bitcoin addresses with 100 coins or more are growing. “After declining to start the month, the number of addresses holding more than 100 bitcoin has been on the rise over the past five days, with 43 new addresses joining the 100+ BTC club,” Santiment tweeted. “Over the past few months, the growing number of large BTC holders has coincided with short-term price rallies for the top coin, and vice versa: short-term whale drop-offs typically signaled an incoming price correction as well,” the researchers added. What do you think about the crypto market action lately? Let us know in the comments below. The post Market Update: Bitcoin Train Inches Toward $10K, Wild Predictions, Trillion Dollar Crypto Economy appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Bitcoin mining has changed a great deal since the block reward halving on May 11, 2020, and the overall SHA256 hashrate has been between 100-120 exahash per second (EH/s) during the last 48 hours. Reports from China show that a number of small mining operations are struggling and older bitcoin mining machines are becoming useless. After the bitcoin (BTC) reward halving, mining competition grew extremely fierce and it is much harder for smaller operations to compete than ever before. On Wednesday, the overall Bitcoin (BTC) network hashrate is between 100-120 EH/s. Reports stemming from China show that smaller operations and farms are having a hard time right now. Columnist Vincent He reports that while a lot of large operations are migrating from thermal powered facilities to hydropower, smaller farms are simply giving up. “As bitcoin mining block reward halved, and bitcoin price keeps volatile, many old machines of miners’ are gradually eliminated to the shutdown price, and a lot of miners are leaving the battlefield,” the regional report discloses. At the time of publication, there are only eight mining rigs showing profits at today’s BTC exchange rate. This includes the Antminer S19 Pro, S19, T19, Whatsminer M3OS, three Antminer S17s, and Innosilicon’s Terminator 3 model. The profitability for the top eight mining rigs is based on $0.12 per kilowatt-hour, and there are many miners who pay much less per kWh. At $0.04 per kWh, there are roughly 28 mining rigs that are profiting at today’s BTC prices. Statistics from charts.Bitcoin.com and Fork.lol, show the BTC hashrate touched a high of 120 EH/s a few days ago. But on Wednesday, the Bitcoin network hashpower is lower at 109 EH/s. A columnist from the same publication in China, Lylian Teng, has explained that some Chinese miners are opting to mine alternative crypto assets with smaller market caps. “After the bitcoin halving where bitcoin block reward is cut in half, crypto-miners have been turning to some small coins for their potential high profits,” Teng explained in her report. With old machines becoming less profitable and many miners choosing to mine other coins with smaller market caps, the diversification of mining is changing fast. Statistics show that F2pool is the largest miner today with over 20% of the global BTC hashrate. Just recently, news.Bitcoin.com detailed there was a whopping 32 pools not too long ago. The number of pools has been cut in half, and there are only 15 mining pools hashing away at BTC today. What do you think about smaller mining farms struggling and giving up? Let us know in the comments section below. The post A Number of Small Bitcoin Mining Farms Are Quitting as Older Mining Rigs Become Worthless appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

A loophole in the U.S. tax law could allow qualified bitcoin traders to write off unlimited losses from their trading activities, according to an expert from crypto tax platform Coin Tracker. Traders, defined by U.S tax collection agency Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as people who trade substantially, regularly and continuously, are allowed a maximum capital loss deduction of $3,000 per year. Excess losses are indefinitely carried into future years. However, Coin Tracker head of tax strategy Shehan Chandrasekera demonstrates in a recent Forbes column that cryptocurrency traders can use a tax election called the “475(f) election” to go beyond the default limit in any single year. “The good news is that the 475(f) election allows traders to deduct crypto trading losses without being subject to the $3,000 annual limit,” Chandrasekera notes. By activating the election, traders can also write off unrealized losses at the end of the year “leading to potential tax savings”, the accountant adds. Individuals who want to benefit from this specific tax dispensation should apply to the IRS within 75 days from the start of the year they intend to operate as such. Traders currently pay taxes on profits generated from buying and selling BTC. The disadvantage is that those who qualify for the election are subject to “a higher ordinary income tax rate compared to the long term capital gain tax rates that casual investors pay.” Traders are also required to pay the higher tax rate for any unrealized gains at year end. Chandrasekera warns that the applicability of 475(f) tax election to cryptocurrency is not straightforward as it is only applicable when one deals with “securities” and “commodities.” IRS defines cryptocurrencies as “property”, leaving the applicability of the election for bitcoin traders unclear. “With that said, bitcoin and some crypto derivatives are treated as “commodities” by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) so 475(f) election for those instruments is much clearer than other instruments,” Chandrasekera explains. Clarity on the definition is pending. The American Institute of Certified Professional Accountants advocates that IRS make the election applicable to crypto traders and relevant parties. What do you think about the 475(f) tax election? Let us know in the comments section below. The post Loophole in U.S. Tax Law Could Allow Bitcoin Traders to Write off Unlimited Losses appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

A UK-based financial services company will list a centrally cleared bitcoin exchange-traded product (ETP) on Deutsche Börse’s Xetra electronic trading market later this month. In a statement released on June 9, Etc Group said the contract, known as Bitcoin Exchange Traded Crypto (BTCE), tracks the price of BTC and is 100% physically backed by the cryptocurrency. One BTCE is equivalent to 0.001 bitcoin, less fees, it said, allowing the holder of each unit of the derivative a claim on a specific amount of bitcoin. Redeemable in either BTC or cash, the ETP will be distributed and marketed on a platform operated by Hanetf, a European Union-approved private issuer of exchange traded funds. “With BTCE, we are transporting bitcoin into the fold of mainstream, regulated financial markets,” Bradley Duke, chief executive officer of Etc Group, said in the statement, without giving a date on the planned listing. “Investors get the benefits of trading and owning bitcoin through a regulated security while having the optionality of redeeming bitcoin if they choose,” he added. German’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) approved BTCE in March, according to the firm. It says that for every unit of the ETP, “there is bitcoin stored in regulated, institutional-grade safe” – identified as the Bitgo Trust Company. Securities brokers or banks assume custody of BTCE bought through their desks on behalf of investors. The company claims that its new product will be able to draw liquidity from “many fragmented crypto exchanges” because of its centralized nature. “BTCE…is supported by a network of world-class Authorised Participants (APs) and Market Makers experienced in cryptocurrency markets as well as the ETP markets. The APs ensure on-exchange liquidity and tight spreads, enabling traders to purchase in all sizes without having to worry about market impact,” explained the firm. What do you the about Etc Group’s bitcoin exchange-traded product? Let us know in the comments section below. The post London’s ETC Group to List Centrally Cleared Bitcoin ETP on Deutsche Börse’s Xetra appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Data from the crypto analytical firm Skew.com shows that bitcoin options are maturing much faster than the futures markets launched in December 2017. Skew’s data shows that the open interest in bitcoin options has risen significantly in the last few months. Bitcoin options “are starting to play catch up with the more mature futures market,” according to Skew.com stats. “Options open interest [is] growing fast this quarter,” the researchers noted on June 5, 2020. Bitcoin futures have been around for quite some time and futures products joined heavily regulated exchange platforms like Cboe and CME Group back in 2017. Not only are BTC options doing well, but it is a “similar story for ether options” to says Skew. BTC options data and chart via Skew.com. The difference between options and futures products are fairly simple to understand. A bitcoin futures contract from CME group represents an obligation to buy or sell the virtually represented bitcoins for a “predetermined price and deliverable at a predetermined time.” Options, on the other hand, are a right to play without the obligation to purchase or sell the underlying asset. Bitcoin options markets really gained some solid footing in 2019 and the growth is much faster than futures which have been around for over two years. News.Bitcoin.com recently reported on a Cryptocompare analysis that has shown digital asset derivatives volumes soaring by 32% in May. BTC futures data (aggregated open interest)and chart via Skew.com. Skew’s data shared on Twitter shows that besides regulated exchanges like CME Group, the top options and futures platforms are Huobi, Okex, Deribit, and Bitmex. Since the market rout on March 12, otherwise known as ‘Black Thursday,’ bitcoin futures and options contracts have seen significant demand. On Tuesday, Skew explained that “June is starting on a softer note from a trading activity perspective as bitcoin remains just shy of $10K.” Moreover, the Skew researchers added that tether (USDT) growth has also been exponential. “USDT market cap is marching towards $10 billion,” the analysts added on Tuesday. Regulated futures and options products from CME Group also continue to show the total number of outstanding derivatives contracts (open interest) is growing. At press time the overall market valuation of all 5,000+ crypto coins is around $276 billion. The two coins with a lot of options and futures interest, bitcoin (BTC) and ethereum (ETH), are up in value on Tuesday by a few percentages. Additionally, Skew’s analysis shows that bitcoin options worth over $800 million are set to expire. What do you think about bitcoin options surpassing futures in growth? Let us know what you think in the comments section below. The post Data Shows Bitcoin Options Markets Are Maturing Much Faster Than Futures appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Chainalysis says it can track 99% of transactions involving Zcash, and almost all of Dash’s – coins that both fancy themselves as private and untraceable. Now, that’s because the majority of users do not utilize the optional privacy-enhancing features available on the two blockchains, it said in a June 8 blog, announcing support for the two cryptocurrencies. By tracking the privacy coins – digital assets whose primary purpose is to hide financial transactions from unwanted attention – Chainalysis has made it easy for law enforcement agencies to do the same. “Dash and Zcash allow users to conduct transactions with greater privacy, but that doesn’t mean they provide total anonymity,” asserted the U.S.-based crypto analysis company. For example, only 0.9% of transactions processed on the Zcash (ZEC) network allow for maximum privacy, even with enhanced cryptography. “…even though the obfuscation on Zcash is stronger due to the zk-SNARK encryption, Chainalysis can still provide the transaction value and at least one address for over 99% of Zec activity,” said the firm. On Dash, Chainalysis is more ruthless. It says calling the cryptocurrency “a privacy coin is a misnomer.” The percentage of Dash transactions that constitute actual transfers of funds using Privatesend, the asset’s privacy feature, is less than 0.7%, the company found. “…from a technical standpoint, Dash’s privacy functionality is no greater than Bitcoin’s…In fact, independent wallet software provides more advanced forms of Coinjoin that are being used with major cryptocurrencies not labeled as privacy coins, such as bitcoin, bitcoin cash, and litecoin,” it states. This is not the first time that privacy coins have been debunked. Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University have found that 99. 9% of Zcash and 30% of Monero – another so-called privacy coin – transactions were traceable. Moreover, the majority of Dash and Zcash usage is already for non-privacy purposes. According to studies by the Rand Corporation, of the cryptocurrency addresses mentioned on the dark web, less than 0.2% were for either of the two virtual currencies. Dash and Zcash account for roughly $1.5 billion of reported daily trading volume. Dash dropped 0.36% to $77.78 over the past 24 hours and Zcash fell 0.68% to $52.10, according to data from markets.bitcoin.com. What do you think about privacy coins not being private? Let us know in the comments section below. The post Not So Private: 99% of Zcash and Dash Transactions Traceable, Says Chainalysis appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Several thousands of bank accounts belonging to cryptocurrency traders have reportedly been frozen by Chinese police as a result of an extensive crackdown on illicit activities. Frozen accounts are not necessarily involved in wrongdoing and supposedly can be unfrozen if the authority finds no evidence of illicit activities. Police Freeze Bank Accounts of Crypto Traders The police in China’s Guangdong province have been freezing bank accounts of over-the-counter (OTC) cryptocurrency buyers and sellers in the country. Chinese publication 8btc reported on Monday that about 4,000 such bank accounts have been frozen since June 4 on the suspicion of being involved in illicit activities, including money laundering. Chinese police have been ramping up efforts to crack down on telecom fraud, gambling and cryptocurrency scams, which could result in them freezing related bank accounts. Some accounts have been frozen without any trading activities for several months. According to the publication, the authority claims that tether (USDT) is frequently used in illicit activities. The police are even learning about blockchain and on-chain analysis to understand how to trace crypto assets. However, frozen accounts are not necessarily involved in wrongdoing and supposedly can be unfrozen if the authority finds no evidence of illicit activities. One investor unexpectedly found that his bank account had been frozen after using yuan to buy cryptocurrency on a major crypto exchange a week ago, the news outlet conveyed. Recently, a major scam allegedly using cryptocurrencies for money laundering was busted. According to local police in Guangzhou, a city in Guangdong province, the scammers created a fake Huobi website to defraud investors and transferred illegally obtained money to an overseas account. The country’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), has been increasing efforts to crack down on money laundering. The publication noted that many crypto startups have been investigated by local financial bureaus and police. Since the PBOC closed down crypto exchanges in September 2017, people in China have been using peer-to-peer OTC trading to exchange between cryptocurrencies and yuan. Meanwhile, cryptocurrencies are legal in China as several Chinese courts have ruled. The Shanghai No.1 Intermediate People’s Court, for example, ruled that bitcoin is an asset protected by law, and the Shenzhen Futian District People’s Court ruled that ethereum is legal property with economic value. In addition, China passed the Civil Code in May which protects cryptocurrency inheritance. What do you think about Chinese police freezing bank accounts of crypto traders? Let us know in the comments section below. The post Chinese Authority Freezes Thousands of Cryptocurrency Traders’ Bank Accounts appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Over 2,000 Coca-Cola vending machines in Australia and New Zealand have started accepting bitcoin, thanks to an agreement between Coca-Cola Amatil and Centrapay. Coca-Cola Amatil is a major bottler and distributor in Asia Pacific, supporting 140 brands. Buy Coke With Bitcoin The bitcoin payment option is now live at more than 2,000 Coca-Cola vending machines across Australia and New Zealand. The machines are in Coca-Cola Amatil’s network. To pay with bitcoin, users must have Centrapay’s Sylo Smart Wallet and scan the QR payment code using their smartphones. The team at Sylo confirmed to news.Bitcoin.com Tuesday that the cryptocurrency payment option has been enabled at over 2,000 machines throughout both countries, and only bitcoin (BTC) is currently accepted. However, the company plans to add other cryptocurrencies in the future. Centrapay CEO Jerome Faury explained that integration complexity and poor user experiences are barriers to crypto adoption, adding: Now we’ve shown how it can work in Australia and New Zealand, we’re looking to grow the business globally. People in Australia and New Zealand can now buy Coca Cola products with bitcoin (BTC) from over 2,000 machines throughout the two countries, thanks to a collaboration between Coca-Cola Amatil and Centrapay. “We’ve established a presence in North America and will be targeting the US market next with some world-first innovations,” Faury added. He further elaborated that cryptocurrency transactions reduce physical contact with vending machines, which is a major concern for consumers during the covid-19 pandemic. The Sylo Smart Wallet, available for both iOS and Android operating systems, is an app that combines a private messenger with a digital wallet. Users can send messages and make audio and video calls. They can also store bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, as well as send and receive them in chat. Coca-Cola Amatil is one of the largest bottlers and distributors of non-alcoholic and alcoholic ready-to-drink beverages in the Asia Pacific region. It is also one of the world’s larger bottlers of The Coca-Cola Company’s range of products, operating in six countries: Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Samoa. When customers pay with bitcoin, Coca-Cola Amatil is paid in Australian or New Zealand dollars at the time of the transaction, The Australian Financial Review explained, adding that Coca-Cola Amatil said it would work with Centrapay to make the technology available in other markets. What do you think about Coca-Cola machines accepting bitcoin? Let us know in the comments section below. The post Over 2,000 Coca-Cola Machines Now Accept Bitcoin in Australia and New Zealand appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

On June 8, news.Bitcoin.com chatted with the U.S. 2020 Libertarian candidate for president, Joanne Jorgensen. The Libertarian Party’s nominee for president is the party’s first female candidate and she is a firm believer in free markets and civil liberties. This week our newsdesk discussed a number of issues with the Libertarian 2020 presidential candidate Joanne Jorgensen, otherwise known as “Jo.” The Libertarian nominee is a well known political activist and academic researcher during the last few decades. Jo Jorgensen discusses a number of subjects with our newsdesk including Donald Trump, bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, police accountability, the war on drugs, the war on terror, the Federal Reserve, and pardoning Ross Ulbricht. Jorgensen offers an interesting perspective that is unlike the incumbent Donald Trump and very different from the Democrat challenger Joe Biden. Bitcoin.com (BC): Can you tell our readers why you are running for President? Jo Jorgensen (JJ): Because the government is too big, too nosy, too intrusive, and it often hurts those it tries to help. News.Bitcoin.com readers can read about my stance on all the issues here at my website joj2020.com. BC: Why do you think voters feel obligated to vote either Democrat and Republican over a third-party candidate? JJ: Part of it is because they control the narrative. One thing voters look forward to is the debates and after some third-party candidates were able to be included in the debates, what they did was change the requirements. In fact, Harry Browne and I in 1996 tried very hard to get third parties into the debates. What they told us was “Well I’m sorry the Debate Commission won’t allow it.” Now what they were not telling us was that the Debate Commission consisted of half Republicans and half Democrats. Jo Jorgensen is the first female Libertarian Party (LP) nominee for the U.S. presidency. Both parties are for bigger government, they both enjoy the power, and they know that if the Libertarians get too much publicity, then people would realize this is what the average American voter wants. There are estimates that say 40 to 45 million people are Libertarian-leaning, and either they have never heard of the Libertarian party or they just don’t know enough about the party. If we could come in contact with them, they probably would be thrilled with our message and we could get somewhere. But again the Democrats and Republicans with the mainstream media — It’s hard to get any traction. One thing that is promising and that we are thrilled about, is the fact that we are getting so many volunteers. So many volunteers visiting our website, signing up and what is really great is that many of them are not even Libertarian. We are just overwhelmed with how many people from outside the Libertarian party want to help us. BC: What are your thoughts on how the US government handled the coronavirus outbreak— specifically the business shutdowns and lockdown orders? It was the largest assault on history in my lifetime. It was tragic, they put us all under house arrest and tens of millions of people lost their jobs. Many of those jobs are not coming back. One of my grandfathers immigrated from Sweden and his family came to America for freedom. You know the land of the free and home of the brave. And while we are all under lockdown, the old country that he left they were all out walking about, going to school, going to restaurants, and having a general freedom that you would expect Americans to have. BC: Since the coronavirus and even months prior, the US Federal Reserve has created trillions of dollars and it has been distributed to private dealers and interests. What are your thoughts on the Fed and how would you address this private bank as President? JJ: First all the Federal Reserve should have never been created to begin with. Unfortunately, they are teaching history a little wrong in the textbooks these days. Because a lot of people say that if it wasn’t for the Fed stepping in, the Great Depression would have been so much worse. But actually the Federal Reserve caused the problems. The reason the Fed was brought about was to help with times of crisis — to smooth things over. Since mid-September, the Federal Reserve added more than $6.9 trillion to the balance sheet. But the tragedy is that the banks had already worked out a system already. A system of where the banks helped each other out voluntarily and it did not involve the ups and downs of the Fed. So first of all, it should have never been created. Second, it took a small problem and made it much larger. And third, the first thing I would do if I was President of the United States would be to audit the Federal Reserve. I would seek advice from former Senator Ron Paul and ask him his recommendation on who should be in charge of that investigation committee. Eventually, I’d like to see the Fed abolished. Because through the Federal Reserve we get money created out of thin air, which is basically the equivalent of counterfeit money. It is a hidden tax that was not passed by Congress, so people don’t realize that now they have been taxed, but not in an honest way. If there even is an honest way. They are doing it under the dark of night where nobody knows and all retirees know is that their money isn’t going as far as it used to go. BC: A great number of Libertarians like money such as gold and silver. However, in recent years many free-market advocates support bitcoin. What is your stance on Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency economy? JJ: A message from the Libertarian Party platform says: “We favor free-market banking with unrestricted competition among banks and depository institutions of all types — Individuals engaged in voluntary exchange should be free to use as money any mutually agreeable commodity or item. We support a halt to inflationary monetary policies and unconstitutional legal tender laws.” So a number of people say that they want to back USD with gold. That would be a step in the right direction, but that is not enough. We have competition in cars, competition with computers, and competitive grocery stores. Why not have competition with money? So the people have access to something that is more planned and a monetary system they can better predict. Right now what we have is money that’s created under the whims of Congress and the Federal Reserve Chair. I would act in support of a free market in currencies. Some people say that the constitution authorizes the federal government to create currency, just like it authorizes the creation of the post office. But in neither case, does the constitution give the federal government a monopoly on currency or the delivery of mail. Businesses should be able to trade and accept whatever they want and that would mean bitcoin and all the other cryptocurrencies. BC: A lot of people can’t stand Donald Trump. But there are many with the Libertarian perspective that Obama was just as much of a tyrant. For instance, the 6-7 wars Obama was involved in, signing the NDAA, and militarizing the police during the Occupy protests. How would you compare the last two presidencies? JJ: They are both big government. If you ask the average person: “Do you think the government is too big or do you think it is too small?” They will usually laugh when you ask if it is too small. It gives the voters a false sense of choice and people say “well my team won this time.” Its basically big government guy number one and big government guy number two. So we are basically down to literally just the red and blue team. They are both for big government and all you are doing is rooting for the red and blue, and not necessarily policy. When I joined the Libertarian party and movement in 1979, in the ‘70s and ‘80s we would often tell people we take the best of both sides. Like the Republicans, we believe in economic liberties. Like the left and the Democrats, we Libertarians believe in social liberties. But now you can’t even say that anymore because neither side is for any liberty. We see Republicans like Donald Trump coming in and spending money and enacting horrible laws in industry. Then on the left, we see some of the biggest movements against free speech that have been around for quite a while. The left has become so anti-free speech, so we can’t even say we take the best from both sides. For instance, with Obamacare, we do not have a free market healthcare system. I keep hearing people say “since the free market doesn’t work, I guess we will have to go to single-payer or we have to go to this system or that system.” No, we don’t have a free market healthcare system and we haven’t had it since at least World War 2. If we went back to the free market, we would have much lower healthcare prices. Because we would have the checks and balances of a free market system. BC: Do you think ending the war on drugs would help reform American police forces? Absolutely. We have so many laws and the police in so many areas there’s kind of an ‘us versus them’ mentality. Crime is a local issue. For instance, assault, burglary, and all of those things are done to a specific person, home, or to their cars. There is no need for the federal government to get involved. Policing is a local issue. But what the federal government has done is that they have made it a federal issue. One of those ways we can reform police is by ending the drug laws. We have drug laws at the federal level. Now we got the federal government giving local police forces tanks and paramilitary equipment. Free training, and free money to buy other forms of equipment. The police forces wouldn’t have that money if they had to raise it in their own communities. So what if people use marijuana. Does it matter if someone has a joint in their home or a bottle of bourbon? Who cares? As long as you use it safely and peacefully. BC: Ever since I was born, for the last 40+ years, the US has been at war. What would you do about these conflicts if you became President? JJ: One of my top three issues is to bring the troops home. It is to turn America into one big giant Switzerland. Armed and neutral. The irony here is that a military is supposed to protect us. But what is happening is that our military is making us less safe and not safer. It has had the opposite effect. There was no justification for Bin Laden to orchestrate the 9-11 attack. However, Bin Laden was able to justify the attack with his followers. Part of the way he was able to do that is was to say look the United States is still here, and they said it would be ‘temporary.’ He said that the U.S. lied to us and said they would be out of here by a certain date, but they are still here. If we were not over there, Bin Laden would have had a much harder time convincing his followers that the U.S. needed to be attacked. We spend more on military spending than any other country. We spend 3x as much as the next biggest military spender. The U.S. could cut military spending by two-thirds and still be tied with the largest military on the face of the earth. BC: What would you say to people who don’t think that it’s worth it participating in voting because Democrats and Republicans always win? JJ: I would tell them that the reason that Democrats and Republicans keep winning is because everybody keeps voting for them. If you don’t want big government, then don’t vote for a Democrat or Republican. Some people say “well its a waste of a vote,” but I tell people it is a wasted vote to vote for something you don’t want. BC: Can you tell our readers what types of plans you have that would address specifically bitcoin and cryptocurrency advocates? First I would enact Ron Paul’s Free Competition in Currency Act. This would repeal legal tender laws and taxes on coins and monetary metals. And it would repeal the prohibition on coining money. Also, I would repeal the Bank Secrecy Act, Know-Your-Customer (KYC), and other laws that violate our right to financial privacy. Many people go to bitcoin because they do want privacy so I would work to repeal those unjust laws. I would also appoint commissioners to the CFTC and the SEC who would then seek to deregulate Bitcoin and other crypto-assets. I would appoint leaders at the Treasury Department, who would be told to leave bitcoin and crypto operations alone. Lastly, I would pardon Ross Ulbricht, the individual who operated the Silk Road (SR) marketplace. Ulbricht is serving more than one life sentence in prison for nonviolent offenses, partly because some of the SR members were selling drugs for bitcoin. By doing these things it would help keep finances private and help stop the government-induced devaluation of the dollar. What do you think about our interview with Jo Jorgensen? Let us know what you think in the comments below. The post 2020 Libertarian Presidential Candidate Jo Jorgensen Talks Bitcoin, Endless Wars, Covid-19 Response appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Instantly add cash to your Crypto Dispensers account with Green Dot @ the Register Chicago, IL – Virtual Assets, LLC is pleased to announce that it has entered into an agreement with Green Dot Corporation (NYSE:GDOT) to enable customers to purchase cryptocurrency with cash. This new service leverages Green Dot’s mobile and web-enabled barcode generation system and thousands of Green Dot retail locations to provide a new cash-loading option for purchasing major cryptocurrencies. Through this integration, users will now be able to securely and conveniently add cash to their Crypto Dispensers accounts at thousands of participating retailers. Crypto Dispensers, an online cryptocurrency exchange platform provided by Virtual Assets, has started to invite users to register on their new website. The site has been designed to offer investors an innovative medium to purchase major cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin, with fiat money. Created with the user experience in mind, the site will allow verified customers to fund their accounts with cash by visiting any participating retailer in the country. “We’re reinventing what people can do with their cash,” says Firas Isa, Founder of Virtual Assets, creator of the Crypto Dispensers online site. Utilizing Green Dot’s innovative cash reload network, our customers can now load their accounts with cash. Once the cash has been loaded, our customers can buy and transfer cryptocurrency instantly from their desktop or mobile browser. We are thrilled to enable people from all walks of life to invest in crypto quickly, securely and conveniently.” As the name implies, “Green Dot @ the Register” allows users to fund their Crypto Dispensers account by simply going to the register at any participating retailer. After scanning the customer’s barcode, the cashier collects the cash the consumer wishes to load to their Crypto Dispensers account, along with any applicable reload fees. The retailer’s terminal is connected to Green Dot’s data processing center, where Green Dot can see the transaction in real-time, allowing Crypto Dispensers to automatically credit loaded funds to the customer’s account. To load your Crypto Dispensers account, simply follow these steps: Register by verifying your identity at www.cryptodispensers.com Load between $20 to $500 using the barcode for a fee of up to $4.95. The credit will appear in your account at the next login within 10 minutes. Add a cryptocurrency wallet address to your account. Use the credit to instantly buy and send cryptocurrency. Reload and repeat. “The process for purchasing cryptocurrency at participating Green Dot @ the Register locations is not only simple, but also much safer and more secure than using traditional Bitcoin ATMs,” Isa states. “Ultimately, this integration breaks down entry barriers to digital money and creates greater financial opportunities for hardworking individuals.” Green Dot @ the Register is available at more than 24,000 retailer locations, a comprehensive list of which can be found by visiting the new Crypto Dispensers website. Virtual Assets is also currently coordinating with additional retailers to further expand their new service. For more information about Crypto Dispensers, or to locate a participating retailer near you, please visit https://www.cryptodispensers.com. About the Company Virtual Assets is a cryptocurrency exchange company based in Chicago, IL with a mission to contribute in the effort of taking cryptocurrency mainstream. Through this new partnership users will now be able to instantly add cash to their Crypto Dispensers accounts to buy and send cryptocurrencies at thousands of participating retailer locations across the country. 

Contacts Virtual Assets, LLC Investor Relations Firas Isa, 708-879-9344 IR@cryptodispensers.com Supporting Link https://cryptodispensers.com/ This is a press release. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the promoted company or any of its affiliates or services. Bitcoin.com is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in the press release. The post Virtual Assets Unleashes Retail Cash Reload Innovation for Purchasing Cryptocurrency appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

On April 3, the cryptocurrency community learned about 11 class-action lawsuits against various executives and digital asset companies. The law firm that filed the lawsuits is also involved with a class-action against Tether and Bitfinex for allegedly manipulating the price of bitcoin. On June 4, the plaintiffs and the litigation firm, Roche Cyrulnik Freedman added the trading platforms Bittrex and Poloniex to the defendant list. Plaintiffs Pinchas Goldshtein, Benjamin Leibowitz, Jason Leibowitz, Matthew Script, and Aaron Leibowitz are suing Ifinex, the parent company of Tether and Bitfinex. The lawsuit was announced last year and the plaintiffs are represented by the same lawyers that recently filed 11 class-action suits against certain crypto companies and executives. Alongside this, the law firm represents the Kleiman estate in the case versus Craig Wright as well. According to the recent filing against Ifinex, through the use of the exchange Bitfinex and using tether (USDT), the four firms allegedly created “a sophisticated scheme that coopted a disruptive innovation — cryptocurrency — and used it to defraud investors, manipulate markets, and conceal illicit proceeds.” “Part-fraud, part-pump-and-dump, and part-money laundering, the scheme was primarily accomplished through two enterprises,” the lawsuit states referring to the exchange and popular stablecoin USDT. The amendment to the case filed on Wednesday implicates Poloniex and Bittrex as well. The claim is that all the named defendants took part in the scheme and helped manipulate the price of BTC. The case was originally filed in October 2019, and the plaintiffs are seeking a whopping $1.4 trillion before punitive or treble damages. The latest filing suggests that Poloniex and Bittrex ostensibly used wallets that were created specifically to launder large amounts of USDT. “Given the size and regularity of these transfers through a mechanism they created for that exact purpose and their perfect visibility into the transactions, Bittrex and Poloniex knew the manipulative effect of the transactions on their exchanges,” the updated court filing highlights. The plaintiffs further allege: For otherwise peripheral exchanges, these large trades of purportedly fiat-backed USDT created an impression of legitimacy and consumer trust, leading to further trades and fees for the two exchanges. Financial columnist Danny Nelson spoke with a Bitfinex and Tether Representative who said that the accusations are not tied to facts. “[The lawsuit is] untethered to either the facts or the law,” Stuart Hoegner explained to Nelson. “[The plaintiffs] conflate perceived correlation with causation in an effort to prop up theories that are untrue and unsupportable,” he added in an emailed statement. Just recently, news.Bitcoin.com spoke with Roche Cyrulnik Freedman partner, Kyle Roche, in an in-depth interview about the crypto cases his firm has filed in the last two years. What do you think about Poloniex and Bittrex being added to the Ifinex lawsuit? Let us know in the comments below. The post Poloniex, Bittrex Named in Lawsuit Involving the Alleged Tether-Fueled Crypto Pump appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

The United States has been creating military simulations, otherwise known as ‘war games,’ for years now. In fact, the Pentagon and various professional analysts created a permanent war gaming facility for simulations. This week a report indicates that Pentagon officials have purportedly created a war game that involves Generation Z (Gen Z) and the rebels leverage bitcoin to fight a corrupt system. On June 5, 2020, the news outlet, The Intercept, published a leaked document that shows the Pentagon’s alleged plans for a specific war game. The game is a theory or simulation of events created theoretically, so analysts can discover what could happen if certain things transpired. Essentially the Pentagon’s latest war game simulation theory involves the cryptocurrency bitcoin and the generation known as Gen Z. The phrase Gen Z is a demographic of individuals that have succeeded the Millennial generation. Gen Z kids were born in the mid-to-late ‘90s and the generation ends around the 2010 region. Most Gen Z kids are extremely comfortable with technology from the digital age. Screenshot of the alleged JLASS-SP war game scenario discovered by The Intercept. The Pentagon’s war game involves Gen Z and leveraging bitcoin to fight the corrupt state. Essentially, the war game scenario created by the Pentagon is called a “Notional Exercise Material for Educational Purposes Only” and it was allegedly distributed by Joint Land, Air, and Sea Strategic Special Program (JLASS). The documents obtained by The Intercept describe a scenario that involves Gen Z fighting a corrupt government run by financial incumbents and corporate entities. The Gen Z rebels basically take back a number of stolen funds from the status quo and they put the money into the cryptocurrency ecosystem, specifically bitcoin. Basically, The Intercept highlights that the war game scenario becomes a “global cyber campaign to expose injustice and corruption.” Interestingly the Pentagon war game that involves Gen Z and bitcoin comes at a time when the world is feeling a lot of unrest. The rebellion involving Gen Z will be called the “Zbellion” and it could occur in mid-to-late 2020. For instance, in nearly every city in the United States, there have been mass protests and riots. The populace is seemingly and slowly figuring out that the monopoly on force is currently cornering the world’s citizenry into a dystopian future. The war game scenario calls Gen Z’s act a “Zbellion” and the timeline begins eerily during the middle or end of 2020. The members of the Zbellion feel disenfranchised and take from the corrupt government by using the counter-economy. Malware is used to siphon funds from the fraudulent globalist powers that have oppressed Gen Z. It’s not the first time U.S.-based entities working with the government have created war game simulations. War game scenarios have gone on for decades in the U.S. and various other countries across the globe. Millennium Challenge 2002 (MC02) was an extremely popular war game created by the U.S. military and it cost around $250 million to simulate. MC02 also leveraged a number of computer simulations in order to get desired effects. What do you think about the Pentagon’s newly introduced war game simulation? Let us know in the comments section below. The post Leaked Pentagon War Game Shows Gen Z Using Bitcoin to Battle the Corrupt State appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

A number of analysts believe that at some point in the future, Bitcoin prices will touch the six-digit zone or $100,000 or more per unit. This price point has been predicted by a variety of experts and analysts including the stock-to-flow (S2F) proponent Plan B, financial analyst Peter Brandt, the popular crypto trader Theta Seek, Blockfyre’s Simon Dedic, and Morgan Creek CEO Mark Yusko. There are a number of industry insiders, experts, and analysts who think the price of bitcoin (BTC) could easily reach $100,000 or more per coin. On June 4, 2020, Simon Dedic, the cofounder of crypto-analysis firm Blockfyre estimates that BTC will touch a high of $150K. Dedic’s tweet forecasts a number of price predictions including BTC ($150K), ETH ($9K), LINK ($200), BNB ($500), VET ($1) and XTZ ($200). The Blockfyre cofounder is not the only crypto industry executive who thinks BTC will reach the six-digit price range at some point in the future. Many analysts and experts have made the case for $100,000 per BTC at some point in the future. On June 5, the popular trader Theta Seek told his 5,528 Twitter followers that BTC could touch $100K, but there needs to be $90M in investments per day. “At 100K per BTC, the market has to absorb a miner supply of $90 Million USD daily,” Theta Seek explained in his tweet. “Assuming that there are 10 million people worldwide buying BTC on a regular basis. It would cost them each $9 daily to sustain those price levels. I’ve met people who spend more than $9 on coffee,” the trader added. Further, one person replied to Theta Seek and said: “When the price gets high there is a lot more supply than just miners.” The traders responded by stating: Data suggests otherwise though, HODL-ers throughout the past 3 ATHs have not been selling in significant portions. 60% of BTC has not moved for more than 2 years. Even if that were to be true, the long term supply of BTC will eventually be equal to the mining (new) supply. There have been many others who claim that it is possible BTC could touch $100K per coin. During a May 6, 2020 interview, the CEO of capital management giant Morgan Creek, Mark Yusko, explained that BTC could easily reach $100K in 2021 or 2022. During the discussion, Yusko also said BTC could reach $400 to $500K as well. Yusko stated at the time: If we come to gold equivalence, meaning the market cap of Bitcoin equals the market cap of gold, which I think is perfectly logical, you could easily see that $400,000 to $500,000 price [at] some [point in time]. Even though the analyst and popular financial trader, Peter Brandt, recently tweeted that the Bitcoin halving was “grossly over-rated,” he has stated that BTC could touch six-digits as well. This was mentioned during Peter Brandt’s Crypto Update on December 5, 2019. Peter Brandt’s December 2019 video. In the video update, Brandt said that at some point BTC will march toward the $100K region, but the crypto asset’s market cycle would be bearish first. Brandt noted that BTC was at a crossroads and said that by July, in 30-days, the price could bottom out. However, Brandt’s prediction was well before the Covid-19 outbreak and the ‘Black Thursday’ event on March 12, 2020. There are so many people that believe BTC could very well touch the six-digit range at some point including Morgan Creek’s executive Anthony ‘Pomp’ Pompliano, Plan B (@100trillionUSD), Pantera Capital, crypto analyst Nicholas Merten, venture capitalist Tim Draper, and RT host Max Keiser. Peter Brandt’s 2019 video was published before the coronavirus outbreak and March 12, 2020, otherwise known as ‘Black Thursday.’ Moreover, the question of whether or not BTC could reach $100K per unit has been asked for many years now. It seems that many crypto-asset investors and old school bitcoiners do believe that at some point in time, BTC will be priced at $100,000 per coin. At the time of publication, BTC is trading between $9,600 to just above the $9,700 per coin zone and the crypto economy is worth $275 billion on Monday. Most crypto assets on Monday are up between 1-4% depending on the coin. 24-hour global trade volumes have dipped over 4% but there’s still around $18.1 billion in global crypto swaps today according to market stats. Do you think BTC will reach $100k per coin? Let us know in the comments below. The post Bitcoin’s March to $100K: A Number of Crypto Experts Who Believe the Price per BTC Touches Six-Digits appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Two-thirds of people who use Coinbase are willing to leave the platform following reports that the U.S. exchange plans to sell user data to two government agencies for $250,000. Cryptocurrency trader and analyst John Rager carried out a poll on Twitter, asking his 73,000 followers: “Would you actually delete or stop using your Coinbase account?” Over 5,000 people responded, and 66% said they would opt out of the regulated exchange, one of the world’s biggest. The remaining 33% expressed a willingness to stay. The platform holds thousands of personal user information drawn from stringent know-your-customer requirements, in compliance with US policies. Coinbase is in the eye of a storm after reports emerged at the weekend alleging that the crypto exchange is selling a blockchain tool that provides law enforcement agencies with superior analytical capabilities. The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) intend to buy licenses from the exchange’s analytics unit called Coinbase Analytics, according to documents that are available for public review. In one of the documents published in April, the IRS points out the relationship between Coinbase Analytics and Neutrino, a blockchain surveillance platform controversially acquired by Coinbase in 2019. It says the subsidiary “allows for the analysis and tracking of cryptocurrency flows across multiple blockchains that criminals are currently using.” The IRS added: “Coinbase Analytics also provides some enhanced law enforcement sensitive capabilities that are not currently found in other tools on the market. This action will result in a Firm Fix Priced purchase order, Period of Performance: One base year from date of award with one 12-month option.” On the other hand, the DEA document observes that Coinbase Analytics (CA) “provides investigators with identity attribution and de-anonymities virtual currency addresses domestically and internationally.” It said that “CA is known for its accuracy of attribution, which includes some of the most conservative heuristics used in commercial blockchain tracing tools. This is critical in avoiding false-positive during target identification.” Coinbase denies it is selling personal user data. A company official argued that “all data in our analytics tool is fully sourced from publicly available data, and does not include any personally identifiable information.” But frequent outages during periods of bitcoin’s hyperactivity, high transaction fees, and other privacy concerns have set thousands of Coinbase users on edge. The exchange has also previously shared data of 14,000 clients who traded $20,000 worth of crypto or more with the IRS, to the chagrin of investors. Privacy is a key tenet of the Bitcoin movement, almost untouchable. In the John Rager poll, some investors showed they have become disillusioned with the Coinbase ‘dream’. “Honestly, I don’t think there is a good reason to use it anymore, outside of name recognition. There are many better platforms for onboarding. And better options for trading,” opined @_realPaulRyan. One @Flat railed: “I’m in the 66% and stopped (using Coinbase) 3 years ago. Fees are an absolute ripoff. Always down when price moves. Absolute joke. Why on earth anyone would use them is beyond me.” Separately, Rager suggested that “millions of dollars seem to be leaving Coinbase as we speak. Investors & traders are no longer limited to Coinbase or Bitmex. If you screw over customers, take part in shady deals, or don’t improve a product, customers can now go elsewhere to trade/invest.” What do you think about Coinbase’s deals with the IRS and DEA? Let us know in the comments section below. The post 66% of Coinbase Users Willing to Leave the Exchange Due to Mounting Privacy Concerns appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Reports stemming from the financial columnist, Greg Thomson and the family of Pablo Escobar, claim the Escobar’s know the mysterious creator of Bitcoin. Allegedly, the notorious Escobar’s say that Satoshi Nakamoto was once known as a man named “Yasutaka Nakamoto.” On June 6, 2020, an interesting theory emerged that claims the family of Pablo Escobar knows the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto. The well known Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria was a Colombian drug boss who founded and led the Medellín Cartel. In the early eighties, Pablo Escobar’s cartel was in charge of at least 80% of the world’s cocaine sales. At the height of Escobar’s heyday, the Medellín Cartel was said to be responsible for delivering 300 kilos of cocaine per day to the U.S. and abroad in 1982. Escobar’s operation made it so the drug outpaced Colombia’s coffee exports that year. The report stems from Cointelegraph (CT) reporter Greg Thomson who spoke with a family friend called Olof K. Gustaffson, CEO of Escobar Inc., a company with ties to Pablo Escobar’s descendants. Gustaffson tells Thomson that they believe Bitcoin’s creator is a person named Yasutaka Nakamoto. Yasutaka Nakamoto allegedly used to work for the Escobar family and was an engineer who purportedly also worked for Pacific West Airlines. The story highlights that Yasutaka did some cocaine smuggling runs for Pablo years ago. According to Gustaffson’s testimony, Yasutaka not only had the means to create Bitcoin, but he also was a great smuggler who removed himself from the public eye up until 1992. Gustaffson is a “27-year-old Swedish entrepreneur” who also claims that Yasutaka is the brother of the California Satoshi suspect, Dorian Nakamoto. Gustaffson is now the chief executive officer of the multinational conglomerate that manages the Escobar family empire. Olof K. Gustafsson, CEO of Escobar Inc with Roberto Escobar in Medellín, Colombia pic.twitter.com/Qz7o9LNPeG — Olof Gustafsson (@olof_gustafsson) August 22, 2019 Thomson’s report shows that there is a Los Angeles Times editorial that discusses a Hughes Aircraft Co. worker named Yasutaka A. Nakamoto. The Times story says that Yasutaka escaped a car bomb and managed to live after his life was threatened. “Hughes employee Yasutaka A. Nakamoto, 39, at first thought his car had been burglarized because the window had been broken, Sgt. Andy Gonis said. He then found the device under the seat,” the Times article reads. Other than that analysis, there is zero information concerning a person named Yasutaka A. Nakamoto online and only the Escobar family and Gustaffson’s recent statement to CT. The report notes that Yasutaka had expertise with computers and semiconductors and was allegedly smart enough to build Bitcoin. The Escobar family, Escobar Inc., and family members have been dabbling with cryptocurrencies for a while now. Escobar Inc. was behind the “Diet Bitcoin” project, a fork of the BTC chain that was transferred to the ETH chain last year. Roberto Escobar is also behind the Diet Bitcoin project as well and he’s already claimed once before that he met Satoshi personally. The newsdesk Vice reported that Escobar’s story was Bitcoin’s creator was really the CIA. There is no discussion of Yasutaka A. Nakamoto in the Vice report. Only a man named Miguel Caña who allegedly was posing as Bitcoin’s creator. No one knows what the Escobars want with Bitcoin and why they are involving themselves in the crypto economy. In addition to the Diet Bitcoin and stories of knowing who Satoshi is, Escobar and the company Gustafsson operates, own a registered trademark for Bitcoin. It is the same type of U.S. trademark Craig Wright acquired recently and the United States Patent and Trademark Office has told the public the trademarks are meaningless. It’s also odd that the Escobar’s say that Yasutaka is related to Dorian Nakamoto. According to Gustafsson’s claims, he says Yasutaka disappeared in 2010, but left the world Bitcoin before leaving. Furthermore, Thomson asked Gustafsson why he was telling the media about knowing Yasutaka, and Gustafsson replied: “Roberto believes it is important to set the record straight.” The Escobar family is also in a legal dispute with Apple Inc., as well. According to reports, the Cupertino, California firm is in a legal dispute with Roberto Escobar. Allegedly Apple has asked Escobar for a thirty-day extension in the lawsuit, which claims that Roberto’s iPhone X “endangered his life.” Escobar is seeking $2.6 billion from Apple and reports detail that he denied Apple’s hope for an extension. What do you think about Roberto Escobar and Olof K. Gustaffson’s claims? Let us know in the comments section below. The post Pablo Escobar’s Descendants Claim to Have Known Satoshi Nakamoto appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

President Donald Trump has predicted that the US economy will recover by 2021, citing new jobs data released by the Labor Department which contains a “misclassification error.” Officials say the numbers are artificially low, and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and several economists have voiced their concerns. Trump Thinks US Economy Will Recover Next Year The U.S. is facing a severe economic crisis with record-high unemployment, fueled by the coronavirus pandemic. However, the Department of Labor released its May jobs report Friday showing a drop in the jobless rate from 14.7% in April to 13.3%. After a record plunge of 20.687 million in April, the official data show that nonfarm payrolls increased by 2.509 million jobs. Economists had predicted about 20% unemployment for May. President Donald Trump immediately celebrated the better-than-expected data. “We’re bringing our jobs back,” he said at a news conference at the White House. “I think we’re actually going to be back higher next year … The numbers are great. And this leads us into a long period of growth. We’ll go back to having the greatest economy anywhere in the world, nowhere close I think we’re going to have a great few upcoming months.” Trump asserted: Next year is going to be one of the best years we’ve ever had economically. President Donald Trump thinks that the US economy will recover next year after the Labor Department released better-than-expected jobs data for May. However, officials say that the number is an underestimate and excludes much data. President Trump has been counting on a strong U.S. economy to bolster his chances of re-election in November. He further said Friday’s positive jobs numbers made it “a great day” for George Floyd, a 46-year-old man who died on May 25 after a police officer pressed a knee into his neck while detaining him. “Hopefully, George is looking down right now and saying, ‘this is a great thing happening for our country’ … It’s a great day for him, a great day for everybody. This is great day for everybody. This is a great, great day in terms of equality. It’s really what our constitution requires and what our country is about.” His speech regarding Floyd has drawn much criticism. Misclassification Error, Artificially Low Numbers, Contradicting Views Soon after Trump’s statements, a number of officials and commentators declared that the jobless figure touted by the president is artificially low, pointing out a misclassification error. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) itself, the rate does not include another 3 percentage points of workers classified as “temporary layoff,” who allegedly lost their jobs due to the coronavirus pandemic. In a note released with the May jobs data, the BLS admitted: BLS and the Census Bureau are investigating why this misclassification error continues to occur and are taking additional steps to address the issue. The U.S. Department of Labor released monthly jobs data for May showing a lower jobless rate than expected, but it contains a misclassification error. The huge discrepancy between Friday’s official jobs data and economists’ expectation prompted some to suspect that Trump might have manipulated the BLS data. The error did not just occur in May; the same misclassification happened in April as well, which would have added another 5 percentage point to the 14.7% unemployment rate, the agency further admitted. The bureau said the same methodology is used every month. BLS’s own weekly survey shows about 50 million more unemployed people. Some 42 million people filed for jobless benefits since mid-March after mass closures and layoffs, and there are also 7.14 million jobless in March before the pandemic really hit. Officially, the BLS claims that the number of unemployed fell by 2.09 million in May, leaving out 21 million unemployed according to the undercounted BLS figures. Economic Policy Institute Policy Director Heidi Shierholz tweeted: If all the 32.5 million workers who are out of work as a result of the virus had shown up as unemployed, the unemployment rate would have been 19.7% in May instead of 13.3%. Although President Donald Trump said that the US economy will recover next year, economists are doubtful. Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell believes that recovery is unlikely until a coronavirus vaccine is found. Independent data from the private payroll company ADP shows that private payroll employment dropped in May by 2.76 million, while the BLS data shows private payroll employment rising by 3.1 million. The ADP published its monthly surveys on workforce participation two days before the BLS released its jobs numbers. Contradicting Trump’s view, economists “pointed out that even the latest data shows 28 million people had their job cut or hours reduced during the pandemic. Plus, an alarming number — 2.3 million people — now say they have permanently lost their jobs,” the Washington Post reported, noting: There’s a long way to go before the job market gets back to where it was before the pandemic. St. Louis Federal Reserve economist Yi Wen wrote in a paper last month that “a combination of aggressive fiscal and monetary policies is necessary for the U.S. to achieve a V-shaped recovery in the level of real GDP.” He noted that “Aggressive policy means that the U.S. will need to consider negative interest rates and aggressive government spending, such as spending on infrastructure.” Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has expressed strong doubts about using negative interest rates in the U.S. but he emphasized that more fiscal measures could be needed. In an interview with CBS in May, the Fed chair said the U.S. economy could “easily” contract by 20%-30% this quarter. He warned that “Unemployment could potentially peak at 25%” and “a second wave of the coronavirus” could deeply impact the economic recovery. “This economy will recover. It may take a while … It could stretch through the end of next year. We really don’t know.” He further said the economic downturn might last until late 2021, and a full rebound may not happen until a covid-19 vaccine is found. Congress has already passed the $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief & Economic Security (CARES) Act and several other stimulus packages have been proposed, including Nancy Pelosi’s $3 trillion Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act. Last week, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected that the U.S. economy will take 10 years to recover, costing about $8 trillion. What do you think about Trump’s prediction and the misclassification error? Let us know in the comments section below. The post Trump Predicts US Economy to Recover by 2021 — Fed Chair, Economists Disagree appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

The Bitcoin hashrate is up this weekend after the network experienced it’s fourth negative difficulty adjustment this year. The Bitcoin (BTC) protocol’s difficulty adjustment dropped over 9% on June 4, giving miners who shut off their machines a chance to join the competition once again. Moreover, Glassnode statistics show that blocks are being produced at a faster rate and at the highest levels since July 2019. According to the Bitcoin (BTC) research and analysis firm, Glassnode, blocks are being produced at a higher level than before and at a level not seen in 11 months. That month in July 2019, the price of BTC was doing extraordinarily well and almost touched $13K per unit on global exchanges. “Bitcoin blocks are currently being produced at a rate of almost 8 blocks per hour,” Glassnode tweeted on June 6, 2020. “This is the highest level we’ve seen since July 2019, and likely an effect of the recent difficulty adjustment.” Data from Glassnode on June 6, 2020. Statistics show that the BTC network experienced a decent-sized difficulty drop on June 4, 2020. It was the seventh-largest difficulty drop during the protocol’s entire existence and the fourth negative drop in 2020. The drop was approximately -9.29% and almost immediately afterward, BTC’s hashrate started climbing northbound. Difficulty data from charts.Bitcoin.com on Sunday, June 7, 2020. The Bitcoin (BTC) DAA dropped -9.29% on June 4, 2020. Difficulty drops and increases are part of the system Satoshi Nakamoto designed and the Difficulty Adjustment Algorithm (DAA) adjusts every 2016 blocks. With blocks set at roughly every 10 minutes, typically DAA drops or increases take place every two weeks on average. Absolute hashrate measured by 12-hour averages according to Fork.lol shows the BTC hashrate spiking over 120EH/s. Data from Blockchain.com indicates that the hashrate dropped to a low of 90 exahash per second (EH/s) on May 26, 2020. News.Bitcoin.com also reported on the fact that hashpower was steadily increasing but the DAA drop on June 4, making it much easier for certain miners. Our newsdesk also reported that there were 17 mining pools hashing away at the Bitcoin network before the halving and now there are 32 pools. Blockchain.com stats show that on June 5, the SHA256 hashpower ramped up to 109EH/s. Looking at data from today, June 7, 2020, shows that the hashrate has spiked even more to 120EH/s according to Fork.lol’s 12-hour averages. At press time, BTC prices have been down 1.8% during the last 24 hours and the price per unit on Sunday, June 7, 2020, is between $9,425 to $9,550. The overall market capitalization of all 5,000+ coins in existence has also dropped to $269 billion at the time of publication. What do you think about the difficulty drop on June 4 and the increased hashpower? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below. The post Bitcoin Hashrate Spikes to 120 Exahash: Difficulty Drops Allowing Miners to Rejoin the Competition appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article