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On January 3, 2020, the Bitcoin network officially turns 11 and the technology has transformed the lives of many. Since blockchain’s inception, scholars and economists have rigorously studied and written thousands of academic papers covering the subject. In 2019, there were more than 13,700 academic papers and Google Scholar articles published that mention the Bitcoin protocol. Also Read: Someone Redeemed a 100 BTC Casascius Bar Worth Over $700K Academia Loves Bitcoin On Halloween 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto dropped the Bitcoin whitepaper on the internet and it’s likely he didn’t know how massive his invention would become. After publishing the paper on the Cryptography Mailing List, two months later he launched the network. The technology slowly started gathering traction on the internet and people would hear about it in passing in forums and social media. In 2009, almost immediately after the Bitcoin network’s launch, analysts, teachers, students, and economists took notice of the fascinating protocol called Bitcoin. So scholars began to research the subject regularly creating systematic work and papers in order to increase knowledge of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency solutions. In 2009, there were roughly 83 Google Scholar articles that mentioned Bitcoin and in 2010 the number jumped to 136 academic reports. Between 2014 and 2019, the number of academic papers online increased by 561%. Studies involving the subject of cryptocurrency continued to create a great stock of knowledge. Digital currency papers that were published helped establish standards and confirm facts, alongside reaffirming the results of network testing. Moreover, studious researchers wrote papers in order to solve issues with distributed ledger technology. Cryptocurrency papers and academic journals discussed and supported theorems and hypothetical questions as well. In 2011 through 2013 lots of Google Scholar papers called blockchain technology a waste of resources and described how Bitcoin would never last. While other studies published in the early days also detailed how blockchain and cryptocurrency solutions could revolutionize the world of finance. In 2011, there were 218 academic papers on the Google Scholar platform that mentioned Bitcoin, the number doubled the next year, and in 2013 scholarly articles doubled again with roughly 868 that could be found on the browser’s academic application. Since 2014, when 2,070 scholarly articles were found online, the number of academic papers increased by 561% as there are now more than 13,700 Google Scholar articles on the web. Google Scholar articles published mentioning Bitcoin: 2009: 83 2010: 136 2011: 218 2012: 424 2013: 868 2014: 2,070 2015: 2,820 2016: 3,380 2017: 6,460 2018: 11,500 2019: 13,700 (will ⬆️ due to listing lag) — Jameson Lopp (@lopp) December 23, 2019 Scholarly Papers About Bitcoin Written by Universities, Governments, Financial Institutions, Central Banks, and Economists These academic articles stem from well known universities like Duke Law, Princeton, Lund University, Cornell, Cambridge, Lomonosov, MIT, Humboldt, Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford. Not only are popular colleges and ivy league schools involved with blockchain research, but scholarly articles are written by governments, financial institutions, central banks, and economists. Major universities all around the globe now have dedicated research centers, courses with cryptocurrency-related subjects, and special faculties aimed at studying this technology. In 2019, Coinbase published a report that highlighted 56% of the world’s top 50 universities include at least one course that involves crypto or blockchain. Since the San Fransico firm’s first college study in 2018, twice as many students reported that they have taken a blockchain-related course. On December 25, there are more than 13,700 Google Scholar articles published in 2019 and over 22,000 results between 2009-2019. Lots of the 13,700 Google Scholar papers online touch upon the subject of Bitcoin in a variety of ways like introductions to cryptocurrency, remittance solutions, smart contracts, and the very basics of distributed ledger technology. Other academic articles are far more in-depth and discuss topics that involve complicated computer networking, but also law, mathematics, economics, and sociology. Some papers consider different types of attacks and vulnerabilities, while other reports are dedicated to the overall improvement of Bitcoin’s infrastructure and third-party applications. Since the advent of the internet, academic publishing has transitioned to a vast online environment and transformative technologies like Bitcoin are well represented in Google Scholar articles published online. What do you think about the growing list of academic papers and scholarly articles that mention Bitcoin? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below. Image credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons, Fair Use, Google, and Twitter. Did you know you can verify any unconfirmed Bitcoin transaction with our Bitcoin Block Explorer tool? Simply complete a Bitcoin address search to view it on the blockchain. Plus, visit our Bitcoin Charts to see what’s happening in the industry. The post Close to 14,000 Google Scholar Articles Mentioned Bitcoin in 2019 appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Cryptocurrencies have become valuable over the last few years and hardware wallets are now a mainstay within the cryptosphere. More recently, steel-crafted wallets that store crypto keys on a hard piece of metal have become increasingly popular. The following is a look at the wide variety of so-called ‘doomsday’ digital currency wallets fabricated from metal components. Also read: Market Update: Bears Claw Crypto Prices Below Long-Term Support The Steel Wallet Trend Steel crypto wallets have become a popular form of storage in 2019 and there’s a slew of products crypto proponents can choose from today. News.Bitcoin.com reviewed a few steel wallets in the past that were created by the startup Cryptosteel. In January 2017, our newsdesk looked at Cryptosteel’s first iteration, which safely stores private keys, BIP39 compatible seeds, and secret cryptographic messages. In November 2019, news.Bitcoin.com reviewed the Cryptosteel Capsule, a steel cylinder device with 800 lettered tiles. Moreover, Casa CTO and software developer Jameson Lopp has published his “Metal Bitcoin Seed Storage Stress Test” series, which covers steel wallet products extensively. People like the idea of metal-grade wallets that can last a long time and sustain critical amounts of damage. For instance, if a crypto holder’s home was on fire, an electronic hardware wallet or a paper seed would surely go up in flames. Steel wallets, although not perfect, can withstand a lot more stress and easily sustain water and fire damage. For example, steel can sustain heat temperatures around 2500°F, as aluminum can only withstand roughly 1225°F. Plastics have an extremely low melting point between 320°F and 410°F. Most hardware wallets today are constructed of plastic and aluminum components, which can be easily harmed by fire and water. Crypto Key Stack The Crypto Key Stack is a wallet that is shaped like a card but is manufactured with black anodized stainless steel that offers extreme fire protection. The startup claims the product can withstand fire heat up to 2200°F, which is twice the average temperature of a house fire. Users who purchase the Crypto Key Stack engrave their seeds with an electric engraver and the wallets are also waterproof and rust-resistant. The Explorers Stack product costs $70 dollars and it contains three blank mnemonic plates. The Crypto Key Stack comes with an engraver and plates can hold 24-word mnemonic seeds. Crypto Key Stack. Crypto Keys The $28 “Universal Key Package” made by Crypto Keys is another engravable wallet for mnemonic seed storage. Crypto Keys are also made of steel and the set comes with 13 double-sided keys, punch set, and stamping jig. The company sells a few different packages for different types of hardware wallets or mnemonic phrases. Each key is designed to store two words so 12 keys would be sufficient for a 24-word mnemonic. The 3D printed plastic stamping jig is used to align the letters on the metal key so the owner can punch set the words. Crypto Keys are durable steel pieces that can resist damage from floods and home fires. Crypto Keys. Cyphersafe The Cyphersafe Cypherwheel is an interesting looking steel wallet that stores BIP-0039 and SLIP-0039 private keys or other sensitive information. However, unlike the $70 Crypto Key Stack and the $28 Crypto Keys package, Cypherwheel has a hefty price tag at $200 per unit. But unlike the others, Cypherwheel can be locked with a padlock adding more security and it has the ability to store up to 96 characters. The metal wallet can withstand 2000 degrees of fire-based heat, and it’s also rust-proof and waterproof. Similar to the steel products mentioned above, Cyphersafe does carry a cheaper wallet called the Cypherplate which starts at $49.95 and has a unique numbered seal. Cypherwheel. Steelwallet Another metal wallet sold on the market today is Steelwallet, which is an offline steel backup tool that allows users to engrave a seed on two laser engraved sheets. Steelwallet packages are made of stainless A2 / ASIS 304 / SS304 steel and they can withstand fire, water, corrosion, and electricity. The two laser engraved sheets allow owners to store 12,18 and 24-word seeds or other types of encrypted secrets. The $65 Steelwallet package comes with a metal punching pen so customers can engrave their mnemonics. For a few dollars less, people can order two engraved steel sheets without the puncher. Steelwallet. Cryptosteel Capsule The autonomous offline storage product called the Cryptosteel Capsule is a steel cylinder wallet that starts at $82. The capsule weighs 515 grams and there are 800 stress-resistant tiles included with the package. The shell is made of AISI 303 steel and has more than 99% coverage for hexadecimal strings up to 123 characters and random ASCII strings up to 55 characters. The company still carries the classic Cryptosteel Cassette products as well and they start at $92. Cryptosteel’s two steel wallet devices are also fire, water, and corrosion-resistant. Cryptosteel Capsule. Simbit The Simbit steel wallet uses a rail system so pre-made steel tiles can slide into place much like the original Cryptosteel Cassette. Simbit stores up to 114 characters and the package comes with 400 tiles to choose from. The product can withstand “prolonged exposure” to heat 600°F hotter than the typical house fire. Simbit uses 316 marine grade stainless steel alloy and because it uses this type of metal it is more corrosion-resistant than traditional stainless steel. One Simbit and 400 tiles cost $110 and the company sells packages of two as well. Simbit. Quadrat Register The Quadrat Register is another cylinder-shaped metal wallet much like the Cryptosteel Capsule, although the Quadrat Register is far more expensive at $330 per unit and another $155 for the steel protective tube. Quadrat Register also offers two-point encryption because users can generate 128 different symbols or words and tether it to the GENESIS code list. Just like the other steel wallets mentioned above, Quadrat Register is fire and water-resistant as all the metal parts are made from German stainless steel. Quadrat Register. A Myriad of Different ‘Doomsday’ Protection Features There are many other types of metal wallets and products on the market today. Other variations can be made of metals such as iron and titanium, like the products sold by bulletproofbitcoin.com. Many long term holders appreciate the idea of extremely durable wallets, because they can withstand far more damage than a phone or electronic device. These benefits have invoked startups to create a wide variety of metal wallets that offer a myriad of ‘doomsday’ scenario protections such as shock resistance, higher melting points, and waterproof features. To some people, the steel wallet process seems extreme, but others wouldn’t use anything less than metal-grade products. What do you think about the steel wallet trend? Do you think a steel wallet is necessary or do you think steel wallets are a bit extreme? Let us know what you think about these products in the comments section below. Disclaimer: Bitcoin.com does not endorse or support claims made by any parties in this article. This article is for informational purposes only. None of the information in this article is intended as investment advice, as an offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or as a recommendation, endorsement, or sponsorship of any products, services, or companies. Neither Bitcoin.com nor the author is 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 this article. Image credits: Shutterstock, Crypto Key Stack, Crypto Keys, Cryptosteel, Steelwallet, Cyphersafe, Simbit, and Quadrat Register. Did you know you can verify any unconfirmed Bitcoin transaction with our Bitcoin Block Explorer tool? Simply complete a Bitcoin address search to view it on the blockchain. Plus, visit our Bitcoin Charts to see what’s happening in the industry. The post 7 Steel Crypto Wallets That Withstand Extreme Fire and Water Damage appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

In 2011, Mike Caldwell created the notorious Casascius physical bitcoin collection, and since then the series of coins has become extremely valuable. Over the last two months, a bunch of people have redeemed their Casascius coins and on December 23 someone peeled a 100 BTC ($723K) Casascius bar. Also Read: Only 375 Days Left for McAfee’s $1M Bitcoin Price Wager 2011-2013 Casascius Coins and Bars Sell for a Premium Years ago, people made physical bitcoins and there’s been so many manufactured that there’s actually an encyclopedia that covers the subject. These days, however, there’s not as many physical bitcoin manufacturers as government regulations have stifled the industry. There are definitely a few creators still minting loaded crypto coins, but there’s nowhere near the number of physical coin makers as there was back in the day. Casascius coins are the most popular of all the physical BTC coinage ever created. Unfortunately on November 27, 2013, Caldwell had to suspend sales of all the items he manufactured that contained digital bitcoins. Throughout the Casascius manufacturing period, Caldwell minted coins and bars that contained 1, 10, 25, 100, and 1,000 BTC increments. It should be noted that Casascius bars and coins were made in 2011, 2012, and 2013. This means all active loaded coins have active Bitcoin Cash (BCH) as well. Casascius coins have always been in high demand and many have sold for a premium, well above the amount of BTC held on the metal. For instance, in April 2018, someone created a post on the shiresociety.com forum selling four 2011 Casascius coins for $10K per coin. Each of the coins sold on the website at the time contained a 1 BTC load under the hologram sticker. The price per BTC during the month of April 2018 was around $8k so the seller added a $2K per coin premium. On July 1, 2019, a 2011 mint-condition gold Casascius coin (MS65) that held 1 BTC sold for $99,000 on eBay. In November 2017, a Casascius physical bitcoin with a hologram error was purchased for $50K on the online auction site. In January 2018, another graded MS65 Casascius sold for $28.7K on Ebay. A 100 BTC Casascius bar worth over $700K at today’s BTC prices. 100 BTC Casascius Bar Peeled This week, on December 23, an individual peeled a 100 BTC Casascius bar currently worth $723K just for the BTC alone. According to data from casasciustracker.com, the Casascius S2-BAR-100 held 100 BTC and was created on February 4, 2013. In fact on Twitter, there’s a bot that tracks all the peeled (redeemed) Casascius coins and bars. The bot called @Casasciusbot recorded the last big peel, which saw a 25 BTC (S2-COIN-25) redeemed the day before. 100 BTC Casascius bar from 2013 was just peeled. 👀 https://t.co/7YX7HvirPT — Melik Manukyan ⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️ (@melikmanukyan) December 23, 2019 In the last 30 days, the Casasciusbot has documented lots of coin peels mostly in increments of 1 BTC every few days. But there’s been plenty of higher denominations redeemed as well and many derive from the series 2 batch. The month of November saw 27 Casascius coins peeled worth approximately 71 BTC. 11 of those redeemed coins were from 2013 and the rest of the pieces derived from 2012 and 2011. The website casasciustracker.com shows how much BTC has been redeemed and how much bitcoin is still active. To date, there are 46,329 active BTC left on unredeemed Casascius coins and bars. There’s also been 44,940 BTC loaded Casascius-made products that have been peeled to date. It’s interesting to watch the timeline of people peeling these coins and wonder why they decided to redeem the funds now, especially when they might have more numismatic value in the future. What do you think about the 100 BTC Casascius bar that was redeemed on December 23? Would you peel a Casascius coin or would you save it for a future date in time? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below. Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not an offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation, endorsement, or sponsorship of any products, services, or companies. Neither the company nor the author is 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 this article. Image credits: Pixabay, Shutterstock, casasciustracker.com, Wiki Commons, and Fair Use. Did you know you can buy and sell BCH privately using our noncustodial, peer-to-peer Local Bitcoin Cash trading platform? The local.Bitcoin.com marketplace has thousands of participants from all around the world trading BCH right now. And if you need a bitcoin wallet to securely store your coins, you can download one from us here. The post Someone Redeemed a 100 BTC Casascius Bar Worth Over $700K appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Every year, Bitcoin faces a new foe intent on crippling it by undermining the foundations it was built upon. From mining cartels to developer disputes, Bitcoin has faced a barrage of threats over the past decade. When it’s not internecine conflict taking its toll, it’s external forces including politicians and regulators seeking to exert control. In 2020, the cryptosphere will face one of its toughest challenges yet as the KYC war heats up. Also read: Utorg Exchange Grants Access to Traders With Limited Verification The Battle Lines Have Been Drawn This year, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) issued strict new global standards for crypto assets. In 2020, the guidance will begin to come into force, while in January the EU’s Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD5) kicks in. The upshot of this is more Know Your Customer (KYC) enforcement, stricter controls on buying and selling cryptocurrency, and increased compliance. Bad news for bitcoiners, in other words, who value their privacy. The threat placed by the incoming legislation doesn’t just strip individuals of their right to anonymity, either – it also strips business owners of their livelihoods. Crypto payment service Bottle Pay, mining pool Simplecoin, and interactive bitcoin faucet Chopcoin have already been forced to shut down ahead of AMLD5. As news.Bitcoin.com reported: Providers of crypto-related services, such as exchanges and custodial wallets, are considered “obliged entities” and will have to comply with the union’s AML regulations in the future. That means abiding by the rules applicable to other financial institutions including the obligation to perform customer due diligence and submit suspicious activity reports. That also applies to investment firms, tax advisors, accountants, notaries, and lawyers who transfer or receive payments equivalent to €10,000 and more. theme of 2020 pic.twitter.com/srZpIlPvZ1 — Josh Olszewicz (@CarpeNoctom) December 19, 2019 A Global Problem Encroaching KYC isn’t just a European Union problem: it’s a global one, as former fly-by-night exchanges start cleaning up their act and enforcing KYC to appease regulators, as they eye global expansion. Binance, which now operates multiple exchanges in various territories, has come under fire after its Singapore platform threatened to suspend a user for withdrawing to a coin mixing service. The backlash forced Binance CEO CZ to publish an AML explainer, but critics weren’t impressed, with one dubbing it a “statement by @cz_binance about how he is forced to boot-lick the local extortion gang by harassing his clients.” Given that Binance and Huobi both operate out of Malta, there is speculation that the pair may be forced to enact blanket KYC to all users in the near future. At present, Binance’s main exchange enables withdrawals of up to 2 BTC without KYC provided its AML systems haven’t flagged the transaction as suspicious. Binance Singapore’s zero-tolerance policy for contraventions of its compliance standards is widely seen as the shape of things to come for every major exchange. In "Mars Attacks" the Martians keep saying, "WE COME IN PEACE" as they disintegrate everything with ray guns. It's like Bitcoin companies sloganeering like revolutionaries when they're KYC enforcing, account closing, key custodying wannabe banks with a shiny face. What a joke! pic.twitter.com/3qdNOVPODI — Beautyon (@Beautyon_) December 21, 2019 Maximalists Protest ‘Surveillance Exchanges’ Bitcoin maximalists, generally defined as hardcore bitcoiners who have short shrift for altcoins and anything else that falls outside their narrow interpretation of what Bitcoin should be, have bitterly protested the creeping KYC that has permeated the industry. “Buy BTC, Coinjoin, put it in your wallet, STFU & HODL. F*** surveillance exchanges,” tweeted one. “Now is the moment to show you are a bitcoiner! Avoid KYC exchanges! Use HodlHodl or Bisq! Coinjoin your UTXOs!” entreated another. Under the hashtag #coinjoinday, bitcoiners have scheduled April 5, 2020 – Satoshi Nakamoto’s stated birthday – for using Coinjoin en masse to mix coins. The move is reminiscent of the Shuffle Saturdays favored by members of the BCH community who use Cashshuffle for the same purpose. In addition, Proof of Keys day is returning on January 3, when bitcoiners are encouraged to withdraw their crypto from exchanges and store it non-custodially. Last week, the Marty’s Bent newsletter reflected on the latest spate of invasive KYC: Time and time again throughout Bitcoin’s first decade, we have seen exchange after exchange pop up that promise a service without any KYC/AML compliance only to attain a certain scale, draw the ire of regulators, and force the compliance restrictions on their users. Withholding their funds from them until they send a picture of their passport, a selfie, information about where they work, where they live, and all other types of data that will surely be stored in an insecure way. A nice, old fashioned bait and switch tactic that seriously invades an individual’s privacy and could be seen as a form of financial harassment. The Next Bitcoin War Will Be Over KYC In defense of crypto exchanges, they are obliged to follow the law in every territory where they operate, and are not immune to AML legislation. Nevertheless, it’s hard to shake the sensation that platforms are sometimes overreaching in their desperation to appease regulators. The biggest determinant of how the KYC war plays out next year may have more to do with the fate of initial exchange offerings and altcoins. If BTC increases its dominance, IEOs continue their decline, and the market remains bearish, there will be few incentives for bitcoiners to trade on ‘surveillance exchanges.’ Conversely, a new alt season could tempt even cautious hodlers to endure KYC and its privacy incursions in a bid to make more BTC through trading. Whatever way the markets play out, 2020 is set to be a landmark year for crypto and KYC. Will the industry kowtow to KYC, or will there be a drive towards decentralized exchanges and more privacy-friendly platforms like Utorg, local.Bitcoin.com, and Bisq? What are your thoughts on KYC and ‘surveillance exchanges’? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock. Did you know you can verify any unconfirmed Bitcoin transaction with our Bitcoin Block Explorer tool? Simply complete a Bitcoin address search to view it on the blockchain. Plus, visit our Bitcoin Charts to see what’s happening in the industry. The post A Bitcoin War Is Brewing Over KYC appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Banking services platform Cashaa has seen significant growth in crypto trading volume in India since it began offering INR deposits and withdrawals. The platform has cut its fees by more than 50% and is getting ready to add five more cryptocurrencies for users in India, Cashaa has shared with news.Bitcoin.com. Also read: Regulatory Roundup – New US Crypto Bill, France’s 1st Approved ICO, Muslim Crypto Significant Volume Growth, Fees Reduced London-based banking platform Cashaa announced on Monday that its trading volume in India has grown to over $1 million in less than six weeks since it began offering INR services in October, on the occasion of Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights. The company revealed: Cashaa’s volume has grown significantly and made company operations profitable in less than 6 weeks in India. The platform has now reduced its service fee from 3.49% to 1.49%. In addition, users who choose to pay their fees in the CAS token can get a further discount, bringing their net fees down to less than 1%. Cashaa co-founder Janina Lowisz told news.Bitcoin.com that the reduced fee, which is already in effect, is permanent. “We are working to take down fees more in the coming quarters,” she added. “In India, all the P2P [peer-to-peer] markets are currently having a premium of 5-7%, while at Cashaa the fee is much lower. The users who are paying in CAS and have a subscription plan are paying a fee of 0.97%,” she clarified, elaborating: Since the fee went down, more our volume has grown 400% through existing brokers who are using to buy from Cashaa and selling at Paxful, Local Bitcoins or other P2P markets. In addition, Cashaa announced, “Following community requests, the minimum deposit and withdrawal limit has also been reduced from 25,000 to 10,000 INR [$140] to make bitcoin accessible to every Indian investor.” Cashaa was founded by Indian entrepreneurs in the U.K. in 2016 as a P2P money transfer and crypto trading service. Its primary markets are the U.K. and India. “Due to demonetization in India, the company pivoted from money transfer service to full banking service focused on crypto business worldwide,” Cashaa detailed. Currently, the company has a physical presence in 14 countries, including Mumbai, India. More Coins to Be Added Soon Lowisz also shared with news.Bitcoin.com that “Due to overwhelming demand and a high number of transactions, we had to work more on ether and bitcoin nodes for faster transaction processing and automating the reporting and payment of state and central taxes in India,” elaborating: We can expect USDT live by mid-January … bitcoin cash will be added in the next release in the coming quarter … After bitcoin cash, the following coins will be added: litecoin, EOS, and XRP, expected by the end of March 2020. P2P System “Access to crypto in India through banking no longer exists, but thanks to our partnerships, unique technology and access to banking networks worldwide we are enabling INR deposit and withdrawals up to 250,000 USD equivalent of INR/ month,” Cashaa claims. However, the service is only accessible to Indian residents with at least 2,500 CAS tokens deposited in their wallets. In order to offer INR services, Cashaa explained that it utilizes “its banking and vast trading network to create a peer to peer model for its INR services which enabled Indian residents to buy and sell BTC, ETH and CAS via bank transfer up to 1.5 crore INR.” India’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), placed a banking restriction on the crypto industry in April last year, prohibiting regulated financial entities from providing services to crypto businesses. Banks subsequently closed accounts of crypto exchanges. The ban has been challenged in the supreme court which is expected to resume hearing the case in January. Meanwhile, several Indian crypto exchanges are also offering P2P trading. Bitcoin.com also offers a BCH marketplace for users in India. What do you think about Cashaa’s platform and its INR services? Let us know in the comments section below. Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not an offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation, endorsement, or sponsorship of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is 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 this article. Images courtesy of Shutterstock and Cashaa. Did you know you can buy and sell BCH privately using our noncustodial, peer-to-peer Local Bitcoin Cash trading platform? The local.Bitcoin.com marketplace has thousands of participants from all around the world trading BCH right now. And if you need a bitcoin wallet to securely store your coins, you can download one from us here. The post Banking Platform Cashaa Sees Indian Trading Volume Soar, Adding 5 More Cryptocurrencies appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

The Supreme Administrative Court of Greece has suspended a decision to extradite the alleged BTC-e operator Alexander Vinnik. The temporary measure has been imposed to allow the review of an appeal against the extradition. The Russian national, accused of laundering billions of dollars through the now defunct cryptocurrency exchange, started a new hunger strike last week. Also read: Chinese Regulators Question 8 Crypto Companies in Shenzhen France Is First Destination for Vinnik, Russia Listed Last The decision to extradite Vinnik to France was signed on Friday by the Greek Minister of Justice Konstantinos Tsiaras, who also ordered the director of the Korydallos prison to prepare the necessary documents. It details that the United States should be the second possible destination for Vinnik’s departure, while the Russian Federation has been mentioned as the last option. All three countries have previously asked Greece to hand over Vinnik who was arrested on a U.S. warrant in Thessaloniki more than two years ago. U.S. prosecutors allege that the Russian blockchain specialist is one of the owners of BTC-e and accuse him of laundering between $4 billion and $9 billion through the trading platform, including funds stolen in the Mt Gox hack. But he is also wanted in France and in his native Russia for various other crimes. Vinnik rejects all these accusations. At the same time, he has already stated he is ready to face trial in his home country. Russian authorities want to prosecute him for the theft of 600,000 rubles (less than $10,000) from a defrauded entity. Vinnik’s defense believes that if he is handed over to the French authorities, he will eventually end up in U.S. custody. Quoted by Reuters, his Greek lawyer Zoe Costantopoulou described the ministerial decision as unfair and even called it a “death sentence.” She added that its suspension was a recognition of the risk he would face if he was extradited. Costantopoulou also revealed that Alexander has begun a new hunger strike and warned that his health is deteriorating. Next Hearing in Vinnik Case to Be Held in January On Tuesday, Ekaterina Sakellaropoulou who presides over Greece’s Council of State, the highest administrative court in the country, scheduled the next hearing in the case for Jan. 10, 2020, RIA Novosti reported, quoting Vinnik’s Russian lawyer Timofei Musatov. Initially, the hearing was planned for March 24. He also revealed that an expanded panel of judges will review the case next time, with the Greek court citing its “extraordinary importance.” Vinnik’s fate has become a source of contention between Europe and America, on the one hand, and Russia on the other. Meanwhile, Greece has found itself under significant pressure from all sides and from his lawyers who insist he is being held against its own laws. The Russian citizen has spent 29 months in Greek jails when according to the country’s constitution, no one should be held in custody for more than 18 months without sentence. They also point out that while the Greek justice ministry has decided to hand him over to France, the European extradition order expired long ago. There have been four separate decisions by Greek courts so far for the extradition of Vinnik, to the U.S., to France, and two for Russia. The latest issued by the executive power in Athens comes weeks before the upcoming visit of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis to Washington in early January. Greek media have speculated that their government may extradite Vinnik in the hope of winning President Trump’s backing in the recent disputes with Turkey, including over territorial waters. Greece has made it clear it also expects support from the EU. What do you think will be the outcome of Vinnik’s case? Share your expectations in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock. Do you need to track down a Bitcoin transaction? With our Bitcoin Explorer tool, you can search by transaction ID, address, or block hash to find specific details, and for a look at the broader crypto space explore our Bitcoin Charts tool. The post Greek Court Suspends Decision to Extradite Alexander Vinnik appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

In the last couple of days, Chinese media have reported on police forces in one province of the vast Asian country seizing close to 7,000 mining rigs using stolen electricity and in another province arresting 72 multi-level marketing scheme operators for alleged fraud. Also Read: Chinese Regulators Question 8 Crypto Companies in Shenzhen Police Seize Thousands of Miners Chinese police forces from the city of Tangshan, Hebei province, have seized 6,890 bitcoin mining rigs, state broadcaster CCTV (China Central Television) reported on Monday. According to the report this was the result of “special operations to combat the crime of power theft” by public security agencies in various places across the country, in conjunction with the State Electric Power Department. CCTV The Hebei Tangshan Police claim that since April last year they have conducted comprehensive inspections of more than 70,000 households, factories, mines, courtyards, merchants, communities and villages, in conjunction with power supply and other departments. During one of these investigations, the police first found a suspicious private transformer in a compound in a village in Shuangqiao Town, Kaiping District, Tangshan, Hebei. After investigating the site, it was determined that the privately connected transformer was used to mine bitcoin. They seized 1,906 bitcoin miners. The police also followed a lead and seized three high-power transformers and 790 bitcoin mining machines that were allegedly stealing electricity in a nearby village. According to the police, a rough estimate of the power consumption of the 790 bitcoin mining machines that were seized in that one incident gives them the same consumption of electricity for one day of continuous operation equivalent to the electricity consumption of more than 5,000 Chinese households a day. Police said that the crackdown on electricity theft will continue. 72 Cloud Token Operators Arrested Police forces in the city of Taiyuan, Shanxi province, have arrested 72 Cloud Token operators according to an official video shared on social media platform Weibo on Monday. The video shows officers hauling off dozens of people in a local train station, hands handcuffed behind their backs, wearing numbered yellow vests and black sacks over their heads. The caption claims that Taiyuan Public Security successfully detected the first Cloud Token platform case in the city that used blockchain to trade virtual currencies in a scam involving more than 30 million yuan (over $4 million) and more than 300 victims. Weibo According to media reports from the country, Cloud Token is a Chinese multi-level marketing scheme with high referral fees that started operating in January of this year. It is said to have similarities to the massive Plus Token Ponzi scam that some believe is responsible for crashing crypto prices. What do you think about these two reports from China? Share your thoughts in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock. Verify and track bitcoin cash transactions on our BCH Block Explorer, the best of its kind anywhere in the world. Also, keep up with your holdings, BCH and other coins, on our market charts at Bitcoin.com Markets, another original and free service from Bitcoin.com. The post Chinese Police Seize Thousands of Miners, Arrest Dozens of Scammers appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

2019 was an interesting year for cryptocurrencies. Some would say it wasn’t as bad as the crypto winter in 2018 and others would note it wasn’t as great as bull run 2017. One thing’s for sure, ever since the all-time price highs, interest in cryptocurrencies has been waning. According to data from Google Trends and Yahoo Finance, searches for the terms “bitcoin” and “cryptocurrency” are much less than they were in the summer. Also Read: Only 375 Days Left for McAfee’s $1M Bitcoin Price Wager Queries for ‘Bitcoin’ and ‘Cryptocurrency’ Dive in 2019 During the bull market of 2017, interest in terms like “bitcoin” and “cryptocurrency” peaked as far as searches are concerned on the Google Trends scale. After December 17, the scale touched 100 for searches for the word “bitcoin” and hasn’t reached that number since. In fact, searches for the term are currently in line with the number of searches in the spring months of 2017. The week of May 7, 2017, Google Trends touched a 10 and today the scale is hovering at approximately nine. Search trends for “bitcoin” also saw a nine on the scale in November 2013 just after the start of that year’s bull market. During the week of May 2019, searches for the word hit a low of seven but started rising back up again during the months. Data shows that in mid-June people looking up the word “bitcoin” jumped to a high of 26. The term “bitcoin” has a higher concentration of queries in countries like Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Austria, St. Helena, Netherlands, Slovenia, Singapore, Switzerland, and Australia. Queries closely related this year include “ethereum price,” “Binance,” “IOTA,” and “bitcoin price.” Searches for “bitcoin + news” have a different perspective as interest by region for this subject using Google Trends data over the last five years shows the top countries are Slovenia, Switzerland, Austria, Netherlands, and Cyprus. Queries for the term “bitcoin cash” are the top related topic and the number one related query according to Google’s five-year data, which is followed by “ethereum” and “IOTA.” Yahoo Reports Searches for ‘Bitcoin’ 65% Fewer Than Last Year On December 20, finance columnist for Yahoo, Edmund Heaphy, explained that “cryptocurrency searches crash 84% on Yahoo Search in 2019.” Heaphy disclosed that “new Yahoo Search data revealed,” that there were 65% less queries for the term “bitcoin” than last year. The report also noted that the research and data provider The Tie also recorded that institutional investors are losing interest in this technology. News.Bitcoin.com reported on the Tie’s findings in October when the firm studied 85,000 headlines. “Mentions of institutional interest in bitcoin in news headlines have plummeted to a 2019 low after seeing significant growth throughout the summer,” The Tie researchers detailed. “The data used more than 85,000 unique publication headlines since October 2017.” Can Halving Anticipation Keep Things Interesting? Ironically, the drop in institutional interest took place when 2019 was considered a year geared toward derivatives markets like Bakkt and many firms creating custodial services for institutions. As far as cryptocurrency markets are concerned, it’s been a wild ride in 2019 as bitcoin and other digital currencies have been quite volatile. Despite the lack of searches for the word “bitcoin” and “cryptocurrency,” queries for the term “bitcoin halving” have jumped since August. The current block subsidy for digital currencies BTC and BCH will be chopped in half by spring 2020. This event might be the key element to keeping some public interest as the halving will affect the billion-dollar mining industry a great deal. What do you think about the waning interest as far as searches for the words “bitcoin” and “cryptocurrency”? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below. Image credits: Shutterstock, Fair Use, Google Trends, Yahoo Finance. Verify and track bitcoin cash transactions on our BCH Block Explorer, the best of its kind anywhere in the world. Also, keep up with your holdings, BCH, and other coins, on our market charts at markets.Bitcoin.com, another original and free service from Bitcoin.com. The post 2019 Google and Yahoo Searches for Bitcoin Decline Significantly appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Utorg.io is a digital asset exchange based in the U.K. that allows users in Europe and around the world to trade cryptocurrencies with stablecoins and fiat money. What sets the new platform apart from many incumbents is the simplified verification procedure for traders who don’t exceed а daily limit of $1,000. Its decision to provide a no-KYC option comes amid regulatory developments that require crypto companies to introduce stricter know-your-customer procedures. Also read: Poloniex Restores Unverified Accounts With Unlimited Trading Former Exmo Executive Appointed CEO of Utorg Utorg crypto exchange, which launched earlier this year, promotes itself as a practical platform providing customers with extensive capabilities in terms of a functional interface and trading features. Its team insists that unlike most competitors, their project is not focused solely on speculative trading but instead aims to solve tasks for businesses such as mining enterprises and private individuals who use cryptocurrencies in their day-to-day dealings and operations. The exchange supports a dozen trading pairs with a couple of major cryptocurrencies, BTC and ETH, perlin (PERL), the stablecoins USDT and BUSD, and three fiat currencies at the moment – U.S. dollar, Russian ruble and Ukrainian hryvnia. Maintaining a variety of convenient deposit and withdrawal methods is one of its strong sides. The long list includes bank transfer, major credit cards such as Visa, Mastercard, and the Russian Mir as well as popular payment processors like Qiwi, Yandex money, Webmoney, Advcash, Capitalist, and Payeer. Pavel Lerner, former Managing Director of Exmo, which is arguably the largest crypto exchange in the post-Soviet space, was recently appointed CEO of Utorg. The experienced blockchain veteran, IT specialist and crypto entrepreneur, well-known in the region’s crypto space, had been advising the project’s team since 2018. In his address to Utorg’s customers, Lerner assured the exchange is working to add new pairs while maintaining liquidity and stability. No KYC Option Available With $1,000 Daily Limit The London-headquartered startup is obviously targeting countries like Russia and Ukraine. However, it also accepts signups from other jurisdictions where crypto exchange services are not prohibited by the law. As a European exchange, Utorg is of course subject to a new wave of hardening know-your-customer and anti-money laundering rules. The stringent requirements come with the crypto standards adopted by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) this year and EU’s Fifth Anti-Money Laundering directive (AMLD5) which comes into force in January 2020 and has already forced some crypto businesses to shut down. To create an account, you need to provide a valid email address and password and then activate your account following the link sent to your email. Once you do that, you can log in and set up your 2-factor authentication and activate an IP validation feature for additional security. If you want to pass ID verification you’ll be required to provide a copy of an ID document, a proof of address and a selfie with your passport. Although it increases limits on transactions involving fiat and provides access to a wider range of financial tools, the verification is not mandatory. Utorg’s website states that traders who exchange up to $1,000 of assets a day are not required to pass KYC. Its decision to offer this option is part of a trend among crypto exchanges seeing their volumes hurt by expanding due diligence requirements. Another trading platform that recently addressed the concerns of the privacy-conscious crypto community is Poloniex. The exchange announced last week it’s beginning to unfreeze unverified accounts and will in the future accept more of this type of signups that come with some basic limitations. Do you think more crypto exchanges will start offering simplified verification options? Share your expectations in the comments section below. Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not an offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation, endorsement, or sponsorship of any third party products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is 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 this article. Images courtesy of Shutterstock. Did you know you can buy and sell BCH privately using our noncustodial, peer-to-peer Local Bitcoin Cash trading platform? The local.Bitcoin.com marketplace has thousands of participants from all around the world trading BCH right now. And if you need a bitcoin wallet to securely store your coins, you can download one from us here. The post Utorg Exchange Grants Access to Traders With Limited Verification appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Since bitcoin and digital currencies have become popular, fiat on and off-ramps have sprung up that allow investors to enter and exit the cryptoconomy. However, many of the entryways into cryptocurrency markets have a hefty fee between 1-4% of the overall purchase and in order to obtain fiat for crypto the fees are just as high. Many people believe the high fees associated with crypto on-ramps are a deterrent to mass adoption and a concept that minimizes friction will triumph in the end. Also Read: Only 375 Days Left for McAfee’s $1M Bitcoin Price Wager The Fees Associated With Fiat-to-Crypto On-Ramps and Off-Ramps In order to get into the cryptoconomy, there are a few different ways, like earning digital assets for certain services performed. You can also obtain cryptocurrency from popular exchanges that allow people to swap fiat for bitcoin or a variety of other coins. However, it can be pretty costly to get into crypto markets and just as expensive to exit as many companies charge anywhere between 1-4% of the overall sale. Exchanges typically charge between 1-4% to buy or sell a cryptocurrency and some exchanges charge a lot more, while if you use a certain payment method it could be higher. For instance, one of the most popular on-ramp methods in the crypto world is using Coinbase. The San Francisco exchange “charges a spread of about one-half of one percent (0.50%) for digital currency purchases and digital currency sales.” The spread could change due to market fluctuations and Coinbase also charges another fee in addition to the spread. Coinbase charges customers 3.99% for credit or debit purchases and 1.49% for bank-based purchases. The Coinbase fee disclosure also states: If the total transaction amount is less than or equal to $10, the fee is $0.99. If the total transaction amount is more than $10 but less than or equal to $25, the fee is $1.49. If the total transaction amount is more than $25 but less than or equal to $50, the fee is $1.99. If the total transaction amount is more than $50 but less than or equal to $200, the fee is $2.99. More recently Square’s Cash App has become a well known choice for buying and selling BTC. Yet despite the popularity, lots of people complain about the app’s fees per transaction. The Cash App also has two types of fees for U.S. users who utilize the application to either enter or exit the cryptoconomy using BTC. First, the Cash App charges a flat 1.75% fee for all purchases and sales, but the platform also charges a “volatility fee” based on price movements. The Atlanta-based payment processor Bitpay charges a fee of 1% per processing fee and the company explains that “merchants may choose to pass this fee on to the buyer.” According to a report published in March by Frank Chaparro, Gemini “has the highest trading fees for retail.” “Gemini’s fees come in at a whopping 2% or 200 basis points,” Chaparro wrote at the time. The biggest problem in crypto fees. These companies are robbing us blind. It just cost me $12 to sell $2500 of BTC on @coinbase.@jacks's Cash App is even worse, they charge a whopping 1.75 percent per BTC transaction. The company that solves the onramp fee issue wins. — SHILL GATES (@ImShillGates) December 13, 2019 Flat Fees, Variables, and Exchange Tokens Fiat on and off-ramps to get into cryptocurrency have always involved fees, especially when it comes to deposits and withdrawals. A lot of the time these businesses calculate fees in two different ways and the most common is the flat fee. However, some exchanges have variable fees and unique tier structures that can change the fee depending on sale size and the market’s volatility. If you plan to enter or exit the cryptosphere via a credit card or debit card, be prepared to spend more. Most exchanges in 2019 have similar rates and have adopted each other’s fee schedules and guidelines. Bitstamp has a minimum fee of €10 in withdrawal fees for SEPA transfers and international withdrawals will incur an additional 0.09% using the European exchange. Bitpanda charges 1.29% to sell and 1.49% to buy and Coinmama charges 5% if the customer uses a debit or credit card. Fees tend to be slightly higher when customers opt to use credit or debit cards and entry into the cryptoconomy in this manner can be costly. FLEX token is an SLP-based coin that saves Coinflex users money by reducing fees associated with trading. Despite the fact that users don’t like high fees and it might deter newcomers from entering the cryptosphere, it seems high fees are here to stay. Over the last few years, however, exchanges have created exchange-developed coins that are used specifically to alleviate the cost of trading fees. This concept has become popular and exchanges like Binance, Coinflex, and Coinex have leveraged this idea. For instance, the Coinflex token FLEX is an SLP-based token that’s used to give Coinflex traders payouts depending on how much volume the user trades. FLEX tokens are then used to reduce the cost of trading fees on the exchange “incurred during the previous day.” Learn about Bitcoin.com’s exchange token here. The SLP-based token BCE will give users discounts on exchange fees. Bitcoin.com is also launching an exchange token called BCE and according to the whitepaper: “Users will get a discount on exchange fees by paying with the BCE token as per the discount schedule — the discount schedule will be refreshed at year five.” The first year will save users 50%, the second year 25%, year three 12.5%, year four 6.75%, and the fifth year will be announced nearer the time. It’s quite possible that exchange tokens could be the solution that helps reduce friction associated with crypto exchange fees. What do you think about the costs to enter the cryptoconomy through fiat and the costs associated with going back to fiat? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below. Image credits: Shutterstock, Fair Use, Simpleledger.info, Pixabay, and Twitter. Verify and track bitcoin cash transactions on our BCH Block Explorer, the best of its kind anywhere in the world. Also, keep up with your holdings, BCH, and other coins, on our market charts at markets.Bitcoin.com, another original and free service from Bitcoin.com. The post Getting In and Out of the Cryptocurrency Economy Can Be Costly appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

International payment and crypto service Wirex has enjoyed a productive year. Over the course of 2019, partnerships have been formed, a native token (WXT) released and the Wirex website and card completely redesigned. With the firm’s reach rapidly growing, CEO and co-founder Pavel Matveev has no plans to rest on his laurels. On the contrary, he’s convinced 2020 will be the company’s best year yet. In an interview with news.Bitcoin.com, the Wirex CEO shed light on user metrics and divulged the company’s expansion plans. Also read: Bybit CEO Ben Zhou on Crypto Derivatives and Market Predictions for 2020 Simplifying Crypto Transactions U.K.-based fintech company Wirex, which integrates crypto into a single payment platform, has come a long way since its foundation in 2014. As well as multi-currency accounts and transfer/exchange services accessible via its app, Wirex was the first to launch a contactless Visa debit card, allowing users to convert and spend their crypto wherever Visa is accepted. Just five years since its inception, Wirex boasts over three million customers in 130 countries, and has processed over $2 billion of transactions. At its core, the hybrid fiat and crypto-powered banking alternative seeks to eliminate traditional barriers and drive down currency exchange costs. “2019 was a monumental year for us,” says Pavel Matveev. “Linking up with Stellar, one of the most innovative blockchain projects in the industry, was something of a game-changer. As well as letting our users access lumens (XLM), we will become the first regulated platform to release 26 fiat-pegged stablecoins on the Stellar blockchain, enabling us to service the unbanked. Previously the number of cryptocurrencies we offered stood at eight. “These are stablecoins that can be spent using the Wirex card, whether you’re in a shop, restaurant or supermarket. By building stablecoins in multiple local currencies, we will eliminate the pain points associated with international remittance and cut out local liquidity providers.” Matveev doesn’t expect regulators to get in the way of realizing this vision: “We have already received lots of enquiries from regulators trying to educate themselves about emerging technologies and their potential use in the payment space. They appreciate the transformative potential of stablecoins.” Wirex completed a successful IEO in the summer. An IEO That Didn’t Tank Perhaps the biggest milestone for Wirex in 2019 was the release of its WXT utility token, issued, in keeping with the times, via an initial exchange offering. WXT was sold through Okex’s Jumpstart programme, and unlike most IEOs, WXT has actually earned its holders a return on their investment (2.75x in BTC terms). WXT holders are entitled to lower Wirex fees, higher reward earnings (up from 0.5% to 1.5%) and a premium Wirex Visa card. “Releasing the Wirex Token was a natural evolution for us, it was about giving our users convenience while incentivizing them to grow the digital economy,” explains Matveev. “This was also the case when we introduced interbank and OTC rates for fiat and crypto exchanges, and when we unveiled our multi-currency Wirex Visa travel card at the Singapore Fintech Festival. “Speaking of which, hundreds of new customers have registered every day in the APAC region, which has been extremely heartening. Especially after the work that has gone into opening Wirex up to new territories. “Offering a consistent product across such a vast region comprising culturally, economically and politically diverse nations requires lots of preparation and planning. Financial regulations – particularly those governing decentralized digital currency – differ from government to government, or are extremely vague. We owe a lot to the diligent work of our compliance and legal departments.” Pavel Matveev User Metrics and Future Plans Regulatory box-ticking is as likely to define 2020, as Wirex seeks to broaden its reach by entering Canada, the U.S. and Japan. While the Wirex wallet is currently available in the former, the card has yet to be rolled out there. As for Japan, Wirex already holds a type 2 licence for crypto, and expects to soon obtain a full type 1 licence from the FSA. At present, 25% of all Wirex transactions are recorded in the UK, its CEO reveals, followed by Italy with 13%, Spain and Germany with almost 10%, and France with 7%. Unsurprisingly, BTC is the most traded currency, representing close to 70% of all crypto exchanges – and nearly 50% of all (fiat and crypto) currency transactions. Despite many governments sounding optimistic notes regarding adoption of blockchain tech, for the most part 2019 was a quiet year for the crypto market. Not that Wirex noticed. “Believe it or not, the highest exchange in Wirex history was recorded this year, with one transaction close to $40K equivalent,” says Matveev. “Our engagement with the B2B market, as well as its continuous effort to source the best exchange and OTC liquidity, means it’s unlikely the record will stand for very long.” With the release of 26 stablecoins, a Japanese venture and an ever-evolving business product to refine, plus increasing competition from within and outside the cryptosphere, Wirex will have their hands full in 2020. Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not an offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation, endorsement, or sponsorship of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is 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 this article. Images courtesy of Shutterstock. Did you know you can verify any unconfirmed Bitcoin transaction with our Bitcoin Block Explorer tool? Simply complete a Bitcoin address search to view it on the blockchain. Plus, visit our Bitcoin Charts to see what’s happening in the industry. The post Wirex CEO Pavel Matveev Shares Expansion Plans for 2020 appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

The Bitcoin Cash (BCH) network has seen a lot of development in 2019, but two projects in particular have shined brightly throughout the year. The growth of the Simple Ledger Protocol (SLP) universe has been vast and there are thousands of SLP tokens out there today. Additionally, the BCH mixing application Cashshuffle has seen significant traction as users have shuffled 194,000 BCH ($38 million) since the official release in March. Also read: Meet Snowglobe: An Avalanche-Based Pre-Consensus Protocol for BCH The Growth of the Simple Ledger Protocol in 2019 Two specific areas within the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) environment have grown quite robust in 2019 and it doesn’t seem like things will slow down. Overall, developers who have contributed to the network have accomplished a lot this year, including two successful upgrades. Throughout the year of building, the Simple Ledger Protocol (SLP) has thrived and innovations will likely continue into the new year. On December 16, the programmers behind the SLP framework wrote a blog post that gives a comprehensive overview of the SLP landscape in 2019. “Due to Simple Ledger Protocol’s ease of use and a wide variety of applications such as virtual gaming assets, licenses, digital media rights, gift cards, and company stock shares, it has found great success among a growing community,” the blog post hosted on simpleledger.cash details. It adds: Over the past year, SLP has truly lived up to its claim as being the simplest, fastest, and most liberating token system in existence. Wallets that support SLP tokens include Memo, Ifwallet, Electron Cash SLP, Badger, and Crescent Cash. Soon the Bitcoin.com Wallet will support SLP tokens too. The SLP blog post notes that the token system “has found great success” within the BCH community and it mentions programmers who helped get the project going including the original contributors Jonald Fyookball, James Cramer, Unwriter, Mark B. Lundeberg, Calin Culianu, and Ryan X. Charles. Additionally, the post says that the community should check out the first SLP developer meeting which included software engineers like Tobias Ruck, Chris Troutner, James Cramer, Drew Davis, Vin Armani, and Mark Lundeberg. One of the first contributions toward broadening the SLP ecosystem was the introduction of the SLP-based Electron Cash (EC) wallet. The team’s memoir explains that the EC wallet was followed by a growing list of other noncustodial SLP wallets. The first SLP developer meeting. Other notable milestones the team witnessed included the passing of the SLP Torch on social media and SLP gaming concepts like Loderunner and the Realmx sandbox. Then in June, SLP community members saw the creation of the first stablecoin called honestcoin (USDH). Many BCH proponents are supportive of a strong stablecoin built alongside the BCH network. Another great achievement was the introduction of SLP-based non-fungible tokens. “In July, SLP developers revealed a new specification, which extended the SLP token type 1 protocol allowing for the creation of non-fungible tokens that can be grouped together using a single ID,” the blog post highlights. “The newly designed NFT1 concept opened the doors to even more token ideas created on top of the BCH network such as onchain raffles, lotteries, event tickets, distinct collectible tokens or sets of rare SLP coins.” The team also underlined the creation of Bitcoin.com’s SLP Dividend Calculator. “The new platform allows users to build a transaction to make dividend payments to any Simple Ledger Protocol (SLP) token holder,” the SLP article stresses. Bitcoin.com’s SLP Dividend Calculator. Moreover, the team of SLP developers noticed innovations like the SLP Token Postage Protocol, loyalty rewards from Honey Points and Toba Electric Bikes, adoption from governments like Liberland and the city of Dublin, Ohio, and the first SLP token virtual hackathon. “Ultimately, the future of SLP replies on the community of developers and early adopters to ensure its continued growth,” the SLP 2019 review concluded. “To help foster this, we are dedicated to continuing our development and community building efforts by helping to build on the foundations of SLP as well as publishing information and resources to educate developers and promote the growth of the SLP ecosystem.” Cashshuffle 2019: ‘Every Day I’m Shuffling’ Another big trend within the BCH ecosystem is the use of the bitcoin cash mixing application Cashshuffle. The program was officially launched at the end of March but developers and users tested the framework with an early version plugin and the EC wallet. Since March, the wallet has included Cashshuffle by default and users can mix coins within the wallet’s interface. Over the last nine months, BCH supporters have shuffled 194,273 BCH ($38 million). That’s a grand total of 38,546 successful shuffles that have enhanced BCH user privacy. In August, news.Bitcoin.com published a step-by-step guide on how to shuffle BCH with Cashshuffle in order to obfuscate the origins of your UTXOs. In addition to the growing community of people shuffling coins on a daily basis, especially on ‘Shuffle Saturdays,’ BCH users look forward to the Cashfusion protocol. Cashshuffle adds a decent amount of privacy to BCH transactions but Cashfusion adds an extra layer of privacy to the operation. Essentially, Cashshuffle mixes coins but if they are consolidated into a single address, there’s a chance blockchain analysis can find some traces to the original addresses. “With Cashfusion, the new scheme is not only more secure, but allows basically any number of inputs and outputs of any amounts — This means it can offer high levels of privacy with unlinkable coins,” EC wallet developer Jonald Fyookball asserted in July. Then in November, Fyookball told the public Cashfusion was already working behind the scenes and beta software is on its way. Software developer Mark Lundeberg recently talked about Cashfusion with Youtube show host Naomi Brockwell. On December 19, the lead developer of the BTC mixing wallet Wasabi complimented the Cashfusion framework. “Cashfusion gives me goosebumps — It reminds me of the Knapsack paper,” the Wasabi developer tweeted. The number of BCH users leveraging Cashshuffle shows that the Bitcoin Cash community enjoys privacy and many people want to improve BCH fungibility. Both the Simple Ledger Protocol and the Cashshuffle project have jumped leaps and bounds this year and it will be interesting to see the innovations that stem from both of these protocols in 2020. What do you think about the overall growth of both the Cashshuffle protocol and the Simple Ledger Protocol (SLP)? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below. Image credits: Shutterstock, Youtube, Pixabay, Simple Ledger Protocol, Simpleledger.info, Bitcoin.com, Memo, Ifwallet, Badger, Crescent Cash, Electron Cash, and Cashshuffle, Cashshuffle stats. Did you know that Bitcoin.com’s BCH Block Explorer can query SLP token transactions? Check it today to search and find Simple Ledger Protocol token’s within the BCH network. Our Blockchain Explorer tool will allow you to view all previous BCH and BTC transactions as well. The post Cashshuffle and the SLP Token Universe Shined Brightly in 2019 appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

At least six crypto Youtube channels have reported in recent hours that their content is being removed under the site’s “harmful and dangerous” policy, with one popular channel claiming Youtube pointed to a “sale of regulated goods.” Chris Dunn is one of these, whose channel has over 200k subscribers and has had multiple videos removed in one fell swoop. There are at least five other channels reporting similar issues and even bans, as the space speculates about possible reasons for the new Youtube crypto purge. Also Read: PBOC Official: China’s Digital Yuan Won’t Be a Speculative Currency Like Bitcoin Users Point to Possible Crypto Purge Some are speculating that the censorship of prominent crypto channels, which include Chris Dunn, Chico Crypto, The Cryptoverse, Crypto Tips and BTC Sessions, signals a larger purge which may soon come to smaller channels. In Dunn’s case, most of his crypto content was reportedly removed, leaving a very sizable gap in the uploads to his channel which appears to have set him back almost two years of content production. .@YouTube just removed most of my crypto videos citing "harmful or dangerous content" and "sale of regulated goods"… it's been 10 years of making videos, 200k+ subs, and 7M+ views. WTF are you guys doing @TeamYouTube?! pic.twitter.com/MPcKbBVrC4 — Chris Dunn (@ChrisDunnTV) December 23, 2019 Chico Crypto, who claims to have been banned for a week from the video sharing platform after multiple videos from his 67k-subscribers channel were axed, stated on Twitter: Literally @Youtube took down a video of me asking hot babes if they have ever heard of bitcoin. Yes that is right just asking if they “heard” of it…. Due to “harmful & dangerous content” I guess it’s to dangerous to hear about $BTC anymore Screenshot of Chico Crypto’s removed videos list. Chris Coney of Youtube channel The Cryptoverse affirmed he was also affected, stating “They got me too. Email has arrived in my inbox today.” Crypto influencer Tone Vays replied “Shit, my show is called ‘Trading Bitcoin’ I’m sure I will be on their list as well.” Heidi, creator of the channel Crypto Tips with over 55k subscribers detailed: My channel has been affected by this new wave of censorship as well. The joys of working with centralized entities with suffocating agendas. She then went on to tell her users where they could find her if she were to be taken down. Speculation About Another Possible Reason for Removals While many are pointing to centrally organized, mass Youtube censorship of crypto, some are wondering if a more personal conflict might be involved. Screenshots from an alleged Telegram conversation posted by Chico Crypto show a user identified as @IamSamSmith stating “This is only the beginning of your demise Chico. You started a war which you will not win. I Sam Smith vow to bring upon you the same pain which you did to me. We will keep flagging.” The user’s self-description reads: “Fighting back against rasist scammars in crypto.” When news.Bitcoin.com reached out to the user via Telegram, he claimed “I got chicocrypto banned absolutely.” When asked about the other channels he claimed he was involved in the removal of their content as well, saying: “Many of them are anti Indians and they spew hate speech.” On his Telegram channel, Sam Smith Truth, the user states: Youtube is finally taking a stand against the ‘white population’ of crypto by removing videos, and giving strikes. Diversity is a beautiful thing and crypto should welcome all backgrounds. Alternative Platforms With all the buzz, many in the space are suggesting users migrate their content to less centralized, more censorship-resistant social media platforms. Possible alternatives being pointed to include Dtube, Steemit, Bitchute, Bittube, Dlive and Flote. Whether this is a case of unhappy independent entities reporting the affected channels, or a more centrally organized cleansing of crypto content by Youtube itself remains to be seen. It wouldn’t be the first time the mega-popular video sharing platform has been under fire for unfair censorship and removal of users on controversial grounds. In any case, at least six users are claiming to have been affected by the recent video removals at press time, and the number of complaints appears to be growing. What do you think is the reason for Youtube’s new wave of censorship? Let us know in the comments section below. Image credits: Shutterstock, fair use. Want to create your own secure cold storage paper wallet? Check our tools section. You can also enjoy the easiest way to buy Bitcoin online with us. Download your free Bitcoin wallet and head to our Purchase Bitcoin page where you can buy BCH and BTC securely. The post Speculation Abounds Regarding Youtube’s Removal of Crypto Content appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

“Many men are lamenting the “man-hating” rhetoric that they have imagined stemming from SJWs. It just so happens that many of these men are also heavily involved in cryptocurrencies due to the notion that Bitcoin can restore their libertarian ideals.”– Ross Chalmers, Coin Rivet. The following article is an oped by Wendy McElroy. Also read: The State Encourages ICO Fraud. The Free Market Minimizes It The Creep of Social Justice Cryptocurrency confronts cultural bias as surely as it does state power. One cultural influence is particularly hostile. Social Justice Warriors (SJWs) are left-wing progressives who exert a powerful influence upon our culture. They self-describe as activists who believe in economic, political, and social equality in status, as well as in access to opportunities. “Equal” does not mean the identical protection of person and property for all, however, as it does in libertarian theory. It means egalitarianism—the equal status of all—in order to achieve social equity or justice for minorities and the marginalized through the forced redistribution of wealth and power. Egalitarianism is a starting point of Marxist philosophy. SJWs focus on where they consider the crypto community to be “oppressive”: the paucity of women and the hegemony of white-male developers. To many SJWs, this makes Bitcoin a “Crypto-Patriarchy.” (The claim of “white” bias is difficult to sustain given how actively African and Hispanic nations embrace crypto, but women are a minority, perhaps due to their documented preference to eschew the hard sciences.) The fact that crypto is decentralized, individualistic, and arose on the free market inspires hostility as well. In a crusade for egalitarianism, SJWs smash through such “elitist” barriers as property rights, meritocracy, logic, and white privilege. Their methodology is force, mostly in the form of law or policy, to impose correct behavior on dissenters. The March of Identity Politics Recent changes within the crypto community could foreshadow a softening of SJW criticism. “In 2019 nearly 10 percent of buyers [reportedly] identify as women…which is up from 5% in 2017, which is an encouraging trend.” On his December 4 Patreon page, Bitcoin advocate Andreas M. Antonopoulos stated, “I will not apologize for being an ‘SJW’…I dislike the word ‘warrior,’ because I am a pacifist and abhor violence.” The post was prompted by a “Twitter shitstorm” the day before. Antonopoulos explained, “After asking for recommendations for podcasts, I got more than 90% suggestions for the same type of podcaster: white, male, finance focused.” He then asked for recommendations outside the “white, male, finance focused” group. Many on thread objected, saying that merit was not based on skin color and genitals. SWJ criticism will not soften for two reasons. SJWs will not “coexist” with anything but total agreement. The philosophical underpinnings of SJWs and crypto are antithetical. Why SJWs Are Overwhelmingly Rejected by the Crypto Community Disagreement revolves around key concepts, including the definition of social justice itself. The crypto ideal was captured by the free-market economist Walter Williams who stated, “Let me offer you my definition of social justice: I keep what I earn and you keep what you earn. Do you disagree? Well then tell me how much of what I earn belongs to you—and why?” In this view, social justice resides in the reward of merit and the protection of property rights, especially the property every person has in his or her own body. For libertarians, only individuals and individual rights exist. There are no group rights. Injustice is not committed against a group but against individuals. SJWs disagree on all points. Social justice can be achieved only by taking away money, status, and power from those who earn it, and redistributing the “wealth” by force. They do not view it as force. The current system is considered to be institutionalized violence committed by capitalism and white privilege against “the oppressed.” SJWs view the world through a lens of identity politics, through groups. Identity politics occurs “when people of a particular race, ethnicity, gender, or religion form alliances and organize politically to defend their group’s interests” against the interests of other groups, notoriously white males. There is no shared humanity in terms of interests. This perspective allows them to violate a defining aspect of Western justice; namely, it is wrong to punish individuals who have committed no crime. By their skin color and genitals, all white males have committed a collective crime. There are no innocent individuals. Beware the Social Justice Rhetoric The danger presented by SJWs to crypto should not be underestimated. At a 2018 Ripple Swell conference, the keynote speaker, Bill Clinton, warned, “We could ruin it [blockchain technology] all by negative identity politics and economic and social policy. You think about that.” The devastation is likely to occur through a modern version of social engineering in which the state and central banks will participate if advantage attaches to doing so. Social engineering is an attempt to control the operation and development of society through the central planning of its institutions—usually done by “experts.” Profoundly collectivist and elitist, central planning reconstructs society in the name of a collectivist ideology. To achieve the required conformity, massive government control is imposed. In a Townhall column “Presumptions of the Left,” the free-market economist Thomas Sowell offers a key reason why the failure of central planning is inevitable: If you start from a belief that the most knowledgeable person on earth does not have even one percent of the total knowledge on earth, that shoots down social engineering, economic central planning, judicial activism, and innumerable other ambitious notions favored by the political left … If no one has even one percent of all the knowledge in a society, then it is crucial that the other 99 percent of knowledge—scattered in tiny and individually unimpressive amounts among the population at large—be allowed the freedom to be used in working out mutual accommodations. Social construction is a modern version of social engineering, and a theme that underlies SJW activism. In practical terms, social construction is similar to social engineering. It deconstructs the institutions and culture of a society in order to reconstruct them according to a subjective and shared reality—that is, an ideology. Social constructivists believe that reality is literally a product of human relationships. What is called truth or objectivity is actually a subjective consensus produced by social dynamics such as history. In short, reality is a social construct. The opposite is the independent and verifiable reality that is embodied in the laws of logic or innate characteristics of nature. Both social engineering and social construction punish dissent and prohibit alternatives. But constructionism zealously seeks to control ideas and words because they define the content of reality. A specific philosophical approach underlies the SJWs’ denial of an objective world. A Plunge Into Philosophy Philosophy can be broken down into three broad categories: metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. Three questions capture the relationship between them. What exists? How do I know? Why does it matter? Many issues confronting crypto are philosophical. A skeptic who claims crypto is not real because it is based on nothing is raising a metaphysical point as much as an economic or political one. Someone who weighs an investment—in an ICO, perhaps—is dealing with epistemology; “how do I know it is legitimate?” When a regulator calls crypto a criminal endeavor, he is appealing to ethics. A specific philosophy propels the SJW approach. Deconstructing an institution, such as money, and reconstructing it to serve a new vision is the most visible aspect of SJWs. On a deeper level, social constructionism is a theory of knowledge by which perceptions of reality vie for dominance in order to be the reality. Everyone is familiar with the example of gender identity and the battle over whether biological males and females exist. Those grounded in biology point to clear differences between male and female, including brain structure, without denying variations that result in unique individuals. SJWs believe gender is a social construct that people determine for themselves. If a biological male identifies as female, then he is female because there is no gender beyond perception. Perception determines the reality. When a perception becomes powerful enough, then it becomes “the dominant narrative” of society and serves the interests of the prevailing social group, which need not be in the majority but merely be the most powerful. To maintain dominance, alternative ideas, expression, and words must be prohibited. This is necessary because, again, ideas and words literally create reality. Understanding Social Constructionism The French postmodernist philosopher Michel Foucault was a father of social constructionism. He developed a framework to understand how reality was created. Foucault’s landmark book, “Words and Things” (1966), laid out the concept of an “episteme,” which means “knowledge” in Greek. The episteme of a culture is a self-enclosed totality that includes its language, attitudes, ideas, and science: it is how a specific culture or era approaches the world. As history progresses, one episteme replaces another. That of the Middle Ages is replaced by that of the Renaissance, and a new era is said to dawn. Words and things are inseparable from the episteme in dictating how people think, who they are, and what they will do. They are inseparable from reality. Consider the human body. Most people assume there is a pre-cultural human body. They assume that history and culture do not alter human biology. For Foucault, however, the human body lives in the episteme and it is a social construct. Even so-called “physiological givens” are constructed by successive medical epistemes. Foucault’s treatise “The Birth of the Clinic” presents what he calls the “medical gaze.” This objectifies the body and converts it something that medicine seeks to control through surgery and so on. But the medical gaze of the 18th century differs from that of the 20th century. Therefore, the reality of the 18th century human body differs from the 20th century one because the body itself changes with the episteme. Another way to understand this counter-intuitive point is to consider the Victorian Age of repressed sexuality. It is commonplace to look at its plays and literature, the songs and newspapers—its texts—and conclude that they reflect a sexually-repressed culture. Foucault sees the opposite; society reflects the texts. The text cause the society, not vice versa. This is why feminists and subsequent SJWs place so much stress upon language. Words and ideas are considered to be the source of oppression. This is why feminists used to fly into rages at being called ‘Madam Chairman.’ This is why SJWs insist upon the gender-neutral pronouns ze, zir, zem, and zeir. Words define reality. And ze who controls the words controls the reality. What Does This Have to Do With Crypto? Crypto and SJWs are philosophically antagonistic, which means they are destined to collide. Ross Chalmers’ opening quote in this article states one reason: “Many of these men [who decry ‘male hating’] are also heavily involved in cryptocurrencies due to the notion that Bitcoin can restore their libertarian ideals.” The original developers of Bitcoin were predominantly libertarian and intractable individualists whose philosophy is a ringing rebuke to SJWs. The rebels within crypto go against the state, the central banks, and anyone who tries to dictate what they can think, say, or do with their bodies. They are the anti-SJWs: individualistic, technological, unPC, and, yes, mostly male. The crypto community is also a competitor in redefining key institutions of society, including money and banks. SJWs want the reconstruction to be in their own image, which makes the crypto community a threat. Moreover, SJWs are generally suspicious of technology and hard science because they are based on objective reality and the merit of being able to perceive it. The blockchain is pure technology; it is a testament to man’s ability to engineer reality. This contradicts the metaphysics and epistemology of social constructionists who believe there is no objective world to discover. This is why they politicize technology and science by creating categories such as “feminist science” that absorb the fields into their interpretation of reality. But the blockchain and crypto are not matters of democracy, opinion, public consensus, epistemes, or justice. They are software designed for individuals to control their own finances and—if the individuals so desire—to achieve freedom. The blockchain and cryptos function on merit, which is indifferent to anyone’s politics; what works is true. This contradicts the basis of leftist social justice. Crypto is a standing rebuke to SJWs, and vice versa. Both cannot be correct. Metaphysically and epistemologically—what is real and how do people know it—one must be wrong for the other to be correct. The two philosophies are in ethical and political conflict as well. SJWs look to the speaker of an idea—to his or her group identity—to judge whether the idea is correct. By contrast, if Bitcoin teaches nothing else epistemologically, it is this: it does not matter from whom or where ideas arise. Only the merit of an idea matters, and the surest sign of merit is when it works like a law of nature that’s come to life. Like Bitcoin. Op-ed disclaimer: This is an Op-ed article. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own. Bitcoin.com is not responsible for or liable for any content, accuracy or quality within the Op-ed article. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the content. 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 information in this Op-ed article. Images courtesy of Shutterstock. Did you know you can verify any unconfirmed Bitcoin transaction with our Bitcoin Block Explorer tool? Simply complete a Bitcoin address search to view it on the blockchain. Plus, visit our Bitcoin Charts to see what’s happening in the industry. The post Crypto Confronts Social Justice Warriors appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Authorities in Uzbekistan have effectively banned residents from purchasing cryptocurrencies on digital asset exchanges licensed in the country. Crypto holders will only be able to sell their coins and that’s if these have not been obtained through anonymous transactions, amendments to the local regulations postulate. Also read: Poles Hit With Backdated Tax on Crypto Trades Uzbekistan Amends Its Crypto Regulations The Central Asian republic made it to the crypto media headlines last year, when it legalized cryptocurrency trading and introduced licensing for exchanges with a presidential decree issued in the fall of 2018. An earlier decree, signed by President Shavkat Mirziyoyev in the summer of that same year, prepared the legal grounds for other activities related to the circulation of digital coins. For a while, the country looked like a promising destination for crypto business. However, the National Agency for Project Management, which is subordinated to the presidency, has recently adopted amendments to the regulatory regime that significantly limit options for local private individuals using cryptocurrency. According to a new order issued by the agency on Dec. 6, Uzbekistan citizens will only be allowed to sell crypto assets on registered exchanges, Sputink and Forklog reported. Besides, using decentralized cryptos as a means of payment is now prohibited in the country. On top of that, performing any transactions with coins that have been acquired through anonymous transactions is banned as well, although it remains unclear how regulators will determine whether someone’s digital money has been involved in such transfers. Trading platforms should only serve users with verified identities, who are 18 years or older, and whose names are not on the government’s list of individuals suspected of money laundering and terrorist financing. Changes Inspired by FATF Standards Cryptocurrency exchanges have been obliged to keep records of all trades conducted on their platforms for at least five years. Any violations of the country’s laws should also be recorded and reported to Uzbekistan’s law enforcement in writing. According to the media reports, these new requirements have been inspired by the global standards on crypto assets adopted by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in June this year. Uzbekistan authorities have nevertheless not given up entirely on their initial intention to accommodate crypto businesses in the country. The project management agency under President Mirziyoyev hopes that despite the stringency of the newly adopted rules, the overall regulatory framework will attract fresh foreign investments. The executive power in Tashkent also expects that crypto companies will generate additional revenues for Uzbekistan’s commercial banks that provide services to the sector. When the crypto industry was granted regulatory recognition last year, Uzbekistan sought to acquire know-how from others with more experience in the field. The government signed an agreement with the Korean Blockchain Business Association which had to help with the implementation of the Uzbekistan Revolution 4.0 project aimed at developing the country’s blockchain space. The cooperation had to lead to the establishment of a national cryptocurrency exchange, industrial mining center, blockchain academy, and the legalization of coin offerings. It’s unclear whether there’s been any substantial progress on this track since then. What’s your opinion about the regulatory changes in Uzbekistan? Share your thoughts in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock. Did you know you can buy and sell BCH privately using our noncustodial, peer-to-peer Local Bitcoin Cash trading platform? The local.Bitcoin.com marketplace has thousands of participants from all around the world trading BCH right now. And if you need a bitcoin wallet to securely store your coins, you can download one from us here. The post Uzbekistan Bans Citizens From Buying Crypto, They Can Only Sell appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Coinbase is shutting down the startup Earn.com which it acquired for an estimated $100 million last year. The email service allowed senders to pay users in digital currency for replying to commercial messages or completing tasks. Also Read: Coinbase Acquires Earn.com for an Estimated $100 Million Coinbase Says Goodbye to Earn.com San Francisco-based cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase has reportedly decided to shut down Earn.com (formerly known as 21 Inc). The exchange notified clients of the decision via email, explaining that it is “sunsetting Earn.com to focus exclusively on Coinbase Earn,” The Block reported on Monday. Users of the service were given about two months’ notice until they have withdraw all their funds. The company also added that it plans on “scaling Coinbase Earn even further by adding more campaigns to the platform, to connect more blockchain networks with engaged crypto users.” Coinbase Earn is a service meant to incentive people to learn more about new cryptocurrencies. The educational platform rewards users with tokens for completing various tasks such as watching videos and taking quizzes on crypto-related content. $100 Million Acquisition The idea behind Earn.com was allowing senders to pay users in digital currency for replying to emails and completing tasks, which is meant to benefit both normal email users and large-scale senders of commercial emails. A normal email user could earn crypto by replying to emails and also use the price of inbound emails as a signal to rank them by importance. Senders of commercial email could use Earn.com to pay users to get them to reply to messages regrading subjects such as recruiting, fundraising, and marketing which most users just filter as spam under normal circumstances. Coinbase only announced that it had acquired Earn.com in April 2018. The two sides have not revealed the financial details of the deal but it wa estimated at the time to be just above $100 million. This was considerably lower than previous valuations for the startup and caused a push-back from investors according to Silicon Valley media reports. As part of the acquisition, Earn’s co-founder and CEO Balaji Srinivasan joined Coinbase as the company’s first Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Earn.com promised its users at the time that it was not ”going down” or drastically changing. In fact, the company claimed that the product was only going to get “bigger and better” as a consequence of this deal. What do you think about Coinbase shutting down Earn.com? Share your thoughts in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock. Verify and track bitcoin cash transactions on our BCH Block Explorer, the best of its kind anywhere in the world. Also, keep up with your holdings, BCH and other coins, on our market charts at Bitcoin.com Markets, another original and free service from Bitcoin.com. The post Coinbase Closes Earn.com One Year After $100M Acquisition appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Tax authorities around the world are increasing their focus on crypto transactions and companies are rushing to help investors navigate the unclear regulations. The latest example is Thomson Reuters which has added a new tool for American tax payers to report crypto dealings to the IRS. Also Read: Thomson Reuters Eikon to Display Data on 50 Cryptocurrencies From Cryptocompare Thomson Reuters Gosystem Tax Now Supports Crypto Toronto-headquartered multinational mass media and information firm, Thomson Reuters Corporation (NYSE: TRI), has revealed that its Individual Gosystem Tax system is launching a “Virtual Currency Organizer” for IRS 1040 form preparation. The tool will be a single point of data entry for crypto dealings including exchanges, forks, purchases and payments. Users of the income tax software suite will now be able to review all transactions in a central location and have the information properly reported on the relevant forms. “Virtual currencies, or cryptocurrencies, continue to be a dizzying draw to investors. Many times, the investors are not considering, or fully aware of, the tax implications of their activity in this exciting new asset class. The IRS, however, has been keenly aware of the obligations in this area and has recently raised its scrutiny and compliance level,” the company explained. “Given both the IRS focus on and accelerating proliferation of digital assets, Thomson Reuters recognizes the additional challenge that this digital asset class introduces and is committed to providing industry-leading solutions in this new frontier of tax reporting.” To deliver this new service, Thomson Reuters has entered into a collaboration with a firm that specializes in the accounting and reporting of cryptocurrencies, Verady. Its Ledgible platform allows investors, tax preparers and financial institutions to perform portfolio tracking and reporting of cryptocurrency activity. It has been specifically designed to simplify the lengthy and complex process of consolidating records from exchanges, wallets, blockchain explorers, and other cryptocurrency data sources. Ledgible supports many digital assets including BTC, BCH, BTG, BSV, DASH, EOS, ETC, LTC, XMR, XLM, ZEC, ETH and ERC20 tokens. The supported exchanges are Bibox, Binance, Bitfinex, Bitstamp, Bittrex, Coinbase, Gemini, Hitbtc, Huobi, Kraken, Lbank, Okex, Poloniex and ZB. The platform also supports a wide array of hardware and custodial wallets including Trezor, Ledger and Bitgo. IRS Focuses on Crypto Traders The launch of new crypto tax services at this time is not surprising considering the focus by IRS on the field. As news.Bitcoin.com previously reported, 2019 will be the first year that the IRS will explicitly ask U.S. taxpayers to disclose all their cryptocurrency dealings. In fact, the new 1040 IRS filing form for the 2019 tax year now includes a “Question #0” at the very beginning of the form asking about any taxpayer activity with virtual currencies. In July of this year the IRS sent out 10,000 letters to American tax payers that it suspected of having crypto transactions that they failed to report and pay the resulting tax from or did not report their transactions properly. “Taxpayers should take these letters very seriously by reviewing their tax filings and when appropriate, amend past returns and pay back taxes, interest and penalties,” IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig said as the time. “The IRS is expanding our efforts involving virtual currency, including increased use of data analytics. We are focused on enforcing the law and helping taxpayers fully understand and meet their obligations.” The 2019 Schedule 1 of Form 1040. Last week Lukka announced its DIY tax preparation product for U.S. taxpayers invested in cryptocurrencies. It is designed to provide taxpayers with a secure, guided tax reporting experience that enables the accurate calculation of taxable gain/loss on crypto investments at an affordable price. The new offering evolved from Libra Tax, the commercial crypto tax calculator released in 2014, and is built to complete crypto data collection, enrichment, and calculation processes not supported by traditional tax preparation software solutions. “Lukka is bringing institutional-grade tax preparation products to all consumers with scalable and secure tools that have guided experiences and are incredibly easy-to-use,” said Jake Benson, Founder and CEO of Lukka. “Considering the intense IRS focus on compliance and lack of accuracy in prior year reporting, we believe that the do-it-yourself taxpayer requires a purpose-built crypto tax product they can trust will comply with IRS requirements; Lukka Tax meets that need.” What do you think about Thomson Reuters adding a crypto tax tool? Share your thoughts in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock. Verify and track bitcoin cash transactions on our BCH Block Explorer, the best of its kind anywhere in the world. Also, keep up with your holdings, BCH and other coins, on our market charts at Bitcoin.com Markets, another original and free service from Bitcoin.com. The post Thomson Reuters Launches Crypto Tax Tool appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

As the end of 2019 approaches, it means there will be one year left for John McAfee’s infamous wager that said the price per bitcoin would “reach $1,000,000 before the end of 2020.” If the forecast doesn’t come to fruition, he said that he would eat his family jewels on television. At the moment, the price of BTC is 95% below McAfee’s prediction. Also Read: John McAfee Weighs in on Maximalism, Epstein’s Death, and ‘the Greatest Gift Since Fire’ John McAfee’s Infamous Bet In 2017, John McAfee made a bet that the price of BTC would touch one million dollars before the end of 2020. The new year is less than 10 days away and BTC has a long way to go in order for McAfee to win his notorious wager. At the time of publication, the price per BTC at $7,400 per coin is 95.47% below the $1 million mark. The bet is well known throughout the cryptosphere because McAfee promised to indulge in an interesting endeavor on television. The 2020 U.S. presidential candidate promised to “eat” his genitals “on national television” if he loses. At the time, McAfee’s bet was lower as his target price was initially $500K per bitcoin. However, he upped the stakes to $1 million and insisted he would still perform the crazy act on TV if he is wrong. Later in 2019, McAfee discussed his price prediction again when he told the public he was misquoted in regards to the technical terms of his wager. “Dec. 31, 2020, is not an exact date — Let’s all be clear again: I predicted Bitcoin would reach $1,000,000 before the end of 2020. That is not saying it will hit that price on that date,” McAfee explained in February. 2020 is fast approaching and McAfee has been on the run from U.S. authorities and living off the grid. He’s still super busy and launched a crypto trading multi-platform called ‘Magic’ and started a decentralized token exchange with no restrictions. McAfee recently caught up with news.Bitcoin.com during the first week of December and discussed a variety of subjects. Price Tracking and Countdown Websites Dedicated to McAfee’s Wager McAfee’s wager has sparked lots of conversations on social media and crypto forums but it’s also invoked a data analysis site called dickline.info. The website shows how far BTC has to go to reach McAfee’s predicted target. Right now the digital asset would have to climb at a rate of 0.484095526 % per day to get to the $1 million mark. The creators of the data website dedicated to McAfee’s wager do not dismiss the fact that it’s quite possible McAfee’s prediction could come to fruition. “Compared to the enormous price changes, half a percent does not sound like much to you — This is the magic of exponential growth,” the website states. The website also lets users make their own price prediction and there’s a calculator that allows visitors to change parameters. In addition to dickline.info’s statistical information, there’s the countdown website dickening.com. The site is fully dedicated to the McAfee wager and it says there are 375 days left until the last day of 2020. The website also notes that the ‘Halvening’ will take place first and also explains that McAfee could be correct. “Conversely, if bitcoin is worth one million dollars by that day, most of the world is going to feel like dicks for not listening,” the website states. At this time of year, thought leaders and crypto influencers are prone to make price predictions, but it’s likely most people will forget these forecasts. McAfee’s bet, on the other hand, will be remembered as people are eagerly tracking his prediction. Do you think McAfee’s prediction could happen or do you think he will be forced to perform his stunt on TV? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below. Disclaimer: Price prediction articles are intended for informational purposes only and should not be considered trading advice. Neither Bitcoin.com nor the author is responsible for any losses or gains, as the ultimate decision to conduct a trade is made by the reader. Always remember that only those in possession of the private keys are in control of the “money.” BTC prices referenced in this article were recorded at 4:05 pm EST on December 22, 2019. Image credits: Shutterstock, Twitter, Fair Use, Pixabay, dickening.com, and dickline.info. Verify and track bitcoin cash transactions on our BCH Block Explorer, the best of its kind anywhere in the world. Also, keep up with your holdings, BCH, and other coins, on our market charts at markets.Bitcoin.com, another original and free service from Bitcoin.com. The post Only 375 Days Left for McAfee’s $1M Bitcoin Price Wager appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Recently, a few Bitcoin Cash (BCH) proponents have been writing a series of myth-busting articles that describe Bitcoin technicals generally thought to be true but which are not. The articles posted on the read.cash blog have reviewed topics like 10-minute confirmation times, SPV wallets, PoW energy usage, and rising network fees. Also read: Meet Snowglobe: An Avalanche-Based Pre-Consensus Protocol for BCH Bitcoin Myth-Busters BCH supporters have been participating in an editorial series called “Mythbusting” that aims to dispel wrong information about the Bitcoin protocol that’s been articulated by sophists throughout the crypto community over the last decade. The articles have been posted to the BCH-centric blogging site read.cash and translated into Spanish, French, and German so the topics can gather a wider audience. BCH Fees Won’t Rise Like BTC Because the BCH Network Is Not Artificially Constrained by a 1MB Limit One article called “Mythbusting: BCH fees would also be high with increased usage” written by Mr. Zwets explains how a lot of people believe that just because BTC fees rise with more usage, the same will happen to BCH as well when usage increases. “This argument does not hold ground and comes from a lack of understanding,” Zwets wrote. Basically, Zwets says the reason why BTC fees spike considerably when usage rises is because of the 1MB block size limit. “Keeping the limit was the biggest change to happen to bitcoin in its history, changing it was not,” Zwets’ post explains. “Bitcoin Cash has a 32MB limit so it will not have to bump into the limit in the foreseeable future.” The average number of transactions per block according to Fork.lol on September 1, 2018. Orange (BTC), Blue (BCH). At this time on September 1, 2018, BCH fees dropped from an average of $0.003 per transaction to $0.001 per transaction even though it processed 2.4 million transactions that day. In fact, there is data that shows fees won’t rise as they do on the BTC network when the chain is overloaded with transactions. In 2018, the BCH community participated in a stress test that saw 2.4 million transactions processed on September 1. Throughout the week, the BCH network continued to stress test day after day, processing 2-4x the daily transaction average BTC produces. During this week of tests, observers noted that the network fee actually slid from $0.003 to $0.001 per transaction. Zwets’ post highlights the fact that the BTC network’s main issue is due to the artificially constrained block size limit. Zwets’ article stresses: The underlying reason why there are high transaction costs to use BTC is because there is an artificial limit on the amount of transactions that can be processed and this limit is lower than the amount of transactions people want to make. PoW Energy Consumption Is a Non-Problem Another myth busted on read.cash called “ Bitcoin is necessarily energy-inefficient because of PoW” explains how saying Bitcoin’s proof-of-work is a waste of energy is “meaningless” and the “only purpose of this claim is to put Bitcoin (BTC) and PoW in a bad light.” The article was written by read.cash user Alanone and he says the best way to analyze the energy consumption is by comparing it to other systems that consume energy. “For example, the energy-consuming by video game console has a cost more than bitcoin network, but of course it is not for security purposes, but for entertainment purposes,” Alanone’s post notes. The writer concluded his post by adding: As we can see, the issue linked to the cost also to the Bitcoin (BTC) is a non-problem for the environment and to conclude this article, a fun fact shows that the consumption from an idle home device can provide the power for bitcoin network for over three years. The 10-Minute Block Time and Replace-by-Fee Debate BCH proponent Cain wrote his thoughts on the myth that 10-minute confirmation times make the Bitcoin network difficult to use for everyday payments. In the post “Mythbusting: 10-minute confirmation time makes Bitcoin unsuitable as a ‘cash’ method of payment” Cain writes that “BTC supporters say that Bitcoin isn’t meant for buying coffee.” One reason some people promote this myth is because they think 10-minute block times make double spends easier. Cain mentions the recent double spend exploit video, where Hayden Otto used the Replace-by-Fee (RBF) protocol to show how easy it was to double spend on the BTC chain. BTC supporters glossed over the RBF issue and claimed it was due to the 10-minute block interval. They also claimed all zero-confirmation transactions were unsafe. Cain’s post refutes this fallacy by explaining that BCH doesn’t have RBF and what BTC supporters fail to recognize is that it’s much harder to demo Otto’s real-world example on the BCH network. “Instead, the [Bitcoin Cash] network follows the ‘first seen’ rule where miners accept the first transaction they see as opposed to the transaction with the highest fee,” Cain’s post emphasizes. “This means that trying to successfully perform a double-spend on the BCH network is significantly more difficult.” Cain notes that because BCH doesn’t have RBF, a person who wants to double spend has to send the funds at virtually the same time. If a transaction is sent just mere seconds later, the chances of a double spend dramatically decrease. The RBF protocol baked into Bitcoin Core makes it so the miners are more incentivized to accept ‘higher fees’ as opposed to Nakamoto’s original design which follows the ‘first seen’ rule. Dispelling the Belief That Simplified Payment Verification Is Unsafe Then there’s the article “Mythbusting: SPV is not secure” written by Tomz (Thomas Zander maintainer of Flowee the Hub), which dispels the myth that Simplified Payment Verification is insecure. Zander believes it’s a “shame” that people have “misconceptions about SPV wallets” even though the process is well described in the Bitcoin whitepaper. “SPV wallets do validate, but they validate less,” Zander’s post details. “The myth we hear is that this deferred checking is not safe — The idea that if you don’t check 100% of the transactions, somehow people can take your money,” the developer adds. With full nodes, Zander says that miners validate each and every transaction and if they try to create a block that spends UTXOs twice then the whole network will reject them. SPV wallets validate by following the chain and since SPVs don’t check every transaction they trust the network of full nodes to verify. SPV as described by Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin whitepaper. “SPV wallets don’t just trust miners, they trust every company observing those miners to have enough selfish reasons to keep the chain healthy and sane,” Zander’s post highlights. “Because the moment one of those 1000s of miners starts to cheat, it is cheaper to eject that one miner from the ecosystem than to just declare all your money in that chain lost due to the value and trust drop that would follow.” The Flowee the Hub developer continues: An SPV wallet owner, then, trusts in a coin’s ecosystem. Which, frankly, is no different than any other company or person using that coin. The only difference is one of risk — The risk is not about a single payment being stolen from you, the risk is about the entire chain becoming corrupted and losing value. A situation that is very easy to avoid by running a full node and running your business on it. As exchanges and companies like Bitpay do. The only risk for an SPV wallet is when there are not enough people keeping miners in check. Bigger Blocks Do Not Equal Lesser Nodes Lastly, Mr. Zwets also wrote another rebuttal called “Mythbusting: Bigger blocks mean less full nodes,” which dismisses the belief that larger blocks will hurt the full node count. Essentially because the blocks are so large believers of the myth think that users will opt out of running a full node because the chain will be too large. Zwets uses Bitcoin Unlimited’s chief scientist Dr. Peter Rizun’s talk “Block Propagation and the Z-parameter” to help argue his case. Basically, Zwets emphasizes that users run full nodes because the cost is low and “because they find them useful and care about the network.” Slides from the presentation “Block Propagation and the Z-parameter” presented by Dr. Peter Rizun. “This means the more people the network is useful to the more full nodes. This might sound extremely obvious but some people seem to think the only way to get more bitcoin nodes is to lower the cost of running one,” Zwets’ article insists. He also adds that protocol developers shouldn’t ignore a rapid decline of full nodes if cost becomes exponential. One example of this is the “huge node cost” associated with 200+MB blocks “which causes nodes to crash and forces operators to upgrade to more expensive hardware.” Zwets says the BSV chain is a perfect example of this type of “node cost” as a mega-sized block “crashed many BSV block explorers and required Bitmex to double the memory of their node.” Santa to Reward Myth-Busting With a 1 BCH Prize Overall, the BCH community seems to appreciate the editorials designed to dispel myths and historical revisionism. The authors on read.cash have been getting BCH tips and many of them received feedback on their essays. Moreover, writers have been getting an SLP-based token called “Mythbuster” as all the rebuttals were invoked by a post written by Btcfork called “A roadmap to busting small blocker myths about Bitcoin.” Btcfork’s post lists a variety of ‘small blocker’ myths and there are many unclaimed essays that can still be written. Santa is giving away bitcoin cash for the best Mythbusting articles. Positive contributors may receive Mythbuster tokens for their efforts and Btcfork hopes that the work provides a comprehensive list of editorials that argue against these untruths. Btcfork has also written some posts of his own, which include “Mythbusting: big blocks => zero fees => infinite spam,” and “Mythbusting: “Controversial hard-forks cannot happen.” Lastly, to incentivize writers even more, Btcfork said that “Santa” has announced that he will reward 1 BCH to the article he likes best after December 27. Santa Claus will also reward 0.666 BCH to his runner up favorite, and 0.333 BCH to his 3rd place favorite.” What do you think about all the Mythbusting posts written by BCH proponents? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below. Image credits: Shutterstock, BCH logo, Pixabay, Fork.lol, Block Propagation and the Z-parameter slides, read.cash, Mythbusters logo, the Bitcoin white paper, and Fair Use. Did you know you can verify any unconfirmed Bitcoin transaction with our Bitcoin Block Explorer tool? Simply complete a Bitcoin address search to view it on the blockchain. Plus, visit our Bitcoin Charts to see what’s happening in the industry. The post These Myth-Busting Articles Dispel Common Bitcoin Myths appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Germany’s second-largest stock exchange and a major financial services group in Japan have partnered to expand their crypto operations in Europe and Asia. Boerse Stuttgart recently launched its crypto trading platform while SBI has been expanding its crypto business operations for several years. Also read: Regulatory Roundup: Crypto ‘Inevitable’ in India, China Rankings, NY Streamlines Policy Creating a ‘Truly Global’ Crypto Ecosystem Germany’s Boerse Stuttgart Group and Japan’s SBI Holdings independently announced on Friday their partnership to expand both companies’ crypto businesses. The former operates the second-largest stock exchange in Germany while the latter is one of the largest Japanese financial services groups. Boerse Stuttgart wrote: Both partners will collaborate in order to create a truly global end-to-end ecosystem for digital assets, utilizing blockchain technology. Alexander Höptner, Chairman of the Management Board of Boerse Stuttgart Under the partnership agreement, SBI Holdings will invest in two of Boerse Stuttgart’s subsidiaries with crypto operations: Boerse Stuttgart Digital Exchange and Boerse Stuttgart Digital Ventures. “The SBI Group, including its crypto asset trading platform and other related business operating companies, will fully make use of the collaboration with Boerse Stuttgart Group, to well-establish the actual demands of the digital asset throughout the world,” SBI Holdings President Yoshitaka Kitao commented. Alexander Höptner, the Chairman of the Management Board of Boerse Stuttgart, stated: Asia and Europe are the fastest growing markets for digital assets at the moment … Besides the exchange of knowledge and technology, possible fields of collaboration include the cross issuance and listing of digital assets, trading and brokerage as well as the creation of the first global custody bridge. SBI Holdings President Yoshitaka Kitao Boerse Stuttgart’s Growing Presence in the Crypto Space Boerse Stuttgart Group launched a digital asset trading platform called Boerse Stuttgart Digital Exchange (BSDEX) in September. Earlier this month, the group opened the platform to all traders in Germany. The company describes the platform as “Germany’s first regulated trading venue for digital assets where investors’ orders are executed directly against each other according to fixed rules.” It meets the regulatory requirements in accordance with section 2, paragraph 12 of the German Banking Act. The platform operator, Boerse Stuttgart Digital Exchange GmbH, is a joint venture of Boerse Stuttgart GmbH, Axel Springer SE and finanzen.net GmbH. Blocknox, a subsidiary of Boerse Stuttgart Digital Ventures, acts as the custodian holding customers’ cryptocurrencies. Early this year, Boerse Stuttgart launched a crypto trading app called Bison, developed by Sowa Labs, a fintech subsidiary of Boerse Stuttgart Digital Ventures. The smartphone app can be used to buy and sell BTC, ETH, LTC, and XRP from financial services provider Euwax AG, a subsidiary of Boerse Stuttgart. SBI Has Been in Crypto Business Since 2016 The SBI Group is a major Japanese financial services company group based in Tokyo. The group has been in the crypto business since 2016. Among its crypto-related affiliated companies are SBI VC Trade, one of the first registered crypto exchanges in Japan; SBI Crypto, which specializes in crypto mining; SBI Crypto Investment, which invests in crypto startups; and SBI Mining Chip, which manufactures mining chips and develops mining systems for crypto assets. SBI VC Trade was registered with Japan’s top financial regulator, the Financial Services Agency (FSA), in September 2017 to operate a crypto exchange. It was one of 11 crypto exchange operators the FSA approved that month. Japan now has 21 registered crypto exchanges. SBI launched a crypto spot trading service called “Vctrade” in July last year for pre-registered investors and proceeded with the public launch the following month. The group also established SBI Ripple Asia in 2016 and SBI R3 Japan in January. Furthermore, on Oct. 1, SBI Securities and five other Japanese brokerage firms established the Japan Security Token Offering (STO) Association. What do you think of Boerse Stuttgart and SBI Group partnering to expand in Europe and Asia? Let us know in the comments section below. Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not an offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation, endorsement, or sponsorship of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is 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 this article. Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Beorse Stuttgart, and SBI Holdings. Did you know you can buy and sell BCH privately using our noncustodial, peer-to-peer Local Bitcoin Cash trading platform? The local.Bitcoin.com marketplace has thousands of participants from all around the world trading BCH right now. And if you need a bitcoin wallet to securely store your coins, you can download one from us here. The post Boerse Stuttgart and SBI Partner to Expand Crypto Services in Europe and Asia appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

According to one researcher, quantum computing faces more hurdles than many realize when it comes to achieving viability in breaking encryption. In a recent report Dr. Subhash Kak, Regents Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Oklahoma State University, notes that there are issues such as “noise” and error correction that render the buzz about quantum supremacy when it comes to Bitcoin, still largely theoretical. Also Read: What Google’s Quantum Breakthrough Means for Blockchain Cryptography Where Quantum Supremacy Falls Short In essence “quantum supremacy” refers to the demonstration that a quantum computer can solve some problem classical computers can’t. There’s no doubt this has been done, but the important question for those in the crypto space centers on what kind of problem is being solved. While the development of quantum supremacy is a haunting specter indeed for hodlers worried about their private keys, there’s yet little evidence the problems being solved by this technology have much utility in cracking encryption where cryptos are concerned. “These companies are trying to build hardware that replicates the circuit model of classical computers. However, current experimental systems have less than 100 qubits. To achieve useful computational performance, you probably need machines with hundreds of thousands of qubits,” states Dr. Subhash Kak in a recent article. Though groups like D-wave boast 2000 qubits (quantum bits) the applications are different. D-wave’s focus is on optimization via a process called quantum annealing which, according to Kak, is a “narrower approach to quantum computing … where qubits are used to speed up optimization problems.” As such, D-wave’s claims have garnered some criticism, with one recent report on the topic calling the D-wave system “skim milk” compared to other computers. Noise and Error Correction The real difficulty in achieving practical quantum code-cracking resides in the concepts of noise and error correction, according to Kak. The researcher details: “For computers to function properly, they must correct all small random errors. In a quantum computer, such errors arise from the non-ideal circuit elements and the interaction of the qubits with the environment around them.” For these reasons the qubits can lose coherency in a fraction of a second and, therefore, the computation must be completed in even less time. If random errors – which are inevitable in any physical system – are not corrected, the computer’s results will be worthless. This error correction complicates things even more. The potential for noise-related errors necessitates the need for more qubit power. Theoretical physicist Mikhail Dyakonov describes the mind-boggling nature of the problem, saying: “While a conventional computer with N bits at any given moment must be in one of its 2N possible states, the state of a quantum computer with N qubits is described by the values of the 2N quantum amplitudes, which are continuous parameters (ones that can take on any value, not just a 0 or a 1). This is the origin of the supposed power of the quantum computer, but it is also the reason for its great fragility and vulnerability. So the number of continuous parameters describing the state of such a useful quantum computer at any given moment … is much, much greater than the number of subatomic particles in the observable universe. In other words, the strength of practical quantum computing can also be seen as its Achilles heel. Because it can process so many variables, these seemingly endless variables also open the door for greater potential error. Resulting hardware and logistical considerations are not as often discussed as other issues, but according to the two researchers these areas are of critical importance. Looking Past the Hype Dyakonov, like Kak, points to the hype surrounding the field of quantum computing, which has been in development and a source of energized speculation for decades. While it is unclear exactly how far classified government and high-level scientific developments may have come by now, as far as the educated observer can tell, it seems there’s a long way to go before the Bitcoin network may be in danger. At which point algorithmic upgrades have been suggested by many as a potential solution. Still, like ongoing work in nuclear fusion, quantum computing is not to be ignored. An unforeseen breakthrough could theoretically happen at any time and change the game. Kak, for his part, remains skeptical: “As someone who has worked on quantum computing for many years, I believe that due to the inevitability of random errors in the hardware, useful quantum computers are unlikely to ever be built.” Do you think quantum supremacy will be achieved in regard to Bitcoin in the near future? Let us know in the comments section below. Images credits: Shutterstock. Want to create your own secure cold storage paper wallet? Check our tools section. You can also enjoy the easiest way to buy Bitcoin online with us. Download your free Bitcoin wallet and head to our Purchase Bitcoin page where you can buy BCH and BTC securely. The post Why Quantum Computing’s Threat to Crypto May Be Further out Than Previously Thought appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

On December 20, BCHD and Openbazaar developer Tyler Smith published first draft specifications for a protocol he calls “Snowglobe.” Smith’s Github repository says that Snowglobe is a propagation protocol for nodes using Nakamoto Consensus and it uses an Avalanche-based consensus algorithm for the process. Also read: BCH Avalanche Transactions Show Finality Speeds 10x Faster Than Ethereum Specifications for a Pre-Consensus Protocol Called Snowglobe Published Software developer Tyler Smith recently published specifications to a new concept he has created called Snowglobe. Smith is well known for his contribution to the Bitcoin Cash full node BCHD codebase and he also develops with the Openbazaar team. After publishing the Snowglobe documentation, Smith asked programmers to feel free to give him constructive feedback or reach out to him via the Avalanche or BCHD Slack channels. First draft of the Snowglobe spec is available for review: https://t.co/NUmBLGEaxk. Feel free to give constructive feedback via the issues on that repo, in the Avalanche Telegram channel, or in #avalanche in the bchd Slack. — Tyler Smith (@tcrypt25519) December 20, 2019 “This document specifies a propagation protocol for nodes of a Nakamoto Consensus network in which participants actively work to reconcile their local states against each other,” the Snowglobe specs state. “It enables nodes to sample each others’ state in order to determine which item in a conflict set is currently chosen by the most nodes, and to work toward a super majority of nodes choosing the same set of items.” Snowglobe’s documentation adds: An Avalanche-based consensus algorithm is used for this process affording the protocol asynchrony, metastability, and quiescent finality. Snowglobe specs hosted on Github. Avalanche Consensus Could Bolster Zero-Confirmation Transactions The original Avalanche consensus algorithm white paper was written by a pseudonymous team of programmers dubbed ‘Team Rocket’ and the paper was published in May 2018. The unknown developers described four different protocols called Slush, Snowflake, Snowball, and Avalanche. The protocol Avalanche has been discussed throughout the BCH development community as a way to fortify pre-consensus. The pre-consensus protocol would run parallel with the original proof-of-work consensus mechanism and it has a variety of different benefits. In December 2018, Openbazaar and BCHD developer Chris Pacia explained how zero-confirmation transactions could be bolstered by Avalanche. “Using Avalanche in Bitcoin Cash for miner coordination provides a very elegant, decentralized coordination mechanism that can potentially prevent miners from accepting double spend bribes and when combined with double spend notifications, make [zero-confirmation] transactions very secure,” Pacia said at the time. In February 2019, Pacia and fellow BCHD developers revealed that an “Avalanche proof of concept is officially running on mainnet.” Snowglobe Specs Invoke Pre-Consensus Discussions After Smith published the specs for Snowglobe, the BCH community who frequent the Reddit forum r/btc, seemed to like the concept. “Thank you for working on this, [it’s] one of the most exciting developments in crypto,” one person wrote. “Thanks, I agree,” Smith responded. “I think pre-consensus is one of the requirements we’ll face trying to scale to global cash,” he added. Smith also remarked that this was his first attempt at documenting the protocol and stressed that he’s been working on it for months. “There’s WIP code available as well but documentation on running a node and joining the testnet is still in progress,” Smith noted. “I’m also working on a paper that does an analysis of the system including performance data from the testnet running over the past couple of months.” A couple of people asked Smith about possible attack vectors in regard to Snowglobe’s pre-consensus mechanisms and a few individuals debated Sybil attacks and Sybil-resistance theories. Smith also wrote that during the process he generated stake messages with the Electron Cash wallet “in a way that could be done offline.” “Great work Tyler,” Electron Cash developer Jonald Fyookball commented during the Snowglobe discussion. What do you think about the Snowglobe protocol? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below. Image credits: Shutterstock, Github, Twitter, Fair Use, and Pixabay. Did you know you can verify any unconfirmed Bitcoin transaction with our Bitcoin Block Explorer tool? Simply complete a Bitcoin address search to view it on the blockchain. Plus, visit our Bitcoin Charts to see what’s happening in the industry. The post Meet Snowglobe: An Avalanche-Based Pre-Consensus Protocol for BCH appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

In times of mounting pressure on crypto companies to comply with expanding due diligence requirements, Poloniex has taken a step in the opposite direction. The exchange is lifting restrictions that applied to unverified users in response to customer demand. New and current accounts will enjoy access to unlimited trading and deposits. Also read: P2P Crypto Trading App Allows You to Protect Your Privacy Access for Email-Only Accounts Over the next few months, the current accounts of unverified customers will be unfrozen and upgraded to Level 1 accounts, the platform announced in a tweet this week. These users will have access to unlimited spot trading and deposits, while withdrawals will be restricted to a daily maximum of $10,000. Starting now, all new customers can create an account using only an email address and password and begin trading, Poloniex revealed in a blog post on the matter, stating: We’ve heard your feedback time and time again about wanting to use Poloniex without giving up your identity. We’ve wanted to make this a reality for a while now and are sorry it has taken us longer than we’d like. The new account tier means that anyone who signs up for the exchange from now on will be able to start trading immediately and already existing accounts of unverified users will be gradually upgraded to Level 1. “We know how frustrating your experience has been recently and we’re dedicated to improving that for you,” Poloniex emphasizes, addressing its long-time clients. “We are striving to provide the highest level of support and security possible for customers and appreciate your patience,” the exchange adds, advising customers to activate two-factor authentication as well. Start trading in seconds 🚀 We just introduced a new account tier for new customers! All you need is an email address and a strong password and you’ll be trading in no time Sign up now https://t.co/xtiQUcimNE pic.twitter.com/YmtZ2fs1We — Poloniex Exchange (@Poloniex) December 19, 2019 Swimming Against the Tide Traders with unverified accounts will enjoy some additional benefits. For example, they will be able to participate in competitions, take advantage of staking services and gain access to Trollbox, the platform’s forum for traders. Level 1 users can also buy cryptocurrency with bank cards. The exchange currently supports dozens of digital coins including leading currencies such as bitcoin core (BTC), bitcoin cash (BCH), ethereum (ETH), and litecoin (LTC) as well as new cryptos like the Mimblewimble-based grin. Poloniex’s move comes amid a global trend towards implementing stricter know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) rules in the crypto space which has been traditionally quite sensitive to privacy infringement. Governments around the world have been introducing more stringent regulations to comply with the crypto standards adopted by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the provisions of the European Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD5). These developments have forced established platforms in the industry to change their policies requiring clients to provide detailed personal information and pass extensive verification procedures. Poloniex restores access for unverified accounts after its separation from Circle which bought the trading platform in early 2018. The formerly U.S.-based digital asset exchange was reportedly acquired by an Asian investment group and is now operated by the Seychelles-registered company Polo Digital Assets Ltd. On Nov. 1, the platform terminated trading services for customers residing in the United States. What’s your opinion about Poloniex’s decision to unfreeze unverified accounts? Tell us what you think about the move in the comments section below. Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not an offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation, endorsement, or sponsorship of any third party products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is 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 this article. Images courtesy of Shutterstock. Did you know you can buy and sell BCH privately using our noncustodial, peer-to-peer Local Bitcoin Cash trading platform? The local.Bitcoin.com marketplace has thousands of participants from all around the world trading BCH right now. And if you need a bitcoin wallet to securely store your coins, you can download one from us here. The post Poloniex Restores Unverified Accounts With Unlimited Trading appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

12 months ago, crypto derivatives platform Bybit officially launched. The Singapore exchange, which also has offices in Hong Kong and Taiwan, has enjoyed a fruitful first year, attracting users from North America, Europe, Russia and Asia. With products including BTC, ETH, XRP and EOS perpetual contracts, and a matching engine capable of handling 100,000 tps, Bybit is looking to carry its success into 2020 and beyond. CEO Ben Zhou spoke to news.Bitcoin.com about its successes, challenges, and aspirations. Also read: Judge Rules Snowden Must Give Book Proceeds to US Government Building a Thriving Exchange Bit by Bit Although 2019 will go down as a successful year for Bybit according to Ben Zhou, is has not been all plain sailing up to this point. While undoubtedly a cause for celebration, a growing user base presents its own difficulties – particularly since Bybit prides itself on no overloads or downtime, plus round-the-clock multilingual customer support. “Keeping up with the growth both from a technical standpoint and internal management is the biggest challenge that we have faced,” admits Zhou, co-founder and CEO of Bybit. “Because we’ve experienced over 100x growth from March ’18 to November ’19, we have had to constantly upgrade our systems to make sure we have no overloads and system lags. “We’ve also had to stay on top of recruitment, sourcing the right talent to make sure we provide the best customer support and localization to our various markets. Thankfully, our efforts have paid off: we haven’t had any server downtimes, no overloads during volatility and low latency trading.” New Frontiers in a Highly Competitive Market In a bid to attract yet more day traders to its platform, Bybit has recently added Korean as a supported language, with English, Chinese, traditional Chinese and Japanese already in place. This internationalist outlook is very much at the heart of the business, which is looking to expand into new foreign markets in the New Year. “We’re planning to move into the Thai, Vietnamese and Spanish markets as well as Turkey in 2020,” says Zhou, who spent seven years managing the Greater China region at Forex brokers XM before launching Bybit. It’s experience which makes his view on China’s attitude towards blockchain all the more interesting. In October, President Xi said the country had to “seize the opportunities” presented by blockchain. And that’s exactly what it appears to be doing, with over 500 blockchain projects already registered with the government. Ben Zhou “China is going full force with blockchain technology and will soon openly embrace the technology in many public channels,” Zhou predicts. “At the same time, the government is cracking down on illegal ICOs and scams, which is a positive thing for the whole space in China. The purge will get rid of the scam projects and leave the ones that are actually contributing to the space. “Bybit has never had an ICO and doesn’t accept any fiat currency. We also banned Chinese IPs in compliance with the government until we get clear indicators that the laws and regulations have changed.” Decentralization and Derivatives If 2019 was the year of defi lending, 2020 could well be the year of defi derivatives. The Synthetix protocol has already gained traction, being described as a decentralized iteration of the popular derivatives exchange BitMex. Does Zhou see decentralization as a path Bybit may go down? “We plan to commission our research team to delve into blockchain technology and brainstorm how we may apply it to the derivatives market. This is an exciting new initiative that could bring about some really novel changes. The team will conduct in-depth market analysis and report on the whole industry to provide more value to the space. Who knows, we might even decentralize part of the exchange or wallet to start with.” Taking such steps could be a necessity rather than a luxury; while the crypto derivatives market is still relatively new, it is heating up. Binance recently took an equity stake in FTX exchange, having acquired JEX back in September. Huobi and Okex are also looking to cement their positions in the market. In the year to come, Zhou intends to add functionality and promote education to ensure Bybit stands out from the crowd. What’s in Store for 2020? “One of the main things we are excited about pushing in the first quarter of 2020 is a linear contract. That would be in addition to our current inverse trading contracts. The linear contracts will be settled in USDT with portfolio margin functionalities to allow full account-wide usage of the available margin, and allow users to utilize the unrealized PnL as margin for more positions. “On top of this, we’ll also offer the ability to hedge within the position area. So instead of merging the long and short as is the case with our inverse contract, we’ll separate the long and short positions and allow traders to have both at the same time.” Although blogs about crypto derivatives are easy to come across, Zhou says full-fledged educational resources don’t exist – and it’s an oversight he intends to rectify. “Honestly, I haven’t seen any systematic programs that focus on derivatives traders from Beginner to Advanced, and this is something we’d like to offer our traders so that everyone has the opportunity to learn and grow. “We’ll soon be launching a space where expert traders, thought leaders or just savvy crypto enthusiasts can share and educate fellow traders in one space. In the long term, we want to create value for our traders beyond just trading, and we hope to create a community that is actively engaging and educating one another.” Audacious predictions are par for the course in the crypto space, but given the many famous fails we’ve witnessed in the past decade, the focus for CEOs like Zhou must be on getting the basics right: growing their user base, keeping funds and data safe and providing outstanding customer service. This is something he appears to acknowledge, while issuing solid predictions for the coming year: BTC will once again be the strongest in 2020, whereas altcoins will continue to rely on BTC’s price stability to see any significant growth. Tokenized securities will need a massive breakthrough if they are to live up to the hype while shitcoins will continue to fade into oblivion. Ultimately, I am very bullish about crypto in the long run. What are your crypto predictions for 2020? Let us know in the comments section below. Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not an offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation, endorsement, or sponsorship of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is 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 this article. Images courtesy of Shutterstock. Did you know you can verify any unconfirmed Bitcoin transaction with our Bitcoin Block Explorer tool? Simply complete a Bitcoin address search to view it on the blockchain. Plus, visit our Bitcoin Charts to see what’s happening in the industry. The post Bybit CEO Ben Zhou on Crypto Derivatives and Market Predictions for 2020 appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

The Kleiman v. Wright lawsuit continues following the plaintiff’s request to Judge Reinhart asking him to overrule Craig Wright’s recent objections. Wright’s council has responded in a joint discovery memorandum asking for access to data tied to David Kleiman’s 15 computers. Wright has also requested any documentation tethered to Ira Kleiman’s (Dave’s brother) real estate transactions between April 1, 2013 to the present. Following the court requests, Wright has shown the public a time-stamped document that ostensibly indicates the origin of Satoshi Nakamoto’s name. Also read: 23 Days Until a Bonded Courier Supposedly Delivers Keys to $8 Billion in BTC Joint Discovery Filing Shows Wright Wants Access to Data Recovered From Dave’s Electronic Devices and Ira’s Real Estate Transaction Records The high-profile lawsuit that involves the family of the deceased Dave Kleiman and self-proclaimed Bitcoin inventor Craig Wright continues to unfold toward the end of 2019. Dave Kleiman’s brother, Ira Kleiman, claims Wright tampered with Dave’s bitcoin inheritance and intellectual property. News.Bitcoin.com has been covering the story and on December 16, Kleiman’s lawyer Velvel Freedman asked the court to overrule Wright’s recent objections. The following day, a joint discovery memorandum was published giving more insight into this mysterious lawsuit over billions of dollars worth of bitcoin. The memorandum disclosed that Wright’s legal team is requesting “immediate access to the data recovered from Dave’s electronic devices.” Wright believes that Dave had at least 15 electronic devices and thinks that Ira threw one of them out. The memorandum alleged that Ira “formatted and deleted data” so he could make space for his photos and movie files. “Ira continued using those devices up until March 18, 2019, which is at least one year after he filed this lawsuit,” Wright’s council detailed. The defendant’s joint discovery statement added it was very important to access Dave’s data as it could “shed light on the extent and location of Dave’s bitcoin holdings.” According to the memorandum, Wright had experts analyze images of Dave’s devices and they were “able to recover some of that data.” In addition to the data request, Wright has asked for documentation related to “any real estate transactions by Ira Kleiman from April 1, 2013, to the present.” The filing notes that Ira was never wealthy but in February of 2014, after Wright had allegedly told Ira to preserve Dave’s electronic devices, Ira bought a house with $400,000 in cash. The filing noted that Wright is entitled to find out whether or not Ira sold Dave’s bitcoin to finance his home purchase. The plaintiffs replied to the real estate transaction request and said the defendant’s request is “based on pure speculation.” The Kleiman estate believes it’s not relevant and there’s no evidence to suggest that Ira purchased a home with his deceased brother’s bitcoin assets. Kleiman’s council further remarked that the request was an “unnecessary invasion of Ira’s privacy.” Wright has also produced a list of people and companies that are believed to have some connections with Wright’s electronic device data and also may have had communications with the plaintiffs. But Kleiman’s attorney called the request a “laundry list of individuals and entities that Dr. Wright believes are connected to an alleged hack of his computer devices.” Kleiman’s lawyer added that Wright has never produced evidence in court that his computer devices were hacked. Wright Wants to Know if the Plaintiffs Communicated With BTC Miners, Core Developers, and Members of Blockstream The joint discovery memorandum also shows that Wright’s legal team has requested any communications between the plaintiffs and Greg Maxwell, the Twitter account ‘Contrarian,’ members of Blockstream, members of the Bitcoin Core development team, and any mining pools that mostly mine BTC. The plaintiff’s response to the communication request stressed that the demand was a “fishing expedition” and many of the requested individuals “are known detractors of Dr. Wright.” Kleiman’s council added: Whatever disputes Dr. Wright may have with these individuals is not relevant to any claim or defense in this matter. Furthermore, Wright told the court that he plans to bring Ramona Watts, Wright’s wife, to testify as a witness. “Despite this, Craig refuses to make Ms. Watts available for deposition prior to the discovery cut off,” the plaintiffs complained. Additionally, Kleiman’s council had served Wright with a Production and Interrogatories request in regard to patents Wright may have that could have stemmed from his business partnership with Dave Kleiman. The plaintiffs’ request wants information concerning patents held by Nchain, but Wright’s legal team has “responded with a series of boilerplate objections.” Wizsec Research: ‘Looks Like Craig Showing off Another Bad Forgery’ After the filing on December 17, Wright did another candid interview with Modern Consensus. During the interview, Wright allegedly unveiled the origin behind the Satoshi Nakamoto monicker. He held up a piece of paper and told the Modern Consensus reporter that he was digging up old documents. The paper contains “the origin of where I chose the name Satoshi,” Wright said. The document shows a JSTOR academic journal database editorial about Tominaga Nakamoto from the Monumenta Nipponica. The timestamp on the document suggests that the recorded date was well before the whitepaper published on Halloween 2008. Craig Wright showing Modern Consensus writer Brendan Sullivan the ‘origin of Satoshi Nakamoto’s name.’ In fact, the JSTOR academic paper Wright showed the camera has a date that reads May 1, 2008, at approximately 11:17 am. “Satoshi, the actual meaning is ‘intelligent learning.’ It’s about ancestors, smart and wise ancestors — You’ve got the concept of blocks and whatever goes before, instructs what comes out but that’ll all come out,” Wright said during the interview. As soon as the ‘exclusive’ interview was published, the greater crypto community found a bunch of flaws with Wright’s story. According to the Twitter account @seekingsatoshi and Wizsec Bitcoin Security Researchers, the Monumenta Nipponica document is just another poor forgery. The first thing that was discovered was the last two digits from the timestamp looked as though they were tampered with. The weird-looking date was revealed by the Twitter account @seekingsatoshi which also stated: “The complexity level of his document fraud is consistently very low, seems there is little thought or effort put into it.” The security specialists Wizsec also ripped Wright’s latest document apart, when the researchers explained that the cover sheet was purportedly downloaded in 2008. However, the cover sheet format shown by Wright was “only used from mid-2011 through early 2015.” Wizsec also noticed the “clumsy font mismatch in the edited timestamp.” Surely enough evidence has been produced both in court and out to clearly demonstrate Craig Wright is a fraud and pathological liar. Those that still support him are either complicit or need a serious wake up call. — SeekingSatoshi (@jimmy007forsure) September 4, 2019 Additionally, Wizsec asked how Craig could have known about the obscure article unless he was really Satoshi, but quickly pointed out that the article is easy to find when searching for “historical Nakamotos” using Google. The latest JSTOR academic document Wright revealed to the public has not swayed the crypto community in the least and researchers like Wizsec concluded the JSTOR document “looks like Craig showing off yet another bad forgery.” What do you think about the ongoing Kleiman v. Wright lawsuit? What do you think about the latest document Wright shared? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below. Image credits: Shutterstock, Bloomberg, Wiki Commons, Fair Use, Pixabay, Modern Consensus, and the Kleiman v. Wright lawsuit. Did you know you can verify any unconfirmed Bitcoin transaction with our Bitcoin Block Explorer tool? Simply complete a Bitcoin address search to view it on the blockchain. Plus, visit our Bitcoin Charts to see what’s happening in the industry. The post Craig Wright Attempts to ‘Reveal the Origin’ of Satoshi Nakamoto’s Name appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article