One of the most prominent developments in the space this year was China’s President, Xi Jinping, calling on the nation to “seize the opportunity” and take a “leading position” in the development of blockchain technology. Following the news was the short-lived Bitcoin rally, reports of Chinese news and its correlation with Bitcoin’s price, and FOMO-driven...Read More
While the traditional financial industry is no stranger to wash trading, various studies in 2019 demonstrated the widespread prevalence of artificial inflation of trading volume in the crypto industry as well. As reports of alleged fake trading made headlines in 2019, exchanges have started addressing the issue of inflated volumes. Former Senior Market Analyst at...Read More
Bitcoin‘s Lightning Network is popularly considered a poor scalability solution by the general crypto community but its supporters are adamant that its privacy feature is fundamentally secure. The aforementioned sentiment was discussed in a recent research paper released by three Hungarian Researchers. The paper titled “A Crypto-economic Traffic Analysis of Bitcoin’s Lightning Network” raised concerns...Read More
Blockchains are held as disruptive new technology in 2020. As regulators prepare for legal frameworks, blockchain projects are taking over the world. Industries and companies are seeing the value of blockchains and the trustless environment they provide, and developers are building DApps on different blockchains. These DApps integrate a decentralized cloud infrastructure that is held...Read More
Looking back at 2019, altcoin XRP witnessed a major drop in its price throughout the year. Currently priced at $0.193, XRP is at its yearly low. Despite XRP’s price, the altcoin stands as the third-largest coin with a market cap of $8.39 billion. Additionally, Grayscale’s report also suggested that XRP had gained “momentum among both...Read More
Tokenization firm AlphaWallet partnered with the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for the upcoming European Football Championship, ‘Euro 2020′. Via Ethereum integration, Alphawallet plans to put around 20,000 tokens on the custom blockchain backing the tournament tickets. According to reports, Victor Zhang, CEO of AlphaWallet, stated, “If we can convert 50% of the digital...Read More
Reports emerged that hackers have demanded bitcoin as ransom from users of vulnerable cameras sold by Amazon and its subsidiary Ring. Bitcoin is constantly being used as a means of extracting payment, blackmailing people, and demanding ransom in exchange for data. Ransomware attacks are ones, where hackers infect users’ devices, encrypt their files, and then...Read More
A look at the price movement chart for XRP since its inception showed little price action over the last year. 2019 saw a yearly high of around $0.50, a dismal price-tag compared to 2018’s high of $3.31. It had breached under the $0.20 mark earlier this month and has had some trouble recovering from the...Read More
Bitcoin‘s Lightning Network has received a lot of flak over the years, but a majority of its criticism is due to lack of clarity. Although the scaling solution recently received support from major exchange Bitfinex, the community remained skeptical about LN’s functionality and application. Recent research provided by a group of Hungarian researchers sheds more...Read More
The growth of digital assets’ derivatives market underlined one of the key developments in 2019. Institutional involvement soared significantly as the likes of Fidelity and ICE’s Bakkt announced their presence in the crypto industry and other exchanges such as Binance, also launched their own futures platform. A majority of the exchanges launched Bitcoin or Ethereum...Read More
Since November 20, Bitcoin has been consolidating between the $7000 and $7500 levels, with intermittent pumps to $7800 and dips under $6500. Despite relatively poor performance over the last month, there is still hope for BTC as December leads us into the new year. Source: CoinStats Bitcoin 1-day chart Source: BTCUSD on TradingView Bitcoin’s daily...Read More
As the year comes close to an end, it is the time for retrospection and reflection: the same holds for XRP, which holds its position as the third-largest cryptocurrency. XRP has managed to retain its community despite its shaky track record when it comes to price performance. This article takes a look back at XRP...Read More
The impact of 2020’s economic and political events could have a lasting effect on the future of crypto assets, although it is unclear what the final result may be. Most people are likely aware of the massive potential impact that cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology can have on countless industries. Their ability to revolutionize the world...Read More
Systems similar to banks have existed since time immemorial: From barter system to lending gold coins. Though banks were in financial fashion, Internet has paved the way for a revolution more efficient. The shortcomings of the banking system resulted in the exclusion of over 1.7 billion individuals from the financial ecosystem. While people sought an...Read More
Bitcoin (BTC) took off with its mainstream appeal since around mid-2017. Since that time, the market price of BTC has seen ups and downs, with at least a dozen dramatic days of appreciation or crashes. Altcoins at Risk of Being Wiped Out in Value Looking back, betting on BTC prices brought an upward daily move...Read More
The Ethereum Foundation was in the news after Co-founder of the network, Vitalik Buterin affirmed that the Foundation had sold about 70,000 ETH when the token was at an ATH. While ETH was being traded for an ATH of about $1,400, the Foundation reportedly earned nearly $100 million by selling the altcoin. In an interview...Read More
It is no secret that early Ethereum (ETH) ICO buyers later became whales and potential multi-millionaires. But the project also seemed extremely generous to its developers. Ethereum Devs Got Paid for Short-Term Involvement Ethereum, which went through multiple phases of pre-mining, actual mining, and as much as eight hard forks, has always been accompanied by...Read More
While the United States’ regulations surrounding blockchain technology or cryptocurrencies need clarity, other countries like China, Russia as well as Venezuela seem to be making headway. Recently, the Governor of Russia’s Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina revealed that the country had been exploring the prospects of digital currencies and is even considering launching one that is...Read More
Huobi, one of the major cryptocurrency exchanges in the industry, launched a fiat getaway in Indonesia to enable fiat-to-crypto trading between the Indonesian Rupiah (IDR) and Tether (USDT) on December 27. Being one of the largest economies in Southeast Asia, local investors will now be able to use local fiat currency and trade over 250...Read More
Maker Foundation’s Interim Governance Facilitator, which is responsible for maintaining the ecosystem supporting the governance process, announced placing an “executive vote” for the community to approve a change in the protocol. According to its official blog, the alteration proposed in the Maker protocol in terms of debt ceiling adjustment was: Lower the Sai Debt Ceiling...Read More
Monero has a reputation for being completely decentralized. That means no outside observer can tell the source, amount or destination of Monero transactions. Although there were many instances that claimed XMR coin is untraceable, no profound evidence was found. However, Europol officials have confirmed that Monero transaction indeed is invisible. In a recent turn of...Read More
Cryptocurrencies introduced a whole new financial industry but a string of debates trailed immediately behind it. A major discussion that is hotly contested across various assets is whether an asset can be categorized as security or not. ICOs created a major issue in 2018 when over $11 billion were raised from crypto projects, as the policymakers...Read More
Having problems with payments around Christmas can be frustrating, especially for those who leave gift buying till the last minute. With calmer markets this holiday season, the crypto ecosystem has been operating relatively smoothly, with few exceptions. The fiat world, however, saw some glitches that affected card payments in particular. Also read: New Ukrainian Law...Read More
Facebook‘s Libra has been in a tough spot since its inception. Though conceptualization was way back in July 2018, David Marcus and his team have faced constant pushbacks from policymakers and regulators across the globe. Speaking to Reuters, Patrik Ellis, one of the board members of Libra Association had stated, “At this stage, there is...Read More
Fake volumes became a hot topic in 2019. It all started with the Bitwise Asset Management report that was released earlier this year. The report stated that nearly 95% of Bitcoin trading volume reported by CoinMarketCap, a popular go-to website for crypto data, was fake. According to the report, CoinMarketCap reported roughly $6 billion per...Read More
Recently, on the Bitcoin & Co. podcast, host Anita Posch spoke to the co-founders of Braiins, who operate the world’s first Bitcoin mining pool, Slush Pool. During the interview, Jan Capek and Pavel Moravec spoke about the Bitcoin mining protocol, its flaws and ways to address them. As part of upgrades to their Braiins OS,...Read More
Blockchains faced fierce competition in 2019, with only a handful of altcoins remaining in good condition. Now, a new proposal has been made, a hypothetical merger of Dash and Bitcoin Cash. Both Bitcoin Cash and DASH Brands Cause Resentment Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Dash (DASH) were bandied about as two chains that could merge, producing...Read More
Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies have become immensely popular and this has cast a spotlight on the underlying decentralized ledger technology – blockchain. Blockchain tech has taken the world by storm and its landscape has been evolving at a rapid pace. This technology has been both attractive and critical for ensuring enhanced security and as well as...Read More
It’s either black or white with Bitcoin: While In India, China, and Russia, the largest digital asset is still identified as an illegal form of currency, the same asset has been recognized as a beacon of hope for certain nations based in South America. Over the past few years, the likes of Venezuela, Columbia, and...Read More
Crypto derivatives exploded in the 2019 market as the cryptocurrency market entered a phase of maturity. In the relatively nascent space, the increasing availability of cryptocurrency derivative products has been one of the main attractions for institutional traders and investors. With platforms entering the crypto-derivatives markets on the rise, Co-founder of CoinGecko, Bobby Ong believes...Read More
