In a recent video, VP of Products at Blockstream, Allen Piscitello, spoke about stablecoins, the platforms they use, and how they compare to Blockstream’s own Liquid network. During the presentation, Piscitello spoke about how Tether exists on multiple blockchains, but represents the same asset in a bank account. He also spoke about the pre-requisites of...Read More
After maintaining its position above $7000 over the past 2 weeks, Bitcoin briefly breached its support on 14 December. At press time, Bitcoin was above $7000 again, but the difference was very slim. Its valuation remained at $7068.67 as the market continued to consolidate under $7500. However, according to data released by glassnode, the community...Read More
Recently on Twitter, Bitcoin and ETH derivatives data analytics firm, Skew, reported an unusual proportion of puts trading on the Deribit exchange over the last two days. Generally, put options become more valuable as the price of the underlying asset depreciates in value relative to the strike price set on the contract. An increase in...Read More
During the presentation, given to The Empire Club of Canada, Governor of the Bank of Canada, Stephen S. Poloz laid out some interesting reasons why he believes cash is better than crypto. Modernising Canada’s Ageing Payments Systems Poloz spoke about the role of technology in affecting how Canadians made payments. He suggested that the majority...Read More
Industries across different domains have tried to deploy blockchain technology meaningfully in their businesses in a bid to eliminate redundancies and reduce time and risk. In a recent development, India’s largest IT services company, Tata Consultancy Services [TCS], has announced that its Quartz DevKit, a blockchain app development kit, is available for enterprises to build...Read More
Central Banks’ rising interest in the field of digital assets has been evident in 2019. After China’s development of a state-backed CBDC, many have speculated that other central banks will follow suit and launch their own digital currencies by 2020, especially since many are already researching on them. Although Japan’s Hurihiko Kurado recently claimed that...Read More
In the past month, European business hours became extremely active for bitcoin futures trading on BitMEX futures. European Traders Pick Up the Slack on BitMEX New data shows European bitcoin traders became active in the past month, making up the bulk of volumes on the BitMEX XBT/USD perpetual contract. European hours have been the most...Read More
Prominent Japanese cryptocurrency exchange, Coincheck, is in the news after it announced on 16 December its termination of “leverage transaction” service. The exchange released a blog post in which it stated that the service will be terminated by 13 March 2020. According to the schedule mentioned in the blog, users will have to transfer their...Read More
In a recent interview, Dan Morehead revealed his thoughts on bitcoin and its future, including the ability to disrupt at least 50 industries. With 2019 looking to end, bitcoin has been one of the hottest topics this year, as many expect the next decade to be all about digital currency. For the moment, BTC’s price...Read More
The Tokyo-based crypto exchange, Coincheck, announced that it is terminating its leveraged trading service, in a blog post this morning. Settlement and Transfer Deadlines The planned end date for leveraged crypto trading is 12:00 on Friday, March 13, 2020, by which deadline all open positions should be settled. Customers will then have until the end...Read More
Blockchain-based identity management solutions firm, iden3, recently published the results of an analysis it had conducted to test transaction throughput on the Ethereum blockchain, before and after the Istanbul upgrade and ZKRollup. The analysis concluded that Ethereum, after the Istanbul upgrade, using ZKRollup, could handle up to a theoretical maximum of 2048 tps, a figure...Read More
Recently, the Ethereum network’s eighth network update, Istanbul, went live on the platform at block number 9,069,000. During the 77th Ethereum Core Devs meeting, the aftermath of the Istanbul hard fork along with several other updates pertaining to the network was discussed. Addressing the same, PegaSys’ Tim Beiko went on to reveal that Istanbul was...Read More
A growing number of banks in Germany are charging retail customers negative interest rates, starting with the very first euro deposited into their accounts. At least three German banks are reportedly doing so, with more expected to follow suit in the near future. As the European Central Bank maintains a negative rate policy, more banks...Read More
Monetary sovereignty is the power of the state to exercise exclusive legal control over its currency but what if a person has this power within a hand’s reach? Prominent BTC investor Trace Mayer said, “Imagine being able to run a full node on your cell phone, like your daily cash where you’re holding your own...Read More
Digital asset management firm, CoinShares, published the second report this week of their bi-annual series called, ‘The Bitcoin Mining Industry’, which followed on from the previous issue, published back in June. The report detailed the geographic distribution of miners, the energy mix in play and the benefits Bitcoin mining can bring to the global economy. According to...Read More
Bitcoin price marked exactly one year since the lows of the 2018 bear market. Since then, the coin has improved its shape, despite going through periods of volatility. BTC Escaped Capitulation in December 2018 BTC reached lows near $3,200 on December 15, 2018, following a long slide since peak prices in late 2017. In one...Read More
Recently, digital asset management firm CoinShares published a report titled, ‘The Bitcoin Mining Network’, which spoke about break-even costs for miners, their geographical distribution and the effects of mining equipment on the Bitcoin network’s power draw. The report mentioned how certain segments of miners with the coveted combination of very cheap electricity and brand-new next-generation...Read More
Bitcoin has achieved market capitalization close to some of the biggest corporations, ranging between $100 and $300 billion. But taken in proportion to the size of the world’s financial system, BTC may have a different valuation. Debt Issuance Shows No Signs of Slowing The bloated worldwide debt, fueled by extreme quantitative easing in the last...Read More
Trace Mayer the advocate for the Proof of Keys [PoK] movement appeared on Peter McCormack’s recent podcast to talk about the importance of investors holding their private keys. Mayer noted of his first tweet about the PoK movement was on December 9, 2018, and after a few days after which Coinbase informed the users of...Read More
The president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro wants the nation state-issued cryptocurrency, petro (PTR) to have the same usability properties as a physical currency. On December 13, Maduro explained on national television that the Superintendence of Crypto-Assets and Related Activities (Sunacrip) will be airdropping 0.5 PTR ($30) next week to eligible citizens who register with the...Read More
A report on ‘The Bitcoin Mining Network’ was recently published by digital asset management firm, CoinShares, which spoke about the Bitcoin mining space, its growth over the last six months, and events that could affect the industry in the future. According to the report, Bitcoin proof-of-work miners continue to dominate the industry, in terms of...Read More
The Litecoin network has gone through what looks like a series of “dusting attacks”. Multiple addresses received “dust” amounts of LTC on at least two large-scale occasions in August and November, with other unusual spikes in transaction counts and wallet activity. Dust Attacks Connect Multiple Wallets and Addresses An attack of this type is seemingly...Read More
Ethereum’s journey, be it its hard fork or developments around DeFi, has been progressing smoothly. However, the price of Ether seems to be faltering as it keeps knocking off every support it encounters. At press time, price of Ether was $140 and testing another important support level; breaching this would spell trouble. Source: ETH/USD TradingViewEther...Read More
Surely I can get through this introductory paragraph without mentioning the UK election. Must be some other news to cling to. If possible I could also tie in some spurious bitcoin comment… Can you buy a National Health Service with bitcoin? Or I could just mention that Miss Jamaica won the Miss World 2019 competition...Read More
Mankind is a dedicated race and our insatiable thirst for innovation has been evident through history. Humans are obsessed with speed. For us, anything faster is better. Major innovations like telephones and trains, improved our speed of communication and transport, whereas simple developments like food-delivery apps, increased our ability to access a cooked-meal under 20...Read More
Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity [ODL] platform has been noting a barrage of transactions, especially with the popular MXN corridor. According to the ODL data provider on Twitter, H_M_X, out of the total $108 million ODL flow in the fourth quarter, the MXN corridor was responsible for $100 million in transactions. Owing to the success of this...Read More
Unlike privacy coins, cryptocurrencies like Litecoin do not have inbuilt privacy features. MimbleWimble via extension blocks is yet to be implemented. In the absence of new cryptographic obfuscation methods, the network becomes vulnerable to malicious activities such as dusting, where hackers and scammers try to break the privacy of cryptocurrency users by sending tiny amounts...Read More
Venezuelan government has been working on a state cryptocurrency named Petro which is supposedly tied to the price of the oil. In the latest development, eligible Venezuelan citizens will receive 0.50 Petro token from the government. President Nicolás Maduro announced that whoever wished to receive the giveaway amount, which is equivalent to $30, must register...Read More
Matic cryptocurrency which began its journey at the end of April, crashed to $0.018 earlier this week. Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder and COO at Matic Network called it a nightmare Just woke up to this nightmare due to a distress call by someoneIt will be clear very shortly that we are not behind this, as some...Read More
On the latest episode of the ‘On The Brink with Castle Island’ podcast, hosts Matt Walsh and Nic Carter of Castle Island Ventures spoke about recent ICO scams, Jack Dorsey’s activity with Square Crypto, and the effects of staking on a network. Walsh and Carter first spoke about the ShopIn ICO, where the failing business...Read More