Changpeng Zhao (CZ): Blockchain Will Be Bigger Than The Internet – CryptoPotato

One of the most influential people within the cryptocurrency community, Changpeng Zhao, recently spoke about the current and future state of blockchain and cryptocurrencies, in general. The founder and CEO of Binance shared his opinion on the market, the prices, and his belief that blockchain will have a more significant impact on the world than the internet.

In a recent interview, Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of the largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance, said that he doesnt follow the day-to-day cryptocurrency price actions. According to him, short-term price predictions are hard to do because the market doesnt handle news that well and it overreacts. However, he is a firm believer in blockchain and its potential global impact. In fact, he seems to believe that it would be bigger than the Internet itself.

The market always overreacts. Its very hard to predict price short-term, but if you look at 3, 5, 10, 100 years out, blockchain is going to have a bigger impact on our society than the internet. Right now, theres probably around 0.1% of our population who has crypto, or probably less, so theres got to be a thousand times more it can grow, potentially. We know that this technology is not going away; its going to disrupt the world; its going to disrupt our lives.

He also touched upon the fact that a lot of the cryptocurrencies have a limited supply. According to him, more people are going to get involved with the industry and as this happens, the price will have no other direction but to go up.

The second-largest country by GDP is a hot topic within the community as of late. While the ban on cryptocurrencies is still active, officials in the country are actually pro blockchain and are urging for further adoption.

CZ also confirmed the Blockchain, not Bitcoin narrative that China has been running. However, he says that owning the largest cryptocurrency in the country is not illegal. He even mentions a few legal cases where people have lost their bitcoins, and the court has ruled in their favor, protecting their assets. Zhao also believes that China is a strong supporter of mining.

CZ thinks that it could make sense if the country is restricting cryptocurrencies and exchanges, as a preparation step for the potential use of their own government-backed currency:

My own understanding would be that it will be very logical for the Chinese government to say, Hey, the Chinese Central Bank-issued coin (DCEP) should be the only one used in the country. Also, the DCEP people are taking out of context. It was originally named Digital Currency / Electronic Payments. It should be used only for online payments. Its not going to be a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, where you can do whatever you want with it. [] China is going to promote its own currency instead of the other cryptocurrencies not controlled by them. How much control and restrictions they will apply to this DCEP we dont know yet.

A week ago, news broke that the Shanghai office of Binance has been shut down due to a clampdown by authorities. CZ responded quickly, saying that Binance has no office in the whole country, meaning that there was no involvement from the authorities. He even went further by expressing intentions to take the media to court because they have published fake news.

Naturally, the interview also touched on this widely-discussed topic. CZ reaffirmed that Binance doesnt have an office in China ever since the company moved out of the country in 2017. He said that they are investing in some Chinese-based businesses but dont operate from there. When asked if his opinion for the lawsuit has changed, he said that he is not sure yet but may proceed with it, if his lawyers say so.

One of the biggest debates in the industry is whether or not the Australian computer scientist, Craig Wright, is behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. When asked if this could be true, CZ firmly declined it as an option, saying, there is no way.

Additionally, he spoke about the most recent hack of a cryptocurrency exchange UpBit, saying that his company will help with whatever they can. He thinks that improving security on exchanges and monitoring funds is actually much easier than recovering them once they have disappeared.

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Changpeng Zhao (CZ): Blockchain Will Be Bigger Than The Internet - CryptoPotato

What Is Blockchain Technology and How Does It Work? – TheStreet.com

Blockchain is already proving to be a gamechanger across the board for a variety of global industries-- fromfinanceto agriculture and dozens of industries in between.

Blockchain as a technology is growing robustly as a result.

According to the Global Blockchain Market Report,the market value projection for the blockchain sector will stand at over $60 billion by 2024. That's up from just $706 million in 2017.

The U.S. and China are the countries with the largest stake in blockchain solutions right now, but countries like South Korea and India are also pouring billions into the technology, and looking to catch up fast.

Still, millions of global consumers have no idea what blockchain is and how it will change the way they conduct commerce in the coming years.

Here's a closer look at the blockchain phenomenon and what it means to global industry and the consumers participating in those industries.

Broadly defined, blockchain is a distributed ledger system that offers stronger security to the real-time digital economic process. Structurally, blockchain is comprised of blocks of digitally recorded data.

According to the Global Blockchain Market Report, demand for blockchain technology is burgeoning, in key areas like finance and in technology. For example, the "largest users" of the IBM (IBM - Get Report) cloud increasingly count on blockchain to properly manage their supply chains. The report notes that 60 IBM cloud data centers see blockchain as "the top application driving growth" across the globe.

Blockchain growth has accelerated now that system developers have figured out how to harness blockchain with worldwide digital technologies.

"Digital technology is dominant worldwide," the blockchain report states. "The old mainframe digital technology managed data in batches, now digital data is managed in real-time over the internet. Blockchain brings digital technology into real-time computing systems management. It has the ability to change all aspects of the digital economy, including conducting business, delivering healthcare, shopping, enhancing education and learning, entertainment, and staying connected with a social world."

The global financial sector has been particularly aggressive -- and successful -- in bringing blockchain to the masses.

"Online payments have gained huge traction," the Global Blockchain Market Report states. "Card-based payment methods, credit and debit cards have become dominant. Blockchain supports all these changes by creating increased speed of transaction processing and greater efficiency in real-time processing."

For a major breakthrough global technology platform, blockchain's history is a relatively short one.

Essentially, blockchain traces its historical origins to 1991, when cryptographers Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta published a landmark paper entitled "How to Time-Stamp a Digital Document."

Essentially, the duo's theme focusing on the creation of a cryptographically secured chain on blocks (called by the authors as an "immutable ledger") that could withstand any tampering of time-stamped documents.

What the authors came up with was a "digital safety-deposit box" that recorded the time and date of a specific document's creation, and electronically stored a copy of that document for safekeeping.

While Haber and Stornetta planted the seeds of blockchain in the early 1990s, it wasn't until 2008 that the technology began picking up speed. At that time, an entity (it could be a real person but nobody knows) named Satoshi Nakamoto created the first digital ledger technology called Bitcoin, which officially kicked off the global cryptocurrencies market.

Nakamoto followed up with a 2009 whitepaper on blockchain cryptocurrencies called "Bitcoin: a peer-to-peer electronic cash system" that laid out the structure of a decentralized digitalized blockchain platform that spread control out to legions of global users, with no single entity in control of the platform.

That set the stage for commercialized blockchain as the first genuine peer-to-peer distributed and secure computing ledger that could record transactions on a global scale, one block linked to another block at a time.

That gave blockchain the ultimate democratized factor -- a digital computing platform that enabled users to conduct transactions with no need for a centralized authority calling the shots, and nobody collecting fees and charges on those transactions in the process.

The platform was managed not by a centralized figure, but by an army of autonomous global users who leveraged peer-to-peer networks and a time-stamping server to conduct financial transactions (currencies at first) approved by the user themselves.

Shortly after, Bitcoin Market, the first global cryptocurrency exchange, is established and its total market cap quickly crests $2 billion, casting more of a spotlight on both blockchain and bitcoin technologies. By 2018, Switzerland and Japan began officially accepting cryptocurrency payment and 15% of finance companies begin using blockchain in their everyday financial transaction operations.

Given the historical trends linked to cryptocurrencies and blockchain, it's perhaps easiest to explain the business applications of blockchain as a series of innovations

First innovation:Bitcoin, the king of the cryptocurrency world was the first major step in blockchain's evolution. The transaction-oriented model for bitcoin was tailor-made for blockchain, and it still shows today, as bitcoin's market cap has crested $145 billion.

Second innovation:The next step for blockchain was actually called "blockchain." The idea here was that, with the success of bitcoin, blockchain could be detached from digital currencies and succeed on its own as a decentralized technology platform.

With immediate success in various industries, most notably banking and finance, aerospace, and food and agriculture, blockchain research and development has grown significantly.

Third innovation:Innovation three focused on the so-called "smart contract", which introduced Ethereumto the cryptocurrency market. This iteration enabled fixed income financial products and commercial loans to be released via blockchain, which up to that point had only worked bitcoin tokens.

Fourth innovation:The next, and most current, blockchain iteration is known as "proof of stake", a digital technology models that give an individual who owns a significant amount of cryptocurrency coins more power over someone who doesn't.

That power enables stakeholders to be able to mine or validate block transactions based on the number of cryptocurrencies (like bitcoin) that the individual owns. Proof of stake supplants "proof of work" which is deemed by blockchain experts as more difficult and inefficient as the new stakeholder model.

Fifth innovation. The last phase of blockchain actually hasn't occurred yet, but "blockchain scaling," which would make financial transactions faster, is in the works.

Compared to traditional financial transaction systems like Visa (V - Get Report) and PayPal (PYPL - Get Report) , current blockchain transactions are slow. While Visa, for example, can manage over 1,660 transactions per second, bitcoin can only handle seven transactions per second.

Often, bitcoin users who don't have deep pockets and pay low transaction fees are forced towait up to 13 minutes for their transactions to be cleared (that's because the higher transaction fee you pay the faster the block manager or "miner" clears your transaction.)

For cryptocurrencies to compete with mainstream financial tools like credit and debit cards, it's going to need to be much faster at the point of transaction, and that's the promise of blockchain scaling.

The scaling phase, with myriad iterations and technologies involved, basically aims to make blockchain execute transactions per second faster than it can right now, thus setting up cryptocurrencies as a more viable financial currency.

As blockchain is, in actuality, a chain of blocks that holds data and information, it needs a unique stamp that validates the block.

That's come from a blockchain "hash", which notes the block's unique time stamp, transaction data and a record of the most recent block that preceded it. In a word, the has is a sequence of random tags that track and validate blockchain transactions.

The idea is to use the blockchain to pass information along the network, one block at a time. The hash marks each block, providing the tracking mechanism required to pass that block along from one party to another, safely and securely.

Once an individual creates a new block, that block is validated across potentially millions of computers across the world, and then is added to the blockchain with its own individual record and history.

Blockchain's usefulness is predicated on the network's participants agreeing to the order of the transactions made on the network.

It's really a system of checks and balances that ensure the integrity of each block's transaction and account balances, giving participants a trusted and verified system of engaging in digital commerce.

Blockchain is often heralded by advocates as being transparent and democratic, offering access to everyone. To a point, that's true.

After all, anyone can access content available on blockchain but doing so on a large scale is virtually impossible, as there may be millions of copies of similar blockchains to track and monitor.

Additionally, as cryptocurrency transactions on blockchain don't identify transaction participants (aside from a user name or digital signature), blockchain is hardly transparent about who's conducting business on the blockchain and the network that supports the widespread use of the platform.

That makes blockchain far less private than users might think.

Yet the fact that blockchain users participating in network financial transactions are confidential (but not exactly anonymous) makes itdifficult for cyber-predators to identify them and steal their personal data.

It's also highly difficult to change any information input and confirmed on the blockchain, as every block added to the blockchain is validated with a "hash" or digital stamp that is unique to each transaction.

With each block on the blockchain different because of its unique hash, it can't be altered by third parties and that helps reinforce a stronger sense of system security on the blockchain.

Blockchain can mean a lot of different things to many different people, but its promise as a means of revitalizing stale business processes and making transactions more democratic -- and safer -- when conducting transactions digitally, is substantial.

Thus, as disruptive technological innovations go, blockchain is a blockbuster in a highly public and transformative way.

Whether you're a novice investor looking to get into cryptocurrencies or a large company CEO looking to turbo-boost your business processes, the more you know about how blockchain works, the more you can leverage its growth potential.

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What Is Blockchain Technology and How Does It Work? - TheStreet.com

Moneros codebase makes it hard to be implemented in different exchanges – AMBCrypto

Monero has been up and ready for the upcoming network upgrade for quite some time. The cryptocurrency will be seeing a shift from the CryptoNight R proof-of-work algorithm to RandomX, one of the most awaited ASIC-resistant algorithms.

Along with this, the upgrade will also phaseout long payment ID, which is being done in order to improve privacy, user experience, and also reduce support work for services and exchanges. The other upgrades include requirement of at least two outputs for transactions and ten-block (approximately twenty minutes) lock time for incoming transactions will be enforced on a protocol level.

The leading fungible cryptocurrency and its upcoming upgrade were one of the topics discussed by Matthias Tarasiewicz Director of RIAT during a live interview for Monero Talk. Douglas Tuman, the host of the show, asked Tarasiewicz whether he viewed Monero as a second-generation cryptocurrency and as a reaction to technological shortcomings in Bitcoin.

While agreeing that Monero was indeed created to address the shortcomings of Bitcoin, Tarasiewicz also highlighted that the cryptocurrency was very different in comparison to the coin thats often dubbed as digital gold.

There was a lot of technological changes that have been put. Also in a way, its a complete groud up a rewritten different system. So, technically its not an altcoin, which is like just a fork of Bitcoin because it has been like rewritten and its like very very different, it has a lot of different properties [] it wouldnt qualify as this very old term of altcoins.

The researcher also stated that Monero was hard to be implemented in different hardware and exchanges, taking into consideration that its codebase was completely different. He further stated that this was also the reason Monero has not yet seen total adoption, adding that this will be solved in time.

Additionally, Tarasiewicz went on to express that he finds it fascinating that not many people pay heed to one of Moneros basic elements: its privacy aspect, which is totally lacking in Bitcoin. Following this, he spoke about Moneros upgrade to RandomX, and its previous attempt to ward off ASIC centralization. He said,

[] well have a protocol upgrade soon where well see very interesting developments, this kind of ASIC resistance, in my opinion, is also super interesting thing from a research perspective thing to look at, from a game-theoretical thing to look at.

Tarasiewicz further pointed out even Satoshi Nakamoto constantly spoke about the idea of One CPU, One Vote system in the whitepaper, which was totally undermined by the arms race that was introduced through developing these FPGAs, ASIC mining and so on.

[] there has been a time, in the very early age of Bitcoin, where there was a lot of discussion on Bitcoin talk about like okay, is this a good thing or not. It was a good thing as long as the miners could still produce coins, but if you look now whos busy securing these large networks [.] theres a huge centralization happening.

He further said,

This is the one thing which I find like extremely interesting with Monero that theres an attempt to have ASIC resistance. So, its in a way very resistant or like a currency which questions things or criticizes things. Thats what I like about it.

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Moneros codebase makes it hard to be implemented in different exchanges - AMBCrypto

Bitcoin SV to $1,200: Craig Wrights Prophecy Almost out of Time – BeInCrypto

This past summer, Craig Wright, a chief proponent of the Bitcoin Satoshis Vision blockchain, made a rare end-of-year price call for his favorite cryptoasset. With just six weeks remaining, the realization of Wrights $1,200 BSV prediction for 2019 is looking increasingly doubtful.

Investor and entrepreneur Alistair Milne pointed out the ticking clock against Wrights call in a tweet featuring a screenshot of Wrights original prediction, dated June 3, 2019.

Wright posted the tweet as he was in the midst of a legal battle against the estate of his former partner, the late computer scientist, David Kleiman. The court cases referred to above would apparently finally settle the question of who Satoshi Nakamoto (SN), the creator of Bitcoin, really is (or was).

Wright, having long argued that he himself created Bitcoin in 2008, seemed to suggest above that when he inevitably proved his identity in court, the price of Bitcoin SV would shoot up from a sudden influx of wealth moving into the market. In a reply tweet to his price prediction, Wright went as far as to give it a 97.8 percent probability.

Of course, the Kleiman Vs. Wright battle is still ongoing and Wright is still to prove himself the author of the Bitcoin Whitepaper. The two parties had agreed to settle in September. On October 30, Wright broke the agreement claiming that he could no longer afford to pay the legal fees.

With legal proceedings set to go on into next year now, it doesnt look like Wrights bold price prediction will come to fruition. Already past the middle of November, there are just over six weeks remaining for the price of Bitcoin SV price to increase by more than $1,000 equivalent to a level of around five times greater than its all-time high.

Wright has not been having much luck with his soothsaying of late. BeInCrypto recently reported on the Satoshi Nakamoto-claimant promising that he would reveal a coin-killing flaw in the coding of SegWit, an update to both Bitcoin and Litecoin aimed at increasing the number of transactions per second. The day Wright said he would make his grand announcement has, of course, come and gone. Wright has yet to disclose or exploit this supposedly fatal flaw.

Images courtesy of Twitter, TradingView.

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Bitcoin SV to $1,200: Craig Wrights Prophecy Almost out of Time - BeInCrypto

Default Bitcoin Addresses Are Now Longer But Simpler & Cheaper to Use – Cryptonews

Source: iStock/deepblue4you

The Bitcoin Core client version 0.19.0.1, the last expected version before the anticipated Bitcoin mining reward halving in May 2020, was released this past weekend by the Bitcoin Core developers. Although it contains no major changes, it does come with several interesting speed and security improvements, as well as other modifications.

One of those is that so-called Bech32 Bitcoin (BTC) addresses are now set as the default option. Originally introduced in 2018, Bech32 addresses start with bc1 and are 15% longer (90 characters in total), but do not differentiate between the uppercase and lowercase letters. The mixed case makes it inconvenient to reliably write down, type on mobile keyboards, or read out loud, while the increased length does not matter when copy-pasting addresses, according to developers that hope that this change will reduce the possibility of human mistakes.

Moreover Bech32 addresses are native SegWit addresses, which allow cheaper transactions. (Learn more: How to Use Bitcoin SegWit Transactions)

However, as not all cryptocurrency wallets and exchanges support SegWit transactions, only new software will be able to use Bech32 addresses, and only for receivers with SegWit-enabled new software. In all other cases, P2SH or P2PKH addresses can be used, according to the Bitcoin Core developers.

The 19th major release of Bitcoins software client is still the dominant original version of Bitcoin, first launched by its creator Satoshi Nakamoto 11 years ago. Although there is no fixed schedule, a new and improved version of Bitcoin Core client is released approximately once in six months or so, followed by some minor fixes on a monthly or quarterly basis. Bitcoin Core generally refers to a full Bitcoin node as well as the community dedicated to its development.

The most recent version includes contributions from more than 100 developers as was led by the Bitcoin Core lead maintainer Wladimir van der Laan. In total, it took 550 merged pull requests and was released over a period of six months.

Other notable changes include the possibility of starting a node with limited disk space, new features for Partially Signed Bitcoin Transactions (PSBT) protocol, and other smaller improvements that are handy for programmers working on Bitcoin applications.

The complete list of Bitcoin Core 0.19.0.1 upgrades can be found here.

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Default Bitcoin Addresses Are Now Longer But Simpler & Cheaper to Use - Cryptonews

More than just crypto: blockchain usage grows amidst greater regulation – Bobsguide

With countries such as China and Germany laying the groundwork for their blockchain legislation in the past few months, and financial services still undecided on the uses of blockchain, it is apt to re-evaluate the uses of the distributed ledger technology (DLT).

Blockchain often connotes cryptocurrencies, but the technology has many uses: increasing speed and security in cross-border transactions, smart contracts, digital identity to name a few. As blockchain regulation becomes more commonplace, the application of the technology has the potential to grow in prevalence.

Blockchain as a decentralised peer-to-peer system has been around since 2008, when it was coined by the anonymous Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto in a whitepaper. Since then it has gained hype, yet governments and regulators have been hesitant to regulate a fledgling technology that seemed unstable, and in many cases, illegitimate given its tie to dark web transactions. Silk Road, a black market platform facilitating Bitcoin transaction, was shut down by the FBI in 2013 for this reason. Some market players believe blockchain has passed its heyday; since 2018 there has been talk of the crypto bubble bursting, with major players Bitcoin, XRP, and Litecoin shrinking in market value, then proceeding to intense fluctuation in late 2019, according to Coindesks index. Several bankers have questioned blockchains commercial usage. Other market players claim that blockchains usage is more beneficial in processes of industrialisation. As we move further into the aftermath of the bitcoin bubble being burst, blockchain technologies emerge in more diverse sectors.

Payments take the lead

The payments sector has long been considered one of the ripest for blockchain adoption, as high speed of payments has become more expected. The recent proliferation of real-time payments is turning speed into a priority.

SWIFT, for decades the global payments system of choice, has recently been under pressure regarding the emergence of blockchain as a potential competitor amid its own declaration to avoid the technology. The payments system has chosen to focus on common standards and API rather than the trendier DLT. However, the decision to avoid blockchain could also be a result of SWIFTs great reach with 11,000 financial institution (FI) links in 300 countries, experimenting carries a lot of risk, something firms with smaller may be more willing to test. In 2017, the company launched SWIFT Global Payments Initiative (GPI) with the intention of creating the new standard in global payments. There has been some indication toward a lightening up on blockchain, though: a report from June 2019 announced that they would soon enabling GPI on DLT platforms as well.

The players pushing SWIFT towards increased speed of cross-border payments and openness to DLT firms include both established banks and challenger payment providers. In 2018, JPMorgan launched its Interbank Information Network (IIN), which now includes 365 banks who use the network to share information on global payments via blockchain. Ripple, a de-centralised real-time payments network founded in 2012, was created with blockchain as its backbone, and has long been considered a rival to SWIFT. In June of this year, Visa launched B2B Connect, its DLT-based end-to-end payments network with 30 countries on board; by September it had doubled its reach.

Whether DLT will emerge as the industry norm in payments is yet to be seen, but blockchain is still far from large-scale adoption.

Digital identity takes ethical turn

Blockchain has long inspired hesitation from its involvement in cryptocurrencies, but there hasnt been the same amount of contention surrounding digital identity, the feature that underpins all DLT payments.

IBM launched its blockchain-based Verify Credentials program in 2017 as a way to verify identity without the need of an intermediary provider. In March, Mastercard announced plans to embrace digital identity. The move towards digital identity has been triggered by the desire to ease up on know-your-customer (KYC) procedures. In September, global financial markets data provider Refinitiv announced a digital identity solution to assist in KYC compliance.

While recent embraces point to a focus on digital identity, concerns remain around the way ID is stored and managed by different authorities. After the initial buzz of blockchain that overtook most of the 2010s, focus has recently shifted towards responsible or ethical use of digital identity. Organisations such as the ID2020 Alliance attempt to establish frameworks for the responsible implementation of digital identities, while also ensuring that they are accessible.

Recently, conversations surrounding digital identity have turned to its role in financial inclusion. No doubt spurred by Facebooks Libra announcement in June, blockchains ability to provide an economic identity for those who previously have been left out of financial institutions has gained traction. According to the World Bank, 1.7 billion adults did not have a bank account in 2017. Often this is because they lack identification methods, which digital identity is increasingly aimed at remedying.

Smart contracts legally recognised

Smart contracts are another blockchain innovation to have cropped up in a post-crypto boom landscape. They are digital protocols that facilitate the negotiation of a contract, generally operating on a blockchain. Launched in 2015, Ethereum was created explicitly for facilitating smart contracts. Since then, similar platforms have emerged such as RSK pegged to the Bitcoin blockchain and EOS an open-source blockchain protocol.

On November 18, the UK Jurisdiction Taskforce of the Lawtech Delivery Panel recognised smart contracts as enforceable agreements under English law in an official statement:

Time and again over the years the common law has accommodated technological and business innovations, including many which, although now commonplace, were at the time no less novel and disruptive than those with which we are now concerned. In no circumstances therefore are there simply no legal rules which apply.

The announcement follows the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security recognising smart contracts under Dutch law in October. Such recognition could set a precedent for how blockchain-based smart contracts are considered in other countries.

Smart contracts remove a third party from negotiation, instead using a cryptographic code to enforce the desired action. The insurance industry is ready for this type of disruption. A study by Accenture in 2018 demonstrated that 84 percent of insurers think blockchain and smart contracts will redefine their interactions with partners, with 50 percent already planning on using blockchain within the next two years. Insurance firm AXA has experimented with Ethereum contracts in the past with a flight delay compensation protocol called fizzy, though the project was terminated in September 2019.

The travel and hospitality industry could also benefit from smart contracts in the form of traveller loyalty and the ability to connect with serval providers flights, car rentals, hotels all at once.

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More than just crypto: blockchain usage grows amidst greater regulation - Bobsguide

Exclusive Interview with John McAfee: Epstein Didnt Kill Himself, Bitcoin to Hit $1 million, & Rus – U.Today

In the first part of our interview with John McAfee, we discussed various topics in-depth, such as his run for President, McAfeeDex, and his opinion on stablecoins. Today, we continue talking about the future of cryptocurrencies and the governments role in it. Mr. McAfee also told me about the story behind the upcoming film King of the Jungle. It is based on the story of the Wired reporter Joshua Davis and his three weeks with McAfee in Belize. Lets jump right into it.

WARNING: Do not attempt to duplicate, recreate, or perform the same or similar stunts or tricks with guns as personal injury and/or property damage may result. U.Today is not responsible for any such injuries or damages.

U.Today: Youre launching a new token called Epstein Didnt Kill Himself. What can you tell me about this token? Why did you call it that? Why is Hillary Clinton being advertised in the picture?

John McAfee: Okay, it's obviously a joke coin like Dogecoin. There are a couple of things with this token. I believe very strongly that Jeffrey Epstein did not kill himself. I think it's in the interest of the American people and perhaps the world to understand that we must find those responsible for it, and trace it back to those corrupt individuals in power who can do things like wack people while they're in jail. Being in jail is the easiest place to kill someone, and every gangster knows this. So, a little bit to that extent, I took advantage of the memes floating around the Internet. Jeffrey Epstein Didn't Kill Himself is a big meme. Everybody was making memes so I thought I would make my own. Mine is the WHACKD token, and with every transaction, 10% is skimmed off the top. With every 1,000 transactions, 1 receiver will lose everything - the entire transaction. It's just whacked. The coin acts as if its in a crypto environment, in which there are criminals skimming off the top. There are people whacking entire assets from someone else.

Now, what's not a joke - after we constructed this [token], I realized that we've created a truly deflationary token. I mean those who want to exchange or sell their tokens will be the losers, right? Its because the more they sell, the less volume available. What I mean is that with fewer tokens, the ones who are holding onto their supply will see that supply increase in value. It's just a great social experiment.

U.Today: So what about Hillary Clinton?

John McAfee: You know, I know nothing whatsoever about the lady. Ive never had dinner with her, nor have I shaken hands with her. So, I am not one to answer anything about her. I mean, rumors on the internet are just rumors on the internet. I mean they're sparked by God knows who, and are extinguished by the next rumor.

Image viahttp://mcafee2020.com/

U.Today: So, its just a joke?

John McAfee: Yes, it was just a joke. Of course, the whole thing is just a meme. You know, a meme looks at a particular situation from a whimsical or interesting aspect. This is what makes it funny. That's all, and so people are creating memes. This one is mine.

U.Today: Did you know Jeffrey Epstein personally?

John McAfee: No, I did not.

U.Today: What are your thoughts on Chinas digital currency - the Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP)? Will the US launch a digital US Dollar in the near future?

John McAfee: I think that every country and every nation state on this planet will launch their own cryptocurrency. I mean they will be forced to do so because it is so clear that fiat currencies, paper currencies, and even credit cards are so vastly inferior in terms of safety, speed, and ease. In terms of the entire economy, cryptocurrencies are vastly superior, so governments will have to create their own. People, please be aware that all of the coins created by governments on blockchains will monitor your every penny, where it goes, and for what purpose. I mean it's just one more bar in your cage. You can seize upon the opportunities offered by cryptocurrencies, which came by way of the people, and not from the government or from corporations. Just a bunch of ordinary programmers.

I came from the people and take what the people continue to create, which will always be vastly superior to those monolithic, slow-moving dinosaur-like entities called governments. They just can't create them fast enough, but the people can. So let the people continue to create and everyone thats listening to me, please choose the digital currency created by the people. There are thousands. It may take you a little bit of learning, a couple of hours maximum, but learn and understand them. And please don't use the government cryptocurrencies even if they say you must use them. They said that we shouldnt smoke marijuana for the last 75 years. I've heard that people still smoke marijuana. So, you tell me about the difference. Please people, stick with the people, and not with the power that has been suppressing you for thousands of years.

U.Today: Okay. Do you still believe that Bitcoin (BTC) will hit its $1 million dollar mark by the end of 2020? We all remember what you were going to do if it doesnt hit that mark. What are the reasons that support your belief?

John McAfee: Because Bitcoin is another deflationary currency. No one has noticed this yet. I don't understand it. There are only 21 million [coins] that can ever exist, and 18 million [coins] have already been mined. This leaves only 3 million left, and it will take many years to mine those 3 million coins. In the meantime, 7 million coins have been lost forever, and for every coin that's mined, four are lost. Do you understand? This is the world's first automatic deflationary currency.

Since nobody seems to have noticed that, I promise you that when they do, which will be within a matter of months, people will go, Oh my God, look what we missed!

Image viahttp://mcafee2020.com/

U.Today: But why 2020?

John McAfee: Well, because 2020 is 14 months away. I mean the end of 2020. Trust me, that's plenty of time.

U.Today: Do you really know Satoshi Nakamoto? How do you know him? Can you give us some details that wont compromise Satoshis identity? Is it a man, a woman, or a group of people?

John McAfee: I do. Satoshi is a man. That's all I can tell you. Of course, I know who he is, but let me ask you a question. Everybody wants to know about Satoshi, and I was just ready to say something. I was asked not to tell anyone, and while he did not admit to me that he was Satoshi, he did say one thing, Imagine if the world knew who Satoshi was. Satoshi's life would have to change. Yes. He is certainly one of the world's richest entities. He would have to surround himself with armed guards because he would be the target of criminals, and he would have to change his way of living. He couldn't just go out in the middle of the night, down to the coffee shop, kick up his feet, light a cigarette, and have an espresso - that part of his life is over. He then said:

So, you want to radically change someone's life. What makes you think you have that right? What if you were the 1% that was wrong? You would have totally destroyed an innocent person's life whos now incapable of going to the store or a movie without hiring two dozen, full-time armed guards. Hes at the mercy of the people.

After he said that, I thought, Jesus. My sincerest apologies. I am a stupid old man for not thinking this through. So, do you want me to tell you now?

U.Today: No, please dont. Can you tell me a little about the film King of the Jungle? Did you have a particular role in this film, such as with casting or a cameo in a potential scene? Are you looking forward to this film?

John McAfee: I have nothing to do with the movie. I have nothing to do with any documentary that's been done about my life. This is not a documentary though, it is a fiction. Even though I wasn't consulted, I've been in touch with the screenwriters, as theyre really funny and enjoyable people. But I have no control over the film, nor do I know anything about the casting or anything other than what I read in the news. I find out at the same time as the rest of the world.

I do know that, uh, who is the new kid (*McAfee speaking with his wife Janice and asking her the name of the kid playing the reporter), ZacEfron. Apparently, he's an actor. I don't know as I don't get out much. I seldom watch movies. Documentaries are my thing. ZacEfron is playing the reporter that came down to visit me. It's based on a three-week in-depth story about my life in Belize, where Wired reporter Joshua Davis came down to spend a few weeks with me. I expected him to come down and spend an hour or two, or even a day interviewing me, which I was willing to do. However, he wanted to be with me all the time, or at least when he thought I was doing something interesting. Most people would have said, Oh, you crazy. But I said, All right, if you think you're up for it. Well, he was not up for it. He was literally traumatized by hanging out with me for three weeks.

Image viahttp://mcafee2020.com/

Afterwards, he went back and wrote a story for Wired. There was actually an eBook called John McAfee's Last Stand. I never read it. I mean, I was with him at the time. What can his writing tell me about the events? In the book, he put down what he thought were horrific things. For example, the cover of the ebook is certainly a well-known photo of me with no shirt, my tattoos, and a gun to my head. That's on the cover of the book. After it was all written, they got that photo by sending photographers down here because Josh is a writer, not a photographer.

That [photo] was based on his second day with me, when we were sitting in San Pedro at a big oak table. He was so naive about life. And I said Joshua! You have to understand, you can't believe anything that you hear. Only half of what you see, and this is the truth. And he said, Well, that's nonsense. That's philosophy. And I go, Hey, watch this. I always carry a gun. I pulled out a .357 Magnum revolver, emptied the rounds onto the table, showed him that it was empty, picked up one of the rounds, put it in the gun, spun the cylinder, put it to my head, and pulled the trigger. And he was screaming, No, don't! Dont! You know, he's a slightly built young man, and he's not gonna **** with me or do something because he's literally screaming, You don't have to do this! And I said, Okay. Well, I apologize.

Image viahttp://mcafee2020.com/

I then spun the cylinder again and it went click, and now he is totally ****ing frantic. While he's frantically screaming for me not to do it, I'm just sitting there spinning the cylinder while he's yelling. I must've done it 35 times. I then said, Now, Josh, watch this. So with a gun in my hand, I took him outside to the beach, aimed the gun at the sand, and pulled the trigger. Boom! Sand goes flying everywhere. Now, Josh is a writer. Any mathematician would know, You know dude, if you've got a bullet in there, there is no powder in that cartridge. I mean, any rational person would say that, and by the way Mr. McAfee, that is a great trick. With Josh, it was a no.

You just pick one up, put it in the gun, and play Russian Roulette. Any magician would have gone and said that's a good trick. Any rational person would have gone and said, That's a trick. How did you do it? But Josh being naive took it for real. So that was his second day. So for the next three weeks, I ****ed with him in ways that made that look like a kindergartener pick a card and get the wrong card.

So, what I would do if there was no imminent danger and I wanted to **** with someone, I would always take one of the rounds out of the gun, pry off the bullet, fire the cap so that there's no gunpowder and there's no firing cap now, take another bullet, insert it back in the casing and put that back in the gun. I could always spot which bullet it was because there was an indentation where the firing pin had hit the primer. So, I could dump my bullets anywhere, but no one else would have noticed the indentation. Right? They're just noticing bullets flying everywhere. You just pick one up, put it in the gun, and play Russian Roulette. Any magician would have gone and said that's a good trick. Any rational person would have gone and said, That's a trick. How did you do it? But Josh being naive took it for real. So that was his second day. So for the next three weeks, I ****ed with him in ways that made that look like a kindergartener pick a card and get the wrong card.

After three weeks of that, Josh was literally traumatized. I don't feel bad about it because I hate organized media and the way that they select stories. There are trillions of stories to be told at any point in time. And who are our storytellers today? The media. The mass media are our storytellers, and there are trillions of stories that they could write about. What do they focus on? The things which are in their interest or in the interest of their sponsors or their controllers. Now I had Josh, who was being less naive. If you are naive, then why are you in the media at all? It's people like you who should not be here. So I felt justified. I waited two days before I decided, All right, you're going to get your story, but you're going to get the story that I choose for you.

I chose the story of John McAfee's insanity, and played that story for him for three weeks. That's what the movie is about, and thats why its a comedy. But I have no control over it. I think that the screenwriters are great, but I don't know how they're going to do this. I've read the synopsis, which is about that three week period. That's the entire movie.

I chose the story of John McAfee's insanity, and played that story for him for three weeks. That's what the movie is about, and thats why its a comedy.

U.Today: Why didn't you want Johnny Depp to play you in the film?

John McAfee: I don't think Johnny Depp has experience in life. Not in acting per say, but because even to me, Im a mystery. Some people think Im more of a mystery, while others think Im insane. With todays standards, I probably am, and I'll tell you what is sane today. Sane is buying all of the propaganda that the government and the media feed you while as your commuting to work for up to an hour each way, five days a week for 40 years in a job that you may not love. Thats considered sane because that's what everybody does. So, in that world, of course, there's nobody more insane than me.

U.Today: Last question - What do you think the web will look like in 50 years from now?

John McAfee: The first thing that comes to my mind is God, I would love to be here to see it, but I will not. The second thought is that 20 years ago, I could not have predicted today, nor could anyone on this planet. I have no idea where you are, but that doesn't matter because we're talking face to face. I see your smiling face, your gestures, and your eyes blinking as if youre here. Could you have imagined this 20 years ago? No, the technology did not exist, nor did the concepts other than in Star Trek movies. Now, they're here. So I would be the last person to ask given the history and the 74 years that I've experienced on this planet. The sky is open.

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Exclusive Interview with John McAfee: Epstein Didnt Kill Himself, Bitcoin to Hit $1 million, & Rus - U.Today

Bitcoin moves towards the foresight of inventor Satoshi Nakamoto – OBN

Well-known crypto defender Adam Back was interviewed about the developments on The Lightning Network and its impact on the Bitcoin ecosystem.Regarding the global adoption of the cryptocurrency, Back claimed that countries with historically and relatively low inflation rates are now in higher inflation expectations.

As a result of the above mentioned expectation, Back added that citizens in these countries bought the Swiss franc for protection against depreciating local currencies.In the long run, he believes that any governments endeavor to stabilize will adversely affect peoples spending power, erode savings and lower its yields. He further commented that Bitcoin is one of the few places around it that has some interesting results.

The amount invested for a Bitcoin futures account will be paid in fairly high interest rates (5-10%), meanwhile, most banking institutions have fallen mainly below 1 percent in euros or US dollars.

Even though Bitcoin sees it as a highly volatile asset, Adam Back drew attention to the importance of allocating a 5 percent portfolio allocation to BTC, stating that it could potentially double the value of its portfolios.

He also stressed that Satoshi was initially active in various forums to ensure the adoption of todays dominant cryptocurrency.

Adam Back also said,

The idea that the protocol shouldoften be unchanged was also in one of the first tasks.I think he made some interesting predictions that were obviously remarkably good at sight.

He also spoke about the fact that Bitcoin imitates gold when it is used as a competitor to traditional money.

Abigale is a Masters in Business Administration by education. After completing her post-graduation, Abigale jumped the journalism bandwagon as a freelance journalist. Soon after that she landed a job of reporter and has been climbing the news industry ladder ever since to reach the post of editor at Our Bitcoin News.

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Bitcoin moves towards the foresight of inventor Satoshi Nakamoto - OBN

Jack Dorsey: Bitcoin is becoming the Internets national currency – Decrypt

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on Thursday emphatically ruled out joining Facebooks Libra project, and reiterated his belief that Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are the future of Internet money.

Dorsey was asked during a Twitter News Summit in New York whether Twitter would join the Libra Association, the suite of companies supporting Facebook in its cryptocurrency project.

Hell no, he replied, adding by way of explanation that Libra is not an Internet open standard that was born on the Internet.

It was born out of a companys intention, and its not consistent with what I personally believe, and what I want our company to stand for, he said.

Dorsey then took the opportunity to reiterate his belief in Bitcoin and other decentralized cryptocurrencies as the future of Internet money.

I think the Internet is somewhat of an emerging nation-state in almost every way, Dorsey said. It almost has a currency now in the form of cryptocurrency and bitcoin.

The Twitter CEOs belief in Bitcoin runs deep. Hes an investor in the cryptocurrencys scaling solution, Lightning Labs, and a fan of Tippin, the add-on that allows Twitter users to tip each other in crypto. Earlier this year, he announced plans to hire engineers and designers to work on open-source contributions to the Bitcoin ecosystem, reporting directly to him.

Back in June, Dorsey gave several reasons for his belief in Bitcoins supremacy over other cryptocurrencies including the power of its brand; the purity of the principles laid down by its inventor Satoshi Nakamoto, its scarcity (only 21 million bitcoin will be created) and its resilience in the face of the challenges and attacks the crypto has faced in the 10 years since its invention.

During yesterdays Summit, Dorsey further said that he had issues with Libra being described as a cryptocurrency. They use that label liberally I dont know if its a gimmick, but cryptocurrency wasnt necessary to make that thing work, he said.

Earlier this week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was called before Congress, to answer further criticism of Libra. He provided assurances that: Facebook would withdraw from Libra, if it was not approved by U.S. regulators.

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Zuckerberg also admitted that, as a big company, Libra did not live up to one of the key tenets that define cryptocurrencies, namely decentralization.

As a big company, we are not going to do anything thats decentralized, he said. Later he attempted to backtrack somewhat, adding that decentralization was a future aspiration.

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Jack Dorsey: Bitcoin is becoming the Internets national currency - Decrypt

Oxford English Dictionary Recognizes Growing Adoption of Crypto by Adding ‘Satoshi’ – CryptoGlobe

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Oxford English Dictionary Recognizes Growing Adoption of Crypto by Adding Satoshi

oxford-english-dictionary-recognizes-growing-adoption-of-crypto-by-adding-satoshi

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which calls itself "the definitive record of the English language", has added the word "satoshi" to its database.

The Oxford English Dictionary is published byOxford University Press(OUP). The OED follows the development of the English language over the past thousand years, "providing a comprehensive resource to scholars and academic researchers, as well as describing usage in its many variations throughout the world."

Work on the OED began in 1857 and although the most recent printed edition (i.e. the 2nd edition) was published in 1989, an online version of the OED has been available since 2000, which is when the editors of the OED began the work of creating the third edition of the dictionary (expected to be ready by 1837 and only in an electronic form). Currently, the OED has definitions for over 600,000 words.

According to a blog post by the OED about its latestquarterly update,"satoshi" (a word that was "first used less than seven years ago") was the most recent addition. Here is the official definition:

The smallest monetary unit in the Bitcoin digital payment system, equal to one hundred millionth of a bitcoin.

And here is what the entry for "satoshi" says about the etymology of this word:

the name of Satoshi Nakamoto (reportedly born in 1975), to whom the introduction of the Bitcoin system is attributed, presumed to be a pseudonym for one or more unknown persons

As for the word "cryptocurrency", this is how is defined in the OED:

1. An informal, substitute currency. rare. 2. Any of various digital payment systems operating independently of a central authority and employing cryptographic techniques to control and verify transactions in a unique unit of account; (also) the units of account of such a system, considered collectively.

Featured Image Credit: Photo via Pixabay.com

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Oxford English Dictionary Recognizes Growing Adoption of Crypto by Adding 'Satoshi' - CryptoGlobe

Wonders Of The Blockchain-Enabled Supply Chain – Coinrevolution.com

Stuart Haber and Scott Stronetta were the very first individuals with the idea of cryptographically securing a block. The objective of their concept was to securely timestamp the documents in a way that it could not be tampered with.

But it wasnt until 2008 when Satoshi Nakamoto conceptualized the idea. He improved the system using methodology similar to hash cash. Bitcoin was born the following year. Still, nobody knows Satoshi Nakamotos true identity. A whole range of bitcoin conspiracies has erupted and gone dormant.

The technology underlying bitcoin is being widely used across industries to enhance the existing model of operations in various internal and external functions. As we approach the next generation, blockchain is estimated to be used as a platform for e-government, predictive analytics, artificial intelligence, security, and IoT. Supply chain is one of the areas that blockchain technology is seeing increasing usage.

Most companies use supply chain management and enterprise resource planning softwares. Now, despite these investments, the companies are limited invisibility when it comes to where all their products go at a given time.

The analogue gaps within the ecosystem of the supply chain are conspicuous. Production may be digitally recorded at the manufacturing point, but as soon as product is disbursed, visibility and tracking are restricted to tools like the RFID and PDF.

These technologies may have been relevant three decades ago, but not now. The creation of data where a pool of entities could agree was only possible through a middleman. Until blockchain rocked the scene.

The P2P technology has eliminated the need for a middleman and made it possible for companies in the ecosystem to share and agree on some pieces of information in the ecosystem.

There is no need for a central intermediary. All transactions and data are synchronised through blockchain and participants in the network can verify calculations and the work of others.

The same logic is being applied to the supply chain. Blockchain features such as security and redundancy of blockchain apply to things like inventory, which has resulted in the substitution of chain partners with banking nodes. It has created a foundation of an entirely new way of supply chain management using blockchain.

Essentially, the technology provides that there cannot be two locations of an inventory at the same time. When a product moves, it immediately reflects on the network as in transit. At the same time, users can track their traceability to its given point of origin.

Although the supply chain management system powered by blockchain is still nascent in the space, multinationals have been quick to adopt it and are still pilot testing the system.

For instance, Starbucks is set to use the DLT system powered by Azure Blockchain Service in achieving the traceability benefit. On the other hand, PepsiCo just tested project proton to test how blockchain-powered supply management can increase efficiency. They have discovered a 28% boost in supply chain efficiency.

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Wonders Of The Blockchain-Enabled Supply Chain - Coinrevolution.com

With 18 Million Bitcoins Mined, How Hard Is That 21 Million Limit? – CoinDesk

In a matter of hours, the 18 millionth bitcoin will have been mined and the worlds first cryptocurrency will draw one step closer to its hard-coded cap of 21 million coins.

The pie is shrinking. This [milestone] gives people some simple math to raise awareness about where were at in the [bitcoin mining] process, said Alex Adelman, CEO of bitcoin rewards platform Lolli, adding:

Its good for people to see the progress of bitcoin, to look back on everything that has been done and will be done for the next 3 million. You should pay attention to the next 3 million.

But dont worry, youll have 120 years to do so.

The next 3 million bitcoins will be progressively slower to mine as a result of block reward halvings which occur every 210,000 blocks (or roughly four years) and reduce new bitcoin supply by 50 percent. The final bitcoin is expected to be mined in 2140.

Or is it?

It seems blasphemous even to go there, given bitcoins value proposition as digital gold. But outsiders foresee a day when the 21 million cap might, gasp, come up for debate.

Eventually, once there are no more bitcoins left to mint, miners will rely solely on transaction fees, which are paid by users to transfer coins through the blockchain. This change gives cause for concern to some who view bitcoins block subsidies as integral to bitcoins incentive system.

To skeptics, this could undermine the structure that motivates miners to record validated transactions in the ledger.

All of your assumptions about incentives, risk and value go out the window, said Angela Walch, a research fellow at the University College London Centre for Blockchain Technologies. Please take the blinders off and stop assuming that everything will still work well once everything goes to a pure transaction-fees system as opposed to block [subsidy].

Currently, with each block, miners get a subsidy of 12.5 newly created BTC, worth roughly $99,370, plus any additional transaction fees, which normally dont totalmore than 1 BTC.

Along the same lines, Paul Brody, global innovation leader for audit firm Ernst & Young (EY), said bitcoins limited supply could limit the cryptocurrencys utility as a global reserve currency.

Pointing to situations such as the Great Recession where monetary policy interventions were needed to lift the U.S. out of economic turmoil, Brody said:

If bitcoin were to become a substantial part of the global monetary system, we would need to address [the hard supply cap] because a lot of economists agree deflationary systems are not necessarily the best thing.

Both Walch and Brody suggested that bitcoins 21 million supply cap might one day be subject to change. What if?

We need to acknowledge that the 21 million cap is aspirational, said Walch. If people decide to change that [supply] cap for certain reasons and enough people make that decision, the system will move to it. Its aspiration, not reality.

While technically feasible, a change to the supply cap would almost certainly be a non-starter for bitcoin users who cherish its gold-like properties. Indeed, bitcoins code has long been governed by a community with a bias toward retaining the coins original features as created by its pseudonymous founder, Satoshi Nakamoto.

Unlike ethereum, the worlds second-largest cryptocurrency, the bitcoin blockchain has rarely seen backward-incompatible, system-wide upgrades changing core code features.

In the rare instances it has, the bitcoin community has gone through fierce governance disputes such as the infamous scaling debates of 2017, which centered on a potential increase to bitcoins block size. The philosophical rift ultimately resulted in the creation of bitcoin cash in August 2017.

Still, a prospective hard fork that would change bitcoins 21-million-coin supply cap is conceivable, if perhaps heretical.

Its not a given that bitcoin has to stay at that 21 million hard limit, said EYs Brody (who, it should be noted, is building enterprise applications on top of rival chain ethereum). There is a governance mechanism to permit changes in bitcoin if the community agrees that would be good.

Even so, bitcoin advocate and author Andreas Antonopoulos stressed that governance drama surrounding bitcoins supply cap is nothing to lose sleep over especially since bitcoins transition to a purely transaction-fee rewards model will take 120 years.

Antonopoulos added that from the very launch of bitcoin in 2009, mining was always a marginally profitable endeavor never intended to stay constant.

[Mining rewards] dynamically adjust based on the network. Its a very complex economic environment. Its not as simple as people think, said Antonopoulos, adding:

There are half a dozen variables that determine miner profitability [right now] including the cost of electricity, their access to bandwidth transaction, the block subsidy, the transaction fees at the time, bitcoin price, their local currency exchange rate, the type of equipment and how efficient it is at converting electricity into mining.

As such, Antonopoulos says the concerns surrounding a transition from a block subsidy to purely transaction-based block rewards are grossly overblown.

Nothing magical happens when block subsidy drops to zero, said Antonopoulos. Its a very gradual and predictable change that happens over a period of 120 years. Its already happening and every day [miners] make their decisions.

While the 18th million bitcoin may not be the best reminder of the ongoing reality of a limited supply cap, the next upcoming milestone on bitcoins horizon assuredly will.

Viewing the next bitcoin halving as a far more notable event in bitcoins history, venture capitalist William Mougayar said:

In my opinion, [the 18 million] milestone is not that significant in relation to the next halving which occurs May 2020. On that date, the block [subsidy] will go from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC.

Andreas Antonopoulos image via Christine Kim for CoinDesk

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With 18 Million Bitcoins Mined, How Hard Is That 21 Million Limit? - CoinDesk

2 Bitcoin Developers Explain How The Cryptocurrency Could Still Fail – Forbes

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In a few months, it will have been eleven years since the Bitcoin network was launched by Satoshi Nakamoto. The fact that the digital cash system has simply existed for this long is a grand achievement, but this is still an experimental project that could fail.

Bitcoin price predictions of anywhere from $42,000 by the end of 2019 to $100,000 by the end of 2021 have been made this year, but as Blockstream mathematician Andrew Poelstra has explained in the past, the developers behind the cryptocurrency are worried about just making sure the system doesn't completely fall apart more than anything else.

51% attacks are often brought up when it comes to ways in which Bitcoin could eventually fail, although improvements related to mining decentralization are in the works. Impending government crackdowns on Bitcoin are often talked about by skeptics of the digital cash system, but some U.S. lawmakers seem convinced they wouldn't be able to implement a Bitcoin ban.

So, what are the real threats to Bitcoin? MIT's Cory Fields and former Blockstream CTO Greg Maxwellboth of whom have contributed heavily to Bitcoin's development over the yearsrecently shared their thoughts on the matter in separate forums.

The Social Attack

Maxwell, who can often be found correcting people who are wrong about Bitcoin-related things on various subreddits, recently shared his view on one of the most pressing issues facing Bitcoin today in response to another Reddit user's question about 51% attacks. After explaining why Bitcoin's voting process for ordering transactions is necessary in the first place, Maxwell shared his view that 51% attacks may get more attention than they deserve.

"I think people obsess far too much about '51%' it has some kind of attractive mystery to it that distracts people," wrote Maxwell. "If you're worried that someone might reorder history using a high hash-power collusion just wait longer before you consider your transactions final."

According to the Blockstream co-founder, a social attack vector where the rules of the Bitcoin network are changed in favor of a more centralized model is a much bigger risk to the system.

"A far bigger risk to Bitcoin is that the public using it won't understand, won't care, and won't protect the decentralization properties that make it valuable over centralized alternatives in the first place," wrote Maxwell. "[A] risk we can see playing out constantly in the billion dollar market caps of totally centralized systems. The ability demonstrated by system[s] with fake decentralization to arbitrarily change the rules out from under users is far more concerning than the risk that an expensive attack could allow some theft in the case of over-eagerly finalized transactions."

It should be noted that Maxwell's concerns are not theoretical. In the past, proponents of two Bitcoin forks, Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV, have declared their altcoins to be the true version of Bitcoin. That said, neither of those networks gained much traction in terms of being considered the "real Bitcoin" by cryptocurrency users.

Of course, this sort of attack could also pop up in the form of an altcoin that starts from scratch with a much more centralized model and overtakes Bitcoin's network effects to become the world's preferred form of digital money. For example, the innovations enabled by Bitcoin, such as its uncontrolled monetary policy and censorship-resistant transactions, would likely become useless if everyone decided to move over to Facebook's Libra cryptocurrency, which is likely to be much more easily controlled and regulated by governments.

Introducing a New Bug

Like Maxwell, Fields does not view a 51% attack as the most likely way in which the Bitcoin experiment could fail.

"My answer though is that the most likely sudden death scenario for a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin is an accidental bug that gets introduced internal to the system," said Fields during a recent talk at the 2019 MIT Media Lab Cryptoeconomic Systems Summit.

Fields's concerns are also not theoretical, seeing as critical bugs have been found in these sorts of systems in the past.

"There was a Bitcoin Cash bug that I found and disclosed and it kicked off a discussion about responsible disclosure in these systems and how to do it generally," said Fields during his talk. "I was a little smug for a few months until we were effected by a similar bug in Bitcoin Core which potentially would allow for money printing out of thin air."

At the end of his talk, Fields reached out to other Bitcoin developers to work with him on a ten-year plan for making it less likely that these sorts of bugs will find themselves in consensus-critical Bitcoin software again in the future.

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2 Bitcoin Developers Explain How The Cryptocurrency Could Still Fail - Forbes

Cryptocurrency: What to know about digital money – Fox Business

ThinkMarkets chief analyst Naeem Aslam on his outlook for Bitcoin.

Investors around the world have taken notice of Bitcoins rapid rise in price as well as some dramatic falls since it launched just a decade ago.

Buying and selling cryptocurrencies can feel like doing commerce in a sort of digital wild west. There are fortunes to be made, but also scammers and thieves ready to take advantage of the unprepared.

But as the world enters its second decade with crypto, traditional financial services and mainstream businesses have been examining how they can get in on it, and regulators have also taken note. As the market continues to evolve, here are five things to know about cryptocurrency:

Cryptocurrencies rely on a technology called blockchain, which is an open database of every transaction that verifies the security of transactions.

For Bitcoin, each block contains numerous transactions, and they are added to the blockchain by computers doing complex mathematical equations, a process called mining. The miners are then provided Bitcoin as transaction fees for the service.

The amount of Bitcoin rewarded to miners decreases by half for every 210,000 blocks confirmed, and theres a maximum amount of potential Bitcoin: 21 million. The ability to create Bitcoin will stop in the year 2140, when the supply reaches that limit.

A collection of Bitcoin (virtual currency) tokens are displayed in this picture illustration taken December 8, 2017. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier/Illustration (Reuters)

Other cryptocurrencies are tied to other systems. Some are even connected to physical assets like gold. Popular cryptocurrencies besides Bitcoin include Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash and XRP.

People store their cryptocurrencies in a wallet, an app that contains the mathematical signature proving ownership of the currency.

Cryptocurrencies can be bought and sold on exchanges. Popular ones include Coinbase, Binance and Gemini. Intercontinental Exchange Inc., the owner of the New York Stock Exchange, has announced plans to launch a crypto exchange called Bakkt.

The first - and to date - most popular cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, went live on Jan. 3, 2009. It was created by someone named Satoshi Nakamoto, who may actually be several people using a pseudonym. The first 50 Bitcoin were mined that day.

Bitcoinmarket.com, the first Bitcoin exchange, opened in March of 2010. Others soon followed.

On May 22, 2010, a man paid 10,000 Bitcoin to someone who ordered two pizzas for him from Papa Johns. As the market value of Bitcoin later skyrocketed, that Bitcoin would be worth millions of dollars.

Namecoin, the first alternative cryptocurrency called an altcoin was launched on April 18, 2011.

A customer feeds cash currency in to a Bitcoin ATM located in Flat 128, a boutique in New York's West Village, U.S. on August 22, 2014. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

Bitcoins market price hit $10,000 per coin for the first time on Nov. 28, 2017. It peaked less than a month later at its all-time high price of $19,783.21.

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In June of 2019, Facebook announced that it planned to launch a cryptocurrency called Libra.

The price of cryptocurrencies can fluctuate widely. Bitcoins price has previously dropped about $1,000 in a single day.

Bitcoin remains the most valuable cryptocurrency and has the highest market capitalization calculated by the number of currently available currency and the price. Other cryptocurrencies range in price from a few hundred dollars per coin to a fraction of a cent.

Exchanges like Coinbase keep track of the prices of various cryptocurrencies and provide a platform for trading them.

Cryptocurrency market statistics. Photograph of computer screen. (iStock)

The short answer is, Yes. But illegal activity can still be tied to crypto.

The IRS has treated cryptocurrencies as property for tax purposes since 2014. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission defines virtual currencies as commodities. The Securities and Exchange Commission says offers and sales of digital assets were subject to federal law.

In April of 2019, the SEC issued its framework on digital currencies that fall under the category of a security.

The SEC has recently announced several cases of litigation related to cryptocurrencies:

Cryptocurrencies are a rapidly evolving field.

One exchange, Mt. Gox, was shuttered after it lost hundreds of thousands of Bitcoin and went bankrupt. In May, the exchange Binance said hackers stole thousands of Bitcoin worth millions of dollars.

Some lawmakers are eager to add additional regulations, just as more traditional businesses like Facebook with its Libra are looking to get into the market.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's face is visible on a mock "Zuck Buck" depicted on a screen as David Marcus, CEO of Facebook's Calibra digital wallet service, foreground, is questioned by Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., during a House Financial Services C (AP)

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said in early September that Libra will need to be held to a high standard.

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Libra would have to be held to the highest regulatory standards and supervisory expectations, he said.

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Cryptocurrency: What to know about digital money - Fox Business

Bitcoin History Part 18: The First Bitcoin Wallet – Bitcoin News

Bitcoin users today are blessed with a panoply of feature-rich software and hardware wallets. When Bitcoin launched, however, there were no wallets. It took Satoshi Nakamoto to engineer the first desktop client, and his creation proved surprisingly resilient, serving the community faithfully for years.

Also read: Bitcoin History Part 17: That Time Mt. Gox Destroyed 2,609 BTC

The first bitcoin wallet was a full client, which meant you had to download the entire blockchain history for it to synch. This wasnt an issue to begin with, since there was precious little history to record, although the synchronization period swiftly expanded. Reviewing the wallet in 2012, Vitalik Buterin wrote: Because it is a full node, the client must download the entire (currently 6 gigabyte) blockchain to operate, which can take up to a few days the first time you start the client and several minutes to an hour every time you start the client afterward if you do not keep it running constantly. Today, the BTC blockchain is approaching 250 GB.

Satoshi began working on the first bitcoin wallet concurrently with his development of the Bitcoin protocol, and the Bitcoin-Qt wallet, as it was known, was released in February 2009. The private keys for the Qt wallet were stored in a file on the users desktop titled wallet.dat, prompting anguished stories over the years of individuals accidentally deleting this folder or having it accessed by malware searching for it specifically, resulting in the loss of tens of thousands of BTC. There was nothing inherently insecure about Satoshis wallet, though. In fact, given that it came with the option to create a fully encrypted backup, Qt was a highly secure wallet when optimally configured.

Bitcoiners who entered the space pre-2014 will fondly recall the experience of downloading the Qt wallet and watching in wonderment as their first coins arrived, as if by magic, into its receiving address. More often than not, those coins were then sent swiftly on to their final destination Silk Road.

The first build of the Bitcoin-Qt wallet, 0.1, was believed to have been lost to time until Hal Finney, by then virtually incapacitated with Lou Gehrigs disease, found the source code in 2012. Bitcoiners curious to see what the first BTC wallet looked like can download and run the Bitcoin-Qt client 0.1 on PC. Satoshis readme.txt file that accompanies the software explains:

To support the network by running a node, select: Options->Generate Coins and keep the program open or minimized. It runs at idle priority when no other programs are using the CPU. Your computer will be solving a very difficult computational problem that is used to lock in blocks of transactions. The time to generate a block varies each time, but may take days or months, depending on the speed of your computer and the competition on the network.

Ever the master of cutting through complexity, Satoshi finishes: Its not a computation that has to start over from the beginning if you stop and restart it. A solution might be found at any given moment its running. As a reward for supporting the network, you receive coins when you successfully generate a block.

While functionality was limited, the Qt wallet did have a few advanced features to it. In addition to sending and receiving coins and incorporating an address book, it enabled the user to digitally sign a transaction, proving that they were the owner of a particular public key.

Starting from version 0.9.0, the Bitcoin-Qt wallet became known as the Bitcoin Core wallet, following a proposal by Gavin Andresen, who opined that bitcoin core sounds strong and rock-like, which is what you want for something that forms the backbone of the network. Peter Todd demurred, responding that Bitcoin Core has the serious problem that it implies you need it, but the motion passed, and Qt became Core. History, however, would prove Todd to be right.

Despite bitcoiners today having access to an array of user-friendly SPV wallets, the Bitcoin Core wallet is still going strong. As Bitcoin.org, where it can be downloaded, acknowledges, It offers high levels of security, privacy, and stability. However, it has fewer features and it takes a lot of space and memory. Its survival is a credit to its creator, and to the Bitcoin developers who have devoted countless hours to improving it over the past 10 years and counting.

Bitcoin History is a multipart series from news.Bitcoin.com charting pivotal moments in the evolution of the worlds first cryptocurrency. Read part 17 here.

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 whats happening in the industry.

Kai's been manipulating words for a living since 2009 and bought his first bitcoin at $12. It's long gone. He's previously written whitepapers for blockchain startups and is especially interested in P2P exchanges and DNMs.

Excerpt from:

Bitcoin History Part 18: The First Bitcoin Wallet - Bitcoin News

Bitfinex and Tether Face Class Action Filed by Lawyers Who Sued Craig Wright – CryptoGlobe

/latest/2019/10/bitfinex-and-tether-face-class-action-filed-by-lawyers-who-sued-craig-wright/

Lawyers who successfully sued Craig Wright for billions of dollars in bitcoin are going after crypto exchange Bitfinex and its affiliated dollar-backed stablecoin Tether - both already facing existing legal claims.

Kyle Roche and Velvel Freedman filed a class-action lawsuit in the Southern District of New York alleging more than $1.4 trillion in damages suffered by plaintiffs David Leibowitz, Jason Leibowitz, Benjamin Leibowitz, Aaron Leibowitz, Pinchas Coldshtein and "all other similar situated".

The lawsuit claims that iFinex - parent company of Bitfinex - BFXNA Inc, BFXWW Inc, Tether Holdings Ltd, Tether Operations Ltd, Tether Ltd, Tether International Ltd and a number of related individuals used cryptocurrency to "defraud investors, manipulate markets, and conceal illicit proceeds". The claim continued:

Part-fraud, part-pump-and-dump, and part-money laundering, the scheme was primarily accomplished through two enterprises Bitfinex and Tether that commingled their corporate identities and customer funds while concealing their extensive cooperation in a way that enabled them to manipulate the cryptocurrency market with unprecedented effectiveness.

Tether appeared to anticipate news of further lawsuits against it. Just two days earlier in a blog post dated October 5, Tether - citing an unpublished research paper accusing it of market manipulation and fraud - said it expected "mercenary lawyers" to exploit the "deeply flawed paper" as evidence in the ongoing lawsuit.

Indeed, it appears that Roche and Freedman have used this paper as the background for the lawsuit, as point 13 of their filing to the New York District Court refers to Tether's October 5 statement. It read:

Fully aware of the incredible harm theyve inflicted on the cryptocurrency market, on October 5, 2019, Bitfinex and Tether published statements where they generally described the allegations contained herein, admitted that they 'fully expect' to be sued, and stated that they 'would not be surprised if just such a lawsuit will be filed imminently'.

The filing concluded that calculating the damages at this stage would be premature, but added:

There is little doubt that the scale of harm wrought by the Defendants is unprecedented. Their liability to the putative class likely surpasses $1.4 trillion US dollars.

Roche and Freedman were the principal lawyers acting on behalf of the Kleiman estate versus Craig Wright, the bitcoin investor and self-proclaimed to be bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto, winning a claim that is likely to be worth several billion dollars.

It was revealed in the summer that the ongoing legal battle both Tether and Bitfinex face against the New York Attorney General over claims Tether's dollar reserves were used by Bitfinex to plug a funding gap, has already cost the firms more than half a million dollars.

Featured Image Credit: Photo viaPixabay.com

Original post:

Bitfinex and Tether Face Class Action Filed by Lawyers Who Sued Craig Wright - CryptoGlobe

How Bitcoin Miners Fueled the Bear Market Trend of 2018 – BTCNN

When the financial industry was left astounded by the downward spiral of Bitcoin in 2018, questions as to the cause largely went unanswered even though some analysts had one or two things to say about it. Nevertheless, there is no need to search further as recent data has revealed who to hold responsible for the markets continued degradation, and that is Bitcoin Miners.

Token Analyst uploaded a new study that showed the role miners played in the fall of Bitcoin. The analysis, which was shared on social platforms on October 11, stated that the moment miners began to sell coins directly, things began to go wrong for Bitcoin.

It is not a coincidence that the moment BTC/USD crashed to$3,100 was the same time miners were orchestrating a massive sell-off. June andAugust recorded a massive transfer of coins to exchanges, which depreciatedeven further what was left of the Bitcoin price.

Token Analyst stated: We see miners taking advantage ofvolatility by sitting on their mined stash and then selling around large priceswings.

Already there are assumptions that point to miners as havinga hand at the collapsed Bitcoin price of 2018, and now, the data released by TokenAnalyst has confirmed them.

The unusual event is not also lost to the popular industrycommentators who have been following the issue for a long time now. One ofthem, PlanB, has shown via his stock-to-flow Bitcoin price model that theinfluence of miners over Bitcoin price should not be taken lightly.

Another group of commentators, which include Cole Garner,Filb Filb, and others, believe that miners encourage minimum BTC prices.

Garner, who is in support of the concept, has backed up hisbelief by repeating what Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, said back in2010, which is that production cost plays a vital role in the price of acommodity. He further added that:

If the price is below cost, then production slows down. If the price is above cost, profit can be made by generating and selling more.

Therefore, these statements may be geared towards preparingthe minds of the crypto community members for a new Bitcoin price floorprojected to be around $6,400, because it is improbable that miners will sellbelow the price.

The next block size halving expected to happen in May 2020will determine a lot of things for Bitcoin enthusiasts, just like it did in2016. With block reward dropping to 6.25 BTC per block, everyone should buckleup for new price highs.

Link:

How Bitcoin Miners Fueled the Bear Market Trend of 2018 - BTCNN

Bitcoin Association and Cambridge Partner Over Bitcoin SV – Live Bitcoin News

The Bitcoin Association has joined hands with the Cambridge University Meta Net Society to sponsor a new study program that will allow students to learn about bitcoin SV (BSV).

Bitcoin SV has been something of a controversial coin since it first emerged roughly one year ago. First off, its a product invented by Australian bitcoin developer Craig Wright, who seems to have mustered up just as many enemies as he has fans. In addition, bitcoin SV is the child of bitcoin cash and resulted from the bitcoin cash hard fork that occurred around November of 2018.

Sadly, this hard fork has garnered a rather harsh reputation in the previous months, as many blame it for the sudden bitcoin crash that ultimately occurred a few weeks after it came to be. Bitcoin had spent much of the summer of 2018 trading at the $6,000 range, but the hard fork ultimately led to a massive drop in its price, and by the time Thanksgiving rolled around, bitcoin was trading in the mid-$3,000 range. It took approximately five months for the currency to show any signs of recovery.

Still, bitcoin SV appears to have garnered a few followers along the way, and the Bitcoin Association seems to be one of them. The group is planning to host events, meetups and conferences regarding bitcoin SV to help students better understand the properties of cryptocurrency and prepare them for careers in both crypto and blockchain.

Robin Kohze president of the Cambridge Meta Net Society explains:

Cambridge is traditionally a place to bring the bright and creative together to explore daring ideas and challenge the status quo. We thank the Bitcoin Association for its financial support, enabling us to host 22 events this academic year to teach and support a new generation of bitcoin developers that focus on real world utility applications.

The organization has already announced the first two speakers for the year: bitcoin SV creator Craig Wright himself, and Jimmy Nguyen, the president of the Bitcoin Association. Both will be featured at an event taking place on October 17.

Nguyen comments:

As bitcoins true power is finally being unlocked in bitcoin SV, we are thrilled to support bright, daring minds at Cambridge University and help them learn how to build the meta net. Their work will contribute to a future internet that truly rewards users for their data, creates monetary value in user online activity, and incentivizes higher quality content all only possible on BSV.

The Bitcoin Association supports bitcoin SV as the primary currency of the industry, stating it is exactly how Satoshi Nakamoto originally envisioned bitcoin to work. It says that the BSV blockchain is the only one in existence that appropriately scales and has robust utility.

Read the rest here:

Bitcoin Association and Cambridge Partner Over Bitcoin SV - Live Bitcoin News

Analyzing the Bitcoin Phenomenon – ChartAttack

The popularity of Bitcoin has been increasing rapidly. It seems that the amount of people who become supporters of this cryptocurrency, or invest in it, is becoming bigger on a daily basis. However, the number of skeptical people has been increasing accordingly. Even though the story about Bitcoin provides many interesting and brilliant ideas, there are some things (like its mysterious creator, criticism regarding the unstable price, or the negative campaign in the media) which lead people to believe that the whole thing simply isnt worth considering.

The following article will try to analyze this phenomenon. Therefore, it will provide possible answers to questions such as:

The simple definition states that it is a digital and global money system currency. Furthermore, through this currency people use Internet in order to either receive or send money. The transaction can occur without the revealing of the true identity. The basis of the whole system is cryptography.

Created in 2009, it started to attract a great deal of attention, primarily because the inventor was unknown. All that was familiar about the creator of Bitcoin, was his/her name Satoshi Nakamoto. It was also speculated that this person doesnt even exist, and that the name is a pseudonym for a group of people. Therefore, who Satoshi Nakamoto really is, remains unknown to this day.

The opinions on this topic are divided. While some are passionately following the daily status of Bitcoin, others are completely rejecting it. Regardless of the strong affection or equally strong criticism, people seem to be highly engaged in the story. Why is it so?

Followed by a strong campaign, the new money system currency managed to shake the public opinion due to the modern and somewhat revolutionary ideas it proposed. Furthermore, the core of this system is related to the ideas which can potentially change the whole financial system we know today. As suggested on BitcoinTrader No banks, no fees, no inflation, the traditional banking system may not exist in the future.

It can be observed that people seem so engaged in this system due to the revolutionary and game-changing ideas it proposes.

The fact is that Bitcoin has reached a huge level of popularity, which led to it becoming a worldwide phenomenon. Since 2012, its presence in the media has been more and more prominent, and it doesnt seem to stop anytime soon. Not only is it popular among the consumers, but it is also used by companies. Therefore, it can be concluded that the Bitcoin phenomenon, other than its creator and original idea, has been influenced by numerous factors such as the consumers, media, excellent campaign, etc.

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Analyzing the Bitcoin Phenomenon - ChartAttack

Latest cryptocurrency news and prices, 09 October 2019 – The South African

Bitcoins price continues to hold onto to the $8,000 support area, while the top 20 cryptocurrencies experienced another day of mixed signals. Here are your latest cryptocurrency news and prices.

Close to 7% of the entire circulating supply of Bitcoin (BTC) is held in the wallets of eight major cryptocurrency exchanges as per data from The Token Analyst, a popular crypto-Twitter commentator.

Read more here.

(Trading at $8,245.32 at 14:00 09 October 2019)

For ethereums critics in the bitcoin community, last month brought a gotcha moment.

Joseph Lubin, co-founder of the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, acknowledged onstage at Ethereal Tel Aviv that the network, in its original form, wasnt built for mass adoption. We knew it wasnt going to be scalable for sure, the ConsenSys CEO said.

Predictable cries of scam from ardent bitcoiners followed. But Lubins statement wasnt scandalous in the least to the ethereum fans at Devcon the communitys largest and most influential annual gathering where roughly 3,000 attendees gathered this week in Osaka, Japan.

Even those who knew the first version wasnt scalable dont see early marketing claims as misleading. They see iteration as an inherent process.

Read more at coindesk.com

(Trading at $182.72 at 14:00 09 October 2019)

Yesterday, there was a strong upward move in ripple price above the $0.2650 resistance against the US Dollar. XRP price even broke the $0.2720 and $0.2750 resistance levels. Moreover, there was a break above the $0.2800 level and the 100 hourly simple moving average. Finally, the price tested the $0.2850 resistance area, where the bears took a stand. A high was formed at $0.2855 and recently the price started a downside correction.

It broke the $0.2800 and $0.2750 support levels. However, the $0.2720 area acted as a decent support. A low was formed near $0.2710 and the price is currently consolidating. It traded above the 50% Fib retracement level of the recent decline from the $0.2855 high to $0.2710 low. However, it seems like the $0.2800 level is now acting as a solid barrier.

Read more at newsbtc.com

(Trading at $0.278890 at 14:00 09 October 2019)

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) proponents have recently been discussing the amount of value participants have been sending onchain. For quite some time now, statistics show the BCH chain has been moving more money than the ETH network in terms of USD value sent per day. With extremely low network fees, a good portion of people are choosing to move funds onchain with the Bitcoin Cash network.

Read more at news.bitcoin.com

(Trading at $233.90 at 14:00 09 October 2019)

A new complaint accuses the owners and companies behind the Tether cryptocurrency of market manipulation. The accusations claim that Tether is the main culprit for the largest bubble in financial history, with over $265 billion worth of cryptocurrencies disappearing from the market.

A handful of investors filed the complaint in the U.S District Court for the Southern District of New York. According to investors who made the accusations Tether, despite being a stablecoin, successfully manipulated Bitcoins price. Furthermore, Tether organization is also owning the Bitfinex crypto exchange, meaning that the companies behind the exchange can place Bitcoin buy orders with unbacked by fiat Tether tokens.

Tether is supposed to be fully fiat-backed, but Tether owners implied that they could use other forms of assets to support Tethers price. Unbacked buy orders can push trading volumes and pump up Bitcoins price.

Read more at cryptobrowser.com

(Trading at $1.01 at 14:00 09 October 2019)

Litecoin price recovered above the $55.00 and $56.50 resistance levels. However, LTC price struggled to gain momentum above $58.50 and remained well below the key $60.00 resistance area. The price is currently correcting lower and it may perhaps test the $55.00 support area.

Read more at newsbtc.com

(Trading at $57.94 at 14:00 09 October 2019)

EOS price climbed higher recently and tested the $3.250 resistance area, where sellers appeared. The price is currently correcting lower and is trading below the $3.200 level. If there are more downsides, the price could test the $3.050 support area in the near term.

Read more at newsbtc.com

(Trading at $3.22 at 14:00 09 October 2019)

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has announced the launch of the eighth phase of its lending product on Oct. 7.

In this phase, Binance will start offering 14-day fixed-term lending products. The subscribers will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis. The subscription period begins on Oct. 10 and ends on Nov. 10, while interest will be paid immediately after the term matures.

Read more at cointelegraph.com

(Trading at $16.98at 14:00 09 October 2019)

Bitcoin Association announces its title sponsorship of the Cambridge University Metanet Society for the 2019-2020 academic year to support study and development of Bitcoin SV. The Society will use the financial support to conduct events that educate and promote the powerful capabilities of the BSV protocol, blockchain, and cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin Association is the global industry organization for the business of Bitcoin. It supports Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV) as the only cryptocurrency with a blockchain that significantly scales (now), has robust utility (now), and is committed to a set-in-stone protocol for developers to build enterprise-level applications (now). BSV is also the only project that adheres to the original design of Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto. In short, BSV is Bitcoin.

Read more at coingeek.com

(Trading at $84.78 at 14:00 09 October 2019)

Stellars Lumen slipped by 0.41% on Tuesday. Partially reversing 7.87% rally on Monday, Stellars Lumen ended the day at $0.062087.

Tracking the broader market, Stellars Lumen rallied to an early morning intraday high $0.064129.

Falling short of the first major resistance level at $0.06480, Stellars Lumen slid to a late intraday low $0.060934.

Stellars Lumen came within range of the first major support level at $0.0593 before finding support.

Read more at fxempire.com

(Trading at $0.062703 at 14:00 09 October 2019)

For your daily top cryptocurrency news and price updates, be sure to check in daily at 14:00.

Read more here:

Latest cryptocurrency news and prices, 09 October 2019 - The South African