Satoshi Nakamoto is inventor of the Bitcoin protocol, publishing a paper outlining it via the Cryptography Mailing List on November, 1 2008.

He then released the first version of the Bitcoin software client in 2009 and participated with others on the project via mailing lists until he finally began to fade from the community toward the end of 2010.

Nakamoto worked with people on the open source Bitcoin team but took care never to reveal anything personal about himself. The last anyone heard from him was in the spring of 2011, when he said that he had moved on to other things.

But he was Japanese, right?

Satoshi means clear thinking, quick witted, wise. Naka can mean medium, inside or relationship. Moto can mean origin or foundation.

Those things would all apply to the person who founded a movement by designing a clever algorithm. The problem, of course, is that each word has multiple possible meanings.

It is not known for sure whether Satoshi Nakamoto was Japanese or not. In fact, its rather presumptuous to assume that he was actually a he. Allowing for the fact that this could have been a pseudonym, he could have been a she, or even a they.

Does anyone know whoNakamoto was?

No, but the detective techniques that people use when guessing are sometimes even more intriguing than the answer. The New Yorkers Joshua Davis believed that Satoshi Nakamotowas Michael Clear, a graduate cryptography student at Dublins Trinity College.

He arrived at this conclusion by analyzing 80,000 words of Nakamotos online writings and searching for linguistic clues. He also suspected Finnish economic sociologist and former games developer Vili Lehdonvirta. Both have denied being Bitcoins inventor.Michael Clear publicly denied being Satoshi at the 2013 Web Summit.

Anonymous group of people

Adam Penenberg at FastCompany argued instead that Nakamoto may actually have been three people: Neal King, Vladimir Oksman and Charles Bry. He figured this out by typing unique phrases from Nakamotos Bitcoin paper into Google to see if they were used anywhere else. One of them, computationally impractical to reverse, turned up in a patent application made by these three for updating and distributing encryption keys. The bitcoin.org domain name originally used by Satoshi to publish the paper had been registered three days after the patent application was filed. It was registered in Finland, and one of the patent authors had traveled there six months before the domain was registered. All of them deny it.

In any case, when bitcoin.org was registered on August 18th 2008, the registrant actually used a Japanese anonymous registration service and hosted it using a Japan-based ISP. The registration for the site was only transferred to Finland on May 18th 2011, which weakens the Finland theory somewhat. Others think that it was Martii Malmi, a developer living in Finland who has been involved with bitcoin since the beginning and developed its user interface.

A finger has also been pointed at Jed McCaleb, lover of Japanese culture and fomer resident of Japan. McCaleb created troubled bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox. He also co-founded industry startups Ripple and Stellar.

Another theory suggests that computer scientists Donal OMahony and Michael Peirce are Satoshi based on a paper they authored concerning digital payments along with Hitesh Tewari, based on a book that they published together. OMahony and Tewari also studied at Trinity College, where Michael Clear was a student.

Israeli scholarsDorit Ron and Adi Shamir of the Weizmann Institute retracted allegations made in a paper suggesting a link between Satoshi and Silk Road, the black market web site that was taken down by the FBI in October 2013. They had suggested a link between an address allegedly owned by Satoshi and the site. Security researcherDustin D. Trammell owned the address, and disputed claims that he was Satoshi Nakamoto.

In May 2013, Internet pioneer TedNelson threw another hat into the ring: Japanese mathematicianProfessor Shinichi Mochizuki, although he admits that the evidence is circumstantial at best.

In February 2014, Newsweeks Leah McGrath Goodman claimed to have tracked downthe real Satoshi Nakamoto. Dorian S. Nakamoto has since denied he knows anything about bitcoin, eventually hiring a lawyer and releasing an official statement to that effect.

No, Satoshi Nakamoto is not a Japanese man living in California.

Hal Finney, Michael Weber, Wei Dai and several other developers were among those who are periodically named in media reports and online discussions as potential Satoshi Nakamoto candidates.A group of forensic linguistics experts from Aston Universitybelieve the real creator of bitcoin is Nick Szabo, based upon analysis of the Bitcoin whitepaper.

Dominic Frisby, a comedian and writer, also suggests that bit gold creatorSzabo was the most likely candidate to be Satoshi in hisbook, Bitcoin: The Future of Money. His detailed analysis involved thelinguistics of Satoshis writing, judging the level of technical skill in C++and evenSatoshis likely birthday.

In Nathaniel Poppers book, Digitial Gold, released in May 2015, Popper reveals that in a rare encounter at an event Szabo denied that he was Satoshi.

In early December 2015,reports by Wired and Gizmodotentativelyclaimed to have identified Nakamoto as Australian entrepreneur Craig S Wright.WIREDcited an anonymous source close to Wright who provided a cache of emails, transcripts and other documents that point to Wrights role in the creation of bitcoin.Gizmodocited documents sourced from someone claiming to have hacked Wrights business email account as well as efforts to interview individuals close to him.The idea that the Wright-Satoshi connection is nothing but a hoax has been floated byobservers, though.

What is known?

One thing that is known, based on interviews with people that were involved at an early stage in the development of bitcoin, is that Satoshi Nakamoto thought Bitcoin out very thoroughly. His coding wasnt conventional, according to core developer Jeff Garzik, in that he didnt apply the same rigorous testing expected from a classic software engineer.

How rich is he?

An analysis by Sergio Lerner, an authority on Bitcoin and cryptography, suggests that Satoshi mined many of the early blocks in the network, and that he had around 1 million BTC.

What is he doing now?

No one knows what Satoshi is up to, but one of the last emails he sent to a software developer, dated April 23 2011, said Ive moved on to other things. Its in good hands with Gavin and everyone.

Did he work for the government?

There are rumors, of course. The obvious question would be why one of the three-letter agencies would be interested in creating a cryptocurrency that would subsequently be used as an anonymous trading mechanism, causing senators and the FBI alike to wring their hands about potential terrorism and other criminal endeavors.

Perhaps it doesnt matter. Core developer Jeff Garzik puts it succinctly. Satoshi published an open-source system for the purpose that you didnt have to know who he was, and trust who he was, or care about his knowledge, he said. Open source code makes it impossible to hide secrets. The source code spoke for itself, Garzik added. Moreover, it was smart to use a pseudonym, he argues, because it forced people to focus on the technology itself rather than on the personality behind it. At the end of the day, bitcoin is now far bigger than Satoshi Nakamoto.

Having said that, if the real Satoshi Nakamoto is out there get in touch!

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Satoshi Nakamoto - CoinDesk

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Nothing fires the imagination like an anonymous hero with a secret identity. Its been an enduring trope since the Scarlet Pimpernel rescued his first aristocrat from Madame la Guillotine. From Batman to the street artist Banksy, each hero has his own reason for donning the mask of anonymity.

This phenomenon has come to the world of finance in the person of Satoshi Nakamoto, the so-called father of Bitcoin. He appeared out of the ether in 2008 and disappeared just as abruptly three years later, after establishing the worlds first cryptocurrency. On April 23, 2011, he sent a farewell email to a fellow Bitcoin developer. Ive moved on to other things, he wrote, assuring that the future of Bitcoin was in good hands. He has not been heard from since.

Today, Bitcoin is valued at more than $1 trillion, and while Nakamotos identity might be simply a matter of speculation for some, it means far more to others: He is said to own over 1 million Bitcoins with a current value hovering somewhere around $60 billion. Thats equivalent to about 5 percent of the total number of bitcoins currently in circulation.

Should the personor personsbehind the name Satoshi Nakamoto decide to sell just some of this hoard, the transaction would completely upend the cryptocurrency market. Cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase, which went public on the Nasdaq on April 14, noted the potential revelation of Nakamotos identity (and the movement of that persons Bitcoin holdings) as a risk factor in its IPO filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Coinbase even went so far as to send a copy of the filing to the last known email address for Nakamoto.

Increasingly, financial services behemoths like BlackRock, JPMorgan and BNY Mellon are offering cryptocurrencies and related services to their customers, adding legitimacy to an asset that Berkshire Hathaways Charlie Munger once characterized as contrary to the interests of civilization.

Bitcoin came to life when Nakamoto published his famous white paper on a cryptography mailing list describing a digital currency that would allow secure, peer-to-peer transactions without the involvement of any middleman, whether that be the government, financial system or a company. These transactions would be tracked through a blockchain, a ledger like those used by any financial institution, except that this ledger would be distributed across an entire network, with exact duplicates held by all participants and visible to all, secured by cryptographic means. There would never be more than 21 million Bitcoin.

Nakamoto created his cryptocurrency with the goal of wresting control of currency from financial elites and putting it in the hands of the common man. The first Bitcoin transaction occurred when Nakamoto sent 10 Bitcoins to Hal Finney, a well-known developer who had downloaded the Bitcoin software on its release date. The first commercial transaction came in 2010, when a programmer named Laszlo Hanyecz bought himself two Papa Johns pizzas for 10,000 Bitcoin. At Bitcoins current price of nearly $60,000, those were some very expensive pizzas.

Bitcoin is open source, meaning its design is public. No one person owns or controls Bitcoin, and anyone can participate. While Satoshi continued to control Bitcoins development, users and developers congregated in Bitcoin forums to contribute code and work on the project, which had become a collaborative effort. The users running the Bitcoin software were the ultimate authority.

Many programmers and developers have written code for Bitcoin, but Gavin Andresen was one of the most enthusiastic. He reached out to Nakamoto in 2010 and became the founders right-hand man. When Nakamoto withdrew from sight, he left Bitcoin in Andresens hands. Today, even Andresen himself has grown more reclusive: He no longer serves as core maintainer of Bitcoins code; in fact, that role may soon become as decentralized as the cryptocurrency itself.

Throughout the history of Bitcoin, efforts to unveil Nakamoto have continued unabated. Gossips in cryptocurrency forums have engaged in wild speculation: Nakamoto is a member of the Yakuza, part of a cabal of developers, a money-launderer or maybe even a woman.

In 2014, a reporter from Newsweek identified 70-year-old Dorian Nakamoto, a soft-spoken resident of Los Angeles, as Bitcoins creator. While his long and distinguished career in engineering was cited as evidence, Nakamoto has vehemently denied any involvement with the cryptocurrency. The day after Dorian Nakamoto released a public statement, Satoshi surfaced in an online forum. He posted I am not Dorian Nakamoto before vanishing once again.

Dorian Nakamoto, a 70-year-old resident of Los Angeles, vehemently denied a 2014 Newsweek report that he was the founder of Bitcoin. Sakatoshi Nakamoto also released a statement refuting the claim.Nick Ut/Associated Press

Australian Craig Wright claimed to be Nakamoto in 2016, and Bitcoin developer Andresen corroborated the statement, saying he was 98 percent sure that Wright was the elusive Satoshi. The cryptocurrency community wasnt having it, and Wright backed away from the claim.

Suspicion also fell upon Nick Szabo, a secretive crypto expert who contributed significantly to the development of Bitcoin. Linguistic researchers analyzed Szabos writing as well as writing from other suspected Satoshis. The linguists claimed that there were definitive similarities between Szabos writings and Satoshi Nakamotos. The New York Times even went so far as to pin Szabo as the shadowy Nakamoto, but Szabo strenuously denied the claims.

The upshot is that Satoshi Nakamoto remains anonymous, a mythical creature with a Bitcoin stash of epic proportions. He has strong incentives to remain anonymous. Owning a $60 billion fortune makes personal security a compelling concern. Given Bitcoins potential to challenge sovereign fiat currencies, Nakomoto could fear potential legal actions by governmentsif not other forms of government sanction.

Unquestionably, efforts to uncover the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto will continue. The threat he poses to the cryptocurrency market is too great and the mystery surrounding his identity is too compelling. In a world where anonymity is increasingly difficult to pursue, Satoshi Nakamoto has succeeded beyond imagination in keeping his secrets.

Rebecca Baldridge, CFA, is an investment professional and financial writer with over 20 years of experience in the financial services industry. She is a founding partner in Quartet Communications, a financial communications and content creation firm.

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Why The Father of Bitcoin Is Nowhere to Be Found - Robb Report

The massive popularity of crypto-industry is visible in numbers. For example, the bitcoin market cap reached more than $1 billion and blockchain is expected to hit $23.3 billion. The general market cap of cryptocurrencies is expected to hit $1087,7 billion by 2026. Due to these very eye-catching numbers, crypto banks remain on the rise, while the traditional banking system already is undergoing several backlashes.

The public survey has shown that 79% of Americans have heard of cryptocurrency and a big number of them are investing in it. One of the biggest markets coinbase has verified more than 56 million users. To compare the engagement of the website to the traditional investment management company Fidelity. According to the official statistics, they have 35 million user accounts. Cryptocurrency banks are surpassing traditional banks, but what about traditional institutions?

Crypto banks VS Traditional Banks

The terms such as Blockchain, AI, cryptocurrencies are the ones that are trending on almost every platform where the financial market is discussed. This is a period when we are facing significant changes and those changes are especially driven by the crypto-industry as the number of transactions is increasing not from year to year but on a daily basis. It is assumed by the financial experts that the compound annual growth rate will be roughly to say 12 % by 2024. This is when people started questioning the role or even the future of tradition. Fiat currencies, while we have been using traditional currencies for centuries already, the massive use of cryptocurrency will help it to gain the role of technologies in our lives even more. One of the major obstacles that traditional banks are facing in comparison to crypto banks is that the transaction speed is way lower than in the case of executing crypto transactions.

Limitations of traditional banks

The use of cryptocurrency makes the transaction and investment process way different from what we are used to during the last few decades. The global financial crisis that occurred in 2008 has shown the entire world that the banking system is also vulnerable to economic challenges. When it became clear that those financial institutions could not secure their funds, the demand for alternative ways of securing their funds was massively increased. This is when Satoshi Nakamoto invented the first-ever virtual asset, named bitcoin.

The main advantage of it was to remove the traditional banking payment system from the process, also known as third-party involvement. Today we see that the price change in one bitcoin is wild since it has reached the historical maximum of $64,000.

The role of decentralized technology

The obstacles that the traditional banking system created for the people, was its own policy, regulations, and mainly, interest rates that promoted the insufficient processes for the clients. The new crypto payment system was offering them the service that not a single bank was able to provide them with, this is a customer-centric approach and they are given the possibility to hold the assets anonymously.

The solution to the complex banking system was the decentralized banking process, which first came up in Nakamotos head. This new system has its own risks of course, but it also has advantages that people cannot refuse to take.

Digital Dollar

The Federal Reserve has announced that they are about to implement the digital dollar in summer 2021. This does not mean that the digital dollar will be cryptocurrency, neither will it be decentralized, nor will it be built on blockchain technology. It will be a traditional, fiat currency in a digitized form.

The main reason why the government has decided to create the digital dollar is to make even economically poor Americans gain access to the banking system. This might also be an attempt to overcome the challenge that the crypto-industry has created for the traditional banking systems. Many other huge corporations that operate on the financial market, for example, Mastercard and Visa are trying to collaborate with the central banks to create a customer-oriented approach and modify the old-fashioned system.

Crypto Banking

There are a plethora of crypto enterprises however, crypto banking means the process of how digital currencies get introduced into the market in order to be exchanged or transacted. There are special crypto platforms created that allow registered users to hold or store virtual assets. When we say crypto banks, we mean the apps for the platforms that are created online. The users, while signing in to their accounts are able to see their secured digital wallets and execute the transactions they wish for, and all those happening just in seconds.

It is believed that the whole crypto banking system has a bright future ahead. There are still big security challenges that not only the crypto-industry but the blockchain system has to overcome as they both have a superior nature.

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Crypto banks are gaining momentum over traditional banks - Finextra

Elon Musk has become a name known to any person remotely aware of cryptocurrency. With over 55 Million followers, the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and The Boring Company seems to be shaking the crypto world with his witty tweets. His relationship with cryptocurrencies has been a complex one. First, he loved them, and then he endorsed them, now he thinks it's terrible for the environment.

Every time he tweets about cryptocurrencies, the market seems to react to them. As an aftermath of these tweets, CoinSwitch Kuber stated that there is usually a surge in their trade volumes.

Does that indicate that Elon Musks tweets are solely responsible for the crypto market movements? Let us discuss it in more detail.

Twitter, Elon and cryptocurrencyElon Musk's tweets are known for his pronouncements on cryptocurrency. He has amassed a considerable fanbase in the crypto market using Twitter.

In 2014, Elon first mentioned bitcoin to be 'probably a good thing'. Soon rumours were stating that he could be Satoshi Nakamoto (pseudonym of the Bitcoin founder). As a response, the entrepreneur tweeted. "Not true. A friend sent me part of a BTC a few years ago, but I don't know where it is."

Amidst many institutions such as Microstrategy, Square etc., coming forward

to invest in Bitcoin as a hedge against inflation, Tesla announced that they had invested in $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin. Eventually, Elon also tweeted that Tesla will be accepting payments for their cars in Bitcoin too. The announcement came as a big cheer for the crypto community, and many new investors entered the market. An institutional giant such as Tesla backing the game only added to its credibility. Soon after he announced this, Bitcoin reached its then all-time high price of $58,000.

Elon Musk changes his mindIn April, Tesla sold 10% of its Bitcoin holdings, causing panic among investors. Elon responded to this with a tweet stating that Tesla sold Bitcoin only to test its liquidity and that he still holds his Bitcoin investment.

Soon after this, Elon Musk broke the hearts of many investors with tweets that seemed to question the environmental impact of the asset. He sent out a tweet that said Tesla would no longer be accepting payments in Bitcoin owing to the high energy consumption of Bitcoin in the mining process.

This decision sent cryptocurrencies into a downward spiral, and Bitcoin fell to nearly $30,000.

When confronted about his stance on crypto, his tweet read, "The true battle is between fiat & crypto. On balance, I support the latter".

Earlier this week, he continued to toy with crypto. He took to Twitter to indicate his support to help miners make their processes greener. Following the tweets, Bitcoin jumped 19% to trade at $39,944, which had earlier slumped to nearly $30,000.

Are Elon's tweets solely responsible for the crypto volatility?The above account seems to paint a picture that Elon has the power to move the crypto markets with his tweets. However, a deeper look into the working of crypto as an investment suggests otherwise.

We could distinguish the price cycle of any asset into four phases - Accumulation, Markup, Distribution and Markdown. This natural cycle that any investment goes through is vital for its growth and sustenance in the long run.

When the crypto market picked up towards the end of 2020, it went through the accumulation phase, where many investors entered the market. Towards mid-February 2021, the currency marked up and settled at an all-time high of $60,000. The distribution phase began when the RSI indicator showed that the asset was overbought, slowly triggering a markdown.

The meltdown in the case of cryptocurrencies has indeed taken a toll on investor sentiments. However, the fall was not sudden because Elon is tweeting a bunch about it.

If you take a look at the historical prices of BTC, you will notice that there was a steep fall in its value even before Tesla made any announcements.

Elon Musk took a U-turn regarding his opinion on Bitcoin later on 12th May, indicating that it was not the first downtrend in its value.

Many technical analysts believe that Bitcoin was overbought at that point and needed a trigger to fall and correct itself. Elon Musk's tweet just acted as a catalyst for the much-anticipated correction in the crypto market.

Will the crypto market recover?Bitcoin has fallen over 30% this month, but its value remains 300% higher than last year. The fall of this scale could be a tiny blip for an asset with great potential, such as Bitcoin itself.

Elon Musk questioning Bitcoin's environmental impact did indeed play a role in affecting the investors' sentiments. However, it was not the sole reason for the market fall. Just like his tweets, many other factors only act as a catalyst for driving investor sentiments.

Extreme volatility isn't a new phenomenon but an innate characteristic of this new asset class. Volatility is what enables intense growth in the value of cryptocurrencies.

However, attributing the rise and fall of a global asset to just one person's actions seems unwise. Cryptocurrency is not owned or controlled by a single individual/organization. It is a community in itself.

While there may be trigger points for investor sentiments, exchanges like CoinSwitch Kuber believe that cryptocurrencies' long-term outlook remains bullish.

Disclaimer: The above content is non-editorial, and TIL hereby disclaims any and all warranties, express or implied, relating to the same. TIL does not guarantee, vouch for or necessarily endorse any of the above content, nor is responsible for them in any manner whatsoever. The article does not constitute investment advice. Please take all steps necessary to ascertain that any information and content provided is correct, updated and verified.

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Extent of Elon Musk's influence on cryptocurrency; where is it headed? - Economic Times

This crypto bull run has shown many similarities to what happened in the 2017 run-up. In that cycle, cryptocurrencies seemed to be sprouting out of the ground at an alarming rate.

There was a mania of initial coin offerings and it was hard to discern what projects were real and which ones were outright scams. Today, there are over 10,000 different cryptocurrencies, all promising new use cases.

Dont miss out on how smart money is playing the crypto game. Subscribe to our premium newsletter - Crypto Investor.

With the recent Dogecoin craze, several cryptos popped up that seemed entirely fake. Ones like Siba Inu, Akita Inu, Dogelon and more. They all seemed to be capitalizing on Dogecoin's success with meme culture investments, but what about SafeMoon? Is it trying to do the same or is it a serious project?

SafeMoon is a BEP-20 token launched on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) ecosystem on March 8, 2021. BSC is a centralized finance (CeFi) ecosystem and a competitor to Ethereums decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem.

SafeMoon has quickly risen to be Binance's third-largest token by market capitalization.

Its website says that the cryptocurrency has three core components. The first is reflection. This is where SafeMoontransactionsare charged a fee which gets distributed among holders of the token.

The second is a fee charged on transactions that will be given to various liquidity pools on Pancake Swap and other platforms.

The third component is a token burn that occurs on each trade. Nowhere in the whitepaper, or the rest of the site, does it clarify the percentage of each transaction that gets burned. It only says that transactions are taxed a 10% fee that is split two ways.

5% goes to reflection rewards and 5% to liquidity pools. 2.5% of the 5% that is sent to liquidity pools is converted into Binance Coin (BNB) to ensure the liquidity of the SafeMoon and Binance Coin pair.

In the SafeMoon whitepaper, it states that they intend to have manual token burns done by the team. These burns do not seem to be prebuilt mechanisms in SafeMoon's protocol but will be done at the team's discretion.

"Having burns controlled by the team and promoted based on achievements helps to keep the community rewarded and informed. SafeMoon aims to implement a burn strategy that is beneficial and rewarding for those engaged for the long term. Furthermore, the total number of SAFEMOON burned is featured on our readout located on the website"

https://safemoon.net/#about

It's unclear what criteria the team uses to make these decisions, nor is it clear what level of autonomy the team has in changing SafeMoon's max supply. The team's ability to burn tokens at their discretion could allow for potential manipulation of supply and price.

As seen above, 416 trillion SafeMoon have been burned so far. This quantity is accurately represented by the following wallet which looks to be SafeMoon's burn address.

https://bscscan.com/token/0x8076c74c5e3f5852037f31ff0093eeb8c8add8d3?a=0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000001

SafeMoon currently ranks 202 on coinmarketcap with a market capitalization of $2.9 billion and a circulating supply of 585 trillion tokens. The total supply of SafeMoon is one quadrillion tokens.

The token is run by a group of six that all look to have some degree of previous work history together.

https://safemoon.net/#team

According to LinkedIn profiles The CEO, John Karony, CTO, Thomas Smith and Community Manager, Trevor Church, founded and worked together at an indie game studio called TANO, an acronym for Technically A New Operation.

TANO's site only has the words "Alpha Launch Coming." So it's unclear if this is a functioning business or something yet to come.

The CTO, Thomas Smith, has the most established work history of the group with various software engineering roles held at a number of companies.

The rest of the team seems to have varying degrees of experience in web development, game development or general management. Henry "Hank" Wyatt, SafeMoon's VP of research and development, also founded a game development company, according to his LinkedIn. Unforetunealty, the website leads to a 521 error from the host's end. SafeMoon's web developer, Jacob Smith, apparently worked for this game development company as well.

On Jacob Smith's LinkedIn he states that he "Worked as the lead website developer working on several of their projects. Work is on hold atm due to the lack thereof."

Henry Wyatt is the only team member to have earned a four-year degree. The rest look to have spent brief periods at universities or colleges.

While education or experience at larger companies is not prerequisites for creating a cryptocurrency, their previous work history and credentials seem a bit unclear. They promote SafeMoon on their Twitter accounts, which isn't that out of the ordinary from crypto project leaders, but it's hard to say how genuine the project is or how qualified they are.

The site also has SafeMoon related merchandise for sale, including hoodies, hats, sweatpants and more. This isn't very typical for a cryptocurrency project, though proceeds could be used for development money.

As mentioned, SafeMoon is a BEP-20 token issued on the Binance Smart Chain. The creator of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, has admitted that BSC is not decentralized. In a since-deleted tweet,Zhao called BSC "CeDeFi," which is short for centralized DeFi and a bit of an oxymoron.

The Binance Smart Chain uses a consensus mechanism called proof of authority. In proof of authority, the block creators are known as validators. These validators are pre-approved and chosen by Binance. To be approved, they must confirm their real identities, invest money to prove long-term commitment and be equal to all other candidates. This makes proof of authority reputation-based by design.

In this model, Binance has absolute control over the blockchain. They decide who becomes a validator and they remove validators at their discretion. All of the chain's users must trust that Binance will behave in everyone's best interest. Should Binance decide to alter any aspects of the chain or ecosystem it has the power to do so.

Bitcoin uses a totally different consensus mechanism called proof of work. Proof of work was the original consensus mechanism used by blockchains and has proved to be very effective at securing a decentralized system from bad actors.

In proof of work, computers compete with each other to process and validate transactions. To win this competition, the computer must solve complex mathematical puzzles. Once they've won, the computer adds a new block of transactions to the blockchain. These computers are also known as miners and they are given Bitcoin for completing a new block of transactions.

This process is very energy-intensive and helps to secure the network. Enough miners geographically distributed makes for a decentralized network without a central authority, which is drastically different than how the BSC operates. Today, Bitcoin is a massively distributed and decentralized network with many thousands of nodes and miners across the globe.

Choosing to invest in SafeMoon is a personal decision that should be made based on how much risk you would like to take. The success of SafeMoon depends on Binance, the SafeMoon team and whatever community is built around it.

Acalculated investment in SafeMoon would require the investor to take into account the centralization of the Binance Smart Chain and how much control Binance has over it. It would also require a level of faith in the legitimacy of the SafeMoon team, which has little proof of previous success. While people need to get their start somewhere, a healthy dose of skepticism can go a long way.

SafeMoon, along with all other tokens on the Binance Smart Chain, is effectively at the whim of Binance with the centralized nature of proof of authority. If Satoshi Nakamoto returned and could make direct edits to Bitcoin's code and have it implemented to every miner and node in the network it would no longer be decentralized and would therefore reduce faith in the system.

An investment in SafeMoon in its current stage would be pure speculation as it is not yet a proven team or project. That said, all ships tend to rise with the tide. Should Bitcoin continue on its trajectory in this bull market there could be a chance SafeMoon will increase as well, and other speculative investors could push it higher, but these are risky bets to make.

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Is SafeMoon Really a Safe Investment? - TheStreet

Cryptocurrencies are a digital form of money, also called virtual currencies or cryptocurrencies, which use digital encryption and have the main function of constituting a means of payment.

It is a digital asset that works using a peer-to-peer or person-to-person network, called P2P (just as other programs worked at the beginning of the year 2000, as means for exchanging files). They were created in 2009 by "Satoshi Nakamoto". and, to date, the identity of this person is unknown. It is unknown if he/she is an individual or group of people, since he/she is only known by its pseudonym. The idea of creating the cryptocurrency called Bitcoin arose after the great international economic crisis that affected hundreds of countries and millions of people. The intention was to create a new way to carry out international transactions quickly and safely without so many requirements and / or protocols, since there is no financial entity that regulates it. Its issuance is decentralized because it is notlinked to any particular State or issuing bank. The design of Bitcoin allows the transfer of values between accounts anonymously and without intermediaries, since transfers are made directly from person to person, thus reducing costs, since no intermediary is used and no commission must be paid.

In addition, its system is so sophisticated that it is almost impossible for it to be forged, which makes it a more secure mechanism than a transfer between bank accounts.

It is important to mention that cryptocurrency transactions are irreversible and their main feature is their anonymity since it isnt necessary to reveal any identity when carrying out transactions, thus preserving the privacy of the parties.

Today, cryptocurrencies are used in different acts of international trade. Although their use is not regulated worldwide, in our country there is a draft law, presented on October 22, 2020, that seeks to regulate the use of virtual currencies or cryptocurrencies and the forms of transaction with them in the territory of the Republic of Panama.

Said draft law, in its article 3, numeral 1, defines cryptocurrencies or virtual currencies as "an asset of a virtual nature, which is represented in a value thats registered electronically and that can be used by people as a form payment for any type of legal act and whose transfer can only be carried out through electronic means ".

If approved, this law has, amongst its objectives, to increase tax collection since it is intended to tax any transaction carried out with virtual currencies and thereby contribute a portion of the proceeds to the Disability, Old Age and Death Fund (nown in Spanish as IVM) of the Social Security Fund. It also contemplates the creation of the Cryptocurrency Fluctuation Reserve Fund, which will be attached to the General Directorate of Income, that will administer a percentage of the tax paid as on cryptocurrency operations.

It is extremely important that the uses of commerce go hand in hand with technology. Countries that do not adjust to this new reality and update their laws will loose competitiveness within the international trade and their economies will surely be affected.

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The government of Panama in search of cryptocurrencies regulation - Lexology

After years of obscurity when it was only really known inside computer circles, Bitcoin is now world-famous. Nearly everyone knows about the cryptocurrency that was supposedly created by the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009. Even so, a large proportion of the worlds population is still to be convinced about it. Aside from Bitcoins struggles to go mainstream, it also needs to convince the world that it is sustainable. While there are many advantages to the introduction of this cryptocurrency, there are also some detrimental effects on the environment.

One of the main concerns to do with Bitcoin is the amount of energy required to mine it. Recent studies have brought to light some questions as to whether cryptocurrency is sustainable as a long term alternative to existing currencies. As nations across the world are in the process of reducing their impact on the planet, it doesnt seem to be the right time to introduce a currency that is going to take a vast amount of power to run. Indeed, if Bitcoin doesnt find a renewable energy source to run from, it could be reined in by governments before it has even begun.

It was recently claimed by the BBC that Bitcoin uses more electricity than Argentina. When people mine cryptocurrency, they need to use high-powered computers that are designed to solve complex algorithms. At any given mine, there will be a multitude of computers working on solving the problems that result in the release of Bitcoin. However, some other articles have claimed that the overall energy consumption is hard to measure and that the doom and gloom reports could be way off.

It has been noted that the statistics put forth by sites like the BBC have skewed them for dramatic effect. Bitcoin may use more electricity on a whole than Argentina, but it doesnt account for the main energy consumption of most nations in the world. In actuality, countries use more energy from oil, gas, and coal than they do from electricity. With that in mind, even though it sounds like Bitcoin uses a great deal of energy, it may not be quite as bad as some publications are trying to make out.

The main thing that works in Bitcoins favour that a lot of people may not realize, is the fact that most money that already exists is virtual. Indeed, only eight per cent of the worlds wealth exists as physical cash and coins. The rest of it is all zeros and ones, stored in computer hard drives in electronic banks. This shows that the planet is already prepared to go fully digital when it comes to money.

All the signs point to cash being on the way out. There are many reasons why handing over pieces of paper in exchange for items is not something that will continue in the future. Hygiene, safety, and convenience are all issues when it comes to cash and coins, and all of these things can be rectified with virtual currencies. The fact that people can carry cards and phones that can be used to perform transactions renders cash useless. However, there is still a way to go until every merchant in the world can accept these methods of payment.

When the world does go fully cashless, it will also give rise to arguments as to whether countries actually need their own individual currencies. The fact that most European countries already gave up their past currencies in exchange for the Euro shows that this uniformity is a real possibility. If the world decided to go down this route, it would need one currency to represent every country. Bitcoin is well-placed to fulfil this purpose if that ever comes to pass.

The borderless world of the internet could be the first place to see a global currency. When people perform transactions online, many of these take place internationally. A consumer who has to complete payments using a different currency to the seller may be at the mercy of fluctuating exchange rates. But if both people were using the same cryptocurrency, this wouldnt be an issue.

People have already grown accustomed to using online payment systems as an alternative to traditional options. Businesses that exist online have found that offering a wide variety of choice is a great way to attract customers. According to Vegasslotsonline, in the online casino industry, credit cards and debit cards are still the most commonly used forms of payment. Naturally, offering a wider set of payment methods allows for more customers to use your services. But people are growing fonder of other options such as PayPal, Neteller, and Entropay. It seems that the sites that can provide the most varied options are the ones that attract the most players.

Other areas of the gaming industry are using these systems as well. Console players have long been able to use PayPal in the online game stores. Mobile gamers are also accustomed to having to download apps with digital systems. All of these new platforms have helped build peoples trust in online payments, and have allowed people to get used to the idea of transferring funds in this way. All of this has paved the way for Bitcoin to be accepted by the general public.

It certainly seems as though the benefits of Bitcoin outweigh the negatives. If its true about the environmental impact of the cryptocurrency, there is no doubt that it will need to find sustainable ways of using energy to move forward. But if this comes to fruition, Bitcoin could easily become the world currency.

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What Are the Pros and Cons of Bitcoin? - LA Progressive

The arrival of NFTs in the mainstream has brought a new crowd to cryptocurrency and its blockchain technology.

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are tied to files, like serial numbers, to show ownership. Theyve become popular among the arts and collectibles crowd.

The format exploded in sales during a high point of this springs digital markets. But projections differ wildly. One suggests NFT markets will double by October. Another says sales are cooling.

Not everyone is on board with NFTs, or the crypto-currency ecosystem. Some, who are just becoming aware of the format, are joining environmentalists and others who criticize the cryptoworlds energy-consuming mining process.

The industry has critics from the finance side, as well. Critics say market upheavals in Bitcoin and other digital currencies mean the digital markets are full of hype, and show instability.

Still, Illinois State University finance professor Alan Cring is among many who believe in riding out the wild rides of the markets even with last weeks crypto market crash. Cryptocurrencies have real staying power, he said.

Google Maps

And he's not alone, although most stores around here don't use cryptocurrency yet, crypto ATMs are turning up everywhere. A quick search of Google maps shows dozens of locations in the Twin Cities allow using a debit card to buy crypto.

There will be ups and downs in this. But as it expands, and as more and more very powerful and wealthy institutions and other entities get involved in it, theyre not going to let this go down,said Cring.

Many blame the crash on Chinas altcoin crackdown, U.S. regulatory talk, and on Tesla founder Elon Musk as an influencer. He has waffled on Bitcoin support, often blasting his views on social media.

The volatility also matters to digital artist Ryan Bliss of rural McLean County. Bliss said some NFT marketplaces have open access, meaning they could prey on artists unfamiliar with the upload process. Transaction fees sometimes are high, regardless if the artist ends up earning any profits.

Thats what I worry about, that these community marketplaces are kind of taking advantage of the hype and selling shovels during the gold rush, said Bliss.

Others say the biggest obstacle for cryptocurrency is also its strongest feature; it isnt tied to a country. Illinois Wesleyan University finance professor Jaime Peters said decentralization having the checks and balances performed by users as a whole was core to the creators of industry giant Bitcoin.

That platform disrupted the financial world in 2009 when launched by Satoshi Nakamoto (the pseudonym of the person or group behind the launch.) In little over a decade, the landscape has evolved to many platforms.

Whats behind Bitcoin? Theres nothing. Theres nothing there. Theres no central government manipulating it, which is true. But theres also no central government supporting it, said Peters.

These cryptocurrency platforms make the users as a collective responsible, rather than in individual company or government.

There is nobody responsible for any problem happening. So, theres no guarantee of protection, echoed Shaoen Wu, State Farm Endowed Chair for ISUs cybersecurity program. He's in favor of more regulations for the industry.

Some investors like cryptocurrency's decentralized model because of its low-interest rates and possible high yield, according to Jim Jones, executive director of ISUs Katie School of Insurance and Financial Services.

He said cryptocurrency also can be a way to diversify portfolios, beyond the traditional options of gold, platinum, or silver. Typically you have those commodities, so when the world seems more risky, you have something to fall back on if big wars disrupt these real-life currencies. Maybe, cryptocurrencies could be that, he said.

Other investors dont like the lack of consumer protection, and the fact criminals use the virtual cash to get non-traceable payoffs, said Jones.

The recent Colonial Pipeline cyberattack resulted in a ransom of $4.4 million dollars in Bitcoin.

Minings environmental costs

Then theres global climate change drawing other critics to the scene.

One of the biggest criticisms of the cryptocurrency world is its reliance on a proof-of-work model. Earlier this month, Teslas Musk joined the vocal critics, calling on the industry to move away from the model -that uses a ton of fossil fuels.

This spring, as NFTs gained a huge following, it also brought more people to consider the concerns about the carbon footprint from NFTs processing.

Bliss said many in the digital arts community paid attention when ArtStation announced plans to launch its own NFT platform. Less than a day later, they ditched the plan because of so much backlash.

And Bliss said on one of his Digital Blasphemy social media pages, a recent discussion on NFTs drew more than 250 comments. Most of the artists, and art fans, on the thread seemed to be collectively scratching their head about the new format. Many were concerned about the environmental costs.

ISUs Cring also is a digital artist. Hes uploaded some of his art as NFTs. He said Bliss concerns about artists getting swept up in a gold rush mentality has some truth to it. So, he encourages fellow artists to research marketplaces before making the leap to creating NFTs. Some marketplaces only will charge "gas," or transaction fees, if the NFT sells.

But it's much more common that gas fees are part of the uploading process, regardless if an item sells. Those gas fees are an environmental concern.

A move to more energy-efficient models

Cryptocurrencys infrastructure created with Bitcoins launch is blockchain. Thats a decentralized, digital ledger. Peters said think of the record keeping like this: First, we used a single bank, then a computer network and later a cloud. Now we have blockchain.

It sits on thousands and thousands of computers, she said. Instead of a single government backing the transaction, all the users do, creating a web of interconnected, duplicated records.

But that models original form, using a proof-of-work model, has drawn heavy criticism for its impact on the environment.

In proof-of-work, blockchain uses complex computer calculations to solve equations. In cryptocurrency models, closing a block results in earnings for miners. Thats what the gas fees are tied to.

That leads to an incentive to go and find the next coins. So you have more and more energy being used. Cryptos growth has translated to mining warehouses filled with energy-guzzling computers.

Moving to proof-of-stake is the direction of most new platform developers for this reason. Various test nets are popping up, including Ethereum 2.0. And Cardano, EOS, and Tron are just a few. Another new kid in town is a cryptocurrency called Internet Computer. That token allows users to create apps, websites and other web-based services

Internet Computer: Blockchain Singularity

Some Central Illinois digital artists wont make NFTs yet, partly because of this issue. But others say participating doesnt prevent a focus on green solutions.

ISU creative technologist Rick Valentin, who released a set of NFTs this spring, said NFTs are just a drop in the bucket of the digital markets. Reducing carbon emissions drastically is imperative, but that includes emissions from oil and plastics, too, he said.

ISU physics professor David Marx, who teaches classes on energy and the environment, said after reading up on this topic, hes not a fan. He said major digital currency blockchains only process a few transactions at a time with an enormous electrical power drain.

Some estimates show Bitcoin and Ethereum the latter which caters to NFTs have a combined annual electricity usage equal to 9.4 million U.S. homes, according to Marx.

Jones calls Bitcoin the most damaging to the environment because of its sheer size.

The website Digiconomist has been at the forefront of tracking the impact, updating those figures regularly on its bitcoin energy consumption index. Signs show the energy usage continues to rise.

And Jones blames Musks celebrity move into Bitcoin with a $1.5 billion investment for drawing hordes to the platform, thus shooting the energy usage through the roof.

The billionaire's influence could swing the pendulum toward greener cryptocurrency too, though. Last week after he spoke against Bitcoin's proof-of-work model, more miners announced they'd be joining the Crypto Climate Accord.

The private-sector led movement based on the Paris Climate Agreement aims to create a cryptocurrency world with zero carbon emissions by 2030.

There are nearly 5,000 cryptocoins. The growing field is finding more identifying as green.

Cring said those new-developing cryptocurrencies are more often than not working toward more energy-friendly versions. But he said the tech world needs to think even further outside the box.

We need to create blockchain on green energy, build a better blockchain, he said. Make it so the blockchain every level proofs its own ability to sustain itself, he added. Tech company Devvio is exploring that kind of zero-emissions idea.

Not all blockchain is about money

The coin versions causing the climate damage are just one type of blockchain in use, said Shaoen Wu, ISU's State Farm endowed chair of cybersecurity.

Blockchain just refers to a specific type of database one that stores its information in blocks, that chain together. After a block closes, the information is locked there, and not able to be changed or erased. One growing popularity use for blockchains is decentralized apps, or Dapps for short.

Illinois Wesleyan Universitys Jaime Peters notes industries such as accounting and finance like Blockchains permanent transactions, and records that cant be altered or lost, adding State Farm Ilikes it, too.

Wu said blockchain technology will mature, but its a mystery how it will turn out.

It will come somehow. But in what kind of format? That I dont know, he said.

When looking at cryptocurrency, blockchain and other developments, its important to remember technology in and of itself isnt good or bad, said Wu. How people use it is key, he noted.

Wu explores ways to stop those bad actors in how cryptocurrency fits in with the fields of artificial intelligence and the newer field of Internet of Things. He said some cybersecurity faculty have focused research on the blockchain, and students in the program get the opportunity to see how their future roles in security will interact with that technology, too.

At one time people couldnt imagine a tiny phone-slash-computer could fit in a pocket, or that we could see a friends face a continent away and have a live conversation. But thats normal to us now.

Some see NFTs as disrupting how the art world does business. Some see cryptocurrency as disrupting the financial world. But Cring said blockchains arrival into our daily lives represents a much larger cultural moment.

This is disruption. Theres not a continuity of experience thats going to happen. This isnt down the road. This is happening right now, all around us, he said.

Cring said NFTs, and related technologies, are here to stay regardless of peoples opposition.

Those of you who dont want to do NFTs, go for it. Youre following your conscience, I admire that. However, its still going to happen, he said.

But unfortunately, responsibility for the environment, responsibility to human rights and all of those things are secondary matters to business, according to the finance professor. Business will do what it must to create the newest products and knowledge. Thats very related to the digital world, he said.

Unless the Internet dies, this isnt going away, he said.

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Environmental Concerns Temper Excitement About NFTs And The Crypto Ecosystem - WGLT

While cryptocurrencies experienced their fair share of ups and downs over the week, nothing is holding back the stratospheric rise of NFTs. As another busy week comes to a close, a lot has unfolded in the world of NFTs. Heres a quick rundown of the top events of this week.

Bluzelle, the decentralized data network for dApps, undergoes a massive transformation to bring forth a new and updated version, Bluzelle 2.0. While it started as a decentralized database, the platform has added several new modules alongside a brand redesign.

To cater to the rising demand for tamper-proof, secure, and scalable storage for NFTs, Bluzelle 2.0, in collaboration with Mintable, has added file storage to its existing services. The new feature allows you to store NFT files over its decentralized network, replicating the files across several validator nodes, ensuring scalability, security, and availability.

Acclaimed artist Rob Prior, known for his legendary artwork for Marvel and DC, will burn his original painting and unveil the NFT during the NFT Livestream event hosted by Mogul Productions.

Robs painting, inspired by the Wolf of Wall Street, showcases money falling from the sky. It is an expression signifying the future of art and NFTs. The painting will be digitized as an ERC1155 NFT during the live stream. In addition, Rob will also be unveiling two of his upcoming NFT drops, featuring a painting of Luke Skywalker from Star Wars and a Deadpool rendition.

Enjin, the worlds leading NFT ecosystem and creator of the ERC1155 token standard, launched a unique marketing campaign to attract and engage new users. Dubbed as MyFirstNFT, the marketing tactic lays the foundation for a revolution in social media marketing.

As part of the campaign, Enjin airdropped 50,000 unique NFTs, embedded in digital ads and social media posts across Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, and Instagram. All of the NFTs were displayed as scannable QR codes that activated transactions when scanned with the Enjin wallet. The campaign was a roaring success as all 50,000 NFTs were claimed within 48 hours, adding 38,000 new users.

Terra Virtua, the home of digital collectibles, added another unique artwork, the Br8ve, to its platform. The NFT includes the worlds most advanced VR headset designed by the Finnish brand Varjo, controllers, a powerful laptop, and a physically signed print copy of the original version.

Commissioned by an anonymous crypto OG who first revealed that Satoshi Nakamoto is not one but eight different individuals, the Br8ve NFT tells the story of Bitcoin. To bring the NFT to life, digital artist VESA spent five months converting it into digital artwork, followed by another six months of work by 3D maestro Frank Spalteholz and music composer Mighty33 to convert it into an exclusive VR artwork finally.

Currently the bid for the artwork is at $500,000, which is the highest bid thus far on the Terra Viruta marketplace.

The Associated Press (AP) has listed the first item from its collection of 10 unique NFTs for auction on OpenSea, the worlds biggest NFT marketplace. Dubbed as the AP ARTiFACTS: The 175 Collection, the series of NFTs celebrates the legendary news agencys exceptional photojournalism over 175 years.

The first NFT from the collection, a photo of American soldiers raising the American flag on Iwo Jima in 1945, is now available for bidding. Renowned digital artist, Marko Stanojevic, is the man behind transforming the Pulitzer Prize-winning image into digital art. It also includes some of the rarest images clicked by AP photographer Joe Rosenthal alongside an original music composition by Nick Kennerly.

From iconic images to comics, whats next for NFTs? Can you think of any other unexplored niche? Let us know in the comments section below.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons, Terra Virtua, Rob Prior YouTube channel, Enjin, AP

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

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NFT Weekly Roundup: Bluezelle's Innovative Solution, Rob Prior's Live Stream, Ap's Iconic NFT Collection, and the Br8ve Auction Bitcoin News -...

Although the price of bitcoin has partly rebounded after last week's rout, the digital currrency remains well off its April 13 high of nearly $65,000. In early trading on Monday bitcoin fetched $38,477, up 12% from the previous day, according to Coindesk.com.

The extreme volatility that has marked bitcoin's emergence in recent years was on full display when its price plunged as much as 29% earlier this month after financial regulators in China banned domestic banks and other financial institutions from supporting bitcoin. That includes processing payments, allowing customers to hold bitcoin in their accounts and converting bitcoin into yuan or any other currency.

Such roller-coaster swings in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which have also been buffeted of late, is raising questions about their risks as investments and viability as financial assets. Here's what you should know.

A on May 18 statement posted on the Chinese Banking Association's website said financial institutions should "resolutely refrain" from providing services using digital currencies because of their volatility.

Virtually every cryptocurrency fell after the industry group's statement. Bitcoin slumped to $30,202 before recovering to $38,038, down 12% on the day, according to Coindesk. Most cryptocurrencies lost between 7% and 22% of their value and shares of Coinbase dropped 5.4%.

And China isn't the only country clamping down on cryptocurrencies. Many banks in the Middle East are also barred from dealing in bitcoin, while U.S., regulators appear to be leaning toward more actively monitoring cryptocurrencies. On Thursday, the Treasury Department said it would require businesses to report any bitcoin payment over $10,000, citing an effort to crack down on tax evasion.

Trending News

The value of bitcoin can change by thousands of dollars in a short time period. On the last trading day of 2020, bitcoin closed just under $30,000. In mid-April, it flirted with $65,000. The price bounced around after that, with some notable swings, before taking a decidedly negative turn last week.

Bitcoin is a digital currency that is not tied to a bank or government and allows users to spend money anonymously. The coins are created by users who "mine" them by lending computing power to verify other users' transactions. They receive bitcoins in exchange. The coins also can be bought and sold on exchanges with U.S. dollars and other currencies. Some businesses take bitcoin as payment, and a number of financial institutions allow it in their clients' portfolios, but overall mainstream acceptance is still limited.

Bitcoins are basically lines of computer code that are digitally signed each time they travel from one owner to the next. Transactions can be made anonymously, making the currency popular with libertarians as well as tech enthusiasts, speculators and criminals.

Bitcoins have to be stored in a digital wallet, either online through an exchange like Coinbase, or offline on a hard drive using specialized software. According to Coinbase, there are about 18.7 million bitcoins in circulation and only 21 million will ever exist. The reason for that is unclear, and where all the bitcoins are is anyone's guess.

Yes, and a fairly big one. Musk announced in February that his electric car company Tesla had invested $1.5 billion in bitcoin. In March, Tesla began accepting bitcoin as payment. Those actions contributed to the run-up in bitcoin's price, and Musk also promoted the digital currency Dogecoin, which also spiked in value.

However, Musk reversed course in just a short time, saying last week that Tesla would stop accepting bitcoin because of the potential environmental damage that can result from bitcoin mining. The announcement sent bitcoin falling below $50,000 and set the tone for the big pullback in most cryptocurrencies.

A number of bitcoin fans pushed back on Musk's reasoning. Fellow billionaire Mark Cuban said that gold mining is much more damaging to the environment than the mining of bitcoin.

A 2019 study by the Technical University of Munich and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that the bitcoin network generates an amount of CO2 similar to a large Western city or an entire developing country like Sri Lanka. But a University of Cambridge study last year estimated that on average, 39% of "proof-of-work" crypto mining was powered by renewable energy, primarily hydroelectric energy.

The digital payment company Square and its CEO Jack Dorsey also the CEO of Twitter have been big proponents of bitcoin. Overstock.com also accepts bitcoin, and in February, BNY Mellon, the oldest bank in the U.S., said it would include digital currencies in the services it provides to clients. And Mastercard said it would start supporting "select crypto currencies" on its network.

Bitcoin has become popular enough that more than 300,000 transactions typically occur in an average day, according to bitcoin wallet site blockchain.info. Still, its popularity is low compared with cash and credit cards.

Yes, plenty of it. Tracking bitcoin's price is obviously easier than trying to figure out its value, which is why so many institutions, experts and traders are skeptical about it and cryptocurrency in general. Digital currencies were seen as replacements for paper money, but that hasn't happened so far.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has said the central bank prefers to call crypto coins "crypto assets," because their volatility undermines their ability to store value, a basic function of a currency.

While some banks and financial services companies are getting in on it, others are staying away.

Regulators aren't very worried about a possible crash in digital currencies dragging down the rest of the financial system or economy.

Even with the recent sell-off, digital currencies have a market value of about $1.5 trillion, according to the website coinmarketcap.com. But that pales compared with the $46.9 trillion stock market, $41.3 trillion residential real estate market and nearly $21 trillion Treasury market at the start of the year.

The European Central Bank said Wednesday that the risk of cryptocurrencies affecting the financial system's stability looks "limited at present." In large part, that's because they're still not widely used for payments and institutions under its purview still have little exposure to crypto-linked instruments.

Earlier this month, the Federal Reserve said a survey of market contacts found roughly one in five cited cryptocurrencies as a potential shock to the system over the next 12 to 18 months. That's a turnaround from the fall, when a similar survey found none mentioning cryptocurrencies.

Washington officials have been talking about regulating digital currencies more, and worries about a heavier hand have played a role in the recent swoon in prices.

Gary Gensler, who took over as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission last month, has said that cryptocurrency markets would benefit from more oversight to protect investors.

In a hearing before the House's financial services committee earlier this month, Gensler said neither the SEC nor the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which he used to head, has a "regulatory framework" for trading on cryptocurrency exchanges yet. He said he thought Congress would ultimately have to address it because "there's really not protection against fraud or manipulation."

It's a mystery. Bitcoin was launched in 2009 by a person or group of people operating under the name Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin was then adopted by a small clutch of enthusiasts. Nakamoto dropped off the map as bitcoin began to attract widespread attention. But proponents say that doesn't matter: The currency obeys its own internal logic.

In 2016, An Australian entrepreneur stepped forward and claimed to be the founder of bitcoin, only to say days later that he did not "have the courage" to publish proof that he is. No one has claimed credit for the currency since.

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Why is the price of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies falling? - CBS News

The price of Bitcoin has collapsed, yet again, just like this time last year.

Those who got in on the ground floor years ago have made a killing. Those who got in last year after the crash and exited shortly after Elon Musk took the plunge in February have joined the ranks of the uber-rich.

And for all the criticism about its volatility, instability and environmental irresponsibility, we probably haven't seen the last Bitcoin rally.

But before we get around to considering that question, let's just back-track a little.

Well, maybe just a little more than a little. Let's go all the way back to 1637 to Holland, then one of the most powerful nations in Europe.

That was the year that tulip mania finally ran out of puff, the year when one of the most insane investment bubbles of all time burst spectacularly. And yes, we're talking about tulips, the flowers.

Originally from Turkey, they became highly fashionable in the early part of the 1600s, sought after by the well-to-do and, ultimately, a symbol of wealth and power deemed an absolute necessity for anyone with social pretensions or ambitions.

By 1634, demand for tulip bulbs which not only were rare but fragile was such that the trade crowded out most other Dutch industries. At its peak, a single tulip bulb cost six times the average income, with some going for as much as $1 million in today's money. They were traded on stock exchanges in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and other Dutch cities.

Three years later, it all came to a crashing halt. A large swathe of the population had borrowed to buy bulbs, certain that prices would only ever go higher, and when the market turned, it did so with a vengeance as investors were forced to dump their, um, flowers.

If this sounds too ridiculous to be true, you're right. But it really did happen.

A lot, as it turns out.

Economics is really a study of human behaviour at both an individual and a group level and there are a couple of fundamental laws, or assumptions, used as the bedrock.

One is that individuals always act rationally. The other is that everyone always acts in their own best interest.

That explains why economists have such a dismal track record in forecasting anything. Not sure about you, but your correspondent's behaviour occasionally has veered towards the irrational and certainly not in anyone's best interest. Multiply that several billion times and you have a recipe for unconstrained lunacy.

It's why we have booms and busts, prosperity and poverty, wars and famine, why we lurch from one extreme to the other. You can't just assume it all away and pretend it's not there.

Which brings us to Bitcoin and the mysterious world of cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin is just one of more than 4,000 cryptocurrencies. The unifying feature of almost all of them is that they employ what's known as blockchain technology a record-keeping or ledger system to conduct transactions. While it is a complex system, it relies on a simple idea: to ensure stored data is public and cannot be manipulated or controlled by any party, state or individual.

Blockchain technology has huge potential for almost every facet of a data-dependent world, from conducting elections to healthcare to financial services. The Australian Securities Exchange uses it for its transactions.

While Bitcoin was among the first to use the technology, it doesn't own it. That's something many Bitcoin investors don't get. They're quick to extol the virtues of blockchain but don't understand that Bitcoin is just one of many thousands of organisations that employ it.

Not only that, there are as many different variations and applications of the technology as there are users. The technology can be customised, depending on how you want to use it. And Bitcoin's blockchain has quite a few deficiencies.

When it was launched in 2009, Bitcoin devotees declared the decentralised ledger system would render the global financial system obsolete. Central banks would have no place in the world and Bitcoin would replace national or fiat currencies.

That hasn't happened. Ironically, more than a decade down the track, Bitcoin remains priced in US dollars, the world's reserve currency, and investors continue to measure their wealth in good old dollars and cents. In an even greater insult, central banks, including the Reserve Bank of Australia, are actively pursuing their own forms of digital currencies.

Investors are jumping into ETFs at record levels but are they a safe investment? We ask the experts.

And while Bitcoin remains the poster child, and by far the biggest cryptocurrency, it has spawned legions of imitators, some of which hold far more promise than the original.

Elon Musk, the Tesla car founder who splurged $US1.5 billion ($1.9 billion) on Bitcoin in February, now concedes the currency uses far too much electricity. It's an environmental disaster in the making so he's now plugging Dogecoin, the joke currency based upon a dog.

What few investors will admit, however, is that Bitcoin is slow and hugely expensive to use. That's not just compared to other digital currencies. It's way more expensive than conventional transaction methods.

Among its rivals, Ethereum, the second-biggest network, is often touted as the system that eventually will dominate. But its transaction fees are horrendous as well. It operates a little like Uber, with surge pricing.

Last weekend, for instance, if you'd gone out to lunch on Saturday and spent $120 and then tried to pay with Ether, you would have been hit with a $385 transaction fee.

But who needs to use these systems when you can create your own blockchain and cryptocurrency? Binance, a major exchange, runs off the Ethereum network and offers others the chance to piggyback its system.

That has attracted some unusual traffic. Blockchain transactions may be public but the identity of those behind them can be obscured. That's why authorities have been concerned about nefarious activity such as drug trafficking, money laundering and terrorism financing.

Among the many new currencies is one to facilitate online pornography subscriptions, the aptly titled Cumrocket. And like most fields of human endeavour, there's no escaping toilet humour. PooCoin launched last month along with a stern warning from UK authorities about the potential risks of investing in it. Or stepping in it.

One of the few operations that seems to have a real business model, along with executives, employees and actual offices, is XRP, the currency launched by Ripple Labs. It is aiming to compete or replace the SWIFT international payments transfer system used by most banks. It is quick and cheap.

Perhaps because of that visibility, it has become the subject of a lawsuit by America's Security and Exchange Commission, which has charged it and two executives with selling $US1.3 billion in unregistered securities.

Interestingly, SWIFT is fighting back. It is attempting to compete with Ripple's blockchain technology with a rival technology, Global Payments Innovation.

Bitcoin is a bubble. Last Wednesday, it went through some wild gyrations, dropping 33 per cent before surging by a similar amount to end the session down 8 per cent.

From the outset, it was designed to become increasingly rare.

Only 21 million coins exist. Most already have been released and the final one won't be mined until next century. That was a deliberate attempt to make its value rise, along the same lines as gold, so that it could become a safe harbour, a store of wealth when things turn ugly.

US magazine Newsweek says it has found the enigmatic creator of the online currency bitcoin.

While its value has risen exponentially in recent years, its incredible volatility makes it anything but a safe harbour. Given it isn't much good for transactions and holds no proprietary technology or intellectual property, about the only thing it is good for is speculation.

On Friday, it was bouncing around more than 10 per cent every few hours, ending another 9 per cent lower, and at $US39,000 was well below the $US63,346 peak last month. That makes it a bargain, some reckon.

Maybe. But remember, it's a virtual commodity. It doesn't actually exist. No-one even really knows whether Satoshi Nakamoto, the mythical founder, is real.

Who knows, it could go beyond $US100,000 sometime in the near future. But if everyone suddenly decides to abide by the rules of economics and starts acting rationally, be prepared to lose everything.

At least you can tiptoe through tulips.

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Bitcoin has just crashed and we may see another rally. But is this the time to buy? - ABC News

What is Ether? The price of the worlds second largest cryptocurrency, ether, hit a new all-time high of US$1,440 (1,050) on January 19. This breached a previous high set three years ago and gave ether a total value (market capitalisation) of US$160 billion, although it has since fallen back to around US$140 billion.

Ether, which runs on a technology system known as the ethereum blockchain, is worth over ten times the price it was when it bottomed during the COVID market panic of March 2020. And the cryptocurrency is still only five years old. In part, this remarkable rise in the value is due to excess money flowing into all the leading cryptocurrencies, which are now seen as relatively safe store-of-value assets and a good speculative investment.

But ethers price rise has even outstripped that of the number one cryptocurrency, bitcoin, which only had a seven-fold increase since March. Ether has outperformed partly due to several improvements and new features being rolled out over the next few months. So what are ether and ethereum and why is this cryptocurrency now worth more than corporate giants such as Starbucks and AstraZeneca?

Blockchains are online ledgers that keep permanent tamper-proof records of information. These records are continually verified by a network of computer nodes similar to servers, which are not centrally controlled by anyone. Ether is just one of over 8,000 cryptocurrencies that use some form of this technology, which was invented by the anonymous Satoshi Nakamoto when he released bitcoin over a decade ago.

The ethereum blockchain was first outlined in 2013 by Vitalik Buterin, a 19-year old prodigy who was born in Russia but mostly grew up in Canada. After crowdfunding and development in 2014, the platform was launched in July 2015.

As with the bitcoin blockchain, each ethereum transaction is confirmed when the nodes on the network reach a consensus that it took place these verifiers are rewarded in ether for their work, in a process known as mining.

But the bitcoin blockchain is confined to enabling digital, decentralised money meaning money that is not issued from any central institution unlike, say, dollars. Ethereums blockchain is categorically different in that it can host both other digital tokens or coins, and decentralised applications.

Decentralised applications or dapps are open-source programs developed by communities of coders not attached to any company. Any changes to the software are voted on by the community using a consensus mechanism.

Perhaps the best known applications running on the ethereum blockchain are smart contracts, which are programs that automatically execute all or parts of an agreement when certain conditions are met. For instance, a smart contract could automatically reimburse a customer if, say, a flight was delayed more than a prescribed amount of time.

Many of the dapp communities are also operating what is known as decentralised autonomous organisations or DAOs. These are essentially alternatives to companies and seen by many as the building blocks of the next phase of the internet or web 3.0. A good example is the burgeoning trading exchange Sushiswap.

Ethereum has evolved and developed since its launch six years ago. In 2016, a set of smart contracts known as The DAO raised a record US$150 million in a crowdsale but was quickly exploited by a hacker who siphoned off one- third of the funds. However, since then, the ethereum ecosystem has matured considerably. While hacks and scams remain common, the overall level of professionalism appears to have improved dramatically.

Financial interest in ether tends to follow in the wake of bitcoin rallies because it is the second-largest cryptocurrency and, as such, quickly draws the attention of the novice investor. All the same, there are other factors behind its recent rally.

The first is the pace of innovation on the platform. Most activity in the cryptocurrency space happens on ethereum. In 2020, we saw the emergence of decentralised finance (DeFi). DeFi is analogous to the mainstream financial world, but with the middleman banks cut out.

Users can borrow, trade, lend and invest through autonomous smart contracts via protocols like Compound, Aave and Yearn Finance. It sounds like science fiction, but this is no hypothetical market approximately US$24 billion is locked into various DeFi projects right now. Importantly, DeFi allows users to generate income on their cryptocurrency holdings, especially their ether tokens.

The second factor behind the ether surge is the launch of ethereum 2.0. This upgrade addresses major concerns impacting the current version of ethereum. In particular, it will reduce transaction fees especially useful in DeFi trading, where each transaction can end up costing the equivalent of tens of US dollars.

Ethereum 2.0 will also eliminate the environmentally wasteful mining currently required to make the ethereum blockchain function (the same is true of many other cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin). Within the year, ethereum should be able to drop the need for vast industrial mining warehouses that consume huge amounts of energy.

Instead, transactions will be validated using a different system known as proof-of-stake. The sense that ethereum addresses problems like these quickly rather than letting them sit could prove a major differential from the sometimes sluggish and conservative pace of the bitcoin development culture.

A final factor is the launch of ethereum futures trading on February 8. This means that traders will be able to speculate on what ether will be worth at a given date in the future for the first time a hallmark of any mature financial asset. Some analysts have said the recent bitcoin rally has been fuelled by traditional investment firms, and the launch of ethereum futures is often touted as opening the doors for the same price action.

However, as every seasoned cryptocurrency user knows, both currencies are extremely volatile and are as liable to crash by extremes as rise by them. Bitcoins price fell 85 percent in the year after the last bull market in 2017, while ether was down by 95 percent at one stage from its previous high of US$1,428.

Whatever the valuation, the future of ethereum as a platform looks bright. Its challenge is ultimately external: projects such as Cardano and Polkadot, created by individuals who helped launch ethereum itself, are attempting to steal ethereums crown.

But as bitcoin has shown, first-mover advantage matters in cryptocurrency, and despite bitcoins relative lack of features it is unlikely to be moved from its dominant position for some time. The same is most likely true for the foreseeable future with ethereum.

Image Credit: Reuters

Paul J Ennis, Lecturer/Assistant Professor in Management Information Systems, University College Dublin and Donncha Kavanagh, Professor of Information & Organisation, University College Dublin published this article first on The Conversation. The views expressed are the authors own.

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Ether: What You Should Know About Worlds Second Largest Cryptocurrency - SheThePeople

From Dogecoin to Bitcoin to Coinbase, cryptocurrency is the hottest trend in investing right now. Heres what you need to know before buying in. USA TODAY

Whether the price is surging or dipping, Bitcoin stays a hot topic.

The price of the famously volatile digital currency fell nearly 30% at one point Wednesday after the China Banking Association warned member banks of the risks associated with digital currencies. The decline narrowed to below 10% that same afternoon, but Bitcoin had still lost about $70 billion in market value in 24 hours.

Bitcoin has lost about 38% of its value since April 13 when it hit a high of more than $64,800, according to Coindesk. The China warning was just the latest headwind: Before Wednesday, Teslas decision to not accept the digital currency as payment for cars after it said it would and murmurings in Washington about tighter regulation of digital currencies had put pressure on Bitcoin. The price is still up about 31% in 2021 and nearly 300% from a year ago.

Heres a look at Bitcoin and digital currencies in general:

Bitcoin is a digital currency that is not tied to a bank or government and allows users to spend money anonymously. The coins are created by users who mine them by lending computing power to verify other users transactions. They receive Bitcoins in exchange.

The coins also can be bought and sold on exchanges with U.S. dollars and other currencies. Some businesses take Bitcoin as payment, and a number of financial institutions allow it in their clients portfolios, but overall mainstream acceptance is still limited.

Bitcoin on the upswing: Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies rebound amid volatile week of trading

Chicago Tribune has a new owner: Tribune investors approve hedge fund takeover, shifting control of Chicago Tribune

Warren Buffett called Bitcoin rat poison, but the technology behind it is something everyone can agree on. Here are other life-changing uses you didnt know about.

Bitcoins are basically lines of computer code that are digitally signed each time they travel from one owner to the next. Transactions can be made anonymously, making the currency popular with libertarians as well as tech enthusiasts, speculators and criminals.

Bitcoins have to be stored in a digital wallet, either online through an exchange like Coinbase, or offline on a hard drive using specialized software. According to Coinbase, there are about 18.7 million Bitcoins in circulation and only 21 million will ever exist. The reason for that is unclear, and where all the Bitcoins are is anyones guess.

On Wednesday, a statement posted on the Chinese Banking Associations website said financial institutions should resolutely refrain from providing services using digital currencies because of their volatility.

(Photo: Getty Images)

Virtually every cryptocurrency fell after the industry groups statement.

As of 4:15 p.m. eastern time that day , Bitcoin was down more than 7% at around $40,310 per coin. Most cryptocurrencies lost between 7% and 22% of their value and shares of Coinbase dropped 5.4%.

Its not unusual for the value of Bitcoin to change by thousands of dollars in a short time period, though swings totaling around $20,000 in one day are extreme. On the last trading day of 2020, Bitcoin closed just under $30,000. In mid-April, it flirted with $65,000.

Yes, and a fairly big one. Musk announced in February that his electric car company Tesla had invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin. In March, Tesla began accepting Bitcoin as payment. Those actions contributed to the run-up in Bitcoins price, and Musk also promoted the digital currency Dogecoin, which also spiked in value.

However, Musk reversed course in just a short time, saying last week that Tesla would stop accepting Bitcoin because of the potential environmental damage that can result from Bitcoin mining. The announcement sent Bitcoin falling below $50,000 and set the tone for the big pullback recently in most cryptocurrencies.

A number of Bitcoin fans pushed back on Musks reasoning. Fellow billionaire Mark Cuban said that gold mining is much more damaging to the environment than the mining of Bitcoin.

A 2019 study by the Technical University of Munich and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that the Bitcoin network generates an amount of CO2 similar to a large Western city or an entire developing country like Sri Lanka. But a University of Cambridge study last year estimated that on average, 39% of proof-of-work crypto mining was powered by renewable energy, primarily hydroelectric energy.

There had been some concern among Bitcoin investors that Tesla would sell some or all of its Bitcoin holdings, but Musk indicated in a tweet Wednesday that Tesla was sticking with its investment.

The digital payment company Square and its CEO Jack Dorsey,also the CEO of Twitter,have been big proponents of Bitcoin.

Overstock.com also accepts Bitcoin, and in February, BNY Mellon, the oldest bank in the U.S., said it would include digital currencies in the services it provides to clients. And Mastercard said it would start supporting select crypto currencies on its network.

Bitcoin has become popular enough that more than 300,000 transactions typically occur in an average day, according to Bitcoin wallet site blockchain.info. Still, its popularity is low compared with cash and credit cards.

Yes, plenty of it.

Tracking Bitcoins price is obviously easier than trying to figure out its value, which is why so many institutions, experts and traders are skeptical about it and cryptocurrency in general.

Digital currencies were seen as replacements for paper money, but that hasnt happened so far. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has said the central bank prefers to call crypto coins crypto assets, because their volatility undermines their ability to store value, a basic function of a currency.

While some banks and financial services companies are getting in on it, others are staying away.

Regulators arent very worried about a possible crash in digital currencies dragging down the rest of the financial system or economy.

Even with the recent sell-off, digital currencies have a market value of about $1.72 trillion, according to the website coinmarketcap.com. But that pales compared with the $46.9 trillion stock market, $41.3 trillion residential real estate market and nearly $21 trillion Treasury market at the start of the year.

The European Central Bank said Wednesday that the risk of cryptocurrencies affecting the financial systems stability looks limited at present. In large part, thats because theyre still not widely used for payments and institutions under its purview still have little exposure to crypto-linked instruments.

Earlier this month, the Federal Reserve said a survey of market contacts found roughly one in five cited cryptocurrencies as a potential shock to the system over the next 12 to 18 months. Thats a turnaround from the fall, when a similar survey found none mentioning cryptocurrencies.

Washington officials have been talking about regulating digital currencies more, and worries about a heavier hand have played a role in the recent swoon in prices.

Gary Gensler, who took over as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission last month, has said that cryptocurrency markets would benefit from more oversight to protect investors.

In a hearing before the Houses financial services committee earlier this month, Gensler said neither the SEC nor the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which he used to head, has a regulatory framework for trading on cryptocurrency exchanges yet. He said he thought Congress would ultimately have to address it because theres really not protection against fraud or manipulation.

Its a mystery. Bitcoin was launched in 2009 by a person or group of people operating under the name Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin was then adopted by a small clutch of enthusiasts. Nakamoto dropped off the map as bitcoin began to attract widespread attention. But proponents say that doesnt matter: The currency obeys its own internal logic.

Associated Press Reporters Matt Ott, Ken Sweet and Stan Choe in New York contributed.

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Bitcoin is up, then down. But exactly how does it work? - USA TODAY

Bitcoin has been around for over a decade, and during this time, a number of incredible stories have accumulated. A lot of them are very known to the public, but some are still surprisingly not that famous. In addition, there are many interesting facts about Bitcoin that everyone should know. In this press release, we have picked some of the most interesting facts and stories about this revolutionary crypto-currency.

Satoshi Nakamoto

Satoshi Nakamoto is the mysterious inventor of Bitcoin and the blockchain network. He/she worked with other cypherpunk supporters on these innovations. His/her name is associated with the famous white paper: 'Bitcoin a Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System'. The real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto is still a great mystery, and the supporters that have been interviewed so far have explained that he has shared very little personal information and avoided any questions about his/her personal life.

The independent blockchain network

A lot of people are not aware that Bitcoin was developed during the financial crisis that has rocked the financial world globally in 2008. So, supposedly, Satoshi Nakamoto wanted to create a payment system that works without the meddling of financial institutions or their control. As a result, he/she created the blockchain network, which is a system that operates based on the individual contribution of each participant (miner). It offers total transparency on the network, and the transactions are processed almost instantly without any additional fees.

But what makes this system very appealing is that the identity of every user remains confidential. Nowadays, blockchain technology has taken the world by storm, and it is being tested and applied in various businesses.

Online trading sites

When the first only trading site was launched, Bitcoinmarket.com, it was one of the main ways where you can trade BTC and also check the price of Bitcoin. Otherwise, before trading sites, users could only make deals to trade their BTC on forums, which was a very unreliable and unsafe way of obtaining BTC.

The number of online trading platforms has definitely grown, and you can choose to trade on sites that work for your budget. Immediate Edge is a well-known all trading platform that has software powered by high-quality artificial intelligence technology. It is an encrypted site that is very secure, and you can start trading when you make a deposit of $250.

Bitcoin Pizza Day

Bitcoin Pizza Day is actually a special day for the Bitcoin community that takes place on 22 May. But this event comes from a trade between Laszlo Haynes and another user on the Bitcointalk forum. Laszlo invested 10 000 BTC for two pizzas from Papa John's. It is worth mentioning that today, one Bitcoin is worth more than $50 000, but Laszlo reportedly didn't regret his decision because he wanted to use his BTC in the real world. Actually, this is the first commercial BTC transaction.

The teenage millionaire

Erik Finman is one of the youngest Bitcoin millionaires. He managed to earn a huge return on investment because the price of Bitcoin surged in 2017 and again in 2020. What we know is that he invested $1 000 that he got from his grandmother for his birthday in BTC. Today, he owns around 446 BTC and has a net worth of around $4.5 million.

BTC investment of Tesla

Recently,Elon Musk made the decision to invest from corporate cash $1.5 billion in BTC. Thanks to the support from companies like Tesla, the demand for BTC is growing, and it's one of the reasons why Bitcoin's price has increased well over $50 000. The company also announced that it would accept BTC payments. Currently, there are approximately 15 000 companies that accept BTC payments, and we predict that the number will go up very soon.

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Incredible Bitcoin stories and facts - ITWeb

For better or worse, the ongoing case between Ira Kleiman and Dr. Craig Wright has been the most fascinating event in the Bitcoin world for the past few years. This week it took another twist with the news that Ramona Ang, the wife of Dr. Wright, as trustee of the Tulip Trust, has launched a lawsuit against Kleiman over his alleged destruction of property and information that materially impacted something called the Tulip Trust. For the purposes of this case, everyonefrom the plaintiff to the defendants and the courtsare accepting Dr. Wright is Satoshi Nakamoto as he has confirmed this under oath in this case and others.

The Tulip Trust itself has gained an almost mythic reputation in Bitcoin. Information about its exact natureincluding whether it even exists, or exists in multiple formshas trickled out over the years as judges and lawyers have examined evidence from the Kleiman/Wright case as part of the discovery process.

Theres a deeper background to the Tulip Trust story in this article. In this particular instance, the name Tulip Trust applies to a legal entity of which Ramona Ang is a trustee. From the complaint filed with the Southern District of Florida this week, its understood that Tulip Trust is a Seychelles-registered trust and Ang is a trustee. The coins subject to the lawsuit that Ang filed as trustee of the Tulip Trust are separate and apart from the Tulip Trust coins originally mined by Info Defence PTY LTD. while he was operating under the pseudonym of Satoshi Nakamoto.

There has also been much speculation over the years that Dave Kleiman and Dr. Wright had collaborated to create Bitcoin. The nature and extent of this collaboration is also largely unknown, given the conflicting accounts and allegations both parties and their supporters have made.

Ira Kleiman has admitted destroying documents and erasing/re-using several hard drives belonging to his brother, the late Dave Kleiman. Dave Kleiman was an esteemed information technology security researcher who had worked with governments and law enforcement and made several appearances on television as a security expert. He was also a close friend of Dr. Wright, and Craig Wright R&D had an interest in a company named W&K Info Defense Research LLC.

Angs complaint, as trustee of the Tulip Trust, based on Ira Kleimans own allegations, alleges that W&Ks records held documents, data and private keys for the benefit of the Tulip Trust. Ira Kleiman destroyed those records in the wake of his brothers April 2013 death and the Tulip Trust has suffered billions of dollars in damages in the form of bitcoins it can no longer access.

Ira Kleiman has enough knowledge of computers and data records to understand that erasing hard drives (and subsequently re-using them) would render the data on those drives inaccessible permanently, the complaint says.

Outside of the allegations, theres also the question of why Kleiman had such little regard for, or curiosity about, his brothers lifes work that he would simply erase it. Regardless of their personal relationship (the two brothers had not interacted for years, despite living in the same area), he might have considered for a moment that his brother held information that could be important or useful to someone outside the family.

To understand all this, its necessary to go back over some of the key events in the past 12 years that led to the current situation. Here is a summary of the background and legal turning points along the way.

The significance of the Kleiman/Wright case to Satoshi Nakamotos identity

Most of the attention the press has given to this case over the years has not been on the merits of Ira Kleimans claims on Dr. Wrights propertyor the moral grounds he has to make this claim on behalf of his late brother, with whom he barely interacted.

Rather it has focused on Dr. Wright himself, his reputation and reliability, and claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto. This has resulted in the public learning many details about the early years of Bitcoin they wouldnt have known otherwise, and probably only strengthened Dr. Wrights Satoshi claims. That the plaintiffs have expended so much time, effort and money pursuing the case suggests they understand a very large amount of money is at stake; money that few other than Satoshi himself would have.

Perhaps realizing the irony of supporting Ira Kleimans side while understanding the implications its victory would have, BTC supporters have attacked Dr. Wrights character at every turn, examining the minutiae of every document, email and sentence of witness testimony, desperately looking for a gotcha moment and declaring premature victory after judges decisions on procedural matters along the way. That way, they can make a tacit admission that Dr. Wright is Satoshi to potentially gain access to Satoshis fortune, while simultaneously casting doubt on his claims in the public eye.

Dave Kleiman

Dave Kleiman was a former soldier and law enforcement officer, and a computer forensics expert who had made multiple appearances at IT security conferences and on television. However, he was left paralyzed and wheelchair-bound following a 1995 motorcycle accident. Though his wellbeing began to decline from that time, he continued his IT security work at several companies. He formed a mostly-online friendship with Dr. Wright (though the two had met in person).

On April 26, 2013, Dave Kleiman died in what Ira Kleimans initial legal complaint described as gruesome circumstances. His official cause of death was natural causes related to MRSA infection complications, but there were several other signs in the house that he had lived his last months in a state of squalor, depression, and increasingly poor health. His body was discovered in a decomposing state, sometime after his passing.

Dr. Wright was distraught at the news of Kleimans death, having not known of his unfortunate state. He posted a video tribute to his friend, and later reached out to Daves family informing them that Dave may have held valuable information and potentially a significant amount of early bitcoins. Again, these coins are separate and apart from the Tulip Trust coins originally mined by Dr. Wright while he was operating under the pseudonym of Satoshi Nakamoto.

Rather than acknowledge this move as a gesture of goodwill, Ira Kleiman interpreted it instead as a scheme to acquire the rights to Daves property. Iras wish to correct this injustice forms the basis for the ongoing Kleiman/Wright case in Florida.

That initial complaint, filed on February 14, 2019, read:

This matter concerns the rightful ownership of hundreds of thousands of bitcoins and the valuable intellectual property rights of various blockchain technologies.

Recognizing that Daves family and friends werent aware of this, Craig perpetrated a scheme against Daves estate to seize Daves bitcoins and his rights to certain intellectual property associated with the Bitcoin technology.

Why Dr. Wright would need to concoct such a scheme and involve Daves family if the Kleimans were unaware of the existence of any of the above is also a mystery. Craig Wright R&D had already obtained a judgment from the Supreme Court of New South Wales in Australia return the company rights to Dave Kleimans share of W&K and its associated IP in return for forgiving debts in the amount of 300k Bitcoins. The rights to those 300k Bitcoin were retained by W&K. Had Dr. Wright never made contact with the Kleimans, this current legal battle would likely not exist.

Years of the case without a trial

We should point out that, as yet, there has been no trial or final decision in the Kleiman/Wright case. Decisions over the past three years have been recommendations or rulings on procedural matters and related cases.

Dr. Wrights supporters initially predicted a swift result in his favor, saying Ira Kleiman had little evidence to support his claims. Mediation was set to happen on June 18, 2019. However new allegations, disputes over the integrity of testimony and documentary evidence, limited understanding of Bitcoins intricate workings, and Dr. Wrights own access to vital information, have seen the case drag on for years. The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have also played a part, limiting court time.

The jury trial and ultimate outcome has been delayed multiple times, and in November 2020 it was scheduled to begin in June 2021.

Over this time, both parties have at times taken actions to prompt a speedier outcome, or extend deadlines to produce certain information or wait for the results of related issues. Members of Dr. Wrights family have been drawn into the affair as well, including his ex-wife Lynn Wright, who petitioned the court in July 2020 to determine who actually holds W&Ks beneficiary shares (and therefore rule that Ira Kleiman had no right to take any action on the companys behalf).

Ira Kleiman filed a motion to dismiss Lynn Wrights petition. Though this attempt was unsuccessful, the judge decided to stay that case until after a final decision is reached in the main Kleiman/Wright casewhich effectively renders it irrelevant to that decision, though it may have an impact on what happens later.

The Tulip Trusts new lawsuit creates another legal headache for Ira Kleiman, one that could result in penalties separate to the outcome of the main case.

Timeline of other significant events along the way

On June 20, 2019, Dr. Wright testified in a filing that he had mined the first 70 Bitcoin blocks. In the same filing, he said addresses beyond that block were held in a trust, protected by a Shamir system in which multiple parties held information that needed to be combined to access the coins.

The next month, Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhardt ordered Dr. Wright to divulge his total bitcoin holdings as of December 31, 2011. In the same order (a recommendation to the main trial judge, Beth Bloom) he also cast several doubts on Dr. Wrights integrity as a witness, rejected the notion that a Tulip Trust actually existed, and advocated dividing all bitcoins mined by Dr. Wright and Dave Kleiman 50/50 between Wright and Dave Kleimans estate.

On November 4, 2019, entrepreneur (and CoinGeek owner) Calvin Ayre revealed hed been in negotiations to acquire Dave Kleimans estatebut had withdrawn after his team found no significant assets or IP. Dr. Wright was not involved in these negotiations, but Ayres team found the estate possessed only public Bitcoin addresses. Any private keys it may have held were destroyed when Ira Kleiman erased his brothers hard drives.

Following much crowing from BTC supporters over Judge Reinhardts statements against Dr. Wright (which they frequently misinterpreted as a final decision) Dr. Wright began to fight back. In an editorial posted on January 3, 2020, CSW described Ira Kleiman as one of the greediest people I have ever met and an idiot and a lowlife, accusing him of attacking his companies, forging documents, conspiring with BTC Core personnel, and attempting to steal his lifes work.

At the start of 2020, attention shifted to the much-mocked idea that the Tulip Trust would receive vital information from a form of bonded courier that would either grant him access to a large amount of early bitcoins, and/or other data relevant to the case.

The mockery soon stopped after January 6, 2021 when it became apparent that such an event had actually happened. Dr. Wright produced a document that became known as Tulip Trust III. The exact contents of these records remains sealed, though subsequent events suggest it provided answers to questions over why Dr. Wright had been unable to produce clear records of his pre-2011 Bitcoin holdings.

On January 12, 2021, Judge Beth Bloom reversed most of Judge Reinhardts sanctions and recommendations against Dr. Wright. If new information was available, she said, Wright should at least be afforded the opportunity to gather and produce it.

By the end of January, Dr. Wright stated that he had complied with the legal directives required of him concerning the public keys in the case. In a statement to CoinGeek at the time, Dr. Wright explained: The private keys were never a part of this and the court have accepted that the public keys can, at this time, be held confidentially and viewed only by those involved in the case.

In May 2020 Dr. Wright went on the offensive against Ira Kleiman, filing a Motion for Summary Judgment and calling Kleimans case an elaborate fiction. The judge denied this motion.

Ira Kleiman then attempted to get a default judgment against Dr. Wright via a sanctions motion. Accusing Dr. Wright of perjury and forging documents used in evidence, he requested either a decision, or an official statement that his accusations be deemed as established.

Judge Bloom on June 25, 2020, also denied these requests, saying that Dr. Wright had indeed produced records of the trusts Bitcoin holdings as requested, and that a jury would need to make the final decision. She set the trial to begin in July 2020, later delayed until August.

Throughout June 2020, various witnesses gave depositions to the court that revealed even more previously-unknown details in Bitcoin history. Witnesses included: Satoshi Nakamotos chosen successor as lead Bitcoin developer Gavin Andresen; Bitcoin Association President Jimmy Nguyen; journalists Brendan Sullivan and Andrew OHagan; and Dr. Wrights current and former spouses Ramona Ang and Lynn Wright.

Dr. Wrights maternal uncle, Don Lynam, also provided revealing details in his testimony about Dr. Wrights early life and possible Bitcoin origins. Lynam is a former Royal Australian Air Force Wing Commander and Order of Australia medal recipient, with a prestigious reputation. He also noted that his father (and Dr. Wrights grandfather) was Ronald Lynama World War II era signals intelligence officer and cryptology expert whose work remains largely officially classified.

It was in July 2020 that Lynn Wright entered the dispute, with her petition regarding W&Ks beneficiary shares. Then in September, both parties in the main Kleiman/Wright case requested to extend the pre-trial deadline and delay the trial until January 2021. Ira Kleiman had also filed a motion to dismiss Lynn Wrights case. The judge did not dismiss that case, but on January 6, 2021 delayed it until after the main Kleiman/Wright decision.

On November 20, 2020, the court decided to delay the trial for the main Kleiman/Wright case until June 2021, due to limitations arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. Exhibit lists and objections were due by March 16, 2021, and all demonstrative and summary exhibits (evidence) are due by March 22. The parties will hold a conference call on May 11.

This legal process has been long and convoluted, with reports and commentary often tainted by their makers support for either the Kleiman or Wright side. The court has at times struggled to grasp important Bitcoin concepts, and even seasoned Bitcoin veterans must admit large gaps in their own knowledge of Bitcoins origins and early history.

Even if the case does manage to arrive at a decision in mid-2021, its unlikely to satisfy everyone. Its also unlikely to result in definitive proof of Dr. Wrights and Dave Kleimans role in Bitcoins creation, and who has the right to benefit from it. This case may eventually conclude and take its place in Bitcoin folklore, but the overall Bitcoin saga will continue (both in and out of court) for a long time to come.

New to Bitcoin? Check out CoinGeeksBitcoin for Beginnerssection, the ultimate resource guide to learn more about Bitcoinas originally envisioned by Satoshi Nakamotoand blockchain.

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Billions in BSV and altcoins at stake in Satoshi court battles: A summary of key events in the story so far - CoinGeek

Just as the virtual currencies Bitcoin and Ethereum have surged in value this week, so has Dogecoin a cryptocurrency started in 2013 as an internet parody.

Based on the Doge meme and started as a fun alternative to Bitcoin, Dogecoins value has risen phenomenally this week, adding around $19.9 billion in the last 24 hours, and now valued at $34 billion, according to CoinGecko, a market data site.

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On Friday in the US, the digital token was valued at 28 cents, more than double its value a day before. A top-10 crypto token, it has seen a seven-day rise of 300%.

According to CNBC, the digital token was created in 2013 by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer as a faster but fun alternative to Bitcoin. It was started as a satire on the numerous fraud crypto coins that had sprung up at the time, and takes its name and logo from a Shiba Inu meme that was viral several years ago.

Unlike Bitcoins, whose maximum possible number is fixed at 21 million (a figure that is estimated to be reached by 2040), Dogecoin numbers do not have an upper limit, and there are already more than 100 billion in existence.

When the crypto coin first took off, the online community that was backing it invited attention by supporting unconventional causes, such as sponsoring Jamaicas bobsled team at the 2014 Winter Olympics. Also that year, the Dogecoin community gave $55,000 worth of the digital token to a Nascar driver in the US.

The main reason believed to be behind Dogecoins meteoric surge is the same that has propelled the value of Bitcoin and Etherem this weeks listing of Coinbase, the most popular virtual currency exchange in the US.

Coinbases market cap briefly hit $100 billion after it went public on Wednesday, and the values of Bitcoin and Etherem touched $64,000 and $2,500, respectively, during the week. Dogecoin is said to be a part of this frenzy.

Doge also has an ardent supporter in Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who frequently tweets have added to the digital tokens mania. Musk had once changed his Twitter bio to Former CEO of Dogecoin. Other celebrities, including rapper Snoop Dogg and rock musician Gene Simmons, have also promoted it on social media.

Another reason behind its current success is said to be a Reddit group called SatoshiStreetBets, where members built up an enthusiasm for the cryptocurrency in a manner similar that led to the rise of GameStop earlier this year. The groups name refers to Satoshi Nakamoto, the screen name of the person or group of persons behind Bitcoin.

Some investors have expressed fears that Dogecoins rise would lead to a bubble, given that buyers do not see any meaningful value in the digital token, and are only trading to make money while the price keeps going up.

Without having any intrinsic value such as land or gold, cryptocurrencies are considered highly volatile, and may crash as fast as they can rise, experts say, making them susceptible to sudden scares as well as manipulation by small groups who often hold large numbers of the virtual currency in circulation.

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Explained: What is Dogecoin, the $34 billion cryptocurrency that began as a joke? - The Indian Express

A lot of people are not really familiar with Bitcoin; Bitcoin is a virtual or digital currency that was invented in 2008 by an unknown group of people with the name of Satoshi Nakamoto. It is a network that works on the protocol called blockchain. The currency started to be in use in 2009 when this was released as an open-source software. Bitcoin has made itself as the worlds most popular crypto currency. As per CryptoParrot, only after 12 years, Bitcoin has been able to reach the $1 trillion market value! The same value which Microsoft was able to reach after 44 years and Apple about 42 years. Google took 21 years while Amazon took 24, which means that Bitcoin was able to achieve this $1 trillion target twice as fast as Amazon and thrice as fast as Apple. This speaks great volumes on how Bitcoin was able to make its mark that quickly.Bitcoin is actually one of the most successful virtual money system out there. It remains the largest crypto currency by market capitalization and was able to attain so in a very short span of time. The growth Bitcoin has been able to achieve in these past few years has been outstanding as compared to other mega cap US tech companies. Bitcoins market cap rate growth at the present moment is said to actually beat the highlighted traditional assets value in the near future, according to the reports. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, when every other field was declining, the technology one was soaring, and even though the technology stocks have soared a lot from last year but no one has been able to beat the value of Bitcoin and the things that it was able to achieve. According to the reports, it is most expected that Bitcoins market success will for sure beat other high end companies who have been there in the market stocks for longer periods of time such as Tesla.

It is said that Bitcoins aim at the moment is to develop a payment system to grow value but how and where Bitcoin will be used in the near future is only for us to see. Many see this as a platform where confidential contracts occur. The system which Bitcoin has established has caught the attention of many government authorities as well as private ones. The block chain protocol which Bitcoin uses can also be termed as the most impactful one out there.

(Disclaimer: The data and views expressed herein are not intended to serve as a forecast, a guarantee of future results, investment recommendations or an offer to buy or sell securities. Differences in account size, timing of transactions and market conditions prevailing at the time of investment may lead to different results, and clients may lose money. Past performance is not indicative of future results.)

Disclaimer: The information provided in this post is for educational purposes only and should not be treated as investment advice.

Read next:Nearly 7 in 10 People Want Robots to Manage their Finances Instead of Humans (infographic)

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Bitcoin has reached the $1 trillion mark after only 12 years of its release, which is around 3.5 times faster than Apple and Microsoft - Digital...

Coinbase is highly sensitive to super-volatile crypto valuations. A strong bull-market performance in the first quarter of 2021, when bitcoin rose above $US60,000, should be contrasted with the fact Coinbase posted a $US30 million annual net loss in 2019, a year when bitcoin averaged around $US5000-$US6000.

As it stands, Coinbase is also regulated and licensed under the US Money Services Business legislative framework, not as an exchange or so-called prime brokerage for services such as credit for trading. This gives Coinbase a big advantage over its more heavily regulated counterparts like ICE or the CME.

If that changed, there could be big consequences. Were it indeed regulated as an exchange, its capacity to generate earnings from prime brokerage, over-the-counter brokerage and principal trading would be firmly clipped back. If overseen as a prime broker or a bank, its capital burden would be increased significantly.

While the IPO might validate the importance of cryptocurrencies as a speculative asset, its a noteworthy irony that so-called bitcoin maximalists also consider the platform a brazen sellout. They believe it has forsaken cryptos true principles for the golden goose offered by Wall Street. Its a fair argument.

Bitcoin came to market touting promises of trustless banking, cheaper payments, privacy and most famously of all the end of the publics dependency on financial middlemen. But in both wooing Wall Street and embracing regulation, especially know-your-customer and anti-money laundering rules, Coinbase has not only abandoned the role of challenging the traditional state-controlled fiat currency system but also the privacy of crypto transactions envisaged by inventor Satoshi Nakamoto.

The groups transmutation into just another middleman operator has been fascinating to watch. Its unclear if the platforms 56 million users understand or even care that they are not holding coins but Coinbase IOUs, or that most transactions on the platform are not even settled through any public blockchain.

The IPO comes at a time when the original challenger vision of Nakamoto is being rattled in other ways. Last week a former deputy director of the CIA, Michael Morrell, officially endorsed the bitcoin network, arguing blockchain analysis is a highly effective crime fighting and intelligence gathering tool.

It was also a week when famed libertarian Peter Thiel warned that China, a mass-surveillance state with big digital currency ambitions, was using bitcoin as a financial weapon against the US.

If this signals anything at all it is that the state, not crypto, has won the day in terms of control of the financial system.

Rather than celebrate the Coinbase listing, those who thought crypto would up-end the publics dependency on central banks or financiers should be lamenting it. All indicators imply crypto has acted less as a liberator and more as a honeypot designed to lure users into greater surveillance and not less.

Financial Times

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Why the Coinbase listing is bad news for bitcoin believers - The Australian Financial Review

ZUG, Switzerland, Feb. 4, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Bitcoin Association, the Switzerland-based global industry organisation that works to advance business with the Bitcoin SV blockchain, today announces that it has made a pair of strategic additions to its global team, as it works to improve enterprise awareness and adoption of Bitcoin SV.

Bitcoin Association has hired Lizette Louw as a content marketing specialist and Connor Murray has joined the Bitcoin SV Academy team as a content creator. The announcement concludes a busy week for Bitcoin Association, which on Monday appointed Aaron Zhou as its first China-based technical outreach specialist.

Lizette Louw will be a familiar face for many in the Bitcoin SV ecosystem, having spent the past three years working as a digital marketing and content strategist at Bitstocks, which operates the BSV-based Gravity banking ecosystem app. An experienced content professional, Louw has amassed an extensive portfolio of published work, spanning business, finance and technology publications. Based in Johannesburg, South Africa, in her new role with Bitcoin Association, Louw will develop and implement a range of new inbound marketing initiatives, focused on informing enterprises and mainstream audiences about the benefits of building with the Bitcoin SV blockchain.

Connor Murray joins Bitcoin Association as part of the team working on Bitcoin SV Academy the recently launched, dedicated online education platform for Bitcoin SV. Murray will work as a content creator, sharing his expertise developing applications for and building businesses with Bitcoin SV. In addition to his contributor role with Bitcoin SV Academy, Murray is the co-founder and CEO of britevue a Bitcoin SV-based online consumer reviews platform, which he will continue to lead. Last year, Murray's company received venture funding from noted technology entrepreneur and leading Bitcoin SV supporter, Calvin Ayre.

Bitcoin Association supports Bitcoin SV as the only blockchain protocol which adheres to creator Satoshi Nakamoto's original design and vision for Bitcoin. With the ability to scale unbounded and support huge volumes of transactions, in addition to its micropayment, smart contract, tokenization and data functionalities, Bitcoin SV isquickly becoming the enterprise network of choice for both businesses and developers.

Speaking on today's appointments, Bitcoin Association Founding President Jimmy Nguyen, said:

"As the Bitcoin SV ecosystem continues to grow, so too does the need to bring more experienced professionals into our Association who can help us teach the world that Bitcoin is meant to be a widely used electronic cash system and data network, not a 'digital gold' reserve asset. We're delighted to welcome Lizette, Connor and Aaron to our team each of whom, in addition to their specialist professional skillset, brings with them specific experience working with Bitcoin SV an invaluable combination as we work to educate enterprises about the world's most powerful distributed data ledger for enterprise and online payments system, Bitcoin SV."

Commenting on her appointment, Lizette Louw, said:

"Working in the blockchain and digital asset space for a number of years now, I've found myself increasingly drawn to the potential evident with Bitcoin SV to have a positive impact on both business and individuals. Bitcoin SV offers enterprises a data infrastructure that is far superior to incumbent systems a true value-add, rather than just an expense. I'm excited to work with Bitcoin Association in my new role to help bridge the gap between business and Bitcoin SV technology."

Also commenting, Connor Murray, said:

"Bitcoin is a complex system spanning several different disciplines, that is capable of so much more than most people understand. That's what makes Bitcoin SV Academy such an important initiative, as it helps to introduce new developers, entrepreneurs and investors to the true power of Bitcoin. I've still got a lot to learn myself, but hope to get a little bit closer to mastering Bitcoin each day by sharing my experience and teaching others."

About Bitcoin Association

Bitcoin Associationis theSwitzerland-basedglobal industry organization that works to advance business on the Bitcoin SV blockchain. It brings together essential components of the Bitcoin SV ecosystem enterprises, start-up ventures, developers, merchants, exchanges, service providers, blockchain transaction processors (miners), and others working alongside them, as well as in a representative capacity, to drive further use of the Bitcoin SV blockchain and uptake of the BSV digital currency.

The Association works to build a regulation-friendly ecosystem that fosters lawful conduct while facilitating innovation using all aspects of Bitcoin technology. More than a digital currency and blockchain, Bitcoin is also a network protocol; just like Internet protocol, it is the foundational rule set for an entire data network. The Association supports use of the original Bitcoin protocol to operate the world's single blockchain on Bitcoin SV.

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1218683/Bitcoin_Association_Logo.jpg

SOURCE Bitcoin Association

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Bitcoin Association grows global team with new strategic hires to improve enterprise awareness and adoption of Bitcoin SV - PRNewswire

Imagine having $220 million that you can only access with an encrypted password you created years ago. Now imagine you don't have any idea what that password is and you only have 10 tries to guess it before that $220 million is lost forever. Talk about stressful! This is the plight of German-born San Franciscan Stefan Thomas. As of this week, his Bitcoin portfolio is worth $220 million and Thomas has no idea what his IronKey, the hard drive that allows him access to his digital wallet of 7,003 Bitcoin, is. He lost the paper he wrote the password for his IronKey on years ago. Thomas has tried eight of his most commonly used password combinations so far with no success.

Thomas isn't the only Bitcoin owner locked out of his account. The unusual way the cryptocurrency encrypts the digital wallets means many people are locked out of their accounts due to lost or forgotten IronKeys. About 20% of the current 18.5 million Bitcoins are in lost or stranded wallets. These wallets are worth about $140 billion.

Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Can you imagine the frustration these Bitcoin owners feel knowing they have literally millions of dollars locked up that they cannot access? In many cases, those digital wallets date back to the early days of Bitcoin, when no one really thought the cryptocurrency would take off and be worth anything. Unlike traditional banks like Chase and financial companies like PayPal which can reset a customer's password by verifying information, Bitcoin cannot do that. Bitcoin's mysterious creator Satoshi Nakamoto's main idea about Bitcoin is that it would allow anyone to open a digital bank account that no government could regulate. As such, Bitcoin is run by a network of computers that use a complex algorithm that creates an address and private key known only to the person that created the account. Bitcoin's computers allow the network to confirm passwords to allow transactions without Bitcoin knowing, seeing, or having any access to that password. Basically, this means a Bitcoin account can be created without any sort of identity check. Unfortunately, this system did not take into account how bad a lot of people are at remembering their passwords.

For Stefan Thomas, it's been nine years since he's been locked out of his Bitcoin wallet. In 2011, he was living in Switzerland and was given the 7,002 Bitcoin as payment for making an animated video called "What is Bitcoin?" which introduced the technology to people. At the time, Bitcoin was worth $2. Today it is worth $35,000 per Bitcoin. Within the year, he lost the digital keys to his Bitcoin account. When he first realized he'd lost the password in 2012, he had a few weeks where he felt pretty desperate. Since that time, he's made his peace with it. Of course, it helps that he has other Bitcoin accounts that he does remember the passwords to that have brought him more money than he could have ever hoped. Thomas, a programmer, is the former CTO of cryptocurrency company Ripple, also has an account there filled with that company's XRP currency.

But when it comes to that IronKey he doesn't remember the password to Thomas isn't giving up. He's stored it in a secure facility and is saving those last two guesses just in case someone develops a way of cracking complex cryptocurrency passwords.

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Bitcoin Owner Has Just Two Guesses Left To Unlock $220 Million Or He Loses It Forever - Celebrity Net Worth