Founded in 2013, the Beijing-based Bitmain Technology remains at the center of the crypto economy. With its flagship AntMiner bitcoin mining equipment still dominating the hardware market and its mining pools accounting for about a quarter of the Bitcoin networks computing power, it retains a uniquely powerful place in the ecosystem of by far the largest cryptocurrency and blockchain project.

Thats not to say it isnt also controversial. Its vocal support for a Bitcoin hard fork (Bitcoin Cash) in 2017, following contentious community disagreement, won the company, and its masterminds, many enemies.

This post is part of the CoinDesk 50, an annual selection of the most innovative and consequential projects in the blockchain industry. See thefull list here.

Over the years, Bitmain has been involved in many controversial developments to the point that the Chinese crypto community refers to its foes as the mining avengers. In 2017, Bitmain filed a lawsuit against Yang Zuoxing, the former design chief behind Bitmains AntMiner S9 who started a rival miner manufacturer MicroBT, over patent infringement. But Bitmain lost the case eventually.

Then in 2018, it brought another lawsuit over non-compete violation against the former creators of Bitmans mining pool BTC.com, who left the company to start a rival service PoolIn, which has become the worlds top two bitcoin mining pool by total hash rate.

Bitmains story started with Wu Jihan, one of the earliest bitcoin evangelists in China, translating Satoshi Nakamotos white paper to Chinese in 2011.

He invested in probably the worlds first known bitcoin-denominated initial public offering in 2012. It was a project started by Jiang Xinyu, a.k.a Friedcat., who was crowdfunding bitcoin to roll out an application-specific integrated circuit just for bitcoin mining.

The hardware sold well initially and sensational success followed. In 2013, Wu, with a finance and psychology degree from Chinas prestigious Peking University, decided to start his own company to manufacture mining hardware. He was joined by Zhan Ketuan, his partner on the technology side, who, in six years, would find himself ousted from the company in a coup started by Wu.

Bitcoins last halving event in the summer 2016 marked the beginning of two years of extraordinary growth at Bitmain.

In 2017 alone, still only four years old, it made $1 billion in profits. It made another $1 billion for the first six months in 2018 and then went on a high-profile fundraise in the summer, netting $700 million from external shareholders with a bet. The deal is this: if Bitmain cant go public within five years since the fundraise at an agreed term, external investors could require the company to redeem all of their investment with an interest.

At that time, Bitmain was boasting a hardware market share of nearly 80 percent. So the agreed term for the IPO was nothing but ambitious: raising at least $500 million at a valuation of no less than $18 billion.

So much has changed in 2019, since its first IPO attempt failed in March in Hong Kong.

Its rising rival, MicroBT, whose founder won over Bitmains patent infringement lawsuit, is seriously undermining Bitmains market dominance.

In 2019, Bitmains mining pools BTC.com and Antpool lost the top two spots to F2Pool and Poolin, the latter of which still has an ongoing case with Bitmain over alleged non-compete violation.

When Wu Jihan returned in a coup in November 2019 to kick out his founding partner Zhan, he told his people hes back to save the sinking ship. Whether his tough comeback will work as he expected is yet to be proven, although it appears prepared to roll out more powerful equipment to weather the upcoming halving.

It remains to be seen if Bitmain can replicate the sensational success it once had following the 2016 bitcoin halving.

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

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The CoinDesk 50: Bitmain, the Behemoth of Bitcoin Mining - CoinDesk

The Chief Executive Officer of Chapel Hill Denham, Bolaji Balogun, said that though the Coronavirus pandemic has caused numerous health and economic challenges Nigerians should always remember that crises also create opportunities.

He disclosed this during a Q&A session at the Workshift online conference organised by Liberty Church, London, as he laid emphasis on available opportunities for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) amid the pandemic.

According to him, this is the right time for business owners to reflect inwards, carry out some critical analysis of their businesses, and answer some important questions. Some of these questions include the following:

He then focused on the last question by giving numerous examples of how businesses can reinvent in order to adapt during this period. For instance, companies that primarily make clothes may consider switching over to sowing clothe masks which are in serious demands right now. Such companies can also consider producing bedsheets for hospitals because almost certainly, at a time like this, hospitals arent going to be using and re-using bedsheets. They will be using bedsheets and disposing of them because if the highly-infectious nature of the virus.

I think the first thing is to recognise that every Crisis must not be wasted and in every crisis, there is an opportunity. I dont necessarily subscribe to the people who have turned themselves to opportunists who started off n95 masks at N2000 and are now selling those same n95 masks at N5000 to N6000. I think that is a bit of opportunism at the wrong time. And that is not something which, in itself, brings sustainable prosperity, he said.

He also spoke more on cutting down on costs, stressing that it is absolutely essential at this point. He did, however, note that for SMEs (which are a large source of employment in Nigeria), this may be a difficult time to manage costs. This is because there are really no existing support systems for these SMEs. Even the palliatives announced by the government are not enough.

What this means, therefore, is that businesses must watch their costs. He warned against spending money on things that are not necessary. He said:

It should also be recognised that this is a time when everybody should watch their costs. So, absolutely dont spend money on things that are unnecessary. This is also not a time to be investing, unless you are investing in technology that allows you to do your business, or investing in data. This is absolutely not a time to be investing. Slow down on investment. Keep cash as much as possible.

Its also a time when you have to look at your people and make some honest decisions. And those honest decisions require a lot of open communication with your people. There will be many scenarios where people will tell you that you know what hat, it may be easier for all of us to take 50% pay cut rather than firing 30% to 40% of the workforce.

You may watch the rest of the CEOs comments by clicking here.

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Bitcoin could hit above $100000 by August 2021 - Nairametrics

The unprecedented reaction from governments around the world to do whatever it takes to keep their economics afloat in response to the coronavirus pandemic could drive a flight to Bitcoin.

Thats the principal takeaway from the latest report by Bitcoin research firm Delphi Digital. The exhaustive documentcovering everything from the macro financial climate to Bitcoins on-chain datalooks at a mixture of historical precedent and Bitcoins current data trends to presage what the rest of the year may look like for the cryptocurrency.

The report began with a rosy reminder that the worlds economy is basically on debt-based life support. The amount of monetary and fiscal relief thats been pledged [by central banks in 2020] equates to more than $10 trillion globally, it stated.

But as governments print more money, Bitcoin (as evidenced by yesterdays successful halving) is going to tick on with a decreased inflation rate.

This activity will benefit Bitcoin in the long run, according to Delphi Digital. But it will take some time. Using the limited data they have for Bitcoins 11 year existence, the team asserted that, historically, it is notable that prior BTC cycles tended to peak when major central bank asset growth began to decelerate.

Continuing to evaluate the risk currency debasement poses for poorer populations, Delphi noted that Bitcoin is already performing well against the monies of troubled states. For instance, its up 44% against the Russian ruble, 74% against the Brazilian real, and 52% against the Mexican peso among others.

We expect the demand for non-sovereign safe haven assets to rise considerably as the risk of broad-based currency debasement increases, Deplhi reported, adding that gold has a place here among Bitcoin, which it expects to grow in market cap.

Perhaps this growth isnt so far-fetched when we crunch some on-chain numbers. The number of addresses holding fewer than 1 Bitcoin trends upwards over the last five years, while addresses holding larger amounts of Bitcoin has trended downwards. This is typically considered to be an indication that Bitcoins investor base is growing among retail (though, its important to note that multiple addresses could belong to a single, privacy-minded user).

Moreover, this recent rally following Marchs precipitous price drop was led by the spot market, typically made up of low-capitalized retail investors. But the January rally preceding the Black Thursday crash was largely institution-driven.

This level of spot volume hasn't really been seen since last summer; it's tough to know who exactly to attribute it to (holder size wise), but I definitely agree that it's bullish, Yan Liberman, co-founder of Delphi Digital, told Decrypt.

As retail volume booms, the amount of Bitcoin held on exchanges is dwindling, experiencing previously unseen outflows, according to the report.

Delphi ended its report with a nod to the previous halving, and compared how the current holder base stacks up to Bitcoins second halving four years ago.

The current composition of the underlying holder base looks nearly identical to the one leading into the second halving, the report noted. It added that, at the moment, the percentage of holders who havent moved coins for at least one year or three years is only a single digit percentage point off the figures from 2016.

22% of the network hasnt moved in 5 years, and 7.7% hasnt moved in a decade, Delphi said in its report. Adding to these findings, Liberman told Decrypt that these holders basically represent the portion of the base that's in it for the long haul, and don't care as much about short-term moves.

In other words, hardcore Bitcoiners are creating a bedrock of support as the networks so-called holders of last resort. At the very least, as Delphi said in a tweet when it released its report, the data makes one thing clear: Dismissing Bitcoin is no longer an option.

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Bitcoin poised to shine as governments print more money: report - Decrypt

Dr. Craig Wright has continued to vent at some of the digital asset industrys bad actors. In his latest blog post, he trained his sights on those peddling misinformationabout Bitcoins structure and incentives, digital asset investments, and those who use their media platforms to damage his own reputation. Combating fake news, he said is one of the reasons I invented Bitcoin.

Dr. Wright named several well-known identities in the Bitcoin and digital asset space, including John McAfee, Ira Kleiman, Peter McCormack, and Greg Maxwell. These people, he said (some of whom are engaged in ongoing disputes with Wright) have used online media and their own platforms to spread false information by citing each others words and creating a self-feeding cycle of confusion for the public.

Forbes and YouTube Flim-Flam

The post begins with a look at Forbes and other famous-name online media outlets that publish unpaid contributor articles. These articles, Dr. Wright said, are not properly vetted for accuracy and exist only to drive eyeballs and clicks to site ads. Destroying the internets ad-based model, he added, is one of the reasons he invented Bitcoin.

The fact is, such burnishing of the truth does nothing to create integrity in journalism. It is merely adding a gloss to a turd that is fake news.

Access to brand-name media through contributions (sometimes unpaid) has allowed both unqualified and outright deceptive individuals to publish investment advice with a veneer of legitimacy. YouTube, he said, has also been an open platform for those promoting digital asset pump and dumpsincluding BTC. He called technical analysis trading YouTube channels unscientific flimflam that forever promise big price gains, while their hosts often make the opposite moves they advise their viewers to make.

Wright noted that, even though Google has recently taken stricter action against content it regards as misinformation, Forbes and other contributors continue their free run with digital currency investment promotion.

(We should note that Googles censorship dragnet has also ensnared several legitimately informative content producers, such as the BSV Channel.)

Some examples: misinformation about Bitcoin

Price isnt the only topic the fake news media promotes. The nature of Bitcoin itself is often misrepresented, which either demonizes truth-tellers or deflects criticism away from guilty parties.

Dr. Wright gave the example of Bitcoin transaction malleability being responsible for the loss of 850,000 BTC from the Mt. Gox exchange in the years leading up to its 2014 collapse. Even though that myth was debunked at its outset, the phrase continues to appear. Most serious investigators believe the Mt. Gox debacle was caused by embezzlement and theft by those with inside knowledge, not a technical issue with Bitcoin.

The structure of Bitcoins own network is misunderstood (accidentally or deliberately) due to phrases like mesh network and relay nodesneither of which are relevant to the way Bitcoin should function, he added. Believing they are true, or somehow important, creates incorrect impressions about what Bitcoin is for and makes networks like BTC less secure.

Misinformation about Dr. Craig Wright

Given Dr. Wrights outspoken nature, knowledge of Bitcoin and willingness to challenge some of BTCs biggest proponents, its natural they see him as a threat to their interests. Efforts to smear his character began from the instant he was outed as Satoshi Nakamoto in late 2015, but have ramped up since he took back control of the Bitcoin project with BSV.

Wright gave a few examples: Ira Kleiman and his lawsuit claiming ownership of early Bitcoins; Peter McCormacks claims that Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto, and Greg Maxwells more technical takes against Wright and on Bitcoin history.

Easily debunked

Though Kleimans lawsuit purportedly concerns ownership of Dr. Wrights (and/or Satoshi Nakamotos) early Bitcoins and company IP, it serves also as a means to generate plenty of headlines and misleading news articles that attack Wrights reputation. Thats something Kleiman, who works in the area of search engine optimisation (SEO), would understand, he wrote.

Misleading reports about Dr. Wrights past actions resulting from the case have suggested he fled Australia for the United Kingdom, has plagiarized research, and is under investigation by the Australian Tax Offices criminal investigations unit (which does not exist).

Like the ATO claim, such myths are easily debunked, but lazy reporters dont bother to check them and neither do gullible readers. Wright said his U.K. visa showed clear intent to travel there in late 2015. Moreover, the U.K. is hardly a useful destination for anyone trying to escape the law in Australia.

Falsifying documents, he added, has been the domain of his attackers rather than himself. He claimed his own signature was forged multiple times either to make accusations and even to launch the infamous 2015 raid on his property (which coincided with his outing as Satoshi). He called the latter example a case of swatting; where bad actors make a false report with the intent to prompt law enforcement action on another individual.

Dr. Wright said Ira Kleiman was perhaps being used by other forces, and was not smart enough to know when he is being played.

Plagiarism claims show lack of academic understanding

In another example, Dr. Wright referred to BTC developer and former Blockstream employee Greg Maxwell, who he said publishes articles under his own name and several pseudonyms. Maxwell has long been a Wright adversary with antagonism between the two preceding Bitcoin by years.

Maxwell has in the past accused Wright of plagiarizing research, particularly in a recent hit piece article that referenced Wrights legal cases against both Kleiman and McCormack.

The article concerned mathematical concepts like random forests and decisions, which the article suggested Wright had plagiarized a medical paper whose data was incorporated into a training and example package that researcher John Maindonald created. Maindonald used the original paper to create a CRAN R statistical package, while Wright did not use the original paper and instead took his graph from the courseware. Wright said Maxwells lack of academic experience and training had caused him to misunderstand the nature of references in his patent applications, he said. Speaking to CoinGeek, Dr. Wright said:

John is one of the authors of the original R package and incorporated much of the original statistical work into common packages people have now. This included the particular piece of data that that image came from. Ironically, Ill probably not terribly ironically I dont think Greg Maxwell has a clue when it comes to academic work, it is referenced. When youre referencing academically, you dont actually put different papers if its not from a different paper. This particular diagram comes from statistical notes and processes and courseware developed by John Maindonald.

You see they dont care about investigating truth. The fact that Ive actually referenced a document by saying its notes from the forthcoming publication does not mean its not referenced, it is referenced as part of a statistical software package and it is the image derived from that. Then, if Mr Greg Maxwell had done any statistical training using the CRAN R package before going into calling himself paintedfrog, he would have probably recognised the source, it is a very common one that is used in many statistical programming training courses around the world. Dr Maindonald was one of the original authors of the CRAN R statistical package and I learnt from him before this was popular or well-known.

All these accusations, and misinformation about Bitcoin, echo through online media and causes both accidental confusion and deliberate damage. Dr. Wright said reporters hadnt bothered to investigate their own stories thoroughly, and his own critics chose to attack the man rather than address them as technical debates.

What they and other detractors failed to understand, he said, is that he personally has plenty of patience to wait for real facts to emergesomething he attributed to his Aspergers spectrum condition.

Other people may stop, I dig in deeper. I bide my time.

It sounds like it is going to be a rocky road on the horizon for Wrights distractors.

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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Craig Wright: Bitcoin truth versus the 'turd that is fake news' - CoinGeek

The most recent quarter has been turbulent to say the least across all global economies but while Bitcoins performance naturally fell, according to CoinMarketCaps most recent analysis, it still outperformed global benchmarks for equities.

In its Q1 assessment of crypto market and user trends, CoinMarketCap argued that, amid the Covid-19 pandemic, crypto markets have regained a good portion of their March losses, but warns there was still some way to go before they fully recover.

Bitcoin reached a high of $10,500 and total market cap of $305 billion in February, before touching a low of $3,900 on March 12, dropping 43%. Its year-to-date performance based on January 2 to March 31 saw a drop in price of 10.52%. This was better than the MSCI World Index, which fell 20.65% over the quarter, and the S&P 500 Index (-19.42%).

Since March 31, where Bitcoins price was at $6,445, there has been a gradual revival, with many seeing it as a comparative safe haven amid the crisis. The currency touched $10,000 again, in line with positive comments hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones made, saying it was a great speculation.

Alongside that, this week has seen the latest Bitcoin halving, whereby the reward for unlocking a new block has been cut from 12.5 new coins to 6.25. The event, approximately once every four years, has its supporters and detractors within the industry. Supporters of Bitcoin see it as a protection part of ensuring only 21 million Bitcoins will ever exist while others see it as a potential disincentive for miners. Stephen Innes, from AXI Corp, told the BBC that miners will probably switch to more profitable cryptocurrencies.

Within the cryptomarket itself, according to CoinMarketCap, some cryptoassets most notably Ethereum (+3.29%), Bitcoin Cash (BCH, +10.48%) and Bitcoin SV (BSV, +76%) saw a solid quarter, with market caps of $14.74bn, $4.11bn and $3.08bn at the end of the quarter respectively. As a result of these gains, BSV and BCH both reside in the top 10 most viewed cryptoassets on CoinMarketCap. Bitcoin naturally remains on top, with Ethereum nudging XRP into second place. Litecoin also moved into the top 10 this quarter.

Among the reports other interesting findings was that the number of female Bitcoin users had increased significantly. Led by countries such as Greece, Romania, Colombia and Venezuela, there was a 42.34% quarterly growth worldwide. CoinCorner, a UK-based Bitcoin exchange, said in a note that it had seen a similar rise, with women accounting for more than one in five (22.8%) of all sign-ups in Q1.

CoinMarketCap concluded its report with the most cautious of optimism, noting that while the strongest hype around concepts like ICOs has almost certainly died off, the solid figures elsewhere show opportunities for growth do not rest solely on Bitcoin.

From the 2017 boom of initial coin offerings to exchange-led fundraising in initial exchange offerings, the viability of raising capital via the issuance of tokens is now at a trough, the company noted. That said, there is much untapped potential in the blockchain revolution.

You can read the full analysis here.

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Analysing Bitcoin's revival: CoinMarketCap notes cautious optimism amid Covid-19 - as halving arrives - The Block - The Block

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Even today, there is a non-trivial chance that governments try to ban Bitcoin (BTC), according to Marco Santori, the recently appointed Chief Legal Officer (CLO) of major crypto exchange Kraken.

I dont think its a 20% or 30% chance in the next five years, but I think its real. And its up to us to do everything that we can to give this stuff realand maybe this is where this starts to get a little controversialreal functional use that people in government can appreciate as something more than just what they see oftentimes as a casino, he said during the Kraken Block Drop VR Halving Party on Sunday.

Santori noted that its important for crypto lobbying organizations like Coin Center to be on the front lines to make sure that the Overton window, which is the range of ideas that the general public is willing to accept from politicians, never opens far enough for a ban on Bitcoin to ever come close to a possibility.

That said, Santori tries to remain practical in terms of the potential for a ban.

I still operate every day as if it is a non-trivial possibility [Bitcoin could be banned], and I think folks who are regulated and subject to laws are wise to think that as well, said Santori. There was a time where I wouldnt have described it as non-trivial . . . I would have described it as maybe a 20% chance [or] 30% chance.

According to the CLO, his views on the potential for an outright ban on Bitcoin were altered by the release of FinCENs (Financial Crimes Enforcement Networks) guidance regarding cryptocurrencies like BTC in 2013.

When the government first said, Okay Bitcoiners. Youre under our thumb. You have to follow the rules like everybody else. I think a lot of people reacted negatively to that, but just as many people reacted positively, explained Santori. They thought, Oh my goodness. This is the government recognizing the legitimacy of this thing. They said something for the first time about Bitcoin and it wasnt that its bad and illegal.

Before joining Kraken, Santori served as President and Chief Legal Officer for Blockchain.com, a major crypto wallet provider, and is known as the Dean of Digital Currency Lawyers for his work in litigating, advising on and creating new law in the crypto industry.

In April, he argued that the courts, not the lawmakers, will likely be the ones that'll make "new sources of law" for the crypto industry within the next couple of years.

Meanwhile, during the same discussion on Sunday, Coin Center Director of Research Peter Van Valkenburgh, said that preventing a government ban has been easier than youd think.

Government is just a bunch of people, and they all have their specific interests, said Van Valkenburgh.

From his perspective, people at the Securities and Exchange Commission are mostly interested in protecting mainstream investors from penny stocks and certain initial coin offerings, FinCEN just wants to make sure illicit money isnt flowing through the regulated financial system, and the Internal Revenue Service just wants Americans to pay their taxes.

Maybe the taxes thing is where things start to break downwhere if you had widespread tax evasion because of Bitcoin wed see a different tone, youd see government unify under one interest (they all want to make sure they still get paid as a government), Van Valkenburgh added. But right now, you have a bunch of fractured interests, and you dont have an existential threat to the government. So, there really hasnt been a widespread call here in the US amongst anyone in Congress or the agencies to sort of ban this thing.

According to Van Valkenburgh, the United States has a long history of not just accepting new technologies but also embracing and promoting them to the point where politicians want to take credit for these advancements. The Coin Center director of research pointed to Al Gores infamous claim (which he didnt actually make) that he invented the internet as supporting evidence for this phenomenon.

The internet created a whole new suite of potential vulnerabilities and issues for American society, but our reaction wasnt to get rid of it, said Van Valkenburgh.

He added that for every congressperson or regulator who gets loud about the perceived negative aspects of Bitcoin there are one or two people in government who are excited about the technology and think its cool.____

Learn more:As US Seized Gold in 1933, Is There a Threat to Bitcoin in the 2020s?This Is How G20 Might Keep Crypto And Stablecoins at BayIndia's Crypto Ban Overruled, But the Battle is Far From OverUS Congressman Wants to Outlaw Crypto, Cryptoverse Fires Back

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There's Still a Non-Trivial Chance of a Ban on Bitcoin - Kraken CLO - Cryptonews