Bitcoin has reached $1bn (770m) in cumulative transaction fees, passing themajor milestone on the eleventh anniversary of the worlds first cryptocurrency.

Data gathered by analytics firm Coin Metrics revealed thatover 200,000 bitcoin have now been paid in transaction feessince it launched in 2009 three months after its creator Satoshi Nakamotoa, a pseudonym, published the white paper unveiling it to the world for the first time.

Nakamoto laid out the details of a new electronic cash system thats fully peer-to-peer that negated the need for banks and other third parties, on 31 October 2008.

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Its popularity has soared in recent years but despite transaction volume increasing considerably, the actual cost of transactions has fallen over the last year. This is thanks to the implementation of solutions like the Lightning Network, which helps speed up and simplify blockchain transactions.

Bitcoin users transacted consistently on the network throughout the year, and solutions like the Lightning Network grew in size, Galen Danziger, co-founder of blockchain accelerator MouseBelt, toldThe Independent.

On 3 January, 2009, the genesis block of bitcoin appeared. It came less than a year after the pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto detailed the cryptocurrency in a paper titled 'Bitcoin: A peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System'

Reuters

On 22 May, 2010, the first ever real-world bitcoin transaction took place. Lazlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins the equivalent of $90 million at today's prices

Lazlo Hanyecz

Bitcoin soon gained notoriety for its use on the dark web. The Silk Road marketplace, established in 2011, was the first of hundreds of sites to offer illegal drugs and services in exchange for bitcoin

On 29 October, 2013, the first ever bitcoin ATM was installed in a coffee shop in Vancouver, Canada. The machine allowed people to exchange bitcoins for cash

REUTERS/Dimitris Michalakis

The world's biggest bitcoin exchange, MtGox, filed for bankruptcy in February 2014 after losing almost 750,000 of its customers bitcoins. At the time, this was around 7 per cent of all bitcoins and the market inevitably crashed

Getty Images

In 2015, Australian police raided the home of Craig Wright after the entrepreneur claimed he was Satoshi Nakamoto. He later rescinded the claim

Getty Images

On 1 August, 2017, an unresolvable dispute within the bitcoin community saw the network split. The fork of bitcoin's underlying blockchain technology spawned a new cryptocurrency: Bitcoin cash

REUTERS

Towards the end of 2017, the price of bitcoin surged to almost $20,000. This represented a 1,300 per cent increase from its price at the start of the year

Reuters

On 3 January, 2009, the genesis block of bitcoin appeared. It came less than a year after the pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto detailed the cryptocurrency in a paper titled 'Bitcoin: A peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System'

Reuters

On 22 May, 2010, the first ever real-world bitcoin transaction took place. Lazlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins the equivalent of $90 million at today's prices

Lazlo Hanyecz

Bitcoin soon gained notoriety for its use on the dark web. The Silk Road marketplace, established in 2011, was the first of hundreds of sites to offer illegal drugs and services in exchange for bitcoin

On 29 October, 2013, the first ever bitcoin ATM was installed in a coffee shop in Vancouver, Canada. The machine allowed people to exchange bitcoins for cash

REUTERS/Dimitris Michalakis

The world's biggest bitcoin exchange, MtGox, filed for bankruptcy in February 2014 after losing almost 750,000 of its customers bitcoins. At the time, this was around 7 per cent of all bitcoins and the market inevitably crashed

Getty Images

In 2015, Australian police raided the home of Craig Wright after the entrepreneur claimed he was Satoshi Nakamoto. He later rescinded the claim

Getty Images

On 1 August, 2017, an unresolvable dispute within the bitcoin community saw the network split. The fork of bitcoin's underlying blockchain technology spawned a new cryptocurrency: Bitcoin cash

REUTERS

Towards the end of 2017, the price of bitcoin surged to almost $20,000. This represented a 1,300 per cent increase from its price at the start of the year

Reuters

2019 has been relatively positive for bitcoin, especially when compared to the seemingly terminal decline the cryptocurrency market experienced in 2018.

After peaking at close to $20,000 in December 2017, bitcoin fell to below $4,000 before finally making a recovery earlier this year.

It still faces a number of challenges before it can ever be considered as a legitimate and mainstreamform of payment, including regulatory hurdles, price volatility and security issues that make wallets and exchanges vulnerable to hacking.

It is estimated that around $4.2bn worth of cryptocurrency hasbeen stolen by hackers so far this year, surpassing the record total from last year.

As we celebrate the eleventh anniversary of bitcoin, its important to reflect on just how far weve come as an industry, Pascal Gauthier, chief executive of blockchain security firm Ledger, toldThe Independent.

The market is maturing, institutional investors are continuing to embrace cryptocurrencies, and the long crypto winter is behind us. Despite these strides forward, security is still lagging behind."

He added that Bitcoins underlyingblockchain technology "has the potential to change the world in so many ways beyond finance, but without security this potential cannot be realised.

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Bitcoin passes $1 billion milestone on cryptocurrency anniversary - The Independent

Since topping at $10,500 last week, Bitcoin (BTC) has been in a relative state of calm, trading within a tight range between $9,000 and $9,500. Despite this consolidation above the 200-day moving average, which many analysts would call more bullish than bearish, some fear that the crypto markets charts are flashing warning signs. They claim that a decline from here is likely.

An analyst going by James recently drew attention to an array of reasons why it may be logical to be bearish on Bitcoin. He noted that BTCs three-day Relative Strength Index remains in bear market territory, while the recent move higher was a textbook signal for a trend continuation. He added that there also exists two hidden bearish divergences on the one-day chart, implying a further breakdown.

Dave the Wave has corroborated this sentiment. He noted that the Histogram has begun to contract on the daily, while the one-day Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) has started to roll over. This implies that the medium-term trend is down.

While Bitcoin may soon be susceptible to a short-term drop, one that may bring it back to the $7,000 range, the case for a long-term bullish trend is starting to be realized yet again.

Asreported by this very outlet previously, popular analystFilb Filbnotedthat by the end of November or start of December, the 50-week and 100-week moving averages will see a golden cross, which he claims is far more significant for the Bitcoin market that other technical crosses.

Filbs chart depicts that after the last time the 50-week crossed above the 100-week, Bitcoin rallied for months straight, surging to fresh highs month in, month out. Historical precedence would suggest the same is about to happen again.

Also, trader HornHairs has noted that he likes the chance we hit $14,000 before $7,000. But why, exactly, does the trader expect Bitcoin to surge higher by 55% from the current price of $9,200 over the alternative scenario of a collapse to $7,000.

Well, it has much to do with where Bitcoin has just bounced from and where it closed October. He remarked in a recent tweet that with Bitcoin bouncing strong and holding above the one-month bullish breaker, the 0.618 Fibonacci Retracement of the entire cycle, the Point of Control as defined by the volume profile, and the yearly pivot, BTC is leaning rather bullish.

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Bitcoin Price Fails to Push Higher: Analysts Now Wary of Return to Bear - newsBTC

In one corner: Twitter's cofounder and chief executive Jack Dorsey. In the other corner: Facebook's cofounder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg. The fight's prize is the future of money and their respective weapons are bitcoin and libra.

Who will win?

Cryptocurrency support has split, with one group fighting for centralization through projects like ... [+] Facebook's libra, and the other working towards decentralization with bitcoin.

While the social media monetary situation is not this clear cut, both Dorsey and Zuckerberg have emerged as champions of two similar but opposing ideas; the internet needs its own currency, one sees it as centralised, through Facebook, the other sees it as decentralised, through bitcoin.

Zuckerberg appears to have lost the first round. His libra project, a cryptocurrency by name only and governed by an independent-but-shrinking group of companies, has run afoul of governments and regulators around the world, many of which were already worried Facebook wielded too much influence before the social media giant thought to take on the central bankers.

"I believe that this is something that needs to get built," Zuckerberg told U.S. senators last week, defending Facebook's involvement in the controversial libra project and arguing libra could bring financial maturity to millions, if not billions, of people around the world.

Zuckerberg also warned the U.S. could fall behind other countries if lawmakers moved to block the development of libra and similar digital money projects.

Dorsey will, meanwhile, be counting his blessings, with the bitcoin price staging a somewhat miraculous recovery last week after many feared it was heading to lows not seen since March.

Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was called before Congress to talk about Facebook's ... [+] proposed cryptocurrency libra last week.

Dorsey has also made headlines this week by joining a group of investors that are putting a combined $10 million into CoinList, a U.S.-based startup that helps other young companies raise money through digital token sales.

However, bitcoin innovation and adoption have failed to live up to expectations with the two primary uses for bitcoin and other similar digital tokens still price speculation and buying illicit substances on the dark web.

Bitcoin trading volume among the top ten biggest bitcoin and crypto exchanges fell to to under $200 million a day earlier this month, according to bitcoin and crypto data company Messari, down 20-fold from a peak of $4 billion per day just a few months ago.

"Across all crypto venues, volumes are dismal," eToro's senior market analyst Mati Greenspan wrote ina Twitter thread, sparking industry concern.

Dorsey wants to see that change and expects bitcoin to become what he has called "the internet's first native currency" and is well placed to effect that change through his two companies, micro-blogging platform Twitter and payments company Square.

When asked last week if he'd be open to joining Facebook's libra project, Dorsey replied with an emphatic: "Hell no," slamming libra as not based on an open standard.

It was born out of a companys intention, and its not consistent with what I personally believe and what I want our company to stand for," Dorsey reportedly said, speaking at a New York Twitter event.

And Dorsey isn't all talk. He launched Square Crypto earlier this year, a division of Square that will work on development on the bitcoin network, hiring bitcoin developer Matt Corallo in August, along with three other software developers poached from Google, Lightning Labs, and Facebook.

"The creation of [bitcoin] was very pure, and focused on a public good, rather than any other particular agenda," Dorseytold business news and analysis outlet Quartz in June.

"The fact that its meant to be deflationary, meant to incentivize savings instead of spending, I think is a net positive for the world and how we think about consuming."

Jack Dorsey, the CEO of both Twitter and Square, has previously spoken of his support for bitcoin ... [+] and has opposed Facebook's libra plans.

In a sign the gulf between the two social media companies is growing, Dorsey has revealed Twitter will ban all political advertising worldwide, putting the company at odds with Facebook's acceptance of themsomething that's likely to be a major issue going into the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

The fight for digital monetary freedom could become swept up in the broader battle for the future of the internet.

See the article here:

Bitcoin And Crypto Are Heading For An Epic Social Media Showdown - Forbes

Decred (DCR) and Stellar (XLM) were moving higher on Friday as traders shifted focus from sideways-biased bitcoin.

The thirty fifth-largest blockchain project by market valuation, Decred, today surged by as much as 17.83 percent against bitcoin to trade at 1,755 sats a token. At the same time, the altcoins performance against the US dollar also improved, with DCR/USD pair registering up to 19.14 percent gains since the market open, to trade at $18.73 a token.

Decreds DCR outperforms bitcoin on Friday morning trade | Image credits: TradingView.com

Stellar, the worlds tenth-largest blockchain project by market capitalization, also showed similar upside movements like that of Decred. The firms native token, XLM, jumped by as much as 11.94 percent against bitcoin on Friday to trade at 797 sats.Meanwhile, its value against the US dollar was also strong, with the pair XLM/USD registering up to 11.19 percent in session profits.

Stellars XLM registers solid gains during Friday trade | Image credits: TradingView.com

The capital outflow from bitcoin to both Stellar and Decred did not affect its intraday bias much. The benchmark cryptocurrency was trading in a positive area on Friday, up by 0.51 percent, as its macro bullish bias remained strong. Bitcoins halving event next year, which would see its supply rate cut by half, is particularly prompting speculators to hold on to it. Meanwhile, mainstream financial companies are building a regulated bitcoin trading infrastructure to cater to institutional investors, especially amidst the fears of a recession that could send big monies looking for non-correlated safe-havens.

Gains in Stellars XLM appeared shortly after Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck announced that it would start offering XLM trading from November 12. Yoriko Beal, the co-founder of HashHub a blockchain community in Tokyo, said after the announcement.

Its significant news because this is the first token to be whitelisted by regulator after crypto regulation came into effect.

XLMs upside action came also ahead of its annual Meridian conference, showing how traders might have increased their Long positions on the altcoin while expecting short-term profits. That further indicates that XLM might correct heavily to the downside in the coming days against Bitcoin. 2019 is the altcoins worst year against BTC; the XLM/BTC pair is down by more than 75 percent on a year-to-date (YTD) basis.

Unlike Stellar, Decred did not show any strong fundamentals that could explain its intraday price rally. The upside looked technical since the DCR token is also down by more than 60 percent against bitcoin YTD.

See original here:

Decred, Stellar Post Massive Gains as Bitcoin Uptrend Halts - newsBTC

High school students in France may be among the first people in the world to actually understand how cryptocurrency works.

The Next Web reports that the French education ministry, Le Ministre de lducation Nationale, will integrate cryptocurrency into its curriculum and teach students the influence that bitcoin has on the economy. An outline of the curriculum notes that under this new module, high school teachers will provide a basic overview of cryptocurrency so students can understand the framework of decentralized financial systems.

France announced the decision in June, but cryptocurrency reporters in the U.S. and France have learned of the new curriculum this week.

The education ministry recommends teachers use four educational videos that address questions like Is Bitcoin the currency of the future? and Can Bitcoin replace the Euro?

According to the cryptocurrency outlet Decrypt, the curriculum outline advises that students should watch the videos and discuss the differences between fiat money (like the dollars in your pocket) and bitcoin.

This is far from the first time academic institutions will be encouraged to teach students about cryptocurrency. A recent Coinbase report found that 42 percent of top universities feature blockchain and cryptocurrency course. But Frances new suggested curriculum is likely the first nationwide program that encourages blockchain studies.

No matter how you feel about cryptocurrency, encouraging young students to understand financial systems can only benefit them and the future economy. If recent generations of students had a healthy balance of STEM and economics in their curriculum, we wouldnt be as screwed as we are now.

More:

French Students Will Now Have to Learn About Bitcoin - Gizmodo

On November 1, it was announced that the first regulated Bitcoin fund that has been available in North American exchanges will also be released in Canada.

3iQ Corp, a Canada based company received confirmation from the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) in order to list The Bitcoin Fund on Canadas stock exchange. This is expected to be done by the end of 2019.

While the news has been positive, the Bitcoin price movement has been confusing, to say the least. The price has been gradually decreasing since October 25s rapid upward move.

Cryptocurrency trader @davethewave speculated that the ideal buying price for Bitcoin is at $6700. According to our analysis, the ideal buying price may be in the low $7000s or high $6000s.

Additionally, he suggested that averaging in would be ideal but what does that mean? Lets analyze both the ideal price and the concept of averaging in.

@davthewave used a pitchfork to create a descending channel and determine future price movement.

The ideal buy zone falls within the lower portion of the channel (blue). Since it is descending, the ideal buy price is decreasing as time goes by.

When using the Volume profile indicator, we can see that the strongest buy area is found near $6500 coinciding well with the buy zone given by the channel.

A decrease below this level could trigger a rapid Bitcoin price decrease.

Using a logarithmic chart and curved trendlines, we can see that the support line is currently at $6300 and is slowly moving upward. Therefore, we agree that the ideal buying price may be around $6700.

The concept of averaging-in means placing several orders around an average price. One example of the $6700 price would mean buying with 1/3 of the total amount of your order at $6900, 1/3 at $6700 and 1/3 at $6500.

Disclaimer: This article is not trading advice and should not be construed as such. Always consult a trained financial professional before investing in cryptocurrencies, as the market is particularly volatile.

Images courtesy of Twitter, TradingView.

Did you know you can trade sign-up to trade Bitcoin and many leading altcoins with a multiplier of up to 100x on a safe and secure exchange with the lowest fees with only an email address? Well, now you do! Click here to get started on StormGain!

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Here Is Bitcoins Ideal Buying Price (According to One Analyst) - BeInCrypto

Hostility to Bitcoin (BTC) from the global regulators is a double-edged sword that can hurt authorities if they lose their power, the Blockstream Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) warned.

During a panel at a Liquid meetup at Litecoin Summit on Oct. 29, Blockstream CSO Samson Mow predicted that regulatory restrictions to Bitcoin could have both favorable and unfavorable consequences for the regulators themselves.

The panel is a part of the event hosted by BTC technology firm Blockstream and BTSE exchange in Las Vegas, BTSEs global marketing director Lina Seiche shared on Oct. 31.

Alongside Mow, the panel also featured Litecoin (LTC) founder Charlie Lee and industry Twitter personality WhalePanda.

During the discussion, Mow pointed out that Bitcoin really solves a lot of issues in the existing financial system such as inflation. He also predicted that global jurisdictions will eventually have to adopt it due to the multitude of benefits of the cryptocurrency.

However, they also might be hostile to it, Mow noted, urging that excessive hostility can lead to unfortunate consequences if regulators power is undermined by this borderless technology. He said:

They might be hostile to it. But the thing is hostility to Bitcoin is a double-edged sword like if you are in power and you ban Bitcoin, and you fall out of power, then youre screwed. [...] People need to be careful when they are enforcing regulation and creating all this policy because you could be on the other side of the sword, down the road if you fall out of favor.

Mow further emphasized Bitcoins decentralized and deflationary nature as one of the major benefits for soon-to-come global adoption, forecasting that people will eventually find out those advantages. He also cited the growing adoption of Bitcoin in China, claiming that both people and the government in the country love Bitcoin. The Bitcoin bull declared:

Bitcoin is allowing you to make the transactions that people dont want you to make. Its essentially digital freedom.

Earlier this year, Mow claimed that Bitcoin is not ideal for payments, but this could be solved by the Lightning Network, a second layer payment protocol that works on top of Bitcoin to increase transaction capacity.

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Regulators Hostile to Bitcoin Will Fall Out of Favor, Warns Samson Mow - Cointelegraph

Software hosting platform Github yesterday took down the APK of a protest organization app utilized by the Tsunami Democrtica group advocating Catalonian independencefollowing a court request.

This marks another time that GitHubwhich was acquired by Microsoft in June, 2018has censored its platform, after it suddenly blocked developers in Iran, Syria and Crimea from using its services. But theres a wider issue here for the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem. Github is a repository for almost every piece of code in the cryptocurrency sector. And some developers think this is such a worrying problem that it is only a matter of time before the Bitcoin repository will have to be moved.

"It only took a few months for Microsoft to destroy GitHub culture and openness. Such a shame," Andreas Antonopoulos, author of Mastering Bitcoin, tweeted.

Antonopoulos pointed out that the underlying protocol, known as git is decentralized, which means Microsoft cant stop it with the press of a button. But, what he described as the collaboration platform is still on GitHubthe place where everyone discusses what pieces of code should be implemented and requests to add new code are made. And if this were to happen, it would be a nuisance. Wouldn't be surprised if GitHub de-platformed Bitcoin devs at some point, he added.

In response, a GitHub spokesperson told Decrypt that compliance with government officials was sometimes mandatory to ensure operational integrity within a given territory. He said, Although we may not always agree with those laws, we may need to block content if we receive a valid request from a government official, so that our users in that jurisdiction may continue to have access to GitHub to collaborate and build software."

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But this hasnt come as a surprise to Bitcoin developers. Wladimir van der Laan tweeted back in June, 2018, that the Bitcoin repository should move because of Microsofts acquisition. However, he added, No real hurry, but I expect this is the beginning of a long painful road of [GitHub] toward [obsolescence], possibly ending the same way as codeplex did. (Codeplex being a code sharing platform that Microsoft shut down in 2017)

But if the Bitcoin repository on GitHub should move, where should it go?

One option is GitHubs main competitor, GitLab. Its an open source project and has tools for self-hosting repositories, enabling teams to keep full control over their own projects.

Some cryptocurrencies have already moved over. Last year, Sia cryptocurrency migrated over to GitLab and hasnt looked back since.

GitHub has become something of a backbone for open source projects over the past few years. This is ironic, as GitHub itself is closed source and centralized, David Vorick, CEO of Sia, said, in a blog post at the time. GitLab on the other hand has aligned themselves much more with the true open source philosophy.

Alternatively, there is a version of the Bitcoin repository available on Tor, maintained by van der Laan himself. Tor is a network for anonymous communication, accessed via the Tor browser.

Other developers are experimenting with peer-to-peer technology to fill the void beginning to open in the light of Githubs recent moves. Developers have built platforms like Radicle, which offers peer-to-peer code communication but is still in beta mode.

GitHubs actions serve as a warning to those building decentralized platforms, that they should stay wary, to prevent elements of centralization from seeping through. On Tuesday, the founder and inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners Lee, reminded us that, since it started, the first Internet has been constantly subverted and that its time to fight for the web we want. The time is now.

Link:

How Microsofts censorship of GitHub will affect Bitcoin - Decrypt