Category Archives: Bitcoin

Denis Manturov, Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation, recently expressed his opinion that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies being legalized in Russia is just a matter of time, according to a report from Russian state news agency TASS.

At an educational event called New Horizon, when asked whether or not Russia would be legalizing bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency, Manturov stated:

The question is when it will happen, how it will happen and how it will be regulated. Now both the Central Bank and the government are actively engaged in this.

Currently, Russian authorities are discussing the future of cryptocurrencies and mining. The Bank of Russia pushed for a complete ban on cryptocurrency, citing systemic threats to the current financial system.

The Ministry of Finance, however, has held the position that cryptocurrencies should be legal and well-regulated and PresidentVladimirPutin also pleaded with regulatory agencies to come to an agreement on the matter due to Russias natural resource advantages.

But everyone tends to understand that this is a trend of time, and sooner or later, in one format or another it will be carried out, said Manturov at the New Horizon event. But, once again, it should be legal, correct, in accordance with the rules that will be formulated.

This past February, the Russian government approved the concept of regulating bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies based on a proposal drafted by the Ministry of Finance. During the same month, the Ministry of Finance also submitted a bill.

The Ministry of Finance reportedly expects legislation regulating bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies will be introduced this year and is also working on the collection of tax as it relates to cryptocurrency.

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Russia Legalizing Bitcoin And Crypto Is A Matter of Time, Says Minister of Industry And Trade - Bitcoin Magazine

Pizza DAO, the decentralized blockchain project seeking to unite the global community of pizza fanatics with the technological potential of Web3, are celebrating Sunday's Bitcoin Pizza Day in authentic style.

On Sunday, the project will host commemorative events at 100 pizzerias in over 75 countries around the world, including the United States, Argentina, South Korea, Ethiopia, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, and more.

Alongside a nonfungible token (NFT) drop and charitable campaign, the events will attract a number of supporters including 13-time World Pizza Champion Tony Gemignani, Seth Green, Steve Aoki, the Dogecoin team, and comedians Cheech and Chong, among others.

Bitcoin Pizza Day has become a permanent fixture and cultural highlight in the crypto calendar since the 2017 bull market resurrected and glorified the tale of misfortune from the blockchain archives.

On May 22, 2010, Laszlo Hanyeczs published a 153-word post on the Bitcoin Talk message board requesting for someone to either home cook and deliver, or simply pick up two large pizzas from a nearby takeout, stating:

The Jacksonville, Florida native was very particular about his topping requirements, writing: "I like things like onions, peppers, sausage, mushrooms, tomatoes, pepperoni, etc., just standard stuff no weird fish topping or anything like that. I also like regular cheese pizzas which may be cheaper to prepare or otherwise acquire."

User ender_x tried to persuadeHanyecz that his money could be better spent elsewhere, stating: "10,000... That's quite a bit.. you could sell those on https://www.bitcoinmarket.com/ for $41USD right now.."

But Hanyecz was persistent in his endeavor and finally seven hours later successfully traded 10,000 Bitcoin (BTC) for the pizzas. A "great milestone reached" one user replied.

At the time of writing, almost twelve years to the day, that pizza transaction is worth $298 million.

Related: We Have All Had A 'Pizza Day Moment' What's Yours?

Hanyeczs story financially epitomizes the parabolic growth of Bitcoin and the entire sector across the past decade, but aside from its entertainment andcomedic value, for many market participants, it represents the necessity for humility and appreciation as well as conviction in early adoption.

Cointelegraph spoke to Snax, the founder of PizzaDAO, for a broader insight into their intentions and ambitions in celebrating the monumental day:

PizzaDAO will seek to bring "local independent businesses on-chain" through the utilization of their open-source Pizzanomics crowdfunding model.A generation nonfungible token (NFT) collection denoting different variations of pizza boxes released by Rare Pizzas will fund the events.

The project was recently featuredin Cointelegraphs Market Report by Benton Yaun, the creative lead at CT Studio, as one of the five most prominent decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) in the space.

American actor Seth Green, known for starring in movies such as Austin Powers and The Italian Job as well as being the voice of Chris Griffin on Family Guy, among other producing and writing roles, is an advocate of PizzaDAO and will be one of the event's most influential supporters.

In conversation with Cointelegraph, Green excitedly stated that: Im all for things that bring people together, and pizza is one of those things. Helping throw a global pizza party that everyone can share? Im here for it!"

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Try topping this: PizzaDAO celebrating Bitcoin Pizza Day with 100 parties worldwide - Cointelegraph

New Delhi: After a solid hammering, crypto tokens were back with decent gains on Friday amid volatility in the markets. However, behemoth tokens outperformed other altcoins. Barring the US dollar-pegged coins, all other tokens were trading with decent gains on Friday. BNB and XRP rose 5 per cent each, followed by a 4 per cent gain in Bitcoin and Ethereum.

The global cryptocurrency market cap was trading higher at the $1.28 trillion mark, jumping more than 3 per cent in the last 24 hours. However, the total cryptocurrency trading volume added about a per cent to $82.39 billion.

Expert's takeEdul Patel Co-Founder & CEO of Mudrex said Bitcoin, Ethereum, and most cryptocurrencies rose after witnessing a steep fall. Bitcoin is currently trading above the $30,000 mark as buyers reacted to the oversold conditions, he added.

Rising inflationary worries and concerns over global economic slowdown is weighing on the sentiments of riskier assets, including cryptos, said said Kunal Jagdale, Founder, BitsAir Exchange.

"Among the crypto markets, Bitcoin has been able to hover around the $30,000 level, surpassing the pessimism. Whether it can continue to swim against the sentiment tide, time will tell," he added.

Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon on Wednesday morning announced an on-chain governance proposal even as results from a preliminary online poll on a hard fork plan found minimal backing among community members.

Nomuras new digital-asset subsidiary, announced earlier this week in a move that potentially catapults the Japanese investment bank ahead of US and European rivals, will start by focusing on cryptocurrencies, the units newly appointed CEO Jez Mohideen said.

Blockchain gaming company Azra Games has raised $15 million in a seed funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital firm that is also known as a16z.

The capital will help fund Azras first game, a science fiction/fantasy collectibles and mass combat role-playing game code-named Project Arcanas.

Two years ago, KSM was trading at less than a dollar and today its price is hovering around $80, this data suggests that early investors of KSM are sitting on massive gains at the moment.

Kusama is a part of a larger polka dot unit and a lot of projects are using it for live testing of their applications. The future of KSM looks promising and its future success will depend on macroeconomic factors surrounding the financial markets.

(Views and recommendations given in this section are the analysts' own and do not represent those of ETMarkets.com. Please consult your financial adviser before taking any position in the asset/s mentioned.)

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Top cryptocurrency prices today: Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP and BNB gain up to 5% - Economic Times

A popular crypto analyst is naming the top five most decentralized cryptocurrencies.

In a new video, Coin Bureau host Guy tells his 2.05 million subscribers that Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Dogecoin (DOGE), Litecoin (LTC) and Monero (XMR) are the most decentralized cryptos.

There are five layers of decentralization in cryptocurrency: the developer layer, the coin or token layer, the infrastructure layer, the blockchain layer and the external layer. Ill start by saying that theres no crypto project that scores perfectly on all five criteria but the top spot seems to belong to Bitcoin.

This is because there are dozens of individuals and institutions building on Bitcoin. BTC supply is broadly distributed, there is no shortage of infrastructure available to interact with the Bitcoin blockchain and the Bitcoin blockchain has over 15,000 full nodes.

The only thing Bitcoin is missing is true decentralization at the external layer, but this is where every cryptocurrency fails and I suspect not everyone would agree that this even counts as a layer.

In any case, according to a survey of various crypto experts by Cointelegraph last November, there arent any cryptocurrencies that come close to matching Bitcoins overall decentralization.

He says Ethereum, Monero, Litecoin and Dogecoin follow Bitcoin and are still lacking in some aspects of decentralization. In the case of Monero, the privacy coin also faces regulatory issues.

Ethereum and Monero seem to be the runners-up but as I discussed earlier, Ethereums decentralization still seems to be lacking on some layers. As for Monero, XMR is constantly at risk of getting delisted from centralized exchanges due to unreasonable crypto regulations.

Theres also Litecoin and, to some extent, Dogecoin, to consider but we all know these cryptocurrencies are also lacking decentralization at some layers, to put it mildly.

The analyst says that it is still too early to identify the other most decentralized cryptocurrencies, but he sees the possibility of Cardano (ADA), Polkadot (DOT) and Solana (SOL) being included in the list.

By now, youll have noticed that most of the more decentralized cryptocurrencies have been around for a while and many believe that its ultimately time that has allowed Bitcoin to decentralize so much. What this means is that it might still be too soon to say what the most decentralized cryptocurrencies are, but I have a feeling that Cardano, Polkadot and possibly even Solana will be the next runners-up.

At this rate, it looks like we will only find out for sure when the regulators come around and given the exponential rate of crypto adoption, its only a matter of time before they come unlocking.

I

Featured Image: Shutterstock/IvaFoto/MrArtHit/Natalia Siiatovskaia

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Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin and Two Additional Altcoins Are the Most Decentralized Crypto Assets: Coin Bureau - The Daily Hodl

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen testifies during a House Committee on Financial Services hearing on the Annual Report of the Financial Stability Oversight Council, Thursday, May 12, 2022 on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Graeme Jennings/Pool photo via AP)

Investors looking for clues on whether bitcoin's recovery from 17-month lows reached last week is long-lasting may want to look at what traditional markets are saying.

The leading cryptocurrency has rebounded after falling to $25,338 on May 12 and was last seen trading above $30,000. While the double-digit bounce is encouraging, it may be too early to say the worst is behind us. The recent sudden trend change in the longer duration Treasury yield and the Japanese yen suggest recession in the US, a risk-off economic condition.

Recessions, consecutive quarterly contractions in the gross domestic product, are bearish for growth-sensitive assets like stocks, industrial metals and risky assets like bitcoin. They are typically bullish for Treasuries (government bonds) and the Japanese yen. Government bonds and currencies of nations like Japan with low-interest rates, a strong net foreign asset position, and deep and liquid financial markets are considered safe havens.

While the crypto community considers bitcoin as digital gold, the cryptocurrency tends to move more or less in line with technology stocks. Bitcoins 30-day correlation with the tech-heavy Wall Street index Nasdaq recently rose to a record 0.82.

Bitcoin remains highly correlated with tech stocks

The 10-year US Treasury yield has turned lower of late, having risen by 150 basis points to 3.20% in the two months to May 9. The benchmark yield was seen at 2.80% at press time, according to charting platform TradingView.

The turnaround comes even as the Federal Reserve (Fed) is expected to accelerate monetary tightening and raise interest rates by 50 basis points at upcoming meets. The central bank is likely to increase borrowing costs to at least 2.25%-2.5% by the end of the year from the current 0.75% to 1%. Further, the central bank is scheduled to start culling assets from its $9 trillion balance sheet in June.

The decline in the longer duration bond yield in the middle of the cycle is perhaps a sign investors are running for safety in anticipation of an economic recession consecutive quarterly contractions in the gross domestic product.

On Wednesday, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon told CNBC that investors should prepare to face a contraction in economic activity in the world's largest economy as the Fed withdraws liquidity to contain inflation.

The Japanese yen's (JPY) slide has also ended abruptly despite the Bank of Japan sticking to its accomodative monetary policy amid continued Fed tightening. The yen was trading at 127.20 per US dollar at press time, up 3.15% from the recent low of 131.35 per dollar.

The safe haven yens turnaround says the currency market's focus has shifted from hawkish Fed policy to pricing in recession prospects, just like Treasury yields. Goldman Sachs recently said the Japanese yen is an ideal hedge against recession. The yen has appreciated against the dollar during each of the previous six U.S. recessions, as noted by Capital.com.

Investors are increasingly looking for safe haven assets

All things considered, the macro picture continues to worsen, dampening the odds of a notable price recovery in bitcoin and other risky assets. That said, readers can take heart from the fact that institutional investors are buying the dip, a sign of cryptocurrency's long-term prospects. And the dip demand could restrict losses.

Data tracked by ByteTree Asset Management shows the number of coins held by the U.S. and Canadian closed-ended funds and Canadian and European exchange-traded funds (ETFs) has increased by 6539 BTC since May 3.

"It is encouraging to see some inflows into BTC ETFs, but even more importantly, institutional money is not panicking," ByteTree Asset Management's CIO Charlie Morris told Forbes. "Bitcoin has moved from weak hands to strong.

Institutions are buying more bitcoin despite the market turmoil

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Bitcoin's Near-Term Prospects Look Bleak As Treasury Yields And Japanese Yen Signal US Recession - Forbes

The director of a multi-million dollar ad campaign for a bitcoin exchange has said he has no idea how cryptocurrency works after being questioned about the recent market crash.

FTXs Super Bowl commercial featured the comedian Larry David, who played different characters throughout history dismissing revolutionary technologies like the wheel and the light bulb.

It was one of several high-profile adverts featuring celebrity endorsements over the past year, broadcast amid record-breaking price rallies and billions of dollars pouring into the space from both institutional and retail investors.

Since peaking in November, there has been a major downturn that has wiped more than $1.7 trillion from the overall crypto market, including more than $600 billion from bitcoin.

The capitulation was compounded last week after a leading cryptocurrency completely collapsed, wiping more than 99 per cent from its value.

Celebrities who promoted cryptocurrencies are now facing criticism for not properly highlighting the risks for investors.

The New York Times reached out to many of the famous backers, including actors Matt Damon, Reese Witherspoon and Gwyneth Paltrow, as well as basketball star LeBron James, however few responded. Those that did either refused to comment or claimed to not know anything about the technology.

Unfortunately I dont think wed have anything to add as we have no idea how cryptocurrency works (even after having it explained to us repeatedly), dont own it, and dont follow its market, Jeff Schaffer, who directed the FTX ad, wrote in an email to the publication.

We just set out to make a funny commercial.

FTX did not respond to a request for comment from The Independent before the time of publication, though its founder recently spoke to the Financial Times about the perceived limitations of bitcoin.

Sam Bankman-Fried, who also serves as the firms CEO, said he did not believe the worlds most popular cryptocurrency could serve as a mainstream form of payment, despite both El Salvador and Central African Republic adopting it as an official currency.

The bitcoin network is not a payments network, and it is not a scaling network, he said.

Things that youre doing millions of transactions a second with have to be extremely efficient and lightweight, and lower energy cost.

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Crypto crash: Bitcoin ad director says he has no idea how cryptocurrency works - The Independent

Wasabi Wallet versus Samourai Wallet has been one of the longest running feuds in this ecosystem. Privacy on Bitcoin is a very vital property, with a lot of work having gone into providing solutions to date, as well as a lot of work left to do in improving it.

I personally think the feud and the consequences of it are a rather sad state of affairs, on both sides there have been personal attacks, inaccurate statements made about the other project and consistent attempts at marketing rooted in both of those things. It has done quite a lot to set back an understanding of how to achieve privacy using Bitcoin, as well as the adoption of privacy tools among the wider Bitcoin community.

Disentangling all of the fallout and misconceptions resulting from this feud would probably take a small novella, but there is a single technological difference between the two projects that I would like to concentrate on here. Each project utilizes a different transaction structure and flow when engaging in CoinJoining. Wasabi elects to create very large transactions to include a substantial amount of inputs and outputs, creating a larger anonymity set per transaction. Samourai elects to engage in much smaller transactions with structured interactions across them and compound anonymity across many successive transactions.

Part of the design of Samourai is Transaction Zero (TX0). This is a kind of setup transaction preceding the actual CoinJoin transactions. It splits up the original, unmixed input into individual mix-denomination outputs, the change outputs, and is where Samourai collects its mixing fee for coordinating the CoinJoins.

Breaking the original unmixed output into mix-denomination outputs firstly allows all of them to join the queue for mixing at once because, remember, Samourai coordinates many smaller CoinJoin transactions in parallel and much more quickly. TX0 allows your coins to take advantage of these parallel mixes more quickly, otherwise you would have to wait until you shave off a mix-denomination output one by one and receive your change back inside the CoinJoin transaction itself to use as an input in the next one. Given that Samourai has many CoinJoins occurring in parallel, this would be a very inefficient design.

One of the longest running talking points in the feud between the two projects is that TX0 provides a fundamental privacy improvement over not having a TX0. The claim traditionally made is that by removing and isolating the change output in the pre-CoinJoin transaction instead of the first CoinJoin transaction, mixed UTXOs are made more private. That is totally inaccurate.

To break through why, I'm going to go through how things look on-chain for both a Samourai and Wasabi mix.

The whole purpose of a CoinJoin is to obscure the connections between the inputs and outputs of a Bitcoin transaction. By structuring a transaction involving multiple people that takes inputs and creates outputs of the same denomination, recycling them in future rounds if users choose to, you can create Bitcoin transactions where outside observers cannot be certain which inputs correlate to outputs in terms of ownership. If five people provide inputs of any value, and all receive outputs of the same denomination (say 0.01 BTC), then an outside observer cannot be certain which owner of any given input owns any resulting output of the mix denomination (0.01 BTC).

So let's sit through and think about what happens when you first go to mix with Samourai. You take 1.1 BTC and go to mix with Whirlpool in the 0.5 pool, the first thing that happens is your TX0. Your 1.1 BTC is broken up into two outputs of 0.5 BTC, and then the change output of 0.1 BTC.

At this point, it is still clear that all of these outputs are owned by the same person. You then queue up the two 0.5 BTC outputs into the mix pool, and they eventually take part in the first actual CoinJoin transaction. At this point, an outside observer knows the initial 1.1 BTC input is owned by one person, that the 0.1 BTC change output is still owned by that person, the first coinjoin transaction that each 0.5 BTC output took part in, and the fact that the observed person owns one of those transaction outputs (though not which specific output).

The only way that the 0.1 BTC change output can in any way damage the privacy of the two 0.5 BTC mixed outputs is if it is spent and combined with them in a single transaction, or in some other way tied together with them on the blockchain (like sending the change output to the same address that you have sent a mixed output to).

Let's think about what happens when you mix with Wasabi. You take the same 1.1 BTC input, and queue it for a mix. These days, Wasabi supports a few different mix denominations, but for simplicity's sake, let's just assume they only support mix denominations of 0.1 BTC. That input is queued, the CoinJoin occurs, and you receive a 0.1 BTC mix denomination output, and a 1.0 BTC change output. What does the outside observer see? They see that the owner of the 1.1 BTC input still controls a 1.0 BTC change output, they see the first CoinJoin transaction they took part in, and they know that person owns one of the 0.1 BTC mix denomination outputs in that transaction (though not which specific output that is).

They learn the exact same information that they learn observing a Whirlpool mix. If the Wasabi user repeats the process with their change output, nothing changes. The observer learns the correlation between the unmixed input and the change output, and the fact that one of the mixed outputs is owned by that person, but not which one. As long the change output is not connected with a mixed output on chain, it presents no privacy leak for the user. TX0, and peeling off the change prior to the CoinJoin transaction itself, makes absolutely no difference in the level of privacy.

So what is TX0? It's an optimization for a CoinJoin implementation that coordinates many CoinJoin transactions in parallel, which makes no sense to implement for a CoinJoin implementation that coordinates a single CoinJoin transaction one at a time. In Whirlpool, breaking coins up ahead of time makes sense, because there are many different CoinJoins happening in parallel that each pre-divided output can take part in. In Wasabi, there is only one at a time, so fragmenting your coins beforehand makes no sense in terms of efficiency.

Samourai does have stronger safeguards than Wasabi in regards to handling change, but this has nothing at all to do with the transaction structure of what is occurring on chain. It is its isolation of change outputs into a separate set of addresses and its warnings in the wallet and safeguards that prevent spending change outputs together with mixed outputs.

I'm sure that by the time you are reading this, many Samourai users and developers will be screaming that I am spreading FUD. I encourage readers to really sit down and think about the facts as I've laid them out, and analyze things logically. Everything that I have said is entirely factual, and verifiable just through reasoned thinking.

At this point with Wasabi's recent actions regarding censoring specific "tainted" inputs from registering for CoinJoins with their coordinator, I would never recommend using it purely on ethical grounds. I think the action its team has taken without any legal or regulatory requirement to do so is frankly cowardly and showing weakness that will encourage government entities to push harder in attacks on privacy.

That said, I think that when it comes to privacy tools, users should be making informed decisions based on how things actually work, and not simply marketing slogans and claims. Both Wasabi and Samourai can provide privacy to users when used correctly. Samourai absolutely does have many more safeguards to ensure it is used correctly, but these are all integrated merely as warnings in the wallet software and in how addresses for mixed and unmixed outputs are generated separately. TX0 has nothing to do with it, and provides no additional privacy benefits on its own.

This is a guest post by Shinobi. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

Link:
Wasabi Versus Samourai: TX0 Has Nothing To Do With It - Bitcoin Magazine

Proof of work protocols have been applied in cryptography and security literature to a variety of settings, but its most impactful application has been its role in the design of blockchain protocols.

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The advent of blockchains has ignited much excitement, not only for their realization of novel financial instruments, but also for offering alternative solutions to classical problems in fault-tolerant distributed computing and cryptographic protocols. Blockchains are managed and built by miners and are used in various settings, the best known being a distributed ledger that keeps a record of all transactions between users in cryptocurrency systems such as bitcoin.

Underlying many such protocols is a primitive known as a proof of work (PoW), which for over 20 years has been liberally applied in cryptography and security literature to a variety of settings, including spam mitigation, sybil attacks and denial-of-service protection. Its role in the design of blockchain protocols, however, is arguably its most impactful application.

As miners receive new transactions, the data are entered into a new block, but a PoW must be solved to add new blocks to the chain. PoW is an algorithm used to validate bitcoin transactions. It is generated by bitcoin miners competing to create new bitcoin by being the first to solve a complex mathematical puzzle, which requires expensive computers and a lot of electricity. Once a miner finds a solution to a puzzle, they broadcast the block to the network so that other miners can verify that its correct. Miners who succeed are then given a fixed amount of bitcoin as a reward.

However, despite the evolution of our understanding of the PoW primitive, pinning down the exact properties sufficient to prove the security of bitcoin and related protocols has been elusive. In fact, all existing instances of the primitive have relied on idealized assumptions.

A team led by Juan Garay has identified and proven the concrete properties either number-theoretic or pertaining to hash functions. They were then used to construct blockchain protocols that are secure and safe to use. With their new algorithms, the researchers demonstrated that such PoWs can thwart adversaries and environments, collectively owning less than half of the computational power in the network.

Garays early work on cryptography in blockchain was first published in the proceedings of Eurocrypt 2015, a top venue for the dissemination of cryptography research.

The techniques underlying PoWs transcend the blockchain context. They can, in fact, be applied to other important problems in the area of cryptographic protocols, thus circumventing well-known impossibility results, a new paradigm that Garay calls Resource-Restricted Cryptography.

Its a new way of thinking about cryptography in the sense that things do not have to be extremely difficult, only moderately difficult, said Garay. And then you can still do meaningful things like blockchains. Cryptocurrencies are just one example. My work, in general, is understanding this landscape and coming up with the mathematics that explain it and make it work.

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Cryptography In The Blockchain Era - Texas A&M University Today

Ric Edelman was ranked three times as the number one financial advisor in the United States by Barrons. He is the founder of Edelman Financial, and a #1 New York Times bestselling author of ten books on personal finance.

Below, Ric shares 5 key insights from his new book, The Truth About Crypto: A Practical, Easy-to-Understand Guide to Bitcoin, Blockchain, NFTs, and Other Digital Assets. Listen to the audio versionread by Ric himselfin the Next Big Idea App.

If we look back at transformative discoveries or inventions throughout human history, we realize that only a few innovations really mattered. Fire, the wheel, the internet, and now, the blockchain. Yes, blockchain is on the same level of significance as fire and the wheelits that big of a deal.

Blockchain technology revolutionizes how business is conducted on a global scale. In our current way of doing business (as weve done for centuries) we rely on trust. When you buy a house, you trust that the seller owns that deed, and will convey it to you. But, you dont actually trust them, so you pay for a title search and buy title insurance. You spend thousands of dollars and months of effort to buy a housewhich is time and money that doesnt add to the value of the house.

Blockchain eliminates this because transactions are cryptographically proven. Trust isnt needed. With blockchain technology, every industry in the world can conduct business faster, safer, cheaper, and with greater transparency than ever before. This is revolutionary. JP Morgan says that banks will save $120 billion a year thanks to blockchain. Norway is using blockchain to track shipments of salmon: when you buy fish at the grocer, you can see when the fish was caught and track its journey to the store. Youll know youre really buying Norwegian salmon, and not a cheaper imitation. If theres a salmonella outbreak, government health officials can track it down to the individual fishsaving lives and avoiding recalls. The luxury watches industry and the wine industry are using blockchain to track their products and thwart counterfeiters. The music industry is using blockchain to monitor song royalties and distribute concert tickets. The list goes on and on.

Blockchain is going to change everything.

Blockchain was created to allow for the invention of Bitcoin, the worlds first form of digital money that isnt created by a government. Bitcoin is inflation-proof, and you can use it to send money to anyone anywhere in the world, almost instantaneously and free. New asset classes dont come around very often, and when they do, they change everything.

The last new asset class was 150 years ago, with the discovery of oil in the 1850s. Before oil, we were using whale oil to light our candles. Look at the incredible impact oil has had on our planetboth the economic growth, and the environmental impact. Digital assets will produce an impact on our world as huge as oil. This is why theres so much excitement about Bitcoin and other digital assets. More than 300 million people worldwide own Bitcoin, and in the past year institutional investors have gotten involved: pension funds, endowments, hedge funds, insurance companies, and billionaire investors. Governments are racing to create their own official digital currenciesincluding the United States. President Biden issued an executive order bringing the full force of the federal government to develop and foster innovation in digital assets, including a central bank digital currency. The Federal Reserve has its first ever Chief Innovation Officer to deal with this new tech. The market for digital assets is now $3 trillion, with Bitcoins annual transaction volume three times more than American Express. Coinbase is the #1 free downloaded app, and Coinbase now has more accounts than Charles Schwab, TD Ameritrade, Interactive Brokers, and e-trade combined. You can buy Bitcoin with PayPal. Walmart is installing Bitcoin ATMs in its stores. Bitcoin is so common that the very first question on your tax return, IRS Form 1040, is do you own crypto?

Digital assets represent the biggest investment opportunity youll ever see in your lifetime. Bitcoin is the best-performing asset class in history, and its still very early in its development. 24 percent of all Americans own it, out of the 300 million Bitcoin owners globally. Theres 7 billion on the planet, meaning theres a lot of room to grow. As more people get involved, the higher the price will rise because the number of Bitcoin is fixed. More demand with a limited supply means Bitcoin price will rise a lot.

Blockchain and digital assets arent just about investment opportunity, but about disruption of jobs. Ten million people work in companies that are intermediariesmiddlemen. Everyone between the buyer and the seller is an intermediary. Real estate agents, stock brokers, lawyers, mortgage brokers. Were talking about ten million jobs, 21 percent of the US GDP, meaning 21 percent of our total economy. Blockchain technology can digitize and automate all of these jobs. This has tremendous financial planning implications.

Blockchain is an exponential technology (innovations that are reshaping our world), as are artificial intelligence, robotics, big data, 3D printing, nanotech, biotech, bioinformatics, fintech, edtech, agtech. Half of all occupations will vanish over the next 15 years, and new occupations will emerge in industries that never existed before. Its important to examine your career: will your job exist in ten years? Will your company? Do you need to get a degree or certification in a new field? Maybe develop new skills to remain competitive in the workplace, so you can keep your job or find a new onea job that pays better, is more interesting, and physically safer because robots do all the heavy lifting. Jobs are all about money, so you need to learn about the money of the future: digital assets brought to us via blockchain technology.

Even if you have no interest in investing in digital assets, your life will inextricably connect to them in the same way you have online bank accounts and pay bills with PayPal, Venmo, or Zelle. Youll use digital money in the future, with a digital wallet on your phone. You cant escape it, and that means you need to learn about it and master it for the sake of your investments, your job, your family, and your financial security.

Two thirds of all investors in the US rely on a financial advisor. As the guy who created the largest financial planning and investment management firm in country, I certainly support using a financial advisor. I only left that company in 2021 because I wanted to focus on crypto. As you talk with your financial advisor, ask about blockchain and digital assets to see if its something you should add to your portfolio. But be careful because Ive been training financial advisors in this subject for the past ten years, and Ive found that the overwhelming majority of advisors dont know much about it. There are very few resources for training, which is why I created the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals, and why we created the Certificate in Blockchain and Digital Assets for financial advisors.

But most advisors still lack this knowledge. Frankly, they often know little more than you do. So, as you ask questions about cryptowhat is blockchain, what is Bitcoin, how does it all workmake sure your advisor can explain it clearly and concisely. Watch out for advisors who are dismissive or claim Bitcoin is a fad or fraud, because that shows that they dont know what theyre talking about. But, theres a flip side: nearly half of financial advisors personally own Bitcoin, but only 16 percent are recommending it for their clients. How would you feel if your advisor was personally investing but refusing to tell you about it? Frankly, Id look for another advisor.

Digital assets represent an asset class that is as legitimate in a diversified portfolio as any other asset class: stocks, bonds, real estate, gold, government securities, commodities, emerging markets, and so on. If your advisor cant answer questions, or is personally investing without telling you, you should consider finding a financial advisor who will help you with the investment strategies of the 21st century.

Its fair to ask whether we need a new financial system. We love to hate banks, we sure hate credit card companies, and we dont like stock brokers. But we have to admit, our countrys financial system works pretty well. When you put money into your account, you dont worry that the bank might collapse, or that our government might seize your assets. Thats not true for billions of people around the world.

There are countries with shaky economies, where inflation is a thousand percent, ruled by dictators that seize assets at will. These billions of people need a safe place to store money thats untethered by government-controlled banks. And, there are about a billion people who dont have bank accounts at all because they dont make enough money, or live so far from a bank that they cant get to one. The United Nations says nearly a billion people live in abject poverty, living on less than $1.20 a day. These unbanked people are in the US too, totaling 7 percent of households. Without access to a bank account, youre at risk of being robbed and physically harmed in the process. Without a bank account, you cant earn interest, get a loan, buy a car, rent an apartment, buy a house, and in many cases even get a job or an education.

These billion people might not have a bank account, but the UN says 700 million of them do have a cell phone, and thats all you need to set up a digital wallet for buying Bitcoin and storing it safely. The UN says blockchain and digital assets will be instrumental in eliminating poverty globally. By helping people rise out of poverty, they can go to school and get jobs, which helps them rise into the middle class. This means they become consumers, and more consumers mean more productivity and economic rewards for the entire planet. Stock prices will rise and everyone everywhere has the opportunity to gain wealth and greater financial security. Blockchain and digital assets will help improve billions of lives.

To listen to the audio version read by author Ric Edelman, download the Next Big Idea App today:

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The Truth About Crypto: A Practical, Easy-to-Understand Guide to Bitcoin, Blockchain, NFTs, and Other Digital Assets - Next Big Idea Club Magazine

Bank of Englands deputy governor for financial stability, Sir Jon Cunliffe, has warned of hard times ahead for cryptocurrency investors as the Federal Reserve and other central banks tighten monetary policy.

Sir Jon Cunliffe, deputy governor for financial stability at the Bank of England (BOE), had a warning for crypto investors at a Wall Street Journal conference Tuesday, Reuters reported.

The Bank of England executive cautioned that crypto investors should expect more difficult times ahead. He explained that as the Federal Reserve and central banks around the world tighten financial conditions, investors will be more attracted to safer assets.

Replying to a question about whether rising interest rates would ramp up pressure on cryptocurrencies, Cunliffe was quoted as saying:

Yes, I think as this process continues, as (quantitative tightening) starts in the U.S. I think well see a move out of risky assets.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell said last week that the Fed will continue tightening monetary policy until it sees clear and convincing evidence that inflation is falling to the target rate of 2%.

Cunliffe also discussed another factor affecting the crypto market. Noting the Russia-Ukraine war is prompting investors to move funds into safer assets, he advised:

When theres a move out of risky assets, you would expect the most speculative assets to be the ones most affected.

In November last year, Cunliffe said that cryptocurrencys threat to the stability of the British financial system was getting closer, urging regulators to take action.

In December, he said that the value of cryptocurrencies could fall sharply, stating: Their price can vary quite considerably and they could theoretically or practically drop to zero.

What do you think about Sir Jon Cunliffes comments? Let us know in the comments section below.

A student of Austrian Economics, Kevin found Bitcoin in 2011 and has been an evangelist ever since. His interests lie in Bitcoin security, open-source systems, network effects and the intersection between economics and cryptography.

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Bank of England's Cunliffe Warns Crypto Will See Tough Times as Federal Reserve Tightens Financial Conditions Regulation Bitcoin News - Bitcoin News