Category: Bitcoin

For the users of Bitcoin, the increased usage has been much beneficial. The company has also got some more benefits, which can also be useful to the users. For the development of infrastructure, the virtual currency also has got some sponsorships, which were much needed. Open source development got a big boost this year as various organizations have generously contributed grants and sponsorships for such programs. OKCoin supports such an open-source community, and it has enabled many organizations to sponsor the development of infrastructure in the crypto industry.

Marco Falke, which is a core maintainer for Bitcoin, got the award as the most active contributor to the Bitcoin code. Apart from that, others like BTCPay, Fabian Jahr, and Amiti Uttarwar also got grants and sponsorships.

Developing trends in crypto infrastructure

Even as the coronavirus pandemic continues to affect the global economy, the crypto industry is doing well this year. There are many flaws in the traditional economic system as the stock markets continue to rise even when the economy is headed lower. The federal reserve is increasing the money supply to counter such problems. Given these circumstances, it is the right time to push BTC as an alternate sound currency.

Growth in FOSS sponsorship

The interest about open source development is increasing in all corners, and this is a good trend for the crypto industry. In this regard, several organizations collaborated to provide grants for contributors in this industry. The grant to Amiti Uttarwar, who contributed a lot to the peer to peer layer of Bitcoin, was awarded a grant in partnership with BitMEX. This contribution has strengthened the core of Bitcoin and improved the codebase security for all transactions.

There is good growth for the industry, as supporting Bitcoin core with such sponsorships is suitable for the entire industry. It can support other industries in the form of education, validation, and adoption of cryptocurrencies. 

It has been a community effort to support and connect with Bitcoin developers, and this has helped the sponsors to gain a lot of knowledge. OKCoin has benefited a lot from Chaincode and Square Crypto, and this has helped the initiative.

Even though all the grants are not given through partnership, this is a collective effort in the long run. OKCoin believes that it is always a healthy trend to build a community sponsorship platform for FOSS development in the future.

The winds have favored Bitcoin as well as other crypto-assets, and investors’ sentiment has been expecting another surge in its valuations. All watchdogs that have been looking for essential signals in a crypto talk on public platforms online, price fluctuations, and trading amounts indicate that we may experience a much sought-after bull run shortly. This new development has made the greed meter high among veteran traders, and with such high hopes, mistakes will undoubtedly be committed, and fortunes may even be lost. Thus experts urge all traders to maintain dignity and question all possible angles before jumping into the pool of hungry Bitcoin investors.

Think like a Hoarder:

 A reputed industry expert advises Bitcoin enthusiasts to hold their horses and think before leaping. She postulates that the time to dig deep and gather altcoins is long over, and now it is time to be happy with what you have. The best thing to do is to put more than three-fourth of your amassed crypto wealth into a secure vault and swallow the key. Use only the remaining bit to play around and trade if you incur losses, tough luck, but do not try to throw up that key and eat into the savings that should remain untouched.

Don’t Be Hasty:

Another veteran realizes how difficult it will be for some to show restraint after the hullabaloo that occurred three years back when bitcoin was in every conversation around the streets. With a similar bull run on the horizon, the craze may be even bigger and wilder that will fulfill some dreams and shatter others. This will lead to hasty purchasing without proper research and then equally rapid selling with every careless whisper of a self- declared “crypto guru.”

It is essential to realize that wild talks about the Bull Run will push your twitchy investor brain, but it pays to be cautious, especially the second time around, and play the game where it’s okay if you lose and fantastic if you win. Do not plunge into debt to find out all of that advice you got about trading from your cousin’s friend was foolish.

It is best not to trust the advice from influencer-type crypto enthusiasts whose interests lie in their trading plans instead of promoting reliable information for their followers. Do ample research from diverse and verified sources before deciding to put your hard-earned money into a market known for its volatility.

Once again, the use of virtual currency is in controversy, and now a court of law is approached to have intervention in the matter. Recently on the video platform YouTube, there was a promotion of the use of bitcoin.

Steve Wozniak has filed a lawsuit against YouTube for allegedly allowing scammers to use his name for phony bitcoin giveaways. In a series of videos that recently emerged on YouTube, scammers targeted YouTube users into giving away bitcoins claiming that Wozniak will return double the amount. The promotions went viral, and many users were scammed in this way.

The lazy approach of YouTube

The lawsuit also has support from many other tech entrepreneurs, as even their names were used similarly. The videos advertised 5000 and 10000BTC giveaways from Wozniak and other tech entrepreneurs. Most people believe that YouTube is not taking the scams seriously and indirectly encouraging the scammers to get away with such fraudulent activities.

YouTube has always been slow in responding to such complaints by individuals. This time also, it continues the same lazy attitude even when high profile names are involved in the scams. The lawsuit filed by Wozniak claims that he has suffered irreparable harm to his reputation due to these scams.

YouTube responds to allegations

Officials from YouTube had claimed that they are serious about the abuse of the platform, and they had always taken timely action when they detected any violation of their policies. Such violations include scams and impersonation. Even after such assurance from YouTube, many market participants are not sure about such scams not happening in the future.

Bitcoin scam on Twitter

Recently, several high profile accounts were hacked on Twitter, and scammers used them to collect bitcoins as investment from unsuspecting victims. This has not gone down well with users, and many are lashing out at Twitter for these scams. Responding to these happenings the CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey said that they are investigating the hacking attempt and finding ways to fix them at the earliest. Hackers had managed to break into several high profile accounts on this platform.

Such scams have become common, especially after the pandemic broke out in the early part of this year. Many scammers are now finding it easy to target novice investors into giving away bitcoins and cryptocurrencies for such phony schemes. Investors have to be aware of such scams and stay away from them.

The Bitcoin market is getting quieter with the passing time, and it has started to worry about the investors and traders. The volatility levels of Bitcoin trading have touched the levels not seen since the year 2017. One of the reasons behind Bitcoin falling behind in the race with other cryptocurrencies is because the investors are diversifying their crypto portfolio. Many investors are now looking at altcoins, such as Cardano and Chainlink. 

One other reason that has contributed to the consolidation of Bitcoin lately is the enhanced presence of HFT firms in recent months in the crypto space. A popular name in the Bitcoin world, Paolo Ardoino, who is currently the Chief Technical Officer at Bitfinex, said that the presence of High-Frequency Trading firms has majorly contributed to the low volatility of Bitcoin in recent months. He said that the HFT has the potential to earn a lot of money because, in the crypto world, it is yet to reach the stage of a zero-sum game, as is the case in the traditional trading platforms. The simple and straightforward trades, such as taking advantage of the spread between two exchanges as well as cross-exchange arbitrage, makes HFT firms highly profitable. 

High-frequency trading does so with the use of advanced technology and pre-set algorithms that have the ability to process high volumes of orders in seconds. Even though it has been present in the crypto world for quite some time, the influx of new investors has been staggering in recent times. The reason behind new HFT firms opening up at a rapid pace is estimated to be triggered by a showcase of Bitcoin holdings by a famous billionaire, Paul Tudor. Bitfinex, one of the big names in the HFT space, recently revealed that above 80 to 90 percent of their revenue is generated through the HFT firms. 

Bitfinex joined hands with Market Synergy recently to offer a high level of cryptocurrency connectivity to its clients. Bitfinex said that the increased presence of HFT firms in the crypto space is a good sign as it showcases the maturity of the digital assets world. If you’re still wondering as to how Bitcoin will lose the market volatility due to the use of HFT, the answer is increased liquidity caused due to high HFT transactions. It is known to push the volatility levels down.

With time, as Bitcoin establishes itself as one of the mature asset class in the market, the volatility it has been witnessing for long would start to mellow down. The CTO of Bitfinex said that liquidity and volatility always share an inverse relationship, and thus, more liquidity stabilizes the volatility and helps to consolidate it. The presence of HFT firms in the crypto space has helped tremendously in flooding the market with liquidity, which has helped balance the buy and sell orders. It is what helps in stabilizing the Bitcoin volatility as well as boosting the overall market efficiency. 

Last year, Bitcoin gained more in ten days than it did the entire year. It has been well-known for its aggressive upward movement in a short period. Fundstrat’s Tom Lee also said that the majority of gains achieved by Bitcoin mostly come in any ten days of the year. However, this ten-day rule seems to be changing with the increasing presence of HFT firms. 

Given the illicit operation of crypto-mining throughout 2018, the Republic of Abkhazia is seeing an increase in bitcoin-mining operations. Over the last six months, the Customs has registered mining materials estimated at more than $589,000.

The importation of crypto mining plants is still legally permitted as per Nuzhnaya Gazeta. Taxes equal to 1 per cent of the hardware volume and VAT of 10 per cent are charged by importers. After early 2020, Georgia has received over $84,100 in taxes only from crypt mining plant imports. It is generally overlooked by most countries in the South Caucasus as an “autonomous republic” in Georgia.

Catching Illegal Crypto Miners

The chairman of the national Customs Committee, Guram Inapshba, claimed that imports are permitted to “hunt” illicit crypto-miners.

In Ashba states, however, in Abkhazia, “some many dozen people” are involved as regards the operating or financing of the crypto mining sites, within the region.

The government prohibited all crypto mining operations in December 2018, citing a lack of power in the electricity grid of the country. They also pointed out the need to have the people of Abkhazia with ‘priority control.’

Recent times, 315 Bitcoin ( BTC) mining devices developed by Bitmain were confiscated by the Bolivarian security forces of Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela. This was told to the founders of the mining plants that they do not own and use the facilities.

Crypto-Currency: A bitcoin exchange symmetric cryptographic allows the network administrator transactions safe and difficult to falsify is the interpretation of cryptocurrency. The most critical characteristic in a crypto-monetary network is that no central body governs it: the decentralized essence in blockchain technology renders crypto-monetary structures inappropriate for the old forms of government regulation and intervention. Cryptocurrencies ease the operation of all transactions and facilitate payments for protection and privacy reasons by using public and private keys. Such transactions will be carried out at low payment costs so that consumers escape the high costs that conventional financial institutions impose. But the current cryptocurrency news suggests that, since bitcoins are devoid of a central registry, a computer crash, a hack and other unpredictable incidents will wipe out the weighing balance.

Mining: The way it functions will be suggested when describing crypto-monetary mining. To me, a peer-to-peer data network must be built such that activities can be carried out using their shared computing resources. The faster activities would be carried out more and more computer systems and the less organized the system. Any device in the blockchain is called a host, and the system operates based on an encrypted configuration.

Famous endorser of gold, Peter Schiff was once again toppled by Bitcoin investors. In a survey conducted by Peter on Twitter on July 14, almost 60% of investors said that they would hold Bitcoins until it crosses $10,000.

Peter Schiff, a famous financial analyst and CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, always advocates for gold. He is very active on different social networking sites and advocates for gold investments. He also provides brokerage services for gold and silver bullions through his company, Schiffgold. He always advises his clients to invest in gold. He opines that long term investments in the precious metal always beat inflation.

Peter Schiff has been skeptical about Bitcoin investments and is vocal about the cons of the decentralized digital currency. On his Twitter account, he posted a survey question on July 14 for all Bitcoin investors. He asked them how much longer Bitcoin’s price has to stay below $10000 before they sell this cryptocurrency. His question had four choices – “1 year, 3 years, 10 years, and I’m taking it to my grave”. The survey results shocked Schiff. Majority of the 13000 participants chose the last choice. According to around 60% of the Bitcoin holders, they will hold on to their Bitcoins till their death if the price doesn’t cross $10000.

Actually, this was not the outcome he was expecting. Peter Schiff regularly conducts online surveys for investors’ opinion and to prove his point. Earlier, the renowned gold investor and Bitcoin critic conducted another survey for investors. In that survey, the question was about the performance of cryptocurrencies and gold. The majority of investors who participated in that survey were of the view that the prices of both would reach a new high. A clear decision came out from that survey in support of gold investment.

It is true that twitter surveys are not reliable and the opinions may be biased. There is always a chance that Bitcoin promoters have chosen an option just to prove Peter Schiff wrong. On the other side, Peter Schiff’s is also doubtful. There is a possibility that he is using Bitcoin’s popularity to bring more customers to his own gold company. These surveys pitting gold against Bitcoins will make investors consider Peter’s Schiffgold as a safe place to harbor their funds.

According to reports of financial news sources, Peter Schiff has invested in Bitcoins also. Schiff himself has once mentioned that he had lost his Bitcoin wallet password and was making efforts to reset it. So, in spite of being a vocal cryptocurrency denigrator, Schiff himself has allocated a part of his portfolio to Bitcoin.

It may be added here that everyone in the financial market does not agree with Peter. Famous author, businessman, and financial educator, Robert Toru Kiyosaki said in an interview that Bitcoins would replace gold in the near future. He also added that gold promoters would slowly phase-out, and cryptocurrency will take center stage.         

In the wake of advanced technology options, the name of Blockchain is a leading one. Though this technology is yet in the primary phase, it has got acceptance in various fields gradually. There are also many more companies working on various solutions offered with the help of this technology. Abra is all set to work on providing banking solutions to consumers based on Stellar Blockchain. It is expected to improve the features by partnering with Stellar Blockchain. The company has already received investments close to $5 million from SDF in this regard. The CEO of Abra Bill Barhydt said that they are building banking type features and consumers will have the option to earn interest through their investments under this scheme. This can be a huge thing for the Blockchain industry as it will bring in more investors into the game and build more trust among the investor community.

Upcoming banking features from Abra

The new features will give an organized outlook to the cryptocurrency investments as they will appear like traditional banking investments. The new feature will provide an option for users to store dollars, and they can earn interest amount on that money. In the same manner, the users can get interest even for their cryptocurrency holdings. This is a good feature as this will encourage new participants to store their money in the crypto format as this can get them secured interest and also earn good money through a rise in prices. Abra has an arrangement with various banks and exchanges to implement these features, and they will take care of liquidity issues in the long run.

Collaboration with Stellar Blockchain

The SDF deal with Abra provided the company with $5 million funding that has boosted the prospects of the company. The new features will help them to facilitate the movement of funds across the globe in real-time. This will also open up a new format of global lending, and the decentralized finance institutions will be very happy with this move.

The blockchain industry is equally excited as they can take the concept to new levels and enable traditional banking types of features in this industry. This will also give a lot of credibility to the entire crypto industry. With this, international trade finance, and peer to peer loans will become easy, and they can open up several new opportunities for various companies. This trend is likely to influence several other innovations in the financial markets.

Bitcoins and other crypto-currency are fast gaining cognizance considerably in the world of finance and investments. Based on a particularly secure technology of block-chain development, the crypto-currency industry is flourishing rapidly and gaining wide-spread acclaim. Users are joining the pool in millions and are adopting the volatile altcoins to increase their flow of wealth and investment capacity. The peer-to-peer network system is also a great point of benefit is it ensures all transactions are carried out safely. The system may not be completely fool-proof as recent news of hackers disrupting and draining altcoins of considerable value has rocked the market.

Researchers’ solution

Due to such an event, researches have been developing new ways to fight back against hackers with novel new techniques to save the sanctity of a crypto-exchange. One of these acclaimed researches has conceptualized a technique in which the original users could counter-attack by renting enough hashing power from external sources. This new technique is not advised by many experts, but with an already few ways to fight back against no-good virtual thieves, it is bound to be considered as a possible course of action when no other option remains.

Details of the Attack

The researcher outlined this approach by conceptualizing a method where the time required to finalise a transaction can be used to un-hack your exchange. Since six verifications are needed for as many blocks before an exchange has been finalized, this time can be exploited by using rented mining power from virtual external sources that can tilt the scales in favour of the affected and making the hacker lose all its efforts.  In this procedure, they rented hashing power helps to establish an altered network of blocks which can be later accepted as the correct version of the transaction.

Drawbacks of the Solution

While a leading investor had tried to use this solution to avoid other million-dollar transactional trouble he had previously incurred, he had been seriously criticized by the crypto-circle over his plan-of-action. The reason behind such a drastic response could be attributed to the fact that such a solution is only useful when the figure of altcoins involved is considerably low. The lead designer of the approach himself confirmed that such a technical approach could not reverse the damage done to a bigger crypto-currency such as bitcoins. It is more apt for smaller transactional coins that have more stream-lined users.

The novel method of counter-attacking hackers was recently discussed by a group leading experts of the crypto-circle with certain emphasis on its inability to help million dollar exchanges. The pain-staking and expensive procedure of renting a considerable amount of hashing power and then using it in the last one hour of the transaction is not a completely fool-proof plan when the cost of counter-attack threatens to exceed the actual amount involved in the original transaction. It is advisable to calculate the figures properly and beforehand, so as not foolishly spend more.

While it may not be a completely concrete solution to the problem, it is worth noting that it is still a solution to a dilemma that has been new to the relative financial industry. Thus it is important to keep an accurate record of a technologically-sound process that can help further along the line as a blueprint to build more complex and accurate solutions to a problem that is continuously evolving with the market itself. With its high level of security and transparency in dealings, crypto-currency did attract customers in the thousands to a volatile market of price fluctuations, but it would not have been as fun had it been totally perfect.

Belarus-based Currency.com has received the bespoke license for blockchain companies in Gibraltar using distributed ledger technology. The company is said to carry out trading of about $20 million securities every month through its 5,000 registered users. The company is set to face competition from two other companies that have already received DLT licenses a few months back – Coinfloor and Huobi. Even though Currency.com has already secured licensed from Belarusian authorities, Gibraltar is just another feather to the cap.

Currency.com provides its users with a platform to transact in financial instruments using cryptocurrencies. Even though the company offers its services to most jurisdictions, investors from the US and other FATF-blacklisted countries are banned from using its services. After the announcement, the CEO of Currency.com, Jonathan Squires, said that Gibraltar has a strict protocol for the use of cryptocurrencies, and acquiring the Gibraltar license shows their commitment towards maintaining the strictest of standards, and offering the highest level of security to its investors.

The Gibraltar Financial Services Commission (GFSC) only gives out licenses to those firms, which can prove that they have enough financial resources and secured IT systems. They also need to have the proper infrastructure to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing. The companies that receive the Gibraltar license need to provide guarantees regarding the safety of the funds of the investors. These companies need to be trustworthy.

Even though a lot of people that the rules set by GFSC are quite rigid, but the company believes otherwise. They are quick to adapt to a new type of business activity, business models, and even new products in the market. The company also aims to spread its wings in the financial services market through the blockchain and the crypto startups that are new in the market. It is even more important for them as the UK will soon be leaving the EU.   

About Currency.com

Currency.com is a regulated tokenized assets platform for trading in a fast and secure way. The platform allows users to purchase and sell popular cryptocurrencies and real-world assets like indices, shares, forex, and others. It received its authorization to start its crypto exchange services by Belarus High Tech Park in the year 2018. The company was created with the sole motive to make crypto investment available to everyone and not just be limited to a few first world countries.   

About Gibraltar

Gibraltar is among the few jurisdictions that provide a regulatory framework for the regulation of companies offering blockchain services. Even though they were already a regulatory board for online gambling businesses, the government allowed it to cover companies in the blockchain industries as well. Since 2014, it started to create a regulatory framework for cryptocurrency exchanges, wallet service providers, and businesses that provide blockchain technology to users for storing or transmitting value assets. Gibraltar’s commitment to innovation and technology and adherence to strict regulatory oversight has made it quite popular among the crypto startups. For many blockchain start-ups, it is the stepping stone to expanding their services in Europe and beyond.

For the new technologies, people in this era, act with an open mind. Among the latest technologies, the blockchain is the most notable. The blockchain is a technology where the users can have access to a block of information. The moderator can have the right to change the information, but the old information also remains in the chain. However, some social issues also affect the use of this technology in different areas. The issue of racism is creeping into the blockchain sector as many stakeholders in the industry feel that this space is becoming more diverse racially. The technology is now fast spreading across the world, and many countries are now looking at blockchain technology for their economic prosperity. The global economic system is monopolized, and it is now time to change that into a decentralized system.

Discrimination in silicon valley

As the United States boils over the Black Lives Matter issue, many voices are heard about racial discrimination even in the silicon valley. Many tech companies, along with crypto companies, voiced their support for the Black Lives Matter campaign. It is interesting to note at this point that racism issues had rocked even big companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon earlier. According to data published by silicon valley companies about their workforce demographics, nothing much has changed to promote diversity, and the situation still remains the same. Hence the data of the users remain safe on the platform, and one can store it without any hassle. There are ample areas where this technology can be used.

Technology is also biased

In what comes as a surprise to many people, even technological innovations are biased as they are programmed to behave in that manner. It was reported recently that some automatic soap dispensers were not able to detect darker skin tones. This appears to be deliberately done, and it is not acceptable in this technological age. You will be surprised to know that even speech recognition technology is not neutral as it cannot process certain accents that are common to minority groups.

How diverse is the crypto and blockchain industry?

As the crypto industry is hand in glove with the technology industry, similar behavior is seen even in this world. However, it is slightly better as this is more open to various communities across the world. Even in this case, the leadership positions are mostly held by majority stakeholders. In this regard, if the crypto industry has to change for the better, the seeds have to be sown in the tech industry.

However, there is hope in the crypto sector as it is more diverse in terms of user base when compared to other sectors. In a recent study, it was found that crypto trading had a significant base of women traders, which is not the case with traditional financial instruments. The decentralized logic of blockchains provides equal rights to all people irrespective of their race and origin.

Hurdles ahead for diversity

The biggest hurdle for diversity comes with the mindset of the majority of stakeholders. Most people in the tech industry still believe that black workers are not that qualified compared to people of other races. This cultural attribute has to change, and it will lead to significant development in the technology sector. As blockchains are making serious inroads into the African market, it is high time that the tech sector took serious note of this issue. In the near future, you may see a wide market for cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology in the African continent. This diversity has to be included at the beginning of the technology.