Tag: Bitcoin

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Time Writer Thinks Bitcoin (BTC) Can Help Free Us All

If there is one thing that any cryptocurrency enthusiast should know by now, it’s that the issue of cryptocurrency is polarizing. There are those who swear up and down that Bitcoin is a scam simply meant to fool new investors, and that the entire ICO sector is a sham – while there are many others who believe that cryptocurrencies will fundamentally change the way that we live and interact with each other.

It appears that respected and well-known publication TIME has made their opinion known – well, at the very least, a TIME writer has, and, unlike many other mainstream news publications, is actually advocating for Bitcoin development. The TIME column has quickly gained traction within the cryptocurrency community.

About The Column

The author is one Alex Gladstein, the chief strategy officer at the Human Rights Foundation and the Oslo Freedom Forum (according to his Twitter bio). The column’s title is quite a bold one – “Why Bitcoin Matters For Freedom”, and Gladstein tweeted out a link to the column. The tweet has already garnered over 1,000 likes and 400 retweets:

https://twitter.com/gladstein/status/1078614849305890816

 

One example of how Bitcoin can change the world that is explored is an obvious one that cryptocurrency proponents are already aware about: Venezuela. Because of the economic crisis in Venezuela caused by hyperinflation; many have turned to Bitcoin as a means of avoiding the strict financial control associated with the country.

Measured Praise

It’s important to note that the column was not simply an advertisement for cryptocurrency markets, as Gladstein acknowledged specifically that “speculation, fraud and greed in the cryptocurrency and blockchain community have overshadowed the real, liberating potential of Satoshi Nakomoto’s invention.”

The column did not simply provide Venezuela as an example, but pointed to the fact that cryptocurrency can disrupt the remittance industry, a point that is brought up by many that believe in the potential of blockchain. Gladstein even stated that decentralized technology in general allows for users to avoid the traditional financial system and social networks that could ultimately be used against us.

The column ended by pointing out that Bitcoin can help many people who live under authoritarian rule, and can financially empower populations that normally might not have the opportunity . Gladstein stated: “If we invest the time and resources to develop user-friendly wallets, more exchanges, and better educational materials for Bitcoin, it has the potential to make a real difference for the 4 billion people who can’t trust their rulers or who can’t access the banking system. For them, Bitcoin can be a way out.”

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Jimmy Song Calls Out Joseph Lubin Over Ethereum (ETH) Bet

One of the aspects of an emerging technology is that some of the most well-respected and well-known figures have all sorts of different theories and ideas about cryptocurrency and blockchain. For example, there are all sorts of various figures that have made different price predictions, or claimed that various catalysts would lead to mass adoption. Of course, some have been more accurate than others, and some have been more optimistic than others, as well.

It appears as though Jimmy Song, the famous Bitcoin engineer-turned-instructor, is tired of Joseph Lubin not respecting a bet regarding the future of Ethereum. Lubin has recently been scrutinized tremendously, given the fact that his blockchain startup, Consensys, is undergoing massive layoffs currently.

Details Of Bet

Jimmy Song has taken his frustrations to Twitter. He quoted a Joseph Lubin tweet and pointed out that Lubin had predicted that “dApps will take over the world by 2023”, but that the bet – to this day, hadn’t been finalized.

The particular tweet that Song quoted was Lubin’s assertion that we had reached the “cryptobottom of 2018”. Jimmy Song appeared to attack Lubin’s credibility in general, as well. You can find Song’s tweet here:

More Information

Jimmy Song has always maintained that BItcoin will be the “prime” cryptocurrency, and is a well-known Bitcoin proponent. It’s only natural that the two would clash on this topic, given the fact that Lubin is a co-founder of Ethereum.

Song has stated that if five dApps have 10,000 daily active users, and 100,000 monthly active users over a 6-month period. Give the fact that Lubin’s company is actively developing dApps, it’s important to note that this has not been met. In addition, it is clear that – at least according to Song – Lubin has not truly committed to the bet.

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Jordan Peterson Now Accepting Bitcoin (BTC)

On the Internet, there has been a meteoric rise in the followers of certain figures, and these figures have been described as the “Intellectual Dark Web”. The group’s core consists of several controversial individuals who have discussions that often criticize the left and political correctness. For example, Peterson, a Canadian clinical psychologist and one of the most well-known and popular intellectuals of modern times, rose to fame after Canadian laws passed regarding gender identity.

Intellectual Dark Web

Peterson has appealed to young men and appears to be a bit of a motivator, selling out venues as he speaks about how men need to “clean your room”, a metaphor about taking stock, taking responsibility, and living up to your true potential.

There are many that suggest that there is a sinister tone to the Intellectual Dark Web, which also includes other figures such as Sam Harris, an American author and philosopher who himself has a very popular podcast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1lEPQYQk8s&t=5s

One common criticism is the fact that many alt-right figures with racist views often appear on these platforms. For example, Harris defended the fact that he interviewed Charles Murray, who attempts to argue that some races are inherently “smarter” than others. Ezra Klein of Vox has pointed this out, among many other media outlets who appear to be disturbed by the racial undertones of the movement (it’s also important to note that all core members of the IDW are white).

From Patreon To Crypto

Of course, there are many people who would argue that WHATEVER their views – free speech is something that is sacred. However, Patreon has been de-platforming various alt-right figures that are loosely associated with the IDW, which has led to a response by the Intellectual Dark Web in turn.

Specifically, Milo Yiannopoulos was banned from Patreon for “association with or supporting hate groups”. The platform, which allows users to donate to content creators around the world, addressed the issue in a tweet:

After Sargon of Akkad was also banned from Patreon, Dave Rubin – who also has his own popular Youtube channel – and Jordan Peterson announced their plans to launch an alternative to Patreon, which has not yet launched.

Peterson has addressed this in several tweets:

Peterson has been vocal about the fact that he has lost some patrons on Patreon, and has turned to cryptocurrency as a means to raise funds from supporters. Peterson has made it clear that he is unhappy with the platform, as well.

In another tweet, he states: “If you would like to support my work, but have become unhappy with Patreon, consider supporting me directly here.” At his linked donation page, you can see that a Bitcoin address and Bitcoin QR code is clearly available.

 

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UK Cryptocurrency Company Data Released

This year has been tough for all sorts of cryptocurrency companies who had high hopes in 2017. As one can imagine, the idea of cryptocurrency had a much more different sentiment a year ago today, when Bitcoin was in the middle of a huge cryptocurrency bull run that took it over $19,000.

Even though the past few days has seen a nice rally for the digital asset, there is still plenty of hesitation, given the fact that Bitcoin and Ethereum lost the vast majority of its value, and the cryptocurrency markets have lost hundreds of billions of dollars in market capitalization. A new report has detailed which blockchain-related and cryptocurrency-related companies have been affected in the UK.

About The Report

 

A Sky News article recently elaborated on how data has shown that over 300 companies have closed in the sector this year. Of course, not every business survives for various reasons, but the markets obviously are a huge factor. For some context, only 139 companies closed in the sector in 2017, and at least 340 companies related to cryptocurrency closed this year.

The data was gathered by OpenCorporates and Companies House. One blockchain entrepreneur and early Bitcoin adopter by the name of Hugh Halford-Thompson spoke about how the influx of inexperienced investors concerned him.

He stated: “There was a lot of people getting in, and I think for the first time I felt there were a large number of people who really didn’t understand what they were getting into as well.

“So every Uber driver I had either had invested or was thinking about it. I had people asking me genuinely which coin to put their children’s university funds into. That’s not good. I didn’t follow up with them, but I hope they didn’t.”

Overall Downturn

The data isn’t that surprising, given the fact that the UK is not the only country in the world with cryptocurrency companies or blockchain startups. One recent story that has grabbed headlines within the cryptocurrency community is the fact that Brooklyn-based blockchain startup Consensys is laying off a large percentage of its workers. The company is founded by cryptocurrency enthusiast Joe Lubin, a co-founder of Ethereum. Lubin recently took to Twitter to assuage fears about his company, as well:

Interestingly enough, regardless of the 2018 bearish sentiment, there are more jobs associated with blockchain and cryptocurrency than ever. Specifically, Linkedin stated that “blockchain developer” was the fastest-growing job in the United States.

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John Mcafee Talks SkyCoin, Urges People To Use Crypto

There’s no question that John Mcafee, the cybersecurity pioneer and cryptocurrency enthusiast, is one of the most controversial figures in cryptocurrency, whether it’s his controversial tweets or the fact that he seems to advocate for drug use. He recently gave an interview with the “Larry and Joe Show” where he spoke about “all things crypto”. The interview was streamed live less than 4 hours ago (as of press time), and can be found below:

About Skycoin

John Mcafee seemed to be in a positive mood at the outset of the interview. He stated, “Christmas is in a couple of days, what could be better?” and spoke about how he had been “watching movies, getting high, and having fun”. Of course, the conversation eventually turned towards Mcafee’s cryptocurrency endeavors in general.

Mcafee spoke about how “things are going great” with his Skycoin association. Mcafee recently made headlines for getting a Skycoin tattoo, which actually led to a momentary price increase. He stated that he believes “Skycoin is going to be the major winner in the next couple of years.” Skycoin has marketed itself as a “complete ecosystem” with its own consensus algorithm, and it aims to leverage blockchain technology to become a new kind of internet.

He spoke on these ambitions as well, stating: “It’s not a replacement to the internet, necessarily, it is an alternative. If you are using cryptocurrency, for example, and get connected to the Skycoin network, which is worldwide, then basically you have a distributed network of users, of crypto, that can transact things, completely outside of anyone, other than us, the crypto community.”

Mcafee also offered a last egotistical statement about the project, stating: “If it does not flourish, I will have failed…and I never fail.”

About The Market

Of course, the hosts, Mcafee was asked about his thoughts on the market. He pointed out first and foremost that the markets are not always necessarily right. Specifically, he said: “Markets do not always track the success of companies. A company could actually be making a fortune and the market might not reflect that, maybe not for a year. I’m not concerned about the markets.”

“Markets go up more, and come down a little, and that’s what Bitcoin is doing now.” Overall, he appeared to be optimistic, saying: “I think the bull market is just around the corner, if it isn’t here already.”

Mcafee then talked about the fact that not enough cryptocurrency enthusiasts were using cryptocurrency, and that this would be the real catalyst for the markets.

He said: “Here’s the thing – start using the freaking coins, people. If you don’t use the coins and tokens that you have, for their intended purpose. We can’t succeed.”

He continued: “Use these coins. Buy s–t with Bitcoin, buy it with Ethereum, with Monero, with whatever you f–king have. Please. We need to do this.”

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South Korea Business School Offers Crypto MBA

In order for the cryptocurrency markets to thrive, more and more investors are going to have to enter the space. This also means that more cryptocurrency traders and investors need to learn about cryptocurrency, as well.

One country that has been particularly interested in cryptocurrency is South Korea. A major business school in South Korea is now offering a “Crypto MBA” now, following the lead of many other prestigious educational institutions as University of Pennsylvania and Cornell, which also offer blockchain-related courses, as well.

About The Course

Seoul School of Integrated Sciences And Technologies is commonly known as “Assist”, and now offers a year-and-a-half Crypto MBA program. The program will cover much discussed topics in cryptocurrency, such as smart contracts, game theory, decentralized apps, and other topics.

The school offered an official statement: “The mission of Assist business school’s Crypto MBA program is to remedy the lack of academic research and systematic education currently available in the industry, despite a high level of social interest in the blockchain and cryptocurrency.”

Education Trend

More universities around the world are offering courses related to cryptocurrency and blockchain, and this includes some of the most well-respected educational institutions in the world.

Emin Gun Sirer, an Associate Professor at Cornell University, recently spoke about how surprised he was at how many students were interested in learning about blockchain. He was stunned to find out that over 80 students had shown up to the class. For context, he said: “Usually when you have five to a dozen students in such a class, you’re teaching a popular class.”

The trend doesn’t appear to be slowing, either. In fact, in a new survey of hundreds of undergrad students – over a quarter of them are interested in taking a blockchain course, and almost 10% of those surveyed already have. The survey was conducted by Coinbase, in conjunction with research firm Qriously.

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Coinbase CEO Pledges Wealth For “The Greater Good”

There are few companies that are more important to the cryptocurrency sector than Coinbase, which is valued in the billions and already one of the most established “names” in the space. It appears as though the CEO of Coinbase, Brian Armstrong, understands that the wealth he has already accumulated can have a massive impact, and he has decided to donate the majority of his wealth for the “greater good”.

The Giving Pledge

For those that are unaware, some of the most famous entrepreneurs and investors in the world have signed The Giving Pledge. The campaign began almost a decade ago in 2010, when two of the richest men in the world, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, pledged to give away most of their wealth for the benefit of humanity. Of course, this inspired others to do so, and many billionaires have signed on since then.

Billionaire Investor Warren Buffett

Brian Armstrong is the first cryptocurrency entrepreneur to do so, and pointed out that he seems to understand the power of philanthropy more than ever. He stated: “This year, I started my first philanthropic effort, GiveCrypto.org, which makes direct cash transfers to people living in poverty. I’m excited about the potential for this organization to help people, but I’m still early on my journey of discovering how to have the most impact via philanthropy.”

Historic Move

Armstrong is worth over a billion dollars, according to Forbes. This does raise the question of whether others who have attained a certain amount of wealth  – thanks to cryptocurrency – will follow suit.

The Coinbase CEO elaborated that he believed that after a certain level, wealth should be utilized for social impact. Specifically, he said: “Once a certain level of wealth is reached, there is little additional utility from spending more on yourself. One’s ambition begins to move outwards. I’ve always admired founders and leaders whose ambition to improve the world supersedes any goal related to personal wealth.”

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Chainalysis Study Determines Many Bitcoin (BTC) Addresses “Irrelevant”

It’s not hard to tell that there are all sorts of varying attitudes when it comes to cryptocurrency and blockchain. There are individuals who are simply concerned with using Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as an investment vehicle to trade, or hold, for wealth, for example. There are other individuals that truly believe in principles such as decentralization and transparency and believe that blockchain technology will help to create a fairer world, as well. There are also others who are interested to see how blockchain changes specific sectors, such as retail, infrastructure, manufacturing, and logistics.

A recent study proved that there is certainly a significant amount of the population that are actually serious about holding Bitcoin. Specifically, a Chainalysis study pointed out that even though there are 460 million Bitcoin (BTC) addresses, many of them hold no economic value, or even hold Bitcoin at all.

Study Details

 

Chainalysis found that out of a staggering 288 Bitcoin addresses, 93% of them were used only once, which might surprise some cryptocurrency enthusiasts. These addresses currently hold no actual balances.

In essence, it appears as though these wallets were created to facilitate a certain amount of payments for a certain period of time, between two individuals, or for certain services, and are not used continuously.

More Information

This certainly doesn’t spell doom for the cryptocurrency sector, especially considering how bearish the cryptocurrency markets were this year. The researchers are simply finding out specific information and how and when individuals are buying and holding cryptocurrency. For example, they stated: “We estimate that on average only 20 percent of the bitcoin transaction value is economic, in that it is a final transfer between different people via economically relevant addresses. The remaining 80 percent is returned as change.”

For those that are unaware, Chainalysis is a blockchain surveillance company that has gained traction in the industry. It raised millions earlier this year, and the company even recently announced a high-profile partnership with Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume.

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WBTC’s Ethereum-powered Bitcoin “on track” for mid-January launch as more blockchain startups lend support

water

A community-driven initiative aiming to bring Bitcoin (BTC), and potentially other cryptocurrencies, to the Ethereum (ETH) network has updated the public on its progress for the first time since being announced.

For those unaware, the initiative, dubbed Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), was unveiled in late October by its three founding projects – Kyber Network (KNC), BitGo and Republic Protocol (REN).

The idea was born out of a need to solve a pain point of the Ethereum network, that is, a general lack of liquidity; a problem that has negatively impacting the user-experience on various Ethereum-powered decentralized exchanges and lending platforms.

Count us in

It was evident by reading through today’s announcement, authored by Anton Buenavista (Developer, Kyber Network), that the ecosystem has indeed rallied behind the WBTC project; indicating just how pressing Ethereum’s need for an injection of liquidity really is.

At the time of its unveiling almost two months ago, WBTC had already attracted a host of launch partners – sixteen to be precise. These included some of the most prominent projects in the Ethereum ecosystem such as MakerDAO (MKR), Gnosis (GNO) and Dharma.

Today’s announcement revealed that interest in WBTC – which is anticipated to go live in mid-January – has only strengthened ever since, with the following six teams now also on-board as launch partners: OmiseGO (OMG), dYdX, Loopring (LRC), GOPAX, bZx and TheOcean.

Brace yourselves, WBTC-related announcements are coming

With WBTC going live in a matter of weeks, expect to see a blitz of announcements from Ethereum-powered projects coming out. As per today’s announcement on Kyber Network’s blog, each of DDEX, IDEX, RadarRelay and AirSwap (AST) have committed to supporting WBTC trading pairs from launch date.

Additionally, fellow launch partners Dharma and Compound will have support for WBTC integrated on their respective financial dApps upon its launch. Another member of the budding DeFi movement, Set Protocol, has agreed to support WBTC, too, when it launches on mainnet at some stage next quarter.

Kyber Network used the announcement to reveal that its KyberSwap product will list WBTC once it launches. What’s more, they “have developed the implementation of a new trading algorithm to support WBTC on the Kyber reserve;” just one of the various initiatives Kyber Network’s developers have completed to help spur along adoption of the WBTC ecosystem.

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Coinbase Moves Billions In Crypto

If you are a cryptocurrency enthusiast, or trade/invest in cryptocurrency; there is little doubt that you are aware of Coinbase. The San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange is widely considered one of the most important companies in the sector, and has been valued in the billions, despite the fact that it has been a tough year for cryptocurrency markets in general.

For example, while other cryptocurrency exchanges were struggling, Coinbase was featured in the opening credits for the hit HBO TV show Silicon Valley, which many in the cryptocurrency community took as a sign that more people are aware of the cryptocurrency markets and their potential.

Moving Billions

The exchange’s importance was shown again in a tweet, where the company confirmed the fact that it moved billions in cryptocurrency funds into cold storage. The announcement was made in a tweet. Specifically, Coinbase announced that it had moved “5% of all BTC, 8% of all ETH, and 25% of all LTC in circulation to our next-gen secure cold storage.”

https://twitter.com/coinbase/status/1075465004629995521

In the associated Medium post, Coinbase boasted that it could be the “largest crypto migration on record”. The post elaborated that this was not a sudden move, but Coinbase had been preparing for the migration for some time now. Specifically, the post stated that the company “conducted risk assessments, honed monitoring plans and conducted test migrations until we were positive that the live migration would go off without a hitch.”

Cold Storage

Coinbase also seemed to take a bit of a nostalgic look back at memory lane to remember how much its grown, and how much its definition of cold storage had changed. In 2012, Coinbase simply placed keys in a safe deposit box. Obviously, the company has grown immensely since then, and its definition of “cold storage” is radically different.

The company elaborated that these days, the company utilizes Coinbase Custody, a secure foundation with a highly controlled and audited key generation process and continue with a globally distributed key storage and transaction approval system.

It seems like Coinbase went out of its way to explain that moving this amount of cryptocurrency was not something that they took lightly, and even ended the blog post to point out that they were hiring anyone who might be interested in helping keep the exchange as secure as possible.