What’s Behind Ripple Cryptocurrency Price?
While most headlines in the cryptocurrency space involve Bitcoin or Ethereum, an increasing number of investors are thinking about investing in Ripple, the bank-focused blockchain company that is taking the crypto world by storm. With that in mind, I’ve put together this report with a complete Ripple price prediction in 2018.

I know the names, tokens, and details can become overwhelming. Blockchain technology is widely misunderstood in part because the industry is so young; so the articles.

The post Ripple Price Forecast: Factors Suggest XRP Cryptocurrency Could Hit $1 appeared first on Profit Confidential.

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Ripple Price Forecast: Factors Suggest XRP Cryptocurrency Could Hit $1

At Tuesday's price, the digital currency has more than tripled for the year, versus gold's nearly 10 percent rise.

"I think bitcoin is going to have increasing institutional sponsorship given the pending trading of bitcoin options and bitcoin futures," Fundstrat said.

Both derivatives products are expected to launch later this year or in early 2018.

That said, gold is far from disappearing as a store of value.

Lee pointed out that the overall size of the gold market at about $7.5 trillion dwarfs that of bitcoin. At Tuesday's prices, bitcoin had a market capitalization of roughly $57 billion, around the size of Charles Schwab.

In that case, Lee and other analysts have noted that even a small percentage of fund flows out of gold into bitcoin could send the digital currency's price sharply higher, potentially into the tens of thousands of dollars in the next few years.

Other digital currencies also rose Tuesday. The one-week-old bitcoin offshoot "bitcoin cash" rebounded from weekend lows near $200 to trade near $338.25, according to CoinMarketCap.

Ethereum traded nearly 5 percent higher at $280, about 12 percent higher for the month, according to CoinDesk.

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Bitcoin climbs to record, nearly three times the price of gold - CNBC

A company co-owned by one of President Vladimir Putins internet advisers plans to raise the cryptocurrency equivalent of as much as $100 million in a push to help Russian entrepreneurs challenge China in bitcoin mining.

Russian Miner Coin is holding a so-called initial coin offering, where investors will use units of ethereum or bitcoin to buy new RMC tokens. These new tokens will have rights to 18 percent of the revenue earned with the companys mining equipment, according to a presentation posted on its website.

RMC plans to use semiconductor chips designed in Russia for use in satellites to minimize power consumption in computers for crypto-mining, Putins internet ombudsman, Dmitry Marinichev, said at at a news conference in Moscow.

Russia has the potential to reach up to 30 percent share in global cryptocurrency mining in the future," Marinichev said, adding that $10 million from the proceeds of the ICO may be spent developing the processors.

More and more startups are offering tokens as a way to raise money upfront for digital assets in ICOs. Unlike a traditional IPO in which buyers get shares, a startups ICO nets you virtual tokens unique to the issuing company or network that grow in value only if the business proves viable.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last month warned that ICOs may be considered securities and signaled greater scrutiny of the sector, though it stopped short of suggesting a broader clampdown.

Todays bitcoin mining requires special computers based on chips with minimized power consumption. Chinas Bitmain Technologies Ltd. is one of the leading producers of such equipment and also runs Antpool, a processing pool that combines individual miners from China and other countries. Rival Bitfury Group, founded by Valery Vavilov, a Russian-speaking native of Latvia, produces equipment for mining virtual currencies and runs large-scale centers in Georgia and Iceland.

Russia has 20 gigawatts of excess power capacity, with consumer electricity prices as low as 80 kopeks (1.3 cents) per kilowatt hour, which is less than in China, RMC said in the presentation. The company initially plans to locate mining computers based on Bitfury chips in individual Russian households to challenge Bitmain by using Russias lower power prices.

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This Putin Ally Wants to Get in on the Bitcoin Mining Craze - Fortune

Bitcoin faces the possibility of yet another fork, a divergence anticipated by a code change proposal accepted by the developers of the Bitcoin Core client software.

A week ago, Bitcoin split in two: legacy Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash, an alternative cryptocurrency. Holders of existing Bitcoin saw a windfall, the option to collect a matching amount of newly minted Bitcoin Cash, at many registries.

Present and future transactions require a choice between the two, assuming there's no rapprochement.

Old guard Bitcoin, meanwhile, on Tuesday celebrated community acceptance, more or less, of SegWit2x, a proposed code change intended to separate signature data from transaction identifier data and to increase the size of the blocks that store Bitcoin transactions.

The revision, scheduled to take effect on August 21, is intended to make Bitcoin transactions more scalable and faster. After that point, Bitcoin miners will begin rejecting blocks that fail to support the change.

Since 2015, the hard-coded 1MB block limit for Bitcoin transactions has been blamed for the long transaction clearance times and the problem has gotten worse as Bitcoin has become more popular.

With SegWit2x given the green light, a hard fork is planned later this year to implement the 2MB block size. Bitcoin miners will signal their acceptance through Bitcoin network, but not all are expected to go along and Bitcoin Core is planning for a split.

Several days ago, developer Matt Corallo published a pull request to the GitHub repo of the Bitcoin Core software that rejects the SegWit2x blockchain.

The pull request, a proposed code revision, was merged into the main branch two days ago and, barring further changes, should appear in the 0.15 release of the software. The revised client software will detect when you're connecting to a SegWit2x node of the Bitcoin network and disconnect from it.

"This is basically a sign from Bitcoin Core that they do not regard SegWit2x as being the real Bitcoin," explained Ryan X. Charles, CEO of Yours.org, in a YouTube video. "...This all but assures there will be another split when SegWit2x occurs."

Presently, it appears that in a few months, if the hard fork happens, those holding Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash could find a third currency, Bitcoin Core, in their electronic wallets.

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For fork's sake! Bitcoin Core braces for another cryptocurrency split - The Register

Bitcoin climbed above $3,400 to trade at all-time highs on Monday as investors gained confidence in the future of the digital currency.

Its price rose nearly 5 percent, to $3,451.86, up almost $600 from Friday's $2,900 levels, according to CoinDesk. Bitcoin has more than tripled this year and has gained 18 percent in August.

"That's what supports the cryptocurrency right now, confidence," said Ronnie Moas, founder of financial research firm Standpoint Research.

"If there's something that shakes people's confidence in crypto then they will sell off. The further we get into this game the less likely you will get something like that," Moas said. He said he's "heavily invested" in digital currencies, and in late July he issued a report predicting bitcoin will reach $5,000 in 2018.

Bitcoin now has a market capitalization of about $56 billion. For comparison, General Motors has a market cap of $51 billion.

Bitcoin one-week performance

Source: CoinDesk

Most enthusiasts attributed the price gain to a relief rally after the relatively smooth split of the digital currency into bitcoin and "bitcoin cash."

The currency split, or "forked," on Aug. 1 after a minority of developers went ahead with their own upgrade proposal to improve transaction speed on the digital currency network. That upgrade, creating bitcoin cash, was incompatible with a more popular proposal called Segregated Witness, which the original bitcoin is set to lock in in the next few days.

"I think a lot of new investors were waiting on the sidelines until after the hard fork" into bitcoin and bitcoin cash, said Benjamin Roberts, co-founder and CEO of Citizen Hex, an ethereum-focused start-up backed by three Canadian venture funds.

"Now that it has happened with a favorable outcome (Bitcoin + Bitcoin Cash > Bitcoin), new fiat money is entering into the space," Roberts said in an email. Fiat currencies include the dollar, the yen and the euro.

Bitcoin traded in yen accounted for nearly 42 percent of trade volume, up from about one-third in the last few days, according to CryptoCompare. About 26 percent of bitcoin traded in dollars, the site showed.

Bitcoin cash swung wildly in its first week from above $700 to below $300. As of Monday morning, the digital currency recovered from a weekend dip to near $200 to trade near $260, according to CoinMarketCap. That's less than one-tenth of the original bitcoin's record-high price.

Another digital currency, ethereum, edged up a quarter of a percent to near $269, according to CoinDesk.

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Bitcoin tops $3400 as investor confidence boosts it to record high - CNBC

Bitcoin BTCUSD, +2.49% caught fire this weekend, taking out yet another record high and pushing above $50 billion in market capitalization for the first time ever. This after selling off in the wake of the split last week.

So whats triggering the latest push?

Apparently, a deep-pocketed trader (or group of traders), nicknamed Spoofy, is rumored to be manipulating the bitcoin market by employing his namesake tactic on the Bitfinex cryptocurrency exchange, according to Cointelegraph.

Read: 10 things you need to know about bitcoin.

Spoofing is when a trader makes a deceptive bid or offer with the intent of canceling it before execution, thus giving the illusion that somebody is getting ready to buy or sell and potentially triggering a notable move in price.

For example, if Spoofy places a large buy order that entices smaller traders to hop aboard, he can turn around and instead use the uptick to execute a sell order.

Weve seen it before in other markets, like when Navinder Sarao, the British trader accused of contributing to the 2010 stock market flash crash, pleaded guilty to using the shady tactic.

So yes, spoofing is illegal, but since bitcoin markets are mostly unregulated, its quite common, Cointelegraph reports. The difference in Spoofys case is that hes got a massive bankroll that allows him to regular place orders upward of $60 million.

The BitCryptoed blog described the impact hes had on bitcoin.

Spoofy makes the price go up when he wants it to go up, and Spoofy makes the price go down when he wants it to go down, the blogger wrote. And hes got the coin both USD, and bitcoin, of course, to pull it off, and with impunity on Bitfinex.

Read: It could get ugly soon for bitcoin if this chart is right.

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Why is bitcoin surging? Ask 'Spoofy,' the trader who's reportedly manipulating prices - MarketWatch

More than five months after bitcoin and gold prices hit parity, bitcoin is now worth nearly three times as much as the more traditional store of value.

The price of bitcoin reached a new high above $3,400 during today's session, a figure that was more than $2,000 above the price of gold.At press time, the precious metalwas trading for $1,257 according to a spot exchange rate provided by Bloomberg.

Overall,it's the latest sign that the cryptocurrency asset class may be maturing in the eyes of an increasingly professional set of investors earlier today, the total value of all publicly traded cryptocurrencies set a new all-time high,rising above $117 billionfor the first time.

But while largely symbolic, the finding is notable given that bitcoin enthusiasts have long compared the digital asset to gold, arguing that it is a more effective store of value due to its digital and provably finite nature.

Still, it remains difficult to determine whether the two assets have any relationship in the market, with past attempts to draw a correlation largely coming up empty.

A CoinDesk report from July of last year found that, despite the fact they are both considered safe havens, there is hardly any similarity inmarket movements.

Gold bars image via Shutterstock

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is an independent media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. Have breaking news or a story tip to send to our journalists? Contact us at [emailprotected].

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Bitcoin Is Now Worth Nearly 3 Times More Than an Ounce of Gold ... - CoinDesk

Barron's

Bitcoin Cash: Is It Crashing? - Barron's Barron's Less than a week has passed since the so-called bitcoin fork, and the new digital currency has plunged 30% over the past day. Bitcoin surges above $3K to record, more than tripling this year while 'bitcoin cash' strugglesCNBC Bitcoin breaks $3000 to reach new all-time highTechCrunch Bitcoin cash is crashingBusiness Insider Forbes -CoinDesk -CoinTelegraph -Coin Market Cap all 141 news articles »

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Bitcoin Cash: Is It Crashing? - Barron's - Barron's

Bitcoin surged above $3,000 to reach a new all-time high over the weekend, less than a week after a split that worried some investors.

Bitcoin BTCUSD, -0.62% peaked Saturday at a record $3,360.87, according to CoinDesk.com. By Sunday, the cryptocurrency had settled down to $3,286.87, with a market cap of $53.4 billion, according to Coinmarketcap.com. Saturday marked the first time bitcoin surpassed $50 billion in market cap.

Read: Confused about bitcoin? 10 things you need to know

Prices have jumped more than 10% in the past week, after bitcoin on Tuesday launched a new version of its currency with a different configuration, known as Bitcoin Cash. Bitcoin prices initially fell more than 5% as the new currency confused markets, but quickly recovered.

Despite its volatility, bitcoin has more than tripled its value this year, crossing the $2,000 threshold in May and hitting $3,000 for the first time in June, before crashing back to earth and shedding about 20% of its value before continuing its meteoric gains.

Competing digital currency ethereum tagged along for the weekend rally, surging 12% Saturday and another 7% Sunday, to $270.07, with a market cap of $25.2 billion.

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Bitcoin rallies to new record, market cap hits $50 billion for first time - MarketWatch

Barron's

3 Must Read Stories: Bitcoin Surges, China's Debt Binge, North Korea Sanctions Barron's "With SegWit activation and the hard fork in the rear view mirror, bitcoin buyers see a smooth road ahead for the next two months," he told CNBC in an email, referring to a more popular upgrade proposal called Segregated Witness. The South China ... and more »

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3 Must Read Stories: Bitcoin Surges, China's Debt Binge, North Korea Sanctions - Barron's

Dear John: I really think you missed the boat on bitcoin.

You assume bitcoin is just money, when in fact it has many other uses. Its here to stay, and will disrupt every industry, including governance.

Bitcoin ATMs are an easy on/off ramp, since due to regulations in the US its very hard to get bitcoin today. If you look at all the companies (including all banks) that are looking into utilizing this technology, I think you may want to rethink your view.

Santander Bank alone will save $20 billion in internal transfers. E.G.

Dear E.G.: You are referring to a column I wrote about bitcoin being used to launder money from illegal activities.

It just so happens that last week a US jury indicted a Russian man for operating a digital bitcoin exchange that he allegedly used to launder more than $4 billion for people involved in crimes ranging from computer hacking to drug trafficking. The guys name is Alexander Vinnik, and he was arrested in a small beach-side village in northern Greece. This is all according to a report by Reuters.

US officials alleged Vinnik and his firm received more than $4 billion in bitcoin and did substantial business in the US without allowing appropriate protocols to protect against money laundering and other crimes.

So that pretty much confirms what I wrote about the sudden growth of bitcoin ATMs throughout the city.

But lets also look at the illogical stance you are taking. You say that bitcoin is going to disrupt every industry, including governance.

If that were so if governments were going to be disrupted why would governments allow bitcoin and other digital currency to survive? They wouldnt.

Will there someday be a universal currency used by all countries? And will it be digital?

Probably. But thats not going to happen until bitcoin and the others control the illicit activities they are condoning, and until someone backs these currencies with something other than the full faith and credit of nothing.

In other words, eventually governments will band together to create and back a digital currency. And it probably wont be bitcoin.

Dear John: The only way to make going to the doctor affordable is to get rid of the insurance companies, Medicare and Medicaid.

When I first began working full-time in 1985, I went to a neighborhood doctor, God rest his soul.

For a $20 visit and another $20 for a prescription, he got me well. Follow-ups were free. He gave free samples. He even made house calls.

In a cash business, doctors would only be able to charge what the patients have in their wallets and pocketbooks. No greedy middle men. Prices would fall.

God bless and straight ahead. S.H.

Dear S.H.: I remember when I could get an ice cream cone for 25 cents and a decent dinner would cost $20.

But those days are gone.

And so is the Marcus Welby-era that you describe.

Now Id like to see some real letters on the health care problem.

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Illicit activity is hurting Bitcoin's future | New York Post - New York Post

"When we first got this place, I was the only girl who was here and I actually got involved with this place because I have amazing friends," said Toni Lane Casserly, a faculty member at Singularity University, a collaborative technology learning platform.

Lane-Casserly has seen a shift in her years in the space. When she first got there, people were telling her that Bitcoin was used for bad ends. Now people are asking her how they could get involved in the ecosystem.

Another roommate, Viviane Ford, had a similar experience.

"It's funny to see this slowly just gain more and more ground. We used to have a Bitcoin predictor on the window up there and we would guess by the end of the year it's going to hit a thousand or something." said Ford, vice president of Operations at Comma.ai.

"There was one moment where we had a big white board upstairs, a bunch of us were talking about different things and I think Bitcoin hit $2,000," she said, adding that "at that moment we popped a bottle of champagne and celebrated."

Whether Bitcoin or other crypto currencies are flying high or sliding backward, for the visitors and tenants of the Crypto Castle, it's about the game and not the score.

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Bitcoin, ethereum gurus live in 'Crypto Castle' San Francisco commune - CNBC

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Everyone is crazy for Ethereum, but Bitcoin is still the beast to beat - Digital Trends

Its been five days since the fork, and the Bitcoin Cash (BCH/BCC) blockchain is still on the move as 85 blocks have been processed by miners so far. The 85th block was mined by the mining pool Bitclub, a newcomer to the BCH network. The BCH chain is moving a bit more consistently now, but mining profitability and the gaming of the currencys mining difficulty continues to be a struggle for the newly born network.

Also read:Segwit2x and the Tale of Three Bitcoins

At the time of writing the BCH network hashrate, is roughly around 300PH/s with blocks occurring roughly every 1-2 hours and some with longer intervals. Currently, there seems to be four pools now working on the BCH chain and the largest of them is unknown. Another pool which has joined in on mining BCH blocks is a pool known as Suprnova.cc, and the group is known for writing a pretty interesting coinbase messages. Suprnova also mines many other digital currencies like Zcash and is only pointing very little hashrate towards the BCH network. At press time Suprnova has only 0.25 PH/s dedicated to BCH and only eighteen workers.

The first BCH block took approximately five hours to complete and was followed by a block with a 12-hour interval in between it as well. On August 1 the BCH chain started with the same difficulty as BTCs and the associated token was only worth $6-700 at that time. That means unless resources like electricity are completely free mining the BCH chain at that time was not profitable. At BTCsdifficulty, BCH would have needed to be around $2100 to be profitable.

This is why there was an initial 12-hour wait to find the next block because miners who support the new chain want the difficulty to drop. The difficulty did eventually fall several times, but the price also divedinto the low $200s as well making it 311% more profitable to mine on the BTC chain. The next difficulty drop should lock in soon and the Bitclub pool entry is showing more miners may be attracted to this chain.

Some people think a malicious miner might be gaming the network, so further lowered difficulty adjustments dont happen. A few people on forums noticed this happening as one person writes, Theres a pattern Im seeing, someone with quite a lot of hash power is ramping up and producing two blocks minutes apart every time the adjustment nearly triggers. Another individual observes the same situation taking place,

I have been noticing the same pattern in real time. We almost reached twelve hours, Viabtc has no more than 25PH mining, last block took 339 minutes and BAM we get a thirteen minutes block. This is the third time it happens when we reach over 11.5 hours.

Honest miners have been slowing down or pausing for twelve hour periods so they can lower the difficulty even more. Presently the BCH chains difficulty is 26 percent of the BTC legacy chains mining difficulty. The Bitcoin Cash protocol rules detail that in order for the difficulty to adjust down it utilizes Median Time Past (MTP) of the last block and the MTP of the 6 previous blocks has to be more than twelve hours for it to drop another 20%.

The malicious miner theory is entirely possible as these miners can use their hash power to produce a block between the paused intervals. This has caused people to speculate specifically on the unknown miner that has mined a majority of the blocks so far. It doesnt seem to be the Hong Kong miner who was advertising his new cryptocurrency center at the start of the BCH chain.

Further, we know the Suprnova pools coinbase data said fuckbitcoincash and the pool could also be attack mining, but it has very little strength compared to the unknown mining majority. If anything is stopping these longer block intervals that are intended to drop the difficulty, its most likely this anonymous miner.

What do you think about the Bitcoin Cash chain getting attacked by malicious miners? Do you think this theory is plausible? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Images via Shutterstock, Twitter, Crypto Compare, and Coin Dance.

Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check ourtoolssection.

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Blockchain Data Reveals Someone Is Trying to Slow Down Bitcoin Cash - Bitcoin News (press release)

Bitcoin leaped more than 16 percent Saturday into record territory, significantly strengthening against its offshoot "bitcoin cash" amid a hack on the new currency's network.

Bitcoin hit an all-time high of $3,360.87 Saturday, according to CoinDesk, before paring its gains slightly to hover near $3,303, with a market capitalization of more than $54 billion.

The digital currency has now more than tripled in value for the year, and gained about 15 percent in the first few days of August. Bitcoin has broken free of the trading range it's held ever since reaching its prior record of $3,025 in mid-June.

Ari Paul, CIO of BlockTower Capital, attributed the gains to a relief rally after a "relatively uneventful" split, as well as new investors buying bitcoin.

"With SegWit activation and the hard fork in the rear view mirror, bitcoin buyers see a smooth road ahead for the next two months," he told CNBC in an email, referring to a more popular upgrade proposal called Segregated Witness.

Another digital currency, ethereum, climbed more than 12 percent to $250 Saturday afternoon, according to CoinDesk.

Bitcoin one-week performance

Source: CoinDesk

On Tuesday, Bitcoin split into bitcoin and bitcoin cash when a minority of developers went ahead with an alternative upgrade proposal. Investors holding bitcoin at the time of the split should have received an equal amount of bitcoin cash, and were able to trade it Tuesday. However, some major exchanges only began accepting bitcoin cash deposits Thursday and Friday.

ViaBTC, the Chinese exchange that's been the main proponent for bitcoin cash, tweeted at 4:03 a.m. that it temporarily suspended withdrawals due to a " transaction malleability attack" on the bitcoin cash network.

ViaBTC tweeted at 8:44 a.m. that it resumed withdrawals.

Bitcoin cash plunged nearly 36 percent Friday, falling about 9 percent to overnight to a low of $212. It recovered slightly to $223 Saturday afternoon, according to CoinMarketCap.

Bitcoin cash 1-week performance

Source: CoinMarketCap

Bitcoin Magazine pointed out Saturday morning that ViaBTC mining activity which creates more of a digital currency for bitcoin cash dropped to a tenth of what it was in the last few days, while most of the mining activity was concentrated on the original bitcoin.

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Bitcoin surges above $3K to record, more than tripling this year while 'bitcoin cash' struggles - CNBC

In just four hours of early Saturday trading, the price of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin surged over 9% to a new record. At the time of this writing, one Bitcoin is valued at $3,169.90, well above the previous record of $3,000 set in June .

Bitcoin's total market value is now more that $52 billion, according to data from CoinMarketCap, and the return on Bitcoin investments made on January 1 st of this year stands at nearly 220%.

Bitcoin will almost certainly remain a highly volatile asset, but its latest high reflects a major positive development. After years of heated debate over how to increase the Bitcoin networks transaction capacity, major players have finally agreed on a compromise solution known as Segwit2x . That accomplishment is reassuring for those who may have begun to doubt the effectiveness of Bitcoins leaderless governance model .

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The Segwit2x solution also seems to have driven Bitcoin's price higher in a less direct way. On Tuesday, a faction who disagreed with the proposal spun off a so-called fork of Bitcoin, known as Bitcoin Cash , which implemented a different fix. All holders of Bitcoin received matching Bitcoin Cash, which now trades as BCH on exchanges, and has a total current value of $3.75 billion.

However, the price of Bitcoin Cash has declined steadily over the last two days as Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies have surged. That suggests investors are cashing out of the upstart fork, which has sparse support from miners and exchanges, and pumping their gains back into older, more trusted, and more widely-adopted cryptocurrencies.

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Bitcoin Rockets Past $3000 to a New Record High - Fortune

The price of bitcoin has risen sharply, exceeding the $3,200 level for the first time on the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (BPI).

The market advancebegan after 1:00 UTC, when the price of bitcoin climbed above $2,900, market data shows, crossing the $3,000 line around 3:12 UTC.

Markets hit a high of $3,216.02, according to the BPI, and at press time are currently trading at an average of $3,154.94. Per the BPI, bitcoin's price hasn't been above the $3,000 level since June 12.

The price advance also pushed bitcoins collective market capitalization past the $50 billion mark for the first time. According to the BPI, bitcoins market cap is around $52.35 billion at press time.

As might be expected, market volumes jumped along with the price. Data from Bitcoinity showsmore trade volume during the past several hours than at any other point during the past week.

Hot air balloon imagevia Shutterstock

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is an independent media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. Have breaking news or a story tip to send to our journalists? Contact us at [emailprotected].

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Bitcoin Price Surges Past $3,200 to Hit All-Time High - CoinDesk - CoinDesk

As the entire community has been laser-focused on the recent hard fork and Bitcoin network split, many people have forgotten about the Segwit2x plan. Miners who participated in the New York Agreement (NYA) have kept their promise and Segregated Witness will lock-in on the network in roughly two weeks.

Also read:Gwyneth Paltrow Joins Bitcoin Wallet Abra as Advisor

A few more changes are coming to the Bitcoin network in the near future. The Segwit2x plan often referred to as NYA is still following its course towards protocol activation of Segwit. At the time of writing, there are 621 blocks remaining for BIP 141 (Segwit) lock-in, and the plan seems to be running smoothly. The vast majority of miners who agreed to the Segwit2x proposal are still following through with at least half of the plan. The second half of Segwit2x intention involves the 2MB hard fork which is scheduled to occur in November.

However, weeks before the recent hard fork, a large portion of the user-activated soft fork (UASF) supporters, and Core developers have been vehemently opposing the second half of the NYA plan. Now that Bitcoin Cash exists, this has caused quite a few people to start envisioning three bitcoins; one that has Segwit only, one with both Segwit and the 2MB block increase, and the 8MB Bitcoin Cash.

On August 4 one individual wrote about his concerns about this outcome on the subreddit r/btc called, Core Devs: it is imperative that you endorse Segwit2x. If you dont, then we can end up with three Bitcoins. Please, have a little humility, avoid another contentious hard fork.

The person believes that if Core developers and many other others refuse to follow through with the second part of the plan, then there could be another chain split. Doubling the block size of the Bitcoin blockchain is NOT the end of the world, and it will come with many benefits as well, explains the threads author. One of the Core Bitcoin repository contributors, Luke-jr, reveals his opinion regarding the 2MB portion of the NYA plan.

Forget it Segwit2x is not going to happen If you want my support, get the proposal changed to something sane, explains Core developer Luke-jr. Then Luke-jr replied to the statement of how doubling the block size would not be the end of the world. Yes, it is, the developer adds.

Luke-jr is not the only bitcoin developer that wont agree to the next part of the Segwit2x plan. This includes Greg Maxwell, Wladimir van der laan, Jorge Timon, Eric Lombrozo, and many others.

After the birth of Bitcoin Cash, Jeff Garzik, one of the lead maintainers of the Segwit2x code, confirms that Segwit2x is still on schedule. When asked on Twitter whether the compromise was going forward because big blockers got their wish with Bitcoin Cash, Garzik responds saying;

Segwit2x and NYA have successfully met all goals so far, and continue as planned.

After August 1st the playing field is starting to get veryinteresting, and because the UASF and UAHF were planned in advance, many Bitcoiners had a feeling something was going to happen. Quite a few UASF supporters believe the UASF movement is what managed to push Segwit. However, these samesupporters seem to have also caused some blowback as well with the UAHF (Bitcoin Cash) plan following shortly after the movement started.

Now even though Segwit2x has a large majority of miner support and lots of businesses and infrastructure behind it, we could still see another split. Theres over three months left for the Bitcoin community to work this out, but some believe its looking dreary already.

What do you think about the upcoming plans for Segwit2x? Do you think its possible we could see three sets of bitcoins? Let us know in the comments below.

Images via Pixabay, and Coin Dance.

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Segwit2x and the Tale of Three Bitcoins - Bitcoin News (press release)

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The world's most popular digital currency exchange, Coinbase, reversed course on Thursday and announced it would accept a new bitcoin offshoot that was issued to every bitcoin owner.

The reversal comes after days of tumult as angry Coinbase customers demanded to know why the company had not released their new currency, called Bitcoin Cash, to them. The exchange rate for the currency, which began trading on August 1, briefly reached $700 on Wednesday and is currently trading around $400 .

Coinbase announced the decision in a blog post, explaining it wanted to first ensure the company could safely support Bitcoin Cash before developing technology to support it. The exchange said it would start supporting Bitcoin Cash begining on Jan. 1, 2018.

Over the last several days, weve examined all of the relevant issues and have decided to work on adding support for bitcoin cash for Coinbase customers. We made this decision based on factors such as the security of the network, customer demand, trading volumes, and regulatory considerations.

We are planning to have support for bitcoin cash by January 1, 2018, assuming no additional risks emerge during that time.

While the decision to support Bitcoin Cash may placate some Coinbase customers, others are likely to question why the company will take months to do so, even as other digital exchanges support the new currency.

It's also unclear how Coinbase's announcement will affect a campaign by a group of customers who had vowed to file a class action lawsuit if the company did not permit them to withdraw their Bitcoin Cash.

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In the days preceding the arrival of Bitcoin Coin cash, Coinbase made clear it did not intend to support the new currency and advised customers who objected to the policy to withdraw their bitcoins. This position, however, appeared to trigger a stampede of withdrawals, akin to a bank run, that led many customers to complain about long delays in getting access to their funds.

Meanwhile, reports suggest a large percentage of Coinbase's customer base elected to leave prior to August 1, which is when a so-called fork in bitcoin's underlying software took place that gave rise to Bitcoin Cash. A graph published by analytics company BlockSeer suggests customers withdrew over half of the $1 worth billion bitcoins stored in Coinbase's "vault" storage service:

It's unclear how many of the departing Coinbase customers elected to cash out their bitcoins into dollars or instead to transfer it to other digital wallet services where they would be eligible to receive the Bitcoin Cash immediately. One such company, London-based Blockchain, suggested most customers chose the latter course.

"It's been a record week for Blockchain," said a spokesperson for the company.

An earlier version of this story incorrectly suggested customers had withdrawn half of 1 billion bitcoins, not $1 billion worth of bitcoin.

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Coinbase to Let Users Withdraw Bitcoin Cash After Outcry - Fortune

There area few different companies specializing in Bitcoin blockchain analysis. Every single one of thoseentities seeksto provide law enforcement agencies and other parties with actionable insights on the Bitcoin network. One of these companies isNeutrino, based in Italy. Now would bea good time to check up on what this company provides exactly and how itcould be both a blessing and a curse to Bitcoin users.

It sounds quite interesting if a company claims they can properly analyze the Bitcoin blockchain. Companies such as Neutrino not to be confused with the infamous exploit kit used by criminals specialize in searching for malicious behavior on the Bitcoin network. If criminals were to steal funds or move funds belonging to suspicious addresses, companies like these wouldimmediately track themdown to the best of their abilities.

Contrary to what a lot of people think, Bitcoin is not an anonymous currency. It is true that transactions do not include personal information, but it is a pseudonymous currency which allows anyone to keep tabs on network transactions in real-time. Doing so does not even require specialized software. All it takes is a browser and a mouse to start going through Bitcoin transactions and their histories.

Companies such as Neutrino take this concept one step further. The company uses a proprietary machine learning algorithm known as P-Flow to constantly monitor the Bitcoin blockchain and all activities taking place on it. The software also categorizes money flows and labels risks accordingly. Interestingly enough, P-Flow is apparently capable of analyzing alltransactions, even the obfuscated versions.

Any compliance officer looking to assess risk of Bitcoin operations could certainly benefit from a tool such as P-Flow. It enhances AML/KYC checks and sets up customizable red flag alerts based on a blacklist approach. Users can flag any transaction potentially related to Bitcoin obfuscation as a threat as well. It is even capable of ascertaining whether or not a particular BTC transfer has a link to the darknet. All of this makes for an incredibly powerful solution.

Neutrino was founded back in 2016 with a strong focus on cybersecurity in general. Bitcoin quickly became one of itsareas of expertise, as the companyaspires to develop highly specialized cybersecurity solutions for use by partners and companies. Given the increasing popularity of Bitcoin over these past few years, developing P-Flow made a lot of sense. It is also the companys first project to come to market. Blockchain analytics companies are in high demand these days.

Neutrino is the company responsible for tracking the recent WannaCry Bitcoin funds movements. Itsresearch indicated how these funds were transferred to the ShapeShift exchange and converted to Monero. That statement was later confirmed by ShapeShift themselves, although they never indicatedwhetherall of the remaining WannaCry proceeds were laundered in such a manner. This development highlights the value of Neutrino as a Bitcoin analytics company. Anyone trying to abuse Bitcoin for nefarious purposes will certainly now have a difficult time getting away with it.

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Neutrino Is an Italian Bitcoin Blockchain Analytics Service Provider - The Merkle