Satoshi Nakamoto’s Last Message To Bitcoin Community Before Disappearing: ‘More Work To Do’ – International Business Times

KEY POINTS

Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto disappeared from the crypto space 10 years ago and in his last message, he talked about the importance of protecting thenetwork from denial-of-service (DoS) attacks.

In a message, posted on the Bitcointalkforumon Dec.12, 2010, Nakamoto said, "There's more work to do on DoS, but I'm doing a quick build of what I have so far in case it's needed, before venturing into more complex ideas."

Nakamoto added that the improvement he did for what was at that time Bitcoin version 0.3.19 was just temporary because the software was not at all resistant to a DoS attack. "This is one improvement, but there are still more ways to attack than I can count,"he added.

The creator did not post an update after that one. The next day, on Dec.13, 2010, he logged off for good.

There was no explanation as to why Nakamoto suddenly left the community. According to Bitcoin.com, the creator was very active in December 2010. The day prior to his last post, he expressed disappointment over a story on PC World thatsuggested Wikileaks could adopt Bitcoin after it was denied access to PayPal, Mastercardand Visa, technically the three giants of the payments world.

Nakamoto was apparently annoyed by the idea because Bitcoin, at the time, was still a small network run by a small number of people. "It would have been nice to get this attention in any other context,"Nakamoto emphasized, adding that Wikileaks could drive attentionand,therefore, bring in criticism for Bitcoin.

The creator said Bitcoin needs to slow gradually so that the software can be strengthened along the way. "I make this appeal to Wikileaks not to try to use Bitcoin,"Nakamotosaid, adding that Bitcoin was a small beta community and hence, "bringing the heat"could likely destroy it.

While December 2010 was the last public post of Satoshi Nakamoto, there was anemail correspondence between the Bitcoin creator and developer Gavin Andresen on April 26, 2011. "I wish you wouldn't keep talking about me as a mysterious shadowy figure, the press just turns that into a pirate currency angle,"Nakamoto said in the email. "Maybe instead make it about the open-source project and give more credit to your dev contributors; it helps motivate them."

Andresen replied to the email from Nakamoto, but the Bitcoin creator never responded.

Bitcoin is the best known virtual currency, but it may face a real problem next week Photo: AFP / INA FASSBENDER

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Satoshi Nakamoto's Last Message To Bitcoin Community Before Disappearing: 'More Work To Do' - International Business Times

Over $20K? Why Is Bitcoin Worth Anything at All? – CoinDesk – Coindesk

Bitcoins price continues to climb, a consistent flow of BTC is leaving exchanges and bitcoin whale sightings are becoming more frequent. But beyond the market frenzy, how does it all work?

Is bitcoin money or a technology? Is it a store of value like gold or does it emulate Milton Friedmans e-cash idea?

And while the world struggles to come to terms with bitcoin perhaps most clearly shown in the discrepancy between bitcoins current price and asset manager Guggenheims $400,000 figure its helpful to revisit the digital assets fundamentals.

Bitcoin's economic basis

Bitcoins groundwork is laid out in the 2008 white paper published by its pseudonymous founder, Satoshi Nakamoto. In the paper, Nakamoto describes their original intentions for the new money protocol, labeling Bitcoin as a proof-of-concept technology functioning as a purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash.

Nakamoto further describes the Bitcoin network as a decentralized payments system, meaning third-party financial intermediaries (i.e. banks or credit unions) are unnecessary when transferring value with Bitcoin.

The system is also designed to prevent government agencies or anyone else from affecting the Bitcoin networks monetary supply.

Bitcoin was designed to oppose the existing fiat paper money and central banking regime that has reigned now for a century over the global economy, Mark Thornton, senior fellow at the libertarian-leaning Ludwig von Mises Institute, told CoinDesk in an email.

Nakamoto goes on to describe Bitcoins network analogously to gold. The shiny metal has long been held as a store of value due to a few qualities, namely its natural scarcity and fungibility.

In a similar manner Nakamoto wrote that Bitcoin miners expend CPU time and electricity to mimic gold miners smacking away at the Earths crust. In return, they receive a portion of bitcoin from the network itself while sending transactions on behalf of Bitcoin users.

Yet, Nakamotos argument by analogy of bitcoin to gold does not stand alone. Rather, it is on the shoulders of contributions from others, including academics, over many years. Indeed, Bitcoins features such as a hard supply cap and slow inflation rate lends itself naturally to a few select economic schools, particularly those focused on the free market. Valuing the bitcoin cryptocurrency is complementary to these ideologies.

'Free money' economics

Bitcoin has storied academic roots, regardless of its reputation for use in illicit markets. Two prominent economic schools of thought, the Austrian school and the Chicago school, are often cited by Bitcoiners as accomplices in the task to free money from government printers.

The Austrian school was founded by Viennese professor Carl Menger in the late 19th century. Even at the time, Menger was known for heterodox views and for sparring with the dominant economic thinking of the time (not much differently from many Bitcoin advocates today).

Arguably, Mengers greatest contribution to Austrian economics was the development of the subjective theory of value, a component of the study of human action known as praxeology. Menger argued the value of any good is derived from humans themselves; that is to say, no good or service holds intrinsic value.

Mengers arguments were taken further by the next few generations of Austrian economists including Ludwig von Mises and F.A. Hayek in the mid-20th century. Mises, for one, crafted an argument demonstrating that the market created money, as opposed to the view that the government created money, known as Chartalism.

Hayek, winner of the 1974 Nobel Prize, would go on to advocate the creation of a money system outside of government in the later 20th century.

I dont believe we shall ever have a good money again before we take the thing out of the hands of government, Hayek said in a 1984 interview. That is, we cant take them violently out of the hands of government. All we can do is by some sly roundabout way introduce something that they cant stop.

Milton Friedman, the most well-known member of the Chicago school of economics, also called for the creation of a digital currency. Friedman believed an e-cash was not only a necessary component to the newly founded internet but also a logical tool for limiting government overreach.

Friedman famously argued for a k-percent rule (growing the money supply by a set, pre-announced % every year, regardless of what happens in the country) and for having monetary policy set by a computer (where it could not be corrupted by humans), Paul Sztorc, former statistician at the Yale Economics Department and creator of BitcoinHivemind.com, told CoinDesk in a Telegram message.

By the 2000s Friedman believed that the U.S. should just adopt a fixed supply of base money, and declare that they would never change it. Bitcoin instantiates all of these principles.

Bitcoin vs. inflationism

Its important to note that Bitcoin is a technological product backed by, or even adopted by, a previous community. That, in itself, distinguishes it from other fringe monetary movements such as #MintTheCoin, which is a purely community-driven phenomenon.

The central tenet of Bitcoin is its 21 million BTC supply cap. The networks rate of inflation is fixed similarly to how much gold can be mined from the Earth every year.

The issuance of Bitcoin decreases every four years in an event called a halving. These technical events decrease the supply of BTC created every 10 minutes by the network until no more BTC will be mined sometime in 2140.

The Bitcoin networks last halving occurred two months into a global pandemic that spurred trillions of dollars of money printing by the U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks. Indeed, Bitcoin miner F2Pool included a New York Times headline in the last block mined before the halving:

NYTimes 09/Apr/2020 With $2.3T Injection, Feds Plan Far Exceeds 2008 Rescue

Bitcoins supply schedule mimics gold, making it a complete contrast to central bankers who can create money out of thin air, Thornton said.

As such, bitcoin has performed very well over the past several years as central banks seem to be hell-bent on destroying the value of their currencies. This would, of course, include the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan especially. They along with many other central banks have reduced their policy rates to near zero, or even negative rates, Thornton said.

Valuing bitcoin

Bitcoin skeptics often decry a lack of intrinsic value, a lack of cash flows and a lack of historical precedent for the digital asset, among other points.

Indeed, a rise above $20,000 per bitcoin does not invalidate bear sentiments, CoinDesk Director of Research Noelle Acheson said. Bitcoin could crash down to Earth at any point. But thats also what makes it interesting as an asset class, she said.

One of the most fascinating things about bitcoin is that it doesnt conform to standard valuation techniques. Theres no cash flow to discount and no physical assets that back it up, she said.

Bitcoin and gold hold some correlations from a theoretical standpoint, but it depends on what point you focus on, Acheson said.

Like gold, it is worth what someone else is willing to pay for it, and that is impacted by overall market sentiment, inflation expectations and technological trends. Unlike gold, though, bitcoins supply is not at all impacted by its price, which is one of the reasons it will always be more volatile: There will never be an increase of new supply to meet increased demand, she said.

Eric Turner, director of research at market data provider Messari, said the $20,000 bitcoin price reached early Wednesday is an important psychological milestone for the digital asset as all investors stand in the green. Moreover, Turner said, bitcoin as digital gold is really the big story of the year, particularly against a backdrop of macro concerns and poor monetary policy.

In my opinion this is just the start for this cycle, which is going to be dominated by larger and more established institutional investors adding allocations to BTC. The real tipping point is if pensions, endowments and sovereign wealth funds start to get in the game. Whether that is this time around or next cycle remains to be seen, he said.

Next stop?

A successive all-time high valuation gives additional credence to bitcoin as a digital asset, Sztorc said. Yet, bitcoin remains aspirational money, he said.

Given the sheer distance bitcoin has to travel (from being totally obscure in the beginning, to being one half of every trade in the future global economy), it is probably more accurate to think of BTC as an investment in a unicorn-style winner-take-all tech-company, he said.

Still, a higher price per unit translates into not only additional attention to the asset but more throughput in U.S. dollars and a larger security budget protect itself against adversaries, he said.

Robert Catalanello, president and CEO of over-the-counter broker B2C2 USA, told CoinDesk in an email bitcoins price rise supports our view that crypto in general, and BTC in particular, is increasingly being viewed as a store of value.

The last few weeks of price action bouncing between a range of $18,000 and $19,600 were a contest of miners offloading mined BTC and new entrants, including many traditional finance clients, and selling from miners, Catalanello added.

There was a tremendous amount of supply from the latter, and that makes the move today even more impressive as we doubt the demand would have been there even three to six months ago to satisfy the supply, he said.

Thornton, on the other hand, contextualized bitcoins breakout within the global pandemic, Brexit and other macro events. An all-time high event does not preclude the possibility of another shape retreat in 2021 like we saw in 2018, although he said he would not be surprised by further price gains.

Despite these reservations nothing has fundamentally changed that supports higher cyber currency prices in the future as well as ongoing attempts on the part of central bankers and governments to capture and control this new form of currency, he said.

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Over $20K? Why Is Bitcoin Worth Anything at All? - CoinDesk - Coindesk

Bitcoin surges past $20,000, erasing 3 years of deep losses – ABC News

By KEN SWEET AP Business Writer

December 16, 2020, 10:40 PM

4 min read

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The price of bitcoin rose above $20,000 for the first time Wednesday, as the speculative digital currency topped its previous peak reached shortly after it became tradable on Wall Street three years ago this month.

Like other instruments used to store value in times of uncertainty, bitcoin has benefited from the pandemic that has pushed other commodities like gold, silver, platinum to multiyear highs. Because of bitcoin's structure, few coins are being created anymore and there is relative scarcity.

Heres a brief look at bitcoin:

HOW BITCOINS WORK

Bitcoin is a digital currency that is not tied to a bank or government and allows users to spend money anonymously. The coins are created by users who mine them by lending computing power to verify other users transactions. They receive bitcoins in exchange. The coins also can be bought and sold on exchanges with U.S. dollars and other currencies. Some businesses also accept bitcoin, but its popularity has stalled out in recent years.

WHAT HAPPENED?

Bitcoins got their big Wall Street debut in December 2017, when bitcoin futures became tradable on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade. The fervor and interest in bitcoin heading into its trading debut pushed the digital currency to record highs. The currency, which was worth less than $1,000 at the beginning of 2017, climbed up to $19,783 by the end of the year.

But once the trading began, bitcoin futures fell sharply over the course of several months. A year later, the currency was worth less than $4,000. Investors and bitcoin enthusiasts at the time said the 2017 jump was largely caused by speculative interest and media attention.

HOW MUCH IS IT NOW WORTH?

One bitcoin is worth roughly $20,700, according to Coinbase, a major digital currency exchange that also trades other tokens and currencies.

But the value of bitcoin is volatile and moves hundreds or even thousands of dollars in the course of a week. A month ago, it was worth less than $17,000 and a year ago it was worth less than $7,000.

Bitcoin is a highly speculative investment and has not performed as well as more traditional forms of investing, like stocks or bonds, unless a buyer was in the currency years before it caught on. For example, three years ago The Associated Press bought $100 worth of bitcoin to keep track of the currency and to possibly build stories about how businesses were accepting it. That portfolio only broke even this month.

WHY BITCOINS ARE POPULAR

Bitcoins are basically lines of computer code that are digitally signed each time they travel from one owner to the next. Transactions can be made anonymously, making the currency popular with libertarians as well as tech enthusiasts, speculators and criminals.

Bitcoins have to be stored in a digital wallet, either online through an exchange like Coinbase, or offline on a hard drive using specialized software. While the bitcoin community knows how many bitcoins exist, where they all are is anyone's guess.

WHOS USING BITCOIN?

Some businesses have jumped on the bitcoin bandwagon. Overstock.com accepts payments in bitcoin, for example.

The currency has become popular enough that more than 300,000 transactions typically occur in an average day, according to bitcoin wallet site blockchain.info. Still, its popularity is low compared with cash and credit cards, and most individuals and businesses wont accept bitcoins for payments.

HOW BITCOINS ARE KEPT SECURE

The bitcoin network works by harnessing individuals greed for the collective good. A network of tech-savvy users called miners keep the system honest by pouring their computing power into a blockchain, a global running tally of every bitcoin transaction. The blockchain prevents rogues from spending the same bitcoin twice, and the miners are rewarded for their efforts by being gifted with the occasional bitcoin. As long as miners keep the blockchain secure, counterfeiting shouldnt be an issue.

HOW BITCOIN CAME TO BE

Its a mystery. Bitcoin was launched in 2009 by a person or group of people operating under the name Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin was then adopted by a small clutch of enthusiasts. Nakamoto dropped off the map as bitcoin began to attract widespread attention. But proponents say that doesnt matter: The currency obeys its own internal logic.

In 2016, An Australian entrepreneur stepped forward and claimed to be the founder of bitcoin, only to say days later that he did not have the courage to publish proof that he is. No one has claimed credit for the currency since.

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Bitcoin surges past $20,000, erasing 3 years of deep losses - ABC News

Column: From Bitcoin to Canadas new Grantcoin the earth-shaking, energy-sucking impact of The New Money – BOE Report

Cryptocurrency doesnt seem to have all that much to do with hydrocarbons, so one might wonder why the topic is appearing here in the worlds finest oil and gas journal (they let me rant here, so BOE Report earns the title for bravery alone). Heres why. Far beyond the headlines about Bitcoins ascendancy are strong links to the energy world that are worthy of scrutiny. The ____coin revolution has hardly begun, and its already a bull in the energy china shop.

Bitcoin is the poster child for the cryptocurrency movement, though it has many young siblings. Such currencies are an interesting case study in an inconsistency of modern thought; a juxtaposition or intersection of two new generations of thinking running off into the wild blue yonder, one taxing the proven energy infrastructure system with a voracious and growing appetite, while the other line of new-age thinking is trying to dismantle that very energy system.

Well focus on Bitcoin here because its the current heavyweight. Bitcoin was apparently created by someone named Satoshi Nakamoto, with an asterisk the person may or may not exist. No ones ever met him/her/them. Bitcoin took off after a 2009 white paper written by the tech-savvy poltergeist, and if youre not a believer, heres a burn for you from Mx. Nakamotos self: If you dont believe it or dont get it, I dont have the time to try to convince you, sorry.

Regardless, I will remain in my court jester suit whenever discussing Bitcoin, and if you dont like that, I dont care. I dont have to understand the whole weird structure (such as only 21 million Bitcoins will ever exist, 18 million have already been mined, and each new one gets harder to mine) to study the impacts. Bitcoin is the most visible symbol of cryptocurrency, which is often considered synonymously with blockchain, a ledger that records all transactions sequentially in an ever-growing chain. As you can imagine, as that chain grows in size, and as transaction volume increases, that ledger becomes a beast, which is particularly relevant for something like Bitcoin where ledgers are updated with every new transaction in the world (supposedly every node on the blockchain web is updated simultaneously for each transaction, which makes a mockery of the word simultaneously). Anyway, given the increased popularity of Bitcoin, the energy consumption to achieve this hocus-pocus is getting to be something else.

Take, for example, some semi-recent news (2019, which seems like a lifetime ago) that Bitcoin now consumes as much power as Switzerland. Big deal, you might say, Switzerland isnt a world-class energy hog. We all know that Switzerlands economy primarily consists of bankers tiny, ill-tempered, dwarf-like creatures with pointed ears and teeth, and noses so long they droop from gravity. Oh, wait, sorry, that was Harry Potters bankers. What do they do in Switzerland againAnyway, Switzerland, for a small country, does a lot of stuff, and its power requirements are not insubstantial at 58 Terawatt-hours per year. Whats a Terawatt in real terms, you might ask, and Id say I have no idea, except that this total places Switzerland firmly in the top 50 global energy-consuming countries.

Furthermore, that was 2019 data. A Bitcoin tracking website maps out current estimated power usage in real-time and shows a present Bitcoin energy consumption rate of about 90 TWh per year. That is a staggering growth rate in a single year. If Bitcoin were a country, that power consumption level would make it the 35th largest. And as Bitcoins value grows, that power consumption number grows as well.

For what the world is getting from Bitcoin, its emissions footprint is massive about 22 Megatonnes of CO2 per year. For reference, in 2018 the oil sands produced about 83 Mt of CO2, including upgrading (60 Mt without). Before getting too cranked up about the evil of the oil sands number, remember that oil sands output is about 3 percent of total global oil output, which is not insignificant. (And if you hate the oil sands, there are no statistics that will soothe you, so get lost.)

And what exactly is the world getting from Bitcoin mania? Pretty much nothing, for all that power. Per the BBC story, Bitcoin transactions are about 100 million per year, and the global financial system currently oversees 500 billion transactions per year.

Consider the implications of those numbers for power consumption and Bitcoins growth rate. Bitcoin processes .02 percent as many transactions as the global financial system and consumes more power than all but 34 countries on earth. What would the energy consumption look like if Bitcoin transactions made up 1 percent? Would Bitcoin energy consumption increase by 50 times? Well, if it even tripled, Bitcoin energy consumption would vault it to #13 in the rank of nations energy consumption, right beside Italy. If tripled, Bitcoin emissions would exceed that of oil sands production, and, assuming linearity, would still only account for .06 percent of financial transactions globally. And remember, Bitcoins energy consumption went from 58 TWh in 2019 to 90 this year.

From an emissions perspective, the kind that activists get apoplectic over, this is a train wreck of epic proportions. Imagine, in this day and age, introducing an imaginary currency with an apparent target market of dark web criminals and organized crime (a nice bunch that would greatly appreciate a currency that governments cant do anything about, or track), with no redeeming social justice benefits of any sort whatsoever; one that creates a massive environmental footprint for no gain whatsoever; and one whose freewheeling ways will crash like a home-made jet the second it infringes on any governments monetary policy. Of all the environmental progress and posturing thats gone on in the past twenty years, Bitcoin has to be the most profoundly absurd, and yet its energy-swilling growth creates not even a Twitter-bashing from the activist crowd.

By the way, there needs to be some refinement of terminology. All currency is crypto these days, or at the very least digital. When was the last time you went home with your pockets stuffed with a freshly cashed paycheque? We dont even get to do those street happy-dances that cant be avoided when you find ten bucks on the ground. Cash machines are becoming relics, and no one wants cash anyway. I tried dumping a handful of dimes and nickels into a C-Train ticket machine and it threw them back at me, the little electronic message window asking if I was some sort of a smartass. I think. The global economic system would cease to function if money was a tangible asset. Negative interest rates, now the hallmark of some $17 trillion of global debt, wouldnt exist in a world where currency was not electronic. Any transaction of any magnitude is electronic. Youll buy a house and pay for it without ever handling a single dollar.

Anyway, Canadas, and many other, governments are getting into the spirit, and pioneering a brand new currency. Lets call it Grantcoin. Grantcoin is money conjured from nowhere, to be handed out to anyone that does anything that is geared to Canadas climate pledges. As one market player noted, As long as someone is investing in something positive, thats the baseline. Build it, and money will flow. Announce plans to build anything green, anywhere, and you will be up to your ears in Grantcoin before the angels stop singing. New, imaginary, money from nowhere. Im not saying all the funded projects will be bad or ill-conceived many will be fantastic, like methane reduction and tree planting programs. What is ludicrous though is the indiscriminate money-shovelling, a prime reason that Catherine McKenna has coughing fits and fainting spells when asked to account for billions in infrastructure spending. The second and third-order implications of many initiatives, together with the hamstringing of some basic industries (at the same time that many parts of the world are fortifying their own versions thereof, as in Russian/Middle Eastern oil production) are not mapped out or understood, and our federal politicians are utterly incapable of building a strategy that maximizes each regions strengths. They could do that, but no one at the UN cares, so they dont.

So where are wemysterious new currencies are being invented by whoever wants; these new currencies intersect with reality only in terms of massive energy consumption; cryptocurrencies will drive up energy consumption at warp speed at the same time that Grantcoin is trying to drive down consumption elsewhere. We are creating money out of thin air to throw at anything that is deemed to be good, unencumbered by outdated economic consequences like efficiency or rate of return (if we were truly interested in reducing global CO2 levels, wed be shouting from the rooftops, insisting the rest of the world convert from coal to natural gas, and the feds would be building 5 natural gas pipelines to the west coast to send to China, and theyd subsidize those gas sales to stop China from building a planned 250 GW of coal-fired power (yes, thats how much is under development, and for context, in 2020, the US will add 20 GW of wind and solar in what has been a very strong year for that), and global emissions would be reduced just as the US did by switching to gas from coal, but thats not deemed good). I cant imagine what sort of tortured thought processes are required to reconcile those two trajectories, but then again I dont hang out in Ottawa much.

There are good things on the horizon, like if Canada does plant 2 billion trees and if our fuel-providing companies are allowed to utilize such programs to help offset emissions. We will have to see on that one. As it stands now, Canada is hoisting a brave new flag into a very stiff north wind. Some people will be asked to hoist that flag for photo ops, to show the world the good were doing, and some will be asked to lick the pole, to show the world were making the bad guys pay. We are living through a new Soviet-Monty Python-Greenpeace time; fight it as you wish but as long as Canadas political nerve center remains dedicated to international acclaim and not energy enlightenment, its all youre gonna get.

If they dont find it under the tree, youre gonna hear about itPick them up a copy of The End of Fossil Fuel Insanity at Amazon.ca,Indigo.ca, orAmazon.com. Thanks for the support!

Read more insightful analysis from Terry Etamhere,or email Terryhere.

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Column: From Bitcoin to Canadas new Grantcoin the earth-shaking, energy-sucking impact of The New Money - BOE Report

Bitcoin cryptocurrency price is at an all-time high, but what is it exactly? – 7NEWS.com.au

Bitcoin has smashed through $US20,000 ($A26,440) for the first time amid increased institutional and corporate interest.

The cryptocurrency hit an all-time peak of $US20,800 and was last up 6.4 per cent at $US20,675.

It has gained more than 170 per cent this year, buoyed by demand from larger investors attracted to its potential for quick gains, purported resistance to inflation and expectations it will become a mainstream payment method.

Its been a wild year for bitcoin, which has soared more than 175% since the end of 2019.

Prices plunged below $4,000 in March as markets around the globe plummeted due to the COVID-19 economic crisis.

But bitcoin has rallied sharply in the past few months as the US dollar weakened.

Crucially, the cryptocurrency has also skyrocketed into the mainstream.

Payments giants Square (SQ) and PayPal (PYPL) both now allow their customers to buy and sell bitcoin.

Money management giant Fidelity is launching a bitcoin fund for wealthy investors.

Bitcoin futures contracts are even trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

Bitcoin is a (relatively) new currency that was created in 2009 by an unknown person using the alias Satoshi Nakamoto.

Transactions are made with no middle men meaning, no banks.

Bitcoin can be used to book hotels on Expedia, shop for furniture on Overstock and buy Xbox games.

But much of the hype is about getting rich by trading it.

The price of bitcoin skyrocketed into the thousands in 2017.

Bitcoins can be used to buy merchandise anonymously.

In addition, international payments are easy and cheap because bitcoins are not tied to any country or subject to regulation.

Small businesses may like them because there are no credit card fees.

Some people just buy bitcoins as an investment, hoping that theyll go up in value.

Buy on an Exchange

Many marketplaces called bitcoin exchanges allow people to buy or sell bitcoin using different currencies.

Coinbase is a leading exchange, along with Bitstamp and Bitfinex.

But security can be a concern: bitcoins worth tens of millions of dollars were stolen from Bitfinex when it was hacked in 2016.

Transfers

People can send bitcoin to each other using mobile apps or their computers.

Its similar to sending cash digitally.

Mining

People compete to mine bitcoins using computers to solve complex math puzzles.

This is how bitcoins are created.

Currently, a winner is rewarded with 12.5 bitcoins roughly every 10 minutes.

Bitcoin are stored in a digital wallet, which exists either in the cloud or on a users computer.

The wallet is a kind of virtual bank account that allows users to send or receive bitcoin, pay for goods or save their money.

Unlike bank accounts, bitcoin wallets are not insured by the FDIC.

Bitcoin wallet in cloud: Servers have been hacked. Companies have fled with clients bitcoin.

Bitcoin wallet on computer: You can accidentally delete them. Viruses could destroy them.

Though each bitcoin transaction is recorded in a public log, names of buyers and sellers are never revealed only their wallet IDs.

While that keeps bitcoin users transactions private, it also lets them buy or sell anything without easily tracing it back to them.

Thats why it has become the currency of choice for people online buying drugs or other illicit activities.

No one knows what will become of bitcoin.

It is mostly unregulated, but some countries like Japan, China and Australia have begun weighing regulations.

Governments are concerned about taxation and their lack of control over the currency.

- with CNN

Originally posted here:

Bitcoin cryptocurrency price is at an all-time high, but what is it exactly? - 7NEWS.com.au

Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin White Paper: A 12-Year Old Summary of Robust Unstructured Simplicity – Bitcoin News

Cryptocurrency supporters all around the world are celebrating the fact that today is the 12th anniversary of the Bitcoin white paper, a summary of the invention created by the pseudonymous inventor Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoins inventor published the paper on metzdowd.coms Cryptography Mailing list and ever since then, the financial world hasnt been the same.

12 years ago, Satoshi Nakamoto decided to let the world in on Bitcoin, the peer-to-peer electronic cash system that took the world by storm. The very first time Nakamoto published the paper was at 2:10 p.m. Eastern Standard, on metzdowd.com. Theres a lot we dont know about Bitcoins inventor and to this day the anonymous creators identity is still unknown. However, we do know that Nakamoto was a legendary genius and could have been a single person or even a group of people.

Bitcoins inventor specifically chose to publish the Bitcoin P2P e-cash paper paper on metzdowd.com mainly because of the Cryptography Mailing list, a pipermail message service that was operated by a group of visionaries and cypherpunks.

The cypherpunks had been trying to create reliable digital money since the 1990s and several experiments like Wei Dais b money circulated on the message service. We also know that Satoshi wrote the codebase for Bitcoin before the famous white paper was published.

Then on October 31, 2008, on the eve of Halloween, Satoshi wrote:

Ive been working on a new electronic cash system thats fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party.

The system Nakamoto created, has given birth to a massive counter-economy worth close to $400 billion, just in the market capitalization of all 7,000+ cryptocurrencies alone. Since the paper was first introduced, it has been cited 12,425 times to-date and mentioned in tens of thousands of articles during the last 12 years. Minus the papers citations, the Bitcoin white paper is 3,457 words in length and is composed of 16,686 characters excluding the arithmetic.

At the end of the paper, Nakamoto uses the term we, and stresses that the paper is a proposal that describes a system of electronic transactions without relying on trust.

Nakamoto added:

We started with the usual framework of coins made from digital signatures, which provides strong control of ownership, but is incomplete without a way to prevent double-spending. To solve this, we proposed a peer-to-peer network using proof-of-work to record a public history of transactions that quickly becomes computationally impractical for an attacker to change if honest nodes control a majority of CPU power.

Nakamoto then called the network robust in its unstructured simplicity. Of course, at that time when Satoshi published the white paper, nobody knew that the anonymous author literally developed the first working solution to the Byzantine Generals Problem.

Bitcoins creator knew that the infamous Byzantine Generals Problem, something that plagued computer scientists for decades, was officially solved and Nakamoto detailed this fact in some of the earliest messages to the community.

Of all the mysterious clues about Satoshis identity, the paper is one of the most succinct economic papers ever written. The white paper is so well crafted that many people think that it may have been written by another person, other than the online persona people communicated with until Dec. 2010.

Speculation aside, the paper gives a clear definition of the network and is considered a must-read for every cryptocurrency newb joining the counter-economy.

For some reason, on Halloween eve, Nakamoto felt the urge to tell the world there is a need for an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust. This in turn would allow any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party. With the central banks creating money out of thin air, the need has never been more clear.

What do you think about Satoshi Nakamoto publishing the Bitcoin white paper 12 years ago today? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons, The Bitcoin white paper,

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

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Satoshi Nakamoto's Bitcoin White Paper: A 12-Year Old Summary of Robust Unstructured Simplicity - Bitcoin News

Why Didn’t the Creator of Bitcoin Get Nobel? – Somag News

Did you know that Satoshi Nakamato, the creator of Bitcoin, was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2016? Here are the details about the event

The anonymous person (s) named Satoshi Nakamoto, who is considered to be the creator of Bitcoin, was nominated for the Nobel Prize in economics in 2016. Satoshi Nakamato, nominated by UCLA professor Bhagwan Chowdhry, did not receive the award; because even his candidacy was not accepted.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has announced that it does not approve of the nomination put forward by the UCLA professor. The academy underlined that his candidacy could not be considered without revealing Nakamotos true identity. Official press officer Hans Reuterskild clearly stated that the award cannot be given to a deceased person, nor to an anonymous or anonymous person.

Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmstrom won the award that year, when Satoshi Nakamotos candidate was not even accepted, for their contribution to contract theory. If Nakamoto had disclosed his identity and was accepted as nominees accordingly, perhaps he could have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics and, in addition to the reputation it brings, the money award.

When Satoshi Nakamoto anonymously published his whitepaper, he could have predicted what might happen and the potential of what he created. When Nakamoto designed Bitcoin without a leader, he really wanted it to happen. According to most market experts, the decentralized structure could be damaged if Nakamoto was unmasked, and people could interpret Satoshis actions as an investment forecast, leading to unpleasant situations for the cryptocurrency community. For Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, this would probably mean pulling his own rope.

Although Bitcoin and its accompanying blockchain technology are opening many innovative doors in the world, they can also be used for malicious purposes. Many scams or illegal activities such as money laundering are carried out with Bitcoin. In such a scenario, governments could cause a series of legal troubles to Bitcoin creator Nakamoto. Satoshi Nakamoto is thought to prefer to remain anonymous for all these reasons.

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Why Didn't the Creator of Bitcoin Get Nobel? - Somag News

The Hoff claims to have invented Bitcoin in 12th anniversary video – Cointelegraph

Nine celebrities with profiles on the sponsored video-sharing platform Cameo have published messages wishing Bitcoin (BTC) a happy birthday ahead of the twelfth anniversary of the publication of its whitepaper on Oct. 31.

The videos were paid for by crypto security firm Halborn, and feature Hollywood notables, musicians, and comedians including David Hasselhoff, Charlie Sheen, Carole Baskin, Charlamagne Tha God, Gilbert Gottfried, Doug Benson, Hassan Johnson, Soulja Boy, and RZA.

Most of the celebrities were reading off talking points and showcased varying levels of crypto-literacy. Charlamagne Tha God questioned whether the pictures that he found upon Googling Satoshi Nakamoto actually depicted Satoshi.

Charlie Sheen offered praise to Satoshi Nakamoto and expressed excitement at the chance to invest in BTC once he finds a job of course. He admitted he has little knowledge of cryptocurrency.

The Hoff made the bold pool-side claim that he invented Bitcoin:

Tiger King star Carole Baskin emphasized the virtues of contact-less payments amid the coronavirus pandemic, predicting the virtual currency will be the future.

RZA wondered if maybe soon there will be a Wu-Tang Bitcoin.

While Oct. 31 commemorates the publication of the Bitcoin whitepaper, the networks genesis block was not mined until Jan. 3, 2009.

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The Hoff claims to have invented Bitcoin in 12th anniversary video - Cointelegraph

What industry leaders would wish for Bitcoins white paper 12th anniversary – Cointelegraph

While the crypto community decides whether Bitcoin (BTC) was born or merelyconceived 12 years ago, the fact is that Oct. 31, 2008, remains one of the most notable dates in humanitys modern history. Exactly 12 years ago, Satoshi Nakamoto published what some have described asa new bible Bitcoins white paper. Designed as a brand new purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash, many see the creation of Bitcoin as a response to a global financial crisis.

Related: Happy birthday dear Bitcoin: Cryptos first white paper turns 12

Cointelegraphs video team talked to Adam Back, co-founder and CEO of Blockstream, about the birth of Bitcoin. Check out the video here:

Although Bitcoinhas recently become more appealing than both Jesus and sex, at least among Reddit users, lets not forget that its only Bitcoins 12th anniversary and that many great achievements and challenges still lie ahead, though for this real-world saga, we can only hope to know how this story will end and who will emerge as the victor.

Cointelegraph has reached out to Bitcoins friends and supporters, asking them to send their birthday wishes to the Big BTC.

Alex Wilson, co-founder of The Giving Block:

Muneeb Ali, CEO and co-founder at Blockstack PBC:

Michael Terpin, founder of Transform Group and BitAngels:

Jimmy Song, instructor at Programming Blockchain:

Alejandro De La Torre, VP of Poolin, a Bitcoin and cryptocurrency mining pool:

Efi Pylarinou, fintech and blockchain advisor:

Scott Melker, trader, investor and the host of The Wolf Of All Streets podcast:

Taylor Pearson, entrepreneur and author of The End of Jobs:

Jonathan Reichental, CEO of Human Future:

Sandra Ro, CEO of the Global Blockchain Business Council:

These quotes have been edited and condensed.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

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What industry leaders would wish for Bitcoins white paper 12th anniversary - Cointelegraph

Investing with Bitcoin Trading – Euro Weekly News

In our generation, technology gets more and more advanced by the day. You cannot even be surprised now about online technology. A lot of people had already taken advantage of this, and you should, too. Let us introduce you to Bitcoin Trading.

What is Bitcoin Trading?

Bitcoin Trading is an online platform wherein you take profits by buying and selling cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies is what you will earn in Bitcoin Trading. They are similar to money hence why they are also called digital money, future money, or virtual money.

Let me give you some starting info. Bitcoin started around the year 2007 but was successfully finished and updated during earlier 2009. Satoshi Nakamoto is the man behind Bitcoin. He still hides his identity with that pseudonym up till today; no one knows who he is and has yet to introduce himself.

Bitcoin was supposedly just an easier way for people to send money to their peers from different ends of the world. As time progressed, many have noticed this software and led Satoshi Nakamoto to update it. It has now become one of the best cryptocurrencies in which it also gained the title Mother of Cryptocurrency.

How does Bitcoin Trading work?

With its name, Bitcoin Trading, this basically means buying and selling as a form of income. You either trade or sell cryptocurrencies to people.

Keep in mind; Bitcoin does not have any third party involved with them. The government and banks do not acknowledge this software, so one bitcoins worth is not regulated. It can change from time to time, and we do not know how much ones cost will increase or decrease. With this situation, one bitcoin can cost $5,000 for a day, and then the next day, it can either increase for as high as $7,000 or drop down for as low as $2,000.

Now, to understand how it works. Once you have started a transaction, this will be gathered into blocks and will continue up until you keep transacting. We call this the Blockchain. This is a way for Bitcoin to keep track of all of your previous and current transactions. You can take this as your public ledger that is accessible by every person. This sets Bitcoin to a disadvantageous spot.

Imagine all your hard-earned cryptocurrencies to be gone swiftly without you even knowing when and who did it. Let me tell you, Bitcoin is volatile and would likely be prone to hackers. Do check your account from time to time or get help from a third party.

If you still encounter problems with Bitcoin, then you should more likely check out sites that can assist you. There are automated bots made solely for these cryptocurrencies. What these bots do is they take most of your work and even the part where you make decisions.

Cryptocurrency requires great decision making to earn more profits. That is exactly what these automated bots are best at. I can guarantee that bitcoin champion can help you with that.

Another good thing about these bots is that it can work a full day without it needing even a single break. Bots are not made like us humans. It does not hesitate for even a second and will continue to do its job trading and selling bitcoins. This gives us more opportunities to earn big profits and more trading.

Rest assured that all of these are not a scam. People still continue to pursue this as a way of getting a living, and it worked well on them. Bitcoin cannot support you with good transactions at all times. Be aware and make sure you are ready for the potential risks that you encounter.

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Investing with Bitcoin Trading - Euro Weekly News

$528,000 in Bitcoin From Satoshi Nakamoto Era Moves for First Time in 10 Years Heres Where the BTC Is Heading – The Daily Hodl

A Bitcoin address just facilitated its first transaction in 10 years,sparking discussions about who held onto the asset for a decade.

According to data from Blockchain.com, the wallet came to life on October 1st, as its owner moved 50 BTC currently valued at about $528,000.

The crypto tracker notes that the wallets only other transaction is from 2010 when it received the 50 BTC on May 25th, 2010 from COINBASE (Newly Generated Coins), which is a term for mining rewards and doesnt refer to the popular exchange of the same name. Accordingly, mining rewards in 2010 were still in their initial stage of 50 BTC per block. The BTC is believed to have been sent to the crypto exchange Bitfinex.

Any transfer of early-stage Bitcoin generates speculative chatter that it could be owned by Bitcoins mysterious creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. Blockchain analysts estimate Nakamoto mined one million BTC, starting with the first 50 BTC reward for the genesis block on January 3rd, 2009.

The recent transfer is not the first Satoshi-era Bitcoin to move wallets this year. In May, interest piqued across the cryptoverse after a sudden transfer of 50 BTC that hadnt moved since they were mined a month after Bitcoin launched back in 2009.

The cryptocurrency data firm Chainalysis reported that some of the funds appeared to have made their way to a cryptocurrency mixer. Mixers are designed to combine cryptocurrency from various locations in an effort to obscure trails and make it more difficult to trace the origin of the funds.

Bitcoin core developer Jimmy Song dismissed speculation that the wallet might belong to Nakamoto, saying it was unlikely that those funds were owned by Bitcoins legendary creator.

Song asserts blockchain data connected to the Bitcoin in question shows the coins are not connected to blocks that are believed to have been mined by Nakamoto.

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$528,000 in Bitcoin From Satoshi Nakamoto Era Moves for First Time in 10 Years Heres Where the BTC Is Heading - The Daily Hodl

Satoshi Nakamoto’s Peer-to-Peer vision for Bitcoin – Korea IT Times

Steve Shadders has been involved in Bitcoin infrastructure since 2011. He contributes his ecosystem-wide perspective to support building the mining and UX infrastructure needed to enable Satoshis Vision.(Photo Courtesy: Ed Pownall)

A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution... - Satoshi Nakamoto

This is the very first sentence of the Bitcoin whitepaper.

When Bitcoin V0.1.0 was released in 2009, it contained a proof of concept feature that is perhaps the most overlooked in its history. It was called IP transactions and it demonstrated the type of peer interactions that is referenced in that sentence. When speaking about peers in a Bitcoin context, it is common to assume it is a reference to nodes. Nodes are in fact peers to each other. However, there is more than one type of peer in Bitcoin. We can see from the general definition of the word that a set of peers is defined by commonality.

This doesnt preclude there being more than one set of peers. The peers referenced in the first sentence of the whitepaper are the users of the Bitcoin network, not the nodes. What use is the Bitcoin network without users, preferably billions of them?

The IP Transaction feature demonstrated exactly that direct user to user interaction which, when coupled with SPV (Simplified Payment Verification - referenced in section 8 of the Bitcoin whitepaper) light clients, is precisely what allows Bitcoin to scale. It is a very simple scaling principle: Dont do work that isnt relevant to you. It is SPV that allows users to ignore every part of the Bitcoin transaction history that isnt relevant to them whilst still obtaining the security benefits of Bitcoin.

It was however a rudimentary implementation, a proof of concept if you will. And even Satoshi acknowledged that, in its original form, the IP Transactions implementation had some real problems:

How peers will find each otherInsecure connectionsNAT traversalSusceptibility to man-in-the-middle attacks

Additionally, it didnt complete the picture as is common for prototypes. It didnt have any facility for obtaining, verifying or passing on SPV Merkle proofs.

Today, the Bitcoin SV Infrastructure Team are releasing three beta products simultaneously that, along with several other services, provide all the tools required to reimplement the IP2IP vision and address all of these well-known problems in the process.

Bitcoin SV v1.0.6 (release code name Push)

New functions to provide and verify Merkle proofs

ZeroMQ notifications on double spend detection

(WIP) p2p broadcast of double spend detection to enable network wide awareness.

mAPI v1.2

Push based callback notifications for merkle proofs and double spends

SPV Channels v1.0.0

An end to end encrypted messaging nano-service with push capability that provides an always on point of presence for a Bitcoin user and provides a unified interface for handling both online and offline messaging.

As an always on service, it solves the NAT traversal problem by enabling any two parties to communicate in a private channel via a blind intermediary such that only outbound connections are required. This is similar in principle to how services like TeamViewer, Skype and Zoom work seamlessly even between users that are behind firewalls but with full e2e encryption.

SPV Channels is a new offering from the Bitcoin SV Infrastructure team. Think of Channels as something similar to an IMAP mail server. If youre offline, it collects messages for you, but when youre online it passes them straight through to you. If you and another party are both online the experience is similar to having a direct connection, but e2e encrypted by default and without any of the horrible mail header format requirements. It can integrate with Paymail but the server itself has no visibility of the content and is completely agnostic to it. Other than that, its not very Bitcoiny at all. But it does fill a critical gap in the workflow of a peer 2 peer Bitcoin interaction.

The uses of SPV Channels go beyond that - to almost any off-chain coordination problem in Bitcoin and even outside of Bitcoin, such as;

Coordinating multisig or threshold signature groups

Spend notifications for wallets

Generic notification for anything

A base layer for a new generation of self sovereign email and/or instant messaging.

A use case with mAPI

Early versions of mAPI (formerly known as Merchant API) solved a couple of key problems like fee discovery and direct-to-miner transaction submission. Getting responses from miners about acceptance is simple as it can come as a direct response to the submission request. But there are events that happen after that user-miner connection is closed, such as receiving an SPV proof when the transaction is mined into a block. We put in a rudimentary mechanism of getting updates by polling mAPI for transaction status. But this is inefficient and for a particular use case, learning about double spend attempts, it is time critical so a better mechanism was required.

Enter the push model. Registering for a callback on an event is a common programming paradigm. SPV Channels enables this for user-miner interaction. When registering for a callback, you typically need to provide an always-on URL for the callback to go to. This isnt something users on a mobile phone are likely to be able to provide.

Enter SPV channels. A hosted service (or self-hosted if you like) that acts as a channel for the user to receive messages. If the user is online, theyll receive the messages straight away. If they are offline, the messages will be stored and forwarded as soon as the user comes online. In fact, the first internal version of SPV Channels was unimaginatively named Store and Forward.

So the workflow goes something like this:

1.Customer and Merchant find each other via Paymail service discovery; and establish two way encrypted communications via SPV Channels.

2.Merchant finds a miners mAPI via MinerID.

3.Merchant requests a fee quote from miner via mAPI.

4.Merchant sends customer a transaction specification via BIP270 including the required fee, payment amount and any other requirements for the transaction.

5.Customer sends the transaction (possibly along with merkle proofs and other requested info) to the merchant.

6.Merchant submits the transaction to miner via mAPI and registers an SPV Channel URL for callbacks.

7.If a double spend is detected, the miner will send a message to the SPV Channel which the Merchant will receive immediately if online.

8.Once the transaction is mined into a block, the miner sends a merkle proof to the SPV Channel - which the merchant wallet can retrieve and store in its database.

9.Optionally, the merchant sends the merkle proof back to the customer via their SPV Channel.

Who pays for all these services?

In the early days, the costs of operating these services will likely be minimal so someone will probably offer them for free. But eventually, the cost of such hosted services will add up. Wallets, Miners and payment processors might absorb some of those costs as part of their service offering.

But there is another option. There are a number of new service offerings here, so its worth listing them:

1.Hosted Paymail

2.Hosted SPV Channels service (could be provided by paymail provider)

3.Merkle proof provision (not necessarily from the miner that mines the transaction)

4.Double spend notification (can be any or many miners monitoring for you)

It will be interesting to see how the Bitcoin SV ecosystem develop and what kinds of businesses decide to offer these services.

Assume for some reason that you request each of the 4 services from 4 different service providers, all of them are services provided in the context of a transaction. This is a perfect use case for adding nano-payment outputs to a transaction. One or ten satoshis to each service provider for a one off service with no implied lock-in to each which creates a strong incentive for them to provide the service well.

The future of SPV Channels

The initial implementation of SPV Channels released today provides the basic framework and is currently only optimized for desktop. Our near term priorities are to get mobile client libraries available that leverage the push capabilities of iOS and Android devices. Further integrations with Paymail are required and, of course, we need horizontally scalable implementations. We can definitely see the provision of a combined channels/paymail hosted service being in high demand and look forward to seeing who is the first to offer it.

The future of SPV workflows

In what we have presented today, we have offered solutions to the blocking issues for the complete SPV workflow. Many of these solutions can be improved upon and optimized, but the end to end use case is possible right now with these components. We expect this entire workflow to be the subject of much discussion by the business operators on Bitcoin SV and quite possibly changes or complete alternatives proposed and adopted. But for now, we have a base, a starting point that developers of consumer-targeted products can begin building upon right now.

Korea IT Times

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Satoshi Nakamoto's Peer-to-Peer vision for Bitcoin - Korea IT Times

The Great Plague Of Shitcoinery Bitcoin Magazine – Bitcoin Magazine

Originally, seigniorage, also spelled seigneurage, came from the Old French language, stemming from the right of the lord (seigneur) to mint money profiting tremendously from money creation. It was a bygone prerogative of lords and the crown to extract a fee, the brassage, from the bullion brought to the mint to be coined or to be exchanged for coins that would be used for commerce. Individuals could bring their precious metals, usually silver and gold, and the crowns mint would stamp a coin out of the metal to be accepted by merchants. This privilege was exclusively reserved for armed elites with legislative and executive powers.

Today, seigniorage is a common way for governments around the world to generate revenue without levying conventional taxes, which are less popular with their electorates. The modern lords of money printing are central banks working in tandem with commercial banks and governments issuing debt in a fractional reserve banking system. National fiat currencies, such as the U.S. dollar, euro or yen, are protected by legal tender laws, meaning they are recognized as an appropriate instrument to settle any monetary debt in some jurisdiction. It is also typically demanded that residents of the respective territories use these currencies to pay their taxes and trade in the country. Fiat currencies are only used because people have no other choices that are legally available. Under the fiat monetary system, the cost of currency issuance is close to zero, which is very profitable for the national issuers, as there is no longer any limit on the quantity of money that can be created, further shrinking the value of the existing currency in circulation, and annihilating the purchasing power of the currency holders people like you and me.

Enter Bitcoin in 2008, revealed to the world as an open-source monetary mint divorced from any central control, in a dark corner of a cypherpunk internet forum. Just as Johannes Gutenberg pierced through the Church-controlled monopoly of written knowledge by inventing the printing press, Satoshi Nakamoto annihilated the State-controlled monopoly of money production. While Gutenbergs invention eventually unlocked the Sicle des Lumires with an unfathomable amount of intellectual and cultural rebirth, Nakamotos invention may lead to even more radical societal upheaval.

Language and money are both essential ways by which humans collaborate peacefully, and ought to be free from central manipulation. As free markets are cleansed of artificial constraining forces, productive individuals and businesses may discover novel ways to bring about freedom, peace and prosperity to our fellow human beings, but that is outside the scope of this article.

With a reasonably short existence of only slightly over 10 years, Bitcoin is oftentimes characterized as old technology, which has already become obsolete. Many narratives were constructed around the internets native monetary protocol, in an effort to give legitimacy to alternative competing offerings, supplied by private companies and individuals. Are these projects genuinely competing with Bitcoin on the premise of their monetary superiority? What makes a money valuable, and can a money that is digital ever be trustworthy and reliable? Is the current paradigm around fiat currencies and alternative digital currencies, colloquially, shitcoins, that different? If bitcoin is only getting started in its monetization as a money for the people by the people, what are potential avenues of evolution in the next 10 to 20 years? Is shitcoinery a novel phenomenon, or is history simply repeating itself? Could shitcoinery be an overhyped technology bubble fed by greed, high time preference and the wrong technology heuristics?

In this brief essay, we will try to dissect the fundamentally flawed nature of alternative digital currencies, observe bitcoin as a pragmatic monetary evolution in contrast to shitcoinerys technology revolution narratives and will attempt to demonstrate that Bitcoin is not only the only genuine possibility of divorcing money from the State, but that this paradigm shift is already quite advanced and inevitable.

Still unbeknownst to most, alongside acting as a society-altering force for good, Bitcoin also revived a multi-millenium phenomenon on a global scale the irresistible desire of a select few to control money production. As has history proved repeatedly in many distinct cultures and territories, controlling money production is extraordinarily profitable for the issuer. It is now easier than ever to become a money producer, and distribute it to many millions, if not billions, of people. To this day, more than 7,000 alternative digital currencies have been created (and counting), claiming their pseudo-monetary superiority to Bitcoin, or outright defrauding uneducated buyers with fake narratives.

Creating an alternative cryptocurrency today only takes a few minutes, which severely diminishes the barrier of entry for money producers. Armed with cunning marketing discourse, global distribution platforms on the internet and sometimes fraudulent artificial market manipulations, these cryptocurrency issuers can trick individuals, businesses and investors into believing their worthiness. Most of these projects, if not all, are misguided or directly coordinated scams on a global scale that is causing pain. The global market value of alternative cryptocurrencies equates to roughly $100 billion at the time of this writing, which represents a material malinvestment from developers, entrepreneurs, researchers and investors. Only one class of people benefit from shitcoinery in the long term: scammers leveraging information asymmetry in the marketplace.

Lets be clear: Free market participants should be allowed to build businesses on whatever they please, as long as fraud is out of the equation, and consistently called out. Gambling within cryptocurrency exchanges, commonly referred to as shitcoin casinos, has been one of the most profitable business models around bitcoin, but was rarely qualified with the right amount of risk disclosures to market participants. Hiding information from consumers buying products and services is the real issue at heart. No amount of regulatory oversight will prevent consumers from being defrauded until people understand that the market for money is unique. The market for monies is the only market in the world that is a zero-sum game, and is simultaneously winner-take-all in terms of the eventual dominant form of money. Someone has to lose on one side of the trade, and because money makes up 50 percent of every single transaction globally, broken money markets can be a massive problem, which emanates severe negative consequences.

Global disinformation, traditional market distress and financially-squeezed young generations crumbling under the burden of debt, are a favourable combination for the legitimization of shitcoinery. Fake information and outright lies about the promise behind alternative digital currencies are predominant, with gatekeepers manipulating the masses of retail consumers who are uneducated about financial services and monetary history. With a rising distrust in legacy financial markets, digital native generations Gen Z and Millenials ,most notably are turning a blind eye to legacy banking and want an out quickly. Under the habits of the Nanny State, entitled generations are removed from self-responsibility, thinking they can make it big overnight and turn out a quick profit to retire at 25. With fragile economic fundamentals, recent retail-led stock market maniac run ups have been another striking example of such phenomena.

Shitcoinery appeals to the inner, most nefarious human trait from which most are too proud to admit they suffer: greed. Greed can rot the mind and turn an honest person into a short-sighted, self-serving and mindless sheep, following the herd that is getting rich without them. Greed originates from our internal fear of facing an uncertain future, and shitcoinery is the glass from which one drinks the brew of aspirational eternity, promising a delusional abundance of wealth, a complete mirage.

Without diving into the technicalities of multiple implementations of shitcoins, it appears correct to postulate that most, if not all, of these cryptocurrencies, networks, protocols or outright Ponzi schemes are flawed by design. The fundamental axiom of trust lies in pure decentralization, which is an inescapable binary measure, and not a spectrum, as most shitcoiners would preach. A system is decentralized, or it is centralized. Centralization can oscillate on a spectrum with relative distribution, such as master-and-slave relationships in a computer network, but that is irrelevant to the subject at hand. Closing the loop, most developers working on shitcoins have immeasurable control over the monetary policy of their implementations, which requires trust, a requirement that was nullified by Bitcoin more than 10 years ago.

Bitcoin was published as an attempt to construct a global monetary mint using the internet, cryptography, network computing and systems infrastructure. Nothing is new in Bitcoin, and most technologies used to build and run the protocol have been around for multiple decades. Everything was battle tested before. A common misconception is assuming that Bitcoin is the first attempt at creating digital cash. Many more attempts came to life in the past, and subsequently perished.

Whether it is E-Gold, Digicash, Liberty Reserve or B-Money, many implementations were developed over the years, each adding their contributions to the edifice that is Bitcoin. The fundamental difference between Bitcoin and shitcoins lies in its absolute decentralized nature, its immaculate conception and its mysterious inventor. Bitcoin has no head to chop, no management team to bully and no central point of failure. It adapts to its environment, as hostile as it can get, and gets more resilient with protocol updates that respect its uncompromising assurances. Bitcoin is akin to a living organism trying to survive the test of time the purest form of universal anti-fragility.

The genius of Bitcoin, in inventing a digital currency successful in the real world, is not in creating any new abstruse mathematics or cryptographic breakthrough, but in putting together decades-old pieces in a semi-novel but extremely unpopular way, reads an influential 2011 essay on the technology. :Everything Bitcoin needed was available for many years, including the key ideas.

Battles in the money market arent about incremental technology features, but fundamental monetary properties. Bitcoin is a pragmatic monetary evolution, which contrasts with shitcoin issuers misrepresenting a delusional technology revolution. Shallow narratives around decentralizing the web or fixing supply chain traceability are promoted as substitutes to failed attempts to legitimize some projects in the field, which were doomed to fail at birth. Often, unnecessary complexity is used to confuse people and leverage the greed factor we discussed previously.

Money as one type of good (different from consumer and capital goods) competes over soundness, which is a combination of objective properties that make a neutral, good, useful medium to be useable as money. The single best money is a good that is completely useless for any other thing, which has no intrinsic value, and thats great. Besides the monetary premium it accrues from its monetization, people realize naturally that a monetary good is a trustworthy mechanism to store, exchange and measure value. The Austrian Economics school of thought would disagree with this premise, defending the argument behind the Regression Theorem, but that is a debate for another time.

Shitcoins promote get rich quick schemes with incredible returns and shallow narratives, by moving fast and breaking things, defending the unattainable morality that competition in free markets must exist to let participants freely choose what is best for them. Controversial in the field, this position should trivially be refuted by the simple axiom of truth: lies are fraud, fraud is theft and theft should not happen. Bitcoin appeals to individuals with low time preferences, which is to say, individuals who think long term and want to find safety in sats (1 BTC is divisible into 100,000,000 satoshis). Bitcoin isnt a get rich quick scheme but a dont get poor slowly one, acting as a weapon of defense against the worlds most singular evil: monetary inflation.

Think long term, choose Bitcoin and opt out. Be greedy, and find the evils of high time preference and degenerate gambling, which have been rotting the hearts, souls and minds of humans since the dawn of time.

In the end, there is no escaping it: Bitcoin is inevitable, and shitcoins will perish in a brutal monetary darwinism. Choose wisely.

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

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The Great Plague Of Shitcoinery Bitcoin Magazine - Bitcoin Magazine

5 things to know before investing in bitcoin – Business MattersBusiness Matters

You need to be mindful of a lot of things. Most of the online trading platforms dealing with Bitcoin are full of scammers. But Bitcoin ERA official got your back.

Ultimate precautions are necessary to prevent losing your hard-earned money to fraudsters. Invest in a platform that guarantees the safety of your money.

Bitcoin is one of the most popular digital currencies in the market. There are a lot of both good and bad stories about investment.

Understanding Bitcoin Era system will help you get maximum output from your investment. However, here are the key things to consider before investing in Bitcoin:

Knowing the origin of Bitcoin before investing in it will be a great plus. It will save from buying the myths associated with Bitcoin investments.

Satoshi Nakamoto is the guy behind the invention of bitcoin. He created digital currency to enhance the flow of assets over the internet.

Bitcoin also results in the creation of cryptocurrencies. These cryptos were developed to cover the drawbacks associated with bitcoin.

The digital currency had no value during the initial stages of creations. It is the reason being the minimal investments during that period.

However, the unique function of bitcoin has made it gain value with time. It is probably the reason behind the high investment demand across the world.

BTC does not involve a third party since the money goes under a decentralized currency. Hence, there is no need to worry about your currency getting devalued or seized by a third party.

Besides that, there is no hassle of going through the central authority to invest in bitcoin or online casinos. However, it has some underlying drawbacks, like increasing the crime rate.

We recommend exercising precautions when investing BTC in online cryptocurrency casinos. There are a lot of fraudsters in most of these online sports.

Bitcoin is doubtlessly pseudo-anonymous. You cant see or even touch the coin because these currencies can only be carried out through online transactions.

The good news is that personal information and anonymity of the users tend to remain unknown. However, the use of blockchain technology can be used to trace them.

The trading platform enables investors to create a BTC wallet ID and make transactions from anywhere worldwide without being traced.

BTC is a famous investment vehicle used by many investors since it is unpredictable and inconsistent. The prices of BTC in various trading platforms tend to vary so much

It is the reason why investing in BTC can be a bumpy road. Instability and unpredictable nature tend to make BTC a risky investment.

We recommend putting money in the BTC investment that you can afford to lose since misfortunes do occur. But the investors tend to come with practical benefits in the long run.

BTC is a trending topic in many financial markets across the world. It is an indicator that many people are considering the investment.

However, so many fraudsters have emerged in the industry, and many people get scammed billions of dollars daily.

We recommend putting considering a lot of factors before investing in bitcoin. If you are unlucky, then you might end up losing a fortune.

The good news is that there is a high chance of getting good returns in the long run. There are so many trading platforms that are making things simpler for investors.

Bitcoin Era official is one of the popular trading platforms for BTC. Many investors have reported gaining a lot of benefits after using the system. It is time to grab the opportunity.

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5 things to know before investing in bitcoin - Business MattersBusiness Matters

Craig Wright at CoinGeek Live: ‘We want to validate the existence of a computation’ – CoinGeek

Dr. Craig S. Wright took the stage at the CoinGeek Live London studio on September 30, and gave a presentation about Outsourced Computation on Bitcoin: How One World Blockchain Powers a New Future for Computing & Cloud System.

Dr. Wrights presentation addressed the efficiency of node operators and a few of the many things that are possible when nodes are operating efficiently. He also explained why Ethereums computational validation system is inefficient.

We dont want miners doing everything, we dont want to be Ethereum, said Dr. Wright.

The problem with Ethereum is that every node runs the computation itself to determine whether or not the computation at hand is valid. However, this is not an efficient system. It is not about the machines, said Dr. Wright, it is about the outcome. We want to validate the existence of a computation, not have every single node re-do the computation to say, yes this is true and valid.

Fortunately, Bitcoin already does this.

[We] set up a system where we incentivize people for finding solutions and verifying that things work, said Dr. Wright. If your tx isnt valid or others in the chain reject it, then you are not going to get paid.

There is no need for every node on the network to run the computation to check for validity when we can check if the end result is valid or not. This opens up a world of opportunities when it comes to what nodes can do, or rather, the data they can verify, on the Bitcoin network.

If you missed Dr. Wrights presentation, we recommend you watch the full video once it is released. You will also have three more opportunities to watch Dr. Wright speak at CoinGeek Live 2020.

On October 1s, Dr. Wright will be having a fireside chat with Bitcoin Association President Jimmy Nguyen about The Importance of Bitcoin as a Timestamp Server. On October 2nd, Dr. Wright will be giving a keynote titled From the Internet to Bitcoin: The Digital Ledger to Advance the Worlds Technology Infrastructure. And later in the day on October 2nd, Dr. Wright will be participating in the fireside chat, Can Satoshi Nakamoto Save the Internet & World Money alongside technology visionary George Gilder.

If you have not already registered for CG Live or are looking for the full agenda, you can find more information here.

WatchCoinGeek Live 2020 Day 1 here.

New to Bitcoin? Check out CoinGeeksBitcoin for Beginnerssection, the ultimate resource guide to learn more about Bitcoinas originally envisioned by Satoshi Nakamotoand blockchain.

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Craig Wright at CoinGeek Live: 'We want to validate the existence of a computation' - CoinGeek

What’s the Best Cryptocurrency to Buy in 2020? 7 Contenders – Yahoo News

These are seven of the best cryptos on the market.

It has been over a decade since the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin, the first and by far most popular form of cryptocurrency in the world. Despite its fame, Bitcoin isn't the final word on cryptocurrency -- imitators, innovators and spinoffs have emerged in huge numbers, and there are more than 7,000 cryptocurrencies on the market today. With such a broad range of cryptocurrencies to choose from, how do investors know which is the best cryptocurrency to invest in? From the most popular cryptocurrencies making headlines around the globe to lesser-known digital currencies you may never have heard of, here are seven of the best cryptocurrencies to buy in 2020.

Bitcoin (BTC)

The closest thing you'll get to a blue-chip cryptocurrency, Bitcoin has dominated the market since the first bitcoins were mined in January 2009 -- but that doesn't mean it has always been smooth sailing. Bitcoin prices hit a high of nearly $20,000 in December 2017 before collapsing in 2018, bottoming out at $3,234 by the end of that year. Since then, however, Bitcoin has enjoyed something of a comeback as prices have risen back to more than $10,000, and with a market cap around $200 billion, bitcoins account for more than 57% of the cryptocurrency market. Bitcoin has its fair share of volatility, but being the biggest name in crypto gives it a worldwide acceptance that lesser-known rivals don't have, arguably making it the best cryptocurrency to buy for investors new to the asset class.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH)

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are predicated on blockchain technology, which stores information about crypto transactions within "blocks" of data that can contain 1 megabyte of data. As the currency grew more popular, these data blocks filled up, slowing down bitcoin transactions and increasing transaction fees. Some Bitcoin developers proposed a solution that would effectively reduce the amount of data needed in each block, but others believed this would compromise the integrity of the cryptocurrency -- so they created their own version of Bitcoin in August 2017 and called it Bitcoin Cash. Bitcoin Cash has blocks that can store 8MB of data, allowing for faster and more frequent transactions with lower fees. Bitcoin Cash may be newer and less popular than its predecessor, but its scalability means it has incredible potential for growth and puts it in the running for best cryptocurrency.

Story continues

Litecoin (LTC)

Cryptocurrencies tend to seem obscure and complex to those who don't understand the underlying technology, but Litecoin was created to help fix that. In fact, founder Charlie Lee wanted to create the "lite" version of Bitcoin and develop a cryptocurrency that could play the role of "silver to Bitcoin's gold." Lee did just that with Litecoin in 2011, creating a cryptocurrency that adopted many of the best features of Bitcoin with some twists. For instance, while bitcoin transactions take about 10 minutes to confirm, litecoin transactions are far faster, taking under three minutes. In addition, while it takes specialized hardware and impressive raw computing power for users to mine bitcoin, Litecoin has much lower system requirements -- in fact, ordinary PCs are capable of mining for it. Faster and easier is a powerful combination for users and investors alike.

Ethereum (ETH)

One of the main philosophies behind cryptocurrencies is the decentralization of currency. Ethereum takes that a step further -- rather than decentralizing money, Ethereum's goal is to decentralize the internet by replacing servers with a worldwide system of nodes, creating "one computer for the entire world." Ethereum is a software platform based off blockchain technology in which users can exchange a cryptocurrency called ether. Ether has become one of the most popular cryptocurrencies in the world, with a market cap around $40 billion that puts it second only to Bitcoin in market share. But the real draw is the platform itself, which has become wildly popular as a host for other cryptocurrencies -- in other words, not only do investors profit from one of the best and most popular cryptocurrencies on the market, but also from the wider uses of Ethereum itself.

Binance Coin (BNB)

Like Ethereum, Binance Coin is much more than a cryptocurrency -- as a matter of fact, Binance Coin was originally hosted on Ethereum until the Binance decentralized exchange, or DEX, went online in 2017. The Binance DEX is a platform much like Ethereum, albeit with a different mission. The Binance DEX is a decentralized platform where users can not only buy and sell binance coins, but can also use BNB to convert other cryptocurrencies from one to another. This has made the Binance DEX the biggest cryptocurrency exchange on the planet by volume and has helped fuel the popularity of the digital asset. Most importantly, the Binance DEX offers a discount to users who pay transaction fees on the exchange with BNB -- a smart strategy that keeps users on the platform and helps sustain Binance Coin's growth.

Tron (TRX)

This has been a year of extreme upheaval for the entertainment industry, leaving it ripe for disruption. This is exactly the sort of opportunity the founders of Tron must have been hoping for when they built a decentralized, blockchain-based platform for sharing content. Whereas many of the biggest entertainment companies in the world profit from gathering and selling data about their users, using Tron leaves no such footprints behind. While it protects users, Tron also allows creators to monetize their content directly via Tronix, Tron's form of cryptocurrency. The platform has gained fame and notoriety in equal measure over the last few years due to the antics of Tron Foundation founder Justin Sun, but no matter how you feel about him, it's undeniable that Tron is an ambitious idea -- and while it isn't going to overthrow Netflix (ticker: NFLX) tomorrow, it is an excellent speculative investment.

Chainlink (LINK)

The Ethereum platform is predicated on smart contracts, or agreements between two parties on a blockchain network with the transaction recorded in blocks of data. The problem is that these transactions can only occur on a platform like Ethereum, and they need some way to draw real-world data into the platform in order to execute smart contracts when certain conditions are met. The solution is data providers called oracles, and while several crypto platforms have created ways for oracles to retrieve data for their network, Chainlink has come up with a reputation system that guarantees the data is accurate, ensuring the validity of smart contracts -- and once an oracle's data is verified, they are paid with Link, Chainlink's cryptocurrency of choice. This system builds confidence in the platform, and the growing popularity of decentralized finance, or DeFi, helps make Link a contender for best cryptocurrency.

Seven contenders for the best crypto to buy for 2020:

-- Bitcoin (BTC)

-- Bitcoin Cash (BCH)

-- Litecoin (LTC)

-- Ethereum (ETH)

-- Binance Coin (BNB)

-- Tron (TRX)

-- Chainlink (LINK)

Mark Reeth is a contributing writer for U.S. News & World Report, where he writes about anything and everything to do with investing. Prior to U.S. News, Mark covered consumer goods, technology, and telecom stocks for The Motley Fool. When he's not writing about investment strategies Mark is busy running his own small business, which has given him a better appreciation of the personal finance trials and tribulations of entrepreneurs everywhere.

Mark is a graduate of the College of the Holy Cross, where he studied History and Education. You can connect with Mark via LinkedIn, or follow him on Twitter.

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What's the Best Cryptocurrency to Buy in 2020? 7 Contenders - Yahoo News

One of Hal Finney’s lost contributions to Bitcoin Core to be ‘resurrected’ – Cointelegraph

In a February 8, 2011 post on Bitcointalk, Finney said that reading a book titled Guide to Elliptic Curve Cryptography by Hankerson, Menezes, and Vanstone, gave him an idea of how to speed up signature verification by 25%. In the following post from the same day, Finney announced that he had already written test code and uploaded it to the Github repository. However, there was a problem with Finneys proposal his method had already been patented by someone else.

Method for Accelerating Cryptographic Operation on Elliptic Curves (also known as GLV or Four-Dimensional GallantLambertVanstone Scalar Multiplication) received a patent on September 19, 2006 likely at a time when Satoshi Nakamoto was already busy at work on Bitcoin (BTC). In order to understand the invention, we have to dive a bit deeper into elliptical curve cryptography. The patent reads:

The improvement comes from representing the scalar k as a combination of components k, and an integer A. Mathematical operations performed on k represented in this form appear to be less computationally expensive, hence the gains in speed.

Finneys 2013 proposal was implemented with the release of the libsecp256k1 library, but was never enabled due to existing legal concerns. That's how things stood until September 25, when the patent expired. According to the Blockstream co-founder Adam Back, the code is now expected to be activated in the next Bitcoin Core update.

February 2011 seems to be the time when Finney was most focused on optimizing Bitcoin's signature verification. In a post from February 7, 2011, Finney said he was looking at batch signature verification, which he believed might speed up the process by a factor of four. The idea behind it was that instead of verifying signatures one by one, to verify them block-wise: hundreds or even thousands at a time. However, according to Blockstreams co-founder Pieter Wuille (who was one of the authors of the libsecp256k1 library), when GLV is combined with batch verification, the gains disappear once you reach approximately 1,000 signatures:

Indeed, it has been implemented for Schnorr signatures where it affords two-fold gains in speed. Back indicated that he expects a forthcoming release of Schnorr signatures which include batch verification:

It is unlikely that Finneys cryogenic housing allows for any movement, but if it did, we might get a sneak of a smile on his face.

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One of Hal Finney's lost contributions to Bitcoin Core to be 'resurrected' - Cointelegraph

CoinGeek Live Day 1 looks at Bitcoin’s ‘fusion of data and money’ – CalvinAyre.com

The first day of CoinGeek Live saw several Bitcoin experts explaining how the future of money and the internet will look with Bitcoin SV. This 3-day conference kicked off with a focus on payments, financial services, regulation, and the newest developments on the BSV blockchain.

The day kicked off with a message from Bitcoin AssociationFounding President Jimmy Nguyen. He focused on the history and vision of Bitcoin, and its destiny as the one world chain. Thanks to BSV returning to the original protocol set out by Dr. Craig S. Wright, under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin is now providing immense business power by acting as a ledger for not just payments, but data as well. Its a fusion of data and money, Nguyen said.

Unlike the other blockchains that have popped up since 2008, Bitcoin will act as the foundational rule set for an entire network, Nguyen said, and is re-inventing the internet.

To do that, Bitcoin has to grow, and BSV has been allowed to scale massively. BSV currently processes over 2,800 transactions per second, and is looking to hit 50,000 in the near future. Thats because any blockchain hoping to serve enterprise needs has got to scale, Nguyen said, and it has to scale big.

Following that opening address, Steve Shadders, CTO of nChain and Technical Director of the Bitcoin SV Node project, spoke about the last missing pieces to truly realize the peer to peer vision that was layed out by Satoshi Nakamoto in his 2008 white paper. He then broke down several of the new technologies BSV has introduced that makes it easier to send transactions, with the newest method, Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) channels demonstrated live on stage.

Later on in the day, Dr. Craig S. Wright spoke about another important new concept for the BSV blockchain, PUFS (Physical Unclonable Functions.) Internet of Things devices will be able to use PUFS to work better together, and solve identity problems on the network.

From there was an exciting new way of monetizing the virtual world. Robert Rice, Founder & CEO of Transmira Inc. introduced OmniScap, a blend of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality that can help monetize a virtual world with Bitcoin SV. Imagine having a casino built in VR, with the ability to monetize every game and area the user visits. That can happen.

Thats not the only reason the gambling industry might want to check out Day 1 of CoinGeek Live. There were several panels featuring payment companies like Anypay, Zumo, Gap 600, CENTI Ltd. There was insight into the finance and banking sector from the Swiss National Bank, Drawbridge Lending, White Company, and talk of regulation with a panel of lawyers, government lobbyists and a former regulator.

You can watch all of it below. And if you havent signed up to watch CoinGeek Live yet, what are you waiting for? Day 2 is happening today, it offers great networking opportunities, and its free to watch by signing up at CoinGeekConference.com.

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CoinGeek Live Day 1 looks at Bitcoin's 'fusion of data and money' - CalvinAyre.com

Latest Bitcoin price and analysis (BTC to USD) – Coin Rivet

Bitcoin is edging towards a long-awaited breakout above the $10,930 level of resistance after surging by 1.95% from yesterdays low of $10,677.

The worlds largest cryptocurrency has been trading beneath $10,930 ever since the break down in price on September 21.

The most recent price hike comes after a week of consolidation that saw Bitcoin struggle to pick up meaningful trade volume or momentum.

However, an overnight surge in trade volume across all major exchanges resulted in a swift switch in sentiment, which in turn prompted a move to the upside in terms of price action.

When examining the daily relative strength index (RSI), it was clear that between July 28 and September 1 there was worrying signs of bearish divergence as price traded in a sideways formation.

BTCUSD chart by TradingView

This time around, The RSI has been creeping up a faster rate than the price, indicating small signs of hidden bullish divergence which could well lead to a break up in price.

Three years ago Bitcoin was on the brink of rallying to its all-time high of $20,000 as excitement around ICOs and altcoins reached a notable crescendo.

DeFi has effectively displaced the ICO boom of three years ago, with investors now flocking to decentralised exchanges like Uniswap to pick up yield farming tokens like YFI and CORE.

Once investors take profits on these type of tokens, capital will often flow back into Bitcoin before it can enjoy a rally to the upside itself.

For more news, guides and cryptocurrency analysis, clickhere.

Current live BTC pricing information and interactive charts are available on our site 24 hours a day. The ticker bar at the bottom of every page on our site has the latest Bitcoin price. Pricing is also available in a range of different currency equivalents:

US Dollar BTCtoUSD

British Pound Sterling BTCtoGBP

Japanese Yen BTCtoJPY

Euro BTCtoEUR

Australian Dollar BTCtoAUD

Russian Rouble BTCtoRUB

In August 2008, the domain name bitcoin.orgwas registered. On 31st October 2008, a paper was published called Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. This was authored by Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin. To date, no one knows who this person, or people, are.

The paper outlined a method of using a P2P network for electronic transactions without relying on trust. On January 3 2009, the Bitcoin network came into existence. Nakamoto mined block number 0 (or the genesis block), which had a reward of 50 Bitcoins.

If you want to find out more information about Bitcoin orcryptocurrenciesin general, then use the search box at the top of this page.Heres an article to get you started.

As with any investment, it pays to do some homework before you part with your money. The prices of cryptocurrencies are volatile and go up and down quickly. This page is not recommending a particular currency or whether you should invest or not.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author should not be considered as financial advice.

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Latest Bitcoin price and analysis (BTC to USD) - Coin Rivet

Forex Forecast and Cryptocurrencies Forecast – Action Forex

First, a review of last weeks events:

EUR/USD. The question that we tried to resolve last week was whether this pair will continue its fall or return again to channel 1.1700-1.2010. Experts couldnt give any clear answer then. Their votes were divided as follows: 30% favored the fall of the pair, 30% favored its rise and 40% took a neutral position. As a result, the pair surely did not continue to fall, but it is also difficult to call its movement returning to the channel: having reached the local high at 1.1700 on Thursday, October 01, the pair turned around and completed the five-day period at 1.1715.

Investors were not particularly impressed by the fact that the Democrats in the US House of Representatives passed legislation on a new package of economic stimulus worth $2.2 trillion, especially since it was previously about $3 trillion-plus. The US labour market data didnt have much impact on anything either. ADPs September Private Sector Employment Report showed an increase to 749K, up from 481K a month ago and a 650K forecast. The number of new jobs created outside the agricultural sector (NFP), on the contrary, turned out to be less than both the August and forecast values: 661K in September, 1489K in August against the forecast for September 850K.

Investors were much more impressed by the news of the infection of US President Trump and the first lady with coronavirus. When this information appeared, the US dollar and the Japanese yen went up, but then the question arose, how serious this disease is and how it could affect the economic situation in the United States and in the world. And before at least some clarity appeared, the market paused, and the EUR/USD pair moved to a sideways movement in a narrow range of $ 1.1685-1.1770, within which, as already mentioned, it came to the end of the weekly trading session;

GBP/USD. Against the background of Brexit uncertainty, the pair returned to the range where it was already trading on September 15-21 1.2805-1.3000, thus confirming the forecast given last week by 35% of analysts, graphical analysis and 15% of oscillators that signaled the pair was oversold. After a jerk up by 230 points, the strength of the bulls dried up, they could not break through the resistance of 1.3000, and the pair completed the five-day period in the area of 1.2935;

USD/JPY. The last week cannot be called remarkable for the Japanese currency. Until Friday, the pair moved in a very narrow channel 105.30-105.75, and it was only on the news of the positive test for coronavirus by Donald and Melania Trump that the pair jumped down, reaching 104.95. This movement showed that, in such a critical situation, investors are likely to intuitively prefer yen, considering it a safer protective asset than the dollar. Although, a 70-point drop in the dollar could hardly be considered a major loss. Moreover, later the situation stabilized, the pair went up, and its final chord sounded at the level of 105.35;

cryptocurrencies. We started our previous analytical review of the digital market with the phrase: Another attempt by bitcoin to gain a foothold above the $11,000 mark ended in another failure. the same can be said about the outgoing week. Having bumped their heads against the ceiling of $10,940-10,970, the bulls gave up and the BTC/USD pair rolled back to the $10,400-10,500 zone, which fully confirmed the forecast, which was voted for by the majority of experts (65%). As for the Crypto Fear & Greed Index, it has dropped slightly over the past seven days, from 46 to 41, and is still in the neutral zone.

According to analyst portal Messari, this is the first time that daily bitcoin candles close above $10,000 for 63 consecutive days. The previous longest series was 62 days and was registered from December 1, 2017 to January 31, 2018, when bitcoin reached an all-time high near $20,000, having risen in price by 100% in two weeks. At the same time, the cryptocurrency was held above $11,000 for 50 days, and above $12,000 for 41 days.

According to the experts of the WhaleMap analytical service, bitcoin is now prevented from falling below $10,000 by large investors who begin to replenish their reserves as soon as the value of BTC approaches this level. It is for this reason that at the week high, the total capitalization of the crypto market, despite the drop in quotations, grew to $350 billion. However, on October 01-02, another sale of coins dropped it to $330 billion once again.

The dynamics of the cryptocurrency market is increasingly dependent on the mood in the traditional markets and is subject to changes in the risk appetite of investors. The latter in turn depend on the situation with the coronavirus and the reaction of regulators to it.

According to experts of Galaxy Digital Capital Management, bitcoin is beginning to be perceived by institutional players as an inflation hedge, that is, as a kind of insurance in case the US dollar loses the status of the world reserve currency. Comparing the capitalization of gold (more than 12 trillion dollars) and bitcoins (about 200 billion dollars), analysts of this company conclude that the situation will level out towards the main cryptocurrency, into which there will be an outflow of investments from the precious metal, which may raise its value 60 times in the future.

If you look at the results of the first 9 months of 2020, it becomes obvious that the COVID-19 pandemic has already benefited bitcoin. Even despite the panic of late February early March, the coin has risen in price by about 40% (gold by 25%). If we take March 13 as the starting point, then during this period the main cryptocurrency has grown 2.75 times (gold 1.3 times).

This situation also contributed to the growth of cryptocurrency fans. A study by the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance says about 100 million people already own bitcoin and other coins in the world. In 2018, there were about 35 million of them, that is, three times less. The lions share of BTC and other coin holders live in North America and Europe, followed by Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region. As of the end of the third quarter of 2020, up to 191 million addresses were registered on cryptocurrency exchanges.

As for the forecast for the coming week, summarizing the views of a number of experts, as well as forecasts made on the basis of a variety of methods of technical and graphical analysis, we can say the following:

EUR/USD. 65% of analysts supported by graphical analysis on H4 expect that the dollar will be able to strengthen its position somewhat in the coming days, and the pair will once again test support of 1.1600. This is opposed, respectively, by 35% of experts and graphical analysis on D1, according to which the EUR/USD pair, having returned to the 1.1700-1.2010 range, will continue to move towards its central part and will consolidate in the 1.1800-1.1900 range in the second half of the week.

Oscillators and trend indicators do not give any signals that are more or less suitable for forecasting. Particularly important macro statistics are not expected these days either. Interest may be caused by the speeches of the head of the US Federal Reserve Jerome Powell on Tuesday October 6 and his European counterpart Christine Lagarde on Wednesday October 7. The minutes of the US Fed Open Market Committee meeting will be published on the same day.

However, the main intrigue of the week will undoubtedly remain the health of the Trump presidential couple. If the old enough president of the United States quickly returns to full-time work, it will become a good trump card in his election race. Thus, he will be able to show that he assessed the degree of danger of coronavirus correctly and took adequate measures to combat the pandemic in the United States. If the symptoms of the disease turn out to be severe, this will not only force Trump to curtail the election campaign, but, showing the seriousness of the threat, will turn many doubting voters against him;

GBP/USD. Due to the growth of the pair last week, the overwhelming majority of indicators (85%) are colored green. But will this trend continue in the future?

It is clearly not worth looking for the answer to this question in the readings of the indicators. As of Friday evening October 02, when this forecast is being written, Brexit news remains more than contradictory. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is due to meet European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Saturday 03 October. How this meeting will end is anyones guess so far. And then another factor of uncertainty arrived in time the infection of Donald and Melania Trump with the COVID-19 virus. That is why the analysts opinions are distributed as follows: 40% support the growth of the pair, 40% are for its fall and 20% have taken a neutral position. The nearest target of the bears is 1.2675, followed by support in the 1.2500 zone. The bulls task is to break through the resistance at 1.3000 and return the pair to the echelon 1.3000-1.3200;

USD/JPY. Graphic analysis both on H4 and D1 shows the pairs decline to the lowest of the past week in the 105.00 zone, and then another 100 points lower, where it already visited on July 31 and September 21. Resistance in this case will be the level of 105.80.

After completing this trip to the south, according to the graphical analysis on D1, the pair should return to the zone 105.00-106.00, and go further north by the end of October, to 107.00.

The bearish sentiment is also supported by 85% of the experts, as well as about 70% of the indicators. Analysts forecasts are largely influenced by the situation with the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, which has now directly affected the Trump couple. And thats just a month before this countrys presidential election. However, this situation can change very quickly, and then the scenario will be realized, for which only 15% of experts have now voted, according to which the pair will go up and quickly reach the zone 106.55-107.00;

cryptocurrencies. The number of bitcoins mined exceeded 18.5 million units. Just under 12% of the total issue or less than 2.5 million coins remain available for production, most of which could be mined in the next four years and the last coin in 2140.

Recall that according to the algorithm established by the creator of bitcoin Satoshi Nakamoto, the total amount of coins is 21 million, and halving occurs every four years the reward for miners is halved. The main task of halving is to control the issue of cryptocurrency and its inflation.

Bitcoin miners expect a repeat of the rally of the main coin of three years ago. Many market representatives are confident that there are all conditions for the cryptocurrency market to move into a stage of active growth now. It is about snatching the main coin to $20,000.

The head of the Crypto Quant trading platform, Ki Yong Joo, noted that signals for a return of bullish sentiment to the market began to appear in mid summer, but strong external factors opposed the rise in the value of the coin then. There is no denying that mining pools are having a major impact on the cryptocurrency market. It is worth remembering the consequences of the halving this May, when the hashrate of the main coin dropped for a while. Growth in such conditions became impossible, so investors and holders of the asset moved to wait-and-see tactics. The situation is completely different now. Miner Position Index (MPI) continues to strengthen. They try to mine as many blocks as possible for maximum rewards. The hashrate of bitcoin is also stable at high rates, Joo said.

Bloomberg Intelligence chief commodities strategist Mike McGlone expects growth as well. He believes that the first cryptocurrency should be valued at $15,000. He came to such conclusions based on the dynamics of growth in the number of active addresses since 2017. At the same time, he estimates the likelihood of alternative scenarios as low.

As for the current forecast, almost everything is the same here: the lower bar of the trading range for the BTC/USD pair is $9,500, the main support is $10,000, the main resistance is $11,000. At the same time, the probability of the next attack of bulls to this height, according to experts, is close to 70%, and the probability of consolidation above this level is twice lower.

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Forex Forecast and Cryptocurrencies Forecast - Action Forex