Syedur Rahman of Rahman Ravelli considers the issues that have been established regarding cryptoassets in litigation and those that still need to be addressed.

The shape of fraud is ever changing due to the digital age, as shown by the use of cryptoassets.

Bitcoin was invented in 2008 by an unknown person (or group of people) using the name Satoshi Nakamoto. In 2009, the first Bitcoin was mined. A system was created recording the transactions made in Bitcoin across computers linked in a peer-to-peer network, better known as the blockchain. Now global institutions and banks raise billions of dollars selling blockchain-related instruments and there are over 5,000 different cryptocurrencies being traded with a total market capitalisation of approximately $201 billion.

In November 2019, the UK Jurisdiction Taskforce (UKJT) published its legal statement, identifying key questions that needed to be answered about English laws approach to cryptoassets and smart contracts. The report was described by Sir Geoffrey Vos, the Chancellor of the High Court, as something that no other jurisdiction had attempted. While the document is not a legal precedent, the aim of the legal statement was to afford a degree of legal certainty.

In December 2019, the landmark cryptocurrency case of AA v Persons Unknown & Ors [2019] EWHC endorsed and approved the UKJTs analysis of cryptoassets and recognised it as property. As such a proprietary injunction was granted over the cryptoassets. In this case, I acted for one of the defendants. This was a multijurisdictional matter including - but not limited to - regions such as Canada, BVI and the UK. This case led to include proprietary claims in restitution and/or constructive trustees or for the tort of intimidation and/or fraud and/or conversion.

In January 2020, new regulatory powers were introduced by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for financial crime prevention. The regulatory powers allowed the FCA to supervise how cryptoasset businesses conduct their business with consumers. The FCA highlighted the risks involved in cryptoassets and, in particular, how the marketplace is a target for fraud.

Fraud and Cryptoassets

With the rapid expansion of the cryptocurrency markets and its largely - until recent times - unregulated growth, this new asset class has inevitably attracted fraudulent activity.

In the case of AA v Persons Unknown, Justice Bryan delivered an interim ruling for a propriety freezing injunction to stop Bitcoin from being dissipated. While this is a giant leap, the case raises more questions in the legal sector for future cases rather than providing clarity.

At the time of writing, the only other case in the High Court is Robertson v Person Unknown. This related to Mr Liam Robertson, a cryptocurrency trader and CEO of a digital asset management advisory business, who was a victim of spear phishing attack. Mr Robertsons email was hacked and the investment of 100 Bitcoin was misdirected to fraudsters. Legal action was taken against these unknown persons as the first defendant.

The Judge, Mrs Justice Moulder, had concerns about granting a freezing order given that the claimants did not know anything about the person who committed the fraud including his identity or his known assets. This proved to be an obstacle. Having said that, she did find that an Asset Preservation Order was an option. The court needed to be satisfied that there is a serious issue to be tried concerning a proprietary claim.

In both cases, the court was prepared to proceed on the basis that Bitcoin could constitute legal property and made proprietary injunctions and asset preservation orders.

Key Questions for Future Litigation

The cases mentioned earlier have considered some matters regarding litigation and cryptoassets. But other issues need to be addressed.

These include:

But with the right expertise and strategies, the above hurdles can undoubtedly be overcome. Cryptoasset litigation is a growth area in which legal practitioners are tailoring frameworks to recover losses for clients and courts are finding suitable remedies for victims.

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Cryptoassets and Litigation - Lexology

In 2020, the world has embraced uncertainty as the new norm. Market volatility has reached record levels, leading to a surge in trading volume and opportunities for value investors. Industries such as airlines, cruise lines, and rental cars have taken a massive hit as air travel remains down 90% and lockdown orders prevent travel.

Stocks such as Norweigan Cruise Lines (NYSE: NCLH), Spirit Airlines (NYSE: SAVE), and Carnival Corporation (NYSE: CCL) have all experienced recent upward swings as coronavirus concerns are easing as more companies, such as Moderna, Inc. (NASDAQ: MRNA), come closer to developing a vaccine.

For the cryptocurrency industry, these events have supported the old theory that cryptocurrencies will become the de-facto currency as the dollar decouples, inflation increases, and people become more concerned with financial privacy.

In recent months, the cryptocurrency industry has seen positive developments with higher retail trading activity and institutional interest increasing. For example, Grayscale Investments has been very aggressive in accumulating Bitcoin, at the rate of 150% of all new Bitcoin mined since May 11. Ironic, given the fact that Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) announced on a recent investor call that cryptocurrencies are not an asset class.

What is clear is that some institutional investors are more optimistic about the role of cryptocurrencies in the global economy. For the cryptocurrency executives working tirelessly to educate investors and the public about the benefits of crypto, criticism is something that they have become accustomed to. As with any emerging technology, new can often be scary and intimidating until more solid foundations are set.

To learn more about where the economy is headed, we reached out to a handful of cryptocurrency executives that have recently been in the news.

Crypto Executive Predictions are Vastly Optimistic

1. J.D. Salbego, the CEO of Singapore-based exchange BitTok, has experienced the ups and downs of the crypto industry since 2017. In the midst of mass economic and socio-economic turmoil, he sees this as an opportunity for crypto to shine:

What is interesting and what we might see is with Beijing taking over Hong Kong, there could be an increase in Bitcoins price and usage. We've seen in the past when there is political turmoil and instability in a countrys economic future, like with Venezuela, the public has had increased Bitcoin and crypto usage because of the lack of faith in their own central banks and national currency. What we are seeing again is a completely broken banking and financial system globally. With blockchain and crypto, we will hopefully see a higher rate of usage and adoption within banking, forcing centralized institutions to become more transparent.

2. Patrick Collet, Founder and CEO of MOOVIN, a blockchain protocol that democratizes and tokenizes successfully access to data, is optimistic that the US and global economy will not see a recession based on current signs:

The present economy is facing uncertainty as confidence towards the Federal Reserve is getting thinner. I dont believe we will see a crash per say because signs arent pointing at a recession just yet. Even though the US annual GDP is looking to come 40% short, there is a strong boom in the technology and e-commerce platform sector. I believe we will see a lot of market volatility in the coming months and even though DEFI and Fintech are becoming more commonplace, adoption for blockchain tech is clearly not a conquered territory. However, these sectors will eventually be mainstream.

3. For Quincy Dagelet, CEO of Boostchain, a company that is disrupting advertising with blockchain technology, mainstream adoption could be closer than we expect:

The world we are living in with COVID-19 is really unfortunate but it opened peoples eyes and led to more digitalization. Also, people tend to have less faith in banks, the monetary system and politics. This creates the perfect gateway towards more crypto adoption.

4. Stefan Hostettler, Co-founder and CEO of Tycoon69 International, a blockchain firm based in the UAE, agrees that we should see massive disruption in the near future:

Economically, I believe that we will see stagnant and outdated industries experience a massive wave of innovation and disruption over the next few years. This happened during the last crisis and was the leading factor that drove Satoshi Nakamoto to create Bitcoin following the 2007 crash. We are dedicating our time to building out an ecosystem to modernize billion-dollar industries, such as the gift card industry.

Story continues

5. Gabriella Davis, CEO of Centric, the world's first dual-cryptocurrency payment network, agrees with the legacy cryptocurrency community that sees these events as a perfect storm that will propel cryptocurrencies:

More than ever in modern economic history we are witnessing the end of an era. Fiat currency and central banking methodology are not capable of managing highly complex marketplaces. It is time to usher in new economic and monetary innovation, the launch of Bitcoin in the wake of 2009 was the start of a wave of innovation. Moving forward, in order to drive full global adoption a vision of currencies utilizing trust-less, censorship resistant ecosystems, that help offer a reliable store of value and an incentive to join the network while simultaneously limiting industry volatility will look to be implemented.

Conclusion

One thing is certain, the world will be watching as the rest of 2020 plays out and increasingly more curious to learn more about emerging technology that can help them better control risk and their finances. When it comes to transparency, security, and access, blockchain technology provides benefits never before seen.

Disclaimer: the writer of this article is an advisor to Moovin Protocol and Boostchain, both of which have provided commentary on this article. The writer does not hold any stock in the equities mentioned.

Photo byAbsolutVisiononUnsplash

See more from Benzinga

2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

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5 Crypto Executive Predictions On Where The Economy Is Headed - Yahoo Sport UK

The court further orders Wright to pay for costs incurred by Hodlonaut both at the District Court and the Norwegian Court of Appeals

Craig Wrights appeal against Norways jurisdiction for his case has been dismissed by the Norwegian Court of Appeals yesterday. The defamation suit against Twitter Bitcoin analyst Hodlonaut was filed by the self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto last year after the former called him a fraud. This is yet another setback for the Australian entrepreneur as his attempts to push the case to be tried in the United Kingdom have failed.

Wright originally sued Hodlonaut in the UK but the case was dismissed due to lack of jurisdiction in January. The UK High Court further ruled that Norway had jurisdiction because of Hodlonaut being a Norwegian citizen. The decision by the Norwegian Court of Appeals has confirmed Norways jurisdiction over the defamation suit and the case will now move to trial.

The Norwegian Court of Appeals also directed Wright to pay all costs incurred by Hodlonaut both at the District Court and the Norwegian Court of Appeals. However, this is only the beginning of the case and both parties have a long way to go.

Hodlonaut took to Twitter to announce the courts decision. He stated that the Norwegian Court of Appeals today handed down judgment on CSWs appeal of the December jurisdiction decision. Appeal denied. Norway has jurisdiction. Welcome to law.

The cryptocurrency analyst further stated that this was only a small win and a long trial stood in front of him. This stuff is only jurisdiction. Both Norway and UK courts have decided Norway has jurisdiction Only after that the real case starts, he said.

Hodlonaut told his followers that he believes Wright will be willing to appeal this decision even further and might as well take it to the Supreme Court. He will likely try to appeal this to the supreme court, he said in reply to one of the users asking if the battle was over.

Wright is expected to continue to push for the case to be heard in the UK. Many believe that the UKs loose laws on what constitutes defamation are the reason for Wrights insistence.

This is one of at least dozed libel and defamation suits involving Craig Wright that has been filed in the past two years. Other than Wrights infamous suit with his former partners brother, Dave Kleiman, Wright has dragged several high-profile members of the crypto community into court for publicly refuting his claims of being Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin. However, despite filing multiple lawsuits, Wright is yet to register a victory on a single one of them.

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Craig Wright's appeal over Norway's jurisdiction dismissed in the defamation suit against Hodlonaut - CoinJournal

Recently released court documents from the ongoing Ira Kleiman vs. Craig Wright trial reveal the self-proclaimed inventor of Bitcoin may also have invented an early prototype of the iPhone.

In Craig Wrights legal deposition from March 16, 2020 released June 2 the self-titled Satoshi Nakamoto told the opposition counsel he had used an iPhone as early as 2006. The trouble is, the first iPhone wasnt released until June 2007.

The line of questioning related to email correspondence between Wright, Kleiman, and others in the period since Bitcoins creation. The plaintiffs, representing the estate of deceased computer scientist Dave Kleiman, seek 1.1 million Bitcoin from Craig Wright based on Wrights own claims that Kleiman helped to create Bitcoin.

During Wrights deposition, opposition counsel Vel Freedman presented Wright with a cache of emails that Wrights counsel had submitted to the courts. Wright claimed that many of them had been faked, forged, or otherwise fabricated by Ira Kleiman who represents the estate of his deceased brother.

When shown a selection of those emails, Wright explained that many of them could not have been sent by him due to his preferences in mobile technology. Wright told Freedman:

Some of these that are tacked together like that include sending from my HTC, I use a Samsung, I have used a Samsung phone since 2011, I have all the receipts for every phone I have bought, they are on the Samsung account.

Wrights preference for Samsung tech aside, the self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto, also claimed to have once used an iPhone for a week in 2006. He told the counsel for the plaintiffs:

I also have one saying that I used an iPhone. I used an iPhone once in my life, I survived it one week, then I played golf. This was 2006. I beat the iPhone to death literally. So, if you ever see emails from HTC they are not mine, from iPhone they are not mine.

Arthur van Pelt of Dragon Industries, who has been watching the case unfold, tweeted in response to Wrights timeline gaffe:

Not really a surprise though, Craig Wright has his channels to use things like Microsoft patches, email programs like Bitmessage, etc days, weeks or months before release.

As referenced by van Pelt, this isnt the first time Craig Wright has been at odds with official technology release dates. In 2019 a Microsoft Word document presented by Wright was revealed to be fake after sharp-eyed observers noticed it had used a version of the Calibra typeface, which didnt exist at the time Wright alleged the document was created.

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Bitcoin Lies Continue as Craig Wright Testifies Using His iPhone Before It Was Released In 2007 - CryptoPotato

In 2020, the world has embraced uncertainty as the new norm. Market volatility has reached record levels, leading to a surge in trading volume and opportunities for value investors. Industries such as airlines, cruise lines, and rental cars have taken a massive hit as air travel remains down 90% and lockdown orders prevent travel.

Stocks such as Norweigan Cruise Lines (NYSE: NCLH), Spirit Airlines (NYSE: SAVE), and Carnival Corporation (NYSE: CCL) have all experienced recent upward swings as coronavirus concerns are easing as more companies, such as Moderna, Inc. (NASDAQ: MRNA), come closer to developing a vaccine.

For the cryptocurrency industry, these events have supported the old theory that cryptocurrencies will become the de-facto currency as the dollar decouples, inflation increases, and people become more concerned with financial privacy.

In recent months, the cryptocurrency industry has seen positive developments with higher retail trading activity and institutional interest increasing. For example, Grayscale Investments has been very aggressive in accumulating Bitcoin, at the rate of 150% of all new Bitcoin mined since May 11. Ironic, given the fact that Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) announced on a recent investor call that cryptocurrencies are not an asset class.

What is clear is that some institutional investors are more optimistic about the role of cryptocurrencies in the global economy. For the cryptocurrency executives working tirelessly to educate investors and the public about the benefits of crypto, criticism is something that they have become accustomed to. As with any emerging technology, new can often be scary and intimidating until more solid foundations are set.

To learn more about where the economy is headed, we reached out to a handful of cryptocurrency executives that have recently been in the news.

Crypto Executive Predictions are Vastly Optimistic

1. J.D. Salbego, the CEO of Singapore-based exchange BitTok, has experienced the ups and downs of the crypto industry since 2017. In the midst of mass economic and socio-economic turmoil, he sees this as an opportunity for crypto to shine:

What is interesting and what we might see is with Beijing taking over Hong Kong, there could be an increase in Bitcoins price and usage. We've seen in the past when there is political turmoil and instability in a countrys economic future, like with Venezuela, the public has had increased Bitcoin and crypto usage because of the lack of faith in their own central banks and national currency. What we are seeing again is a completely broken banking and financial system globally. With blockchain and crypto, we will hopefully see a higher rate of usage and adoption within banking, forcing centralized institutions to become more transparent.

2. Patrick Collet, Founder and CEO of MOOVIN, a blockchain protocol that democratizes and tokenizes successfully access to data, is optimistic that the US and global economy will not see a recession based on current signs:

The present economy is facing uncertainty as confidence towards the Federal Reserve is getting thinner. I dont believe we will see a crash per say because signs arent pointing at a recession just yet. Even though the US annual GDP is looking to come 40% short, there is a strong boom in the technology and e-commerce platform sector. I believe we will see a lot of market volatility in the coming months and even though DEFI and Fintech are becoming more commonplace, adoption for blockchain tech is clearly not a conquered territory. However, these sectors will eventually be mainstream.

3. For Quincy Dagelet, CEO of Boostchain, a company that is disrupting advertising with blockchain technology, mainstream adoption could be closer than we expect:

The world we are living in with COVID-19 is really unfortunate but it opened peoples eyes and led to more digitalization. Also, people tend to have less faith in banks, the monetary system and politics. This creates the perfect gateway towards more crypto adoption.

4. Stefan Hostettler, Co-founder and CEO of Tycoon69 International, a blockchain firm based in the UAE, agrees that we should see massive disruption in the near future:

Economically, I believe that we will see stagnant and outdated industries experience a massive wave of innovation and disruption over the next few years. This happened during the last crisis and was the leading factor that drove Satoshi Nakamoto to create Bitcoin following the 2007 crash. We are dedicating our time to building out an ecosystem to modernize billion-dollar industries, such as the gift card industry.

Story continues

5. Gabriella Davis, CEO of Centric, the world's first dual-cryptocurrency payment network, agrees with the legacy cryptocurrency community that sees these events as a perfect storm that will propel cryptocurrencies:

More than ever in modern economic history we are witnessing the end of an era. Fiat currency and central banking methodology are not capable of managing highly complex marketplaces. It is time to usher in new economic and monetary innovation, the launch of Bitcoin in the wake of 2009 was the start of a wave of innovation. Moving forward, in order to drive full global adoption a vision of currencies utilizing trust-less, censorship resistant ecosystems, that help offer a reliable store of value and an incentive to join the network while simultaneously limiting industry volatility will look to be implemented.

Conclusion

One thing is certain, the world will be watching as the rest of 2020 plays out and increasingly more curious to learn more about emerging technology that can help them better control risk and their finances. When it comes to transparency, security, and access, blockchain technology provides benefits never before seen.

Disclaimer: the writer of this article is an advisor to Moovin Protocol and Boostchain, both of which have provided commentary on this article. The writer does not hold any stock in the equities mentioned.

Photo byAbsolutVisiononUnsplash

See more from Benzinga

2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

See original here:

5 Crypto Executive Predictions On Where The Economy Is Headed - Yahoo Finance

Among the latest trends in technology that are fast changing the world as we knew it is Blockchain. While blockchain has multiple technologies and uses stemming from it, global digital currency cryptocurrency is probably the most common.

To date, there are over 5,000 cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is the oldest and most known digital asset and everything else has been typically referred to as an altcoin. Bitcoin was invented in 2009 by a pseudonymous programmer dubbed Satoshi Nakamoto.

Rwanda has also embarked on the new technology and started unveiling blockchain-based platforms and a blockchain training school is expected to open this year.

Blockchain is a decentralized ledger of all transactions across a network. With this technology, participants can confirm transactions without any central clearing authority. Potential applications can include fund transfers, settling trades, voting, among others.

How does blockchain work?

To break the programmers language down, lets say 10 people came together in one room to make money. They all have to follow the flow of funds, and one person lets call him Mwasa decided to keep a ledger.

Mwasas colleague lets call him Jackson decided to steal Mwasas money. To hide this, he changed the entries in the ledger. Mwasa noticed that someone had interfered with his recordings. He decided to do something about it. He found a program called a Hash function that turns text in the ledger into numbers and letters.

A hash is a set of numbers and letters, produced by hash functions. Even a small change in a string creates a completely new hash.

After each entry, Mwasa inserted a hash but Jackson decided to change entries again. At night, he got to the diary, changed the record and generated a new hash.

The next day, Mwasa noticed that somebody had interfered with his entries again. He decided to complicate the record of each transaction. After each record, he inserted a hash generated from the last recorded hash. So each entry depends on the previous.

If Jackson tries to change the record, he will have to change the hash in all previous entries. But Jackson really wanted more money, and he spent the whole night counting all the hashes.

But Mwasa did not give up. He decided to add a number after each record. This number is called Nonce. A nonce is an abbreviation for number only used once. It is a number added to a hashedor encryptedledger that, when rehashed, reach the difficult level of restrictions. Nonce should be made in a way so that the generated hash ends in two zeros.

To forge records, Jackson would have to spend hours and hours choosing Nonce for each line. Not only people, not even computers can easily figure out the Nonce. Apparently Jackson failed this time and apologized to Mwasa.

Later, Mwasa realized that during the process. He had created too many records and that he couldnt keep the encrypted diary forever. So when he reached 5,000 transactions, he converted them to a one page spreadsheet and spread it to over 5,000 computers all over the world. These computers are called nodes.

Every time a transaction occurs it has to be approved by the nodes, each of whom checks its validity. Once every node has checked a transaction there is an electronic vote, some nodes may think the transaction is valid and others think it is a fraud.

Now, if Jackson change one entry, all the other computers will have the original hash. They would not allow the change to occur. This makes blockchain almost impossible to forge.

Mwasas shared spreadsheet is called a block and if more people like him shared same spreadsheets, a blockchain is born.

Once a block reaches a certain number of approved transactions then a new block is formed. The Blockchain updates itself every ten minutes. It does so automatically. No master or central computer instructs the computers to do this.

editor@newtimesrwanda.com

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Nuts and bolts: What is blockchain and how does it work? - The New Times

During the last year, news.Bitcoin.com created a series that shows the many facts that point to certain individuals who might just be Satoshi Nakamoto and its been a popular run so far. Our series has covered nearly everyone, but there are still a few individuals that havent been covered. On May 11, 2020, the popular Youtube channel Barely Social published a video called Unmasking Satoshi Nakamoto, which claims that Blockstream CEO Adam Back could be Bitcoins mysterious inventor.

In mid-May, the Youtube channel Barely Social, a popular creator of analysis videos for odd corners of the internet, published a new video called Unmasking Satoshi Nakamoto. The video creator has 391,000 subscribers and the Unmasking Satoshi video has been watched over 290,000 times to-date. The video was also posted to the top three crypto-related Reddit forums r/cryptocurrency, r/bitcoin, and r/btc. Barely Socials film was immediately removed from the r/bitcoin forum, it was discussed in r/cryptocurrency but downvoted heavily, and it was flagged for vote-brigading on the forum r/btc. The video explains the massive disconnect between two large factions of big block supporters and small block supporters, and how they went certain bitcoin community members separate ways. It also leverages circumstantial evidence that illustrates how Adam Back, the Blockstream CEO could possibly be Satoshi Nakamoto.

It all started well before the Bitcoin white paper was published on Halloween 2008, as Adam Back described the technology on various occasions and as early as 1998. However, prior to the release of the cryptocurrency and white paper, Back seemingly removed himself from the public eye during the Satoshis development period between 2009 and 2010. Coincidently after Satoshi left, Back appeared on the bitcointalk.org forum acting as though hes been around for quite some time, explains the Barely Social video.

Barely Socials film also had a number of other forms of circumstantial evidence that point to Back possibly being the creator of cryptocurrency. For years, during the early days, many people assumed that Back ignored Bitcoin for a while, and then joined the community with great fervor toward the technology. Backs first posts and replies to other bitcoiners on the bitcointalk.org forum shows his technical understanding of the blockchain was more advanced than most. Barely Social also highlights that when Back joined the community after Satoshi left, he was bossing people around like he had always been around.

Additionally, the video compares Satoshis writing style with Backs style, as they both double space and spell their words in a British fashion. Barely Social also mentions the 2015 email that allegedly stemmed from Satoshi, which has also never been disputed. Further, the videos narrator talks about how Adam Back has told people that Satoshi has written to him, but unlike Mike Hearn, Back has never shared these corresponding emails.

Barley Socials film also delves deep into the 2015-2017 manipulation and propaganda that stemmed from the block size debate. Within this section of the video, it shows how the r/bitcoin owner, Theymos, censored thousands of people and thousands of posts and still does to this day. Theymos operates r/bitcoin, bitcointalk.org, the bitcoin wiki page, and also he also has some control over bitcoin.org too with an anonymous individual called Cobra Bitcoin. Barley Socials video shows evidence that Back and other members of the company Blockstream were complicit with Theymos and his censorship techniques.

The video further discusses Gavin Andresens role when Satoshi handed the project over to the former lead developer. Barley Socials video details how Andresen fought against the control specific Bitcoin Core developers had over the project and Blockstreams influence. The video showed little bias and explained that both sides of the argument sought control. Barely Social also published a debate between Andresen and core developers, and Adam Back joined in during the discussion. Other prominent members of the discussion included Rusty Russell, Greg Maxwell, Theymos, and many other Bitcoin Core developers.

When Back appeared in the discussion, he was anti-hard fork from the beginning, and said the Bitcoin community needs to foster collaboration and consensus to reduce the risks. Barley Social assumes that a lot of developers know that Back is Satoshi, and that its possible a number of people have signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). The video also says that even though Andresen named Craig Wright as Satoshi Nakamoto in May 2016, it was done to be purposely misleading.

The film shows that Backs company Blockstream purposely stopped onchain scaling, so the company could provide relief to the community with the Liquid sidechain project. Essentially, the belief is the firm suppressed onchain scaling and hard forks, in order to claim revenue from transaction fees. This is probably why the Bitcoin Cash community and r/btc forum disliked Barely Socials theory, because they consider Back and Blockstream enemies of Bitcoin.

The r/bitcoin censorship probably stemmed from the fact that the video does expose the mass censorship thats been plaguing that subreddit for years. Adam Back also denies being Satoshi Nakamoto and has recently rejected the theory publicly. Back told the publication Decrypt that he wasnt Satoshi and said: Just that people speculate, but Im not Satoshi. To cut short Google searches and digging. Back also spoke up on Twitter and stated:

Some claim to be Satoshi, days google research blogging stories, and in court, to widespread non-belief. Seems I need the opposite: I am not Satoshi despite [the] recent video / Reddit claiming so. Some factors & timing may look suspicious in hindsight; coincidence & facts are untidy.

Of course, Barely Social says during the beginning of the film that Back can always leverage plausible deniability. There was also a recent Youtube video, which has the crypto pundit, Tone Vays, doing a rebuttal against Barely Socials video. Even though Barely Social was there in the live stream chat, he wasnt allowed to debate Vays criticism, which was filled with insults, and common logical fallacies.

The Blockstream CEO and Barely Social have also debated the subject on Twitter at great length. Following the video and coincidentally, theres also been a number of spends and messages on the BTC blockchain that stem from early addresses from 2009 and 2010. One 50 BTC block from February 2009, one month after the Bitcoin network was launched, was just spent and sent to another address.

What do you think about Barely Socials video which claims Adam Back may be Satoshi Nakamoto? Let us know in the comments below.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons, Youtube, Twitter, Reddit

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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The Many Facts Pointing to Adam Back Being Satoshi | Featured Bitcoin News - Bitcoin News

28 May 2020

JWP Patent & Trademark Attorneys

To print this article, all you need is to be registered or login on Mondaq.com.

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency described for the first time in 2009article by Satoshi Nakamoto. Even now, it is not entirely clear whoSatoshi Nakamoto is. Possibly, it is a group of people cooperatingunder this alias. It is certain, however, that the entire conceptof Bitcoin as an innovative currency revolutionized the globalfinancial market. Bitcoin is one of the so-called FinTechtechnologies.

Bitcoin is one of the examples of utilizing blockchaintechnology. More precisely, blockchain is a decentralized anddistributed database created using cryptographic algorithms withpublic and open registers. In practical terms, it is assumed thatBlockchain makes it possible to obtain a data register that isfully transparent, reliable and safe despite the lack of a centralgoverning body that manages this data. As a result, it was possibleto create, e.g., the Bitcoin cryptocurrency used fortrading online without the supervision of transactions bybanks.

Many people wonder whether such solutions could be patented atall. Firstly, it is necessary to analyze the nature of FinTechsolutions which, as the name suggests, combine finances andtechnology.

Each country and patent office has its own set of acts and lawsregulating in detail patent law in a given territory. However, somegeneral concepts can be found in all legislations and theyconstitute the basic concept of a patent. One of them is therequirement of a technical nature of the solution. It can be wordedin a variety of ways, e.g., the invention is required to have"a technical effect", solve "a technicalproblem", the invention is "a creation based on atechnical idea, in which natural law is applied", etc. Theirmeaning is similar - we cannot monopolize purely abstract conceptsthrough patenting. Similarly, it is not allowed to monopolize insuch a way scientific discoveries, laws of nature or mathematicallaws and operations. Additionally, schemes, rules and methods ofmental processes, playing games or running a business, as well ascomputer programs are usually treated as intangible, and thereforeabstract, solutions that cannot be patented.

That is why in the case of FinTech, the financial aspect perse is very hard to patent. Financial transactions, especiallyonline, are a fairly abstract concept and it is hard to treat themas inventions of technical nature. The essence of the innovativecharacter of those solutions is utilizing modern technologies infinances, which is also problematic. Making a distinction betweentechnical and abstract characteristics, in the traditional sense asstipulated by patent law, is very complicated especially in moderntechnologies based on artificial intelligence, machine learning orblockchain.

Patent offices around the world are currently facing the need toadapt patent law, with its basic principles created in the late19th century, to the requirements of modern industry,described as Industry 4.0. In practice, each office has its owndistinctive approach to patenting computer-aided inventions, namelythose making use of software. It is a result of a change inperception and legal interpretation. For example, patent law in theUS has changed rapidly over the years, moving from a very liberalapproach to a very restrictive one. It is believed that the moststable and predictable approach, as well as quite liberal, is theone of the European Patent Office.

More and more patent offices maintain that although software assuch is obviously not patentable, its application in order to solvea particular technical problem can be patented. Therefore, it ismore likely to patent solutions enhancing the FinTech development,such as making operations more secure by using cryptography orother technical considerations on the function of the innercomputer. Examples of patents granted for inventions regardingcryptocurrencies can be found primarily (but not only) in the C06Qclass of the International Patent Classification concerning systemsand methods of processing data for financial purposes amongothers:

The answer to the titular question is, unsurprisingly given thecontext, that it all depends on circumstances. Preparingdescriptions of FinTech solutions and other new technologies is acomplex and sensitive task. The solution needs to be properlydescribed, supported by necessary figures and embodiments. It isvital to focus on its technical characteristic, as understood interms of patent law. That is why in such a complicated process, theguidance of an experienced patent attorney is indispensable.

Originally published 27 March 2020

The content of this article is intended to provide a generalguide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be soughtabout your specific circumstances.

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A new decade is upon us, and its first two months have veered between ordinary and chaotic. Somewhere in the middle of that spectrum lie a handful of developments relevant to the field of Intellectual Property.

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Is It Possible To Patent Bitcoin? - Intellectual Property - Poland - Mondaq News Alerts

The NGRAVE ZERO, claimed to be the worlds most secure hardware wallet, launched its crowdfunding campaign for 25,000 ($27,850) on May 26. In the first two days it smashed this total four times over, and is now well on its way to number five.

The campaign, which was launched through the IndieGogo crowdfunding platform, is set to run for another 28 days. The campaign offers a number of perks for backers who donate above certain amounts. These range from a single ZERO wallet, through bundles including the Graphene accessory, to multiple wallet bundles and even every future product NGRAVE launches for those wishing to donate 2,500 ($2,785) or more.

These perks generally represent a substantial savings compared with the suggested retail price. For example, a single NGRAVE ZERO is offered to those donating 228 ($254), and the retail price is listed as 398 ($443); a savings of 42%.

Interestingly, only 33 of the 430+ backers at time of writing had opted for a perk, representing 11,760 ($13,000) or around 10% of the total raised. This means that 400 people have chosen to donate 106,500 ($118,600) without receiving anything in return.

It must be noted that some of those choosing a perk may also have over-donated for their reward tier. Otherwise the average donation for those choosing no perk was enough to bag them a ZERO wallet on release.

As Cointelegraph reported, the NGRAVE ZERO is the first cryptocurrency hardware wallet to receive the top EAL7 security rating.

In contrast to other cold wallets, which connect to their mobile phone or desktop apps via USB or Bluetooth, the ZERO communicates purely through QR codes. The benefit of this is that this method does not reveal any information about the wallets private key.

The Graphene accessory is billed as the coldest backup available, and comprises a cryptographic puzzle made of two everything-proof stainless steel plates. Together these plates allow you to store and retrieve your private key, although individually they reveal no information to an attacker.

NGRAVE also recently brought on board renowned (and Satoshi Nakamoto-cited) cryptographer Jean-Jacques Quisquater in an advisory role. He described the ZERO as:

... the most advanced solution, really exceeding the state-of-the-art as publicly known today.

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NGRAVE Hard Wallet Hits 450% of Crowdfunding Goal Within Two Days - Cointelegraph

Anypay, the Bitcoin service provider that makes it easy for merchants and consumers to use Bitcoin in commerce, recommends that merchants and consumers do not use BTC for payments. In a recent blog post, Anypay President Derrick Horton explored a few of the many reasons why BTC is one of the worst digital assets to use for payment settlement.

BTC Transaction Fees

The Anypay blog dives into why Using BTC sucks, and mainly focuses on how BTCs expensive transaction fees and long block confirmation times make it an unattractive payment method.

At the time of publishing (May 21), the cost to get your BTC transaction into the next block on the BTC blockchain is 318 sats/byte (roughly $7.50), Horton wrote. Let us say you are patient and can wait an extra twenty minutes to an hour, so you include a fee of $5.00Even if your customer is only sending you $1.00, they have to pay $1.00 to you, plus $5.00 on top of that to send the transaction. It costs them $6.00 to send you $1.00.

If you are looking to send a small amount of BTC, then most of the time, the transaction fee will be more expensive than the value of money you are sending. Even if you are looking to send or receive a larger amount of money, you will run into obstacles.

If I paid you $25.00 in BTC, it would cost me $25.00 plus $5.00 to get it to you. Then you would have $25.00 in BTC, but you can only spend $20.00 worth because $5.00 gets eaten up in fees.

Because fees are so expensive and eat away from the total amount being sent, it is inconvenient for merchants to accept BTC. The transaction fee is subtracted from the amount being sent, therefore, the amount of money a merchant would receive in their wallet is reduced in the amount of the transaction fee. As a merchant, you want the value you receive to be equal to the price tag of the good or service being sold, but when you transact with BTC, it is unpredictable if you will receive that amount of value, or significantly less.

We reached out to Anypay president Derrick Horton to learn more about why using BTC for payments is suboptimal, but did not hear back before publishing time.

BSV is better for paymentsand everything else

Although BTC is not a good payment vehicle, Bitcoin SV (BSV)the original Bitcoinis. According to Coin.Dance, the Bitcoin statistics platform, it is currently 10,956.07x more expensive to transact on BTC than it is on BSV. BSV has several features that make it the best digital asset to make payments with, beyond that, there are many BSV apps that the blockchain community uses each and every day.

The Anypay blog closes out by examining why BSV is the better blockchain:

[BSV has] the economic conditions you want. A fixed protocol. Competition among service providers. Freedom to differentiate. A predictable supply of monetary units with a fixed upper limit. Put all this together, and you have the best tool for communicating value among people the world has ever seen.

BSV is the original bitcoin, it follows the bitcoin white paper created by Satoshi Nakamoto to a T. For those reasons, BSV can be used as peer-to-peer electronic cash without running into any of the obstacles that BTC runs into.

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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Here's why digital payments app Anypay does not recommend using BTC - CoinGeek

Before we discuss different types of cryptocurrencies, lets take a closer look at the concept of cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency is a virtual currency or you can name it as digital money. It is created by an anonymous group or individual named Satoshi Nakamoto. This is developed with the aim of faster and secure transactions. There are some cryptocurrencies that have physical existence and some of them are virtual which means intangible.

Most importantly, the transactions of cryptocurrencies occur within a decentralized framework without any third-party interference. Due to which there is no manipulation happen by any government or financial institutions or banks. Thats why some countries have banned the usage of cryptocurrencies as it is run by a deregulated system.

Here we will discuss some of the most important cryptocurrencies. In fact, there are thousands of cryptocurrencies exist but we will only focus on the most popular ones.

Bitcoin (BTC)

It will not wrong to say that bitcoin is the king of the world of cryptocurrencies. Since its inception in 2009, it has outperformed in terms of its valuation. The crypto experts of bitcoin treasure suggest that if you want to invest or trade in any cryptocurrencies then bitcoin is the best option.

Bitcoin works through a decentralized network called blockchain technology. All the transactions can be viewed by every user in the network. However, only the owner can decrypt the bitcoin who has assigned the private key. There is no third party (any governing body) involvement in the transactions and is purely peer-to-peer transactions.

Etherum (ETH)

Ethereum comes second in the list of cryptocurrencies in terms of its performance, security, and speed. Unlike bitcoin, it has a different mode of operation. Here developers build decentralized applications in an open-source software platform. Ether is a token that is used for transactions within the Ethereum network. This token can be used for investing in other cryptocurrencies. After Bitcoin, Ether is popular for its market cap, however, the difference is very large in terms of valuation with bitcoin. However, it has got a significant response since its inception and the market is expected to grow in the near future.

Ripple (XRP)

Unlike Bitcoin and Ether, Ripple does not work within a decentralized network. It is an international payment platform that allows instant, secure, and low charges transactions. This is used by banks to make cross-border real-time transactions with the highest security, and low cost.

The token used in the Ripple platform is known as XRP and it does not require mining. All the tokens are pre-mined and thats why it reduces the power of computing. Due to this the transactions are faster and reduces the network latency. This is the most trusted and reliable payment platform that allows financial institutions to make cross-border transactions.

Litecoin (LTC)

Litecoin was developed by a former Google engineer, Charlie Lee in 2011. Likewise, bitcoin this digital currency also works under a decentralized network but it uses scrypt to decode. Due to its faster block generation, it allows faster transactions like bitcoin.

Binance (BNB)

Since its inception in 2017, Binance has gained a significant number of participants in the Binance platform for trading. It allows you to trade different cryptocurrencies in the Binance cryptocurrency exchange. The official token of this platform is known as the Binance coin and denoted by BNB. The coin is used for many purposes like payment of different goods and services.

Apart from this, there are hundreds of cryptocurrencies available on the digital currency market. As mentioned above, some of the cryptocurrencies are used for trading investing, and buying other cryptocurrencies, while some are used for application developments and cross border payments. It is expected that the demand for cryptocurrencies will increase in the future and some experts say it may replace the traditional currency system.

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Learn different types of cryptocurrencies and how to earn money | London Business News - London Loves Business

After a Twitter account suggested the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, had transferred bitcoins, the value of the market decreased.

Members of the cryptocurrency community noticed activity that they suspected belonged to the founder of Bitcoin, and as a result, the value of the cryptocurrency began to decrease.Cryptocurrencylike Bitcoin, allows people to exchange tangible money digitally. The price can fluctuate, and the value of a coin depends on what the exchange rate is at the time. As a result, people can invest in bitcoins and see a profit based on the current exchange rate.

Satoshi Nakamoto is the name commonly used to refer to the founderof thedecentralized digital currency, Bitcoin. Typically anonymous,trading occurs at thepeer-to-peer level, leading to the suggestion it couldmake third-party groups, such as banks, obsolete. However, as an effect of the anonymity, the solution has sometimes been used forcriminal purposes, including money laundering andponzi schemes. Despite the anonymity, bitcoin mining exists to prevent anonymous individuals from double-spending the cryptocurrencythrough the use ofblockchain technologywhere blocks store unique information in a public database.

Related:Do Crypto And Blockchain Companies Have A Sexism Problem?

The WhaleAlertTwitteraccount tracks large crypto transactions and recently Tweeted that someone had transferred 40 bitcoins from a dormant account to an unknown wallet. Someone mined these coins during the first month of Bitcoins existence. For reference, the 40 bitcoins were worth around $400,000 USD when transferred, and it is rumored the owner of the bitcoins transferred another 10 coins soon after the initial Tweet. What made this particular transaction all the more interesting is the age of the coins which led some to believe Nakamoto owned them, and that caused the value of Bitcoin to drop.

While blocks are anonymous, the coins involved in this transfer were identified as coming from one of the first accounts. Considering how few people mined bitcoins in the beginning,some inferred that Nakamotomust have been involved, especially as old coins do not often appear. With some confused and spooked at Nakamotos rumored appearance, panic set inand the value of the coin went down. The worry was that the value of Bitcoin would plummet if Nakamoto sold large amounts of coins. However, and as pointed out by MarketWatch,there were those whosuggested thecoins were mined by an unknown person, rather than the mysterious creator. In fact, arguments over the identity of the owner eventually helped to slow down the panic but not before "satoshi"went went viral on Twitter. Especially as there was no way of actually knowing. For example, even thoughsome realized that these blocks did not follow the Patoshi pattern - a unique way to identify Nakamotos blocks- the anonymous nature of these transaction still meant it was possible the coins belonged to Nakamoto.

The coronavirus pandemic is changing the way the world works. With people struggling with financesand higher levels ofunemployment, and consideringthese coins were mined in 2009, it might be the case the ownersimplyfelt that it wastime to move funds. However,if it wasNakamoto, then it is rather strange thatthe transfer was only a few bitcoins, since many suspectNakamotohas at least one million of them. While there's no way to know for sure that Nakamoto has returned, the one thing that is clear is that one of the first people to mine bitcoins briefly made an appearance recently.

More: The Best Way To Buy Bitcoin For A Casual Investor

Source:Whale Alert/Twitter

Apple iOS 13.5 New Upgrade for iPhones & iPads: What You Need to Know

Josh Goodrich's journey began when he started posting content for the BuzzFeed Community page. He would often write about popular shows, pop culture and technology. After completing a series of internships, Goodrich wrote topics ranging from people fighting food insecurity to a review for an Elvis impersonator's burlesque show. Goodrich, a graduate from the University of Pittsburgh, is currently based in the DC-area. You can probably find him where Bjrk music is playing.

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Why Twitter Rumor Bitcoin Founder Satoshi Nakamoto Cashed Out Lowered Cryptocurrency Value - Screen Rant

How the myth-making around Satoshi reinforces what makes bitcoin unique in the landscape of global monies.

On Wednesday, a batch of coins mined just a month after bitcoins birth were moved. It was the first time since August 2017 that any bitcoin from early 2009 had been transferred, and the action set Bitcoin Twitter on fire. While a number of bitcoin archaeologists quickly and persuasively argued the tokens were almost assuredly not mined by bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, it was a moment that reinforced the living history in the bitcoin ecosystem.

In this episode, NLW looks at what makes the Satoshi mythology powerful:

And while the battles within the bitcoin community around interpretation may look more like the early history of religions than like a business ecosystem, NLW argues that fervor is a key part of what de-risks bitcoin, even for investors who dont at all care about the mythology.

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

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The Shadow of Satoshi's Ghost: Why Bitcoin Mythology Matters - CoinDesk - CoinDesk

Its been a good week for Bitcoin. The halving doesnt seem to have done the top cryptocurrency any harm at all, with the dollar value up more than 8 percent over the previous week. Ethereum is up more than 10 percent which just shows that the opportunity for blockchain-based solutions are still red-hot. If youre taking that opportunity to issue tokens or digitized assets and seeking legal counsel with respect to securities and regulation then you should speak to Josh Lawler at law firm Zuber Lawler. They sponsor the Bad Crypto podcast and theyre specialists in developing technology, including the blockchain.

One person who understands the blockchain better even than Josh Lawler is Satoshi Nakamoto, and it looks like the mystery inventor has been busy. Fifty Bitcoins mined as early as a month after the launch of the Bitcoin mainnet have just moved to two different Bitcoin wallets. Its not certain that the coins are Nakamotos stash but few people were mining with the original Bitcoin client eleven years ago. Craig Wright said that he didnt move the coins, which is a problem because he also told a US court that the address belongs to him. Oops.

In another mystery move, about $6 million worth of STEEM has been rescued in an anonymous transaction on the Bittrex exchange. The tokens, from 64 Steem accounts, were supposed to move to an account called community321 as part of a hard fork designed to stop malicious attacks on the network. The account has asked Bittrex to give them back.

And in an even stranger move Crypto YouTuber Vin Armani has packed his family off to the Northern Mariana Islands. Hes preparing for the zombie coronavirus apocalypse.

With all of that strange movement, its refreshing to read a move that didnt happen. Crypto lender BlockFi has reported a data breach. But no customer funds were lost, it says, which is more than Steems hard fork can say. And it turns out that ISIS isnt really moving Bitcoin around to fund its evil ways. It doesnt even have $300 million in a secret crypto war chest.

In Congress, the Advancing Blockchain Act is asking for a survey of the technologys uses and its adoption in the US.Representative Brett Guthrie (R-KY) who introduced the bill, says that hes worried about China taking a lead in the new technology.

Congress isnt the only place where the blockchain is getting political. The World Economic Forum Global Blockchain Council has launched its Presidio Principles, a kind of Bill of Rights for the blockchain. The sixteen principles include ensuring that participants can understand the risks and benefits of blockchain technology; that they can create, manage, and independently store cryptographic secret keys; and that they can be certain that their data is protected. It would certainly be nice to see China adopt a Bill of Rights.

The principles might just help to protect buyers and sellers on Shopify. The ecommerce platform now accepts cryptocurrency transactions using CoinPayments.

In other news, Ben Mezrich, the author of Bitcoin Billionaires, a book about the Winklevoss twins, has written an episode of the show Billions. The episode focuses on a mining farm in a boarding school. That boarding school, though, is not Hogwarts. J.K. Rowling still doesnt get Bitcoin, though she has been trying.

And finally, Philip Euphrates Roqueforte (were pretty sure thats not his real name), the Principal Operating Officer, or POO of Coinstool (and were pretty sure thats not his real title), has announced the first part of the Coinstool 50. Its just a start so it looks like Roqueforte will be pushing them out for a while.

Joel Comm is an internet pioneer, New York Times best-selling author, futurist speaker and co-host of The Bad Crypto Podcast. Thats a fancy way of saying he writes words, says things and loves to play with cryptos.

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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Moving Coins, Data Breaches, and Magical Authors: Bad Crypto News of the Week - Cointelegraph

In brief:

The sell-off in the crypto markets has continued to gather steam since news broke of the movement of Bitcoin that was mined in 2009. Some have argued that the dip had more to do with an overbought BTC than the fear of Satoshi Nakamoto dumping his stash of 1 Million BTC. Either way, the panic has had a ripple effect on the entire cryptocurrency spectrum. More so, to the remittance coin of XRP that has since lost the number 3 spot to Tether (USDT) on Coinmarketcap.

Further analyzing XRPs loss of the number 3 spot to Tether (USDT), it was as a result of two factors.

Firstly, the aforementioned crypto market sell-off has resulted in XRP losing the crucial support zone at $0.20 thus providing more reason for many traders to go short on XRP/USD.

Secondly, the market capitalization of Tether has continued to grow as more USDT is minted on the Tron Blockchain. In the last few weeks, the total assets belonging to the parent company of Tether has ballooned from the $5 6 Billion range to the current level of $9,082,767,996.

Scrolling down the Tether balance sheet, we observe that the amount of USDT issued on the Tron blockchain has continued to increase. In a previous analysis, the amount of USDT issued on TRON was around $1.6 Billion. The amount now stands at $2.1 Billion. At the time of writing this, the breakdown of the blockchains supporting Tether and the corresponding amount of USDT is as follows.

(Feature image courtesy ofUnsplash.)

Disclaimer:This article is not meant to give financial advice. Any additional opinion herein is purely the authors and does not represent the opinion of Ethereum World News or any of its other writers. Please carry out your own research before investing in any of the numerous cryptocurrencies available. Thank you.

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XRP Loses the Number 3 Spot to Tether (USDT) on Coinmarketcap - Ethereum World News

The price of Bitcoin (BTC) fell from $9,800 to as low as $9,200 on major exchanges overnight. It comes after BTC demonstrated relatively low volatility in the past week, ranging in between $9,900 and $9,500.

The sudden short-term price drop can generally be attributed to five major factors: a cascade of liquidations on BitMEX, whales seeking liquidity at near support levels, an uptick in miner selling and the rapid growth of the options market.

In the last 18 hours, around $53 million worth of longs were liquidated on BitMEX alone. It indicates traders were largely expecting the price of Bitcoin to reclaim the $10,000 resistance level in the near-term.

Instead, the price of Bitcoin rejected $9,800 with a heavy sell-off, taking BTC down to around $9,300 initially within a span of an hour.

Total Bitcoin liquidations in the last three days. Source: Skew

There is a high level of selling pressure in the high-$9,000 area because traders are actively moving to hedge their positions in case of a deep pullback.

Cryptocurrency trader Koroush AK wrote:

For the past week we've been bouncing between ~$9850 and ~$9250with slight deviations. Good levels to play if you like a good range. $9850 is preceded by several HTF resistances but after ~$10500 we should see fireworks. Should $9250 break I expect mid $8000s.

In April 2020, it took around 38 days for Bitcoin to rally from $5,800 to $7,700. But, it took less than 9 days for Bitcoin to surge from $7,700 to $10,000.

Comparison of Bitcoin price action from $5,800 to $7,700 and $7,700 to $10k. Source: Tradingview

Technically, there is little resistance or support between $7,700 to $9,100. Traders are seemingly cautious about a further downtrend because of the weak technical structure between the price range.

As Cointelegraph extensively reported on May 20, an individual moved 50 BTC from a wallet that dates back to February 2009.

The 50 BTC was mined merely one month after the first Bitcoin block was mined, causing people to speculate if it was Satoshi Nakamoto.

But, from the absence of a Patoshi pattern to the existence of several early miners in 2009, almost all data points showed the sender was not Satoshi.

The lackluster data did not stop whales from using the narrative to stir up volatility in the market. As soon as the transaction was publicized, the price of Bitcoin dropped by 5% almost immediately. Whales were most likely adding selling pressure to take liquidity at low support levels.

According to data from ByteTree, the Miner's Rolling Inventory (MRI) is at 102.8%. If the MRI crosses around 80%, it shows miners are selling the BTC they mine, rather than holding onto it.

Miners sell BTC while on-chain data shows Bitcoin is overbought. Source: ByteTree

On May 20, the day the price of Bitcoin fell to $9,200, the net inventory of miners was -187 BTC. Given that miners mine up to 900 BTC post-halving, they sold more than they mined on the day.

The recent trend of miners selling more BTC than before the halving occurred on May 11 may add persistent selling pressure on BTC throughout the near-term.

On-chain data from Glassnode shows the number of Tether (USDT) exchange withdrawals reached an all-time high.

Tether is widely utilized as an alternative to digital cash, especially in regions with restrictive access to the cryptocurrency exchange market, such as China.

Outflow of Tether (USDT) from cryptocurrency exchanges. Source: glassnode

The outflow of Tether from exchanges suggests two things: the number of sellers in the market is on the rise and the number of Chinese buyers may be on the decline.

Glassnode said:

USDT Number of Exchange Withdrawals (1d MA) just reached an ATH of 2,083.37. Previous ATH of 2,075.792 was observed on 30 April 2020.

The Bitcoin options market is expanding at a rapid rate, with Deribit reaching a billion dollars in open interest.

Unlike futures and spot prices that are relatively easy for both long-time traders and beginners to navigate, options contracts are conceptually more complex than the two. As such, options appeal to professional and full-time traders over casual traders.

With options being one of the three big markets alongside spot and futures, the volatility of BTC and the diversity of investors within the market is increasing. In the near future, the options market is likely to have more impact on the price trend of BTC.

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5 Key Reasons Bitcoin Price Fell From $9,800 to $9,200 Overnight - Cointelegraph

Ten years ago yesterday, programmer Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 Bitcoin for two Papa Johns pizzas in a trade that took place publicly on the Bitcoin Talk forum.

Bitcoin Pizza ad from 2010 | Source: BitcoinTalk.org

At the time, the transaction was largely laughed at who would want some worthless internet coins for two steaming hot pies worth $30-40 in aggregate? But, as we now know, that was the first Bitcoin transaction for a real-world item ever.

Since then, May 22nd has been deemed Bitcoin Pizza Day, which cryptocurrency investors celebrate every year by buying pizza with cryptocurrency if possible.

Laszlos transaction has been deemed so fundamentally important that popular crypto analyst Mati Greenspan opined that without that one transaction, BTC wouldnt be where it is today.

Though theres an unfortunate part of this transaction: the 10,000 Bitcoin once owned by the programmer and what could have been with that wealth.

Today, 10,000 BTC is worth just shy of $100 million at $92 million, meaning that those two pizzas cost $46 million a pop.

Many have joked about this about the wealth that Laszlo could have made if he HODLed, but there might be an odd silver lining to this part of the story.

According to Nic Carter partner at Castle Island Ventures and a co-founder of Coin Metrics explained in a recent Twitter thread that theres a possibility Laszlo decided to spend his BTC fortune out of guilt.

Out of guilt for what? For using his GPU to mine Bitcoin in the first instance of non-CPU BTC mining, which was largely looked down upon by Satoshi Nakamoto in a private email exchange eventually shared by Laszlo. Carter wrote:

Im speculating, but its entirely possible that a guilt-ridden Laszlo decided to disgorge some of his GPU-mined BTC by making a series of pizza transactions.

The Coin Metrics founder backed this data by looking at blockchain data, which indicates that the pizza transaction is in line with the movement of the Bitcoin network difficulty and the emails with Satoshi. Thats to say, Laszlo made these transactions to distribute BTC to the community, rather than holding his ill-gotten gains for himself.

Carters speculation has been backed up by comments from the Bitcoin Pizza Guy himself.

Colin Harper reported in 2019 that when he spoke to Laszlo, he was told by the programmer that there was guilt running through Laszlos mind when the topic of GPU mining was brought up by Satoshi Nakamoto:

Thats when I was like, Man, I feel like I crapped up your project. Sorry, dude. He was concerned that some people might be discouraged because they cant mine a block with a CPU. So, I stopped advertising it after that.

Laszlo also purportedly added that he sees the transaction as a win for Bitcoin, not a loss for himself, further corroborating the narrative that the 10,000 Bitcoin transaction was anything but a mistake.

Laszlo has largely abstracted himself from the economic implications of his transaction, yet many think that those two pizzas might be even more valuable than $90 million and much more than $90 million at that in the years to come.

Robert Rich Dad Kiyosaki, for instance, said recently that he thinks Bitcoin will be worth $75,000 in the coming three years. That would mean that the pizzas would be worth well over $500 million.

But even then, considering what Laszlo said, he wouldnt feel bad about spending those BTC.

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The $90 Million Bitcoin Pizza Story Has an Unexpected Silver Lining | NewsBTC - newsBTC

Bitcoin, the first and leading cryptocurrency in terms of trading volume and market capitalisation, went through its third halving on May 11 2020. This major adjustment to how the cryptocurrency operates has only happened twice before and happens every four years. But what does this actually mean and what impact will it have?

Q: how does bitcoin work?

Bitcoin is a digital currency that makes use of blockchain technology to store and record all transactions. First proposed in a white paper published online in 2008 by a mysterious person (or group of people) called Satoshi Nakamoto. The unique features of bitcoin compared to fiat currencies like dollars or pounds are that there is no central authority or bank. Each member of the network has equal power. This decentralised network is completely transparent and all transactions can be read on the blockchain. At the same time it offers privacy in terms of who owns the cryptocurrency.

Bitcoins are created (or mined) by so-called miners who contribute computing power to securing the network, as well as processing transactions on the network by solving complex mathematical puzzles through computational power. These miners are rewarded for their work processing the transactions on the blockchain with bitcoins. But to combat inflation, Nakamoto wrote into the code that the total number of bitcoins that will ever exist will be 21 million. Right now there are 18.38 million.

The first ever block recorded on the bitcoin blockchain was on January 3 2009 where Nakamoto received 50 bitcoins. In the white paper, Nakamoto specified that after every 210,000 blocks the reward for miners will half. So the first halving took place on November 28 2012 where the miners reward was reduced from 50 bitcoins to 25 bitcoins. The second halving was on July 9 2016 and the miners reward was reduced from 25 bitcoins to 12.5 bitcoins. And the third, most recent halving on May 11 2020 means bitcoin miners now receive 6.25 bitcoins.

Q: Why does bitcoin halve?

Nakamoto has never explained explicitly the reasons behind the halving. Some speculate the halving system was designed to distribute coins more quickly at the beginning to incentive people to join the network and mine new blocks. Block rewards are programmed to halve at regular intervals because the value of each coin rewarded is deemed likely to increase as the network expanded. However, this may lead to users holding bitcoin as a speculative asset rather than using it as a medium of exchange.

Q: What impact does halving have on bitcoin?

The obvious impact is that the amount of newly mined bitcoins per day will fall from about 1,800 to 900 bitcoins and the daily revenue of miners will reduce by half. This decrease in the rate of bitcoin creation tightens supply and some argue will lead to a bullish market and an increase in the price of bitcoin.

Meanwhile, the reduction of revenue for miners may squeeze out miners who are least efficient and therefore the computing power connected to the Bitcoin network may fall significantly.

The previous two halvings led to the most dramatic bull runs in Bitcoins history, although initially there was a brief sell-off. Marcus Swanepoel, co-founder and CEO of Luno, a cryptocurrency wallet which lets you store and carry out bitcoin transactions, believes that bitcoin may achieve a growth of 270% between this and the fourth halving in 2024.

Q: How is coronavirus affecting things?

Although bitcoin has gained more than 20% since the beginning of the year, where this halving may differ from its predecessors is the volatile and uncertain economic environment that it has taken place in. The International Monetry Fund predicted a 3% shrinking of global growth in its April forecast and this is expected to fall further. In the UK, the Bank of England has projected a decrease of 30% in the countrys GDP during the first half of 2020.

Some argue that bitcoins scarcity makes it a potential hedge against fiat currencies that are vulnerable to devaluation in times of economic crisis. But others believe the halving wont necessarily boost its price as people knew the halving was going to happen so it should be already priced into the market activity.

The only certainty is that the growth of new bitcoins has halved. It remains to be seen what impact this will have on the price and interest of this cryptocurrency.

Correction: a previous version of this article incorrectly said Michael Dubrovsky speculated the halving system was designed to distribute coins more quickly at the beginning to incentive people to join the network and mine new blocks.

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Bitcoin halving Q&A: what it's all about and what it means for the cryptocurrency - The Conversation US

When Satoshi Nakamoto wrote Bitcoins whitepaper, he envisaged an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof that allows parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have shown the practicality of peer-to-peer transactions; yet, the transactional use of cryptocurrencies remains elusive.

Most of the trades in cryptocurrencies are powered by speculative expectations of profit rather than the transactional use of crypto as an alternative to fiat currencies.

This piece explores the growing interest in stablecoins and how stablecoins could potentially spur an increase in the use of cryptocurrencies as a means of transaction, settling of trades, and the exchange of value.

According to an October 2019 survey by Crypto Radar, only 6.2% of Americans currently own Bitcoin, and only about 7.3% of Americans are planning to buy some Bitcoin. In contrast, 64.8% of Americans do not own and do not plan to buy Bitcoin, and the remaining 21.8% of Americans say theyve never heard about Bitcoin.

Granted, the Crypto Radar study is Bitcoin-specific, but the fact that Bitcoin has a market dominance of 67.7% among cryptocurrencies suggests that whats true for Bitcoin is most likely true for all other coins.

Below are some of the reasons the transactional and mass-market adoption of crypto havent taken off.

Hybrix offers an easy to use, open source, 2nd layer solution to implement true interoperability

Interoperability in cryptocurrencies refers to the ability to share information across different blockchain networks, without restrictions. Blockchains networks and protocols are built in silos differing on ideology, tech stack, and governance, even when they are branded as open-source projects. Blockchains typically operate in silos, and the coins mined on one chain are practically useless on another chain. The lack of interoperability has been a major Achilles heel for the cryptocurrency industry.

The second challenge delaying the transactional use of cryptocurrencies is the wild volatility. The price of crypto tends to swing wildly in response to market news, whale trading, and overall sentiment. For a commodity to be regarded as money, it needs to retain its value over long periods, but a 10% to 20% swing in price during a trading session is considered normal in the cryptocurrency market. The worst part is that the jury is still out on whether Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are correlated with stocks and other traditional assets.

The chart above plots how Bitcoin and other traditional assets have fared since the WHO declared COVID-19 a public health emergency on January 30. From January until May 14, The NASDAQ Composite lost 19.44%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 14.22%, and the S&P 500 lost 4.69%. Conversely, Bitcoin was practically flat with a 0.43% decline. Now, to the point of volatility, the cryptocurrency suffered a massive 42% price drop between March 12 and March 13 as seen in the annotated part of the chart.

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Atomic swaps is a revolutionary development that could fast-track the transactional use of cryptocurrencies by enabling the exchange of one cryptocurrency for another without going through the intermediary of a crypto exchange. Chainlink and Polkadot are some of the notable startups working in Atomic swaps.

However, Atomic swaps require a level of technical maturity that the average crypto trader or investor doesnt possess in the use of Hash Timelock Contracts (HTLC). For people that arent technically savvy, swapping a coin for another is too much trouble, and theyll rather keep their crypto activities to a few legacy coins that they understand.

Hence, it is not surprising that the average crypto trader/investor only has a handful of these coins in their portfolio despite the fact that there are more than 4000 coins in the market.

While popular cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are too volatile to be a reliable source of value or means of exchange, stablecoins provide a better compromise to enjoy the decentralized properties of crypto without the inherent volatility.

However, stablecoins are not without issues - the most popular ones are privately issued and their legitimacy is still being contested. Also, theres a lack of interoperability between many cryptocurrencies and stablecoins. In addition, it would be impractical to have a stable for each of all the coins and altcoins in the market. Below are two developments that could drive the transactional use of stablecoins.

Hybrix is a peer-to-peer token protocol designed to be an agnostic 2nd layer platform across multiple blockchains and to facilitate cross-chain transactions and settlement across them without the core complexities of atomic swaps.

Hybrix is designed to leverage the underlying data layer of the blockchain to enable these cross transactions; the blockchains do not need to implement a hard-fork, and theres no need to wait for everyone to implement atomic-swap on their ledgers.

In the past few months, there has been a marked increase in the trading volume of stablecoins. For instance, according to research by The Block, in the first quarter of 2020, the transaction volume for stablecoins crossed the $90B mark for the first time ever, to mark an 8% increase from Q4 2019, and to mark a massive 280% increase from Q1 2019.

Source: The Stablecoin Index

More interesting is the fact that stablecoin transactions are surging on the Ethereum blockchain as Tether to Ethereum transactions has jumped more than 75% in the year-to-date period to cross the $4B mark. The surge in transactions is already causing some issues on the Ethereum blockchain, Ethereum 2.0 is still far from becoming a reality, and solutions such as the Hybrix protocol could serve as a bridge to take some of the overloads to Ethereum.

Such a bridge will make it easier for people to conduct cross-chain transactions, reduce the resource load on bloated chains, and facilitate easier cross-platform transactions between ERC-20 tokens and other networks.

The second factor that might drive the transactional use of stablecoins is the growing interest of legacy companies and traditional institutions in launching stablecoins. According to Blockdatas Stablecoin Report, between 2014 when Tether launched, and the height of the ICO bull run in 2017, only 49 stablecoin projects were announced or launched. However, from 2017 to 2019, about 134 stablecoin projects have been announced.

Two notable stablecoin projects announced during this period are Libra being developed by Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ: FB), and JPM Coin being developed by JP Morgan Chase & Co, (NYSE: JPM). JPMorgan announced JPM Coin in February 2019 to go down in history as the first U.S. bank to create and test a stablecoin. The JPM Coin is pegged to the USD, and it is transferrable and instantaneously redeemable for the equivalent amount of U.S. dollars.

Similarly, Facebook announced its stablecoin, the Libra Coin barely five months after J.P.Morgans announcement. Unlike the JPM Coin, which was pegged exclusively against the USD, Facebooks Libra coin was to be pegged against a basket of currencies including the Euro and Yuan.

Beyond privately-issued stablecoins, the IMF reports that there might be potentials in Synthetic Central Bank Digital Currencies sCBDC. According to the IMF, such currencies, which are backed by a countrys reserves might be the safest and most liquid digital assets in the market.

An increase in payment gateways and merchant adoption could also drive the transactional use of cryptocurrencies by making it easier for merchants to accept crypto payments. However, given the inherently volatile nature of cryptocurrencies, the most likely scenario is skewed towards stablecoins if transactions are settled in real-time and with low fees.

At a more crucial level, the world will adjust to a new normal after COVID-19, and it would be interesting to see how the cryptocurrency market evolves over the next few years as the global economy goes through a post-COVID-19 recovery.

Disclosure: None.

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Stablecoins Might be The Key to Unlocking the Transactional Value of Cryptocurrencies - Yahoo Finance

Source: StunningArt

A new (and old) candidate has emerged for the identity of Bitcoins creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. In a video uploaded on YouTube, entitled Bitcoin Unmasking Satoshi Nakamoto, a new attempt was made to prove that Nakamoto is the co-founder and CEO of Blockstream, Adam Back.

The video, which was released on May 11, 2020, by the Barely Sociable channel, is the third part of a series that examines facts, arguments and candidates that might be behind the identity of the inventor of Bitcoin. Satoshi Nakamoto is probably one of the most widely discussed pseudonyms on the Internet. From Bitcoin SV inventor Craig Wright, the also anonymous inventor of Monero, Nicolas van Saberhagen, and even John McAfee, the list of self-proclaimed candidates and other people involved in theories related to the name Nakamoto is long.

In the above mentioned video the previous tracks and the last activities on the internet related to Satoshi were analyzed. In this way, the video establishes a relationship between Satoshi and the co-founder of Blockstream, Adam Back. The video makes use of previously used techniques, such as analysis of both their writing styles, a background analysis and the academic profile. In that sense, Back looks like a convincing Satoshi Nakamoto.

However, via his Twitter account, Back denied the theory of the aforementioned video. Back made it clear that despite the evidence, he is not Satoshi and is not interested in being Satoshi. Back explained the following:

Some claim to be Satoshi, days google research blogging stories, and in court, to widespread non-belief.

Seems I need the opposite: I am not Satoshi despite recent video / reddit claiming so. Some factors & timing may look suspicious in hindsight; coincidence & facts are untidy.

In the above commentary, Back refers to Wright. The inventor of Bitcoin SV is known as Faketoshi within the crypto community and is famous for the many lawsuits he has made against crypto space personalities, including Adam Back and Ethereums Vitalik Buterin. Furthermore, Back added the following, refuting the coincidences between him and Satoshi:

It goes deeper some of what they google researched is true: I moved to Malta, an EU tax haven in 2009. pure coincidence, though ofc I did know about Bitcoin in 2008 via emails from Satoshi. I was born in London. i do use double-space and native spelling British. can code C++

Other evidence that points to Back as Satoshi, is the fact that messages between the creator of Bitcoin and Back are not available to the public, like other messages. Instead, the CEO of Blockstream has kept the messages secret. In mid-April, a publication revealed by Back himself pointed out that Nakamoto might have had the idea for Bitcoin 10 years before the publication of the whitepaper.

In addition, the video also points out Backs involvement in the creation of Bitcoin. According to the whitepaper, Bitcoin took inspiration from payment systems, like b-money and eCash. Furthermore, Bitcoin was also inspired by HashCash, created by Adam Back in 1997. HashCash is using a consensus algorithm similar to the proof of work that Bitcoin uses today. However, despite all the evidence, Back always denied that he is Satoshi Nakamoto. About the true identity of Bitcoins inventor, Back said that although he doesnt know exactly who he is, he knows of some candidates with relevant skills.

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New theory: Adam Back denies being the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto - Crypto News Flash