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Scientists: Earth’s Magnetic Field Could Shift 100x Faster Than Observed

Posted on July 13, 2020 by Danzig

New models suggest that Earth's magnetic field, already overdue for a total reversal, could shift faster than we thought.

Global Reversal

Scientists have long suspected that the Earth’s magnetic field might flip — switching the magnetic North and South poles — in the nearish future.

But a new study suggests that the change could happen far more rapidly than researchers thought, Space.com reports. The simulations, published last week in the journal Nature Communications, predict that the magnetic field could rotate around the planet by as much as ten degrees per year — ten times faster than anything previously theorized, 100 times faster than anything scientists actually observed, and a rate that could result in a complete reversal in less than two decades.

Turbulent Field

The problem with predicting the future of Earth’s magnetic field, which last flipped polarities about 780,000 years ago, is that it’s a gigantic, turbulent mess. The field itself is generated by electric currents stirred up by the molten metals swirling under the Earth’s surface, Space.com reports. Those factors influence one another, creating an unevenly-distributed field that fluctuates wildly.

“The flow is turbulent — in a simple sense, it could be like the flow in a pan of boiling water,” lead author and University of Leeds researcher Christopher Davies told Space.com. “So the interaction between flow and field is different from place to place within the core.”

Weak Spot

That turbulence, which creates weak and strong spots in the field, can spur rapid shifts, the study found. While previous models suggested a total flip would take several hundred to 1,000 years, those weak spots could vastly speed up the process.

Thankfully, that won’t be as devastating as it sounds, National Geographic reports. The polarity reversal will impact satellites and electrical grids, but us humans won’t feel a thing.

READ MORE: Earth’s magnetic field changes 10 times faster than once thought [Space.com]

More on the magnetic field: The Earth’s Magnetic Poles Are Overdue for a Switch

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Scientists: Earth’s Magnetic Field Could Shift 100x Faster Than Observed

Scientists Say the Moon Is Way Younger than We Thought

Posted on July 13, 2020 by Danzig

New models suggest that the Moon could be 85 million years younger than scientists thought, a development that would clarify some of its mysterious past.

Just A Kid

According to a sophisticated new model, the Moon is far younger than scientists previously thought — to the tune of some 85 million years.

It’s not such a drastic shift when you consider how long the Moon’s been around. The research, published Friday in the journal Science Advances, adjusts the age of the Moon from 4.51 billion years old to 4.425 billion, with 25-million-year-long error bars on either side. But it does clarify some of the mysteries surrounding how it formed in the first place.

Magma Ocean

The prevailing theory is that a Mars-sized rock crashed into the Earth and the debris eventually consolidated to form the Moon. The still-forming Earth may have been covered by an ocean of magma — and this new research posits that the Moon had a magma ocean over 1,000 kilometers deep as well.

The main disagreement, however, is over how long it took that ocean to cool: Existing models said the Moon solidified after 35 million years.

“The results from the model show that the moon’s magma ocean was long-lived and took almost 200 million years to completely solidify into mantle rock,” lead author Maxime Maurice, a planetary geophysicist at the German Aerospace Center, said in a press release.

Minor Adjustment

By modeling how the composition of the Moon rocks formed by that ocean changed over time, the team was able to arrive at its new age for the Moon.

The new timeline ties neatly to the Earth’s history as well, meaning the Moon formed at about the same time as the Earth’s core.

READ MORE: Researchers find younger age for Earth’s moon [German Aerospace Center]

More on the Moon: New Theory: the Moon Formed From Magma Blasted Away From Earth

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Scientists Say the Moon Is Way Younger than We Thought

Doctors Heal Human Lungs By Attaching Them to Live Pigs

Posted on July 13, 2020 by Danzig

By hooking up transplant lungs to live pigs, researchers were able to extend their shelf life and even rejuvenate them outside the body.

Transplant lungs can only survive for a short period of time outside the human body. In fact, only around a quarter meet criteria for transplantation, according to the American Lung Association.

That’s why a team of researchers at Columbia University in New York have decided to find an alternative, extending the shelf life of human lungs intended to be transplanted — by hooking them up to live pigs, as detailed in a new paper published in Nature Medicine today.

The procedure could allow deteriorated or damaged lungs destined for transplantation to recover within just 24 hours, New Scientist reports.

The research could even one day allow human patients to act as their own surrogates, healing transplant lungs destined for their own bodies via a catheter in their neck, according to The New York Times.

Currently, health practitioners attempt to recover deteriorated lungs using complicated machinery called EVLP (ex vivo lung perfusion) that pumps air and fluids through the lungs — but only with limited success.

To improve on this idea, a team of researchers from Columbia University in New York wondered if hooking up damaged lungs to living pigs could help remove toxins and add nutrients.

In an experiment, the team connected half a dozen human lungs from brain dead patients to the circulatory systems of anesthetized pigs for 24 hour periods.

By pumping air into the lungs inside plastic boxes and adding immunosuppressant drugs that ensured the immune systems wouldn’t reject the alien lung, the team found that the lungs’ capacity to deliver oxygen improved considerably. Even a lung that spent 48 hours outside the body had recovered.

The technique could revolutionize the medicine of transplants.

“If there were a way to maintain organs in a healthy state outside the body for a day or several days, then many things would change in transplantation,” Robert Bartlett, a surgeon who developed a machine similar to the EVLP, who was not involved in the study, told STAT News. “You could have perfect matching. You could treat organs injured outside the body until they’re working well.”

“That’s remarkable,” James Fildes, regenerative medicine lecturer at the University of Manchester, UK, who wasn’t involved in the research, told New Scientist. “My expectation would be that that lung would be destroyed, but actually it doesn’t look like it is at all.”

Before implanting the resulting lungs into humans, the team wants to repeat the experiment with more lungs, as the procedure comes with plenty of risks. White cells that made it from the pig into the lungs could trigger a dangerous immune reactions in human recipients, for instance.

Some lungs may be beyond repair despite the surrogate pigs, co-author Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic admitted to New Scientist, but “if you can salvage two out of every four that are rejected, you can increase the number of lungs available to patients by three times.”

“If we could expand the donor pool, we could avoid a lot of waiting-list deaths and could be more open-minded about who could have a transplant,” Matthew Bacchetta, lung transplant surgeon at Vanderbilt University and lead author of the study, told NYT.

The team is hoping the technique could “serve as a complementary approach to clinical EVLP to recover injured donor lungs that could not otherwise be utilized for transplantation,” as they note in their paper.

Luckily, no pig was hurt during the experiments. According to the researchers, the pigs were left with no long-lasting effects. Some were even able to play around with toys while hooked up during a previous experiment.

“It’s a transformative idea that would allow a jump forward in the field,” Zachary Kon, surgical director of the lung transplant center at New York University Langone Medical Center, told the Times.

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California Shuts Down Again After Surge in New COVID Cases

Posted on July 13, 2020 by Danzig

California governor Gavin Newsom ordered indoor operations for restaurants, wineries, movie theaters, and other entertainment centers to stop immediately.

It’s the most sweeping acknowledgment to date that it’s not yet time to reopen the United States.

On Monday afternoon, California governor Gavin Newsom ordered indoor operations for restaurants, wineries, movie theaters, and other entertainment centers to stop immediately, as Axios reports, in light of a new surge in COVID-19 cases.

Thirty counties, including Los Angeles, Orange, and San Bernardino, will also have to close gyms, places of worship, some offices, and personal care services, including barbershops and hair salons.

“We’ve made this point on multiple occasions and that is we’re moving back into a modification mode of our original stay-at-home order,” Newsom said in a statement.

“The data suggest not everybody is practicing common sense,” he added.

The Golden State reported 8,358 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, with a 14-day average of 7,800 new cases daily. Total tallies stand at 329,162 confirmed cases and 7,040 deaths.

That makes California, alongside Florida, Arizona, and Texas, the worst-hit states in the country.

The news comes after Los Angeles and San Diego announced that schools will be online only this fall — despite pressure from the White House to reopen them.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos even threatened to withdraw federal funds if schools didn’t reopen last week, a move that received widespread criticism.

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New AI Predicts Which Planets Are Going to Smash Into Each Other

Posted on July 13, 2020 by Danzig

A new AI system named SPOCK (yes, we know) can predict the orbit of distant exoplanets to figure out if they're going to collide.

Judgment Day

A team of NASA astrophysicists has put the fate of entire star systems in the hands of an AI algorithm.

The system — dubbed SPOCK — by NASA and Princeton University astrophysicist Daniel Tamayo, doesn’t actually decide which worlds will live and die. But it can predict the paths of exoplanets, and determine which ones will remain stable and which will crash into other worlds or stars, far more accurately and at greater scale than humans ever could.

Too Many Limes

Since the first exoplanet was discovered in 1995, scientists have identified more than 4,000 worlds elsewhere. Over 700 of them are in star systems containing more than one planet, Tamayo said in a press release, which potentially puts them at risk of devastation collisions.

“We can’t categorically say ‘This system will be OK, but that one will blow up soon,'” Tamayo said in the release. “The goal instead is, for a given system, to rule out all the unstable possibilities that would have already collided and couldn’t exist at the present day.”

The Reference

Traditionally, this is a problem that scientists would brute force by modeling an exoplanet’s next billion orbits and look for danger. SPOCK is a bit more elegant: It stops after 10,000 orbits and then trains a machine learning algorithm using the dynamics of that orbit. Eventually, the system learns to predict collisions well in advance.

“We called the model SPOCK — Stability of Planetary Orbital Configurations Klassifier — partly because the model determines whether systems will ‘live long and prosper,'” Tamayo said.

READ MORE: Artificial intelligence predicts which planetary systems will survive [Princeton University]

More on dead worlds: Scientists Want To Hunt for Life on Long-Dead Worlds

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DeFi Boom Has Saved Bitcoin From Plummeting – Forbes

Posted on July 13, 2020 by Danzig

Concept of DEFI.

As noted in prior publications, bitcoin has disappointed many onlookers with muted price action, post-halving, for which multiple narratives have taken blame. However, despite the aforementioned finger pointing, no analyst has suggested that bitcoin price could be much lower without one large phenomenon occurring over the past 3 months: DeFi explosion.

DeFi, also known as Decentralized Finance, comes in many forms, including lending, derivatives, exchanges, and payments. The nascency and excitement around the space makes new protocol tokens susceptible to boom and bust cycles.

The most recent boom cycle is around liquidity mining. Liquidity mining is an incentive program set up by new DeFi protocols to attract users, i.e. liquidity. These programs typically distribute, so-called governance tokens to these liquidity providers, commonly known as yield farmers.

Though not new, DeFi incentive programs are cleverly orchestrated growth hacks, which have resulted in incredible spikes in network participation, total value locked, and market cap of governance tokens.

The most prominent example being Compound, a decentralized lending protocol that allows users to borrow and lend from a pool of assets, without permission. Per Delphi Digital and DeFi Pulse, Compound saw its value locked and market cap skyrocket once liquidity mining and governance tokens (COMP) distribution began, currently sitting at $668 million and $497 million, respectively.

https://defipulse.com/compound

On the surface, liquidity mining has little correlation to bitcoin price movements, but a deeper look reveals the connection. In order for yield farmers to receive governance tokens as compensation, they must participate in the network as either borrower or lender, which requires a deposit into a pool that borrowers can withdraw from provided they post sufficient collateral, and allows users to earn above market interest rates on their holdings, plus capital gains from COMP token appreciation.

https://www.tradingview.com/chart/Uud5EVbi/

The largest amount of value locked in DeFi comes from Ethereum (ETH) tokens, $715 million, at the time of writing, followed by bitcoin, $141 million.

https://defipulse.com/

Additionally, Saniya Moore notes, one of the hottest tokens on Ethereum right now is WBTC, or wrapped BTC, an ERC-20 token backed 1:1 by bitcoin, because of a massive rush by yield farmers to buy WBTC, in order to participate in the Compound network, thus earn COMP governance tokens.

https://defipulse.com/wbtc

Combining both value locked up by BTC and WBTC equates to $241 million of bitcoin currently locked up within DeFi, diminishing trading supply on the open market, thus buoying bitcoin price.

Last, the impressive participant and price growth seen within the DeFi space over the past 3 months, has coincided with or helped enable alt season, aptly dubbed for alternative small cap coins rapidly increasing in price. The majority of alt coins trade on BTC pairs, which means any new speculators entering the space will need to acquire bitcoin first, before trading. In essence, providing a subtle undercurrent of buying support for bitcoin.

For all the positives DeFi has brought bitcoin over the past 90 days, it also offers several risks. For example, the crypto market is highly reflexive, meaning the same sentiment that drove value locked up and price to unprecedented heights, will inevitably reverse, potentially spilling over onto bitcoin. Likely reversal catalysts are code exploits within decentralized protocols, commonly seen over the years, or an abrupt end to alt season.

How this particular chapter of irrational exuberance ends, it is too early to tell, but bitcoin will likely not be immune.

Disclosure: The author owns bitcoin and ethereum.

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DeFi Boom Has Saved Bitcoin From Plummeting - Forbes

Bitcoin Thieves Hit Cashaa – Infosecurity Magazine

Posted on July 13, 2020 by Danzig

Cyber-criminals have compromised a British cryptocurrency exchange, making off with over $3min Bitcoin.

Cashaa has halted all its crypto-related transactions after cyber-criminals stole more than 336 Bitcoin from their exchange. The company has said that prima facia users have not been impacted by the theft.

In a media brief shared with Cointelegraph, Cashaas CEO Kumar Gaurav said: We are still investigating the damage caused by the incident and suspend all the withdrawals for 24 hours.

Kumar said that the theft occurred after malicious hackers compromised one of the exchanges digital wallets. Once access had been gained, the hackers sent the cryptocurrency contained within the wallet to themselves.

Guarav said that he had reason to believe that the cyber-criminals who hit Cashaa are based in East Delhi, India. Acting on this suspicion, the exchange has filed a cyber-crime incident report with the Delhi crime bureau under the cryptocurrency crime category.

A meeting of Cashaas board has been called to determine whether the company will bear all the losses associated with the crime.

Cashaa said it believes that to carry out the theft, cyber-criminals installed malware onto a computer used to make exchange transfers like user withdrawals. This malware sent a notification to the cyber-criminals at 1:23pm on July 10 when an employee logged into the account and made two transfers from a Blockchain.com wallet. It was this wallet that was then compromised and illegally relieved of over 336 Bitcoin.

The company is now taking steps to prevent the cyber-criminals who hit Cashaa from selling the stolen cryptocurrency on exchanges. On Twitter, Cashaa posted the Bitcoin address of the hacker in hopes of tracking any movement of the illegally acquired funds.

Guarav said Bitcoin thefts were on the rise because some cryptocurrency exchanges made it easy for cyber-criminals to launder stolen funds.

As of today, hackers are very confident to hack crypto addresses and move it through exchanges that are facilitating such laundering through their systems, said Guarav.

Exchanges like these must be shut down and owners of these exchanges should be charged with money laundering facilitation crime.

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Black wealth must exit to Bitcoin, says author Isaiah Jackson – Decrypt

Posted on July 13, 2020 by Danzig

Bitcoin & Black America author Isaiah Jackson joined us on the latest episode of the new The Decrypt Daily podcast, discussing his book, the impact of COVID-19 on black and brown communities, and how he sees Bitcoin as a solution to address wealth inequality.

Released in July 2019, Bitcoin & Black America discusses the potential for Bitcoins impact on the black community amidst the digital transformation of money, plus it explains how business owners can accept cryptocurrency and highlights key black figures in the crypto space.

I'm a very solutions-based person, and one of the things I wanted to do was provide solutions and meet people where they are, Jackson explained to The Decrypt Daily host Mathew Aaron. A lot of times in the Bitcoin space, people are so smart that they're dumb. They know everything about everything, but they can't explain it to anybody, because they use way too many big words and jargon that nobody really cares about.

Plus, they forget they're talking to humans; humans always have their own interests at heart, he added. When you're talking about Bitcoin in general, nobody cares. Like, Alright, whatever. How does this affect me?

In addition to explaining some of his proposed solutions to increasing black wealth with Bitcoin and keeping that wealth within the community, Jackson digs into the potential for Bitcoin to help the black community create leverage and potentially break away from the current American financial system if needed.

The only two solutions I've seen since I've been alive have been money or violence. Violence is not the route that you want to go. You do want to protect yourself. So let's talk about the money, he said.

We as a community can come together and say, Hey, we will exit the system, and the trillions of dollars that we have basically helped create in this country will exit to Bitcoin. At the very least, you'll get taken seriously. And banks will have to change their practices. A lot of credit unions who are around they'll have to change their practices.

We definitely need something to protest with, he added. I think Bitcoin is the best peaceful protest.

Subscribe on iTunes to The Decrypt Daily to hear our full interview with Isaiah Jackson and continue to be informed about the latest happenings in cryptocurrency, blockchain, and decentralized tech.

The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.

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Black wealth must exit to Bitcoin, says author Isaiah Jackson - Decrypt

Nearly $60M in Bitcoin Moved to Ethereum in June – CoinDesk – CoinDesk

Posted on July 13, 2020 by Danzig

Nearly $60 million worth of bitcoins moved to Ethereum during June, according to data estimates from Dune Analytics. Wrapped Bitcoin, the oldest tokenized bitcoin protocol on Ethereum, is responsible for roughly 75% of that growth after moving more than 4,800 BTC to Ethereum last month.

Demand has increased for using bitcoin in a variety of decentralized financial services as Ethereum continues to be the most popular off-chain destination for bitcoins. More specifically, yield farming and MakerDAO adding tokenized bitcoin as collateral are likely strong catalysts, said Medio Demarco, former associate at Deutsche Bank and co-founder of cryptocurrency research firm Delphi Digital.

The recent trend shouldnt come as a surprise and will probably continue, Demarco told CoinDesk.

The increasing popularity of tokenized bitcoin is also no surprise to Ben Chan, CTO at BitGo, the cryptocurrency payments processor that spearheaded Wrapped Bitcoin. The purpose of WBTC is to bring bitcoin to the world of decentralized finance, Chan said. Yield opportunities for lending and supplying WBTC in Ethereum-based applications are driving recent growth, he added.

Currently $132 million worth of bitcoin is on Ethereum, at the time of publication, or roughly 0.08% of the leading cryptocurrencys market capitalization, according to OnChainFX.

Is the growing demand to use bitcoin on Ethereum a positive signal for the leading cryptocurrency? According to Demarco, the trend has a synergistic effect for both blockchains.

Chan agreed, telling CoinDesk that, for Ethereum, growth in the value of assets on decentralized finance applications is a step towards the maturation of trustless and transparent financial services. For Bitcoin, the benefit comes from being able to earn yield and collateralize bitcoin, which adds incentive for users to invest in the cryptocurrency, according to Chan.

Using bitcoin on Ethereum is potentially bullish for both networks, Chan said.

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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Nearly $60M in Bitcoin Moved to Ethereum in June - CoinDesk - CoinDesk

CoinSwap and the Ongoing Effort to Make Bitcoin Privacy ‘Invisible’ – CoinDesk – CoinDesk

Posted on July 13, 2020 by Danzig

A developer known for working on enhancing Bitcoin privacy has set his sights on a new project he hopes will massively improve how we keep our transactions private.

Chris Belcher, who also created the technical privacy market JoinMarket, is currently working on putting to the test CoinSwap, an idea first proposed by legendary Bitcoin developer Greg Maxwell in 2013. Belcher has been focusing on CoinSwap rather than JoinMarket because he thinks it will give users better privacy, he told CoinDesk.

Belcher recently received not just one, but two grants for his efforts, showing just how excited Bitcoiners are about the potential of the project.

Though the Bitcoin network arose from a privacy-minded movement, its privacy is actually pretty thin. Just take a look at any block explorer for a glimpse of how easy it is to pull up any transaction thats ever happened in Bitcoins history as well as the transactions associated history.

Right now, Bitcoin privacy is not very good at all. Anyone in the world can analyze the blockchain and then can find all sorts of information about users their balance, their history, who they transact with and in what amounts, when everything they spend, Belcher told CoinDesk in an interview.

Belcher argues that this is, in some ways, worse than the financial privacy we have in legacy systems today. The banking system, they know your transactions, but the general public doesnt. With Bitcoin it is the general public it is everyone that can see exactly what the user does, Belcher added.

He added its important to most people that this type of information isnt exposed to the whole world.

Financial privacy is good for human dignity, [for example], if you dont want your neighbors to see what charities you donate to or that type of thing, or if youre paid in bitcoin you dont want your employers to know what charities you donate to or what other activities youre involved in, Belcher added.

CoinJoins: today's Bitcoin privacy

CoinJoins (distinctive from CoinSwaps, which Belcher is putting to the test) are the privacy transactions that are most popular on Bitcoin today. CoinJoins give users good privacy and are becoming more popular. Thus far, they have been adopted in the Wasabi wallet, Samourai Wallet and JoinMarket.

A CoinJoin takes all inputs from several transactions by different users and mixes them into one big, collaborative transaction. This one big transaction then sends the bitcoins mixed from different addresses out to different addresses. Because no one can tell where the spent bitcoins originally came from, the scent of the trail is obfuscated and the participants in the CoinJoin gain better privacy.

But its not perfect. There are still ways for people analyzing the Bitcoin blockchain (namely blockchain analysis companies) to detect when and where bitcoins are being mixed.

For one thing, the transaction sizes of mixed coins are much bigger than normal transactions because they contain so many different inputs.

Also telling is the fact they have outputs that are all the same size. Equal output CoinJoins are very obvious. If someone sees them on the blockchain they can see that this kind of privacy protocol is happening, Belcher said.

Why are outputs the same size? If Bob sends 0.8 BTC into the CoinJoin transaction and Alice sends 0.187 BTC and Mary sends 1.2222 BTC, and the resulting outputs are exactly 0.8 BTC, 0.187 BTC and 1.2222 BTC respectively, that coincidence is pretty obvious to anyone who is looking.

In order to preserve privacy, a CoinJoin transaction usually splits the amount of bitcoin dispensed into even pieces, say 0.1 bitcoin. So, if Alice put in 0.3 bitcoin, she will receive three 0.1 pieces sent to three separate addresses that she controls.

Most transactions dont have a bunch of equal outputs like this. Thats why CoinJoins are easy to detect.

Indeed, there have been a few instances of cryptocurrency exchanges banning users who have evidently sent their bitcoin through such privacy services.

Theyll be suspicious. If theres someone analyzing the blockchain, theyll see this is a CoinJoin, so they know this person did that. And if they see another transaction, [by comparison] they can see that its not a CoinJoin, Belcher said.

CoinSwap: an invisibility cloak for transactions

CoinJoin and CoinSwap have similar names and they both help to preserve privacy, so its easy to confuse them. But theyre different, and Belcher argues CoinSwaps fixes many of the problems of some kinds of CoinJoins and is the next step for on-chain bitcoin privacy.

CoinSwaps can be made to look invisible, Belcher said. If done correctly, a CoinSwap transaction can look just like a vanilla bitcoin transaction.

In a CoinSwap, it looks like two separate people are sending completely separate transactions. But under the hood, something else completely is happening.

Two parties, say Alice and Bob, execute such a swap. In short, Alice sends some bitcoin to a CoinSwap address. Bob sends the same amount of bitcoin to a separate CoinSwap address.

If both send the right amount of money over, the coins are swapped. The coins Alice sent to the CoinSwap address are sent to a new address owned by Bob, and the coins Bob sent to his own CoinSwap address are sent to a new address owned by Alice.

'Teleporting' Coins

Under the hood, the CoinSwap address, which is responsible for this swapping, is much fancier than a normal bitcoin transaction. Its a multi-signature transaction, meaning it requires more than one person to sign off on it in order to send the transaction. Usually, these types of transactions stand out on the blockchain since they look different from normal bitcoin transactions. But by including ECDSA-2P cryptography, these multi-signature transactions can be made to look just like normal bitcoin transactions. This is very much Belchers plan.

With ECDSA-2P in place, Alice sends a CoinSwap to Bob and it just looks like just a normal transaction. But actually the coins have ended up somewhere else completely, Belcher said.

This component is important. If all of these transactions look the same, people who arent even using CoinSwaps are getting more privacy too. Theres no way to tell if any transaction is a CoinSwap transaction or a normal one, turning bitcoin chain analysis on its head.

Similar technology will expand to the Lightning Network as well, so blockchain watchers cant tell if any single transaction is a CoinSwap, a Lightning Network transaction or just a normal bitcoin transaction.

CoinSwap could be said to allow bitcoins to teleport undetectably to anywhere else on the blockchain, as a description of the technology on the Bitcoin Wiki puts it. For a deeper explanation, check out this post from JoinMarket developer Adam Gibson.

Thats not to say that CoinSwap is perfect, though. The problem with CoinSwap is that it is a much more complicated process to implement than CoinJoin.

'As decentralized as possible'

In his mountain of a post, Belcher describes how to turn the idea of CoinSwap into reality.

A key reason CoinSwaps havent taken off since Maxwell described them seven years ago is that theyre not as straightforward as CoinJoins. So, Belcher has his work cut out for him in implementing the complexity for the first time.

His first step was just thinking about the best way to do it, outlining a number of different design considerations in the article making up his plan of attack. For one, he plans to use the Rust programming language, since its potentially more secure than other languages.

I want to make it as decentralized as possible, so theres no central point of failure that can be switched off or censored, Belcher said. To meet this goal, he wants the whole thing to run over the privacy network Tor, which helps to shield IP addresses, which are kind of like a mailing address for a computer exposing where it is located.

I think thats quite necessary for privacy, he said.

Belcher outlines this and various other considerations in his proposal, such as routing and using PayJoin, yet another bitcoin privacy technology, alongside it. Now that his ideas are out in the public, people can comment and make suggestions.

The next step is actually implementing it. Belcher told CoinDesk he hopes to release a minimum viable product in the next six months.

Image: BallesStrob-4 by MathGoulet is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.

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CoinSwap and the Ongoing Effort to Make Bitcoin Privacy 'Invisible' - CoinDesk - CoinDesk

Lets All Get RichTeen TikTok Traders Want To Send Joke Bitcoin Rival Dogecoin To The Moon – Forbes

Posted on July 13, 2020 by Danzig

The world of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies has been set alight this week by the sudden surge of dogecoina "joke" cryptocurrency that's doubled in value in the last two days thanks videos posted on controversial China-based app TikTok.

Dogecoin, a tongue-in-cheek bitcoin rival named by Tesla TSLA chief executive Elon Musk as his "fav" cryptocurrency last year, is now worth $0.0046, up from $0.0023 earlier this week; effectively making it a cryptocurrency equivalent of a penny stock.

The dogecoin price rally was sparked by a viral TikTok video that's racked up almost 1 million viewswith the likes of Barstool Sports' David Portnoy pushing it onwards.

The doge meme is based on the Japanese Shiba Inu. The meme was turned into the "joke" currency ... [+] dogecoin, a cryptocurrency similar to bitcoin, in 2013.

"Lets all get rich," TikTok user James Galante told his relatively small number of 5,700 followers in a video that's now been viewed over 900,000 times. Galante's previous video, also promoting dogecoin, has been watched around 250,000 times.

"Dogecoin is practically worthless," Galante told his global audience. "There are 800 million TikTok users. Once it hits $1, youll have $10,000. Tell everyone you know."

TikTok videos, usually short, tightly edited clips featuring predominately younger people and often set to music, can attract huge audiences even if the video creators have few followers. TikTok's algorithm is good at picking up on what people like and promoting it to a wider audience, meaning that if a video is engaging there's a good chance it will get seen by a lot of people.

TikTok, which has 37 million U.S. users according to Statista, is potentially facing a country-wide ban after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox host Laura Ingraham this week the Trump administration is "certainly looking at" a ban and downloading the app would put people's "private information in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party."

TikTok, which has been downloaded more than two billion times globally, was banned in India last week amid security concerns and has also quit Hong Kong after China imposed a new security law on the city.

TikTok, now run by a former Disney top executive, Kevin Mayer, has said it would never share data with China.

But in the meantime, TikTok users continue to create, and watch, lots of dogecoin videos. There are now almost 10 million videos on TikTok with the hashtag "dogecoin," many with views well into the 10s of thousands.

"We're sending dogecoin to the moon," one TikTok user said, pointing his phone at a computer screen showing rocketing financial charts.

The sudden attention caused dogecoin trade volume to skyrocket by 1,000% at its peak on Wednesday, according to CoinMarketCap data.

Meanwhile, the TikTok-inspired dogecoin rally caught the attention of Dave Portnoy, the founder of Barstool Sports who has turned to stock market day trading amid coronavirus lockdowns and massive share price rallies brought on by unprecedented intervention by the U.S. Federal Reserve.

"What's going on with dogecoin," Portnoy asked viewers of his Barstool Sports livestream Davey Day Trader, adding he "isn't in on bitcoin and litecoin" and other cryptocurrencies.

"Everyone is buying this dogecoin. It's a pump-and-dump. Dogecoin is bubbly ros," Portney told his viewers, a term he coined meaning a stock or commodity that's performing well.

The dogecoin rally, somewhat resembling the bitcoin and crypto mania of late 2017, comes after popular stock trading app Robinhood has seen massive uptake among young people in recent monthsmany of whom are out of work due to the severe economic downturn brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

However, the dogecoin price is now only a fraction of the peak it reached in early 2018. Dogecoin, along with bitcoin and most other cryptocurrencies, have fallen sharply since hitting skyhigh values toward the end of 2017.

Elsewhere, veteran traders have also warned against people jumping on the dogecoin wagon.

"This is the most transparent pump-and-dump scam I've ever seen, though I'm not sure we can even call it a scam as everybody who gets involved knows it's a scam beforehand," Glen Goodman, a U.K.-based trader and author of The Crypto Trader, said via email.

"The TikTok videos urging people to bid up the doge price remind me of some of the world's most blatant pyramid schemes, where the sales pitch typically goes: 'Look, we all know this is a pyramid scheme that will collapse eventually, but you will be one of the winners who rakes in the cash, while only the later entrants will lose money.'"

The dogecoin price has almost doubled this week but the rapid rise is unlikely to hold, veteran ... [+] traders have warned.

A Twitter account associated with the cryptocurrency, @dogecoin, also cautioned potential buyers to beware.

"Be mindful of the intentions people have when they direct you to buy things," the unverified @dogecoin account that boasts almost 150,000 followers posted.

"None of them are in the spot to be financially advising. Make choices right for you, do not ride other people's [fear of missing out] or manipulation. Stay safe. Be smart."

For those wondering if they should buy dogecoin now to try to get in on the action, Goodman has some stark words of warning.

"With no fundamentals to support it, the price of dogecoin will only go up as long as the early buyers who are cashing out have new buyers to sell to," Goodman said. "Once the supply of willing suckers starts running dry, the price collapses."

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Lets All Get RichTeen TikTok Traders Want To Send Joke Bitcoin Rival Dogecoin To The Moon - Forbes

Bitcoin Will Never Be Truly Private Says Andreas Antonopoulos – Cointelegraph

Posted on July 13, 2020 by Danzig

Bitcoin educator Andreas Antonopoulos says he would like to see more privacy features on Bitcoin, but theyre unlikely to happen anytime soon.

In a livestream Q&A on Antonopoulos YouTube channel on July 7, he said Bitcoin (BTC) was unlikely to ever implement privacy features similar to those used by Monero (XMR).

Antonopoulos said creating such features on a cryptocurrency like BTC would create an enormous amount of controversy. In addition, he said the structure of Bitcoin simply doesnt allow ring signatures and stealth addresses.

I think what were going to see soon is Schnorr, Taproot, and Tapscript, which open the door to a lot of improvements, Antonopoulos said, But they still do not involve zero-knowledge proofs or the types of ring signatures and stealth addresses that are done in Monero. Bitcoin is not a privacy coin.

The features to which Antonopoulos is referring Schnorr, Taproot, and Tapscript (a scripting update to Taproot) have been cited by others in the crypto community as having the potential to make Bitcoin more private.

The director of research at blockchain firm Blockstream Andrew Poelstra has referred to Taproot as a system which could possibly render any transaction mostly indistinguishable from one another on the BTC blockchain. However, he noted that transaction amounts and the transaction graph are still exposed, which are much harder problems to address.

Multisignature schemes (MuSigs) from Schnorr are another possibility. Poelstra said using this method doesnt reveal the original set of signers, or even provide the number of signers for MuSig transactions.

Bitcoin can be better thought of as pseudonymous rather than fully anonymous, as many transactions on the BTC blockchain can still be traced even with these privacy improvements.

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Bitcoin Will Never Be Truly Private Says Andreas Antonopoulos - Cointelegraph

The Popular Stablecoin Tether Is Now Circulating on the Bitcoin Cash Network – Bitcoin News

Posted on July 13, 2020 by Danzig

The most popular stablecoin tether (USDT) has officially been minted on the Bitcoin Cash blockchain via the Simple Ledger Protocol (SLP). At press time theres only 1,010 SLP-based USDT in circulation, as the firm Tether Limited seems to be issuing small amounts and testing the SLP framework.

Tether (USDT) is the king of stablecoins in the crypto economy and according to the companys transparency page, there are more than $9.8 billion tethers in existence.

The stablecoin is a token that is also hosted on a number of blockchains including the Ethereum network, Omni Layer, Algorand, Tron, Liquid, and the EOS chain. Not too long ago, news.Bitcoin.com revealed that tether (USDT) was migrating some coins over to the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) blockchain via the Simple Ledger Protocol.

Tether Limiteds transparency page now shows that the company has been minting and testing the SLP framework. The data website simpleledger.info shows that the Tether team has officially minted 3,027 USDTs so far on the BCH chain.

However, 2,017 SLP-based USDT tokens have been burned, which only leaves 1,010 SLP-based USDT in circulation at the time of publication. A thousand dollars worth of stablecoins is not much, but Bitcoin Cash proponents believe that the company is simply trialing the SLP infrastructure.

Simpleledger.info also shows that the baton is alive, which means USDTs can be minted at any time. The genesis of the SLP-based USDT shows that the tokens were born on May 25, 2020. Searching the term tether in the simpleledger.info database also shows there is a number of phony tethers people have created since the SLP network came out.

The official USDT token ID is shown at Tether Limiteds official website, alongside the balances of tether on other blockchains. Theres been a total of 50 SLP-based USDT transactions so far on the Bitcoin Cash blockchain.

The SLP-based USDT rich list shows that this address has the most stablecoins with a balance of 874.14 USDT at the time of publication. The rest of the coins in circulation are spread out through a number of different addresses.

The largest amount of USDTs on any blockchain is held on ETH with $6 billion in ERC20-based tethers to-date. Of course, Bitcoin Cash fans were both pleased and skeptical about the appearance of USDTs on BCH.

On the subreddit r/btc, BCH fans discussed the recently issued SLP-based USDT on the forum. On July 7, Sideshift.ai announced that the Bitcoin Cash version of USDT is now live on the swapping platform.

BCH proponents also discussed holding USDTs on the Bitcoin.com Wallet thanks to the recently added asset breakdown and stablecoin features. On Twitter, the Sideshift team wrote: Be one of the first humans to shift USDT on SLP.

What do you think about tether (USDT) being minted on the Bitcoin Cash chain? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons, Tether, Simpleledger.info, Twitter, Sideshift.ai,

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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Bug in Bitcoin Wallets Found Using the Replace-By-Fee Feature – PRNewswire

Posted on July 13, 2020 by Danzig

DUBLIN, July 13, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- ResearchAndMarkets.com published a new article on the bitcoin industry "Bug in Bitcoin Wallets Found Using the Replace-By-Fee Feature"

A team at ZenGo discovered the BigSpender bug affecting major crypto-wallets, including Ledger Live, Edge, BreadWallet and potentially many more. The bug exploits how certain wallets handle the replace-by-fee feature which allows a user to swap an unconfirmed transaction with another transaction that has a higher fee. The RBF feature has become a standard way for users to send bitcoin and was developed as a way to circumvent slow confirmation times by paying more in fees.

Attackers can send funds to a wallet and set the fees low enough to almost guarantee the transaction will not receive a confirmation. The attacker can then use the RBF feature to replace the pending transaction with a transaction to another wallet that they control. For vulnerable wallets, this pending transaction will be reflected as an increase in the account balance, leading some users to believe they have received funds even though they have not. Attackers can also use the BigSpender vulnerability to send multiple fake transactions and reroute them before they are confirmed. This can cause the victim's stated balance and actual funds to become decoupled and could make the wallet unusable. Both Breadwallet and Ledger Live have released fixes to prevent the attacks.

To see the full article and a list of related reports on the market, visit "Bug in Bitcoin Wallets Found Using the Replace-By-Fee Feature"

About ResearchAndMarkets.comResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends.

Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.

Media Contact:

Research and Markets Laura Wood, Senior Manager [emailprotected]

For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900

U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907 Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

SOURCE Research and Markets

http://www.researchandmarkets.com

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Bug in Bitcoin Wallets Found Using the Replace-By-Fee Feature - PRNewswire

Forget gold and Bitcoin. I’d buy these 2 cheap UK shares today to become an ISA millionaire – Yahoo Finance UK

Posted on July 13, 2020 by Danzig

Avoiding cheap UK shares in favour of gold and Bitcoin may seem to be a logical approach for any investor seeking to make a million. Gold and Bitcoin have risen significantly over recent months, while indexes such as the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 have lagged their performances.

However, the track record of the stock market suggests a long-term recovery is very likely. Therefore, buying undervalued stocks today and holding them over the coming years may substantially increase your chances of becoming an ISA millionaire.

With that in mind, here are two cheap UK shares that could be worth buying today due to their potential to produce high returns in the long run. They could increase your chances of building a 1m ISA.

While many UK shares have delivered disappointing performances of late, Imperial Brands (LSE: IMB) 57% share price fall over the past five years is relatively poor.

Despite this, the companys most recent results showed it continues to produce rising revenue. For example, its sales in the first half of the year increased by 2%, with a growing market share in tobacco products boosting its financial performance. Alongside cost reductions, this suggests the profit potential for the business could improve over the medium term.

Clearly, tobacco volumes are likely to come under further pressure as consumer trends change. Furthermore, asset impairments caused a severe decline in the companys profitability in its most recent update.

However, with Imperial having strong brands that offer pricing power, as well as scope to invest in next-generation products such as e-cigarettes, it could deliver a relatively robust financial performance in an uncertain economic period.

As with many UK shares, Imperial Brands has reduced its dividend. However, it continues to offer a relatively attractive dividend yield of 10%. As such, it may yet experience further challenges in the short run, but could deliver a relatively impressive total return in the long run.

The Morrisons (LSE: MRW) stock price has outperformed many UK shares over recent months. Its down 8% since the start of the year, which is ahead of the FTSE 100s 20% decline in 2020.

The companys most recent update highlighted the rise in demand since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. For example, in the first quarter, its like-for-like (LFL) sales increased by 5.7%. This trend may persist over the coming months especially with the popularity of online shopping likely to rise.

Morrisons has invested heavily in its online offering, which could position the business for long-term growth as the gradual shift from in-store to e-commerce continues. Its balance sheet strength suggests it has the financial position to maintain a high degree of investment in its online services. It should also help it overcome what could prove to be a period of higher costs as it adapts to a changing retail environment.

Therefore, now could be the right time to add the stock to a portfolio of UK shares. Over time, they could boost your chances of becoming an ISA millionaire.

The post Forget gold and Bitcoin. Id buy these 2 cheap UK shares today to become an ISA millionaire appeared first on The Motley Fool UK.

Forget the National Lottery and Bitcoin! I reckon shares are a better way to get rich – Yahoo Finance UK

Posted on July 13, 2020 by Danzig

The growing number of ISA millionaires in the UK underlines the power of investing in shares to create wealth and get rich. Meanwhile, playing the National Lottery is hopeless as a wealth-generator for many, and dabbling with Bitcoin comes with massive risks.

Playing the National Lottery is a harmless bit of fun, but its no good as part of a plan to get rich. Why? Because the probability of winning a life-changing sum of money is vanishingly small.

According to the National Lottery website, the odds of getting six numbers right and winning the jackpot are one in 45,057,474. And the odds of getting five numbers plus the bonus ball are one in 7,509,579.

So maybe we should turn to Bitcoin and some of the other cryptocurrencies for our shot at making a million. I cant deny that some people have done extremely well from moves in the price of Bitcoin over the past few years.

Indeed, the first price ever recorded for Bitcoin was in October 2009 when a chap called Martti Malmi sold some for 0.09 US cents each. Peanuts, in other words. And the highest price ever recorded for a Bitcoin happened in December 2017 when it sold for $20,089. Thats loads of money when compared to the original price.

Today, the Bitcoin price is around $9,300, which is still many thousands of percent higher than its starting price. And, for me, thats one of the main problems. I see huge potential for the price to fall back down and limited opportunity for it to rise much from where it is now. Indeed, the spectacular rises of the past few years may never be repeated.

I reckon Bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies are risky vehicles driven by nothing much other than speculation. So Id avoid them all and turn to shares and share-backed investments in a drive to create wealth. Indeed, over the long haul, studies have shown that shares on the stock market have outperformed all other major classes of asset. And I think thats a good starting point for any plan to get rich.

You can sidestep some of the risks involved with investing by avoiding speculative stocks and diversifying across several different shares. You could even invest using managed funds and trackers for a wider approach to diversification.

But if you focus on identifying good-quality underlying businesses and buy the shares at opportune moments when good value is on offer, you could do well over the long haul. Key to generating wealth is to compound your investments. So Id plough all my dividends and gains from selling shares back into more shares.

I reckon a carefully managed programme of investment in quality shares over a long period of time is a surer and better way to aim for wealth. So Id forget speculating on Bitcoin and playing the National Lottery.

The post Forget the National Lottery and Bitcoin! I reckon shares are a better way to get rich appeared first on The Motley Fool UK.

Cancel Cardano? You cant cancel Bitcoin Cancel culture rears its head in crypto-community – AMBCrypto English

Posted on July 13, 2020 by Danzig

Cancel Culture A term that has been doing the rounds lately after the open letter by Harpers, one signed by the likes of Noam Chomsky, Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, and J.K Rowling went viral. At its simplest, it refers to the withdrawal of popular support after a public figure or entity says or does something that people believe is objectionable or condemnable. The crypto-community isnt immune from cancel culture either, with the issue emerging recently after IOHKs Charles Hoskinson took issue with a tweet.

The tweet in question referred to the viral video of Chinese farmers being advertised Cardano, the markets seventh-largest cryptocurrency and one of its best performers this year. Now, Charles Hoskinson was quick to respond to the same, stating These events have nothing to do with ADA or its recent appreciation. Going on to say that they are illegal, Hoskinson said that the event had no affiliation with anyone in the Cardano ecosystem.

Should be case closed, right? Wrong, because soon after, the author of the tweet, Hashkey Hubs Mo Li, received some form of a cease and desist letter from IOHKs representatives.

Strong-arming or cause for action?

The reactions to this episode are worth covering because it once again sheds light on the faultlines that divide the crypto-community. Check out Hoskinson and Cardanos response to Mo Lis tweets, and then check out the reactions to Lis response. The backlash Cardano is getting, for actions that may or may not have been justified, is staggering, with Cancel Cardano doing the rounds too.

Cancel Cardano

Herein lies the tragedy of entities operating in the cryptocurrency market.

Bitcoin, and by extension the cryptocurrency ecosystem, was built on the solid foundations of Libertarianism, an ideology that champions the idea of free speech and expression. The concept of cryptocurrencies enshrined these very ideas, which is why even today, Bitcoin is governed by an open-source MIT license that allows anyone to use, share, and modify the software at no additional cost.

The actions of IOHK, on the face of it, seem to be contrary to those ideals. In fact, the episode shares striking similarities with mainstream cases where big corporations and firms have strong-armed people into taking back an opposing comment or a claim.

By that idealistic yardstick, Hoskinson should have just let this one go after stating categorically that IOHK and the Foundation had nothing to do with the aforementioned event. However, playing devils advocate, is that as easy as it sounds? The cryptocurrency market has for long struggled to maintain its mainstream image as a serious industry, despite its history being plagued by hundreds of scams and hacks and thefts.

Entities like the IOHK and Cardano have played a crucial role in rehabilitating the industrys image. Why then wouldnt they forcefully respond to a tweet which, in all honesty, may have falsely alluded to something sinister, despite its author claiming otherwise? Would they take a chance with the reputational risk such a tweet may carry for itself and the wider market?

Cancel everything.. except Bitcoin

There are arguments to be made for both sides here, but thats not the point. The point is that a lot of the same people who were indignant about Cardano supposedly strong-arming a digital asset management firm exec by citing sacrosanct principles of free speech are the same ones to call for canceling Cardano. While many altcoins continue to face questions over their supposed utility and existence, most people are happy to share memes that say You cant cancel Bitcoin.

Cancel culture isnt something I condone. But, ideally, it should only come into play for the right reasons. As the IOHK episode reveals, that isnt the case universally as right within the crypto-community, it is being used to further divides between coins and proponents in a vicious exercise of crypto-tribalism.

Look no further than how the community reacted to Vitalik Buterins misguided attempt at using World War II analogies to explain Ethereums position in the market. While Buterin should have been skewered on the stake of public opinion for his tasteless analogies, he was instead bombarded by maximalists who just wanted to argue for arguments sake, while propping up Tron as a supposed competitor.

Now, look at the case of Brave browser, a privacy-centered platform that was recently alleged to have harassed an open-source contributor who worked on a competitors platform. Hardly any outrage accompanied those allegations. You know why? Because while most of the community holds the idea of privacy near and dear, there is no tribalistic clique around it, and by extension, around projects like Brave.

Cancel culture is not the solution to any problem. In fact, according to research, such a solution may do more harm than good since it breeds a private echo chamber where views and opinions are used for confirmation bias and group-think, rather than introspection and evaluation.

A free exchange of thoughts and ideas, even when they are problematic and tasteless, is at the core of what cryptocurrencies are supposed to be. Calling for canceling that crypto or that public figure, that kind of behavior isnt what the community should be about.

Originally posted here:

Cancel Cardano? You cant cancel Bitcoin Cancel culture rears its head in crypto-community - AMBCrypto English

Mrida makes the Travel + Leisure top 25 best cities in the world to travel – The Yucatan Times

Posted on July 13, 2020 by Danzig

Mrida appears in the 24th place in a select list of the 25 best cities in the world to travel, which is produced each year, with the help of its readers, by the Travel + Leisure specialized magazine.

These are the Travel + Leisure Worlds Best Awards 2020, which in its 25th edition recognized Oaxaca in the first place, a city that also obtained the distinction as Mexico Top City.

According to the newspaper El Universal, the federal Secretary of Tourism, Miguel Torruco Marqus, said that Mexico is the only country with four cities within the top 25, and he sent his congratulations to Oaxaca and San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato (first and second place respectively); Mexico City (eleventh place) and Mrida, Yucatn (twenty-fourth).

This list is obtained thanks to the travel opinions of the readers of this specialized publication based in New York City, which is dedicated to giving advice and tips on destinations around the world and has also delivered these awards for the last 25 years.

The governor of Oaxaca, Alejandro Murat Casab, assured that the official announcement is expected this Wednesday, July 15, after 5 p.m., and on that day, Oaxaca will officially receive the Worlds Best City to Travel in the World Award by Travel + Leisure.

Since 2017, Oaxaca has been listed each year among the best 15 cities on the planet and in the top five best cities in Mexico, according to this publication with a global presence.

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Mrida makes the Travel + Leisure top 25 best cities in the world to travel - The Yucatan Times

Oaxaca, Mexico, Is No. 1 City Overall in 25th Annual Travel + Leisure World’s Best Awards – PRNewswire

Posted on July 13, 2020 by Danzig

TRAVEL + LEISURE WORLD'S BEST AWARDS 2020 WINNERS OVERALL

WORLD'S BEST CITY

Oaxaca, Mexico

WORLD'S BEST HOTEL

Capella Ubud, Bali, Indonesia

WORLD'S BEST HOTEL BRAND

The Leela Palaces, Hotels and Resorts

WORLD'S BEST ISLAND

Palawan, Philippines

WORLD'S BEST MEGA-SHIP OCEAN CRUISE LINE

Disney Cruise Line

WORLD'S BEST LARGE-SHIP OCEAN CRUISE LINE

Viking

WORLD'S BEST MIDSIZE-SHIP OCEAN CRUISE LINE

Seabourn

WORLD'S BEST SMALL-SHIP OCEAN CRUISE LINE

Quasar Expeditions

WORLD'S BEST RIVER CRUISE LINE

Crystal River Cruises

WORLD'S BEST INTERNATIONAL AIRLINE

Singapore Airlines

WORLD'S BEST DOMESTIC AIRLINE

JetBlue Airways

WORLD'S BEST INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

Singapore Changi Airport, Singapore

WORLD'S BEST DOMESTIC AIRPORT

Indianapolis International Airport, Illinois

WORLD'S BEST SAFARI OUTFITTER

Rothschild Safaris

WORLD'S BEST TOUR OPERATOR

Ker & Downey

WORLD'S BEST CAR-RENTAL COMPANY

National Car Rental

WORLD'S BEST INTERNATIONAL DESTINATION SPA

Rancho La Puerta, Tecate, Mexico

WORLD'S BEST DOMESTIC DESTINATION SPA

Pearl Laguna, Laguna Beach, California

TRAVEL + LEISURE WORLD'S BEST HOTEL 2020 WINNERS, BY REGION

CONTINENTAL U.S. OVERALL

BEST CITY HOTEL

The Mark, New York, New York

BEST RESORT HOTEL

Lodge & Spa at Brush Creek Ranch, Saratoga, Wyoming

U.S. (BY REGION)

BEST RESORT HOTEL IN THE NORTHEAST

Rabbit Hill Inn, Lower Waterford, Vermont

BEST RESORT HOTEL IN THE SOUTH

Fearrington House Inn, Pittsboro, North Carolina

BEST RESORT HOTEL IN THE MIDWEST

Deer Path Inn, Lake Forest, Illinois

BEST RESORT HOTEL IN THE WEST

Lodge & Spa at Brush Creek Ranch, Saratoga, Wyoming

BEST RESORT HOTEL IN CALIFORNIA

North Block Hotel, Yountville

BEST RESORT HOTEL IN FLORIDA

Sunset Key Cottages, Key West

BEST RESORT HOTEL IN GREATER MIAMI BEACH

Kimpton Angler's Hotel South Beach

BEST HOTEL IN NEW YORK CITY

The Mark

BEST HOTEL IN GREATER LOS ANGELES

Santa Monica Proper Hotel

BEST HOTEL IN CHICAGO

The Peninsula

BEST HOTEL IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

The Hay-Adams

BEST HOTEL IN CHARLESTON

Wentworth Mansion

BEST RESORT HOTEL IN HAWAII

Halepuna Waikiki by Halekulani, Waikiki

BEST HOTEL IN LAS VEGAS

Wynn

CANADA

BEST CITY HOTEL

Loden Hotel, Vancouver

BEST RESORT HOTEL

Fogo Island Inn, Newfoundland

THE CARIBBEAN, BERMUDA & THE BAHAMAS

BEST RESORT HOTEL

Secret Bay, Dominica

MEXICO

BEST CITY HOTEL

Hotel Amparo, San Miguel de Allende

BEST RESORT HOTEL

Cala de Mar Resort & Spa, Ixtapa

CENTRAL & SOUTH AMERICA

BEST CITY HOTEL

Casa Gangotena, Quito, Ecuador

CENTRAL AMERICA

BEST RESORT HOTEL

Gardens, Arenal Volcano National Park, Costa Rica

SOUTH AMERICA

BEST RESORT HOTEL

Awasi Patagonia, Torres del Paine, Chile

EUROPE (OVERALL)

BEST CITY HOTEL

Raffles, Istanbul, Turkey

BEST RESORT HOTEL

Canaves Oia Epitome, Santorini, Greece

EUROPE (BY REGION)

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Oaxaca, Mexico, Is No. 1 City Overall in 25th Annual Travel + Leisure World's Best Awards - PRNewswire

How the world’s busiest airport will use technology for post-Covid travel – IOL

Posted on July 13, 2020 by Danzig

By Tracy Rucinski 12h ago

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With COVID-19 ravaging the aviation industry, airlines and airports worldwide are reining in costs and halting new spending, except in one area: reassuring pandemic-wary passengers about travel.

"Whatever the new normal (...) it's going to be more and more around self-service," Sean Donohue, chief executive of Dallas-Forth Worth International Airport (DFW), told Reuters in an interview.

The airport is working with American Airlines - whose home base is DFW - to roll out a self-check-in for luggage, and all of its restrooms will be entirely touchless by the end of July with technology developed by Infax Inc. They will have hands-free sinks, soap, flushing toilets, and paper towel dispensers, which will be equipped with sensors to alert workers when supplies are low.

"One of the biggest complaints airports receive are restrooms," Donohue said.

Dallas is piloting three technology options for luggage check-ins: Amadeus's ICM, SITA, and Materna IPS.

DFW has become the world's busiest airport, according to figures from travel analytics firm Cirium, thanks in part to a strategy by large global carrier American to concentrate much of its pandemic flying through its Texas hub.

Last year DFW rolled out biometric boarding -- where your face is your boarding pass -- for international flights and is taking advantage of the lull in international traffic to work with U.S. Customs and Border Protection to use the VeriScan technology for arriving passengers too, he said.

Delta Air Lines opened the first U.S. biometric terminal in Atlanta in 2018, and some airports in Europe and Asia also use facial recognition technology. It has spurred some concerns, however, with a U.S. government study finding racial bias in the technology and the European Union earlier this year considered banning it in public places over privacy concerns.

The Dallas airport is also testing new technology around better sanitization, beginning with ultraviolet technology that can kill germs before they circulate into the HVAC system.

But it has also deployed electrostatic foggers and hired a "hit team" of 150 people who are going through the terminals physically sanitizing high-touch areas.

"Technology is critical because it can be very efficient," Donohue said, but customers "being able to visualize what's happening is reassuring as well."

DFW has invested millions of dollars above its cleaning and sanitation budget since the pandemic broke out, while suspending about $100 million of capital programs and reducing its second-half operating costs by about 20% as it addresses COVID-19's steep hit to the industry, which only months ago was preparing for growth.

Nearly 114,000 customers went through DFW on July 11, an improvement from a 10,000 per day trough in April, but still just about half of last year's volumes.

The airport has also been testing touchless technology for employee temperature checks, but is not currently planning hotly-debated checks for passengers, barring a federal mandate for which there has yet to be any inclination by the U.S. government.

Michael Davies, who runs the New Technology Ventures program at London Business School, said technology will be one of many changes to the airport experience going forward, with fewer overall travelers who will be seeking more space and spending less time dining and shopping.

"You put these things together and this feels in some interesting ways very much like back to the golden age of air travel," said Davies.

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How the world's busiest airport will use technology for post-Covid travel - IOL

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