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Oxford English Dictionary Recognizes Growing Adoption of Crypto by Adding ‘Satoshi’ – CryptoGlobe

Posted on October 25, 2019 by Danzig

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Oxford English Dictionary Recognizes Growing Adoption of Crypto by Adding Satoshi

oxford-english-dictionary-recognizes-growing-adoption-of-crypto-by-adding-satoshi

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which calls itself "the definitive record of the English language", has added the word "satoshi" to its database.

The Oxford English Dictionary is published byOxford University Press(OUP). The OED follows the development of the English language over the past thousand years, "providing a comprehensive resource to scholars and academic researchers, as well as describing usage in its many variations throughout the world."

Work on the OED began in 1857 and although the most recent printed edition (i.e. the 2nd edition) was published in 1989, an online version of the OED has been available since 2000, which is when the editors of the OED began the work of creating the third edition of the dictionary (expected to be ready by 1837 and only in an electronic form). Currently, the OED has definitions for over 600,000 words.

According to a blog post by the OED about its latestquarterly update,"satoshi" (a word that was "first used less than seven years ago") was the most recent addition. Here is the official definition:

The smallest monetary unit in the Bitcoin digital payment system, equal to one hundred millionth of a bitcoin.

And here is what the entry for "satoshi" says about the etymology of this word:

the name of Satoshi Nakamoto (reportedly born in 1975), to whom the introduction of the Bitcoin system is attributed, presumed to be a pseudonym for one or more unknown persons

As for the word "cryptocurrency", this is how is defined in the OED:

1. An informal, substitute currency. rare. 2. Any of various digital payment systems operating independently of a central authority and employing cryptographic techniques to control and verify transactions in a unique unit of account; (also) the units of account of such a system, considered collectively.

Featured Image Credit: Photo via Pixabay.com

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Oxford English Dictionary Recognizes Growing Adoption of Crypto by Adding 'Satoshi' - CryptoGlobe

Wonders Of The Blockchain-Enabled Supply Chain – Coinrevolution.com

Posted on October 25, 2019 by Danzig

Stuart Haber and Scott Stronetta were the very first individuals with the idea of cryptographically securing a block. The objective of their concept was to securely timestamp the documents in a way that it could not be tampered with.

But it wasnt until 2008 when Satoshi Nakamoto conceptualized the idea. He improved the system using methodology similar to hash cash. Bitcoin was born the following year. Still, nobody knows Satoshi Nakamotos true identity. A whole range of bitcoin conspiracies has erupted and gone dormant.

The technology underlying bitcoin is being widely used across industries to enhance the existing model of operations in various internal and external functions. As we approach the next generation, blockchain is estimated to be used as a platform for e-government, predictive analytics, artificial intelligence, security, and IoT. Supply chain is one of the areas that blockchain technology is seeing increasing usage.

Most companies use supply chain management and enterprise resource planning softwares. Now, despite these investments, the companies are limited invisibility when it comes to where all their products go at a given time.

The analogue gaps within the ecosystem of the supply chain are conspicuous. Production may be digitally recorded at the manufacturing point, but as soon as product is disbursed, visibility and tracking are restricted to tools like the RFID and PDF.

These technologies may have been relevant three decades ago, but not now. The creation of data where a pool of entities could agree was only possible through a middleman. Until blockchain rocked the scene.

The P2P technology has eliminated the need for a middleman and made it possible for companies in the ecosystem to share and agree on some pieces of information in the ecosystem.

There is no need for a central intermediary. All transactions and data are synchronised through blockchain and participants in the network can verify calculations and the work of others.

The same logic is being applied to the supply chain. Blockchain features such as security and redundancy of blockchain apply to things like inventory, which has resulted in the substitution of chain partners with banking nodes. It has created a foundation of an entirely new way of supply chain management using blockchain.

Essentially, the technology provides that there cannot be two locations of an inventory at the same time. When a product moves, it immediately reflects on the network as in transit. At the same time, users can track their traceability to its given point of origin.

Although the supply chain management system powered by blockchain is still nascent in the space, multinationals have been quick to adopt it and are still pilot testing the system.

For instance, Starbucks is set to use the DLT system powered by Azure Blockchain Service in achieving the traceability benefit. On the other hand, PepsiCo just tested project proton to test how blockchain-powered supply management can increase efficiency. They have discovered a 28% boost in supply chain efficiency.

With 18 Million Bitcoins Mined, How Hard Is That 21 Million Limit? – CoinDesk

Posted on October 25, 2019 by Danzig

In a matter of hours, the 18 millionth bitcoin will have been mined and the worlds first cryptocurrency will draw one step closer to its hard-coded cap of 21 million coins.

The pie is shrinking. This [milestone] gives people some simple math to raise awareness about where were at in the [bitcoin mining] process, said Alex Adelman, CEO of bitcoin rewards platform Lolli, adding:

Its good for people to see the progress of bitcoin, to look back on everything that has been done and will be done for the next 3 million. You should pay attention to the next 3 million.

But dont worry, youll have 120 years to do so.

The next 3 million bitcoins will be progressively slower to mine as a result of block reward halvings which occur every 210,000 blocks (or roughly four years) and reduce new bitcoin supply by 50 percent. The final bitcoin is expected to be mined in 2140.

Or is it?

It seems blasphemous even to go there, given bitcoins value proposition as digital gold. But outsiders foresee a day when the 21 million cap might, gasp, come up for debate.

Eventually, once there are no more bitcoins left to mint, miners will rely solely on transaction fees, which are paid by users to transfer coins through the blockchain. This change gives cause for concern to some who view bitcoins block subsidies as integral to bitcoins incentive system.

To skeptics, this could undermine the structure that motivates miners to record validated transactions in the ledger.

All of your assumptions about incentives, risk and value go out the window, said Angela Walch, a research fellow at the University College London Centre for Blockchain Technologies. Please take the blinders off and stop assuming that everything will still work well once everything goes to a pure transaction-fees system as opposed to block [subsidy].

Currently, with each block, miners get a subsidy of 12.5 newly created BTC, worth roughly $99,370, plus any additional transaction fees, which normally dont totalmore than 1 BTC.

Along the same lines, Paul Brody, global innovation leader for audit firm Ernst & Young (EY), said bitcoins limited supply could limit the cryptocurrencys utility as a global reserve currency.

Pointing to situations such as the Great Recession where monetary policy interventions were needed to lift the U.S. out of economic turmoil, Brody said:

If bitcoin were to become a substantial part of the global monetary system, we would need to address [the hard supply cap] because a lot of economists agree deflationary systems are not necessarily the best thing.

Both Walch and Brody suggested that bitcoins 21 million supply cap might one day be subject to change. What if?

We need to acknowledge that the 21 million cap is aspirational, said Walch. If people decide to change that [supply] cap for certain reasons and enough people make that decision, the system will move to it. Its aspiration, not reality.

While technically feasible, a change to the supply cap would almost certainly be a non-starter for bitcoin users who cherish its gold-like properties. Indeed, bitcoins code has long been governed by a community with a bias toward retaining the coins original features as created by its pseudonymous founder, Satoshi Nakamoto.

Unlike ethereum, the worlds second-largest cryptocurrency, the bitcoin blockchain has rarely seen backward-incompatible, system-wide upgrades changing core code features.

In the rare instances it has, the bitcoin community has gone through fierce governance disputes such as the infamous scaling debates of 2017, which centered on a potential increase to bitcoins block size. The philosophical rift ultimately resulted in the creation of bitcoin cash in August 2017.

Still, a prospective hard fork that would change bitcoins 21-million-coin supply cap is conceivable, if perhaps heretical.

Its not a given that bitcoin has to stay at that 21 million hard limit, said EYs Brody (who, it should be noted, is building enterprise applications on top of rival chain ethereum). There is a governance mechanism to permit changes in bitcoin if the community agrees that would be good.

Even so, bitcoin advocate and author Andreas Antonopoulos stressed that governance drama surrounding bitcoins supply cap is nothing to lose sleep over especially since bitcoins transition to a purely transaction-fee rewards model will take 120 years.

Antonopoulos added that from the very launch of bitcoin in 2009, mining was always a marginally profitable endeavor never intended to stay constant.

[Mining rewards] dynamically adjust based on the network. Its a very complex economic environment. Its not as simple as people think, said Antonopoulos, adding:

There are half a dozen variables that determine miner profitability [right now] including the cost of electricity, their access to bandwidth transaction, the block subsidy, the transaction fees at the time, bitcoin price, their local currency exchange rate, the type of equipment and how efficient it is at converting electricity into mining.

As such, Antonopoulos says the concerns surrounding a transition from a block subsidy to purely transaction-based block rewards are grossly overblown.

Nothing magical happens when block subsidy drops to zero, said Antonopoulos. Its a very gradual and predictable change that happens over a period of 120 years. Its already happening and every day [miners] make their decisions.

While the 18th million bitcoin may not be the best reminder of the ongoing reality of a limited supply cap, the next upcoming milestone on bitcoins horizon assuredly will.

Viewing the next bitcoin halving as a far more notable event in bitcoins history, venture capitalist William Mougayar said:

In my opinion, [the 18 million] milestone is not that significant in relation to the next halving which occurs May 2020. On that date, the block [subsidy] will go from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC.

Andreas Antonopoulos image via Christine Kim for CoinDesk

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With 18 Million Bitcoins Mined, How Hard Is That 21 Million Limit? - CoinDesk

Ethereum had a less than stellar Q3, intense 6 months ahead as ETH 2.0 looms – The Next Web

Posted on October 24, 2019 by Danzig

he plaBy now, you should almost certainly know about Ethereum, ETH the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap. But if you needed a quick recap, here it is.

Ethereums creators wanted to build a platform that would allow users all over the world to write decentralized applications, and use the Ethereum blockchain as a world computer.

The decentralized platform made smart contracts a key part of the blockchain conversation, and demonstrated to the world how blockchain technology can be used for more than just cryptocurrency.

It sounds great, but bringing the Ethereum vision to life is proving difficult for its community of supporters and developers.

One of the most contentious topics of the moment for the platform and one of its creators, Vitalik Buterin, is the transition to ETH 2.0. The series of updates and improvements designed to make the Ethereum platform faster and more reliable will not be implemented overnight. Its going to be a long process, thats due to commence next year, but wont be complete for many more months.

One of Ethereums founding members, Joseph Lubin, has said that the updates should make Ethereum far more scalable within the next 24 months. But of course, a lot has to fall into place for that fact to be realized.

Before we take a look at how Ethereum has performed in the third quarter of the year, lets remind ourselves how things went down in Q2.

In terms of trading price, Ethereum had a solid second quarter.

At the start of April,Ethereumexperienced a rally which saw its price increase by 27 percent from $139 to $177. Unfortunately, this uptick in price was short-lived by the end of April a market correction pulledEthereums trading price down to $150.

Thankfully, the correction didnt have a lasting effect on Ethereum, and over the course of May the digital coin showed nothing but steady growth. Over the four weeks of May, ETHs price increased a whopping 95 percent, topping out at just over $271 per coin.

Over the final month of Q2,Ethereumcontinued to grow. It didnt show the same pace it had shown a month earlier, but by the end of June,Ethereumwas up on where it was at the start of the month. As it happened,Ethereumreached its quarterly high trading price ($335) in June.

Over the course of the quarter, Ethereums trading price rose 114 percent. Not too shabby if youre holding on to ETH tokens for the long run.

Despite having a stellar Q2 and ending the previous quarter on a high, the same cannot be said for the digital coins Q3 performance.

From the first day of the quarter Ethereums price has proceeded on a steady downward trajectory.

Ethereumopened Q3 trading at around $285. The coin held steady around this price during the first week of the quarter. It even saw a 7.7 percent increase on July 8 as itsprice rose to $307 per token.

Unfortunately, that would be as good as it got for Ethereum at the start of Q3. By the third week of July its price started tumbling, a trend seen across a host of other cryptocurrencies and digital tokens.

By July 16, Ethereum hit $202, the lowest trading price for the whole month. This is a painful 34-percent drop over the high it saw in the first week of the month.

The cryptocurrency showed no signs of rallying to better things as it progressed into the middle of Q3. Over the entire month of August, ETH continued to drop in value.

There was a small uptick in trading price at the start of the month which saw Ethereums price grow from $211 to around $231, a 9.5-percent increase.

However, the decentralized token went into free fall for the rest of month.

At the end of August,ETH was trading for $166 per coin, a 28-percent drop from the high it saw at the start of month. Thinking back to the $307 quarterly high seen in July, at the end of Augustthe token had decreased by 46 percent in price.

Despite a slow and steady price rally over the first two weeks of September, the last month of the quarter proved to be just as cruel a mistress as the first two.

Ethereumopened September trading at a hair over $168. Over the next two and a half weeks, its price grew steadily eventually reaching $217, a 30 percent increase.

Unfortunately, the coins price didnt continue to grow or make up for its poor performance at the start of the quarter. The 30 percent increase seen in the middle of the month was erased almost immediately as Ethereums price dropped on September 20, it eventually settled at $162 a few days later.

Perhaps Ethereums sub-par performance in Q3 was a result of the lack of positive news for Buterins baby.

In August, Vitalik Buterin warned the community that his blockchain was almost full, and that a lack of scalability is proving to be a consistent bottleneck. Ultimately, it seems that keeping organizations from joining the network, isnt good for adoption.

Whats more, research from cloud service provider Chainstack showed that over half of Ethereum nodes are running on cloud computing services, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Thats incredibly shaky news for a platform that positions itself as decentralized. If that wasnt bad enough, in early September Ethereum overtook Bitcoin in terms of daily fees. Perhaps a sign that Ethereum is struggling to deal with the volume of users.

That said, its not all bad news for the so-called world computer. Dapp developers still love Ethereum, even if it is lagging behind in active users, according to Dapp Radar.

There was also some good news for traders, as eToro announced the addition of five Ethereum-based tokens to its professional trading platform, eToro X. It also said it has plans to add a further 115 in the future.

The start of Q4 is already looking more positive forEthereum within the first two weeks of OctoberEthereums price reached $195.

A small market correction saw Ethereums price drop back down to trade between $160 and $180 for the following week.

The future ofButerins platformhangs in the balance, though. News that itsblockchainis struggling to deal with demands on its resources means the future looks uncertain at best.

According to a CoinDesk report published in Q3, Ethereum is facing challenges on all fronts. It doesnt just have to address its scalability woes, it also has to consider its future as money.

However, investors dont seem to be immediately worried about Ethereums short term future. It seems Buterin and co have doing enough to keep traders interested, for now.

With every passing week, we get closer to the planned launch of ETH 2.0. How that affects the long term functionality of the platform though, remains to be seen. But it might be time to grab the popcorn, because Q4 2019 and Q1 2020 are going to be interesting.

This post is brought to you by eToro. eToro is a multi-asset platform which offers both investing in stocks and cryptocurrencies, as well as trading CFD assets.

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Published October 23, 2019 06:43 UTC

Ethereum and Stellars Lumen Daily Tech Analysis 24/10/19 – Yahoo Finance

Posted on October 24, 2019 by Danzig

Ethereum

Ethereum tumbled by 5.12% on Wednesday. Following on from a 1.75% decline on Tuesday, Ethereum ended the day at $162.49.

A bearish start to the day saw Ethereum fall from an early morning high $171.48 to an early morning low $164.10.

Steering clear of the major resistance levels, Ethereum fell through the first major support level at $169.38 and second major support level at $167.46.

Finding support late in the morning, Ethereum recovered to $167.6 levels before sliding to a late afternoon intraday low $153.0.

The broad-based mid-day crypto sell-off saw Ethereum slide back through the second major support level at $167.46 and third major support level at $162.53.

Through the late part of the day, a late jump to an intraday high $174.05 was short-lived, with Ethereum sliding back through the major support levels to wrap up the day at $162 levels.

The extended bearish trend, formed at late April 2018s swing hi $828.97, remained firmly intact. A reversal from Junes current year high $364.49 back through the 23.6% FIB of $257 reaffirmed the extended bearish trend.

At the time of writing, Ethereum was down by 0.76% to $161.26. A bearish start to the day saw Ethereum fall from an early morning high $162.88 to a low $159.01 before finding support.

Ethereum left the major support and resistance levels untested early on.

Ethereum would need to move back through to $162.40 levels to support a run at the first major resistance level at $171.65.

Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Ethereum to break through to $170 levels.

Barring a broad-based crypto rebound, Ethereum would likely face plenty of resistance at $170 to limit any upside.

Failure to move back through to $162.40 levels could see Ethereum slide deeper into the red.

A fall back through the morning low $159.01 would bring the first major support level at $153.17 into play.

Barring an extended sell-off through the day, Ethereum should steer clear of sub-$150 support levels.

Major Support Level: $153.17

Major Resistance Level: $171.65

23.6% FIB Retracement Level: $257

38.2% FIB Retracement Level: $367

62% FIB Retracement Level: $543

Stellars Lumen slid by 5.77% on Wednesday. Reversing a 1.43% decline on Tuesday, with interest, Stellars Lumen ended the day at $0.059699.

A bullish start to the day saw Stellars Lumen rise to an early morning intraday high $0.06352 before hitting reverse.

Falling short of the major resistance levels, Stellars Lumen fell back to a mid-morning low $0.06153.

Stellars Lumen fell through the first major support level at $0.0625 before recovering to $0.06280 levels.

The recovery was short-lived, however, with Stellars Lumen tumbling to a late afternoon intraday low $0.057155.

Stellars Lumen fell through the major support levels before finding support to move back through to $0.0597 levels.

In spite of the late support, the third major support level at $0.05960 pegged Stellars Lumen back at the end of the day.

The extended bearish trend remained firmly intact, reaffirmed by 24th Septembers new swing lo $0.051614. Stellars Lumen continued to fall short of the 23.6% FIB of $0.1310 following a pullback from $0.13 levels in late June.

At the time of writing, Stellars Lumen was down by 0.7% to $0.05928. A bearish start to the day saw Stellars Lumen fall from an early morning high $0.05983 to a low $0.0590.

Story continues

Stellars Lumen left the major support and resistance levels untested early on.

Stellars Lumen would need to break through to $0.0600 levels to support a run at the first major resistance level at $0.0631.

Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Stellars Lumen to break through to $0.06100 levels.

In the event of a broad-based crypto rebound, the first major resistance level at $0.0631 and Wednesday high $0.06352 would likely limit any upside.

Failure to move through to $0.0600 levels could see Stellars Lumen slide deeper into the red.

A fall back through the morning low $0.05900 would bring the first major support level at $0.0567 into play.

Barring a crypto meltdown, however, Stellars Lumen should steer clear of sub-$0.05600 levels.

Major Support Level: $0.0567

Major Resistance Level: $0.0631

23.6% FIB Retracement Level: $0.1114

38% FIB Retracement Level: $0.1484

62% FIB Retracement Level: $0.2082

Please let us know what you think in the comments below.

Thanks, Bob

This article was originally posted on FX Empire

When Will Bitcoin Sidechains Send Ethereum, Ripple, And Other Crypto Prices To Zero? – Forbes

Posted on October 24, 2019 by Danzig

Adam Back, co-founder and chief executive officer of Blockstream Corp., speaks at the Group of 20 ... [+] high-level seminar on financial innovation "Our Future in the Digital Age" on the sidelines of the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors meeting in Fukuoka on June 8, 2019. (Photo by Kiyoshi Ota / POOL / AFP) (Photo credit should read KIYOSHI OTA/AFP/Getty Images)

Tomorrow (a few hours from now), it will have been exactly five years since the original white paper on Bitcoin sidechains (PDF) was released. The basic idea explained in the paper was that Bitcoin users would be allowed to move their coins between multiple, completely different blockchains that could enable a wide range of new cryptocurrency features.

The end result of this functionality would theoretically be an end to the many altcoins that existed on the market at the time, as there would no longer be a legitimate reason to create a new cryptocurrency in an effort to experiment with new features. Instead, new features that were sufficiently complex could come to Bitcoin by way of sidechains.

Today, sidechains do exist, but they come with trade-offs in the areas of centralization and censorship resistance at least for now. At the recent Transylvania Crypto Conference, a panel of experts on the topic, including Blockstream CEO and sidechains white paper co-author Adam Back, discussed the current state and future potential of sidechains for Bitcoin.

The End of Altcoins?

Despite the hype around Bitcoin sidechains, altcoins still very much exist. In fact, Ethereum briefly surpassed Bitcoin in terms of transaction fees collected by miners per day around the start of October (although that may not mean much for the ETH price).

That said, Back is still bullish on the idea that sidechains will eventually diminish the attractiveness of alternative cryptocurrencies.

In the history of altcoins, it seemed like there was a period where there were a huge number of them that had no features, said Back at the Transylvania Crypto Conference. And that played out. And then people started to need a new way to market them, so they added features. Some of them were real features, and some of them were stories to market [their altcoins].

Back added that making Bitcoin more modular could allow developers to more easily bring new features to the peer-to-peer digital cash system, but there is a problem with incentives when it comes to altcoins versus sidechains. Those who are motivated by money are incentivized to create an altcoin rather than simply innovate on Bitcoin.

This financial incentive will remain, but it will have less credibility because if you have a very easy to use extension mechanism for Bitcoin and examples of extensions that do something simple that you can build on, theres not really a good story about why youre doing it somewhere else, explained Back.

In Backs view, the development of the internet would have been as distracted, disorganized, and confused as the evolution of Bitcoin if everybody was making forked copies of TCP/IP with slight tweaks rather than simply pushing forward with one unified protocol stack.

Back also added that sidechains arent the only solution here. This concept of building on Bitcoin and weakening the viability of altcoins can be applied to layer-two protocols built on top of Bitcoin more generally. In the past, many have argued that Bitcoins Lightning Network makes altcoins focused on fast, cheap payments look rather pointless.

Making Better Sidechains

The versions of sidechains that exist today arent exactly trustless. Blockstreams Liquid sidechain puts control of the funds on the sidechain into the hands of a federation of Bitcoin exchanges, traders, and other financial institutions. An alternative system known as Drivechain, which has been developed by Bitcoin researcher Paul Sztorc, would put miners in control of the funds on the sidechain, but enabling this type of sidechain would require a soft-forking change to Bitcoin.

Your risk with Bitcoin is that, ultimately, the coins are escrowed in some way in a somewhat decentralized way, Back explained at the Transylvania Crypto Conference. If its merged mined, the miners, collectively, could take them against the protocol, or if its in some kind of HSM-assured multisig, somebody could go hack two-thirds of the HSMs.

Of course, these trade-offs are often viewed as acceptable, especially when the vast majority of Bitcoin's competitors seem to miss the point of why Bitcoin was created in the first place.

At a developer meetup last year, Blockstream Mathematician Andrew Poelstra stated that, in his view, the high degree of centralization in the Bitcoin mining industry made some previously-envisioned forms of sidechains untenable. However, Poelstra is also of the belief that zero-knowledge proofs may eventually be the way forward for this technology.

Back touched on zero-knowledge proofs during his appearance at the Transylvania Crypto Conference, although he indicated this technology may be some years off from being ready for use in sidechains.

Thats an enormous proof, and all of the current proof systems are orders of magnitude away from being able to do that, and some of them make experimental security assumptions, said Back. Maybe the bulletproof-like security and scalability will improve enough, and then we can make general, fully-secure sidechains just by having the main chain block verify a list of them. That would be very nice.

The Blockstream CEO also covered the potential of so-called extension blocks, which Back brought up as a potential solution during Bitcoins massive block size debate back in 2015. Specifically, Back noted this option could allow users to opt into advanced privacy features; however, he added that there are also serious risks, such as the potential for an accidental chain fork, associated with adding experimental cryptography to Bitcoin in this way.

In the past, extension blocks have also been criticized as effective block size increases, but Back said this drawback can be avoided by implementing a unified limit for the extension block and Bitcoins main blockchain.

Finally, Back also mentioned Blockstreams Simplicity programming language as potentially useful for the deployment of sidechains on Bitcoin.

With that, you have enough guarantees of determinism that you could implement the sidechain rules in Simplicity and verify it in Bitcoin and be pretty sure that its not going to diverge, said Back. But, youve still got the size argument.

While trustless sidechains on Bitcoin may still be quite a few years away, there are other layer-two protocols, such as federated sidechains and the Lightning Network, that allow Bitcoin to gain the features of the most popular altcoins right now albeit usually with security trade-offs. These additional protocol layers will likely become relatively trustless eventually, as advancements in cryptography are made over time.

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When Will Bitcoin Sidechains Send Ethereum, Ripple, And Other Crypto Prices To Zero? - Forbes

Fuel Labs has a plan to scale Ethereum today, and its almost ready – Yahoo Finance

Posted on October 24, 2019 by Danzig

Fuel Labs has unveiled Fuel, an alternative scaling solution for Ethereum, the second largest blockchain platform, in a blog post yesterday. The project is expected to go live on mainnet soon, following security audits to make sure its safe.

Fuel Labs is a non-profit organization built by a small group of Ethereum programmers. For the past two months, its been quietly working on Fuel, which is largely based on a research paper by ConsenSys researcher John Adler (ConsenSys funds an editorially independent Decrypt).

The blog post states, After a few in-depth conversations, we began working hard to put together a realistic Ethereum scaling implementation that could solve a single problem: sustainably scalable, cheap, and reliable stablecoin payments on Ethereum: Fuel.

The teams own conservative estimates claim that Fuel could make Ethereum transaction five times cheaper. On top of this, it estimates that it could increase the number of transactions that Ethereum can handle per second from around 10 to 50. Looking ahead, it sees that number rising to 2000 transactions per second (TPS)or even up to one million.

Ethereum is a platform for handling lots of cryptocurrency payments, including thousands of tokens and decentralized apps (dapps) built on top of it. But its currently struggling to handle the huge amount of transactions. There have been many proposed solutions so far, such as off-chain network Plasma, but none has proven truly effective yet. Fuel Labs is planning on using a new technology called optimistic rollupswhich Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has been discussing recentlyto build a solution that, it claims, will better help Ethereum to scale immediately, resulting in much cheaper transactions.

Optimistic rollups build on the notion of sidechains, where work is offloaded to a parallel blockchain. But these dont fully solve the problem, since they still involve making a lot of transactions on the main Ethereum blockchain.

Instead, optimistic rollups make very few transactions on the main blockchain by essentially batching transactions together. In this case, the data is still available on the main Ethereum blockchain but its hidden deep down in data structures known as merkle trees. However, its possible to find the data, as long as you know where to look.

That means you can still prove the optimistic rollup transactions are accurate because you can look up any of the transactions on the main Ethereum blockchaintaking the weight off Ethereums shoulders while still making use of its high level of security.

Taking Ethereum mainstream: Social media app Pepo goes live at Devcon 5

This plan should help it to achieve the more conservative TPS estimates. To reach the higher TPS figures, Fuel will require some changes to the Ethereum blockchain. But if Fuel Labs shows it can deliver, Ethereum developers might be inclined to make Ethereum support this technology. (Similarly, for Bitcoin, developers are making updates to the Bitcoin blockchain to support its own scaling solution, Lightning).

Fuel could also help Ethereum to support stablecoins more efficiently. For example, Tether has been rapidly filling up the network in recent weeks as more Ethereum-based Tether has been issued. This led to so many transactions, Buterin claimed that the Ethereum blockchain was almost full. In response, Ethereum miners increased block sizes, to allow more transactions to go through. But this is only a temporary measureit makes the blockchain harder to maintain.

Fuel Labs thinks that the Ethereum blockchain will benefit if it can provide for stablecoins, without breaking at the seams. If it can do so, the blog post states, this could add tremendous value to the global economy with far reaching implications.

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Fuel Labs has a plan to scale Ethereum today, and its almost ready - Yahoo Finance

Ethereum (ETH) Could Recover To $180, Bitcoin Up 5% – newsBTC

Posted on October 24, 2019 by Danzig

Ethereum price is slowly climbing higher versus the US Dollar, while bitcoin is up 5%. However, ETH price is likely to face a strong resistance near the $180 area.

This past week, Ethereum tested the $168 and $170 support levels on two occasions against the US Dollar. However, the bears were not able to gain strength below $168. As a result, there was a short term upside correction above the $172 resistance. More importantly, bitcoin rallied more than 5% and climbed above the key $8,200 resistance area.

During the rise, ETH price even broke the $175 resistance and the 100 hourly simple moving average. Moreover, there was a break above a key bearish trend line with resistance near $172 on the hourly chart of ETH/USD. The pair tested the $177-178 area and it is currently consolidating gains. It is trading near the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the recent recovery from the $169 low to $176 high.

Additionally, it seems like the $175 level and the 100 hourly SMA are acting as supports. If there are more downsides, Ethereum price could test the $172 support area. Moreover, the 50% Fib retracement level of the recent recovery from the $169 low to $176 high is also near the $172 area to act as a major support. Any further losses could push the price back towards the key $168 support area.

On the upside, there are many important hurdles near the $178 and $180 levels. To move into a positive zone, the price has to move above the $180 resistance. The next key resistance is near the $185 level, above which ETH could start a solid upward move.

Looking at the chart, Ethereum price is clearly recovering and it is showing positive signs above $175. However, the price is likely to fail near the $180 or $185 resistance area. On the downside, the $168 level holds the key, below which the price could decline towards the $162 and $160 support levels in the near term.

Hourly MACD The MACD for ETH/USD is about to move into the bearish zone.

Hourly RSI The RSI for ETH/USD is currently well above the 50 level.

Major Support Level $172

Major Resistance Level $180

Continued here:

Ethereum (ETH) Could Recover To $180, Bitcoin Up 5% - newsBTC

Justin Drake from the Ethereum Foundation is coming to Disrupt Berlin – TechCrunch

Posted on October 24, 2019 by Danzig

The Ethereum community is hard at work on Ethereum 2.0, the next major upgrade of its blockchain. It is an incredibly challenging task, and the Ethereum Foundation has been completely transparent about its road map and progress. Thats why Im excited to announce that Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake is joining us at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin.

Justin Drake will give us an update on Ethereum 2.0. Hes been working on sharding and scalability in order to better support the Ethereum ecosystem and enable new use cases.

The current version of Ethereum can only handle a dozen transactions per second. With sharding, the computing load will be partitioned, which should lead to a drastic increase in performance.

And the most fascinating part of Ethereum 2.0 is that its a moving target. The Ethereum community has put years of research and development in the update in order to refine how its going to work and how its going to be rolled out. Its a large-scale experiment of distributed development.

Ethereum 2.0 will be rolled out in multiple phases in order to ensure the finality of a transaction, construct shard chains and make sure smart contracts run properly. If that sounds complicated, Justin Drake can tell you in simple words why Ethereum is such an interesting project.

Ethereum 2.0 could transform the Ethereum blockchain into a sort of world computer that can execute instructions across a network of servers all around the world. And thats what so exciting about it.

And thats not all. In addition to an interview on Ethereum, Justin Drake will also talk about building a blockchain startup on the Extra Crunch Stage with other blockchain experts.

He knows how important it is to build a community of developers and researchers around your blockchain project. And he can tell you about the best strategies to communicate and iterate on complicated blockchain projects.

Buy your ticket to Disrupt Berlin to listen to those discussions and many others. The conference will take place December 11-12.

In addition to panels and fireside chats, like this one, new startups will participate in the Startup Battlefield to compete for the highly coveted Battlefield Cup.

Justin lives in Cambridge, UK where he studied mathematics. He founded the Cambridge Bitcoin Meetup group in 2013, and in 2014 left his job as a programmer and FPGA engineer to study the blockchain space. In 2015 he operated a Bitcoin ATM and started a company providing a web interface for OpenBazaar. He is now a researcher for the Ethereum Foundation focusing on sharding.

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Justin Drake from the Ethereum Foundation is coming to Disrupt Berlin - TechCrunch

Why Bear Market Ethereum Futures Are a Better Bet That Bitcoins – newsBTC

Posted on October 24, 2019 by Danzig

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is confident that Ethereum futures are likely to arrive in 2020. This could be good timing if altseason fails to materialize in the next few months and Ethereum prices remain low.

At a fireside chat during the first day of DC Fintech Week, CFTC Chairman Heath Tarbert said he absolutely believes Ethereum futures could trade in the next 6 to 12 months.

The volume to which itll trade, no idea, thats where the markets decide, but my guess is now that weve provided at least a little bit more clarity on [ethers eligibility for futures contracts], my guess is market participants will consider that.

He continued to state that there have been no official applications by firms willing to launch Ethereum futures contracts. Considering the current regulatory atmosphere in the US though that is hardly surprising. At the moment four contenders could emerge and they are likely to be Seed CX, ErisX, Tassat and LedgerX.

So far there has been no response from CME or CBOE as to whether they will be offering Ether base futures. A CME spokesperson told Coindesk that they are focused on bringing options on CME Bitcoin futures to market in Q1 2020 and continuing to grow their CME CF Reference Rates and Real-Time Indices.

Tarbert continued adding that a CFTC regulated exchange would provide investor confidence for Ethereum products in that there would be no market manipulation. When asked about other crypto assets he added that there will be other derivatives coming soon to a market near you, but failed to specify further details or time frames.

Ethereum is still way down from its peak whereas Bitcoin was approaching its all-time high when futures were first launched. In mid-December 2017 BTC prices were hitting their ATH of a shade under $20,000.

Two futures products offering the opportunity to short the asset for the first time were launched and prices predictably dumped. Industry observers have not let this go unnoticed;

Bitcoin futures launched at the EXACT pinnacle of the bull market, a huge investment vehicle for those looking to short the market as it was clearly overpriced.

ETH is in no way overpriced at the moment and the markets are not overbought. It is down around 87.5% from its peak and still deep in the middle of a two year bear market.

Work on ETH 2.0 is already underway though the complete roll out could be at least another year away. Istanbul will address the preliminary issues while initial phases of Serenity will begin early next year in the form of beacon chain.

A coincidental futures launch as developers solve some of the problematic scaling issues could result in a very bullish 2020 for Ethereum.

Image from Shutterstock

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Why Bear Market Ethereum Futures Are a Better Bet That Bitcoins - newsBTC

Ethereum and Stellars Lumen Daily Tech Analysis 23/10/19 – Yahoo Finance

Posted on October 24, 2019 by Danzig

Ethereum

Ethereum fell by 1.75% on Tuesday. Following on from a 0.64% decline on Monday, Ethereum ended the day at $171.3.

A relatively bullish start to the day saw Ethereum rise to an early morning intraday high $175.4 before hitting reverse.

Falling short of the first major resistance level at $177.76, Ethereum slid to a late intraday low $170.47.

The sell-off saw Ethereum fall through the first major support level at $171.21 before finding support.

Finding support at the day end, Ethereum managed to break back through the first major support level.

At the time of writing, Ethereum was down by 2.53% to $166.96. A particularly bearish start to the day saw Ethereum fall from an early morning high $171.48 to a low $164.10.

Falling short of the major resistance levels, Ethereum fell through the first major support level at $169.38 and second major support level at $167.46.

Ethereum would need to move back through to $172.40 levels to support a run at the first major resistance level at $174.31.

Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Ethereum to move back through the major support levels.

Barring a broad-based crypto rebound, Ethereum would likely fail to recover to $170 levels later in the day. The first major support level at $169.38 would likely pin Ethereum back.

Failure to move back through the major support levels could see Ethereum test the third major support level at $162.53.

Barring an extended sell-off through the day, however, Ethereum should steer clear of sub-$160 levels.

Major Support Level: $169.38

Major Resistance Level: $174.31

23.6% FIB Retracement Level: $257

38.2% FIB Retracement Level: $367

62% FIB Retracement Level: $543

Stellars Lumen fell by 1.43% on Tuesday. Partially reversing a 1.65% rise from Monday, Stellars Lumen ended the day at $0.063335.

A choppy start to the day saw Stellars Lumen rise to an early morning intraday high $0.064999 before sliding to a mid-morning low $0.064015.

Stellars Lumen broke through the first major resistance level at $0.0647 before hitting reverse.

Steering clear of the major support levels, Stellars Lumen broke back through the first major resistance level before succumbing to market forces.

A late sell-off saw Stellars Lumen slide through the first major support level at $0.06320 to an intraday low $0.062926.

Finding support from the broader market, Stellars Lumen recovered to $0.063 levels to limit the downside on the day.

At the time of writing, Stellars Lumen was down by 1.61% to $0.062313. A bearish start to the day saw Stellars Lumen slide from an early morning high $0.06352 to a low $0.062313.

Falling short of the major resistance levels, Stellars Lumen fell through the first major support level at $0.06250.

Story continues

Stellars Lumen would need to break through the first major support level to $0.06380 levels to support a run at $0.064 levels.

Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Stellars Lumen to take a run at the first major resistance level at $0.06460.

Barring a broad-based crypto rebound, Stellars Lumen would likely come up short of $0.0630 levels, however.

Failure to break through the first major support level could see Stellars Lumen slide deeper into the red.

A fall through to $0.06210 levels would bring the second major support level at $0.06170 into play before any recovery.

Barring an extended sell-off through the day, however, Stellars Lumen should steer clear of sub-$0.060 support levels.

Major Support Level: $0.06250

Major Resistance Level: $0.06460

23.6% FIB Retracement Level: $0.1114

38% FIB Retracement Level: $0.1484

62% FIB Retracement Level: $0.2082

Please let us know what you think in the comments below.

Thanks, Bob

This article was originally posted on FX Empire

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Ethereum and Stellars Lumen Daily Tech Analysis 23/10/19 - Yahoo Finance

Ethereum Futures: The Next Big Derivative to Hit the Market? – Cointelegraph

Posted on October 24, 2019 by Danzig

The United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) hasnt come to bury Ether, its come to regulate it. That was the message drawn from Heath Tarberts remarks from the stage at Yahoo Finances All Markets Summit in New York City on Oct. 10, which could have important consequences for the crypto and blockchain industry. He went on:

It is my view as Chairman of the CFTC that Ether is a commodity, and therefore it will be regulated under the CEA. And my guess is that you will see in the near future Ether-related futures contracts and other derivatives potentially traded.

Ether (ETH) the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum ecosystem is a public, open-source blockchain-based platform that features smart contracts. As a commodity, Ether would be regulated in the U.S. by the CFTC; if it were found to be an investment, by contrast, it would be regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Hence the importance of a definition, whereby Bitcoin (BTC) is also a commodity in the view of U.S. regulators, its futures contracts have been traded since December 2017. Perianne Boring, CEO of the Chamber of Digital Commerce, told Cointelegraph that the chairmans pronouncement was incredibly important, adding:

The hint from Chairman Tarbert that ETH derivatives may be introduced soon are a sign of market maturity, and an encouraging step forward in recognizing the benefits of digital assets in this country.

It may be too early to gauge when the first Ether futures product will go to market. At this time, CME Group has no plans to introduce additional cryptocurrency futures, including Ether futures, a spokesperson for the owner of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) the largest player in the Bitcoin futures market told Cointelegraph, adding:

Right now, we are focused on bringing options on CME bitcoin futures to market in Q1 2020.

More futures trading tools could help the crypto industry attract institutional investors like mutual funds and hedge funds. Funds typically have investment constraints that allow them to only invest in specific assets for their portfolio, and this has inhibited them from investing in digital assets. But when a crypto futures contract is settled, investors are paid in U.S. dollars, not in BTC or ETH, which could make a difference.

Related: Are Trading Vehicles Dragging Crypto Into Maturity?

Mainstream investors, too, have avoided Bitcoin and Ether because of storage problems. If investors lose their private key, they lose their Bitcoin. Furthermore, custodians and brokers are now available that can take care of investing and storing, but fees for such services are often high. By investing in futures contracts, participants can bet for or against the price of the cryptocurrency without having to actually own or store it.

There is still not a lot of institutional interest in crypto, Lanre Sarumi, CEO of crypto asset derivative exchange Level Trading Field, told Cointelegraph. The exchanges believed if they built a Bitcoin futures product, the institutions would come, he said, but the response has been underwhelming. In March, for example, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), the first U.S. exchange to introduce Bitcoin futures, announced that it would stop listing the product. Sarumi added:

Institutional investors appear to have found more attractive investment alternatives elsewhere, and Ether futures arent likely to fare any better. We are talking about Ether, the cryptocurrency, not Ethereum, the blockchain platform which continues to attract interest from institutions.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin futures contracts at CME averaged 5,534 contracts traded per day in the third quarter of 2019, up 10% from the same quarter in 2018, but down from the second quarter of 2019, the company told Cointelegraph, noting that institutional interest was building in the third quarter. Recently, CME has also notified the CFTC that it was raising the spot contract limit from 1,000 to 2,000.

Meanwhile, an offering form the Intercontinental Exchanges Bakkt platform had a record day on Oct. 9, with 224 Bitcoin future contracts with volume of $1.92 million. However, most days over the past two weeks (Sept. 24Oct. 15) have had a daily volume less than $1 million.

Futures are simply contracts to buy or sell a designated quantity of an asset at a specified price and date, and they are particularly useful when the underlying asset is volatile, which is the case with Bitcoin and to a lesser degree with Ether, as David L. Yermack, professor at NYU Stern, noted to Cointelegraph. These regulated futures contracts can help to stabilize the crypto market, he said:

"I dont see many differences in the economic rationales for Ether futures compared to Bitcoin. Ether has a lot less speculative trading volume, however, so it remains to be seen how much demand exists for Ether futures."

Questions remain, however: Will futures trading lead to financial manipulation or the cornering of the market? Some worry that the government is relying on profit-seeking exchanges (e.g., CME and CBOE) rather than the CFTC, a government regulator to self-certify new futures products, Indiana University professor Margaret Ryznar wrote.

Self-certification requires the exchange to prove that the new contract is not readily susceptible to manipulation, with Ryznar adding, Futures generally contribute to systemic risk, but distinctive features of Bitcoin futures heighten concerns.

Even though the SEC and CFTC seem to accept that both Bitcoin and Ether are commodities and not securities such clarity is not assured for the future. It seems to depend on the degree of decentralization at hand (i.e., the extent to which a cryptocurrency is controlled by a third party).

You can have a situation where something in an initial coin offering is a security, but over time, it gets more decentralized, and there's a tangible value there, so you can have things that change back and forth, Tarbert said. This may not be ideal, especially for institutional investors desiring regulatory predictability.

Spencer Bogart, head of research for Blockchain Capital, noted that shorting Bitcoin is "extremely risky" because there is no natural point, like priceearnings ratios, where people can tell if the cryptocurrency is over-valued. The same could presumably be said for Ether.

Indeed, the Futures Industry Association (FIA) has opined that Ether, more technically complex than Bitcoin because of its smart contract overlay, may be more difficult to risk manage. The FIA urged the CFTC to thoroughly vet any Ether derivative contract.

As noted, CME intends to launch a Bitcoin options product in the first quarter of 2020, pending regulatory review. While both futures and options are derivatives, they work differently. Futures commit a buyer to selling or buying the underlying asset at the previously agreed upon strike price.

Options, by comparison, are not obligatory; the option may never be exercised. Options are expected to be popular among Asian traders and miners, CMEs Tim McCourt said. Asked about the significance of Tarberts recent remarks, Sarumi said:

They are very significant. Any firm that was hesitating before now has a statement they can fall back on. But will it encourage institutional investors? I dont think so.

In his first public appearance as CFTC chairman, Tarbert also stressed the importance of blockchain and digital assets to the U.S., sweet music to digital evangelists like the Chamber of Digital Commerce. The U.S. has been falling behind in blockchain innovation, receiving little support from U.S. policymakers and regulators, Boring said, but here the chairman of the CFTC was saying, I want the United States to lead because whoever leads in this technology is going to end up writing the rules of the game.

Overall, it is fair to say that it has been a struggle for regulators and the exchanges to develop Bitcoin derivatives that are both safe and attractive to investors, especially institutions. Doing the same for technically complex Ether derivatives could be even more of a challenge.

The rest is here:

Ethereum Futures: The Next Big Derivative to Hit the Market? - Cointelegraph

Ethereum (ETH) Rebound Faces Major Hurdle Near $180 – newsBTC

Posted on October 24, 2019 by Danzig

Ethereum price is currently recovering higher versus the US Dollar, similar to bitcoin. However, ETH price must settle above $180 to continue higher in the near term.

Yesterday, we saw an extended decline in Ethereum below the $180 support against the US Dollar. Moreover, ETH price settled below the $180 support and the 100 hourly simple moving average. The decline was such that the price traded close to the $170 level. A swing low was formed near $171 before the price started an upside correction. It recovered above the $174 and $175 resistances.

Additionally, this weeks followed major bearish trend line was breached with resistance near $174 on the hourly chart of ETH/USD. The pair climbed above the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the last decline from the $188 high to $171 low. Finally, the price spiked above the $178 resistance area. However, the upward move is facing hurdle near the $180 resistance and the 100 hourly simple moving average.

Moreover, the price failed to test the 50% Fib retracement level of the last decline from the $188 high to $171 low. Ethereum retreated from highs and it is currently trading below $178. It seems like the $180 area and the 100 hourly SMA are crucial barriers. Therefore, a successful close above $180 could push the bulls to continue higher in the near term.

If not, there is a risk of another decline below the $175 level. The main support is near the $172 and $170 levels. If there are more downsides, the price is likely to accelerate its decline below the $165 level. The next key support is near the $160 level.

Looking at the chart, Ethereum price is facing a strong resistance near the $180 level and the 100 hourly SMA. If there is a successful close above $180, the price could recover towards the $185 level. An intermediate resistance is near the 61.8% Fib retracement level of the last decline from the $188 high to $171 low.

Hourly MACD The MACD for ETH/USD is likely to move into the bearish zone.

Hourly RSI The RSI for ETH/USD is currently moving lower towards the 50 level.

Major Support Level $170

Major Resistance Level $180

Ethereum (ETH) Rebound Faces Major Hurdle Near $180 - newsBTC

Ethereum Breakout Above $360 Means Skys the Limit, Believes Cryptocurrency Analyst – BeInCrypto

Posted on October 24, 2019 by Danzig

Resistance areas are very significant in determining the scope of a cryptocurrencys, such as Ethereums, price movements. Once a resistance area is broken, it is likely to act as support afterward and vice versa. A breakout above a resistance area often triggers rapid price increases.

The Ethereumprice was rejected by the $360 resistance area on June 27. A breakout above this area could trigger a rapid increase towards new highs. Until the breakout, ETH is likely to accumulate between the current price and the resistance area.

Cryptocurrency analyst @cryptodude stated that Ethereum is his favorite chart and will be remembered in the future as an essential chart.

He also outlined a resistance line at $360 that has been significant in both May-November 2017 and in June 2019. This might suggest that a breakout above it could cause a similar movement to that in 2017. Why does he think that? Lets take a deep dive and analyze the possibilities.

Looking at the weekly Ethereum chart, we can see that the $360 area acted as resistance throughout May-November 2017.

Afterward, it supported the price in April 2018 before ETH broke down.

Finally, the area acted as resistance again on June 27, the current 2019 high.

However, there is one big dissimilarity between these two movements.

Throughout the 2017 movement, ETH created an ascending support line which held until the price broke out. On the contrary, in the 2019 movement, the support line held for several months before the price broke down. Afterward, ETH came back to validate it as resistance before moving downward. This is a common movement after a breakdown and often indicates that further decreases are in store.

Looking at the daily chart, we can see that the Ethereum price is trading inside a descending wedge quickly approaching the end of the projected pattern.

We can also see that a bearish cross between the 100- and 200-day moving averages (MA) has occurred, signifying that further decreases are ahead.

Therefore, we could see the scenario in which the Ethereum price decreases to the end of the wedge, breaks out, and then continues an upward movement.

So, a very rough outline of how the price movement might follow is given below:

If we try to make a comparison to the emotional phases of the market cycle, this fits right in our hypothesis laid out in one of our previous articles.

Do you think Ethereum will break out from the $360 resistance area? Let us know in the comments below.

[Disclaimer: This article is not trading advice and should not be construed as such. Always consult a trained financial professional before investing in cryptocurrencies, as the market is particularly volatile.]

Images courtesy of Twitter, TradingView.

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Ethereum Breakout Above $360 Means Skys the Limit, Believes Cryptocurrency Analyst - BeInCrypto

TRON Joins Bitcoin And Ethereum On Opera Browser – Crypto Briefing

Posted on October 24, 2019 by Danzig

Marking a significant milestone for TRON (TRX), the popular web browser, Opera, is extending its wallet and DApp support to the TRON network. With its integration in the Opera browser, TRON joins the same ranks previously held just by crypto behemoths, Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Opera browser users all 350 million of them can already send and receive BTC and ETH, but now will also be able to transact TRX directly within the mobile and desktop browser. Not only that, the users will be able to easily use TRON DApps on their smartphones, to be listed in the browsers built-in DApps store.

Operas support for the TRON network allows for a massive increase in global access to the networks decentralized applications, with a new library of apps awaiting users outside the iOS App store and Google Play Store.

As noted in a recent DApp report, TRON enjoys its status as the largest DApp platform launched after 2017, adding 500,000 new users in recent months. TRONs DApp ecosystem tends to focus on gaming mostly gambling with a few DApps focused on other activities such as trading which is a lot like gambling in todays unpredictable markets.

Never one to downplay any sort of positive crypto news, TRON founder and BitTorrent CEO, Justin Sun, shared his enthusiasm about the integration, which will give daily users from 120 countries access to the high throughput, low-cost network: Opera is one of the most important software companies in the world. They are bringing security, privacy, and dynamic cryptocurrency capabilities to hundreds of millions of users.

Sun expressed his excitement about the new synergy between TRON and Opera, stating, We are proud to connect the largest, active blockchain ecosystem to the best web browser ever built.

As a leading privacy proponent, Opera offers a range of attractive features to web users, including a free built-in VPN, ad blocker, integrated messenger and a private mode. The addition of cryptocurrency integration furthers this goal, with Opera being the first major browser to integrate a crypto wallet for making secure crypto payments directly from a web browser.

source: CoinMarketCap

In cryptocurrency markets, TRX has levelled off against BTC and USD over the past few weeks, according to statistics provided on CoinMarketCap. Pricing cooled off in a midsummer move that saw prices ease back from nearly 4 cents USD to the current stable price, hovering around 1.5 cents since early September.

On the fundamentals side of the equation, TRON has seen steady growth in DApps, with fewer fluctuations in the average number of active users.

The total number of DApps exceeded 600 last week, with both the number of transactions and transaction volume increasing on a week-to-week basis, according to the most recent TRON DApp weekly report.

Link:

TRON Joins Bitcoin And Ethereum On Opera Browser - Crypto Briefing

Ethereum Falls 10% In Selloff – Yahoo Finance

Posted on October 24, 2019 by Danzig

Investing.com - Ethereum was trading at $157.43 by 12:01 (16:01 GMT) on the Investing.com Index on Wednesday, down 10.13% on the day. It was the largest one-day percentage loss since September 24.

The move downwards pushed Ethereum's market cap down to $17.32B, or 8.31% of the total cryptocurrency market cap. At its highest, Ethereum's market cap was $135.58B.

Ethereum had traded in a range of $157.43 to $171.61 in the previous twenty-four hours.

Over the past seven days, Ethereum has seen a drop in value, as it lost 8.98%. The volume of Ethereum traded in the twenty-four hours to time of writing was $8.85B or 12.55% of the total volume of all cryptocurrencies. It has traded in a range of $157.4338 to $178.3349 in the past 7 days.

At its current price, Ethereum is still down 88.94% from its all-time high of $1,423.20 set on January 13, 2018.

Bitcoin was last at $7,402.3 on the Investing.com Index, down 10.98% on the day.

XRP was trading at $0.26459 on the Investing.com Index, a loss of 11.24%.

Bitcoin's market cap was last at $135.35B or 64.96% of the total cryptocurrency market cap, while XRP's market cap totaled $11.74B or 5.64% of the total cryptocurrency market value.

XRP Falls 11% In Rout

Cardano Falls 10% In Selloff

Researcher: Google Quantum Breakthrough Could Improve Proof-of-Stake

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Ethereum Falls 10% In Selloff - Yahoo Finance

Whale Consolidates $88M Worth of Ethereum in Two Transactions – BeInCrypto

Posted on October 24, 2019 by Danzig

Two major transfersone with 185,997 ETH and the other with 300,000 ETHhave been made just minutes apart from each other. They also appear to be mysteriously linked. Are whales accumulating?

Something strange just happened on the Ethereum network which has tipped off Whale Alert (@whale_alert). In just the span of a few minutes, over $88M worth of ETH was transferred and consolidated in wallets in just two transfers. The two moves appear to be linked by the same contract creator.

The first one was a transfer of 300,000 ETH ($54,969,131) to an unknown wallet. The transaction fee was only $0.08.

It seems to have been sent to a contract created three days ago. The address which created the contract only has 1.899 ETH, which is strange. The reason for this move is largely unexplained.

However, just 10 minutes later, there was another major transfer which set off Whale Alert (@whale_alert). 185,997 ETH ($34,019,838) was moved in a strange chain of events. The transaction fee was also $0.08, like last time.

Again, we have the same situation: ETH being sent to a contract. The contract creator is also, interestingly enough, the same addressthat created the recipient contract for the previous transfer. So, it seems that these two transfers of ETH are intertwined. This particular contract was created 53 days ago.

Its hard to say what the reason is for this consolidation of funds, in a contract on Ethereum no less a platform that could be ideal for revolutionaries fighting for their freedom. There is some speculation that this may be linked to a dApp in development, but it seems hard to believe that a dApp would need over $88M in funding. So, it could as well be a major whale storing their funds within a contract to HODL.

Perhaps the community will do some more digging on this strange transfer and we can get to the bottom of it this could be part of a consolidation period of Ethereum. However, for now, we can only speculate.

What do you think is the reason for this large transfer to two contracts on Ethereum? Let us know your thoughts below in the comments.

Images are courtesy of Twitter, Shutterstock.

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Whale Consolidates $88M Worth of Ethereum in Two Transactions - BeInCrypto

Ethereums gas prices show an unusual surge when the Asian market sleeps – AMBCrypto

Posted on October 24, 2019 by Danzig

Ethereums transaction volume has been going higher, mainly due to Tether issuances as an ERC20 token. This has also caused the gas prices for ETH to skyrocket simultaneously. Origin Protocol published their findings on the rising gas prices and noted some interesting things about it.

For example, gas prices saw a periodic surge starting from 1:30 PM GMT, which corresponds to 9:30 AM in New York, 3:30 PM in Paris, 5:30 PM in Moscow, 9:30 PM in Beijing, and 10:30 PM in Seoul. The surge took place when the Asian markets would usually shut down.

The surge is unusual as the author, Daniel Von Fange mentioned:

This peak is right when you would expect it, reaching its high when the maximum number of people in the world are awake.

The gas prices would generally reach the trough 8 hours later when the Asian markets would be up. The unusual part about this is as mentioned in the quote above. This could suggest that Asia has a disproportionate effect on transaction pricing, either due to volume or willingness to pay more.

This is not the first time Ethereums network has been overloaded. In 2017, CryptoKitties was the most popular Dapp on ETH blockchain, which also clogged the network. The same is taking place as more ERC20 USDT tokens are being issued on ETH.

According to Coinmetrics.io, the market cap of USDT [circulating supply] of Tether has increased from $110.95 million to 2.02 billion, which is a 1727% increase. Supporting this is the Ethereum networks utilization hit previous ATH of 95%.

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Ethereums gas prices show an unusual surge when the Asian market sleeps - AMBCrypto

Cryptocurrencies price prediction: Bitcoin, Ethereum & Litecoin – American Wrap – 22 October – FXStreet

Posted on October 24, 2019 by Danzig

Bitcoinprice is trading in the minor positive territory, up some 0.35% in the second half of the session.

BTC/USD continues to move within the confinements of a bearish flag structurevia the daily chart view.

The narrowing range conditions are growingly subject to a breakout, it remains unclear in terms of the imminent trend.

Ethereum price is trading in the red, down 0.70% the session on Tuesday.

ETH/USD is moving within narrowing trading conditions via the daily chart view.

The upside is capped at $180 and support is being held just below at $170.

Litecoin price is trading in the red in the session by some 0.25%.

LTC/USD remains very much vulnerable to downside risks as it sits below the breached bear flag.

The price is being capped underneath a broken down bearish flag formation.

Link:

Cryptocurrencies price prediction: Bitcoin, Ethereum & Litecoin - American Wrap - 22 October - FXStreet

Cryptocurrency market update: Kicks of a dying horse as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple remain suppressed – FXStreet

Posted on October 24, 2019 by Danzig

Cryptocurrencies continue to be depressed during this weekends session. Earlier in the week there was an attempt to push for a significant correction but bears interjected before the major cryptos formed viable support levels. The total market capitalization rose to $226 billion on Monday. The up and down trading over the weeks trading has seen the market cap thin to the current $217 billion.

Bitcoin dipped below $8,000 on Friday. The drop came after a failed attempt to correctabove $8,100. The downtrend explored the levels towards the support at $7,800. A following shallow trend has seen the price retest $8,000 but BTC/USD has readjusted to $7,940 (current market value). As discussed earlier today, a bearish flag pattern is likely to send Bitcoin back to $7,800 unless the bulls clear the resistance at $8,000.

Ethereum also made a swing towards $180 but failed. This left a gap to be explored by the bears. In turn, ETH retested the support $173. The trading activities have, however, been low since the drop, hence Ethereum is lethargic in the its recovery. For now, Ethereum is trading at $173.85 while the immediate upside is limited by the 50 Simple Moving Average (SMA) on the one-hour chart.

Ripple, on the other hand, was ejected from the levels slightly above $0.30. The crypto readjusted towards the short-term support at $0.29 before pushing for a shallow correction upwards. For now, Ripple is trading at $0.2965 but the intermittent momentum lacks the strength to clear $0.30 resistance.

Originally posted here:

Cryptocurrency market update: Kicks of a dying horse as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple remain suppressed - FXStreet

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