Monthly Archives: April 2021

Irish police are on high alert due to the rising number of cases related to a bitcoin-related scam targeting high-net-worth people in the country. The situation has become worrisome because suspicious high-value transactions have already been noticed by authorities.

According to The Irish Times, Garda (Irelands police) investigates what they consider a major crypto scam whose criminals could be residing in the country. A local bank already raised concerns about a suspicious transaction of 500,000 euros ($586,500) from a dormant account.

After inquiries conducted by Garda on the older customer who wanted to invest such an amount of money into what he believed was a legit crypto business opportunity, he accepted the polices advice to not send the fiat money.

But per the media outlet, it seems other similar transactions took place before they acted to block the 500,000 euros move to the criminals wallet. In fact, the victim wanted to exchange the money into cryptos and then deposit it into a bitcoin (BTC) wallet belonging allegedly to the scammers.

Although no arrests have been made as of press time, Irish police already searched on a property in south Dublin, allegedly tied to some suspects.

The report says mobile phones, computers, cash, designer handbags, and jewelry was found and seized by the authorities.

Moreover, investigations are focused on how the criminals some of them are allegedly foreign nationals and based in Dublin approached the victims and gained their confidence.

Police are worried about the destination of some of the funds received by the ostensible bitcoin scammers, as theyre trying to determine how much money was exchanged into fiat and if its being held on overseas bank accounts. Still, Garda believes funds could have reached several million.

Pat Lordan, an official of the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau, issued the following warning:

One case involved a retired professional from the midlands who lost his entire pension and savings of nearly 250,000. Our advice is simple: dont respond to unsolicited approaches, be wary of wild claims, and never ever let anyone have remote access to your computer.

What do you think about this massive bitcoin scam taking place in Ireland? Let us know in the comments section below.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons

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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Irish Police Investigate Massive Bitcoin Scam That Allegedly Stole Millions From High-Net-Worth Individuals News Bitcoin News - Bitcoin News

Gains in Bitcoin (BTC) appear faint in comparison with Ethereum (ETH) as the latters supply diminishes.

What Happened: BTC traded 0.13% at $59,285.22 over 24 hours at press time while ETH was up 4.08% at $1,925.03.

Over a seven-day trailing period, ETH has surged 21.92%, while BTC has moved up 12.77%.

CryptoQuant data indicates ETH reserves held in all walletsfell to 19.53 million as of March 31 as prices soared over $1,921.

ETH Held In All Exchange Wallets Data From CryptoQuant.com

On Wednesday, OpenSea, a non-fungible token marketplace said it would add support for trading through Immutable X, a decentralized protocol built on Ethereum, which it said would enable zero gas fee.

Why It Matters: BTC has been losing its dominance as the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization of late. This week the dominance fell to its lowest since October last year.

At press time, BTC had a 56.6% dominance, while ETH had 11.7%, according to CoinMarketCap data.

On Monday, Visa Inc (NYSE:V) announced a pilot to allow transactions to be settled through USD Coin (USDC) on its network.

Reacting to the development, analyst Michal van de Poppe said on Twitter that Ethereum was going to surprise everyone massively."

He had previously predicted a $10,000 price level for ETH.

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

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Why Is Ethereum Surging, Outperforming Bitcoin Today? - Benzinga

In 2018, the global cryptocurrency market had crashed, and Sergii Gerasymovych was looking for a way to keep his Bitcoin mining company afloat. He eventually settled on a plan to make money while cleaning up two notoriously climate-polluting industries.

Gerasymovychs biggest headacheas for all Bitcoin minerswas the price of electricity. Bitcoin miners compete against one other to unlock coins by solving increasingly difficult math problems with fleets of computers. This consumes a lot of power globally: about as much as Argentina each year. Bitcoin miners profit margin largely relies on the gap between electricity bills and Bitcoins value; if the latter drops, the only way to make up the margin is to curb the former. Thats why so much of the worlds cryptocurrency mining is tied to low-cost coal and hydroelectric plants in Asia.Gerasymovych was hunting for cheap power in the US, and stumbled on an intriguing source: Flare gas from natural gas wells. Now, a number of market trends are converging to propel a nascent industry in gas-powered Bitcoin.

Oil and gas wells in hydraulically fractured (fracked) shale formations produce some waste gas as a byproduct, mostly composed of methane. Since selling this gas is usually unprofitable, its typically disposed of by burning it off. Those little flares, from thousands of wells around the world, add up. Gas flaring is responsible for at least 1% of global carbon emissions, and collectively wastes hundreds of millions of dollars worth of natural resources every year. In the US, that has made flaring a target for regulators in gas-producing states like Texas, New Mexico, and North Dakota, which are considering new restrictions on the practice. BlackRock, the asset manager that has stepped up pressure on companies to disclose their climate risks, has called for the near elimination of flaring globally by 2025.

Anticipating a crackdown, some gas companies are starting to look for their own solutions.One cost-effective way to reduce flaring emissions is to turn the waste gas into electricity with a generator, and use it to power something, like lights or pumps, on the well site. But Gerasymovych realized that crypto miners and gas drillers could both benefit by converting waste gas into cheap power. What better way to reduce emissions than supplying a data center, ravenous for cheap 24/7 electricity, that can be built into a transportable shipping container?

There was just one problem: Perhaps because of Bitcoins tumultuous price swings, gas companies werent interested. People laughed at us, Gerasymovych said. Then three things changed. First, the pandemic struck, and the price of natural gas cratered; an industry that was already on shaky financial footing found itself facing an existential crisis as drilling ground to a halt and scores of shale companies went bankrupt. Second, thanks in part to a Feb. 2021 endorsement by Elon Musk, the price of Bitcoin soared.

Third, Gerasymovych decided to tweak his business model to sweeten the deal for gas companies. Rather than buy their cheap flare gas to run his own mines, his company, EZ Blockchain, charges a few hundred thousand dollars to install and perform regular maintenance on a Bitcoin mining data center,and lets the gas company reap the Bitcoins itself. In other words, the gas company becomes the miner, and uses its own gas for free.

The market conditions have changed, Gerasymovych said. Now, every oil and gas company we reached out to in 2018 is calling us back because they see Bitcoin is making a lot of money.

On Mar. 16, EZ Blockchain announced that it had finished setting up its latest gas-adjacent Bitcoin mine, at a gas facility near Moab, Utah operated by Wesco Operating Inc., an independent gas company with 500 wells across the US. That marks the fifth mine EZ Blockchain has set up since the pandemic started, Gerasymovych said, with at least two more on the way. Steve Degenfelder, a spokesperson for Wesco, said the companys leaders first heard about Bitcoin from some young software engineers on the staff.

This was stranded gas that didnt have a market, he said. Now, weve eliminated the flaring [from that site], and greatly reduced the emissions. And it doesnt take electricity off the grid, which is getting to be the controversial issue with data centers and Bitcoin mining.

EZ Blockchain and Wesco arent the only companies with the same idea. The Russian state-owned oil company Gazprom is mining Bitcoin with flare gas in Siberia.Denver-based Crusoe Energy provides a similar service as EZ Blockchain, but usually installs the data center for free, pays the gas company for the gas, and keeps the Bitcoins itself. The company has set up 40 gas-powered mines in the US the last few years, said Cully Cavness, its president, and hopes to hit 100 by the end of 2021. Its clients include the European multinational oil major Equinor.

We have a significant backlog of projects, for months, he said. Were trying to scale quickly to meet the scale of the problem.

Some digital currency experts remain skeptical that gas-powered Bitcoin mining is really a win for the climate. Alex de Vries, an economist who published a recent paper in the journalJoule about Bitcoins massive carbon footprint, said that monetizing flare gas only creates an incentive for more drilling: Youre making fossil fuel mining more profitable, so youre not helping, he said.

Alex Trembath, deputy director of the Breakthrough Institute, a clean energy think tank, said that the approach sounds like an incremental improvement over unmitigated flaring. But no matter the power source, he said, its hard to justify Bitcoins enormous energy demand given that it benefits only a relatively tiny group of investors. Flare gas could just as well power carbon capture machines, he said, water desalination plants, or data centers that support more widely used applications, like video streaming or email (Crusoe is planning to open some of its data centers to more general cloud computing uses, Cavness said, and has donated data-crunching space to a group that studies Covid-19 protein folding).

What they all have in common is that theres a social value in those things that I dont see for Bitcoin, Trembath said.

Bitcoins bubble could soon burst, one of its founders warned last week; it has happened before. If it does, companies like Wesco will see the profit potential burn off. But with the cheapest power in the crypto mining industrytheir ownthey could at least come out ahead of other miners.

There is no price for Bitcoin at which they wont be making money, Gerasymovych said. Bitcoin cant go negativewhich, by the way, oil did.

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Bitcoin miners and fracking companies are working together - Quartz

Are people actually able to govern themselves? Well, the likely answer to that question from most people you ask would be a resounding no. After all, most would agree that humans are too blinded by their own self interests to be able to create a peaceful and just society without some form of regulation. As a result of this being the widely-held belief, throughout human history we have organized into institutions that transfer power away from individuals to a central institution in the hopes that it can regulate the problems that arise from self-interested human nature.

These institutions have taken the forms of tribes, monarchies, empires and now nation states, and have been the exclusive holders of sovereignty, or in other words, supreme or ultimate power. Often, in order to gain their sovereignty, the use of force or threat of force is necessary. This is not to say that individuals cannot enjoy individual rights and freedoms under institutions, rather, individual sovereignty transcends such rights as personal property. When an individual has property rights, they have the right to own their property, but when an individual has sovereignty, they have the power and responsibility to fully control their property.

Adopting the Bitcoin standard represents an individuals first step toward achieving personal sovereignty. By making the difficult decision to take their finances into their own hands, they are making the choice of freedom over safety. This is no easy decision to make, since the favorite phrase among Bitcoiners that it allows you to be your own bank turns out to be pretty literal. You are the only one responsible for keeping your bitcoin safe. You are the one for whom, if you are off by a single letter/number when sending bitcoin to an address, those coins are lost forever. You are the one who, if you lose your seed phrase, know that there is no bitcoin customer service agent to help you retrieve it.

Celearly, this is not the easy choice. It is, however, the price associated with freedom. The bitcoin holder now has full control over his or her monetary energy (all money is simply the energy of a unit of value) and the ability to transact with whoever they wish, without permission from any bank or government. Imagine then, that an individual can more than just transact value without permission from outside forces, but also conduct all parts of their daily lives without such pressure. When a person is able to do that, they will become a sovereign individual, and Bitcoin is the first step in making this possible.

Going back to the initial question I asked about whether individuals are capable of governing themselves, Bitcoin may provide a roadmap for changing the answer from a no to a yes. The Bitcoin network is made up of individuals incentivized to be self-interested, and yet even without a central entity in place, the network does not break down. It is a blueprint for how decentralized protocols of the future can build an infrastructure where self-interested individuals can interact with one another, without requiring an outside centralized party to ensure that everything moves smoothly.

Sovereignty, similar to freedom, is not meant to be easy. For that reason, it may be challenging to get the general population on board, since most people still choose the simple over the hard. That being said, with changes in the geopolitical landscape like a shift against civil liberties and the creation of central bank digital currencies that will only serve to cede more control from the individual to the state, the layman's hands may be forced.

Fintech firms like Square and PayPal can provide the bridge between using accounts with legacy financial institutions and becoming a hardcore Bitcoiner running your own node, by introducing hundreds of millions of users to the world of Bitcoin. Sending bitcoin to your friend by simply typing their name into a user-friendly interface rather than a clunky address on a Bitcoin wallet (a feature that Cash App recently introduced) is an easier proposal for newcomers to accept. Needless to say, once these new users go even somewhat down the Bitcoin rabbit hole, they will become just as demanding of liberty as the rest of us Bitcoiners.

Bitcoin unlocks financial sovereignty, but its ideals and technology pave the road for the possibility of a fully-sovereign individual. When the idea of the sovereign individual is realized, gone will be the constraints placed upon citizens by modern nations. Instead, individuals are liberated from the mandate to organize based on arbitrary lines drawn onto a piece of paper and will be free to form communities out of their own volition. This is similar to how people already interact in the digital world. The communities people form on sites like Twitter and Reddit disregard traditional borders and form organically from people searching for like-minded others. Interaction over the internet seeks to be borderless and soon, so too will our interaction in the physical world.

The idea of the sovereign individual is certainly utopian, but so was the Bitcoin future and that now feels all but inevitable. Many Bitcoiners are preparing for a Bitcoin future in which there is little need for nation states, and in this future, they must also be prepared to become sovereign individuals capable of governing themselves.

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

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Bitcoin Unleashes The Sovereign Individual - Bitcoin Magazine

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(Bloomberg) -- The promised end of the pandemic draws closer with every shot in the arm. So in the first three months of 2021, traders raced to position themselves for a post-Covid world by girding for super-charged growth and higher inflation.This reflation trade put Treasuries on course for their worst quarter since 1980, with the global bond plunge sending yields surging to pre-pandemic levels. These sharp moves spooked investors, who were already turning away from pandemic favorites, like tech companies, into value stocks poised to benefit from economic reopening. Market fever dreams played out in cryptocurrencies and newfangled ways to take companies public. And even as the U.S. dollar proved its resilience, traditional haven currencies were battered.At the same time, recovery measures of new U.S. President Joe Biden helped to flood money markets and, if he has his way, this will soon be followed by trillions of dollars in additional infrastructure spending. All the while, the Federal Reserve shows little inclination to rein in long-end yields.Generally reflation has been the dominant driver of global price action, said Simon Harvey, senior market analyst at Monex Europe, who revised his dollar outlook this week. What wrong-footed most people coming into 2021 is just how aggressive the U.S. outperformance was going to be.Here are some of this quarters most notable moves:Treasuries RoutWith the size of U.S. stimulus putting the nation on course for a swift economic rebound from the pandemic, its no surprise that U.S. Treasuries led the global rates selloff. Theyre on track to record their worst quarter since 1980, according to Bloomberg Barclays indexes. By comparison, the retreat seen in Europe and Asia was in line with quarterly declines seen in 2019 and 2020, respectively.Treasuries extended losses this week, fueled by Bidens plans to accelerate the vaccine campaign and rebuild infrastructure. The divergence between U.S. and European markets was borne out in the spread between benchmark Treasuries and bunds, which widened more than 50 basis points. That about matched the move seen in the final quarter of 2016, and a bigger jump hasnt been seen since 1993.Read More: Bond Rout Reignites as U.S. Stimulus Bets Overshadow Quarter-EndDominant DollarThe climb in U.S. yields relative to major peers helped to drive a surge in the dollar that ran counter to many expectations for 2021 as the currency turned from a prime haven at the height of market turmoil in March 2020 into a bet on U.S. economic supremacy.Traditional havens of the currency world -- the Japanese yen and Swiss franc -- bore the brunt of the selling, with each suffering their worst quarter in years.The importance of pandemic recovery was evident across currency markets. In a change from last years Brexit wrangling, the outlook for the British pound was all about the U.K.s vaccine drive, which far outpaced the European Unions effort, setting the euro up for its worst quarter since 2015.Brazils currency, which fell more than 7%, was among the poorest performers over the period as the country struggled to contain its mounting Covid crisis. Turkey was one of the few emerging markets whose currency did even worse. While much of that is the result of a shock decision to fire the central bank chief, that move came after the monetary authority raised its benchmark in response to global rate and foreign-exchange pressures.Read More: Dollar Reigns Supreme With Rate Gaps Too Big to Be IgnoredStock RotationsBillions are on the move as investors rotate away from previously high-flying areas and toward pockets of the market that stand to benefit from a brightening economic outlook. In that environment, tech stocks -- 2020s undisputed winners -- have lagged, while smaller companies have outperformed. The Russell 2000 index of smaller firms outperformed the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 for the second-straight quarter, beating it by about 10 percentage points. Value stocks, too, stepped into the limelight, with the Russell 1000 value index beating its growth counterpart by roughly the same amount.We would expect that rotation to continue, said Adam Phillips, managing director of portfolio strategy at EP Wealth Advisors. Moving forward, its going to be more about the recovery plays, and thats not a story thats going away.But the rise in rates rattled more speculative corners of the market as investors started to question lofty valuations. Sentiment soured, for instance, on special purpose acquisition companies, a group that came to symbolize risky behavior in equities. An index tracking SPACs is down roughly 21% since its mid-February peak. Meme-stock mania also cooled: An index tracking companies including GameStop Corp. and Naked Brand Group Ltd. is down about 28% since its recent January high, data compiled by Bloomberg show.Youre seeing corrective phases in those previously hot areas, but its happening through a process of rotation, so the money is just going to other parts of the market, Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab, said by phone. There was so much hype and so much appreciation that, yes, I think its natural and healthy to see rollovers in those areas.Volatility EverywhereBut while benchmark stock indexes glide along, the subsurface churn has been extremely violent. A model from Bank of America that plots how much value is being created and destroyed each day in individual stocks shows that 2021 has generated more turbulence than virtually any other year. The volatility -- which is prevalent among small-cap stocks as well -- is just being masked because up-and-down moves in different companies over days and weeks have tended to offset each other.Read more: Blowups and Rotations Making This Market Just as Brutal as 2020Meanwhile, turbulence in the $21 trillion Treasury market has been on the rise. The ICE BofA MOVE Index, a gauge of U.S. bond volatility, has been grinding higher. The measure currently clocks in at 67, higher than its one-year average of 52 and well above Septembers low of 37.Commodities SupercycleRaw materials from copper to oil have started the year off strong, with investors flocking to commodities as a popular pandemic recovery trade and to hedge against inflation.The 23-member Bloomberg Commodity Spot Index in February reached the highest in almost eight years before easing this month, and still remains on track to notch a gain this quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. even went as far as to flag the start of a new commodities supercycle. An upcoming energy transition could constrain oil supplies, while at the same time boosting demand for metals required in renewables infrastructure, JPMorgan analysts said in a report last month.Bond SalesInvestors in credit benefited from a narrowing in spreads to pre-pandemic levels, but that did little to offset the negative impact from the broader rise in rates -- the Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Corporate Bond Indexs 5% drop has it on course for its worst quarterly return since 2008.Emerging-market bond spreads drifted wider, but the shift wasnt enough to throw bond sales off track. The gap between emerging-market hard currency debt and Treasuries rose seven basis points in the quarter, according to a JPMorgan Chase & Co. index, compared with a 335-basis point jump the same period last year.That said, cracks have recently started to show on issuance front. Indonesia shrank the size of a debt offering, Russia canceled a bond sale and South African debt saw lower demand than usual.Read More: The Sweet Spot Is Behind Us: Bond Rout Hits Deals Around WorldBitcoin BoomCryptocurrencies have had a marvelous 2021 so far. Bitcoin, the worlds largest digital asset, has doubled since the start of the year, gaining 104% in its second-best quarterly performance since June 2019. Much of its momentum has been driven by wider institutional acceptance, with more mainstream firms taking a greater interest in crypto assets. At the same time, applications for Bitcoin exchange-traded funds also trickled in, with Fidelity Investments the latest firm to join the list of crypto-ETF hopefuls.Meanwhile, fans, including Tesla Inc.s Elon Musk, have argued the coin can be a great store of value -- Bitcoin gained after the electric-vehicle maker said that it put more than $1 billion into the coin.Still, others worry its run up too far, too fast and could be losing its shine as speculation grows that retail investors are becoming less involved in the market. Bitcoin hit a record of $61,742 in mid-March and is roughly 4% off its highs.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.2021 Bloomberg L.P.

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Bitcoin Cash (BCH): Hows It Differ From Bitcoin and Whats It Worth? - Yahoo Finance

The popular safe-haven asset gold recently posted the lowest settlement in three weeks, as a firm dollar and bond market yields have weakened support for the precious metal. The financial goliath BNY Mellon also published a report about the differences between gold and bitcoin and the study said that the crypto asset fits the description of a nascent currency.

The U.S. dollar has gained some strength in the last two weeks, and crypto-assets like bitcoin (BTC) have increased in value as well. However, the precious metal (PM) gold has seen better days, as gold prices have retreated during the last few weeks. The price of gold dropped under the $1,700 per ounce range last week but today, the PM has managed to climb back above the psychological price zone. At the time of publication, an ounce of .999 fine gold is trading for $1,716.30 after jumping 1.7% in the last 24 hours.

Gold bugs and economists have been discussing Joe Bidens proposed $3 trillion stimulus package, and it could kickstart gold, silver, and other types of assets that are considered a hedge against inflation. Kitco Metals Jim Wyckoff said the dollars recent rise and the crazy Treasury yields are limiting buying interest.

The gold and silver market bulls need a fundamental spark, Kitco Metals senior analyst stressed. Wyckoff also noted that the top two PMs, gold and silver, saw technically-related selling pressure from the shorter-term futures traders amid still-bearish near-term charts. Meanwhile as gold has been in a slump, cryptocurrency markets have seen some fresh fervor after prices dropped from highs settled on March 13, 2021.

Moreover, the financial institution BNY Mellon has also published a comprehensive study on the attributes of the crypto asset bitcoin (BTC) and the PM gold. BNY Mellons report zeroes in on the controversial stock-to-flow ratio (S2F) and the creator Plan Bs alternative model called the stock-to-flow cross-asset model (S2FX).

The implication from this model is that as bitcoin gains more mainstream momentum and is viewed more like gold, the BNY Mellon report says. The scarcity value (as measured by S2F) and the subsequent halving will ultimately drive prices to the gold dot cluster and implied total market value.

The researchers at BNY Mellon are not buying the digital gold theory and highlighted that BTC fits the description of a nascent currency. Although the financial institutions report does say bitcoin can gold have similarities and that BTC could look up to the popular PM.

Bitcoin is also frequently compared to gold, BNY Mellons study notes. Indeed, there are many similarities and gold is a worthy role model for bitcoin. After all, gold has been accepted as a store of value and medium of exchange for centuries (nowadays, mostly as a store of value, almost none is used as a medium of exchange). We believe gold is also the only globally accepted currency that has circumvented the issue of sanctioning entities.

However, in mid-February 2021, BNY Mellon set up a digital currency unit that plans to hold, transfer, and issue bitcoin.

What do you think about golds recent performance and BNY Mellons bitcoin and gold comparisons? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons

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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BNY Mellon Report Compares Bitcoin and Gold, Study Says 'Gold Is the Only Globally Accepted Currency' Economics Bitcoin News - Bitcoin News

On episode 8 of the CoinGeek Weekly Livestream, host Kurt Wuckert Jr. is joined by Bitcoins Got Talent main judgesIsaac Morehouse, Jack Liu, and River.

Bitcoins Got Talent (BGT) is the very first game show that revolves around Bitcoin and Bitcoin businesses. On each episode, individuals pitch their ideas and businesses to the main judges as well as one guest judge, and get business advice as well as critiqued before they are either approved to advance to the next round of the show or kicked off of the show.

Kurt begins the show by asking his guests how BGT got started, who had the idea for it, and the steps they took to get the show created.

According to Liu, [One of the ideas behind BGT is that] were all in this together, we would all like to see Bitcoin grow faster, so this is a way to give people some feedback and some ideas to think about early on in their project, and maybe that helps them take a better path.

River adds, Its also some limelight for the projects that are not well known. I think that was the reason I was so excited about it. To get people that arent recognized in the space and get their ideas out there and get them incentivized to build.

Morehouse, Liu, and River went on to talk about the most memorable pitches they have seen on BGT before expanding into questions regarding other Bitcoin apps and services that the trio plays a role in, such as Streamanity, Relayx, and Dimely.

Morehouse also made a soon announcement before giving the audience more insight into the economics of the Numpty Coin, which was recently listed on the RelayX decentralized exchange (REX), as well as the utility you can expect NPC to have in the future and how it could set a precedent for Streamanity content creators.

To find out more about Bitcoins Got Talent, the economics behind the Streamanity of the future, Jack Lius plans for Dimely, as well as Isaac Morehouses soon announcement, you are going to want to head over to the CoinGeek YouTube channel to watch CoinGeek Weekly Livestream episode 8.

You can check out the previous episodes of the CoinGeek Weekly Livestream on YouTube as well.

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

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Bitcoin's Got Talent crew talks Bitcoin culture and development on CoinGeek Weekly Livestream episode 8 - CoinGeek

On Thursday, Bitcoin Cash proponents were introduced to a new website that features a project called Smart Bitcoin Cash or Smartbch for short. Essentially, the project is a sidechain for Bitcoin Cash that is compatible with Ethereums EVM and Web3 API, which means people will soon be able to leverage decentralized applications (dapps) without paying lots of money for transaction fees.

At the time of writing, Ethereum is the dominant chain when it comes to Web3 applications and decentralized finance. However, ethereum (ETH) fees to interact with a Web3 compatible dapp or some type of smart contract can be very expensive these days. The Smartbch project aims to change all that and the creators plan to make throughput as large as one billion gas every 15 seconds.

The new website called smartbch.org says the sidechain will essentially maximize throughput of EVM and Web3 tools. The website gives a person a comprehensive look at what Smart Bitcoin Cash aims to accomplish with a FAQ, documentation, community resources, and even jobs and bounties.

Smart Bitcoin Cashs innovation lies in libraries, the core components mentioned in the projects white paper notes. Instead of inventing fancy consensus and cryptographic algorithms, we decided to adopt another methodology: to develop low-level libraries with an aim to fully uncover the hardwares potential, especially its inherent parallelism. Ordinary users and developers are provided with a compatibility layer supporting EVM and Web3, so the optimized low-level close to the metal libraries themselves remain concealed by this layer of abstraction. During the implementation, we used the codename Moeing, which is added to the libraries names as prefix.

Smartbch leveraged five tools that will be greatly beneficial to the sidechains ecosystem. MoeingADS single-layer architecture, the MoeingEVM parallelized execution engine, the MoeingDB application-specific database, MoeingKV storage, and the MoeingAOT compiler for the EVM. The projects website notes that programmers can build a new playground for Bitcoin Cashs ecosystem and enlarge the user base.

Smartbch will also offer:

Bitcoin.coms newsdesk was the first to report on the Ethereum and Web3-compatible sidechain coming to Bitcoin Cash during the first week of March. Of course, the BCH community on Reddit loved the idea and many supporters wrote a comment about the project on r/btc.

We are working with the Smartbch team and have a test node running. Should have the Uniswap contract working this weekend, one programmer wrote on the forum. The first release of version 0.1.0 of Smartbch is now available and developers can help test a dapp on Smartbch. Programmers can also download the source code and start a single node testnet. At the time of publication, bitcoin cash (BCH) is exchanging hands for $560 per unit, up 2.3% during the last 24 hours.

What do you think about the Smartbch project and the Ethereum and Web3-compatible sidechain coming to Bitcoin Cash? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons, Smartbch

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

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The Power of ETH and BCH: Smart Bitcoin Cash Project Highlights Innovative Sidechain Technology Bitcoin News - Bitcoin News

As bitcoin surges to unprecedented value, the sprawling matrix of computers around the world that run its software is now consuming as much energy a year as Sweden, the latest calculations suggest.

The higher the price, the more electricity this network uses. Iran was recently rocked by power outages that were partly blamed on bitcoin. Bill Gates recently warned bitcoin was "not a great climate thing." U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellan has called its energy use "staggering."

Conceived to defy central banks in the fallout of the financial crisis, bitcoin started life so counter-cultural that no one really knows who created it.

It has soared from around $10,000 through most of last year to around $58,000 now, thanks to investors who fear traditional currencies are set to lose value, an influx of traders who speculate on the future price, and Elon Musk who tweets that you can use it to buy Teslas. It is now seriously talked of as a potential new global reserve currency.

But as Wall Street banks roll out bitcoin services, they may find its environmental costs hard to balance with shareholders and customers who are increasingly conscious. Experts tell Insider that bitcoin faces a Catch-22.

Like the cryptocurrency itself, bitcoin's community is decentralized, defiant, and nebulous. No one can simply tell it to heed growing calls to reduce its carbon footprint.

Alex de Vries, a Dutch economist who created the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index, estimates the electricity used has doubled since 2017 to between 78 terawatt hours (TWh) and 101 TWh a year. More than half of bitcoin miners in China, where most use coal.

Bitcoin has no physical form. "Mining" refers to its network of computers finding new tokens by having them solve complex calculations.

Hardware at the SberBit cryptocurrency mining equipment facility in Moscow, Russia, in 2017. Vyacheslav ProkofyevTASS via Getty Images

New tokens these calculations uncover are a reward to the miners for using their computing power and electricity to secure the network against hacks and record transactions on bitcoin's decentralized ledger, known as the blockchain.

As the price climbs, those running the vast networks of computers dedicated to solving these calculations can sell them and direct more computing power toward the network, creating a cyclical effect as they compete with other miners to find new bitcoin first.

SEE ALSO: Bitcoin mining can be a 'bridge' to a renewable energy future by supporting green projects, a leading North American miner says

De Vries thinks bitcoin's energy use will continue to climb as the prices rises and miners buy more hardware.

He forecasts the network could soon consume a staggering 200 TWh, as much energy as all data centers globally and equivalent roughly to London.

He said potential investors may be put off by bitcoin's eye-watering energy use, adding, "I think this will be a major problem for bitcoin."

But for bitcoin advocates, the fact it allows people to make transactions semi-anonymously and without third-party approval, outweigh the environmental costs.

Nic Carter, a bitcoin investor and partner at crypto-focused venture capital firm Castle Island Ventures, told Insider its energy use was "not a new debate."

"The costs of the dollar system are harder to comprehend but they are extremely real," he added.

The more bitcoin surges, the worse the problem becomes. Alain Pitton/NurPhoto via Getty Images

He said that if investors conscious of environmental impact refused to buy bitcoin "because it consumes energy like every other utility on the planet they are just doing themselves and their investors a disservice."

Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey said late last year that cryptocurrencies "will eventually be powered completely by clean power, eliminating its carbon footprint and driving adoption of renewables globally ... Published estimates indicate bitcoin already consumes a significant amount of clean energy."

Bitcoin miners, incentivized to use renewable energy by government subsidies, have sought sustainable ways of fueling their computers.

One German company set up a mining facility under the fjords of Norway, using hydroelectricity to power its machines and the freezing water to cool them.

But estimates of how much bitcoin's overall energy use is green vary hugely.

In a 2019 study, cryptocurrency asset management firm CoinShares' analysis concluded the bitcoin network gets up to 74% of its electricity from renewables. But in a survey by Cambridge University's Judge Business School the same year, only 39% of miners said that their power came from renewables.

Renewables aren't the only way to use less energy.

Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency after bitcoin, has a total value of $200 billion compared to bitcoin's $1 trillion market capitalization and soared over the last year. Its energy demands spiked to 30 TWh per year, up from 7 TWh 12 months ago, according to de Vries' calculations.

It sought to cut its energy use by moving to a "proof-of-stake" algorithm, where, instead of miners who create new tokens as a reward for securing the blockchain, "stalkers" hold existing tokens and can commit or stake them to the network, generating new tokens and helping to validate transactions.

But De Vries said fixing bitcoin's energy dilemma this way would be impossible without fundamental changes to bitcoin.

Its miners and developers could vote for such a change but fundamental alterations to bitcoin's core software are broadly unpopular.

One proposal to make bitcoin better suited to small payments in 2017 caused such a schism that a group of miners decided to "fork" the blockchain and create a rival cryptocurrency called bitcoin cash.

Frances Coppola, an author on banking, finance, and economics, told Insider bitcoin needed to evolve if it is to solve the problem.

"I don't think the bitcoin industry is doing itself any favors by refusing even to accept that bitcoin's energy use is a problem, let alone do anything about it," she added.

De Vries added that, if traders, miners and advocates cannot address its environmental impact, government action "seems like an inevitable outcome."

Bitcoin may be set up to be distanced from authorities but, as hundreds of thousands dream of following its early investors into the ranks of the world's richest, it is attracting the type of attention governments cannot ignore.

India has proposed fining anyone who trades or owns bitcoin, As U.S. Treasury Secretary Yellan condemned its energy use, she also warned investors it was "extremely inefficient" and "often for illicit finance."

But De Vries added that, whatever happened, bitcoin would likely survive in some form.

He said it would "continue to exist as long as some people think it has value ... It may just not be the same market value as it has today."

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Bitcoin uses as much energy as Sweden and is on course to use even more - Business Insider