Category Archives: Cryptocurrency

Bitcoin has rebounded this week, climbing along with gold and other safe-havens as major stock markets struggle.

The bitcoin price is up just over 2% over the last weekmaking strong gains yesterday as investors search for somewhere to put their cash.

However, one major cryptocurrency has outpaced bitcoin's gains over the last week and is still rocketing higher.

Bitcoin and cryptocurrency investors have been hard hit by the coronavirus crisis but the bitcoin ... [+] price has begun to climb again this week--outpaced by just a handful of smaller cryptocurrencies.

The privacy-focused cryptocurrency monero, currently ranked as the 11th most valuable cryptocurrency on data site CoinMarketCap with a total value of just under $1 billion, has added almost 5% in the past weekbeating bitcoin's gains.

Monero, which masks the identity of users better than the likes of bitcoin, is up by over 6% over the last 24-hour trading period, soaring as the broader cryptocurrency market climbed.

The precise reason for monero's sudden surge wasn't immediately clear, though there have been a number of positive developments for the bitcoin rival over recent months.

Monero developers recently rolled out an update to its Carbon Chameleon software, designed to improve transaction execution and how the cryptocurrency works with the privacy networks Tor and I2P.

Monero and privacy coins have also recently gained support from some high profile figures in the tech and crypto industry.

"I think well also see privacy integrated into one of the dominant chains in the 2020s," Coinbase's chief executive Brian Armstrong wrote in a blog post back in January.

"Just like how the internet launched with HTTP, and only later introduced HTTPS as a default on many websites, I believe well eventually see a privacy coin or blockchain with built in privacy features get mainstream adoption in the 2020s. It doesnt make sense in most cases to broadcast every payment you make on a transparent ledger."

The monero price has surged over the last week, beating out bitcoin itself as the broader ... [+] cryptocurrency market bounces back.

John McAfee, the controversial and outspoken antivirus software developer and curve-ball U.S. presidential candidate, named monero as his cryptocurrency of choice earlier this year.

McAfee, who has reneged on his promise to "eat [his] own dick on national television" if the bitcoin price didn't hit $500,000 per bitcoin by the end of 2020, praised monero, along with ethereum, the second most valuable cryptocurrency after bitcoin.

McAfee made similar allusions to monero's technological superiority over bitcoin.

"Bitcoin was first. It's an ancient technology. All know it," McAfee said via Twitter before recommending monero to cryptocurrency users.

"Newer blockchains have privacy, smart contracts, distributed apps and more. Bitcoin is our future? Was the Model T the future of the automobile?"

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Just One Major Cryptocurrency Is Outperforming Bitcoin Right Now And Its Climbing Fast - Forbes

Investing has never been easier now that on-chain metrics enable market participants to determine who is on the other side of the trade. While this is only possible in the cryptocurrency market, IntoTheBlock maintains that this data can empower investors worldwide.

Contrary to popular belief, one of the biggest advantages of the cryptocurrency market is transparency. Through on-chain analytics anyone can determine how many investors are in a given asset, when they bought, and what their cost basis is. These key datasets are essential to determine which digital asset to invest in.

IntoTheBlock uses machine learning and statistical modeling to provide a view of a crypto assets profitability and capital stack. Bitcoin, for instance, is a great example of decentralization, which makes it ideal to consider as an investment vehicle, according to the firm.

The flagship cryptocurrency only has one whale that holds 1.4 percent of its circulating supply. This address has approximately 255,100 BTC and belongs to Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange Huobi. The other 98.6 percent of the total Bitcoin in circulation is distributed among investors and retail investors. The former holds 10.1 percent while the latter keeps 88.5 percent.

Not only Bitcoin is decentralized, but the amount of holders in the network is at all-time highs, according to IntoTheBlock.

The Ownership by Time Held model estimates that nearly 30 millon addresses have a balance in Bitcoin. Currently, almost 63 percent of those addresses are holding 10.8 million BTC for more than a year. This represents a 23.7 percent growth since last year.

IntoTheBlock added:

To give you more accurate information about this we can see that the number of Bitcoins that hasnt been moved in over 5 years is up from 3.6m BTC on April of 2019 to 3.95m BTC on April of this year.

Other assets such as Maker do not provide the same levels of decentralization as Bitcoin and most of its investors will be in the red if they were to sell their tokens today.

In fact, IntoTheBlocks Global In/Out of the Money model shows that 89 percent of the addresses holding MKR are losing money while only 3 percent of addresses are in the money.

On-chain metrics also reveal that of the 57,520 addresses holding Maker, just 13 of them control almost 65 percent of the circulating supply. And, there is one address that holds nearly 25 percent of the circulating supply.

IntoTheBlock maintains that this could suggest that if anyone were to buy MKR, there is one major address would probably be the one dumping their tokens at a profit.

The ability to determine how centralized an asset is, how large holders can manipulate its price, or how confident investors are is only possible with this new asset class. Although this is not enough data to consider whether or not a given cryptocurrency provides a good investment opportunity, counter-party analysis makes this decision easier.

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These are the main factors to consider before investing in the cryptocurrency market - CryptoSlate

Staking is a way for cryptocurrency users to generate passive income as they earn interest on their investments. And now, to meet the demands of its customers, popular exchange Bitfinex has launched a staking rewards program, according to a Tuesday announcement.

The new staking services will allow Bitfinexs users to earn interest of up to 10% per annum for depositing and holding their digital assets on the exchange.

For the time being, however, the staking program only features EOS, Cosmos (ATOM), and v.systems (VSYS). The exchange plans to add support for Tezos (XTZ) sometime in May.

Speaking about the development, Paolo Ardoino, Bitfinexs Chief Technology Officer, said the exchange is committed to engaging their existing customers and the broader crypto community with innovative products and features.

The Bitfinex Staking Rewards Program provides our users with another avenue to increase their holdings on our platform, he added.

Staked tokens will remain under the control of the exchange and will be secured like other cryptocurrencies on the platform. The company assures users that funds will be safely stored on the platform through the use of its secure in-house custody solution, so customers do not need to worry.

To celebrate the launch, the exchange is hosting a competition that allows participants to win a branded Bitfinex t-shirt.

Bitfinex is not the first cryptocurrency exchange to launch a staking rewards program. The likes of Kraken, Coinbase, and leading exchange Binance, have launched similar staking services offering users between 5 and 7% returns per annum.

While crypto staking seems attractive, it also comes with some risks. It is generally not advisable for users to store large amounts of cryptocurrencies on exchanges unless they are trading with the funds. An exchange is only secured until it is hacked.

Hackers are the nightmares of cryptocurrency exchanges. These nefarious players are always targetting exchanges, and one can never tell which trading platform will be the next victim. They have been several reports of exchanges like Mt Gox and Cryptopia that went bankrupt after suffering severe security breaches, which led to the loss of users funds.

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Bitfinex Launches Cryptocurrency Staking With Up To 10% Annual Returns - CryptoPotato

The theory goes that quantum computing could be used to crack out cryptocurrency wallets. Is this true?

What could quantum computing do to web services? Currently, there are supercomputers already in existence. They are so smart that they can find your Bitcoins by brute-forcing the seed phrases. The computers are so smart now that they can distinguish between two persons entering the same login and password on a login page, serving different e-mail inboxes. This is not a matter of what password is used, but what fingers are entering it.

Quantum computers use enormous calculating power to enable the magic of ultra-performance. However, quantum computers work differently and demand caution, so the area is more experimental than established.

In a classic computer, there are 0s and 1s as the data transmitters, called bits. The bit is the smallest unit of information. A set of differently working bits can make up the sequence containing information. In the quantum computer, the same unit of information is called a qubit. This is because, due to its quantum nature, it is not just a voltage orientation definition, it is more of a wave. This special particle full of energy has the ability to appear in two different positions simultaneously. The important thing here is that the qubits superposition eliminates once an observer is looking at it.

This allows the supercomputer, for instance, to test two possible options of the password instead of just one per each brute force attempt.

Also, qubits separated by distance can have similar physical properties and influence on each other.

Computer scientists from across the globe already used supercomputers (not the quantum ones) and computing networks to crack out someones seed phrases. This is not something you should do due to legal concerns but back in 2017, theLarge Bitcoin Collider was offering the public to join collective Bitcoin private keys crackdown.

They offer anybody to participate in an act of something that can be compared with collective brute force. And personal computers of people who joined are acting as hash power.

Collective hash power is calculating random Bitcoin private keys. Such calculation may lead to the participants discovering the private keys of several people who hold bitcoins. And the trick works they have found several addresses with small sums on them. However, most of the keys were the easy ones containing small amounts of bitcoin thrown there on purpose. Presumably, by some secretive coder who discovered those addresses earlier.

Google D-Wave quantum computer raised awareness at the beginning of 2019. After some corporations started using it in business, the new machine quickly gathered the aureole of omnipotence. News outlets inspired the usual noise about bitcoins fast death because of the seed cracking. However, in reality, the new computer is a sector-specific calculator. Google researcher at Imperial College of London, Dragos Ilie, said:

As you add more qubits the system becomes more and more unstable [though] researchers can try different approaches for solving these issues so maybe there are ways to mitigate these problems but right now we are quite far from breaking bitcoin.

It wont perform usual tasks written for old types of computers, because its not the usual one. The scientists barely made it perform casual tasks. It has lots of different constants and settings to count. For instance, if cubits are in the wrong position or two of them dont have direct contact, the logical chain falls apart.

The author of this piece is not a theoretical physicist. However, D-Wave looks like a machine that needs time before people understand how to present the tasks to it.

The ability of a quantum computer to solve the tasks faster than the classic dual logic computers is called Quantum supremacy.

In the fall of 2019, Google has claimed they proved to have the quantum supremacy by performing the specific task via a quantum computer. That task is a hard nut to crack for the usual computers, and the corporation tried to make some waves. However, their competitor IBM used their own supercomputer without any quantum parts and performed the same task faster, thus destroying Googles fairy tale by roots. IBM advises people to take Google with a large dose of skepticism.

The inability of such a computer to work on ultra high speed is taking roots in the noise correction.

Mikhail Dyakonov, a researcher from the Charles Coulombe Laboratory at the University of Montpellier, France, wrote an article for IEEE Spectrum. He claims that quantum computinghas a similar source for both weakness and potential:

While a conventional computer with N bits at any given moment must be in one of its 2N possible states,the state of a quantum computer with N qubits is described by the values of the 2N quantum amplitudes, which are continuous parameters (ones that can take on any value, not just a 0 or a 1). This is the origin of the supposed power of the quantum computer, but it is also the reason for its great fragility and vulnerability.

So the number of continuous parameters describing the state of such a useful quantum computer at any given moment is much, much greater than the number of subatomic particles in the observable universe.

This sounds similar to how the human brain works. Its number of connections between the neurons is far greater than the number of subatomic particles in the Universe. What humans seek in quantum computing seems to be their own brains accuracy level. The neuron connections can be compared with noise in a quantum computer. Being the ideal example of chaos, both the human brain and a quantum computer must perform better, but the quantum computer is stuck within its own complexity.

Dr. Subhash Kak from Oklahoma State University says that quantum computers usedifferent methods of calculating, and classic machines do better at what humans need. Modern quantum computers need a far greater number of cubits to operate before they can compete:

These companies are trying to build hardware that replicates the circuit model of classical computers. However, current experimental systems have less than 100 qubits. To achieve useful computational performance, you probably need machines with hundreds of thousands of qubits.

During the next few years, you have nothing to fear. The crypto coins on the cold wallets are safe, as long as you dont share the secret. As for the coins stored on exchanges and in hot wallets, there is no need for a supercomputer to crack them off.

Now, powerful computers are in possession by scientists and large corporations. They can perform experiments with finding your crypto keys. There is a certain possibility that quantum computers will be able to easily crack the cryptocurrency wallets in the future. Some of the most powerful datacenters, however, already can do such things without quantum computing.

They are obligated by law to avoid using the computational power to steal the coins. Thats why even if scientists find your bitcoin using the supercomputers or quantum computers, they dont have the right to take them away. Otherwise, its a theft.

Byt the time when computational power becomes available to ordinary hackers, your average crypto wallet will be upgraded to handle the threat.

Andreas Antonopoulossuggests that quantum-resistant crypto algorithmswill eventually emerge to protect users wallets. Notably, some of the cryptocurrency wallets already started using 16 or 24 words instead of 12 words as the Seed phrase. This way, they strengthen the security of the wallet in the longterm. Because, at the end of it, nobody knows whether the universal crypto cracking software emerges in the next 5 to 10 years or not.

Maybe, just maybe, theres some billionaire who puts his supercomputer power to cracking up all the possible Bitcoin private keys. If such a violent hacker finds your stash, you wont know about it until he spends it out.

Theoretically, there is a great possibility of creating a quantum computer set that can crack the cryptocurrency wallets. Here, even things like the Moneros hidden blockchain feature may not help to cover the money.

It will take a huge amount of different resources such as time, qubits and electricity to crack out any private key. Or the whole wallet, under current circumstances. There are billions of billions of addresses in the so-called address space. Even with supercomputers, the task is somewhat very hard to complete.

Jeff Fawkes is a seasoned investment professional and a crypto analyst. He has a dual degree in Business Administration and Creative Writing and is passionate when it comes to how technology impacts our society.

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Could Quantum Computing Be Used to Crack... - Coinspeaker

Basic Attention Token (BAT), the native cryptocurrency of the Brave Browser, spiked by more than 16 percent following a Binance trading widget integration.

The Brave team said:

Brave Software and Binance, the global blockchain company behind the worlds largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume and users, today announced a partnership that enables Brave browser users to seamlessly trade cryptocurrency assets through Binance.

The partnership allows users of Brave Browser to trade cryptocurrencies on Binance on the new tab page of the browser.

The Brave Browser remains as one of the few products with a native cryptocurrency to have millions of active users on a monthly basis.

In January 2020, Brave Software co-founder and CEO Brendan Eich said that the number of active monthly users using the Brave Browser surpassed 11.2 million.

He said:

Brave finished 2019 with 11.2M MAU & 3.5M DAU. Since then DAU has passed 3.7M DAU, and growth continues.

That is more than a 10 percent increase in user growth within a two-month span, after seeing 8.7 million users in October 2019.

Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance, said that the long-term partnership with Brave will increase the utility of cryptocurrencies.

Zhao said:

The Binance widget on Braves privacy-oriented browser instills a safer way to buy and sell crypto and also reduces user friction to onboard, trade and interact with the Binance ecosystem. We are looking forward to our long-term partnership with Brave to make it even easier to interact with crypto and encourage more utility in the near future.

The recovery in the price of BAT comes at a much needed time of the year; since January 1, the price of the BAT cryptocurrency fell by nearly 50 percent against the USD.

It fell substantially as the Bitcoin price dropped sharply from $8,000 to sub-$4,000 on March 12, in one of the steepest pullbacks in the markets history.

Since bottoming out at $0.099 in mid-March, the price of BAT has increased by around 70 percent to $0.162.

The sharp correction of the U.S. stock market and the global financial sector led to a short-term decline in the valuation of the entire cryptocurrency market.

But, the industry has seen significant positive developments over the past three months. Most notably, the Supreme Court of India dismissed the circular issued by the Reserve Bank of India to prohibit cryptocurrency trading.

Investments in the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry have declined year-over-year, primarily due to the economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic in key cryptocurrency markets such as China, South Korea, the U.S., and Europe.

Yet, industry leaders and major companies within the sector are working toward strengthening the infrastructure supporting cryptocurrencies, similar to every previous bear cycle in the last ten years.

Since 2009, Bitcoin has seen a repeated cycle of a bear market-build phase-accumulation phase-bull market many times over. Following every bear cycle, the industry had come out stronger in terms of fundamentals.

Originally posted here:
Why this cryptocurrency just surged 16% on news of a key Binance partnership - CryptoSlate

Cryptocurrency and ransomware have had a long history together. They are so closely intertwined, in fact, that many have blamed the rise of cryptocurrency for a parallel rise in ransomware attacks.

Ransomware attacks are certainly increasing they rose by 118% in 2018 but its not clear that this is due to cryptocurrency. While the vast majority of ransoms are paid in crypto, the transparent nature of these currencies actually means that they are a pretty bad place to hide stolen funds.

In this article, well take a look at the relationship between cryptocurrency and ransomware, as well as what the future holds.

There are at least two ways in which cryptocurrency is important for ransomware attacks. The first one is the most obvious the majority of the ransoms paid during these kinds of attacks are generally in cryptocurrency. This was the case, for instance, in the WannaCry ransomware attacks, still the largest attack of its kind in history. Victims of the attack were instructed to send roughly $300 of Bitcoin (BTC) to their attackers.

There is another way in which crypto and ransomware are intertwined, though. Today, plenty of hackers are offering ransomware as a service, essentially letting anyone hire a hacker from online marketplaces. If you are so inclined, you can even buy ransomware off-the-shelf from these marketplaces. Both of these services can be paid for in youve guessed it cryptocurrency.

Cryptocurrency is also implicated in many other forms of cyberattack. Cryptojacking a form of attack that uses victims computers to mine cryptocurrencies is also on the rise, and new forms of malware such as Adylkuzz can be used by almost anyone with even a slight level of technical knowledge. Though these forms of attack are not technically ransomware, they further suggest the deep relationship between cryptocurrency and cybercrime.

At first glance, it seems obvious that ransomware hackers would demand payment in cryptocurrency. Surely these currencies, based on anonymity and encryption, offer the best place to store stolen funds?

Well, not really. There is actually a different reason why ransomware attacks make use of cryptocurrencies. As Coin Center director of research Peter Van Valkenburgh wrote in 2017, it is the efficiency of cryptocurrency networks, rather than their secrecy, that attracts hackers. As he later put it:

Its electronic cash, so its easy to write software that can automatically demand payment and automatically demand that payment has been made.

The value of cryptocurrency during a ransomware attack is actually the transparency of cryptocurrency exchanges. A hacker can simply watch the public blockchain to see if victims have paid up, and can automate the process of giving a victim their files back once this payment has been received.

This point also suggests a slightly curious aspect of the role of crypto in ransomware attacks: Cryptocurrency is, perhaps, the worst place to store ransom money. The open, transparent, nature of Bitcoin blockchain transactions means that the global community is closely watching the ransom money. That makes it extremely difficult to convert these funds into another currency, and means that they can be tracked by law enforcement.

As the director of research at Coin Center, Peter Van Valkenburgh, stated:

In the U.S., every major bitcoin exchange is regulated by FINCEN. Right now the $50,000 extorted from victims is just sitting on the bitcoin network. ... That [exchange into local currency] is where youre vulnerable to being identified.

The fact that stolen funds can be tracked in this way doesnt necessarily mean that the hackers who stole them can be brought to justice, of course. The anonymity of cryptocurrency means that it is often impossible for law enforcement agencies to uncover the true identity of ransomware hackers, though of course there are exceptions.

Chief among these, according to Coin Center, is that the blockchain allows one to trace all transactions involving a given bitcoin address, all the way back to the first transaction. That gives law enforcement the records it needs to follow the money in a way that would never be possible with cash.

Because of that, and also in response to a number of recent high-profile ransomware attacks, some have called for cryptocurrency to be regulated more closely. Regulation will need to be implemented carefully, however, because one of the major attractions of cryptocurrency for ordinary citizens and hackers alike is the fact that it is anonymous.

This means that attempts to regulate the space may make catching criminals even more difficult. As pointed out by Will Ellis, head of research at community advocacy group Privacy Australia, cryptocurrency bans led to a rise in VPN use, as investors seek to circumvent Know Your Customer and Anti-Money Laundering requirements in their home countries.

In addition, most governments simply dont have the understanding or the resources to regulate the crypto space effectively. Some are so far behind that they arent even certain how to define what cryptocurrencies are. In this context, it is difficult to see how the close link between ransomware and cryptocurrency can ever be broken.

Related: From the UK to Malaysia: How Countries Have Been Classifying Crypto Across the World

The lack of governmental oversight of cryptocurrency, combined with the rapid rise in ransomware attacks, means that individuals need to protect themselves.

Some companies and individuals have taken unusual approaches. Companies have stockpiled Bitcoin not as an investment, but rather in case they need to pay a ransom as part of a future attack. Some enterprising individuals have even taken matters into their own hands, such as the German programmer who hacked back following a cyberattack using his own systems.

For most of us, though, protecting against ransomware attacks means doing the basics correctly. You should ensure that all of your systems are up to date, subscribe to a secure cloud storage provider and backup frequently. Companies of all sizes should partner with a managed security services provider to monitor enterprise networks, perform risk assessments and make recommendations specific to their data environment.

Ultimately, the relationship between cryptocurrency and ransomware is unlikely to be broken anytime soon. And while cryptocurrencies are certainly involved in the majority of ransomware attacks, we should not make the mistake of blaming crime on the currency it is conducted in.

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

Sam Bocetta is a freelance journalist specializing in U.S. diplomacy and national security, with an emphasis on technology trends in cyber warfare, cyber defense and cryptography. Previously, Sam was a defense contractor for the United States Department of Defense, working in partnership with architects and developers to mitigate controls for vulnerabilities identified across applications.

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The Role of Cryptocurrencies in the Rise of Ransomware - Cointelegraph

Digital assets in the cryptocurrency market are maintaining a bullish momentum and trend for the second day in a row. Although there were setbacks over the weekend as prices retreated from Fridays highs, this weeks potential and recovery optimism remain high.

According to the data provided by CoinMarketCap, the recovery across the board has seen the total market cap grow by $22 billion from $163 billion recorded on Monday to $185 billion at the time of writing. The trading volume has also grown significantly from $131 billion to $162 in the same period. Bitcoins dominance has also grown by 0.7% from 65% as reported on Monday to 65.7%.

While Bitcoin is in the green with gains more than 3%, it is not the best performing cryptocurrency. Monero(XMR) is leading the recovery in the market with over 15% in gains followed closely by Dash (DASH) with gains more than 12%. Ethereum Classic (ETC) and Ripple (XRP) are not very far behind due to their 7.7% and 7.39% respective growth on the day.

BTC/USD is trading at $6,744 after touching $6,861 (intraday high). Bulls are largely in control but the sellers are keen to ensure that Bitcoin does not break above $7,000. If the critical resistance at $7,000 is overcome, I expect a technical breakout with gains eyeing $8,000.

DASH/USD is trading at $70.27 after adjusting lower from an intraday high of $71.57. The prevailing trend is strongly bullish. At the same time, the bullish momentum is supported by the expanding volatility and volume. In other words, Dash price is likely to soar especially if the rest of the market is moving higher.

XMR/USD remains at the helm of the crypto market recovery on Tuesday. It is trading at $44.10 after correcting from $44.4 (intraday high). The bulls are in the driver seat owing to the strong bullish momentum and a sustained uptrend. Stability is expected in the coming sessions but bulls will most certainly push for more action above $50.

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Cryptocurrency Market Update: Dash and Monero edge above Bitcoin to lead a remarkable recovery - FXStreet

The city of Ashburn, Virginia has more cryptocurrency users per capita than anywhere else in the United States, but users in San Francisco are the wealthiest according to new research published last week by tax software startup CoinTracker.

The startup said it examined tens of thousands of anonymized user accounts to present a snapshot of US crypto users by location, wealth and their favorite cryptocurrencies.

The data suggest that more than 50% of cryptocurrency users hold Bitcoin, and nearly 30% have Ether, the second-most popular cryptocurrency by market cap.

The mid-Atlantic tech hub Ashburn, VA had the most users per capita, followed by Redmond, Washington, the headquarters of Microsoft.

US cities with most crypto owners per capita. Source: CoinTracker

But larger cities dominated when it came to total number of crypto holders, with San Francisco coming first, followed by New York and Los Angeles.

US cities with most crypto owners. (Image: CoinTracker)

San Francisco is also home to the wealthiest cryptocurrency holders. The average user has over $55,000 in their crypto portfolio. In fact, the Bay Area dominates the list of places with the wealthiest users, with San Francisco, Palo Alto, Santa Clara and San Mateo capturing each of the top four spots.

US cities with the richest crypto owners. (Image: CoinTracker)

San Francisco users also standout as having made over half of their crypto wealth from Ethereum, according to the CoinTracker data. But San Diego leads the country in concentration of Ether wealth, with 66% of users owning the cryptocurrency.

CoinTracker said its data was obtained from people who used the companys services for calculating crypto taxes between 2013 and 2020. The startup was launched in 2017 and is backed by investors including former Coinbase CTO Balaji S. Srinivasan, tennis ace Serena Williams. YCombinator, and Initialized Capital.

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Ranked: US cities with the most crypto owners - Decrypt

CoreWeave, the largest U.S. miner on the Ethereum blockchain, is redirecting the processing power of 6,000 specialized computer chips toward research to find a therapy for the coronavirus.

These graphics processing units (GPUs) will be pointed toward Stanford University's Folding@home, a long-standing research effort that unveiled a project on Feb. 27 specifically to boost coronavirus research by way of a unique approach to developing pharmaceutical drugs: connecting thousands of computers from around the world to form a distributed supercomputer for disease research.

CoreWeave co-founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Brian Venturo said the project has at least a shot at finding a drug for the virus. As such, CoreWeave has responded by doubling the power of the entire network with its GPUs, which are designed to handle repetitive calculations.

According to Venturo, those 6,000 GPUs made up about 0.2 percent of Ethereum's total hashrate, earning roughly 28 ETH per day, worth about $3,600 at press time.

There is no cure for the coronavirus just yet (though various groups are working on vaccines and research to combat the disease, including IBM's supercomputer). Venturo noted that Folding@home has been used to contribute to breakthroughs in the creation of other important drugs.

"Their research had profound impacts on the development of front-line HIV defense drugs, and we are hoping our [computing power] will aid in the fight against coronavirus," Venturo said.

The coronavirus is taking a toll across the world. Italy and Spain are on lockdown. Conferences, stores and restaurants are closing to stem the spread of the disease; by stoking fears, it's slamming the financial markets in the process.

World computer

When the idea of using GPUs for coronavirus research was mentioned to CoreWeave, the team didn't think twice.

They had a test system up and running "within minutes," Venturo said. Since then, the project quickly snowballed. CoreWeave has been contributing over half of the overall computing power going into the coronavirus wing of Folding@home.

"The idea of 'should we do this?' was never really brought up, it kind of just happened. We were all enthusiastic that we might be able to help," Venturo added.

Folding@home is a decentralized project in the same vein as Bitcoin. Instead of one research firm alone using a massive computer to do research, Folding@home uses the computing power of anyone who wants to participate from around the world even if it's just a single laptop with a little unused computing power to spare.

In this case, the computing power is used to find helpful information relating to the coronavirus. Much like in bitcoin mining, one user might detect a "solution" to the problem at hand, distributing this information to the rest of the group.

"Their protein simulations attempt to find potential 'pockets' where existing [U.S. federal agency Food and Drug Administration (FDA)] approved drugs or other known compounds could help inhibit or treat the virus," Venturo said.

Viruses have proteins "that they use to suppress our immune systems and reproduce themselves. To help tackle coronavirus, we want to understand how these viral proteins work and how we can design therapeutics to stop them," a Folding@home blog post explains.

Simulating these proteins and then looking at them from different angles helps scientists to understand them better, with the potential of finding an antidote. Computers accelerate this process by shuffling through the variations very quickly.

"Our specialty is in using computer simulations to understand proteins moving parts. Watching how the atoms in a protein move relative to one another is important because it captures valuable information that is inaccessible by any other means," the post reads.

Long shot

Folding@home could use even more power. Venturo urges other GPU miners to join the cause.

Even without these calls for participation, though, miners of other cryptocurrencies are already independently taking action. Tulip.tools founder Johann Tanzer put out a call to action to Tezos bakers (that blockchains equivalent of miners) last week, promising to send the leading contributor to Folding@home a modest 15 XTZ, worth roughly $20 at press time.

The initiative blew up, to Tanzer's surprise. Though they might not be contributing as much power as CoreWeave, 20 groups of Tezos miners are now contributing a slice of their hashing power to the cause. Tanzer's pot has swelled to roughly $600 as Tezos users caught wind of the effort and donated.

But that's not to say all miners can participate. While GPUs are flexible, application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), a type of chip designed specifically for mining, aren't, according to Venturo. Though ASICs are more powerful than GPUs, they're really only made for one thing: To mine cryptocurrency. This is one advantage Venturo thinks Ethereum has over Bitcoin, since GPU mining still works on the former, whereas the latter is now dominated by ASICs.

"This is one of the great things about the Ethereum mining ecosystem, it's basically the largest GPU compute resource on the planet. We were able to redeploy our hardware to help fight a global pandemic in minutes," Venturo said. (However, it's worth noting that Ethereum has seen ASICs enter the fray. Not to mention, ether miners might soon go extinct when a pivotal upgrade makes its way into the network.)

ASICs are useless for the Folding@Home effort, but if bitcoin miners have old GPUs lying around from the early days that they could contribute, too.

Even if other miners join up, though, it's still a long shot that the effort will lead to a helpful drug.

"After discussing with some industry experts [...] we believe the chance of success in utilizing the work done on Folding@Home to deliver a drug to market to be in the 2-5% range," Venturo said.

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

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Thousands of These Computers Were Mining Cryptocurrency. Now They're Working on Coronavirus Research - CoinDesk

Mr. Jimnez was fairly insulated. He had founded a start-up, The Social Us, that connected Venezuelan programmers and designers with American companies looking for cheap labor. Like many wealthier Venezuelans, Mr. Jimnez kept almost all his money in dollars, but this made transactions a headache. He had to illegally swap currency every few days, and a taxi ride would require a stack of bolvars so thick that most drivers accepted only wire transfers.

The situation rekindled Mr. Jimnezs long-running interest in cryptocurrencies. He began paying his employees in a digital coin; even with the crazy volatility of the crypto markets, it was more stable than a Venezuelan bank account, and it wasnt subject to the Maduro regimes diktats. The staff at The Social Us began touting cryptocurrency as a way for ordinary Venezuelans growing numbers of whom were buying Bitcoin on the street to deal with practical problems. One project they designed was a payment terminal that bypassed government limits on spending.

Initially, the Maduro regime saw Bitcoin as a threat. The technology, after all, used a decentralized network to create and move money, and no authority was in charge. But then some members of the government noticed that this cut both ways. Cryptocurrency could also be a way for Venezuela to escape sanctions levied by the United States and international organizations.

In September 2017, an official loyal to Mr. Maduro floated the idea of a digital currency backed by Venezuelas oil reserves. This was unorthodox: One of the tenets of Bitcoin is that its value does not derive from a natural resource or government fiat,only the laws of mathematics. But the distinction faded in the face of Venezuelas desperation. The official, Carlos Vargas, read about Mr. Jimnezs crypto work in a local publication and asked for a meeting.

Soon the hulking form of Mr. Vargas arrived at the office of The Social Us. As he consumed an entire bag of potato chips, Mr. Vargas flattered the young digital workers, saying they were among the only people in Venezuela capable of creating what he had proposed. The idea was exactly what Mr. Jimnez had hoped to hear. The goal was to create a new Venezuelan currency that would move freely over an open network, like Bitcoin. The government would be unable to control or bungle it. Mr. Vargas wanted to call it the Petro Global Coin, but Mr. Jimnez suggested something simpler: the Petro.

The Social Us put together a short pitch deck for the Petro project. But Venezuela is filled with people proposing crazy schemes, and Mr. Jimnez didnt put too much stock in it. Then, in early December, when Mr. Jimnez was at a conference in Colombia, he got an urgent text. Mr. Maduro had just announced a national cryptocurrency called the Petro. Mr. Jimnez threw open his laptop and found a video of the president, in his usual workmans shirt, telling a whooping crowd, This is something momentous.

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The Coder and the Dictator - The New York Times