Bitcoin

While bitcoin has run-up to all new price highs in 2020, a great number of crypto supporters have been complaining about the mempool backlog and the high fees needed to send a transaction. Meanwhile, the Lightning Network is far from seeing widespread adoption, and a number of attack vectors have been revealed this year. At the time of publication, the Bitcoin ( BTC ) mempool (backlog of transactions) shows 113,000+ unconfirmed transactions and the backlog hasn’t been this high since 2017. When the bull run took place three years ago, transaction fees and unconfirmed transactions shot through the roof. Currently, according to bitcoinfees.cash data on October 31, the next BTC block fee is $10.77 and the current median fee is $6.43. Even with the high fees and the mempool clog , the greater bitcoin community is still transacting mostly onchain. The Layer 2 protocol built on top of Bitcoin called the Lightning Network (LN) was supposed to ease the problems, and it was assumed people

Cryptocurrency supporters all around the world are celebrating the fact that today is the 12th anniversary of the Bitcoin white paper, a summary of the invention created by the pseudonymous inventor Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin’s inventor published the paper on metzdowd.com’s Cryptography Mailing list and ever since then, the financial world hasn’t been the same. 12 years ago, Satoshi Nakamoto decided to let the world in on Bitcoin, the peer-to-peer electronic cash system that took the world by storm. The very first time Nakamoto published the paper was at 2:10 p.m. Eastern Standard, on metzdowd.com. There’s a lot we don’t know about Bitcoin’s inventor and to this day the anonymous creator’s identity is still unknown. However, we do know that Nakamoto was a legendary genius and could have been a single person or even a group of people. Bitcoin’s inventor specifically chose to publish the “ Bitcoin P2P e-cash paper ” paper on metzdowd.com mainly because of the Cryptography Mailing lis

John McAfee has shared many details about his life in Spanish prison and chances of extradition to the U.S. He additionally claims to have regained control of his ghost cryptocurrency project. Prison Life ‘Is an Adventure’ Former U.S. presidential candidate and antivirus software tycoon John McAfee is in Spanish prison awaiting his extradition trial after he was arrested in Spain. McAfee has been tweeting regularly from prison. “You want to know what prison is like. It’s like a Motel 6 run by Hitler’s SS,” he tweeted, elaborating: I am content in here. I have friends. The food is good. All is well. Know that if I hang myself, a la Epstein, it will be no fault of mine … Prison is an adventure to say the least. “Spanish prisons are like the Hilton hotel compared to the abject surreality and dehumanization of American prisons,” he described in another tweet. “In Spanish prisons, you are treated as a human being instead of a number. I am treated well.” Admitting that he is “surrou

A Chinese court has confirmed the sentencing of the masterminds behind the 7.7 billion yuan Chinese Ponzi scheme Wotoken, which had over 715,000 investors. Wotoken Scammers Sentenced to Prison The Intermediate People’s Court of Yancheng city, Jiangsu province, denied an appeal by four convicts involved in the billion-dollar Ponzi scheme Wotoken on Tuesday, several local media reported. The court upheld the original sentences for Gao Yudong, Li Qibing, Wang Xiaoying and Tian Bo who were dissatisfied with their original sentencing and filed an appeal. They believe they had minor roles in the scheme. The four were sentenced to prison for 8 years and six months, seven years, seven years, and two years and six months respectively, IT Times reported. They were also fined 2 million yuan, 1.5 million yuan, 1.5 million yuan, and 1 million yuan respectively. In addition, two other defendants were sentenced for their roles in the Wotoken scam. Li Guomin was sentenced to 3 years in prison and

The acting director of the U.S. Office Comptroller of Currency (OCC) Brian Brooks says the creation of the U.S. digital dollar is a terrible one because the government is not good at building things. Instead, Brooks believes tech companies, which already possess the know-how, to be in a better position to issue stable digital currencies. He says the U.S. government needs to focus on doing what it does best-regulation. Growing Stablecoin Supply The acting comptroller of currency’s comments come as reports suggest the US is currently working on a digital dollar. However, the U.S. digital dollar can only be issued in four years’ time. Speaking in an interview , Brooks, who uses analogies to support his stance on stablecoins, believes the United States can only flourish when the government allows the private sector to innovate. Expounding on this belief, Brooks says U.S. government regulatory agencies should instead be concerned with the protection of investors. To support his theory,

PRESS RELEASE. Yield Trust Team from Stockholm, Sweden is ready to launch their new DeFi protocol for public access, providing users exciting and unique technologies to finally beat market manipulation and reduce market affection by the whales. The protocol is going to grow all around starting it’s move to Polkadot after releasing all significant features and might become one of the biggest multichain DeFi projects in the industry. What makes Yield Trust so unique? Yield Trust is part of the large Yield Trust protocol which will include way more features in future to build around the main governance which will control the whole ecosystem of dApps. It is built for people not users implying a trust score system to treat everyone as a person. Main Yield Trust advantage is that it is not another compilation project from the others or copycat or fork. It brings absolutely new features to decentralized finance scope. Upcoming Features of Yield Trust Protocol ► Trust score (Monetary p

The world-class trading platform, Bitcoin.com Exchange announced it’s participating in the Cryptopia Exchange rescue consortium in order to help redistribute coins to customers. Bitcoin.com’s trading platform will provide an exchange environment in order to bolster the Cryptopia Rescue redistribution plan. Back in January 2019, the New Zealand cryptocurrency trading platform Cryptopia Exchange suffered a major breach and it affected 2.3 million account holders from all around the world. Estimates note that roughly $860 million worth of cryptocurrency was held on the exchange before the hack. Bitcoin.com is pleased to announce that our exchange will assist a rescue program dedicated to helping Cryptopia account holders. Bitcoin.com Exchange has joined a consortium called the “Cryptopia Rescue” program, and it will produce a platform to distribute coins to Cryptopia Exchange Account Holders. The group formed in order to create a class action against the Liquidator, Grant Thornton.

At the beginning of the year, the trading platform FTX Exchange launched a futures market so people can bet on the U.S. election and created a futures contract token called TRUMP. On Friday, FTX revealed that the exchange is lifting the initial margin requirements to $0.50 for its TRUMP token contracts. Individuals who don’t live in the United States can participate in betting on the U.S. 2020 presidential election by leveraging the trading platform FTX. News.Bitcoin.com reported on FTX launching its TRUMP token futures contracts back in February, as our newsdesk disclosed a number of other betting portals that use digital currencies to bet on the upcoming election. At the time, gambling sites and FTX’s TRUMP futures had shown Donald Trump was expected to win the 2020 election. However, on September 30, our newsdesk’s latest report had shown Joe Biden was leading across gambling portals by at least 60% . On Friday, FTX announced some changes to the original TRUMP token futures ma

A few central banks have started selling tons of gold for the first time since 2010 in order to ease the financial suffering from the Covid-19 pandemic. At $1,875 per ounce, gold prices are down -9.63% since the commodity’s high of $2,075 on August 6. Even though gold has dropped significantly in value in contrast to bitcoin (BTC) , gold bug Peter Schiff decided to use the opportunity to rag on bitcoin on Twitter. “If you measure the size of asset bubbles based on the level of conviction buyers have in their trade, the Bitcoin bubble is the biggest I’ve seen,” Schiff tweeted on October 28. “Bitcoin hodlers are more confident they’re right and sure they can’t lose than were dotcom or house buyers during those bubbles.” However, unlike bitcoin which has been on a tear lately, gold prices per ounce have floundered. The precious metal did reach a high of $2,075 on August 6 but dropped -9.63% to today’s current $1,875 per ounce low. According to a report from Bloomberg, a few central b

PRESS RELEASE. With Round 1 Fully Sold Out, Investors scramble to get on board of Securypto IEO. In a world where datahacks have become the norm rather than the exception, anonymity has become a necessity. Securypto project is making headlines across major news media for its remarkable innovative approach to encrypted messaging. As the security expert and the Lead Dev of Securypto pointing out: “ It’s not just WhatsApp, almost everything connected to the internet is at risk of cyberattacks. That’s what easily can be concluded following continuation news about the messaging platforms been targeted by spywares and hacks. The unfortunate reality is that most messaging apps have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by sophisticated cyber spies, No messaging service is bulletproof” The Securypto story – Rise of the underdog Amid the hype of countless ICOs of projects without a product or even a use case in 2018, Securypto went against the grain and kept the focus on delivering a wo

The latest study by the World Bank shows that it costs 4.98% on average to remit funds to South Asia which makes it the least expensive region while sub-Sahara Africa is the most expensive with an average cost of 8.47%. The quarterly study also finds that it is costlier to remit funds when using service providers such as banks that charge an average of 10.89%. Marginal decline Mobile operators are the cheapest as their sending costs averaged 3% and below during the period under review. Still, the study, which predictably excludes cryptocurrencies, shows a marginal decrease in the Global Weighted Average (GWA) from 5.03% in Q2 to 5.0% in Q3 of 2020. The World Bank’s aptly named Remittance Prices Worldwide (RPW) report monitors remittance costs across all regions. Data from the report shows that the Global Average remitting cost dropped from 9.67% seen Q1 of 2009 to the latest 6.75%. This represents a 2.92% decline during this period. Meanwhile, the global financial institution sa

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will enhance the regulatory framework for derivatives use by registered investment companies after passing a vote to either change or amend existing rules. As part of the new framework–which covers mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and closed-end funds–operators must undertake to implement a written derivatives risk management program. A Modern Approach to Derivatives Regulation The rule changes , which open the doors for more leveraged ETFs, will also permit a fund to enter into reverse repurchase agreements and similar financing transactions, as well as ‘unfunded commitments’ to make certain loans or investments, subject to conditions tailored to these transactions. The Commission says the “new rule and rule amendments will provide a modernized, comprehensive approach to the regulation of these funds’ derivatives use that addresses investor protection concerns and reflects developments over the past decades.” Meanwhile, i

Crypto startup Avanti Financial Group has been granted a license to offer banking services by the Wyoming State Banking Board. The license, or bank charter, means Avanti can now operate as a conventional bank – but one with a twist, capable of holding both crypto and dollars. It plans to launch in 2021. According to a statement published Oct. 28, the firm will also now be able to take custody of crypto assets like bitcoin while its plan for the creation of Avit, a tokenized US dollar, has been given the go ahead. The company’s application for a bank charter was accepted in July, reports The Block. Avanti is the second crypto firm to become a bank after Kraken Financial, a unit of U.S. crypto exchange Kraken. Avanti founder and chief executive officer, Caitlin Long, said “currently the only type of U.S. financial institution that can provide final and simultaneous settlement of trades between digital assets and the U.S. dollar is a Wyoming special purpose depository institution li

PRESS RELEASE. With relaxed restrictions on lockdown measures in numerous countries around the world, Africa has opened her doors to tourists on both national and international levels yet again – albeit with strict health regulations to ensure the safety of all personnel and visitors. Africa’s largest online tour operators, MoAfrika , offers tourists from around the world the opportunity to travel the length and width of the gorgeous African continent by making use of its unique tour offering, now with an added advantage. Mo Afrika now supports payment in Bitcoin so tourists, regardless from where they are or where they wish to go, have the advantage of putting their Bitcoin to use in paying for their holiday while having assurance that they will get the best service possible. MoAfrika has more than 15 years of combined experience in South African tourism and offers tourists with staff consisting of a young and ambitious team in ensuring that tourists have an unforgettable experi

A recent Coinmetrics report says on-chain fundamentals are hinting at bitcoin experiencing its biggest breakout yet. The report notes that bitcoin is already showing signs of this following its rise by about $1,000 in one day on October 21. The digital asset has subsequently set a new all-time high for the year. A New Precedent While acknowledging the difficulty in predicting bitcoin’s future value due to its notorious volatility, authors of the report insist there is a difference between previous bull runs with the current one. According to their report, “ BTC has been growing in ways that we have not seen in previous bull runs.” Explaining their stance, the authors point to bitcoin’s growing correlation with gold as one of the reasons for their bullishness. In the report, the authors say bitcoin, which has had a low correlation with both gold and the U.S. dollar throughout most of its history, changed after March 12. The authors say: As panic over Covid-19 rapidly set in, eq