Few new technologies have raised as much discussion as blockchain. One reason is the controversy, concern, and perceived opportunity around blockchain-based cryptocurrencies (such as bitcoin and ether) and crowdfunding via initial coin offerings (ICOs). But what is blockchain’s role in the enterprise?
This article gives some ideas to think about. Take those trends with grain of salt. There will be a crash ans bubble burst on blockchains in few years.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Hannah Murphy / Financial Times:
G7 report says Facebook’s Libra poses competition and antitrust challenges and should not be launched until all legal and regulatory risks are addressed — Company-created digital currencies such as Facebook’s Libra could “pose challenges for competition and antitrust policies” …
Stablecoin regulatory risks need addressing, says G7 report
Further blow for Facebook’s Libra project as concerns raised over financial stability
https://www.ft.com/content/41eea5f0-f134-11e9-ad1e-4367d8281195
Tomi Engdahl says:
Xage now supports hierarchical blockchains for complex implementations
https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/10/xage-now-supports-hierarchical-blockchains-for-complex-implementations/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/04/blockchain-distrubuted-ledger-technology-central-banks-10-ways-research/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Moon’s browser extension lets you pay with bitcoin on Amazon
https://tcrn.ch/33M9HHJ
Meet Moon, a three-person startup that lets you pay for stuff on Amazon using bitcoin via the Lightning Network, bitcoin, Litecoin or Ether. The company has released a desktop browser extension for Google Chrome, Brave and Opera.
While some e-commerce retailers let you pay with cryptocurrencies, the biggest e-commerce platforms have yet to accept cryptocurrencies. Moon doesn’t want to wait, and wants to make it possible to pay with cryptocurrencies using current payment methods.
https://paywithmoon.com/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies had a very bad day
https://tcrn.ch/32IKON1
The price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies tanked today, continuing a months-long slide that has seen the value of the digital currency slide by more than $2,000 from highs of above $10,000 earlier in the year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Estonia is running its country like a tech company
https://qz.com/1535549/living-on-the-blockchain-is-a-game-changer-for-estonian-citizens/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Zamna raises $5M to automate airport security checks between agencies using blockchain
https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/26/zamna-raises-5m-to-automate-airport-security-checks-between-agencies-using-blockchain/
Zamna — which uses a blockchain to securely share and verify data between airlines and travel authorities to check passenger identities — has raised a $5m seed funding round
When VChain-now-Zamna first appeared, I must admit I was confused. Using blockchain to verify passenger data seemed like a hammer to crack a nut. But it turns out to have some surprisingly useful applications.
The idea is to use it to verify and connect the passenger data sets which are currently silo-ed between airlines, governments and security agencies. By doing this, says Zamna, you can reduce the need for manual or other checks by up to 90 percent. If that’s the case, then it’s quite a leap in efficiency.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.coindesk.com/microsoft-and-intel-back-ethereum-based-token-system-to-reward-consortium-efforts
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bitcoin (BTC) 2017 Rally Caused by Single Whale, Research Shows
https://cryptovest.com/news/bitcoin-btc-2017-rally-caused-by-single-whale-research-shows/
The series of $1,000 days that brought BTC to a record above $19,600 could have been the work of one entity, academic research shows.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Crypto Exchange Upbit Confirms Theft of $49M in Ether
https://www.coindesk.com/crypto-exchange-upbit-confirms-theft-of-49m-in-ether
South Korean crypto exchange Upbit has lost cryptocurrency worth $49 million, the exchange has confirmed.
Upbit’s CEO said in a blog post at 9:00 UTC on Wednesday that an abnormal transaction from its wallets had resulted in the outflow of 342,000 ether (ETH) earlier today.
The exchange said the loss will be covered by its own assets. Meanwhile, withdrawals and deposits have already been suspended as a precaution. The firm estimated that it will take “at least two weeks” for services to be back to normal.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cryptocurrency Will Not Die
https://www.gq.com/story/cryptocurrency-will-not-die?utm_source=pocket-newtab#
You thought you successfully avoided ever having to learn how crypto was going to take over your life? Well, too bad: It’s back and maybe stronger than ever.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Reuters:
HSBC to shift $20B in assets to a blockchain-based custody platform called Digital Vault, one of the biggest uses of blockchain technology by a bank, by March — LONDON (Reuters) – HSBC aims to shift $20 billion worth of assets to a new blockchain-based custody platform by March …
HSBC swaps paper records for blockchain to track $20 billion worth of assets
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hsbc-hldg-blockchain/hsbc-swaps-paper-records-for-blockchain-to-track-20-billion-worth-of-assets-idUSKBN1Y11X2
Tomi Engdahl says:
U.S. Authorities Arrest Virgil Griffith For Teaching Cryptocurrency And Blockchain
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbrett/2019/11/29/us-authorities-arrest-virgil-griffith-for-teaching-cryptocurrency-and-blockchain/
According to a press release from the Department of Justice on November 29, 2019, Virgil Griffith, resident of Singapore and U.S. citizen, was arrested for a criminal complaint where he was charged with violating, “…the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (“IEEPA”) by traveling to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (“DPRK” or “North Korea”) in order deliver a presentation and technical advice on using cryptocurrency and blockchain technology to evade sanctions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
It can calculate a cryptocurrency’s value—and predict when to get out.
How network theory predicts the value of Bitcoin
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610614/how-network-theory-predicts-the-value-of-bitcoin/?utm_medium=tr_social&utm_campaign=site_visitor.unpaid.engagement&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1576081331
Metcalfe’s Law, which measures the value of a network, can calculate a cryptocurrency’s value—and predict when to get out.
Philosophers, economists, and theorists have various ways to judge how money should be valued. Some have said that its worth lies in a high cost of production. Others see it as simply a form of credit that allows the transfer of resources, which is why it can take the form of pieces of paper or even digital records.
Then there is the idea that a currency is worth whatever somebody is willing to pay for it given the limited supply. This explains the extraordinary valuations sometimes seen for the cryptocurrency Bitcoin.
All these approaches run into trouble of one form or another. There is certainly a high cost of production in the cryptographic “proof of work” required to create, or mine, bitcoins. But their value has little relation to this cost.
By the end of 2017, a single Bitcoin was worth almost $20,000, and the cryptocurrency market as a whole had a value of $830 billion. Just a few weeks later, the market had collapsed to $280 billion.
key measure of value for cryptocurrencies is the network of people who use them. What’s more, they say, once Bitcoin is valued in this way it becomes possible to see when it is overvalued and perhaps even to spot the telltale signs that a market crash is imminent.
The value of a network is famously accredited to Bob Metcalfe, the inventor of Ethernet and founder of the computer networking company 3Com. Metcalfe’s Law states that a network’s value is proportional to the square of the number of its users.
the generalized Metcalfe’s Law more accurately reflects the way Bitcoin’s value has increased with the number of users.
It also reveals when Bitcoin has been overvalued.
According to the generalized Metcalfe’s Law, Bitcoin is significantly overvalued, even after the crash at the end of 2017. “Our Metcalfe-based analysis indicates current support levels for the bitcoin market in the range of 22–44 billion USD, at least four times less than the current level,” they say.
And that means there is uncertain weather ahead, at best.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Creditors Seek to Exhume the Body of a Dead Crypto Executive
https://www.wired.com/story/creditors-exhume-body-of-dead-crypto-executive/?mbid=social_facebook&utm_brand=wired&utm_medium=social&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=facebook
Gerry Cotten took at least $137 million to the grave when he died without giving anyone the password to his encrypted laptop
In late January, the wife of a cryptocurrency exchange founder testified that her husband inadvertently took at least $137 million of customer assets to the grave when he died without giving anyone the password to his encrypted laptop. Now outraged investors want to exhume the founder’s body to make sure he’s really dead.
The dubious tale was first reported in February, when the wife of Gerry Cotten, founder of the QuadrigaCX exchange, submitted an affidavit stating he died suddenly while vacationing in India, at the age of 30. The cause, she said: complications of Crohn’s disease, a bowel condition that is rarely fatal. At the time, QuadrigaCX lost control of at least $137 million in customer assets because it was stored on a laptop for which—according to the widow’s affidavit—only Cotten had the password.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Youtube Bans Cryptocurrency Videos? Content Deleted Over ‘Harmful Or Dangerous Content’
https://www.ibtimes.com/youtube-bans-cryptocurrency-videos-content-deleted-over-harmful-or-dangerous-content-2891312
KEY POINTS
YouTube deletes cryptocurrency-related content
Well-known crypto channels were affected by YouTube’s latest move
Videos were taken down because of “harmful or dangerous content”
It’s a public fact that the Google-owned company has certain restrictions when it comes to the content uploaded to individual channels that, over the years, has become increasingly stringent. Content that is explicitly breaking advertiser-friendly guidelines is a big no-no.
There is no clear reason why YouTube had undertaken steps to remove content related to cryptocurrencies. The crypto world is left to speculate whether it’s only a security measure, some ad-related restriction, or just no love for all things crypto.
In his frustration, Dunn echoed what Jack Dorsey is aiming for Twitter, which is a move to a blockchain platform. Dunn tweeted, “Thanks for the support and comments guys. The crypto community truly is awesome. I should’ve put my videos on decentralized platforms a long time ago, but lesson learned! This is a clear example of why we need to decentralize the web!”
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/26/as-2019-closes-a-look-back-at-what-happened-to-the-altcoin-boom/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sabotage or theft? Inside the $24m Cryptopia heist
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/119263192/sabotage-or-theft-inside-the-24m-cryptopia-heist
Cryptopia could have been one of New Zealand’s most successful hi-tech start-ups. Its end was caused by one of the country’s biggest heists worth $24 million. SAM SHERWOOD and MARTIN VAN BEYNEN follow the twisted path to the company’s collapse.
Cryptopia was in its death throes by the time most people heard about it.
For about five years, the Christchurch cryptocurrency exchange had operated under the mainstream radar.
That all changed in January last year when persons unknown hacked into the company’s system and shunted about $24 million of the exchange’s $250m store of cryptocurrencies out of reach.
Even calling the illegal transfer a simple theft was problematic. The currencies had gone from Cryptopia’s control but their movement could be traced from exchange to exchange. So was it theft or sabotage?
In any event, the theft was the last straw for the company.
In May last year, the shareholders put Cryptopia in liquidation
By 2017 cryptocurrencies and the exchanges in which they were traded were starting to take off. Cryptopia, sharing in rapid worldwide growth, was trading in a hundred different types of currency and bringing in fees, both for listing new currencies and on trading. For Clark and Dawson, who never thought of themselves as businessmen and administrators, the growth was scary and challenging.
The pressures of a rapidly-expanding business finding its way in uncharted regulatory waters were intense
The hack, a not unusual feature of the cryptocurrency business, came at a bad time.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Visa Approves US Cryptocurrency Exchange Coinbase As Principal Member
Author: George Georgiev
https://cryptopotato.com/visa-approves-us-cryptocurrency-exchange-coinbase-as-principal-member/
The leading cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, Coinbase, has been approved as the very first “pure-play” crypto-related company to become a Visa principal member. Supposedly, this would allow the exchange to further improve its customer experience
https://blog.coinbase.com/coinbase-becomes-a-visa-principal-member-c5b73b883787
Tomi Engdahl says:
Forbes Blockchain 50
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2020/02/19/blockchain-50/?utm_source=FACEBOOK&utm_medium=social&utm_term=Valerie/#297c71117553
Tomi Engdahl says:
Genius hacker exploits DeFi again, takes $1 million in total
The mysterious trader has now taken nearly a million dollars out of the DeFi ecosystem, by making just two transactions.
https://decrypt.co/19790/genius-hacker-exploits-defi-again-takes-1-million-in-total
Tomi Engdahl says:
Once hailed as unhackable, blockchains are now getting hacked
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612974/once-hailed-as-unhackable-blockchains-are-now-getting-hacked/?utm_medium=tr_social&utm_campaign=site_visitor.unpaid.engagement&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1582042906
More and more security holes are appearing in cryptocurrency and smart contract platforms, and some are fundamental to the way they were built.
Early last month, the security team at Coinbase noticed something strange going on in Ethereum Classic, one of the cryptocurrencies people can buy and sell using Coinbase’s popular exchange platform. Its blockchain, the history of all its transactions, was under attack.
An attacker had somehow gained control of more than half of the network’s computing power and was using it to rewrite the transaction history. That made it possible to spend the same cryptocurrency more than once—known as “double spends.” The attacker was spotted pulling this off to the tune of $1.1 million. Coinbase claims that no currency was actually stolen from any of its accounts. But a second popular exchange, Gate.io, has admitted it wasn’t so lucky, losing around $200,000 to the attacker (who, strangely, returned half of it days later).
Just a year ago, this nightmare scenario was mostly theoretical. But the so-called 51% attack against Ethereum Classic was just the latest in a series of recent attacks on blockchains that have heightened the stakes for the nascent industry.
In total, hackers have stolen nearly $2 billion worth of cryptocurrency since the beginning of 2017, mostly from exchanges, and that’s just what has been revealed publicly. These are not just opportunistic lone attackers, either. Sophisticated cybercrime organizations are now doing it too
We shouldn’t be surprised. Blockchains are particularly attractive to thieves because fraudulent transactions can’t be reversed
If set up correctly, this system can make it extremely difficult and expensive to add false transactions but relatively easy to verify valid ones.
That’s what’s made the technology so appealing to many industries, beginning with finance. Soon-to-launch services from big-name institutions like Fidelity Investments and Intercontinental Exchange, the owner of the New York Stock Exchange, will start to enmesh blockchains in the existing financial system. Even central banks are now looking into using them for new digital forms of national currency.
But the more complex a blockchain system is, the more ways there are to make mistakes while setting it up.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IOTA cryptocurrency shuts down entire network after wallet hack
Hackers exploit vulnerability in official IOTA wallet to steal millions
https://www.zdnet.com/article/iota-cryptocurrency-shuts-down-entire-network-after-wallet-hack/#ftag=CAD-03-10abf5f
IOTA Foundation, the nonprofit organization behind the IOTA cryptocurrency, has shut down its entire network this week after hackers exploited a vulnerability in the official IOTA wallet app to steal user funds.
The attack happened this week, Wednesday, on February 12, 2020
Tomi Engdahl says:
Homeland Security unveils its Bitcoin snooper force
https://decrypt.co/20496/homeland-security-unveils-its-bitcoin-snooper-force
Homeland Security has unveiled its latest initiative to crack down on unlicensed Bitcoin businesses.
Homeland Security is focusing on illicit crypto transactions.
The Cryptocurrency Intelligence Program will look at illegal movement of money.
Other US departmens are also looking into crypto payments.
DHS detailed the Cryptocurrency Intelligence Program (CIP)—a cryptocurrency-centric initiative to trail unlicensed crypto companies partaking in money laundering activities.
Under the scope of the DHS, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) established the BCSC in 2009, to wage war on criminal assets. Over the past few years, the focus has increasingly moved towards cryptocurrencies and P2P sites.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Olga Kharif / Bloomberg:
New York power plant sets up its own Bitcoin mining operation, with ~7K crypto miners, using “behind-the-meter” electricity to generate ~5.5 Bitcoins per day
This Utility Heats New York State—And Mines Its Own Bitcoin
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-05/this-utility-heats-new-york-state-and-mines-its-own-bitcoin
A power plant in New York’s Finger Lakes region has set up its own Bitcoin mining operation, using the electricity it produces to generate about $50,000 worth of the virtual currency every day.
Atlas Holding LLC, the private-equity firm that runs the operation, has installed some 7,000 crypto mining machines at the Greenidge Generation plant in recent months that can mine about 5.5 Bitcoins per day. The 65,000-square-foot facility in Dresden, New York, was built in 1937 as a coal plant and later converted to natural gas.
The machines work off so-called “behind-the-meter” power, which makes it extremely low cost, the private-equity firm said. Because powering crypto mining machines is usually so energy intensive, miners have been roaming the world seeking out cheap electricity, such as that available from hydro power plants. Many met with an unwelcome surprise, when those utilities jacked up prices. But Greenidge said it’s power costs are predictable and low — essentially, just costs of production, which can be offset by power-related services.
The server farm consumes about 15 megawatts of the 106 megawatts of capacity that the plant produces. While in the past the plant used to only run during times of peak energy demand — during summer or winter — it’s now operating year round.
While all Bitcoin miners are going to be impacted by so-called halvening, slated for May, when rewards the network issues to miners will be cut in half, the plant’s owners believe they will still remain in the black.
Tomi Engdahl says:
China aims to launch the world’s first official digital currency
Little by little, the central bank will acquire more power to track how money is used
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2020/04/23/china-aims-to-launch-the-worlds-first-official-digital-currency?fsrc=scn/fb/te/bl/ed/virtuallymoneychinaaimstolaunchtheworldsfirstofficialdigitalcurrencyfinanceandeconomics
Tomi Engdahl says:
China aims to launch the world’s first official digital currency
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2020/04/23/china-aims-to-launch-the-worlds-first-official-digital-currency?fsrc=scn/fb/te/bl/ed/virtuallymoneychinaaimstolaunchtheworldsfirstofficialdigitalcurrencyfinanceandeconomics
Little by little, the central bank will acquire more power to track how money is used
Tomi Engdahl says:
Proof-of-Person Blockchain
Join the mining of the first human-centric cryptocurrency
https://idena.io/#
Idena is a novel way to formalize people on the blockchain. It does not collect or store personally identifiable information. Idena proves the humanness and uniqueness of its participants by running an AI-hard Turing test at the same time for everyone around the globe.
The Idena blockchain is driven by proof-of-person consensus: Every node is linked to a cryptoidentity, one single person with equal voting power.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Someone Mysteriously Paid $2.5M to Send $133 in Cryptocurrency
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/z3e4v8/someone-mysteriously-paid-25m-to-send-133-in-ethereum-cryptocurrency
Was it simply a catastrophically expensive mistake, or something more nefarious? The mining pool is holding on to the fee in case the sender speaks up.
Imagine sending $133 to a friend and being charged a $2.5 million fee. That seems to be the case for a cryptocurrency user who paid a $2.5 million transaction fee during a trade on Wednesday morning using Ethereum, a cryptocurrency similar to Bitcoin but with some key differences.
According to transaction details, which are publicly available, the mistake may have been in setting the price that the trader was willing to pay to have their transaction posted to the Ethereum blockchain, a permanent record of transactions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
You Can Now Buy Bitcoin At CVS, 7-Eleven, Rite-Aid
https://slashdot.org/story/20/06/23/189224/you-can-now-buy-bitcoin-at-cvs-7-eleven-rite-aid?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot%2Fto+%28%28Title%29Slashdot+%28rdf%29%29
Bitcoin ATM operator LibertyX now offers bitcoin purchases at the United States’ most popular convenience and drug stores.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/colinharper/2020/06/23/you-can-now-buy-bitcoin-at-cvs7-eleven-rite-aid/
Osmar says:
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Tomi Engdahl says:
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