Stacks Network Plans to Leverage BTC’s Proof of Work and Burn Bitcoins

Blockchain startup Blockstack has revealed the company is in the midst of developing a new distributed ledger protocol called Stacks, a chain that leverages the hash power from the Bitcoin Core (BTC) network. Not only is the Stacks network secured by over 45 exahash of distributed hashrate, but its consensus algorithm also burns BTC by … Read more

Markets Update: TRX and NEM Post Significant Losses While Most Cryptos Consolidate

The cryptocurrency meta-trend has seen most leading markets continue to grind sideways at key support zones, though there has been a slight bounce in the last few hours. Among the weakest performing major markets in recent days are tron (TRX), which has broken a critical ascending trendline following the bittorrent token (BTT) airdrop, and nem … Read more

January Markets Report: MKR, TRX and ZEC Among Top 10 by Volume

The first month of 2019 has seen a slight decline in 30-day trading volume across many leading markets. Bucking the trend, however, were ETH, LTC, MKR, TRX, and ZEC, all of which saw a significant spike in trade activity. Stablecoins have continued to see an increase in trade activity, with ckusd and the Gemini dollar … Read more

Florida Appeals Court Defines Bitcoin as Money as Espinoza Ruling Reversed

In 2016, Judge Teresa Mary Pooler of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit of Florida made headlines for a ruling she made during the Michell Espinoza trial. Judge Pooler ruled Espinoza could not be charged with illegal money transmission offenses because bitcoin was not considered legal tender. However, a motion filed with the Florida appeals court has … Read more

The Wrapped Bitcoin Project Has Officially Launched on Ethereum

On Jan. 30, a group of cryptocurrency developers and organizations officially launched a project called Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) on the Ethereum network. The ERC20 token is a coin backed by bitcoin core (BTC) reserves and has started trading on several exchange platforms. Also read: A Look at Openbazaar’s Multi-Currency Wallet and Vendor Listings The Introduction of … Read more

Privacy and Scaling: Schnorr Signatures Are Coming to Bitcoin Cash

On Tuesday, Jan. 29, Bitcoin Cash developer Mark Lundeberg revealed two planned features for the scheduled May 2019 BCH upgrade. In the gist published to Github, Lundeberg described a specific improvement that’s been discussed by cryptocurrency developers for years — implementing Schnorr signatures in place of ECDSA signatures. This could upgrade the BCH chain to … Read more

Markets Update: Top Crypto Assets Open 2019 With Slow Month of Trading

The leading cryptocurrency markets have seen a slow start to the year, with the top three markets by capitalization shedding between 10% and 37% since early January’s local highs. January has also seen volatility in market cap rankings, with XRP and ETH competing for the second largest crypto asset capitalization, and EOS, USDT, and BCH … Read more

Bitcoin Mixing Concept Payjoin Makes a ‘Huge Mess’ for Blockchain Surveillance

On Jan. 24, Adam Gibson, author of Waxwing’s Joinmarket blog, wrote about an interesting Coinjoin concept called Payjoin. The protocol further obfuscates the ownership of UTXO inputs during a Coinjoin transaction mixing cycle. According to Gibson, the Payjoin technique is “another nail in the coffin of blockchain analysis.” Also read: Mystery Bitcoin Miners Are Altering Mining … Read more

Mystery Bitcoin Miners Are Altering Mining Pool Dominance

During the first month of 2019, studies have revealed the growing trend of unknown miners processing blocks on the Bitcoin Core (BTC) network. A few years ago, most mining pools began revealing their identity via the coinbase parameter when they found a block. Over the last two years, however, unknown miners have started to dominate … Read more

New Malware Attacks Hold ASIC Miners to Ransom

According to reports from cybersecurity researchers, there’s a new ransomware virus on the loose that’s targeting bitcoin miners. A file locking program called H-Ant has allegedly infected certain Antminer models in China and if the ransom is not paid the software aims to destroy the infected machine. Also Read: Money Transmitter License Not Required for Crypto … Read more