Xapo Bank Integrates Lightning Network Payments Through Lightspark Partnership

On March 2, Xapo Bank announced its partnership with Lightspark, a company led by David Marcus, former crypto boss at Facebook. The partnership aims to extend the utility of bitcoin and the Lightning Network. Xapo revealed on Thursday that it is the first fully licensed private bank to offer payments through the Lightning Network. Xapo … Read more

Bitcoin Network’s Mining Difficulty Rises to All-Time High, Making Block Discovery More Challenging

Bitcoin’s mining difficulty printed a record increase on Jan. 15, 2023, rising 10.26% to 37.73 trillion at block height 772,128. The network’s difficulty is now at an all-time high. This means, on average, it takes 37.73 trillion hashes, or attempts, to find a valid bitcoin block reward and add it to the blockchain. 2023’s First … Read more

Polygon Announces Upcoming Hard Fork to Address Gas Spikes and Chain Reorganizations

The Ethereum scaling blockchain, Polygon, has revealed plans to initiate a hard fork on Jan. 17, 2023. According to the team, the network upgrade will “reduce the severity of gas spikes” and “address chain reorganizations (reorgs) in an effort to reduce time to finality.” Polygon Team Outlines Network Upgrades to Improve User Experience On Jan. … Read more

Bitcoin Hashrate Reaches All-Time High, Boost Could Lead to Record-Setting Difficulty Increase

During the first week of the new year, Bitcoin’s hashrate reached an all-time high (ATH) on Jan. 6, 2023, at block height 770,709. The network recorded a milestone of around 361.20 exahash per second (EH/s) on Friday, jumping more than 4% higher than the previous record of 347.16 EH/s recorded on Nov. 12, 2022. Network’s … Read more