ERC20 Tether Transactions Flip Their Omni Equivalent

Crypto enthusiasts have noticed that the Ethereum blockchain has come awfully close to reaching capacity due to the added transactions stemming from the Tether (USDT) network. The transaction count since mid-August shows the ERC20 version of tether has surpassed the original version that uses BTC. ERC20 tether transactions cost users more than $260,000 in the … Read more

How Coinbase Quietly Became the World’s Biggest Bitcoin Bank

On August 15, the San Francisco-based digital currency exchange Coinbase announced that it had acquired the cryptocurrency custody service Xapo’s institutional branch. The business move puts Coinbase in the limelight, making it the largest custodial service for digital assets worldwide, with more than $7 billion under custody. Also Read: Hong Kong Protest Leader Hopes to … Read more

US Regulator Plans to Outsource Running Cryptocurrency Nodes

A recently published document reveals that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has plans to hire contractors to run specific cryptocurrency full nodes for the government agency. According to the SEC documentation, the regulator wants third-party contractors to run nodes for Bitcoin Core (BTC), Ripple (XRP) and Ethereum (ETH) in order to monitor compliance … Read more

Drivechain Creator’s Latest Paper Sparks Debate Over Bitcoin’s Future Security

Drivechain developer Paul Sztorc has the cryptocurrency community riled up over his latest blog “Security Budget in the Long Run.” The essay discusses the economics of BTC network fees over a long period of time and suggests rather than giving up the fees to competition, a dominant protocol should collect fees “from all networks.” Also … Read more

Major Mining Pools Have a ‘High Die-Off Rate’ Study Reveals

On Monday, Coinmetrics.io published a study looking at hashrate history of the most competitive BTC mining pools. The research from the open source cryptocurrency analytics site reveals interesting insights into how the mining ecosystem has evolved over time. Also read: Connecticut Software Engineering School Receives $10,000 BTC Donation ‘Major Mining Pools Are Fallible’ Cryptocurrency mining is a … Read more

The Daily: Rethinking Bitcoin’s Market Cap, ICOs Printing Money

Welcome to a new week crammed with new ways of thinking about Bitcoin and its fellow cryptocurrencies. To kick things off, today’s edition of The Daily details three big-hitting topics: Is it time to find a more accurate metric than market cap for measuring cryptocurrencies? Why are venture capital funds so enamored with stablecoins right … Read more

Bitcoin Not Dead, Again: Washington Post Gets Schooled

Castle Island Ventures partner and cofounder of Coinmetrics.io, Nic Carter, has had quite enough. Made crazy by mainstream media misunderstanding, ignorance, and downright falsehoods regarding cryptocurrencies, he took to Medium, making the case for why Bitcoin is not dead, again. Also read: Report: 15,000 Twitter Crypto Scam Giveaway Bots “Bitcoin is Still a Total Disaster” … Read more

Study Provides an Interesting Look at Changing Bitcoin Narratives

Last week Nic Carter, the partner at Castle Island Ventures and co-founder of Coinmetrics.io, published an interesting study that looks at the ever-changing narratives tied to Bitcoin technology. Carter and his fellow researcher Hasufly scraped up a lot of data stemming from Bitcointalk.org posts over the years that highlight some of the community-derived visions of … Read more

A Brief History of Hidden Messages in the Bitcoin Blockchain

People have been hiding messages in the bitcoin blockchain ever since the genesis block was mined. While most aren’t as famous as Satoshi’s Times headline of January 3 2009, each one will live for as long as bitcoin does, testaments to mankind’s obsession with steganography, spam, and unorthodox marriage proposals. Also read: No, There Isn’t … Read more

No, There Isn’t Child Porn on the Bitcoin Blockchain

Anyone swiping through the tech news on their tablet this week may have been startled by an unsavory story. Child pornography (CP) is permanently encoded in the bitcoin blockchain accoriding to mainstream media reports, making anyone who downloads the blockchain guilty of accessing CP. Not only is this old news, but it’s fake news. Understanding … Read more