Bitcoin all time high: more than $2000
While I’m writing this article the bitcoin all time high reached a value of $2,019 for the first time in its history.
By reaching a value of more than $2,000, bitcoin’s price grown of about 100% this year and nearly 125% since the annual low of $891.51 bitcoin hit back in March.
Experts agreed that bitcoin’s price recent growth could lead to reaching significant attention from the media and maybe also major financial media outlet would cover bitcoin.
Google Trends data showed that the search for “bitcoin” have still not reached its all-time high they set back in December 2013, but it is getting closer (right now it has a score of 85/100).
That said, the reasons that drove the bitcoin all time high are difficult to identify.
Growing interest by investors
Surely, one reason is the increase in interest from investors and traders, as reported by the major exchange platforms.
Another factor that helped bitcoin to reach its current all-time high is the growing influence of Japan, a country where the technology is now regulated: from April 1st, in fact, bitcoin became a legal method of payment.
The Japanese yen is the single largest currency being exchanged for bitcoin, accounting for more than 45% of the money flow into bitcoin at the time of the report, according to CryptoCompare data.
The Japanese yen is the greatest currency being exchanged for bitcoin: currently, almost 45% of the money flow into bitcoin.
After the yen, there is US dollar that makes up 30% of the money flowing into bitcoin.
Block size debate
Bitcoin price grew in spite of the current block size debate, an issue related to the transaction capacity and the blockchain speed to validate a transaction.
Bitcoin developers are talking about this issue in order to address it and there are a few proposals such as the so-called SegWit or Segregated Witness that would increase blocks capacity.
Read here why you should hold Bitcoin and how.
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Bitcoin Price rose because of Trump
After reaching a value of $1,840, Bitcoin price is currently stable around $1,820 while I’m writing this article.
The recent growth of the Bitcoin price seems to be affected by President Trump administration and the economic uncertainty of the US.
Or, at least, this is a theory shared on Cointelegraph.
From the first day of his presidency, Trump indirectly influenced bitcoin price through his dubious politics.
Also, Bloomberg reported that the major American stock indexes experienced their worst performance in eight months while the richest billionaires lost $35 billion because of the Trump’s turmoil.
For example, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg lost almost $4 bln due to the Dow Jones Industrial Average drop of more than 370 points.
Evercore ISI Executive Dennis DeBusschere explained to Bloomberg:
“What has been setting in over the course of the day is that political uncertainty is something that’s likely going to be with us for a significant amount of time. We may be looking at a higher volatility backdrop with a trending lower market for the next couple of months.”
So, during this period of financial uncertainty, investors decided to protect their wealth by investing in bitcoin and gold.
Gold gained around 1.9% and Bitcoin price recorded a 7% growth, almost reaching its current all-time high price of $1,868.
This way, bitcoin seems to become a safe-heaven, with a growing number of investors.
As explained by Cointelegraph, a $10,000 investment in gold back in 2010 would have led to a loss of $20, while a $10,000 investment in Bitcoin would have led to a net gain of $200 mln.
So, investors started to trust Bitcoin, that is considered similar to digital gold, in order to avoid market instability and economic uncertainty.
The US market will struggle to recover during the next few weeks, so Bitcoin price is likely to maintain its upward trend and potentially it will set a new all-time high.
The rise in bitcoin demand within the US is clear and recently the US Bitcoin exchange market passed the Japanese one for the first time in 2017, at least for their trading volume.
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Bitcoin Regulation might be pushed by Apple and PayPal
When the digital currency industry has Apple and PayPal as competitors, those two firms might be the reason for a Bitcoin regulation in the US.
Apple and PayPal joined a group together with Google, Amazon and Intuit in Washington in order to push for more reforms related to the financial system innovation. As we know, in fact, a core subject on their agenda is the creation of a federal money transmission license that would supplant the current state-by-state regime.
Also, last month Financial Innovation Now (FIN), the group that represents these five companies, sent a letter to the Senate Banking Committee proposing new recommendations that ask for the creation of a national money transmission requirement that would be managed by the Treasury Department.
“Consumer protection is a critical part of payments regulation, but it makes no sense for different states to regulate digital money differently from one state to another,” they explained.
The executive director of FIN, Brian Peters, said to CoinDesk the group is taking the money transmission problem very seriously and is looking for a legislative solution.
“This is a top priority for us. We’re proactive pushing for it and we are serious about legislating this.”
Bitcoin regulation benefits
FIN argues that it has no interest in supporting Bitcoin regulation or its industry, but it knows that the development of a transmitter issue is a common benefit.
“None of our priorities really actually delve into bitcoin or the other cryptocurrencies specifically. However, a lot of what we are pushing for does connect to the work many in that community are doing. The main reason we are pursuing it is because our companies have encountered a significant amount of friction and delay in the state-by-state money transmission licensing process. It’s the delay and the friction that’s really a hindrance to the ability to deliver products and services to the market in a way that is consistent with the pace of innovation in the modern economy.”
In addition to the costs to comply regulations, there are a few issues in states where government hasn’t still decide whether digital currencies should be considered as money or be exempted from regulation itself.
A federal licensing system would allow digital currency- related companies to elude state regimes and this could have an exponential growth effect on Bitcoin industry, as explained by the director of research at Coin Center, Peter Van Valkenburgh.
“For people in the US who want to build a business using these technologies, by far the biggest impediment they face is state-by-state transmission regulations. There’s pretty much no question about that. Anything that [FIN] is going to ask for – assuming it’s in line with a federal money transmission license – is exactly what our industry needs.”
So, having a federal option would provide a few benefits related, for example, to the cut of compliance costs for companies and new startups.
“For startups, it’s the biggest thing,” he said. “Right now, you can’t start your business unless you have millions to spend on compliance. And to get venture capital financing, you need to convince your venture capitalists that it’s OK that the majority of their funding is going to lawyers.”
While there have been a lot of efforts with the aim of creating a federal money transmission framework, they have fallen due to a lack of money, leadership, political clout, etc.
But, FIN shouldn’t face these problems, commented Carol Van Cleef, a digital currency attorney with BakerHostetler in Washington.
“I have long said that we’ll get a national money transmitter license when these companies come together. They’re the ones that have the resources necessary to launch the kind of legislative campaign that’s essential to get this through Congress. This kind of initiative requires money and lots of it, solid executive branch and congressional relationships and experience working legislative issues.”
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Luxemburg to launch a Blockchain ID platform
LuxTrust, together with a Massachusetts-based startup and the support of the Luxembourg government, is building a new Blockchain ID platform.
Announced today, the project sees also the participation of the US startup Cambridge Blockchain.
Luxembourg owns two-thirds of the LuxTrust company, and the rest is handled by a consortium of banks and financial institutions that utilize the service itself.
LuxTrust is now working on how to integrate the blockchain, paving the way to its 500,000-strong subscriber base to use the distributed ledger in some capacity.
According to Matthew Commons, CEO of the Cambridge Blockchain, this partnership was born thanks to an initial conversation about blockchain ID.
“By combining LuxTrust’s current certified services such as authentication, signature and document management with our innovative blockchain-based enterprise software, our collaboration will deliver the future of digital identity for Europe and beyond,” he explained to Coindesk.
The Blockchain ID platform will be rolled out during the next few months, in what Commons called something like a “soft launch”.
He explained that one of the most important reasons for the creation of the Blockchain ID platform is the data-centric regulation (including the European General Data Protection Regulation) that are due to come in mid-2018.
“Working with Cambridge Blockchain allows us to augment the scope of identities, including any attributes, and will enable users to share personal data fully respecting the increasingly stringent European regulatory framework,” commented LuxTrust’s CEO, Pascal Rogiest.
Back in February 2017, the Cambridge Blockchain company raised $2m in a funding round, receiving support by VC firms Partech Ventures and Digital Currency Group. Commons also explained that his startup wants to complete a new Series A round by the end of 2017.
That said, we’re very happy to read about the Luxembourg government involvement in a blockchain-related project since HolyTransaction is based here.
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Bitcoin regulation in Europe: “it’s too early”
During a recent event held by the European Parliament, members talked about new technologies including the Blockchain and Ethereum and Bitcoin Regulation.
According to them, the European Parliament will have to regulate and monitor the new tech but “it’s too early to intervene at this stage, because we as legislators don’t yet see sufficiently clearly to know what the main issues are going to be – so in order to not to stifle innovation, we don’t want it to be now.””, said MEP Jakob von Weizsäcker.
So, the EU wants just to monitor blockchain and smart contracts in order to allow developers doing their job.
Also, MEP Eva Kaili from Greece explained that regulation is necessary to protect citizens, but EU doesn’t want to suffocate innovations.
“[In] 2008 when the crisis started in the European Union, especially in my country [Greece], people lost trust in banks and in the politicians. I woundn’t blame them because we didn’t protect them and the reaction was that some young people that we don’t really know discover this technology that actually makes unnecessary to have banks, politicians and intermediaries. So the potential is there, but it is still under progress”.
Also, she continues by saying the following:
“Blockchain is not just bitcoin and bitcoin is not just blockckhain. We need to understand how to protect citizens because if we help them trust this technology, they will actually start to using it. I do believe that banks will outsource a lot of their services,” she said.
Bitcoin regulation to regain trust by citizens
“We’ll have to educate citizens on how to use it […] Hopefully, [bitcoin regulation] will come and we’re going to try to protect the technology and not to stop it. I know that usually politicians and banks don’t want to change and they want to keep control, but I think this technology is unstoppable and we have to give control back to the citizens and maybe this way we can regain some trust,” Kaili argues.
Watch the full conference video here.
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Litecoin Segwit has been finally approved
Litecoin Segwit has been finally implemented, so this long-debate to change to change the digital currency network can be said to be closed now.
Originally intended to improve the bitcoin blockchain, Segwit – or Segregated Witness – had to solve the so-called block size debate, but it has been used on the lesser known litecoin chain, with some in the community that believes that it will help to finally have a quick implementation on the bitcoin network too.
Litecoin Segwit: how does it work?
Segregated Witness, in fact, is a new system that will allow litecoin to improve its block size, by modifying how transaction data is stored by the blockchain itself.
The change was first locked-in two weeks ago, when the proposal reached the 75% threshold level.
Then, the community had to wait two more weeks (8,064 blocks) to ensure that the upgrade approval was consistent.
After that, yesterday (on May 10th) the change was officially activated at block 1201536.
What does it mean?
Litecoin users can now start using a new kind of network, and there has been at least one transaction so far.
Anyway, several supporters are thrilled about the new techs that can now be created on the Segwit-supported network.
For example, the Lightning Network could boost litecoin transactions by million times; thanks to Segwit it can now be used to move real money.
Developer Loshan T explained to CoinDesk:
“I think today will be a great day for pushing more awesome tech into Litecoin. With SegWit activated on litecoin’s mainnet, I cannot wait until we deploy confidential transactions, Lightning Networks, MAST and Schnorr signatures.”
Unfortunately, these projects are early stage right now, but developers from the Lightning Labs seem thinking that it is too early to talk about sending money over an experimental network, so they plan to continue to develop the chain.
The future is unwritten
It not so clear where the Segwit activation will lead to or what role Litecoin will have in the next future.
Loshan explained that some in the community are skeptical about litecoin needs of the Lightning Network tech because litecoin blocks are not full yet, but they would like to have trustless cross-chain transactions between bitcoin and litecoin as a potential Lightning use case; and developer believes could be a benefit for both the digital currencies.
Anyway, at the moment, the Litecoin blockchain seems to work properly, without any issue, even after the Segwit activation.
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Bitcoin in Russia: regulation will take place in 2019
Russia’s Ministry of Communications (Minkomsvyaz) has revealed it is looking for legalizing Bitcoin in Russia and the blockchain technology by 2019.
The local news agency called TASS talks about a document about the Russia’s Digital Economy of the Russian Federation project, which lays out a timeframe for creating and passing the blockchain regulation.
The document quoted the following:
“bringing into effect regulatory acts governing the possible use of technology for decentralized registers and legal certificates.”
Back in March, prime minister Dmitry Medvedev instructed Minkomsvyaz and its counterpart Ministry of Economic Growth (Minekonomrazvitie) to “study to what extent Blockchain would be applicable to our system of government.”
During the last year, Bitcoin in Russia has solidified from a rhetoric point of view also because the Russian Central Bank decided not to ban digital currencies including Bitcoin and this news was useful to calm businesses and users’ after a few years of uncertainty when Russia stated it would ban cryptocurrencies within the country.
Then, back in April, 2017, Russia announced it would recognize Bitcoin by 2018, but monitoring each transaction.
Read more about Bitcoin in Russia here.
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Ether Price passes $100: how to store Ethereum
Ether price, or the digital currency that fuels the world’s second-greatest blockchain network – Ethereum – reached a value of $100 today.
This means that Ether price hits its new all-time high today.
With a growth of more than 25% over one day only, the Ether price has now increased more than 1,000% during the last year: on January 1st, in fact, it was trading at about $8.
At the moment, while I’m writing this article, the digital currency has a market cap of about $9bn, according to data provided by Coinmarketcap.
Why Ether price is growing
This new all time high comes now when the Ethereum blockchain is fast gaining interest by open-source innovators and financial firms worldwide.
Ethereum became important as the main blockchain used for initial coin offerings (ICO, a process by which people working on blockchain-related projects can sell tokens with the goal of raising funding), while major companies such as JP Morgan and Bank of America are developing a few projects on private versions of the Ethereum blockchain.
On the markets point of view, the development comes also thanks to a strong and continued demand for the Ethereum token.
Ether volume registered 20% of the total digital currency market volumes, below bitcoin (46%) and ahead of litecoin (11.38%).
How to store, buy and sell Ethereum
While the digital currency is gaining more and more interest, reaching new all time highs, you may ask yourself: “How should I buy, sell and store my Ether tokens?”
Well, HolyTransaction provides a safe place where you can store, buy and sell your Ether tokens in a user-friendly platform.
You can exchange Ethereum in a few minutes by using more than 10 digital currencies we support on our HolyTransaction multicurrency wallet.
Click here to know more about our Ethereum wallet and exchange.
Open your free digital wallet here to store your cryptocurrencies in a safe place.
Ethereum exchange is now available on HolyTransaction
From now on you can exchange Ethereum for the supported digital currencies in HolyTransaction.
What is Ethereum?
At its simplest, Ethereum is an open software platform based on blockchain technology that enables developers to build and deploy decentralized applications.
Ether was already available on our wallet, but now you can also buy and sell it through 10 more coins we support.
At press time, Ether value is $87.
Exchange Ethereum with 14 cryptocurrencies
Just like Bitcoin, this means that you can now:
- Send Ethereum to any address of other cryptocurrencies with instant conversion on the fly;
- Receive transactions;
- Exchange Ethereum with any supported coins;
- Make instant transactions between HT users;
- Get real time exchange rates on the website;
- Set OTP for additional protection.
Is Ethereum similar to Bitcoin? Well, sort of, but not really.
Like Bitcoin, Ethereum is a distributed public blockchain network. Although there are some significant technical differences between the two, the most important distinction to note is that Bitcoin and Ethereum differ substantially in purpose and capability. Bitcoin offers one particular application of blockchain technology, a peer to peer electronic cash system that enables online Bitcoin payments. While the Bitcoin blockchain is used to track ownership of digital currency (bitcoins), the Ethereum blockchain focuses on running the programming code of any decentralized application.
In the Ethereum blockchain, instead of mining for bitcoin, miners work to earn Ether, a type of crypto token that fuels the network. Beyond a tradeable cryptocurrency, Ether is also used by application developers to pay for transaction fees and services on the Ethereum network.
So, what are you waiting for?
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Oracle Blockchain to improve delivery pipelines
A new Oracle blockchain – related project suggests that the database giant wants to use the distributed ledger in order to improve its internal workflows.
On April 27th, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) published an application titled “Managing Highly Scaling Continuous Delivery Pipelines”.
First filed in September, 2016, this application explains the use of a “pipeline blockchain” to be used as distributed information points for product delivery processes.
The only inventor quoted on the application is Duncan Mills, a software architect for Oracle.
As detailed in the application, this project is focused on exploiting the distributed ledger ability to provide transparency in order to keep data related to each employee who is contributing to a specific work process.
This would include how they work and what their next tasks; everything happens in real time.
“By its nature, the pipeline blockchain approach provides a self-correcting mechanism for recording and reconciling the state of a pipeline after a system failure. For example, if the record store becomes unavailable, pipelines can continue to process in a fail-safe mode using peer-to-peer reconciliation of the pipeline blockchain, thus maintaining the state of the transactions for the duration of the outage.”
Oracle Blockchain security
Oracle blockchain pipeline’s concept has security system too.
For example, one project may deal with sensitive or private info.
According to the application you can read above, the use of this Oracle blockchain pipeline could allow a user to see what task he/she needs to complete “without having to return control to a central dispatcher”, potentially making their devices vulnerable to external influences.
“This is particularly important where the worker is not in a position to check back with a central dispatcher because of security constraints,” the application states.
The use of the blockchain to facilitate the secure exchange of information is anidea that Oracle has already explained in the past, including in an article wrote last year by Subramanian Iyer, or one of the firm’s senior directors.
“Clearly, blockchain has the ability to increase secure data exchange in other industries as well. It also has the ability to make that data transfer simpler and easier between entities,” he commented.
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