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Send to Bitcoin SegWit bech32 addresses!
SegWit on HolyTransaction
We are very excited to announce that HolyTransaction has implemented support for Bitcoin bech32 address formats on its platform. You can now enter a bech32 address when sending bitcoin from HolyTransaction. When depositing, you can also transfer the bitcoins to HolyTransaction from a bech32 address. HolyTransaction is the first web wallet to implement the native SegWit address format.
Native SegWit address bech32
Bitcoin bech32 addresses start with “bc1”. Segwit bech32 format has some technical benefits over the already used SegWit address format, which includes decreased transaction fees and increased throughput. Moreover, the new address format is case-insensitive and consists only of lower cases so the chance of typing an error is lower.
SegWit
SegWit makes it possible to rearrange the information in a block. Consequently, the block can contain more information and it makes transaction processing more cost-effective. Therefore, the blockchain can process much more transactions per second. This is a big step for the entire cryptocurrency community.
We believe this improvement will be welcome by the community. Tell your friends!
Check your wallet and try it out.
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SegWit transactions are here
When checking your Bitcoin address from your balance page, you may have noticed that the address currently displayed differs from one you have seen listed in the past.
Thanks to the latest improvements in Bitcoin Core, we are happy to announce that HolyTransaction implemented the SegWit technology to improve the Bitcoin network capacity and reduce the network fees.
All new addresses generated for Bitcoin and Litecoin by the HolyTransaction wallet will be SegWit addresses.
We believe this change will be welcome by the community and will also help HolyTransaction reach new users. Check your wallet and try it out.
What’s SegWit?
SegWit makes it possible to rearrange the information in a block. Consequently, the block can contain more information and it makes transaction processing more cost-effective. Receiving payments on these SegWit addresses does not differ from typical addresses in any way. As of now, around 10% of all Bitcoin transactions pass in SegWit.
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Bitcoin Price Analysis and SegWit
While Bitcoin price is experiencing a new growth after the almost 50% drop from its all-time high, a few analysts of the crypto market suggest that bitcoin price at $4000 is in the air.
And this moment seems to come sooner than expected.
“When added to the professed agreement for major players to work together on the Bitcoin scaling issue starting September – if it becomes a reality, the price could see between $4,000 and $5,000 before the year ends,” said an expert to Cointelegraph.
2017 has been a good year for bitcoin price, as it traded at about $950 back in January and it reached its new all-time high a few months ago in June with a value of $3011: this means that bitcoin price grew of more than 3000% in a six-months period.
Compared to the all-time high we quoted above, the current price decrease is maybe due to the uncertainty around the upcoming SegWit activation that will take place on August 1st, 2017.
For those who are unfamiliar with this, SegWit is a new upgrade to the Bitcoin blockchain that will increase the block size to support more transactions and allow a faster confirmation for transactions.
At the moment, the blockchain supports up to 2000 transactions per block in 10 minutes and SegWit will double this capacity to 4000 transactions.
Also, Segwit2x will increase the size of each block from 1MB to 2MB.
SegWit will be implemented on August 1s, while it is not sure yet if Segwit2x will be implemented too.
That said, the real reason of uncertainty is caused by the hard fork needed to implement SegWit.
This might create two different chains in a similar way to what happened to Ethereum in 2016 with the DAO and Ethereum Classic.
Not a problem for the Bitcoin price
According to many experts in the industry, while this event might create panic sell and uncertainty within the community, will not be a real problem in the next future.
Kumar Gaurav of Cashaa explained to Cointelegraph:
“When looking at 2017 so far, it still has been a good year for Bitcoin, starting just below 1000$ and now standing just below $2,000. Whether and to which extent this overall trend will continue will be seen more clearly after some crucial dates such as 1st August. If 80% of the Bitcoin community adopts the updates all should be fine. It seems most likely this will be reached, as the current signaling of intended support is at 87.8 percent, an increase from 83.28 percent in May. Comparable to when in May, following the New York agreement on SegWit2x, Bitcoin reached an all-time high of $2,160, it can reach new all-time highs after a successful activation as Bitcoin will be more attractive again and bring users of other cryptocurrencies back to Bitcoin.”
Bitcoin-based ICOs
Another reason that might be influenced the price is the growing number of Bitcoin-based ICOs or Initial Coin Offerings.
ICOs managers might have cashed out during those days and this drove the prices because a huge amount of bitcoin appeared on the market.
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Amir Taaki talks about Segwit, Ethereum and more
Amir Taaki is one of the first developers to start working on Bitcoin.
In two recent interviews on The Tatiana Show and The Crypto Show, Taaki explained his personal point of view on the current state of Bitcoin and the need to preserve digital currency’s core values.
Also, Taaki talked about a power struggle for the blockchain and his support for Bitcoin researcher Peter Todd and the various contributors to Bitcoin Core.
For him, the protocol development debate over Bitcoin is between those who think Bitcoin is a revolutionary technology to challenge central banks and those who simply believe it as only a payments innovation.
“With the Blockstream guys and Peter Todd, I have a lot of faith in those people. I was involved in Bitcoin since the very beginning, so I interacted with a lot of different people, I know what their personalities are, what their personal motivations are. I kind of think that most of the guys who are on that side have a pure intent, which is an intent for Bitcoin, not for their own personal gain, not to elevate themselves. A lot of them even existed in the shadows or even had the chance to gain power at different points but didn’t really fight to take power over Bitcoin.”
According to Taaki, people who cannot make informed decisions related to the changes to make on the Bitcoin protocol only need to look at those who are supporting each of the various proposals.
“When you have a guy like Peter Todd who is on one side and then you have people like Gavin Andresen and Roger Ver and other people on the other side, then it’s pretty clear which side to support. The developers who have worked on Bitcoin since its very beginning and got nothing personally out of working on Bitcoin — that work on Bitcoin because they believe in it based on principle — yeah I trust those guys,” explained Taaki.
Taaki quoted Gavin Andresen as someone who “tried to dominate the development process through titles rather than an organization of people and a governance process” because of his work at the Bitcoin Foundation.
Please note that the original Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) that explained the governance process for protocol development was a Taaki’s idea, although it has been replaced by BIP 2.
Bitcoin’s Main Values to be Preserved
Even if Taaki said that Bitcoin had just transcended “one really big power struggle for the heart of Bitcoin as a technology” during his speech at The Tatiana Show, SegWit2x was announced not long after this appearance.
“What me and Cody Wilson was — there was a side of Bitcoin that was just about [opposition to] the central banks and there was another side opposing that with different values to us. Basically, we’ve managed to get over that, and those values that were at the core of Bitcoin have been preserved. But it’s not enough to simply preserve Bitcoin as it is or what it is.”
According to Taaki, Bitcoin’s main values need to be preserved and also need to find their way in the Bitcoin Core codebase.
“It’s a dangerous moment because, if Bitcoin continues how it is, it’s just going to kind of meander around and then it’s going to fizzle out because it doesn’t pull people forwards toward something greater,” Taaki added.
Bitcoin vs Ethereum
Taaki also talked about his thoughts on the current state of Ethereum.
In his view, Ethereum is an example of developers going to their computers to escape the real world and creating toys instead of practical applications that can have an impact on the world.
“They’re developing a lot of cool toys, [but] it’s not really fulfilling a coherent need. That’s the biggest problem with Ethereum. I respect Vitalik for his technical knowledge, but there’s no social knowledge behind it.”
According to Taaki, he has always stuck with Bitcoin because it has “solved very real, practical problems that face humanity now.”
“Bitcoin is a political tool to actually change the society, to excise these real problems at the root of the society,” he said.
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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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Litecoin Segwit: how it is driving the prices
Maybe because of the recent Litecoin Segwit support, this digital currency price set a new high yesterday, reaching a value of $11.42, its highest price since May 2014.
We cannot define it a cryptocurrency pump, but the market seems to answer to the technical changes in the network.
This price growth, in fact, could be explained thanks to the almost reached the 75% support level needed in order to activatate the Litecoin Segwit (Segregated Witness), or a scaling solution that will improve blocks capacity.
Right now, in fact, just over 70% of miners were giving their support for the Litecoin Segwit.
Even if at press time, Litecoin price declined of about 67%, litecoin traded as high as $11.32 today up nearly 40% in one day, according to CoinMarketCap.
On March 30th, litecoin price increased of about 70% and, always according to Coinmarketcap data, its 24-hour volume passed $250m today.
Litecoin SegWit support
These important new Litecoin highs have coincided with the almost reached support level needed for activating the Litecoin SegWit.
First designed to be used on the Bitcoin blockchain, SegWit would increase the block capacity by modifying how transaction data is stored by the blockchain itself.
Once reached, the support level will have to remain at or above the 75% threshold level for 8,064 blocks (almost two weeks) before SegWit can officially be activated.
The litecoin price reached $50 in late 2013, but it has traded below $20 since early 2014.
Click here to read more about SegWit and a new Bitcoin potential fork.
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Bitcoin Segwit: scaling solution in November
Bitcoin Segwit was announced in December and it was one of the most awaited software versions since the beginning of the bitcoin creation.
And it is likely to happen on November 15th.
The Bitcoin Segwit, in fact, could solve the block size debate as the block size will become bigger and the bitcoin scalability could improve.
Ciphrex CEO and Bitcoin Core spokesman, Eric Lombrozo explained that users can expect an increase of capacity of 1.8 times.
However, bitcoin segwit main goal is to solve the malleability of transactions, one network aspect that has been controversial since the Mt Gox collapse back in 2014, when this “malleability” problem was used as a scapegoat.
Bitcoin segwit could solve a major part of the block debate, without a hard fork of the Bitcoin protocol. Transactions would tell miners that anyone can spend them, no signature required, while also including strings of seemingly meaningless text.
Old nodes confirm these transactions, ignoring these odd directions and gibberish.
Newer nodes would translate the extra text into instructions, telling them to collect signatures and store them in a completely new part of the transaction, called the Segregated Witness.
Lombrozo, in fact, believes that the benefits of switching to segwit are sufficient to encourage developers to adapt their own software to the new segwit solution.
“Not only they will be able to use the increased capacity offered by segwit and pay lower fees, but also they will be able to support other functions that will be enabled later by segwit with minor updates,” he said.
To better understand what the Bitcoin Segwit is, read here an insightful infographic.
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The Latest Craze in Bitcoin: Ordinals Become the Newest NFT Trend
Web3 has recently made headlines due to the launch of the new Ordinals protocol, which has sparked a lot of interest in the community. Yet, not everyone is convinced that this is a positive step for Bitcoin. In this paper, we will look at the Ordinals protocol, its relationship to non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and its potential impact on Bitcoin’s future.
The history of Bitcoin and NFTs
To understand the significance of the Ordinals protocol, it is important to first look at the history of Bitcoin and its relationship to NFTs. Counterparty, a technology built on top of Bitcoin, was the first to create blockchain-based NFTs in 2014. This resulted in the creation of well-known compilations such as Rare Pepes in 2016. However, the usage of the Bitcoin blockchain for NFTs prompted a dispute in the community, with some criticising the idea of employing full nodes for data storage. The dispute came from the use of an OP RETURN function, which allowed for the preservation of arbitrary data in the blockchain.
Limitations of the OP RETURN function
The OP RETURN function had limitations, as it could only retain 40 bytes of data. However, this limit was later expanded to 80 bytes in 2016. With the adoption of Segwit’s 2017 upgrade and Taproot’s 2021 upgrade, it has become more cost-effective and easier to store data with OP RETURN. Segwit made it 75% cheaper, while Taproot made it 10% cheaper and easier to store data in a single transaction rather than numerous ones. As a result, anyone can now pay to store an endless amount of data with this function, as long as the overall block size does not exceed 4 MB.
The Ordinals protocol builds upon the concept of Bitcoin by allowing for the creation of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). It does this by dividing each Bitcoin into 100,000,000 satoshis or sats and allowing individuals running Bitcoin nodes to write data on each block, which is known as an Ordinal. This data can include smart contracts, which can enable the creation of NFTs on the Bitcoin network.
The Ordinals protocol represents a significant advancement over traditional Bitcoin NFTs created using the OP RETURN function. Unlike the OP RETURN function, which is limited in the amount of data it can store, Ordinals allow for the creation of more complex and sophisticated NFTs. Furthermore, the protocol enables the creation of NFTs that are completely on-chain, meaning that all data related to the NFT is stored directly on the blockchain. This reduces the need for off-chain storage solutions, such as IPFS, which is commonly used by Ethereum-based NFTs.
Differences between Ethereum-based NFTs and Bitcoin NFTs
It is important to understand that there are notable differences between NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain, or other Ethereum Virtual Machine blockchains, and Bitcoin NFTs created using the Ordinals protocol. Ethereum NFTs typically reference off-chain data that can be modified on the Interplanetary File System (IPFS), a decentralized file storage system similar to a hard drive on the Blockchain. Some NFT projects alter the metadata of individual NFTs to enhance image quality. While this approach allows for greater flexibility in the types of NFTs that can be created, it also introduces additional complexity and potential points of failure. By contrast, Bitcoin NFTs created using the Ordinals protocol are completely on-chain, which makes them more secure and less reliant on off-chain storage solutions.
In conclusion, the Ordinals protocol represents a significant step forward for Bitcoin and its potential use in the NFT market. While there are still concerns and debates surrounding its use, the protocol provides a new avenue for innovation and creativity within the Bitcoin ecosystem. As the cryptocurrency landscape continues to evolve, it will be interesting to see how the use of NFTs on both the Ethereum and Bitcoin networks develop and intersect in the future.
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Welcome to the Universal Wallet and Exchange, Groestlcoin.
If you thought about holding or exchanging GRS Groestlcoin, now you can do so directly with your HolyTransaction Universal Wallet.
It’s now possible to add GRS wallet to your dashboard and use it to access and exchange 25 different crypto, instantly. This is just one of the many recent adoptions that increased the possibilities of pur platform, by bringing the number of cryptocurrencies accepted to 25.
Now you are free to store GRS on HolyTransaction, transfer them to any other wallet, and make crypto-to-crypto transfers from and to GRS. All HolyTransaction customers can create a new address for their own Groestlcoin Wallet.
Groestlcoin Wallet features
Just like Bitcoin and all the other 24 digital currencies supported, you can now:
• Send GRS to any address, even to addresses of other crypto, with instant conversion on the fly;
• Receive transactions;
• Exchange GRS with any supported coins;
• Make instant transactions between HT users;
• Get real time exchange rates on the website;
• Set OTP for additional protection.
If you are not able to see your newest Groestlcoin Wallet, you just need to click on the “plus” button on the top right of the balance page, once you successfully login into your own wallet.
About GroestlCoin:
Groestlcoin is a fast and secure coin with almost zero fees that is privacy oriented. Launched on 22nd March 2014 with a focus on technological advancement, Groestlcoin has major development releases every 3 months.
Groestlcoin is a blockchain pioneer due to it being the first coin that activated SEGWIT and first to performed Lightning Network transactions on mainnet.
“ You can send GRS across the blockchain with almost zero fees. The fee for transferring 10,000 GRS with Groestlcoin Core wallet is 0.000045 GRS, that means $0.0006 at current price.”
The Groestlcoin Team has developed wallets for every platform: Android, iOS, BlackBerry, Windows, macOS, Linux, Chrome OS and Web. And besides that, the Groestlcoin Samourai wallet enables you to send GRS anonymously.
“The Groestlcoin Samourai wallet, boasts its anonymity and security, as it allows for private stealth addresses with both TOR and VPN support, as well as onboard AES-256 encryption.”
The main idea of creating Groestlcoin was to establish an electronic payment model that was purely based on mathematical proof. It uses the proof of work system (POW) to facilitate secure online money transactions. A system that is independent of influence from centralized authorities, a currency transferable electronically, and instantly at a very small fee.
Using 2 rounds of Grøstl-512 mining algorithm, makes Groestlcoin an ASIC resistant cryptocurrency.
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Batching Bitcoin and Litecoin transactions
HolyTransaction implemented SegWit on Bitcoin and Litecoin back in November 2017; and now we are glad to announce another upgrade to help the BTC network, as well the LTC network, reduce its transaction fee costs.
We implemented batching of transactions to help reduce fees for the entire network in order to strengthen the ecosystem.
Batches now allow grouping similar transactions and processing them together, as one transaction in one single moment. Thanks to this process, HolyTransaction is able to help conserve precious blockspace on the Bitcoin network.
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