"V for Vendetta" GIFs, "Walking Dead" references, images of tornadoes – even bitcoin's infamous 'BearWhale' has returned to welcome an approaching attempt to upgrade bitcoin.

While there have been many efforts aimed at improving the digital currency's protocol in recent years, few have attracted as fervent a following as bitcoin improvement proposal (BIP) 148.

Drafted in an effort to rally the community behind a process called a user-activated soft fork (UASF), the proposal is distinguished by being less reliant on gaining support from network miners. In fact, BIP 148 is the UASF with the shortest timeline to launch – and it's activating on the 1st August.

While some reject the growing support for BIP 148 as a kind of populist uprising, others believe it will lead to users having better control over the direction of the protocol. As per usual, opinions are split.

Because the change aims to circumvent what some consider a decision by miners not to signal support for Segregated Witness, a scaling solution preferred by Bitcoin Core developers, some have dubbed the upgrade date 'Bitcoin Independence Day'.

Alphonse Pace, a developer and supporter of BIP 148, told CoinDesk:

   "[T]here's no way to put it back in Pandora's box. The code is out; it's being run by economic nodes. Either we split on 1st August, or SegWit is activated."

Read full article here: http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoins-independence-day-could-users-tip-the-scales-in-the-scaling-debate/

This article highlights findings from CoinDesk Research's new Q1 2017 State of Blockchain report, focusing on data around the growth of bitcoin's blockchain.

Born from math, bitcoin is a game of numbers.

Transactions have a size of ~500 bytes, blocks are limited to 1 MB and blocks can only be published after a puzzle is solved, a process that occurs via algorithm once every ~10 minutes.

The facts that underlie the current bitcoin protocol, set years before transactions could ever be called 'expensive', set the stage for the 'scaling debate' we've watched unfold ever since. Proposals have since developed to decrease transaction sizes, remove the block size limit and move transactions off of the main bitcoin blockchain, all in the name of boosting capacity.

Amid this indecision, the network itself has adapted.

As bitcoin miners can control the transactions they include in proposed blocks, and users can pay to have their transactions included, a fee market has developed to incentivize the inclusion of transactions into blocks.

Still, opinions on scaling solutions and alternate cryptocurrencies aside, objective data from the Q1 2017 tells a different story. Transaction numbers, block sizes and transaction fees on the bitcoin blockchain each reached all-time highs in the first quarter of 2017, proving the demand to use the network is now larger than ever.

Here's a closer look at the situation in three charts:

Read full article: http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoins-network-congestion-in-3-charts-transactions-blocks-fees/

Bitcoin price has risen nearly $300 to the $2800 arena in less than 24 hours sending euphoria through the Satoshi community. Late afternoon on Monday, it crossed the $2600 line and in the early hours of Tuesday, it was already in the current price range.

The trend has proven those who asserted that last two weekend’s brief panic was not a bubble in principle right. From the look of things, the trailblazer is not yet done going up in value.

Data from Cryptocompare indicates that since the last so-called bubble, it has gone up by 32 percent adding as much as $672 to its price and posting more than $46 Billion in market cap.

CCN spoke to a couple of community members who expressed optimism about the future. Core Media CEO and Community Manager of Waves, MX hinted:

    The Crypto market is still small, stocks will be more dangerous than Bitcoin soon. There is huge bubble outside crypto and people are diversifying portfolios in crypto, gold etc, but at the same time with such small market cap like Bitcoin has, there will be big price corrections -1k$, -3k$ until it stabilises at some higher world market level.

Abhishek Bandari of Asia Digital Coin believes the price will cross $3000 sooner than later and validate that it is not a fluke at all. When asked if it is healthy for the crypto space, he answered in the affirmative.

“It is a genuine growth indicating Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are maturing to the point of mainstream acceptance,” he stated emphatically.

Altcoin Gains

Meanwhile, Ethereum is at its all time high with a market price of $257. It has also push behind the bad time it had last week. Ether depreciated on three straight days in the last week of May.

Litecoin is not doing bad either as it has increased its price to $30. There are talks of Chinese Exchanges resuming withdrawals boosting its standings.

The most refreshing news for the day in altcoin space is Monero. Gradually it is proving to be resilient and expanding its value. Yesterday the anon coin could boast of a market price of $37 but interesting enough, it is being sold for $51 today with more than $750, Million market share.

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitcoin-leads-charge-top-10-cryptos-make-gains/

Bitcoin is moving closer to the $3,000 region after establishing a new all-time high price at $2,933. The global bitcoin exchange market has stabilized significantly over the past few weeks as the big three Chinese exchanges BTCC, Huobi and OKCoin resumed withdrawals for users.

Prior to the resumption of withdrawals by leading Chinese bitcoin exchanges, bitcoin was being traded in the Chinese bitcoin exchange market at a price around 20 percent lower than that of the US, Japan and South Korean bitcoin exchange markets.

CCN previously reported that Chinese users moved to over-the-counter (OTC) markets such as LocalBitcoins to purchase bitcoin to avoid withdrawal suspension set by the People’s Bank of China on major Chinese exchanges. Some analysts suggested that Chinese bitcoin exchange users migrated to the Japanese exchange market to trade bitcoin.

The latter theory explains the sudden decline of the trading volume of the Japanese bitcoin exchange market as Chinese exchange resumed withdrawals and market stabilized. Almost immediately after Huobi, OKCoin and BTCC enabled withdrawals, Japan fell behind South Korea, the third largest bitcoin exchange market, after being the dominant exchange market for six straight months.

No More Premiums For South Korean and Japanese Traders

A more important aspect to consider in the recent change of the global bitcoin exchange market and ecosystem is that the high premium rates demonstrated by Japan and South Korea dematerialized.

On May 25, CryptoCoinsNews revealed that bitcoin price surpassed $3,800 on major South Korean bitcoin exchanges due to rising demand. A few days later, bitcoin price entered the $4,000 region within the South Korean bitcoin exchange market, demonstrating a $1,200 premium over other markets such as the US, Japan and China.

Tuur Demeester, prominent bitcoin trader and Adamant Research editor-in-chief, stated that the chief information officer of Korbit, the South Korean bitcoin exchange market’s second-largest bitcoin exchange, said in an interview that the premium exists due to the country’s strict capital controls.

In South Korea, it is virtually impossible to move more than $10,000 without being flagged by the country’s anti-money laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) systems. Users and traders are requested to explain the source of funds and the purpose of transaction with hard evidence and carry out strict KYC procedures such as face-to-face interviews, submission of bank documents and proof of identity.

“Talked to the chief information officer of [the South Korean exchange market’s] 2nd largest exchange, says that capital controls are making price arbitrage difficult,” said Demeester.

In the past two weeks, as the Chinese market stabilized and officially became the second-largest bitcoin exchange market, other markets stabilized as well. The South Korean and Japanese bitcoin exchange markets are no longer demonstrating high premiums over the US market.

Link to full article - https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitcoin-is-no-bubble-in-reaching-3000/

PC gaming GPU giants Nvidia and AMD are lining up cheaper, stripped-down crypto-specific graphics cards in the face of overwhelming demand led by Bitcoin & Ethereum miners.

As bitcoin increasingly finds itself under the mainstream’s eye amid an ongoing price boom, there is a distinct shortage of graphics cards in the gaming market. According to AMD, whose GPUs are currently sold-out at major US retailers, the blame is on a “solid demand” by “newly resurgent cryptocurrency mining markets.” Nvidia-based graphics cards, traditionally more expensive than AMD GPUs, are also seeing an increase in demand.

The gaming market remains the priority for the two hardware manufacturers who have seen a similar market swell in demand for graphics cards in late 2013 from Bitcoin and Litecoin miners. This time, AMD & Nvidia are addressing gamers’ frustration and new miners’ demands head on.

According to a report by Digitimes, both Nvidia and AMD are both preparing to release GPUs specifically designed for bitcoin mining at reduced costs due to lower specifications compared to their gaming GPU cousins.

What’s being stripped away? Details are scarce, but the manufacturers are removing HDMI and/or Display ports as image outputs from the mining-specific hardware. They will also come with reduced 90-day warranty periods due to the intensive 24-hour operation that the bitcoin mining GPUs are likely to see.

The report from the Asian publication also reveals a name for Nvidia’s model, the GeForce GTX1060-100. There are no details about the new hardware on Nvidia’s website at the time of publishing. AMD is reportedly redesigning its entry-level 400 series hardware for cryptocurrency-miners. Both manufacturers’ GPUs are expected to be available by the end of this month, June.

GPUs based on the higher-end 500 series, the Radeon Rx 580 and Rx 570 are sold out, as reported by CCN yesterday.

Another factor cited by the report as a reason for a new line of bitcoin-mining GPUs is the aftermarket costs incurred by vendors during the mining boom of 2013. After the bitcoin mining trend tailed off soon after, an entire slew of miners sold their heavily-used graphics cards to the second-hand market. These cards remained under warranty and, as a result, their vendors and manufacturers saw significant maintenance-related costs in prepping up the GPUs for their second-hand owners. This would explain AMD & Nvidia lowering the warranty period for the new mining-specific hardware to a measly 90 days.

Other hardware manufacturers are also looking to capitalize on the surging demand, with some motherboard vendors reportedly pushing their products specifically designed for Bitcoin mining.

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/nvidia-amd-to-release-cheaper-bitcoin-mining-gpus/

It can never be said too often, but the prevalence of malware on the Internet, especially malware targeting Bitcoin and other financial software, makes it extra important today: you can never be too careful when sending Bitcoin transactions. A Reddit user today lost 13BTC, or around $36,000, when he pasted an address from his clipboard that was not the appropriate address.

    I copy pasted BTC address into electrum and confirmed the bitcoin transaction. the clipboard replaced my bitcoin intendet bitcoin address with a different one. few minutes later i discuss with friend if he already sees it in his wallet. he didnt. It sent to wrong address

This is a trivially done malware attack. Access to the clipboard is a basic functionality for user level applications, so mostly anything can see what is there. All the malware in question has to do is remain undetected and, when it notices a Bitcoin address on the clipboard, replace it with one. More advanced developers can have it actively try to swap the address with a similar-looking one. This malware can be contracted by any operating system, although for obvious reasons most renditions are probably authored for Windows. Its actual effects are avoidable by double-checking before sending. It’s helpful to highlight the first, middle, and last 3-5 characters of a transaction when doing this.

The 30 extra seconds (maximum) it would have taken for Reddit user ask_for_pgp would have saved him and his friend over $30,000.

The above recommendation goes in addition to always password-securing your Bitcoin wallet. Then it will ask for permission before sending, giving you another chance to look. Simply running a virus scan won’t save you, because new versions can be written and distributed before the virus definitions are updated, and you’re already copying the attacker’s addresses by that point.

Link to full article: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/malware-snatches-13btc-36000-bitcoin-user/

Hello, When will approximately signature bounty calculations be completed and participants get their reward? Thank you.

Do I have to make some manipulations in myetherwallet account to get ETT tokens from bounty campaign? There is an article on this topic, but i`m not sure if it will be necessary doings.

https://medium.com/incent-loyalty-blog/how-to-withdraw-and-store-your-encryptotel-tokens-ett-231afd5f7c40

Or ETT will appear automatically in cabinet after distribution?

Wings Beta platform will start at that time?


News about Wings and Bancor partnership inspire confidence about future of both projects. Some people there talking about temporary dump, but it seems that Wings will only strengthen.

Hello.

I have few questions about signature campaign.

How many massages do we have to write per week? On what day accounting week starts and finishes?

Or participant must leave a certain amount of comments to the end of bounty campaign?

Thanks.

Пока возникают такие вопросы:

1. Когда начинаеться и заканчиваеться расчетная неделя по подписной компании проэкта.
2. Сколько сообщений нужно писать в неделю для начисления баунти.
3. Нужно написать n-ное количество сообщений до конца компании или каждую неделю будут начисляться доли?

Спасибо.

I have roughly the same situation. It is good to participate in signature campaign, but i understand that money must work and do more money. Personally i accept the risk to loose some money on wrong investment decisions, that`s why i will investigate and read information about the new project more carefully and invest more than 2 projects to increase chances.

Pension situation in Japan reflects worldwide tendency to population aging. Because of progressive healthcare people will live longer, pension age will slowly increase. Alternative saving accounts in cryptorurrencies may play key role in future families budget.

Хуманик активно катаеться по выставкам, приложение пока только для Андроид в виде альфа версии собираються выпустить ближе к сентябрю. Вообщем проэкт достаточно долгосрочный, но внушает доверие, чтобы держать в нем токены. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_9HfGauk7k&feature=youtu.be

Nice and quality video material. Such news and approach to customers inspire about projects bright future.)

Anna is very beautiful girl.

This split of Bitcoin technology makes me think right now about future of bitcoin as a reserve currency. The only real value in bitcoin comparing to other altcoins is in it`s originality, or there are other essential advantages?

Very interesting article, author analyzes the main problems in the modern world of crypto-currencies. In my opinion the most dangerous thing from listed in it is:

- ICOs that raise money, but don't deliver, a year or two after launch (often dev`s collect a lot of money in ico, but not officially announce project release date).

Perfect news. Japans are very progressive nation. May be due to their efforts we will soon have bitcoin ATM and BTM in all public places. Such optimistic news very well contribute to the growth of the rate of BTC.

As i understand correctly humaniq project will start approximately in a month. On what date the official launch of the humaniq appointed?

В англоязычной теме народ реально верит в Вингс по 10$. Я конечно понимаю что монета сейчас на пампе, но есть ли реальные предпосылки для такого роста?