[The Birth of Ethereum]

I am reading Mastering Ethereum, and I plan to write weekly posts about what I read in the book.

In the beginning of the book, in a chapter called The Birth of Ethereum , something caught my attention:

For projects that needed more freedom and flexibility while staying on-chain, a new blockchain was the only option. But that meant a lot of work: bootstrapping all the infrastructure elements, exhaustive testing, etc.

Towards the end of 2013, Vitalik Buterin, a young programmer and Bitcoin enthusiast, started thinking about further extending the capabilities of Bitcoin and Mastercoin (an overlay protocol that extended Bitcoin to offer rudimentary smart contracts). In October of 2013, Vitalik proposed a more generalized approach to the Mastercoin team, one that allowed flexible and scriptable (but not Turing complete) contracts to replace the specialized contract language of Mastercoin. While the Mastercoin team was impressed, this proposal was too radical a change to fit into their development roadmap.

In December 2013, Vitalik started sharing a white paper which outlined the idea behind Ethereum: a Turing-complete, general-purpose blockchain. A few dozen people saw this early draft and offered feedback, helping Vitalik evolve the proposal.

This is when he met Gavin Wood, a C++ coder who became Ethereum Co-Founder.

For those who doesn´t know, Turing-complete means that anything can be programmable without limitation (different than BTC language).

I was intrigued by this Mastercoin. What happened to this project? It is not in coinmarketcap. Was it rebranded?

I find very interesting to imagine Vitalik Buterin going to different companies proposing his ideas, until he finally decided to build his own blockchain and company.

I will keep making posts like this. So, do you think is it better to post in the serious discussion or in the Altcoin spam discussion?

[South Korean Crypto Exchange Bithumb Lanches Payment Service with ‘Asian Amazon’ Qoo10]

South Korean Crypto Exchange Bithumb Lanches Payment Service with ‘Asian Amazon’ Qoo10
https://cointelegraph.com/news/south-korean-crypto-exchange-bithumb-lanches-payment-service-with-asian-amazon-qoo10

South Korea's leading virtual currency exchange Bithumb has partnered with Asian e-commerce giant Qoo10 to provide a cryptocurrency payment service, according to an official announcement Nov. 7. 

Qoo10, the so called “Asian Amazon,” is a leading South Korean e-commerce company in pan-Asian markets such as Singapore, Hong Kong, China, and Indonesia. The press release notes that the partnership will expand the Bithumb cash payment service as a global payment method.

Well, that blow almost hit Amazon. I expect that soon a big Amazon competitor will start accepting crypto (maybe best buy or something like that?)

Bitcoin adoption is  growing, in a few years we will have much more services like this one accepting crypto.

Hello,

I would like some help from some more experienced members here...

Yesterday I tried to claim some Bitcoin Diamonds from my old BTC wallet (after claiming most of others, i decided to claim this shady fork).

After a small research, I decided to give a try to a wallet called Atomic Wallet (http://atomicwallet.io/), which looked like some wallet which would not steal my funds...


I downloaded the Atomic Wallet, Then I did these steps in sequence:

1 - Created a new  Wallet and copy pasted the SEED (12 words) in a .txt file.
2 - Registered for the Atomic Wallet airdrop (ERC20) and received an Eth address by email.
3 - Imported my private keys from the old BTC wallet. I am able to see the transaction in BTCD block explorer, from my old btc address to a new address.  
4 - I saw the balance on my Atomic Wallet.
5 - Closed the wallet
6 - About 2 hours later, I came back to my computer to exchange in Changelly BTCD to BTC. When i was about to open my wallet, I clicked on the installer instead of the installed wallet.
7 - BTCD balance was gone. 0. The BTCD address changed to a new one (this odd wallet does not let me generate new addresses at will).
8 -  I decided to restore the wallet using the SEED. Still 0 balance, and the new BTCD address only.
9 - Checked that my Ethereum address is still the same as before the problem. It is still the same address I received in the e-mail.

As ETH address is the same as before the problem, I have the correct seed. I Believe Atomic Wallet is not  searching for enough BTCD addresses to find my balance. Don't you think?

I tried to search for the BCD address using iancoleman.io/bip39, however I couldn´t find any of those 2 BTCD addresses there. Is there a way to use this tool to find those 2 BCD addresses and its private keys? There is no option in his tool to use Bitcoin Diamond as Coin... is there any way around that?

Is there anything I could do? Maybe some other software or any python script or something different?
It's just a few bucks, but I am intrigued and curious about a solution for this.

Thank you.

I was trying to claim BCD (Bitcoin Diamond) fork. https://btcd.io/

It's an old bitcoin wallet, without any funds now, just some worthless forks...

But I couldn't find any reasonable wallet, which would allow to redeem funds using a private key. Only Bitpie, which said that my balance is too low to pay miners fee (which is not).

Have any of you guys able to claim this fork? Which wallet did you use?

This is one of the coins I like best: Basic Attention Token.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/coinbase-launches-support-for-basic-attention-token-bat


Major U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has announced it is accepting inbound transfers of Basic Attention Token (BAT) to Coinbase Pro, according to a blog post published Nov. 2.

Coinbase added support for BAT tokens on its Coinbase Pro platform, while it will enable trading on the BAT/USD order book only when sufficient liquidity is established. Coinbase notes that BAT trading will be available in most jurisdictions, except for residents of the state of New York.

Basic Attention Token (BAT) is a token created by Brave Browser team.
BAT aims to fix some problems related to internet advertisement, mostly monopolized by Google and Facebook.

Brave Browser is a browser focused on privacy, and it comes with a build-in ad-block.
You get some BAT while using Brave browser and watching/seeing adds. You can choose which companies you would like to see ads, and which you don't. When you see ads, you receive BAT Token.

Very good idea.

I noticed that some campaigns/bounties are paying with coins that are already listed in exchanges. Such as bitcore, ethereum, byteballs...


As those campaigns are posted in the Bounties (altcoins) session, they are hard to find. How do you find them? I usually just try to read good managers latest posts to keep track about what is going on.. but they are entirely different campaigns compared to ico tokens.

Ico tokens are worthless most of the time. You don't know how much they are paying, as a 90% up or down is expected...
Altcoins already listed on exchanges are almost the same as btc. You can receive them and immediately swap to btc.

Maybe a different session for those altcoins would be a good idea?

https://support.okex.com/hc/en-us/articles/360018396732-Delisting-of-Trading-Pairs

Delisting of Trading Pairs
Avatar
OKEx

    Thursday at 05:53 Created

Dear valued customers,

 To create a robust trading environment and offer the best trading experience to our users, we will delist several TRADING PAIRS with weak liquidity and trading volume according to the OKEx Token Delisting / Hiding Guideline. The affected tokens and trading pairs are as follows:

then comes a list with over 50 altcoins, which I don't know any.

Bad times to be a holder of those coins....

They explain, at the end of the document, that owning crypto is risky lol

Please be reminded that trading digital assets involves significant risk and make sure you fully understand the mechanism and risk involved. You should always consider your investment ability and risk tolerance before entering the market.

Early this month Okex announced trading pairs with other Stable coins, like USDC and TrueUSD, which a good step. We are not so dependent on tether anymore.

I have just found that you can read Mastering Ethereum,  by Andreas M. Antonopoulos and Gavin Wood, for free on their official github.

https://github.com/ethereumbook/ethereumbook

Below, the first page of the book, defining Ethereum as a "world computer".

This is a book for everyone who loves cryptocurrencies and altcoins. Maybe even interesting for those who only care about bitcoin, as bitcoin may also adapt and adopt some of these functions in the future.

What Is Ethereum?

Ethereum is often described as "the world computer.” But what does that mean? Let’s start with a computer science–focused description, and then try to decipher that with a more practical analysis of Ethereum’s capabilities and characteristics, while comparing it to Bitcoin and other decentralized information exchange platforms (or "blockchains" for short).

From a computer science perspective, Ethereum is a deterministic but practically unbounded state machine, consisting of a globally accessible singleton state and a virtual machine that applies changes to that state.

From a more practical perspective, Ethereum is an open source, globally decentralized computing infrastructure that executes programs called smart contracts. It uses a blockchain to synchronize and store the system’s state changes, along with a cryptocurrency called ether to meter and constrain execution resource costs.

The Ethereum platform enables developers to build powerful decentralized applications with built-in economic functions. While providing high availability, auditability, transparency, and neutrality, it also reduces or eliminates censorship and reduces certain counterparty risks.

Delete

 I see some people asking about technical support for altcoins in this forum.

I have no doubt this forum is the best place to ask for technical support.

As altcoin board is 99% spam, and bitcoin technical support board is one of the best boards (with very few spam) , an altcoin technical support board could be a good ideia.

It could be almost spam free, and would bring good and legit users to the forum.

What do you guys think?

Texto traduzido do Reddit, de autoria do theymos.
Sobre o problema da centralização da mineração e possíveis soluções

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/7zvit8/cobra_miners_are_evil_we_need_to_get_rid_of_them/dus9tuq/

A mineração é centralizada demais, e muitos dos principais mineradores são claramente maus agentes. Contudo, uma mudança no algoritmo PoW parece ter um efeito negativo nesse momento. Solicitar uma mudança de PoW agora é como pedir um aumento no
tamanho de um bloco: você vê um problema e vê um grande botão vermelho escrito "resolver problema", mas não vê o que esse botão realmente faz.

Primeiramente, é importante reconhecer que o Bitcoin não é governado pelos mineradores. Se assim fosse, então o Bitcoin já estaria perdido, pois a maioria dos mineradores já são a muito tempo incompetentes e/ou totalmente opostos aos ideais do Bitcoin.
Se os mineradores tentarem qualquer ataque, uma resposta pode ser customizada para ele pela economia, a fim de parar o ataque e desfazer qualquer dano. No caso de um ataque, certamente não seria necessário aceitar o que os mineradores estejam fazendo.

Um segundo ponto é que os maiores mineradores (especialmente a Bitmain e associados) são os maiores justamente porque eles têm acesso à tecnologia / infraestrutura de fabricação de chips de alta qualidade. Se você alterar o PoW para, por exemplo, SHA-3, isso daria uma enorme vantagem para a Bitmain, já que eles estariam em uma posição melhor do que qualquer um na Terra para criar um novo hardware.

Adicionalmente, um algoritmo PoS puro está totalmente desacreditado. Uma combinação PoW+PoS pode não ser uma terrível ideia na minha opinião, mas a ideia é bastante impopular entre os especialistas por razões técnicas e filosóficas.

Por fim, é fácil dizer que você deseja criar uma função PoW "à prova de ASIC", mas isso é muito mais difícil de fazer. Lembre-se de que "democratizar a mineração" foi um dos objetivos do uso do scrypt pela Litecoin. Contudo, agora a Bitmain está produzindo Litecoin ASICs.
X11 foi outra tentativa de um PoW à prova de ASIC. Entretanto, ASICs foram produzidos para aquele protocolo assim que as altcoins que o usaram se tornaram valiosas o suficiente para tornar a produção lucrativa.

Você pode pensar em qualquer solução ultra-complexa, uma mineração aparentemente exclusiva da CPU da forma que você quiser, mas:

• Provavelmente, você não conseguirá criar algo que realmente exija uma CPU, e não um ASIC mais eficiente do que CPUs, já que fazer isso é muito difícil. (Para fazer isso, seria necessário atacar o problema de forma rigorosa e matematicamente, não apenas fazendo as coisas que parecem difíceis para os ASICs.)
• Se você de alguma forma cria um, parabéns: você agora deu um monopólio sobre o hardware de mineração Bitcoin para a Intel e (em menor grau) a AMD, as duas únicas empresas com a tecnologia para criar CPUs x86 eficientes.

Tem havido alguma pesquisa sobre a criação de uma função PoW de memory-hard, em vez de uma função CPU-hard, mas esta é uma área ainda experimental. A melhor função candidata que temos, o cuckoo, não é comprovadamente memory-hard (isto é, talvez mais análises possam futuramente quebrar a memory-hardness). Além disso, mesmo se tivéssemos um memory-hard PoW bem testado e comprovado, não é certo de que isso resultaria em menos centralização na mineração. Talvez as economias de escala terminassem ainda mais pronunciadas aqui, ou talvez a mineração fosse tomada por um par de botnets gigantes. (Eu realmente acho que essa é a direção mais promissora para resolver a centralização da mineração no longo prazo, mas há questões e desafios sérios que provavelmente não serão bem resolvidos tão cedo.)

Então minha posição tem sido e continua a ser assim:

• O PoW deve absolutamente ser mudado se os mineradores fizerem qualquer tipo de ataque (o mais provável é censurar transações "duvidosas" em vez de algo mais obviamente maligno). Nesse cenário, os mineradores devem ser removidos ou o Bitcoin estará morto. Dessa forma, uma mudança de PoW de alto custo e risco vale a pena. E se a primeira mudança de PoW não conseguir manter os mineradores longe, você continua mudando o PoW até que eles tenham criado tantos ASIC inúteis que eles fiquem sem dinheiro.
• Embora eu queira substituir os mineradores atuais, na ausência de um ataque, uma mudança de PoW é um movimento de alto custo e alto risco que, na verdade, é improvável que melhore as coisas a longo prazo. Não vale a pena.

[Roger Ver: Bitcoin.Com May Launch Its Own Crypto Exchange]

Roger Ver: Bitcoin.Com May Launch Its Own Crypto Exchange

Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) services firm Bitcoin.com is planning to buy or set up its own crypto exchange, the company’s CEO Roger Ver revealed in an interview with Bloomberg Oct. 9.

According to Ver, the upcoming crypto trading platform will be placed on the Bitcoin.com website, which is expected to generate a great amount of traffic via various services such as wallet transactions and news. Ver said the new platform will get “thousands or tens of thousands of new users every single day” through Bitcoin.com.

Ver mentioned that he is considering finding a partner to help create an exchange “internally.” He said:

    “If we build it ourselves, we can do it really, really cheap, and we get exactly what we want. But we don’t have the security of a battle-tested exchange that’s been around for a while.”

The early Bitcoin investor and Bitcoin Cash proponent also revealed that the new crypto exchange would implement Bitcoin Cash as its base currency, which will purportedly boost the adoption of the digital coin.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/roger-ver-bitcoincom-may-launch-its-own-crypto-exchange

In a desperate move, Roger Ver (almost a BCH CEO), will launch it a new exchange to fool people into the "real bitcoin" (sic).

I thought these people had already dumped all their money last year when they pushed BCH  to 0.5 BTC...

I guess this BCH drama will go on for a few years...

[This is the first cryptocurrency released by a major financial institution.]

Goldman Sachs announced they are going to launch an stable coin, USDC (US Dollar Coin)

Stable coins are basically loans (when you buy a stable coin, the company promises to pay back 1 usd for each coin). But Tether/Bitfiniex are not as resourceful and stable as Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs have far more credibility than Tether.

I believe this may be the beginning of the end for tether. Also, if this USDC is widely adopted by different exchanges, there will be a diversification and lower risk.

If tether/bitfinex does not back up their tether, and some sort of collapse happens, there will still be USDC and the crash may not be that big (if exchanges hold both of them).

I think this is a great news, and not many people are talking about it.

Goldman Sachs startup Circle, the Boston-based crypto finance company, has gone live with its stablecoin called the US Dollar Coin, or USDC.

This is the first cryptocurrency released by a major financial institution.

in order to avoid instability and inflation inherent to other unregulated cryptocurrencies, the value of the USDC will be tied to the dollar, according to CNBC.

“It unlocks an incredible amount of power for the dollar,” said Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Circle. “It’s basically a dollar that operates on the (Ethereum) blockchain.”

“Ethereum is the best bet but it’s not necessarily the end game,” he said. “For now it’s specifically on Ethereum.”

The USDC will be regulated as a registered Money Services Business under U.S. money transmission laws, and as a virtual currency, it will be regulated under its New York BitLicense. Furthermore, the company said it will hold deposits on a 1:1 basis in accounts that would be audited on a monthly basis. Each entity that wishes to enroll and issue USDC is held to the same regulatory-compliant standards.

https://perc360.com/goldman-sachs-launches-us-dollar-coin-fedcoin-coinbase-to-become-the-crypto-regulatory-agency/

[This is the first cryptocurrency released by a major financial institution.]

Goldman Sachs Launches US Dollar Coin (Fedcoin).


Goldman Sachs startup Circle, the Boston-based crypto finance company, has gone live with its stablecoin called the US Dollar Coin, or USDC.

This is the first cryptocurrency released by a major financial institution.

in order to avoid instability and inflation inherent to other unregulated cryptocurrencies, the value of the USDC will be tied to the dollar, according to CNBC.

“It unlocks an incredible amount of power for the dollar,” said Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Circle. “It’s basically a dollar that operates on the (Ethereum) blockchain.”

“Ethereum is the best bet but it’s not necessarily the end game,” he said. “For now it’s specifically on Ethereum.”

The USDC will be regulated as a registered Money Services Business under U.S. money transmission laws, and as a virtual currency, it will be regulated under its New York BitLicense. Furthermore, the company said it will hold deposits on a 1:1 basis in accounts that would be audited on a monthly basis. Each entity that wishes to enroll and issue USDC is held to the same regulatory-compliant standards.

Circle has said that the USDC will initially be available on its native trading platforms like the Circle Trade and Circle’s Poloniex exchange, and later available on other platforms like KuCoin, OKCoin, CoinEx, and others.

https://perc360.com/goldman-sachs-launches-us-dollar-coin-fedcoin-coinbase-to-become-the-crypto-regulatory-agency/

This is a great step.
A stable coin , with far more credibility than tether.

Stable coins are like security debt. It's a loan.

You give one dollar for each coin , and the company promises to buy back that coin for 1 usd.

Goldman Sachs is a much safer option than tether. They have more money, and better conditions to pay back those loans.

Certainly this is a good news for crypto, and bad news for tether

[how Binance Decentralized Crypto Exchange Beta Launch in 2019 Will Impact the Market]

how Binance Decentralized Crypto Exchange Beta Launch in 2019 Will Impact the Market
https://www.ccn.com/how-binance-decentralized-crypto-exchange-beta-launch-in-2019-will-impact-the-market/

Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by daily trading volume, is set to launch a beta version of its decentralized exchange (DEX) by early 2019.

Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance better known to the community as CZ, said on Saturday:

    “Just had a productive meeting for Binance DEX (decentralized exchange), where BNB will be native gas, and the exchange don’t control user funds. Aiming for a public beta end of the year/early next year. Yes, we work on Saturdays, non stop.”

Why is Binance Launching a DEX?

In July, on CNBC Crypto Trader hosted by Ran Neuner, CZ stated that he personally believes decentralized exchange is the future of crypto.

In the long-term, CZ explained that users will be able to utilize non-custodial wallets to trade cryptocurrencies in a peer-to-peer manner with full control over their funds.

“I believe that decentralized exchange is the future. I don’t know when that future will come yet. I think we’re at an early stage for that so I don’t know if it’s a year, two years, three years, or five years. I don’t know but we got to be ready for it,” he said.

That's indeed good news.
Binance is a very good exchange, and they will probably make a good work with Dex.
As they have money, it can be safe an easy to use. I agree with him, Dex are the future.

 binance has never been hacked, but they have few month in the market.

[Breaking: Google to Reverse Crypto Ad Ban for Exchanges Advertising in US, Japan]

Breaking: Google to Reverse Crypto Ad Ban for Exchanges Advertising in US, Japan

The U.S. tech giant Google is set to update its ad policy in October, reallowing some crypto businesses to advertise on its platform. The company announced this in an official post Tuesday, September 25.

According to the official announcement, starting in October Google will allow registered cryptocurrency exchanges to advertise on its Google Adwords platform, targeting the U.S. and Japanese audiences. The announcement says:

    “Advertisers will need to be certified with Google for the specific country in which their ads will serve. Advertisers will be able to apply for certification once the policy launches in October.”

This decision follows an announcement in March that all crypto-related businesses will be banned from buying ads on Google Adwords, described by industry insiders as “unfair” and “troubling.”

https://cointelegraph.com/news/breaking-google-to-reverse-crypto-ad-ban-for-exchanges-advertising-in-us-japan

This is a small step toward total ban, but this is a bullish news.

Overall, the fundamentals of the blockchain sector as a whole are improving. 2019 or 2020 may be a great year.

Google unban, Banks getting involved in XRP, Nations going towards legalization. Fundamentals are improving little by little everyday.

 Bitcoin Transactions Up to 6000x Cheaper Than Bank of America Fees

https://www.cryptoground.com/a/bitcoin-transactions-6000x-cheaper-bank-of-america-fees

Over the years there have been a number of claims which have been made about how Bitcoin will replace the existing banking ecosystem and how cryptocurrencies are great for financial transactions. As time passes, there is a concrete evidence which proves this theory correct. It has now come to light that Bank of America charges up to 6000 times more than a regular Bitcoin transaction when the same amount of money is considered.

If $90,000 are transferred using the traditional banking method, users can be charged as much as $45 by the banks (as it is in the case of Bank of America). However, a Bitcoin transaction for the same amount would result in a fees of only 75 cents! Interestingly, banks use the US Federal Reserve’s money transfer service, FedWire for the transactions - which charges a maximum of 83 cents from the banks. However, banks are charging astronomical amounts, which add to their profits.

Considering that the FedWire service has different criterion according to which it charges fees, the lowest rate at which a transaction of $90,000 could be allowed is that of $0.032. The minimum amount that the Bank of America charges for the transaction is $30 - which means their minimum profit margin is 87.2%.

Yesterday i just made a transaction for 0.01 usd. Confirmed in less than 30 minutes. People cry about btc fees,. But look at the banking system fees.

Tether is having problems to have its transactions confirmed

Twitter
Omni
@Omni_Layer

We have identified the issue with a backend client used by our parsing engine that appears to have locked up/become non responsive. We have restarted all applicable processes and are monitoring them while they verify & resync. This process should take ~ 2-3 hours to complete.
6:16 PM · Sep 17, 2018

Source:
https://mobile.twitter.com/Omni_Layer/status/1041798055002087424

This is a bad sign.
As tether runs in btc blockchain, this should not be happening.
Maybe something wrong is going on with omni or bitifnex?

I hope this get solved soon. Few people talking about it and almost no cryptocurrency website is covering this

https://cointelegraph.com/news/blockchains-popularity-among-large-enterprises-soared-11-this-year-survey-finds

New research from fintech analysts Juniper House has found that blockchain’s traction with large enterprises has risen by 11 percent this year, according to a press release published September 11.

Juniper’s Blockchain Enterprise Survey: Deployments, Benefits & Attitudes (Second Edition) found that 65 percent of responding large enterprises – defined as those who employ a minimum of 10,000 staff – are “considering or actively engaged” in blockchain deployment, up 11 percent from the corresponding 54 percent figure last year.

We can see that blockchain technology is maturing. People are worried about he price, but that's not important now.

There are initiatives like Ethereum Enterprise alliance, which involves more than 20 gigant companies around the world, from oil to technology industry, all developing blockchain standards for business and industry.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/06/world/americas/brazil-jair-bolsonaro.html
Brazil Presidential Candidate Jair Bolsonaro Is Stabbed

Extreme right nazist facist racist hater etc etc Presidential candidate jair Bolsonaro , leading all pools in Brazil election, was just stabbed today by a worker's party militant (those peaceful and lovely democractic socialists). less 30 days before the elections .

Very sad..

I will write something about it later on . Just wanted to give the news for you guys around the world.