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Bitcoin and other "cryptocurrencies" are big money, virtually as big as Goldman Sachs and Royal Bank of Scotland combined.

The price of a single bitcoin hit an all-time high of above $3,500 this week, dragging up the value of hundreds of newer, smaller digital rivals in its wake. Now some investors fear a giant crypto-bubble may be about to burst.

It has been a year of unprecedented growth for the largely unregulated market, with dozens of new currencies appearing every month in "Initial Coin Offerings" or ICOs. They have achieved value almost instantly, drawing in those who are eager to get in and make a quick buck.

At the start of 2017, the total value - or market cap - of all cryptocurrencies in existence was about $17.5 billion, with bitcoin making up almost 90 percent of that, according to industry data firm CoinMarketCap.

It is now around $120 billion - around the same value as Goldman and RBS together - and bitcoin makes up only 46 percent.

Bitcoin Cash, a clone of bitcoin that was split off from the original last week by a rival group of developers, was valued at more than $12 billion less than 24 hours after it had started trading.

"It's just created new value out of nowhere," said Rob Moffat, a partner at Balderton Capital, a London-based venture capital firm who focuses on fintech.

"There's no fundamentals behind any of this - it's all based on public perception, so you can start to see some really strange phenomena."

Cryptocurrencies - so-called because cryptography is used to keep transactions secure - allow anonymous peer-to-peer transactions between individual users, without the need for banks or central banks. They use blockchain technology, a shared record-keeping and processing system that means digital money cannot be copied and spent more than once.

Billionaire U.S. investor Howard Marks likens the market to the dotcom bubble of the turn of the century - whose demise he predicted. He said in a recent investor letter that digital currencies were an "unfounded fad ... based on a willingness to ascribe value to something that has little or none beyond what people will pay for it".

But advocates of cryptocurrencies say 2017 is just the beginning of bull run. They argue the finite nature of these currency units - there will never be more than 21 million bitcoin, for example - as well as the technological innovation that underpins them will ensure their enduring value.

"The idea of this thing being a bubble is silly. We're in the bottom of the first innings," said Miguel Vias of Ripple, the third-biggest cryptocurrency, who was previously global head of precious metals and metal options at CME Group.

Dash to ether

Whichever way cryptocurrencies move, they are likely to move together because their values are highly correlated, feeding off each other and magnifying the market effect.

That's partly down to investor sentiment, but also because the start-ups issuing new coins in ICOs generally collect money in a more liquid cryptocurrency, such as bitcoin or, more commonly, Ethereum's ether - the second-biggest cryptocurrency in total value.

That has driven demand for ether, which has climbed over 3,000 percent so far this year and now has a market cap of around $28 billion.

Bitcoin, which was launched in 2009, was the first successful cryptocurrency and is still easily the biggest, with a market cap of over $54 billion.

Its price has shot up around 225 percent so this year, and performed better than any conventional, central-bank issued currency in every year since 2010 bar 2014.

The blockchain-based currencies that have been built since bitcoin - 842, at last count - vary hugely in terms of their credibility.


'Darwinism in real-time'

It is mainly the new "token" cryptocurrencies that are issued in ICOs with no regulatory oversight, which have exploded since the start of the year, that are causing the most anxiety.

One, the "Useless Ethereum Token", which appears to have been set up as a way of showing how worthless many of the ICOs really are, is nonetheless changing hands for 3 cents a unit. "No value, no security, and no product. Just me, spending your money," its website states.

"It's just so easy to raise money on an ICO right now, it just feels like there's a gold rush going on there," said Moffat. "Some of the new currencies - beyond bitcoin and Ethereum - could crash to zero."

By mid-July, about $1.1 billion had been raised in ICOs this year, roughly 10 times more than that in the whole of 2016, according to cryptocurrency research firm Smith + Crown.

The rapid ascent of ICOs prompted the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to warn last month that some ICOs should be regulated like other securities.

This is new digital territory and how the rapidly proliferating cryptocurrency market will play out is anyone's guess.

While critics say the highly correlated nature of the currencies means the weakness of newer entrants could bring the whole house down; others argue market forces will ensure the best players prevail.

"Will some of these (currencies) go away? Of course," said Vias of Ripple.

"We're going to see Darwinism in real-time here. Only the strong will survive."

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/10/buoyant-bitcoin-stirs-crypto-bubble-fears.html

If your technology can't scale, it might as well not exist at all. At least, not if you have any intention of using it in real-world settings.

The world of blockchain-based media is no exception. In order for media blockchains to work effectively, the blockchain technology that powers them must be able to scale up to accommodate increases in demand and the number of users.

Bitcoin-based media blockchains face a major scaling challenge. Traditionally, Bitcoin has not been able to scale as seamlessly as some blockchain developers and users would like. Its limitations in this respect raise questions about the future of Bitcoin-based media blockchains. They also increase the likelihood that alternative blockchains, such as Ethereum, will overtake Bitcoin within the media market. And they require media blockchain companies to factor scaling considerations into their plans as they grow.

Bitcoin's Scaling Problem

Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency that made the blockchain concept famous, was designed a decade ago. At the outset, it counted a few dozen users. While the total number of Bitcoin users today is difficult to quantify , it is probably at least one million and could be many times that number.

The dramatic increase in the size of the Bitcoin user base over the past decade means that the Bitcoin blockchain now has to accommodate many more participants, and a much higher number of transactions, than it did in its early days.

Scaling up to meet this challenge has proven difficult because the original Bitcoin design imposes constraints on the number of transactions that can be processed quickly. This limitation results primarily from Bitcoin's limited block size. The size of a Bitcoin block (which refers to the unit of transactions that, when combined, comprise the distributed ledger that forms the Bitcoin blockchain) is limited to one megabyte. This is not enough space to support the hundreds of transactions that users currently request every minute. As a result, Bitcoin transactions take a very long time - hours or even days in some cases - to be processed.

This problem will only worsen as the size of the Bitcoin blockchain increases. The original Bitcoin design does not include a way to address this scaling problem.

Solutions: An Alternative Blockchain or SegWit

For Bitcoin users, there are two main ways to solve the Bitcoin scaling problem.

The first is straightforward: they can migrate to a different type of blockchain, such as Ethereum. While Ethereum has scaling issues of its own , those promise to be easier to address without modifying the core design of the platform. Strategies like "parallel transaction processing" and "sharding" could help Ethereum to scale up.

In addition, for the time being, the scaling issues in the Ethereum community are not as serious because Ethereum's user base is almost certainly smaller than Bitcoin's . Transaction rates on the Ethereum blockchain are not yet becoming unacceptably slow.

The other scaling solution that has gained traction in the Bitcoin community is called "Segregated Witness," or "SegWit." Originally conceived as a way to solve reliability issues related to Bitcoin transactions, SegWit could also help to solve Bitcoin's scaling problem. It would do that by removing signature data from each Bitcoin transaction and using the freed space to increase the size of Bitcoin blocks.

Under the SegWit proposal, which is expected to lock in at any moment, block sizes would reach a theoretical maximum of four megabytes, although in practice most blocks would likely be closer to two megabytes. Either way, SegWit would at least double the rate at which Bitcoin can support transactions.

The caveat is that SegWit would require the use of "sidechains" like the Lightning Network . Sidechains process transactions independently of the blockchain. They greatly increase the speed of transactions, but they require off-blockchain transactions to be handled by third parties in a centralized location, rather than processing them on the decentralized blockchain.

The SegWit solution has gained only limited support. Opponents raise two main arguments against it. The first is that increasing the Bitcoin block size by a fixed amount won't solve the scaling problem definitively. Eventually, if Bitcoin grows large enough, even the larger block sizes made available by SegWit will not be sufficient to support fast transactions.

The second argument against SegWit is that requiring sidechains would destroy the decentralized and anonymous nature of the blockchain.

Scaling Challenges for Media Blockchains

The debate over whether and how to solve Bitcoin's scaling problem impacts the future of media blockchains in a unique way.

It means that media companies that have built their platforms on Bitcoin, like Ascribe , need to make a choice: they can accept Bitcoin in its current state and the slow transactions that come with it, help sway the community toward a solution like SegWit or move to an alternative blockchain altogether.

Other media blockchain companies will have to make similar decisions, sooner or later. Platforms such as Mycelium , which are built on Ethereum rather than Bitcoin, don't face as much immediate pressure on the scaling front as do those based on Bitcoin. As noted above, however, Ethereum is not immune to scaling issues. If Ethereum grows large enough, and innovations are not introduced to allow it to scale, its transaction rates could also slow.

Beyond increasing the ability of the underlying blockchain technologies to scale, media blockchain companies can adopt other strategies to help mitigate the effects of blockchain scaling issues. One solution is to adopt sidechains, whether or not the blockchain strictly requires it. As noted above, sidechains can dramatically speed transaction rates, in exchange for the tradeoff of having to pass transactions through a centralized hub run by a third party.

It's also possible to conceive business models for blockchain media platforms that don't depend on fast transactions. In general, this would mean sacrificing real-time results for blockchain transactions. That may not be ideal, but it is more feasible for a media company that processes ownership of digital content to accept delays in transactions than it is for a blockchain-based payment system. In the latter case, immediate, real-time results are a priority; this is not always true in the media world.

Scaling is a real challenge for Bitcoin and other blockchains, and it remains unclear whether that is truly solvable. Media blockchain companies are not likely to be as adversely affected in the short-term by scaling limitations as are other types of blockchain platforms, but they should develop strategies for addressing scaling issues in order to ensure that scaling constraints in the blockchains they use don't undercut the ability of their platforms to grow or to process transactions within the timeframe that their users require.

http://www.nasdaq.com/article/media-blockchains-and-the-scaling-debate-cm828721

If you've stumbled onto a stash of bitcoins and want to do some online shopping, the bad news is you probably won't be buying much.

This year, the cryptocurrency is only accepted by three out of the top 500 online merchants, reports Bloomberg. That's down from five from last year, making using Bitcoin to buy things from merchants a lot tougher.

The lack of merchants is puzzling, given the gains from bitcoins recently -- one bitcoin is worth more than an ounce of gold -- and may be a sign that the cryptocurrency is better off as an asset than currency.

The Bloomberg report also mentioned that transaction fees could be an issue why the crytocurrency is not widely accepted. With fees climbing, smaller transactions aren't worth it compared to using other payment methods.

https://www.cnet.com/news/you-cant-really-shop-much-online-with-bitcoin-says-report/

[Bitcoin Photobombers Crashed Janet Yellen’s Fed Testimony—and Got Paid $10,000]

Bitcoin Photobombers Crashed Janet Yellen’s Fed Testimony—and Got Paid $10,000

Less than two hours into Fed chairwoman Janet Yellen's testimony to Congress Wednesday, two surprise attendees brought up one of the only financial topics not on the docket at the hearing: Bitcoin.

The boyish-looking duo, wearing suits and smirking slightly as they sat just behind Yellen in direct view of the camera, used the Federal Reserve's twice-yearly monetary policy presentation as their personal soapbox to promote the controversial cryptocurrency. Peering over Yellen's shoulder as she testified that she opposes audits of the Fed, the men quietly raised a yellow legal pad on which they'd scrawled "Buy Bitcoin" in black ink.

One Bitcoin is now worth more than double the price of gold, with a 150% increase in its value this year alone. Yet the meteoric rise in the Bitcoin price, along with that of other digital currencies such as Ethereum—whose price has multiplied 25 times in 2017 so far—has recently sparked fears that the burgeoning market has become overheated, and may be in a bubble.

The photobombers may have hoped their guerrilla stunt, which lasted only about a second, would counteract some recent bearishness in virtual currencies that has driven a month-long selloff. Cryptocurrencies as a group have lost 23% in value so far this month. Bitcoin is down more than 20% since its peak of $3,000 in early June, while Ethereum's price has fallen 50% since its high of more than $400 around the same time.

A spokesperson for the House of Representatives' financial services committee, which presided over the public hearing, told Fortune that it does not know who the two men are. About an hour after the interruption, though, the pair were abruptly booted from their seats while Yellen spoke.

"It is against the rules for people in the audience to display signs during a hearing, so they were told to leave the hearing and they did," a spokesperson for the House financial services committee said in a statement.

An 18-year-old college student, however, later tweeted a photo of one of the men, who he claimed was a friend, holding the sign from the hearing and wearing the same suit. In the picture, the photobomber also holds a sign with a number that serves as an address for others to send him Bitcoin. So far, he appears to have received more than 4 Bitcoins, worth over $10,000 at current prices.

The original tweet has since been deleted, but the image has continued to circulate online.

http://fortune.com/2017/07/12/bitcoin-buy-yellen-fed-testimony/

[The case for investors sticking out the volatility in bitcoin and ethereum]

The case for investors sticking out the volatility in bitcoin and ethereum

Investors should not be put off by the price volatility for cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum because these digital assets are still very new and offer nearly unparalleled returns, experts told CNBC.



Investors should not be put off by the price volatility for cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum because these digital assets are still very new and offer nearly unparalleled returns, experts told CNBC.
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On Tuesday, ethereum's price fell below $200 for the first time since May 30; the cryptocurrency has fallen more than 50 percent since hitting an all-time high of over $400 in early June. Meanwhile in May, a price correction for bitcoin wiped off nearly $4 billion in its market value.

Bobby Lee, CEO of Chinese bitcoin exchange BTCC, told CNBC the gyration in prices was normal as the true value for these assets have yet to be discovered.

"It's not a problem," he said on the sidelines of the Rise conference in Hong Kong. "If you think about it, the volatility is natural for an asset class that is so new. There's no price discovery for it (yet)."



He explained as people have yet to discover the true value of an asset like bitcoin, they tend to trade them at a certain, discounted level before the market realizes it could be worth more and then the price jumps.

Cryptocurrencies are partly becoming more popular because countries and companies are taking a closer look at the technology that underpins them: blockchain. Japan, for example, approved bitcoin as a legal payment method in April.

"We're now sort of at ... a tipping point, where people are now considering bitcoin or ethereum or digital assets as more mainstream," Dave Chapman, managing director of Hong Kong-based commodities and digital assets trading house Octagon Strategy, told CNBC. "A lot of the people that we service are actually very comfortable with having 1 percent of their net worth into bitcoin or ethereum."

To them, it's "just a natural extension of all their diversification of their portfolio" that includes other asset classes such as properties, precious metals or index funds.

Chapman added that while volatility may be off-putting, the returns on digital asset classes remain extremely attractive to investors. He said, "There's no other asset class in the world that could've given you the historic performance of this sector ... the historic performance, which is obviously not representative of future earnings, ... does appeal to a lot of people."

For context: $100 of bitcoin bought in 2010 is worth more than $75 million in 2017.

Analysts have made varied predictions about where prices and market capitalization for digital assets are headed. BTCC's Lee told CNBC he expected the market cap for bitcoin to hit at least $1 trillion, if not more, by 2025.

"I think it's going to go to at least $1 trillion, if not maybe $10 trillion in the next five to ten years," he said.

Data from industry website CoinDesk showed the current market cap for bitcoin is about $38.55 billion on a supply of about 16 million in circulation. The total supply of bitcoins is limited to 21 million. "In a grand of scheme of things it's nothing. Many, many companies are worth way more than that," Lee said. Tech companies like Alibaba and Apple have their market cap at hundreds of billions of dollars.

Regulation may help lend more credibility to this market as an asset class: major governments including those in Japan, Russia and China are looking at introducing new rules.

In the end, Chapman said that while many investors may not yet be fully convinced about the potential of digital currencies, they will still invest into them because of the fear of missing out.

"We get a lot of people who are like 'You know what? I still don't believe in this experiment — I'm not really a believer, but I'm tired of sitting on the sidelines and missing out.'"

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/11/cryptocurrencies-bitcoin-and-ethereum-as-an-asset-class.html

The rise of bitcoin in China 
21 Hours Ago | 01:50

Cryptocurrencies need to be regulated or they risk going out of control as more people invest in these digital assets, the head of a major Chinese bitcoin exchange platform warned on Tuesday.

Bitcoin and ethereum, two popular cryptocurrencies, have seen rapid price swings in recent months. In May, a 19 percent price fall for bitcoin saw nearly $4 billion in value wiped off. Last month, the price of ethereum crashed as low as 10 cents from around $319 in about a second on the GDAX cryptocurrency exchange. Because there's bullishness in the market, some predict bitcoin's price to soar as high as $100,000 in a decade.

"I think regulation is much needed for this new asset class because otherwise it'll run amok from society," Bobby Lee, CEO of exchange BTCC, told CNBC's "Squawk Box."

"But the challenge is how to craft the rules around this new technology," he said at the sidelines of the Rise conference in Hong Kong. Lee added, "I think it's taking the lawmakers and regulators some time to wrap their minds around it, and to come up with the appropriate rules and laws to govern companies, how we do business, to govern individuals (and) how people conduct business online."

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/11/bitcoin-regulation-btcc-ceo-bobby-lee-says-rules-needed-for-new-asset-class.html

Over $13 billion has been wiped off the market cap of all cryptocurrencies, according to CoinMarketCap data.

The market cap across all cryptocurrencies was roughly $93 billion yesterday morning. Today, it was under $80 billion.

CoinMarketCap shows that Bitcoin has seen an almost-9% decline in its US dollar price.

While Bitcoin has been among the currencies least affected by the downturn, reports about the crash are linking the downturn to uncertainty over the future of Bitcoin.

This comes as two factions compete for the heart of Bitcoin.
The big Bitcoin fight

On one side of the battle are the miners who proposed an increase of the blockchain size limit from 1MB to 2MB. On the other side is a group called Bitcoin Core, which criticised a straight blockchain size increase as not addressing the main problems the Bitcoin blockchain faces.

Core has suggested a technology called Segregated Witness, or SegWit. However, due to the standoff with Bitcoin’s miners, the majority of which are based in China, Core supporters have called for a user-activated soft fork on 1 August.

The premise is that the economic majority of Bitcoin blockchain users will move to a new standard that supports SegWit, with the aim to force miners to adopt the proposal.

If miners do not adopt SegWit, it could cause the currency to split, called a “fork”.

Miners have offered a counter proposal, called SegWit2x, which Bloomberg said about 85% of miners will back.

Until the outcome of the activation of SegWit2x and the user-activated soft fork, analysts have warned to expect even higher levels of volatility in the Bitcoin market.

https://mybroadband.co.za/news/banking/219102-cryptocurrency-market-cap-down-over-13-billion-in-one-day.html

A number of Bitcoin companies and miners have agreed to run code that will implement a hard-forking increase to the non-witness data in blocks roughly three months after the activation of Segregated Witness (SegWit). According to some of its proponents , the proposal, known as SegWit2x , is said to be the only viable solution to the Bitcoin scaling debate.

However, agreeing to initiate a hard fork without knowing how speculators will react to such a change comes with risks. If there is not full support for the hard fork from bitcoin holders, the end result could be a split of Bitcoin into two separate cryptocurrency networks, which could cause extreme brand confusion among the general public (depending on the severity of the split).

In addition to the potential risks of a permanent split of the community, SegWit2x also ignores tools that could be used to get the intended benefits of this particular hard-forking increase to capacity without the possibility of a network split.

Perhaps most troubling, SegWit2x ignores the reasons as to why Bitcoin is useful in the first place.
Speculators Call the Shots

While the original Medium post regarding the New York Agreement claimed the signatories accounted for $5.1 billion worth of monthly on-chain transaction volume (more than half of the entire network for April), the general view of SegWit2x from bitcoin holders is unclear at this time. Companies representing large amounts of bitcoin holdings ( Digital Currency Group , Coinbase , Xapo , etc.) have signed onto the agreement as well, but we have yet to see speculators have the chance to set a price for the hard-forked chain.

As of now, the hard-fork portion of SegWit2x appears to be contentious, which means exchanges are likely to list both the original chain and the chain with a hard-forking increase to the block size limit. Companies that take custody of their users' bitcoins will need to allow their users to withdraw both coins.

Although more than 80 percent of the network hashrate has agreed to run the SegWit2x code, it's possible that speculators will prefer the non-hard fork chain. It's also possible that a futures market could illustrate this point before the hard fork takes place.

Of course, miners could decide to mine at a loss and not listen to the market, which would theoretically go against the incentives of the Bitcoin system. If miners abandon the chain preferred by users, it's possible that a proof-of-work change will be needed, as faith in the current miners may be lost.

Such a scenario could be disastrous for Bitcoin, which means miners (and everyone else in the ecosystem) should be incentivized to avoid it. But we'll have to see what happens.
If These Companies Control Bitcoin, Then a Public Blockchain is Not Needed

The point of Bitcoin is that it allows everyone to have full control over their money without the need for a trusted third party. There is no third party in Bitcoin because no one controls the consensus rules . If someone is in control of Bitcoin's consensus rules, then they've effectively become the third party that the system was designed to avoid in the first place.

With the New York Agreement, the signatories are basically saying they control the rules of Bitcoin (or at least the fork of Bitcoin that they've all agreed to run). If that's the case, then the need for a public blockchain is less clear. Users would effectively be trusting these institutions with the rules of the system and ordering of transactions because they could decide to completely change the rules via a hard fork at any point in time. If the system is no longer trustless, Sybil attacks on the state of the blockchain can be thwarted by having trusted entities sign blocks rather than miners.

With that in mind, it may make more sense to launch a federated sidechain pegged to Bitcoin's main chain instead of trying to turn the main chain into a trusted system. This would allow the main chain to retain Bitcoin's core value proposition of permissionless money while the sidechain can process the microtransactions these companies desire.

The signatories of the New York Agreement could become the functionaries of the sidechain, where they'd control the consensus rules and sign blocks. This sort of setup makes much more sense if users are supposed to trust these entities anyway. A much more efficient transaction network can be created when proof-of-work and decentralization are thrown out the window.

In fact, this is exactly what Blockstream 's Liquid sidechain is supposed to achieve early next year . Ironically, some of the signers of the New York Agreement are supposed to be participants in Blockstream's upcoming federated sidechain.

If there are no goals for SegWit2x other than increasing capacity on the Bitcoin network, then a federated sidechain is a much better alternative. There's no risk of a chain split, capacity can be increased exponentially higher than the twofold increase offered by the hard-fork portion of SegWit2x, and other features, such as Confidential Transactions and faster block times, can also be implemented.

Put in this perspective, SegWit2x is completely nonsensical. I'm not sure what the New York Agreement will lead to over the next few months, but it appears to be unnecessarily risky.

http://www.nasdaq.com/article/op-ed-why-segwit2x-makes-no-sense-cm814759

Polish brokerage X-Trade Brokers (XTB) will begin cryptocurrency trading. XTB is the latest brokerage firm to include cryptocurrencies in its platforms due to mounting popularity. Finance Magnates talked to XTB’s owner Zablocki who was not shy of mentioning the instrument’s potential in the industry and its growing popularity in the world. XTB’s decision to include this instrument seems to have been attributed to this growth coupled with the significant trading volumes that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have experienced in recent times. XTB and other players in the industry seem to have picked up these signals.

https://fxdailyreport.com/forex-broker-xtb-expands-offering-bitcoin-ethereum-trading/

As the global virtual currency market continues to heat up, the adoption of these cryptocurrencies continues to climb in India as well. The populace of the country seems to have figured the potential opportunities of investments in the same. It has caused such an impact that even government authorities have been pushed to reconsider its stance towards regulations dictating its exchange and security.

And from what the rumor mill suggests, the authorities are said to be reclining more in favor of the regulation of cryptocurrencies, especially the widely known Bitcoin.

If you’re unaware, the country’s Ministry of Finance had established a high-level interdisciplinary committee to examine the existing Bitcoin framework earlier in April of this very year. The committee comprised of a cohort of top-level officials from the Department of Economic Affairs, financial services, revenue (CBDT), the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Reserve Bank of India, NITI Aayog, and even the State Bank of India.

The primary task of this high-level committee is to study the circulation, as well as current state of cryptocurrencies in the country and across the globe. They’re potentially done with their extensive studies, discussions, and debates, and now are expected to release a report of their findings by the end of July.

Now, there are several contrasting reports making rounds of the internet at this instant. Some reports bluntly deliberate that Bitcoin will not gain any legal status right now, nor anytime soon enough. Other reports, who cite prominent Bitcoin exchanges in India, suggest that the Indian government committee has ruled in favor of regulating Bitcoin.

full: https://thetechportal.com/2017/06/21/bitcoin-bags-legal-status-india-soon/

[Bitcoin faces another test as users battle over how its trading platform should be used]

Bitcoin faces another test as users battle over how its trading platform should be used

The price of Bitcoin remains on a rollercoaster as investors and developers continue to battle over its future.

The cryptocurrency crept above $US3,000 a little more than a week ago, before crashing to almost $US2,000. Since the start of this week it’s been on a steady climb back towards $US3,000. This chart shows the recent fluctuations:



Read more at https://www.businessinsider.com.au/bitcoin-faces-another-test-as-users-battle-over-how-its-trading-platform-should-be-used-2017-6#EiJVJ5A1uVYAeSb4.99

[Want Bitcoins? Bitmoney.eu Offers Instant Buying With Your Favorite Online Payment Methods]

Want Bitcoins? Bitmoney.eu Offers Instant Buying With Your Favorite Online Payment Methods

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Visit our website at Bitmoney.eu to become part of this evolution of money by buying Bitcoin today!


https://themerkle.com/instant-bitcoins-with-bitmoney-eu/

 Bitcoin may have appreciated 300% in the last 12 months, but Morgan Stanley still isn't convinced the cryptocurrency will be a viable currency in the long run.

In new research published this week, analysts at the bank say that bitcoin (and its counterparts like ethereum) are still more like investment vehicles than fiat currency that you could spend on goods and services. In addition, it said there are few reasons to use bitcoin instead of a debit or credit card, as it represents a "marginally more inconvenient way to pay."

Here's Morgan Stanley:

    Most regulators and investors view cryptocurrencies more as assets than actual currencies. Their values are too volatile and too hard to actually use for payment for most to consider them currencies. Our conversations with some merchants indicate that, while cryptocurrencies might actually be attractive for them to operate their businesses, they find that the cryptocurrencies are far too volatile to be used.

Bitcoin price 12 months june 14 The price of bitcoin has exploded in the past year. Markets Insider

The huge rise in the price of bitcoin is perplexing to the bank, which says other factors should have brought bitcoin's value down. These include the SEC's rejection of a bitcoin ETF proposed by the Winklevoss twins, declining trading volumes, and a Chinese crackdown on bitcoin miners, without which the processing time for transactions would substantially increase.

"It is not clear why cryptocurrencies are appreciating so rapidly (apart from the appreciation itself drawing in more speculation against a potentially inefficent ability to sell)," the bank said in a note.

Still, Morgan Stanley has some guesses as to why bitcoin has seen such a catastrophic rise:

    ICO's, or Initial Coin Offerings: Instead of traditional public offerings or funding rounds, a handful of companies have begun offering investors digital tokens in exchange for cash. In on high-profile case, a tech startup called Aragon raised $12.5 million in less than 15 minutes in its ICO.
    China: There are strict limits on currency outflows in the country, and Morgan Stanley assumes many people are using cryptocurrencies as a way to bypass the limits.
    Korea and Japan: Bitcoin was just legalized by the Japanese government, so it makes sense that it would be gaining popularity in the contry. "In Korea, however, there is not a clear explanation for the surge," the bank writes.

 
http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-price-confounds-morgan-stanley-analysts-2017-6

• Bitcoin dropped Thursday to its lowest level for June.
• The decline comes after the digital currency topped $3,000 on Sunday, more than tripling in value for the year.
• The market value of digital currencies overall dropped this week by more than $17 billion.

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/15/bitcoin-tumbles-12-percent-erases-gains-for-june.html

The fragmented mandate on Bitcoin’s scaling issue has been going on for more than a year. The issue revolves around the size of the blocks which are added to its blockchain​. Bitcoin blocks have a limited ‘storage’ capacity of 1MB under the current popular system of Bitcoin Core. With increasing usage, congestion issues have been reported on the Bitcoin network, resulting in more time and transaction fees necessary for verifying transactions. To resolve this, different sections within the Bitcoin community pitched different solutions to enable smoother running by decongesting the blocks. However, there was a failure to reach a consensus.

Blocks are files where data pertaining to the Bitcoin network is permanently recorded. A block records the most recent Bitcoin transactions that have not yet entered any prior blocks. Thus, a block is like a page of a ledger or record book. Each time a block is ‘completed’, it gives way to the next block in the blockchain​. A block is thus a permanent store of records which, once written, cannot be altered or removed.

http://www.investopedia.com/news/war-between-segwit-vs-bip148-vs-bitcoin-unlimited-explained/

[Major bitcoin exchanges hit by cyberattacks as record rally makes them a target]

Major bitcoin exchanges hit by cyberattacks as record rally makes them a target

• At least two major bitcoin exchanges reported cyberattacks this week.
• The attacks were 'denial-of-service' in nature and did not affect clients' funds.
• Bitcoin briefly more than tripled for the year when it topped $3,000 last weekend.

Multiple cyberattacks on major bitcoin exchanges this week highlight the many challenges for the young digital currency world.

A surge in investor interest also overwhelmed major bitcoin websites, while record-breaking levels of fundraising for new digital currencies add to worries that the largely unregulated cryptocurrency industry will be unable to manage the hype.

"Investors with assets on centralized cryptocurrency exchanges should be careful. The track records of these organizations are not good, and as the assets on the exchanges grow, so does the bounty for attacking or hacking them," said Benjamin Roberts, co-founder and CEO of Citizen Hex, a digital currency trading start-up backed by three Canadian venture funds.

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/14/major-bitcoin-exchanges-hit-by-cyberattacks-as-record-rally-makes-them-a-target.html

[Current state of miners]

Politics has gripped bitcoin – it's about the only thing people have been wanting to talk about for the past few years.

I've written before about how the bitcoin ecosystem is like the three branches of government, with developers being the legislative branch, miners serving as the executive branch and users being the judicial branch. I've also written about how bitcoin changes through consensus, and how consensus is not supposed to be easy.

In this article, I examine an alternative path to the current political stalemate and how that can help empower developers, miners and users.

Current state of miners

Among mining manufacturers, it's pretty obvious that Bitmain is the biggest and most successful. They produce somewhere around 50–75% of the bitcoin network hash power through their chips and other manufacturers have a tough time competing with them on price.

Their first product, the S1, came out in 2014 when there were many more competitors (CoinTerra, KnCMiner and Spondoolies-Tech to name a few). They distinguished themselves by having the product on hand at various bitcoin conferences and, unlike many of their competitors, having great supply chain management helped them win fans around the world.

As bitcoin experienced a three-year bear market, many mining manufacturers simply went out of business as the economics turned from wildly profitable to barely survivable. It didn't help that many had products that often had defects and delivery issues. Bitmain not only survived this time, but thrived, and managed to capture significant market share.

Whatever your opinion of the company may be, Bitmain is the most dominant miner and they are the 800-pound gorilla in the mining space.

Current state of developers

It's well known that Satoshi Nakamoto made the first bitcoin client and released it to the world in 2009. Many people have contributed to what's called the 'reference client' and Bitcoin Core, as it’s now called, has hundreds of developers that contribute to the open-source repository.

What's less known is that there have been many different attempts to create alternative bitcoin clients. Obelisk, btc-d, Toshi and bcoin are just some of the many attempts at creating new clients from scratch.

Bitcoin Unlimited, Bitcoin XT and the newest Segwit2x are some forks of Bitcoin Core. While each has had a varying degree of success, it appears most of the network continues to run Bitcoin Core (most estimates are well over 90%).

Why is Bitcoin Core the most popular? There's certainly history to consider. People managing money tend to be conservative and changing any part of the tool chain for managing money tends to be a dicey proposition as any errors may cause monetary loss. Further, Core has the largest developer community and the most rigorous development processes in place.

Whatever your opinion of Bitcoin Core may be, the team continues to produce the dominant client on the network, and they are the 800-pound gorilla in the development space.


full: http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-scaling-give-everyone-control/

... para que um dia possa se despreender da gravidade terrestre e ir em direção à lua.

E o Morgan Stanley também disse que não irá recomendar investir em Bitcoins até que surgam mais regulações.

http://www.newsbtc.com/2017/06/14/morgan-stanley-feels-bitcoin-needs-government-regulation-properly-thrive/

Comemorem estatistas, essa vitória é de vocês.

[Ray Kurzweil Says He Wouldn’t Put His Money in Bitcoin but Doesn’t Dismiss Blockchain]

Ray Kurzweil Says He Wouldn’t Put His Money in Bitcoin but Doesn’t Dismiss Blockchain

Perceived Instability

Ray Kurzweil, a leading futurist, author, inventor, and the head of Google’s engineering lab, has made some impressively accurate predictions about the future. However, this may not be the best news for the burgeoning cryptocurrency, Bitcoin. Kurzweil spoke at the Exponential Finance Summit in New York City late last week and he had some less than flattering things to say about the currency. While he may see the value in the decentralization of currency, he doesn’t feel like Bitcoin is the way forward.


read full: https://futurism.com/ray-kurzweil-says-he-wouldnt-put-his-money-in-bitcoin-but-doesnt-dismiss-blockchain/