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FOMO reaks havvok on the markets today, from bad predictions to even worse illogical claims, this can be for a few reasons.

Some believe that the current unbalanced market that is cryptocurrency (More traders that people using it) is causing a lot of the turmoil and volitility due to the fact that traders and whales manipulate the market intentionally for a profit, where as the person buying groceries or running a business cannot predict nor understand these market fluctuations and makes hasty decisions to safe gard his funds, creating a domino effect.

Did you hear about the malfunction that had Bitcoin trading for $1 on several Asian exchanges?
You need to read this story: https://medium.com/@official_83664/bitcoin-sold-for-1-in-august-2019-dda66ba532

A major update is about to take place on the Ethereum blockchain. This update is aimed at making the network faster for transactions and cheaper to use. These updates are necessary if Ethereum wants to scale and become a useful technology for mainstream transactions. Below is an overview of what’s new in Ethereum 2.0.

The first version of Ethereum was launched in 2015, and since then a lot of events have taken place in the life of the versatile blockchain. Not long after its launch, the fame of Ethereum spread across the entire blockchain ecosystem. It’s native cryptocurrency Ether (ETH) became the second biggest cryptocurrency, next to Bitcoin, within the same short period.

The growth of Ethereum has been linked to the fact that it serves as a platform where other projects can build their own decentralized applications (DApps). This use case alone has attracted a lot of users simply due to the fact that it provides the tools and environment to create blockchain solutions easily and at reduced costs.

The hardfork that caused a split in the Ethereum blockchain, giving rise to two versions, Ethereum (ETH) and Ethereum Classic (ETC), happened in 2016. These two, and many other tokens, can be purchased on Vertex.Market via a peer-to-peer marketplace. This was after the infamous DAO breach. The hardfork that will give rise to Ethereum 2.0 later this year is the next big event for the network and community.

What is Ethereum 2.0?

As mentioned above, for Ethereum to go mainstream, it has to scale in order to be able to compete with existing systems. Take for instance Visa, which needs a capacity of only 4,000 transactions per second (tps), yet it can perform as much as 24,000 (tps). That is the kind of competition that Ethereum faces to thrive in the payment settlement circle.

In the video below, Danny Ryan, core researcher at the Ethereum Foundation explains what Ethereum 2.0 is all about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tvw3_vvOek

Another area of interest is the cost of settling these transactions, which is the same thing as the cost of mining. Currently, Ethereum runs a Proof-of-Work (PoW) protocol, like Bitcoin. This is highly energy consuming and has an impact on the environment as well. This is what the Ethereum community and developers are about to change. Ethereum 2.0 is a new version of Ethereum, whose network will be maintained using a Proof-of-Stake protocol.

PoW vs PoS

The PoW protocol is the first to be introduced in the blockchain ecosystem. It is the same kind of protocol that is implemented on the Bitcoin network. Here, miners compete to find answers to math problems through the processing powers of their CPUs. The process was straightforward and highly decentralized from the beginning. However, as time passed certain deficiencies began to show up in the PoW system.

Due to the high level of competition, massive mining farms and pools began to emerge. Instead of the normal system where individuals can quietly mine away in the privacy of their rooms, Bitcoin mining became an industry of its own. This caused a lopsided effect, and the network is quickly becoming vulnerable to the 51% attack. This is a scenario where any individual or group that controls over 51% of the nodes can take over control of the network. This is anti-decentralization.

By running the same system, even Ethereum is not spared. Therefore, the network is moving away from the PoW system to the PoS protocol. A protocol that is maintained using the masternode system where members of the community contribute stakes in ETH tokens. The amount of reward that anyone gets will also depend on the percentage of stakes held.

The PoS masternode system gives room for a more distributed ownership. This is because the cost of mining is drastically reduced. There will be no need for expensive infrastructure or high energy consumption. This is the new direction that Ethereum is going and a strong element in the overview of what’s new in
Ethereum 2.0.

The Benefits of Ethereum 2.0

The implementation of the new version of Ethereum will be in stages. The PoS revolution will not be sudden. Instead, through a gradual process the existing PoW system will be eased out as a new era emerges. This means that we will have a period where both PoW and PoS protocol will be functional on the Ethereum network.

https://twitter.com/sassal0x/status/1169441335004164097?

Some of the features that will be enabled by Ethereum 2.0 include the following:
- Even though the network might become less efficient, the extent of complexity will become highly minimized.
- The risk of downtimes will be eliminated, especially during network partitioning or even when a large number of nodes go offline.
- The new protocol will accommodate more validators and encourage the participation of a larger part of the community.
- It will lower the barrier of entry, making it possible for smaller users with just their laptops to become stakeholders and be involved in decision making processes within the Ethereum network.

Conclusion

Apart from the PoS implementation on the Ethereum network, several other basic solutions have been lined up to be added on the Ethereum network. Under the mining processes are solutions like Beacon and Casper. These two will address the security of the system and how the coins are created.

The other solutions that will address various aspects of the Ethereum network include Sharding, eWASM, Plasma, Raiden, etc. These are all part of the elements that are involved in the overview of what’s new in Ethereum 2.0 which is set to be launched in the near future.

https://medium.com/@official_83664/overview-of-whats-new-in-ethereum-2-0-ab8e7bc9d27a

Enjoy this visual representation of the BTC trades happening in real time: http://bitbonkers.com/.
Is one of them yours? Would you like it to be? Head to Vertex to get involved in some P2P action.

Did you catch the unexpected effects of the Litecoin halving?
Get up to speed with our blog piece here https://medium.com/@official_83664/the-unexpected-effects-of-the-litecoin-halving-a6c8fde3c62a Psst you can cash in on the times by buying or selling LTC on our anonymous, P2P trading platform.

Almost every cryptocurrency user is attached to one crypto exchange or another. Exchanges represent a key sector of the crypto ecosystem. This is mainly because they represent the most available channel of transacting or extracting value from the industry. There are different kinds of cryptocurrency exchanges, depending on how they operate. This post is about making comparisons among the three categories of exchanges that we have today in the industry. That is: Centralized vs Decentralized vs Hybrid Exchanges.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La3nMp1I_ec

Centralized Exchanges
This is the most popular type of exchange that exists in the cryptocurrency industry. Over 99% of crypto transactions today occur on centralized exchanges. Examples of this kind of exchange includes Binance, Bitterex, Coinbase and Poloniex.

The characteristics of centralized exchanges are listed as follows:
- High liquidity and trade volumes
- Quick transactions
- Supports multiple users at the same time
- Transactions are controlled by exchange operators
- User funds are deposited into exchange accounts before trading can occur
- Order execution is the responsibility of the exchange
- Users do not have access to private keys
- Prone to attacks from hackers and thieves
- Serves both as a trading platform and as a crypto storage platform

Decentralized Exchanges
The concept of decentralization simply revolves around the elimination of intermediaries. It provides for direct interaction between parties that are involved in a transaction. This makes the process relatively transparent and is also supposed to be cheaper in terms of the cost of processing.
Although there are exchanges today that aim to be decentralized, in the actual sense of it, even these ones possess some element of centralization. There is hardly any infrastructure in the industry today that provides for an absolutely decentralized exchange. Even those that operate a peer-to-peer system are hosted on centralized servers.

For the decentralized servers that we have in the industry today, the following features are common:
- Independent of intermediaries
- No central pool of funds
- Unbeatable by hackers
- Relatively low volume and liquidity
- Speed of transaction depends on participants
- Does not serve as a storage platform for users

Hybrid Exchanges

The above features of both centralized and decentralized exchanges provide for both individual strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, rather than focusing on the centralized vs decentralized vs hybrid exchanges comparisons, this system chooses a combining model. Incidentally, these strengths and weaknesses of centralized and decentralized exchanges occur in alternating and supplementary areas. Attempting to harness the strengths of both systems in a complementary arrangement is what has given rise to hybrid exchanges.

This category of exchange explores the liquidity, accessibility and speed of centralized exchange, with the security of the decentralized exchange. This is the kind of solution that Vertex.Market ( https://vertex.market ) is offering its customers. A combination that satisfies every class of traders within the cryptocurrency marketplace, especially large institutional investors who want to be cautious in their dealings.

Hybrid exchanges focus on minimizing risk and maximizing opportunities within the ecosystem. On Vertex.Market, a peer-to-peer platform, volume and liquidity are exceptional. There are no off-market periods where trades stay pending. Rather trades are executed instantly between buyer and seller, with tokens sent directly to the buyer’s personal wallet once the seller confirms receipt of the funds. At the same time, you do not have to leave your funds on the exchange. They remain with you, in a system that demystifies the centralized vs decentralized vs hybrid exchanges comparison.

https://medium.com/@official_83664/centralized-vs-decentralized-vs-hybrid-exchanges-8bc3759e6280

Mining data is pointing towards a bullish Bitcoin run, predicting the price will reach $31K in the next year.
Read the full report here: https://cointelegraph.com/news/new-mining-difficulty-metric-points-to-31k-bitcoin-price-by-2021

Imagine a world where you could decide one day that you wanted to buy a particular cryptocurrency, using a specific payment method.
With 1200 cryptocurrencies and 25 different payment methods, we’re pretty sure we’ve just made your dreams a reality.

In a piece of reality that looks like a huge joke, it is on record that Bitcoin sold for $1 in August 2019 on certain exchanges in the Asian region. The news of this development broke on 23 August 2019 when some of the major exchanges within the region reported a malfunction within their systems.

Apparently, the Amazon Web Services (AWS) network experienced an outage which affected those platforms that were connected to it. Some of the exchanges that were affected include Binance, KuCoin and BitMax.

On the said day, the CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao (CZ) announced through Twitter that his exchange was experiencing some difficulties.

CZ tweeted:
“AWS is having an issue, mostly with caching services, affecting some users globally. We are working with them and monitoring the situation closely.”

During the malfunction, deposits and withdrawals were disabled on the Binanceplatform. Many replies followed the tweet from CZ with some of them expressing panic. He however continued to reassure his followers until the issue was eventually resolved. From his responses, it was clearly an issue with Amazon’s AWS, which he remained in contact with until it was resolved.

Some traders who played what looked like a wild card took advantage of the situation to buy Bitcoin for less than $1 during the outage. This was reported to have happened on BitMax exchange. Reports claim that these traders had set limit orders at extremely low prices. The hope of these traders was on some off-chance event like what just happened.

According to information that spread on social media, as much as 45 Bitcoins were purchased at sub $1levels during this period on BitMax. The exchange announced immediate freezing of deposits and withdrawals shortly afterwards. Although it did not confirm that the said transactions had occurred. It’s safe to say that

BitMax will never forget the day that Bitcoin sold for $1 in August 2019.

Another exchange that wasn’t spared during this outage is KuCoin. The exchange also disabled part of its services and posted a notice on its website, which read:

“Due to the overheating of part of our chassis in the machine room we deployed in AWS, Tokyo, part of our services might become unavailable. The engineering operation team is currently deploying relevant resources of high availability across regions to deal with any possible emergencies that might happen. Some services might be affected during the deployment.”

The purchase of cheap Bitcoins was confirmed by the founding partner at crypto asset fund Primitive

Ventures, operators of KuCoin, Dovey Wan who tweeted:

“Many Asian exchanges see price instability (and trades were able to execute, yes you can buy extremely cheap Bitcoin if you had limit orders there).”

Beyond the three exchanges mentioned so far, several other exchanges within the same region seemed to have encountered the same problem.

The Bitcoin price, which appeared to be finding stability above the $10,000 region seems to have struggled a bit since this development. Although Amazon has resolved the issue and the exchanges have returned to normal services, the Bitcoin price is still struggling below $10,000 (at the time of writing).

Issues like this are some of the limitations that confront centralized exchanges as we have them today. This is where peer-to-peer platforms like Vertex.Markethave the upper hand. Risks such as the AWS issue are completely eliminated because trading is not based on an order book that is hosted on a third party platform.

Although all of us will remember the day that Bitcoin sold for $1 in August 2019, not everyone will remember it with regrets.
https://medium.com/@official_83664/bitcoin-sold-for-1-in-august-2019-dda66ba532

DECRYPTING CRYPTO
Airdrop | A marketing campaign where tokens are distributed to members of the community. Usually given for free in exchange for taking part in promotional activities.
Get up to speed with our weekly DecryptingCrypto, where we break down crypto for the everyday human.

BurgerKing strikes again with their progressive attitude toward crypto. In 2017, BK Russia created their own Whopper coin, and now the German branch is accepting BTC for their online orders. Do you think other restaurant chains will follow suit? https://cointelegraph.com/news/burger-king-lets-you-pay-your-way-in-germany-with-bitcoin

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Litecoin experienced its second halving on 5 August 2019. This means that the rewards for producing a block on the Litecoin network are now 12.5 LTC, half of the previous 25 LTC reward. Halving on the Litecoin network occurs roughly every four years. What usually interests users is the overall effect that a halving has on a network. Hence, the question, what were the unexpected effects of the Litecoin halving?
Coin halving is usually a big occasion for cryptocurrency users, for miners and traders alike. The halving event is a major fundamental indicator to price and other elements within the network of the concerned cryptocurrency.

Pre-Halving Analysis of Litecoin (LTC)

Analyses and predictions come ahead of the halving of any given cryptocurrency. This was the same with Litecoin as many members of its community expected that there would be a surge in price for the first fork of Bitcoin.
Ahead of the event, even the creator of Litecoin (LTC), Charlie Lee, explained why he expected the price of Litecoin to go up after halving. Away from organic reasons, Lee tied his expectations to community sentiments. He explained how the behaviour of people will determine price movement, rather than actual economic factors of demand and supply.

He said;
“So a lot of people are buying in because they expect the price to go up and that’s kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. So, because they’re buying in, the price does actually go up.”

So, did Litecoin price actually go up after halving?

At the beginning of 2019, LTC around $30. This was as a result of the general bear market that greeted the crypto industry after the ICO boom of 2017. From boom to present, Litecoin dropped from an all time high price of $375. As the market picked up after Q1 2019, Litecoin also joined the recovery trend trading around the $100 region before dropping below it ahead of the impending halving.

The Litecoin Halving Effect

Just before the halving, the Litecoin price was at $79. As the news broke of the halving the Litecoin price jumped to $100. This is the initial answer to the question “how has the halving affected Litecoin”. The surge did not last though, as soon afterwards, a retracement kicked in and overall market sentiments seemed to overshadow the effects of the halving.

Halving implies that the reward for miners in producing a bock drops by 50%. The amount of work involved does not change, nor does the electricity consumed. Therefore, many miners seem to go out of business when halving occurs. Some of the smaller miners who may not be able to keep up with the cost implications may go out of business and engage is selling off a part of their holdings. This could lead to a bear market in the short run.

A contrary view suggests that the decreasing supply of Litecoin in this case will create scarcity. By economic laws, this means that there will be increased demand for the Litecoin, hence engineering a hike in the price.

No matter your position on the argument, you must consider the overall market conditions as well, especially with respect to Bitcoin, the pioneer of cryptocurrency. For instance, a few weeks after the Litecoin halving, when a lot of people expected prices to soar higher, it fell below the pre-halving mark. At the time of writing, the Litecoin price is around $70.

What’s Next After The Unexpected Effects Of The Litecoin Halving?

The prevailing sentiment is that funds are currently moving away from altcoins into Bitcoin at the moment. Proof of which lies in the Bitcoin dominance which stands at 69%, at the time of writing.

In this industry, everything is usually factored into the price of the token; hashrate, mining difficulty, community sentiment and other elements. Therefore, if you want to understand the market conditions, you need to consider a robust approach that involves numerous factors.

Price is a product of demand and supply. However, other factors which most industry participants consider to be temporary have suppressed the Litecoin price so far. Many traders are using this opportunity to jump into the market, using peer-to-peer platforms like Vertex.Market to purchase Litecoin at its suppressed price. This is in anticipation of an eventual response to the natural forces of demand and supply.

In paying attention to the unexpected effects of the Litecoin halving, it is very clear that a wide perspective must be assumed, and the analysis must also consider a long term effect. Hence, at the time of writing, we may not assume that the effect of the Litecoin halving has fully kicked in. Until the Bitcoin dominance subsides, the crypto market will still maintain a partial lopsided outlook.

https://medium.com/@official_83664/the-unexpected-effects-of-the-litecoin-halving-a6c8fde3c62a

One of the most interesting crypto experiments we’ve seen: the 2018 ‘Top Ten Crypto Index Fund Experiment’.
A guy bought $1000 worth of crypto on 1 Jan 2018, see where he stands now: https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/czmjnf/i_bought_1000_worth_of_the_top_ten_cryptos_on/

Do you know the ins and outs of blockchain transactions?
We’ve broken down the two types, and how they relate to our peer-to-peer trading platform.
Read here: https://medium.com/@official_83664/the-difference-between-on-chain-and-off-chain-transactions-6b5121da9d4c

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