Prior to the major clearance of the bitcoin mempool, the holding area for unconfirmed transactions waiting to be picked up by miners, a large number of bitcoin transactions were left unconfirmed for days despite the attachment of high fees.

Such occurrences emerged due to the variation in the size of bitcoin transactions. Unlike the Ethereum network or other specific blockchain networks, transactions on the bitcoin network have different sizes depending on the number of inputs and outputs. Currently, the median size of bitcoin transaction is 226 bytes but the size of bitcoin transactions can greatly vary at times.

Thus, users of wallet platforms that had fixed transaction fee recommendations which failed to take the variation in bitcoin transaction size into consideration struggled with significant delays with their transactions. Instead of calculating the size of the transaction and recommending fees based on the transaction size, the vast majority of wallet platforms simply offered two options: low or high fees that ranged from $0.5 to $2.5.

In certain cases, users discovered that $2.5 fee was not sufficient for transactions that have many inputs and outputs. 21 Inc’s Bitcoin Fees, an open source bitcoin fee estimator, clearly recommends a fee based on the median transaction size but does not take the variation into consideration.

After careful consideration of user feedback, Blockchain, the world’s largest bitcoin wallet platform that oversees nearly 15 million wallets, deployed a new fee estimation program that allowed users to attach fees on a satoshis per byte basis.

On June 22, Blockchain CEO Peter Smith revealed in an interview with CNBC that the bitcoin wallet startup raised $40 million in funding from Google’s investment arm Lakestar and billionaire investor Richard Branson.

Smith emphasized that with the new funding round and newly acquired capital, the company will focus on addressing scalability of their product and global expansion to meet the increasing demand towards bitcoin from its international user base.

        “We are really focused on scaling to meet the record demand we are getting in the market. We started raising this round before the run up in the cryptomarket. It was good timing in the end because while we were closing the round, we were massively up on every level. Our traffic has been growing 15 percent week over week in last two weeks,” said Smith in an interview.

The implementation of the new Satoshis per byte fee estimator program is a part of the Blockchain development team’s scalability roadmap in that it allows users to adapt to the increasing fee market efficiently without the necessity of manually calculating transaction size and fees.

Other wallet platforms such as Samourai Wallet are also looking into the commercialization of Bitcoin Core developer Peter Todd’s Replace-by-Fee method that allows users to attach a new fee in order to process stuck transactions due to low fees.

As bitcoin approaches scaling, startups including Blockchain are successfully providing its users with more efficient and practical applications to ease the settlement of payments and transactions. With such applications and programs in place, the activation of a viable scaling solution such as the Bitcoin Core development team’s Segregated Witness (Segwit) is expected to further enhance scalability.

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitcoin-wallets-implement-blockchains-transaction-fee-estimator/

he crypto markets slumped on Saturday following several days of consistent gains. Both bitcoin and ethereum prices slid into the red, and most altcoins experienced declines as well.

Bitcoin Price Falls Below $2,500

Today’s bitcoin price decline was not as pronounced as the one it experienced earlier this week, but it still fell 1.73% to $2,496. More important is the fact that the bitcoin price has experienced a fairly steady skid over the past seven days, as the chart below indicates. Bitcoin now has a market cap of just under $41 billion.

One must wonder if concern over the impending network fork is fueling the recent bitcoin price decline and encouraging investors to cash out recent gains in anticipation of a potential price dip following the fork. If such a dip does occur, proactive investors will be able to acquire coins at a steep discount from current prices.

Crypto Markets Drop Under $100 Billion

Earlier this week the total cryptocurrency market cap had inched its way back to $100 billion after the Monday Massacre, but today’s events erased that progress. The total market cap slid back beneath $100 billion and currently sits at $98.9 billion.

Read more about this: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/saturday-slump-ethereum-bitcoin-prices-headline-crypto-market-downturn/

Revised Tax in Effect From Today In Japan, Giving Residents ‘Access to Global Markets’

On Saturday, July 1, the revised consumption tax law went into effect throughout Japan, and bitcoin transactions no longer incur consumption tax of 8%. On the same day, Australia also ended bitcoin double taxation. Bitcoin.com talked to Yuzo Kano, CEO of the largest Japanese bitcoin exchange by volume Bitflyer, to find out the real implications of this change in Japan.


The Japanese government has approved the exemption of digital currencies, such as bitcoin, from consumption tax. The “Cabinet Order for Partial Revision of the Order for Enforcement of the Consumption Tax Act” went into effect on July 1. Bitflyer explained:

        "Effective July 1, 2017, virtual currency transactions [purchases / sales] will become exempt from consumption tax."

The Japanese consumption tax rate is currently 8%, which was scheduled to increase in April of this year. However, on June 1, 2016, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced that “the rise in the consumption tax to 10% and the introduction of the reduced tax rate would be postponed until October 2019,” Japan External Trade Organization detailed.

While the revised law abolishes consumption tax on digital currencies, there remain other taxes such as personal income tax, capital gains tax, or corporate income tax that they are subject to. “If income obtained from virtual currency is earned at the individual level, this is (per Japanese taxation standards) treated as miscellaneous income and subject to tax on aggregate income,” Bitflyer detailed. “For corporations, it is treated as operating revenue.”

Read more about this: https://news.bitcoin.com/revised-tax-on-bitcoin-in-japan-in-effect-from-today-giving-residents-access-to-global-markets/

Today I am pleased to publicly announce the “Do Nothing for You” Initial Coin Offering (ICO). The Do Nothing Technologies (DNT) token sale will begin next month, and all are welcome to send their bitcoin and ethereum to the smart-contract protected DNT address. This crowd sale will offer tokens that have no purpose, assets that do nothing, and an upfront promise that our team will “do absolutely nothing for you,” but will make me very rich.

Announcing the “Do Nothing for You” Token Sale Offering Far More Promise Than Any ICO to Date


Interestingly enough I’ve found that I possess the skills to easily create a token sale utilizing a ‘virtual machine’ and a couple thousand bucks. My team and I have created a fantastic website covered with fancy little graphics, a place where you can read our white paper, and be able to purchase our DNT blockchain tokens. The white paper is very detailed with only a few paragraphs which were approved by my attorneys. It states the true intentions of the DNT token sale and the roadmap we’ve prepared for the future.

“The DNT sale is not an investment or a token that possesses any value,” explains our white paper filled with blockchain word salad and loosely related math. “The purpose of the “Do Nothing for You” blockchain is simple to understand. You give us bitcoins and ether, and we promise we will fill our pockets with wealth and not help you in the least.”

        "You can guarantee our tokens will have absolutely no benefit for you, but for us, it’s a different story."

Read more about this: https://news.bitcoin.com/introducing-do-nothing-technologies-blockchain-ico/

Bitcoin’s value has been rising steadily throughout 2017 with more people using the decentralized currency than ever before. One of bitcoin’s great use cases, which is on the rise, is how easy it is to donate to charitable funds. According to a recent Fidelity Charitable 2017 Giving Report donations to Fidelity Charitable made in bitcoin is growing significantly.

Fidelity Charitable Sees Significant Growth in 2017 Bitcoin Donations

Just recently Bitcoin.com reported on the CEO of Fidelity Investments, Ms. Abigail Johnson telling the public how much the company liked bitcoin. The company detailed plans to integrate with Coinbase, and Ms. Johnson also revealed Fidelity’s in-house cafeteria accepts the cryptocurrency for food and drinks. Now the company has published it’s annual Fidelity Charitable 2017 Giving Report which details how charitable donations made in bitcoin is on the rise.

Fidelity’s 26-page report details that a lot of people are donating with non-publicly traded assets and a very popular contribution method is bitcoin. In the first six months of 2017 Fidelity Charitable received $9 million in BTC so far and that number has already surpassed 2016’s bitcoin donations by $2 million. The organization has turned over $3.1 billion in non-publicly traded assets like real estate, life insurance policies and even grain. The digital asset bitcoin has been used for Fidelity’s philanthropic funds and grants since 2015.


Fidelity Charitable received $7 million in bitcoin donations in 2016. In 2017 bitcoin donations so far add up to $9 million.

More about this: https://news.bitcoin.com/charitable-donations-using-bitcoin-continue-to-rise/

The major breakout will be in August, when Humanique team will release their App.

The following extract is from a fresh article entitled "Humaniq to Release Working Beta-Version of the App in August!"


https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/humaniq-beta-app-august/

Крылышки конечно, многообещающий актив, купить по 16.5 заманчиво, но если биткоин пойдет резко вверх в ближайшие дни, а альткоины вниз, боюсь сейчас инвестиция может быть не оправданная.

In order to put into perspective what Bitcoin represents amongst all of the world’s money, Howmuch has produced a visualization full of insights.



Since 2009, Bitcoin has made a long road and has overcome many obstacles on its journey. The Bitcoin price has grown exponentially, and its market cap is at the time of writing over $41 bln, which is the same net worth of Google’s co-founder, Larry Page.

Bill Gates, the richest man on earth with a net worth of $86 bln, has approximately the net worth of Larry Page and Bitcoin combined.

Bitcoin equals Morocco

“Bitcoin is the Uber of cryptocurrencies: the biggest, baddest and best-known, but not the only one. Add it up to Litecoin, Monero and all the others, and the total volume of virtual money floating around the Internet, out of the reach of governments and banks, is a whopping $100 bln. That is about as much as the current GDP of Morocco the 60th-largest economy in the world,” notes Raul Amoros.

Nowadays, tech companies are more than ever before dominating the stock market. The monetary value of giants like Amazon ($402 bln) and (Apple $730 bln) is equivalent to the GDP of much bigger economies like Nigeria and the Netherlands, respectively. Apple’s monetary value is 18 folds the Bitcoin market capitalization.

    "Moving to upper scales, the amount of actual money in dollar notes and coins in circulation around the world is $1.5 tln. Amounting to 36 folds the market capitalization of Bitcoin."

Apart from fiduciary money, gold has played a significant role in the money game due to its scarcity and marketability. Gold was still the basis of money in the 1960s, in an unbroken line stretching back to the beginnings of history. Today, the latest figure for all the gold in the world is 171,300 tonnes, which is currently priced at $8.2 tln: 200 folds the Bitcoin’s market cap.

More on the left, the visualization shows that the sum of “narrow money” is $31 tln. Narrow money is a category of the money supply that includes all physical money like coins and currency, along with other liquid assets held by the central bank. This is 750 times the market cap of Bitcoin.

As for “broad money,” which is the totality of assets that households and businesses can easily convert into cash or use to make payments, it totals $83 tln. This represents 2,000 times the market cap of Bitcoin, but also 2.5 times the total sum of narrow money. It is only obvious that our current system will crash if everybody attempts to withdraw money that is supposed to be “easily” convertible into cash, while the stock of physical money is insufficient to cover such withdrawals.

“If the see-sawing rise of Bitcoin tells us anything, it is that people are losing their trust in money, and other traditional measures of wealth,” concludes Raul Amoros. “Let's talk again when the total value of all cryptocurrencies surpasses that of the world's supply of gold…”

https://cointelegraph.com/news/how-bitcoin-does-versus-gold-fiat-and-all-worlds-money

Billionaire Fortress Investor: Cryptocurrencies Will Be Worth $5 Trillion by 2022

Investment legend Michael Novogratz, the $3.2 bln investor and former manager of the multi-billion dollar investment firm Fortress, recently stated that the cryptocurrency market will be worth $5 trillion by 2022.

Preaching crypto optimism

Over the past two years, Novogratz has expressed his optimism towards cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum that have been leading the $100 bln cryptocurrency market. Previously, Novogratz revealed that 10 percent of his net worth, at least hundreds of millions of dollars, are invested in a diverse portfolio of cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin.

Bitcoin has transformed into a global phenomenon within a period of years due to its decentralized and transparent nature that have made Bitcoin an efficient store of value, digital currency and safe haven asset for the vast majority of users, traders and investors.

Other successful cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum, Litecoin and Ethereum Classic have gained interest from both individual and institutional investors with their distinctive strategies, philosophies, monetary policies and purpose.

Ethereum, for instance, provides an infrastructure for decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and decentralized applications (DApps), creating an intermediary-free network of applications. Ethereum Classic is more similar to Bitcoin in the sense that it has a fixed and deflationary monetary supply.

“We’re at the takeoff point”

Comparing the cryptocurrency market to the Nasdaq due to the variety of crypto-assets and Blockchain network, Novogratz explained that there exists no reason why the cryptocurrency market can’t be worth $5 trillion within the next five years.

“The Nasdaq got to $5.4 trillion in 1999, why couldn’t it be as big? There’s so much human capital and real money being poured into the space and we’re at the takeoff point,” said Novogratz.

During an interview with Bloomberg, Novogratz further emphasized that a rigid regulatory structure within the global cryptocurrency exchange market is absolutely necessary for the cryptocurrency market to evolve into a major financial market.

Already, overseas markets including Japan, China, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, Singapore and Hong Kong along with many other countries have regulated the cryptocurrency exchange market and have provided thorough, practical and efficient regulatory frameworks to attract the general public into the cryptocurrency exchange market.

China, in particular, is heavily involved in its local cryptocurrency market and is actually planning to regulate smaller markets such as the initial coin offering (ICO) market that has gained increasing interest from investors since the beginning of 2017.

“Most cryptos will eventually be worth zero”

Evidently, the cryptocurrency market and the majority of cryptocurrencies are still in the early stages of development. As Ari Paul, portfolio manager for the University of Chicago's $7.5 bln endowment, explains, most cryptocurrencies that are in existence are likely to decline in value while several major cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Ethereum Classic survive.

“Most cryptos, like most companies, will eventually be worth zero. This is the nature of competition. Buy and hold is a strategy, not safety,” said Paul.

More importantly, as prominent venture capitalist Naval Ravikant famously stated before:

    “All Bitcoin has to do to become the premier store of value is...survive.”

https://cointelegraph.com/news/billionaire-fortress-investor-cryptocurrencies-will-be-worth-5-trillion-by-2022

Regardless of the increased volatility over the last few days, the struggle for the $2,300 level did not occur.

Looking at the chart, it can be clearly implied that the price did some retests at $2,300 before going up, which is a rather typical signal for opening long positions. It is relatively low risk.



The following scenarios seem to be plausible for BTC/USD:

- In the meantime, tests of $2,700, a possible resistance level, might be observed.
-  Another retest of the $2,300 level. Although not clear, it is still possible. Given a retest takes place, new rooms for deals might occur.

In order to effectively and efficiently invest in cryptocurrencies, you should always closely monitor trading volumes. Admittedly, volumes monitoring provides more valuable insights than mere scrutinizing of the order book.

To recapitulate, long positions from the strong levels would be good deals. Never forget about setting stop-losses! As always, risk/return ratio is a crucial indicator for successful traders.

Read analysis about ETH, LTC: https://cointelegraph.com/news/btc-eth-ltc-price-analysis

A federal judge sentenced Anthony Murgio of Florida to five and a half years in prison after he pleaded guilty to operating an illegal bitcoin exchange suspected of laundering money, according to Reuters. A hearing of forfeiture and restitution has been set for Sept. 1.

Murgio, 33, pleaded guilty in January to bank fraud and operating an unlicensed money laundering business. The sentence imposed by U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan in Manhattan was half as long as prosecutors asked for.

Murgio and his co-conspirators were charged with processing millions of dollars into bitcoin from 2013 to 2015 through Coin.mx, an illegal bitcoin exchange. Police arrested Murgio and a co-conspirator in 2015.

Profiting From Ransomware

Procesutors said Coin.mx did a lot of bitcoin transactions for victims of ransomware who are often required to pay a ransom in bitcoin to unlock their computers.

Murgio and his co-conspirators were also involved in a scheme to take control of a New Jersey credit union in 2014 to shield their activities. Judge Nathan said Murgio led an effort based on greed and ambition that was built on a “pyramid of lies.” When Murgio expressed regret for his crime, the judge said it was genuine. Murgio said he is now wiser than when the case began and he was sorry for the damage he caused.

Judge Shows Leniency

Nathan noted Murgio’s generosity to friends and support to his family in deciding to reduce the term from the 10 to 12 and a half years that prosecutors recommended. Brian Klein, Murgio’s lawyer, said he was glad about the reduced sentence.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Eun Choi said Murgio exploited the desperation of ransomware victims. Murgio and others in 2014 acquired an organization called Helping Other People Excel Federal Credit Union of Jackson, N.J. and bribed its pastor, Trevon Gross, to evade scrutiny of Coin.mx, prosecutors said.

Michael Murgio, Anthony’s father, pleaded guilty in October to an obstruction charge connected to the credit union.

Also read: Murgio pleads guilty for operating illegal bitcoin exchange

Co-conspirators Await Sentencing

A Manhattan jury convicted Yuri Lebedev, a Florida software engineer, and pastor Gross in scheming to shield Coin.mx’s activities from regulators and banks. They have not yet been sentenced.

Prosecutors said Gery Shalon, an Israeli who pleaded not guilty after being extradited from Israel last June, owned Coin.mx. Prosecutors also said Shalon oversaw the 2014 JP Morgan hacking scheme that stole information from more than 100 million people.

Neither Murgio was charged in the hacking case, in which records of more than 83 million accounts were breached, including JPMorgan. The massive bank hack marked one of the biggest thefts of customer data ever.

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/murgio-gets-5-%c2%bd-years-for-bank-fraud-and-operating-illegal-bitcoin-exchange/

Beginning today, Japanese bitcoin exchange and startup bitFlyer will offer insurance to bitcoin-accepting retailers and merchants against failed customer payments.

In a first in the country, Japanese merchants will now be covered against damages in the event of any transaction failures involving bitcoin. Transaction failures include any mishaps with payment systems or gateway issues and plausibly even transaction delays, all of which will be covered under the new insurance policy.

According to the Nikkei, the insurance package will be offered by Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance to merchants adopting the point-of-sale and/or bitcoin payments gateway infrastructure provided by Tokyo-based bitcoin startup and exchange bitFlyer. Competing bitcoin startup Coincheck is also set to offer a similar insurance product for merchants, with its partnership with Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance, sparking off a wider trend toward encouraging merchants and retailers to adopt bitcoin as a method of payment.

The merchant insurance offering will now be applicable to the likes of Bic Camera, a Japanese consumer electronics retail chain that began accepting bitcoin payments in April, after new legislation that recognized bitcoin as a legal method of payment in the country.

When Coincheck rolls out its merchant insurance service, Japanese retailer Recruit Lifestyle – also accepting bitcoin since April – will be among the clients insured. Recruit is notably including bitcoin in AirRegi, a point-of-sale app developed by the firm which will see bitcoin payments enabled at some 260,000 retail locations across Japan.

Meanwhile, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance has already launched an insurance product for bitcoin exchanges and customers to cover losses from breaches or hacks. As reported by CCN in November, losses ranging between 10 million yen to 1 billion yen (between $88,000 and $8.8 million) will be covered by the insurance company.

There is a boom in mainstream awareness and adoption of bitcoin in Japan after it became a legally recognized method of payment in April. Japan’s financial regulator has seen up to 18 applications for licenses to open bitcoin exchanges. Ten of those applicants are new entrants to the bitcoin industry, including the likes of Japanese internet giant GMO launching its own bitcoin trading platform.

All of which sees Midori Kanemitsu, chief financial officer at bitFlyer, predicting up to 300,000 retail storefronts accepting bitcoin in Japan by the end of this year.

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitcoin-accepting-retailers-will-gain-insurance-japan/

As i recall, Jamal sad that bounty payments will be transfered on 29 june. But in view of the fact that monaco had not been traded on exchanges yet, i`m realy doubt about rapid bounty reward. Thanks him, that all sign. counting had been done.

It`s very ambitious to combine all gamer`s paid services under one roof. But all the services offer their products for real money. Gamers should exchange tokens before buy something or it will be done automatically by the system, after pressing button "buy"?

What is the maximum capitalization for Skincoin? Minimal Goal to start: 5 000 ETH. Maximum - ? According to Etherscain skincoin already has 8,777. ETH and continuing to grow.

The Financial Supervisory Service of South Korea has told local banks not to cave into threats by DDoS attackers following this month’s million-dollar bitcoin ransom paid by South Korean web hoster Nayana, the victim of a ransomware attack.

According to local reports, the Financial Supervisory Service (FSC) has sent official letters to a number of local financial companies on Monday, urging them not to yield to threats by DDoS attackers. The Korea Times reveals that infamous DDoS group, the Armada Collective, has sent threats to at least seven banks, some securities brokerages and the operator of the Korea Exchange last week. The seven banks include some of Korea’s largest lenders, namely: Shinhan, Kookmin, Woori, KEB Hana, Nonghyup, IBK, and KDB.

The precedent was set by South Korean web hosting firm Nayana, which paid out a total of 397.6 bitcoins (over $1 million at the time) to recover the data of websites belonging to some 3,400 customers following a ransomware attack that began a fortnight ago.

The threat: In extortion messages sent to these financial institutions between June 20 and June 23, the Armada Collective demanded between 10 to 15 bitcoins (approx. $24,000 – $36,000) or face disruption via DDoS attacks.

The attackers have already carried out attacks against smaller banks on Monday. The Korea Financial Telecommunications & Clearings Institute (KFTC) received an extortion threat at 9:50 AM on Monday morning, immediately followed by a minor DDoS attack at 9:52 AM. The attack lasted for 16 minutes, according to the Korea Times report.

Notably, the Armada Collective’s threat has marked Wednesday as ‘D-day’, with the threat of a large-scale attack to be carried out tomorrow. The DDoS group has successfully extorted companies in the past.  A high-profile incident in late 2015 saw encrypted email service provider Protonmail give in to a demand of 15 bitcoins (approx. $6,000 at the time) to stop crippling DDoS attacks that exceeded speeds of 100Gbps.

Read more - https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/dont-pay-bitcoin-ransoms-south-korean-govt-tells-banks-facing-ddos-threats/

EU lawmakers will consider amending current anti-money laundering laws that were introduced last month in Italy. The modified law introduces specific definitions and articles with regards to virtual currency exchanges that facilitate trading between fiat currencies and bitcoin and other virtual currencies.



The European Parliament is yet to approve the proposed modification of current anti-money laundering laws that were published in Italy late last month. The Italian Minister of Economy initiated discussion pertaining to the draft legislation in December 2016. The modified law, AML4, was introduced in Italy with its publication in the Italian Official Journal of the Legislative Decree 25th May 2017.

The proposed legislation contains numerous articles that directly address cryptocurrencies, in addition to introducing a specific registry for Virtual Currency Exchanges.

The current legislative decree recognized by the European Commission defines virtual currency as “a digital representation of value that is neither issued by a central bank or a public authority, nor attached to a legally established fiat currency which can be used as a means of exchange for the purchase of goods and services and transferred, stored and traded electronically.” Cryptocurrency exchanges are defined as virtual service providers: “any natural or legal person providing professional services to third parties for the use, the exchange, the storage related of virtual currencies and for the conversion from or in currencies having legal tender[.]”

More to read - https://news.bitcoin.com/eu-to-consider-adopting-new-italian-anti-money-laundering-laws-that-directly-address-bitcoin-exchanges/

Главное чтобы теперь с Encryptotel все нормально было. А то еще раз такой блин комом, и инвесторы побегут от проекта, как от неудачно спущенного на воду корабля.

ok, so the bounty distribution will be assured soon. Encryptotel developers accuses Incent in what has happened. Interesting, how Incent exchange course  will react on these news.

Это уже не новость, это уже информация, как раз хотел приобрести incent по такой дешевой цене, а теперь понимаю что проэкт уже свое отжил. Хотя, пролистав отчет, не вижу там конкретных упомянаний про морковку, на чем основаны обвинения encryptotel непонятно.