Vitalik Buterin “Ethereum will eventually be able to process $1m transactions per second”
In a recent OmiseGO AMA session, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin announced that soon the Ethereum network would be able to process one million transactions per second, with Sharding and Plasma technology playing a vital role.
This advancement in the scalability issues of blockchain based technologies has been something which Buterin has long discussed. Whilst these decentralized networks have the potential to become a part of the everyday world, they are limited by the capacity of transactions per second.
The Ethereum blockchain at the moment can “processes around 15 transactions per second” Buterin stated in the conversation. Whilst this is far more advanced than the capability of Bitcoin, for example, the capability of Ethereum is far smaller than “PayPal, VISA and the major stock exchanges which go up to about 80,000 transactions per second” according to Buterin.
Whilst Buterin knows too well that the current level of transactions processed by the Ethereum blockchain is high for the platform and industry, he also knows that the scalability of Ethereum has some major issues.
The layer one property improvements that Sharding can address in these scalability issues allows the blockchain to process these transactions a lot...
Bitcoin's block size can be increased without a hard fork
Bitcoin (BTC) protocol developer Mark Friedenbach introduced a method for Bitcoin scaling he claims will not require a hard fork at a workshop in Tokyo October 5.
The new concept presented at the Scaling Bitcoin workshop, entitled “Forward Blocks,” suggests a major on-chain capacity boost by means of a Proof-of-Work (PoW) alternation that is done as a soft fork, combined with use of alternative private ledgers.
The proposal describes a method for scaling that claims to be able to increase “settlement transaction volume to 3584x current levels” and improve censorship resistance via sharding.
During the presentation, Friedenbach suggested major improvements for on-chain Bitcoin transactions, or those that appear on the Bitcoin blockchain. The so-called “soft-fork” alternation implies a strengthening of consensus rules where old nodes “still see the chain advance.” The research also represents a definition of “forwards compatible soft-fork,” for which non-upgraded nodes still receive and process all transactions.
In his presentation, Friedenbach emphasized the role of sharding...
Philippines deports $33 million Bitcoin pyramid scheme mastermind
The Bureau of Immigration of the Philippines had ordered the deportation of a South Korean national who is wanted in South Korea over his involvement in a bitcoin pyramid scheme.
Identified as Go Yongsung, the South Korean was arrested in the city of Las Pinas. According to Jaime Morente, a Bureau of Immigration Commissioner, the arrest was conducted by the Fugitive Search Unit of the government agency. A warrant had already been issued by a district court in South Korea for his arrest prior to his capture, according to Manila Bulletin.
Per documents obtained from the authorities, Go and other accomplices defrauded South Koreans of over US$33 million by promising huge returns if they invested in bitcoin between December 2015 and June 2016. According to the authorities Go, who is 48, used a firm which was operating in Pasay City as a front in his fraudulent scheme.
Crackdown on Fugitives of Justice
After the arrest, Morente warned that the bureau would not relent in its efforts to ensure criminals faced justice regardless of which jurisdiction they committed their crimes...
Coinbase Rolls Out System to Addressing Bitcoin Payments
With transaction fees "volatile and unpredictable," sending cryptocurrencies can sometimes be frustrating.
So says U.S.-based crypto exchange Coinbase in a new blog post that sets out the issues rising from shifting miner fees, and exactly what it has been doing to address the problem.
As most who have sent or received bitcoin will know, the primary problem is that the fee variations can mean significant changes in the amount of time it takes for transactions to be confirmed. Coinbase says this wastes company time in pointless support requests and provides users with a "frustrating experience."
The reason fees rise and fall so readily is that rather than clawing back transaction costs via a percentage – as card firms like Visa and Mastercard do – bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies pay miners a fee to confirm transactions. And that's based on a model not dissimilar to bidding at an auction.
At times when the bitcoin network is busiest, miners have a queue of transactions to process and these are prioritized by dealing with the transactions offering the highest fee first.
But the method can cause lengthy delays before transactions are confirmed and the funds have "arrived." It can also cause spiking fees...
Bitmain Acquires Bitcoin Cash Wallet
Open source browser-based cryptocurrency wallet Telescope has officially announced its acquisition by Bitmain Technologies Inc., the world’s largest crypto mining rig manufacturer, which also runs one of the world’s most extensive cryptocurrency mining pools. The move comes at an important time for Bitmain, which is increasing its involvement in the bitcoin cash space as it continues to reinvent itself as more than just an ASIC maker ahead of its planned mega-IPO in Hong Kong.
Telescope is a browser-embedded cryptocurrency wallet that currently allows users of Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox to send and receive BCH through a browser extension. Set up earlier in 2018 by former IBM software engineer Aaron Angert, Telescope also offers support for BitPay and MoneyButton. While it is currently optimized for Chrome and Firefox, the plan is for the application to eventually offer full support for other leading browsers as the project grows.
Telescope transaction keys are saved in the application’s browser extension, and then transactions are signed by the user’s browser directly and sent to a BCH block explorer....
Square Wins Patent for Cryptocurrency Payment Network
Digital payments firm Square has won a patent for a payment network that allows merchants to accept payments in any currency, including bitcoin or another cryptocurrency.
Square Wins Patent for Crypto Payment Network
Public documents published on Aug. 21 show that the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) has approved Square’s application to patent a system that allows merchants to accept cryptocurrencies alongside conventional payment methods and cash out in their currency of choice. The San Francisco-based firm first filed for the patent in Sept. 2017.
From the patent:
“The disclosed technology addresses the need in the art for a payment service capable of accepting a greater diversity of currencies…including virtual currencies including cryptocurrencies (bitcoin, ether, etc.)…than a traditional payment system in a transaction between a customer and a merchant, and specifically for a payment service to solve or ameliorate problems germane to transactions with such currencies. Specifically, the payment service described herein can facilitate real-time (or substantially real-time) transactions, allowing a customer to pay in any currency of their choice, while the merchant can receive payment in a currency of their choice.”
Square would not be the first payment processor to allow merchants to accept payments in cryptocurrency that are automatically converted into local currency. BitPay, for instance, has been processing bitcoin payments since 2011.
However, Square already has tremendous market penetration, so adding cryptocurrency payments to its present POS system would allow millions of merchants to accept bitcoin without having to onboard to another payment processor or manually convert cryptocurrency funds into fiat.
Eliminating Bitcoin Transaction Latency
Notably, the patent also details a...
EVENT: Join @Blockchain_Conf for Blockchain & Bitcoin Conference Stockholm #BBConfSTO
Blockchain & Bitcoin Conference Stockholm is a part of the series of Blockchain World Events held in 25 countries. The organizer is Smile-Expo International Company.
Working hours of the Conference: 9:00-10:00 – Registration. 10:00-18:00 – Conference.
Telegram Channel
Facebook Page
Twitter @Blockchain_Conf
Join the conference hashtag conversation on Tweetchat and #BBConfSTO the community stream
The annual blockchain conference in Stockholm, which brings together the world’s leading crypto experts.
We focus on Sweden and foreign projects implementing Blockchain and cryptocurrencies. Experts share their experience of implementing Blockchain in governmental institutions (Govtech), the banking system, trading, media, healthcare and other spheres. We discuss all the aspects of creating innovative IT products – from the emergence of an idea to entering the market.
Event goals: bringing together the international business community in order to share their experience of integrating blockchain and cryptocurrencies; discussing blockchain industry issues and finding ways to solve them; encouraging a balanced growth of the cryptocurrency market.
Conference topics:
• blockchain in various sectors: energy industry, real property, newsmaking etc.;
• legal regulation of the blockchain sector;
• token models and their application;
• ICO regulation.
For whom: investors, businesspeople, lawyers, startup founders, and those aiming to launch a token sale.
Why: to receive full information with case studies about the blockchain application, to discover how to comply with the legal norms in the blockchain industry, to find business partners, and to enhance your brand awareness.
Speakers: world-renowned blockchain experts, including government officials, foreign investors, entrepreneurs, lawyers, and developers.
Key speakers:
- Mathias Sundin, Member of Parliament in the Tax Committee and the Finance Committee
- Tanja BivicPlankar, President of Blockchain Alliance Europe
- Dr Guenther Dobrauz, Partner & Leader PwC Legal Switzerland
- Merete Salmeling, Head of Digital and Innovation at Landshypotek Bank
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DR. Shahid Raza, Director of Security Lab at RISE SICS
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Christian Lunden, Director of Future Business at Nordic Choice Hotels
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Walid Al-Saqaf, Senior Lecturer at Södertörn University in media technology, journalism, Internet & blockchain research
The Intercontinental Exchange
The Intercontinental Exchange, the parent corporation of the New York Stock Exchange, has announced a new platform, Bakkt, which will list a physically settled one day bitcoin futures product.
ICE will serve as the custodian for all assets stored on the Bakkt platform, in the expectation that institutional investors (pension funds, endowments, insurers) will be less hesitant, given this unimpeachable custodianship, to place a bet on an asset class of which they otherwise might still be wary.
This could be a very big step in the mainstreaming of Bitcoin. Bakkt will “seek to develop open technology to connect existing market and merchant infrastructure to the blockchain.”
Kelly Loeffler, the CEO of Bakkt, has been the chief communications officer of ICE for 18 years, and before that -- at the turn of the millennium -- she was an equity research associate at William Blair.
Winklevoss Loss at the SEC
The US Securities and Exchange Commission issued its disapproval of proposed rule changes that would have allowed the listing and trading of the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust on the Bats BZX Exchange. The “Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust,” as its name might suggest, is the creation of Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, notorious figures in the prehistory of Facebook, and ubiquitous figures in the world of Bitcoin.
Technically the SEC decision on Thursday reaffirmed an earlier Disapproval Order, in March of this year. Bats BZX had petitioned for review of that disapproval order, and the SEC gave it a full-dress second look, a de novo review, giving “careful consideration to the entire record, including … all comments and statements submitted by BZX and other parties,” only to decide that the agency had gotten things right the first time.
The decision was not a unanimous one. Commissioner Hester Peirce dissented. The significance of the defeat of this proposal in the bigger picture of cryptocurrency history may be the extent to which her dissent throws light upon her thinking on the broad subject: she is the newest Commissioner, having just been confirmed in December 2017.
The Yuan Now Accounts for Less than 1% of Bitcoin Transactions
China’s comprehensive ban on cryptocurrency trading has had its desired effect: the yuan renminbi now accounts for less than 1% of global bitcoin transactions.
Yuan Transactions Down
Once the dominant quote currency for bitcoin, the yuan is no longer being used to facilitate fiat-to-crypto trades, according to new data from the People’s Bank of China (PBOC). The central bank disclosed the data Friday through the state-run Xinhua news agency, which showed that the yuan accounts for less than 1% of bitcoin trades from a peak of more than 90%.
Last September, China’s central bank issued a blanket ban on domestic cryptocurrency exchanges and announced a zero-tolerance policy for initial coin offerings (ICOs). Over the past ten months, regulators have also stepped up efforts to limit access to foreign digital currency exchanges.
The PBOC says it has ensured a zero-risk exit for 88 cryptocurrency exchanges and 85 ICO trading platforms, according to Xinhua.
A blockchain analyst by the name of Zhang Yifeng believes that China’s ban had a positive impact on price volatility:
“The timely moves by regulators effectively fended off the impact of sharp ups and downs in virtual currency prices and led the global regulatory trend,” Zhang said, as quoted by Xinhua.
Though...