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Why Chinese Miners Won’t Stage a 51% Attack on Bitcoin

China accounts for more than half of the world’s Bitcoin mining capacity but Jameson Lopp, the co-founder and CTO of Casa, has hosed down fears that Chinese miners are a threat to Bitcoin in a blog post on Aug. 9.Although many people have raised concerns over the concentration of such much hashpower being located in China, Loop pointed out that even in the event of a 51% attack on Bitcoin, attackers are limited in what they can actually do. He explained that attackers can't steal people's Bitcoin arbitrarily, nor change the consensus

Zoom Data Scandal Shows Blockchain May Be the Future of Communications

As people around the world started following shelter-in-place orders, popular video conferencing platform Zoom quickly gained new users, noting in a recent blog post that it had reached more than 200 million daily users last month, up from 10 million in December. From virtual conferences to online birthday parties, thousands of individuals have flocked to Zoom in an attempt to remain social at a time when social gatherings are banned.Yet, while Zoom may have seemed like the perfect alternative to in-person gatherings, a major security flaw has been lurking in

Bitcoin Spikes by 2x in 26 Days: What’s Actually Behind the Big Rally?

The Bitcoin (BTC) price has increased by two-fold in less than a month, surging from $3,600 to over $7,350. While traders believe a combination of many factors caused the upsurge, there are three main factors that likely contributed to it.The three factors are a significant surge in spot buys, a massively overextended plunge below $4,000, and the immediate recovery of BTC to major support levels.Factor 1: Bitcoin spot buys on the riseCoinbase, Kraken, Binance, Bitfinex and other spot exchanges saw a substantial spike in buy volume following the March 13

World Economic Forum Turns to Blockchain to Aid Global Supply Chain

On Monday, the World Economic Forum, or WEF, gave a statement that blockchain technology and digitization has the capacity to support the world’s supply lines and help it survive the COVID-19 crisis.Liao and Fan: Transparency Is KeyRebecca Liao, the Executive Vice President of the Skychain blockchain enterprise firm, and Ziyang Fan, the Head of Digital Trade at the WEF, co-wrote a blog post. This blog post stated that the COVID-19 pandemic has come to force a large number of companies to battle an unexpectedly delicate supply chain. Even so-called “Solid”

BitMEX Operator Gives $400K Sponsorship to Cybersecurity Nonprofit

HDR Global Trading, the operator of crypto exchange BitMEX, is giving a $400,000 grant to the cybersecurity nonprofit Shadowserver Foundation.In an April 6 statement on the company’s blog, HDR Global Trading announced that it would offer $400,000 to the organization over the next four years. The BitMEX operator will be acting as a member of the nonprofit’s new industry alliance for Internet security.Richard Perlotto, Shadowserver Director, thanked HDR for “their rapid response to our call for help” and emphasized the organization’s commitment to fighting cybercrime. The director is referring to

Notable Dark Web Marketplace Bans All COVID-19 Vaccine Sale 

In a rare move that has perhaps never been seen before, a marketplace on the dark web has banned the sale of a self-proclaimed vaccine for the coronavirus pandemic. According to a tweet from noted tech author Eileen Ormsby, Monopoly Market, a popular platform on the dark web, has banned the sale of purported vaccines for the coronavirus for Bitcoin.Darknet market Monopoly has taken a more responsible approach to touting #COVID19 "cures" on their #darkweb site pic.twitter.com/uWFLx75deQ— Eileen Ormsby (@EileenOrmsby) April 1, 2020Honor Among Criminals As the tweet showed, the market’s administrator pointed

Factom Facing Liquidation After Creditor Refuses Request for Funding

After failing to source additional funding, blockchain company Factom has begun the process of being liquidated. In an April 2 notice to investors, Factom’s largest investor FastForward announced the “dissolution event”: "The Company has been notified by the directors of Factom that in a board meeting on 31 March 2020 they concluded that, in the absence of further funding, they now needed to begin the process of assignment of assets for the benefit of creditors.”Citing their failure to secure additional funding, FastForward declared Factom would now enter receivership. As Factom’s largest creditor,

Crypto Rating Council Reveals New Cryptocurrency Scores for Brave and Other Assets

The Crypto Rating Council (CRC) is changing up some of its scores. In fact, it’s adding three whole new ones on top of adjusting some previous ones as well.These three brand new scores are for Brave Browser’s Basic Attention Token (BAT), USDCoin (USDC), and IOTA (IOTA), a blog report from the council notes.Of course, these assets are “traded, transacted or supported in some capacity as a non-security by at least one CRC member’s U.S. business,” which is part of the criteria for listing them.Then, it changed the scores it has

Coinbase-Backed Crypto Rating Council Lists IOTA, BAT, and USDC

The question of whether certain cryptocurrencies constitute securities is becoming increasingly relevant within the blockchain industry. As such, some core players in the space are upping their efforts to bring more understanding to the issue.The Crypto Rating Council, or CRC, is a group of major United States’ crypto firms that advocates and promotes regulatory clarity in crypto. Recently, the CRC evaluated a number of new cryptocurrencies to determine whether they should show signs of being securities.Three new tokens are analyzedIn an April 2 blog post, the CRC published an introduction

Google Chrome Leads the Pack, but Privacy-Oriented Browsers Gain Traction

In recent months, big-name players like Google and Apple have been going the extra mile to showcase their privacy features to the world. However, as most people are now aware, these multinational companies have business models that are centered around collecting and aggregating the data of their customers. In this regard, growing interest in privacy-first browsers like Brave clearly suggests a collective increase in internet users’ concern over how their personal information is being accumulated, stored and utilized on a day-to-day basis.Individuals all over the globe have become so accustomed to

Is Blockchain Necessary? An Unbiased Perspective

Yes, that’s the question we are asking today. Is blockchain technology necessary? The answer is tricky. To arrive at the conclusion takes an unbiased perspective. Bankers and people in the stock market will tell you that it’s the epitome of evil. Blockchain engineers and enthusiasts will tell you it’s the future of the world. The government, as usual, will be indecisive.Both are overly eager in their opinions, and both are unfortunately wrong. Blockchain is wonderful and revolutionary, no doubt there. But it has some very serious cons that are underplayed

What to Expect When You’re Expecting… the Bitcoin Block Halving

Many industry experts hold varied expectations for Bitcoin’s price following the block reward halving in May, proving 2020 is anything but mundane. “On both prior occasions, Bitcoin surged to a new all-time high within 12 months, with the latest coming in December 2017 when the price reached about $20,000, which was followed by a massive decline,” Bill Herrmann, CEO of alternative investment banking firm, Wilshire Phoenix, told Cointelegraph in an email on March 10. Herrmann also pointed out that Bitcoin’s market has matured compared to past years, noting that information available to