Internet

Coronavirus & Bitcoin Price: Is China Losing Its BTC Mining Monopoly?

This week the price of Bitcoin (BTC) surged more than 15%, reaching a high at $7,200 before pulling back into the $6,800 range. Despite the recovery, Bitcoin still has a way to go in order to reach the $8,000 level seen before the coronavirus-triggered selloff on March 12.Cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360The drop had several consequences on the Bitcoin network. Having reached the $3,800 price range, the accentuated drop forced some Bitcoin miners to throw in the towel and shut down their operations due to mining becoming unprofitable.As miners have

South African National Blockchain Alliance Holds Online Launch

The South African National Blockchain Alliance carried out an online livestream launch while the country is in the midst of a 21-day lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. The organization was due to be launched at the beginning of April in Johannesburg but had to be taken online as South Africa and the world tackles a global health crisis.The launch happened during a livestream on YouTube on April 3, which included a panel of speakers elaborating on how SANBA will help nurture blockchain-focused startups and companies that

Bithumb Global Launches Margin Trading for Bitcoin and Ether Pairs with Tether

Bithumb Global, the international platform of South Korea’s top crypto exchange, has rolled out margin trading with 5x leverage for Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) trading pairs with Tether (USDT).In an announcement published on April 2, the exchange revealed the service would be available on its website and app. It will, however, be restricted for traders living in jurisdictions where margin trading is prohibited or capped — as, for example, with Japan.  Leveraged trading gains traction in the industryMargin trading enables traders to use borrowed funds in order to increase their

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

Nodle Outgrows Stellar, Begins to Migrate to own Blockchain

Nodle Network, an IOTA (MIOTA) competitor, is in the process of migrating from Stellar (XLM) to its own blockchain network with the release of the Arcadia testnet.Nodle is a decentralized network provider that specializes in detecting and connecting the internet of things (IoT). It currently connects over five million active nodes with over 92 million detected devices. While Stellar has been able to handle Nodle’s heavy traffic of 1.3 million daily transactions to date, the company believes it needs to deploy its own blockchain to accommodate some of the advanced features

Remaining Anonymous: Which Crypto Privacy Solution Works Best?

The cryptocurrency industry was initially headlined as anonymous digital cash. While experts were keen to point out that this was not exactly the case, Bitcoin (BTC) found initial popularity in darknet markets such as Silk Road, where merchants sold illegal goods ranging from light drugs to, allegedly, hitman services. Founded in 2011, Silk Road thrived for the next two years until the Federal Bureau of Investigation shut it down in 2013. Authorities later revealed that completely free blockchain explorers aided their investigative efforts.Bitcoin’s transaction ledger is completely open for the

New Report links Satoshi Nakamoto with the Monero Whitepaper

The identity of Bitcoin creator (or creators) Satoshi Nakamoto is still one of the most highly debated questions in the crypto space today. However, a new research report is suggesting that the creator also developed another prominent digital asset. According to new research by Monero Outreach, the privacy-focused digital asset may also be the creator of Bitcoin. Using Monero to “Fix” BitcoinMonero was developed in 2014 as a means of addressing some of the privacy issues that Bitcoin had at the time. Up till today, the asset remains one of the most private digital

Brave Browser Gains 1M New Users in a Single Month

Open-source internet browser, Brave, tallied more than one million new users in March alone, a tweet from Brave’s head of marketing, Des Martin, detailed on April 1. Isolation has increased web trafficWith much of the world limiting their exposure to the coronavirus through self-imposed quarantine, web usership has undoubtedly increased.As a result, various internet-based services have hosted significantly greater demand for activities such as web browsing, gaming, and shopping, a March 20 Bloomberg article stated.  Brave sees increased attentionSome of this attention has been funneled toward Brave, as evidenced by its spike

Evolution of‘Payments’ Will Bolster Next-Generation Businesses

Humans have always been on a developmental journey. When we are born into thousands of years of inventions and improvements, it’s easy to take for granted what’s around us— as if they always existed. We seldom think about the changes it took to get to where we are.Take for example, the creation of language and how that opened up a new course in human history. How it led to communication, collaboration, communities and organizations. From there, people organized a set of doctrines and came up with story-telling, a precursor to

Bitcoin Codebase Preserved for 1,000 Years in Archive Under Arctic Ice

A snapshot of the Bitcoin codebase will be encoded onto film reels and stored for a thousand years under the arctic ice in Svalbard, Norway. The move is part of the GitHub Archive Program, with a mission to preserve open-source software, for future generations to learn about the culture of today.GitHub has partnered with institutions such as the Software Heritage Foundation, Arctic World Archive, and Oxford University’s Bodleian Library to ensure the long-term preservation of code, which could otherwise be abandoned, forgotten or lost.With the ephemeral nature of much of