Day: July 22, 2017

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Taking Bitcoin to the next level is not an easy task. First of all, we need to solve the scaling issues. It appears that is only a matter of time now, thanks to BIP91 being locked in. The next step comes in the form of introducing faster and cheaper payments, particularly through the Lightning Network. Now is a good time to take a closer look at the Lightning Network Daemon also known as LND. This software is still in the early testing phase.

Why the Lightning Network Daemon Matters

It is good to see developers working on a solution to introduce Bitcoin users to the Lightning Network. So far, this can only be done through the test net and some fidgeting. There is no convenient way to interact with this technology. However, the Lightning Network Daemon has the power to change all of that, even though it is still only in alpha testing right now, which was released back in January of 2017.

The Lightning Network Daemon is a major milestone for the Lightning network as a technology. Most people know what this concept is all about and how it can affect Bitcoin. LND is now the most feature-complete implementation of this technology and can easily be tested by both developers and coding enthusiasts. Anyone can download the client from the official GitHub repo and experiment with what it has to offer. The feedback has been positive, but there is still a lot of room for improvement.

People experimenting with the Lightning Network Daemon can open payment channels with peers, maintain a validated channel graph, passively forward incoming payments, and much more. It provides all of the functionality of the Lightning Network in its current form.  This client is entirely based on the Go language, which is a relative new and allows for building efficient software in a convenient way.

LND requires btcd as its direct connection to the Bitcoin blockchain. The daemon needs to receive on-chain event information in some way, and using btcd is the most viable solution right now. The team is working on a lite client node for Bitcoin which will remove the need for btcd altogether. It is unclear if and when this lite client will be released, but it is good to know such a tool is under development.

The Lightning Network Daemon can be used for both test net and main net purposes. Having an option to conduct Bitcoin transactions over the Lightning network on the main net is a promising development. BitFury recently conducted such a successful test, indicating the Lightning Network can work with or without the activation of Segregated Witness on the Bitcoin network.

It appears we will see SegWit activate on the network soon. The BIP91 lock-in period has been successful, although that does not mean activation is guaranteed. Even if SegWit is still not activated on the network in the future -although it seems highly unlikely- we can still experience Lightning Network transactions regardless. The future is looking very bright for Bitcoin.

Singapore, 22 July  2017 — Soarcoin is a cryptocurrency project  created under the Soar labs wing by Seth Lim and Neo WenYuan. Claim to be the most suitable remittance systems for unbanked developing countries to improve efficiency in payments and transactions. It is non-minable, highly secured and enables people from developing countries do transaction in just for a few seconds.

Our mission is to provide an opportunity for investors and early adopters to be part of a system that is decentralized, safe and fast. We would like to increase the usage of blockchain and promote the importance of having a supportive Fintech community in South East Asia.

“I’ve always find it a hassle to wait in a queue when at the cashier as payment in cash and credit cards are slow which creates a long queue therefore by using Soarcoin it would eliminate this problem as it takes seconds to do a secured transaction between the cashier and the user.” said Soar labs’s CEO Seth Lim. “Which means that the time of the transaction will be maximum parsimony to the few second ideally. For now we’re working to minimize this time as much as possible.”

Every user with a Soarcoin wallet plays an important role in processing transactions on the decentralized, peer-to-peer network.

“Soar was developed foremost for people, who have to make the international money transfer to developing countries which are officially unbanked”. Soarcoin is not just a coin, it’s a fully-fledged financial project with strong infrastructure. We understand that just implementing Soarcoin is not enough for developing countries to start accepting Soarcoin and other cryptocurrencies hence at the same time we will roll out our educational crypto program and E magazine which will explain people “What is Soarcoin” and “How to use it?”. – CTO Neo WenYuan

Recently, Soar labs invested US$5million for 49% of the issued capital of Byte Power Pty Ltd, a 100% fully owned subsidiary of Byte Power Group Ltd (ASX:BPG), to launch a cryptocurrency currency exchange in Australia. The investment consists of US$100,000 and the remaining US$4.9M investment being satisfied through the issue of 306,250,000 Soarcoin to Byte Power Pty Ltd (at a value of US1.6 cents per Soarcoin).

A partnership between Soar Labs and China E-commerce platform FTX Mall was also confirmed and would ensure that Soarcoin will be used in one of FTX Mall checkout payment option.

With a total supply of 5,000,000,000 coins, unlike traditional currencies such as USD where the governments control the money supply, Soarcoin has a fix amount hence as the demand for Soarcoin rises, the value of each coin will rise. Soarcoin will be used to pay for online services, products or even your next meal and can be exchanged with any cryptocurrency exchanges that we are listed on. To ensure this happens, we will establish a merchant pilot program with retailers across South East Asia who is open to blockchain technology and also focusing on mobile payments and debit card powered by Soarcoin.

Soarcoin provides a use case for storing and processing digital transactions in a secure and providing instant transfer of value anywhere in the world, with no borders or limits in a transparent way.

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of any The Merkle employees. This is not investment or trading advice, always do your own independent research.

It is evident cryptocurrency markets are showing healthy signs of recovery right now. More specifically, most of the major cryptocurrencies are in the green once again. There are three big exceptions, though, as neither Ethereum, Dash, nor XRP is doing all too well right now. Especially in the case of Ethereum, that is somewhat surprising. More specifically, the Ethereum price seems to struggle around the USS$225 mark.

Ethereum Hits a bit of a Slum Despite Bitcoin Gains

A few months ago, people were actively debating a concept known as the flippening. If such a trend were to ever materialize, the Ethereum market cap would overtake Bitcoin’s. While it is true Ethereum has seen a significant growth during the first half of 2017, a lot of those gains have been wiped out in recent weeks. Even now that the markets are all somewhat recovering, Ethereum seems to struggle to break the US$225 mark.

To put this into perspective, Ethereum’s market cap will not overtake Bitcoin any time soon. Back when Ether hit US$400, many people assumed that would only be a matter of time. At one point, there was “only” US$8bn separating both market caps, which was a clear sign of both bullish momentum and foolish investments at the same time. After all, there are a few good reasons why Ethereum may eventually fail, even though die-hard community members will gladly tell you otherwise.

More specifically, Ethereum currently has a market cap of US$21bn. That is a more than respectable number, considering all of the negative pressure the market had to endure in recent weeks. Then again, it is also a long way from the US$37bn market cap Ethereum had around six weeks ago.  While it is true a lot of cryptocurrencies lost value in recent weeks, most of them have recovered quite well. Ethereum, on the other hand, is a bit behind the curve.

Granted, the price jump from around US$10 in early 2017 all the way to US$400 a few weeks ago could not carry on without a price correction. Anyone who thinks otherwise is misguided, to say the least. Ethereum has seen its correction in recent weeks, pushing the price to a slow as US$151 not too long ago. Such a steep correction is a tough pill to swallow for a lot of people, which is understandable. Then again, US$151 was still overpriced in some people’s minds.

Over the past week or so, we have seen a second lease on life for Ethereum and its Ether token. The price has started to rebound and is now hovering around the US$225 mark. It is a nice gain compared to US$151 just over a week ago, but it is nowhere close to US$400 either. Whether or not Ether will reach US$400 again, remains to be seen. One thing seems obvious right now, though: the currency will not be able to ride the coattails of Bitcoin price gains by any means. Ether lost nearly 4% in value against Bitcoin over the past 24 hours alone, indicating a flippening is very far away right now.

None of this means Ethereum will fail or how we don’t want the price to grow in the future, though. Now is the time for people to adjust their expectations of what this currency should be worth. With a market cap of US$21bn, Ethereum has come a lot further in just a few years than many people originally expected. There is no reason to get overzealous right now and expect spectacular things to just happen overnight. Ethereum is following its own path, which will be filled with ups and downs along the way. Bitcoin price gains will not automatically result in Ethereum price gains, that is the harsh reality speculators have to face right now.

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Traders and investors are coming back to Bitcoin due to the lock-in of BIP 91 and the high probability of Segregated WItness being activated in the near future.

There’s been a lot going on as far as development goes with the latest alternative clients and the Segwit2x plan also known as BTC1 on Github. One particular subject that came up on the BTC1 repository was the idea to incentivize the development community with time-locked bitcoins to smoothly activate a hard fork.

Also read: The Bitcoin Scaling Countdown: Miners Begin Running Segwit2x Software

Time-locked Incentive for a Bitcoin Hard Fork

The hard fork has gotten a bad name over time mostly because of the contentious fork that took place with the Ethereum network. Hard forks aren’t forward-compatible, which means that the entire ecosystem of miners, wallet providers, exchanges, and merchants need to upgrade to the new code. The Segwit2x plan aims to activate Segregated Witness (Segwit) and follow up with a hard fork a few months down the line.

This week Oleg Andreev, product architect of the blockchain network company Chain introduced Issue #72 to the Github repo called “Time-locked incentive for Bitcoin hard fork.” The scheme Andreev says is to incentivize the community with coins that cannot be spent for a period of time until after the completion of a successful hardfork. The idea comes at a time when Segwit2x offers a compromise of both Segwit and a 2MB hard fork, but the problem is some people think the second part of the agreement won’t be fulfilled.    

“It is well-known that cryptocurrency development can be incentivized by long-term time-locked coins,” explains Andreev. “Meaning, that the coins cannot be spent in the peak of a bubble, or right before a disaster that was not prevented or worked around. For instance, Greg Maxwell claims that Blockstream uses such scheme.”

What Are Time-locked Bitcoins?

Time-locked bitcoins cannot be spent until a specified time or block height by using a distributed contract recorded on the blockchain. Over the years there have been added improvements to this type of time-locking infrastructure with code development like Check-Lock-Time-Verify, Relative locktime, and Check-Sequence-Verify. Bitcoin luminary and author Andreas Antonopoulos discusses the subject of time-locked bitcoins in his book “Mastering Bitcoin: Programming the Open Blockchain.” Moreover, in 2016 Thomas McCabe gave instructions on how he successfully spent a time-locked bitcoin transaction.

“Bitcoin’s scripting language is very powerful, but access to resources with regards to learning how to build a script is scarce,” details McCabe.

‘Measuring the Amount of “Skin in the Game” to Gauge Responsibility’

Chain engineer Andreev believes this technology could smooth the process of completing a successful hard fork.

“Considering that any hard fork by definition carries an increased systemic risk: from producing chain splits inadvertently (due to overlooked software incompatibility), to splitting the market and shattering the faith in the technology and perspectives of our social experiment.”

It makes sense to introduce a special kind of time-locked incentives that get unlocked only on a hard-forked chain. Such incentives allow community to measure the amount of “skin in the game” to gauge the responsibility of the people behind a hard fork proposal.

Forward Compatibility

Andreev gives specifications to his idea, and a few other developers including Jeff Garzik thought the concept was interesting. Additionally, Andreev’s proposal offers forward compatibility and “the code is expected to be modified to preserve the spirit of the proposal for the future hard forks,” explains the developer. Adding an incentive to smoothly activate a fork or fund bitcoin development, in general, is a unique concept but it’s likely this plan won’t be included in the Segwit2x working group’s current roadmap. There are multiple comments and suggestions made by developers that won’t make the final cut including funny ones like finding the Mt Gox missing bitcoins.

What do you think about incentivizing hard forks with time locked bitcoins? Let us know in the comments below.

Images via Pixabay, Github, and Bitcoin.com. 

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The post How Time-locked Bitcoins Could Incentivize Smooth Hard Forks appeared first on Bitcoin News.