Day: May 11, 2018

The current cryptocurrency market situation looks far from promising. That is not entirely surprising, as a declining Bitcoin price always drags alternative currencies with it sooner or later. The EOS, price, for example, is getting battered quite badly as of right now. A 20% overnight decline is not something to be excited about under any circumstance.

EOS Price Drops Hard

It was to be expected the EOS price would see some sort of a correction in the future. After its stellar rise from $6 all the way to over $18, it quickly became evident this growth could not be sustained. Either the EOS price would correct itself, or the entire cryptocurrency market would face a major setback. Unfortunately, it resulted in the latter development, which doesn’t bode too well for any cryptocurrency.

With the EOS price losing 14.08% over the past 24 hours, it is evident the correction will be another steep one. Albeit this is nothing new in the world of cryptocurrency, it does show these markets will remain volatile for quite some time to come. The EOS price is now trying to hold on to the $13 level, but that may not necessarily be a feasible outcome, all things considered.

As one would expect from such steep declines, EOS has lost value against both Bitcoin and Ethereum in rather spectacular fashion. With a 11.76% decline over Ether and a 14.6% setback against Bitcoin, things are not looking promising by any means. It is certainly possible the markets will rebound very soon, but it remains to be seen how that will impact the EOS price in general.

Even though EOS still has a high amount of trading volume, it is pretty clear the bears are in full control of this particular altcoin market. With $3.381bn in 24-hour trading volume, a lot of people are intent on buying and selling EOS, although the sell orders are stacking up rather quickly at this stage. If this trend keeps up, the EOS price will not remain above $13 for much longer.

The way things stand right now, EOS trading volume is mainly originating from South Korea. This is nothing new in the world f cryptocurrency, as exchanges in that neck of the woods tend to generate a high amount of trading volume virtually every other day. In this case, Bithumb and Upbit are in firm control of the market, followed by Bitfinex, Huobi, and OKEx. Three fiat currency pairs in the top five isn’t bad, even though very little of it results in buy support.

For the time being it seems evident the carnage in the cryptocurrency world will continue unabated. With the potentially fake news coming out of South Korea, a lot of people are spooked and concerned about what the future will hold. Surprisingly, it seems the real damage remains somewhat contained, minus some exceptions such as EOS. An interesting weekend lies ahead, yet it is pertinent to keep the bigger picture in mind at all times.

The following opinion piece was written by Jonald Fyookball.

In parts 1 and 2 of How Bitcoin Cash …, we uncovered the important principles of community education and clarity. Now it is time to turn our attention to one of the most obvious things that went wrong in BTC — the centralization of protocol development.

Also read:  How Bitcoin Cash Can Avoid the Same Mistakes as Bitcoin Core, Part 2

How Bitcoin Cash Can Avoid Centralization

Decentralization comes in many forms: decentralization of nodes, mining pools, wealth, and so on. One thing that was overlooked for a long time in Bitcoin BTC was that while many things were well distributed, there was only one main group of developers (Bitcoin Core).

Decentralized Development
Most of the BCH community is now well aware of this folly, and that is why we seek to have multiple independent teams of developers along with multiple full node implementations.

Miners need established, robust software they can rely on, and its important to have several choices; otherwise it means that a single group of developers essentially controls the protocol.

Entrenchment of “The Reference Implementation”
Bitcoin Core became entrenched as “the” Bitcoin software, which led to stagnation. Although there were already several different implementations, the dominance of Bitcoin Core has been overwhelming.

Technically, it’s hash power that matters, not how many different nodes are running a certain software… But given the totally lopsided distribution, it was clear that anyone running a different version from Core would be a tiny minority. That means Bitcoin Core calls all the shots as far as BTC protocol rules.

BCH is Doing Better Already
We’re heading in the right direction but we’re not out of the woods yet. One interesting phenomenon is that the current level of BCH development decentralization is often either underestimated or overestimated.

On one extreme, some believe development is fully decentralized (since there’s, what, 6 node implementations now?). By contrast, others see the leading team (Bitcoin ABC) as having become the next reference implementation.

The truth is somewhere in the middle. Bitcoin ABC runs around 60–70% of the BCH nodes and Bitcoin Unlimited runs about a third of them. Essentially, instead of one main implementation, there’s now two.

Maybe that sounds a bit disappointing, but that’s twice as many as BTC.

Meritocracy

A meritocracy is defined as “the holding of power by people selected on the basis of their ability.”

There’s often a misguided notion that the main development groups in BCH should have magically have equal influence, rather than acknowledging that influence must be earned.

Those fearful of ABC having too much power might not understand this principle, or more likely, they haven’t seen all that ABC has accomplished to earn what is currently a majority “market share”.

The fact of the matter is that Bitcoin ABC has been the best in class when it comes to leading protocol development, producing timely releases of solid code, and solving problems.

To be specific, it was Bitcoin ABC that created the first node software for Bitcoin Cash, and spearheaded both hard fork upgrades along with the Cashaddr addresses.

Healthy Competition is the Way Forward
This is not to say that Bitcoin Cash wouldn’t benefit from an even more disbursed landscape, with several of the smaller implementations gaining more market share and influence.

Instead of the misplaced idea that ABC should be reigned in, other teams should catch up to ABC by competing. That means they need to do as good a job as ABC has done at leading protocol development and delivering reliable software that serves the community.

While its good to have a healthy fear of avoiding another “Core”, Bitcoin ABC actually has been extremely inclusive toward other teams. ABC organizes meetings with other BCH devs (both online and in real life), has created open work groups for various Bitcoin related topics, has invited developers from other groups into their private discussion channels, and has even written code for other teams.

It feels that we’re on the right track with decentralizing protocol development, and I expect it will continue to improve over time.

In the upcoming conclusion (Part 4), we’ll take a look at mining, development funding, and some big picture solutions.

Written by Jonald Fyookball
Jonald Fyookball (pseudonym) is a cryptocurrency enthusiast, best known as the project leader of the Electron Cash wallet, and for a series of hard hitting articles on the Bitcoin scaling debate. Jonald is a computer scientist, businessman, investor, libertarian, and Bitcoin advocate.

What are your thoughts on educating the BCH community? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

Do you agree with us that Bitcoin is the best invention since sliced bread? Thought so. That’s why we are building this online universe revolving around anything and everything Bitcoin. We have a store. And a forum. And a casino, a pool and real-time price statistics.

This is an Op-ed article. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own. Bitcoin.com does not endorse nor support views, opinions or conclusions drawn in this post. Bitcoin.com is not responsible for or liable for any content, accuracy or quality within the Op-ed article. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the content. Bitcoin.com is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any information in this Op-ed article.

The post How Bitcoin Cash Can Avoid the Same Mistakes as Bitcoin Core, Part 3 appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Undoubtedly, the crypto market is fighting from an on-slaughter. Bears are baying for blood! Despite their May 15 hard fork, Bitcoin Cash isn’t finding any reprieve and so far it is down 20 percent week over week. In the last 24 hours alone, price erosion exceeds 15 percent. It might be a correction yes, but at the moment it a beautiful Picasso showing how Bitcoin Cash sellers are marauding, staking any attempts of bull pressure.

From the News

Roger Ver, the Crypto evangelist many Bitcoin Core supporters love to hate won’t stop pitching his beloved coin. He still insists that it’s a better currency and therefore a better store of value that Bitcoin Core. Now, if you have been tracking this guy for sometimes then you will realize that this is the umpteenth time he his saying so. Will repetition come to pass someday? Well, maybe, maybe not. What we know for sure is that Bitcoin Cash shall be forking once more.

However, this time since it shall be done at MTP time, there is no need to track block height. We anticipate this upgrade to take place on Tuesday, May 15 and there, the block size would be hiked to 32 MB from 8MB making it that largest ever block size increment in the world. Besides, their protocol data carrier sizes shall be increased to 220 bytes.

If you are a Bitcoin Cash full node or miner, please update, if not then you better stay on the side line and watch. Before the fork begins, full nodes should upgrade their clients to the 32 MB supporting Bitcoin ABC 0.17.1 version.

So, while speculations are rife that this upgrade shall increase Bitcoin Cash transaction throughput and fees, will this boost prices after the fork? Or, will it even be successful in the first place regardless of Bitcoin Cash staunch following in Korea and Japan? Let’s wait and see!

Bitcoin Cash (BCHUSD) Technical Analysis

Weekly Chart

Bitcoin Cash Weekly Chart by Trading View

Unless a miracle happen, Bitcoin Cash shall end up with a conspicuous double bar bear reversal pattern right at the middle BB, a resistance line. That’s a fact! So, despite that stochastic buy signal turning from deep the oversold territory, the general sentiment is bearish.

Bitcoin Cash prices are down 18 percent in the last 24 hours and 20 percent in the last 7 days effectively reversing week ending May 7 gains. At this rate, we shall be aiming for take profit targets at $1000 and $800. Many didn’t expect this to happen and advised by this, we shall be looking for sells in lower time frames.

Daily Chart

Bitcoin Cash Daily Chart by Trading View

Like the weekly chart, the depreciation is real but not as wholesome. Bears are stepping on the gas and the result has been that clear break below the middle BB. Inevitably, this means sellers are in charge and it means we shall be trading a bearish break out pattern.

So, building on to the bearish engulfing pattern we are seeing in the weekly chart, immediate targets is at $1200, there we might see a reaction and a bounce back to $1400 or so before bears resume their pressure with targets we mentioned earlier.

The post (Despite the Hard Fork and Historic Block Size increase, Bitcoin Cash is Spineless and dropping Like a Stone) Bitcoin Cash (BCH) Technical Analysis: May 12, 2018 appeared first on NewsBTC.

Following a study on blockchain adoption in Irish enterprises, researchers call on the government for a broader adoption initiative

This week a Bitcoin Cash organization was founded called the Cash Consortium (C2) that aims to be a technical group framed off of the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) open standards. C2 is an international community that intends to bolster open standard development in order to provide long-term Bitcoin Cash growth.

Also read: Upgrade Time: Bitcoin Cash 32MB Fork Activates Tuesday

The Cash Consortium: Open Standards for Bitcoin Cash

Much of the cryptocurrency community understands what open source or open standard development is, and most of them embrace the idea. Furthermore, organizations like the W3C and other believers of open standards welcome the sharing of open sourced code that allows anyone the rights to study, change, and distribute OSS protocol for any purpose. Open standards also allows other developers to review a protocol’s design in order to prevent flaws and bugs within the software by coming up with sets of development standards that everyone agrees to and uses. The Cash Consortium will have engineers from leading companies to work together to build Bitcoin Cash (BCH) development standards much like how developers build on the open web with shared concepts like HTML.

“The C2’s mission is to lead Bitcoin Cash to its full potential by developing protocols and guidelines that ensure the long-term growth of the blockchain,” explains the C2 website.

Bitcoin Cash is the soundest money the world has ever known. It has scarcity, fungibility, divisibility, durability and transferability. It’s our intention that it remain the soundest money the world has ever known — Bitcoin Cash enables smart contracts/property, colored coins, tokens, ICOs and much more. We intend to standardize these emerging technologies in a way that plays to Bitcoin Cash’s strengths.

A Formal Bitcoin Standards Body

At the moment organizations that are listed as members of C2 include Cointext, Atlantis Labs, Akari Global Foundation, the Bitcoin Cash Fund, Bitbox, Blockpress, Centbee, and the social network Yours. Last night news.Bitcoin.com spoke with the creator of the Cash Consortium, Carlos Cardona, who is also the lead developer of Bitbox, the open source development toolkit for Bitcoin Cash. Cardona tells us he is a firm believer in open standards and explains why he initiated the C2 organization.  

“When I was in college I was a member of the W3C’s HTML5 Working Group. There were engineers from Apple, Google (who I was with), Microsoft, Firefox and many more meeting up regularly in working groups to flesh out the next generation of technical specs for the web (HTML/CSS etc),” Cardona tells news.Bitcoin.com. “When the spec was nearing completion the teams would each implement it. Some open source like Firefox. Some closed source like Internet Explorer. But both implementing technical specs which were created together.”

When I joined the blockchain space several years ago it surprised me that there was no formal Bitcoin standards body. 

Huge Forces at Play Are About to Phase the Blockchain Industry

Then Cardona says he started thinking about the upcoming Bitcoin Cash upgrade that will not only increase the block size by 4X but the fork will also add Satoshi OP_Codes that can enable the ability to create color coins and smart contract features on the BCH network.  

“With the new OP_Codes coming I had recently been thinking again about how to best standardize on new transaction types and then Memo/Blockpress happened,” Cardona emphasizes. “Having recently updated Bitbox’s block explorer to support both Memo and Blockpress I was struck with the same feeling I had during IE6/FF days — writing code twice with slightly different APIs because there was no standard. With OP_RETURN going from 80 bytes to 220 bytes we’re just seeing the start of OP_RETURN prefixed protocols — That got me thinking again about a standards body.”

In my opinion our industry spent many years fighting the Blockstream wars and became complacent — Things which I would expect in any other nearly decade old tech industry (such as a tech consortium) doesn’t exist in our space. The final part which caused me to move on it was when I found out Zuckerberg created a blockchain division last week. To me that is just a sign that HUGE forces are at play which are about to phase shift our entire industry.

Cardona Believes the Opportunity to Move Quick and be Proactive is Now

The C2 website explains that if you work with a company that develops with Bitcoin Cash then they can feel free to fork this repo or reach out to Cardona to see how you can get involved.  

“I believe we have the opportunity to move quick, be proactive, build bridges and standardize or some much larger player will step in an do it for us,” Cardona adds.

What do you think about the Cash Consortium (C2)? Do you think its a good idea for BCH developers to initiate open standards for protocol and application development? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments below.

Images via Bitcoincash.org, Pixabay, The Cash Consortium, and Open Stand logos. 

Get our news feed on your site. Check our widget services.

The post The Cash Consortium Launches Open Standard Initiative for Bitcoin Cash appeared first on Bitcoin News.

It’s been a big week for institutional interest in crypto, bitcoin in particular. There has been a build-up of talk around Wall Street firms for months showing cursory interest in blockchain technology, but recently this interest is becoming explicit and the managerial announcements more specific.

It’s been a big week for institutional interest in crypto, bitcoin in particular. There has been a build-up of talk around Wall Street firms for months showing cursory interest in blockchain technology, but recently this interest is becoming explicit and the managerial announcements more specific.

The Supreme Court of India declined to grant an interim injunction against the Royal Bank of India order suspending banking services to crypto businesses

The first version of the much-anticipated Casper update has been released — representing a critical step forward for Ethereum’s transition from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS).

Don’t miss the latest price overview 😉

It’s a story straight out of cinematic lines: whale cryptocurrency investor rakes in mounds of money, and reaching a “satiety point” decides to give a healthy portion of it to worthy charities. And add to that the spectre of remaining anonymous, the ecosystem, beset by dreams of easy fortunes and Lambos and glory, was given a real-world object lesson in five short months. Health care, water potability, education, digital rights advocates, among many others, all felt the power and generosity of crypto. This week, Pineapple Fund announced its final donation.

Also read: Ethereum Founder Responds to Charges of “Insane”, “Plutocratic” Governance

Pineapple Fund Issues its Final Donation

In a subreddit post this week, Pineapple Fund’s anonymous benefactor wrote, “It’s been five months, and having just made my last PF donation to the Internet Archive, I figure it might be a good time to say farewell.” Pine, as the anonymous poster goes by, continued by thanking the broader community for offering worthy organization suggestions, and also thanked “the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency community, for turning a Sourceforge project into a $0.5T industry.”

The fund burst upon the crypto community mid-December of last year, right at the height of bitcoin core’s (BTC) price spike. “The anonymous donor says he saw the promise of bitcoin long before it broke the single-digit price range. The donor explains the ‘shattering returns’ of bitcoin over the years has given him more money than he can spend,” these pages documented at the time.

Donations ranged between $50,000 to $5,000,000. Around since the mid 1980s, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) researches and educates about “the medical, legal, and cultural contexts for people to benefit from the careful uses of psychedelics and marijuana.” It was one of the organizations deemed worthy of a $5mil gift from the fund.

Give Directly, a group facilitating the ability to send money directly to the extreme poor, also landed among $5mil donations. It claims to distribute 88 percent of each dollar to those in need. Roughly $1,000 is sent to well vetted recipients who often use what is the equivalent in about a year’s wages for essential housing materials.

A Strong Legacy

The final recipient of $5mil was the Open Medicine Foundation (OMF). It’s goal is to both fund and initiate collaborative and groundbreaking research into chronic complex diseases, focusing upon the End ME/CFS Project, designed to find biomarkers and effective treatments for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

“I kind of miss the old times when bitcoin was a small community,” Pine wrote, “and you could count the number of ‘altcoins’ with one hand. Finding someone else who even knows about bitcoin was incredibly rare, and exchanges were semi-automated or running on PHP.”

Community response was effusive with praise such as, “Thank you for doing what so many wish they would do in your position but yet fail to when they get there. Really proud of you and appreciative of your generosity,” one commenter wrote. Still another insisted, “This kind of generosity will indirectly impact so many peoples’ lives for the better. Thank you!”

Other commenters held onto the idea of Pine returning at some point should the market tick back up again, and prices moon. “Thanks for following along with this experiment. I’m going to say goodbye now, but maybe there’s room for dessert in a few years,” Pine teased. “If you’re ever blessed with crypto fortune, consider supporting what you aspire our world to be. :)” Of course, others are currently involved in charitable, real-world work, such as Eat BCH. The group doesn’t enjoy the financing of a whale, and yet it provides food relief for countries such as Venezuela, which has suffered greatly in a giant economic downturn.

Is charity an important way to promote crypto? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Pineapple Fund.

Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section.

The post Bitcoin’s Anonymous $55 Million Pineapple Fund Gives Final Donation appeared first on Bitcoin News.