Month: November 2017

Expert Blog is Cointelegraph’s new series of articles by crypto industry leaders. It covers everything from Blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies to ICO regulation and investment analysis. If you want to become our guest author and get published on Cointelegraph, please send us an email at mike@cointelegraph.com. Since the beginning of 2017, Bitcoin price has increased sevenfold, with a few sharp drops and this volatility has given way to the development of Bitcoin options. Bitcoin options are not for the faint-hearted. Read more …

The price of ether, ethereum’s native token, is gaining altitude today. At press time, the ether-U.S. dollar (ETH/USD) exchange rate is at $322. As per CoinMarketCap, Ether has gained 6.8 percent in the last 24 hours. Week-on-week, the cryptocurrency is up 11.92 percent, while on a monthly basis, it is carrying 5.6 percent gain. The rise indicates that ether could be finally putting an end to a near three-week-long consolidation that saw prices restricted to a trading range of $280–$312. Read more …

Stock exchange Nasdaq vice chairman Bruce Aust has claimed that the initial coin offering (ICO) is still very immature as a funding method and that the stock exchange is still the best place for companies to raise money. He further stated that ICOs are still in their early stages and offer high risks to investors. In an interview with CNBC at the Web Summit tech conference that was held in Lisbon, Portugal in early November 2017, Aust argued that the Read more …

Governments are attempting to recreate the success of bitcoin and decentralized cryptocurrencies like Ethereum with the development of permissioned ledgers and state-owned digital currencies. Unfortunately, for governments, centralized cryptocurrencies and permissioned blockchain networks will not succeed and ever secure a fraction of bitcoin’s user base for a simple reason: the lack of decentralization and a peer-to-peer protocol. Myth of Blockchain Over the past 12 months, blockchain technology has been marketed as a magical technology behind bitcoin that allows any banking Read more …

News Reports of 2X’s death have been greatly exaggerated. That’s according to a statement issued by little-known mining group Bitpico. In a defiant message that appeared on a mailing list, Bitpico claimed to control 30% of the network hashrate and to be pressing ahead with the B2X fork regardless. Also read: Closing the Curtains On Segwit2x and the Following Aftermath The Zombie Fork That Just Won’t Die The message posted by Bitpico raised the prospect of Segwit2x Read more …

Bitcoin businesses are publicly stating their relief that SegWit2x is no more, while community comments lend weight to a resurgence conspiracy. As New York Agreement (NYA) heads confirmed SegWit2x was canceled, CEOs opposed to the hard fork hailed the start of a more constructive period for Bitcoin. “When 2x was called off, it became immediately clear there’s greater consensus for a single Bitcoin Blockchain, and therefore there is greater value retained in the bitcoin ecosystem,” Steemit CEO Ned Scott said Read more …

Some high-profile token issuers are feeling the effects of a vulnerability in an ethereum wallet software revealed this week. After a developer stumbled upon the bug – “accidentally” deleting a code library for the Parity wallet and freezing more than $152 million-worth of ether – several startups and open-source projects that recently launched initial coin offerings (ICOs) have come forward, stating that theirs are among the 151 addresses impacted by the software failure. As such, the development has put considerable attention Read more …

Bitcoin is feeling the pull of the gravity today. The world’s largest cryptocurrency rose to new record highs yesterday, rallying to $7,848.31 on CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index (BPI) before falling to a low of $7,058 today. As of writing, the bitcoin-US dollar (BTC/USD) exchange rate is trading at $7,253.50. BTC began losing altitude soon after the markets were alerted that a controversial software update, known as Segwit2x, had officially been suspended. The software, which would have required a fork of the Read more …

Reviews This week, Delhi Police accused two people of operating a drug ring, according to the Daily Mail India edition. Using the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, bitcoin, police were able to purchase 3,635 USD worth of illegal drugs on the dark web. It is claimed such an incident is “probably the first case in India.” Also read: Silk Road Secret Service Agent Sentenced – Again “A DJ, drugs and the Dark Web: Two held as Bitcoin trail Read more …

BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen has debuted his “solution” to Bitcoin which he says resolves “centralization problems” with the virtual currency. Speaking to TechCrunch Wednesday, Cohen explained his Chia Network would offer more reliable, eco-friendly mining and security measures. The developer has been famously critical of Bitcoin this year as the network suffers slow and expensive transaction processing. “The idea is to make a better Bitcoin, to fix the centralization problems,” Cohen told the publication. Employing a concept called proof-of-time, as Read more …

SimplyVital Health (SVH), the healthcare company streamlining medical data storage and sharing using blockchain technology, has announced a partnership with Hartford HealthCare Bone & Joint Institute at Hartford Hospital (BJI). Through its blockchain-based ConnectingCare platform, SVH will manage and analyze total hip and total knee joint replacement patients from first appointment to final treatment, helping to reduce costs and improve patient recovery. BJI is ahead of the game, preparing for excellence in orthopedic risk based contracts. Research found that orthopedic Read more …