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Category: Bitcoin Future

The U.S. Government Tried To Shut Down Bitcoin

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Bitcoin conspiracy theorists have long suspected the U.S. government, among others, would like to shut down bitcoin.

Bitcoin’s first decade has seen its price explode, making early adopters overnight millionaires, and prompting some of the world’s biggest technology companies to create their own versions of bitcoin.

Now, it’s been revealed federal prosecutor-turned bitcoin and cryptocurrency expert Katie Haun was asked to look into “shutting down” bitcoin by her boss at the U.S. attorney’s office in 2012.

“They said ‘we have this perfect assignment for you’–there’s this thing called bitcoin and we need to investigate it,” Haun told CNBC in a wide-ranging interview, adding a colleague asked her to take down bitcoin.

“That was the first time I’d ever heard of bitcoin.”

Over the next few years Haun would go on to sit on the board of U.S. bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and teach a class on cryptocurrency at Stanford Law School.

Today In: Money

Any serious attempt made by the U.S. Department of Justice to shut down bitcoin inevitably came to naught, with Haun saying, “it would have been akin to saying ‘let’s go prosecute cash.'”

Haun, who is now the first female general partner at U.S. venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and co-heads its $350 million cryptocurrency fund, has worked closely with social media giant Facebook in development of its troubled libra cryptocurrency project.

U.S. government opposition to bitcoin and cryptocurrencies has become far more transparent since Donald Trump entered the White House.

Earlier this year, U.S. president Trump sent shockwaves throughout the bitcoin and cryptocurrency industry when he tweeted a vicious attack on Facebook’s bitcoin rival plans, branding it and bitcoin “unregulated crypto assets.”

Others in the U.S. government were quick to tow the line, with U.S. Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin adding his voice to the assault on bitcoin, Facebook’s planned Libra crypto project, and other cryptocurrencies, warning they pose a “national security” risk to the country.

Elsewhere, Apple chief executive Tim Cook has warned companies against creating their own cryptocurrencies.

“What we heard with libra were the same criticisms [I’d first heard about bitcoin]” Haun said.

“They were just heightened and they got more attention because of the high-profile nature of the project and the fact that Facebook was involved. I think it would be a really dangerous thing, and frankly a dangerous precedent to start shutting down technology before it’s built.”

Facebook’s libra has been under fire over the last week, with internet payments company PayPal, one of the Libra Association’s founding members, suddenly pulling out of the group on Friday.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and chief executive, had hoped to work with global regulators to clear libra’s path to launch in June 2020 but appears to have underestimated the level of opposition to the scheme.

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Billy Bambrough

I am a journalist with significant experience covering technology, finance, economics, and business around the world. As the founding editor of Verdict.co.uk I reported on how technology is changing business, political trends, and the latest culture and lifestyle. I have covered the rise of bitcoin and cryptocurrency since 2012 and have charted its emergence as a niche technology into the greatest threat to the established financial system the world has ever seen and the most important new technology since the internet itself. I have worked and written for CityAM, the Financial Times, and the New Statesman, amongst others. Follow me on Twitter @billybambrough or email me on billyATbillybambrough.com. Disclosure: I occasionally hold some small amount of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Source: The U.S. Government Tried To Shut Down Bitcoin

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Bitcoin Warning As Serious Security Vulnerabilities Uncovered

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Bitcoin developers have been trying to make the world’s most popular cryptocurrency more useful for payments, with the somewhat controversial Lightning Network one of the most popular projects.

However, serious security vulnerabilities have this week been discovered on the bitcoin Lightning Network, which could result in users losing their funds if nodes are not upgraded.

“Security issues have been found in various Lightning projects which could cause loss of funds,” wrote software developer, Rusty Russell, who authored the majority part of bitcoin’s Lightning Network protocol specification, in a post shared via a Lightning Network mailing list. “Full details will be released in four weeks, please upgrade well before then.”

The specifics of the vulnerability will be disclosed on 27 September, a common software security practise to both prevent bug exploitation and give developers time to patch problems.

The vulnerability appears to be related to the lightning-ready bitcoin wallet Eclair, which Russell also advised users to update.

The Lightning Network, first proposed by Thaddeus Dryja and Joseph Poon in a 2015 white paper, creates a layer on top of the bitcoin blockchain, where transactions can be passed back and forth before being added to the underlying blockchain.

Today In: Money

This should mean bitcoin transaction speeds are increased while costs are significantly reduced.

There are now a few different Lightning-ready wallets available, as well as companies that are able to process them on behalf of merchants.

However, low user numbers mean bitcoin lightning nodes currently lose money when they process transactions, according to recent reports.

When sending a Lightning payment, two parties deposit the funds at one bitcoin address, a so-called channel, in which they can exchange funds a limitless number of times.

This maintains bitcoin’s security but means small, regular payments don’t need to be added to the underlying blockchain until the channel is closed.

Questions have been raised about what Lightning Network adoption will mean for the bitcoin price, with much of the price dependent on transaction fees picked up by miners.

Most are though confident that with increased bitcoin adoption the price will continue to rise.

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Billy Bambrough

I am a journalist with significant experience covering technology, finance, economics, and business around the world. As the founding editor of Verdict.co.uk I reported on how technology is changing business, political trends, and the latest culture and lifestyle. I have covered the rise of bitcoin and cryptocurrency since 2012 and have charted its emergence as a niche technology into the greatest threat to the established financial system the world has ever seen and the most important new technology since the internet itself. I have worked and written for CityAM, the Financial Times, and the New Statesman, amongst others. Follow me on Twitter @billybambrough or email me on billyATbillybambrough.com. Disclosure: I occasionally hold some small amount of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Source: Bitcoin Warning As Serious Security Vulnerabilities Uncovered

By Daniel Chechik, Ben Hayak, and Orit Kravitz Chechik A mysterious vulnerability from 2011 almost made the Bitcoin network collapse. Silk Road, MTGox, and potentially many more trading websites claim to be prone to “Transaction Malleability.” We will shed some light and show in practice how to exploit this vulnerability.

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‘Extreme’ Bitcoin Warning Spooks Crypto Market

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Bitcoin and cryptocurrency traders and investors are nervously watching prices after market sentiment appeared to take a turn for a worse, dropping to its lowest level since December 2018.

The bitcoin price has been hovering around $10,000 per bitcoin for a few weeks, with many hoping bitcoin was becoming a safe haven from turbulent markets.

Bitcoin and crypto investors are worried, however, with the Crypto Fear and Greed Index showing “extreme fear,” and earlier this week dropping to a 244-day low last seen when bitcoin crashed to around $3,000.

The fear index hit an all-time high in late June as excitement around Facebook’s plans for its bitcoin rival reached fever pitch but has since dived as regulators signal their dissatisfaction with the social media giant.

“The current regulatory roadblock on Facebook’s plans for its digital token has dimmed down investor sentiment for cryptocurrencies,” said Christel Quek, chief commercial officer at Bolt Global, a cryptocurrency wallet provider and entertainment company.

The fear index is currently showing a reading of 20, but earlier this week dropped as low as 11 after falling sharply throughout August.

Since the index hit its year-to-date lows, the bitcoin price has fallen a further 2%, while the overall cryptocurrency market has seen more than $30 billion wiped from it over the last week.

Meanwhile, the bitcoin price dropped below the psychological $10,000 per bitcoin mark this week, further worrying traders and investors.

Some in the bitcoin and cryptocurrency industry pointed out the wider cryptocurrency market has declined along with the bitcoin price.

“Bitcoin and major cryptocurrencies including litecoin, ethereum and Ripple’s XRP have declined [this week], weighed down by concerns of a slowing economy,” Quek added.

The fear index, created by website and software comparison company Alternative.me, calculates the index’s value daily on a scale of 0 to 100 using volatility, market volume, social media, survey, dominance, and trends. Zero means “extreme fear,” while 100 means “extreme greed.”

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Billy Bambrough

I am a journalist with significant experience covering technology, finance, economics, and business around the world. As the founding editor of Verdict.co.uk I reported on how technology is changing business, political trends, and the latest culture and lifestyle. I have covered the rise of bitcoin and cryptocurrency since 2012 and have charted its emergence as a niche technology into the greatest threat to the established financial system the world has ever seen and the most important new technology since the internet itself. I have worked and written for CityAM, the Financial Times, and the New Statesman, amongst others. Follow me on Twitter @billybambrough or email me on billyATbillybambrough.com. Disclosure: I occasionally hold some small amount of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Source: ‘Extreme’ Bitcoin Warning Spooks Crypto Market

Bitcoin Has ‘No Intrinsic Value,’ As U.K. ‘Moves Towards’ Crypto Ban

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Bitcoin and cryptocurrency regulation has been pushed into the limelight over recent weeks, thanks to social media giant Facebook’s high profile plans to launch its own potential rival to bitcoin sometime next year.

The bitcoin price, which had been climbing on rumors that big technology companies were taking an interest in bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, has plateaued at around $10,000 per bitcoin after a number of countries rebuffed Facebook’s plans, unveiled in June.

Now, the U.K.’s financial services watchdog has warned potential investors that bitcoin and cryptocurrencies have “no intrinsic value,” with some taking the caution as a signal the country could be moving towards a bitcoin ban.

“This is a small, complex and evolving market covering a broad range of activities,” said Christopher Woolard, executive director of strategy and competition at the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which oversees London’s huge banking industry.

“Today’s guidance will help clarify which crypto-asset activities fall inside our regulatory perimeter,” Woolard added, with the FCA warning: “Consumers should be cautious when investing in such crypto-assets and should ensure they understand and can bear the risks involved with assets that have no intrinsic value.”

The FCA branding bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as without “intrinsic value” is likely to rile many bitcoin believers who have long argued blockchain technology, which underpins bitcoin and most other cryptocurrencies, gives the digital tokens value.

“It is technically true that cryptocurrencies have no ‘intrinsic value’ when compared to share ownership in actual companies, however there are many examples where a marketplace bestows value on an intangible asset,” Jon Ostler, of comparison site Finder.com, told the U.K.’s Telegraph newspaper. “For example, the brand of ‘bitcoin’ itself has value and although its future place in society is still unclear, it is one of the most likely coins to stay the course.”

The warning from the U.K. comes shortly after U.S. president Donald Trump unleashed a scathing attack on bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, comments that were then echoed by other senior officials in his administration, including Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin who branded bitcoin and cryptocurrencies a “national security issue.”

It’s thought that Trump’s attacks on bitcoin and crypto were in direct response to Facebook’s libra cryptocurrency project, which, if successful, could undermine the international dominance of the U.S. dollar.

“Although not a ban, [the U.K.’s FCA warning is] a move in that direction,” said Herbert Sim, head of business development from Broctagon Fintech Group. “This lack of enthusiasm is shared by several countries; the U.S. with its scrutiny of libra, and India, who are looking to implement a similar ban on cryptocurrencies which are not state regulated. These movements could end up coming back to bite. The international competition on cryptocurrencies is heating up and there are huge risks in being left behind.”

Meanwhile, the watchdog warned investing in what it called “unregulated crypto-assets” will not be covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which pays out if the investment collapses.

“It remains possible in the future that if an unregulated token is subject to common acceptance and usage in the U.K. then either the FCA or the Bank of England will reconsider this position in order to ensure that adequate consumer protection exists,” said Tim Dolan, partner at law firm Reed Smith.

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Billy Bambrough

I am a journalist with significant experience covering technology, finance, economics, and business around the world. As the founding editor of Verdict.co.uk

 

Source: Bitcoin Has ‘No Intrinsic Value,’ As U.K. ‘Moves Towards’ Crypto Ban

A Stark Prediction For The Future Of Bitcoin, ETH, XRP, And LTC

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Bitcoin, ETH, XRP, and LTC prices, will be on a roller coaster for a long time. Traders and investors will make and lose fortunes in record time, betting on them. In the end, say some analysts, these cryptocurrencies will either die on their own, or be killed by the ‘establishment’ — big governments and big banks around the world that defend sovereign currencies.

Take the case for Bitcoin.

The “people’s currency” holds a great promise: to become the first true global currency, free of the control of central banks that print money and big banks that generate credit.  But to do that, Bitcoin must gain the trust of the “general public.“ This means it must be adopted as a medium of exchange, standard of value, and store of value, replacing national currencies.That isn’t easy, given the many obstacles Bitcoin has to overcome. Like lack of awareness, familiarity, and stability, etc. And that makes some experts bearish about the future of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin Price YTD

Bitcoin Price YTD

Lars Seier Christensen, Chairman of Concordium, the next-generation decentralized world computer, is one of them. “In the longer term, I am bearish on bitcoin as I believe it does not have the necessary characteristics of a longer-term valuable asset and, eventually, that reality will catch up” says Christensen.“But in the short term, price movements will likely be random as Bitcoin is affected by low liquidity and unpredictable bigger trades.”

Unpredictability will make it hard for Bitcoin to gain broad adoption as a medium of exchange. And without broad adoption, Bitcoin will remain a play for speculators and true believers, and eventually die on its own.

But even if Bitcoin overcomes all these obstacles and gains broad adoption by the general public, and was in a position to replace national currencies — ie, become the new currency — what would happen then?

Bears argue that the “establishment” cannot afford to let that happen.

For a couple of reasons, including  the loss of Seigniorage” — simply put, the profit made by the national governments by printing currency. Then there’s the profit made by banks helping circulate that money and create credit.

The establishment will do whatever it takes to defend these profits from Bitcoin and any other cryptocurrency that seeks to replace it.

Recent Congressional hearings on Libra attests to the determination of the establishment to protect the dollar from competing cryptocurrencies. In a rare display of unity, Democrats and Republicans opposed Libra, and had many unkind words for Bitcoin.

“Cryptocurrencies that are ONLY there as a currency substitute, however, have no real long-term future,” says Christensen.“They will be outlawed by governments wanting to control the money supply and taxation, and in any case, cryptocurrencies have no intrinsic long-term value of significance. Hence, Bitcoin will only survive as a fringe activity.”

Not everyone agrees with this gloomy assessment, however. Dave Hodgson, Director and Co-Founder of NEM Ventures, is one of them.

“In my opinion, Bitcoin will never die nor be killed by the establishment, despite some people’s efforts to the contrary,” says Hodgson. “The recent drop we have seen in Bitcoin is within the boundaries of what our analysts were expecting from technical analysis. However, the timescale has been slightly skewed in light of recent announcements, primarily from US government representatives.”

 Corentin Denoeud, CEO and Co-founder of Blockchain Studio, is another .

“The fact that governments around the world are even talking about crypto is a sign of progress for the blockchain industry in general,” says Denoeud. “While countries such as India have called for the outlawing of cryptocurrencies, representatives from Germany’s Central Bank have responded favourably and advanced the view that cryptocurrencies are not a threat to global monetary stability. Even China, who has previously banned ICOs and cryptocurrency trading, has called bitcoin a ‘safe-haven asset’ (via its state-run media agency) and is now reportedly stepping up its own efforts to create its own cryptocurrency, following Facebook’s unveiling of Libra.”

 While it’s still unclear which side is right, one thing is clear: Bitcoin (and ETH, XRP, LTC, etc) true believers who think that cryptocurrency will eventually replace national currencies, need a 101 lesson in Money and Banking.

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Panos Mourdoukoutas

I’m Professor and Chair of the Department of Economics at LIU Post in New York. I also teach at Columbia University. I’ve published several articles in professional journals and magazines, including Barron’s, The New York Times, Japan Times, Newsday, Plain Dealer, Edge Singapore, European Management Review, Management International Review, and Journal of Risk and Insurance. I’ve have also published several books, including Collective Entrepreneurship, The Ten Golden Rules, WOM and Buzz Marketing, Business Strategy in a Semiglobal Economy, China’s Challenge: Imitation or Innovation in International Business, and New Emerging Japanese Economy: Opportunity and Strategy for World Business. I’ve traveled extensively throughout the world giving lectures and seminars for private and government organizations, including Beijing Academy of Social Science, Nagoya University, Tokyo Science University, Keimung University, University of Adelaide, Saint Gallen University, Duisburg University, University of Edinburgh, and Athens University of Economics and Business. Interests: Global markets, business, investment strategy, personal success.

Source: A Stark Prediction For The Future Of Bitcoin, ETH, XRP, And LTC

Bank of China’s New Infographic Shows Why Bitcoin Price Is Going Up

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Bank of China’s New Infographic Shows Why Bitcoin Price Is Going Up

A brief story: from Bitcoin to Libra

The infographic illustrates the story of Bitcoin, starting with the publication of its whitepaper in 2008, the mining of the first 50 BTC in 2009, 10,000 BTC having been spent for pizza in 2010, and other major milestones for the system, ending with the announcement of Facebook’s Libra.

“Yesterday the Bank of China posted up an article about Bitcoin,” commented Blockstream CSO, Samson Mow. “They explained how BTC works, why the price is going up, and why it’s valuable. Never thought I’d see that happen. #Bullish”

The factors behind Bitcoin’s rise

Another part of the infographic is dedicated to explaining why Bitcoin’s value is increasing, and it cites limited supply, increased mining difficulty, that it is used as a medium of exchange and anti-inflation safe haven.

This is in line with the remarks recently made by Morgan Creek Digital Assets co-founder Anthony Pompliano, who said that the European Central Bank’s expected dovish turn will provide “rocket fuel” for Bitcoin.

Furthermore, the infographic does also mention the infamous Mt. Gox hack, the risk of speculation, and stories of lost funds. According to the image, Bitcoin’s main use case is international settlements since its fees are low compared to legacy system while transactions are faster.

As Cointelegraph reported yesterday, the CEO of Chinese tech giant Huawei thinks that China can compete with Facebook for market share by issuing its own digital currency.

Earlier this month, Chinese media reported that China’s central bank is developing its own digital currency in response to Facebook’s Libra as the latter could purportedly pose a risk to the country’s financial system.

Adrian Zmudzinski
Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/bank-of-chinas-new-infographic-shows-why-bitcoin-price-is-going-up

OWNBTC Cloud Mining

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OWNBTC is a Cloud Mining Company. OWNBTC offers a unique opportunity in the cryptocurrency world by providing Shared Managed Mining Farms. The uniqueness of OWNBTC is that we lowered the cost of the individual miners and reduced the additional time-consuming efforts such as purchasing hardware, maintenance of equipment, utility bills and storage.

Individual miners can participate and earn a great passive income in crypto mining by only joining our crypto-mining programs at OWNBTC. We at OWNBTC aims to be the world’s leader in cloud mining by utilizing the most dynamic Mining Pools and focusing on the best paying cryptocurrencies.

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Source: http://ownbtc.co/

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro Reveals He Doesn’t Know What Bitcoin Is

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Jair M. Bolsonaro, the president of Brazil, has recently revealed in an interview with a well-known TV show host that he doesn’t know what bitcoin is, while speaking about his administration’s decision to shut down an ‘indigenous cryptocurrency’ project.

According to local news outlet Portal do Bitcoin, the TV show host has been participating in various cryptocurrency-related events recently, and was speaking to the country’s president about a cryptocurrency-related project barred by Brazil’s Minister of Human Rights, Family, and women, Damares Alves.

Bolsonaro, with a disapproving tone, stated:

She [Damares] discovered at the end of the transition last year that they were earmarking Funai for RS $40 million, and do you know why Ratinho? To teach indigenous people how to mess with bitcoin.

The “indigenous cryptocurrency” project Bolsonaro refers to was signed three days before the mandate of Michel Temer, Brazil’s former president, ended. It would see the country spend roughly $12 million to bring in an “alternative currency” for its indigenous communities, in a move that purportedly could “transform the reality of these people.”

As CryptoGlobe covered, however, the project saw the government sign a contract directly with the National Indian Foundation (Funai) and with the Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), instead of seeing organizations compete for it through a traditional bidding process.

At the time, officials claimed the UFF was chosen because of its “expertise” in similar projects. It’s worth noting, however, that Funai employees claimed the work that was set to be done was of “questionable technical relevance.”

Reacting to Bolsonaro’s disapproving tone, Ratinho asked the Brazilian president if he knew what bitcoin was. Bolsonaro replied he didn’t know but with help from the host managed to get a little more out:

It’s that virtual coin. I do not know how to operate that ‘train’ yet.

As Portal do Bitcoin reports, Bolsonaro’s son Carlos Bolsonaro appears to not yet properly understand cryptocurrencies. On the microblogging platform Twitter, he claimed the halted cryptocurrency project blocked “millions in bitcoin,” when in reality it blocked millions in fiat currency.

Featured image via Jair Bolsonaro’s YouTube channel.

Source: CryptoGlobe

The Large Bitcoin Collider Is Generating Trillions of Keys and Breaking Into Wallets – VICE

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Since we first published this article, major security flaws in the Large Bitcoin Collider client have come to light. Check out our follow-up reporting on these issues here.

For nearly a year, a group of cryptography enthusiasts has been pooling their resources on a quixotic quest to brute-force crack one of bitcoin’s cryptographic algorithms for creating wallet addresses. This is thought to be impossible today, but if they succeed, at least one element of bitcoin’s cryptography will be instantly obsolete.

It’s probably due to the scope of the challenge that the project is called the Large Bitcoin Collider, after the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest particle accelerator. But instead of new physics, the Large Bitcoin Collider is hunting cryptographic collisions—essentially proving that a supposedly unique and random string of numbers can be duplicated. More on collisions and their ramifications for bitcoin later, but along the way the LBC is using its computing power to try and bust open bitcoin wallets owned by other people, and potentially taking the coins inside.

Read More: The Great Physical Bitcoin Robbery

The basics are this: bitcoin addresses containing funds can be accessed by private keys, which are generated at the same time as the address. Technically, a number of private keys could work with any given address, but you’d need a huge amount of computing power to brute force your way through enough possibilities to find any of them. The LBC attempts to accomplish this by recruiting the computing power of anyone who’s willing to download and run their software.

Finding a private key that works with an existing wallet is a fast-and-loose version of “cracking,” and gives the attacker access to all the funds inside. But when someone in the LBC pool finds a working private key, do they get to keep the coins?

“In principle yes, although there is a process defined where—if someone appears with an alternate key—the pool members consider him the owner of the address,” “Rico,” the pseudonymous lead of LBC, told me in an email. He would only tell me that he’s a computer programmer “past his 40s,” who lives in Europe.

As for the legality of all this, LBC advises participants with a rather laissez-faire attitude.

“Depending on your jurisdiction, this may be considered theft and is therefore illegal,” the site’s FAQ states. “However, there are many jusrisdictions [sic] where you could perfectly legally claim 5-10% of the value found. So you should consider if you want 100% and become a criminal or if you get 10% and still be a law abiding citizen.”

The LBC has been working for just under a year. So far, Rico claims, the project has generated over 3,000 trillion private keys and checked them against existing bitcoin addresses to see if they work, and has found three that do and contain bitcoin. They’ve found over 30 private keys in total, some of which are for so-called “puzzle” addresses that are suspected to have been generated as easy bait for crackers.

“This project has been called many things: Impossible, illegal, pointless, cool, etc.”

Cracking wallets may seem malicious on the surface—and if an LBC participant knowingly steals funds, it might just be—but it also has research value. Bitcoin security researcher Ryan Castellucci has done work cracking wallets as a proof-of-concept in order to model attacker behaviour and defend against it.

“The thing that disappoints me about this is that they’re only checking addresses that have a balance instead of all addresses that have ever been used,” he said in an interview over the phone. “For research, it’s much more interesting to check all addresses that have ever been used, because that will show you if there’ve been weak addresses created in the past and if they’ve been cleaned out by attackers.”

But cracking wallets is just one part of the LBC’s mission. The other is to find a genuine cryptographic collision, which would mean it’s possible to generate inputs that, when put through the bitcoin address hashing algorithm, generate an identical pair. If it were ever to happen, bitcoin would have to use a new cryptographic algorithm for addresses. This would be similar to Google creating a collision with the once-popular SHA-1 cryptographic algorithm, which ended its usefulness for good.

Read More: I Broke Bitcoin

“Finding a P2PKH-collision [one cryptographic method of creating bitcoin addresses] would probably mean the end of P2PKH but not bitcoin,” Rico explained, regarding the ramifications of finding a collision. “Bitcoin would evolve with new address types. Most certainly it wouldn’t ‘die’ because of this.”

Castellucci also urged caution when it comes to getting all riled up about the LBC’s search for a cryptographic collision in bitcoin.

“To effectively find [a collision], you would have to find some way to generate [keys] much, much faster than is currently known to be possible,” he said. “Unless they find some sort of breakthrough in cracking techniques, the brute force strategy they’re using poses no threat to anybody’s bitcoin.”

“Someone could play the lottery three weeks in a row and win every time,” he explained. “That theoretically could happen, but it’s safe to assume it won’t.” Castellucci isn’t alone in this belief. Others, on the /r/bitcoin subreddit for example, have been much less kind and called the LBC “pointless.” But that hasn’t deterred Rico.

“Since it’s inception [around] 8 months ago, this project has been called many things: Impossible, illegal, pointless, cool, etc.,” Rico wrote.

“I think there is more waiting to be uncovered by the LBC—including a collision,” he continued. “So with that in mind we really do not care much about what ‘someone on Reddit’ said.”

Motherboard is nominated for three Webby Awards for Best Science YouTube Channel , Best Drama , Best Tech/Science Podcast . Please vote for us!

Source: The Large Bitcoin Collider Is Generating Trillions of Keys and Breaking Into Wallets – VICE

Impressive Bitcoin Price Smashes Through $6,000 as Crypto Stars Align – DailyCryptoTimes

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The bulls are back. After a prolonged period in a sideways range, the bitcoin price has finally established a powerful uptrend. As BTC  breaks the $6,000 level, enthusiasm is returning in waves to the cryptocurrency industry. Even the Binance hack has failed to put a dampener on a buoyant BTC/USD.

Bitcoin has broken critical resistance at $6,000. | Source: CoinMarketCap

Bulls Are Unstoppable As BTC/USD Clears $6,000 Hurdle

Why all the enthusiasm about the bitcoin price breaking $6,000? This level has been closely watched for some time. A bounce through this technically significant price point has been long-awaited, and there are several bulls desperate to dive into the marketplace. Speaking to Forbes, Tim Enneking of Digital Capital Management is hugely confident that a clear break will lead to further gains in the original digital currency. He said:

“6k will probably [be] a tough nut to crack, but once it definitively falls, there will almost certainly be a strong surge higher.”

It’s not hard to find analysts who think this rally has legs. Here is TradeBlock’s director of digital currency John Todaro outlining once again how strong the momentum is in bitcoin:

“The market over the past 1-2 months has seen significant upward momentum and has brushed off numerous negative headlines within the space. If we break above the $6,000 level, we could continue to trade higher as momentum builds and negative news reports have a limited downward impact.”

Bitcoin Ignores Binance Hack

Binance is the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. Because of this, it seems safe to assume that the recent hack of 7,000 BTC should have been disastrous for the BTC/USD price. So far this has not been the case at all. Bullish trends look their most potent when they ignore headwinds and keep surging. This is precisely the characteristic that bitcoin is displaying as it keeps breaking out to fresh yearly highs.

Novogratz Sees Bitcoin at $20,000 in 18 Monthsf

In an interview on Fox Business, Bitcoin perma-bull Mike Novogratz was spreading his usual brand of positivity. As you can see in the following video, he doesn’t have much time for Warren Buffett’s negativity. Novogratz expects BTC/USD to be back to its historic highs of $20,000 within 18 months.

Whether you look at fundamental or technical analysis, it’s hard to come up with a reason to bet against BTC’s bounce through $6,000. Crypto adoption is picking up pace, search interest is returning, and the dip buying is back.

The main threat looks to be overbought conditions, but shorting bitcoin when it’s in this kind of mood has historically been like trying to hold back the tide.

Source: Impressive Bitcoin Price Smashes Through $6,000 as Crypto Stars Align – DailyCryptoTimes

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