Storm is Brewing Over Bitcoin Future

If you read recent media reports about future of bitcoin, you wonder what is going on. For sure it is NOT clear which software or which blockchain we will be calling the “true” or “real” bitcoin in the future. Here is a selection of citations, all very recent, and all about the fork expected to …

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ICOs – The Good and the Ugly

In the recent crazy wave of ICOs we hear every day that investors should be warned and there are lots of scams or that it is unlikely that ICOs can deliver. So the question is how do you tell apart a “good ICO” from a bad one? It is a difficult question, but let us …

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Silvio Micali – A Genius Which Will Stay in the Bottle

Silvio Micali, one of the most brilliant computer scientists on this planet has just re-invented democracy or blockchains or finance or law order and public authority and few other things, with his ALGORAND system. And some other brilliant crypto innovators are also doing the same thing: see DFINITY. Possibly this is what we really want, a …

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Blockchain Privacy – Part 2: Stealth Addresses

Privacy In Part 1 we covered why privacy is essential for widespread cryptocurrency adoption, and concluded that neither Bitcoin nor Ethereum, or even ZCash is suitable for the task we’re wanting to solve: anonymity with efficiency. (Also the bonus property of needing no trusted setup)! COOL THING 1: STEALTH ADDRESSES The benefits of using stealth …

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D-Day For Z.Cash

Today the first ever truly anonymous crypto currency ZEC went live. The full P2P client can be downloaded from here [Linux only for now]. The total number of ZEC coins will be only 21 million, like in bitcoin. Zerocash also reproduces few other unreasonable properties known from bitcoin: bizarre monetary policy with inelastic monetary supply and block halving every …

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Controversy Around Profitability of AltCoin Investment

There is a considerable controversy around whether investing in a balanced basket of cryptocoins is a good idea. Two serious sources show that this sort of investment enjoys steady growth without a lot of downturns, cf. DLT10 Index and a recent detailed study which concentrates on a shorter period with excellent returns since Jan 2016 (cf. also …

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Changing the Past of Ethereum – Not an Ordinary Divorce

Tomorrow 20 July Ethereum are going to invalidate more than 50M$ worth of Ethereum stolen by some rogue hacker group. Congratulations to our community for this brave decision! Support for this decision must be shown by all honest citizens of crypto space by upgrading ASAP geth.exe and mist wallets to the new version, for example now, and …

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DAO – Record Breaking Theft Worth 5OM$

Some 50 millions of dollars have been stolen from DAO token holders (including myself). The DAO is by the way, claimed to be closing [Tual]. Closing or not, it remains a smart contract which should allow DAO holders to get some of their initial ethers back. Now can the thief spend his Ethers without being caught (for now locked until 14 …

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