Understanding Bitcoin — Incentives & The Power DynamicPaul WasensteinerBlockedUnblockFollowFollowingDec 3IntroductionMany people think that bitcoin is a technology purely made up of a network of computers running code. This is due to an incomplete understanding of not only bitcoin but all monetary systems. Every monetary system is virtual. Dollars, euros, pounds sterling and bitcoin. They are all virtual. All fiat-based monetary systems still use a physical token (i.e. cash) as a form of exchange (even if essentially all modern fiat systems function primarily in the digital domain). Even the physical tokens function as a virtual currency. The physical token does not have any inherent value other than its ability to function as a money system. You can’t eat it, you can’t build anything with it and now you cannot even burn many modern notes. The only value these physical tokens have is virtual, as it is assigned to it by the people that use it. This is the reason why if you cut a corner off of a euro note and then destroy that piece, the rest of the euro note is totally worthless. This is because if someone tries to then spend this damaged note no one will accept it because they believe it has no value.This is, of course, true of bitcoin as well. It has value because people assign it value, and people assign it value due to its ability to function as a money system (and a speculative asset).Incentives in Legacy Monetary SystemsMost monetary systems are controlled using a centralised authority. For example, in the United States this is the Federal Reserve and in the European Union, this is the European Central Bank. These central authorities operate their influence on the economy and market participants for example by changing the amount of interest that is changed on money they lend out (setting the base rate), or by introducing more or less money into the system (quantitive easing). When they make these centralised changes they are changing the incentives in the system. Controlling the incentives in the system allows them to mold and shepherd the actions of the market participants (people and businesses). For example, increasing the base interest rate that banks must pay to borrow money, means that private banks will increase the interest rates that borrowers must pay. This means that people are less likely to spend and borrow money (as debt becomes more expensive to hold) and are more likely to save money in a bank (because their bank will pay them more interest on their savings). In this way, they can control the economy at will.Incentives in BitcoinBitcoin also has an incentive system that is fundamental to its design. Bitcoin is not just a network of computers. Bitcoin is a network of people, businesses and organisations interacting and transacting through a computer network with rules that are determined by special network participants called miners. For all intents and purposes, bitcoin is an economy and monetary system that is similar to the legacy fiat monetary systems. The one major difference being that there is no centralised authority that makes changes to the system. As discussed in the article Understanding Bitcoin — Validity is in the Eye of the Beholder, miners are the only network participants who are able to make a direct change to the consensus protocols that the network runs on. Miners are incentivised to secure the blockchain and have their interests inline with network participants due to the fact that they receive a mining reward of bitcoins for performing proof-of-work. This is enough to keep the majority of miners honest and looking out for the best interests of the network. But the incentive system is more complex than this as miners are far from the only type of participant in the network. There also individual users, traders/speculators, businesses, exchanges, and developers.The Bitcoin Power DynamicThe power dynamic between different network participants including; miners, individual users, speculators/traders, businesses, exchanges, and developers is a complex one. Each type of entity provides a service to the network, receives a reward for their service, has some amount of ‘skin in the game’ (i.e. has something to lose) and exerts some amount of power over the other network participants.Service to the NetworkThe service an entity provides to the bitcoin economy is the role it plays in adding value to it. Every entity that provides a service to the network needs some kind of incentive to do so.RewardsRewards are the incentive for network participants to provide their service to the network. Without the rewards, there would be no way of guaranteeing that these services would be provided.Skin in the Game‘Skin in the game’ is another way of saying ‘investment the entity has in the system’. This could be any kind of investment including financial and time. ‘Skin in the game’ is a very important concept as the more skin the game an entity has, the more its incentives align with the economy. Entities with a small amount of skin in the game do not have a strong incentive to do what is best for the overall interest of the bitcoin economy. Entities with a large amount of skin in the game have a strong incentive to do what is best for the overall interest of the bitcoin economy. This is a key concept to the power dynamic of the system.PowerThis determines how an entity is able to influence the network. Some entities have a larger amount of influence on the network than others.(A set of lists is not the best way to display the power dynamic but this will have to do until your.org implements the ability to add images. I will update the article with a diagram when this becomes available.)MinersMiner — Service to the NetworkPerform proof-of-work to secure the blockchain against attacks.Publish transactions to the blockchain.Miner — RewardsReceives block rewards in the form of bitcoin for performing proof-of-work.Receives transaction fees for publishing transactions to the blockchain.Investment appreciation through increased bitcoin value.Miner — Skin in the GameMiners have a large amount of skin in the game that is proportional to their investment in mining hardware and facilities, which is often significant.Miner — PowerMiners can stop performing proof-of-work and therefore reduce network security.Miners can change the protocol rules they consider valid for each block they mine.They get to decide what transactions are and are not included in their blocks.Individual UsersIndividual User — Service to the NetworkPay transaction fees for each transaction.Spread knowledge of the network through word-of-mouth.Protect the network by giving positive support to it publicly.Individual User — RewardsTransactions are published to the network and secured by miners.Individual User — Skin in the GameIndividual users have very little skin in the game and can decide to start and stop using bitcoin as they wish.Individual User — PowerStop spreading knowledge of the network through word-of-mouth.Spread negative knowledge of the network through word-of-mouth.Stop transacting on the blockchain.Speculators/tradersSpeculator/trader — Service to the NetworkProvide liquidity to the market.Give bitcoin a fiat denominated value.Increase bitcoin’s value by holding bitcoin.Speculator/trader — Rewards(Trader) Make profit during successful trades/asset appreciation.(Speculator) Any bitcoin holdings appreciate in value through increased bitcoin value.Speculators — Skin in the GameSpeculators/Traders have an amount of skin in the game that is proportional to the amount of bitcoin they are holding.Speculator/trader — PowerSell bitcoin to increase the supply and reduce the price.Buy and hold bitcoin to reduce the supply and increase the price.BusinessesBusinesses — Service to the NetworkEncourage users to use the network by providing products & services.Spread knowledge of the network through word of mouth.Pay transaction fees for each transaction.Protect the network by giving positive support to it publicly.Business — RewardsNo chargebacks during transactions.New business financial models.Access to the bitcoin economy.Businesses — Skin in the GameBusinesses potentially have a large amount of skin in the game proportional to their reliance on bitcoin and their investment into being a part of the bitcoin economy.Business PowerRefuse to accept bitcoin.Can pay developers to offer coded upgrades to the network.Stop spreading knowledge of the network through word-of-mouth.Spread negative knowledge of the network through word-of-mouth.Stop transacting on the blockchain.Sell bitcoins, which increases the supply and decreases the value.ExchangesExchanges — Service to the NetworkProvide traders, buyers and sellers a platform for price discovery.Encourage users to use the network by providing products & services.Spread knowledge of the network through word of mouth.Pay transaction fees for each transaction.Protect the network by giving positive support to it publicly.Exchanges — RewardsProfits from trading.Access to the bitcoin economy.Exchanges — Skin in the GameExchanges potentially have a large amount of skin in the game. While it is relatively easy for exchanges to add trading of extra cryptocurrencies, most exchanges use bitcoin as their base currency for trading. It is important to recognise though that as exchanges diversify to offer more cryptocurrency trading pairs, their risk (skin in the game) becomes more spread out. In this way, the motives of exchanges become more complex as they receive more profits when the market of all cryptocurrencies becomes more volatile, and they can, therefore, make more money on trading fees. This means that while exchanges may have a lot of skin in the game for cryptocurrencies, in general, they may not necessarily have a lot in bitcoin specifically.Exchanges — PowerRefuse to accept bitcoin trading.Can pay developers to offer coded upgrades to the network.Stop spreading knowledge of the network through word-of-mouth.Spread negative knowledge of the network through word-of-mouth.Stop transacting on the blockchain.DevelopersDevelopers — Service to the NetworkProduce coded features to bitcoin miners, clients and wallets.Developers — RewardNotoriety, which can be used to find paid work.Developers — Skin in the GameThe developers’ skin in the game is relatively minor. They may have their reputation on the line somewhat, like in any job (this can remedied completely by working under a pseudonym). Ultimately they are free to join and leave bitcoin development as they please. Developers do not need to hold any bitcoin, rendering them financially immune to any design decisions that negatively impact the value of the system.Developers — PowerThey can decide to not code features for miners, clients and wallets.Stop spreading knowledge of the network through word-of-mouth.Spread negative knowledge of the network through word-of-mouth.CaveatsThere is one key point in this power dynamic and it is something that is currently of huge importance in the bitcoin economy. If any of the entities in this system willingly give up their power to other entities in the system then the balance is broken and the power dynamic falls apart. This is something I will delve deeper into in another article, but what is important to understand is that; when an entity with a large amount of skin in the game gives up their power to an entity with a small amount of skin in the game, that entity can then wield more power than they should be able to. This disrupts the entire system.SummaryIn this article, I discussed the incentive system and power dynamic in bitcoin and how it acts as the glue to hold the whole system together by making sure each entity in the system is incentivised to provide a service to the system and act in the interest of the system. Each network participant holds some amount of power in the system, and this power should be roughly proportional to the amount of ‘skin in the game’ the network participant has. An important caveat to this power dynamic is that entities should not willingly give their power away to other entities otherwise the dynamic becomes unbalanced and falls apart. This is something I will discuss in a future article as it is something that unfortunately is happening in bitcoin right now.If you have any thoughts or input on this I would love to hear them in the comments below.(This is part of my ‘Understanding Bitcoin’ series of articles. Find links to other parts of this series below) Show less

In the past bitcoiners could purchase a machine called the “Ghost Gunner 2,” from a Texas company called Defense Distributed (DD) led by crypto-anarchist Cody Wilson. A Ghost Gun is a firearm that is built or modified without serial numbers and the company’s product makes untraceable AR-15 rifle parts. Now, this week Wilson has announced the Ghost Gunner 2 has implemented new software that can mill an aluminum frame of an M1911 handgun. Also read: Bitcoin-Fueled Homeless Outreach Wins Appeal Against County Officials Cody Wilson is a well-known individual among cypherpunks and the bitcoin ‘community.’ Wilson’s name is notorious for creating the first working handheld 3D printed gun called the “Liberator.” The Liberator’s blueprints were downloaded 100,000 times in just two days after the U.S. government gave his business some troubles. Wilson is also popular among bitcoiners for working with former bitcoin developer and anarchist, Amir Taaki, on a privacy-centric bitcoin client called Dark Wallet. The DD founder is labeled as one of “the most dangerous men in the United States” by mainstream media, and has been discussing the new launch with many news outlets. Wilson appeared on the radio broadcast the Crypto Show last night and told listeners that the DD business was doing well, and gave insight towards the creation of the new M1911 handgun software. The M1911 semiautomatic pistols can also be made into other handgun models that have similar structures; like the Colt 45. In the future, Wilson details the company plans to create a broad range of untraceable pistol models. Defense Distributed has sold over 4,000 Ghost Gunners and the CNC milling machine itself and its unique parts can be purchased with bitcoin. Wilson details the business gets about 10 percent of its revenue in bitcoin. The Atlanta-based firm Bitpay processes the bitcoin payments for the company and Wilson has revealed that as the price of bitcoin rises people are purchasing more DD products. During the weekend launch of the new Ghost Gunner 2 software Wilson told the publication Wired that the gun making machine brings the cypherpunk movement to a whole new level. “The whole cypherpunk attitude of total gun privacy is more coherent in this smaller package — Now you can have a private 1911 or a private Glock, and it’s at the level of automated manufacturing,” explains the DD founder. Additionally, during the Sunday night Crypto Show broadcast, Wilson explains why he created the new handgun software. The DD founder says not everyone wants an AR-15 rifle because it’s a pretty big gun. With the new software, clients can make a private 1911 with ease just like the larger assault rifle. However, Wilson explains to the Crypto Show hosts that building the company’s Ghost Gunner products is no easy task. There are other company’s that have tried to create CNC gun mills, but Wilson explains DD’s quality is above the rest. The company is also not the first organization to mill an M1911 pistol made of metal as the company, Solid Concepts, demonstrated the concept back in 2013. Wilson is pleased with his company’s CNC-milling machines, and tells Ars Technica that handguns are a big part of the project. “A lot of our 3D-printed work reaches its apex when you can make handguns,” Wilson tells the publication. “Handguns are the essence of this project, so, when you can give people the means to make them, it’s the refinement of the project.” “It’s basically announcing the completion of the initial Ghost Gunner project — now it’s a machine that can make pistols for people — We got there. What do you think about Cody Wilson and Defense Distributed? How do you feel about software that creates 3D printed untraceable M1911 handguns? Let us know in the comments below. Images via Youtube, Wired, and Defense Distributed.  There are no bigger Bitcoin believers than the Bitcoin.com team. That’s why this site is a one-stop-shop for everything you need to get into bitcoin life. Forum discussions? Check. A casino? Yep, we have that too. Prices and statistics? Also here. https://t.co/lhsBTbpv8p #bch pic.twitter.com/5vE55uBMXo This week, the text messaging platform Cointext announced the public launch of its feature service that allows anyone with a mobile phone to transact with bitcoin cash (BCH) without internet services… read more. https://t.co/vRHIpxTpKd #bitcoinjobs #jobhunt #cryptojobs pic.twitter.com/4gs4muoiiP News.Bitcoin.com is Hiring Editorial Staff – In Tokyo, Stockholm and Your Town. Are you an experienced news editor or a news reporter with a nose for crypto? We are on a roll – increasing our readership every day – serving millions of readers each month… read more. Introducing the Simple to Use and Robust https://t.co/UtJJm8netW Wallet https://t.co/w5xA4uDpU9 #bitcoinwallet pic.twitter.com/hB4KCBzqjL Download the Bitcoin.com Wallet right to your device for easy and secure access to your bitcoins. Perfect for beginners, the Bitcoin.com Wallet makes using and holding bitcoins easy. No logins required. Facebook has recently made some changes to show you less news and more family-oriented pics and videos – even though you’ve previously subscribed. Here’s how to make Facebook show you our content again; Facebook has recently made some changes to show you less news. Here’s how to make Facebook show you our content again; a. Visit our Facebook Page https://t.co/d5QIuhCFPt b. Click the “Follow” button under our cover image. c. Select the “See first” option. pic.twitter.com/tFmrF73WQ7 — Bitcoin News (@BTCTN) February 19, 2018 1. Visit the Bitcoin.com Facebook Page. 2. Click the “Follow” button under our cover image. 3. Select the “See first” option. 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Home » News » Scotland: Man Jailed after Using Bitcoin to Buy Handgun on Dark WebA middle-aged Scottish man has been sentenced to five years in prison for using bitcoin to purchase illegal firearms on the dark web. According to local police, David Mitchell, a 48-year-old from Edinburgh paid for a 9mm handgun, magazine, 150 rounds worth of ammunition, and a suppressor from the United States using about $2,750 worth of bitcoin (roughly 0.74 BTC at press time).Bloomberg reports that Mitchell purchased the illegal firearm on the dark web and attempted to ship it from the United States into Scotland, but the package was intercepted by the newly formed Organized Crime Partnership. A placebo was instead shipped in its place to Mitchell’s office by officers who then surveilled and trailed him to his house where he lives alone.Subsequently, police officers stormed the house with a search warrant and found the placebo hidden under a couch; he was then arrested and charged with illegal possession of firearms. He appeared in court on December 5, 2018, where he pleaded guilty to 3 counts of firearm possession. On January 14, he was sentenced to five years in prison.In the court hearing, defense lawyer QC John Scott told the court that while Mitchell has a history of depression and other behavioral problems, he had absolutely no plans to use the firearm to hurt anybody. According to the defense, he only carried out the transaction to see if it could be done. The defense also submitted that Mitchell had no prior convictions and had been described as “very reliable and of great value” by his employer.In response, however, Detective Chief Superintendent Gerry McLean, head of the organised crime and counter-terrorism unit of Scotland’s police, said that Mitchell did not offer any reason for purchasing the firearm, and hence they could not determine if he had any ulterior motives. He also reiterated that the priority of the police is the security of the citizens, so stopping Mitchell meant averting a potential problem.You claim that you had no intention of causing harm to anyone but the fact remains that you went to considerable lengths to get hold of a potentially lethal weapon and ammunition. You must have appreciated that this was unlawful. For this conduct you must be punished.Mitchell’s conviction marks the latest in a series of similar cases involving the use of bitcoin and other cryptocurrency assets to carry out illicit activities on the dark web. The most famous example of such a conviction remains that of Ross Ulbricht, founder of the dark web marketplace Silk Road. Earlier in the month, CCN reported that Ulbricht penned a letter to bitcoin cash evangelist and early crypto adopter Roger Ver seeking his help in getting clemency from the double life sentence he is currently serving. Show less

Dynamic (CURRENCY:DYN) traded 41.8% higher against the dollar during the 24 hour period ending at 13:00 PM ET on July 5th. One Dynamic coin can now be purchased for $0.14 or 0.00001295 BTC on major exchanges including Bittrex and Upbit. Dynamic has a market cap of $940,192.00 and approximately $896,110.00 worth of Dynamic was traded on exchanges in the last day. In the last seven days, Dynamic has traded up 33.6% against the dollar. Heres how similar cryptocurrencies have performed in the last day:Bitcoin (BTC) traded 5.9% lower against the dollar and now trades at $11,139.30 or 1.00000000 BTC.Ethereum (ETH) traded 2.3% lower against the dollar and now trades at $289.17 or 0.02599764 BTC.Litecoin (LTC) traded down 5.8% against the dollar and now trades at $117.30 or 0.01054551 BTC.Bitcoin Cash (BCH) traded 4.7% lower against the dollar and now trades at $398.22 or 0.03580199 BTC.UNUS SED LEO (LEO) traded down 2.9% against the dollar and now trades at $1.74 or 0.00015661 BTC.Monero (XMR) traded down 4% against the dollar and now trades at $88.69 or 0.00797377 BTC.Ethereum Classic (ETC) traded 2.7% lower against the dollar and now trades at $7.75 or 0.00069702 BTC.Zcash (ZEC) traded 4.3% lower against the dollar and now trades at $100.35 or 0.00902228 BTC.Bitcoin Gold (BTG) traded down 5.2% against the dollar and now trades at $26.07 or 0.00234406 BTC.Dogecoin (DOGE) traded up 11.1% against the dollar and now trades at $0.0037 or 0.00000033 BTC.Dynamic Coin Profile Dynamic is a proof-of-work (PoW) coin that uses the Argon2 hashing algorithm. It launched on May 5th, 2017. Dynamics total supply is 19,701,072 coins and its circulating supply is 6,535,785 coins. The official website for Dynamic is duality.solutions. Dynamics official Twitter account is @dualitychain and its Facebook page is accessible here. Buying and Selling Dynamic Dynamic can be purchased on the following cryptocurrency exchanges: Bittrex and Upbit. It is usually not currently possible to buy alternative cryptocurrencies such as Dynamic directly using US dollars. Investors seeking to acquire Dynamic should first buy Bitcoin or Ethereum using an exchange that deals in US dollars such as GDAX, Gemini or. Investors can then use their newly-acquired Bitcoin or Ethereum to buy Dynamic using one of the aforementioned exchanges. Receive News & Updates for Dynamic Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and updates for Dynamic and related cryptocurrencies with MarketBeat.com's FREE CryptoBeat newsletter. Show less

What is computational fluid dynamics? Computational fluid dynamics is the usage of applied mathematics, physics and computational software to picture how gas and liquid flows also to see how the gas or liquid affects objects as it passes through. Fluid dynamics are based on the Navier-Stokes equations, the equation looks at how the velocity, temperature, pressure and density are related to moving fluids. Computational fluid dynamics have been in use since the early 20th century and are usually used to analyse air flow around cars and aircrafts. Server rooms have evolved over the years and have become increasingly complex; CFD is very useful to detect thermal properties and modelling air flow. Software can help an IT administrator to identify hot spots and learn where the cold air is being wasted and where the air is mixing. A change in the variable, the IT administrator will visualise how the cold air will travel through the server room under many different situations. This knowledge will help the administrator layout exactly where the IT infrastructure will be placed around the office. A CFD programme could simulate changes such as split hard drives and let you know how to place them and where to place them, this help you save time and money. Uses of computational fluid dynamics The common areas where the software is used: Advantages of using computational fluid dynamic London TFE offers an introduction to CFD course which will provide you with the CFD training to ensure that you are up to date with the development of computer capabilities. CFD is accessible to everyone which makes the knowledge necessary.  Do you need CFD training? Contact us for more information on our CFD course. What kind of math is used in electrical engineering? Electrical engineers design, develop, test, and supervise the manufacture of electrical equipment. 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A Decentralised and Dynamic Ecosystem 3 min readAs our previous article stated, Qitmeer will bring about trust and transparency, by adhering to the essence of Bitcoin with the practicality of Block DAG and combining it with current stakeholders to create a new ecosystem.Key Definitions Meer, the native currency of Qitmeer, acts as the guardian of the spirit: In Math We TrustKahf is the literal translation of Semitic language, which implies to use money in a wise and pure way.Qitmeer and Kahf, these two words with their unique meanings, gain wide popularity in the west and east. Thus, the respective logo will then be decided by the community through the voting process.Tokenisation is the process of replacing sensitive data with unique identification symbols that retain all the essential information about the data without compromising its security.The Focus of Qitmeer Network Since the initial inception of Qitmeer project, the business proposition is to satisfy the niche market of socially responsible banking, insurance and investment, and the Islamic Finance industry, which aims to undertake the tokenisation of trillions of dollar assets. Then, it will surely enable blockchain technology to serve the real economy and enhance financial inclusion in the era of digital transformation. (Qitmeer Whitepaper, Page 9)Using the interoperable Kahf Wallet, Qitmeer will function across mainstream blockchains.Through certified industry participants, Qitmeer will provide a method of tokenising of ethical finance and islamic finance for start-ups and financial institutions, as well as other industry stakeholders.This is expected to enrich a dynamic, healthy and prosperous financial system that is based on blockchain technology. By bringing the transparency, traceability and trust and aligning it with the core financial values of this inclusive finance, Qitmeer will restore trust and help bring a new financial system.Qitmeer Use-cases At this time, we are developing the following use-cases with our partners:A stable-coin based on FIAT currency, commodities and assets.Bonds and SukukMutual FundsRemittanceCharityHajj Micro-PaymentsAssets TokenisationTrading FinanceSupply Chain TraceabilityA large number of unbankable people in Africa and other developing countries creates huge potential for stable coin adoptions back up by fiat money. Qitmeer encourages the development of various use cases, such as wallets, payment solutions, remittance to activate the illiquid assets of developing countries which eventually to establish an open and inclusive financial system with concerns to cultural diversity. (Qitmeer Whitepaper, Page 10)At this time the HLC Foundation (The publishers of Qitmeer) is exploring a set of proper communication channels with governments, regulatory bodies and multilateral financial organisations that are included but limited to the following jurisdictions:MalaysiaIndonesiaUnited Arab EmiratesKingdom of Saudi ArabiaNigeriaOmanBahrainIn April 2019, Qitmeer joined the IFSB and is currently the only blockchain organisation to do so. HLC Foundation will aim to facilitate the development of technical standards and enhance financial inclusion within the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation economy and beyond.Our next article will examine the unique mintage mechanism for the reserving of the base currency for asset tokenisation, and the potential market value that this can have.Follow us on our social channels to keep up to date with the latest blockchain and financial news, as well as developments to the Qitmeer network. Latest Blockchain and Islamic Finance Trends Analysis of current issues within the crypto and blockchain economies and how Qitmeer will be involved What the team is currently up to and how the Qitmeer network is progressing.If you have any questions please feel free to contact us on telegram Show less

The Dynamics of Bitcoin Hash Rate & Price What contributes to the bullish sentiment of Bitcoin miners? 4 min readThe crypto king has set yet another record last week. Bitcoins hash rate has skyrocketed to 102 quintillion hashes for the first time in history, recovering from its low (31 EH/s) in December 2018. For those who have no clue, the hash rate is the general measure of the processing power of the Bitcoin network. It is the speed at which a mining machine complete an operation in the Bitcoin code.The Power of Hash Rate During the mining process, blocks of verified transaction information have to be hashed before they could be added to the ever-growing blockchain. To hash transactions, miners need to complete an intentionally difficult mathematical puzzle successfully. The hash rate is, therefore, a measure of how many times the network can attempt to solve this puzzle every second. The higher the hash rate, the better when mining as this could increase a miners opportunity of finding the next block and receiving the reward.Therefore hash rate is often considered a key metric of miner confidence. After all, it shows that miners are more likely to dedicate more resources to the computer-intensive quest if they think its bullish on price, or they would have scaled back operations if they expected a price slide. Hence, when BTC price increases, the hash rate increases; when BTC price decreases, the hash rate also decreases .Its also worth noting that the higher the hash rate, the more expensive it is for hackers to attack the network. Hypothetically, hackers need to take control over at least 51% of the hash rate of a PoW blockchain to start an attack to freeze the system, stop transaction verification, or benefit from double-spending. In order to execute an attack, hackers not only must sacrifice the lucrative mining rewards they get from legitimately processing transactions, but they also have to buy out miners to outweighing the possible rewards they could get. The more miners investing in the network, the greater the number of miners and the higher the cost an attacker need to payout.As of writing time, the Bitcoin network hash rate has gone pass 102 quintillion hashes, driving Bitcoins two-week average hash rate to cross another major threshold, reaching 85 EH/s and mining difficulty was adjusted to a new record of nearly 12 trillion, jumped 60% since June 14, 2019.Miners are fully aware that the record-high hash rate would eventually lead to more intense competition to obtain block reward (i.e. a higher operational cost), yet the number of miners just kept on increasing more than 600,000 powerful new machines came online within the last three months, according to the data from crypto mining pool BTC.com.Why are miners so confident about Bitcoins price?HODLERS & The Bull Rally Ahead The bullish sentiment steams from the scheduled Bitcoin halving next year.In less than a years time, Bitcoins third reward halving will take place on May 2020 , reducing the mining reward from 12.5 BTC to 6.5 BTC every 10 minutes and Bitcoin is expected to become increasingly scarce. By that time, miners will be spending the same amount of money for a slashed-down reward its logical for them to start accumulating in advance and sell them against higher demand in the bull rally. Miners interest to hodl constitutes to a less volatile market, allowing the price to stabilize and climb, as weve seen in the market before halving begins.When miners are confident about making a profit in the long run and decide to hodl, the Bitcoin market faces less selling pressure, causing the demand to go up drastically. As more miners are expected to hit the market in the coming months before halving, it is only a matter of time before we see the bull strikes again.Disclaimer: This material should not be taken as the basis for making investment decisions, nor be construed as a recommendation to engage in investment transactions. Trading digital assets involves significant risk and can result in the loss of your invested capital. You should ensure that you fully understand the risk involved and take into consideration your level of experience, investment objectives and seek independent financial advice if necessary.Follow OKEx on:Twitter: Facebook: LinkedIn: Telegram: Instagram: Steemit: Website: Altcoin Magazine (@Alt__Magazine) | TwitterThe latest Tweets from Altcoin Magazine (@Alt__Magazine). Our goal is to educate the world on crypto and ultimately totwitter.com Show less

Dynamic (CURRENCY:DYN) traded down 19.9% against the dollar during the 1 day period ending at 15:00 PM Eastern on July 16th. Over the last week, Dynamic has traded down 69.6% against the dollar. Dynamic has a total market capitalization of $273,537.00 and $144,435.00 worth of Dynamic was traded on exchanges in the last 24 hours. One Dynamic coin can currently be bought for about $0.0180 or 0.00000186 BTC on major cryptocurrency exchanges including Upbit and Bittrex. Heres how other cryptocurrencies have performed over the last 24 hours:Bitcoin (BTC) traded down 10.1% against the dollar and now trades at $9,706.40 or 1.00000000 BTC.Ethereum (ETH) traded down 13.4% against the dollar and now trades at $201.18 or 0.02082922 BTC.Bitcoin Cash (BCH) traded 10.9% lower against the dollar and now trades at $281.87 or 0.02918423 BTC.Litecoin (LTC) traded 13.6% lower against the dollar and now trades at $79.19 or 0.00819925 BTC.UNUS SED LEO (LEO) traded down 5.8% against the dollar and now trades at $1.37 or 0.00014141 BTC.Monero (XMR) traded 12.9% lower against the dollar and now trades at $74.69 or 0.00773316 BTC.Ethereum Classic (ETC) traded 4.8% lower against the dollar and now trades at $5.50 or 0.00056923 BTC.Zcash (ZEC) traded down 14.3% against the dollar and now trades at $67.87 or 0.00702659 BTC.Bitcoin Gold (BTG) traded 6.6% lower against the dollar and now trades at $26.28 or 0.00272099 BTC.Dogecoin (DOGE) traded 6.6% lower against the dollar and now trades at $0.0029 or 0.00000030 BTC.Dynamic Coin Profile Dynamic (DYN) is a proof-of-work (PoW) coin that uses the Argon2 hashing algorithm. It launched on May 5th, 2017. Dynamics total supply is 19,714,248 coins and its circulating supply is 15,214,249 coins. Dynamics official Twitter account is @dualitychain and its Facebook page is accessible here. The official website for Dynamic is duality.solutions. Buying and Selling Dynamic Dynamic can be bought or sold on the following cryptocurrency exchanges: Upbit and Bittrex. It is usually not presently possible to buy alternative cryptocurrencies such as Dynamic directly using U.S. dollars. Investors seeking to trade Dynamic should first buy Ethereum or Bitcoin using an exchange that deals in U.S. dollars such as GDAX, Coinbase or Gemini. Investors can then use their newly-acquired Ethereum or Bitcoin to buy Dynamic using one of the exchanges listed above. Receive News & Updates for Dynamic Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and updates for Dynamic and related cryptocurrencies with MarketBeat.com's FREE CryptoBeat newsletter. Show less

An Independent, Lightweight Solution to Double-Spend AttacksDouble spending attacks carried out by malicious actors have been responsible for tens of millions of dollars in losses to date. Exchanges, providers of the liquidity required to execute an attack, incur most of the financial loss. In May 2018 Bittrex and several other exchanges incurred a combined $18 million in losses as a result of reorganizations of the Bitcoin Gold blockchain and subsequent double-spends [1]. The same month attacks were carried out on Verge ($1.75 million in losses) [2] and Monacoin ($90,000 in losses) [3]. In January 2019 a series of reorganizations and double-spends on Ethereum Classic cost Coinbase an estimated $1.1 million [4].The novelty of the Bitcoin protocol lies in its ability to prevent double-spends through its Proof-of-Work. While no known double-spends have occurred on Bitcoin, they present a credible threat to many altcoins.Recent solutions like Veriblock and Komodo are interesting, but they require massive changes to the consensus and are by no means lightweight to implement.We propose an alternative to these solutions. Our solution is focused on flexibility, ease of use, and requires no consensus modifications. It allows immediate double-spend protection for often-attacked exchanges and pools, and enables any network party to opt in or out freely and easily. We’ll also provide the code in an open source fashion and will welcome anyone to use/improve it.The solution uses a checkpointing mechanism built on top of the decentralized InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) and ZeroNet (ZN) technologies to create regular checkpoints of the hash and height of mined blocks. This provides protection from potential deep chain reorganizations by invalidating shadow chains created by malicious actors. This effectively eliminates the possibility of a double-spend attack.IPFS and ZeroNet are both off-chain solutions that allow storage and retrieval of files in a distributed fashion. Each daemon is running an instance of both to maintain the network, but both run off-chain. Checkpoints are stored at a regular interval and are accessible to the entire network. As the solution is off-chain, a hard-fork is not required and it can be integrated with ease.Because IPFS/ZeroNet dynamic checkpointing is not consensus critical, its use is not required to participate in the network. Opting in or out is possible at any time without requiring a software update and without requiring synchronization with the network.When opted in to the dynamic checkpointing network, participants are assured they are using the legitimate chain and systematically refusing deep reorganization attempts from shadow chains that might suddenly appear on the network.In our initial implementation, the dynamic checkpoint network extends across the MoX and Torque blockchains. Dependence upon the health of another chain, however, is not a requirement. This solution can just as easily be employed on a single chain. Unlike other solutions, notarizing large quantities of data on another chain is unnecessary. It is only necessary to store the hash of the sum of the last one hundred hashes, making our solution extremely lightweight and versatile. Show less

Bitcoin Valuation using Dynamic Range NVT Signal NVT Signal, or Bitcoins PE Ratio, is one of the best metrics for identifying over-valuation. However, the drastically changing nature of the Bitcoin network, and movement off-chain, could make traditionally high NVT Signal values relatively less expensive in the future. Using a Dynamic Range NVT Signal allows for continued maturity in the Bitcoin network and ongoing identification of relative over- and under-valuation. 6 min readWhat is NVT Signal? NVT Signal (credit: to and ) is akin to a PE ratio for Bitcoin. It can be used to identify when Bitcoin is overbought (expensive) or oversold (cheap). It does this by calculating the ratio of Bitcoins market capitalization to its daily on-chain transaction value. The power of NVT is in its ability to put a price against the value that the Bitcoin Network delivers secure, immutable transactions.As defined by , NVT Signal is calculated as follows:NVT Signal = Circulating Market Cap / 90 Average On-Chain Transaction ValueHowever, just having the NVT Signal value isnt enough. What level indicates Bitcoin is expensive or cheap? proposed NVT Signal values above 150 as overbought and under 45 as oversold. Historically, these figures worked well at identifying local peaks and troughs in Bitcoins Price. However, due to the changing nature of the Bitcoin network, a fixed fair value range of 45150 may not be appropriate into the future.Bitcoin is Constantly Evolving, and this Impacts its Fair Value There are a number of reasons to believe that the fair value range of NVT Signal may not remain in a fixed band. The Bitcoin Network is constantly under development. Both via Bitcoin Core technical enhancements, and from the way Bitcoins surrounding infrastructure is engaged with and developed upon by the public. These developments significantly impact the transaction value transmitted on the Bitcoin network, and therefore alter the fair value of the NVT Signal.What are some reasons why the fair value range of NVT Signal might change in the coming years?NVT Signals fair value range might increase, because: Bitcoin is only 10 years old. Its likely that relatively high and relatively low NVT Signal values will change with time, as have PE ratios in the stock market over the last century. For example, Increasing use of off-chain transactions. Some transactions are now made off-chain, including private side-chain which is used by many major exchanges such as BitFinex and BitMex. If the trend towards side-chains and private transactions continues, we can expect less-and-less transactions to be captured in the public on-chain data (reducing the relative value of the T in NVT). This could cause the fair value NVT range to increase with time.NVT Signals fair value range might decrease, because: Bitcoin is like a start-up. Its extremely volatile and its mainstream adoption and long-term success is far from certain. As young businesses can have extremely high PE ratios (they are traded at high prices in anticipation of growth and high future earnings), Bitcoin too may currently have an inflated NVT Signal range (in anticipation of increased transaction values in the future). Therefore, as Bitcoin matures, its long-term NVT Signal value could stabilize lower.Based on the above, we can expect long-term trends in the NVT Signal fair value range to ebb and flow as the use case and technology infrastructure of Bitcoin matures. In fact, we have arguably already seen this change. If you believe the 84% drop in Bitcoins price to $3,150 in December 2018 was the low in the current market cycle, and consequently represented an oversold NVT Signal valuation, you would not have identified this using a NVT Signal range of 45 and lower. In December 2018, NVT Signal (using data) did not drop below 70.Establishing a Dynamic Range for the NVT Signals Fair Value For the above reasons, a dynamic range is proposed for the NVT Signal fair value, which can be used to identify when Bitcoin is overbought or oversold.The following range is proposed for assessing Bitcoins Fair value with NVT Signal:Overbought: NVT Signal > long-term mean +X * standard deviationsOversold: NVT Signal < long-term mean Y * standard deviationsThe above calculations are proposed to be performed over a rolling 2-year historical look-back period. In other words, at any point in time, only the prior 2 years worth of data should be considered in assessing relative value. This is roughly half the time between Bitcoin Supply halvings. In the future (in say, 5 years time plus), a 2-year look-back period is unlikely to be a sufficient window. Nonetheless, it was chosen here to give an ample period for historical review (8 years out of bitcoins short 10-year life); and because doubling the horizon to 4 years did not provide any measurable difference in the end results below.Because Bitcoins NVT Signal is skewed (it has historically experienced more extreme highs than extreme lows),X and Y cannot be the same value unless you never want to buy bitcoin again, or consider that it has never been cheap in its entire lifetime.Today, the following defaults are proposed. Due to the reasons outlined below, these parameters should probably be reviewed every 24 years:Overbought: NVT Signal > 2-year mean +2.0 * standard deviationsOversold: NVT Signal < 2-year mean 0.5 * standard deviationsOverbought is set here to 2 standard deviations above the mean. For a normally distributed data-set, this would mean Bitcoin is overbought roughly 2.5% of the time in any two year period. Though it turns out to be a somewhat higher percentage of the time given Bitcoins NVT Signal has not been normally distributed.Oversold is considered anything less than 0.5 standard deviations below mean. Again, this is due to the NVT Signals skewness. For example, in the last 10 years, Bitcoin has never had an NVT Signal below mean less 2 standard deviations. Using 0.5 captures the December 2018 low of $3,150 as oversold.A benefit of using the Dynamic Range NVT Signal is its interoperability across data sources. It is a know fact that estimates of transaction value differ across data vendors, as outlined by CoinMetrics. This is due to the way Bitcoin issues change for transactions. Data vendors have their own process for estimating the real transaction value, and often come up with greatly different figures. Nonetheless, using a Dynamic Range for fair valuation with NVT signal should yield the same result of relative over- or under-valuation across different data sources. A fixed fair value NVT Signal band will not. This is because of the relativity of the dynamic range to the data observed.Bitcoins Dynamic Range NVT Signal Fair Value Here are the results.The white NVT Signal line turns red when it above the red overbought line, and green when below the green oversold line. The indicator fills red and green respectively to highlight these changes through time. As with traditional fixed band NVT Signal valuation, NVT Signal is generally more precise at identifying market tops than bottoms.Based on the above default Dynamic Range settings, Bitcoin is currently fairly valued today and near oversold territory. You can also check out the live indicator on TradingView. If you dont agree with any of the dynamic range settings used in this article, feel free to easily adjust them on TradingView and see the impact.Considerations The NVT Signal with a dynamic fair value range must be used with care.As with all markets, an asset can remain expensive or cheap for extended periods or time and continue to get even more expensive or cheaper. This can be seen above during the 2015 -2016 period where NVT Signal spent much of the time ranging between 40 and 45. Arguably, this was the longest period of undervaluation (relative to actual use) in Bitcoins history.As noted above, it is likely that a 2-year look back period for calculating mean and standard deviation will not be sufficient in the years to come. As Bitcoin matures and stabilizes (some time in the future), a longer look back period should probably be used. Further, with maturity Bitcoins NVT skewness may reduce, requiring adjustment in the X and Y values above. Nonetheless, to minimize the impact of over-fitting, it is recommended these parameters be reviewed no more than once every 2 years.Finally, as Bitcoin ages, the validity of NVT Signal in general will need to be monitored. Particularly with respect to the potential for increasing use off-chain and private transactions which may diminish the validity of NVT. Show less

HomepageAbout membershipSign inGet startedHomepage ETH Gas StationBlockedUnblockFollowFollowingGas Prices, Miner Policies, Transaction TimesApr 1, 2017Current Dynamics of Transaction Inclusion on EthereumThe most common transaction on the Ethereum network today is a standard account transfer costing 21,000 gas and paying a 20 gwei/gas fee. From the time this transaction is submitted to the network, it takes about 53 s on average to be confirmed by a miner and included in the blockchain.I have been working on a site that times transaction confirmations and analyzes miner behavior (http://ethgasstation.info), and I have gotten some insight into why it takes this long and what changes would impact this wait. Furthermore, since block times currently average about 14.5 seconds, it may not be immediately obvious why it takes an average of 35s for a confirmation, so I decided to write up my observations.Currently, there are four main factors that hold up our standard transaction from being included in a block:Block interval timePOW mining software (the biggest factor)Gas priceEmpty block penaltyHere is how these four factors currently collude to produce a 35 second average transaction confirmation time:Block Interval Time: The block interval is currently about 15 seconds. Therefore, without changing the block interval time, 15s is about the best average confirmation time we could hope for.POW mining software delay: Unfortunately, our transaction has no hope of being included in the next block after being broadcast to the network (i.e. submit Tx at block 4,000,000 and have it mined in block 4,000,001). It turns out that miners are not willing to change the block data in the middle of a block interval in order to accommodate newly submitted transactions to the mempool. It’s not entirely clear whether doing so would disadvantage them for finding the next block or if there is some software optimization that could enable this, but, at least for now, it doesn’t happen. So what does this mean for the user? Basically, you have to wait for another full block for the transaction to be eligible for inclusion in a block — which currently means, on average another 15 s. So now, under optimal conditions, we have an average of 30s before our nice, standard transaction can can be mined.Gas Price: The probability of our transaction being included in a block once queued, however, is not 100%. Several top mining pools (e.g. F2pool, Coinotron) haven’t mined a 20 gwei gas price transaction in months. Currently about 70% of blocks that include transactions are mined by miners who will accept the 20 gwei gas price, creating, in theory, a 70% inclusion probability for our transaction. With a 70% inclusion probability, the expected average number of blocks that will elapse before the transaction is mined is about 1.43 (or 21.4s). This time is added to the initial time that it took for the transaction to be queued (15s) and we are now left with a 36 s average time for our default-priced account transfer to get mined.Empty Block Penalty: Unfortunately, although 70% of blocks are mined by pools that accept a 20 gwei gas price, some of these pools mine blocks that are empty no matter what transactions are in the mempool. The best pools for users currently have a 1–2% empty block percentage, which is about the rate you can attribute to a true empty mempool at the time of block mining given the current number of daily transactions. In contrast, Dwarfpool, although they do mine many transactions with a 20 gwei gas price, currently has about 67% of all their blocks empty. These empty blocks create an additional time tax on our transaction by further lowering the base probability that it will be included in a block. We therefore need to estimate an empty-block adjusted probability of accepting a 20 gwei gas price which currently is about 56%. This translates into an expected rate of 1.8 blocks (27s) on average for a predicted total of 42s before mining (15s + 27s), which is close to the observed data.Here is a summary of the relative contribution of the factors that delay our 20 gwei gas price transaction from being accepted into a block:Some critics might point out that showing consistency with the observed data does not prove that the model is correct. So, how does it do at predicting other inclusion times? If our transaction had a 40 gwei gas price, you can essentially eliminate the gas price barrier (all major pools accept 40 gwei), but it doesn’t impact the other barriers. After factoring in the empty block penalty, the probability of being mined is about 80% or an expected 1.25 blocks average once queued yielding 34s (15 + 18.75s), which is nearly identical to the 33s observed time for these transactions. This is currently the best average confirmation time that can be achieved on the network.Similarly if you offer 2 gwei gas price, the gas price barrier gets higher (only 10% of blocks mined accept this gas price) but these miners who accept the low price almost never mine empty blocks, so the empty block penalty nearly goes away. You are left with a 8% inclusion probability that gives an expected mining time of 202s (15s + 187s), which is close to the observed 206s.For those of you who want fast transaction times, the good news is that barriers 2–4 are all essentially effects of proof-of-work mining that should be eliminated once Ethereum moves to proof-of-stake. So if you needed another reason to be excited about Proof-of-Stake — this is it.EthereumOne clap, two clap, three clap, forty?By clapping more or less, you can signal to us which stories really stand out.424BlockedUnblockFollowFollowingETH Gas StationGas Prices, Miner Policies, Transaction Times Never miss a story from ETH Gas Station, when you sign up for Medium. Learn moreNever miss a story from ETH Gas StationBlockedUnblockFollowGet updates Show less

-Bitcoin news, price, information analysis For those people looking to see the Bitcoin block size debate coming to an end, that will not be happening anytime soon, unfortunately. Things have gotten more interesting few weeks ago when rumours started appearing about BitPay looking to implement their own Bitcoin block size solution. This new adaptive block size solution holds some interesting merit, although it remains to be seen whether or not this solution will ever be implemented. Also read: Bitcoin Price Technical Analysis For 03/22/2016 – Can BTC Make It? Although both Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Classic each have their own benefits and drawbacks regarding creating block size solution on the software side, the BitPay option is kind of interesting as well. Rather than sticking to particular block size and upgrading it at certain time intervals  BitPay is looking at median block size solution. As the name suggests, this BitPay block size solution will impose dynamic limit, rather than forcing particular block size upon users at any given time. Determining the proper block size for particular moment in time is done by looking at the median size over the last 12,960 blocks – roughly three months – and adjusting the solution accordingly. Similar to any other Bitcoin block size solution in existence right now, consensus must be reached before the BitPay proposal is activated on the network. Scaling the Bitcoin block size depending on the number of transactions hitting the system over the past three months is an interesting approach, and should help prevent denial of service attacks as well as network congestion. But there is more to this proposal than just that, as dynamic block size structure would guarantee miners their created blocks are accepted by the rest of the Bitcoin network. Moreover, this BitPay solution should remove the need for any future hard forks of the network as well. Scalability has been thorn in the side of the Bitcoin network for quite some time now, and dynamic solution puts an interesting – and cleaner – spin on tackling this issue. There is no denying future block size increases will be needed on the Bitcoin network, and by removing the concept of hard forking, the BitPay solution could gain lot of traction. Additionally, this BitPay proposal gives miners moire choices regarding the size of the blocks they are generating on the network. Chinese miners would not need to worry about explosive block size growth either, as the maximum rate of growth is capped at twice the previous size. There will be no jumps from 1MB blocks to 2MB blocks and then suddenly increase to MB. This should give the local Internet infrastructure enough time to ramp up the overall network speed and [try to] get rid of data caps. Reaching consensus will require Bitcoin community participation as the BitPay block size implementation requires 75% livenet nodes threshold – as well as 51% of test nodes – to activate on the network.  Unfortunately, older clients who are deployed for full transaction validation are not compatible with the changes proposed in the BitPay solution, and will result in those clients no longer being part of the longest blockchain. In the end, it remains to be seen whether or not the BitPay solution will be embraced by Bitcoin miners in the end. Bitcoin Classic gained lot of initial support but seems to be struggling to carry on with that trend. Bitcoin Core remains the strong leader for now, even though this approach will take quite some time to come to fruition. Get the latest news delivered to your inbox. Gaming Platform with Mass Gambling Games framework for blockchain based business integration Blockchain rewards and loyality platform TRADING PLATFORM AND CRYPTO NEWS TV CHANNEL Blockchain platform for investment in neuro-medicine and neuro-technologies. NewsBTC is news service that covers bitcoin news, technical analysis forecasts for bitcoin and other altcoins. Here at NewsBTC, we are dedicated to enlightening people all around the world about bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. We cover news related to bitcoin exchanges, bitcoin mining and price forecasts for various virtual currencies. Featuring live charts, price analysis, breaking news, currency converter and more. The only bitcoin app you need! © 2018 NewsBTC. All Rights Reserved. Show less

Dynamic (CURRENCY:DYN) traded up 0.7% against the dollar during the 24 hour period ending at 7:00 AM Eastern on July 29th. In the last seven days, Dynamic has traded down 4% against the dollar. One Dynamic coin can now be bought for about $0.0109 or 0.00000114 BTC on major cryptocurrency exchanges including Bittrex and Upbit. Dynamic has a market cap of $160,144.00 and approximately $14,996.00 worth of Dynamic was traded on exchanges in the last day. Heres how similar cryptocurrencies have performed in the last day:Bitcoin (BTC) traded 0.1% lower against the dollar and now trades at $9,503.31 or 1.00000000 BTC.Ethereum (ETH) traded 0% lower against the dollar and now trades at $209.36 or 0.02204775 BTC.Litecoin (LTC) traded 0.5% higher against the dollar and now trades at $89.17 or 0.00939057 BTC.Bitcoin Cash (BCH) traded up 0.6% against the dollar and now trades at $307.37 or 0.03236912 BTC.Monero (XMR) traded down 2.2% against the dollar and now trades at $78.73 or 0.00829063 BTC.UNUS SED LEO (LEO) traded 0.8% higher against the dollar and now trades at $1.29 or 0.00013630 BTC.Ethereum Classic (ETC) traded 0.7% lower against the dollar and now trades at $5.90 or 0.00062083 BTC.Zcash (ZEC) traded down 2.2% against the dollar and now trades at $67.55 or 0.00711374 BTC.Dogecoin (DOGE) traded up 0.2% against the dollar and now trades at $0.0028 or 0.00000030 BTC.Bitcoin Gold (BTG) traded 2% lower against the dollar and now trades at $19.10 or 0.00201132 BTC.Dynamic Coin Profile Dynamic is a proof-of-work (PoW) coin that uses the Argon2 hashing algorithm. It launched on May 5th, 2017. Dynamics total supply is 19,730,075 coins and its circulating supply is 14,730,076 coins. Dynamics official Twitter account is @dualitychain and its Facebook page is accessible here. The official website for Dynamic is duality.solutions. Dynamic Coin Trading Dynamic can be bought or sold on these cryptocurrency exchanges: Upbit and Bittrex. It is usually not currently possible to purchase alternative cryptocurrencies such as Dynamic directly using US dollars. Investors seeking to acquire Dynamic should first purchase Ethereum or Bitcoin using an exchange that deals in US dollars such as Gemini, or GDAX. Investors can then use their newly-acquired Ethereum or Bitcoin to purchase Dynamic using one of the aforementioned exchanges. Receive News & Updates for Dynamic Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and updates for Dynamic and related cryptocurrencies with MarketBeat.com's FREE CryptoBeat newsletter. Show less

A lot of time is spent paying attention to the price of Bitcoin and its overall swings. This is for two key reasons. First, almost all other cryptocurrencies have their price move in high correlation to Bitcoin’s price. So any changes in the BTC/USD rate represents a proportionate change in the price of those other tokens. Similarly, Bitcoin dominance is a good measure of the overall split of forward-looking sentiments within the industry. Bitcoin dominance has recently taken a tumble down to ~51%, which means altcoins are starting to represent a larger portion of the overall market capitalization of the industry. One thing that we should all remember about Bitcoin is how much money was previously invested in it, but was withdrawn out of the industry in 2018. You had all the fairweather investors who had bought Bitcoin at the behest of their friends liquidating it. So it is fair to say it naturally moves more dramatically than altcoins because of its function as a gateway to the industry. The schism between investing in Bitcoin opposed to investing in altcoins is quite large. Polls generally show that Bitcoin maximalists are a significant portion of the investing space. These are the “hardcore believers” who have made extremely high predictions for the future price of Bitcoin. Altcoins are an afterthought to them and some even consider the other few thousand coins to be scams more than anything. The arguments for only investing in Bitcoin are that it was the first cryptocurrency and has the highest mainstream adoption. It is essentially synonymous with “crypto” to the layman, and most regulations are centered around it so far. For newbies to the crypto world, it isn’t always obvious what the most profitable investments are going to be. To be clear, no one can truly know what will do well, but the experts at least have an understanding of the different macroeconomic factors that affect groups of coins and can model out how changes in the economy will affect the industry. Altcoins can be split into more well-known ones like Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple, and more, or there are coins with much smaller market capitalizations. The argument for investing in altcoins is there is significantly more upside available, and that Bitcoin’s upside has already been realized to a large extent. Recent news has seen well-known Bitcoin skeptic Niall Ferguson changing his view and showing support for the cryptocurrency. In the past, he viewed it as a delusional investment with no intrinsic value, but after the massive market correction and some reevaluation, he now sees that Bitcoin and blockchain technology have a future in the world. He’d previously been told to invest in Bitcoin by his teenaged son, but considered it a foolish investment and avoided it. This resulted in him missing out on a potential 45x return. The interesting trend here is that the bust has actually drawn in more proponents than it has lost. You could argue that many of the previous Bitcoin evangelists were opportunists more than believers. Now, the true believers are becoming clear, and these include Jack Dorsey, Elon Musk, and now Niall Ferguson in their ranks. Investing is speculative. When investing your capital is at risk. This site is not intended for use in jurisdictions in which the trading or investments described are prohibited and should only be used by such persons and in such ways as are legally permitted. Your investment may not qualify for investor protection in your country or state of residence, so please conduct your own due diligence. This website is free for you to use but we may receive commission from the companies we feature on this site. Click here for more information. Show less

Blockchain.info has been under a lot of stress in recent times, as the platform has been facing several outages over the past few months grinding services to a halt. Moreover, the current Bitcoin transaction delays on the networks were annoying as well, since blockchain.info wallet users could not adjust the fees correctly to get their transfers picked up faster. That has come to change, though, asa new set ofdynamic fees for blockchain.info users has been announced. The way new dynamic feesfor blockchain.info userswork is as follows: rather than using the standard Bitcoin transaction fee to get a transaction picked up by the miners, Blockchain.info users can set a lower or higher fee, depending on their preference. Higher transaction fees will result in transfers being included in one of the next blocks mined on the network, whereas lower-than-normal costs will be cheaper and take a bit longer. Blockchain.info has been looking at various ways to improve their Bitcoin walletplatform in recent months, and tackling any future congestion problems head-on is a smart business decision. The dynamic fee structure has been made available in for web wallet users recently, and the mobile offerings will receive the update over the coming weeks. As a result of these dynamic fees, Blockchain.info users will be able to see their Bitcoin transactions confirmed in a fast and efficient manner, while trying to keep the cost per transfer as low as possible. Moreover, it should not matter how many people are using the Bitcoin network at any given time, as Blockchain.info offer users the necessary tools to get their transactions confirmed as fast as possible. Default Bitcoin transaction fees are becoming a thing of the old, even though most digital currency users prefer to spend as little money as possible to move funds across. At the rate of 0.0001 Bitcoin per transaction worth US$0.0415 at the time of writing fees have been on the low end of the scale for quite some time now. However, miners prioritize transactions based on their associated fee, and if everybody keeps using the same amount, congestion is a somewhat logical result. The new dynamic fee structure by Blockchain.info will be able to detect significant changes in the Bitcoin network, such as increasing transaction volume. Based on the current situation, fees per transaction will be adjusted accordingly, and can be lower or higher than 0.0001 BTC. But in the end, the user experience for Blockchain.info users will remain unchanged as the fees scale automatically. For those users who want more control over their Bitcoin transactions, a particular fee can be set up in the Advanced Send part of the wallet. However, users will be greeted with a warning if the amount specified is too high or low depending on the current Bitcoin network congestion. All in all, this is a very positive change by Blockchain.info, as many users rely on this wallet service to store and transfer Bitcoin. Dynamic fees are a significant step forward in making Bitcoin transactions more scalable on the user side of things, as developers continue to develop ways to implement protocol changes for future improvements. Source:Blockchain.info Blog, NewsBTC Show less