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Not everyone has heard of SHA-256, but I believe it to be one of the greatest American inventions of the 21st century.

Developed by the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2001, SHA-256 is a secure hashing algorithm that, among many other things, is used by your iPhone to encrypt data, including the unique facial characteristics that many of you use to unlock your phone.

It also makes Bitcoin encryption possible. I wont bore you with the detailsyou can read more about the algorithm herebut SHA-256 has never been hacked or compromised, making Bitcoin one of the most secure protocols on earth.

This is precisely why Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoins pseudonymous inventor, chose to build the digital asset on top of it. Writing in 2010, Satoshi said that SHA-256 can last several decades unless theres some massive breakthrough attack.

Thats good news, as Bitcoin is designed to be mined and held for decades to comeand beyond. The very last available bitcoin is expected to be produced sometime in the year 2140. As of this writing, close to 92% of every bitcoin that will ever exist has already been mined, meaning approximately 1.7 million are still up for grabs.

Number of bitcoins still up for grabs, in millions

So why am I telling you all this? Mainly to set the record straight on Bitcoin.

First of all, Bitcoin is a U.S. invention, despite the Japanese-sounding pseudonym of its creator(s). This is important because there are still people who believe it was designed specifically to destabilize the dollar and the traditional monetary system.

That couldnt be further from the truth, though many advocates believe Bitcoin could one day replace fiat currency. Even the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), one of the most vocal critics of Bitcoin, has issued guidance for central banks to potentially hold digital assets as reserve currencies.

Im sure youve noticed that theres been a lot of negative press about crypto since at least last summer, first with the implosion of Terra/LUNA and the bankruptcies of crypto lending firms Celsius and Voyager Digital. Then, of course, came the massive fraud scandal involving Sam Bankman-Fried and his crypto exchange FTX.

Last week, crypto bank Silvergate announced it would shut its doors, and New York-based Signature Bank, also crypto-friendly, was closed by regulators on Sunday.

Due to its association with crypto, Bitcoins price has suffered as a result of these setbacks, even though it has nothing to do with the firms in crisis, and even though its proof-of-work (PoW) protocol makes it far more secure than proof-of-stake (PoS) coins such as the now-worthless LUNA.

Bitcoin is the only crypto asset to officially be considered a commodity, according to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), citing its PoW protocol. All other coins and tokens may very well be classified as securities.

Like face recognition, artificial intelligence (AI), mRNA vaccines and other modern technology, Bitcoin itself is neither good nor nefarious. Instead, its a key component of the ongoing, rapidly accelerating digital transformation.

I think the lightning-fast adoption of ChatGPT is proof of this hyper-acceleration. The AI chatbot, developed by OpenAI, may be the fastest-growing app of all time. Launched at the end of November 2022, it reached 100 million active users, including Holly Schoenfeldt, in only two months, significantly beating other popular apps such as TikTok, Instagram and Pinterest. Last month, ChatGPT netted a staggering 1 billion visits to its website, according to Similarweb.

ChatGPT may be the fastest-growing app of all time

Take a look below. Spending on blockchain technology is expected to expand more than 65 times from 2021 to 2028, when it could hit $395 billion, according to one research firm. Due to its superior security properties, Bitcoin will be used to validate everything on these blockchains, which I believe will increase its value exponentially. As I often say, follow the money.

Estimated money to be spent on blockchain technology

Speaking of money, Bitcoins market cap now rivals that of Visa and Mastercard, which have millions of users and decades worth of name recognition. Bitcoin is decentralized, meaning it has no CEO, no board of directors and no marketing budget. And yet its total value is approximately in line with that of the two biggest credit card companies. When it was trading at $55,000 and $65,000, Bitcoins market cap completely eclipsed that of Visa and Mastercard.

Value of Bitcoin is approximately the same as Visa and Mastercard

As big as Bitcoin is, its nowhere close to the market value of gold and silver, two more decentralized assets. Golds total global value is currently a little over $12 trillion, roughly the size of five Apples, while silvers is approximately $1 trillion, sitting right between Alphabet and Amazon at todays prices.

To me, this bodes well for Bitcoin, whose market cap is around $433 billion right now. For the digital asset to have the same value as silver, each bitcoin would need to be priced at $60,000, which its achieved before and likely will do so again.

For it to have the same value as gold right now, Bitcoin would need to trade at an eye-popping $630,000.

Is that doable? Some people think so. Billionaire investor Tim Draper believes Bitcoin could hit $250,000 by the end of this year. Cathie Wood says it could go as high as $1.5 million in seven years.

Ill refrain from making my own price prediction, but I will say that as the digital transformation advances, I expect Bitcoins price to advance alongside it.

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Bitcoin Is A Key Component Of The Great Digital Transformation - Forbes

Bitcoin (BTC) focused Decentralized Finance (DeFi) protocol RSK Infrastructure Framework (RIF) is seeing a massive upsurge today following the recovery of the broader digital currency ecosystem. With the combined crypto market cap jumping 3.54% to $1.18 trillion over the past 24 hours, RIF has bullishly tapped into the trend.

RIF is currently changing hands at a spot price of $0.1847, up by 3.62% over the past 24 hours and by more than 95% in the trailing 7-day period. Among the top altcoins showing a steep correlation with Bitcoin, RIF seems to be trending more as it is riding on the premise to bring smart contract capabilities to the worlds largest cryptocurrency network.

The emergence of the RSK Infrastructure Framework protocol marked an ambitious attempt by any project to propound the utilities of Bitcoin. The project was conceived by IOVLabs in 2019 and is currently based in Gibraltar. Since its inception, IOVLabs have been able to build one of the crypto ecosystems first Layer-3 networks on Bitcoin.

Layer-2 protocols are what is common and they generally tend to enhance the transaction speed on their base protocols by a very significant mile with transaction speeds also poised to go lower. Layer-3 is an even better improvement and it leverages the security and broad acceptance of the Bitcoin blockchain.

Bitcoin was designed by Satoshi Nakamoto to be a predominantly payment network, however, its usage over the years has grown beyond comprehension. Over the years, Bitcoin has now been considered a very viable hedge against inflation, competing with legacy assets like Gold amongst institutional investors.

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MicroStrategy Incorporated, an American business intelligence and software firm has made its mark as one of the biggest proponents of Bitcoin and over the years, the company has accumulated more than 140,000 Bitcoin units. While these gestures are helping to push the boundaries of Bitcoin, a whole new dimension is being charted by IOVLabs.

The digital currency ecosystem has evolved a great deal over the past few years and the most versatile protocols are now marked by the nature of functionalities they brandish, through the DApps that are resident on them.

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Bitcoin is not designed to accommodate smart contracts and RSK Infrastructure Framework is helping to bridge this deficiency with its technology. While RSK is not the only outfit pushing this milestone as Stacks (STX) is also doing the same, it is by far one of the few directly leveraging the security and decentralization of Bitcoin to chart its development.

The token has benefited from its alignment and business strategy since the start of the year. With its latest milestones, showcased by the growth in the DeFi TVL on the protocol, RIF has seen more than a 347% growth in the Year-to-Date (YTD) period. Should its operations expand over the years, it may soar much more in the near future.

Crypto News Flash does not endorse and is not responsible for or liable for any content, accuracy, quality, advertising, products, or other materials on this page. Readers should do their own research before taking any actions related to cryptocurrencies. Crypto News Flash is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods, or services mentioned.

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DeFi protocol pushing Bitcoin (BTC) boundaries in smart contract ... - Crypto News Flash

By Mohammed Roshan

Since the launch of Bitcoin Ordinals in January 2022, they have sparked a lot of debate within the Bitcoin community. Ordinal Inscriptions, similar to NFTs, are digital assets inscribed on a satoshi (the lowest denomination of a Bitcoin). These inscriptions, named after the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, became possible thanks to the Taproot upgrade implemented on the Bitcoin network in November 2021.

More than 200,000 Bitcoin Ordinals have already been created, with the widespread expectation that demand for their unique ability to store NFTs on Bitcoin will only increase over the coming years. However, some in the Bitcoin community have argued against the concept, expressing their concerns about its implications.

Lets try and understand this in detail.

So, are ordinals NFTs?

Well, not exactly but they can potentially be used for some of the same purposes.

NFTs and similar products that are used to certify ownership and authenticity ideally must be hosted on secure, decentralized platforms. However, in the case of NFTs until now, they were instead hosted on centralized crypto or chains prone to hacks and network shutdowns.

And, thats exactly where ordinals come in. With its advent, we now have a Bitcoin-native way to create NFTs, without actually issuing a token.

So, what exactly are Bitcoin ordinals?

Proposed by a developer named Casey Rodarmor, Bitcoin Ordinals are sats or satoshis that have been ordered and inscribed with information, that could be a text or an image. This piece of information makes each satoshi unique and turns it into an NFT of sorts.

Heres a simple analogy to understand ordinals better: imagine two hundred-rupee notes. You could use either of them interchangeably for transactions. However, they arent exactly unique thanks to a serial code, which serves as an identification for each hundred-rupee note. But imagine if one note was signed or inscribed by Virat Kohli and another by Shahrukh Khan, you now have 2 unique rupee NFTs. You could still spend it as regular money, but you probably wouldnt since the inscribed signatures of these celebrities boost its value.

Ordinals work similarly and they take advantage of the fact that every satoshi can be uniquely identified by its equivalent of a serial code. And, because there are a limited number of sats in existence, there are also a limited number of ordinals.

Ordinals contain the actual raw file data directly written into the Bitcoin blockchain and hence theyre pretty much forever, and cannot be destroyed. That makes them ideal for NFTs, where you want to make sure the ownership of a digital asset is clear and immutable.

How are ordinals different from NFTs?While they can be used for the same purposes, ordinals are different from traditional NFTs in terms of their technical design. Bitcoin ordinals, as mentioned before, help identify sats uniquely and have information stored on-chain. On ethereum, which is the dominant crypto of NFT activity and trading, the ERC-721 standard used to create NFTs, typically holds the metadata or a pointer to the art, which is generally held off-chain.

Another key difference is how the value of Bitcoin NFTs, especially around rarity, is derived. With traditional NFTs, the attributes of the art or information typically defines its rarity and hence its value. NFT projects generally also mint a limited supply of art pieces, so as to create exclusivity and boost its price.

Bitcoin ordinals can do all of the same but the pricing can also be defined by key moments that a Bitcoin block would represent. A simple framework suggested by the creator of ordinal inscriptions is that key events would decide the rarity of a sat and the ordinal inscribed into that. Some sats would be considered more precious than others, such as the first sat of every new block, the first sat of an adjustment period that occurs approximately every two weeks and the first sat of each halving.

At the same time, the other sats can derive value from the content which is inscribed into them.

This gives a unique dimension to its pricing and differentiates Bitcoin ordinals from NFTs, where the rarity is controlled by the artists or the founding teams behind the NFT collections.

So, are ordinals ultimately a good thing for Bitcoin?

Ordinals have already had quite a noticeable impact on the Bitcoin Network, and have stirred up quite a debate amongst Bitcoiners. There is a section of Bitcoiners who are of the opinion that ordinals are spamming the network causing network congestion and is ultimately a threat to Bitcoin decentralization.It is important to note that the Ordinals ecosystem is still in its early stages of development, and what lies in the future remains to be seen.

Just last week, Yuga Labs, the company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT series, generated $16.5 million from its first NFT auction using the Ordinals protocol on Bitcoin and this definitely has helped introduce many people to BItcoin.

A lot of the criticism against ordinals stems from Bitcoiners that either believe that Bitcoin must remain a peer-to-peer payment platform or those that dont understand the innovation behind building NFTs on Bitcoin.

We like to look at the optimistic side of things, and strongly believe this could be the start of a cultural shift showing even people outside the Bitcoin ecosystem that things can be built on a crypto ecosystem.

Over time, Bitcoin could act like the base protocol on which NFTs and several innovations are built an ultimate bottom layer of absolute truth.

Its also why the ordinals movement is so important. While there may be those that might not like to see Bitcoin move beyond its created intention of peer-to-peer payments, these are initiatives in the right direction that will unleash a torrent of innovation to the Bitcoin ecosystem.

The author is co-founder and CEO, GoSats

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Debate erupts over NFTs: Is it time to include them in the Bitcoin ecosystem - The Financial Express

Bitcoin and Ethereum are two of the most well-known cryptocurrencies in the world. Although both are decentralized digital currencies, they have significant differences in their underlying technology and functionality. Which one is better to hold, Bitcoin or Ethereum? Lets get into a quick analysis of Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency to be created in 2009 by an unknown person or group of people using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. It was designed to be a decentralized, peer-to-peer digital currency that could be used as an alternative to traditional fiat currencies. Bitcoin operates on a blockchain, a distributed ledger that records every transaction on the network. The blockchain is maintained by a network of nodes, which work together to verify transactions and prevent fraud.

On the other hand, Ethereum was created in 2015 by a programmer named Vitalik Buterin. Ethereum is not just a digital currency, but also a blockchain platform that enables developers to create decentralized applications (dApps) and smart contracts. Smart contracts are self-executing contracts with the terms of the agreement between buyer and seller being directly written into lines of code. Ethereums blockchain uses a cryptocurrency called Ether as its native token.

The primary difference between Bitcoin and Ethereum lies in their underlying technology and functionality. While Bitcoin is primarily used as a store of value or a means of exchange, Ethereums blockchain allows for the creation of decentralized applications and smart contracts. Ethereum is designed to be more flexible and scalable than Bitcoin, with a focus on providing a platform for developers to build upon.

In terms of market capitalization, Bitcoin is currently the largest cryptocurrency, with a market cap of over $1 trillion. Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency, with a market cap of over $200 billion. Bitcoins price is largely driven by demand as an alternative store of value and investment asset, while Ethereums price is more influenced by the adoption of its platform for decentralized applications and smart contracts.

As for which cryptocurrency is projected to become better in the future, its difficult to say for certain. Both Bitcoin and Ethereum have their strengths and weaknesses, and their success largely depends on their adoption and use cases. However, many experts believe that Ethereums platform for decentralized applications and smart contracts has significant potential for disrupting industries and transforming the way we interact with technology. As such, Ethereum may have a more significant impact on the future of blockchain technology and decentralized applications.

While Bitcoin and Ethereum are both decentralized digital currencies, they have significant differences in their underlying technology and functionality. Bitcoin is primarily used as a store of value or a means of exchange, while Ethereums blockchain allows for the creation of decentralized applications and smart contracts. While both cryptocurrencies have their strengths and weaknesses, many experts believe that Ethereum has significant potential for disrupting industries and transforming the way we interact with technology.

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