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A visual representation of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin on December 12, 2017 in London, England.

Jordan Mansfield | Getty Images

Bitcoin on Tuesday floated at the $19,000 level, where it has remained for about a month with some momentary breaks.

The largest cryptocurrency by market cap, whose volatility has been uncharacteristically low in recent weeks, was down by 1.1% at $19,002.70, according to Coin Metrics. Ether fell 2% to $1,282.17.

Crypto prices remain depressed, with bitcoin off its all-time high from nearly a year ago by more than 70%. Chart analysts have been looking for the cryptocurrency to break lower to retest its June lows of about $17,000 and find a new bottom, potentially as low as $10,000 if it fails to hold at $19,000. Slight breaks below that level haven't proved to be meaningful, however.

"Crypto markets continue their slumber with little progress either way," said Richard Usher, head of OTC trading at the BCB Group. "Until broad risk bounces, this sector won't."

Traders are keeping an eye on economic data out later this week. Though recent bitcoin volatility is low compared with stocks, the correlation between the two is still high.

"The price of bitcoin is maintaining the $19,000 level, but with the FOMC's minutes and CPI ahead this week, the market will likely refrain from taking risks, which in turn will likely put pressure on bitcoin," Yuya Hasegawa, crypto market analyst at Japanese crypto exchangeBitbank, told CNBC Tuesday.

Prices held steady even after two big announcements signaling that institutional acceptance and adoption of crypto continues to build in spite of the bear market. On Tuesday, Google announced it would explore using Coinbase's service for storing and trading cryptocurrencies. On top of that, BNY Mellon said Tuesday that it will add cryptocurrencies to the various assets it holds as a custody manager.

"These large companies believe in the potential of digital assets and Web3," said Owen Lau, an analyst at Oppenheimer. "It takes time to build, but these companies are taking a long-term view to bulk up their capabilities to make sure they won't be behind in 3-5 years."

In the past month, Nasdaq also launched crypto custody for institutions and Franklin Templeton, Betterment, Socit Gnrale and other wealth managers have made forays into crypto.

A year ago, news like that might have moved the crypto market, but prices are largely macro driven now.

Still, prices will likely be stuck for some time. The Federal Reserve pushed crypto into the well with its rate-hiking plan, and investors say it's on the central bank to pull it back out.

Continued here:
Bitcoin holds steady around $19,000 amid growing signs of institutional adoption - CNBC

Employees work on bitcoin mining computers at Bitminer Factory in Florence, Italy.

Alessandro Bianchi | Reuters

Software used in bitcoin mining just got its first upgrade since late 2012, and a coalition of companies including payments giant Block (formerly Square) is trying to help push the open-source protocol forward to become an industry standard.

The move could help open bitcoin mining to more participants by supporting lower-quality internet connections, as well as improving security so miners get properly compensated for their work.

Bitcoin operates on a proof-of-work mining model, meaning that miners around the world run high-powered computers to create new bitcoin and validate transactions. Mining requires professional-grade equipment, some technical know-how, a lot of electricity and a special kind of software.

Rather than directly accessing the bitcoin protocol, the vast majority of miners today work through an intermediary protocol called Stratum, which facilitates communication between the bitcoin network, miners, and the mining pools that combine the hashing power of thousands of miners all over the world.

Miners use Stratum to submit their work and to collect a reward if they successfully complete a new block of transactions.

On Tuesday, a coalition of bitcoin developers is releasing version 2 of Stratum under an open-source license for the mining industry to evaluate and test.

It will take some work to convince the mining industry to adopt the new protocol, so Spiral a subsidiary of Jack Dorsey's payments companyBlock(formerly Square) is teaming up with bitcoin mining company Braiins to launch a group to test and fine-tune the open-source software before they push mass adoption.

Steve Lee, the lead at Spiral, tells CNBC there are several significant benefits to the upgrade, including cutting down on the use of data.

Currently, it is common for each mining rig in a large farm to directly connect to a pool. This setup wastes a lot of energy. Lee says that Stratum V2 supports a proxy that aggregates all the connections and only establishes one connection with the pool.

The process of sending that data is also changing to a more efficient method.

"All told, much less data needs to be transmitted between miners and pools, and this could help miners in remote regions of the world with poor internet," noted Lee.

The upgrade is designed to improve security, as well. Today, it is possible to steal hash rate from a miner, which can lead to some miners losing money. Hash rate is a term for the collective computing power of the bitcoin network. To resolve this, Lee says Stratum V2 introduces a standard security mechanism with authentication and encryption between miners and pools.

The version being released Tuesday is for initial testing, and in early November, a more robust version will come out that supports additional functionality, including job negotiation a "feature that represents a historic shift in the censorship-resistant mechanics of bitcoin mining by replacing a pools responsibility of assigning work to miners with the ability for miners to select their own work," according to a joint statement released by Spiral and Braiins.

There are orders of magnitude more miners than pools, so if miners select transactions it is far more decentralized than just a handful of pools, Lee explained.

"Working for industrywide adoption of the upgraded Stratum protocol is one of the most important developments in improving the decentralization and censorship resistance of bitcoins architecture," Lee said.

As for timing, the pilot and integration testing will happen this fall, and next year, the upgraded protocol will likely see greater adoption once miners and pools are confident it is working well.

"I'd anticipate a gradual increase in hash rate in 2023," Lee told CNBC. "Reaching 10% hash rate by the end of 2023 would be a great success," continued Lee.

Lee added that it will likely take several years to see the latest version of Stratum replace the original.

Miners know the benefits of upgrading to Stratum V2 very well, but pushing the entire mining industry over some of the remaining development and adoption hurdles is a big task," said Jan Capek, co-founder of Braiins.

"Universal standards for running and building Stratum V2 and the efforts of this working group to push the industry forward will provide the momentum bitcoin needs to finally upgrade from a version of its mining protocol that was built a decade ago, continued Capek.

Similar to the Lightning Network, which is a technology built on top of bitcoin's base layer to make payments more efficient, there will be different implementations of Stratum V2. However, the open-source version released Tuesday will make it easier to collectively test out the technology. It will also ensure that the various projects can interact with one another.

Tuesday's announcement is part of Block's larger push into the bitcoin mining industry.

On the sidelines of the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami in April, digital assets infrastructure company Blockstream and Block announced that they were breaking ground on a solar- and battery-powered bitcoin mine in Texas that uses solar and storage technology fromTesla.

Tesla's 3.8 megawatt solar PV array and 12 megawatt-hour Megapack will power the facility.

Block is also independently working on a project to make bitcoin mining more distributed and efficient.

The idea of making the mining process more accessible has to do with more than just creating new bitcoin, according to Block's general manager for hardware, Thomas Templeton. Instead, he says the company sees it as a long-term need for a future that is fully decentralized and permissionless.

"Mining needs to be more distributed," Dorsey wrote in a tweet in October,when he first floated the idea. "The more decentralized this is, the more resilient the bitcoin network becomes."

Toward that end, the company is solving one major barrier to entry: Mining rigs are hard to find, expensive and delivery can be unpredictable. Block says it is open to making a new ASIC, which is the specialized gear used to mine for bitcoin.

The project is being incubated within Block's hardware team, which is beginning to build out a core engineering team of system, ASIC and software designers led by Afshin Rezayee.

Read more from the original source:
The software used in bitcoin mining is getting its first big makeover in more than a decade here's what's changing - CNBC

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music, Friedrich Nietzsche

Bitcoin and art could lead us out of the mechanical stronghold that the predatory, manipulative and exploitative fiat reality imposes on us. Art is individually liberating and inherently disruptive. Bitcoin is the groundbreaking technology that does the same. How do we free a people whose monetary foundation is not free?

To free the people, is a powerful statement. We can guess with great certainty from what or whom people want to be free. What happens when people are free? If we agree that Bitcoin and art need to free people from the fiat systemic oppression structures, we must be specific about what kind of freedom we want to lead. The power of art to free the people was always a threat to any political, military and economic system. As much as that power was suppressed by kings, governments and bureaucrats, that power was also manipulated in leading many revolutions just think of Europe in the 1960s, the 1980s and 1990s.

You think you are an individual, but are you actually? Jiddu Krishnamurti

In art, I becomes we. It is a paradox that is present in art. An artist is communicating the work with the public and in doing so becomes a part of the larger group. In that instant the artist becomes we, and we are one with the artist. Something similar is present in the existence of Bitcoin. With every block created and node approval granted, a singular becomes plural-forever embedded in the blockchain. I in Bitcoin, even if it is seen as a sovereign individualistic and pragmatic construct, disappeared from the vocabulary. In Bitcoin, it is always we as we are not singular but a combination of more than just one node/individual. That is how we discover that we is the path to free the people.

Consider your origins: You were not made to live as brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge. Dante Alighieri

The fiat system and culture are predatory and mechanical. If we chose a contemplative and creative culture, the massive civil awakening that is potentially upon us could be transformed into the movement of creation and renaissance of human consciousness. The base for it is sound money is bitcoin, and the way of enlightening people is art. That is freedom. To be enlightened and to have sound money. That is how Bitcoin and art will free the people. Why do we always and repeatedly need to build technology and money for the worst-case scenario? We already have new, different technology and means of communicating and adopting the same. We have Bitcoin and art. Unfortunately, we perceive history as a past narrative, but we do not understand that history itself is a narrative in perpetual motion. And we learn nothing. All is already written in cycles and the nature of progress. To fully transform our reality we need to free the people.

Only after disaster can we be resurrected. Its only after youve lost everything that youre free to do anything. Nothing is static, everything is evolving, everything is falling apart, Chuch Palahniuk, Fight Club

Art will give us the vocabulary to articulate the science of Bitcoin. Through art, we could access the morality of Bitcoin. The people will be free through allegory and symbols. Someone could rightly state that allegory itself is nothing else but verbal symbolism. Bitcoin is the symbol of an idea and that idea is freedom. Bitcoin gives a new identity to freedom that is born out of contemplation and creativity. The idea of freedom is larger than the response to predatory and mechanical structures of the fiat system and fiat institutions. Bitcoin can free people to create a new reality using the language of art.

Bitcoin needs its own symbolism. That symbolism is the future essence of Bitcoin's existence.

If we are to withdraw that symbolism from Bitcoin, we will leave behind a lifeless mass of code and cold mathematical calculations. Bitcoin proposes a new definition of not just monetary freedom, but a definition of freedom in and of itself. The proposition is simple: Bitcoin is not issued and not controlled by any government or financial institution. By being not controlled by anyone at all, Bitcoin is closer to the idea of energy. And energy is freedom.

As a non-controllable entity, Bitcoin proposes a way for us to deal peacefully with each other through mutual agreement. That is freedom. This kind of exchange could only happen between and among free people. The only true connection even spiritual connection is between Bitcoin and art.

Freedom in the new Renaissance actually exists everywhere all at once on each node. Bitcoin and art inspire us equally to say: I dont know, and that is the only way to be free. In learning, we open freedom to be and to create. Bitcoin holds the idea that all people have the same opportunities to grow. That is freedom and that freedom cannot be achieved without your work and your compassion. That freedom is the key to the new Renaissance.

The artistic realm is real. It comes at first, down to us, in its immateriality. To grasp art we need to have consciousness and free will. Consciousness and free will are not illusions.

Art is not an illusion.

Bitcoin is not an illusion.

Freedom is not an illusion.

This is a guest post by Stefan Dzeparoski. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.

See original here:
How Bitcoin And Art Will Free The People - Bitcoin Magazine

This is an opinion editorial by Robert Warren, partner at Distributed Hash and business development at Upstream Data Inc.

The layperson knows only one thing about Bitcoin mining it uses a lot of energy, and that is bad.

This mind-virus, successfully spread by the climate extremists and anti-Bitcoin street corner preachers (typically carrying a proof-of-stake torch) is intended to be the death knell of our burgeoning industry. We use a lot of energy, and using energy is obviously a terrible thing. It follows that we should be scorned, pursued and regulated out of existence.

We are in a climate crisis, so as we all know, the best course of action is to install solar on your roof, buy a Tesla, shut down the coal and gas plants in your region, and argue anything short of that is systematically racist. Proof-of-work is the enemy.

This argument is, to most reasonable people who enjoy running their dishwasher and having the lights on at night, patently ridiculous.

But there is still that one big issue: Doesnt Bitcoin mining still use a lot of energy? And dont those computers clog our landfills the second they become unprofitable?

If you find yourself under the interrogation of the Bitcoin curious, having to answer for all of those megawatts were consuming, there is one question you must ask in response to, Doesnt Bitcoin use a lot of energy?

Yes, but which energy?

Source: Author

NOTE: Before we go any further, lets draw a clear distinction between energy and electricity. Energy comes from primary sources like a natural gas well, or hydroelectric dam. These primary sources are used to generate electricity, the secondary energy we make all over the world, sent through high voltage wires and used to power our dishwashers. If you want a resource to explore further, look HERE.

NOTE TO THE NOTE: Today not all bitcoin miners are using waste or excess energy. My assertion is that this is the direction our industry trends over the long run, regardless of generation type, because simple supply and demand drives miners to the lowest priced energy.

As long as waste energy exists, Bitcoin mining exists and is profitable.

Let me say again that for those of you in the back rows. As long as there is waste in energy production and supply chains, it will always be profitable to mine bitcoin, regardless of hardware type, manufacturer, age, location, anything.

Even esteemed Bitcoin Mining FUD masters like Alex de Vries of Digiconomist fail the simplest of economic analyses in the bitcoin mining space. That is, not understanding supply and demand. Which is why they publish findings like, A similar dynamic ultimately determines the fate of ASIC-based mining devices as advances in ASIC chip efficiency result in more powerful devices that eventually crowd out older, less efficient technology Because the technical lifetime of ASIC mining devices typically exceeds the period of time during which the device can perform its task profitably (McCook, 2018), the moment they become unprofitable determines their lifespan and the point at which they become electronic waste We show in this study that the lifespan of Bitcoin mining devices remains limited to just 1.29 years.

So, we are to understand, that efficiency in the ASIC market is the single driver of energy consumption and e-waste produced?

Ill invoke Brandolinis Law ("The amount of energy needed to refute bullsh*t is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.") as my rationale for not addressing the above directly, and will instead discuss energy waste.

By waste energy I mean the various points across energy supply chains where energy is available to perform work, but for one reason or another does not. This takes various forms across the market, whether its methane venting and flaring on oil and gas sites, wind farms, hydroelectric plants, nuclear reactors, and solar farms powering down due to low demand.

Bitcoin mining is the ultimate waste reduction tool, because as long as waste exists in the energy sector, and it always will, there will always be an incentive to mine Bitcoin with that energy, regardless of ASIC type. (NOTE: If you are Alex de Vries, I need you to re-read that last sentence and reconsider your 1.29 year estimate for ASIC lifespan.)

Source: Author

Source: Author

The energy that is worth the least, is the energy that never makes it to market. The methane vented or flared on an oil well, the wind turbine that sits idle in a megafarm, the hydroelectric turbine that doesnt spin. In the case of solar, you have production times that mismatch demand times, so excess capacity goes unused midday. I.e., People turn lights on more when the sun goes down.

Bitcoin miners have no interest in your Science-Backed Turbo Grid, your political idealizations, or which dream team you assembled to form a research council. Whether you want 89% nuclear, 71% solar with Tesla Powerwalls, elimination of fossil fuels completely or 93.7% hydro-power, is irrelevant, we dont care.

We are the eternal free market free agents.

We want your waste and excess.

We are the dung beetles of the energy sector.

And already the framework of this robust industry is developing.

Rack, power distribution unit and transformer expertise for indoor operations, a variety of containerized solutions designed to protect miners in rugged Texas Summers and frigid Alberta Winters, half engine half datacenter chimeras birthed for the sole purpose of consuming natural gas, home mining black boxes that dump excess heat into your house during the cold season all exist. A secondary market in software and hardware emerges in firmware, machine management, maintenance and lifetime extension.

Everything is designed around a single goal, the identification and utilization of the lowest priced energy in the most efficient way possible. That lowest priced energy is not the electricity youre using to charge your iPhone, or watch Netflix it lives far off and away in a substation with excess capacity, or a natural gas plant with underutilized turbines. In this way Bitcoin mining brings a market to everywhere there isnt one in the energy supply chain.

At nearly every point in the energy supply chain there is some waste or excess that is better priced and consumed than left idle.

So when your Bitcoin curious friends next corner you to ask about those terrible megawatts that the bitcoin miners are using, your first reply might most productively be:

Which energy do those Bitcoin miners use?

This is a guest post by Rob Warren. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

Read more:
Bitcoin Miners Are The Dung Beetles Of The Energy Sector - Bitcoin Magazine

According to countdown statistics based on the average block generation time of around ten minutes, progress toward the next Bitcoin block reward halving has surpassed 60%. However, while most halving countdown clocks leverage the ten-minute average, the countdown leveraging the most current block intervals of around 7:65 minutes shows the halving could occur in 2023.

Just recently, at block height 757,214, mined on October 5, 2022, Bitcoins total hashrate tapped an all-time high (ATH) at 321.15 exahash per second (EH/s). Lately, block intervals have been faster than usual and well under the ten-minute average.

The speed at which the 2,016 blocks are found in between difficulty adjustments determines the difficulty and current block intervals suggest a large difficulty jump is in the cards. Now, prior to the next difficulty rise, the hashrate has continued to remain strong and block times at the time of writing are around 7:65 minutes.

The next mining difficulty retarget is scheduled to happen on or around October 10, 2022. If block times remain faster than usual even after the retarget, the protocols block reward halving could very well happen in 2023. Statistics from bitcoinsensus.com indicate that at 7:65 minutes per block interval, the halving could take place on or around December 19, 2023.

Bitcoinsensus.com further shows the halving time based on the average ten-minute rule which shows the halving will occur on May 1, 2024. Most countdown calculators apply the average ten-minute rule, and other data points suggest the halving could occur on April 20, 2024.

Either way, the progress toward the next halving is still more than 60% complete, and when it occurs, bitcoin miner rewards will be reduced from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC post halving. Despite the high speed now, miners could easily slow down after the meaningful difficulty increase on October 10 is recorded and if BTC prices remain low.

This, in turn, would push the halving date back to the 2024 range and after all, theres still well over a years worth of BTC block subsidies to mine. A lot can change. According to a recent blog post from Blocksbridge Consulting, the difficulty change and low price range could give bitcoin miners a headache from loss of profits.

Bitcoins daily mining revenue per PH/s is currently around $80. If the difficulty rises 13% on Monday and bitcoins price stays at $19.5K, the daily revenue would decrease to $70 per (petahash) PH/s, Blocksbridge Consultings Miner Weekly issue #17 notes. That would cause mining companies to mine at all-time low revenues on a daily basis, even lower than what we saw during the summer following the May 2020 halving.

The blog post adds:

Unless bitcoins price breaks the $20,000 barrier, those who employ older-generation machines or have bloated mining operations will face an even tougher time ahead.

Viabtcs Viawallet halving metrics show that eight blockchains are expected to see reward halvings or whats known as reward reductions. Dash expects a reward reduction on June 20, 2023, as rewards will shrink from 2.76 DASH to 2.56 DASH. Other reduction events and reward halvings will stem from blockchains that include BCH, BSV, LTC, ETC, ZEC, and ZEN.

What do you think about the Bitcoin networks progress toward the next halving exceeding 60%? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Jamie Redman is the News Lead at Bitcoin.com News and a financial tech journalist living in Florida. Redman has been an active member of the cryptocurrency community since 2011. He has a passion for Bitcoin, open-source code, and decentralized applications. Since September 2015, Redman has written more than 6,000 articles for Bitcoin.com News about the disruptive protocols emerging today.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is 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 in this article.

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Progress Toward Bitcoin's Halving Is 60% Complete, Block Times Suggest Reduction Could Happen Next Year Mining Bitcoin News - Bitcoin News