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Bitcoin Is Now 11 Years Old

Today is January 3rd, 2020. And if you know anything about the history of Bitcoin, you know that this means the worlds first cryptocurrency and its respective blockchain has turned 11 years ago, with this being the date that Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous coder-hacker behind the project, mined the Genesis Block of Bitcoin.

In it, the creator encoded a headline regarding the Great Recession of 2008, cementing the idea that he launched the project to counteract banks and governments in the minds of many.

Since then, Bitcoin has seemingly been on an unstoppable rise, with the price of the asset, which many say is the best measure of its success, rising by literal millions of percent, making it the best-performing asset, well, ever. Thats not to mention that the cryptocurrency has accomplished this all in a decades time, effectively irrelevant on a macro scale.

The project has also been successful on a transactional basis. Cryptocurrency research firm TradeBlock found that the cryptocurrency has had a record 2019 with transaction count, transaction volume (USD equivalent basis), and hash rate reaching new all-time highs this past year.

All this has made some of the worlds most prominent people talk about it.

In February, Elon Musk co-founder of PayPal, chief executive of SpaceX and Tesla, founder of the Boring Company, among other titles said in a podcast that the cryptocurrency has an underlying structure that is quite brilliant, adding that he thinks maybe Ethereum and maybe some of the others might have technological merit. The renowned technologist concluded by stating that he thinks without a doubt that crypto is a far better way to transfer value than pieces of paper.

While Bitcoin has done absolutely stellar in its 11-or-so years in existence as laid out earlier in this article, analysts and industry executives are optimistic that the following decade for the leading cryptocurrency and its ilk will just not good, if not better.

Andy Bromberg told Bloomberg that we are seeing a level of building that has happened in 2019 [which makes it feel like] were in the moment of everyone is putting on their jumpsuits, ready to take off. Bromberg added were seeing crypto-related innovation hasnt been seen since 2017, boding well for prices in the future.

And Changpeng CZ Zhao, the prominent chief executive behind cryptos top firm, Binance, was recently quoted as saying that he thinks that the long-term trajectory for the Bitcoin and crypto market remains decidedly positive:

Bitcoin is still a small market cap instrument so there will be high volatility in the short term. However, if you look at the fundamental technology, the longer-term view, about a 5-year or 10-year horizon, were very confident that bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are here to stay.

Continue reading here:
Why Analysts Are Bullish On Cryptocurrency As Bitcoin Turns 11 - Ethereum World News

As 2020 kicks off it seems likely that government owned crypto will become a mainstay of the sector. Both China and Russia have begun tests for integrating state controlled cryptocurrency into their respective markets. Other major legislative and technological shifts are also underway.

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China is ready to start testing the digital yuan, said Mu Changchun, Head of Payment and Settlement Solutions Division of the Peoples Bank of China. He noted that the payment system has already passed the functional research and debugging stage, and now there will be the launch of pilot programs.

On around January 1, 2020, the Ethereum network will host Muir Glacier hard fork. It will take place on block 9 200 000 with the goal of delaying the activation of the complexity bomb.

Digital rights (tokens) can be assessed as the subject of a bribe, explained the Supreme Court of Russia in addition to the resolution of the Supreme Court Plenum of July 9, 2013 on judicial practice in cases of bribery and other corruption-related crimes. At the same time, tokens should receive a monetary value on the evidence provided by the parties, and if necessary, a specialist or expert opinion will be required.

The number of open long positions on the Bitfinex exchange has set a new historic high, exceeding 47.5 thousand BTC. This may indicate that the cryptocurrency community is expecting Bitcoin value to rise over the coming weeks after recent troubles.

The Bank of Russia has started to test the stablecoins in the regulatory sandbox. The agency is studying the possibility of issuing a digital ruble and determining its advantages over a more traditional fast payment system.

Craig Wright, who calls himself the creator of Bitcoin, said that on January 1, 2020, he will have access to 1.1 million BTC. As evidence, he presented the court with an email allegedly signed in 2011 by Dave Kleiman, who is considered one of the early developers of the first cryptocurrency.

More than 204 thousand Ethereum came to the hot wallets of the leading trading platforms. 25 thousand ETH was transferred to Binance and about 100 thousand to Huobi. Another 89 thousand ETH was sent to Kraken, while all coins came from one purse. Its owner could be a member of the Ethereum development team or Vitalik Buterin himself.

Senegal, Venezuela, Uruguay, and Tunisia have already presented digital payment systems, and, at the end of December, the Bank of Russia, which is skeptical about the new type of assets, reported on the beginning of testing the stable coins.

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(Featured image by Clifford Photography via Unsplash)

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China and Russia begin testing cryptocurrency - Born2Invest

Ethereum Foundation, the non-profit organization that promotes and supports the development of Ethereum, has constantly been criticized for its transparency policy by both members of the ecosystem and outsiders. One of the most prominent figures who has been quite vocal about the policy, or lack thereof, is Bob Summerwill, the Executive Director of ETC Cooperative.

Summerwill, once again, touched on the topic in an interview with AMBCrypto, remarking that the Foundation is an opaque Swiss foundation related to cryptocurrency. He stated that the Foundation has responsibility and accountability in order to present itself as not being nefarious, but trustworthy with mature governance and transparency in operations, similar to any other non-profit organization. Summerwill asserted that there is no non-profit organization in the world that has a free card to act on its free will.

You are being given a very special trusted status of saying, were taking public funds and were administering them for social good. Thats certainly the case for charities but its very much the case for any non-profit. And, what youve actually have had at the Foundation is nothing.

The executive director went to state that the Ethereum Foundation did not publicize information on most foundation matters. Summerwill also stated that he had posted a listicle on Hudsons request on what the Foundation could do better for the community, adding that some of them are being addressed a little in the meantime, but many are not.

The listicle included disclosing information about the Foundations board members, the basis on which decisions are taken, information about the voting and whether or not there are regular meetings, the money possessed, and the type of assets held by the Foundation, whether or not they had yearly budget allocation, its members, grants program, and more.

He further expressed dismay over the grants program process, stating that individual information about how much money is granted to a team is no longer being reported because some teams were angry about others getting more grants. Summerwill added that there were some teams that applied for grants and did not get approved without any details, even after waiting for months for a response.

In general, the Ethereum Foundation has been sitting on a gigantic amount of money. Within the Ethereum ecosystem, the Foundation is the richest entity by far [] and the foundation has had 100s of millions of dollars during the time where there was desperate, desperate need for infrastructure spending to be happening []

Summerwill also remarked that there is a massive dearth of transparency in the Foundation, as compared to other entities. Speaking about what could be done to ensure that there is better transparency, the Executive Director stated that the ETC Cooperative, based in the U.S, has public charity status and has to comply with IRS filings, which includes disclosing information about salaries, programs, expenditure, reserves, etc.

Beyond that, weve done voluntary transparency reports twice a year. You can also look at the ZCash foundation [] youve got a reasonable number of this is what good looks like bodies. Or if you look outside of that immediate space, look at the Linux space and Hyperledger [] This is not rocket science; how you run an open-source foundation.

According to Summerwill, the absence of transparency could have been understandable in 2014-2015, considering the fact that no one knew about how things could be done. However, he added, that is long gone. Summerwill further claimed that the SECs statement on Ethereum not being classified as a security because of its decentralized nature should have been a signal for the Foundation. However, the opportunity to mature was never taken. He concluded,

The reason Im so passionate about this is that I know theyre good guys right. I know everyone at the foundation, its not like theres some horrific corruption and theyre covering up the bad books or any of this stuff. Its just literally not being like a priority right. Everything is all just rainbows [], and not getting down and doing the books []

Read more:
Ethereum Foundation is an opaque Swiss foundation related to cryptocurrency - AMBCrypto

The logo of the "Petro" is displayed next to images of Venezuelan late President Hugo Chavez (L) and ... [+] Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in a building in downtown Caracas, on September 21, 2018. - Six months after Venezuelan cryptocurrency petro, with which the government of Maduro seeks to evade financial sanctions from the US, started selling to the public, it still can not be exchangeable for money, goods or other cryptocurrencies as the bitcoin. (Photo by Federico PARRA / AFP) (Photo credit should read FEDERICO PARRA/AFP via Getty Images)

In spite of the original philosophy behind bitcoin, a tool to protect and empower sovereign citizens worldwide against oppressive regimes and predatory financial institutions, more and more nations are finding legitimate value in endorsing cryptocurrency.

Established nations like the United States and China are taking a nuanced approach in applying the tech to various departments, and smaller alternatives like Malta and the Virgin Islands have looked to crypto as a means to bolster and expand their local economies. Heres whats happening in the world right now.

The United States

With a regulatory stance on crypto typically seen as archaic and lethargic, the USA doesnt typically come to mind as a champion of blockchain. However, there are many government departments actively exploring and deploying applications that leverage the blockchain for various uses.

For example, the United States now employs a private blockchain through which yearly grants are awarded to different departments, through a project called GrantSolutions. This initiative creates a centralized record of grants, whilst also improves the ease with which recurring grants can be renewed and distributed each year.

Per the previous report, the US Government is additionally building out an encrypted healthcare data exchange through the INFORMED incubator program, allowing citizens to leverage their personal healthcare data and sell their data to researchers.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff has also embarked on a pilot that utilizes the blockchain to communicate 3D printing files to military bases. As it can be quite difficult to replace older equipment, the military is increasingly relying on 3D printed parts to repair weapons and vehicles. The blockchain enables the communication of these files in an encrypted manner that cannot be intercepted by unwanted eyes.

China

Global headlines have emphasized a recent shift in Chinas stance towards blockchain technology. Recently, a series of statements by Chinese President Xi Jinping has indicated that the Peoples Republic of China plans to dive head-first into blockchain integration in a number of areas.

Chinas aggressive use of surveillance on its population and controversial developments such as the social credit system, which assigns a reputation to each citizen for their behavior, suggests that their blockchain endorsement may be a means to further surveil and restrict their almost 1.4 billion citizens.

Integral properties of cryptocurrency include transparency and immutability. A state-backed cryptocurrency means that government officials could have complete and unrestricted access to the entirety of every citizens financial history and dealings. This could potentially be further expanded to blacklist and reverse unwanted activity in the eyes of the government.

Of course, future adoption by China is largely regarded as speculation, until more comprehensive developments have come to light. However, this would not be the first time a regime looked to blockchain to improve monetary control: North Korea and Russia have both been involved in similar projects.

Venezuela

In 2018, Venezuela launched its oil-backed petro cryptocurrency as a token on the NEM blockchain. The purpose of the central currency is to improve liquidity to the countrys oil reserves and implement a more stable alternative to a national VEF crippled by hyperinflation.

Additionally, the petro was seen as a mechanism for Venezuela to circumvent sanctions and alleviate difficulty to conduct foreign trade. However, it is unclear whether its oil-backed coin has seen significant acceptance by international business partners.

Malta

Despite interest from bad actors, the overwhelming use of blockchain by national governments has been to stimulate their economies and improve their infrastructure. A majority of the first national cryptocurrency adopters were small nations looking to gain an edge and accelerate national growth.

Malta, in particular, has seen huge growth through its blockchain-friendly legislation. With the explosion of the space in 2017, a number of recently formed and massively growing cryptocurrency startups moved operations to Malta.

The most notable of these is seen through the relocation of Binance HQ, a leading exchange valued at over US$2 billion. With a national GDP of less than US$13 billion in 2017, this single instance represents a significant boost to the islands economy and a major proponent for further prosperity.

The British Virgin Islands

A recent adopter of cryptocurrency as a cash-alternative is found in the British Virgin Islands. BVI has recently emphasized an intention to focus its efforts on the emerging Financial Technology sector, and as an aspiring FinTech leader, the archipelago is looking to digitize its economy with the help of a central digital currency.

On December 3, BVI hosted its Digital Economy symposium to educate and strategize with 100 stakeholders across the islands private and public sectors alike. The symposium included a presentation by Lifelabs on the ongoing BVI life project. The project is developing a central cryptocurrency that is backed 1:1 by USD to address hurdles between cross-island business and consumption.

The initiative also encompasses a Rapid Cash Response (RCR) system that will quickly provide ample funds in response to any potential future disasters. 2017s Hurricane Irma spawned over US$3 billion in damages and untold trauma for citizens, and the lack of liquid funds inhibited sufficient clean-up for months afterward.

What does this really mean?

Well, as modern society transitions to a global, digital economy, blockchain represents a key tool for third-world and developing economies to transition to digital in pace with established and first-world counterparts. This benefit is particularly impactful to areas currently dominated by fiat that are hindered by an inadequate or nonexistent banking infrastructure.

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National Governments Around The Globe Look To Embrace Blockchain - Forbes