The bitcoin gold development team has announced that it is adding support for two-way replay protection ahead of the network’s expected launch.

Bitcoin gold is a fork of the bitcoin network, created with the primary aim of restricting the use of specialized chips for bitcoin mining through a change in the code. The effort is backed by an open-source community of relatively unknown developers, as well as LightningASIC, a seller of mining hardware based in Hong Kong.

The addition of replay protection is intended to prevent users from sending both bitcoin gold and bitcoin when making a transaction meant to occur on just one chain – a necessity owing to the shared code between those two networks. Without the measure, a user might inadvertently send their coins to a different address, losing control of them in the process.

“In order to ensure the safety of the bitcoin ecosystem, Bitcoin Gold has implemented full replay protection, an essential feature that protects users’ coins from being spent unintentionally,” the developers wrote in a new blog post.

The announcement of replay protection comes before bitcoin gold is available to users. Currently, the network is technically private, accessible only to the development team (who are updating the code and mining blocks as they go). In the absence of actual coins, exchanges like Bitfinex have begun trading futures connected to the cryptocurrency, which are currently trading between $140 and $170, according to CoinMarketCap.

The new blog post also indicated that a public test network will be launched sometime later today.

“[The] Bitcoin Gold team will deploy a public testnet opens to miners from all over the world in a few hours,” they wrote.

SOURCE CONTINUE ARTICLE
http://www.coinn.club/bitcoin-altcoin-signals/bitcoin-gold-team-touts-safety-update/

Just moments ago I was reading about Bitcoin setting a new price record above $6,400. The main cryptocurrency has been incredibly strong, and resilient during crashes, so this latest development does not surprise me one iota.

What also does not surprise me is that Bitcoin kept going after reaching the $6,400 mark, settling above $6,600 at the time of writing this article, based on an average from major exchanges like Bithumb (where it’s actually gone past $6,700), Kraken, GDAX and Poloniex.

Based on data from Coinmarketcap.com, Bitcoin is up around 6.5 percent today, which has boosted its market cap above $110 billion. Its “dominance” of the crypto scene is also up to 59.7 percent, mainly due to the fact that the top altcoins (alternative crypto coins) are either in the red or behind it in terms of average gains after the most-recent crash in September.

Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency, has been struggling to break out of the $300 zone for around a month now. It went through an update earlier in October, which was expected to give it a much-awaited boost, but it still remains well below the price record set in mid-June, when it traded above $400. Its market cap is $28.36 billion now.

Bitcoin Cash has surpassed Ripple (again) to take third place, now trading just under $500. The cryptocurrency, which was created August 1 through a fork of Bitcoin, has a market cap of $8.3 billion. It is up over 12 percent today. Ripple, meanwhile, is down below $0.2, with its market cap hovering around $7.6 billion.

Further down the line in the top 10, BitConnect is the only other coin which has gained in price day-over-day, being up to around $244 and 6.04 percent. Its market cap is just shy of $1.8 billion.


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http://www.coinn.club/bitcoin-altcoin-signals/bitcoin-breaks-6500/

The hard fork part of the New York Agreement is scheduled to take place within about two weeks. This incompatible protocol rule change is set to increase Bitcoin’s block weight limit, to allow for more transactions on the network — if everyone adopts the change. Otherwise, it will create a new blockchain and currency that may or may not be considered to be “Bitcoin.”

The list of signatories of this agreement includes several of the largest Bitcoin startups and mining pools that, together, claim to represent a majority of users and hash power. Yet, it is far from clear that this 2x part of SegWit2x proposal really has much support outside of these signatories. Most of Bitcoin’s development community, a significant number of other companies, some mining pools, user polls as well as futures markets suggest otherwise.

And now, a growing list of international Bitcoin communities is putting out public statements against the SegWit2x hard fork as well.

An overview…

Seoul Bitcoin Meetup

On October 12, 2017, the Seoul Bitcoin Meetup — the largest and longest-running Bitcoin meetup in South Korea with over 1700 members — was the first user community to put out a statement on SegWit2x. More precisely, in their own words, the group voiced its “staunch opposition to this November’s proposed hardfork.”

In its statement, the Seoul Bitcoin Meetup places emphasis on the manner in which the agreement was made. Typically, changes to the Bitcoin protocol go through the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) process where it is peer reviewed by developers across the ecosystem, whereas SegWit2x went through the New York Agreement, which was forged at an invite-only meeting among about a dozen company executives.

The Seoul Meetup states:

If a select group of CEOs and investors, no matter how benevolent their intentions, can unilaterally make decisions about the consensus rules without public comment and force these changes upon the network regardless of overall consensus, then Bitcoin will have lost the properties that make it valuable in the first place.
Additionally, the Seoul Bitcoin Meetup argues that the hard fork is needlessly risky without offering sufficient benefits to warrant the risk. It also takes issue with the controversial decision of SegWit2x developers not to implement strong replay protection.

SOURCE CONTINUE ARTICLE
http://www.coinn.club/bitcoin-altcoin-signals/international-bitcoin-communities-rejecting-segwit2x/

The State Bank of Vietman has issued “Information related to the use of virtual currency” that bans use of the cryptocurrency for payments.

It won’t say why, and doesn’t explicitly ban mining or blockchain.

The Bank lists conventional payment mechanisms like cheques, payment orders and credit cards as permitted, but then adds (after translation) that “Bitcoin virtual currency and other similar is not lawful means of payment in Vietnam; The issuance, supply, use of bitcoin and other similar virtual currency as a means of payment is prohibited in Vietnam.”

Fines of around US$9,000 apply to those who accept or offer payments in virtual currencies.

Why the Bank decided to make the statement is unclear, but it’s not hard to guess why: Vietnam’s government is a little like China’s in that it permits private enterprise but remains a single-party communist state. Virtual currencies’ represent a threat to command economies that such regimes find hard to tolerate, as China’s shuttering of Bitcoin exchanges and Russia’s attempts to do likewise demonstrate.

The ban does not, however, mention mining or exchange of virtual currencies, leaving open the possibility that Vietnam will permit cryptocurrency-or-blockchain-related activity. So long as they’re not used to buy and sell stuff.

Vietnam’s trying to reform its economy, is already winning manufacturing work from China and attracting considerable foreign investment. It’s not hard to imagine blockchain making a splash there, even if Bitcoin is banished from commerce.

Source
http://www.coinn.club/bitcoin-altcoin-signals/vietnam-bans-bitcoin-as-payment/

Bitcoin Price Reaches New All-Time High

Sunday evening, the bitcoin price surged from $5,660 to an all-time high of $6,345 on Bitfinex, the highest-volume bitcoin exchange. Although it has since experienced a $300 taper, the bitcoin price continued to trade above $6,000 on Monday.

CCN reported, there are a variety of factors contributing to this surge. In Asia, traders are bullish about South Korea’s decision to regulate bitcoin as a commodity, which many believe will enable the market to continue to grow at a healthy pace. There is also speculation that China will ease restrictions on bitcoin exchanges now that President Xi Jinping has secured his position as head of the Communist Party of China for the foreseeable future.

In the U.S., meanwhile, analysts anticipate that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will soon grant their approval to the first exchange-traded fund (ETF) that tracks the price of bitcoin. Bitcoin ETFs, coupled with the recent launch of LedgerX’s regulated derivatives platform, are expected to initiate a wave of Wall Street investment in the crypto economy.

No Difficulty Reaching $10,000

Commenting on these developments, along with bitcoin’s swelling user base, RT host and longtime bitcoin bull Max Keiser predicts that the bitcoin price will reach $10,000 within the near future. “Hello $10,000!,” he wrote on Twitter.

Keiser added– as he often reminds his followers — that he set a $100,000 bitcoin price target in 2011, when it was trading at just $3. “Anyone who thinks Bitcoin will have any difficulty breaking $10,000 has not been paying attention,” he concludes.

Of course, bitcoin must pass at least one significant test before it can cross the five-figure threshold. The looming SegWit2x hard fork — which is now just two weeks away — continues to pose a significant threat to the short-term trajectory of the bitcoin price. This contentious hard fork — if activated — will cause significant confusion, particularly for newer users, and may lead to wild fluctuations in the bitcoin price, especially if neither of the two blockchains quickly emerges as the clear victor in the struggle for the “Bitcoin” brand.

Nevertheless, Keiser’s bullishness is true to form — and has served him well in the past. Earlier this year, Keiser celebrated bitcoin’s then-record level of $3,000 by declaring that $5,000 was “in sight”. Many scoffed at this prediction, which came at a time when a blockchain split appeared like an increasing possibility. A split came, in the form of Bitcoin Cash, but the bitcoin price shrugged off the fork and punched through $5,000 anyway, confirming Keiser’s forecast. Now, just five months later, Keiser remains confident that bitcoin will to prove resilient in the face of a blockchain split once again.

Source
http://www.coinn.club/bitcoin-altcoin-signals/10000-bitcoin-price-btc-tests-all-time-high/