Username: zakoliverz

Cryptocurrency isn’t going anywhere — in fact it’s set to take a leap forward in coming years, says tech entrepreneur and Finder.com Co-founder Fred Schebesta.

“I'm a big believer in Bitcoin,” he says. “I think it's like digital gold. I think it will last on and on and on.”

In a newly released interview, taped on March 2, Schebesta rejects pessimists who say cryptocurrency is a passing fad, noting that the price of Bitcoin (BTC-USD) has remained stable of late.

“Bitcoin's been called dead for 10 years now,” he says. “Seems to still be going. You know, I think the price is holding up pretty well throughout this as well.”

As of Thursday afternoon, the price of Bitcoin stood at $9,115, marking a 20.7% increase over the past three months, while the S&P 500 has fallen 3.5% over that period. Bitcoin surged at the outset of this year despite coronavirus fears.

“These geopolitical events including coronavirus and geopolitical tensions really improve the use case,” Tom Lee, Fundstrat Global Advisors managing partner, told Yahoo Finance’s YFi PM last month.


https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cryptocurrency-needs-five-years-cook-says-findercom-cofounder-141238770.html

Square Crypto, the payments company launched by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, is now officially supporting Bitcoin (BTC) development through a grant program. This formalizes the already significant contributions made by the company toward the cryptocurrency.

Through a March 4 announcement, the company announced that the Square Grants program would be made publicly available. Two developers had already received grants: BTCPayServer received $100,000 to continue development of its open-source payment processor, and a pseudonymous developer received an undisclosed sum in connection to Lightning Network development.

With the announcement, Square revealed to have also granted undisclosed amounts to Jon Atack and Tankred Hase, two Bitcoin developers who have previously done significant work in the space.

How to apply for grants
Square has made the conditions for joining the program public. The rules state that grants can be received by a team or individuals all around the world, provided that they work on a Bitcoin project.

The proposals must improve Bitcoin’s user experience, scaling, privacy, security or “something else we haven’t thought of,” Square wrote. The developers must also be “in good standing” within the Bitcoin community.

The team listed several examples of applicable projects, citing new layer two solutions, privacy implementations like Payjoin or SNICKER, new wallets and several others.

Applicants need to send an email to Square and write a detailed proposal text. “We’ll get back to you if it excites us and lines up with grant criteria,” the announcement reads.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/jack-dorseys-square-publicly-launches-grants-for-bitcoin-development

The computer processing power of the bitcoin network is growing again – albeit slowly – as major Chinese miner manufacturers gradually resume business after the coronavirus outbreak delayed shipments.

The average hashing power on bitcoin (BTC) over the past seven days has reached a new high of around 117.5 exahashes per second (EH/s), up 5.4 percent from where it stagnated for a month beginning Jan. 28, according to data from PoolIn, which, along side with F2pool, are currently the two largest bitcoin mining pools.

Data from BTC.com further estimates bitcoin's mining difficulty, a measure of competitiveness in the field, will increase by 2.15 percent when it adjusts itself in about five days thanks to the increased hashing power in the current period.

The growth comes as major Chinese miner manufacturers have gradually resumed shipments over the past one to two weeks. The coronavirus outbreak had forced many businesses across the country to extend the Chinese New York holiday since the end of January.

Shenzhen-based MicroBT, maker of the WhatsMiner, said it has gradually resumed business and shipments since mid-February, and noted that more mining farm locations are accessible than a month ago.

https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoins-computing-power-is-growing-again-after-coronavirus-related-disruption

Bitcoin's (BTC) price jumped the most in two weeks Monday, surging alongside U.S. stocks amid speculation the Federal Reserve and other central banks will support markets as the coronavirus spreads.

The largest cryptocurrency by market value rose 4.1 percent to $8,874 as of 17:53 UTC (12:53 p.m. ET). The move followed last week’s 14 percent sell-off, the harshest in three months.

Despite a belief among some investors that bitcoin should trade as a safe-haven asset akin to gold or U.S. Treasury bonds, the cryptocurrency had tumbled recently along with riskier assets like stocks. The sell-off reversed as global authorities, including the Fed, Bank of Japan, International Monetary Fund and World Bank, pledged to act if needed to help offset any lasting economic damage from widespread travel cancellations, quarantines and factory disruptions.

“Investors are dipping their toes back in the water after last week [when] they jumped out of the pool,” said John Todaro, director of currency research at the crypto-focused firm TradeBlock in New York. “This easy monetary policy across central banks should continue to support markets in general, especially in risk-on areas like equity markets, and that should bleed into other asset classes like digital currencies, including bitcoin.”

Fed Chair Jerome Powell said Friday in a statement the central bank would “use our tools and act as appropriate to support the economy.”

https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-rebounds-as-coronavirus-infected-stocks-get-jolt-from-fed-boj

While Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are far from the level of popularity they had at the peak of the 2017-2018 bubble, this asset class remains of relevance in pop culture.

This was proven true in a recent episode of the original Netflix series, “Altered Carbon,” during which the show depicted a dingy shop where cryptocurrencies are the central payment mechanisms.

Bitcoin Graces Television Once Again, This Time On “Altered Carbon”
Just recently, Netflix released the second season of its much-hyped series “Altered Carbon,” a show about a futurist society where death becomes irrelevant as human bodies become interchangeable, as Google describes the show.

While the show’s premise isn’t based around the rise of cryptocurrency, a still from a recent episode shared by Twitter account “mine Zcash” shows that digital assets are around in this fictional futuristic society.

Going Mainstream Once Again
This is far from the first time Bitcoin has appeared as a plot device in a television show.

Just last Sunday, “The Simpsons” dedicated a good portion of the 13th episode of the 31st season — which was titled “Frinkcoin” — to cryptocurrency, blockchain, and Bitcoin.

At one point in this episode, a Simpsonified Jim Parsons, the actor behind “The Big Bang Theory’s” Sheldon Cooper, spent two minutes discussing the basic premise of digital assets, mentioning the distributed nature of blockchain.

https://www.newsbtc.com/2020/03/02/altered-carbon-bitcoin-top-crypto-assets-just-made-brief-appearance/

Username: zakoliverz
Post Count: 549
BTC Address (must be SegWit): bc1qyheyn8x0fdxnnrgy5apa29s6uncj4ahq4lafff

Mining pool coercion could work, in theory
Furthermore, Lerner also said that miners cannot take control of the Bitcoins without changing the consensus protocol. Still, he admitted that mining pools, on the other hand, may be able to block Bitcoins if forced. He explained that governments could attempt to force most mining pools to prevent some Bitcoins from changing hands with a process similar to a 51% attack, but he does not expect this approach to work:

“The largest pools are composed by many smaller independent mining farms, and those farms would just start mining solo to prevent coercion instead of being part of such a pool. Therefore I suspect the government-controlled mining pool will just  vanish from the available active and useful hashrate.”
Lerner concluded that such an approach would need law enforcement to prosecute miners that mine on pools that do not enforce censorship in many different jurisdictions. Even if such measures would be taken by governments, he expects that “Bitcoin would just switch to some other form of proof-of-work and keep moving forward.”

Author of the first proof-of-work crypto Karma System Emin Gün Sirer suggested that the claim is part of Wright’s effort to “lay down a misguided foundation to make his followers believe that miners can unilaterally reassign coins.” He said:

“This is likely part of his strategy to take ownership of Satoshi's coins. It's very transparent, shallow, and unconvincing. My professional opinion is that he's a nobody trying to pull a simple scam on unsophisticated investors captivated by his unconvincing, poorly constructed, fraud-ridden tale.”
Wright is drowned in criticism
While Wright has always been a controversial figure in the cryptocurrency space, lately he attracted much more criticism than usual.


https://cointelegraph.com/news/can-bitcoin-be-seized-as-self

Username: zakoliverz
Post Count: 549
BTC Address (must be SegWit): bc1qyheyn8x0fdxnnrgy5apa29s6uncj4ahq4lafff

There have already been two bitcoin halvings since bitcoin launched in 2009, one in 2012 and another in 2016. Bitcoin halvings are scheduled to continue roughly once every four years until the maximum supply of 21 million bitcoins has been generated by the network, something that won't happen until well into the next century.

Whether the upcoming bitcoin halving has been "priced in" by the market has become a controversial issue among investors. Generally, in well-developed markets, equity, commodities and currencies are priced based on future expectations—suggesting that as bitcoin traders and investors are aware of the May halving, the price will have already made the gains related to it.

CZ disagrees, however, telling BlockTV: "The market is not efficient. Most people don't get information quickly. People need a lot of time to let concepts sink in and adjust."

Many are hoping the 2020 bitcoin halving will see a repeat of the last cut to supply. Bitcoin prices doubled in 2016 and soared 13-fold the following year.

However, CZ warned that "historic events do not predict future events, so don't take that too literally," but explained the bitcoin halving will mean "it costs miners almost double what it does now to produce one bitcoin. Psychologically, those miners won't be willing to sell below that price."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2020/02/23/binance-ceo-gives-rare-price-prediction-says-this-is-when-to-buy-bitcoin/#796ae5273174

Like any functioning form of currency, cryptocurrencies facilitate payments between parties and provide a store of value. Will add value to Banks you know.

I'm not one to gloat over anyone's misfortune - but I have observed that often - if you live life badly - in many ways you seal your own fate - due to the bad choices you made - and the people who you ran over - on the road to where ever it was you were going to - in such a hurry - and for that there must be some payback.

Venezuela is currently suffering from hyperinflation, which may force the country to take Bitcoin .

Seems a certain journalist doesn't keep a proper eye on their subject matter to be writing about it. I hope this person isn't a financial advisor.

So if you prefer to invest in luck , watch out and be open minded for any losses. 

Registered again this time with the same username as here.
Username: zakoliverz

Thanks!

Username: zakoli

Please Give Me MY Bitcoin | Betfair Alt.

Username: zakoli
DATE JOINED: DEC 21th 2015
Please Give Me MY Bitcoin Primedice.

http://www.coindesk.com/bonafide-raises-850k-build-reputation-system-bitcoin/

A startup called Bonafide has raised $850,000 to build a reputation system for the bitcoin industry. The funding round, which comes from Quest Venture Partners, Crypto Currency Partners and the AngelList Bitcoin Syndicate, among others, is a step towards creating a scoring system for addresses on bitcoin’s network.

Notably, Bonfide.io was included in Silicon Valley’s 500 Startups incubation program last year. Brian Moyer, the firm's co-founder, said that 500 Startups venture partner Sean Percival saw early on the potential for Bonafide to create more credibility in bitcoin commerce, whether between consumers and merchants, or in person-to-person payments.

http://www.coindesk.com/linkedin-founder-talks-bitcoins-future-san-francisco-conference/

LinkedIn founder and Greylock Partners investor Reid Hoffman issued new remarks about bitcoin this week at O'Reilly Media's 'Bitcoin & the Blockchain: Realities, Risks, Rewards' event held in San Francisco's Marina District.

The conference brought together a collection of entrepreneurs, investors and cryptocurrency enthusiasts for a one-day schedule, though it was perhaps Hoffman's talk that was most anticipated. During his on-stage discussion session with Xapo CEO Wences Casares, Hoffman took a professorial tone in evaluating where he believes the ecosystem is headed, though it may not be as definitive as enthusiasts would hope.