BTC – BitcoinCasinos.us

The Wikimedia Community to Stop Accepting Crypto Donations

Posted on May 2, 2022 by Laura P.

Following a three-month debate in which the environmental effect of bitcoin and other digital currencies was a significant discussion topic, Wikimedia, the non-profit foundation behind Wikipedia, has decided to cease accepting crypto payments and donations.

Accepting donations in digital currencies including popular options like BTC and ETH signals the endorsement of digital coins and a clear push for more mainstream adoption. These also have a reputation for being “inherently predatory” as investments. As such, they do not align with the Wikimedia Foundation’s commitment to environmental sustainability, according to a proposal from contributor Molly White.

Crypto miners have been accused of polluting the environment by utilizing massive quantities of computer power to confirm transactions. Molly White included this in the proposal. The foundation singled out BTC and ETH for their high energy requirements, while also pointing out that there are alternative “greener” cryptocurrencies. However, these are less extensively used even for payments or donations to the foundation.

The decision was reached via a vote. Nearly three-quarters of the fewer than 400 people who voted, leaned in favor of no longer accepting BTC. This is definitely a big deal for the crypto community as proponents have been working hard to increase adoption. However, all hope is not lost it seems. Wikimedia has kept the possibility of restarting crypto acceptance on the table. For now, it will continue to watch the situation.

Can crypto go green?

The energy consumed by computers to issue new digital tokens via a process known as “proof of work” accounts for a large part of crypto’s environmental effect. That is simply because it requires a lot of computing power. According to some estimations, the server farms that compete to produce new Bitcoins consume as much power as a small nation every year.

A greener crypto future most likely implies a more regulated one. Two types of legislative measures for crypto regulation are possible. The first kind would need greater openness on the carbon costs of operating a cryptocurrency mining farm. The second would involve regulators imposing some form of carbon tax. Already, these kinds of rules are being pushed by some notable environmental and economic justice organizations.

Other options such as the adoption of renewable energy at the mining farms have also been fronted. Still, we cannot dismiss the fact that crypto is growing at an incredibly fast pace and government regulatory measures often take time to create and implement. It will very certainly fall to the industry to embrace sustainability with the same zeal that it has innovated.

More Institutional Investors to Venture into Crypto in 2019

Posted on January 2, 2019January 1, 2019 by Laura P.

The price of a number of cryptocurrencies including bitcoin, which is considered to be the mother of all cryptocurrencies, took big hits in 2018 amid the prolonged Crypto Winter. Even though there is no guarantee that it cannot get any worse than it did in the just concluded year, many investment analysts and financial market experts are expecting the volatility to subside significantly this year largely due to the entry of institutional investors. In fact, according to a report the Australian Financial Review some analysts even believe that bitcoin may make a comeback that will be fueled by the momentum created by institutional investors.

Over the summer of 2018, Wall Street was stunned by the news that some multi-billion-dollar endowments of Harvard, Yale and Stanford had decided to invest in digital currencies. Analysts believe that due to the herd mentality of most institutions, the move is likely to trigger a chain reaction of sorts among other institutional investors like pension funds. This influx of institutional investors was expected to pick up in a major way in late 2018 but the harsh bear market that affected nearly all digital currencies stalled most of the efforts – a number of the institutions were reportedly scared off by the protracted downturn of the crypto market which is an understandable move especially for organizations operating within that particular space.

Financial analysts have projected that, as Wall Street appears to be poised to even more turbulence in 2019, organizations may begin to consider crypto assets even more seriously – these assets are not buoyed since they have no correlation to the regular stock market and this makes a pretty good investment, especially during volatile periods.

Will Crypto Finally be Legitimized?

Well, many observers believe that, as it stands, mainstream adoption hinges on regulatory clarity to help legitimize the market. Regulation is already a big deal and has been defined by the move by US lawmakers in December 2018 to propose legislation that was designed to prevent bitcoin price manipulation and position the United States as a market leader in the crypto space. The US is being encouraged not to ignore the “profound potential” of crypto to bolster the country’s economy and this might just be what is needed to have digital currencies legitimized. The industry is putting a lot of effort into advancing the agenda of mainstream adoption of crypto most by greasing the wheels of Congress.

Unfortunately, there are some setbacks that may still impede the growth of the sector and one of the most serious ones is the scalability. As it stands, most platforms would need about a year to figure out concrete solutions to scaling, but until then let’s hope that the Lightning Network grows further and, hopefully, achieves its full potential.

UK Lawmaker Proposes Tax & Utility Bill Payments in Bitcoin

Posted on December 12, 2018December 12, 2018 by Martin S.

Eddie Hughes, a Conservative UK Member of Parliament is calling for local authorities in the country to take the lead and begin accepting tax and utility bill payments in bitcoin. According to the politician, bitcoin and the underlying blockchain technology both have great potential but the lack of reliable or adequate information and knowledge in this regard is one of the things that is preventing wider adoption.

“You’re either ahead of the curve or you’re behind the curve,” he said in a recent interview.

In the interview with the Daily Express, the lawmaker pointed out that the country is in a very interesting position especially because it hopes to be seen as a progressive nation. While the United Kingdom is still at crossroads, the decision to adopt the use of cryptocurrencies could prove to be very beneficial in the near future. If this is to happen, people will first have to understand how the transactions work and see how accessible the technology can be – ideally, the technology needs to appear like an app that can be used to make fast, safe and secure payments.

Being that the technology is talked about a lot in, the member of parliament feels that all the other lawmakers have a duty to understand it, something that will then enable them to make more informed decisions pertaining to the technology. Hughes further cited the Royal National Lifeboat Institution which is currently accepting charitable donations through cryptocurrency – this particular use case proves that bitcoin and other digital currencies can be used for many other services as well.

“The state should focus its attention on using blockchain to enable social freedom, to increase efficiency, and to rebuild societal trust,” Hughes stated.

This is, however, not the first time that Hughes has publicly supported cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. Back in July, he wrote a report that called for the state to appoint a ‘Chief Blockchain Officer.’

Is This Possible?

Accepting taxes and utility bills in crypto would definitely be a good start for the crypto community and the country. However, regulators in Europe have been very skeptical about cryptocurrencies especially because digital currencies are very volatile and risky and are often associated with such vices as terrorism, fraud and money laundering. These European regulator’s alarmist entreaties have mounted quite a lot of pressure on the government of various European countries to implement some very stringent regulations that are supposedly meant to protect the public and investors while at the same time preventing the risk of financial instability.

As it stands, the future of crypto in the UK is even more uncertain thanks to a revelation by the country’s Finance Conduct Authority that it is considering banning crypto-linked derivative products. All these will be looked into in the first quarter of 2019.

Conflux Raises $35 Million into New Blockchain Protocol

Posted on December 5, 2018December 5, 2018 by Laura P.

The cryptocurrency industry, despite having existed for well over a decade and culminated into several innovations, is still in its nascent stage. Needless to say, there have been some very high moments for the industry as well as some very low lows, but cryptocurrency enthusiasts are in no mood to give up their optimism for a bullish future.

Still, we have to acknowledge the fact that the crypto market has been on a downward slope for a better part of this years, a bearish trend that is still going on. One of the major factors that go against digital currencies, more specifically bitcoin which is the flag bearer of the cryptocurrency world, is the sluggish nature of the underlying blockchain technology which makes its an infeasible choice for a real-world ledger. Even though developers have been working round the clock to solve this problem, it remains to be one of the most significant stumbling blocks to the wider adoption of cryptocurrencies.

Well, things, in this regard, are about to change for the better.

Enter Conflux

In a bid to provide the much-needed solution to the problem, a group of university professors and researchers have raised a whopping $35 million for Conflux, a non-profit foundation that will support the development of a new and improved blockchain network. The Conflux project which is being backed by a Sequoia China and a number of Chinese Internet Companies claims to be able to overcome a key limitation of the existing blockchain – this limitation is rooted in the fact that protocols like bitcoin’s can only add a single block to the blockchain at any given time. The addition of multiple blocks at the same time results in the creation of a fork which leads to competing chains.

Conflux’s solution involves the utilization of a system that allows users to simultaneously work on blocks and put them in the chain. This new system will also be able to maintain a decentralized consensus method that prevents any entity from taking control of the blockchain. The general idea is to make the entire blockchain scalable.

In essence, Conflux serves to fulfill Etheruem’s promise of allowing the users to create an execute the so-called “intelligent contracts” in a distributed blockchain library. Unfortunately, even though Ethereum boasts of being a powerful technology, it still suffers from the same speed scaling issues that have hampered the growth of bitcoin up until now.

“Contrary to popular belief, true decentralization isn’t sacrificed to increase throughput, highlighting Conflux as the first example that achieves the best of both worlds. By weaving a Directed Acylic Graph data structure into Conflux’s Proof of Work consensus algorithm, tests on its testnet has achieved a throughput of at least 6,500 Transactions Per Second (TPS), while supporting at least 20,000 nodes,” said the foundation’ press release.

Private blockchains have been able to overcome the aforementioned scaling problems but this has been at the expense of decentralization since they were only able to do this by relying on central authority. Conflux, on the other hand, promises to offer the best of both worlds, that is, both speed and decentralization.

Socially Driven Crowdfunding Comes to the Blockchain

Posted on November 21, 2018 by Laura P.

Following years of extensive research and one and a half more of development through legal vetting, an A-list team of blockchain, non-profit and crowdfunding experts is proud to launch WHIRL, the global market’s first ever blockchain-powered consumer crowdfunding platform. According to Roel Wolfert (Bancor, VISA) and Martijn Hekman (World Vision, United Nations), WHIRL aims to give the world a whole new way of financing dreams and obligations through the introduction of a revolutionary incentive system designed to maximize success and also encourage charity. Like other revolutionary blockchain-based projects, this one is expected to a great leap forward for the crypto community.

How Does It Work?

WHIRL has been described as a “what goes around comes around” kind of system owing to its unique karma-based model – in fact, the system’s reward concept is literally referred to as a Karma. The platform is not only socially driven but is also deeply rooted in traditional crowdfunding, that is, where individuals, groups organizations come together in a bid to pool resources towards their projects.

WHIRL can reportedly be used to finance any type of venture; ranging all the way from personal goals to medical bills, business ventures, and even scientific endeavors. People can, therefore, get funding by participating in charity instead of taking out loans or sourcing for funds from family and friends. While this makes it a cut above the rest since it is pegged onto the blockchain network, there is more to it than meets the eye.

The platform utilizes a fair and transparent queue system which limits the number of listed campaigns at any given time. Its blockchain is powered by WRL tokens and the concept of Karma, a reward system that supports and facilitates the giving economy within WHIRL. With these, it is able it is able to guarantee a 100 percent success rate to all projects listed under a campaign. However, only those with a history of contribution are allowed to create fundraising campaigns.

Contributions are tracked through the issuance of Karma points – 7 to 20 Karma points are awarded for every dollar contributed on any campaign listed on WHIRL. Consequently, there is a threshold number of points required to launch a campaign and based on the number of points accumulated, the size and duration of the campaign is determined. In addition to this, the campaigns also go into a transparent queue based on the order of submission.

So Many Birds, One Stone

WHIRL is poised to take care of a number of unattended needs in the crowdfunding market which has stagnated over the past decade due to fraud, oversaturation and, of course, the declining rate of success of crowdfunding campaigns. By listing only a limited number of campaigns at any given time and incentivizing backers with a fair and transparent system, the platform definitely takes care of most of these problems.

In addition to that, WHIRL supports 12 cryptocurrencies (including BTC, BCH, DASH, and ETH) at the moment, something that by itself already sets it apart from many other crowdfunding platforms – it also has plans to add more digital currencies in the future. This is great for the crypto community as a whole since it will aid further proliferation of digital currencies into the mainstream market.

Michigan Bans Use of Crypto as Political Campaign Donations

Posted on November 14, 2018November 14, 2018 by Martin S.

The Michigan Department of State has formally barred digital currencies from being used as donations for political campaigns. According to a letter that was published last Thursday by the state’s Secretary of State, the law does not recognize crypto and associated virtual assets as political campaign donations because their values cannot be determined with absolute certainty.

This was in response to a letter from William Baker, a Michigan State Legislature candidate, that outlined some of his opinions on why state politicians should be allowed to receive digital currency campaign donations from their supporters. In the letter, Baker points that cryptocurrencies are a valid way to receive payments and donations and thus political campaigns should be no exceptions. He however also acknowledged that there were such issues as recording the value and utilization of these digital currencies that still need to be resolved.

“With some modest record keeping, donations of digital currencies can be an additional method of raising funds for political campaigns in the coming years, just as the internet first allowed political based websites to collect credit card donations roughly twenty to twenty-five years ago,” Baker’s letter read.

As it stands, Michigan politicians are allowed to accept non-monetary political campaign donations, which, much like most digital currencies rarely hold and a precise or value.

State Department Disagrees

The Michigan Secretary of State, Ruth Johnson, responded to Baker’s letter by stating that bitcoin and other digital currencies may not be used to make political campaign donations simply because “the value of these crypto assets is not fixed, and their volatility makes it impossible to assign an exact dollar value to them in administrative terms.”

“In the context of a contribution under the MCFA, an ascertainable monetary value is one that is exact, precise, and certain or can be determined with certainty. Where it cannot be determined the exact or precise dollar amount for a contribution made with Bitcoin at the time it is given, there can be no ascertainable monetary value,” an excerpt from the Michigan State Department’s letter read.

The State Department’s letter further compared digital currencies, more so bitcoin, to a security – it quoted legal precedents which effectively restricted the use of any financial assets save for those held by banking institutions for use in campaigns. Still, the department did acknowledge that bitcoin is analogous to a security, that is, both cannot be used “in and of themselves to purchase goods or services”, something that many crypto enthusiasts consider to be a highly contestable claim.

The main takeaway from the letter is that the crypto campaign donations are effectively illegal in Michigan mostly because of the reasons stated above and because the reporting requirements do not allow for multiple recordings that are required to capture various values that are likely to be held by digital assets at various points in the process. These include such issues as the date of receipt by the candidate, the date of sale to the donor as well as the date of record on a campaign statement.

Blockstream’s Liquid Network Launches for the BTC Blockchain

Posted on October 17, 2018October 17, 2018 by Martin S.

One of the major setbacks for the mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies has been the difficulty and slow nature of crypto settlements, especially where large volumes of these digital assets are involved. There have of course been attempts at fixing this problem with the so-called sidechains that promise faster transactions but the pace of the developments has not been as reassuring as many people had hoped for. The Lightning Network, for instance, has managed to gain quite a lot of traction in the past several months but its use of nodes with limited capacities has been quite detrimental to its growth, to say the least.

Now, Blockstream, a San Francisco-based blockchain technology company may have finally found a solution to the problem. Referred to as the Liquid Network, the company’s new bitcoin sidechain is set to revolutionize the crypto space by allowing for faster and more secure digital currency and asset settlements with an emphasis on the larger volume settlements. The sidechain which will be connecting institutions, crypto exchanges, and even brokers partnered with 20 exchanges at launch, a move that is certainly bound to improve its standing in the crypto space and speed up its adoption at the same time.

“Liquidity across exchanges is definitively not there yet. With the advent of Liquid — with faster settlement times — we should be able to improve it by making it faster and easier to transfer,” Samson Mow, Blockstream’s Chief Strategy officer said.

How It Works

According to Samson Mow, the members of the Liquid Network and the exchanges will be the main providers of liquidity since they will be the ones responsible for keeping a balance of L-BTC that they would, in turn, allow their users to swap. The Liquid Network’s design is a bit of a twist of the original concept of the sidechain which was initially pitched as a means for trustless swaps – Blockstream’s spin requires the intermediaries to execute the swaps themselves.

“When someone wants to move BTC to the Liquid sidechain,” Mow went on to explain. “they send it to a unique peg-in address. When someone is ready to move their money back to the Bitcoin blockchain, they can make a peg-out transaction that will tell the [Liquid members] to send Bitcoin to the desired address.”

Contrary to what many people would assume, the Liquid Network is not a replacement of the Lightning Network. In fact, in the blog post that announced the launch of the project, Blockstream clarified that the Liquid Network is capable of adding the Lightning Network as a second layer which makes the two technologies complimentary as both of them are vital to the crypto ecosystem.

Institutional Investors Making Huge OTC Crypto Purchases

Posted on October 3, 2018October 3, 2018 by Martin S.

While most of the world expected the bitcoin ETF to be the tipping point that would allow institutional money to come into the cryptocurrency market, it seems like the institutional investors have once again had their way despite the uncertainty that looms over the BTC ETF. In fact, according to recent OTC Trade Data, these institutional investors now dominate bitcoin markets with high volume trades. Yes, that is right – institutional investors are becoming more and more involved in the $220 billion cryptocurrency market than many people may realize and this is perhaps because they have been using back-doors for the purchases.

Many people believe that the next bitcoin bull run will be entirely driven by institutional investment which will be encouraged by the acceptance of a bitcoin ETF such as the those that are currently in the works at the United States Securities Exchange Commission.

The Current Situation

While some crypto market data analysts and providers estimate that the daily trading volumes of bitcoin are at around $4 billion, ShapeShift’s Coincap.io has revealed that the actual trading volume of bitcoin falls at around $2.7 billion. Coincap.io further revealed that, for most of the large-scale investment companies, institutions, and retail traders, the global crypto market has not reached enough liquidity to process the multi-billion-dollar trading orders. In other words, major digital asset trading platforms could liquidate large orders but it may have a large impact on the short-term price movement of cryptocurrencies.

Over the Counter (OTC) Trading

A number of high-net-worth individuals have been buying into cryptocurrencies and considering the amounts that they have been spending, it is safe to assume that these “individuals” are institutions or are at least part of them. As mentioned above, a peek into recent OTC trading data reveals a huge interest in bitcoin from these supposed institutional investors.

“Bloomberg reports that in April, daily OTC trades varied anywhere between $250 million and $30 billion, while exchanges only handled about $15 billion daily in that time by contrast. Corroborating this, Circle Financial CEO Jeremy Allaire confirmed that his company is seeing a triple-digit increase in OTC volumes. By contrast, according to data from CryptoCompare, exchange trade volumes are down 80 percent from their peaks at the same time as the increasing popularity of OTC,” reads Cryptoglobe’s comment on the issue.

This over-the-counter crypto market has facilitated between $250 million an $30 billion in digital currency trades per day in April, according to researchers. But, why is this happening?

Well, as it turns out, large digital currency traders like private sales simply because exchanges can move coin prices. Private sales are more appealing since the trading parties can fix the price in advance instead of having to worry about the fluctuations that are rife in the crypto market. Also, exchanges sometimes limit the number of coins that can be traded and this is certainly not ideal for large traders.

Google Ends Cryptocurrency Advertisement Ban

Posted on September 26, 2018September 25, 2018 by Laura P.

Barely five months after it rolled an advertisement policy that banned cryptocurrency advertisements, Google has decided to lift ban with plans to allow regulated cryptocurrency exchanges to buy ads in the United States and Japan. This new policy is scheduled to be rolled in October 2018 and will require the advertisers to apply for certifications within the specific countries within which their ads will be circulated.

The rapid growth in the popularity of cryptocurrencies has been great for the industry but it has also attracted additional scrutiny. For instance, in the United States, the Securities and Exchange Commission recently created a Cyber Unit tasked with handling online financial crimes to begin investigating companies that had stakes in the crypto or blockchain industry. The Cyber Unit also issued several subpoenas and charged a number of firms for alleged cryptocurrency fraud. Similar and even worse crackdowns have also been seen in other countries including China and India.

Widespread Rollout

Even though the digital currency boom has been a great source of wealth and excitement, it has been accompanied with quite a number of negative aspects that include spawned fraud as well as high-profile scams, both of which resulted from the lack of well-defined regulatory frameworks. It is for this particular reason that for a better part of the first of the year that many of the world’s leading tech giants – Google, Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat among others – moved to crack down on crypto-related advertising in a bid to stop some of the criminal activities associated with crypto. Unfortunately, the restrictions also affected legitimate crypto-related business and this is perhaps why some of the companies, namely Facebook and Google, have taken a step back.

“We don’t have a crystal ball to know where the future is going to go with cryptocurrencies, but we’ve seen enough consumer harm or potential for consumer harm that it’s an area that we want to approach with extreme caution,” Google’s Scott Spencer cited in June during the company’s original crypto ad ban.

The Updated Policy

While the tech giant’s updated ad policy will apply ton advertisers all over the world, the advertisements will only be allowed to run in Japan and the United States – hopefully, this will also change soon. Furthermore, as mentioned earlier the advertisers will be required to apply for certifications from each of the countries that they wish to advertise in (which are now only Japan and the U.S.) to have their ads served in those countries.

“The Google Ads policy on Financial products and services will be updated in October 2018 to allow regulated cryptocurrency exchanges to advertise in the United States and Japan. Advertisers will need to be certified with Google for the specific country in which their ads will serve. Advertisers will be able to apply for certification once the policy launches in October. This policy will apply globally to all accounts that advertise these financial products. For more details, see About restricted financial products certification. The Financial products and services page will be updated once the policy goes into effect,” Google wrote.

NY AG Says Crypto Exchanges Are at Risk of Manipulation

Posted on September 19, 2018September 19, 2018 by Martin S.

The New York Attorney General’ office on September 18 published a report that says that cryptocurrency exchanges are vulnerable to conflicts of interests, manipulation as well as many other consumer risks. The 32-page “Virtual Markets Integrity Report” highlights concerns that exchanges are not doing much to protect investors.

Launched in April, the “Virtual Markets Integrity Initiative” kicked off when Eric T. Schneiderman, the then-New York Attorney General, sent letters to thirteen cryptocurrency exchanges requesting information on their operations, internal controls as well as other key issues.

“The New York State Office of the Attorney General (the “OAG”) launched the Virtual Markets Integrity Initiative to protect and inform New York residents who trade in virtual or “crypto” currency. As a medium of exchange, an investment product, a technology, and an emerging economic sector, virtual currency is complex and evolving rapidly. The OAG’s Initiative, however, proceeds from a fundamental principle: consumers and investors deserve to understand how their financial service providers operate, protect customer funds, and ensure the integrity of transactions,” reads the statements from the Attorney General’s office.
“The industry has yet to implement serious market surveillance capacities, akin to those of traditional trading venues, to detect and punish suspicious trading activity.”

The Key Findings

The study found that the absence of accepted methods of auditing virtual assets has resulted in the lack of a consistent and transparent approach to the independent auditing of digital currencies trade on the exchanges. This, therefore, puts the customers’ funds in the various exchanges at risk of theft or cyber-attacks.

“New Yorkers deserve basic transparency and accountability when they invest – whether on the New York Stock Exchange or on a cryptocurrency platform,” Barbara Underwood, New York’s current Attorney General said in a statement. “Many virtual currency platforms lack the necessary policies and procedures to ensure the fairness, integrity, and security of their exchanges.”

One of the more bizarre revelations was that only four cryptocurrency exchanges have mechanisms for market manipulation detection and prevention in place. The four exchanges – HBUS, Coinbase, Gemini and Bittrex – are therefore the safest options for crypto investors.

On the flip side, the report went on to refer three major New York crypto exchanges – Gate.io, Binance, and Kraken – to authorities over charges of violation of state law for allowing trading on the part of New Yorkers.

The report has attracted an equal measure of support and criticism from the crypto exchanges and other stakeholders of the industry. Still, it is going to be a while before we finally see the ramifications of these findings.

BitcoinCasinos.us

Tag: BTC