Cryptocurrency

Jan 26, 2019 02:30&nbspUTC | Updated: Jan 26, 2019 at 02:30&nbspUTC By   Kapil Gauhar The Peer-to-Peer virtual currency Bitcoin made its debut in the year 2009, and the new era of cryptocurrency began. While enforcement agencies, tax authorities as well as regulators worldwide are till now debating upon the best practices, one prominent question that is disturbing everyone is – Is Bitcoin Mining Legal or Illegal? The answer to this question depends on the location and activity of the user. You May Also Read:  Top 10 Cryptocurrencies With The Fastest Transaction Speeds A Short Story of Bitcoin Mining As we have previously discussed in How Bitcoin Mining Works? bitcoin mining refers to the process of keeping the record of transactions to a public ledger, however, the actual users can stay hidden behind anonymous names. The ledger is known as Blockchain, and the transactions are recorded into blocks. Now, the mining process refers to the creation o...

The world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges are looking at reverse mergers in Hong Kong, as hopes dim for bitcoin mining rig makers’ plans to go public in the city. The back-door listing efforts have come to light amid the reluctance of the Hong Kong stock exchange to approve the initial public offering (IPO) applications of companies involved in the underregulated cryptocurrency industry, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Charles Li Xiaojia, chief executive of the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, said on Wednesday that companies seeking to go public in the city should show consistency in their business models, in response to media questions about the status of the IPO applications from the world’s largest makers of cryptocurrency mining rigs – Bitmain Technologies, Canaan Creative and Ebang International Holdings. Hong Kong exchange head clarifies listing rules as IPO hopes dim for cryptocurrency giant Bitmain Li, who spoke on the sidelines of the World Economic...

Icelandic Bitcoin mining equipment thief, Sindri Þór Stefánsson, was sentenced to four and a half years in prison on Jan. 17th. He was re-apprehended in the Netherlands after he fled custody and boarded a flight to Stockholm from Reykjavik in April 2018. Stefánsson made headlines in February last year when he stole Bitcoin mining equipment reportedly totaling $2 million in a string of burglaries. There were reportedly three burglaries in total, from a period of Dec. 5, 2017, to Jan. 16., 2018. 600 graphics cards, 100 power supplies, 100 motherboards, 100 memory discs, and 100 CPU processors had been taken from a house in the municipality of Reykjanesbær, Vísir reported. In total, this equipment likely composed roughly 100 mining rigs. After first being apprehended, Stefánsson then escaped from Sogni prison on Apr. 16, 2017 with police confirming that he fled Iceland to Stockholm. The fugitive was purportedly using another man’s passport when he boarded a flight at Keflavik Int...

An Icelandic man has received a four-and-a-half-year prison sentence for stealing Bitcoin mining equipment, local English-language news outlet Iceland Monitor reported Jan. 17. Sindri Þór Stefánsson, who in April 2018 boarded a flight to Stockholm from Reykjavik reportedly with a stolen passport, was subsequently arrested in Amsterdam and returned home. Stefánsson claimed he legally fled custody to Sweden . In court, Stefánsson, along with six accomplices, received a lengthy jail term. The proceedings relate to thefts of Bitcoin mining equipment reportedly worth $2 million , and two other attempted heists that took place December 2017 and January 2018. The target was Nordic IT company Advania, to which all seven defendants will now pay compensation of 33 million Icelandic Krona (about $273,000). Stefánsson received the longest prison sentence of the group, which comes after he argued he was legally allowed to board the Sweden flight at the time he fled Sogni prison. After a c...

Whenever I claim that bitcoin is the only decentralized cryptocurrency, I get one of two arguments: My X coin is also decentralized. Bitcoin isn’t decentralized because of Core and/or miners. I’ll leave 1 and the first half of 2 for another day, but the “mining centralization” argument is what I want to tackle in this article. The questions I’ll be answering are: Is Bitcoin mining centralized? In what way do miners “control” Bitcoin? What are the risks of a 51% attack? Are the altcoiners right? Decentralization Decentralization is a key property of Bitcoin. If you remove decentralization, it’s not an interesting project. There have been lots of centralized issuers of money — that’s what causes inflation and why your savings lose purchasing power daily. The response by altcoiners is to argue that decentralization is a spectrum or, barring that, that Bitcoin is centralized. First, decentralization is not a spectrum. It either has a single point of failure or it doesn’t. ...

Savvy readers of yesterday’s article, The Eight Most Popular Cryptocurrency Transaction Types Are Not What You Expect , may have noticed an important omission: any discussion of processing cryptocurrency (crypto) transactions, what the crypto cognoscenti call mining . Fear not: this is the second of a two-part article. In this part, I discuss the most popular crypto mining business models – that is, ways to make money mining. Crypto like Bitcoin are intentionally set up with an automatic, decentralized mechanism that creates Bitcoin out of thin air to provide rewards to miners for processing transactions. The result: a booming business in mining. Anyone with a rack of high-speed computers and access to electricity anywhere in the world can essentially print money, simply by running free software. Six Common Cryptocurrency Mining Business Models Jason Bloomberg Crypto Mining Business Model #1: Legal, Competitive Mining In the early days of crypto, mining was a boon for smal...

Bitcoin mining has faced a lot of pushback as many miners decided to quit mining due to the collapse of BTC prices below the break-even point. Bitmain, one of the largest Bitcoin mining company in the world had a huge dominance over the Bitcoin market for the past few years. Its hold on Bitcoin mining has since reduced as they have been shutting down their mining farms and laying off employees non-stop. A recent report by Diar further substantiates this by providing proof that Bitcoin mining pool dominance has dwindled and has shifted towards unknown miners. The report published on January 14, 2019, stated: “Unkown miners closed December having solved a whopping 22% of the total blocks up from 6% at the start of last year. The Bitcoin network is currently less likely to experience an attack given the fact the BTC.com controlled pools have lost dominance over the network.” Source: Volume 3 Issue 1 – Diar The above chart shows how the Bitmain owned pools, BTC.com and Antpool’s...

Bitcoin mining has become so decentralized that six transaction confirmations now provide “complete protection” against double spending. Data: Mining Monopolies Dwindling That was the conclusion drawn among social media commentators analyzing the latest statistics about the Bitcoin mining industry, which as of January 16 showed no single pool controlling more than 11.4 percent of the total hashrate. “The mining distribution is almost such that the miner’s share is no more than 10%, and, accordingly, 6 network confirmations provide complete protection against a double spend attack,” officials at Bitcoin monitoring resource Bitaps.com noted on Twitter. Last 24 hours distribution. The mining distribution is almost such that the miner's share is no more than 10%, and, accordingly, 6 network confirmations provide complete protection against a double spend attack. #bitcoin #decentralized pic.twitter.com/L56IlaSCgo — bitaps.com (@bitaps_com) January 16, 2019 Hashrate Stabilize...

Mining hash rate has come a long way to decentralization in the last couple of years. According to the latest data on Bitcoin mining , the industry is gradually decentralizing. Bitaps took to Twitter to share this, “Last 24 hours distribution. The mining distribution is almost such that the miner's share is no more than 10%, and, accordingly, 6 network confirmations provide complete protection against a double spend attack.” However, the latest data from Bitaps is in conflict with that from the Blockchain.com as one crypto enthusiast pointed out in part, “Confused about the conflicting info between different websites.” According to Bitaps, Antpool has 12.9 percent share and 11.4 percent is acquired by BTC.com. While Blockchain.com shows 20.3 percent share of Unknown miners while Antpool has 11.4 percent and BTC.com has 16.3 percent. Meanwhile, Chinese Bitcoin mining giant Bitmain has been reportedly facing serious issues. The news of severe layoffs and then the step dow...

Now, cryptocurrency mining is about long-term investing. Find out what cryptocurrency you should invest in to generate a big return on your investment The double-whammy of sinking prices and constantly rising mining difficulty was a complete knockout for Bitcoin miners. U.Today determines whether you should stick to Bitcoin mining in 2019, and what other altcoins could be a good option the following year. Picking a new currency to mine Due to the decline of cryptocurrency mining, it is rather challenging to find a new coin to mine given that cryptocurrency price predictions change almost every day. If you want to pick a new currency, you should perform an in-depth fundamental analysis (the technology behind the coin, the team of developers, etc.). We’ve compiled the list of top factors you have to take into account when mining new coins: mining difficulty; recent price fluctuations; price predictions; market capitalization;   the number of use cases; the devel...

Mining Another bitcoin miner this week shut down its operations, though the news didn’t come as much of a shock. The latest closure, of U.S.-based Giga Watt which went bankrupt last year, follows a trend among large mining operations that stretches back years. Also read: No Reason to ‘Bury’ Cryptocurrencies, Russian PM Medvedev Says Bankruptcy to Closure After declaring bankruptcy last year, Giga Watt , which launched in 2017, announced in a Telegram message that it would be ceasing all operations. “As was reported in November of 2018, Giga Watt voluntarily filed with the Bankruptcy Court seeking debt relief and reorganization,” the message read. It added: “Subsequent to the filing, day to day operations continued until now. At present, both access and power to the facilities in which Giga Watt operates have been closed to the company.” The mining firm Giga Watt filed for bankruptcy at a court in the Eastern District of Washington in November, stating that it still owes i...

The concept of a bitcoin mining death spiral has been around for many years. The basic idea is a large number of bitcoin miners may stop mining at nearly the same time because their activity is no longer profitable. Due to the way the Bitcoin protocol works, this would theoretically grind the network to a halt. Faith in the Bitcoin network would then collapse, meaning the price would also fall, which would lead to even more miners leaving the network. These two feedback mechanisms would then build off each other as the price continued to spiral towards zero. There are a variety of issues with this theory, and you can read about them in last month’s post debunking this argument . One interesting aspect of the FUD around a bitcoin mining death spiral is that it was promoted by supporters of the Bitcoin Cash (Bitcash) altcoin a few months after its launch. The idea was Bitcash (BCH) was going to attract so many miners away from Bitcoin that it would cause this once-theoretical death s...

Bankrupt U.S.-based bitcoin mining firm Giga Watt has been forced to shut down day-to-day operations. The firm sent an email to customers on Tuesday, a copy of which was obtained by CoinDesk, which states that, while it had continued to operate in the two months since the bankruptcy filing, “at present, both access and power to the facilities in which Giga Watt operates have been closed to the company.” Andrey Kuzenny, a director owning a more than 10 percent stake in Giga Watt and an admin of the firm’s official Telegram channel, confirmed to CoinDesk that the email was sent by the firm. When asked for further details, Kuzenny told CoinDesk he could not comment for legal reasons. The email went on to say that those who have completed their know-your-customer verification will be able to withdraw any cryptocurrency remaining in their wallets until March. One user on the firm’s official Telegram channel asked Kuzenny if the firm can refund holdings of Giga Watt’s WTT token “wi...

The crypto industry performed nothing less than wonder in 2017. But, 2018 proved to be a troubling one for the industry of cryptocurrency. Its market faced a severe value down in the year . Numerous of the cryptocurrencies went down around a loss of 75%! Several points could be blamed for this conditions like the change in regulations, short-sight view regarding cryptocurrencies etc. Undoubtedly it would be early to conclude the ending of the crypto market after just one year of loss. Expectations in 2019: Even though the presence of all the losses in this industry lead few to doubt about the future promises of cryptocurrencies, the upcoming year is surely going to be one of the trends changing and up heading year for the industry of blockchain . Various factors related to are changing and these factors are promising a positive impact on the market in the upcoming year. So, let’s have a glance at the future predictions of cryptocurrency having a positive impact in 2019: The acceler...