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Cryptocurrency  Tether, a cryptocurrency pegged 1-to-1 to the U.S. dollar, was allegedly hacked this week to the tune of $31 million. Tether functions to convert U.S. dollars to a type of cryptocurrency. The project’s token (USDT) is pegged to the dollar and is used in exchange trading. The idea behind Tether is that instead of having to sell your bitcoin or other token for a fiat currency, you can convert it to USDT, and either hold it in USDT or else transfer your USDT to another exchange and use it to purchase tokens there. As for the exchanges, USDT allows them to trade in something akin to dollars, without requiring them to have a bank account. Tether operates on the “Omni Layer Protocol,” which itself operates on top of the Bitcoin network, and uses Bitcoin addresses. According to a  blog post  on the project’s website, $31 million worth of USDT was sent to an unauthorized Bitcoin address on November 19, 2017. In the blog post, Tether also noted it released a ...

Blockstream  Blockstream is  introducing Simplicity , a new programming language for blockchain-based smart contracts, intended for inclusion in Blockstream’s sidechains and eventually in Bitcoin. The new language was presented by its creator, Russell O'Connor, Infrastructure Tech Developer at Blockstream, at the ACM SIGSAC Workshop on Programming Languages and Analysis for Security ( PLAS 2017 ). "Simplicity is a blockchain programming language that is so simple, it fits on a t-shirt,” O'Connor told  Bitcoin Magazine . “It is critical that smart contracts behave in ways that all participants expect, and applying formal verification to Simplicity allows us to achieve that.” Simplicity is still a Blockstream Research & Development project, but there’s potential for its use in Blockstream products in the future, according to the company’s announcement. “Simplicity is flexible enough that I anticipate many new, domain-specific, languages will generate Simplicity, an...

So you want in on bitcoin? Guide for Noobs Simple and Not A Lot of Money setup an account on coinbase.com, buy your coins, walk away until next year or later, fees are ~1.5% which is $1.5 USD for a $100 USD of coinnote coinbase does have an option to buy via credit card instead of a bank account, fees are ~4% when you do that, your credit card company may charge more if it considers it a cash transfer Guide for Not Noobs Less Simple -setup an account on coinbase.com, move dollars into your account, setup an account on gdax.com (same company, same login), move your cash from coinbase to gdax, buy your coins on GDAX at Market, fees are cheaper 0.25% versus 1.5% -consider buying alternative coins supported by coinbase No Fees -all of the above but use GDAX's Limit/Buy, zero fees, but you have to wait for the market to dip below your buy price More Money Available -setup several Limit/Buy orders at different price points to capture dips when you are away More Control but M...

Smartphone device  Image Source:  EverythingApplePro, YouTube Apple’s hot new iPhone X has it all. From design and display quality to features and performance, the tenth-anniversary iPhone is a class-leading smartphone through and through. The design in particular has been praised to no end. In fact, even some of the iPhone X’s harshest critics ( myself included ) have come around to love the controversial “notch” design with the phone’s display. Of course, the sleek design and gorgeous display are only half of the equation here. The software side of the user experience is even more important, and the iPhone X delivers there as well. Benchmark test scores are off the charts, and we’ve seen time and time again what the iPhone X’s A11 Bionic processor is capable of. But savvy Apple fans know that despite how impressive the iPhone X’s performance is compared to most devices out there, there’s something that has been holding the phone back. Now, that issue has caused the iPhon...

Android device  You thought you were completely disconnected from any location tracking by  Google  and your phone when you went into your phone’s location services and toggled them off, right? You’d be wrong! Hah…ha…haaa…ugh. According to a report from  Quartz , Google has been doing a bit of location tracking on Android phones even if you told them not to by turning off your phone’s location services. And we’re talking about any of the modern Android phones you might own, so yes, you are included in this conversation. Quartz  found that Google has essentially been pinging nearby cellular towers and retrieving that info through the Firebase Cloud Messaging service that manages push notifications and messages. Again, this is all still happening even if you have turned off location services on your phone. This collection of location via cell tower can happen over both WiFi and cellular data connection too, by the way. The data collected is encrypted, but the ...

Bitcoin  In October 2017, LendEDU, a marketplace for financing loans, credit cards and other financial products, polled 1,000 Americans asking a series of questions related to Ethereum, Ripple and initial coin offerings (ICOs). They did this to gain insight into the average American’s perception of cryptocurrency.  The poll  was conducted by online polling company OnePoll, which acted as a third party and was able to provide an age and gender breakdown of respondents. The poll was answered by 1,000 Americans ages 18 and up over two days, from October 27 to 30. Ethereum : At the time of writing, with a market capitalization of $28.49 billion, Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency, about one-fourth the market capitalization of Bitcoin. Since the start of 2017, the price of ether has grown from $7.98 to $298. 31.60 percent of Americans have heard of Ethereum and 18.20 percent of Americans are planning to invest in ether (ETH) The survey show...

Bitcoin  Bitcoin blockchain mining infrastructure provider  BitFury  has announced it has made a strategic investment in the universal African Bitcoin exchange   BitPesa . Founded in 2013, BitPesa sees itself as an easy way for businesses and individuals worldwide to buy and sell local African currencies through Bitcoin to Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda and Tanzania with the monetary settlement taking place directly with African banks and mobile money accounts. BitPesa is also one of the few Bitcoin organizations in Africa that provide bank deposits and withdrawals, which allows senders and receivers to take advantage of cheap, efficient and quick payments using Bitcoin to exchange African and international currencies. This removes the dependence on other currencies such as the U.S. dollar that have high international conversion rates. BitFury CEO Valery Vavilov told  Bitcoin Magazine  there has been a serious lack of investment in financial infrastr...

 Blockchain  Ogoniland, situated off the coast of the Gulf of Guinea in southeastern Nigeria, is considered the most polluted region along the Niger Delta and among the worst in the world. Even though the Niger Delta is rich in resources, poverty, pollution and unemployment are rife. One of its primary resources is oil, and consequently, many companies take advantage of the region. According to the  United Nations Environment Programme  (UNEP), the oil industry has been a key factor in Nigeria’s economy for 50 years. As a result of oil drilling and spills by Shell and other companies, however, the land has been devastated, the vegetation decimated, fish numbers depleted, and surrounding mangroves, swamps and creeks contaminated. Consequently, the livelihoods of many fishermen and farmers have been destroyed. In 2011, the UNEP said that it could take up to 30 years for full environmental restoration to be achieved in Ogoniland; but a lack of accountability appears...

Bitcoin  According to a  Reuters  report, Sergei Shvetsov – first deputy governor of the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) has stated today that Russia will block access to websites belonging to exchanges and trading platforms offering cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. The central bank official was speaking at a financial markets conference today when he pointed to the “dubious” nature of bitcoin – as an investment instrument for retail investors. He stated: We cannot stand apart. We cannot give direct and easy access to such dubious instruments for retail (investors). The central bank deputy governor’s comments are in contrast to those offered by Russia’s finance minister Anton Siluanov last month. Speaking at a financial forum in Moscow at the time, Siluanov called for the Russian government to accept the reality cryptocurrencies permeating into society. “There is no sense in banning them, there is a need to regulate them,” stated Russia’s finance minister less than a ...

BTC Sweden’s central bank, the Riksbank, is considering whether the country should introduce a purely digital form of government-backed money, perhaps using distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) similar to the blockchain technology underlying Bitcoin. This move is part of a recent trend: around the world, nations are considering cryptocurrencies issued by central banks; and recently, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) gave a speech hinting at its interest in the concept. A September 2017 report titled “ The Riksbank’s e-krona project ” outlines a proposal for a digital complement to cash, dubbed e-krona, which would be guaranteed by the state. “This is as revolutionary as the paper note 300 years ago,” Cecilia Skingsley, deputy governor at the Riksbank, told the Financial Times  in November 2016. “What does it mean for monetary policy and financial stability? How do we design this: a rechargeable card, an app or another way?” Skingsley added tha...

Bitcoin  Here's what you can do with your BCH now that the first blocks are being mined. Please note: Everything in this article is just advice, based on our best understanding of the current situation. Everything is still very uncertain and subject to change: Be extremely careful! Bitcoin Cash (sometimes referred to as Bcash, and mostly using the tickers BCH or BCC) launched today. Anyone who held bitcoin at 12:20 p.m. UTC should have an equivalent amount of BCH attributed to their Bitcoin private keys. In our  beginner’s guide to surviving the BIP 148 split , which was subsequently updated to also cover the Bitcoin Cash launch, we explained how to secure your private keys so you could be sure to access your BCH. At the time of writing that article, much was still uncertain about how this event would play out. Much is still uncertain, but to the extent that the situation can be understood at present, this article explains how you can claim — and potentially use — your B...

Bitcoin  The way we consume media content has been on a continual overhaul for the past two decades. Every aspect of media distribution has become more streamlined from the razor-thin devices we use to consume media to the manner in which we purchase and store our coveted content. Books, music and movies have all seen their physical bodies and storage locations dissolve, to be replaced with on-demand downloads and digital copies. The digital content revolution has done a lot for increasing access and visibility for artists and authors, but the current publishing giants have failed to adequately adjust to the times in a few crucial areas. While it's true that platforms such as YouTube and Medium have granted publishing access to the greater public and eliminated gatekeeping middlemen like talent agents and PR people, the current digital content sharing platforms have built their empires on the skeletons of the publishing giants’ templates that existed before and, unfortunately, ...

Bitcoin  You’ve probably heard it many times if you frequently spread the good word about crypto. “Isn’t Bitcoin volatile? What if the price crashes?” By now, many POS systems offer free fiat conversion, alleviating some concern, but until the volatility of cryptocurrencies is addressed, most people will be unwilling to hold any. We need to find a way to fight the volatility that is inherent in Bitcoin. This doesn’t necessarily mean Bitcoin has to change; many people prefer to use a deflationary currency, especially those who like to save. Despite the skepticism of many altcoin critics, a currency can be better suited for some applications than others. Financial privacy, for example, is great for political activists, but more problematic when it comes to political campaign finance. We need a stable cryptocurrency designed for use in commerce; unless you’re living paycheck to paycheck, this would be held as only a fraction of your wealth, the rest reserved as other coins like bit...

Space  Traveling  Humans are going to Mars. We don’t know exactly when, who it will be, or exactly what spacecraft will be the first to make the journey, but with several space-faring nations setting their sights firmly on the red planet, it’s going to happen sooner rather than later. To make that goal a reality, groups like NASA are going to need the help of companies like Lockheed Martin, and the latter  just released  its newest vision for what an orbiting Mars space station and reusable lander. The station, which is built with our current scientific understanding of Mars in mind, features a pair of what Lockheed Martin is calling “MADVs,” or Mars Ascent/Descent Vehicles. Those vehicles function as landers to ferry astronauts to and from the surface of the planet, with the space station itself acting as a “base camp.” “Sending humans to Mars has always been a part of science fiction, but today we have the capability to make it a reality,” Lisa Callahan, vice p...

Cryptocurrency-related cyber attacks are on the rise . As cryptocurrency continues to explode in value and public awareness, we can only expect this trend to continue. I was recently the target of such an attack. I also personally know of multiple other cases of the same attack being successfully carried out. Even worse, this type of attack is becoming ever more common and is likely to see an even bigger boost thanks to the  professional excellence of firms like Equifax , making it an urgent topic as almost everyone is at immediate risk. This article describes this increasingly common attack vector and provides immediate steps you can take to protect yourself. I will also provide additional tools and best practices to further safeguard yourself and your funds more generally. As a computer programmer active in the crypto ecosystem since early 2013, I’ve always been too aware of the constant threat of cybersecurity attacks and the possibility that I could be targeted at any time. ...