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Cryptocurrency  If you want to see first hand how cryptocurrency functions in a market outside of speculative investing, right now, Venezuela is an interesting place to look. “Venezuela could become a case study repeated all over the world under certain conditions,” said Jeffrey A. Tucker, editorial director of the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), in correspondence with  Bitcoin Magazine . “Crypto is there as the escape hatch, the way out, a tool of emancipation. If you have a power source, you can mine. If you need to save or trade or move your wealth, crypto is there for you.” Crisis-Catalyzed Currency Venezuela has been in economic recession for more than a decade. As a result, the government has maintained strict control over its currency, the Venezuelan bolivar (VEF), since 2003. Venezuela’s most abundant resource is oil. It is the fifth largest oil exporting country in the world, with the largest reserves of non-conventional oil (extra-heavy crud

Bitcoin transactions  The relatively high transaction fees on the Bitcoin network were a major topic of conversation last year, but these fees have been plummeting so far in 2018.  According to data from CoinMetrics , bitcoin miners are now collecting less than a third of the value they were collecting in fees at one point in December 2017. So what’s causing this decline in the costs of on-chain transactions? Is it as simple as declining demand leading to a lower price? Are there other factors at play? Let’s take a closer look. The Simple Explanation for Lower Fees In 2017, the congestion on the Bitcoin blockchain led to a bidding war over block space, especially as speculative interest in bitcoin continued to rise over the course of the year. According to CoinMetrics , bitcoin transaction fees started 2017 at an average of $0.30, but they eventually peaked at over $40 in December. As the price tripled during a month-long stretch from mid-November to mid-December, those w

Blockchain Technology  NASA and other space agencies, such as the European Space Agency (ESA), are considering potential applications of blockchain technology to space missions and internal operations. According to a NASA presentation titled “ Bitcoin, Blockchains and Efficient Distributed Spacecraft Mission Control ,” blockchain technology could have useful applications in distributed spacecraft missions involving multiple elements. Artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain technologies could be further integrated to make space-based sensor networks more efficient and responsive. In September 2017, NASA  awarded  a $333,000 grant to University of Akron (UA) Assistant Professor  Jin Wei  to research how to make space hardware smarter and more autonomous. The research program, titled “ RNCP: A Resilient Networking and Computing Paradigm for NASA Space Exploration ,” wants to improve the automation, environment awareness and intelligence of NASA space probes, which is  an impor

Crypto Beginners Guide / Bitcoin Beginners Guide   When sending  Bitcoin , it can be easy to make a small mistake causing you to want to cancel your Bitcoin transaction. Oftentimes, funds can become stuck if the miner fee you enter isn’t high enough for any miner to confirm your transaction. Unfortunately, the steps to cancel a Bitcoin transaction are a little more complicated than just pressing an “Undo” button. In this brief guide, I’ll walk you through the process to cancel an unconfirmed  Bitcoin  transaction. Has your transaction been confirmed? The first step in canceling your Bitcoin transaction is to  check whether or not it has any confirmations . When you made your transaction, you should have gotten a  transaction ID  that looks something like this: 240615b6ab59a5adb19ba52cb969aeb16ff82d2082b7a72cb2912c5d38c297cf Take your transaction ID and enter it into a block explorer.  Blockchain.info  is a great option. On the next page, you can see information about you

Cryptocurrency  Bithumb and Korbit, two of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the South Korean market, have announced that Kookmin Bank deposits and withdrawals will be disabled by the end of January. Shinhan Bank Will Support Cryptocurrency Exchanges Kookmin Bank, the biggest financial institution in South Korea, has decided not to support cryptocurrency exchanges and provide virtual bank accounts to cryptocurrency investors. On South Korean trading platforms, each investor is provided with a virtual bank account with which they can withdraw and deposit Korean won, without having to directly move funds from and to actual bank accounts. Over the past few weeks, local investors were concerned with the abrupt decision of Kookmin Bank to close down virtual bank accounts launched on South Korean cryptocurrency exchanges. Many traders feared that other banks would follow the decision of Kookmin Bank and simply cut financial links to cryptocurrency exchanges. Earlier this wee

Bitpay  On December 14, 2017, BitPay  announced  a first step toward enforcing the payment protocol: All orders of the  BitPay Card  will require payments from Payment Protocol-compatible wallets, such as BitPay’s own wallet and a few others. This announcement came after an initial notice in November 2017, when BitPay first  announced  that BitPay invoices would soon require payments from wallets compatible with the  Bitcoin Payment Protocol . BitPay’s move has since been met with resistance by some wallet developers that don’t support the Bitcoin Payment Protocol; some are suggesting that BitPay is abusing its leading position in the payment processing space and putting user security at risk. “We absolutely do not support BitPay in aggressively using their dominant position of market share to bully wallet providers into supporting their business plans or bully users into a system that degrades their privacy and the fungibility of bitcoin as a whole,” stated bitcoin wallet  Sam

Ripple What is Ripple? Technically speaking, is Ripple a cryptocurrency in the mold of Bitcoin? The short answer is probably “no,” but that doesn’t stop it from often being lumped into that same category. What is Ripple? Originally released in 2012 as a  subsequent  iteration of Ripplepay, Ripple is a real-time gross settlement system (RTGS), currency exchange and remittance network. Using a common ledger that is managed by a network of independently validating servers that constantly compare transaction records, Ripple doesn't rely on the energy and computing intensive proof-of-work used by Bitcoin. Ripple is based on a shared public database that makes use of a consensus process between those validating servers to ensure integrity. Those validating servers can belong to anyone, from individuals to banks. The Ripple protocol (token represented as XRP) is meant to enable the near instant and direct transfer of money between two parties. Any type of currency c

Bitcoin  Well, somebody bought the dip. Just as critics were rushing to proclaim that the bitcoin bubble had burst, the markets staged a $159 billion recovery. The rally was headlined by the bitcoin price, which rebounded from its sub-$10,000 fling and is currently flirting with $12,000. Several other top-tier coins, meanwhile, returned single day increases in excess of 40 percent. Source: CoinMarketCap Altogether, the  cryptocurrency market cap  clawed its way back to $574 billion, representing a 38 percent recovery from Wednesday’s intraday low of $415 billion. Bitcoin Price Eyes $12,000 Wednesday served as a trial-by-fire for recent bitcoin investors, some of whom had purchased the flagship cryptocurrency for $19,000 at the height of the rally in mid-December. Bitcoin Price Chart The correction forced the  bitcoin price  below $10,000 for the first time since early December, but Thursday’s rally enabled bitcoin to regain a bit of the ground it had lo

Bitcoin  Bitcoin has done what regulators haven’t been able to accomplish — getting cybercriminals to lay off of cryptocurrencies as the ransom payment du jour in malware attacks. Bitcoin’s price swings over the past few days — from below $10,000 24 hours ago to more than $11,500 today — have stoked emotions ranging from fear of a bubble bursting to euphoria for a buying opportunity. But recent volatility has also unearthed an unlikely trend, causing cybercriminals to forego the sci-fi effect in ransomware demands and name their price in local currency rather than bitcoin. It’s not that bad actors have stopped developing malware, but due to an inability to properly value the cryptocurrency amid the wild ride between Q4 2017 and this week, they’re increasingly turning to more stable fiat money instead to protect their bottom line,  according to a Proofpoint report . The below chart reflects activity for the 90-day period leading up to mid-December. While i

script async src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"> Bitcoin  A Credit Suisse report downplayed fears that the growth of the bitcoin mining industry would initiate an “environmental armageddon.” Bitcoin Mining Not an ‘Environmental Armageddon’ script async src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"> The emergence of bitcoin as an economic force has had a correlative effect on the  bitcoin mining industry , as increased profitability has attracted more miners to the ecosystem. This increased hashpower has come at the price of increased electricity consumption, provoking consternation among environmental activists and leading some critics to warn that bitcoin could cause a global energy crisis. However, a new report from Credit Suisse Group throws shade on those apocalyptic predictions. Last Week, Morgan Stanley  predicted  that cryptocurrency miners could consume as much as 140 terawatt-hou

A recent study ( PDF ) from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance and blockchain analytics company Elliptic explored the “bitcoin laundering” ecosystem. In the study, Elliptic’s forensic analysis of the Bitcoin blockchain and other publicly available data were used to track the flows of illicit funds from 2013 to 2016. “This study aimed to identify where individuals turn in order to cash out or transmit bitcoins (BTC) acquired from illicit entities and to discover typologies for criminals ‘laundering’ bitcoins,” the report says. The study describes bitcoin laundering as a special type of money laundering that exists within the Bitcoin network where a user moves some bitcoins to a new address in a manner that obscures the original source of funds. The conversion of bitcoins into fiat currency on exchanges that lack adequate anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) policies can also fall under the category

Cryptocurrency  The chairman of Korea’s Fair Trade Commission – the economic competition regulator – has blasted efforts to shutter cryptocurrency exchanges before calling on the government to regulate the industry instead. In a radio interview yesterday, FTC chairman Kim Sang-Joo plainly opined it is “not realistically possible” to shut down cryptocurrency exchanges, adding that the law does not permit authorities like the justice ministry to close cryptocurrency exchanges. In quotes reported by JoongAng, Korea’s largest media network, Kim said of the proposed ban in translated statements by  CCN : “[Shutting down cryptocurrency exchanges] is not realistically possible. Based on electronic commerce law, the government does not have the authority to close down cryptocurrency trading platforms.” The official was offering his take on the recent controversial statements by the country’s justice minister Park Sang-ki. In a press briefing a week ago, the lat