Bitcoin Guru

Certain parts of the world stand to gain a lot from creating their own digital currencies. That is much easier said than done, though, as no country or central bank has successfully done so to this point. Catalonia, a region in Spain fighting for independence, is looking to create its own digital currency. In this respect, the region aims to emulate Estonia's e-residency program. It's an interesting idea, but is it even feasible? Anyone who hasn't been living under a rock these past two weeks will be aware of the situation in Catalonia. More specifically, there is a major conflict underway between the regional government and Spanish authorities right now. Catalonia wants to become independent of Spain, but the Spanish officials aren't in favor of its independence whatsoever. However, the Catalonia government is putting up a valiant effort to achieve its goal moving forward. Given the current institutional crisis in the region and the rest of Spain, it is evident somethi...

President Donald Trump's Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, testified before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. The committee is given rather broad powers concerning federal criminal law and internet privacy. During a quick exchange, hours into the hearing, Mr. Sessions was asked about the "dark web." His answers might foreshadow what's ahead for digital privacy and bitcoin users. At three hours, forty three minutes and thirty seconds into his testimony, ranking member Mrs. Dianne Feinstein, Democrat from California, announced her line of questioning would focus on "the dark web." Citing a New York Times article, "Opioid Dealers Embrace the Dark Web to Send Deadly Drugs by Mail," by Nathaniel Popper, Senator Feinstein began, "it seems to me, the dark web, being used by criminals, is going to grow in the coming years." The "dark web" refers to a tucked-away part of the "deep web," which is purposely aloof from mainstr...

Proof of Stake (PoS) was first introduced in a paper by Sunny King and Scott Nadal in 2012 and intended to solve the problem of Bitcoin mining's high energy consumption. At that time, it cost an average of $150,000 a day to maintain the Bitcoin network. Today, this figure is at a staggering $6.7 million (if we assume a $0.12/watt cost and multiply that with the estimated 56,209,833 KWh of electricity that the Bitcoin network consumed on Oct. 13, 2017). Rather than relying on the energy-dependent work of miners to add blocks, Sunny and Scott suggested an alternative method called "staking" where a deterministic algorithm would choose nodes based on the number of coins an individual had. In other words, stakers would have more chances of being selected to add a block to the chain and reap the reward if they "staked" more coins in their wallet.  They hoped this would avoid the ever increasing energy costs and hashrate difficulty of mining. However, their new consen...

Meet the New Bitcoin Cash P2P Exchange Localbitcoincash.org On October 14 a new bitcoin cash exchange was launched called, Localbitcoincash.org, a platform that enables people to trade the decentralized currency in a peer-to-peer fashion. Localbitcoincash.org Launches Beta Platform Meet the New Bitcoin Cash P2P Exchange Localbitcoincash.orgThis week the beta version of Localbitcoincash.org (LBC) was released after bitcoin cash (BCH) fans were teased with screenshots of the platform two weeks ago. The developer of the site states that the platform is in its very early stages and the team plans to improve the marketplace over time. Further, the LBC developer says he tried to contact the team from Localbitcoins so they could offer assistance with forking the code but received no reply. "We have decided to take matters into our own hands," explains the LBC developer. "We aim to keep transactions free, including escrows and bank transfers, to encourage more people to use Bitc...

Most Bitcoin users are well aware that Bitmain is one of the largest ASIC hardware manufacturers in existence today. It is also one of the few companies still selling cryptocurrency mining equipment to mainstream consumers. The company recently made the decision to only accept Bitcoin Cash payments for its latest batch of Antminer S9 units. It's an interesting decision, although a controversial one as well. Although the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem has seen its fair share of growth as of late, there is still a lot of work to be done. When it comes to spending BCH especially, things are not necessarily straightforward. A lot of companies still don't accept BCH payments right now and that situation will not change anytime soon. Bitmain is setting an interesting precedent in this regard, even though it may hurt business in the process. Indeed, the mining hardware manufacturer has made a very bold decision by requiring that the new batch of Antminer S9 mining units be paid for with Bit...