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November 20, 2015- In This Issue:

 

 

  

Ghash / CEX Scaling Back Mining Pool
The company had achieved nearly 51% of Bitcoin mining, albeit not directly but through the use of a pool. While allegations never were too loudly amplified that the company would use the power to conduct 51% attacks against the Bitcoin network, many were concerned about the decentralization of mining.

The company was also the target of DDoS attacks as a result of its unapologetic
The company had achieved nearly 51% of Bitcoin mining, albeit not directly but through the use of a pool. While allegations never were too loudly amplified that the company would use the power to conduct 51% attacks against the Bitcoin network, many were concerned about the decentralization of mining.

The company was also the target of DDoS attacks as a result of its unapologetic approach to centralizing hashing power.
Over the course of this year, however, the company has dropped off in importance, at least in terms of mining. When prices fell too low, the company stopped its mining altogether, for fear that not enough blocks would be found to cover operating costs. It has yet to renew its mining, but all the while its exchange has been operational.

Yesterday, CEX.io, the exchange portion, sent an e-mail blast to users informing them of some changes to come in the platform. First, mining of DevCoin and IX Coin will cease December 1st. Second, numerous alternative cryptocurrencies are being removed from the exchange side as a result of the Multipool closing on the same day.
approach to centralizing hashing power.


Chamber Of Digital Commerce Urges G7 Not To Overreact To Paris Attacks By Stifling Bitcoin
The Chamber of Digital Commerce (CDC), based in Washington, D.C., has urged the Group of Seven (G7) nations not to enact virtual currency regulations that will stifle innovation in seeking to prevent future terror attacks like the one in Paris last week. The CDC is concerned that the G7 countries want to restrict virtual currencies because they suspect Islamic State terrorists used and continue to use bitcoin.

Stifling digital currency innovation would be counterproductive for law enforcement, according to the CDC. It claims the block chain offers law enforcement an important tool for investigating criminal activity.

In a reaction to the Paris attacks, European Union (EU) countries have planned an emergency meeting today in Brussels, Belgium, to discuss ways to strengthen controls over electronic and anonymous payment methods. A draft obtained by Reuters said EU ministers will urge EU's executive arm - the European Commission - to enforce new measures. The ministers are also expected to discuss the regulation of fintech firms.

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Wells Fargo, ING Among 5 New Banks Partnering With R3
BNP Paribas, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, ING, MacQuarie and Wells Fargo are the latest major financial institutions to partner with distributed ledger startup R3CEV.

With the announcement, R3 brings the number of financial institutions participating in its stealth initiatives to 30, with other major names including Bank of America, BNY Mellon, Citi, HSBC and Morgan Stanley, among others.
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Though details on the project are scarce, project representatives have indicated R3 is seeking to build what it calls a "global fabric of finance", or a blockchain or distributed ledger system tailored to the needs of the banking community and crafted with its input.

To date, R3 has emerged as the arguable leader of a new pack of startups seeking to adapt the technology underpinning the bitcoin network to enterprise financial use cases, with others including Digital Asset Holdings and Symbiont competing for a similar clientele.

In addition to the new partnerships, R3 announced a number of personnel appointments.

Bitcoin developer Mike Hearn has been tapped by the R3 team to be its chief platform officer, while James Carlyle, a former chief engineer of banking architecture at Barclays, was named its chief engineer.

Tim Swanson and Richard Gendal Brown, two of the company's advisors, have now been formally brought on in full-time roles. Swanson was announced as R3's head of research, while Brown will serve as chief technology officer.

Bitcoin Is Growing up - an Infographic of the Bitcoin Ecosystem
On January 3, 2009, the Genesis block, or the first block in the Bitcoin blockchain, was created. In the coinbase parameter, there was a simple message: "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks." From that one block, Bitcoin was born.

Bitcoin has come a long way from that initial statement by Bitcoin's pseudonymous founder, Satoshi Nakamoto. The technology is growing up and changing from its early days as a project adopted by impassioned technologists and libertarians to a technology widely researched and used by financial institutions worldwide.

Bitcoin had a rough road ahead of it, as did many early technologies including the Internet. It dealt with newspaper headlines lambasting Bitcoin because of its connection to Silk Road and drugs. Early adopters suffered millions of dollars in losses when early exchange Mt.Gox imploded. "Bitcoin is Dead," many prophesied.

And yet, as Bitcoin approaches its seventh birthday, we see things changing. It is turning into that curious, wide-eyed technology with ideas as widespread as any normal 7-year-old. Cross-border payments, machine-to-machine transactions, smart contracts, microtransactions, and stock settlements all have been discussed and developed. Nothing is off limits; no question goes unasked.

From the early days of mining using a laptop computer, now bitcoin miners are setting up industrial-sized data centers with hundreds of thousands of high-powered, specialized machines. In January 2014, the Bitcoin network hashrate was only 10 million GH/s. Now it is 504 million GH/s. And as new mining machines are built and sold, the hashrate has continued to increase. During same time frame, there were around 50,000 bitcoin transactions daily. That measure of network utility has increased to about 170,000 bitcoin transactions daily.

A big part of this growth in transactions is linked to the growth in bitcoin-accepting merchants. In mid-2014, there were approximately 65,000 merchants who accepted bitcoin. By mid-year 2015, there were 100,000, which is a 50 percent increase. TigerDirect, a publicly-traded online electronics retailer, has seen incredible results. Of all the buyers that used bitcoin, 46 percent of them were brand new to TigerDirect. Further, orders placed with bitcoin were 30 percent bigger. In August 2015, BitPay, a bitcoin payment processor, recorded an all-time high of 70,000 bitcoin transactions. Bitcoin as a tool of transaction is growing.