Bitcoin Magazine

https://bitcoinmagazine.com Wed, 18:14:04 60 Bitcoin Magazine is the original source of information, news and commentary about Bitcoin, the blockchain and digital currencies. ]]>

Bitcoin Unlimited, one of the Bitcoin Coresoftware forks introduced in late 2015, garnered much attention in recent months. The project gained hash power support from several new Bitcoin mining pools, includingViaBTC, GBMiners and BTC.TOP, while node adoption appears to be on the rise as well.

The central idea behind Bitcoin Unlimited — specified in “Bitcoin Unlimited Improvement Proposal 001” (BUIP001) — is to hand control of Bitcoin’s block size limit to users and miners. Or perhaps more accurately: to make this control more explicit and easier to handle.

But as explained in “How Bitcoin Unlimited Users May End Up on Different Blockchains,” BUIP001 does not include a technical consensus mechanism as reliable as in Bitcoin’s current consensus rules.

Instead, Bitcoin Unlimited relies on a philosophy often referred to as “Emergent Consensus.”

(Note: If you are not sure how Bitcoin Unlimited works, or what the technical weaknesses of BUIP001 are, make sure to first read “A Closer Look at Bitcoin Unlimited’s Configurable Block Size Proposal” and “How Bitcoin Unlimited Users May End Up on Different Blockchains.”)

“Emergent Consensus”

BUIP001 does not ensure machine consensus; users can configure their nodes to split into different blockchains, either intentionally or unintentionally. Instead, Bitcoin Unlimited relies on “Emergent Consensus.” This is a conviction that participants in the Bitcoin ecosystem have a strong enough economic incentive to converge on a single blockchain, such that they will converge on a single blockchain. If their software does not automatically realize this, users are expected to configure their settings to make it happen. After all, it benefits everyone to be on the same blockchain and to be able to transact with one another.

How this Emergent Consensus should form is not really documented, however. While some have made analogies — with flocks of birds, for example — it’s not clear how these apply to Bitcoin, exactly.

That said, it is possible to draw out a scenario that many Bitcoin Unlimited proponents roughly envisage. As a first step, users should signal what size of blocks they will accept with the Excessive Block Size (EB) setting. Then, miners — incentivized to satisfy market demand — should increase (or decrease) the block size limit accordingly. Finally, if these new blocks exceed some users’ EB, these users are expected to follow regardless, either because their Excessive Acceptance Depth (AD) setting is triggered, or maybe because they’ll reconfigure their nodes manually.

As explained in “How Bitcoin Unlimited Users May End Up on Different Blockchains,” this scenario does present some problems. For one, if a user’s EB signaling is trivially spoofed by an adversary, miners can be tricked into thinking a block size limit increase has more support than it does — or perhaps malicious miners can themselves trick users.

And for the (remaining) users, this scenario presents an odd choice: Either they set their AD settings low to remain in consensus, but essentially give up much of their autonomy to miners; or they set their AD settings high to protect their autonomy, but risk splitting the network.

Off-Chain Coordination

To counter some the problems described, Emergent Consensus can also be established through debate on forums, blog posts, chat rooms and other media. Realistically, it may even require this kind of off-chain coordination, to some extent.

For example, while mining pool ViaBTC wants to hard fork to a two-megabyte block size limit, that is not what the pool is currently signaling with its EB settings. If it did, that could be abused to split the network. Instead, ViaBTC signals support for one megabyte and in their “miner guide” proposes to hard fork to two megabytes once at least 75 percent of hash power acknowledges support.

However, this kind of off-chain coordination is not unique. Groups of people have coordinated and achieved consensus through discourse for a long time. But such systems often either have a leader or tend to break down and split into factions once the number of participants reaches a certain size. Other popular open-source projects, for example, sometimes consist of hundreds of incompatible forks.

And this is probably even more true under adversarial conditions. If the people in these groups don’t really know or trust one another, they have no way of knowing whether the other people are telling the truth or lying. Even a single adversary can pretend to be many users and communicate many false preferences. This makes coordination and reaching consensus a very difficult problem to solve.

In fact, this is the Byzantine Generals’ Problem. That is exactly the problem Satoshi Nakamoto attempted to address.

With a track record of about eight years, Bitcoin’s main technological achievement is a math-based protocol that realizes strong, fast, scalable and automated machine consensus for large groups of people who do not necessarily know or trust one another. Bitcoin is reasonably “Byzantine Fault tolerant.”

Bitcoin Unlimited proponents believe that Bitcoin’s economic incentives — the incentive for users to all remain part of the same Bitcoin blockchain — is in itself sufficiently Byzantine Fault tolerant. But that is, so far, largely unproven. No altcoin relies on similar assumptions, nor is there even a testnet where the BUIP001 configurations are actively used.

What Bitcoin Unlimited Changes

That said, part of the same Bitcoin Unlimited philosophy is that Bitcoin relies on a sort of Emergent Consensus anyway.

Rather than merely relying on math, code or protocol, many really see Bitcoin as a consensus between people first and foremost. People choose to partake in the system, people give it value, and sometimes — like during the August 2010 and March 2013blockchain forks — people have to coordinate “off-chain” to determine which chain is valid.

As such, BUIP001 doesn’t fundamentally change anything. Users choose to run Bitcoin Unlimited. Node software can already be (re-)compiled. And a social consensus may have to form “off-chain” either way.

But by making this control more explicit and easier to handle, and assuming users actually use these options, Bitcoin Unlimited does rely on the human consensus aspect to a much larger extent. Rather than opting into a protocol once and relying on machine consensus from then on, users need to take on a much more proactive role. As one Bitcoin Unlimited proponent noted, shortly after miners had to reconfigure their nodes in response to a bug that briefly forked the network earlier this week: “This IS part of how Bitcoin works. It’s not meant for people sleeping at the wheel.”

It is true that BUIP001 doesn’t introduce anything that wasn’t possible before. As an open-source project, users and miners could always recompile their Bitcoin software to do anything that Bitcoin Unlimited allows. But of course, that in itself is not an argument in favor of BUIP001. Just because users could, that does not mean they should.

So far, Bitcoin has had several forks that lasted for several blocks, caused by technical failures. The August 2010 blockchain fork was needed to revert the creation of billions of bitcoins out of thin air, which required orphaning an hour-long chain. The only reason that the event wasn’t catastrophic is that bitcoin was hardly used as money back then. During the March 2013 blockchain fork, however, the network was unreliable for real users, and at least one person was double-spent, while several miners wasted valuable resources mining an orphaned chain. The same is true for the July 2015 blockchain fork, where miners were urged to switch to fully validating mining pools, and many have learned from that mistake.

Indeed, developers, miners and the rest of the Bitcoin community have generally tried to avoid these types of crisis events as much as they possibly can.

In contrast, Bitcoin Unlimited seems to embrace them as an upgrade mechanism.

“Jonny1000” contributed to this article.

The post Why Bitcoin Unlimited’s “Emergent Consensus” Is a Gamble appeared first onBitcoin Magazine.

Bitcoin Unlimited, one of the Bitcoin Coresoftware forks introduced in late 2015, garnered much attention in recent months. The project gained hash power support from several new Bitcoin mining pools, includingViaBTC, GBMiners and BTC.TOP, while node adoption appears to be on the rise as well.

The central idea behind Bitcoin Unlimited — specified in “Bitcoin Unlimited Improvement Proposal 001” (BUIP001) — is to hand control of Bitcoin’s block size limit to users and miners. Or perhaps more accurately: to make this control more explicit and easier to handle.

But as explained in “How Bitcoin Unlimited Users May End Up on Different Blockchains,” BUIP001 does not include a technical consensus mechanism as reliable as in Bitcoin’s current consensus rules.

Instead, Bitcoin Unlimited relies on a philosophy often referred to as “Emergent Consensus.”

(Note: If you are not sure how Bitcoin Unlimited works, or what the technical weaknesses of BUIP001 are, make sure to first read “A Closer Look at Bitcoin Unlimited’s Configurable Block Size Proposal” and “How Bitcoin Unlimited Users May End Up on Different Blockchains.”)

“Emergent Consensus”

BUIP001 does not ensure machine consensus; users can configure their nodes to split into different blockchains, either intentionally or unintentionally. Instead, Bitcoin Unlimited relies on “Emergent Consensus.” This is a conviction that participants in the Bitcoin ecosystem have a strong enough economic incentive to converge on a single blockchain, such that they will converge on a single blockchain. If their software does not automatically realize this, users are expected to configure their settings to make it happen. After all, it benefits everyone to be on the same blockchain and to be able to transact with one another.

How this Emergent Consensus should form is not really documented, however. While some have made analogies — with flocks of birds, for example — it’s not clear how these apply to Bitcoin, exactly.

That said, it is possible to draw out a scenario that many Bitcoin Unlimited proponents roughly envisage. As a first step, users should signal what size of blocks they will accept with the Excessive Block Size (EB) setting. Then, miners — incentivized to satisfy market demand — should increase (or decrease) the block size limit accordingly. Finally, if these new blocks exceed some users’ EB, these users are expected to follow regardless, either because their Excessive Acceptance Depth (AD) setting is triggered, or maybe because they’ll reconfigure their nodes manually.

As explained in “How Bitcoin Unlimited Users May End Up on Different Blockchains,” this scenario does present some problems. For one, if a user’s EB signaling is trivially spoofed by an adversary, miners can be tricked into thinking a block size limit increase has more support than it does — or perhaps malicious miners can themselves trick users.

And for the (remaining) users, this scenario presents an odd choice: Either they set their AD settings low to remain in consensus, but essentially give up much of their autonomy to miners; or they set their AD settings high to protect their autonomy, but risk splitting the network.

Off-Chain Coordination

To counter some the problems described, Emergent Consensus can also be established through debate on forums, blog posts, chat rooms and other media. Realistically, it may even require this kind of off-chain coordination, to some extent.

For example, while mining pool ViaBTC wants to hard fork to a two-megabyte block size limit, that is not what the pool is currently signaling with its EB settings. If it did, that could be abused to split the network. Instead, ViaBTC signals support for one megabyte and in their “miner guide” proposes to hard fork to two megabytes once at least 75 percent of hash power acknowledges support.

However, this kind of off-chain coordination is not unique. Groups of people have coordinated and achieved consensus through discourse for a long time. But such systems often either have a leader or tend to break down and split into factions once the number of participants reaches a certain size. Other popular open-source projects, for example, sometimes consist of hundreds of incompatible forks.

And this is probably even more true under adversarial conditions. If the people in these groups don’t really know or trust one another, they have no way of knowing whether the other people are telling the truth or lying. Even a single adversary can pretend to be many users and communicate many false preferences. This makes coordination and reaching consensus a very difficult problem to solve.

In fact, this is the Byzantine Generals’ Problem. That is exactly the problem Satoshi Nakamoto attempted to address.

With a track record of about eight years, Bitcoin’s main technological achievement is a math-based protocol that realizes strong, fast, scalable and automated machine consensus for large groups of people who do not necessarily know or trust one another. Bitcoin is reasonably “Byzantine Fault tolerant.”

Bitcoin Unlimited proponents believe that Bitcoin’s economic incentives — the incentive for users to all remain part of the same Bitcoin blockchain — is in itself sufficiently Byzantine Fault tolerant. But that is, so far, largely unproven. No altcoin relies on similar assumptions, nor is there even a testnet where the BUIP001 configurations are actively used.

What Bitcoin Unlimited Changes

That said, part of the same Bitcoin Unlimited philosophy is that Bitcoin relies on a sort of Emergent Consensus anyway.

Rather than merely relying on math, code or protocol, many really see Bitcoin as a consensus between people first and foremost. People choose to partake in the system, people give it value, and sometimes — like during the August 2010 and March 2013blockchain forks — people have to coordinate “off-chain” to determine which chain is valid.

As such, BUIP001 doesn’t fundamentally change anything. Users choose to run Bitcoin Unlimited. Node software can already be (re-)compiled. And a social consensus may have to form “off-chain” either way.

But by making this control more explicit and easier to handle, and assuming users actually use these options, Bitcoin Unlimited does rely on the human consensus aspect to a much larger extent. Rather than opting into a protocol once and relying on machine consensus from then on, users need to take on a much more proactive role. As one Bitcoin Unlimited proponent noted, shortly after miners had to reconfigure their nodes in response to a bug that briefly forked the network earlier this week: “This IS part of how Bitcoin works. It’s not meant for people sleeping at the wheel.”

It is true that BUIP001 doesn’t introduce anything that wasn’t possible before. As an open-source project, users and miners could always recompile their Bitcoin software to do anything that Bitcoin Unlimited allows. But of course, that in itself is not an argument in favor of BUIP001. Just because users could, that does not mean they should.

So far, Bitcoin has had several forks that lasted for several blocks, caused by technical failures. The August 2010 blockchain fork was needed to revert the creation of billions of bitcoins out of thin air, which required orphaning an hour-long chain. The only reason that the event wasn’t catastrophic is that bitcoin was hardly used as money back then. During the March 2013 blockchain fork, however, the network was unreliable for real users, and at least one person was double-spent, while several miners wasted valuable resources mining an orphaned chain. The same is true for the July 2015 blockchain fork, where miners were urged to switch to fully validating mining pools, and many have learned from that mistake.

Indeed, developers, miners and the rest of the Bitcoin community have generally tried to avoid these types of crisis events as much as they possibly can.

In contrast, Bitcoin Unlimited seems to embrace them as an upgrade mechanism.

“Jonny1000” contributed to this article.

The post Why Bitcoin Unlimited’s “Emergent Consensus” Is a Gamble appeared first onBitcoin Magazine.

Wed, 1 Feb 2017 18:14:04 1485972844 https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/why-bitcoin-unlimiteds-emergent-consensus-gamble/ https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/why-bitcoin-unlimiteds-emergent-consensus-gamble/ Aaron van Wirdum Bitcoin Technical]]>

Last week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to build a wall along the U.S.–Mexico border as he had promised during his presidential election campaign. Aside from the ethical and practical issues of building the border wall, the issue of how it will be financed was also raised by opponents during his campaign. Trump’s proposed solution to funding the wall is either to heavily tax U.S.–Mexico remittances or to fully prohibit them altogether, so that the funds needed to build the wall will stay in the U.S.

According to the World Bank, U.S.–basedMexican immigrants send around $26 billionannually to their families back home in Mexico. Trump’s proposed legislation would hit Mexican families that rely on remittances from their U.S.–based relatives hard. The Mexican economy would also suffer as the multibillion-dollar remittance inflow to Mexico adds substantially to the country’s domestic spending.     

In light of Trump’s proposed policies to fund the border wall, remittances from the U.S. to Mexico jumped to a ten-year high after Trump’s election win in November in anticipation of possible legislation restricting cross-border money transfers to Mexico. Remittances in the month of November jumped by almost 25 percent compared to the same month the prior year, according to data collated by the Mexican central bank.

Will Bitcoin Be the Answer if New Legislation Is Imposed?

If U.S.–Mexico remittances using traditional channels such as banks or large money transfer operators (MTOs), such as Western Union or MoneyGram, are to be heavily taxed or severely restricted, then bitcoin remittances could offer a solution.

Bitcoin allows users to send and receive money from and to anywhere in the world at a very low cost using online or mobile wallets to make the transfer. Furthermore, legal restrictions on money transfers could easily be circumvented using the digital currency, as no paperwork needs to be filed when sending money abroad. That way, both documented and undocumented Mexican immigrants would still be able to send money back home without any restrictions, should the new laws be put in place.   

Alternatively to bitcoin, anonymous digital currencies such as DASH, Monero or Zcash could also be used to make cross-border money transfers, should Trump decide to go through with his legislation and attempt to crack down on bitcoin remittances.

Bitcoin in Mexico

The main reason bitcoin hasn’t taken any notable market share of the $500 billion global remittance market is the challenge of transferring fiat currency into bitcoin and then bitcoin back into fiat currency without having to pay too much in bid/offer spread costs. Illiquid local exchanges in developing countries can easily hike up the cost of the remittance to the extent that it would make more sense to use traditional money transfer solutions.

Fortunately, for Mexican bitcoin users, there are several exchanges to choose from when needing to convert bitcoin into pesos or vice versa. Mexico’s main bitcoin exchanges include Bitso, Volabit and LocalBitcoins.

Given the liquidity of both U.S-based, Mexico-based and international exchanges that residents of the two nations have access to, the costs of converting bitcoin to and from fiat currency are reasonable low, making bitcoin remittances from the U.S. to Mexico a viable solution should Trump’s remittance restrictions be enforced. Furthermore, there are bitcoin remittance companies such asAbra and Cashaa that aim to make cashing out bitcoins in local fiat currency easier.  

In terms of bitcoin regulation, Mexico has taken a stance similar to many of its international peers. In April 2014, Mexico’s National Commission for the Protection and Defense of Users of Financial Services issued a warning on the risks of using bitcoin stating that it is not legal tender and not regulated by the Mexican authorities. Therefore, the commission warned, “any individual or business that uses or accepts virtual currencies as a means of payment does so at their own risk and on their own responsibility because the use of this type of asset entails high volatility and potential monetary losses.” In other words, bitcoin is not illegal but the commission warns against its use due to the risks involved in dealing in the digital currency.

Not surprisingly, following Trump’s election win in November, bitcoin trading volumes in Mexico on global peer-to-peer exchange LocalBitcoins and on the country’s leading bitcoin exchange, Bitso, increased substantially as Mexican bitcoin users moved funds away from the weakening peso and into a better-performing currency.

Should Trump succeed in imposing strict remittance restrictions from the U.S. to Mexico, this could become the first case study of bitcoin remittance succeeding and actually become a viable means to make cross-border payments.  

The post Will Trump’s New Policies Boost U.S.–Mexico Bitcoin Remittances? appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Last week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to build a wall along the U.S.–Mexico border as he had promised during his presidential election campaign. Aside from the ethical and practical issues of building the border wall, the issue of how it will be financed was also raised by opponents during his campaign. Trump’s proposed solution to funding the wall is either to heavily tax U.S.–Mexico remittances or to fully prohibit them altogether, so that the funds needed to build the wall will stay in the U.S.

According to the World Bank, U.S.–basedMexican immigrants send around $26 billionannually to their families back home in Mexico. Trump’s proposed legislation would hit Mexican families that rely on remittances from their U.S.–based relatives hard. The Mexican economy would also suffer as the multibillion-dollar remittance inflow to Mexico adds substantially to the country’s domestic spending.     

In light of Trump’s proposed policies to fund the border wall, remittances from the U.S. to Mexico jumped to a ten-year high after Trump’s election win in November in anticipation of possible legislation restricting cross-border money transfers to Mexico. Remittances in the month of November jumped by almost 25 percent compared to the same month the prior year, according to data collated by the Mexican central bank.

Will Bitcoin Be the Answer if New Legislation Is Imposed?

If U.S.–Mexico remittances using traditional channels such as banks or large money transfer operators (MTOs), such as Western Union or MoneyGram, are to be heavily taxed or severely restricted, then bitcoin remittances could offer a solution.

Bitcoin allows users to send and receive money from and to anywhere in the world at a very low cost using online or mobile wallets to make the transfer. Furthermore, legal restrictions on money transfers could easily be circumvented using the digital currency, as no paperwork needs to be filed when sending money abroad. That way, both documented and undocumented Mexican immigrants would still be able to send money back home without any restrictions, should the new laws be put in place.   

Alternatively to bitcoin, anonymous digital currencies such as DASH, Monero or Zcash could also be used to make cross-border money transfers, should Trump decide to go through with his legislation and attempt to crack down on bitcoin remittances.

Bitcoin in Mexico

The main reason bitcoin hasn’t taken any notable market share of the $500 billion global remittance market is the challenge of transferring fiat currency into bitcoin and then bitcoin back into fiat currency without having to pay too much in bid/offer spread costs. Illiquid local exchanges in developing countries can easily hike up the cost of the remittance to the extent that it would make more sense to use traditional money transfer solutions.

Fortunately, for Mexican bitcoin users, there are several exchanges to choose from when needing to convert bitcoin into pesos or vice versa. Mexico’s main bitcoin exchanges include Bitso, Volabit and LocalBitcoins.

Given the liquidity of both U.S-based, Mexico-based and international exchanges that residents of the two nations have access to, the costs of converting bitcoin to and from fiat currency are reasonable low, making bitcoin remittances from the U.S. to Mexico a viable solution should Trump’s remittance restrictions be enforced. Furthermore, there are bitcoin remittance companies such asAbra and Cashaa that aim to make cashing out bitcoins in local fiat currency easier.  

In terms of bitcoin regulation, Mexico has taken a stance similar to many of its international peers. In April 2014, Mexico’s National Commission for the Protection and Defense of Users of Financial Services issued a warning on the risks of using bitcoin stating that it is not legal tender and not regulated by the Mexican authorities. Therefore, the commission warned, “any individual or business that uses or accepts virtual currencies as a means of payment does so at their own risk and on their own responsibility because the use of this type of asset entails high volatility and potential monetary losses.” In other words, bitcoin is not illegal but the commission warns against its use due to the risks involved in dealing in the digital currency.

Not surprisingly, following Trump’s election win in November, bitcoin trading volumes in Mexico on global peer-to-peer exchange LocalBitcoins and on the country’s leading bitcoin exchange, Bitso, increased substantially as Mexican bitcoin users moved funds away from the weakening peso and into a better-performing currency.

Should Trump succeed in imposing strict remittance restrictions from the U.S. to Mexico, this could become the first case study of bitcoin remittance succeeding and actually become a viable means to make cross-border payments.  

The post Will Trump’s New Policies Boost U.S.–Mexico Bitcoin Remittances? appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Tue, 31 Jan 2017 17:55:57 1485885357 https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/will-trumps-new-policies-boost-usmexico-bitcoin-remittances/ https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/will-trumps-new-policies-boost-usmexico-bitcoin-remittances/ Alex Lielacher Bitcoin Regulation ]]>

ChronoBank is an up-and-coming company that seeks to disrupt the recruitment sectorjust as Uber and Lyft have disrupted and reinvented the ride-for-hire business.

ChronoBank wants to decentralize and disintermediate recruitment by creating a P2P marketplace connecting employers with freelancers. “[We] want to create a revolution in short-term recruitment within key professions,” states the company’s website. “Our goal is to make a difference to the way people find work and are rewarded for their labour — doing so within a decentralized framework and without the involvement of traditional financial institutions.”

“We are trying to streamline [the] employment process everywhere, making short-term, fair-paying engagements more attractive than long-term tenures,” Sergei Sergienko, founder and CEO of ChronoBank, told Bitcoin Magazine.

“At ChronoBank, we believe in fairness, where every person can transact in the value that they themselves can generate, not just transact in fiat currency that’s issued by a central authority.”

The ChronoBank concept features a new digital token: the Labour-Hour (LH), which will trade freely on the open market and will be the native unit of currency that companies use to purchase labor from professionals on the ChronoBank exchange. The company expects LH to also become, with time, “an inflation-proof asset that will be attractive to long-term investors and traders wanting to park funds overnight.”

“We believe that the most valuable thing in this world is time; therefore, we are basing a currency on it,” said Sergienko. “People’s work time and skills are abundant enough to be accessible to anyone, yet scarce enough to be valuable.”

ChronoBank has now integrated the Changelly app within its main wallet software. Changelly, developed by the MinerGate team, is an instant exchange app that aggregates rates from external exchanges and offers the best rate to the user, who is then able to easily and quickly exchange digital currencies without technical hassles. At this moment, Changelly permits trading in bitcoin, ether, Zcash and several other altcoins.

“The ability to trade these LH tokens quickly, easily and without slippage against other national and virtual currencies is vital to the smooth operation of ChronoBank and confidence in our platform,” said Sergienko. “That is why we are working to ensure they are listed on a wide range of exchanges. Moreover, we are implementing Changelly right within the core ChronoBank wallet. That will make it incredibly easy for users to exchange LH for bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies with practically zero delay.”

In a statement, Sergienko explained that Changelly is well established and trusted in the crypto world. “It is a clean, reliable interface that we will integrate directly into the ChronoWallet to give our users another choice for trading  —  in this case, one that’s all about speed and convenience,” he said. The integration of Changelly will allow anyone to buy LH tokens quickly using a variety of payment options, including bitcoin and MasterCard/Visa credit cards. They can then use the tokens to buy services on ChronoBank’s exchange.

The concept of using skilled work time as currency is not new. For example, Ithaca HOURS, a local currency used in Ithaca, New York, since 1991, is the oldest and largest local currency system operating in the U.S. at this time. One Ithaca HOUR, valued at $10, is recommended to be used as payment for one hour's work, although the rate is negotiable. Ithaca HOURS are printed tokens meant for local use, and there is no standard mechanism to convert Ithaca HOURS to dollars. Therefore, the usage of Ithaca HOURS has been declining in the last few years, and the concept doesn’t seem easily extensible to current trends toward digital, global “gig economies,” of which Uber is the best-known example.

The ChronoBank concept seems to improve upon Ithaca HOURS on several fronts: a digital token that can be converted to digital or fiat currencies, delocalization, decentralization and app-based ease of use. Therefore, it’s worth keeping ChronoBank under close observation and watching its next moves. TheChronoBank Initial Coin Offering (ICO), which has raised more than $3 million to date, is ongoing until February 14.

The post P2P Talent Marketplace ChronoBank Adds Changelly appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

ChronoBank is an up-and-coming company that seeks to disrupt the recruitment sectorjust as Uber and Lyft have disrupted and reinvented the ride-for-hire business.

ChronoBank wants to decentralize and disintermediate recruitment by creating a P2P marketplace connecting employers with freelancers. “[We] want to create a revolution in short-term recruitment within key professions,” states the company’s website. “Our goal is to make a difference to the way people find work and are rewarded for their labour — doing so within a decentralized framework and without the involvement of traditional financial institutions.”

“We are trying to streamline [the] employment process everywhere, making short-term, fair-paying engagements more attractive than long-term tenures,” Sergei Sergienko, founder and CEO of ChronoBank, told Bitcoin Magazine.

“At ChronoBank, we believe in fairness, where every person can transact in the value that they themselves can generate, not just transact in fiat currency that’s issued by a central authority.”

The ChronoBank concept features a new digital token: the Labour-Hour (LH), which will trade freely on the open market and will be the native unit of currency that companies use to purchase labor from professionals on the ChronoBank exchange. The company expects LH to also become, with time, “an inflation-proof asset that will be attractive to long-term investors and traders wanting to park funds overnight.”

“We believe that the most valuable thing in this world is time; therefore, we are basing a currency on it,” said Sergienko. “People’s work time and skills are abundant enough to be accessible to anyone, yet scarce enough to be valuable.”

ChronoBank has now integrated the Changelly app within its main wallet software. Changelly, developed by the MinerGate team, is an instant exchange app that aggregates rates from external exchanges and offers the best rate to the user, who is then able to easily and quickly exchange digital currencies without technical hassles. At this moment, Changelly permits trading in bitcoin, ether, Zcash and several other altcoins.

“The ability to trade these LH tokens quickly, easily and without slippage against other national and virtual currencies is vital to the smooth operation of ChronoBank and confidence in our platform,” said Sergienko. “That is why we are working to ensure they are listed on a wide range of exchanges. Moreover, we are implementing Changelly right within the core ChronoBank wallet. That will make it incredibly easy for users to exchange LH for bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies with practically zero delay.”

In a statement, Sergienko explained that Changelly is well established and trusted in the crypto world. “It is a clean, reliable interface that we will integrate directly into the ChronoWallet to give our users another choice for trading  —  in this case, one that’s all about speed and convenience,” he said. The integration of Changelly will allow anyone to buy LH tokens quickly using a variety of payment options, including bitcoin and MasterCard/Visa credit cards. They can then use the tokens to buy services on ChronoBank’s exchange.

The concept of using skilled work time as currency is not new. For example, Ithaca HOURS, a local currency used in Ithaca, New York, since 1991, is the oldest and largest local currency system operating in the U.S. at this time. One Ithaca HOUR, valued at $10, is recommended to be used as payment for one hour's work, although the rate is negotiable. Ithaca HOURS are printed tokens meant for local use, and there is no standard mechanism to convert Ithaca HOURS to dollars. Therefore, the usage of Ithaca HOURS has been declining in the last few years, and the concept doesn’t seem easily extensible to current trends toward digital, global “gig economies,” of which Uber is the best-known example.

The ChronoBank concept seems to improve upon Ithaca HOURS on several fronts: a digital token that can be converted to digital or fiat currencies, delocalization, decentralization and app-based ease of use. Therefore, it’s worth keeping ChronoBank under close observation and watching its next moves. TheChronoBank Initial Coin Offering (ICO), which has raised more than $3 million to date, is ongoing until February 14.

The post P2P Talent Marketplace ChronoBank Adds Changelly appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Tue, 31 Jan 2017 17:44:59 1485884699 https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/p2p-talent-marketplace-chronobank-adds-changelly/ https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/p2p-talent-marketplace-chronobank-adds-changelly/ Giulio Prisco Bitcoin Adoption & community ]]>

Digital currency trading company ShapeShift understands the increasing importance of offering secure services safe from the hacks that have plagued the space in the last year, and has turned to Canadian security expert Michael Perklin to step in as the new Chief Information Security Officer.

Perklin first collaborated with ShapeShift(based in Switzerland) when he was hired to conduct an investigation of the company’s April 2016 security breach and to help get ShapeShift back on its feet. At the time, he found he agreed with the company’s approach to business.

“ShapeShift’s non-custodial model takes full advantage of a blockchain’s capabilities to allow disparate parties to transact with each other with little-to-no knowledge,” Perklin told Bitcoin Magazine. “Their lack of collecting user information further highlights the power that blockchains bring to the world. We don’t need to know who each other are to be able to swap one digital asset for another, and ShapeShift’s innovation in this space was a large reason behind my move.

“ShapeShift’s power is in its simplicity — send a token, receive another. No accounts, no passports, no utility bills.”

“It has been an absolute honor and privilege to work with Michael,” Erik Voorhees, CEO of ShapeShift, told Bitcoin Magazine, “and having him on board with us full-time now is a dream come true for a blockchain startup.”

An expert in cyber investigations, digital forensic examinations and security breach post-mortems, Perklin founded Canada’s first blockchain security consulting firm, Bitcoinsultants, and is the co-author of the first CryptoCurrency Security Standard. Perklin will continue in his role as president of C4, a nonprofit standards organization dedicated to developing and maintaining standards and personnel certification to help companies more effectively use blockchain technology.

“Michael Perklin has pioneered the standardization of security-related best practices in the industry. He’s a talented individual of immense character, and happens to be one of the world’s foremost blockchain security experts,” said Voorhees.

“As a ShapeShift integration partner, I think it’s great to see someone of Michael’s capabilities join their team,” Anthony Di Iorio, CEO of Decentral and Jaxx Blockchain Interface, concurred. “I've known Michael for a number of years and he’s always been at the forefront of blockchain forensics and security. Directing his skills and experience full-time to ShapeShift is a huge win for their company.”

“2017 Is the Year of Blockchains”

As a long-time Bitcoin advocate, Perklin has testified about blockchains at the Canadian Senate’s Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce and has been qualified as an expert witness in the courts of Canada and other nations around the globe.

“Blockchains definitely are a game-changing technology, just like databases changed things back in the ’60s. I do think 2017 is the year of blockchains simply because of all of the work people are doing around the world to integrate this new computer science concept with existing business processes.

“It’s just like how companies traded their filing cabinets for computers and envelopes for fax machines. When new technologies change our environment, we integrate them into our daily lives and adjust. There’s no doubt in my mind that blockchains will change society more quickly and more drastically than the internet did in the ’90s and 2000s.”

Unlike those who doubt that bitcoin can survive as a digital currency, Perklin sees a natural progression toward widespread use and acceptance.

“Bitcoin and blockchain technologies are quite different from everything that existed before them, so it’s no surprise that some media outlets misunderstand it and jump to conclusions. Bitcoin has been called untraceable (false), anonymous (false) and has been declared dead by misinformed people more times than I can count.

“By comparison, the internet was seen as something that was only useful for computer geeks. However, once people understand a new technology, they begin to use it in their everyday lives. I think Bitcoin and blockchains will be no different.”

On Ethereum

Perklin is also enthusiastic about the future of Ethereum, despite some recent doom and gloom predictions.

“Ether is an interesting token with a different use case than bitcoin. It’s such a new technology that there are bound to be growing pains — it’s the first of its kind, just like Bitcoin was the first of its kind, too,” says Perklin. “Many people forget that Bitcoin went through many ‘hard forks’ in its first two years, just as Ethereum is doing now. As each bug is fixed, the system becomes more resilient to problems. I have a bright view for Ethereum’s future.

“There are now so many digital assets — each with their own unique differences — that people around the world will undoubtedly need to swap amongst them regularly.”

Before joining ShapeShift,  Perklin was Head of Security and Investigative Services withLedgerLabs, a Canadian blockchain services firm that offers advice on strategy, development, security and training to companies working with or hoping to work with blockchain technology.

The LedgerLabs team is comprised of experts in Ethereum, permissioned blockchains, smart contracts and blockchain forensics, including Vitalik Buterin, Peter Todd, Jeff Coleman, Hai Nguyen, Richard Moore and Vlad Zamfir.

The post ShapeShift Security Chief Michael Perklin: "2017 Will Be the Year of Blockchains"appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Digital currency trading company ShapeShift understands the increasing importance of offering secure services safe from the hacks that have plagued the space in the last year, and has turned to Canadian security expert Michael Perklin to step in as the new Chief Information Security Officer.

Perklin first collaborated with ShapeShift(based in Switzerland) when he was hired to conduct an investigation of the company’s April 2016 security breach and to help get ShapeShift back on its feet. At the time, he found he agreed with the company’s approach to business.

“ShapeShift’s non-custodial model takes full advantage of a blockchain’s capabilities to allow disparate parties to transact with each other with little-to-no knowledge,” Perklin told Bitcoin Magazine. “Their lack of collecting user information further highlights the power that blockchains bring to the world. We don’t need to know who each other are to be able to swap one digital asset for another, and ShapeShift’s innovation in this space was a large reason behind my move.

“ShapeShift’s power is in its simplicity — send a token, receive another. No accounts, no passports, no utility bills.”

“It has been an absolute honor and privilege to work with Michael,” Erik Voorhees, CEO of ShapeShift, told Bitcoin Magazine, “and having him on board with us full-time now is a dream come true for a blockchain startup.”

An expert in cyber investigations, digital forensic examinations and security breach post-mortems, Perklin founded Canada’s first blockchain security consulting firm, Bitcoinsultants, and is the co-author of the first CryptoCurrency Security Standard. Perklin will continue in his role as president of C4, a nonprofit standards organization dedicated to developing and maintaining standards and personnel certification to help companies more effectively use blockchain technology.

“Michael Perklin has pioneered the standardization of security-related best practices in the industry. He’s a talented individual of immense character, and happens to be one of the world’s foremost blockchain security experts,” said Voorhees.

“As a ShapeShift integration partner, I think it’s great to see someone of Michael’s capabilities join their team,” Anthony Di Iorio, CEO of Decentral and Jaxx Blockchain Interface, concurred. “I've known Michael for a number of years and he’s always been at the forefront of blockchain forensics and security. Directing his skills and experience full-time to ShapeShift is a huge win for their company.”

“2017 Is the Year of Blockchains”

As a long-time Bitcoin advocate, Perklin has testified about blockchains at the Canadian Senate’s Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce and has been qualified as an expert witness in the courts of Canada and other nations around the globe.

“Blockchains definitely are a game-changing technology, just like databases changed things back in the ’60s. I do think 2017 is the year of blockchains simply because of all of the work people are doing around the world to integrate this new computer science concept with existing business processes.

“It’s just like how companies traded their filing cabinets for computers and envelopes for fax machines. When new technologies change our environment, we integrate them into our daily lives and adjust. There’s no doubt in my mind that blockchains will change society more quickly and more drastically than the internet did in the ’90s and 2000s.”

Unlike those who doubt that bitcoin can survive as a digital currency, Perklin sees a natural progression toward widespread use and acceptance.

“Bitcoin and blockchain technologies are quite different from everything that existed before them, so it’s no surprise that some media outlets misunderstand it and jump to conclusions. Bitcoin has been called untraceable (false), anonymous (false) and has been declared dead by misinformed people more times than I can count.

“By comparison, the internet was seen as something that was only useful for computer geeks. However, once people understand a new technology, they begin to use it in their everyday lives. I think Bitcoin and blockchains will be no different.”

On Ethereum

Perklin is also enthusiastic about the future of Ethereum, despite some recent doom and gloom predictions.

“Ether is an interesting token with a different use case than bitcoin. It’s such a new technology that there are bound to be growing pains — it’s the first of its kind, just like Bitcoin was the first of its kind, too,” says Perklin. “Many people forget that Bitcoin went through many ‘hard forks’ in its first two years, just as Ethereum is doing now. As each bug is fixed, the system becomes more resilient to problems. I have a bright view for Ethereum’s future.

“There are now so many digital assets — each with their own unique differences — that people around the world will undoubtedly need to swap amongst them regularly.”

Before joining ShapeShift,  Perklin was Head of Security and Investigative Services withLedgerLabs, a Canadian blockchain services firm that offers advice on strategy, development, security and training to companies working with or hoping to work with blockchain technology.

The LedgerLabs team is comprised of experts in Ethereum, permissioned blockchains, smart contracts and blockchain forensics, including Vitalik Buterin, Peter Todd, Jeff Coleman, Hai Nguyen, Richard Moore and Vlad Zamfir.

The post ShapeShift Security Chief Michael Perklin: "2017 Will Be the Year of Blockchains"appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Fri, 27 Jan 2017 18:57:24 1485543444 https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/shapeshift-security-chief-michael-perklin-2017-will-be-year-blockchains/ https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/shapeshift-security-chief-michael-perklin-2017-will-be-year-blockchains/ Jessie Willms Bitcoin Blockchain ]]>

Bitcoin Unlimited, one of the Bitcoin Coresoftware forks introduced in late 2015, garnered much attention in recent months. The project gained hash power support from several new Bitcoin mining pools, includingViaBTC, GBMiners and BTC.TOP, while node adoption appears to be on the rise as well.

The central idea behind Bitcoin Unlimited — specified in “Bitcoin Unlimited Improvement Proposal 001” (BUIP001) — is to hand control of Bitcoin’s block size limit to users and miners. Or perhaps, more accurately, to make this control more explicit and easier to handle.

However, this control does come at the expense of Bitcoin’s strong and automated consensus mechanism. With BUIP001, there is a number of scenarios in which different users end up on different chains — either temporarily or permanently.

Here’s a (probably incomplete) overview.

(Note: If you are not sure how Bitcoin Unlimited works, do make sure to first read “A Closer Look at Bitcoin Unlimited’s Configurable Block Size Proposal.”)

If Not Everyone Switches to Bitcoin Unlimited

The first example is also the most obvious one.

It currently seems very unlikely that different Bitcoin implementations — like Bitcoin Core,Libbitcoin, BTCD or Bcoin — will adopt BUIP001, or something compatible. This is especially true because the Bitcoin Unlimited team has not submitted BUIP001 to the cross-implementation Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) process; most implementations therefore don’t even have the proposal under consideration.

But if not all significant Bitcoin implementations adopt BUIP001 or a compatible solution, the blockchain cannot converge in the way Bitcoin Unlimited proponents envisage. Instead, if a majority of miners (by hash power) increases Maximum Generation Size (MG) and Excessive Block Size (EB) to produce blocks bigger than one megabyte, Bitcoin would split into two incompatible networks and currencies, not unlike Ethereum and Ethereum Classic.

However, because this split would not be coordinated or include safety precautions, the consequences could be much worse than the split between Ethereum and Ethereum Classic.

One megabyte users would experience inconveniences, and even more so if their hash power initially represents a smaller minority. This would include (much) slower block confirmations, perhaps even to the point where their chain becomes almost unusable (at least temporarily). Additionally, they are at risk of replay attacks if they want to use the “Bitcoin Unlimited chain” as well.

Bitcoin Unlimited users would suffer similar inconveniences, though their initial block confirmations wouldn’t be as slow, as they’d have support from the hash-power majority.

To counter that, however, Bitcoin Unlimited users would be unsure as to whether “their” chain would continue to exist at all. If the one megabyte chain should ever overtake the “Bitcoin Unlimited chain” in length (really: total proof of work), Bitcoin Unlimited nodes would automatically switch back to the one megabyte chain. Accordingly, they would dispose of (“orphan”) the entire “Bitcoin Unlimited chain” since the split, even if that chain is thousands of blocks deep. All “their” transactions would be forgotten, perhaps costing lots of people lots of money.

If a group of hardcore one-megabyte supporters and speculators can make this scenario seem even slightly plausible, self-fulfilling prophecy dynamics can pose an existential threat to the “Bitcoin Unlimited chain”: no one wants to hold value on the chain that may be discarded.

If Everyone Does Switch to Bitcoin Unlimited

But let’s assume the switch to BUIP001 goes smoothly. All significant Bitcoin implementations adopt the new configurable options, and all users and miners update their software accordingly.

Once again — even in this scenario — there is no technical reason that all users will converge on a single chain in a meaningful way. Different users can configure their nodes to remain out of consensus for the rest of their lives.

As a simple example, a minority of miners can configure both MG and EB to one megabyte, while they set Excessive Acceptance Depth (AD) to 10,000,000. In other words, these nodes will mimic the current one-megabyte block size limit for about two centuries — regardless of what the rest of the network does.

Meanwhile, a majority of miners can set MG and EB to create and accept blocks up to two megabytes.

Now, as soon as one miner mines a two-megabyte block, the majority of miners will build on this block and extend this chain. The minority of miners, however, ignores this chain practically forever: exactly as described in the previous section of this article.

And it would include the same risks as previously described as well. If the one-megabyte chain ever overtakes the two-megabyte chain in length, the two-megabyte chain is completely discarded. Even after thousands of blocks.

If Everyone Limits AD to Four Confirmations

Bitcoin Unlimited users can have a stronger degree of convergence on a single chain by technical means, if they keep their AD setting relatively low. The default setting in Bitcoin Unlimited is four: An excessive block requires four blocks mined on top of it to be considered valid.

But this presents problems as well.

The first problem is that even with this low default, any transaction with less than five confirmations is much less secure than it is now. Say a transaction shows three confirmations in a user’s wallet. That user has no way of knowing whether an alternative blockchain is being mined with a competing (double-spent) transaction, that already has four confirmations. This could happen at any time.

If that alternative chain reaches its fifth confirmation first, the user’s chain is discarded, and his incoming transaction lost — even though it had three confirmations.

Of course, “orphaned blocks” do already exist, and users that require more security should wait for more confirmations.

But barring exotic and expensive types of malicious attacks, three orphaned blocks can currently really only result from freak coincidence. Different groups of miners must coincidentally find three blocks at almost exactly the same time, three separate and subsequent coincidences, in order for the network to experience that many orphans.

Bitcoin Unlimited, on the other hand, throws a new factor into the mix, adding a reason for the network to experience three orphaned blocks. Miners not only race to extend the longest valid chain, but also vote on protocol rules between chains. This process would also be visible and quite predictable for attackers, and therefore easily exploitable.

The second problem is that having to keep AD at the default of four confirmations for security reasons essentially defeats the purpose of BUIP001. While Bitcoin Unlimited is supposed to hand control of the block size limit over to both users and (all) miners, low AD levels ensure that even the slightest majority of miners can always overrule local block size settings by simply mining a series of bigger blocks. This makes MG and EB meaningless for everyone else: “placebo controls.”

Indeed, AD proposes an odd choice: Either nodes and miners set a high AD for relative autonomy, but risk splitting the network with potentially harmful consequences; or these nodes and miners pick a low AD to improve the level of convergence — but only because they effectively give up control to a majority of miners. (And if the intention is to give up control to a majority of miners, there are more straightforward solutions available.)

Under Adversarial Conditions

Things get worse under adversarial conditions.

If not everyone wants what’s best for Bitcoin, and instead some entities — for whatever reason — would rather see Bitcoin fail, the security assumptions of BUIP001 degrade further. And the more funds an adversary has at its disposal to cause turmoil, the worse Bitcoin Unlimited’s convergence mechanism would perform.

First off, node signaling is trivially spoofed. Anyone with the resources to spin up “fake” (economically irrelevant) nodes could pretend that there is widespread user support for a certain block size limit level, while in reality there is not. If miners go by these signals, they may fork the chain with less user support than expected.

Additionally, a malicious miner can often split the network. Such a miner could monitor the EB levels signaled by other miners (which is not as easily spoofed), and intentionally mine a block that falls right in between what these miners will accept. If some 50 percent of hash power accepts blocks up to two megabytes, and the other 50 percent supports bigger blocks, a 2.01 megabyte block would be ignored by the first 50 percent, and accepted by the other 50 percent.

Assuming the default AD of four is maintained, the chain could split for more than an hour. As explained in the previous section, the Bitcoin network(s) would be very unreliable during this period, as the chain on either side of the split may be discarded.

An adversary controlling only 0.7 percent of global hash power could cause this level of turmoil about once every day. And unless the overwhelming majority of miners already agree on their EB anyways, that sweet spot to abuse the network should always exist.

Furthermore, as a result of this attack, half of all miners would reach their AD thresholds, opening their “sticky gates." This may allow for a second wave of attacks. Now, the malicious miner has about 24 hours to mine an even larger block, that — ironically — only the initially smaller-block side of the chain would accept because their sticky gates are open, and the initially larger-block side of the chain would reject. This would create another split.

Last, if and when this new "sticky gate chain" reaches the AD thresholds of the remaining nodes, all sticky gates are open, and there is no block size limit at all. An adversary can now mine blocks that are so big they mayfragment the chain as not all nodes can keep up — perhaps due to bandwidth constraints, latency or other machine limits. 

Emergent Consensus

While Bitcoin Unlimited arguably offers more personal autonomy to users, it does not ensure technical blockchain convergence. But this is not new. To some extent, it is even touched on in Bitcoin Unlimited’s FAQ.

Yet, Bitcoin Unlimited proponents do expect users to converge on a single blockchain. This is explained by what is perhaps best considered Bitcoin Unlimited’s underlying philosophy: “Emergent Consensus.”

Rather than a purely technical mechanism, Emergent Consensus is a conviction that all participants in the Bitcoin ecosystem have a strong enough (economic) incentive to find consensus on a single blockchain, even if their software does not do this automatically.

The next article will take a closer look at this Emergent Consensus philosophy.

Author’s note: This article is not a complete overview of all the problems that could result from BUIP001. Most importantly, it ignores trade-offs and weaknesses that derive from an oversized (or floating) block size limit itself, like node centralization, miner centralization, or fee economics, to instead focus on (a lack of) blockchain convergence.

“Jonny1000” contributed to this article.

The post How Bitcoin Unlimited Users May End Up on Different Blockchains appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Bitcoin Unlimited, one of the Bitcoin Coresoftware forks introduced in late 2015, garnered much attention in recent months. The project gained hash power support from several new Bitcoin mining pools, includingViaBTC, GBMiners and BTC.TOP, while node adoption appears to be on the rise as well.

The central idea behind Bitcoin Unlimited — specified in “Bitcoin Unlimited Improvement Proposal 001” (BUIP001) — is to hand control of Bitcoin’s block size limit to users and miners. Or perhaps, more accurately, to make this control more explicit and easier to handle.

However, this control does come at the expense of Bitcoin’s strong and automated consensus mechanism. With BUIP001, there is a number of scenarios in which different users end up on different chains — either temporarily or permanently.

Here’s a (probably incomplete) overview.

(Note: If you are not sure how Bitcoin Unlimited works, do make sure to first read “A Closer Look at Bitcoin Unlimited’s Configurable Block Size Proposal.”)

If Not Everyone Switches to Bitcoin Unlimited

The first example is also the most obvious one.

It currently seems very unlikely that different Bitcoin implementations — like Bitcoin Core,Libbitcoin, BTCD or Bcoin — will adopt BUIP001, or something compatible. This is especially true because the Bitcoin Unlimited team has not submitted BUIP001 to the cross-implementation Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) process; most implementations therefore don’t even have the proposal under consideration.

But if not all significant Bitcoin implementations adopt BUIP001 or a compatible solution, the blockchain cannot converge in the way Bitcoin Unlimited proponents envisage. Instead, if a majority of miners (by hash power) increases Maximum Generation Size (MG) and Excessive Block Size (EB) to produce blocks bigger than one megabyte, Bitcoin would split into two incompatible networks and currencies, not unlike Ethereum and Ethereum Classic.

However, because this split would not be coordinated or include safety precautions, the consequences could be much worse than the split between Ethereum and Ethereum Classic.

One megabyte users would experience inconveniences, and even more so if their hash power initially represents a smaller minority. This would include (much) slower block confirmations, perhaps even to the point where their chain becomes almost unusable (at least temporarily). Additionally, they are at risk of replay attacks if they want to use the “Bitcoin Unlimited chain” as well.

Bitcoin Unlimited users would suffer similar inconveniences, though their initial block confirmations wouldn’t be as slow, as they’d have support from the hash-power majority.

To counter that, however, Bitcoin Unlimited users would be unsure as to whether “their” chain would continue to exist at all. If the one megabyte chain should ever overtake the “Bitcoin Unlimited chain” in length (really: total proof of work), Bitcoin Unlimited nodes would automatically switch back to the one megabyte chain. Accordingly, they would dispose of (“orphan”) the entire “Bitcoin Unlimited chain” since the split, even if that chain is thousands of blocks deep. All “their” transactions would be forgotten, perhaps costing lots of people lots of money.

If a group of hardcore one-megabyte supporters and speculators can make this scenario seem even slightly plausible, self-fulfilling prophecy dynamics can pose an existential threat to the “Bitcoin Unlimited chain”: no one wants to hold value on the chain that may be discarded.

If Everyone Does Switch to Bitcoin Unlimited

But let’s assume the switch to BUIP001 goes smoothly. All significant Bitcoin implementations adopt the new configurable options, and all users and miners update their software accordingly.

Once again — even in this scenario — there is no technical reason that all users will converge on a single chain in a meaningful way. Different users can configure their nodes to remain out of consensus for the rest of their lives.

As a simple example, a minority of miners can configure both MG and EB to one megabyte, while they set Excessive Acceptance Depth (AD) to 10,000,000. In other words, these nodes will mimic the current one-megabyte block size limit for about two centuries — regardless of what the rest of the network does.

Meanwhile, a majority of miners can set MG and EB to create and accept blocks up to two megabytes.

Now, as soon as one miner mines a two-megabyte block, the majority of miners will build on this block and extend this chain. The minority of miners, however, ignores this chain practically forever: exactly as described in the previous section of this article.

And it would include the same risks as previously described as well. If the one-megabyte chain ever overtakes the two-megabyte chain in length, the two-megabyte chain is completely discarded. Even after thousands of blocks.

If Everyone Limits AD to Four Confirmations

Bitcoin Unlimited users can have a stronger degree of convergence on a single chain by technical means, if they keep their AD setting relatively low. The default setting in Bitcoin Unlimited is four: An excessive block requires four blocks mined on top of it to be considered valid.

But this presents problems as well.

The first problem is that even with this low default, any transaction with less than five confirmations is much less secure than it is now. Say a transaction shows three confirmations in a user’s wallet. That user has no way of knowing whether an alternative blockchain is being mined with a competing (double-spent) transaction, that already has four confirmations. This could happen at any time.

If that alternative chain reaches its fifth confirmation first, the user’s chain is discarded, and his incoming transaction lost — even though it had three confirmations.

Of course, “orphaned blocks” do already exist, and users that require more security should wait for more confirmations.

But barring exotic and expensive types of malicious attacks, three orphaned blocks can currently really only result from freak coincidence. Different groups of miners must coincidentally find three blocks at almost exactly the same time, three separate and subsequent coincidences, in order for the network to experience that many orphans.

Bitcoin Unlimited, on the other hand, throws a new factor into the mix, adding a reason for the network to experience three orphaned blocks. Miners not only race to extend the longest valid chain, but also vote on protocol rules between chains. This process would also be visible and quite predictable for attackers, and therefore easily exploitable.

The second problem is that having to keep AD at the default of four confirmations for security reasons essentially defeats the purpose of BUIP001. While Bitcoin Unlimited is supposed to hand control of the block size limit over to both users and (all) miners, low AD levels ensure that even the slightest majority of miners can always overrule local block size settings by simply mining a series of bigger blocks. This makes MG and EB meaningless for everyone else: “placebo controls.”

Indeed, AD proposes an odd choice: Either nodes and miners set a high AD for relative autonomy, but risk splitting the network with potentially harmful consequences; or these nodes and miners pick a low AD to improve the level of convergence — but only because they effectively give up control to a majority of miners. (And if the intention is to give up control to a majority of miners, there are more straightforward solutions available.)

Under Adversarial Conditions

Things get worse under adversarial conditions.

If not everyone wants what’s best for Bitcoin, and instead some entities — for whatever reason — would rather see Bitcoin fail, the security assumptions of BUIP001 degrade further. And the more funds an adversary has at its disposal to cause turmoil, the worse Bitcoin Unlimited’s convergence mechanism would perform.

First off, node signaling is trivially spoofed. Anyone with the resources to spin up “fake” (economically irrelevant) nodes could pretend that there is widespread user support for a certain block size limit level, while in reality there is not. If miners go by these signals, they may fork the chain with less user support than expected.

Additionally, a malicious miner can often split the network. Such a miner could monitor the EB levels signaled by other miners (which is not as easily spoofed), and intentionally mine a block that falls right in between what these miners will accept. If some 50 percent of hash power accepts blocks up to two megabytes, and the other 50 percent supports bigger blocks, a 2.01 megabyte block would be ignored by the first 50 percent, and accepted by the other 50 percent.

Assuming the default AD of four is maintained, the chain could split for more than an hour. As explained in the previous section, the Bitcoin network(s) would be very unreliable during this period, as the chain on either side of the split may be discarded.

An adversary controlling only 0.7 percent of global hash power could cause this level of turmoil about once every day. And unless the overwhelming majority of miners already agree on their EB anyways, that sweet spot to abuse the network should always exist.

Furthermore, as a result of this attack, half of all miners would reach their AD thresholds, opening their “sticky gates." This may allow for a second wave of attacks. Now, the malicious miner has about 24 hours to mine an even larger block, that — ironically — only the initially smaller-block side of the chain would accept because their sticky gates are open, and the initially larger-block side of the chain would reject. This would create another split.

Last, if and when this new "sticky gate chain" reaches the AD thresholds of the remaining nodes, all sticky gates are open, and there is no block size limit at all. An adversary can now mine blocks that are so big they mayfragment the chain as not all nodes can keep up — perhaps due to bandwidth constraints, latency or other machine limits. 

Emergent Consensus

While Bitcoin Unlimited arguably offers more personal autonomy to users, it does not ensure technical blockchain convergence. But this is not new. To some extent, it is even touched on in Bitcoin Unlimited’s FAQ.

Yet, Bitcoin Unlimited proponents do expect users to converge on a single blockchain. This is explained by what is perhaps best considered Bitcoin Unlimited’s underlying philosophy: “Emergent Consensus.”

Rather than a purely technical mechanism, Emergent Consensus is a conviction that all participants in the Bitcoin ecosystem have a strong enough (economic) incentive to find consensus on a single blockchain, even if their software does not do this automatically.

The next article will take a closer look at this Emergent Consensus philosophy.

Author’s note: This article is not a complete overview of all the problems that could result from BUIP001. Most importantly, it ignores trade-offs and weaknesses that derive from an oversized (or floating) block size limit itself, like node centralization, miner centralization, or fee economics, to instead focus on (a lack of) blockchain convergence.

“Jonny1000” contributed to this article.

The post How Bitcoin Unlimited Users May End Up on Different Blockchains appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Fri, 27 Jan 2017 16:03:23 1485533003 https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/how-bitcoin-unlimited-users-may-end-different-blockchains/ https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/how-bitcoin-unlimited-users-may-end-different-blockchains/ Aaron van Wirdum Bitcoin Technical ]]>

Cryptosteel is a device that allows bitcoin holders to back up their private keys in a fireproof, waterproof and shockproof manner. The idea is that the Cryptosteel will be able to act as a backup for any type of Bitcoin address for long periods of time, and many people see it as a useful companion to ahardware wallet.

Cryptosteel recently sent me one of their devices, and I opened it up to see how the whole process works.

Setting Up a Cryptosteel

It’s easy to get started with the Cryptosteel MNEMONIC in a matter of minutes. The packaging is nice enough, and the artwork by contributing artist Rafael Akahira gives it a special, unique appearance

Once the actual Cryptosteel device is out of the packaging, the product’s usefulness is immediately apparent. Although the Cryptosteel’s size is somewhere between that of a credit card and an old iPhone, it feels sturdier than a brick; a good bit of weight is packed into its small stature.

After twisting the product open like some kind of Swiss Army knife, the frame where the stainless steel numbers, letters and other characters should be placed can be seen.

The steel characters that come with the device are separated into different sections, so it’s easy to find the ones you need. There’s even a chart similar to what you would find in a box of chocolates that tells you where each character can be found. Each piece of steel has a letter, number or other symbol on both the front and the back.

To begin placing characters into the device, a small lock must be turned counterclockwise and a safety pawl must be bent open (not at the same time). I used a butter knife to complete both of these steps.

There is a small gate that needs to be opened before placing the steel piecesletters into the frame. Although it seemed difficult to get the characters into the frame at first, I soon realized that the gate can also act as a hammer to knock them into place.

I didn’t take the time to put in a 24-wordmnemonic phrase, but I got a handle on how the Cryptosteel works by putting my name into the frame before closing it back up. This took a few minutes to complete. I imagine a full 24-word phrase could be completed in less than 30 minutes.

How Cryptosteel Could Be Improved

Using the Cryptosteel was a rather straightforward process, but I do have a few suggestions.

The first one isn’t much of a complaint, but it would be nice if there was a YouTube video that showed the user exactly how to set up and use his or her Cryptosteel. There are a few videos on the Cryptosteel YouTube page, but they appear to be based on old prototypes. Something like this is likely already in the works, but in the future, a message on the packaging that tells the user to go to a specific website to watch a setup video may be a good idea.

The only real issue I see with the Cryptosteel is the packaging of the steel character pieces with the characters on them. They are separated into different pockets in the packaging, but each section could be sealed off better. Having the characters get mixed together during the shipping process didn’t seem to be a serious issue, but it’s unclear what a user is supposed to do with the set of characters after they’re done using them.

Most people will likely put all of the letters in a bag and put them to the side, but this will dramatically increase the amount of time it takes to enter a new series of characters into the frame of the Cryptosteel in the future. This is an unlikely scenario given that the point of the Cryptosteel is to use it once, but it’s worth mentioning. Someone could also run into this issue if they decide to stop entering characters into the frame and need to finish the process later.

Creating more separation between the sets of characters for long-term storage would be a nice improvement.

When to Use a Cryptosteel

This is an awesome device. I can’t imagine using anything else to back up private keys to a Bitcoin address.

Trezor Architect Marek “Slush” Palatinus has said it’s the perfect way to back up the seed of a Trezor hardware wallet. It would obviously work well as a backup for a hardware device from Ledger or KeepKey as well.

For added security, multiple Cryptosteel devices could be placed in different locations as a backup for a multisig address. Alternatively, a user could separate his or her savings into multiple Cryptosteel devices to weaken the impact of one of them being lost or stolen. Some combination of these two options is also worth considering.

The Cryptosteel is basically a paper wallet on steroids. It’s one of the best available options for long-term storage of Bitcoin private keys.

Disclosure: The author of this article was provided a free Cryptosteel MNEMONIC for the purposes of this review.

The post Review: Cryptosteel Is a Great Way to Back Up Bitcoin Private Keys appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Cryptosteel is a device that allows bitcoin holders to back up their private keys in a fireproof, waterproof and shockproof manner. The idea is that the Cryptosteel will be able to act as a backup for any type of Bitcoin address for long periods of time, and many people see it as a useful companion to ahardware wallet.

Cryptosteel recently sent me one of their devices, and I opened it up to see how the whole process works.

Setting Up a Cryptosteel

It’s easy to get started with the Cryptosteel MNEMONIC in a matter of minutes. The packaging is nice enough, and the artwork by contributing artist Rafael Akahira gives it a special, unique appearance
Once the actual Cryptosteel device is out of the packaging, the product’s usefulness is immediately apparent. Although the Cryptosteel’s size is somewhere between that of a credit card and an old iPhone, it feels sturdier than a brick; a good bit of weight is packed into its small stature.

After twisting the product open like some kind of Swiss Army knife, the frame where the stainless steel numbers, letters and other characters should be placed can be seen.

The steel characters that come with the device are separated into different sections, so it’s easy to find the ones you need. There’s even a chart similar to what you would find in a box of chocolates that tells you where each character can be found. Each piece of steel has a letter, number or other symbol on both the front and the back.

To begin placing characters into the device, a small lock must be turned counterclockwise and a safety pawl must be bent open (not at the same time). I used a butter knife to complete both of these steps.

There is a small gate that needs to be opened before placing the steel piecesletters into the frame. Although it seemed difficult to get the characters into the frame at first, I soon realized that the gate can also act as a hammer to knock them into place.

I didn’t take the time to put in a 24-wordmnemonic phrase, but I got a handle on how the Cryptosteel works by putting my name into the frame before closing it back up. This took a few minutes to complete. I imagine a full 24-word phrase could be completed in less than 30 minutes.

How Cryptosteel Could Be Improved

Using the Cryptosteel was a rather straightforward process, but I do have a few suggestions.

The first one isn’t much of a complaint, but it would be nice if there was a YouTube video that showed the user exactly how to set up and use his or her Cryptosteel. There are a few videos on the Cryptosteel YouTube page, but they appear to be based on old prototypes. Something like this is likely already in the works, but in the future, a message on the packaging that tells the user to go to a specific website to watch a setup video may be a good idea.

The only real issue I see with the Cryptosteel is the packaging of the steel character pieces with the characters on them. They are separated into different pockets in the packaging, but each section could be sealed off better. Having the characters get mixed together during the shipping process didn’t seem to be a serious issue, but it’s unclear what a user is supposed to do with the set of characters after they’re done using them.

Most people will likely put all of the letters in a bag and put them to the side, but this will dramatically increase the amount of time it takes to enter a new series of characters into the frame of the Cryptosteel in the future. This is an unlikely scenario given that the point of the Cryptosteel is to use it once, but it’s worth mentioning. Someone could also run into this issue if they decide to stop entering characters into the frame and need to finish the process later.

Creating more separation between the sets of characters for long-term storage would be a nice improvement.

When to Use a Cryptosteel

This is an awesome device. I can’t imagine using anything else to back up private keys to a Bitcoin address.

Trezor Architect Marek “Slush” Palatinus has said it’s the perfect way to back up the seed of a Trezor hardware wallet. It would obviously work well as a backup for a hardware device from Ledger or KeepKey as well.

For added security, multiple Cryptosteel devices could be placed in different locations as a backup for a multisig address. Alternatively, a user could separate his or her savings into multiple Cryptosteel devices to weaken the impact of one of them being lost or stolen. Some combination of these two options is also worth considering.

The Cryptosteel is basically a paper wallet on steroids. It’s one of the best available options for long-term storage of Bitcoin private keys.

Disclosure: The author of this article was provided a free Cryptosteel MNEMONIC for the purposes of this review.

The post Review: Cryptosteel Is a Great Way to Back Up Bitcoin Private Keys appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Thu, 26 Jan 2017 19:26:43 1485458803 https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/review-cryptosteel-great-way-back-bitcoin-private-keys/ https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/review-cryptosteel-great-way-back-bitcoin-private-keys/ Kyle Torpey Bitcoin Review ]]>

CHBTC has become the world’s largest bitcoin exchange when measured by volume in the aftermath of other China-based exchanges removing their no-fee trading policies. At this time, CHBTC has not implemented fees for trading the Chinese Yuan/bitcoin (CNY/XBT) pair. According to cnLedger, the exchange plans to implement trading fees at an as-of-yet undetermined time in the future.

BTCC, Huobi, OKCoin and YUNBI Implement Trading Fees

Earlier this week, four of China’s largest bitcoin exchanges added trading fees to their platforms following reviews from regulators at the People’s Bank of China (PBOC). According to statements released by bitcoin exchangesBTCC, Huobi, OKCoin and YUNBI, the move is an attempt to limit market manipulation and exchange-rate volatility.

According to Reuters, the addition of trading fees was not a direct order from the PBOC. Instead, it was an attempt by the exchanges to help align with the PBOC’s desire to see the bitcoin market cool down.

According to Bloomberg, the no-fee trading policy on China-based bitcoin exchanges had been attractive for those who developed bots to do their trading for them.

CHBTC Still Has a No-Fee Policy — For Now

For the time being, CHBTC has decided to continue with their current fee policy until a new fee policy is decided on and implemented. For this reason, the volume at the exchange has not experienced the massive declines seen at the big three exchanges in China.

CHBTC is now doing about as much CNY-based bitcoin trading in volume as BTCC, Huobi and OKCoin combined.

In addition to CHBTC, London-based exchangeCoinfloor also offers no-fee bitcoin trading. Ironically, Coinfloor implemented the no-fee trading policy last week.

CHBTC charges fees on withdrawals, and the fee for a withdrawal is based on a user’s trading volume. In other words, users are incentivized to trade more and inflate the total trading volume of the exchange before a withdrawal is made.

Although CHBTC does not charge any fees on bitcoin trades, the exchange does charge a 0.05 percent fee on ether classic trades.

China’s Role in Bitcoin Trading Not as Big as Previously Thought

Severe declines in bitcoin trading volume have been seen on the China-based bitcoin exchanges that have recently added fees to the trading process. For example, bitcoin trading volume on BTCC has declined more than 90 percent over the past few days.

It’s likely that CHBTC will see a similar decline in trading volume when they follow the lead of the other China-based bitcoin exchanges and implement trading fees.

According to CoinMarketCap, China still has the three largest bitcoin exchanges by volume among exchanges that charge fees on trades.

The post CHBTC Is Now the World’s Largest Bitcoin Exchange by Volume, But It’s Unlikely to Last appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

CHBTC has become the world’s largest bitcoin exchange when measured by volume in the aftermath of other China-based exchanges removing their no-fee trading policies. At this time, CHBTC has not implemented fees for trading the Chinese Yuan/bitcoin (CNY/XBT) pair. According to cnLedger, the exchange plans to implement trading fees at an as-of-yet undetermined time in the future.

BTCC, Huobi, OKCoin and YUNBI Implement Trading Fees

Earlier this week, four of China’s largest bitcoin exchanges added trading fees to their platforms following reviews from regulators at the People’s Bank of China (PBOC). According to statements released by bitcoin exchangesBTCC, Huobi, OKCoin and YUNBI, the move is an attempt to limit market manipulation and exchange-rate volatility.

According to Reuters, the addition of trading fees was not a direct order from the PBOC. Instead, it was an attempt by the exchanges to help align with the PBOC’s desire to see the bitcoin market cool down.

According to Bloomberg, the no-fee trading policy on China-based bitcoin exchanges had been attractive for those who developed bots to do their trading for them.

CHBTC Still Has a No-Fee Policy — For Now

For the time being, CHBTC has decided to continue with their current fee policy until a new fee policy is decided on and implemented. For this reason, the volume at the exchange has not experienced the massive declines seen at the big three exchanges in China.

CHBTC is now doing about as much CNY-based bitcoin trading in volume as BTCC, Huobi and OKCoin combined.

In addition to CHBTC, London-based exchangeCoinfloor also offers no-fee bitcoin trading. Ironically, Coinfloor implemented the no-fee trading policy last week.

CHBTC charges fees on withdrawals, and the fee for a withdrawal is based on a user’s trading volume. In other words, users are incentivized to trade more and inflate the total trading volume of the exchange before a withdrawal is made.

Although CHBTC does not charge any fees on bitcoin trades, the exchange does charge a 0.05 percent fee on ether classic trades.

China’s Role in Bitcoin Trading Not as Big as Previously Thought

Severe declines in bitcoin trading volume have been seen on the China-based bitcoin exchanges that have recently added fees to the trading process. For example, bitcoin trading volume on BTCC has declined more than 90 percent over the past few days.

It’s likely that CHBTC will see a similar decline in trading volume when they follow the lead of the other China-based bitcoin exchanges and implement trading fees.

According to CoinMarketCap, China still has the three largest bitcoin exchanges by volume among exchanges that charge fees on trades.

The post CHBTC Is Now the World’s Largest Bitcoin Exchange by Volume, But It’s Unlikely to Last appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Thu, 26 Jan 2017 19:10:57 1485457857 https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/chbtc-now-worlds-largest-bitcoin-exchange-volume-its-unlikely-last/ https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/chbtc-now-worlds-largest-bitcoin-exchange-volume-its-unlikely-last/ Kyle Torpey Bitcoin Investing ]]>

One of the main issues with bitcoin from a mainstream adoption perspective is price volatility, but a man in California recently benefited from short-term bitcoin price volatility in a major way.

In a recent interview with Bloomberg Markets,Bitpay CCO Sonny Singh told the story of how the bitcoin payment processor helped a man purchase a house with bitcoin and how this individual unintentionally made $1 million on the exchange from bitcoin to U.S. dollars.

Someone Wants to Buy a House With Bitcoin

“We got approached last month by a real estate developer,” Singh told Bloomberg Markets. “He had an offer to buy a house, and the purchaser wanted to pay in bitcoin. And they weren’t really sure what that was, so they contacted us.”

Singh noted that Bitpay has helped facilitate these sorts of transactions several times over the past few years. “We walked him through how it works and the process,” said Singh.

The purchase price of the home in question was roughly $4 million.

Accidentally Making $1 Million

Singh went on to explain that the bitcoin price was at $750 when the transaction to purchase the house was initiated. By the end of the transaction, the bitcoin price was $1000. “So the buyer actually ended up making about 25 percent in the currency exchange rate, essentially, in the appreciation,” said Singh.

According to the numbers provided by Singh, the buyer of the home was left with an extra $1.3 million after the purchase of the home.

“With that extra money, he went and bought a Lamborghini at Newport Beach, Orange County, which also accepts bitcoin with Bitpay,” added Singh. “He got a house for pretty much 25 percent cheaper, as well as a free Lamborghini essentially.”

Is Bitcoin Just for Wealthy Americans?

After Singh told this story, Bloomberg Markets co-host Carol Massar stated, “This is why more people are going to hate wealthy Americans.”

Massar was pointing to the fact that the home buyer was able to make over a million dollars in a day due to nothing more than dumb luck.

When this point was brought up, Singh was also asked if bitcoin will essentially just be a tool for the wealthy in situations like this. Singh disagreed with that notion, pointing out multiple use cases for the digital bearer asset, such as B2B payments or money transfers between China and Korea with extremely low fees.

The post Man Accidentally Makes $1.3 Million Buying a House With Bitcoin appeared first onBitcoin Magazine.

One of the main issues with bitcoin from a mainstream adoption perspective is price volatility, but a man in California recently benefited from short-term bitcoin price volatility in a major way.

In a recent interview with Bloomberg Markets,Bitpay CCO Sonny Singh told the story of how the bitcoin payment processor helped a man purchase a house with bitcoin and how this individual unintentionally made $1 million on the exchange from bitcoin to U.S. dollars.

Someone Wants to Buy a House With Bitcoin

“We got approached last month by a real estate developer,” Singh told Bloomberg Markets. “He had an offer to buy a house, and the purchaser wanted to pay in bitcoin. And they weren’t really sure what that was, so they contacted us.”

Singh noted that Bitpay has helped facilitate these sorts of transactions several times over the past few years. “We walked him through how it works and the process,” said Singh.

The purchase price of the home in question was roughly $4 million.

Accidentally Making $1 Million

Singh went on to explain that the bitcoin price was at $750 when the transaction to purchase the house was initiated. By the end of the transaction, the bitcoin price was $1000. “So the buyer actually ended up making about 25 percent in the currency exchange rate, essentially, in the appreciation,” said Singh.

According to the numbers provided by Singh, the buyer of the home was left with an extra $1.3 million after the purchase of the home.

“With that extra money, he went and bought a Lamborghini at Newport Beach, Orange County, which also accepts bitcoin with Bitpay,” added Singh. “He got a house for pretty much 25 percent cheaper, as well as a free Lamborghini essentially.”

Is Bitcoin Just for Wealthy Americans?

After Singh told this story, Bloomberg Markets co-host Carol Massar stated, “This is why more people are going to hate wealthy Americans.”

Massar was pointing to the fact that the home buyer was able to make over a million dollars in a day due to nothing more than dumb luck.

When this point was brought up, Singh was also asked if bitcoin will essentially just be a tool for the wealthy in situations like this. Singh disagreed with that notion, pointing out multiple use cases for the digital bearer asset, such as B2B payments or money transfers between China and Korea with extremely low fees.

The post Man Accidentally Makes $1.3 Million Buying a House With Bitcoin appeared first onBitcoin Magazine.

Thu, 26 Jan 2017 17:31:22 1485451882 https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/man-accidentally-makes-13-million-buying-house-bitcoin/ https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/man-accidentally-makes-13-million-buying-house-bitcoin/ Kyle Torpey Bitcoin Adoption & community ]]>

Fiat money has long been the dominant form of exchange for goods and services. But now, amid the throes of global economic and political unrest, new questions have emerged as to whether “cash is still king” in both developed and developing nations.

The root of this discourse is being played out with great significance worldwide. India, one of the world’s fastest growing nations, is struggling with the effects of ademonetization crisis that threatens to cripple its promising economic advancements. In China, currency speculators are facing a weakening yuan. Venezuelans are under siege due to a government cash crisis and soaring inflation. And in Mexico, the peso has declined precipitously on the heels of the U.S. election of President Donald Trump.

This assault on fiat is impacted by unsound policy decisions on the part of governments across the world. Cash is an open form of exchange, widely accepted and codified by central authorities. It also freely flows into the hands of nefarious actors, which, due to terrorist and other concerns, makes governments uneasy.

As economic disruption continues to have a chilling effect on cash economies, digital currencies, which enable secure, peer-to-peer payments without the interference of central governments or banks, are gaining increased attention. Bitcoin, the oldest and most recognized digital currency, had a major rise in value in 2016. Some attribute this rise to increasing demand in countries most affected by currency volatility and economic uncertainty.

In an exclusive interview with Bitcoin Magazine, Steven J. Ehrlich, associate at the New York–based Spitzberg Partners LLC, weighed in on changes taking place within the prevailing global order and cash economy. Spitzberg Partners is a consultancy firm that helps clients to develop and execute market entry and M&A strategies for Europe, North America, and beyond.

For starters, Ehrlich says that he is hesitant to characterize these developments as a “war on cash,” as some media outlets have suggested, since that, he says, would imply “a concerted and coordinated effort.” At the same time, he states that our global economy is in the middle of a tenuous recovery; thus, growth is not evenly distributed.

Corruption still exists, Ehrlich laments, saying that at times, “monetary policy in a given country is primarily intended to support the political aims of a government rather than the economy as a whole.”  

Says Ehrlich: “People want to feel in control of their holdings to the greatest extent possible, and at the very least would like stability and clear headings within their respective political climates. The peso moving up and down with every tweet sent by then-candidate and now-President Trump is the quintessential example of how that is not always the case.”

Will Bitcoin Emerge?  

Ehrlich says that given shifting global dynamics, it’s no secret that bitcoin is being increasingly seen by many as a safe harbor or even a hedge for users in distressed economies (Venezuela, Argentina) as well as those with very strict currency controls (China).

Nevertheless, he is still skeptical of bitcoin’s potential as an alternative form of currency for a couple of reasons. First, the pain point, he says, for the majority of people wanting to use cash or credit cards is not deep enough to force them to change their habits. “If we useGeoffrey Moore’s ‘Crossing the Chasm’example, I find it difficult to see how bitcoin moves from innovators and early adopters to an early majority of users.”  

Continues Ehrlich: “If it is ever to become a widely used currency, the [bitcoin] fungibility issue would still need to be solved. I believe that every bitcoin (or any other cryptocurrency) would have to be indistinguishable from any other, or else people may be hesitant to accept those coins as remuneration. It could also lead to different prices for different bitcoins depending on their past.”

He does admit that it’s impossible to ignore bitcoin’s performance over the course of 2016, and that its current positioning as a largely uncorrelated asset is very enticing.

Cautionary Tales

For Ehrlich, the first point of caution is government regulation:

“Chinese officials have outsize influence on the market, but right now they largely aim to maintain ‘strategic ambiguity’ as it relates to regulating the market. While they themselves cannot shut down Bitcoin, if they moved aggressively against the infrastructure there, it would be very damaging to the ecosystem. Additionally, in my opinion, Bitcoin regulations throughout other parts of the world — particularly as they pertain to commerce — have still been relatively light due to its comparatively small market capitalization. But should there be an uptick in use, I’d expect governments to become much more engaged.”

      

A second potential hurdle that Ehrlich notes is the possibility of another major hack of a central player, though the industry has been able to weather Mt. Gox, Bitfinex and Bitstamp so far. And he concedes that if it is ever proven that Bitcoin was used to facilitate a terrorist attack, he would expect governments to move very hard and swiftly against exchanges and money service businesses.

Additionally, he suggests that a damaging “High Impact/Low Probability” event such as a potential DAO/hard fork incident with Bitcoin could occur. “While I do not expect this to happen, especially in the near future,  scalability and governance issues will likely not go away even if today’s hurdles are cleared. There also may come an issue or time when participants decide to create or even accidentally fall into competing Bitcoin networks. This is one issue that gold hasn’t had to deal with.”  

When asked for his prognostication regarding the future of cash, Ehrlich responded:

“I do feel like cash is becoming a bit of an antiquated institution. I carry no more than a couple of dollars on me at any given time. The real question is whether or not our virtual currency future will be decentralized. In either circumstance, I would still hope that the currency would be fungible because on privacy grounds alone people would be hesitant to accept anything to the contrary. Governments could still benefit from ensuring that money does not simply disappear into thin air, which will assist with AML/KYC investigations and tax collection.”  

Concludes Ehrlich: “In my opinion the likeliest scenario is one where central banks issue digital versions of their currencies, as the prosecution of monetary policy remains a core government function and is not something that they want to cede.”

The post Will Global Cash Woes Boost Bitcoin’s Use? appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Fiat money has long been the dominant form of exchange for goods and services. But now, amid the throes of global economic and political unrest, new questions have emerged as to whether “cash is still king” in both developed and developing nations.

The root of this discourse is being played out with great significance worldwide. India, one of the world’s fastest growing nations, is struggling with the effects of ademonetization crisis that threatens to cripple its promising economic advancements. In China, currency speculators are facing a weakening yuan. Venezuelans are under siege due to a government cash crisis and soaring inflation. And in Mexico, the peso has declined precipitously on the heels of the U.S. election of President Donald Trump.

This assault on fiat is impacted by unsound policy decisions on the part of governments across the world. Cash is an open form of exchange, widely accepted and codified by central authorities. It also freely flows into the hands of nefarious actors, which, due to terrorist and other concerns, makes governments uneasy.

As economic disruption continues to have a chilling effect on cash economies, digital currencies, which enable secure, peer-to-peer payments without the interference of central governments or banks, are gaining increased attention. Bitcoin, the oldest and most recognized digital currency, had a major rise in value in 2016. Some attribute this rise to increasing demand in countries most affected by currency volatility and economic uncertainty.

In an exclusive interview with Bitcoin Magazine, Steven J. Ehrlich, associate at the New York–based Spitzberg Partners LLC, weighed in on changes taking place within the prevailing global order and cash economy. Spitzberg Partners is a consultancy firm that helps clients to develop and execute market entry and M&A strategies for Europe, North America, and beyond.

For starters, Ehrlich says that he is hesitant to characterize these developments as a “war on cash,” as some media outlets have suggested, since that, he says, would imply “a concerted and coordinated effort.” At the same time, he states that our global economy is in the middle of a tenuous recovery; thus, growth is not evenly distributed.

Corruption still exists, Ehrlich laments, saying that at times, “monetary policy in a given country is primarily intended to support the political aims of a government rather than the economy as a whole.”  

Says Ehrlich: “People want to feel in control of their holdings to the greatest extent possible, and at the very least would like stability and clear headings within their respective political climates. The peso moving up and down with every tweet sent by then-candidate and now-President Trump is the quintessential example of how that is not always the case.”

Will Bitcoin Emerge?  

Ehrlich says that given shifting global dynamics, it’s no secret that bitcoin is being increasingly seen by many as a safe harbor or even a hedge for users in distressed economies (Venezuela, Argentina) as well as those with very strict currency controls (China).

Nevertheless, he is still skeptical of bitcoin’s potential as an alternative form of currency for a couple of reasons. First, the pain point, he says, for the majority of people wanting to use cash or credit cards is not deep enough to force them to change their habits. “If we useGeoffrey Moore’s ‘Crossing the Chasm’example, I find it difficult to see how bitcoin moves from innovators and early adopters to an early majority of users.”  

Continues Ehrlich: “If it is ever to become a widely used currency, the [bitcoin] fungibility issue would still need to be solved. I believe that every bitcoin (or any other cryptocurrency) would have to be indistinguishable from any other, or else people may be hesitant to accept those coins as remuneration. It could also lead to different prices for different bitcoins depending on their past.”

He does admit that it’s impossible to ignore bitcoin’s performance over the course of 2016, and that its current positioning as a largely uncorrelated asset is very enticing.

Cautionary Tales

For Ehrlich, the first point of caution is government regulation:

“Chinese officials have outsize influence on the market, but right now they largely aim to maintain ‘strategic ambiguity’ as it relates to regulating the market. While they themselves cannot shut down Bitcoin, if they moved aggressively against the infrastructure there, it would be very damaging to the ecosystem. Additionally, in my opinion, Bitcoin regulations throughout other parts of the world — particularly as they pertain to commerce — have still been relatively light due to its comparatively small market capitalization. But should there be an uptick in use, I’d expect governments to become much more engaged.”

A second potential hurdle that Ehrlich notes is the possibility of another major hack of a central player, though the industry has been able to weather Mt. Gox, Bitfinex and Bitstamp so far. And he concedes that if it is ever proven that Bitcoin was used to facilitate a terrorist attack, he would expect governments to move very hard and swiftly against exchanges and money service businesses.

Additionally, he suggests that a damaging “High Impact/Low Probability” event such as a potential DAO/hard fork incident with Bitcoin could occur. “While I do not expect this to happen, especially in the near future,  scalability and governance issues will likely not go away even if today’s hurdles are cleared. There also may come an issue or time when participants decide to create or even accidentally fall into competing Bitcoin networks. This is one issue that gold hasn’t had to deal with.”  

When asked for his prognostication regarding the future of cash, Ehrlich responded:

“I do feel like cash is becoming a bit of an antiquated institution. I carry no more than a couple of dollars on me at any given time. The real question is whether or not our virtual currency future will be decentralized. In either circumstance, I would still hope that the currency would be fungible because on privacy grounds alone people would be hesitant to accept anything to the contrary. Governments could still benefit from ensuring that money does not simply disappear into thin air, which will assist with AML/KYC investigations and tax collection.”  

Concludes Ehrlich: “In my opinion the likeliest scenario is one where central banks issue digital versions of their currencies, as the prosecution of monetary policy remains a core government function and is not something that they want to cede.”

The post Will Global Cash Woes Boost Bitcoin’s Use? appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Thu, 26 Jan 2017 17:18:23 1485451103 https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/will-global-cash-woes-boost-bitcoins-use/ https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/will-global-cash-woes-boost-bitcoins-use/ Michael Scott Bitcoin Adoption ]]>

Canada’s energy sector is facing a challenging economic environment. As in past commodity price cycles, innovation holds the promise of renewal.

Sharply lower energy commodity prices have dramatically compressed levels of upstream activity, employment and capital investment. Fundamental changes in commodity supply dynamics, climate change policy initiatives and pipeline constraints have contributed to a highly uncertain definition of “price” recovery.

World-leading innovation has always been a hallmark of our energy sector. Drilling technologies, seismic analysis, enhanced recovery and bitumen exploitation are some headline areas where our sector has revolutionized industry practices. The new economic challenges have sharpened the sector’s focus on driving operating efficiencies and cost reduction through innovation. Everything from new remote sensing to edge computing and from enhanced data analytics to cloud solutions are being evaluated and implemented to retool and re-cost the sector’s operating model. We’re seeing a lot of movement in the mining and energy sector demonstrating blockchain technology’s enormous potential to contribute to this retooling. This post aims to summarize these movements and demonstrate how blockchains can impact upstream and downstream operations.

Since its origin as the platform for Bitcoin, blockchain technology has emerged a potential disruptor for global financial services. With a projected industry savings of up to $20 billion by 2022 achieved through disintermediation and infrastructure efficiency, it is no surprise that 80 percent of the world’s largest banks will have initiated blockchain projects by the end of 2017. In capital markets alone, blockchain initiatives will have received as much as $1 billion in investment in 2016. The World Economic Forum has predicted that by 2027, 10 percent of global GDP will be transacted on a blockchain-based system. The financial services industry is taking this technology very seriously, and other industrial sectors are taking notice. Recent use cases for blockchain technology also show revolutionary promise in the area of supply chain management.

In the mining sector, the world’s largest mining firm by market value, BHP Billiton, announced in September 2016 that it plans to use blockchain technology to record movements of wellbore rock and fluid samples and to further secure the data that is transmitted during delivery. Mining companies coordinate with numerous vendors at nearly each step in the mining process. The effective coordination of these vendors is essential to drive key business decisions. At theBlockchain Summit in Shanghai, Tyler Smith, blockchain project manager at BHP, explained that with blockchain technology, data can be shared between the extraction rig, analysts, engineers and laboratories, creating accountability and a constant understanding of where a sample is; therefore replacing the current system in which samples worth up to $100 million are inefficiently tracked through email and spreadsheets. BHP plans to begin requiring vendors to use this technology to collect live data by the end of 2016.

As we move into automating the supply chain, one innovator in particular has focused on pairing blockchain technology with another emerging technology — the Internet of Things (IoT). Filament, a wireless network startup, is building what they believe is the next generation of industrial network technology. By pairing leading edge sensors with a decentralized network, powered with autonomous smart contracts, Filament is creating an industrial network where devices can securely communicate, exchange value and automatically execute actions.

Upon sensing that it requires a new key piece of machinery, based on predefined conditions, a remote drilling rig outfitted with Filament's “Tap” sensors could automatically ping an autonomous drone to deliver the replacement part to the remote location. As the number of connected devices exchanging value among themselves increases exponentially, this network with its consensus-driven ledger will become more powerful and more secure, enabling it to create the next generation of commerce.

Another innovator, Skuchain, based out of California, is seeking to upgrade the entire supply chain network by utilizing blockchain technology to facilitate document transfers and payments, while using smart contracts to automatically execute these functions. In essence, Skuchain envisions an interconnected supply chain where all parties transact on a shared ledger that can automatically execute functions based on predetermined conditions (for example, automatically sending funds upon the signal that goods have been received at their destination and have met the predetermined criteria).

We’ve discussed different ways parties in the supply chain can use blockchain technology; however, the front-end usability that connects the blockchain to the user is also crucial. For example, Factom, a blockchain startup focused on record management, has created a scalable layer on top of the Bitcoin blockchain to create “proof of existence” forall records placed on the network. Factom has partnered with financial institutions, legal firms and governments to explore the potential of immutable records management. This solution could be used for land registries, birth certificates, mortgages and invoices.

To illustrate the front-end simplicity of a document management blockchain solution, Deloitte Netherlands created a prototype that places warranties onto the blockchain. To enhance usability of such records management applications, a front end enables users to simply scan a QR code on the product warranty slip from within the Messenger app, using a chatbot to upload it onto the blockchain. Users can then interact with the chatbot to receive details about the warranty, find retailers to fix the product or transfer the warranty to a buyer. Imagine this simple, mobile user experience in place at each step in the supply chain, with each party uploading their data, documents and records into an immutable ledger.

As we move downstream, we see peer-to-peer markets popping up. For instance, a joint venture by ConsenSys and LO3 Energy dubbed the TransActive Grid illustrates blockchain technology’s potential for revolutionizing energy distribution grids. This grid platform enables homeowners with solar panels to sell surplus power on a local “Transactive Microgrid” peer-to-peer market. This market is built on existing utility infrastructure and future smart meters but introduces an integration with the Ethereum network. By using smart contracts run on Ethereum to tokenize surplus power, individual solar producers can sell surplus renewable energy directly to their neighbor, bypassing the markups and fees charged by their utility providers.

Proof of concepts (“POCs”) developed in partnership with international banks, multinational companies, governments and startups that are focused on solving supply chain inefficiencies are gaining traction and interest across the energy sector. These partnerships are essential to create value-driven prototyping efforts that can be effectively scaled into production.

Borrowing the lessons learned from the financial services industry’s foray into blockchain experimentation, in order to successfully identify initial high-value use cases and coordinate activities across multiple partners and intermediaries, blockchain education is an essential first step. Due to its nascent stage of development and technical complexity, the basic understanding of the applicability of blockchain technology is not yet mainstream.

If history can serve as an example, educational sessions with energy sector executives, supply chain leaders and industry associations to establish a common knowledge base of blockchain fundamentals will enable the discovery of well-defined use cases that address real business needs.

The next step in the innovation cycle is to develop a POC; through rapid development, iterations and failures, a robust prototype can be built to evaluate its effectiveness and feasibility as a solution. These POCs should be focused on solving problems that align with blockchain technology’s value proposition, and which can be built and tested rigorously in a low-risk environment, with the ultimate goal of moving from experimentation to meaningful pilots and eventual deployment in production environments.

For decades the Canadian energy sector has embraced technological innovation to improve cost structure, enhance extraction of reserves and increase corporate resilience. Blockchain technology has the potential to become the fundamental innovation that streamlines supply chain processes, executes contractual agreements, optimizes trade finance and powers autonomous commerce in the energy industry of the future.

This guest post was written with contributions from  Iliana Oris Valiente (CPA, CA, CBP). Oris Valiente is a co-founder and strategy leader of the Rubix by Deloitte blockchain practice, a team building blockchain-based applications using multiple technology stacks. She is widely credited for being a trailblazer in the blockchain space, having been among the first to recognize the tremendous impact of this “traditionally hacker” technology on the enterprise world. Her focus has been on exponential technology and bridging the gap between the corporate world and the startup communities.

Opinions stated in this guest post are those of the authors and should not be construed to represent the opinions of their employer or ofBitcoin Magazine.

The post Op Ed: Energizing the Blockchain — A Canadian Perspective appeared first onBitcoin Magazine.

Canada’s energy sector is facing a challenging economic environment. As in past commodity price cycles, innovation holds the promise of renewal.

Sharply lower energy commodity prices have dramatically compressed levels of upstream activity, employment and capital investment. Fundamental changes in commodity supply dynamics, climate change policy initiatives and pipeline constraints have contributed to a highly uncertain definition of “price” recovery.

World-leading innovation has always been a hallmark of our energy sector. Drilling technologies, seismic analysis, enhanced recovery and bitumen exploitation are some headline areas where our sector has revolutionized industry practices. The new economic challenges have sharpened the sector’s focus on driving operating efficiencies and cost reduction through innovation. Everything from new remote sensing to edge computing and from enhanced data analytics to cloud solutions are being evaluated and implemented to retool and re-cost the sector’s operating model. We’re seeing a lot of movement in the mining and energy sector demonstrating blockchain technology’s enormous potential to contribute to this retooling. This post aims to summarize these movements and demonstrate how blockchains can impact upstream and downstream operations.

Since its origin as the platform for Bitcoin, blockchain technology has emerged a potential disruptor for global financial services. With a projected industry savings of up to $20 billion by 2022 achieved through disintermediation and infrastructure efficiency, it is no surprise that 80 percent of the world’s largest banks will have initiated blockchain projects by the end of 2017. In capital markets alone, blockchain initiatives will have received as much as $1 billion in investment in 2016. The World Economic Forum has predicted that by 2027, 10 percent of global GDP will be transacted on a blockchain-based system. The financial services industry is taking this technology very seriously, and other industrial sectors are taking notice. Recent use cases for blockchain technology also show revolutionary promise in the area of supply chain management.

In the mining sector, the world’s largest mining firm by market value, BHP Billiton, announced in September 2016 that it plans to use blockchain technology to record movements of wellbore rock and fluid samples and to further secure the data that is transmitted during delivery. Mining companies coordinate with numerous vendors at nearly each step in the mining process. The effective coordination of these vendors is essential to drive key business decisions. At theBlockchain Summit in Shanghai, Tyler Smith, blockchain project manager at BHP, explained that with blockchain technology, data can be shared between the extraction rig, analysts, engineers and laboratories, creating accountability and a constant understanding of where a sample is; therefore replacing the current system in which samples worth up to $100 million are inefficiently tracked through email and spreadsheets. BHP plans to begin requiring vendors to use this technology to collect live data by the end of 2016.

As we move into automating the supply chain, one innovator in particular has focused on pairing blockchain technology with another emerging technology — the Internet of Things (IoT). Filament, a wireless network startup, is building what they believe is the next generation of industrial network technology. By pairing leading edge sensors with a decentralized network, powered with autonomous smart contracts, Filament is creating an industrial network where devices can securely communicate, exchange value and automatically execute actions.

Upon sensing that it requires a new key piece of machinery, based on predefined conditions, a remote drilling rig outfitted with Filament's “Tap” sensors could automatically ping an autonomous drone to deliver the replacement part to the remote location. As the number of connected devices exchanging value among themselves increases exponentially, this network with its consensus-driven ledger will become more powerful and more secure, enabling it to create the next generation of commerce.

Another innovator, Skuchain, based out of California, is seeking to upgrade the entire supply chain network by utilizing blockchain technology to facilitate document transfers and payments, while using smart contracts to automatically execute these functions. In essence, Skuchain envisions an interconnected supply chain where all parties transact on a shared ledger that can automatically execute functions based on predetermined conditions (for example, automatically sending funds upon the signal that goods have been received at their destination and have met the predetermined criteria).

We’ve discussed different ways parties in the supply chain can use blockchain technology; however, the front-end usability that connects the blockchain to the user is also crucial. For example, Factom, a blockchain startup focused on record management, has created a scalable layer on top of the Bitcoin blockchain to create “proof of existence” forall records placed on the network. Factom has partnered with financial institutions, legal firms and governments to explore the potential of immutable records management. This solution could be used for land registries, birth certificates, mortgages and invoices.

To illustrate the front-end simplicity of a document management blockchain solution, Deloitte Netherlands created a prototype that places warranties onto the blockchain. To enhance usability of such records management applications, a front end enables users to simply scan a QR code on the product warranty slip from within the Messenger app, using a chatbot to upload it onto the blockchain. Users can then interact with the chatbot to receive details about the warranty, find retailers to fix the product or transfer the warranty to a buyer. Imagine this simple, mobile user experience in place at each step in the supply chain, with each party uploading their data, documents and records into an immutable ledger.

As we move downstream, we see peer-to-peer markets popping up. For instance, a joint venture by ConsenSys and LO3 Energy dubbed the TransActive Grid illustrates blockchain technology’s potential for revolutionizing energy distribution grids. This grid platform enables homeowners with solar panels to sell surplus power on a local “Transactive Microgrid” peer-to-peer market. This market is built on existing utility infrastructure and future smart meters but introduces an integration with the Ethereum network. By using smart contracts run on Ethereum to tokenize surplus power, individual solar producers can sell surplus renewable energy directly to their neighbor, bypassing the markups and fees charged by their utility providers.

Proof of concepts (“POCs”) developed in partnership with international banks, multinational companies, governments and startups that are focused on solving supply chain inefficiencies are gaining traction and interest across the energy sector. These partnerships are essential to create value-driven prototyping efforts that can be effectively scaled into production.

Borrowing the lessons learned from the financial services industry’s foray into blockchain experimentation, in order to successfully identify initial high-value use cases and coordinate activities across multiple partners and intermediaries, blockchain education is an essential first step. Due to its nascent stage of development and technical complexity, the basic understanding of the applicability of blockchain technology is not yet mainstream.

If history can serve as an example, educational sessions with energy sector executives, supply chain leaders and industry associations to establish a common knowledge base of blockchain fundamentals will enable the discovery of well-defined use cases that address real business needs.

The next step in the innovation cycle is to develop a POC; through rapid development, iterations and failures, a robust prototype can be built to evaluate its effectiveness and feasibility as a solution. These POCs should be focused on solving problems that align with blockchain technology’s value proposition, and which can be built and tested rigorously in a low-risk environment, with the ultimate goal of moving from experimentation to meaningful pilots and eventual deployment in production environments.

For decades the Canadian energy sector has embraced technological innovation to improve cost structure, enhance extraction of reserves and increase corporate resilience. Blockchain technology has the potential to become the fundamental innovation that streamlines supply chain processes, executes contractual agreements, optimizes trade finance and powers autonomous commerce in the energy industry of the future.

This guest post was written with contributions from  Iliana Oris Valiente (CPA, CA, CBP). Oris Valiente is a co-founder and strategy leader of the Rubix by Deloitte blockchain practice, a team building blockchain-based applications using multiple technology stacks. She is widely credited for being a trailblazer in the blockchain space, having been among the first to recognize the tremendous impact of this “traditionally hacker” technology on the enterprise world. Her focus has been on exponential technology and bridging the gap between the corporate world and the startup communities.

Opinions stated in this guest post are those of the authors and should not be construed to represent the opinions of their employer or ofBitcoin Magazine.

The post Op Ed: Energizing the Blockchain — A Canadian Perspective appeared first onBitcoin Magazine.

Thu, 26 Jan 2017 16:35:36 1485448536 https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/op-ed-energizing-blockchain-canadian-perspective/ https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/op-ed-energizing-blockchain-canadian-perspective/ Sam Pajot-Phipps Bitcoin Op-e