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Bitcoin and the banking system: Slammed doors and legacy flaws
It’s no secret the banking system doesn’t like Bitcoin — but does that stance challenge Bitcoin-first companies? Cointelegraph investigates.
Despite Bitcoin’s (BTC) promise of a peer-to-peer world, building a Bitcoin-first business in 2022 still requires third-party intermediaries. Whether it’s startup capital, using fiat money or simply exploiting fiat payment rails, Bitcoin business means interaction with the legacy financial system.
For the vast majority of Bitcoin-based businesses, this means that they probably need a bank.
Cointelegraph spoke to Bitcoin-only businesses about their experiences working with banks, given that ultimately, Bitcoin gets a lot of bad press in mainstream media. Plus, some of the banking industry’s biggest supporters love to bash Bitcoin. Ben Price, founder of the Bitcoin Company, recently shared that the company had lost “dozens of dozens of banking partnership opportunities simply because we’re a Bitcoin company.”
Price was a product manager at Visa for years before founding the Bitcoin Company. He told Cointelegraph that the Bitcoin Company’s “goal is to bring Bitcoin to the whole world” because it’s “a real catalyst for improvement in our civilization.”
Price grew frustrated while working at Visa — not because he was a “hardcore Bitcoin maxi” but due to slow progress. According to him, projects relating to payments, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), noncustodial wallets and more were regularly shuttered or mothballed. Plus, the legacy finance system’s inner workings came into question. Carman told Cointelegraph:
“And, at the end of the day, Visa kind of serves the banks. They don’t serve consumers.” Read More
Professor Republishes Tornado Cash Code Following GitHub Takedown
John Hopkins crypto researcher Matthew Green wants to preserve the code for the sake of academic research and free speech.
A cryptography professor at John Hopkins University has posted an “archival fork” of Tornado Cash’s source code to GitHub.
The professor, Matthew Green, says he intends to preserve the source code of the privacy protocol for research purposes, rather than for deployment. His students, he said, have used such code to learn concepts related to cryptocurrency privacy and zero-knowledge technology.
“The loss or decreased availability of this source code will be harmful to the scientific and technical communities,” said the researcher in a post to GitHub on Monday.
Privacy in crypto is of deep interest to Green: as a developer, he is personally involved with Zcash, a cryptocurrency that uses zero-knowledge proofs to protect the anonymity of transactions. He was also responsible for proposing Zerocoin—a Bitcoin privacy extension back in 2013, although it’s not compatible with Bitcoin’s current system.
However, the fork also represents Green’s public stand against the OFAC’s decision to sanction Tornado Cash, its software repositories, and its smart contract addresses on Ethereum. As he explained, applying economic sanctions against open-source software is a historical first for the United States government, and has crucial implications for the state of free speech. Read More
Telegram Founder Proposes NFT-Based Username System for Its 700,000,000 Users
The founder and CEO of multi-platform messaging service Telegram is proposing a blockchain-based marketplace for usernames and addresses used on the messaging app.
Pavel Durov says on his Telegram channel that the idea is inspired by the success of a domain and wallet name auction conducted by The Open Network (TON) blockchain.
According to the Telegram CEO, Telegram is likely to enjoy more success with a marketplace for highly sought-after usernames and addresses given its large user base.
“If TON has been able to achieve these results, imagine how successful Telegram with its 700 million users could be if we put reserved @ usernames, group and channel links for auction. In addition to millions of catchy t.me addresses like @storm or @royal, all four-letter usernames could be made available for sale (@bank, @club, @game, @gift etc).”
The Open Network (TON) blockchain was designed by the founders of Telegram, Pavel Durov and Nikolai Durov. The token is now being developed by the TON Foundation, which is a community of open-source developers.
Durov says that the envisioned platform for auctioning Telegram usernames and addresses would allow the exchange of the digital properties similar to how non-fungible tokens (NFTs) function. Read More
Spirit Blockchain Capital to List on CSE in September
British Columbia, Canada-based Spirit Blockchain Capital Inc. (Spirit), which focuses on blockchain and digital assets, announced that it has received listing approval from the Canadian Securities Exchange ("CSE").
The company expects to begin trading shares of its common stock on the Canadian Securities Exchange in September. The exact time is still waiting for the exciting news from CSE.
The listing will raise funds for Spirit to expand partnerships with other prominent players, such as streaming and royalty deals with North American bitcoin miners while expanding operations.
The company's strategy is to obtain and expand its exposure to this emerging asset class by providing a broad range of services and a value-orientated approach with a robust risk management overlay.
Spirit's founder and CEO, Erich Perroulaz, said the listing is an important milestone for the company. He added that:
“Being listed will provide more opportunities in the fast growing Blockchain industry. Decentralized Digital Assets are still relatively new and will change the process of how people and corporations interact with each other. There is a bright future ahead in this sector.” Read More
We have a lot to be grateful for within Markethive. It’s like stepping out of the rat race into an oasis of humanity at its best. As an inbound marketing, business-based blockchain platform with an inherent entrepreneurial spirit, we have all the tools to get our message out to the whole world. We have a social media interface with a collaborative ethos rarely experienced on legacy social media.
We are starting to see new integrations in the blogging section in preparation for the customized, more intuitive interface and dashboard of Markethive and, of course, the Markethive Wallet that will facilitate the Merchant accounts for members as well as personal transactions, the Vault, etc.
The new-look Blogcasting Hub is located at the top of all blogs in the system. Blogcasting is a term introduced by Markethive and is an enhanced broadcasting system. In the traditional broadcasting sense, only the people who physically subscribe to your blog or newsletter are usually notified of your updates via email.
With this blogcasting system, your social networks are informed of your blog as and when you publish them. What this means is the potential reach is into the millions. Read More
Merge & Diverge: Five Tokens That Could Outperform Ethereum
The Ethereum network’s most significant technical upgrade to date could be beneficial for more than just ETH.
Ethereum is scheduled to ship its landmark "Merge" event in September, which should bode well for ETH.
Several Ethereum-adjacent projects with smaller market capitalizations could also see the benefit and end up outpacing ETH following a successful Merge.
Liquid staking, NFTs, MEV, infrastructure, and Layer 2 are some of the key areas to watch closely.
If Ethereum’s “Merge” event is successful, ETH should benefit. But there are many other lesser-known projects and tokens that could outpace the second-ranked cryptocurrency once the Merge ships. Read More
DeFi Project Spotlight: Euler Finance, the Next-Generation Money Market
Euler Finance is a decentralized, permissionless lending protocol custom-built to improve capital efficiency and reduce the risks associated with lending and borrowing volatile, long-tail crypto assets.
Euler Finance is a second-generation DeFi lending protocol custom built to allow permissionless lending and borrowing of long-tail crypto assets.
Euler has innovated and built a number of novel DeFi features, including asset tiers, reactive interest rates, risk-adjusted borrow factors, Dutch-auction liquidations, protected collateral, and batch transactions.
On Euler, anyone can create a money market for any crypto asset with an ETH liquidity pair on the Uniswap V3 decentralized exchange.
Euler Finance is a second-generation money market protocol that introduces a number of innovations to the DeFi space to enable permissionless lending and borrowing of crypto assets. It’s designed to maximize capital efficiency and minimize the risks associated with the long tail of the market.
Euler Finance is a novel lending protocol built to enable permissionless borrowing and lending of risk-on, long-tail crypto assets. Read More
How blockchain technology is changing the way people invest
Blockchain technology has changed the way modern people invest in assets, attracting younger and less affluent investors into the space.
Over a decade after the release genesis block on the Bitcoin network, blockchain technology has changed how people invest their money, with many platforms in the crypto space having much more relaxed requirements for investors when compared with traditional finance.
It’s easier for investors to buy into cryptocurrency than traditional assets. Anybody can download a free Bitcoin (BTC) or multi-crypto wallet and sign up for one of the many available cryptocurrency exchanges. Many exchanges still don’t require users to verify their identity, while others only require ID verification once certain limits have been reached.
Compare this to buying stocks, where almost every platform has Know Your Customer (KYC) procedures that users must complete before buying their first stock. On top of this, users can only buy stocks from publicly listed companies and cannot own any shares from a private company.
On the other hand, crypto investors can invest in tokens that public or private companies have created. Investors in the crypto space can also participate in early-stage funding rounds, including seed-stage funding. Read More
Lower costs, higher speeds after Ethereum’s Merge? Don’t count on it
There’s a lot of hype surrounding Ethereum’s Merge. But in reality, most users aren’t going to notice much change.
As we approach the date of Ethereum’s Merge, users have speculated about what it will mean for projects and the wider ecosystem. Some argue the Merge will have little impact on gas fees and believe transaction speeds might improve.
However, in general, most ordinary users will not notice much change. The real changes for average users will only be seen after the sharding mechanism is introduced six months later.
The Merge will reduce energy consumption and increase security
The Merge is a planned update to the Ethereum network scheduled for Sept. 15. It will move transaction validation from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS). PoS has been part of Ethereum’s plans for many years, but the level of technical sophistication it requires has taken time to develop. It means a transition from miners being responsible for validating blocks to the staked owners of ETH.
This will have several major significant long-term consequences. Firstly, it will mean a huge reduction in the amount of electricity used by Ethereum (as much as 99.9%). While PoW is a highly effective means of validation, it has been shown to use the same amounts of electricity as whole countries, meaning it is highly detrimental to the environment. Read More
Disclaimer: These articles are provided for informational purposes only. They are not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or any other advice.
