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One metric suggests that heading into its fifth anniversary, Ethereum has had a much faster rate of growth and adoption than Bitcoin. One key metric suggests that Ethereum (ETH) has enjoyed a much faster rate of adoption and growth in the first five years of existence than Bitcoin (BTC). Comparing the total number of addresses after n days for both Bitcoin and Ethereum. Source: Cointelegraph, Glassnode, Etherscan. We compared the total number of addresses created in the first five years on both major blockchain networks.  While the number of addresses could be a good gauge of the rate adoption, it may not be perfect for various reasons. One reason is that the accounting systems in the two networks are different. Total number of addresses in the first five years of existence Ethereum versus Bitcoin. Source: Cointelegraph, Glassnode, Etherscan.In the first 600 days, the growth rate for both networks is quite similar. By mid-2017, however, Ethereum’s curve became much steep...

Bitcoin's latest upswing suggests the cryptocurrency on the verge of a new uptrend, Ari Wald, head of technical analysis at Oppenheimer, said Monday. The digital token rallied to its highest level in nearly a year in late Monday trading and held the $11,000 level into Tuesday morning. While gold is likely the most popular hedge bet for those expecting inflation to rise, bitcoin "isn't as extended," Wald said on CNBC. The coin is slowly reversing a years-long downtrend and is displaying "the type of action" a crypto bull would like to see, the analyst added. Watch bitcoin trade live here. bitcoin long-term trendline suggests it has plenty of room to run, Ari Wald, head of technical analysis at Oppenheimer, said Monday. The world's most popular cryptocurrency soared to its highest level in nearly a year late Monday evening and stayed above $11,000 per coin into Tuesday morning as investors continued rotations to hedge plays. Gold, another alterna...

A Ripple executive has unveiled a payments platform based on XRP that will work in popular web browsers. Craig DeWitt, the blockchain payment infrastructure firm's director of product, made the announcement via Twitter on Sunday claiming "anyone can use it" to purchase physical goods online using the XRP cryptocurrency. Payburner, a personal project of Dewitt's, is a non-custodial XRP wallet designed to operate as a plug-in within the Chrome and Brave web browsers. DeWitt told CoinDesk in direct messages the plug-in is an example of a "growing XRP ecosystem" that leverages Xpring.Xpring is a Ripple project that provides tools and funding for developers and startups working with XRP. Payburner, currently in beta release, allows users to send and receive payments worldwide and instantaneously, Dewitt said. The beta version builds on an earlier Payburner plug-in by integrating PayID, an identifier for payments used by entities such as banks. Payment ...

The lights were dimmed during the last day of Devcon in October 2019. A hush fell over the auditorium in Osaka, Japan.  A haunting melody rippled through the crowd of roughly 1,000 people. Everyone knew the dance was about to begin. Ethereum leaders, including inventor Vitalik Buterin, plus Hudson Jameson and Aya Miyaguchi of the Ethereum Foundation, would lead a goofy dance to close out the annual tech conference. Cheers erupted when the Ethereum influencers took the stage, nodding respectfully to conference organizers and thanking the crowd. Soon the whole crowd was following along, jumping up and down, turning in circles.  Critics might say they were simply mimicking the technologists on stage, but on the ground, people were adding their own moves or simply nodding along. Every Etherean dances his or her own way, or smiles and sways timidly.  (Ethereum Foundation developer Vlad Zamfir, for example, dislikes the dance and said he prefers not to partake.)The ton...

The price of Bitcoin abruptly surged to $10,200, as it liquidated $75 million worth of short contracts. The price of Bitcoin (BTC) rose to as high as $10,272 on July 26 in an unexpected weekend rally. It liquidated $74 million worth of long contracts on BitMEX alone, catching many traders off guard. There appear to be two main reasons behind the abrupt upsurge of Bitcoin from $9,700 to over $10,200. They are the liquidation of over-leveraged shorts and traders taking profit from over-extended alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins).    Profit-taking pattern observed as Bitcoin spikes When the price started to rally, major altcoins, as well as well-performing DeFi tokens, began to slump. Ethereum declined from $322 to $311, and DeFi tokens, including Aave and YFI, saw steep rejections. The simultaneous rejections of major altcoins and the price surge of Bitcoin suggest that traders took profit from recent altcoin rallies.  As traders moved their altcoin ...

XRP continues to trade within a bearish range following another gruelling rejection from the daily 200 moving average. Until it can break above the 200MA a move to the downside seems most likely, with potential targets emerging at $0.175 and $0.148. At the time of writing XRP is trading at $0.198, just below the psychological level of resistance at $0.20, which has been a bitter point of rejection since the turn of the week. From a macro perspective there is also a lack of optimism when it comes to XRP’s chart, with it forming three consecutive lower lows from February’s high of $0.348. February’s short-lived surge was the only time that XRP has traded above the 200MA in more than 12 months. This, coupled with dwindling trade volume, demonstrates the tell-tale signs of a bear market that suggests XRP could dive far lower in the coming months.However, it’s worth pointing out that XRP has remained relatively resilient since its capitulation low of $0.135 on March 13 with a rise o...

Ethereum 2.0 developers released the specifications for the “official” testnet on Wednesday, ahead of a presumed end-of-year launch. The testnet will begin August 4 and has been named “Medalla” after the Buenos Aires metro stop. In this case, “official” means the testnet is deployed by the Ethereum Foundation (EF). The testnet is still run by a decentralized group of programmers, developers and code auditors organized by fork coordinator Afri Schoedon. Official also means the network’s code base is nearing ready for launch as investors and developers have begun to itch for the multi-year project’s release.  Eth 2.0 researcher Justin Drake recently announced a unilateral effort to get the first part of the network shipped before the year’s close due to pushback on a later date. Medalla joins multiple prior tests of Eth 2.0’s code bank on various client implementations, including Görli, Witti, Schlesi and most recently Altona. “The Schlesi testnet was one of many steps in ...

An on-chain metric suggests the Bitcoin network is garnering users despite the cryptocurrency’s extended period of comatose price action.  The seven-day moving average of Bitcoin's "active entities" rose to 305,355 on Tuesday to hit the highest level since Dec. 23, 2017, according to blockchain analytics firm Glassnode. The previous 1.5-year high of 301,870 was reached on May 12. The average has risen by 14% this month. Glassnode defines active entities as a "cluster of addresses controlled by the same network entity."  This would include both businesses like exchanges and custodians and individuals. The rise suggests that the number of users of the network is the highest since the cryptocurrency topped out at $20,000 in December 2017.  Matthew Dibb, co-founder of Stack, a provider of cryptocurrency trackers and index funds, told CoinDesk the climbing metric is the result of the DeFi frenzy spilling over onto bitcoin. The surge in active entities ...

Professor Stefanie Roos is driving the research of anonymity features on the XRP Ledger. Their research is funded by Ripple’s initiative UBRI and offers students direct access to the company’s expertise. Anonymity and data protection are important factors that are becoming increasingly important to the population and companies of today.  The Twitter hack has shown how vulnerable centralized systems are. Ripple has also recognized this trend and is driving research into anonymity features on the XRP Ledger. Data protection and privacy increasingly important, also at Ripple In a post on the Ripple Blog, Stefanie Roos, assistant professor at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, says that people think Bitcoin provides sufficient anonymity, but the reality is very different: Because you don’t have to enter your real name, people believe that Bitcoin is very privacy preserving.  But when someone keeps reusing the same information, it’s possible to track every...

In the last few days, Ethereum’s transaction volume is on its way to reach new record levels. The rapid increase in transaction volume could pose serious difficulties for the Ethereum network. Danny Ryan announced that the date for the launch of the ETH 2.0 test network will be announced on Monday. Despite the continuing sideways trend of the ETH price, the use of Ethereum (ETH) has been increasing strongly for several weeks.  This is shown by the analysis of daily ETH transactions. Although these reach the historic all-time high of around 1,350,000 daily transactions in January 2018, new peaks are currently being recorded.  Last Friday, around 1,070,000 ETH transactions were executed. So far, the increase in transaction volume has not had a clear impact on the ETH price, which has been struggling with strong resistance at the $250 mark for some time.  In the past, it has often been observed that new investors enter the market as trading volumes increase. ...

It has been all over the news about the great Twitter Bitcoin hack of 2020.  We’ve got you covered if you haven’t been paying attention to CryptoTwitter this week. After a period of calm in the cryptomarkets, last week showed some movement. Unfortunately, it went in the wrong direction.  Bitcoin was down about 3 percent over the last seven days and it got off lightly. Ethereum fell more than 5 percent and Bitcoin Cash dropped over 8 percent.One reason for the fall might be a relationship between stocks and digital coins.  Analysts note that Bitcoin shows a 95 percent correlation with the S&P 500, and the Fear and Greed Index suggests that greed is moving the stock market while fear is holding onto cryptocurrencies. There has been plenty of movement and in different directions: Tesla stock is rocketing even as Bitcoin volatility hits a three-year low. Binance coin has risen 17 percent. Other analysts suggest that a “crypto winter” could be over as take-up of ...

with a few exceptions, we have done well in managing the pandemic which is now clearly the most significant infectious disease in a century, resulting in the fastest and deepest recession since the Great Frost of 1709, to quote the Financial Times quoting the Bank of England, both sober organisations. Today coronavirus, also known as Covid-19, is under temporary control.  The number of people in hospital is currently few, only a small number needed intensive care for the disease in the last week but the numbers of newly diagnosed cases have edged back upwards. Yet, according to Dr Tedros Gebrejesus, head of the World Health Organisation, “the worst is yet to come”.  At a worldwide level, I am sure that he is right. But in Ireland, we can control our fate, because our actions and behaviours, our public policies and our social cohesion will determine what happens next. So how can we prevent a second wave or a second tsunami of the disease in Ireland?We should wear fac...

In brief The transition from Ethereum 1.0 to Ethereum 2.0 could open up new attack vectors. Researchers found that, for adequate security, the new proof-of-stake network should aim for 13.8% of ETH to be staked. To incentivize people to stake, the researchers recommend increasing the base rewards factor and, thus, the amount stakers can earn. DeFi has proven to be something of a double-edged sword for crypto. On the one hand, it’s generating excitement and income. On the other, it poses security threats.  Derivative attacks and other hacks made possible by the DeFi “money piñata” could cause cracks in the forthcoming Ethereum 2.0 network. So say ConsenSys’ Tanner Hoban and Thomas Borgers, who, with funding from MolochDao, used their free time to analyze the incentive structure and security for Ethereum’s long-awaited proof-of-stake network.  (Disclosure: ConsenSys funds an editorially independent Decrypt.)In their just-released paper, “Ethereum 2.0 Economic Rev...

Exchange balances for ETH and BTC move in opposite directions in a new insight into investor sentiment. Ether (ETH) is trading at its highest since before the March coronavirus crash, but data suggests that investors have little interest in holding the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. Uploading findings using on-chain monitoring resource Glassnode on July 10, one trader noticed that Ether exchange balances remain high, while Bitcoin (BTC) balances have dropped considerably. BTC, ETH exchange balances diverge According to the unverified data, since March, ETH balances on exchanges have continued to trend upward overall. At the same time, BTC has been leaving exchanges en masse over the past three months. “Ever since the Black Thursday crash, Bitcoin balances on crypto exchanges have been falling quite fast.  On the other hand, Ethereum exchange balances continue to remain relatively stable,” the trader summarized. The phenomenon could have sever...

Litecoin Litecoin fell by 0.07% on Sunday. Reversing a 0.92% gain from Saturday, Litecoin ended the week up by 7.50% to $44.71. A bullish start to the day saw Litecoin rise to an early morning intraday high $45.24 before easing back. Litecoin broke through the first major resistance level at $45.03 before falling back to sub$44.70 levels. A second rally in the afternoon saw Litecoin break back through the first major resistance level before hitting reverse. The reversal saw Litecoin slide through the first major support level at $44.16 to an intraday low $43.76. Steering clear of the second major support level at $43.59, Litecoin found late support to wrap up the day at $44 levels. At the time of writing, Litecoin was down by 0.08% to $44.63.  A mixed start to the day saw Litecoin rise to an early morning high $44.83 before falling to a low $44.53. Litecoin left the major support and resistance levels untested early in the day. For the day ahead Litecoin would ne...

The plaintiffs have responded to Ripple’s motion to dismiss the fraud and security claims for lack of evidence. A hearing on the decision to dismiss the charges will be held on August 26 this year. The plaintiffs in the case against Ripple Labs have responded to Ripple‘s motion to dismiss fraud charges. The motion was filed by Ripple in early June this year. The company argued in a document before the Northern District Court of California that the plaintiffs’ evidence was insufficient. Ripple has been facing this suit since November 2018, making it one of the company’s oldest litigation.  Bradley Sostack is the primary plaintiff suing Ripple. The plaintiffs’ response to Ripple’s application     In the document referred to, Ripple’s legal representatives stated that the plaintiffs had no evidence linking Ripple, its CEO or employees to making statements in support of the   charges. The document presented by the opposing party rejects the above argum...

Just after 100,000 in USDC were blacklisted by Centre, Tether blacklists 46 million Tether in Ethereum addresses. Tether (USDT) has blacklisted 39 Ethereum addresses worth $46 million in USDT, with 24 holding a total of over 5.5 million USDT being blacklisted this year.  This revelation comes on the back of Centre’s first blacklisting of an Ethereum address holding $100,000 USDC. Ethereum researcher at Horizon Games Philippe Castonguay used Dune Analytics to create a dashboard that tracks the number of addresses blacklisted by both Centre and Tether.  The largest address holds over 4.5 million USDT and was only recently blacklisted on April 5. Similar to blacklisted addresses holding USDC, Tether addresses that receive a blacklisting function are no longer able to transact with Tether, freezing any existing coins held in the address. General counsel at Bitfinex (sister company of Tether) Stuart Hoegner told the media that Tether works with international law enforcement...

KUALA LUMPUR (July 6): Cryptocurrency exchange platform operator Luno has added Litecoin (LTC), which it says is the fourth digital asset approved by the Securities Commission Malaysia, to its trading platform. In a statement, Luno said its Malaysian customers will be able to buy, sell, store and learn more about this digital asset from Tuesday (July 7). "Litecoin, often referred to as the silver to Bitcoin's (BTC) gold, is a top-10 cryptocurrency with a market cap of US$2.7 billion," the exchange platform said. The cryptocurrency, initially created in 2011, was developed to provide a faster and cheaper alternative to Bitcoin, with the aim of offering a better option for day-to-day digital currency commerce. "These are uncertain times but LTC's instant and near-zero cost transactions are certainly characteristics which have contributed to the increase in interest for this digital asset," said Luno's general manager for Southeast Asia, David L...

Ripple executives, Navin Gupta and Sagar Sarbhai, criticize decisions by lawmakers in India and accuse them of killing innovation. The executives also criticized the lack of a legal regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies in India. In an interview for Forkast News, conducted by Angie Lau, two Ripple executives expressed their discontent with Indian lawmakers.  According to Navin Gupta, Ripple’s Managing Director for the South Asia and MENA region, and Sagar Sarbhai, Ripple’s Head of Government and Regulatory Affairs, India is killing innovation. Ripple executives referred to India’s ban on cryptocurrencies, caused by a lawsuit by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).  The ban was imposed in 2018 when the RBI prohibited crypto exchange platforms from accessing financial services.  The ban was lifted in early March this year and the news brought much excitement in the community and the crypto market. However, months after the event the country has failed to make prog...

Ethereum’s 2020 DeFi boom came at the cost of its gaming ecosystem. Results for the second quarter of 2020 show tremendous growth for decentralized applications across all ecosystems, primarily spearheaded by Ethereum (ETH) decentralized finance, or DeFi. Decentralized exchanges were at the frontlines of the rise as Compound token mining activity trickled down to on-chain swapping solutions. According to Our Network, Curve was one of the biggest beneficiaries of yield farming as it helped users switch between different stablecoins to maximize yield. Curve is an automated money market that only supports swaps between different types of stablecoins and wrapped tokens.  This limitation allows Curve to provide competitive slippage and fees for exchanging assets. Deposits on Curve rose almost three-fold in June, while daily volume reached peaks of $60 million 30 times more than its previous average.    Demand for USDT pairs was the highest, capturing more than 58.5%...