Cryptocurrency

[FrontEnder]

maybe!

Give me a PM if you want to. I'll pay for the server, assuming its the same as secure nodes, the staking amount can be held anywhere, just need the public key and needs to be in a transparent address. So you'd be in control and if you didn't send me the money I could pull the plug.

[Hobosapien]

Bitcoin (and therefore many others that follow its wake) down 5%, looks like it's dropped off a cliff on coinmarketcap. As usual no obvious reason, unless I'm not looking in the right place for current news.

Oh well, another 'buy the dip' opportunity. Better to see £1/BTC before £20k/BTC.

[scooterscot]

From PBC:

The Latest Smear Campaign Against Bitcoin

By Teeka Tiwari, editor, Palm Beach Confidential

Over the years, I’ve heard just about every argument there is against bitcoin (and cryptocurrencies in general):

“Bitcoin is for criminals.”

“Bitcoin is for buying drugs.”

“Bitcoin is for money launderers.”

“Bitcoin is for pornographers.”

The latest knock against bitcoin comes from a June 17 report by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

Based in Basel, Switzerland, the BIS is owned by 60 of the world’s central banks, including the U.S. Federal Reserve. The BIS acts as a “central bank” for central banks.

According to the BIS, bitcoin’s energy consumption “will break the internet.” The general thrust of the argument is that bitcoin’s energy consumption is reckless and unsustainable.

Here’s a snippet from the report:

To process the number of digital retail transactions currently handled by selected national retail payment systems, even under optimistic assumptions, the size of the ledger [bitcoin’s blockchain] would swell well beyond the storage capacity of a typical smartphone in a matter of days, beyond that of a typical personal computer in a matter of weeks and beyond that of servers in a matter of months.

The BIS leveled many more charges against bitcoin in its 24-page diatribe.

It said bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are too unstable and are subject to too much manipulation and fraud to ever serve as bona fide mediums of exchange in the global economy.

Today, I want to focus on the charge that bitcoin consumes too much energy. (I addressed the other charges in a previous interview.)

Before I do that, you need to ask yourself a question: Why does the BIS even care about bitcoin’s energy consumption?

Is it up in arms about the energy used by the gold mining industry? According to a recent Forbes article, gold miners use five times more energy than bitcoin does.

What about the energy used in the banking system?

According to the same Forbes article, the three million ATMs deployed worldwide use the same amount of energy as the bitcoin network.

But that’s only part of the banking system energy use story.

What about the resources needed to maintain the world’s one million bank branches? What about the resources used by the 60 million people hired by the global banking system?

According to a recent article on the tech blog Hacker Noon, when you account for the energy costs of the global banking infrastructure, the banking business uses three times more energy than the bitcoin network.

So what’s really going on here? Did the hard-nosed moneymen of the BIS suddenly turn into bleeding-heart environmentalists?

Ask yourself, why should the BIS care about cryptocurrencies?

At a shade under $300 billion, the crypto market is tiny. It’s a pimple on the backside of the $280 trillion global financial system.

The BIS getting angry with bitcoin is the like the NBA issuing a polemic against a third-grade basketball league. Why would the NBA care?

The BIS cares because it knows that—unlike our imaginary third-grade basketball league—the crypto market presents a massive competitive threat.

Imagine a world where you can move money between accounts in minutes instead of days. Imagine a world where bank fees are pennies instead of dollars. Imagine a world where loans originate on a peer-to-peer basis with no bank involvement?

In this future, the role of traditional banks will be greatly diminished. No wonder the BIS is coming out swinging. It’s fighting for its life.

The kicking and screaming of entrenched players like the BIS is nothing new.

Seeing the threat from the automobile, I’m sure horse-and-buggy manufacturers heavily criticized early cars… calling them slow, expensive, and a danger to the public.

In fact, in 1903, the president of Michigan Savings Bank reportedly advised people to not invest in Ford Motor Company: “The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty—a fad.”

Faced with betting on the BIS or betting on bitcoin, I’ll take bitcoin over the BIS any day of the week.

Let the Game Come to You!

[scooterscot]

UK government takes an interest in BABB

BABB founder and CEO Rushd and MD Leonard gave a presentation to take John through our plans and update him on our progress so far. It was a very positive meeting in which we discussed the future of financial services in the UK and highlighted the need to create a supportive regulatory environment for blockchain-based innovations in banking.

John is hugely well-informed about blockchain technology and holds a favourable view of the the possibilities it holds for applications in fintech. We found his positivity very encouraging; the more knowledgeable technology advocates we have in positions of power and influence the better (as far as we’re concerned).

At BABB, we’re keen to work with policy makers and regulators to ensure the UK stays ahead of the game in its approach to financial technology. London has always been a fintech hub and we’re invested in seeing it stay that way. Building strong relationships with key figures in Government and the rest of the industry is an important part of this aim.

source: https://medium.com/babb/uk-governmen...b-3a728aefa94b

[SunnyInHades]

BABB

Getting a banking licence is key for these lads.

Any 'Tom Dick or Harry' (Solidity developer who knows what he/she's doin') can create an unlicensed, unregulated Ethereum mainnet decentralized smart contract 'bank' in minutes.. ere's one (taken from https://programtheblockchain.com/pos...king-contract/):

pragma solidity ^0.4.19;

contract CUKBank {

mapping(address => uint256) public balanceOf; // balances, indexed by addresses

function deposit(uint256 amount) public payable {
require(msg.value == amount);
balanceOf[msg.sender] += amount; // adjust the account's balance
}

function withdraw(uint256 amount) public {
require(amount <= balanceOf[msg.sender]);
balanceOf[msg.sender] -= amount;
msg.sender.transfer(amount);
}
}

[Hobosapien]

From PBC:

The BIS report Cryptocurrencies: looking beyond the hype, a nice short impartial read.

[TheGreenBastard]

When's the new lift off month?

[SunnyInHades]

Doug Polk just lost $10000 cash. Ouch.
A few weeks ago 'on a hunch, guessing, following a feeling in his waters' Polk, a YouTuber/poker gambler/crypto commentator publicly bet BTC wouldn't drop < $6000 by end of 2019 - he's now justifiably getting a mild social media roasting.

[scooterscot]

Hold strong folks - it was never going to be easy. The volatility is to be expected as the market transitions from a retail to a institutional assets class.

Remember to pay no attention to the $ value of BTC at this time. Accumulation is all we're interested in. The Satoshi value is what we're chasing.

[scooterscot]

Free money for searching.

https://www.presearch.io/#beta

This seems like a very interesting project. Surely this is what blockchain is all about. Instead of Google indexing searches the index is decentralised, as is the computing power for crawling the web. The general ethos seems to be that one company, Google, should not control so much information / the way people think.