Wednesday, November 14, 2018

Let There Be Light ⚡️

November 14, 2018

Lightning Network Expands Past 4,000 Nodes

According to data monitoring resource 1ML, the lightning network now has over 4,000 nodes. Up over 33% from early August, the figure shows the network's adoption is accelerating.

⚡️ What is the lightning network? The lightning network was developed to sit on top of the Bitcoin blockchain as a second layer. Specifically, it was made to help Bitcoin scale by making micropayments possible once again.

Alongside the number of nodes, network capacity - a number commonly associated with overall growth - has now grown to over 122 BTC ($770,000).

New improvements

While the lightning network has shown positive growth metrics recently, it is still in its infancy and nowhere near its end goal.

On Monday, infrastructure lead Alex Bosworth took to the stage in Melbourne, Australia to introduce over 30 different changes coming to the scaling solution including multi-path payments, dual-funded channels, and splicing.

In short, the changes will help improve the lightning network structure and further its ability to scale underlying blockchains like Bitcoin.

Down the road

Looking at the future, if the lightning network accomplishes what it has set out to do, a handful of new use cases could be possible.

Specifically, because of micropayments, employees could get paid by the minute instead of bi-weekly paychecks. In addition, the technology would allow websites to give more users ad-free experiences by charging per article view rather than a monthly subscription.

In September, Litecoin creator Charlie Lee even went so far as to tweet that in the future, network routers will already come equipped with lightning network technology. This would allow owners to not only control their data and payments in one place but also earn money from lightning network transaction fees.

Still, despite the exciting growth and developments happening, the project is still in the experimental phase before it will be ready for mass adoption.

LAW

Lawsuit Against Ripple Moved to Federal Court

Recap of Ripple's legal battle

Ripple has been fighting a class action lawsuit in which the plaintiffs are claiming that XRP is a security. The plaintiffs are suing the company for damages because they did not register with the SEC. Their case is that XRP is a security because it is controlled by the company Ripple.

Ripple's lawyers summarize the plaintiffs' case:

"Plaintiffs do not allege that they lacked information about the nature of these transactions. Nevertheless, Plaintiffs claim that they were somehow injured because the Defendants were allegedly required to register XRP as a 'security' with the Securities & Exchange Commission ('SEC') but failed to do so."

Ripple maintains the stance that its cryptocurrency, XRP, is not a security, rather it is a currency. The company argues that XRP is totally out of its influence and is decentralized. It believes that just like Bitcoin, XRP is not a security.

Moving up the courts

The case against Ripple is now being moved from a state court to a federal court. There are a few reasons that the case is being moved. One reason is that there are multiple plaintiffs from different states. Another is that the total lawsuit is in excess of $5 million.

Ripple has more of a motive to shift the case to a federal court. Generally, in the legal system, state judges are more sympathetic to the plaintiff(s).

However, the plaintiffs have the opportunity to try and move the case back to the state level. The plaintiffs have already gone ahead and submitted a filing, requesting for the case to be moved back to a state level court.

TECH

IBM Wants to Put Scientific Research on a Blockchain

A look into the patent filing

IBM has been awarded a patent that envisions a sort of open-sourced scientific research process that would be recorded on a blockchain. The company originally filed for the patent at the end of last year.

The patent file includes a description of the idea:

"a blockchain system that integrates the trustworthiness of the blockchain concept with open scientific research by generating a blockchain of the experiments formed, data collected, analyses performed, and results achieved are provided herein."

Put simply, IBM is looking to bring transparency and authenticity to the science community with the new technology.

IBM loves blockchain

IBM has a long history with blockchain and cryptocurrencies, developing solutions for many use cases that are available to businesses.

The computer giant has a close relationship with Stellar, in July, IBM backed a stablecoin on Stellar's platform called Stronghold. Earlier this year, IBM teamed up with Veridium Labs to tokenize carbon credits, also using Stellar's platform.

CHINA

Chinese Cryptocurrency Mining Firms Shut Down for 'Tax Inspection'

Power off

According to a local report from Cong News, mining facilities in the Chinese provinces of Xinjiang and Guizhou had their power cut on November 5th.

Allegedly, the shutdowns occurred because the government was performing "very-strict" tax inspections and verifying ownership.

The report claimed the mining farms lost over $143,700 per day during the period. However, it is still unclear whether or not the power has been restored.

Bitmain unharmed?

While other mining farms have been affected, no word has been said about China's largest Bitcoin mining company Bitmain being affected.

The shutdown comes just before Bitcoin Cash's scheduled hard fork in which Bitmain called to deploy over 90,000 S9 Antminer rigs to the Xinjiang province to help provide hash power for the Bitcoin ABC proposal.

BITS

But wait, there's more...

The Bank of America (BoA) has won a patent for a system for enterprises to store customers' crypto deposits.
Tokyo police have arrested eight men that are suspected of collecting a total amount of $68.4 million in cash and cryptocurrency using a pyramid scheme.
Google's G Suite Twitter account was hacked and sent out "10,000 Bitcoin Giveaway" tweets to over 800,000 followers.

MEME