Friday, February 8, 2019

Fundamentals are there 🤨

February 8, 2019

Bitcoin Transaction Volume are Back to January 2018 Levels...Why?

According to transactionfee.info, Bitcoin transaction numbers are climbing back to levels not seen since January 2018.

But that was back when the price of Bitcoin hovered above $10,000.

Now, having fallen close to 70%, what is the reason for the growing numbers?

Did you say fundamentals?

For some industry experts, the growing transaction volume is a product of a new changes.

Casa CTO Jameson Lopp wrote:

"Lower transaction demand, improved fee estimation algorithms, adoption of segregated witness (SegWit), and transaction batching have resulted in more efficient use of block space and less contention for this scarce resource."

In short, it means the network is "improving and growing."

Resilience is key

Further, Lopp noticed the number of nodes didn't fluctuate much despite operating in a bear market.

To him, that means the people running the nodes are "highly dedicated to Bitcoin and/or using them for economic purposes" - which makes it unlikely they will be turned off.

That gives faith to the network's security, even when it's taken such a large tumble.

More improvements, bigger changes

While the previous improvements to Bitcoin are showing strength in fundamentals, there are still many to go.

Perhaps most exciting is the growth of the lightning network - a solution to scalability and micropayments.

For now, though, the price is casting a dark shadow over the major improvements.

NEWS

Wells Fargo Systems Shut Down for Hours and the Crypto Community Loved It

Thursday night, Wells Fargo reported their banking systems were coming back online after outage that began late Wednesday night.

The outage apparently stemmed from a smoking server at one of their facilities rather than a cybersecurity issue.

The result? Millions of customers were unable to access their money.

Jumping on Wells

Following the outage, many in the crypto community reiterated the importance of decentralization.

Morgan Creek Digital founder Anthony Pompliano tweeted:

"Wells Fargo's system is shut down right now. Bitcoin never shuts down."

Eric Meltzer, a founding partner at Primitive, added:

"Wells Fargo is down but hey no real use case for Bitcoin."

Many more commented on the matter but the message is clear: Bitcoin can't be shut down.

NEWS

Winklevoss Twins Owe $45,000 in Legal Fees to Charlie Shrem

For months an ongoing battle between the Winklevoss brothers and Bitcoin advocate Charlie Shrem.

The court case began after suspicions grew that Shrem had taken his 5,000 Bitcoin investment from the Winklevoss twins and spent it on luxury personal items.

Now, though, the judge at the Southern District court house in New York has ruled in favor of Shrem for a second time.

More headache than help

So far, the case has been more headache than helpful for the Winklevoss twins.

Now, they have been ordered to give Shrem $45,000 in legal fees to cover the scuffle.

Still, however, the court case will resume in June on new, reduced, grounds.

BITS