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ETH CRITIC: NChain chief scientist Craig Wright has criticized ethereum to a top U.S. regulator, while again claiming to be bitcoin’s pseudonymous inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto.
In a response to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) request for input on crypto asset mechanics and markets, the Australian entrepreneur briefly set out his case that he is Nakamoto on Friday, saying:
“My name is Dr. Craig Wright and under the pseudonym of Satoshi Nakamoto I completed a project I started in 1997 that was filed with the Australian government in part under an AusIndustry project registered with the Dept. of Innovation as BlackNet.”
Wright first put forward the case that he was bitcoin’s creator in late December 2015, offering up documentation to back up the claim. Initial support from some quarters soon gave way to skepticism, however.
In his reply to the CFTC, Wright went on to make a strident critique of the technology and governance of blockchain and smart contract platform ethereum.
“Ethereum is a poorly designed copy of bitcoin designed with the purpose of completing the promise of smart contracts and scripting that were delivered within bitcoin but which were hobbled by the core developers of bitcoin who sought to enable anonymous transactions to exist within the system,” he said.
Wright’s response follows a request for input from the CFTC in December, in which the agency is seeking public feedback on different questions about ethereum, ranging from its technology to how it’s used.
Wright further said that the ethereum “is effectively only being used to raise capital using illegal bucket shops that are designed in such a way that they can deceive nontechnical parties.”
He concluded by saying he was “willing to testify under oath” as to his claims. Full Story
ENERGY BOOST: Bitmain Technologies has announced a new 7-nanometer bitcoin mining processor that it says offers new levels of energy efficiency.
The new ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit), called the BM1397, is said to provide improvements in performance, chip size and energy efficiency for mining proof-of-work cryptocurrencies based on the SHA256 algorithm, such as bitcoin (BTC) and bitcoin cash (BCH).
Made using a 7nm FinFET process from Bitmain chip supplier Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the BM1397 will gobble up less electricity than previous Bitmain offerings, offering an energy consumption to computing ratio “as low as 30J/TH,” according to an announcement Monday.
“This is a 28.6 percent improvement in power efficiency in comparison with Bitmain’s previous 7nm chip, the BM1391. To achieve this, Bitmain’s engineering team has thoroughly customized the chip design to optimize its architecture, circuit and economics,” Bitmain said.
The new ASIC will feature in new Antminer mining devices – the S17 and T17 – that Bitmain said it will detail at a later date. Full Story
STEPPING BACK: Ethereum core developer Afri Schoedon is withdrawing from social media due to an onslaught of online criticism.
Tweeting Sunday that he will “no longer respond on Gitter, Skype, Discord, Slack, Wire, Twitter and Reddit,” Schoedon said that for the foreseeable future he would no longer answer contribution requests or general technical questions directly from the public.
Having contributed to the ethereum codebase since September 2017, the comments have inspired responses from other developers who are outraged over the actions that led to his decision.
“I’m so angry and disappointed in the Ethereum community. You ran out one of our best contributors for the dumbest reasons. More people should have spoken up in support and there needs to be less vitriol,” stated community relations manager for the Ethereum Foundation Hudson Jameson on Twitter.
The comments follow Schoedon’s remarks Thursday in which he compared ethereum scaling technology Serenity and blockchain interoperability protocol Polkadot.
He stated on Twitter that “Polkadot delivers what Serenity ought to be," asking his followers to change his mind.
Taken by some as a targeted attack against ethereum that undermines the blockchain platform’s value, Schoedon was called out on Twitter and Reddit for what some perceived as a “conflict of interest.”
All tweets by Schoedon since June 2017 have now been deleted, save for the two he posted Sunday explaining his future absence from most public forums. Full Story |
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 CoinDesk Research surfaces the key data, trends and events with its State of Blockchains reports. We will examine individual aspects of cryptocurrencies and fundamental metrics going forward in these reports. We observed the state of Bitcoin (BTC) fees recently. You can check out the full article here, but here's a snapshot: Bitcoin sits below $4,000 and the demand is returning to parity with that of Q4 in 2017. Astonishingly, fees have remained low. This begs the question of how we could have the same increased demand levels but not the commensurate increase in fees. The answer is Segwit Adoption. Segwit is a software upgrade that allows transaction data to be minimized so a user can fit more transactions in a given block. Only 10 percent of transactions were using Segwit during the fee crisis of Q4 2017, while more than 35 percent are now using it. Jimmy Song, blockchain programmer, simplifies it as “Segwit transactions [result] in a block size of around 2MB”. Thus fees and confirmation times were reduced through the solution of an effective block size increase. For an in-depth view of crypto data, you can also check out the CoinDesk Crypto-Economic Explorer here. |
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| LOOKING NORTH: Bitcoin jumped to one-month highs above $3,700 earlier today, although the outlook on the daily chart remains neutral with the cryptocurrency still trapped in a symmetrical triangle. That said, the high-volume move to $3,700 has confirmed an inverse head-and-shoulders breakout on the 4-hour chart, so BTC looks likely to beat triangle resistance at $3,760 this week and extend gains toward $4,000 in the near-term. Full Story |
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BEST OF THE BEST
FINANCIAL POST: The now-deceased CEO of the QuadrigaCX crypto exchange, Gerald Cotten, once said he stored customers’ bitcoin passwords on paper, according to the Financial Post. According to the article, Cotten was interviewed on a bitcoin primer episode of a podcast back in 2014 when he warned of the dangers of losing the private keys to bitcoin holdings. “It’s like burning cash in a way,” Cotten said. “Even the U.S. government ... could not retrieve those coins if you’ve lost the private key.” The exchange, he continued, is “obviously holding a bunch of bitcoins that belong to other people. … So what we do is we actually store them offline in paper wallets in our bank’s vault in a safety deposit box, because that’s the best way to keep the coins secure.” While his methods may have changed over the intervening years, the 2014 comments have extra resonance since Cotten died in December, apparently the only person with access to $143 million in cryptocurrencies held by the exchange.
THE REST BLOOMBERG: It’s time for institutional investors to consider getting into cryptocurrencies, according to pensions and endowments consultant Cambridge Associates. Bloomberg reports that the firm’s analysts said in a research note that it’s “worthwhile for investors to begin exploring this area today with an eye toward the long term.’’ They added that while crypto investments carry “a high degree of risk, some may very well upend the digital world.’’ Along with a lack of regulation and a reputation for use in illicit activities, institutions have been loath to step into the world of crypto investments. The bear market over the last year hasn’t helped either, the piece says. Investors should first educate themselves about the crypto space and the different ways of investing if they plan to take the plunge, Cambridge added. ATOZMARKETS: Spain’s central bank considers bitcoin to be inefficient as a way to make payments, according to AtoZMarkets. In a new report cited in the piece, the Banco de España takes an overview of the number one cryptocurrency by market cap and examines its strengths and weaknesses. Among the latter, decentralization, it says, requires a "process of intensive validation ... which reduces system efficiency." By contrast, the institution argues, "centralized systems with an intermediary trusted by the parties allow the design of much simpler and cheaper systems." Instead of seeking simplicity, low cost, high speed and security in payments, bitcoin focuses on being a system free of censorship, says the report, which adds that bitcoin’s potential to throughput 600,000 transactions a day is “insignificant” compared to global retail payment systems. As the article points out, the report ignores so-called layer 2 solutions like the lightning network, which could potentially offer far greater throughput of transactions. |
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