The price of ether, the native token of the ethereum platform, is bucking the bearish trend seen in top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.
As per data source OnChainFX, ether (ETH) has appreciated by 7.44 percent in the last 24 hours. Meanwhile, bitcoin, litecoin, stellar lumens and dash are down at least 3 percent each. Tron is down 11 percent, while Ripple (XRP) has depreciated by 8.9 percent on the day. As of writing, ETH is trading at $1,232.34 levels.
However, as CoinDesk reported today, ethereum’s recent price rises are masking technical problems related to some blockchain operations, issues that could hinder growth if not resolved.
Also, as per CoinMarketCap, trading volumes almost doubled to $8.45 billion yesterday from the Jan. 4 volume of $4.6 billion. The 24-hour trading volume stands at $7.66 billion. A high volume rally indicates strong hands are at play.
Despite being well bid, ETH is still down 4.25 percent from a record $1,267 set yesterday. And while there is no reason to panic, the technical chart does show early signs of bull market exhaustion.
Spinning top candle: Yesterday’s spinning top candle shows indecision in the marketplace or bull market exhaustion.
5-day and 10-day moving averages (MA) continue to slope upwards in favor of the bulls.
The relative strength index (RSI) shows overbought conditions.
View
A close (as per UTC) below $1,118.30 (Sunday’s high) would confirm spinning top bearish reversal and could yield a short-term pullback to sub-$1,000 levels.
The upward sloping 10-day MA indicates dips could be short-lived.
If prices see a sustained move above the previous day’s high of $1,228, the big level to watch out for is $1,664 (261.8 percent Fibonacci extension).
The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is an independent media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. Interested in offering your expertise or insights to our reporting? Contact us at news@coindesk.com.
Disclaimer: This article should not be taken as, and is not intended to provide, investment advice. Please conduct your own thorough research before investing in any cryptocurrency.
Estudio revela que los nodos de Ethereum son más descentralizados que los de Bitcoin
Un nuevo estudio comparativo sobre los niveles de descentralización dentro de la red Bitcoin y la red Ethereum ha revelado que la distribución completa de nodos para Ethereum está mucho más descentralizada.
El equipo de investigadores Cornell, que incluye a Adem Efe Gencer, Soumya Basu, Ittay Eyal, Robbert Van Renesse y Emin Gün Sirer, ha encontrado que la red Ethereum tiene una variación más justa, lo que brinda mayores facilidades para los pequeños mineros, algo que por consiguiente, incentiva a un mayor nivel de descentralización minera.
Al estudiar la distribución de los nodos a través del ping de latencia, se midió cuánto tardaría un nodo en responder a un “comando”. En este sentido, el estudio reveló:
Solo el 13% de las latencias de Ethereum tienen menos de 100 ms, mientras que Bitcoin tiene un sorprendente 46%. Además, la latencia estimada de igual a igual entre los nodos de Ethereum es 26,7%, más alta que Bitcoin en promedio.
Esta proximidad entre los nodos a nivel de ubicación, junto con la observación de que Bitcoin tiene muchos nodos abastecidos con 100 Mbps de ancho de banda, parece indicar que una gran cantidad de nodos de Bitcoin se ejecutan en centros de datos. Con respecto de este tema, la investigación revela:
El 56% de los nodos de Bitcoin y el 28% de los nodos de Ethereum pertenecen a un sistema autónomo que brinda servicios de hosting dedicados.
Más de la mitad de los nodos de Bitcoin se ejecutan en los centros de datos de acuerdo con el estudio, mientras que solo alrededor de una cuarta parte de los nodos de Ethereum se encuentran en estos centros. Esto sucede mientras que Ethereum procesa 4 veces el número de transacciones de Bitcoin a magnitudes más bajas con mucha menos congestión. El estudio dice:
Los nodos de Ethereum no se acumulan en una sola región geográfica, sino que están distribuidos de manera más uniforme en todo el mundo (…) Los nodos de Ethereum están geográficamente más separados que los de Bitcoin.
Si bien el estudio dice que ninguno de los dos es descentralizado debido a un pequeño número de grupos mineros, los datos sugieren que Ethereum es más justo para los mineros más pequeños, ya que tiene una varianza más predecible que permite a los pequeños mineros tener un flujo de ingresos más constante.
Esta alta varianza es un resultado directo de una cantidad significativamente menor de bloques generados en Bitcoin. Dado que Ethereum tiene una frecuencia de bloqueo más alta que Bitcoin, los mineros más pequeños tienen una rentabilidad más predecible que los mineros más grandes. Esto hace que Ethereum sea más predecible para los mineros más pequeños debido a una menor varianza en las recompensas por bloques.
Sin embargo, los autores dicen que la minería de Ethereum podría ser más eficiente y permitir una mayor capacidad mediante la incorporación de una red de retransmisión, como Falcon o FIBER.
Pese a ello, la red pronto se alejará de la extracción de la prueba de trabajo con Casper en la última etapa de evaluación. Por lo tanto, será interesante ver qué mostrará un estudio comparativo sobre la descentralización una vez que Ethereum pase a su Prueba de Participación (Proof of Stake).
Original article and pictures take cdn.coincrispy.com site
Enterprise Ethereum Alliance Hires New Executive Director
Ron Resnick has been appointed as the first executive director for the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA). His previous post was at the helm of AirFuel Alliance as chairman and president.
Enterprise Ambitions
One of the EEA’s goals is to develop Ethereum-based enterprise and technological solutions. Around 200 other companies will join the group’s Supply Chain Working Group to generate proof of concepts technology. More than 50 companies have joined the EEA in the last three months.
With the speedy acquisition of new members within the EEA, Ron Resnick’s focus is on continued growth within the organization, nurturing and enabling technology development and also engaging members.
“My focus is to drive the further development of Ethereum-based technology best practices, open standards and open-source reference architectures to evolve Ethereum into an enterprise-grade technology,” said Resnick.
“EEA has the critical mass of companies – both established and startup – from every region of the world and 17 vendor-lead, industry-specific application layer working groups and committees to get the work done and increase the adoption of Ethereum technology in the enterprise.”
Rapidly Growing Organization
The confidence the EEA has in Ron Resnick stems from his experience in leading tech companies. Before working at AirFuel Alliance, he also led WiMAX Forum (an industry association for 4G mobile broadband) and Intel at executive positions.
His time at Wimax may be why the chairman of EEA Julio Faura remarked “4G wireless broadband changed the world. We believe Blockchain will have the same impact on society,” in the press conference to announce the new executive director.
Since February 2017, EEA has grown to a whopping 200 members including founder members Santander and JP Morgan along with other big corporations like Intel, Mastercard, and Microsoft. The bulk of the alliance members are Blockchain startups and investors in the currency.
Banding Together
Cryptocurrencies are relatively new to the tech space, and the quick adoption has sparked interest in the blockchain, the supporting framework. People have started seeing the potential of blockchain technology beyond finance in that it can safeguard transactions and thus a slew of different websites and forums have launched in recent months to provide up to date industry information.
This technology is helpful to multiple industries including banking, manufacturing, energy, government, pharmaceuticals, marketing, space exploration and many more. The move to band together and form the biggest blockchain open source organization is part of an attempt to keep the industries from potential pitfalls as the technology is further tested and improved.
Original article and pictures take btcmanager.com site
Resnick also served as the President and Chairman of the WiMAX Forum, working with Intel’s Broadband Wireless Business on the launch of one of the first 4G broadband modems.
Chairman of the EEA board Julio Faura stated today in a press release:
“4G wireless broadband changed the world. We believe Blockchains will have a similar impact on society. Ron’s task as our first Executive Director is to build-out the organization, engage with members and foster the continued development of technical content.”
The EEA, which was launched in February 2017, was established to bring privacy, scalability and security to the development of Ether and the whole Ethereum Blockchain.
Resnick, who will host an EEA event at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Jan. 23, said in the press release:
“My focus is to drive the further development of Ethereum-based technology best practices, open standards and open-source reference architectures to evolve Ethereum into an enterprise-grade technology.”
Since February, the alliance has grown to 200 members, making it the largest open-source Blockchain initiative. Its member list includes founding members JPMorgan and Santander, newer members like Mastercard, Intel and Microsoft, and a number of Ether investors and Blockchain startups.
Original article and pictures take www.btcethereum.com site
Details about Mining Rig Bundle - Ethereum, Monero, & more! (Frame, CPU, PSU, SSD) NO GPUs
eBay item number:
173091818639
Testimonial(s) on previous builds: - "Overall I would say that the whole process was really smooth. I've never had a seller communicate this much with me here on eBay so I greatly appreciate it."
Each of our rigs are built personally for you with brand new parts out of the box. We don't operate miners before selling them, but we do confirm they work before shipping them off (24 hours test). Features:
Personal Support - We understand how scary it can be investing in something you may not fully understand. We recommend doing personal research, but we also include personal support via eBay messages to help with any questions!
Easy Installation - All you have to do is install the drivers on your graphics card(s) and arrange them into there risers. Once done the machine should boot-up fine and will run the installed licensed Windows 10.
Personal Modifications - We offer personal modifications up to three times for every rig purchased, so if you decide you want to install different mining software or add a user interface we can do that as well.
Specifications:
1x Rig Frame (Wood or Aluminum)
1x H81 PRO Motherboard (6 GPUs limit)
1x Intel Celeron Processor
1x 120GB SSD
1x Vengeance 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 RAM (2x4)
1x HX850i PSU
6x Risers PCIe (16x-1x)
1x Windows 10 Home (+$25 PRO) (Licensed)
All parts can vary each build, but expect parts very similar to above.
Performance:
Power Consumption: 75 Watts (±25 Watts)
Required Parts: (We don't include these)
Monitor Display
HDMI not included
Keyboard
Mouse
Ethernet Cable
Router & Internet Access
Wattage Meter
FAQ
Where do these rigs come from?
We build all rigs with brand new parts, and personally assemble them on site. Each miner is different, but we always will include the same frame layout for stacking purposes.
Is mining profitable?
Well depends on what you're mining and how powerful your machine is, but in our instance we find our machine to be quite profitable compared to others. You can find personal profit estimation with websites such as CryptoCompare or Coinwarz both of these are Monero Profit Calculators.
Does this machine run 24/7?
Yes, and we've built these machines to run reliably for extended lengths.
How long does it take for you to respond?
We should respond to all messages regarding our rig miners within 24-48 hours at a maximum, but normally much faster than this.
How long does shipping take after payment?
We should build all machines within 7-10 business days of payment. Whenever the machine is completed you'll be notified and we will begin our 24 hour tests running the rig to ensure stability and work out any bugs. Once done we'll ship out the rig and send over tracking information.
All new, 6 GPU cryptocurrency mining rig using the AMD RX580 8GB graphics card.
Ethereum hash rate 174-180Mh/s. As of January 14th, Ethereum is over $1,300 - don’t be left out of the gold rush! This mining rig can be used to mine Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Decred, Siacoin, LBRY, and Pascal, and potentially many other coins.
We have three rigs available. Due to the nature of cryptocurrency mining, the rigs are sold as-is. We have been building custom computers for over twenty years! We use only new, top-shelf components. But with confidence!
Autostart for plug-and-play mining. Mining automatically restarts after power loss. Just give us your wallet address, and we will configure it for you.
We fully test our rigs prior to shipping (see below for our new-rig testing protocol).
We include the following software, pre-installed, on your new rig.
- Claymore Dual-Mining software. Configured to auto-start upon computer booting. - MSI Afterburner (for monitoring and overclocking) - AMD Radeon Settings (for monitoring and overclocking) - Polaris BIOS Editor (for altering GPU bios files) - ATIFlash (for applying modified BIOS files to your GPUs) - TightVNC (for remote access and assistance)
Your mining rig GPUs are already overclocked, but we include all the software tools so you can experiment and/or change the overclock settings.
Overclocking protocol: Overclocking GPUs is a delicate balance of performance vs cost vs wear-and-tear. It’s important to squeeze as much performance out of the GPU, while at the same time ensuring the GPUs will have a long life. The GPUs in your rig are overclocked to what we feel is the maximum, safe level. Our long-term testing has shown that overclock settings that are too aggressive can wear out the components faster (specifically the GPUs and PSUs), put too much stress on the hardware, and are not good for the long-term health of the system. A mining rig can be a significant investment – you don’t want to components to die in just a few months! We include all the overclocking software though, so you can experiment on your own!
Testing protocol: It’s important that your new rig perform optimally. We run the rig for 72 hours (3 days) to ensure the rig is stable, and that there are no bugs or hardware errors. We do NOT stress-test the machines.
Features:
- Fully assembled, plug and play out of the box - Windows 10 Professional (fully licensed) - Claymore Dual-Mining software. Configured to solo mine Ethereum, but we include instructions on how to configure dual-mining. - If you would like to use a different application to mine, just let us know and we can set it up for you! - Five additional fans attached to the case. Note: always make sure your rig is kept in a well-ventilated area. An additional box fan can be helpful in keeping your rig temps under control.
Components:
- Frame: All-aluminum open-air case for maximum airflow and cooling. - GPU: AMD Radeon GX580 8GB (x 6) - Motherboard: ASUS Prime Z270-a. Optimized for multiple GPUs. - Processor: Intel Celeron G3900 2.80Ghz - Ram: 8GB - Storage: 120GB SSD - Power Supply (PSU): Two 650 watt 80+ GOLD certified - Optional: Single 1200+ watt PSU. We recommend two PSUs, however. This is more cost effective, and in case a PSU dies, it’s much cheaper and easier to replace a single, cheaper unit.- OS: Windows 10 Professional (legal and licensed)- Six (6) PCI risers. We include two additional risers for free!
We include the original, unmodified GPU BIOS files (on a USB stick), in case you want to resell the cards later on. We can also ship the original boxes for the GPUs for an additional $50. Just let us know!
Customer and Technical Support
- Detailed instructions are included. - We provide technical and customer support during regular business hours: 9AM to 5PM PST. - We can pre-program your rig with your current wallet address. - Any custom requests? We do custom builds. Just contact us! *WE DO NOT OFFER REFUNDS, RETURNS, or REPLACEMENTS. Machine is sold as is.
Decentralized RPG Ethercraft launches on Ethereum January 16, 2018
Etherecraft, an RPG multiplayer game includes a gaming marketplace. It has launched on Ethereum according to an announcement by developers on January 14.
Decentralized RPG running on Ethereum
The game rolled out with giving out 60 unique items to players, many of them free of charge. These items are redeemable through the MetaMask client which is already live. In addition to the marketplace, it will include a video game where character players can arm for plunder and slaying of enemies. Another aspect of the game is crafting, where players can combine items according to a recipe to create complex items or break complex items into smaller materials.
If a character dies on a looting mission, they lose what they equipped their character with.
A user installs the MetaMask client on the browser, funds the account address with the gwei currency. Doing so, he heads to the official website to collect free items or purchase new ones for the game. Every purchase item is mining as a token and passes onto the owner’s wallet address. The items can be moving from one wallet address to another immediately. In other words, users can trade the items.
With the game market being a $100 billion industry, this is just one of the many blockchain-based games with their own tokens and complete marketplaces.
Original article and pictures take coinpedia.org site
Bitcoin nodes generally have higher bandwidth allocated to them than Ethereum. Compared to our previous study in 2016, we see that the median bandwidth for a Bitcoin node has increased by a factor of 1.7x. The typical Bitcoin node has much more bandwidth available to it than it did before.
Higher allocated bandwidth indicates that the maximum blocksize can be increased without impacting orphan rates, which in turn affect decentralization. If people were happy about the level of decentralization in 2016, they should be able to increase the block size by 1.7x to clear almost twice as many transactions per second while maintaining the same level of decentralization.
Some people argue that increasing the maximum block size would also prohibitively increase CPU and disk requirements. Yet these costs were trivial in the first place, especially compared to today's transaction fees, and have come down drastically. For instance, a 1TB disk cost $85 on average in 2016 and $70 in 2017 [2].
To date, we have seen no sound, quantitative arguments for any specific value of the maximum block size in Bitcoin. Arguments on this topic have consisted of vague, technical-sounding-yet-technically-unjustified argumentation, bereft of scientific justification. The dissonance between the technical-soundiness of the arguments and the actual technical facts on the ground is disconcerting for a technological endeavor [3].
Ethereum is Better Distributed Than Bitcoin
Compared to Ethereum, Bitcoin nodes tend to be more clustered together, both in terms of network latency as well as geographically. Put another way, there are more Ethereum nodes, and they are better spread out around the world. That indicates that the full node distribution for Ethereum is much more decentralized.
Part of the reason for this is that a much higher percentage of Bitcoin nodes reside in datacenters. Specifically, only 28% of Ethereum nodes can be positively identified to be in datacenters, while the same number for Bitcoin is 56%.
Nodes that reside in datacenters may indicate an increased level of corporatization. They may also be a symptom of nodes deployed to skew node counts for various different implementations (a.k.a. part of Sybil attacks to influence public opinion), a hypothesis that was floated extensively during the course of our study.
In contrast, Ethereum nodes tend to be located on a wider variety of autonomous systems.
Neither Are All That Decentralized
Both Bitcoin and Ethereum mining are very centralized, with the top four miners in Bitcoin and the top three miners in Ethereum controlling more than 50% of the hash rate.
The entire blockchain for both systems is determined by fewer than 20 mining entities [4]. While traditional Byzantine quorum systems operate in a different model than Bitcoin and Ethereum, a Byzantine quorum system with 20 nodes would be more decentralized than Bitcoin or Ethereum with significantly fewer resource costs. Of course, the design of a quorum protocol that provides open participation, while fairly selecting 20 nodes to sequence transactions, is non-trivial.
Thus, we see that more research is needed in this area to develop permissionless consensus protocols that are also energy efficient.
Ethereum Wastes Mining Effort That Can Be Put To Better Use
Ethereum has a much higher uncle rate than Bitcoin's pruned block rate. This is by design, as Ethereum operates its network closer to its physical limits and achieves higher throughput. As a result, however, less of Ethereum's hash power goes towards sequencing transactions than Bitcoin's. Put another way, some hash power is wasted on uncles, which do not help carry out directly useful sequencing work on the chain.
This indicates that Ethereum would greatly benefit from a relay network, such as Falcon or FIBRE for Bitcoin. Relay networks ferry blocks quickly among miners and full nodes, and help reduce wasted effort by reducing uncle and orphan rates.
Ethereum Exhibits Better Variance in Fairness, Favoring Small Miners
Fairness is an important metric: it determines whether a small miner is at a greater disadvantage compared to a larger miner. If a system is perfectly fair, there would be fewer reasons for miners to pool their resources into larger, cooperating pools that operate in unison.
To measure fairness, we looked at the proportion of blocks that miners have on the main chain divided by the proportion of their blocks that did not help advance the blockchain, namely, pruned blocks and uncles. In an ideal system, this metric would be equal to 1.
The level of fairness in both systems is, roughly speaking, comparable. But there is a big difference in variance of fairness, with Bitcoin exhibiting high variance. That is to say, mining rewards are more unpredictable for smaller miners in Bitcoin. This is partly because the high block rate in Ethereum helps provide many more opportunities for the laws of large numbers to apply in Ethereum, while Bitcoin, with its infrequent blocks, can exhibit much more uncertainty from month to month.
More
The full details, of how we measured the data and what we found in more precise terms, are in our paper.
Our study examines solely the networks and the blockchain maintained by those networks. It does not examine development centralization. Balaji Srinivasan and Leland Lee have developed a metric, called the Nakamoto Coefficient, that attempts to capture centralization across different fields.
Historical price data is notoriously difficult to find, for some reason. The specific sources we used are PC Part Picker and Camel. Our personal experience was more drastic than the industry average, closer to a 2X drop in price over the same time frame.
Concomittantly, Bitcoin Core has adopted a narrative that it is a Store of Value, in effect making it explicit that the token is not a technological artifact meant to facilitate payments, but an investment vehicle where early adopters are compensated by late comers.
Of course, some of these entities are pools. And some people will claim that pools provide decentralization, because they are composed of multiple independent actors. This argument is incorrect for a few reasons: (1) we retrospectively examine the historical record, and at the time of that particular block's commitment to the blockchain, there was a de facto, undeniable agreement among the pool members to act in unison, now recorded on the blockchain, (2) perhaps the pool members would leave if the pool engaged in activities that damage the currency, but this has historically not happened, to the point where a pool exceeded 51% of the hash power, (3) even if pool members were motivated to leave their pool in the presence of unwanted behaviors (e.g. selective transaction censorship by the pool), their ability to do so depends on their ability to detect these behaviors, and most participants are not geared to detect them in the first place. In short, pools providing any level of decentralized decision making is more aspirational talk than a proven reality.
Original article and pictures take hackingdistributed.com site
Debitum Network Leverages Ethereum Blockchain to Deliver Game-changing Small Business Finance Solution
Debitum Network, a business financing blockchain startup, is quickly emerging as a robust small business finance solution that promises to eliminate the need for the highly over-regulated intermediaries. This project has just completed a successful crowdsale campaign, and has recently clinched the first place in both jury and audience in the prestigious d10e ICO Pitch Award.
Debitum Network continues its dream run towards achieving its mission towards building a decentralized, safe, and transparent ecosystem for micro, small, and medium business financing. An innovative funding platform based on the Ethereum blockchain, Debitum Network strives to free the SMEs around the world from the middlemen and provide them financing opportunities that have always been out of bounds to them.
Almost all small businesses around the world suffer from the common problem of limited or no access to credit. According to the World Bank, in 2017, approximately 70% of all micro and small to medium size businesses in emerging markets lacked access to credit. It’s argued by many experts that the highly constrained and strict regulations of the banks and financial institutions are intended to restrict the SMEs from receiving funds from international or individual investors. This lopsided business lending scenario has led to a current estimated credit gap of $2 trillion.
Debitum Network was created with the belief that the only way to overcome the inadequacies of the existing funding system is to build a hub that brings together the local players for resource sharing. Built as a hybrid platform, Debitum Network unites the borrowers with the lenders, risk assessors, document validators, insurers, etc. It is a secure and incorruptible infrastructure, as all actions are processed through the Ethereum Blockchain. Businesses can utilize this service in their locality and from day one because all transactions are run through fiat currencies.
The Debitum Network project is the brainchild of a highly proficient team of experts with a wealth of experience in alternative financing platforms. They have already developed a functional Minimum Viable Product (MVP) in which the full blockchain infrastructure runs on ETH, based on real financing requests from the SMEs.
“We believe that small companies must have fair opportunities to connect investors from any part of the world and then utilize their investments. We have experienced this need ourselves while developing successful IT and alternative finance businesses,” says Debitum Network Co-founder Martins Liberts. “We feel that now it’s time for us to share our experience and to help other companies grow. We are proudly creating an instrument which provides equal growth opportunities for different size businesses,”
All transactions on the Debitum Network will be fuelled by the Debitum (DEB) token. As the Debitum eco-system becomes more widespread, this token is expected to become a sustainable cryptocurrency with a growing value over time. In a recently concluded token crowdsale campaign, the project has successfully raised $1.2 million in the round A.
Debitum Network hit the headlines in October 2017, when they got the better of one hundred and twenty other participants to win the jury and audience awards in the highly rated ICO Pitch Competition at d10e Gibraltar. In the history of this leading international conference on decentralization, Debitum Network is the first project ever to clinch both these awards. The project has also received a 10/10 rating from Clif High, the renowned data mining expert and the creator of the Web Bot computer program.
Quarter 1: Expanding the Debitum Network team to prepare for global expansion
Quarter 2: Establishing Debitum Network in the first target country
Quarter 3: Testing and auditing Debitum Network 1.0 before public launch
Quarter 4: Develop the Debitum Network ecosystem version 1.0 with manual on-boarding of asset generators, investors and additional service providers
About Debitum Network: Debitum Network is a decentralized, safe, and transparent financing ecosystem dedicated to creating easy financing opportunities for the SMEs by eliminating the intermediaries from the system. It has been designed to unite the borrowers with those who help them apply, such as the investors (lenders), risk assessors, document validators, insurers, etc. All actions are processed through the Ethereum Blockchain, making Debitum Network a secure and incorruptible infrastructure.
This is a sponsored press release and does not necessarily reflect the opinions or views held by any employees of The Merkle. This is not investment, trading, or gambling advice. Always conduct your own independent research.
Dallas Mavericks Will Soon Accept Bitcoin and Ethereum for NBA Tickets
Owner of the Dallas Mavericks Team, Mark Cuban, has announced the team’s adoption of Ethereum and bitcoin as payment methods for NBA tickets next season.
Dallas and Sacramento
The news first came in the form of a tweet on January 16, 2018, when a fan asked whether the ability to use cryptocurrency for ticket purchases was coming soon.
Later, Cuban cemented this statement in an email to Fortune, stating that the Mavericks would be accepting bitcoin, Ethereum and digital tokens “from companies we have business relationships with.”
The Dallas Mavericks are not the only NBA team to have shown interest in the idea of cryptocurrency payments. In January 2014, the Sacramento Kings became the first sports team to introduce bitcoin-based payments through BitPay.
The total number of teams using digital currency based payment channels are obviously limited for now, but that may stand to change with the market’s growing popularity.
Catering to Vendors
That said, the cryptocurrency market is currently facing turbulent times with widespread issues of high transaction fees, long confirmation times and extreme volatility plaguing almost every major coin. Merchants such as Steam have, in fact, been moving away from supporting cryptocurrency-based payments.
At the time of writing this article, the fees for a single bitcoin transaction ranges between $15 and $20. Transaction fees typically depend on a whole range of factors including mempool congestion and how quickly the operation needs to be settled. However, only a month ago, in December 2017, that figure was closer to $35.
In effect, this means that every single transaction, even those involving negligible amounts of bitcoin, is subject to an exaggerated fee that could be as high as 100 percent of the sum itself.
For retailers such as Steam and ticket vendors belonging to sports teams such as the Dallas Mavericks, these high fees quickly become untenable since transactions on such platforms do not usually exceed a hundred dollars at a time.
In a blog post published by Steam in January 2017, the company stated that when it first began accepting bitcoin payments several years ago, the fees for each transaction was no more than 20 cents.
That, in addition to the increased market volatility over the past year, motivated the video game platform to move away from cryptocurrency-based payments. The blog post did also state that the company would evaluate the situation at a later date and possibly choose to re-enable the payment method if the situation improves.
Merchant Adoption
Even though news of bitcoin adoption by merchants is not met with as much enthusiasm as when the cryptocurrency first gained critical mass, sports teams supporting them is a step towards mass recognition for the ecosystem.
Mark Cuban’s announcement comes at a worrying time for the digital currency ecosystem though. The rising momentum of the market in 2017 has been mostly absent after the New Year with all significant cryptocurrencies declining significantly.
While corrections of 30 percent are regularly observed, bitcoin has currently lost close to half its value since peaking at around $20,000 in December 2017. The crash, so far, has been largely attributed to Asian markets attempting to regulate and crackdown on cryptocurrencies.
Original article and pictures take btcmanager.com site
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Original article and pictures take cryptocurrencytshirt.com site
Cryptocurrency Trading Bitcoin Litecoin Ethereum on South Park Gif Cryptocurrency Trading Bitcoin Litecoin Ethereum on South Park Gif Cryptocurrency Animated Gifs Fomo Bitcoin Gif Cryptocurrency Animated Gifs Original article and pictures take viralchop.com site
Cryptocurrency online investments. Learn, Discuss, Profit. usi-tech.info bitconnect.co Bitcoin Fees: The Basics and What You Need To Know
Cryptocurrencies brought several new concepts and ways to earn money and to raise capital. One of these methods is one we know today as Initial Coin Offerings. That is a concept that is very similar to Initial Public Offerings. In an ICO, a newly forming company or project in the field of cryptocurrencies offer their …
Bitcoin is a great concept, we know that. It brings many new technologies and opportunities to the table as well as the promise to revolutionize the economy we know today. It has taken the world by surprised and established itself as a serious investment option for both regular speculators and big names in the financial …
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Bitcoin became famous in a significant part due to its privacy and the anonymity it offered to users. However, then we have Ross Ulbricht, the creator and chief administrator of Silk Road, the most extensive online drug dealing website that made millions of dollars’ worth in Bitcoin until FBI agents traced his transactions from Silk …
With a 200 billion dollar market cap, Bitcoin is becoming a monster that can no longer be ignored by anyone, even less by governments and central banks. That is because these are $200 billion that’s no longer in bank accounts under central control and are, instead, owned only by people tired of centralization in the …
Bitcoin trading is a very profitable choice for anyone willing to make significant profits and who possess a reasonable knowledge level on basic and advanced trading concepts and with the ability to understand trends and social swings in said trends. With a market capitalization of billions of dollars, Bitcoin can be an excellent (but risky) …
The celebrity kingpins of bitcoin
Every day, more and more institutions are joining to investigate the uses of Bitcoin’s technology to find more ways to use their benefits to upgrade the structure and functioning of modern society. But not only the technological environment talks about Bitcoin’s advantages and its Blockchain technology, celebrities, and famous people have manifested their affinity to …
Coins to invest
Global commerce is rushing towards the digital world. For ten years, digital transactions will have reached 30% of the total. The traditional financial system is attentive and working for when these types of operations are perfectly regulated. Today, no bank can operate digital currencies; such as Bitcoin, Ethereum or any other, but there is no …
That is one of the most debated topics, not only this year but ever since the advent of Bitcoin. It is no mystery that Bitcoin, at its core, is an anarchic concept. The fact that is decentralised, unregulated, and where every owner has the total ownership (and responsibility) over his assets is substantial evidence of …
Some people advise against the need to understand Bitcoin itself to trade and invest in it. Usually, we hear that regular concepts can and are applied to cryptocurrency trading. However, what they don’t tell you is that the cryptocurrency market and its exchanges can be confusing in their own right. Being a reasonably anarchic environment, …
Security has always been a concern about Bitcoin as well as one of its primary objectives. The whole point of cryptocurrencies is to make possible to trade without needing to trust anyone, with a system developed primarily for that purpose. However, it is essential to keep in mind the fact that Bitcoin is still a …
With the massive impact blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies have had on the real world, be it on the economic or technological front, it would be naïve or ignorant for a government or a well-established bank not to consider integrating these concepts to their portfolios of assets and marketing strategies. This year Bitcoin and altcoins have …
The world was shocked this year, specifically about a month ago, when China announced it was forbidding Initial Coin Offerings. Furthermore, it forced companies that had participated ICOs to refund every investor, causing massive losses to these entities. This action took everyone by surprise since it happened just when Bitcoin was at its peak value …
It’s a very common query: how safe is bitcoin? How can I be so sure about it? Who gives me guarantees of bitcoin security? Bitcoin, being a decentralised currency, has the virtue of being able to spread in all the networks using denominated nodes. The nodes are like checkpoints by which the transactions run; they …
Crowdfunding has been part of the business world for a while now. But, with the existence of the internet, crowdfunding opportunities have skyrocketed thanks to the creation of platforms like Kickstarter, GoFundMe, Patreon, and several others. And now, we can safely say that this concept has extended to cryptocurrencies by introducing Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) …
Initial Coin Offerings, the Initial Public Offerings of today. ICOs are very similar to IPOs, both work as fundraising methods that consist of an initial sale of an active. The difference falls in what exactly is that active: IPOs let you buy a share of ownership of the starting company while ICOs let you purchase …
Given Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies’ popularity and high pricing due to the demand, the fact that these concepts are so popular today isn’t astounding. In fact, since its invention in 2009, the now-famous Bitcoin is a staple in conversations about economic trends and its very own future. More cryptocurrencies are entering the market every year …
A simple, legal, almost anonymous, secure, reliable, eminently digital and non-conventional banking transfer system. This is the promise of Bitcoin and its exchange through virtual wallets. It constitutes an investment opportunity for many and an alternative to the traditional banking system for others. However, few still understand today how it works. Mostly, what are Bitcoin …
Losing all your money is one of the risks that involves using virtual currencies like Bitcoin. Criminal activities, thefts or unsecured transactions are some of the dangers that may be included in the use of virtual currencies such Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, etc. These types of coins function as digital currencies that lack regulation or …
What is a Bitcoin wallet? Bitcoin wallets can be defined as an online Bitcoin account that can be used to make payments around the world anonymously and free of charge. It is a service that allows you to pay with Bitcoins directly and safely either from your computer or mobile phone. So, a Bitcoin wallet …
Bitcoin has always been a controversial topic. From its beginnings as a deep web-based currency (more commonly used by criminals on black markets) to for money laundering (according to the first mention of the currency on deep web-oriented forums). To the current times where states don’t know what to actually to about them, and economists …
Original article and pictures take www.moarcoins.com site
