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narrator-scio-story · 7 years ago

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What's Happening 8/22

I’ve been on a couple of awesome - if perhaps short - trips in the past week. A visit to California, and a separate trip to Nebraska. My mother tells me that I visited California once before, when I was a baby, because my parents went to a conference there. They got a rubbish babysitter while they were at the conference, who just sat in the hotel room and made me watch cartoons the whole time. I really hadn’t been a TV watcher prior to that, and my parents wanted me to be taken around outside in my pram but since the babysitter didn’t do that, I hated it. Well, this visit to California was at least better than that. Our main goal of the trip was to visit colleges - when we looked for tours at CalTech, Harvey Mudd and UC Berkeley earlier in the summer, UC Berkeley was already full so we just booked tours for the other two. I wasn’t especially excited about CalTech, I really just wanted to visit Berkeley and Harvey Mudd, but since we were going all the way there, it only made sense to visit at least two, and since Berkeley tours weren’t available, I visited Caltech and Harvey Mudd. The first day, though, we didn’t visit a college, we just visited JPL. It took a while to get the rental car - the plane landed at 2:45 and getting out of the airport, getting the shuttle to Budget, and waiting in line took us in total an entire hour. (We traveled with only bags small enough to fit under the seats in front of us so we didn’t have to pay the baggage fee. We flew Frontier, so yes, there would’ve been a baggage fee for overhead luggage.) Once we got the rental car we set Google maps up to take us to JPL. It was just about rush hour, and Google really didn’t want to put us on the highway. First it asked us to turn left at a no-left-turn intersection, then it tried to drive us through the airport and we were like no, so eventually we ended up getting all the way across LA on tiny side roads which involved way too many left turns. We were maybe an hour and a half later to JPL than we’d intended, and the visitor center has apparently closed but my mum’s friend who worked there had requested visitor access for us, and managed to give us a tour of the emptying campus. We saw the Mars yard, and some movies, and all sorts of models, but of course I was most excited about all the Earth observing satellites. I took photos of the diagrams of where the satellites were, I took selfies with posters about OCO-3, it was very exciting. Science Olympiad has done this to me I swear. Remote Sensing is literally the best event but that’s another discussion entirely. Another discussion I have a lot but won’t have here because it would get boring if I did it too many times. We stayed overnight with my mum’s friend and his family, who were very entertaining and had good discussions and told us all about their cats and chickens. Then the next morning it was time to visit the colleges - we’d signed up for the tours and so on at specific times - and despite Google Maps again giving somewhat odd instructions, we made it to CalTech on time. My tour guide was studying geochemistry, she said - she might have said she was the only one in her year? - but mostly during the tour it feels like I learnt about what was fun on campus. We heard a lot about their house system (similar to Hogwarts houses, they claimed), and their dinner rules and traditions, and the pranks, and the parties. It’s funny hearing the story of CalTech’s cannon from the perspectives of both MIT and Caltech, and Harvey Mudd too which I’ll get to later. I suppose CalTech is more fun than I’d imagined - for some reason in my head, it seemed very isolated in location, with people who all came out the same (aka not as the only geochemist they had). I understand the value of their core curriculum, I’m just worried that I might not find all of it interesting, and not end up working as hard as I should. Also, despite not being as physically isolated as I thought, the tour guides still told me that people don’t normally bike into town, it’s more public transport if not driving. And LA doesn’t seem to really have a center. I don’t know how happy I would be to live there. Plus, it sounded like the students were mentally inside their little bubble. Okay, Caltech’s a tech school rather than a liberal arts school, but the tour guide never said anything about politics or initiatives or really caring about issues in the world. I’m sure I could fit in as a techer and be happy there. But would I really become the type of person I hope to? Harvey Mudd, later that afternoon, left me much less on the fence. After a little bit of mess from my selecting the wrong town in California to drive to (we basically just got off the motorway too early, and we got back onto it having only lost a little time), we arrived from Caltech with enough time to grab something to eat before the information session. We actually got to the cafeteria just after it had closed, but the women working there nicely directed us toward the other cafe which was still open. We managed to get lost again on the way there, but another girl - I assumed she was a student - pointed us back where we should be. I actually saw her again through a glass door as all of us going to the information session were sent from the upstairs waiting room to the small auditorium downstairs. We smiled at each other so I think she recognized me. At that point, I was already like, I like this place, I’d be happy to come here. During the info session and tour, okay, I didn’t pick up the same dorm culture that Caltech has - part of the culture that makes me so much want to go to MIT - although the tour guide insisted they did have some. I didn’t feel like I asked as many questions, but I think that was because so many things I cared about were already addressed, rather than because I didn’t care as much. The tour guide also told us that they stole Caltech’s cannon first, that the MIT students had just copied them. And apparently some of their dorms about each other. It wouldn’t be boring, I’m sure, even if it’s not as big a thing? I guess? The reason I first heard about Harvey Mudd was that they have created a much better gender ratio in the computer science major than in most other places, and hearing about the core curriculum, I can really see how that would happen. Having special relativity as your first physics class - of course that would create an interest. Using programming in other math and science courses - obviously that would make people appreciate it better and understand its value. Plus, while I didn’t feel like Caltech’s campus was as small as I’d imagined it, at Harvey Mudd, with even fewer students, it felt like one UK-style college in a bigger university. All the Claremont colleges seemed so integrated together, it didn’t feel like you were going to run out of people to get to know it that all of your friends would be too similar to you for you to learn anything new. So I am still a bit on the fence about applying to Caltech, and unlike a lot of other colleges, there’s not some older South student I was amazing friends with to try to really understand what it’s like to be there. There were aspects of it that really made me happy though, so it’s tough to decide. I guess I’ll probably apply in the regular decision round if I do apply, so that does let me change my mind late in the game if I really need to. And applying of course doesn’t guarantee getting in or going. Harvey Mudd I wouldn’t have a role model either, but from just the little I know I feel like it’s a forward moving place which would push me in the right direction. I want to apply there. I don’t know if I’d go if it were a choice between Harvey Mudd and this college, or Harvey Mudd and that college. But it’s a place I want to try for. And then we got in the car and drove straight to the airport because apparently security lines are long at LAX. Our flight back actually ended up being delayed though. Oh well. And then the other trip! The eclipse! Yay! The original plan had been to wake up at like 5am and drive to Wyoming, inside the path of totality, to watch it. My dad has had the eclipse glasses for ages. But then somebody at work made this plan with him to go to Nebraska and camp for the night and then watch the eclipse there instead, and that’s what we ended up doing, 3 families. We camped in the Pawnee National Grasslands, managed by the National Forest Service (I don’t know why, there literally were no trees). It was technically still in Colorado, but just near the border with Nebraska, so we wouldn’t have as far to drive the day of the eclipse. What I don’t think anyone planned, but what made me super, super happy, was that we happened to be just across the road from loads and loads of wind turbines. It wasn’t a campsite or anything, just some grass and we did a fire pit because somebody forgot their grill and the website said no fire restrictions, but I swear it was the most beautiful place I’ve ever slept. We could watch the sun set brilliantly behind the wind turbines, there were a couple of hills to climb which gave you an amazing view across the plains, it very much avoided light pollution of the stars. And then the next morning around 8 we joined the long stream of traffic heading north, got stuck in the enormous lines at the first gas station in one of the towns there (we later saw that the town had a second gas station nobody at all was using but oh well), fought about whether it would’ve been a better idea to have gone with the original plan about Wyoming, tried to convert the eclipse start times from UTC to mountain time, and eventually made it to a spot on the side of the road - quite close to the center of totality for longitude - a few minutes before the partial eclipse started there. We watched with our glasses as the tiny wiggle in the edge of the sun grew to basically swallow it like a cookie (always less than 3 minutes at a time though, I read that instruction on the side of the glasses and everyone tried to follow it, while also questioning why, exactly, I had read something like that), and when there was just a sliver left and it seemed to be shrinking faster and faster - when the sky had gone dusk colored but with a rainbow, sunset-like thing all around the edge and we were wishing we’d stayed in long pants because it was suddenly a lot cooler - I ran further up the hill and everyone followed me and we put on our glasses again just to watch the last of it disappear. And then when we’d checked that it was really, truly gone, we took our glasses off and my dad set his 2 minute timer to tell us when to put our glasses back on. It was beautiful, you really could see the corona and it was huge and so much paler than any blurry photos on my phone make it seem like it was. We actually waited there on the side of the road until the very end of the partial eclipse, although we saw loads of cars driving back south from the moment totality had finished. We ate our lunch during the rest of the partial, the little girls in the group criticized my slowness and caution coming down the hill and made me do it again faster, we sat in our folding chairs in a row joking about this being like a very slow sporting event. The traffic was pretty bad when we finally left, and you knew it was all because of the eclipse because it was so, so much stronger going in the direction we were headed than the other direction. Even during rush hour, if it had been people coming home from work they should’ve been heading the other way, away from Denver. But overall it was a brilliant trip, there were some oil drilling things (which are depressing) at the beginning of the drive there but all the beautiful wind turbines in the middle made up for it. (I actually saw the oil things in California too, those ones didn’t have wind turbines to match them though.) So I’ve enjoyed my first visit to Nebraska and almost-first visit to California, and now it’s back to the normal day-to-day trips to the library to produce Science Olympiad tests because my laptop can’t connect to the apartment wifi!

#california #nebraska #college visit #eclipse #jpl #caltech #harvey mudd #camping #los angeles #wind turbines #oil drilling

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cryptowavesxyz · 5 years ago

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Crypto Carnage, Fears of $1,000 BTC, MakerDAO Crisis: Hodler’s Digest, Mar. 9–15

Coming every Sunday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link.

Top Stories This Week

Bitcoin price drops to $3,637, rebounds above $5,200 within minutes

Whenever there’s a big crash on the stock market, traders on Wall Street are often pictured with their heads in their hands — surrounded by a sea of screens with red numbers. This week, it was crypto’s turn. Bitcoin prices had been relatively stable in the high $7,000s at the start of the week… then Thursday happened. BTC dramatically fell by 17% in the space of an hour — taking it below $6,000 for the first time since May 2019. Hours later, BTC was under $5,000. But the sell-offs were far from over. Later that evening, BTC slumped to $3,637 only to rebound above $5,200 within minutes. The meltdown means that, at the time of writing, Bitcoin is down 33% compared to where it was last Sunday. Analysis from Keith Wareing suggests there are reasons to be optimistic: True hodlers are unfazed, newcomers can enter the market at lower prices, and catastrophic sell-offs are now much less likely. The carnage also means the number of people owning 1 BTC has hit a new record. More than $50 billion has been wiped off Bitcoin’s market cap over the past seven days. Uncertainty surrounding the ever-worsening coronavirus pandemic means we could end up waiting a while for a bounceback.

MakerDAO community to vote on upgrades, conduct debt auction

Of course, Bitcoin isn’t the only cryptocurrency that’s been having a bad week. Thursday also saw ETH prices take a beating — and this was especially problematic for the decentralized finance community. MakerDAO briefly explored the prospect of an emergency shutdown after the crash left millions of dollars in debt under-collateralized. Voting is now underway to determine how the lending protocol should tackle this crisis. Despite the “perfect storm,” many executives in the DeFi community remain confident in the ecosystem. Some believe that harsh lessons will be learned as a result of the crash, with InstaDApp CEO Sowmay Jain saying: “Such painful times remind us that we are extremely early in the space, and there’s still lots of room for improvement.”

Some Indian banks are still “arbitrarily” refusing to process crypto transactions

Earlier in March, a controversial ban that stopped banks from offering services to crypto-related firms was overturned by India’s Supreme Court. If you thought this would be the end of it, you were badly mistaken. This week, lawyers claimed that certain financial institutions are still arbitrarily denying to process crypto-related transactions. It seems these domestic banks are waiting for further confirmation from the Reserve Bank of India — which instigated the ban in the first place and is planning to appeal the ruling. It’s also possible that the country’s parliament will revisit a proposed law that would see anyone caught dealing in cryptocurrencies will face up to 10 years in prison. Sadly, it doesn’t seem like there is going to be a happy ending for India’s crypto community anytime soon.

Exclusive: A major French bank is blocking customers from using Coinbase

BNP Paribas is apparently blocking customers from sending funds to Coinbase, a major crypto exchange. The French banking giant’s restrictions seem to have come into force over the past week — and transfers to other crypto trading platforms appear to be taking place as usual. A source told Cointelegraph that Coinbase is considered an “illegal operation,” and the restrictions look like they were imposed with very little notice. Fraud, malware, scams and the anonymous coin Monero were among the factors that led to the decision.

Bitcoin miner stumbles upon $8 million stash from 2010, sells before crash

In a week of doom and gloom, it’s worth ending our news roundup on a high note. A former Bitcoin miner has stumbled upon an old wallet that contained 1,000 Bitcoins, which also included myriad forks. It’s believed that the BTC was mined a long time ago, and the wallet.dat file was recently found on a USB stick. The lucky miner, identified on Reddit as “whoamisoon,” had turned to Reddit on Tuesday for advice on how the coins could be moved onto an exchange — and later that day, 1,000 BTC appeared to be making their way to Coinbase. A post on Thursday suggested that whoamisoon managed to liquidate everything before prices crashed. Whoamisoon wrote: “Thank you all for all the suggestions. It was overall a great return and the best welcome one can get!”

Winners and Losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin is at $5,342.51, Ether at $125.01 and XRP at $0.15. The total market cap is at $153,190,529,804.

Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are Multi-collateral DAI, USD Coin and Paxos Standard. The top three altcoin losers of the week are Matic Network, Maker and Algorand.

For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.

Most Memorable Quotations

“The MakerDAO had a +$500K surplus before the price drop and now has a -$4M surplus that needs to be filled.”

MakerDAO

“We are in the middle of a revolution in payments. Banknotes — the bank’s most accessible form of money — are being used less frequently to make payments.”

Bank of England

“If I interpret the chart without bias, I would say sub $1,000.”

Peter Brandt, veteran trader

“Insane theory of the day: There was no BitMEX hardware issue.”

Sam Bankman-Fried, Alameda CEO

“Banks’ refusal to provide services for the sale/purchase of crypto assets is absolutely illegal, unjust and arbitrary in the eyes of the law and the same amounts to wilful disobedience to the order of the Hon’ble Supreme Court.”

Mohammed Danish, fintech lawyer

“This is the first time in a while I’ve felt like buying bitcoin. That drop was too much panic and too little reason.”

Edward Snowden

Prediction of the Week

Bitcoin under $1,000 is possible, warns veteran trader Peter Brandt

In the aftermath of Bitcoin crashing below $4,000, one experienced market analyst had an alarming prediction that the worst may be yet to come. Peter Brandt — who is famous for correctly predicting the market crash from the all-time high — said the new bottom is potentially “sub-$1,000” if he interprets BTC charts without bias. That would be a fall of more than 80% from their current level. Brandt is no crypto skeptic, and he often makes predictions that are more bullish than bearish. In the past, he’s suggested that parabolic increases in BTC charts could see it hit $140,000. His latest analysis will be something that many in the crypto world don’t want to hear.

FUD of the Week

Judge slams Craig Wright for forged documents and perjured testimony

A judge has attacked Craig Wright for producing forged documents and giving a perjured testimony. The self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto has been fighting a ruling that is forcing him to hand over more than 500,000 BTC to the family of Dave Kleiman, his late business partner. Judge Bruce Reinhart has questioned Wright’s credibility and said during a hearing: “I give no weight to sworn statements of Dr. Wright that advance his interests but that have not been challenged by cross-examination and for which I cannot make a credibility determination. I have previously found that Dr. Wright gave perjured testimony in my presence.” Wright is under pressure to provide documentation detailing how many Bitcoins are held by the so-called “Tulip Trust.”

BitMEX denies it made Bitcoin price drop to $3,700 after going offline

The crypto crash was bad news for BitMEX. During frenzied trading activity as prices fell off a cliff, the exchange faced unexpected downtime. This sparked rumors of foul play, with BitMEX officials rejecting the allegations as a “conspiracy theory.” The outage meant the company’s services suffered disruption between 2:16 a.m. and 2:40 a.m. UTC on Friday — minutes after BTC prices had suddenly tanked below $4,000. BitMEX says a “hardware issue with our cloud service provider” was the reason requests were delayed.

Revealed: How North Korea laundered $100 million of stolen crypto

A blockchain forensics firm has published a detailed analysis of how two Chinese nationals linked to North Korea laundered stolen cryptocurrency worth tens of millions of dollars. According to CipherTrace’s findings, the pair are believed to be associated with the Lazarus Group — cybercriminals who were responsible for 2014’s Sony breach and 2017’s WannaCry ransomware epidemic. The United States Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has added Tian Yinyin and Li Jiadong to its list of sanctioned individuals. It is believed “peel chains” were used to obfuscate the size of funds being deposited to any given wallet.

Best Cointelegraph Features

Zooko’s Triangle: The human-readable paradox at the heart of crypto adoption

Memorable, decentralized, secure: Can you really only pick two? Maya Middlemiss looks at the trilemma facing crypto advocates as blockchain domain names become more common.

Fintech in the United Kingdom after Brexit

Because of the coronavirus, many have lost sight of major issues such as Brexit. Thankfully, Sarah Hall hasn’t. Here’s her look at how the financial technology sector may change after the U.K.’s transition period ends on Dec. 31.

French court moves the BTC chess piece — how will regulators respond?

A court in France has ruled that Bitcoin is a fungible, intangible asset — sending ripples through the crypto community. Is this an important milestone for further development in the crypto market? Andrew Singer finds out.

The post Crypto Carnage, Fears of $1,000 BTC, MakerDAO Crisis: Hodler’s Digest, Mar. 9–15 appeared first on Crypto Waves.

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noisyunknownturtle · 5 years ago

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Crypto Carnage, Fears of $1,000 BTC, MakerDAO Crisis: Hodler’s Digest, Mar. 9–15

Top Stories This Week

Bitcoin price drops to $3,637, rebounds above $5,200 within minutes

MakerDAO community to vote on upgrades, conduct debt auction

Some Indian banks are still “arbitrarily” refusing to process crypto transactions

Exclusive: A major French bank is blocking customers from using Coinbase

Bitcoin miner stumbles upon $8 million stash from 2010, sells before crash

Winners and Losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin is at $5,342.51, Ether at $125.01 and XRP at $0.15. The total market cap is at $153,190,529,804.

For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.

Most Memorable Quotations

“The MakerDAO had a +$500K surplus before the price drop and now has a -$4M surplus that needs to be filled.”

MakerDAO

“We are in the middle of a revolution in payments. Banknotes — the bank’s most accessible form of money — are being used less frequently to make payments.”

Bank of England

“If I interpret the chart without bias, I would say sub $1,000.”

Peter Brandt, veteran trader

“Insane theory of the day: There was no BitMEX hardware issue.”

Sam Bankman-Fried, Alameda CEO

Mohammed Danish, fintech lawyer

“This is the first time in a while I’ve felt like buying bitcoin. That drop was too much panic and too little reason.”

Edward Snowden

Prediction of the Week

Bitcoin under $1,000 is possible, warns veteran trader Peter Brandt

FUD of the Week

Judge slams Craig Wright for forged documents and perjured testimony

BitMEX denies it made Bitcoin price drop to $3,700 after going offline

Revealed: How North Korea laundered $100 million of stolen crypto

Best Cointelegraph Features

Zooko’s Triangle: The human-readable paradox at the heart of crypto adoption

Memorable, decentralized, secure: Can you really only pick two? Maya Middlemiss looks at the trilemma facing crypto advocates as blockchain domain names become more common.

Fintech in the United Kingdom after Brexit

French court moves the BTC chess piece — how will regulators respond?

The post Crypto Carnage, Fears of $1,000 BTC, MakerDAO Crisis: Hodler’s Digest, Mar. 9–15 appeared first on For Crypto.

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#For Crypto

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angryconnoisseurface · 5 years ago

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Crypto Carnage, Fears of $1,000 BTC, MakerDAO Crisis: Hodler’s Digest, Mar. 9–15

Top Stories This Week

Bitcoin price drops to $3,637, rebounds above $5,200 within minutes

MakerDAO community to vote on upgrades, conduct debt auction

Some Indian banks are still “arbitrarily” refusing to process crypto transactions

Exclusive: A major French bank is blocking customers from using Coinbase

Bitcoin miner stumbles upon $8 million stash from 2010, sells before crash

Winners and Losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin is at $5,342.51, Ether at $125.01 and XRP at $0.15. The total market cap is at $153,190,529,804.

For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.

Most Memorable Quotations

“The MakerDAO had a +$500K surplus before the price drop and now has a -$4M surplus that needs to be filled.”

MakerDAO

“We are in the middle of a revolution in payments. Banknotes — the bank’s most accessible form of money — are being used less frequently to make payments.”

Bank of England

“If I interpret the chart without bias, I would say sub $1,000.”

Peter Brandt, veteran trader

“Insane theory of the day: There was no BitMEX hardware issue.”

Sam Bankman-Fried, Alameda CEO

Mohammed Danish, fintech lawyer

“This is the first time in a while I’ve felt like buying bitcoin. That drop was too much panic and too little reason.”

Edward Snowden

Prediction of the Week

Bitcoin under $1,000 is possible, warns veteran trader Peter Brandt

FUD of the Week

Judge slams Craig Wright for forged documents and perjured testimony

BitMEX denies it made Bitcoin price drop to $3,700 after going offline

Revealed: How North Korea laundered $100 million of stolen crypto

Best Cointelegraph Features

Zooko’s Triangle: The human-readable paradox at the heart of crypto adoption

Memorable, decentralized, secure: Can you really only pick two? Maya Middlemiss looks at the trilemma facing crypto advocates as blockchain domain names become more common.

Fintech in the United Kingdom after Brexit

French court moves the BTC chess piece — how will regulators respond?

The post Crypto Carnage, Fears of $1,000 BTC, MakerDAO Crisis: Hodler’s Digest, Mar. 9–15 appeared first on Tip Crypto.

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coinfirst · 5 years ago

Text

Crypto Carnage, Fears of $1,000 BTC, MakerDAO Crisis: Hodler’s Digest, Mar. 9–15

Top Stories This Week

Bitcoin price drops to $3,637, rebounds above $5,200 within minutes

MakerDAO community to vote on upgrades, conduct debt auction

Some Indian banks are still “arbitrarily” refusing to process crypto transactions

Exclusive: A major French bank is blocking customers from using Coinbase

Bitcoin miner stumbles upon $8 million stash from 2010, sells before crash

Winners and Losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin is at $5,342.51, Ether at $125.01 and XRP at $0.15. The total market cap is at $153,190,529,804.

For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.

Most Memorable Quotations

“The MakerDAO had a +$500K surplus before the price drop and now has a -$4M surplus that needs to be filled.”

MakerDAO

“We are in the middle of a revolution in payments. Banknotes — the bank’s most accessible form of money — are being used less frequently to make payments.”

Bank of England

“If I interpret the chart without bias, I would say sub $1,000.”

Peter Brandt, veteran trader

“Insane theory of the day: There was no BitMEX hardware issue.”

Sam Bankman-Fried, Alameda CEO

Mohammed Danish, fintech lawyer

“This is the first time in a while I’ve felt like buying bitcoin. That drop was too much panic and too little reason.”

Edward Snowden

Prediction of the Week

Bitcoin under $1,000 is possible, warns veteran trader Peter Brandt

FUD of the Week

Judge slams Craig Wright for forged documents and perjured testimony

BitMEX denies it made Bitcoin price drop to $3,700 after going offline

Revealed: How North Korea laundered $100 million of stolen crypto

Best Cointelegraph Features

Zooko’s Triangle: The human-readable paradox at the heart of crypto adoption

Memorable, decentralized, secure: Can you really only pick two? Maya Middlemiss looks at the trilemma facing crypto advocates as blockchain domain names become more common.

Fintech in the United Kingdom after Brexit

French court moves the BTC chess piece — how will regulators respond?

The post Crypto Carnage, Fears of $1,000 BTC, MakerDAO Crisis: Hodler’s Digest, Mar. 9–15 appeared first on Coin First.

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coinretreat · 5 years ago

Text

Crypto Carnage, Fears of $1,000 BTC, MakerDAO Crisis: Hodler’s Digest, Mar. 9–15

Top Stories This Week

Bitcoin price drops to $3,637, rebounds above $5,200 within minutes

MakerDAO community to vote on upgrades, conduct debt auction

Some Indian banks are still “arbitrarily” refusing to process crypto transactions

Exclusive: A major French bank is blocking customers from using Coinbase

Bitcoin miner stumbles upon $8 million stash from 2010, sells before crash

Winners and Losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin is at $5,342.51, Ether at $125.01 and XRP at $0.15. The total market cap is at $153,190,529,804.

For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.

Most Memorable Quotations

“The MakerDAO had a +$500K surplus before the price drop and now has a -$4M surplus that needs to be filled.”

MakerDAO

“We are in the middle of a revolution in payments. Banknotes — the bank’s most accessible form of money — are being used less frequently to make payments.”

Bank of England

“If I interpret the chart without bias, I would say sub $1,000.”

Peter Brandt, veteran trader

“Insane theory of the day: There was no BitMEX hardware issue.”

Sam Bankman-Fried, Alameda CEO

Mohammed Danish, fintech lawyer

“This is the first time in a while I’ve felt like buying bitcoin. That drop was too much panic and too little reason.”

Edward Snowden

Prediction of the Week

Bitcoin under $1,000 is possible, warns veteran trader Peter Brandt

FUD of the Week

Judge slams Craig Wright for forged documents and perjured testimony

BitMEX denies it made Bitcoin price drop to $3,700 after going offline

Revealed: How North Korea laundered $100 million of stolen crypto

Best Cointelegraph Features

Zooko’s Triangle: The human-readable paradox at the heart of crypto adoption

Memorable, decentralized, secure: Can you really only pick two? Maya Middlemiss looks at the trilemma facing crypto advocates as blockchain domain names become more common.

Fintech in the United Kingdom after Brexit

French court moves the BTC chess piece — how will regulators respond?

The post Crypto Carnage, Fears of $1,000 BTC, MakerDAO Crisis: Hodler’s Digest, Mar. 9–15 appeared first on CoinRetreat.

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greggory--lee · 7 years ago

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The Future of “Bitcoin Cash:” An Interview with Bitcoin ABC lead developer Amaury Séchet

If all goes according to plan, August 1st will see the launch of a new cryptocurrency, described as an “airdrop altcoin,” a “spinoff-coin,” a “fork-coin,” a “clone-coin,” or — as the people behind the project call it — “a new version of Bitcoin:” Bitcoin Cash (“BCC”). Anyone who holds bitcoin (BTC) on this day, at 12:20 UTC precisely, will automatically receive the equivalent amount in BCC, attributed to their Bitcoin private keys.

Bitcoin Cash is the realization of the “User Activated Hard Fork” (UAHF) that was first announced as Bitmain’s contingency plan in case of a chain-split caused by the BIP148 user activated soft fork (UASF) — although the mining hardware producer has sent out mixed signals about the project since.

A first software implementation of the Bitcoin Cash protocol, called Bitcoin ABC, was recently revealed by its lead developer, Amaury “Deadal Nix” Sechét at the Future of Bitcoin conference in Arnhem, the Netherlands. Sechét worked at Facebook for the past years and decided to focus on Bitcoin full time earlier this year.

Bitcoin Magazine spoke with Sechét about his vision for Bitcoin Cash.

Anyone in favor of increasing the block size could have forked off for years now. What took you so long?

Well, I wasn’t expecting the whole situation to last this long. Bitcoin Classic seemed to get a lot of traction last year, and then the Hong Kong Roundtable Consensus happened, so it seemed like things were working well enough for a while…

This year I started to do research on a scaling solution for Bitcoin myself, at first focusing on extension blocks. Bitcoin ABC was initially a base I could use to build various experiments on top of. I was later contacted by “Freetrader,” a developer on the r/btcfork subreddit, who wanted to implement an adjustable block size limit on top of Bitcoin ABC.

Then the whole UAHF plan was proposed by Bitmain. Freetrader and I both thought it was a good idea, so we implemented it.

What is your relationship with Bitmain? Are they funding you in any way?

I got a sponsorship from the Bitcoin Development Grant to do my scaling research. This was mostly thanks to other research I’d done prior. I’m not funded to work on Bitcoin ABC specifically. That was not the original plan; but sometimes you can’t predict where things are going to lead.

The BIP148 UASF seems to have been made obsolete by BIP91. Why is this “UAHF” still happening?

That BIP148 was made obsolete only became clear very recently. Uncertainty remained even after SegWit2x [the scaling proposal based on the New York Agreement, and backed by a number of Bitcoin companies and mining pools] was released. Depending on how fast miners would adopt it, the UASF could happen or not. So we continued to push forward with the UAHF.

By the time it was known that the UASF wouldn’t happen, it was also very clear that there was strong market demand for the UAHF anyways.

What made that clear to you?

A lot of people contacted us and wanted to launch Bitcoin Cash.

“Random” people? Or also companies, miners or perhaps well-known individuals in the space?

All of the above. But I do not wish to mention anyone specifically. Some, like ViaBTC and OKCoin have gone public. If others want to do that too, they’ll have to do it themselves.

More to the point, then: Bitcoin Cash will remove Segregated Witness (SegWit) and will have a default block size limit of 8 megabytes. Why eight, not two or seven or unlimited?

There is a judgment call there. Eight megabytes is large enough to make sure we have a mechanism to adjust it by the time we get anywhere close to the limit. On the other hand, you don’t want to go unlimited cowboy style. As the size of blocks grow, there is a lot of work to be done to ensure they keep being processed efficiently.

What if 8 megabyte blocks fill up very fast? It seems evident that the Bitcoin network endured a lot of spam over the past year, for example, that could happen again…

It could, and increasing the block size to 8 megabytes is not a perfect solution in this sense, but it’s an improvement. At least at 8 megabytes it’d be more expensive to keep the attack going.

It would be even more expensive to spam blocks full at 16 megabytes. Yet, you won’t increase the blocks to 16 megabytes when the 8 megabyte limit is hit quickly?

I think most people are going to use the default settings at first, so that’s 8 megabytes. After this fork is behind us, we’ll make sure to deploy some mechanism to handle the block size so we don’t need to play central planners.

What kind of mechanism will that be?

Perhaps BIP100, or one of the other many proposals that have been made.

BIP100 hands control over the block size to miners, which is also controversial. Don’t you think it will be hard to get everyone to agree on a solution?

I think that people will come to an agreement. The reason there is a split now, is because people have different ideas of where they want Bitcoin to go. Once blocks on Bitcoin Cash fill up, people will still want to go to the same place, so I’m confident they’ll stay in the same boat.

Where do you see Bitcoin Cash in relation to SegWit2x?

When I got into this, my idea was that either SegWit2x will fail and we’d get a UASF chain and a UAHF chain. Or SegWit2x would succeed and we’d get neither the UASF or the UAHF. But as mentioned, a lot of people will value the UAHF even with SegWit2x. I don’t want to speak for everybody, but concerns about SegWit2x range from the 2x part not being acted upon, some feature of Segregated Witness hurting long-term scalability or simply thinking that the conflict is just delayed and will restart later on.

I do hope we can have a friendly relation with the SegWit2x team. Whoever is better wins in the end.

So that brings me back to my previous question. Those in favor of a block size limit increase hard fork are rallying behind different proposals. And that’s not even taking into account Bitcoin Unlimited’s “Emergent Consensus” and other ideas. If you can’t agree on a single way forward now, what makes you think you can when blocks fill up?

I see all these different proposals as the symptom of a fast moving environment. When I started Bitcoin ABC with Freetrader, SegWit2x and the UAHF did not even exist yet.

Besides, I could say the same for the other side. There was the Hong Kong Roundtable, then SegWit-only, then the UASF, and now SegWit2x which is kind of a compromise between the two sides.

Bitcoin Core has a pretty clear and consistent policy: no contentious hard forks. Without such a policy, don’t you see a cryptocurrency splitting into factions for each disagreement?

That’s possible. But Ethereum did a contentious hard fork once as well and did not split any further after that. There is a strong incentive to stick together: People will split only if there is a strong difference of vision.

You’re not the first to have a “difference of vision” for Bitcoin’s direction. Litecoin was created to offer a better payment experience. Dogecoin was, likewise, lauded for its micropayment potential. Why not just use an altcoin, instead of forking away from Bitcoin?

Litecoin developers seem to mostly have the same vision as Bitcoin Core developers, so I don’t think that’s a good substitute. Dogecoin has infinite inflation, which doesn’t make for a sound money. I could go on for each altcoin, but that’d be a very long list.

Let me slightly re-phrase the question, then: Why not create a new altcoin from scratch, specifically designed for the purpose you have in mind?

Most altcoins try to do something more than Bitcoin, which is fine. But we aren’t. Bitcoin decided to take a road with Segregated Witness and off-chain solutions. We are trying to continue to do what Bitcoin has been doing for some time.

I also ask this because the name “Bitcoin Cash” could be confusing for people, to the point where some consider it misleading or even fraudulent…

I did not come up with that name, but I like it. People will complain no matter what. This project wants to continue Bitcoin and grow it to become a peer-to-peer electronic cash used worldwide. Adding “Cash” seemed like a good way to differentiate and also convey the vision.

According to Merriam-Webster, “cash” means either “ready money” or “money or its equivalent (such as a check) paid for goods or services at the time of purchase or delivery.” How does that not apply to Bitcoin itself?

The second definition in particular doesn’t quite work with high fees. If I buy something for $5 and I pay a fee of 50 cents, that’s a big deal. Too much friction.

“Low fees” or “low friction” is not part of either definition.

But I want bitcoin to be a widely used electronic cash. A cryptocurrency that is used for day-to-day inexpensive stuff, as well as expensive purchases.

Because of the risks presented by bigger blocks, Bitcoin Core developers generally prefer to offload the day-to-day inexpensive stuff to layers built on top of the blockchain. Does Bitcoin Cash have no plans to adopt SegWit, or the Lightning Network, or other second-layer technologies at all?

I’m not against Layer 2 technologies themselves, they can add value. I’m just against not growing the base layer.

Bitcoin Cash will probably not see SegWit in its current shape, not as a soft fork. But fixing malleability and enabling Layer 2 solutions will happen. Technology to enable building blocks over time, such as weak blocks, is also important to improve 0-confirmation security and scale to bigger blocks.

Another reason some rallied behind SegWit is that it would block covert use of the patented AsicBoost mining technology. Do you have any plans to block AsicBoost?

I crunched the numbers for the potential benefit that miners can get from AsicBoost, and I think SegWit doesn’t change that much. It’s a lot of noise for nothing. I don’t really plan to spend much time to either help or hinder it. There are more interesting and important things to do.

Who’s going to be developing Bitcoin ABC, or the Layer 2 solutions you mention? Because, let’s be honest, you don’t have much support from Bitcoin’s development community so far.

We do not plan to develop Layer 2 technologies; we plan to enable them. We ourselves will focus on the protocol itself, so on malleability and weak blocks. We have enough people to make it happen.

Who, exactly?

Apart from myself and Freetrader, Bitprim has been helping. That is a company that’s building infrastructure for Bitcoin. Bitcoin Unlimited developers Andrea “Sickpig” Suisani and Antony Zegers have been helping out with Bitcoin Cash as well. And like other open-source projects, we have a kernel of people that contribute on a regular basis and even more that add a patch or two or help us with a specific problem.

The Bitcoin Unlimited developers in particular don’t exactly have a pristine track record, with network-wide node crashes caused by bugs. Will this be any better for Bitcoin Cash?

We have a very different way of doing development than both Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Unlimited, mostly derived from my work at Facebook as well as LLVM where I worked prior. We focus on doing many small incremental changes rather than fewer, bigger changes. This makes code review easier.

Surely Bitcoin Core has a lot more review happening though, simply because they have more developers?

Core has a lot of developers, but also a process that is slow. Slow processes generally tend to have fewer errors, but also make errors more costly because the slow processes also apply to fixing errors. There is a sweet spot between those two. I think we strike a good balance with Bitcoin ABC.

Let’s assume you are right about being being capable of maintaining a multi-billion dollar project — but wrong about it ever becoming a multi-billion dollar project. What if users don’t choose Bitcoin Cash over Bitcoin? Are you committed to Bitcoin Cash even as a smaller coin?

“What if I’m wrong?” That’s a question I’m asking myself all the time. In fact, this is the very reason I think it is misguided to bake economic constants, such as the 1 megabyte limit or the weight system, into the protocol. Not only do I know I may be wrong, but I’m also convinced that most people don’t know any better than I do. Figuring out what the market wants is a fool’s errand. You got to try to do what you think is best and adapt as the situation changes.

I think it is pretty much inevitable that BCC starts as a minority coin. But longer term, it will either overtake Bitcoin or it will create an incentive for Bitcoin to scale. In either case, that’d be a win.

Yet, I may be wrong. Maybe the value of BCC will quickly drop to zero or close to zero. But unless it does, I will continue to work on Bitcoin Cash.

Disclosure: Aaron van Wirdum, the author of this article, holds BTC and will therefore also own BCC on August 1st.

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Source: http://bitcoinswiz.com/the-future-of-bitcoin-cash-an-interview-with-bitcoin-abc-lead-developer-amaury-sechet/

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