Tag: Bitcoin

What Might The Bitcoin Halving Do For You?

On By mehranmuslimiblogIn BitcoinLeave a comment

It’s a question that I’m sure many Bitocin owners are asking. In around 90 days from now on 8th May, Bitcoin’s mining reward will be cut in half (that’s what a ‘halving’ means) and crypto commentators believe that it could trigger some significant price activity, and boost the BTC price skywards.

Currently there are approximately 18 million Bitcoin in circulation out of a total of 21 million. But, thanks to the halving protocol, this limit won’t be reached in the near future. Satoshi Nakamoto programmed the Bitcoin network protocol so that a halving would take place every four years, or every 210,000 blocks, and cut miners rewards in half. The idea being that this makes producing more coins more difficult.

This may seem counterintuitive, as miners are incentivised by the rewards. As Edith Muthoni, chief editor at Learnbonds.com told Coinrivet: “This brings us into a seeming conundrum: if miners will no longer receive block rewards (or too little), will they continue mining? What will be their motivation to stay on? What does this mean for the network and Bitcoin?”

The impact on Bitcoin mining

Once upon a time people at home could make some money from Bitcoin mining, but that ended some time ago. However, as we approach this halving, there is a serious question to be answered about how the medium and large-sized mining operations will fare.

There are fewer than three million Bitcoin left to mine, and the hash rate is hitting all-time highs. Given the cutting of rewards, it would seem that the effect on mining at least would be negative. Steve Tsou, CEO of RRMine, a Bitcoin cloud mining operation has gloomy view: “The halving in 2020 will have great impacts on Bitcoin miners: 1) Miners with low mining efficiency will be forced to pause and re-evaluate their business operations. 2) Digital mining is becoming the racetrack for giant international companies because they have more advanced machines and cheaper sources of electricity.”

Tsou’s sentiments are echoed by a number of others in the sector, including Alex Lam, one of China’s most prolific miners and CEO of RockX digital assets. He said “The next Bitcoin halving is likely to result in mining profitability decreasing significantly in the short term.”

However, depending on the price of Bitcoin on 8th May, miners’ profitability may not be so dramatically affected, at least in the short term. If the Bitcoin price rises substantially afterwards, then miners may be able to sustain their profits. A price fall, on the other hand, could see some go out of business.

The impact on Bitcoin’s price

Unless you are a miner, how many Bitcoin owners can honestly say that they are concerned about the impact on mining. What they want to know is the halving’s impact on price.

This is not the first time that a halving has occurred. The BTC price stood at $12 when the mining reward was first cut in November 2012, and stood at $652 at the time of the second halving in July 2016. Of course, as you remember, the following year brought us that sensational bull run, driving Bitcoin to $20,000. Weiss Ratings, which analyses the impact of halving’s on price, said: “So, does the Bitcoin halving help drive prices higher? Absolutely. The only question now is how high will #BTC go this time around?”

Jimmy Nguyen, president of the Bitcoin Association commented: “Some people expect the coin price to magically increase before the halving and help cover the 50% fewer coins. Even if there is some price increase, it is doubtful coin prices will double from now through April or May 2020. So mining will most likely be less profitable after the halving than it currently is.”

Ultimately, what we are likely to see when the Bitcoin halving happens is this: it will have a major impact on mining in the short and long term. Furthermore, we’ll see smaller, less sustainable operations give way to larger mining farms with access to low-cost energy.

Miners, like Bitcoin owners, will be hoping for a hike in the Bitcoin price, because that is the key to ensuring profitable mining, as well as profits for investors.

Google’s bitcoin war is dumbing down

On By mehranmuslimiblogIn BitcoinLeave a comment

As you are probably aware, Google has a fraught relationship with Bitcoin (BTC) in particular, and cryptocurrencies in general. It’s a problem, because YouTube, which Google owns, is awash with videos about digital assets. What we have seen is that whenever possible, Google has tried to raise barricades against the oncoming tide of crypto information, in all its forms, including apps and websites, which has caused crypto fans to accuse the media giant of censorship.

We have only just begun 2020, and already Google has lashed out by removing Bitcoin Blast, a BTC rewards game from the Google Play store, on the gorunds that it uses “deceptive practices.” According to Billy Bambrough at Forbes, Bitcoin Blast was available on the Apple app store on 24th January, but was removed a week later. Apple said that it violated certain of its app policies, but said it could come back if it “can be brought up to code.”

Daniel Rice, cofounder and chief technology officer at Bling, the make of Bitcoin Blast, said in a post, “We were not removed for being involved with cryptocurrency,” but added, “it’s also possible that Bitcoin Blast will never return to an Apple platform.”

The irony is that Bitcoin Blast’s users rather liked the puzzle game that rewards users with bitcoin-redeemable loyalty points and boasts a 4.5 rating from some 20,000 ratings and 13,000 reviews. They complained to Google about the sudden removal of their entertainment. And this had a positive effect. Although, Bling, did have to make a public plea for support, and it was only after this happened that Google reversed its decision.

It isn’t the first time that Google has waded reversed a decision regarding a crypto-related app or site. It tried to ban most of the bitcoin-related content creators from YouTube, only to face a backlash from users that forced a change of heart.

Not long after this, Google suspended the popular MetaMask crypto wallet and mobile browser app backed by Ethereum incubator ConsenSys from the Play Store, only to eventually reinstate it.

This behaviour is rather odd, and it is no wonder that companies such as Bling are questioning what their future relationship they might have with Google, if any at all. Bling’s CEO, Amy Wan wrote, “Google’s suspension cited their ‘deceptive behavior’ policy … but did not state exactly what behavior Google thought was deceptive,” and she advices other businesses to avoid putting all their products on a Google platform. Furthermore, she said that Google couldn’t answer the question regarding what was “deceptive” about the Bitcoin Blast app.

As Billy Bambrough says, Google’s “twitchy trigger finger and the speed at which the ban hammer falls is, understandably, making people nervous.”

Certainly, it needs to rethink its battle strategy, because at the moment, it looks like every action is a simplistic knee-jerk reaction, rather than a well-considered approach based on evidence.

Is Jack Dorsey a Bitcoin hero?

On By mehranmuslimiblogIn BitcoinLeave a comment

Jack Dorsey is a curious character. The combination of his business success with a somewhat eccentric lifestyle pretty much guarantees media and public interest in him. He may not be as well known as Mark Zuckerberg, but he’s probably more easily identifiable by the public than the Google guys for example. Plus, he does often look as if he might have had a lead role in Pirates of the Caribbean, or some other Hollywood production. However, what in my opinion is most interesting about him is the role he has played in promoting cryptocurrency, particularly Bitcoin.

Dorsey is not only a co-founder of Twitter, he also launched Square, a mobile payments company that is hot on crypto. Dorsey is known to be a massive Bitcoin supporter, and has vowed to help Bitcoin develop as a global currency though Square. However, he is not a Bitcoin bull — he has a diverse crypto portfolio and is always upfront about that. Square’s spokesperson told Forbes, “it’s “only a matter of time until instant, low-fee bitcoin payments are as common as cash used to be.”

And to speed this along, Dorsey’s Square Crypto division is working on a kit that should help to integrate the Lightning Network with Bitcoin wallets. Lightning is a layer-two solution built on top of the Bitcoin network that makes payments faster and cheaper, and speed and cost are key elements of taking Bitcoin mainstream.

Until now there has been a problem with scaling Bitcoin for everyday payments, and this has slowed down adoption. Dorsey wants to supercharge the leading crypto’s throughput, which is why Square announced its Lightning Development Kit (LDK) to coincide with the World Economic Forum in Davos, although it was definitely no coincidence.

As Gerelyn Terzo writes at CCN, “What Dorsey’s crypto division plans to do is give developers greater flexibility with Bitcoin and Lightning technology that in a nutshell comes down to streamlining bitcoin wallets.”

Essentially, the Lightning Network can potentially process millions of transactions per second, which is massive compared with Visa’s 45,000 transactions per second.

Dorsey deal with the volatility issue

Improving the speed and cost of Bitcoin transactions is one thing, but merchants are reluctant to accept the cryptocurrency because of its volatility. Dorsey and Square have a solution for that as well.

Square has been granted a patent that enables users to conduct fiat-to-crypto transactions. The customer can pay in bitcoin and the merchant can instantly convert it to U.S. dollar or any currency.

Basically, Dorsey is laying the foundations of an infrastructure for widespread Bitcoin use, because with instantaneous payments that can be converted into any currency, both customers and merchants have no reason to deny Bitcoin as a payment option.

If Dorsey and Square achieve this, they will surely be hailed as Bitcoin heroes. Unless you’re a Bitcoin hater!

 

Who will be Top Dog in Digital Currencies?

On By mehranmuslimiblogIn Bitcoin, cryptoLeave a comment

Digital currencies have been popping up like daisies over the last several years and there doesn’t seem to be an end to it. Some might say that it would be more accurate to compare them to weeds and that an awful lot of them need to be removed from the cryptocurrency environment.

It is certainly true that there are questions marks over the long-term survival of a significant number of them. Brad Garlinghouse, the Ripple CEO, thinks that around 99% of digital assets will “got to zero”. And there are many others who agree with him, even if they don’t put a precise figure on it.

Now the survival of what I might call the ‘smaller’ coins is even more in question, because central banks are moving into the digital asset arena with their own digital currency, and this will put a lot of pressure on all but the strongest cryptocurrencies.

Mati Greenspan, senior analyst at eToro remarked to Charles Bovaird at Forbes: “At the moment the three biggest currencies in the world are racing to make their fiat digital.” In this race, China is winning, because the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve haven’t put in the effort to keep up. Then we add something like Libra into the mix and for a time it looked like Facebook’s digital coinage had the potential to threaten every other cryptocurrency,. Now, that project looks less certain to be such a major threat.

So what is the likely outcome? Some market observers believe that whatever happens, there won’t be a winner-take-all scenario. Jacob Eliosoff, a cryptocurrency fund manager thinks there will be around 100 widely used cryptocurrencies that will survive. Marouane Garcon, managing director of Amulet said, “There won’t be a single currency because of too many political differences in the world, but just like fiat currencies some will be stronger in value than others.”

Furthermore, bitcoin, which is currently the leading digital currency, may not be the ultimate winner, but it is likely to be in the winning group. Jake Yocom-Piatt from Decred had this to say: “Instead of a large amount of capital and attention spread across many currencies, we will increasingly see that same capital and attention spread across a smaller number of SOVs, leading to a corresponding increase in their value.”

Who do you think will win the race to be Top Dog in this race? The central bank coins, stablecoins like Libra, or bitcoin and its peers?