Bitcoin Prices Bounce Back Above $4,400
Bitcoin prices have once more climbed past $4,400 following days of generally sideways movement within the $4,100–$4,200 range.
Starting to pick up from around 22:00 UTC yesterday, prices across global exchanges opened the session at $4,362, and had reached a high of $4,420. Prices were again at that level at press time, a rise of 1.33 percent, according to the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index.
Those figures put prices around $85 short of the all-time high achieved on August 17, when bitcoin topped $4,500 for the first time ever.
Elsewhere in the markets, ethereum is up 3.49 percent for the day at $332.65, according to CoinMarketCap. New cryptocurrency bitcoin cash is down 2 percent, however, with prices at $642.95 at press time.
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Source: CoinDesk
Is Cryptocurrency Real Money? Brief Discussion on Major Issues Surrounding Debate
Ever since the inception of cryptocurrency, the question: "Is cryptocurrency real money?" can stir up more heated debate and confusion than all the rest of its internal operations, consensus mechanisms, and technical applications put together.
Many arguments have been submitted to support or to discredit cryptocurrency's validity as a bona fide form of modern money. The awareness of both sides of the coin will help each of us come up with their own answer to the question: "Do I believe cryptocurrency is real money?"
From the general public and institutional investors to the established members of Bank Royalty and Hedge Fund managers, the debate rages on.
The Cointelegraph discusses a few of the major issues surrounding the debate.
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Source: CoinTelegraph
Are Failing Currencies Boosting Crypto Interest? Investing.com Suggests Yes
Bitcoin has long been touted as a digital currency that would gain traction where government-issued monies have failed – but is it really doing so?
Though some have written off the notion as the cryptocurrency has become more accepted as a store of value, new data actually supports the correlation. The new finding comes from Investing.com, and is based on traffic from its global user base.
The study, released this week, shows that users from five of the nations with the worst-performing currencies so far in 2017 (as determined by NomadCapitalist), visited its cryptocurrency pages more often than others.
Countries with a disproportionately high viewership included Venezuela, Argentina, Belarus, the U.K. and Egypt – all countries the entrepreneur platform views as having conditions favorable for capital flight.
Full story at http://bit.ly/2xiVAtV
Source: CoinDesk
The Battle Continues Between Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash
The less than one-month-old digital currency Bitcoin Cash recently experienced a significant reduction in its mining difficulty following a difficulty adjustment. The code specifies that if not enough blocks are found in a certain period of time, a difficulty adjustment will occur.
As a result of this 60% reduction in difficulty, the cryptocurrency temporarily became more profitable than Bitcoin to mine. Bitcoin Cash, for a time, attracted nearly 40% of Bitcoin’s miners.
Because of the huge surge in hash power and the low difficulty, Bitcoin Cash’s network produced the requisite 2016 blocks very quickly, and now another difficulty adjustment has occurred. Bitcoin Cash is now much harder to mine and is less profitable than mining Bitcoin. Miners have now abandoned Bitcoin Cash in droves, causing block times on the network to exceed six hours.
Bitcoin Cash, was created in early August by developers who were unhappy with Bitcoin’s adoption of SegWit and its shunning of larger block sizes. Since both Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin use the same proof-of-work to safeguard their transaction histories, both networks are now effectively competing for hash power as miners continue to mine the more profitable chain.
Full story at http://bit.ly/2xiOyFB
Source: CoinTelegraph
Bitcoin's Lightning Network Moves Closer to Compatibility
Nearly a year after bitcoin's scattered group of Lightning Network developers first gathered to unite their different implementations, the rules they could one day use to connect their technologies are almost complete.
In interviews, those involved with the open-source project (viewed as one of the best ways to bring additional capacity to the nearly $70 billion network), spoke to the new sense of direction provided by bitcoin's recent SegWit upgrade. Still, they also cautioned that, while SegWit lays the foundation for Lightning, standards are needed to connect work that's already been done.
"The specification is mostly complete, with minor amendments and inconsistencies that we are figuring out," said Blockstream engineer Christian Decker, co-author of an early Lightning research paper at ETH Zurich.
Put another way, if each Lightning implementation used different technologies, then the networks wouldn't be able to "talk" with one another, and thus wouldn't be useful for sending payments across the network. (Alice would not be able to send to a payment to Bob if he were using another, incompatible network.)
Full story at http://bit.ly/2xiMVYF
Source: CoinDesk
Why Bitcoin Continues to be on The Top of Its Game
Despite scaling issues with Bitcoin, it is still considered the leading cryptocurrency in the world. It continues to surge and expand as investors get enticed by the possibility of massive gains in a short period of time. Even more promising are Bitcoin’s long-term prospects.
Investors love Bitcoin because it has been providing a significant and fast return on investment. They have been scrambling to get their hands on Bitcoin, or to gain exposure to it through the Bitcoin Investment Trust. The Bitcoin Investment Trust trades publicly under the GBTC symbol and offers investors exposure to Bitcoin without the challenges of acquiring and storing the currency.
Bitcoin is currently trading in the $4,000 range. According to a recent presentation made by the Bitcoin Investment Trust, as of July 31 each share of GBTC represented 0.09258535 Bitcoin. GBTC is currently trading at about $684 per share, equalling about a 41.5% premium..
Even if there is a high premium, investors are willingly paying it along with the annual 2% fee. In the July 14th filing of Registration Statement No. 333-215627, GBTC explains the reason its shares are in such high demand. The filing states:
“[GBTC is the] only publicly-quoted investment vehicle that seeks to provide passive exposure to Bitcoin."
Full story at http://bit.ly/2xiRrGg
Source: CoinTelegraph
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