Coingather Exchange Has Been Offline for Days and No One Knows Why

Coingather, a tiny cryptocurrency exchange, has disappeared from the web, alarming customers who fear their funds are gone. The Coingather.com domain has been offline since Wednesday November 22, and with no word on Twitter from customer support, there are fears the site's operators have pulled an exit scam.

What's the Matter With Coingather?

Coingather Exchange Has Been Offline for Days and No One Knows WhyFew cryptocurrency traders will have heard of Coingather; it's an obscure exchange even by the standard of obscure exchanges. It's not so small as to be able to disappear from the web unnoticed however, and the site's disgruntled users have wasted no time in voicing their concerns. Coingather might be one of the world's smallest exchanges, but it's nevertheless listed on Coinmarketcap complete with 92 trading pairs that are matched with BTC, LTC, DOGE, and HTML5. The site's admin, who goes by the name of Rapta on the Bitcointalk forum, has been offline for a week.

Coingather Exchange Has Been Offline for Days and No One Knows Why

The last observed trading activity on Coingather.

Most of the coins the exchange features are what many traders would call shitcoins. Coinmarketcap lists Coingather's 24-hour trade volume as being just 11.32 BTC, or around $93,000 – but those figures were last updated days ago, before the site disappeared. The majority of the most recently traded coins on the site comprise Infinity Economics, HTLMCOIN, Ethereum, and LevoPlus. It is hard to assess the total amount of funds that were held on Coingather, but judging by the volume of complaints that have been tweeted over the last few days, the losses could be substantial.

"I️ will find you guys, that's a lot of people's money you ran off with you got 24 hours!" raged one customer.

Fear and Loathing

Coingather, which was founded in 2014, appears to have soldiered on, attracting little attention for the first couple of years of its existence. The only cause for complaint until recently was the site's exorbitant withdrawal fees, which were as much as 10x higher than other exchanges. In summer of this year however the first signs that something was amiss surfaced in posts on the Bitcointalk forum. One user wrote: "Just wanted to thank everybody for the heads up about Coingather. *sigh* and the search for an exchange that isn't being run by drug addicts or gangsters continues."

A month later, another forum user labeled the site a scam which permitted deposits but not withdrawals. Upon trying to retrieve their holdings, they'd been greeted by a "process error" message and found that their coins were gone.

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The intelligent investors guide to Particl (PART): Part 1 - What is Particl and what is the purpose of the PART token?

Particl is a PoS chain using the native PART token.

The purpose of a dedicated chain is for the privacy centric and optional anonymity aspects of it.

The PART token can either be transferred as a public token or as a private token via use of CT and RingCT to obscure sender and amount.

The PART token also confers voting rights proportional to stake of network owned for the onchain governance and voting mechanisms.

There is also a MAD escrow service they are building in; a trustless escrow system which requires no third party. Using only the native PART token simplifies this mechanic.

 

It is for these reasons and the simple economics of incentivisation that all currencies fed into particl will be converted to native PART token via integrated shapeshift function prior to use on the particl network.

Particl is a modular framework and yes smart contracts mechanisms are involved on the bitcoin core codebase it uses. Their use of ringCT and focus on truly trustless privacy and anonymity is partly why they avoided ETH but also wish to sidestep any possible scalability issues present in ETH currently or bloat issues of launching a highly focused but intensive product. I'm sure there's a bit of ego to prove their coding chops too.

 

The first major module they plan to launch in Q1 2018 is the decentralised marketplace and communications platform.

 This marketplace will allow for:

 Public and private listings of goods for sale (private listings only viewable if the key is known),

• RingCT to facilitate truly private transactions but also a public token to facilitate non-anonymous one's.

• Encrypted end to end messaging including group messaging.

• Filters and categorisation systems to help find goods.

• Automated shapeshift integration to automatically convert multiple the 67 and growing cryptocurrencies currently supported by shapeshift into PART for transacting on the Particl network.

• Modularity allowing for widgets and other tools to be built in and plugged into the particl network providing an interface to link other decentralized exchanges and tools to the main marketplace as well as the particl ecosystem.

• Atomic swaps (like LTC and DCR) to allow frictionless transfers and conversions of tokens.

 

On minimum viable product release (Q1 2018) the marketplace should be essentially complete in the sense of publicly usable minus the reputation systems they plan to implement after.

 

Further reading:

• The importance of decentralized marketplaces in cryptocurrency: An analysis of the value proposition, current problems and solutions.

• Particl.io – Easy, Secure and Private P2P Marketplace Introduction

• How 'Cryptocurrency Agnosticism' Could Impact the Industry

• In-Depth Presentation of the Particl Project

• Particl Project articles

 

I believe Particl if realised as designed will impact ecommerce massively on a paradigm shifting level. Simply put commerce without borders and a massive boon for sensitive transactions.

 

I am ignoring all price activity for now. The project will not use it's funds to needlessly hype and will likely deliver the marketplace minimum viable product in Q1 2018 to justify it and silence all critics.

 

This is because the team (which is now greatly expanded and actually funded) have been heavily criticised for not delivering in the past (as the much smaller, unfunded SDC prior to setting up their foundation) in spite of the history showing clear development (actually rapid for a project of this nature) and currently meeting all milestones given.

 

From a speculative point of view there are numerous reasons to preferentially invest in Particl:

 

• Holding tokens confers true stakeholder ownership of the network,

• Receipt of transaction fees proportional to stake and number of transactions on the network.

• Receipt of interest but with decreasing annual inflation rate (5% PA year one to flat 2% year 4 onwards) to facilitate early adoption.

• Limited token supply with significant lockup due to PoS. When marketplace is launched if used, the buy demand on PART will be massive relative to circulating supply even for small scale use of the marketplace which should drive up the price of PART massively.

In the following parts of this series I will demonstrate how if Particl is successful it is a literal juggernaut in the making as far as use cases, speculative returns and technology advances in crypto go.

By: Joskye

Bitcoin Cash Price Rally Continues as Value Soars Past $1,250

It would appear the Bitcoin Cash price rally is still in full effect as we speak. More specifically, we have seen a Bitcoin Cash price increase for two days in a  row now, which is pretty interesting, to say the least. Whether or not this will be another temporary trend or a sign of things to come in the future, remains to be seen, though. For now, the momentum clearly favors BCH, but that trend may change any given moment these days.

It is pretty impressive to see how the Bitcoin Cash price has evolved over the past two weeks. Although the initial spike to $2,500 and beyond has been considered to be a pump-and-dump, the value of BCH has not collapsed entirely just yet. In fact, the Bitcoin Cash price has successfully remained above $1,000 for quite some time now, despite the price dip to $885 not too long ago. This seems to indicate the BCH value will remain around this level for quite some to come, although nothing has been set in stone.

The past 24 hours have been pretty solid for the Bitcoin Cash price as well. Despite hovering near the $1,100 mark for some time, the price eventually started moving up again. After reaching $1,380 not too long ago, the price has slowly started to come down again. Right now, the goal is to find a decent level of support in the $1,250 range, although that will not be easy by any means. After all, the market is pretty volatile in

How the Bitcoin Cash price will evolve in the hours and days to come, remains anybody's guess right now. A lot of supporters would like to see the value per BCH go back towards $2,500 in the near future, but that may not be all that easy whatsoever. In fact, it may never happen again, for all we know, even though things are looking pretty solid as we speak.Then again, there is still a lot of work to be done before this altcoin can even be considered to be a mainstream trend, to say the least.

With over $3.34bn worth of trading volume, things are certainly looking good for the Bitcoin Cash price right now. This strong trading volume has been present for quite some time now, and it doesn't appear things will change in this regard over the next few days. If there wasn't such a demand for BCH, this volume would not reach such heights in the first place. It is evident people enjoy trading Bitcoin Cash right now, although it remains to be seen how much of it is based on speculation first and foremost.

As has been the case for nearly two full weeks now, the Bitcoin Cash trading volume is mainly dominated by Bithumb these days. Their volume still represents over 40% of all BCH trades so far, which is pretty interesting, to say the very least.So far, this doesn't appear to have any negative impact on the Bitcoin Cash price, although it remains to be seen how this situation evolves in the days to come. Coinone is in second place, although the gap with Bitfinex is pretty small. An interesting situation well worth keeping an eye on, that much is certain.

All of this goes to show the Bitcoin Cash price speculation is far from over right now. There is still a lot of momentum in place to keep pushing the value toward $1,500. At the same time, we may see the Bitcoin Cash price drop again in the coming hours. No one knows for sure how this situation will evolve, but things are looking pretty positive for now.

Bitcoin Cash Network Completes a Successful Hard Fork

At approximately 4 pm EDT at block height 504031, the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) network successfully hard forked. The fork is a change to the decentralized currency's consensus rules and aims to upgrade the network's Difficulty Adjustment Algorithm (DAA).

The Bitcoin Cash Network Has Successfully Hard Forked

Bitcoin Cash Network Completes a Successful Hard ForkNovember 13 is a memorable day for bitcoin cash supporters, as the network is forking in order to fix the BCH blockchain's DAA. The primary development teams who have been working on the bitcoin cash protocol consensus change include Bitcoin ABC, Unlimited, Nchain, and XT developers. The original DAA applied to the BCH network allowed the currency to thrive but also produced wild hashrate fluctuations. After several DAA proposals were researched and tested by the above-mentioned development teams, the community chose to implement a DAA proposal from Bitcoin ABC's lead developer Amaury Sechet.

Bitcoin Cash Network Completes a Successful Hard Fork

At approximately 4 pm EDT at block height 504031, the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) network had successfully hard forked.

The new BCH consensus change hopes to adjust the difficulty to hashrate to target a mean block interval of 600 seconds. Alongside this, the DAA aims to make sudden difficulty drops and spikes avoidable. For instance, the network will adjust difficulty rapidly when the hashrate changes exponentially, while also avoiding feedback oscillations. Sechet's DAA is based on a 144-period simple moving average according to the ABC team.

"The difficulty is adjusted each block, based on the amount of work done and the elapsed time of the previous 144 blocks," explains the Bitcoin ABC development team.

Since the DAA hard fork, block times have been smooth and consistent.

The Bitcoin Cash DAA Should Keep Block Times Consistent and the Mining Ecosystem Honest

Essentially the consensus change means the new DAA should keep block times stable and consistent at roughly 10 minutes per block. So far this goal of 10-minute block intervals has come to fruition. Now that the fork has happened BCH network participants will wait and see what happens with miners who have been hopping back and forth between two chains. Many BCH supporters believe this will level the playing field and from here on out, as the BTC and BCH competition should be fair without any miners gaming the system.

Bitcoin.org Owner Wants to Revise Satoshi’s White Paper

Following the Segwit2x working group's announcement to cancel the hard fork scheduled for next week, many shocked bitcoin proponents revealed their opinions on the web. Additionally, one of the administrators of Bitcoin.org, Theymos, wants the web portal's recommended businesses such as wallet services and exchanges to pledge that "Bitcoin is not ruled by miners" or otherwise be removed from the site's link page.

Bitcoin.org Wants Cryptocurrency Businesses to Make a Pledge or Take a "Bitcoin Basics" Course

Bitcoin.org Owner Wants to Revise Satoshi's White PaperThe Segwit2x hard fork has been canceled, but the drama is still not over. On November 8, the same day the Segwit2x working group made their announcement, Theymos, one of the administrators of Bitcoin.org declared a desire for bitcoin businesses to make a pledge. Theymos details that during the Segwit2x waiting period several companies declared that miners control bitcoin, and the Bitcoin.org administrator thinks this should be addressed.

"This belief is one of the most dangerous threats to bitcoin, since if most people think that, then bitcoin ends up controlled by only a handful of people — Although this issue is mentioned in a few places on Bitcoin.org, I've been thinking that Bitcoin.org should somehow act against this more than it is already," explains the Github issue written by Theymos.

For example, maybe Bitcoin.org should require that wallets and services sign a very simple pledge that acknowledges that bitcoin is not ruled by miners in order to be linked from Bitcoin.org. Or Bitcoin.org could offer a free "bitcoin basics" online course and certification which would have as one of its main goals getting this concept through to people

Cobra Bitcoin: "We Seriously Need to Rewrite the White Paper"

Bitcoin.org Owner Wants to Revise Satoshi's White PaperAfter the issue was brought up by Theymos, bitcoin developer Luke Jr said there's a different belief that developers control bitcoin. He thinks the primary focus should be that the "user or owner" of the coins should decide anything that could compromise their funds. Then the anonymous owner of Bitcoin.org, "Cobra Bitcoin," explains his opinion of the situation and declares that Satoshi's white paper needs to be revised.

"The white paper is to blame for all these dangerous beliefs — We seriously need to rewrite it, or produce a completely new white paper and call that the Bitcoin white paper," details Cobra.

The whitepaper is probably the only vaguely "technical" document that many people in positions of power and influence have read, it's what they base their understanding of Bitcoin on. And it's very easy to misunderstand in subtle ways. It's an extremely dangerous document for an ignorant person to read.

Bitcoin and Civic Duty

One particular quote from the white paper that Cobra disagrees with is this statement, published in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto:

"They vote with their CPU power, expressing their acceptance of valid blocks by working on extending them and rejecting invalid blocks by refusing to work on them. Any needed rules and incentives can be enforced with this consensus mechanism."

Cobra says that when people read that statement, Satoshi is obviously talking about those who run "full nodes." He believes that those who don't understand bitcoin will believe miners decide on what is valid or invalid within the network's consensus rules. Cobra goes on to detail that he's all about giving people lessons and telling them they should be careful when updating software stating:   

I like the idea of offering a free basic course. Maybe it could be something as simple as an animated interactive experience that aims to teach Bitcoin users their civic duty?

Bitcoin.org Owner Wants to Revise Satoshi's White Paper

Bitmain's Jihan Wu is curious about Theymos' thought process.

Not the First Time the Bitcoin.org Owner Proposed Changing Satoshi's White Paper

Of course, the statements were considered controversial across forums when Cobra discussed changing Satoshi's intro to bitcoin and the meaning of the paper's words. People take the issue seriously, because the website's version of the paper is the first to pop up on popular browsers like Google.

Furthermore, it's not the first time the owner of Bitcoin.org proposed revising Satoshi's white paper as Cobra has been pushing the idea on Github back since 2016. At the time, the idea wasn't favored as many Github developers expressed their dislike for the proposal that summer.  "Many dictatorships rewrite history to suit their political goals," writes one individual opposed to the idea. Quite a few others have expressed their thoughts on the Github issue called Amendments to the Bitcoin paper #1325 that year.

Blockchain: ‘Segwit2x Is a Capacity Upgrade’

One of the largest bitcoin wallet providers in the world, Blockchain, has announced its plans for the upcoming Segwit2x fork. After block 494784 takes place on the network, the firm has decided it will follow the chain with the most accumulated difficulty.

London Startup Blockchain Announces Service Plans for Segwit2xBlockchain is one of the oldest bitcoin wallet providers in the industry, servicing over 18 million issued wallets. This week the company has revealed its contingency plans for the Segwit2x block size increase. According to the wallet provider, Segwit2x is "essentially a software upgrade that will bring improved capacity to the Bitcoin protocol." Blockchain says the team is working 24-7 to make sure users' funds will be protected and safe throughout the fork. In order to ensure safety, the wallet service says specific features will be inoperable for a period of time.       

"To keep your funds safe while the network is in transition, we will temporarily suspend bitcoin send, request, buy, sell, and exchange functionality roughly 24 hours before the time of the fork until the network stabilizes," explains Blockchain.

Blockchain's Services Will Follow the Chain With the Most Accumulated Difficulty

The company explains there is no immediate action required by users but does advise them to make sure they have saved their passwords and seed phrases. Additionally Blockchain acknowledges the chance of a blockchain split resulting in two tokens and separate networks. The firm has decided on the token names and which chain it will support after the fork.

"There is a significant possibility that the planned hard fork will result in two bitcoin blockchains," Blockchain emphasizes. 

In this case, we will follow the chain with the most accumulated difficulty and refer to that chain as bitcoin. If the minority chain has significant value, we will make that value available for customers to hold or exchange for a period of time, as we have done with Bitcoin Cash. If the minority chain is the one with 1MB blocks, we plan to call it BT1. If the minority chain has 2MB blocks, we plan to call it BT2.

The Firm Will Temporarily Suspend Transactions

London Startup Blockchain Announces Service Plans for Segwit2xThe London-based company further explains users will be able to view their bitcoin holdings, but Blockchain will "temporarily suspend transactions for bitcoin." Moreover, even though the platform's buy and sell functionality will be suspended, the firm notes Blockchain wallet users can transact with ethereum during the fork. In addition to the Segwit2x contingency plan announcement, the company has created a "status page" called blockchain-status.com. A place where Blockchain wallet users can get regular updates concerning the pending fork alongside other announcements in the future.

Catalonia Contemplates Creating Digital Currency and E-Residency Program

Certain parts of the world stand to gain a lot from creating their own digital currencies. That is much easier said than done, though, as no country or central bank has successfully done so to this point. Catalonia, a region in Spain fighting for independence, is looking to create its own digital currency. In this respect, the region aims to emulate Estonia's e-residency program. It's an interesting idea, but is it even feasible?

Anyone who hasn't been living under a rock these past two weeks will be aware of the situation in Catalonia. More specifically, there is a major conflict underway between the regional government and Spanish authorities right now. Catalonia wants to become independent of Spain, but the Spanish officials aren't in favor of its independence whatsoever. However, the Catalonia government is putting up a valiant effort to achieve its goal moving forward.

Given the current institutional crisis in the region and the rest of Spain, it is evident something has to give sooner or later. The latest venture by the Catalonia government revolves around creating its own version of Estonia's e-residency program. That will not be easy by any means, although the precedent is certainly in place to make it become a reality sooner or later. Attracting entrepreneurs to help create an independent economy will benefit the region and help solidify its independence as well.

Dani Marco, the director of SmartCatalonia, has traveled to Estonia on multiple occasions to see firsthand how its initiative works. Meeting with technology experts has been one of the team's top priorities in creating a digital residency solution. In Estonia, the e-residency program has attracted over 20,000 entrepreneurs from over 140 countries already. Whether or not Catalonia can boast similar success in the end remains to be determined.

Moreover, there is growing talk of introducing a national digital currency in Catalonia as well. Considering that this part of Spain aims to become independent, that isn't surprising in the slightest. It seems there are quite a few entrepreneurs working on virtual currencies throughout Spain already. In a way, it's the perfect ecosystem in which to develop a national digital currency for a region attempting to become completely autonomous.

So far, it appears people close to the matter have already reached out to Vitalik Buterin in regards to the creation of a blockchain-based system to support this new currency. It is very likely we will see an ICO of some sort, although most of the details remain shrouded in mystery for the time being. There are quite a few benefits to this project, assuming it's actually feasible in the first place.

As of right now, there is no official timeline or roadmap associated with this venture. It is not even a full-fledged plan of action either, although the option is seriously being considered as we speak. Only time will tell whether or not Catalonia gets its own digital currency in the future. If there ever was a reason to pursue such an option, Catalonia's independence would certainly fit the bill.

Trump’s Attorney General Jeff Sessions: ”Bitcoin is a big problem”

President Donald Trump's Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, testified before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. The committee is given rather broad powers concerning federal criminal law and internet privacy. During a quick exchange, hours into the hearing, Mr. Sessions was asked about the "dark web." His answers might foreshadow what's ahead for digital privacy and bitcoin users.

At three hours, forty three minutes and thirty seconds into his testimony, ranking member Mrs. Dianne Feinstein, Democrat from California, announced her line of questioning would focus on "the dark web."

Citing a New York Times article, "Opioid Dealers Embrace the Dark Web to Send Deadly Drugs by Mail," by Nathaniel Popper, Senator Feinstein began, "it seems to me, the dark web, being used by criminals, is going to grow in the coming years."

The "dark web" refers to a tucked-away part of the "deep web," which is purposely aloof from mainstream search engines. Authorizations, special software, are often required. If such is considered "dark," then regular internet usage is known as clearnet. 

The phrase strikes deep fear among government officials. Mrs. Feinstein in her questioning was sure to harden the 'b' when pronouncing "dark web," adding a sense of seriousness.

"If you have any plans to address it," she continued, "or would you begin to think about it so that we might have some conversations on this, because I think there's a lot of concern out there in law enforcement communities," the Senator emphasized.

Holding both his hands together, Attorney General Sessions sat fully upright and announced he "would be pleased to do so."

"We are very concerned about that," he elaborated. "The FBI's very concerned about that. They did take down, I think, the two biggest, dark web sites. This last one, Alphabay, we took down recently. They had 240,000 sites where individuals were selling, for the most part, illegal substances or guns on that site, including Fentanyl. And, they use bitcoins and other untraceable financial capabilities, and it is a big problem," he nodded.

"Thank you," Mrs. Feinstein returned a nod, "I'd like to work with you on it, and if it requires legislation in particular. So, thank you very much. I'm going to quit while I am ahead."

Looking for a Way In

More than a few histories of Bitcoin credit darker markets for moving drug traffic off streets, and onto safer environments, limiting potential violence. They're also central, according to theorists, to advancing the idea that bitcoin could be a viable currency in its earliest days.

The History and Evolution of Proof of Stake

Proof of Stake (PoS) was first introduced in a paper by Sunny King and Scott Nadal in 2012 and intended to solve the problem of Bitcoin mining's high energy consumption. At that time, it cost an average of $150,000 a day to maintain the Bitcoin network. Today, this figure is at a staggering $6.7 million (if we assume a $0.12/watt cost and multiply that with the estimated 56,209,833 KWh of electricity that the Bitcoin network consumed on Oct. 13, 2017).

Rather than relying on the energy-dependent work of miners to add blocks, Sunny and Scott suggested an alternative method called "staking" where a deterministic algorithm would choose nodes based on the number of coins an individual had. In other words, stakers would have more chances of being selected to add a block to the chain and reap the reward if they "staked" more coins in their wallet.  They hoped this would avoid the ever increasing energy costs and hashrate difficulty of mining. However, their new consensus mechanism was not without its own issues.  

Four Issues With PoS

There are four main challenges in designing a Proof of Stake system:

Distribution. Since block rewards go to stakers, how do you distribute coins initially?

Monopolization. Those with a significant amount of coins reap a majority of all future coins.

51% attack. Just like how Proof of Work (PoW) has to be wary of a 51% attack from a miner, so too does PoS have to be wary of a staker who has a 51% stake weight.

Nothing at Stake (NoS). PoS adds a block when a node meets a set of conditions which includes stake weight. However, the coin forks when two nodes meet these conditions at the same time. The fork is then resolved by other nodes signing one of the two transactions. The hypothetical problem of NoS arises when 99% of all nodes sign both chains because there is no cost (nothing at stake) to verify these transactions. Therefore a 1% staker could potentially "double spend" by paying with coins on one chain but then verifying the other.

In light of this, the evolution of PoS can be understood by each coin attempting to solve these issues in their own way.  We will now look at Peercoin.

Peercoin PPC

Sunny King created Peercoin (PPC) in 2013 to become the first cryptocurrency to implement Proof of Stake while still keeping Proof of Work (PoW). It addressed the 4 issues of PoS in the following ways:

Distribution. Peercoin uses a PoW-based decreasing distribution. In the beginning, PoW was heavily emphasized for PPC's initial distribution phase but has since then been decreasing.  

Monopolization. Coin age was implemented to prevent coin-rich stakers from dominating the rewards.

51% attacks. PPC's chain is completely secured by PoS even though it is a hybrid. Attacks are highly unlikely because it is incredibly expensive to perform an attack. The attacker must effectively purchase or bribe 51% of the staked coins in order to perform this action. Any attack would significantly devalue the coin and cost the attackers a great deal.

Nothing at Stake. PPC developers don't believe this would happen. However, Sunny implemented optional "checkpoints" at first in case there was a successful attack.  Now that the PPC's network has matured, checkpoints are in the process of being phased out.

Blackcoin BLK

This next phase of PoS history is called considered a pure proof of stake protocol without any mining and was first implemented by NXT on November 24, 2013. However, let's consider another coin, Blackcoin, that was also a pure proof of stake that was released shortly thereafter as it has a simpler protocol and had a fairer initial distribution phase.

Blackcoin was created by Pavel Vasin (a.k.a. Rat4) and was released in February 2014.  When Rat4 decided to create BLK, he set out to remove coin age and PoW.  He believed coin age would increase the chance of a 51% stake attack as older aged coins would need less than 51% of staking coins to cause a fork. He also believed that coin age disincentivized users from staking consistently. Rather, stakers were incentivized to remain offline for 90 days to maximize their chances of getting a stake thereby making the network less secure. Rat4's implementation of PoS v.2 protocol addresses the four issues of PoS in the following ways:

Distribution. BLK went through a temporary Proof of Work phase with no pre-mine to ensure fair distribution.

Monopolization. This was addressed via a fair distribution period.

51% attacks. It is incredibly expensive to buy enough coins in order to perform this attack.  Also, the coin would lose significant value.

Nothing at Stake. BLK dev's also believed this was not a threat. However, BLK included checkpoints to protect against hard forks.  Checkpoints will be removed in PoS 3.

Ether ETH

Since Blackcoin, there have been several iterations of the PoS protocol. For example, Bitshares was the first to implement Delegated Proof of Stake.  But the newest iteration of PoS is Ethereum's (ETH) attempt at PoS.  The motivation for ETH to switch is primarily a desire to move towards a more eco-friendly and decentralized system.  If the Ethereum Virtual Machine is truly to be adopted world-wide, Bitcoin's current $6.7 million daily electricity cost would quickly be surpassed.

Ethereum's PoS system will implement a Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT)-style PoS. Validators will be randomly assigned block rewards, however consensus is formed through a multi-round process where every validator votes for a chain. Ethereum is NOT utilizing Proof of Stake at the moment and there have been some doubts as to whether or not it will actually be implemented. With that being said, here's how Ethereum hopes to solve the four ssues involved with PoS:

Distribution. ETH has already been distributed with approximately 70% sold in it's ICO in 2014 representing 70% of total of Ether in circulation. Eleven million was given to the Ethereum Foundation and continues its distribution via PoW.

Monopolization. ETH has already been distributed.  Another way ETH hopes to solve this issue is by locking coins in a smart contract in order to stake. Therefore, staking comes at the cost of liquidity.

51% attacks. As mentioned above, it is incredibly costly to buy or bribe nodes to participate in a 51% attack. Should an attack happen, Michael Gubik proposes utilizing social/business/exchange forums to select one of the forked chains in his Proof of Stake FAQ on Ethereum's github.

Nothing at Stake. Validators will be disincentivized from signing orphaned blockchains as they will be punished.

Conclusion

There have been many fully functional and secure iterations of PoS over the history of cryptocurrency from the Hybrid PoS-PoW to pure PoS to Delegated PoS.  The BFT-style PoS is the newest attempt to address the four main issues surrounding the protocol initially proposed by Sunny and Mark. Each coin reflects a different approach and each has its own strengths and weaknesses. However, the move to PoS reflects a larger philosophical move in the world of cryptocurrency towards a more eco-friendly and decentralized system.

Meet the New Bitcoin Cash P2P Exchange Localbitcoincash.org

Meet the New Bitcoin Cash P2P Exchange Localbitcoincash.org

On October 14 a new bitcoin cash exchange was launched called, Localbitcoincash.org, a platform that enables people to trade the decentralized currency in a peer-to-peer fashion.

Localbitcoincash.org Launches Beta Platform

Meet the New Bitcoin Cash P2P Exchange Localbitcoincash.orgThis week the beta version of Localbitcoincash.org (LBC) was released after bitcoin cash (BCH) fans were teased with screenshots of the platform two weeks ago. The developer of the site states that the platform is in its very early stages and the team plans to improve the marketplace over time. Further, the LBC developer says he tried to contact the team from Localbitcoins so they could offer assistance with forking the code but received no reply. "We have decided to take matters into our own hands," explains the LBC developer.

"We aim to keep transactions free, including escrows and bank transfers, to encourage more people to use Bitcoin Cash," explains the LBC website announcement. "However, currently all expenses came from the founder's savings so to ensure the site sustainability, we will be charging optional fees."

As long as we can pay the bills, we are happy. We are determined as hell to make bitcoin cash become a household name.

A Good Thing About Bitcoin Cash is That Transaction Fees Are Less Than a Penny

Additionally, deposits and withdrawals are free as well except for the network transaction (tx) fee. However, the LBC developer says tx fees on the Bitcoin Cash network are typically "less than a penny, depending on your transaction size." The site offers escrow options for trades, bank transfers and local meetups for bitcoin cash exchanges. Currently, a majority of the individuals with trades listed on the platform are choosing the meetup option.

"Please do not deposit anything if you are uncomfortable doing so — Use the meetup option to trade with other users off-site," details the LBC developer emphasizing the platform is still in beta.

Localbitcoincash.org's listings for October 14, 2017.

Further, the website gives step-by-step instructions for trading BCH with escrow, and methods of meeting up locally as well. The website also has a price index covering a variety of the top cryptocurrencies, so users don't need to go to a separate website to find various prices. A trader reputation will be added to the LBC platform in roughly a month, the developer details on Reddit. Moreover, the LBC administrator says they have big plans for the peer-to-peer website stating:         

It has been a wild ride for bitcoin cash owners as the price swings between a low of $200 to a high of $1000 in the two months since bitcoin cash was born. As a founder, I would like to share that we have extremely ambitious plans for bitcoin cash over the next 12 months.

What do you think about the new Localbitcoincash.org platform? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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Current Batch of Bitmain Miners Can Only Be Paid for With Bitcoin Cash

Most Bitcoin users are well aware that Bitmain is one of the largest ASIC hardware manufacturers in existence today. It is also one of the few companies still selling cryptocurrency mining equipment to mainstream consumers. The company recently made the decision to only accept Bitcoin Cash payments for its latest batch of Antminer S9 units. It's an interesting decision, although a controversial one as well.

Although the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem has seen its fair share of growth as of late, there is still a lot of work to be done. When it comes to spending BCH especially, things are not necessarily straightforward. A lot of companies still don't accept BCH payments right now and that situation will not change anytime soon. Bitmain is setting an interesting precedent in this regard, even though it may hurt business in the process.

Indeed, the mining hardware manufacturer has made a very bold decision by requiring that the new batch of Antminer S9 mining units be paid for with Bitcoin Cash exclusively. That is a rather surprising turn of events, considering the company has always accepted payment with Bitcoin. Interestingly enough, the unit price is still denominated in BTC, BCH, and LTC right now. However, after scrolling down to the "Payments" section of the page, only BCH is shown as an accepted payment method.

While this decision may bring more usability to the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem as a whole, it is not necessarily a smart business decision. That's not because people don't want to spend their BCH on things they can use, mind you, but rather because Bitcoin Cash is still a rather small – albeit valuable –  ecosystem right now. In a way, it was to be expected that one of the biggest proponents of BCH would accept this payment method, although exclusivity was not necessarily something anyone saw coming.

The big question is what Bitmain hopes to gain from this course of action. It is in its best interest to see BCH succeed.  The company's Antpool is still one of the largest supporters of BCH right now, although not the largest entity by any means. Moreover, Bitmain may still support SegWit2x when that hard fork occurs, although it is unknown whether they would ever accept that new altcoin for payment purposes. With this rather surprising precedent, it is only a matter of time before we see other companies follow its example.

Moreover, it is also unclear if future batches of Bitmain products will support BCH payment. It is certainly possible this is just a "test run" by the company to gauge interest in the concept. A lot of people hold BCH as a means of speculation, rather than an actual intent to use it to make purchases. Moreover, not everyone wants to mine cryptocurrency at home with such machines, either due to costs, noise, or genuine disinterest.

All things considered, this decision comes at a time during which Bitcoin Cash is struggling to retain its value in the market, and whether or not things will improve for BCH remains to be seen. It is good to see some more positive attention for different cryptocurrencies, especially by such a well-established company. Rest assured this controversial decision will not go by unnoticed for long.

Ethereum Price Falls Below $300 Again

Everyone in the world is seemingly keeping a close eye on the cryptocurrency markets right now. One of the currencies for which many people have high expectations is Ethereum. While still the world's second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, things are not exactly going as planned. With a 3.51% loss since yesterday, the Ethereum price has dipped below US$290 at the time of writing. This trend will not last all that long, though; that much is certain.

When the Bitcoin price dips briefly, the rest of the cryptocurrency markets will do the exact same thing. In the case of Ethereum, the price of this token has taken a tumble over the past few hours. While the Ethereum price was well above US$300 not too long ago, maintaining that high price point has proven problematic. Volatility is the second nature of all cryptocurrencies, and it clearly shows as of right now.

As far as the Ethereum price is concerned, it's now hovering close to US$290 for the time being. That is still a more than respectable price, all things considered, but it remains to be seen if a return to US$300 will happen before, during or after this weekend. We saw a sharp price increase for Ethereum from US$250 to US$306 earlier this week, which means a correction was due at some point.

Although the Ethereum price has dropped by 3.51%, there is no reason to be concerned whatsoever. It is a bigger dip than most people would have liked to see right now, but things will recover eventually. Particularly when the Bitcoin price recovers in a few hours from now, the Ethereum price will see some upward momentum accordingly. Despite what some people may claim, all cryptocurrencies derive value based on the Bitcoin price momentum, and Ethereum is no exception in this regard.

One thing that is somewhat disconcerting, however, is the low Ethereum trading volume. Relative to a few weeks ago, the Ethereum trading volume has dropped from well over US$1 billion to about half a billion USD right now. More specifically, there was US$532 million in volume over the past 24 hours, which is not bad, but nothing spectacular either by any means. Then again, this lower trading volume is no big surprise whatsoever, nor should it affect the currency in the long run.

Looking over the Ethereum trading markets ranked by volume, Bithumb is in the lead by a small margin over Bitfinex. GDAX is a surprise in the number three slot, but it is good to see some more competition in the Ethereum marketplace these days. With three fiat currency trading pairs dominating the Ethereum trading volume right now, the popular altcoin follows the same path as Bitcoin. More fiat currency-based trading is always a positive sign, though, as it confirms the global demand for cryptocurrency is still there.

As of right now, it appears to be only a matter of time until the Ethereum price surpasses $300 once again. However, with the weekend almost upon us, no one can say for sure what the future may hold, which is always somewhat troubling. Ethereum is a cryptocurrency to be reckoned with, as it does things very differently from Bitcoin or any other top cryptocurrency. A bright future lies ahead, regardless of the current price movements.