Microsoft to release open source blockchain framework
Coco Framework promises confidentiality, scalability, and governance.Microsoft has launched the open source Coco Framework for blockchain networks, promising to address key drawbacks for enterprise use of the distributed transaction ledger technology. Blockchain was originally part of the Bitcoin cryptocurrency and was designed for public use with anonymous, untrusted actors and full transaction transparency. This means every participant in the blockchain network would execute all transactions added to it, making them visible to everyone with no confidentiality and unsuitable for enterprise use. Existing blockchain protocols also employ computationally intensive consensus algorithms, leading to poor scalability, with performance as slow as 10 to 20 transactions per second. Microsoft said the Coco Framework […]
Bitcoin hits new record, bitcoin cash fades
Experts say the rally in bitcoin still has a long way to go, after the cryptocurrency reached a new all-time high of $US3525 this week. The latest price surge has been driven by the rise and fall of bitcoin cash – a secondary cryptocurrency – and an update in the underlying bitcoin software, which paves the way for an evolution of the bitcoin blockchain. The update – called SegWit – is the product of months of internal debate within the cryptocurrency community around how to handle the rapid increase in transaction demands. A byproduct of this debate was the creation of bitcoin cash, another coin, duplicated from the original, that […]
A Bitcoin for your thoughts?
By Naomi Christopher, Midwinter Financial Services, Senior Manager – Brand Those of us in the tech world can all agree that Bitcoin is genuinely starting to take off or at least cause a stir…. If by take-off you mean clamber $672 bucks one day and slide down $384 the next. But while some of us look on with wide eyed enthusiasm as the price of it continues to climb and fall and then climb and fall (but mostly climb at the moment!), much of the rest of the world continues to scratch their heads as they grapple to understand “what’s it all about?” And of course, whether it is in […]
You could buy 100 boxes of avocados for the price of one bitcoin
Even with all the hand-wringing about bubbles in stock and bond markets, it’s hard to ignore what’s going on in the world of cryptocurrencies and bitcoin. The value of the largest digital currency continues to soar to record highs after weathering a split last week. It has increased more than threefold this year, compared with a doubling in the value of Vertex Pharmaceuticals, the best performer in the S&P 500 Index. At the record price of $US3,486.73 reached overnight, one bitcoin could probably fund a nice holiday. By comparison, one share of Vertex at $US154.82 would get you a fancy dinner. Here’s some other stuff you could buy for the […]
Here’s how Bitcoin can get to $US100,000 in 2021
Bitcoin is trading at record highs on Monday, but the cryptocurrency may still be far from hitting its ceiling. The cryptocurrency has rallied 16.19% since July 31, despite last week’s fork that split it in two. It’s up 465% since last year. According to analysis by Dennis Porto, a bitcoin investor and Harvard academic, the bitcoin’s price could hit $US100,000 per coin if it continues to follow one of tech’s “golden rules,” Moore’s Law. The rule, which was devised in 1965 by Intel cofounder Gordon Moore, describes the exponential improvements of digital technology. “Moore’s law specifically applied to the number of transistors on a circuit but can be applied to […]
Bipartisan push for the Reserve Bank to back Australian bitcoin
Labor and Coalition senators have crossed the political divide to call on the Reserve Bank to embrace bitcoins as an official form of currency or risk the future competitiveness of Australia’s $145 billion a year financial services industry. The push from Labor senator Sam Dastyari and Liberal senator Jane Hume comes after the digital currency soared to an all time high of $4070 per bitcoin on Monday, up from less than 10¢ per coin in 2010. Senator Dastyari said when he first raised bitcoin in the Senate, one of his colleagues came to him and said: ‘I don’t get what the issue is, don’t they just melt all the coin […]
Bitcoin surpasses milestone price of USD$3000 across global exchanges
Bitcoin has finally surpassed the US$3000 per BTC average across global exchanges. In fact, it didn’t stop there and touched an all-time high of $3230 during the start of August 5. The decentralized cryptocurrency now commands a hefty $51.9 billion market cap while trading platforms are currently seeing intense exchange volumes at $1.6 billion USD/BTC trades over the past 24-hours. On August 5 bitcoin surpassed the $3000 USD per BTC threshold on the trading platform Bitstamp. Smashing the $3000 vantage point was not enough for bitcoin as BTC prices touched an all-time high of $3230. At press time one BTC is roughly $3150 as traders take some profits from the […]
Bitcoin cash is essentially printing money
The creation of a second bitcoin asset this week did almost nothing to dilute the price of the original unit, with the value of the new asset instead rocketing skyward, generating almost $US7.5 billion ($9.5 billion) out of thin air. This week, a group of bitcoin activists and developers created a second version of bitcoin, within a few hours, the value of the new unit – bitcoin cash – leapt to over $US600. The original bitcoin price however, remained fairly steady, still trading at about $US2700 a coin, despite an almost 1:1 duplication of itself. “Everyone who has bitcoin now has bitcoin cash and because the market reckons this is […]
