Cryptocurrencies To Watch

Author: Treasure Samuel

  • What is Bitcoin? A Simple Guide for Newbies

    What is Bitcoin? A Simple Guide for Newbies

    Bitcoin (BTC) is a virtual currency, also called a cryptocurrency. Unlike fiat currencies, or physical money, bitcoin is a form of money that can neither be seen nor touched or felt.

    “Bitcoin” is no strange word as it has become increasingly popular. You may wonder, however, what really is this famous bitcoin?

    In this article, you’ll find answers to these questions:

    What is Bitcoin?

    Bitcoin is a digital currency that can be transferred from one person to another electronically throughout the world. It is not owned by anyone. The transfer of bitcoin from one person to another cannot be controlled by any individual or central authority. Hence, the word, ‘decentralized’.

    Bitcoin has a limited supply of 21,000,000. Only 21 million bitcoins will ever exist. Currently, more than 18,000,000 bitcoins are in existence. It is estimated that the last bitcoin will be mined in 2140.

    A bitcoin address is a unique set of 58 characters that is used to identify the destination of a bitcoin transaction. It is similar to an email address that indicates where an email should be sent or the bank account details that point out where money should be paid.

    Bitcoin is rightly referred to as money because it can be used as a medium of exchange. Fractions of bitcoin can be used for the exchange of goods and services in many parts of the world. A good example is El Salvador, the first country to adopt bitcoin as a legal tender.

    A Brief History of Bitcoin

    Bitcoin is the genesis of all cryptocurrencies. This is because bitcoin was the very first cryptocurrency that existed.

    Bitcoin was launched in 2008 by a person, or group of people, known as Satoshi Nakamoto. Before that time, all the world knew was physical money. This is why Bitcoin is said to be the new evolution of money.

    An interesting aspect about the history of Bitcoin is that nobody knows the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto. We do not know whether the name belongs to a male or a female, nor can we ascertain that Satoshi Nakamoto is an individual or a group.

    Blockchain and How it Relates to Bitcoin

    A blockchain is a public digital ledger that is used to make records of cryptocurrency transactions. Once a record is made in a blockchain, it cannot be changed.

    To illustrate: Imagine that a blockchain is an exercise book. A whole page inside this book is a block of transactions while a single line on that page is one transaction.

    When a fraction of bitcoin is transferred, the transaction is recorded in the blockchain. The Bitcoin network is a blockchain that verifies, validates and records the transfer of bitcoins. Once inputted, a record on the blockchain cannot be altered, nor can a transaction be reversed.

    Bitcoin (with capitalization B) is the blockchain while bitcoin (starting with small letter b) is the currency. The use of blockchain to verify transactions is exceptional as this contributes to bitcoin’s high resistance to counterfeiting.

    Why Invest in Bitcoin

    Should you invest in bitcoin? First, let us consider some popular reasons why people invest in bitcoin.

    Bitcoin is an open source technology that allows anybody to participate in it. Just like any other asset, you can invest in bitcoin when the price is low and make money by selling when the price is high.

    Compared to bank transaction fees, bitcoin transaction fees are low.

    Bitcoin transactions are not controlled by anybody, hence investing in it is secure.

    It is worthy of note that bitcoin is volatile and the price is unstable. This is evident in how much the value of Bitcoin has dropped in the past few months.

    Now back to the question: Should you invest in bitcoin? The decision is yours to make. However, it is important to know that bitcoin, as a digital currency, is a good store of value in the long-term.

    Conclusion

    Bitcoin is not as complicated as it may seem, provided we study the basics. In this article, we’ve gotten a brief overview of what bitcoin is and how it started. We’ve also examined some reasons why people invest in bitcoin and whether or not investing is profitable.

  • Kraken to Gift $1,000 in BTC to Users Affected by Russia-Ukraine Crisis

    Kraken to Gift $1,000 in BTC to Users Affected by Russia-Ukraine Crisis

    Popular American cryptocurrency exchange Kraken has prepared a $10 million aid package that will be disbursed to its users affected by the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. The distribution of aid will begin on the 10th of March and run until July 1st, 2022..

    Eligible Customers to Receive $1K Worth of Bitcoin

    Per Wednesday’s announcement from the exchange, users who created an account with the exchange from Ukraine prior to March 9, 2022 will be qualified to receive $1,000 in bitcoin. The beneficiaries can choose to immediately withdraw it in fiat from the exchange upon receival.

    Kraken also noted that it will not charge its clients the usual fees for converting BTC to dollars. Conversion of $1,000 and less will be free for the time being.  The exchange further noted that it would donate an amount equivalent to the total trading fees paid by Russia-based clients in the first half of 2022 to the aid package.

    Commenting on the development, Jesse Powell, CEO of Kraken, said:

    “We hope to continue being able to provide critical financial services in a time of need to both our clients in Ukraine and in Russia,”  adding that “cryptocurrency remains an important humanitarian tool, especially at a time when many around the world can no longer rely on traditional banks and custodians.”

    The move by Kraken is said to be the first-ever international aid distribution by the exchange. 

    Binance Donates Crypto to Ukraine

    Meanwhile, other crypto exchanges have also been taking similar relief action amidst the ongoing crisis between Ukraine and Russia. 

    Binance Charity, the philanthropic arm of leading cryptocurrency exchange, Binance has also donated $2.5 million in crypto to the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) to support the organization’s efforts in helping affected Ukrainian children and families survive the ongoing crisis in their country.

    Coinbase Will Not Block All Russians

    As more crypto exchanges continue to block Russian users from accessing crypto services, leading US crypto exchange Coinbase has said it will not block the accounts of all Russian users on its platform. 

    The company’s CEO noted that the reason for not restricting all Russians is due to the fact that many of them are against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and that crypto serves as a life saver for these citizens in the country at the moment. 

  • Modulr Partners With Ripple to Integrate RippleNet Into Platform

    Modulr Partners With Ripple to Integrate RippleNet Into Platform

    Leading payment protocol technology company Ripple is now one of the official partners of Modulr, a payment services platform registered in England.

    Ripple Partners with Modulr

    Per the announcement, the partnership is to enable the integration of blockchain-based digital payment and transfer protocol, RippleNet, into Modulr so as to enable its customers to make seamless international payments.

    By adopting the RippleNet protocol, Modulr’s business customers will be able to run much faster, more reliable and cost-effective real-time payment transactions into the United Kingdom (UK) and Europe.

    Commenting on the partnership, Sendi Young, Managing Director of Ripple in Europe, said:

    “Ripple is thrilled to partner with Modulr, who has a deep knowledge and expertise of the payments landscape, as well as unrivaled connections to critical payment infrastructure in the UK.”

    Myles Stephenson, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Modulr is also excited about the partnership, stating that the company shares similar goals with Ripple, hence the reason for the collaboration.

    “We’re excited to partner with Ripple – we share the same fundamental goal which is to make it easier to send and control global business payment flows by removing the hidden inefficiencies plaguing international payments today. This partnership lays the groundwork for even bigger things to come.”

    Stephenson and Young mentioned that their companies are both looking forward to working with each other in delivering simpler and more reliable payment services into the UK and Europe, and then globally in the coming months.

    Upon integrating the RippleNet payment protocol into their platform, Modulr has seen one of its customers, Trust Payments, become the first to directly benefit from it.

    Financial Firms Continue to Adopt RippleNet

    The latest development is a plus one for the number of financial institutions in several countries that have integrated the RippleNet protocol into their platforms.

    Last month, Attijariwafa Bank, the largest multinational commercial bank in Morocco with $53.3 billion Assets Under Management also adopted the RippleNet protocol to enable the conducting of instantaneous transactions for its customers.

  • Binance Burns 1.7 Million BNB ($797M) in 18th Quarterly Burn

    Binance Burns 1.7 Million BNB ($797M) in 18th Quarterly Burn

    Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has recently completed another quarterly burn of its native token, Binance Coin (BNB). As noted in the company’s roadmap, Binance burned 20% of the profit realized in the just concluded 18th quarter.

    Per the announcement, approximately 1.7 million BNB (worth about $797 million at press time) were removed from circulation this quarter, with an additional 6,296 BNB (worth $2.95 million as of press time) also burned via the Pioneer Burn Program.

    The value of coins that were burned suggests that the exchange made a total of $4 billion in profit within the last quarter. Impressively, it means the latest quarter recorded a significant increase of about $800 million as against last quarter’s profit of $3.2 billion.

    BNB Auto-Burn Protocol

    Worth noting, however, is that unlike previous quarterly burns, which were based on revenue generated from the Binance Centralized Exchange, the latest BNB burn was processed differently.

    Binance recently adopted a new program termed BNB Auto-Burn, which as the name implies, would automatically calculate the number of tokens that would be burned per quarter-end.

    Under the program, the number of tokens to be burned is arrived at using a formula based on BNB’s price, which reflects supply and demand, and the number of blocks produced for that quarter.

    The latest development by the exchange opens a new record of being the first-ever auto-burn in Binance’s history.

    Commenting on the newly introduced procedure, Changpeng Zhao, co-founder of Binance, said, “The implementation of the BNB auto-burn is a natural next step in BNB’s journey and would help the BNB community grow through providing greater autonomy, transparency and predictability.”

    BNB Unaffected by Burn

    The latest development by Binance does not seem to be having any significant impact on BNB. 

    In fact, on the 17th of January, a day after the company announced the burn, BNB traded between $473.85 and $483.65. According to data from cryptocurrenciestowatch.com, the token was trading at $464.82, as of press time, representing a 4% decrease within the past 24 hours.

  • Bitcoin History: The BearWhale Who Sold 30,000 BTC at $300 Per Coin Because of FUD

    Bitcoin History: The BearWhale Who Sold 30,000 BTC at $300 Per Coin Because of FUD

    In a recent Twitter post made by a Bitcoin OG, Peter Rizzo, he recalls an early effort by bitcoin investors on this day seven years ago. The small but mighty army of bitcoin enthusiasts put in a lot of buy orders to steady the price of bitcoin at $300 after a notorious BearWhale tried to sell 30,000 BTC worth around $9 million at the time.

    The Infamous Bitcoin Bearwhale Story

    In 2014, very few people owned bitcoin. In that year in contrast to the present, there were still a lot of doubts and speculations on whether the currency was even worth buying despite how cheap it was.

    A few people, though, had faith in bitcoin and bought some for themselves. When the price spiked to $1000+,  the holders were happy and refused to sell, hoping that the price would keep increasing.

    But then the price started sinking suddenly and some holders started panicking, one of which was a man who owned 30,00 bitcoins which he had formerly bought for $8 per coin. Given that he had a large amount and was bearish on price, he earned the nickname, BearWhale.

    When the price finally dropped as low as $300 per coin, BearWhale could not take it anymore. As a result, he decided to sell all the 30,000 bitcoins he had, basing his reason on some lies that were spread about Bitcoin then.

    Some of these lies were that bitcoin’s limited block size was a threat to its future, Gavin Andersen (one of the software developers for Bitcoin) was expelled by bitcoin company Blockstream, and that Blockstream was controlling bitcoin’s source code.

    The Joint Effort of the Bitcoin Community

    After the BearWhale placed a huge order at Bitstamp exchange to sell all his bitcoins at the current $300 price, the few bitcoin holders then were overwhelmed with a huge burden, as they had no choice but to buy it up so as to avoid a further decrease in price.

    Contrary to the present, when there is much more liquidity for Bitcoin, selling $9 million worth of the cryptocurrency then was enough to drive down price.

    They, however, displayed a commendable unity by successfully purchasing all of the Bearwhale’s coins. As a result, they were able to steady the bitcoin price which in turn increased the confidence of other investors.

    What Happened to the BearWhale?

    The BearWhale later realized that there was no need for the FUD that made him sell and came to a better conclusion. In a Reddit post that he published a few years later, Bearwhale signed a transaction to prove that he owned the Bitcoin address which dumped a large number of bitcoins. He noted: 

    “None of the supposed facts which motivated my decision to sell were correct. It was all a carefully crafted and funded disinformation campaign… to discourage improvements to the bitcoin protocol to achieve financial gain at the expense of the community…Once I recognized the moves to discredit the core developers for what it was…I looked at bitcoin and the greater community again with a more critical eye and I came to…” better conclusions.

    According to his Reddit post, the BearWhale bought back into Bitcoin in mid-2017, profiting from a later rally that year and probably still holding.

    At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading around $55k a tremendous increase in price compared to its stance seven years ago. This meteoric price increase proves many bitcoin doubters wrong, and highlights just how those who believed in Bitcoin’s early promise were rewarded handsomely.