Costs

Q&A: How Blockchain Could Transform the Art Industry

The art world has had a tough time lately. The coronavirus pandemic has forced many galleries and museums to close, with sales of premium pieces also affected.But there could be a solution that helps the industry get back on its feet and achieve much-needed digitization: blockchain. Here, we talk to Niko Kipouros, founder and CEO of 4ARTechnologies, about how this technology could transform the way we purchase and own artwork — and even ensure that the provenance and authenticity of masterpieces are never doubted.1. What are the biggest challenges facing

Bitcoin Price Seals Best Weekly Close in 2.5 Years: 5 Things to Know

Bitcoin (BTC) greets another week with a push to $12,000 and its highest weekly close since after it hit $20,000 — will it return?Cointelegraph takes a look at five things that stand to impact BTC price performance in the coming five days.BTC: A two-and-half-year record weekly closeBitcoin hitting $12,000 again early Monday was more than just a boon for traders — in doing so, BTC/USD sealed its highest close on weekly time frames since January 2018.This means that no single week of price action ended at such high levels since,

UAS: The First Government to Bring Blockchain Development to The Masses

What constitutes development? Would one know it when they saw it? More importantly, why should it matter whether or not a nation attains it? Answers to these seemingly simple questions are as varied as people are. However, simply put, development is the expansion of a nation’s economy, complemented with a significant rise in its citizens’ living standards. From this, it is apparent that development is visible—additionally, its attainment matters. Africa, compared to other regions, is underdeveloped, albeit resource-rich. Ironically, incomes continue to rise across the continent while a majority of

Ransomware Attacks Demanding Crypto Are Unfortunately Here to Stay

Year after year, the ransomware landscape changes dramatically. In 2019, a new resurgence of attacks occurred as businesses and government institutions became the main targets of ransomware, given their capacity to yield larger payouts. The most recent attack was against Garmin, a navigation systems company, on July 23. Due to the attack, many of its online services such as customer support, website functions and company communications were affected. Reportedly, the Russian cybergang Evil Corp launched the attack, demanding $10 million in cryptocurrency to restore access to Garmin’s services. Overall, according to a

What is Wrapped Bitcoin? A Guide to WBTC

WBTC is a way for Bitcoin to run on the Ethereum blockchain. Performing quick and affordable transactions using Bitcoin (BTC) has long been a problem of the community ever since it became more popular. This is why there have been many developments planning to address this issue.  But what if we can make our BTC coins functional on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain? Would there be a difference? Wrapped BTC (WBTC) is a multi-institution project that aims to solve common BTC problems by creating its ERC-20 token counterpart. And in the

The Human Rights Foundation Awards Grants to Three More Bitcoin Projects

The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) is issuing grants to three more Bitcoin developers. JoinInbox creator Openoms, Zeus creator Evan Kaloudis and Fully Noded creator Fontaine will be gifted 1 bitcoin each, worth over $11,000 at the time of writing, making for a total of over $33,000. This marks the second round of grants from the Bitcoin Development Fund, HRF’s new fund to support Bitcoin projects. “HRF decided to acknowledge and support these three developers and their projects because they are all focusing on making Bitcoin technology more accessible. Usability is

What is Serum? A DeFi Derivatives DEX Guide

DeFi-based exchanges have seen wild success in 2020 thanks to yield farming, which has incentivized hundreds of thousands of users to provide liquidity to these platforms. With that being said, DEXs are still a far-cry from centralized exchanges in both UI and UX. Serum is here to change all that. Serum is a protocol that claims to be “pure DeFi” as they have managed to address a lot of issues the space is facing. Most of the users in DeFi today are not traders but yield farmers. Yield farmers are

International Group of Finance Leaders Says Ripple’s XRP Remittance Network Leapfrogs Traditional Banking System

ADVERTISEMENT An independent body of global finance leaders says Ripple’s XRP-powered cross-border payment platform “leapfrogs” the efficiency of traditional remittance methods. The Group of 30 published the report, calling on central banks and financial authorities around the world to be proactive in terms of regulating digital assets. G30 experts discuss the theoretical possibility of a “systemic hegemonic currency,” which some academics have posited could possibly reduce “spillover shocks” that come with the US dollar acting as a reserve currency. The systemic currency could come in the form of a stablecoin

3 Reasons Why Bitcoin Transactions Are Slow

Aug 01, 2020 at 08:27 // News Despite Bitcoin offering unprecedented decentralization and security, its network has one significant flow, namely, the transaction speed. A single transaction processing can take up to 10 minutes. But why is this happening? To understand why bitcoin transactions sometimes take so much time to confirm, it is essential to first understand how they are verified. Delving into the essence Once a transaction is created, a transaction message is sent to the Bitcoin blockchain and passed around all the nodes available on the network. This

Italian Red Cross Builds COVID-19 Medical Post With Donated Bitcoins

On April 5, Italy’s “blood donation day,” the Italian Red Cross constructed an advanced medical post using funds generated through a crypto fundraiser.The Italian Red Cross has raised nearly $32,000 through cryptocurrency donations in less than one month. Roughly $22,000 has been used to finance the construction of the initiative’s first advanced medical post in the town of Castel Gandolfo near Rome. The funds were spent by the initiative to purchase a pneumatic tent that will house the medical post, in addition to other materials. The tent was erected during Italy’s

Bitfarms Streamlines Workforce As Coronavirus Threat Continues

Birfarms, a cryptocurrency mining outfit based out of Canada, would be trimming its staff. This is due to the coronavirus pandemic’s effects on its operations.The company made the decision known in an update published earlier this week, explaining that it will be making some adjustments to the coronavirus amid both its economic and social effects.Focusing on Sustainability and ProfitsVia the update, the company explained to stakeholders and community members that it had optimized its operations to maximize mining power over the past few weeks. As a result, it’s been able