Lightning-Powered Blog Sees 20,000 Bitcoin Micropayments in 7 Months

Few projects have done as much to explore crypto micropayments as the year-old Yalls blog created by Lightning Labs developer Alex Bosworth. From April through early November, Bosworth said, blog participants have processed nearly 20,000 invoices with the Lightning Network, a bitcoin scaling solution that makes micropayments feasible by keeping them off the blockchain, sidestepping network transaction fees. It costs roughly one cent to read a Yalls article, half a cent to leave a comment on a post, and 10 cents to react to a post with an emoji. Publishing…

Coinbase Policy Head Mike Lempres Leaves Company for VC Giant Andreessen Horowitz

The head of policy at Coinbase has left the U.S.’ largest exchange and wallet provider to work at investment giant Andreessen Horowitz, Bloomberg quotes a statement as confirming Nov. 22. Mike Lempres, who worked only briefly in the role after swapping over from being Coinbase’s legal head in September, had already decided to leave at the time, the publication says. Like all exchanges serving the U.S. market, Coinbase continues to battle patchwork regulatory frameworks that vary state to state, as well as ongoing reviews of the status of certain types…

National Swiss Railway Operator Completes Pilot of Blockchain ID Management System

The national railway company of Switzerland has completed a proof of concept (PoC) of a “self-sovereign” blockchain-based identity management system, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph. Swiss Federal Railways’ (SBB) product was developed by Linum Labs, a Switzerland-based firm focused on building decentralized systems, deploying Ethereum-based identity management protocol uPort, which was developed in part by blockchain incubator ConsenSys. According to the release, tests of the blockchain-based credential management system – which is meant to be used by workers at the transport company’s construction sites – were carried…

Squirrels Research Labs’ Acorn FPGA Accelerators Start Shipping After Delays

Squirrels Research Labs’ Acorn FPGA Accelerators Start Shipping After Delays November 23, 2018 by Scott Squirrels Research Labs (SQRL),  a part of the Squirrels Inc. along with Squirrels LLC, announced an FPGA accelerator called “Acorn” that fits in the M.2 (same as nVME drives) form factor and designed to operate both standalone and in conjunction with GPUs . This can be something that will give GPU miners the added edge they need in the ever-tightening mining game… but it does not come without a cost. Also read: Authorities Arrest Alleged SIM…

Bitcoin Price Watch: BTC/USD Looks Set To Gain Pace Below $4,000

Key Points Bitcoin price started a major downside move after it failed to break the $4,600 resistance against the US Dollar. There is a new bearish trend line in place with resistance at $4,400 on the hourly chart of the BTC/USD pair (data feed from Kraken). The price is currently in a bearish zone and it could accelerate losses below the $4,000 level in the near term. Bitcoin price failed to recover further above $4,700 and declined against the US Dollar. BTC/USD could accelerate declines below the $4,000 support area.…

European Union Invites Major Banks to Join Blockchain Forum

Twitter Facebook LinkedIn The EU is in the process of establishing a blockchain forum and has invited at least five major banks including BBVA and Santander. The purpose of the IATBA (International Association for Trusted Blockchain Applications) is to “ develop a trusted, secure and resilient European Blockchain Services Infrastructure meeting the highest standards in terms of privacy, cybersecurity, interoperability and energy efficiency, and fully compliant with EU law.” Trusted seems to be the key word, and to demonstrate as much, they are involving major banks from the outset. A…

Price Dip Aside, Paxful Anticipates Big Week of Gift Card-to-Bitcoin Trades

That special time of year is coming up — the time when individuals trade in their unwanted or unusable gift cards for bitcoin. And with the price of bitcoin dropping, peer-to-peer (P2P) bitcoin marketplace Paxful is making it possible to use these gift cards to “buy the dip.” Ray Youssef, Paxful’s CEO and co-founder, explained that, over the past few years, the busiest week for Paxful is the one right after Black Friday; in fact, as time has gone by, the rate of exchange between gift cards and bitcoin has…

Top 5 CPA Firm Confirms Funds in First Attestation of Circle’s USDC

Circle’s USD Coin (USDC) has released an independent, third-party attestation of its bank account, and according to a top 5 public accounting firm, the stablecoin has its funds in order. The attestation was performed by Grant Thornton LLP, one of the largest accounting firms in the U.S. and is the first of what is to become a monthly occurrence for the stablecoin. In the report, which was conducted for the month of October and was signed on November 16, 2018, Grant Thornton found that Circle Internet Ltd. holds $127,412,240.89 in…

Colorado State Commissioner Issues New Cease-and-Desist Orders Against …

Colorado Securities Commissioner Gerald Rome has issued a new batch of cease-and-desist orders against unregistered Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) operating in the state, taking the total number of signed orders against ICOs in Colorado to 18. Today’s orders follow last week’s order issued by the North Dakota’s financial regulators against a Russian-based ICO that promoted unregistered securities by impersonating Liechtenstein-based Union Bank AG. Per an official notice from the regulator, Rome signed the new orders against Global Pay Net, Credits LLC, CrowdShare Mining and CyberSmart Coin Invest for allegedly publishing…

BitPay Integrates PAX Stablecoin Into Cryptocurrency Payment Platform

Bitcoin payment platform BitPay is now going to allow payments with the Paxos Standard token (PAX), which it calls “the fastest growing stablecoin and the highest trading volume of any U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin.” Although BitPay has previously integrated a number of different cryptocurrencies in its platform, such a widely trafficked stablecoin (the first of its kind to see support from the payment platform) holds certain distinct advantages, namely regulatory compliance and a stable value. Seeing as each PAX token represents $1, merchants and customers might feel more comfortable transacting the…