Bitcoin Address Illuminates Amsterdam’s Lights Festival

News Residents of the Herengracht, one of Amsterdam’s most famous canalside streets, have been confronted by a curious combination of illuminated letters and numbers. The large 34-character display has provoked curiosity and more than a little confusion. Part of Amsterdam Light Festival, the gaudy installation is in fact a bitcoin address with a benevolent cause attached. Also read: House of Nakamoto Opens in Amsterdam Cryptographic Code Down by the Canal Frederike Top “Code” is the name of Frederike Top’s eye-catching contribution to Amsterdam Light Festival. The 37-year-old Dutch artist, who…

Ethereum Constantinople Hard Fork to Come in Mid-January, Based on Dev’s New Agreement

Ethereum (ETH) core developers have agreed to launch the long-awaited Constantinople  hard fork at block 7,080,000, as decided in a bi-weekly developers meeting on Friday, Dec. 7. The new agreement follows the previous decision to delay Constantinople fork for late January 2019 due to a “consensus issue” that occurred during the upgrade trial on Ropsten testnet in October. Given the press-time ETH block time of 14.3 sec, and the number of remaining blocks of around 234,745, the Constantinople upgrade is likely to become active in around 38 days from press…

Grin Implementation of MimbleWimble Looks to improve Bitcoin Privacy and Scalability

Whenever commentators speak about cryptocurrencies and blockchain, a recurring theme is privacy. This feature is becoming more and more growing population wish their information to be available onto a public ledger that accessible by governments, regulators or even close-knit associates like family and friends. Bitcoin’s Relationship with Privacy (or Lack Thereof) Initially, when Bitcoin came to existence, it was a pseudonymous coin that offered enough privacy to convince users of the difficulty in connecting a Bitcoin hash address to a real-life individual or businesses. However, as the ledger of the…

EU Report Considers Blockchain-Based Digital Identities, Tokenized National Currencies

In its latest report released on Dec. 7, the European Union Blockchain Observatory and Forum (EUBOF) made a case for a blockchain-based digital identity system and digital versions of national currencies. The report was prepared by blockchain software technology firm ConsenSys AG on behalf of the EUBOF, and focuses on the analysis of what blockchain properties could be beneficial and advantageous for governments. The EUBOF suggests that governments should develop “user-controlled, ‘self-sovereign’ identity capabilities” to create secure, private, unique and verifiable identities, that can provide sufficient proof of identity without…

Cryptocurrency Exchange Coinbase Lists Four More Ethereum Tokens

The most popular US cryptocurrency exchange is continuing its promise to support Ethereum-based ERC20 tokens, adding four more of the coins to the Coinbase Pro platform. Starting today, December 7, Coinbase Pro users can transfer their balances of Civic (CVC), district0x (DNT), Loom Network (LOOM), and Decentraland (MANA) to the exchange, and full trading will commence around 48 hours from today. The Coinbase announcement confirms: “Once sufficient liquidity is established, trading will begin on each respective USDC order book. Trading will initially be accessible for Coinbase Pro users in the…

Bitcoin Price Eyes Support at $3,000 as BTC/USD Sets New Yearly Low

The bitcoin price on Friday plunged 6.5 percent against the US Dollar, breaking below the flagship cryptocurrency’s previous yearly low at $3,455. The bearish cycle took another turn after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) halted its decision on the VanEck’s upcoming bitcoin ETF once again. The fundamental has been treated as one of the strongest bullish catalysts for the bitcoin market, with many believing that its approval would bring a minimum of $1 billion investment into space. In case the US regulator disapproves it, the market sentiment would be…

Open Source Project Allows e-Bike Rentals in Seconds over Bitcoin’s Lightning Network

Matthias Steinig, a German programmer, has developed a new mechanism that allows e-bikes to be rented in exchange for payments on the bitcoin Lightning Network. A prototype built using a modified bicycle is already fully functional and has been demonstrated in a video posted on Twitter. The Lightning Bike The project involves a device connected to the bike that controls the flow of electricity depending on whether or not a payment has been made. The payment process only requires the user to scan a QR code with their mobile phone…

Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, Stellar, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin SV, EOS, Litecoin, TRON, Cardano: Price Analysis, Dec. 7

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision. Market data is provided by the HitBTC exchange. The selling in cryptocurrencies dragged the total market capitalization down to about $106 billion on Dec. 7. The crypto market has lost more than 87 percent of its value from the high achieved in late 2017. The latest leg of selling gained traction on…

Venezuela Will Sell Oil for Petro, Maduro Says

The government of Venezuela has announced that it plans to create a basket of cryptocurrencies for the oil-backed state cryptocurrency, the Petro. This initiative will allow the government to sell oil in exchange for petros and bypass US-imposed sanctions at the same time. The sale and purchase of crude oil with cryptocurrency will begin in March 2019. President Nicolás Maduro stated on Thursday that the goal of the measure is to diversify the international market including embracing new forms of payment through cryptocurrencies from allied countries while reducing reliance on…

A Tough December All Around

The cryptocurrency market is taking a tumble again today, marking another crypto downturn for what has been a tough December. BTC has fallen another 11% in the last 24 hours. It had previously fallen 8% only one week ago today. At the time of writing, the world’s largest coin is selling for $3,287 USD. Cryptocurrency Downturn Ripple and Ethereum, the second and third largest cryptocurrencies by market value, have also declined in the last 24 hours. And the losses are great; XRP fell 10.16% and Ethereum an even bigger 15.56%…