Day: February 4, 2020

U.S.: USMS to Auction $37 Worth of Seized Bitcoin (BTC)

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In an announcement dated February 3, 2020, the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) – a federal law enforcement agency within the U.S. Department of Justice – stated that it would be auctioning more than 4,000 Bitcoin (BTC). USMS to Auction 4,000 BTC Federal law enforcement agency USMS recently stated that it is mulling auctioning close to 4,000 confiscated Bitcoin. To be able to participate in the auction, bidders are required to deposit $200,000 with the federal agency. The agency said that it will return the deposit to unsuccessful bidders within five…

What Is Going On With Jae Kwon and Cosmos?

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“If something should happen to me, be critical and share your opinions respectfully. But everything I’m doing is in fact making me a target,” Jae Kwon, the main architect of the Cosmos protocol, wrote on Twitter on Jan. 21. Kwon’s varied fixations have been a topic of conversation among crypto-community insiders. But it’s been much more than idle chatter for the staffers of the startup building the software that makes Cosmos work. Internal tensions have begun to spill out into public view, precipitated by a story from Decrypt on Jan.…

Binance Launchpad Reveals WazirX Sale Results

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Binance Launchpad, as the name suggests, is Binance’s token launch platform, which has just announced WazirX’s token sale results. It is the first token sale of this year.   According to a Feb. 4 press release from Binance, there were 10,000 winning tickets held by a total of 9,033 winners. More than 20,000 users participated to try to win the lottery. Eventually, more than 136,000 tickets were claimed. Chances of winning for all the participants are at 44 percent and this also puts the percentage of winning tickets at 7.31%.   The…

Consensys Cuts Additional 14% of Staff, Aims to Split

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Blockchain software company Consensys let go of an additional chunk of its staff while splitting its focus in two separate directions.  Consensys cut its employee base down by roughly 14%, the company announced on Feb. 4 in a press release.   Headquartered in New York, Consensys has also decided to split the company. Part of the operation will continue in the software sector while the other part pursues investment endeavors, the press release said. More layoffs Job cuts are nothing new to Consensys as the company previously headlined multiple stories regarding…

Mastercard CEO Reveals Why His Firm Quit Libra Over Several Red Flags

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Mastercard CEO Ajay Banga says his company left The Libra Association after his attitude towards the project deteriorated over proposals to link the coin with its own built-in wallet, Calibra, as well as the lack of a clear business model. In an interview with the Financial Times, the payment services chief, who has headed up Mastercard since 2009, described the various red flags that led to his decision to pull the company from the project. “It went from this altruistic idea into their own wallet. I’m like: ‘this doesn’t sound…

Iowa Caucus App Fiasco Shows Need for Open Source Transparency

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The Iowa caucuses were thrown into disarray as reports surfaced that a secretive app used to tabulate the results and report them to Democratic Party officials was reporting only part of the required data. Although the app had been developed to improve efficiency in communicating the final caucus tallies, it ended up causing significant delays. And, according to security experts, the incident served to highlight the risks of relying on digital systems and the centralization of information, and a lack of transparency regarding these systems.  On Tuesday morning, Iowa Democratic…

Traders Eyeing Next Key Support Zone if Bitcoin Price Goes Below $9K

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Bitcoin’s price (BTC) action has been relatively uneventful, especially when compared against the explosive price action of last week when the digital asset stomped through the $9K barrier and rallied all the way $9,530 for a strong monthly close.  Bitcoin daily price chart. Source: Coin360 This week all of the attention seems to be oriented towards Tesla, who’s stock traded around $250 in late October and today topped $940, representing an incredible 310% rally over the past 3 months.  Tesla’s $166.63 billion market cap is now on the verge of…

Handshake’s Uncensorable Web Domains Go Live on Mainnet

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Namebase CEO Tieshun Roquerre joins @nlw to talk about why uncensorable web domains matter as Handshake goes live to mainnet. As claims of election tampering, fraud and other dubious activities fly around the botched Democratic Caucus in Iowa, trust in our public institutions continues to crater.  The question of trust and censorship are at the heart of our episode today. Handshake is a new protocol for uncensorable web domains. The goal is to create a blockchain-based Top Level Domain system governments can’t censor or block.  To explain why Handshake (HNS)…

Handshake’s Uncensorable Web Domains Go Live on Mainnet

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Namebase CEO Tieshun Roquerre joins @nlw to talk about why uncensorable web domains matter as Handshake goes live to mainnet. As claims of election tampering, fraud, and other dubious activities fly around the botched Democratic Caucus in Iowa, trust in our public institutions continues to crater.  The question of trust and censorship are at the heart of our episode today. Handshake is a new protocol for uncensorable web domains. The goal is to create a new blockchain-based Top Level Domain system that governments can’t censor or block.  To explain why…

IOTA Focuses on Immediate Adoption with Chrysalis Upgrade

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The IOTA project unveiled on Feb. 3 a series of upgrades dubbed Chrysalis, an intermediate stage between now and the removal of the Coordinator. The upgrade introduces several important features, some of which change long-standing IOTA principles. Chrysalis, or IOTA 1.5, takes its name from the second stage in a caterpillar’s metamorphosis into a butterfly. It is specifically designed as an intermediate step before the “Coordicide,” a long-planned initiative to remove the Coordinator from the IOTA network. The Coordinator is, in essence, a centralized server managed by IOTA developers that…