read.cash you are a great guy. I don't know if you will read this, as it is the final post on read.cash for me. While I might keep earning a few cents, I won't be back. It was a nice ride but I decided to stop dealing with crypto platforms and only troll crypto twitter as this is what they deserve when promoting their ponzi Coins.
To the friends that follow me, I have to thank you for your replies and the thoughts you shared. This account name Zenthereum is done and you won't see me again.
Have fun, bye.
Market looks non-stop right now. I'd say 14k may be probable next week for Bitcoin.
This would be a double top.
Whales moving. Tether also printed 300m USDT as a precaution. Anyway I won't risk at the moment. I'll be following my hairdresser advice since crypto is mainstream once again.
The US economy collapsed by 32% on Q2.
Chinese GDP jumped by 3.2% during Q2.
The coronavirus effect will be China becoming the first economy for first time ever in history.
DeFi collapse is close. Ampleforth scam -50% in a day.
Bitconeeeeeeeeeeeect
China announced the arrest of all PlusToken Ponzi members.
Not sure if this means something, definitely reduces risk for Ethereum, as they held too much. Ethereum is pretty much useless though, so I won't be the Chad that buys high.
ETH short in place. Not a financial advice but I'm always shorting euphoria.
Are we allowed to repost our work from other platforms on read.cash? I remember that the code wasn't labeling such content as exclusive, which of course wouldn't be as we already posted somewhere else first, still, I'd love to bring articles I've written elsewhere in the read.cash platform as well.
Will there be a problem if we do that? I will be providing links of the repost on the original article for verification.
The Ethereum network is pointless with 60 gwei fees yet price pumps for no reason. I'll be looking for shorting opportunities from now on.
Coinsquare - The First Exchange to be Fined for Wash-trading
Is the era of pumped-up exchange volumes over?
Until the end of 2017 trading volumes were playing a major role in our TA. Volumes were indicating interest in a coin by investors and it could have been a sign for a possible rally of an altcoin. Volumes were also useful for determining the interest in Bitcoin reflecting certain sentiment and determining trading attitudes.
By the end of 2017 hundreds of new exchanges appeared and all of the sudden we started watching completely unknown exchanges featuring at the top of trading volumes on coinmarketcap, with a huge difference from the established exchanges.
Coinbase, Kraken, Bitstamp, and Binance cumulative volumes were lagging behind Bitforex or Digifinex alone. Hundreds of exchanges were providing fake volumes on coinmarketcap making the whole market look like a huge joke.
By the end of 2018, it was obvious to everyone that almost every exchange was wash-trading to pump up its volumes. Traders new something going on as in certain exchange orders of 500 BTC were filled in seconds. Still, the hard facts were the volumes in 2018 which in total reached hundreds of billions of dollars on a daily basis.
**Coinsquare** is a Canadian exchange which after an investigation by the Ontario Securities Commission admitted wash trading more than 90% of its volumes for more than a year. The wash-trading manipulation reached volumes of 5,5Billions in total for this period. The exchange CEO Cole Diamond and President Virgile Rostand are stepping down and will be forced to pay fines of more than 1,5 million.
I can't imagine the fines all these random exchanges in the list below will pay if anyone ever cares to investigate them:
Besides a few exchanges that might not wash trade 90% of their daily volumes, there are quite a lot of extreme cases and new ones appear once in a while. I haven't ever heard of ZG.com, IDCM, PayBito, or EXX. They can even have 0 real trading volumes and think they can trap traders and squeeze a few thousand USD with fees. I have used Ethereflyer and their daily volumes can't be more than a couple of thousand. Also, I highly doubt that Sistemkoin has 1 billion USD in volume.
This screenshot shows the current top exchanges by volume as they are indexed on Coinmarketcap and there are hundreds more swapping between the top positions. If any of these exchanges become regulated on a country where laws work they would be shut down immediately.
These fake volumes and the manipulation they include are the main reason for serious investors not wanting to participate in these markets. Since 90% of trades are fake why would any reasonable investor trust this market and invest any funds at all?
We need to wonder why is this allowed and how has this helped? Fake volumes are obvious from miles away and just make everyone think that the whole market is a big scam. Either this is fixed or the two-year bear will be prolonged.
Header Image Source https://bitcoinexchangeguide.com/cryptocurrency-exchange-volumes-may-allegedly-be-full-of-fake-activity-but-bitcoins-value-is-not/
Reposted on Uptrennd & Publish0x
Just made a small bet on IOST, one of the last coins that haven't pumped all this time and just announced a partnership with ProDefi.
Congrats DeFi on making the Ethereum Network useless.
I am a Decentraland ($MANA) big fan and bag holder.
I've read today headline on crypto news about Decentraland partnership with Samsung and I was excited thinking that something big is going on.
Then I read that the news was that the partnership was about Decentraland being added to the Samsung Blockchain Keystore Wallet.
Was this the news?
Seriously all ERC20 tokens are integrated in Samsung Wallet as Ethereum already is. What exactly was the news about? Has Samsung added MANA with their ticker on the wallet? Have they added some other feature containing MANA or decentraland?
These news are not actually helping you know.
Grayscale's BCH and LTC Trusts Approved by FINRA
In a previous article posted in Publish0x, I analyzed the importance of **Grayscale Investments** as an investment vehicle for institutional exposure in cryptocurrencies as Bitcoin and Ethereum and Ethereum Classic. Yesterday, Grayscale announced that FINRA approved the public quotation of two more Grayscale products, the **Bitcoin Cash Trust** (BCHG) and the **Litecoin Trust** (LTCN). The Trusts offer accredited investors exposure to cryptocurrencies Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin in the form of shares. https://www.publish0x.com/zenthereum/what-is-grayscale-and-why-it-matters-xejednr https://grayscale.co/ https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/07/20/2064551/0/en/Grayscale-Investments-Announces-Approval-of-Public-Quotations-for-Eligible-Shares-of-Grayscale-Bitcoin-Cash-Trust-and-Grayscale-Litecoin-Trust.html https://www.finra.org/ https://grayscale.co/bitcoin-cash-trust/ https://grayscale.co/litecoin-trust/
The latest Grayscale approved securities offer to investors:
2,725,300 shares from the **Bitcoin Cash Trust** each one representing 0.00943312 Bitcoin Cash.
509,400 shares of **Litecoin Trust** with each share representing 0.09433120 Litecoin.
All shares are limited to 12 months holding period before becoming available for liquidation according to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/seact1934.asp
The anual fee paid by investors is 2,5%.
All Grayscale products are indexed on TradeBlock in real-time. Bitcoin Cash Trust ticker on this index is BCX, while Litecoin Trust is LTX. https://tradeblock.com/home https://tradeblock.com/markets/index/bcx
Both Trusts are registered with the SEC but are not approved as a SEC reporting security under section 12g of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The Bitcoin Investment Trust became a fund reporting to the SEC in January 2020, allowing investors a limitation of six months freeze period instead of twelve for liquidation purposes. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/seact1934.asp
Grayscale in a recent filing to the SEC reported: https://sec.report/Document/0001193125-20-193041/
"After a period of slow growth, Grayscale Bitcoin Cash Trust and Grayscale Litecoin Trust have seen a marked uptick in investor interest. The two trusts combined have now reached over $20 million in inflows since inception."
The recent approval by FINRA means that the Bitcoin Cash Trust shares will be available for OTC trading to accredited investors once the shares are deemed eligible by the DTC (Depository Trust Company) which is expected soon. The Bitcoin Investment Trust and the Ethereum Trust are both traded on **OTCQX** exchange, which is an over-the-counter exchange for various stocks outside of the US, operated by OTC Markets Group Inc. https://www.dtcc.com/about/businesses-and-subsidiaries/dtc https://www.otcmarkets.com/
Grayscale Investments offers these Trusts as a method of investing without having to hold the coins. Grayscale is buying the digital coins and is responsible to store them securely while providing exposure to institutions and accredited investors trading shares of the Trusts.
Header Image Source - Modified https://www.linkedin.com/company/grayscale-investments
First published on read.cash - Reposted on Publish0x & Uptrennd https://www.publish0x.com/zenthereum/grayscales-bch-and-ltc-trusts-approved-by-finra-xgdnkpp https://www.uptrennd.com/post-detail/grayscale-s-bch-and-ltc-trusts-approved-by-finra~NTYwNDc3
The actual Zeus Capital had nothing to do with the controversial Chanlink research document that appeared the last few days.
https://u.today/zeus-capital-confirms-it-never-produced-research-about-chainlink-link-who-was-behind-it
I had to post this just clear this out.
First Monday in a while we didn't see a pump means less deposits in exchanges from wire transfers. Better be on the caution side this week.
Cryptotalk Campaign
Cryptotalk is a cryptocurrency forum. Right now it has two languages available, English and Russian, with Arabic to be added at some point soon. It has already grown a lot having more than 100,000 registered members and can be considered a great alternative to bitcointalk.
Cryptotalk has already successfully run three contests paying rewards in BTC. The last contest ended a month ago and the same day the new one started. This time it is not paying BTC but TALK tokens, the official token of the Cryptotalk Forum.
TALK tokens are given to members of the forum for writing informative posts and replies and giving reactions to other members.
The last campaign was paying 1000 Satoshi for each comment or post with a maximum of 30,000 Sats distributed daily. TALK token is not yet actively trading but participants can earn them and move them to investbox with 1% daily rewards once withdrawals are available. TALK token will begin trading on September 1st. Besides paying the forum members for taking part in the campaign TALK will be used by advertisers and projects to promote Ads on the forum.
Cryptotalk is connected with the Yobit Exchange. To participate in the campaign you need to register to **Yobit (****referral****)** and with the same email register to **Cryptotalk** and link the accounts on the yobit exchange https://yobit.net/?bonus=cHoCg https://cryptotalk.org/
The rules of the new campaign are on this **link** and the general rules of the forum are **here****.** Rules are mostly about writing a minimum of 100 characters at least on each reply, creating informative and unique original posts that are not similar to other posts, and the rest is common sense. https://cryptotalk.org/topic/106294-new-payment-and-rating-system-for-the-forum/ https://cryptotalk.org/topic/207-general-rules-of-cryptotalkorg-forum-official/
I suggest to everyone not to wait for September and begin earning TALK tokens as the Cryptotalk forum has proven so far that they honor all their commitments.
Header Image Source - Modified https://www.pymnts.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/crypto-corporate-fraud-kyc-aml.jpg
If you are still not on Publish0x or Uptrennd here are my referrals you can use to subscribe and start earning with your posts, upvotes and daily tipping.
https://www.publish0x.com?a=y5eVw39aEP
https://www.uptrennd.com/signup/OTA5NTI
If you know of any similar platform feel free to comment with your referral and I will use it to register.
Wow - Elon Musk Coin of the Day!
It would be fun to see Elon Musk succeeding our beloved John McAfee in the coin of the day pump and dump meme. Most of us miss the fun and dangerous profits of following McAfee on twitter, waiting for him to wake up and pump the next shitcoin by 50-500% in just 2 minutes!
Yesterday it was the community dubbed ex-Doge CEO and current CEO of Tesla and SpaceX Elon Musk that helped our favorite altcoin Dogecoin pump.
It didn't pump a lot, just a mere 16% so far, as it was already done so by the TikTok crypto community but still this tweet helped Doge chart bounce and perhaps recover its upwards trend (not investment advice).
This instantly reminded me of the McAfee's meme tweets about any random altcoin that paid him the most to shill! Mcafee during December 2017, right when altcoins started their crazy bull run, kicked off his "Coin of the Day" tweets, highlighting certain features of these altcoins while covering mostly low capped cryptocurrencies usually having low volumes, initially on Bittrex exchange and then moving to Binance.
He tweeted about Verge, Tron, Electroneum, Burst, and various other coins, while traders were instantly buying and dumping right after a few minutes passed. Some traders were using bots, picking the name of the projects he was tweeting about, were profiting the most from these pump 'n dumps. There were even programmers selling such bots and calling them McAfee bots.
McAfee later switched his pump and dump model to weekly calling it "Coin of the Week" but the bull run along with the altcoin season was over. The SEC put a stop on the ICO craze, Google and social media banned all crypto ads and Mt.Gox trustee announced the sale a large chunk of Bitcoins (around 180,000BTC). The CME futures also launched and it was a "sell the news" moment. Many "hodlers" liquidated their positions an some of them exited the market completely making millions in the process. It was the beginning of a long bear market and capitulation, with miners throwing their ASICs in the streets and TA experts calling for $1000 BTC.
In retrospect 2017 is difficult to be explained. Elon Musk has his own business and was mostly staying out of all these. Sometime in 2018, he tweeted about Bitcoin and Ethereum, and jokingly he stated that Doge was his favorite cryptocurrency!
Elon Musk can certainly pump a coin and his personality has managed to make the price of Tesla mimic parabolic trends of cryptocurrencies.
I will try to make an article dedicated to Dogecoin but it will need to be perfect, as Doge has die-hard holders that I wouldn't dare to disappoint.
First posted on read.cash - Reposted on Uprtennd https://www.uptrennd.com/post-detail/wow-elon-musk-coin-of-the-day~NTU3NjU5
Header Image Source https://bitcoincryptoadvice.com/dogecoin-price-up-alt-season-tiktok-video/
DOGE bounced! Can Doge return to last week highs?
LINK drop started, I don't comment on trades, I was just giving warnings for a while now.
Down to $7,83 from $8,50.
I hope I helped at least one person. I'm not recommending shorting but the parabolic link chart that ended with valuating this project with more than 3 billion USD is over. My original assessment ofthe chart is that it goes down to $4. Other investors think it might even go down to just a few cents.
Depending on fundamentals this might happen if LINK is nothing but another overhyped project.
There is a writing contest on Publish0x with subject a review of ChangeNow exchange. I would appreciate it if you care to give a thumbs up and perhaps leave a comment.
The contest still has a couple of days left, in case anyone wants to try.
https://www.publish0x.com/zenthereum/changenow-quick-easy-and-safe-xyvwyqn
1 DOGE = 1 DOGE
Binance Operations in Malaysia Unauthorized
Binance is officially an unauthorized entity in Malaysia and treated as such by the Securities Commission of the country (Source). https://www.sc.com.my/regulation/enforcement/investor-alerts/sc-investor-alerts/list-of-unauthorised-websites-investment-products-companies-individuals
"Operating a recognized market without authorization from the SC."
It is worth noting that the location of Binance is marked as N/A, still the website is running from a certain location as it is a centralized service. Although Binance has not declared a location hosting their headquarters yet.
We had the fiasco of Malta as Binance was referred to as Malta-based exchange by crypto news since 2018, probably because of the typical crypto hype statements to create unnecessary FOMO as this one:
"**We are very confident we can announce a banking partnership there soon**, **Malta is very progressive when it comes to crypto and fintech**." Zhao said. (link) https://www.mondaq.com/financial-services/686282/binance-moving-to-malta
Nothing was ever officially announced and the exchange was never regulated by Maltese financial authorities. The financial authorities of Malta announced that Binance was not a legal entity in the country and it was never authorized by the country to operate as an exchange in the cryptocurrency sphere. This announcement came just a month after **Joseph Muscat** lost the January elections and stepped down after seven years in office as Prime Minister. He was succeeded by **Robert Abela** and there seems to be a shift in focus in the country away from cryptocurrencies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Muscat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Abela
Malta is also considered a hub for money laundering, online gambling, and corruption in the EU where money from both legal and illegal activities is laundered to avoid taxation and sent to safe-haven financial locations like Panama and Cayman Islands. https://www.reuters.com/article/moneylaundering-watchdog-malta/malta-must-do-more-to-fight-money-laundering-says-european-watchdog-idUSL5N2634SW
The event of the assassination of anti-corruption journalist and author Daphne Caruana Galizia in 2017 was the last straw for some EU authorities and they started pressing Malta for strict regulations and a crackdown on corruption and money laundering practices. Anyway, the case of Malta demands a case-study of its own and will not be discussed further in this article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daphne_Caruana_Galizia
Malaysia was also the country selected by Binance to test its failed Visa crypto card project which we never had any news about how the deal didn't proceed. There was no further news or announcement of Visa issuing a card for Binance and suddenly Binance removed the Visa logo from their crypto card.
**“We’ll first introduce the beta version of the Binance Card in Malaysia this April, and we’ll add more regions throughout the rest of this year. We see this as a global product.”**
The Binance crypto card was eventually released after they acquired Swipe, but in the EU and not in the South East Asian region as it was originally planned. The Binance debit card does not include the VISA logo on it and all Visa images on the Binance website have been replaced.
Binance card is available for these counties: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Gibraltar, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
Ordering the card demands some strict KYC procedure which Binance calls level-2 KYC. The Binance exchange user and holder of the Binance crypto card will be able to select the order of the cryptocurrencies held in the Binance exchange and funds will be deducted according to this order while using the Crypto Card for purchases.
Honestly, I'm not in favor of a Crypto Card. I don't see a reason to use the soon to be an obsolete system of plastic money of the traditional 80s banking system. Moreover, the fees using a Bankcard are lower and usually, they don't demand issuance or maintenance fees, making the Binance Card lag in competition and not worth using it.
I don't see any reason why we need crypto debit cards. We don't need to use the traditional financial system and we don't change it this way. These are backward steps that prove to banks that crypto is irrelevant and we are in definite need of them to proceed. I was surprised in 2017 with Monaco Card (MCO - Now called Crypto.com) and TenX growing popular because they were planning to create a crypto card to be used in POS banking systems. One of the reasons we need cryptocurrencies is to avoid these systems.
Anyway, you've been warned. The moment your crypto card gets rejected by your local merchant for the first time, think again which is the real reason cryptocurrencies exist.
I'm off-topic in more than half of this post, yet I had these thoughts for a while now and found a proper excuse to express them. Hopefully, I didn't bore you too much.
Thanks for reading!
Header Image Source https://i.ytimg.com/vi/JNU5S97ev8M/hqdefault.jpg
First posted on read.cash - Reposted on Publish0x and Uptrennd. https://www.publish0x.com/zenthereum/binance-operations-in-malaysia-unauthorized-xjjylkl https://www.uptrennd.com/post-detail/binance-operations-in-malaysia-unauthorized~NTU2MzYy
Waves Platform Partners with Microsoft's Russian Branch
A new partnership has been announced by Moscow based **Waves** blockchain platform, this time with the Russian branch of software giant **Microsoft**. The partnership involves a five-year collaboration to tokenize the equipment of the Microsoft branch.
Waves Enterprise is offering private blockchain solutions to corporations. It was formed after the end of Waves partnership with the Russian government and private investors for the development of the Vostok Platform. The creation of the Vostok platform had secured Waves a deal worth $120 million. https://wavesenterprise.com/
The sale of the Vostok coins owned by Waves founder Sasha Ivanov a few months after the release of Vostok ended this partnership and resulted in the collapse of the price of Vostok cryptocurrency (VST). GHP Financial Group is now the sole owner of the Vostok Platform. The website of Vostok (vostok.io) is inaccessible and there is no news available for this project for many months. https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/vostok
Waves price also suffered during that time and only lately it seems to be trying to escape a two-year bearish chart.
Price of $WAVES reacted positively and is now up by 15% at $1.51 which is close to major resistance.
It is also important for Waves that the Russian government added in April Waves Platform to the registry of Russian software, computers and databases, describing it as: “cloud-based distributed ledger service and service for virtualization and storage of data.” (Source). This recognition of Waves by the Russian State creates a favorable environment for co-operation with the public and private sector in the Russian Federation and one result is the recent partnership with Microsoft's Russian Branch. https://cointelegraph.com/news/russian-ministry-adds-waves-enterprise-blockchain-platform-to-official-registry
Waves Enterprise also explained that any development from the Microsoft partnership will be used by Microsoft internationally.
Russia is lately once again considering regulating cryptocurrencies, a decision that has been delayed for years because of the uncertainty of the sector, the high volatility and the risks and dangers involved.
The positive effects of blockchain technology are already known and governments worldwide are striving to adopt the technology and integrate into various financial and industrial sectors of their economies. It is expected for blockchain technology to be part of the future technologies that will lead the 4th industrial revolution, along with technologies as AI, Robotics, and machine learning. Mineral, farming, and other supply chains are already been tested on blockchains as there is a need for transparency under a tamper-proof network.
Founded by Sasha Ivanov in 2013, Waves is a platform that allows the creation of cryptocurrencies running on the native Waves blockchain. Waves token are similar to ERC20 and TRC20 tokens. Waves Platform utilizes smart contracts for their creation and has created its own programming language called RIDE, an efficient language suitable for the development of dApps. https://docs.wavesprotocol.org/en/ride/
Waves also has its own decentralized exchange (DEX) "Waves Exchange" which has been redeveloped since 2019 and now has higher liquidity. It is a desktop and mobile app which offers a non-custodial wallet and trading solutions for most cryptocurrencies with trading pairs between BTC, USDT, ETH, and Waves.
First posted on read.cash - Reposted on Uptrennd https://www.uptrennd.com/post-detail/waves-platform-partners-with-microsoft-s-russian-branch~NTU1MjU4
Header Image Source https://cdn.statically.io/img/www.altcoinbuzz.io/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/jeremy-bishop-335002-unsplash-696x392.jpg?quality=100&f=auto
On another subject, I'm looking at LINK /USD chart and think a short is a good idea. All the way down to $4 perhaps.
Twitter hacks might be something more than just a giveaway. Also they might not be connected to the youtube hacking incidents and giveaways posted there. The wallets used along with the methods were not the same. It is a different team and perhaps their goal was not just to steal money with a fake giveaway, but also to pass a message.
Onecoin Ponzi Promoters Found Dead By Police
Seriously when lowering your ethics enough to begin scamming people or when knowingly participating in promotional activities of Ponzi Schemes and other scams, it comes with dangers.
Ponzi Schemes are scams that collapse after no more funds enter their mechanism. Ponzis exactly as pyramid schemes they collapse and the participants that don't manage to exit before the collapse instantly lose all their money.
Onecoin was a Ponzi Scheme claiming to be a cryptocurrency that was going to overthrow Bitcoin from the top of the indexes. It's founder, **Ruja Ignatova**, is on the run from authorities worldwide and probably into hiding having changed ID and facial characteristics.
The Onecoin Ponzi is responsible for extracting around 4 Billion USD from around the world. **Konstantin Ignatov**, the brother of founder Ruja Ignatova was arrested in the USA in 2019. Another founding member Sebastian Greenwood was also arrested a year earlier.
The Onecoin Ponzi though is still running with smaller cells being revived in various locations worldwide. The latest event with OneCoin occurred in Mexico.
Reportedly, two promoters of Onecoin Ponzi Oscar Brito Ibarra (Chilean national) and Ignacio Ibarra (Argentinian) have been kidnapped and found murdered by Mexican police in the city of Mazatlan, Sinaloa region. https://www.latercera.com/la-tercera-domingo/noticia/negocios-de-riesgo-cronica-de-un-chileno-muerto-en-sinaloa/FTBQBSDBORFNZI6E5U2ELFIOFQ/
They were both promoting Onecoin throughout South America. Basically, the two of them were promoting Onecoin indirectly through some fake association called "Latin American Automotive Marketing Company" (CLA) that was promising low car prices with the use of Onecoin.
This company was obviously planning to shut down and exit-scam at some point after scamming a lot of people. The murder of two of its members forced the company to shut down their website and perhaps their operations as police will certainly try to contact them.
It seems that too many scammers are jumping into the crypto world lately and sometimes it is hard even for experienced people to recognize them. Besides this, there are also many that don't make much from their projects and might think of turning them into scams and run with the money. In any case, scammers and Ponzi promoters are not safe especially when they enter a location protected by the Sinaloa Cartel. Messing with the wrong people especially if you plan to scam them is always a mistake. Basically it is a mistake to prey on weak and vulnerable people as well and everyone performing such acts should consider the harm he is causing.
Header Image Source https://thecryptocurrencypost.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/images-29_copy_768x399.jpeg
Another Monday another pump! Small one though. I'll be making a few moves on some altcoins that didn't pump a lot lately. Perhaps BCH will see a few really good days this week.
Lightning Network - Perhaps the Last Chance
We keep reading about the Lightning Network for many years now. It has been so long the development is taking place that most people have already stopped discussing it, or reading about LN. The layer-2 solution is still being tested and not to be used by anyone that does not possess vast programming skills and knowledge of the Bitcoin network.
LN was the solution proposed since 2015 to allow Bitcoin to scale and it is being developed ever since. Currently Bitcoin is not able to become a worldwide currency. The narrative has changed after the failure of 2017 where transactions stuck in the mempool for days and fees reached astronomical prices.
The concept of LN is a network running outside of the Bitcoin's blockchain, where transactions are performed off-chain and both sender and receiver have to sign the transcaction using their private keys. The transactions are later added on the blockchain.
There have been many articles and reports written so far about the centralization of the LN network and various problems that might surface. The latest theoretical vulnerability that was reported for the LN is the possibility of a "flood and loot" attack. This article by coinbase covers the basics of this concept. https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoins-lightning-network-is-vulnerable-to-looting-new-research-explains
My intention with this article is not to explain the Lightning Network or the developments but move to an important part of a possible mass adoption. Bitcoin is still the number one cryptocurrency and has diehard fans. Most of them right now understand that Bitcoin cannot become a currency with the current structure and are mostly interested in price speculation and shilling their bags on twitter while hoping that someday soon it will reach 100K USD.
Once again it is obvious that no one is going to buy Bitcoin with the narrative that it is digital gold for one reason. Gold is old news. Its price is not reflecting any use case now. It has been used for three thousand years just for showing off. Since technology evolves, gold fades and becomes just a memory of how societies were built according to the shinny feature of a useless element. Gold kept its value during history as it was used to back national currencies. It added value to the currencies but the currencies were also appreciating the value of gold, providing it the only use case it could ever have.
With the digital evolution of economics, gold is no longer needed. It has no purpose. Of course, if all traders and investors think it is a safe harbor, it will be one. Still, it seems that government bonds are more desired for this reason, and serve a better purpose than gold.
Somehow there was a perception that Bitcoin is not for the masses anymore but the focus should be on hedge funds and institutional investors. I've seen many such opinions forming out of nowhere and not getting the proper answer. One guy literally said a few months ago: "Bitcoin is not for everyone", meaning that it is an asset just for the 1% as this person explained later. Made me think that I wouldn't want any part of it if this is the case.
Anyway, it is obvious that Bitcoin is not touching the masses. The reason has to do with Bitcoin not being a currency and not even focusing on this feature anymore. While Bitcoin is run by consensus, I fail to understand how all participants think that Bitcoin will reach $100,000 without any real development or adoption.
With the Lightning Network Bitcoin will have a chance to be used in vending machines, in Starbucks and in McDonalds. People will use Bitcoin if it is easy to use. If it saves time and fees. If it doesn't proceed but take another 10 years to be developed then the only use-case will just be price speculation which will only lead to lower price, according to its lower usecase.
Bitcoin was supposed to be a P2P digital cash network and a digital store of value. Taking away the feature of being a currency will only create problems for the store-of-value feature as well. These two attributes must co-exist, as canceling one will effectively cancel the other. A last chance to succeed is presented. If Bitcoin fails to scale again, there will be other coins ready to cover this gap.
Header Image Source https://decrypt.co/6084/bitcoin-lightning-network-guide
Reposted on Uptrennd and Publish0x https://www.uptrennd.com/post-detail/lightning-network-perhaps-the-last-chance~NTQ2OTkw https://www.publish0x.com/zenthereum/lightning-network-perhaps-the-last-chance-xmdgyez
@zenthereum
