Litecoin Halving – Do Less Rewards Mean More Value To Miners?

The Litecoin blockchain halving was succesful at the block height of 1,680,000 at 10:16 UTC (Monday August 5, 2019). The halving reduces the Litecoin reward in half, from 25 LTC to 12.5 LTC per block mined. There was no immediate dramatic rise in the price of LTC, but it showed plenty of optimism in the market. Litecoin, like Bitcoin, has a limited supply which caps at 84 million LTC. The halving is an event that occurs on the Litecoin network every 840,000 blocks or approximately every 4 years. As the name implies, it is a 50% reduction of the miner’s rewards for every block they validate on the network. This is part of the Litecoin consensus mechanism called PoW (Proof-of-Work) which is also used in the Bitcoin blockchain.

The halving creates digital scarcity, and to some analysts this means the digital asset becomes more valuable. Whether it is due to the lower supply of LTC or the hype surrounding the event, prices have not increased at the levels some may have expected. Perhaps this is due to the halving being priced in with investors already having accumulated the digital asset ahead of time. If these transactions were done over the counter style, then it will not really affect the market prices on digital exchanges. Some analysts believe there should be more to expect in terms of the utility of the token rather than just anticipate the digital scarcity will increase prices. Perhaps the law of supply and demand doesn’t exactly equate to expectations in a volatile cryptocurrency market.

LTC is used mainly in making direct P2P online electronic payments. It functions like any other cryptocurrency, where the transactions are made transparent and immutable, allowing for greater accountability. In terms of speed, it isn’t any faster than traditional payment systems like VISA or Mastercard. However, LTC can instantly transfer value across any border because of its P2P feature. The transactions also have lower fees than money transfer agents or bank charges. When you don’t have intermediaries in the payment network, you can pretty much transfer value easily in a frictionless manner. All that is needed is an exchange that supports LTC that converts the cryptocurrency to fiat.

The problem is that regulatory clarity has not fully accepted cryptocurrency like LTC. Although it is being used by some people to make payments or transfer value, it is not happening on a large scale yet. Not all exchanges are available in all countries that support a fiat to LTC pairing. If any exchange has a Litecoin pairing then it would be easier to transact. This would be like how using the USD becomes viable because of currency exchanges that support it. Therefore it makes it accessible to everyone and it is the legal medium for exchange. LTC on the other hand is not readily available to be used to purchase items, unless the business supports it. So far there are very few establishments that will accept LTC as a payment for let us say a cup of coffee or breakfast sandwich. How easy it is to use fiat to pay for those items.

There is more concern among the mining community though. Since block rewards have been cut in half, operations will be affected due to decrease in profitability among miners. It would be fine if the price of LTC greatly increases, but if not then the miners will have to absorb net losses. The issue here is related to the electricity costs to cover producing LTC from mining blocks. What this can result to is an exit among miners who cannot absorb the costs, while established miners will continue mining and making profit. The bigger mining pools can survive because they have the resources to do so. The hash rate of the overall network could also decrease, making the difficulty target easier and block mining just as profitable for the miners who remain in the game.

Let’s look at how blocks are mined on Litecoin’s blockchain. The block production time, on average, is 1 block every 2.5 minutes, which is 576 blocks are produced every 24 hours. Due to the halving, each block mined now rewards miners 12.5 LTC. That means that every day or every 24 hour period 7,200 LTC is created. This will go on for the next 840,000 blocks which will be the next halving. With a total supply cap of 84 million LTC, the halving leads to less and less rewards for miners. The incentive here is to produce blocks, but with less rewards there may be less miners providing hash power to the network. The idea is that demand will exceed supply, so miners will still be incentivized to validate and mine blocks so the value of LTC will increase. The point here is that the lower amount of LTC is not going to stop miners if the price of LTC increases due to the demand. Fees should also be reasonable enough that people will use LTC to make payments. So far it seems current fees are low enough in terms of LTC/KB with 3 priority levels (the highest level costing more than the rest). This is what the Litecoin team refers to as “near-zero cost payments” i.e. cheap fees.

The only thing that has not been determined is whether LTC will continue. The LTC is only valuable if it is being used, but if it is just speculation fueling the prices then there is really no utility behind it. The developments in Litecoin need to catch up to the demand which is what is creating it in the first place. There has been encouraging news about new ways to bring privacy to transactions on the Litecoin blockchain. Developers will need to make sure that the value of LTC doesn’t rely on pure hype and speculation alone. Instead it must demonstrate that the technology is capable of providing the features of a decentralized instant electronic payment system for the world.

Did Vitalik Buterin propose Bitcoin Cash As A Scaling Solution to Ethereum?

For those who have been in the cryptocurrency space for a long time now, you know how tribal things are. Schisms like the Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash hard fork due to ideology is common. There have also been splits due to consensus disagreements like the resulting Ethereum and Ethereum Classic split to the DAO hack. The tribalism in the cryptosphere does not really foster much collaboration, though there are now proposals for inter-blockchain communications. It is going to be inevitable with the thousands of blockchain projects out there. The best way for cryptocurrency to be utilized is through some form of interconnectivity that would allow atomic swaps and quick conversions.

It seems that the development community and token holders don’t exactly approve of other blockchains they don’t support. Recently, Ethereum’s founder Vitalik Buterin proposed a way to use another blockchain to provide a scaling solution to the current Ethereum blockchain. The benefits are an increase in transaction velocity that can deliver faster speeds than the current Ethereum blockchain (currently between 15 and 30 transactions per second). There was plenty of shock and disapproval of Vitalik’s proposal, even among those who work in the Ethereum development community. You can check on Twitter since that is too long to discuss about in this article.

It does sound crazy though coming from the founder of Ethereum. He could have framed it in a way to not make it sound like Ethereum’s blockchain is useless. It sounded like he was saying another blockchain should be used to scale Ethereum. In other words it seemed like he was going to replace Ethereum’s own blockchain. If that were the case, why even use Ethereum? It was taken out of context, I felt. What Vitalik actually meant is that the Ethereum blockchain can use another blockchain to help scale only as a temporary solution. Eventually Ethereum 2.0 will resolve the scaling issue by gradually shifting from PoW to PoS as the consensus mechanism on the network.

What made Vitalik’s statement more unpopular was the proposed blockchain he had mentioned which was Bitcoin Cash. According to Vitalik, the proposal was meant to be a sort of fix for Ethereum until its developers have finished working on Ethereum 2.0. He wrote about this in a post on the Ethereum Research Forum you can read more about from this link. The author is without a doubt Vitalik Buterin himself. Does it really make sense? Let me discuss what the explanation for using Bitcoin Cash was from Vitalik’s own research.

The benefit of using Bitcoin Cash’s blockchain are its larger block size. Larger blocks can hold more transactions and thus the potential to increase the transaction rate per seconds. What Vitalik likes about the Bitcoin Cash blockchain is the higher data throughput it produces at 53.3 KB/sec compared to Ethereum’s 8 KB/sec. According to Vitalik, the Ethereum blockchain will be used as the computation layer while Bitcoin Cash provides the data layer.

Another thing about Bitcoin Cash that Vitalik likes is the lower transaction fees per byte. One reason for using Bitcoin Cash is that it has lower transaction fees since they have larger block sizes to process more transaction volumes. That makes more efficient use of bandwidth since you can process more transaction per unit of time or seconds. At the moment, transaction fees may have stabilized for many cryptocurrency but they can still be high. It would make sense for Ethereum to use a lower transaction fee for their blocks in order to save users on gas.

One problem with Bitcoin Cash though is since it is a fork based on Bitcoin, it requires the same 10 minute block propagation time. This is where the community really criticized Vitalik for proposing Bitcoin Cash. Aside from that, some also pointed out that there are inherent flaws with the Bitcoin Cash blockchain that would make Ethereum susceptible to these vulnerabilities. Vitalik actually suggested that using the Avalanche pre-consensus algorithm could improve block propagation times on the Bitcoin Cash blockchain. With that in place, Vitalik then explains:

“If these techniques become robust for the use case of preventing double-spends, we could piggy back off of them to achieve shorter finality times …..”

It also seems that Vitalik had no problem with the 10 minute block time propagation since Avalanche pre-consensus is complicated to implement.

“Though this technique may be too complex to implement in practice, and we may want to just settle for being okay with 10-minute block times for a full general-purpose VM until eth2 comes out.”

It is true that Vitalik proposed Bitcoin Cash as a temporary solution to Ethereum scaling. Bitcoin Cash is not replacing Ethereum, this was just a proposal to address current limitations in their blockchain. The Ethereum 2.0 blockchain will eventually implement PoS using the Casper protocols and sharding.

BTT: Tokenized and Decentralized File Sharing

Do you remember back in the 2000’s there was a file sharing program called Napster? Actually it was for music but it allowed us to share files of different types, from movies to images. It was the start of mainstream peer-to-peer or P2P file sharing, allowing anyone to share files and download them as well. Basically, everyone who has Napster installed connected to a centralized location where the communication is established with the network. Napster’s server’s then control the data that allows users to share their files. It did not last however, it was shut down by the government because of complaints of copyright violations and the risk of sharing of intellectual property protected information. This would be a stab at file sharing on the Internet, but it would be replaced by something else.

That something else would allow users to continue to share files but without a central server like Napster. It would be decentralized, but also direct P2P using a different protocol. The protocol has become synonymous with the name of the application itself, BitTorrent. It is the most commonly used file sharing application on the Internet and it was purchased by the cryptocurrency project called the Tron Foundation. It now delivers a tokenized decentralized file sharing network that runs on the BTT token. So it seems that file sharing and cryptocurrency is a match.

The principles of the BitTorrent network is based on a “Tit-for-Tat” algorithm. That means that to download files or to “leech”, you must also contribute files to the network or “seed”. Therefore, it is an ecosystem of “leechers” (downloaders) and “seeders” (uploaders). This is to make sure that there is fairness in the amount of contribution made to the network from all users. The network also becomes faster with more “peers” aka computers or users. Another feature users get on BitTorrent’s network is anonymity. In no manner is a user required to provide their ID or personal information for other users. There is more privacy in using BitTorrent than let’s say Google Drive when it comes to sharing files. With Google Drive, the owner of the shared file can be tracked to their Google account and g-mail which has an identity often attached to it. In order to understand the concept of BitTorrent, we must take a look at how their network functions.

When a file is uploaded to the network, it is not stored in one place. It is actually broken into fragments called “pieces” and identified by their cryptographic hash. The pieces are stored across the network on different computers. A cryptographic hash function is used to verify the authenticity of the pieces for security purposes as well. That means that no one can just tamper with the pieces, they are protected with cryptographic technology. Pieces of files are then distributed across the network and as more seeders join, the faster and more reliable the network becomes. BitTorrent also does not let the user download the file immediately. It must go through a process first which involves having the torrent file to point users to the location of other peers who have the pieces to the file.

A torrent file is accessed by users when they want to download a file. The BitTorrent client gets a list of file locations for torrents that users download. The communications protocol is beyond explaining in this article, but in simpler terms it allows information to propagate across the network. The torrent file does not actually contain the content. It just contains information about the location of the file’s pieces which the user’s client will download from. The content’s pieces can be downloaded as .torrent files. Once the pieces have been downloaded, the client then puts the pieces together to reconstruct the content. Thus downloading a large movie file becomes more efficient and reliable by breaking it into pieces rather than one large file. This is because when the connection times out, you don’t have to download everything again if you already have pieces of the file.

BitTorrent has been controversial because of the way it circumvents the law regarding file sharing. Music companies are against the sharing of music on various platforms unless there is paid royalty to the musician and recording studio. Copyright laws also protect intellectual property as well as published content. BitTorrent makes pirated movies easier to share and there is a market for leaked Hollywood films that make use of P2P technology. It also allows the sharing of games, music, software and photos. Just about anything digital can be shared using BitTorrent’s network. There is not much the government can do however because of the decentralized nature of BitTorrent. Another complaint comes from users who were infected by malware since some files can be disguised to appear legit, but the truth is as a leecher you have no right to make a claim since you are using the software somewhat at your own risk. Despite these claims of piracy, patent infringement, viruses/malware and illegal file sharing, BitTorrent was able to continue unlike Napster. Besides its distributed and decentralized nature, BitTorrent is more a software or protocol rather than a company, so that is another issue for the legal sector.

The slippery slope is that in some jurisdictions, or nations, what is legal may not be legal and vice versa. BitTorrent gets around this argument since the peers are decentralized and BitTorrent itself is not the one providing the data. Through the years since it started in 2001, BitTorrent has faced lawsuits and has had to meet compliance to regulations on certain occasions. It was too decentralized to stop since there are millions of users worldwide, not just in one country or geographic location. When BitTorrent does comply, it does so by removing links to content which creators requested.

The protocol or software itself is legal, you are not violating the law by having it installed. Other controversy involves BitTorrent trackers, which provide the links to the content that may or may not be copyright protected. In the US alone, there are over 200,000 lawsuits against BitTorrent since 2010. Because of this outrage, it would only be a matter of time before more BitTorrent protocols are blocked by ISPs on the request of regulators and legal departments. If that is the case, then it would not have a good future and will likely thrive more underground rather than finding mainstream use.

This is where Tron steps into the picture. It seems that the BitTorrent network would be an ideal platform to add to the Tron network’s ecosystem and blockchain. To get this started, Tron would issue a token for the BitTorrent network called the BTT coin. What Tron aims to do is use the network as a platform for DApps based on BitTorrent’s decentralized file sharing. Tron can utilize this for its entertainment and media based content sharing platform. BitTorrent would remain distributed and decentralized and with Tron’s vision of censorship resistant, open source and incentivized communities. In a nutshell, the BTT coin allows Tron to tokenize the BitTorrent network. This is in order to connect creators to users and in return get paid in BTT coins for their content. It will actually be more compliant to copyright laws and intellectual property for the platform to remain clear of violations.

The platform sounds good for creators, but the overhaul to the system may not resonate well with users. Instead of a truly decentralized system, it seems Tron’s BTT coin as a token has put more regulation to the platform. Users of BitTorrent do not have to use BTT as a token to get content. Tron is supporting users who want to continue using the software like before. They will not be able to collect BTT coins though, so there are incentives to using the tokens. The incentive here is to keep users to continue sharing on the network, only this time around they will get rewarded for it. Seeders will tremendously benefit from this ecosystem because the more files they upload for sharing, the more BTT coins they can get. The BTT coin as a token can also be exchanged for goods and services on the platform besides just converting into fiat currency.

The benefits it seems are still yet to be explored for the new BitTorrent and BTT. The vision of a truly decentralized file sharing network continues, only this time there will be rewards for everyone. It encourages more file sharing and that way the availability of content can become sustainable (that’s the idea in theory). What remains to be seen are the legality of the content and whether the Tron Foundation will work closely with regulators to make sure that content is not being illegally shared by users unless there is consent from or incentives for the creators as well.

Your Basic Attention, Please … The BAT Token

The Internet is one big advertisement platform led by Facebook and Google. Brands want to get your attention while social media wants to increase your engagement. This is how users are targeted for advertising. In the process, while a user is engaged, their data is collected for analytics. This is not exactly with your full consent, but nonetheless the data you are providing makes you a product to marketers so they can sell you their products much better.

It has become a market for more and more attention. The problem is that it is becoming dominated by middlemen and other intermediaries. When you view a post that is for targeted advertising, there can be so many layers underneath that gather your data for their intents and purposes. Sometimes bad actors are also involved and this leads to massive fraud. Cambridge Analytica is just one example of using analytics to try to influence users on Facebook. Social media is a more common ground for bad actors to not only gather data but influence users to make decisions to not only buy products but to do things based on their politic and beliefs.

The system is full of “malvertisement” and both affiliated and unaffiliated links that can lead to malware and viruses. Yet there is no service actively protecting users from these dangers. For advertisers and publishers, the middlemen involved can also be costing them money. Ad spends are thus not being used efficiently. The Internet is full of bots that automate clicks, likes and comments, it is becoming more difficult to gain organic engagement. This is when a new platform for digital advertising is needed.

The BAT cryptocurrency token is a solution that addresses the problem with digital advertising and browsing on the Internet. It is an open sourced, decentralized ad exchange platform. It aims to remove the middle man by directly linking advertisers and publishers to the users. It is called the BAT triad or triangle. The BAT platform comes with its own web browser called Brave that comes with an integrated digital wallet for BAT tokens.

The idea behind BAT is to have advertisers and publishers target you directly with your consent to get your attention. In return, the user is incentivized in BAT tokens for engaging the content. This also saves advertisers and publishers money because they are not going through a layer of intermediaries or middlemen. According to the Basic Attention Metrics (BAM) “To improve the efficiency of digital advertising requires a new platform and unit of exchange.” BAT is the token used to connect the marketplace of users with advertisers and publishers. It is based on Ethereum technology so it makes use of smart contracts stored on a blockchain.

According to the white paper “Attention is measured as viewed for content and ads only in the browser’s active tab in real time. The Attention Value for the ad will be calculated based on incremental duration and pixels in view in proportion to relevant content, prior to any direct engagement with the ad.” In return for attention, according to the BAT website “Users viewing ads will be rewarded with BATs. BATs can be used for premium content or services on the BAT platform.“

The BAT metric is based on the following formula:

Where a = 13000, b = 11000 and duration is measured in milliseconds. This is the score that determines how long a publisher gets the attention of the user. This is based on what is called the concave score. The scores reward publishers and advertisers for the user time spent on the website, with diminishing returns for longer views. The minimum threshold is 25 seconds duration for a score of 1. These metrics were determined by the BAT project team, so they are not a standard metric for attention so to speak.

The good thing about BAT is that it provides more privacy to users through a feature called the “Anonymity Shield”. This is unlike what browsers like Chrome are allowing with extensions that collect user data. For advertisers and publishers it minimizes fraud and useless ad spends. They can minimize costs and better use their resources for directed marketing. It also provides better tracking because of the blockchain. With the problems in data privacy becoming a more important issue, the significance for BAT is that this is a good option for those that would require these features.

Predictions Market On The Blockchain

One use case for the blockchain with cryptocurrency is in the predictions market. Speculating the outcome of an event can bring rewards if you either guessed correctly or made an accurate prediction. It is very much a form of online betting, but you are using a decentralized platform that no one can manipulate or control. There are many types of markets for prediction, including social events like elections, sports and even the next American Idol. Bets are made against anyone who counters a prediction. It can be anything as simple as whether it will rain tomorrow or not, to more complex events like electoral results.

Platforms like Augur are allowing anyone to place their bets on any type of event. Augur uses the Ethereum blockchain to implement predictions. What you need is a DApp (Decentralized Application) that runs on top of the blockchain and a valid Ethereum wallet to collect funds in the likelihood you predicted correctly. The DApp is basically a decentralized app which is installed on a mobile device e.g. smartphone. Through this DApp, a user can interact with the platform and place their bet on the blockchain using what is called a Smart Contract.

The Smart Contract is a programmable logic code that executes the conditions you set forth for your prediction. Without going too deep into it, the basic function of the Smart Contract is to honor the prediction a user places on the blockchain. It will be tamper resistant and at the same time transparent so that all can see. It enforces honesty in the betting process where countless people are involved, yet they don’t know each other at all. Sometimes cheating can occur in such settings, so the blockchain is there to enforce trust in a trustless system.

The predictions market platforms on the blockchain were meant to be decentralized. This means that in no way during the whole process are a user’s funds in the custody of the platform. It is always in their control. Decentralized means that no third party mediates between users who have placed a bet or made a prediction on the platform.

For example let’s talk about betting in sports. When using this in a prediction market, a user locks their funds or bets in a Smart Contract which the platform then prepares. Once finalized, the platform will execute code that will make it immutable. Once on the blockchain, it can no longer be changed, something that must be honored in betting systems. Oracles, or external information sources, will update the platform using an API (Application Programming Interface) that keeps the results up to date on the prediction. These sources can include online sports betting websites, news agencies and trading platforms as well. If the prediction for a winning team were correct, then the value is set to “1” which indicates that the Smart Contract will collect the winnings and it can now be deposited to the user’s wallet.

The user can also sell off their winnings in the prediction market in exchange for cryptocurrency or fiat using the Smart Contract. Since it is programmable, the user can specify to the Smart Contract what exactly it should do. The payout goes to the user’s wallet and from there they can exchange it for fiat or send it to another digital wallet. The predictions market is an ideal way to forecast events, hedge against uncertainty and even for settling bets directly without a third party involved.

How 2FA Can Secure Your Cryptocurrency Assets

In the Crypto-economy, we need to implement security to safeguard our digital assets. Wallets are primarily just an interface to access the blockchain where the assets are stored. The wallet just provides the balance to the user, as well as allow users to send and receive tokens. It does not actually store the cryptocurrency. Instead, the wallet stores the private key which is what proves the user’s ownership of the assets. This must definitely be kept secured because if someone else were to gain access to the private key they can take ownership of your assets. This is why wallets, whether online or offline, use various authentication schemes.

Passwords are the most common way to access a wallet. The problem with this is that once a password is guessed or cracked, there is no other layer of security. This is why users are recommended to store their private key in hardware wallets e.g. Ledger Nano or Trezor. This stores the private key offline so only the user will have physical access. It cannot be hacked from the Internet or anywhere else since the hardware wallet uses cold offline storage. For everybody else, how can security be increased or improved?

A solution to this is called MFA or Multi-Factor Authentication. MFA uses multiple types of authentication to verify a user. In MFA you can use 3 methods to secure your authentication.

What You Know – This involves the password, the most common form of authentication. Only the user should know this. The problem here is password sharing among users. Some family members openly share their password and that can lead others to learn this thru eavesdropping and more nefarious ways like password cracking.
What You Own – Most users have a smartphone, and this can be included for verification. In this method an app is installed on the smartphone that generates a code that syncs with a server over the network. It will only work from this smartphone and not any other device.
Who You Are – Your biometric information, like fingerprints, retina scan or face can be used to further confirm your identity for verification. This is something that physically verifies who you are. This is actually a very effective method that Apple uses for authentication on iPhones using Face ID. The possibility of 2 or more people having the same exact biometric traits is zero to extremely rare.

2FA or Two-Factor Authentication is one of the most common implementations of MFA using just 2 of the 3 methods mentioned. In the cryptocurrency world, digital exchanges implement 2FA to gain access to your cryptocurrency portfolio. Coinbase, Binance and Blockchain.Info require 2FA as a stronger authentication method compared to a simple password. 2FA can be enabled on many apps. Just check to make sure that the app login you are using allows 2FA support. If it is available, enable it to give you more security.

One example of using 2FA is when you login to your Binance account. Binance uses a combination of password and security codes. You create your password during the account creation process. With 2FA enabled, you now need to add a security code to further authenticate your access to your account. By installing Google Authenticator, you can add this additional security layer. With Google Authenticator, you scan the QR code from Binance when enabling 2FA. Once that code is scanned, Google Authenticator creates a profile for you. The next time you login to Binance, you will now need to check Google Authenticator app which is installed on your smartphone. Binance will request the code in order to continue your login.

2FA and other MFA implementations help to increase security, which allows you to better protect your cryptocurrency assets. Even if a hacker is able to intercept your password, if they don’t have what you own (e.g. smartphone) or what you are (e.g. face or fingerprint), they will be denied from the system.

Blockchain Interoperability – Cross-Chain Compatibility Among Dissimilar Blockchains

It seems inevitable that there will be many different tokens running on dissimilar systems. Unfortunately, these tokens will have their own blockchains. The good news is that they all run over the same IP based network. This allows a protocol layer to provide interoperability services to bridge various blockchains. This means a direct exchange of value from one cryptocurrency to another. As a result, atomic swaps will become possible across borders and payments can be instantaneous among tokens.

There are many different types of blockchains today and they are very much silos of their own ecosystem. There is no universal way to interoperate other than thru digital exchanges. The currency is often paired with a stablecoin to try and peg the value as close to fiat or with major cryptocurrency like BTC. The problem is that some pairings just don’t exist. The inconvenience here is the user will have to exchange their token to a supported pairing on their exchange first in order to make it useful. For example suppose there is no direct conversion between MyCoin and ANewCoin. Most of you know the drill. You have to buy into an exchange with fiat a supported cryptocurrency, and in most cases it will be BTC or ETH. It is only after you have bought that can you convert to MyCoin to get ANewCoin. Imagine all that happening with just a few finger swipes on screen or mouse clicks and all behind the scenes.

There are projects like Wanchain and Cosmos that focus on blockchain interoperability. They have an Application Layer (DApps, website, smart contract, etc.) that can interact with their software at the Interoperability Layer. This provides an API into the Blockchain Layer itself ubiquitously without the users doing anything else. It is simplified for a more pleasant user experience. Making it more user friendly leads to greater adoption of technology due to ease of use.

A good way to envision this is let’s say you are an ETH holder. You are interested in buying a luxury watch directly from a seller that is valued in BTC. Instead of exchanging ETH for BTC at a digital exchange and then pay for the item, interoperability will allow you to pay directly using an app with ETH at BTC valuation. The conversion process takes place automatically thru the interoperability layer, quickly transferring value from the ETH blockchain to the BTC blockchain. The seller gets paid and the item is delivered to the buyer. Certain programming interfaces can also create smart contracts for these type of transactions to release the item for delivery upon receipt of payment.

All that is required is software that can understand the different protocols. While it would appear to be a centralized settlement layer, it is actually not. It remains decentralized because the processing is done by not one organization, but different trustless nodes that run the software. These nodes are computers that belong to people who don’t know each other. All they have in common is that they are running the same software over the same network. Transactions are then processed by these nodes and incentivized for it.

Critics might quickly say that these systems are not scalable because blockchains are slow and cumbersome databases. You can argue that, but it still provides cryptographic security which is very important in value based transactions. There are new ways to settle payments that provide both on-chain and off-chain solutions to address scaling issues. An example of this are Bitcoin’s Lighting Network and Ethereum’s Raiden Network. By moving micro transactions like instant payments off-chain, the idea is to scale to larger volumes since the payments can be handled without going through a tedious consensus process like Proof-of-Work. Interoperability will have support for these types of systems as well.

Interoperability among the major public blockchains, will allow seamless, reliable and more efficient transactions for users. It is similar to how we communicate today. English provides a bridge among many countries because it is widely spoken and understood. The English language would be like the protocol for communications used on blockchains for interoperability. This is the ideal vision of a digital economy where transfer of value is frictionless and not complicated, regardless of cryptocurrency.

The Bitcoin Binance Hack And The Lessons Learned

At the time of this writing it is the start of blockchain week In New York City. One of the hot topics that will be discussed has to do with the most recent Binance hack that led to $40.7 Million of stolen Bitcoin (worth 7,000 BTC at the time of the incident). This is actually not the first time Binance has been hacked, they have a track record. Despite their concern for cybersecurity, it seems their system is not really that secure. This is not to say that Binance does not take cybersecurity seriously, because they do. They implement a 2FA type of authentication which requires using either an authenticator that generates a random code or the code is sent via an SMS text message to a smartphone. It is pretty secure after the fact, yet it was foiled time and time again. At this point the best that Binance can do is to track the stolen BTC and get the cooperation of other digital exchanges to freeze the funds. We actually know which address moved the coins (The transaction was traced from this link).

Fortunately, Binance has what it calls a SAFU (Secure Asset Fund for Users) which is a way of providing an insurance to users on the exchange in case of emergency. Changpeng Zhao or CZ, Binance CEO, has guaranteed that those who lost Bitcoin from the hack will be compensated for their losses. That is good to know, but will this be the end of these type of hacks? It has already happened before, so there is likelihood that it can happen again. That is unless Binance will add new security measures that tighten their systems even more. Then that gives hackers a new problem to deal with.

Now here is what is concerning. In an official statement made by Binance regarding the hack:

“The transaction is structured in a way that passed our existing security checks. It was unfortunate that we were not able to block this withdrawal before it was executed. Once executed, the withdrawal triggered various alarms in our system. We stopped all withdrawals immediately after that.“

The fact that it “passed our existing security checks” is a cause for concern that is what they are working to improve. According to this Coindesk article, Binance is going to do a revamp of their security system. They will certainly look into improving their API for 2FA as well as their withdrawal validation process. If a hacker can easily hack a user’s API key or 2FA credentials, you don’t really have a secure system. It was probably not an easy feat for the hackers, so now Binance should make it even more difficult to decrease the likelihood of any successful breach.

Phishing attacks are one of the exploits hackers use to get information from users. Once they trick a user to giving them that information, the hackers then use it to access the exchange. That is really all you need to do to get past Binance’s security check. Binance implements withdrawal limits for unverified users but for those who are verified, the hacker can wipe out their entire balance on the exchange.

Other ways a Binance user account was compromised can be from spyware, keyloggers or remote viewing software like VNC. Having an antivirus and cyberbsecurity software installed on a computer can help detect these malware. Another way to foil these attacks is to not keep funds stored on an exchange. Using a cold storage (not connected to the Internet) on a hardware wallet provides more security. In fact, some smartphones like the HTC Exodus and Samsung Galaxy S10 provide hardware wallet support for cryptocurrency now. For the strictest security, keep your digital assets safe in cold storage and not on hot wallets or custodial services like digital exchanges.

According to CZ:

“We are working with a dozen or so industry-leading security expert teams to help improve our security as well as track down the hackers.”

That’s right. Binance is definitely going to need more help in cybersecurity to fix this problem. Remember, it is not the blockchain that got hacked, it is Binance’s system. Binance also announced support for hardware devices with 2FA, a more secure way to connect to Binance. A system like that would require hackers to have possession of the actual hardware device. Think of this as a sort of physical key, that only gives access to the user who owns it.

The risk of a more digital world is computer hacking. Binance has been successfully hacked in the past. A user lost 2 BTC when a hacker used the credentials from their hacked e-mail address. Another hack occurred in July 2018, which was a “potential” hack that led to the theft of $45 Million of Syscoin and dumping of BTC. It was not Binance’s direct fault, but more on the Syscoin wallet. Regardless, it was a system anomaly that Binance admins detected. Binance immediately shutdown and then reset their API keys. That’s exactly what they did with the most recent hack. It seems that the answer to the problem is just shutting down and resetting everything. However, that does not solve the problem apparently.

Due to this large loss of BTC, someone from the BTC development community reached out to CZ. A suggestion was made to reorg the BTC blockchain and give back the stolen funds to their respective owners. Now the reaction to this was not good at all and thankfully, CZ decided not to do this. That would require Binance to use a “51% attack” to gain majority hashing power on the Bitcoin network to overturn transactions. The problem with this is an ethics issue because it would require Binance to get a consensus among miners and nodes on the network to support this plan. It goes against the main ideology of the blockchain, which is about decentralization and immutability. When you get a collusion of miners to provide Binance with majority hashing power, it centralizes the network to benefit one organization. This may also lead to inconsistencies on the blockchain if several bad actors try to mine on their own chain to gain control of the network. The idea that a consortium of miners with hashing power can overturn a trnsaction goes against immutability on the blockchain. It would be a terrible idea to do this.

The result of a reorg may lead to more factions in the Bitcoin community. There might even be a fork and this is not going to be good for the price of BTC as a store of value. It may even ruin the market leading to turmoil and massive sell offs as users collect their money. There needs to be a clear direction for BTC and a reorg is probably not in everyone’s best interest since it really only benefits Binance and the hacked accounts. This is not a consensus of the network’s interests.

The good thing is that the hack did not affect BTC prices. FUD didn’t lead to any massive dump or sell off, proving that there is confidence in the market. Taking care of the real problem, which is cybersecurity, is what needs to addressed. Binance vows to increase their security which is the most important feature right now for any digital exchange. Users need their funds to be safe from hackers, so this is going to be the responsibility of digital exchanges.

The Smartphone, Your Next Digital Wallet

The smartphone has become our digital Swiss army knife. We use it not only to make calls, but to send text messages, check the latest traffic conditions, get update on the weather, read the news, make electronic payments and take photos. I know people who would not survive a day unless they have their smartphone. In the Digital and Information Age, it has become a necessity of modern living.

What if you were told that smartphones can also use cryptocurrency for making payments and transactions? That would make it your digital wallet. The integration of cryptocurrency with smartphones are a precedent for mass adoption and this allows for more convenient ways to manage digital assets. It makes perfect sense if you think about it. Currently you would need a hardware wallet for fully securing your cryptocurrency from online hacking. Applying that same device on a smartphone adds more convenience and utility since it is integrated with something you use everyday rather than being separate.

Bringing cryptocurrency to smartphones is happening in different ways. All these products are targeted at mobile users. They are either directly wired as part of the smartphone’s electronics or can be installed as a DApp (distributed application). Let’s go over some of those applications.

HTC Exodus

HTC has a special smartphone that integrates with the blockchain, to protect your digital assets called Exodus. The phone itself is great, but it is the cryptocurrency support features that is really the selling point for it. The Exodus provides the Zion Vault Trusted Execution Environment that allows users to hold their own private keys. It tries to remove the hassle of creating your own digital wallet so this is really good for beginners. You start by entering a 6-digit pin, then get a 12-digit recovery phrase and you are all set. The recovery phrase is very important in case you get locked out or forget your pin. Write it down on a piece of paper or take a screenshot of it and store it safely and securely. The Exodus also has a way to allow your social contacts to help in recovery in case something really serious happens using a feature called Social Key Recovery.

The thing to know here is that your Zion Vault is not tied to a personal account like Facebook or Google. You are your own sovereign identity of your account. Not even HTC controls it. This means that you are in full possession of your digital assets, which is why it is important that security features are in place to keep it safe from hacking or vulnerable situations. Your private keys are stored in hardware, not software, much like using a hardware wallet. This makes it harder for hackers to steal since it cannot be targeted on the network.

The Exodus is also a device compatible with Web 3.0 applications. This takes us from the semantic web to a more intelligent web. Since the Exodus is also blockchain-centric, it brings a world of innovation at your fingertips. A more secure way to trade is certainly a benefit for using the Exodus. You can be anywhere that has a connection to the Internet and use your smartphone to trade and make payments at your convenience. The added layer of security that HTC has put in place is what gives peace of mind while using it.

Samsung Galaxy S10

A cryptocurrency wallet feature has been available on the SamsungGalaxy S10model smartphone. I was confused at first at what Samsung was up to then I realized they were going to integrate a cryptocurrency wallet that will also hold private keys on the device. Much like the HTC Exodus, it aims to secure and protect your digital assets stored on your smartphone. Hodlers will be able to store their Ethereum private keys in a cold storage type of digital wallet. That means it is stored directly in the smartphone and not on the Internet. Your actual digital asset is actually always on the blockchain as a data value of your balances. Other coins the wallet supports are the Cosmo Coin and a gaming cryptocurrency called Enjin.

Samsung’s crypto feature uses an app called Samsung Blockchain KeyStore. It is limited in availability upon its first release. Not all countries where you can buy the S10 will have support for the wallet, though it is clear the feature will be available in South Korea and the US. How it expands this feature remains to be seen as it is going to be a competitor with other hardware wallets. Samsung has apparently investedin one of them, Ledger Nano as reported by Cointelegraph.

According to Samsung:

“Galaxy S10 is built with defense-grade Samsung Knox, as well as a secure storage backed by hardware, which houses your private keys for blockchain-enabled mobile services.”

It just didn’t seem to be that secure. It has reportedly been hackedalready. It wasn’t the actual digital wallet that was hacked, it was the fingerprint sensor. That does give bad actors a way to access your private keys should your smartphone fall into the wrong hands. That is some news for concern that Samsung will have to address, but the responsibility will rest on the owner of the smartphone eventually. Keeping their smartphone physically secure is still the best way to prevent this.

Sirin Labs Finney

Sirin Labs lays claim to developing the first blockchain-enabled smartphone, ahead of HTC. It just so happens that HTC was the first to release their product commercially. The Finney has a built-in hardware wallet for storing private keys safely and access to a DApp to manage your digital assets. Finney is also from an open source project that has its own coin called SRN which can be used to purchase the smartphone.

The main feature that Finney has crypto enthusiasts excited about is that it provides a Token Conversion Service, which enables automatic exchanges between supported tokens and coins. This removes the use of digital exchanges like Binance and Coinbase to convert from one cryptocurrency to another. The last I checked the supported coins on the Finney include Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Sirin’s own SRN.

Perhaps it is the robust cybersecurity features that make Finney a serious contender for blockchain smartphone. Sirin Labs claims military grade security with intrusion prevention and encrypted messaging features. This gives the Finney additional advantages in features that help in securing your digital assets.

Opera Browser

Perhaps it is the Opera browser which provides the easiest way to get cryptocurrency. It is the first major browser to provide blockchain integration with a digital wallet. At the moment it only supports Ethereum, but there are plans to support other cryptocurrency. It is as simple as installing the Opera browser on an Android device (supported) and coming to iOS devices as well. What I like about the Opera cryptowallet is its ease and accessibility. It is just one touch away from your Android screen. You don’t need to configure anything else, the cryptowallet has already been set up and ready for use.

The integrated cryptowallet in Opera is an example of a Web3 application. This brings the security of the blockchain to the openness of the world wide web. Even the web’s founder Tim Berners-Lee believes that Web3 applications are going to very useful. The benefits you get with using the Opera cryptowallet is direct P2P (peer-to-peer) payments to other people, merchants and trading on digital exchanges. You have your own bank in your browser on your smartphone. Another good thing the wallet supports are digital collectibles like ERC721 and tokens like ERC20. This makes it easy to use without having to code a smart contract on the Ethereum network.

Mobility On The Blockchain

All these applications are targeted for mobility on the blockchain. What better way than to implement it on a smartphone. There are other types of apps available now that you can install on your smartphone that provide similar functionality. They will either provide you with full ownership of your private keys, offer a cold wallet function or in some cases a custodial wallet service (your private keys are kept by the service provider). Depending on how much control you want, there is an app available for it.

It is important to remember that you cannot recover your digital assets on the blockchain if you forget your password or passphrase or do not know your recovery phrase. HTC provides different ways to recover it but on Opera if you don’t have the 12-word recovery phrase (you can find this by selecting the “Backup phrase” option) your funds are gone since Opera does not have a way to recover it for you. These are the drawbacks of having complete ownership of your cryptocurrency.

Another use of these features are to access DApps, a collection of decentralized applications all over the Internet. Developers are building on top of the Ethereum platform in different ways. This is a showcase of the software that allows users to execute smart contracts that perform a service or to just enjoy playing games. So it provides a portal to access common DApps from Cryptokitties to DEX (Decentralized Exchanges).

Ease Of Use

One of the main complaints new users have is that using cryptocurrency is not intuitive and user friendly. The HTC, S10 and Opera browser are providing an easy way to get on-board. It should be easy enough for everyone to use. Its usefulness can all start with being able to simply buy a cup of coffee. When more applications like these become available and easier to use, then we have greater adoption.

New products that can quickly on-board users to cryptocurrency can lead to more liquidity in the market. As more people adopt it, there is also the growth in hype that can at times be misleading. Newbies to cryptocurrency may not fully understand how volatile the market is and what its real world uses are. For that reason, marketing these products is good for the hype. In the long run however, it is going to be whether cryptocurrency are going to be commodities needed for every day life. Then surely we already have a device we can use for it, the smartphone.

Money Is Not Paper, It Is Electronic

The most common argument people have about cryptocurrency is that it has no intrinsic value, unlike fiat currency. You will hear people say that real money is “paper”. Cryptocurrency is virtual and therefore does not exist. However, there is so much more wrong than right to these statements. The truth is money is only paper as a medium of exchange. The fact is that not all money can be backed by paper. Is it possible for everybody to have a valuation of their money in paper when they suddenly decide to withdraw their funds from the bank. It is impossible since not every bank has enough supply to dispense.

During the recent financial crises that affected parts of Europe, like Greece for example, banks controlled the money supply limiting their citizens to how much they can withdraw. This is an example of not having enough cash or paper money to dispense, but also of how little control individuals have of their own funds. In Venezuela the government just keeps printing money which leads to hyperinflation and therefore a devaluation of the local currency. Suddenly you see the price of basic commodities go up by 1,000% or more and having a million amounts to no value whatsoever.

Money’s real value is not in paper. Paper is cheap, but also not sustainable you can argue. Imagine how many trees need to be cut down to make enough paper money to back up everybody’s valuation in their bank accounts.It is a physical object which people have associated with their funds. However when it comes to storage there is simply not enough for banks to hold and distribute. That is why banks will collapse if suddenly everybody decides to withdraw their funds. Not only will they not have enough paper currency but they also cannot allow that since it will deplete their supply. Thus banks implement limit and restrictions on how much withdrawals can be made. During times of financial crisis, people are at a disadvantage. What if that money was needed to buy food and medicine, basic things for survival.

The truth is, most money is just electrons now. They are digitally stored as bits in a computer when accessed. It is just the value of someones balances that is recorded in a database. According to the Economic Times, 92% of the world’s money is now digital. We use our debit cards and credit cards to make payments. It is now even easier with Apple Pay, Android Pay and other electronic payment services. We are just adding or subtracting balances to our bank statements but there is no actual transfer of physical paper currency during transactions.

So what about cryptocurrency? It is not paper money either. It is also digitally recorded, but in a cryptographically secured immutable and transparent database called a blockchain. Today banks and other financial institutions have also gone digital, but they don’t have the main feature of cryptocurrency which is decentralization. This is what prevents banks from restricting how much money you can withdraw and how you want to use it. Banks can even freeze your account, which is part of their policy, and there is not much you can do about it.

An important lesson from cryptocurrency is the benefits of decentralization. Money should be personal and totally under ones own control. That is option of course, because there are still people who prefer to trust their finances to a third party. However if you want to be your own bank, then you have that option too when using cryptocurrency. No limits, no minimum balances and certainly no hidden fees or charges.

Most of what we do with money is now done electronically since it is digital. You can pay online as well, when it comes to car payments, mortgage, rent and even retail. Many are already using Alibaba and Amazon to purchase items online and they don’t use cash. They use their credit card as the form of payment which is all electronic. Cryptocurrency is the same but is much better and more up to date in handling electronic payment systems.

Cryptocurrency is direct P2P (Peer to Peer) meaning there is no middle man. A customer can pay directly to the merchant without clearing and settlements with other parties like banks and credit card companies. This allows instant transfer of value. This feature also makes cryptocurrency ideal for remittances from overseas foreign workers sending money back to their home countries. Banks do feel threatened since they are slow in adopting these technologies. It can actually benefit them too once they integrate it with their systems.

The road to mass adoption is dependent on its utility and regulation. The SEC in the US is trying to regulate for the most part, but the system is decentralized. There is no actual company that makes cryptocurrency, these are all projects that were meant to be distributed to a large group of users. Cryptocurrency like Bitcoin and Ethereum have no owners. They are under a core development community and foundation that support it, but the SEC cannot really go after them. There is a grey area which regulators still need to address.

So cryptocurrency is just like any other currency. It has value that is determined by the market for its demand. Bitcoin is a store of value commodity which is exchanged not with physical cash but thru electronic digital exchanges. There are no Bitcoin paper currency, it exists on the blockchain. There are many benefits for the finance industry to adopt cryptocurrency. When the time comes for the world to go paperless and cashless, when all payments will be electronic, the features of cryptocurrency are a model to follow. When the time comes that you can pay for a cup of coffee easily with cryptocurrency, we can really say that adoption is finally here.

Note: Things are evolving fast in fintech and the world of cryptocurrency. We may see more adoption come when big business allow for payments and when government’s recognize it as a medium of exchange for all or most transactions.