PRESS RELEASE. Singapore, May 29, 2024 – To sustain the growth and success of the BitTorrent ecosystem, BTFS is set to implement a halving on the next round of rewards for storage miners on the BTFS network. From 00:00 (UTC) June 25, 2024, the daily rewards for storage miners on the BTFS network will be […]
Bitcoin News
Unveiling ‘Mr. 100’ — The Mystery Bitcoin Wallet Linked to Upbit’s Cold Storage
In the last two months, the crypto community has been buzzing about a wallet affectionately named ‘Mr. 100.’ This moniker originates from its pattern of receiving 100 bitcoin deposits every few days, leading to speculation that it might belong to a wealthy individual from the Middle East. However, onchain analysts from Arkham Intelligence suspect that […]
Bitcoin News
Bitcoin Hodlers Eye Long Term: $520 Million BTC Go To Cold Storage
Bitcoin (BTC) danced into uncharted realms this week, breaking barriers with a triumphant surge that pushed its value beyond the ,000 mark.
The cryptocurrency world, once again, finds itself in the midst of a thrilling price discovery phase, propelled by an amalgamation of bullish indicators and a notable shift in investor sentiments.
Related Reading: Cardano (ADA) Price Alert: Analyst Predicts 60% Rally In Next 7 Days
Big Players Dominate The Crypto Arena
This week’s narrative unfolded on a stage dominated by two juggernauts of the financial realm – BlackRock and MicroStrategy. BlackRock, the undisputed titan of asset management, sent ripples through the market by filing with the SEC, outlining tentative plans to incorporate spot Bitcoin ETFs into its Global Allocation Fund.
Although in its infancy, this move has ignited hopes for heightened demand, especially through BlackRock’s IBIT ETF, already wielding a substantial 204,000 BTC.
Enter MicroStrategy, the steadfast evangelist of Bitcoin strategies. This corporate behemoth poured more fuel into the already blazing fire by revealing the acquisition of an additional 12,000 BTC.
This move propelled MicroStrategy’s total corporate Bitcoin holdings to an awe-inspiring 205,000. Such maneuvers by industry giants underscore the growing acceptance of Bitcoin as a legitimate and influential asset class.
While headlines may be dominated by institutional power moves, peering into the intricate web of on-chain data reveals the fascinating tapestry of investor conviction.
0 Million In Bitcoin In Transit
IntoTheBlock’s exchange netflow metric showcased a significant outflow of 4,470 BTC on March 11th. This substantial move, valued at over 0 million, saw coins making a pilgrimage from exchange wallets to cold storage.
The implication is clear – investors, despite reaching record highs, are playing the long game, stashing their digital treasures in cold storage rather than opting for immediate profits.
This strategic move, coupled with a surge in demand, paints a bullish picture of supply and demand dynamics.
Drawing parallels from the pages of history, the recent exodus from exchanges echoes a similar event on February 27th.
On that day, a netflow of 8,050 BTC correlated with a breathtaking 26% surge in prices within 48 hours. If this historical rhyming persists, the recent outflow might just be the wind beneath Bitcoin’s wings, propelling it to conquer the ,000 resistance level in the imminent days.
As the stage is set for Bitcoin’s next act, technical indicators join the ensemble, singing harmoniously in the chorus of a potential breakout.
Enjoying Profits
IntoTheBlock’s “Global In/Out of the Money” chart offers a visual feast, showcasing that in this era of Bitcoin’s price discovery, nearly all of the 52 million holder addresses are now enjoying profits. This absence of selling pressure, combined with the rising institutional tide, paints a canvas of explosive potential.
While the bulls eye the lofty target of ,000, technical analysis points to a potential support station at ,000.
This zone, a fortress where over 6.6 million holders acquired nearly 3 million BTC, could stand as a formidable psychological barricade in the face of any price pullback.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is fast approaching the highly-coveted K level, trading at ,529, up 2% and 10% in the daily and weekly timeframes, data by Coingecko shows.
Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
Shiba Inu Whales Eat The Dip: 2.39 Trillion SHIB Make Their Way To Cold Storage
Shiba Inu whales have been gobbling up the recent dip in Shiba Inu, with on-chain data showing some accumulating an enormous 2.39 trillion SHIB between them. SHIB’s price has been on a downtrend since the beginning of the month, falling as low as 20% from the yearly open to reach .000008735 on January 8th.
Although the crypto has since recovered 15% from this low and is now trading at .000009763, its price is still showing signs of decline and is currently down by 3.3% in the past 24 hours. Behind the background sits some whales, gobbling up a whopping 2.39 trillion SHIB tokens worth .15 million and sending them straight to cold storage.
Cold storage mostly refers to digital wallets that are not owned by crypto exchanges, making the SHIB stored in them inaccessible for trading or selling. By putting their Shiba Inu into cold storage, these whales show that they plan to HODL for the long term.
Whales Accumulate 2.39 Trillion SHIB In A Month
Shiba Inu’s ecosystem is home to many whale investors, and transactions among these whales are not uncommon. According to on-chain transaction tracker Lookonchain, there have been huge SHIB transfers from crypto exchange Binance into four whale addresses in the past 30 days.
The latest big SHIB whale transaction was one of 136.86 billion SHIB tokens worth .38 million at the time of transfer to a newly created wallet. Notably, this was the smallest accumulation from the four whales. The three other whale transactions were of larger proportion, one of which included TRON founder Justin Sun who accumulated 577 billion SHIB worth .82 million from Binance.
The third exit from Binance went into address 0xa656, which accumulated 237.87 billion SHIB worth .4 million. The largest accumulation came from 0xF633 who accumulated 1.44 trillion SHIB worth .54 million from Binance and Gateio.
https://x.com/lookonchain/status/1745361421817508240?s=20
A fresh whale wallet accumulated 136.86B $SHIB(1.38M) 30 mins ago.
In the past month, $BTC has increased by 9.78%, $ETH has increased by 16.09%, while $SHIB has only increased by 4.86%.
And 4 whales have accumulated a total of 2.39T $SHIB (.15M) from exchanges in the past… pic.twitter.com/NKLz8AhGfV
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) January 11, 2024
Current State Of Shiba Inu
According to data from IntoTheBlock, large SHIB holders now hold 78% of the total circulating supply, and some of them can manipulate the price to their advantage. However, the huge buys indicate that some SHIB whale investors remain confident in the token’s long-term prospects, despite recent market volatility.
Shytoshi Kusama, the lead developer of Shiba Inu, urged the growing SHIB community in a social media post to remain steadfast. This came in light of the introduction of Shib name tokens. On the other hand, the SHIB burn rate has seen a spike in efforts to push the price of SHIB up. According to the burn tracker, the burn rate recently witnessed a 395.43% spike in burn rate.
Hey, #SHIBARMY! While everyone is focused on approved or not, hacked or not, we remained focused on creating what we said we would: A Network State. Since I’m hearing a lot of Web 3 but not enough WEB, let’s talk about #SHIB NAME TOKENS. 1/
— Shytoshi Kusama
(@ShytoshiKusama) January 9, 2024
Featured image from iStock
Bitstream White Paper Proposes Bitcoin Payments to Disrupt File Storage Economy
Robin Linus, the creator behind BitVM — a computing construct atop the Bitcoin blockchain — released a new white paper on November 11, 2023, entitled “Bitstream.” The document explores a system aimed at reforming the economic structure of file storage, suggesting a usage-based model that rewards server contributions with bitcoin payments.
Bitstream Revealed: A White Paper’s Bitcoin-Based Bid to Overhaul Data Hosting
The Bitstream white paper, authored by blockchain programmer Robin Linus, unveils a method where servers receive direct payments in bitcoin (BTC) for each file download they facilitate. Addressing the imbalance in current hosting economics, Linus’ system aligns server profit with content demand.
Servers are compensated for providing a service to the network, namely the distribution of files, the white paper explains. The system “creates a directory of accountable servers from which clients can choose,” Linus’ paper details.
The Bitstream system capitalizes on Bitcoin’s payment channels, including technologies like the Lightning Network, Liquid, Chaumian ecash, Fedimint, or Cashu to afford swift microtransactions for file access.
“The server encrypts the file such that if there’s any mismatch during decryption the client can derive a compact fraud proof,” the paper notes. “A bond contract guarantees the client receives the exact file or they can punish the server.”
In Bitstream’s design, the use of a Merkle tree for file verification promotes both the uniqueness and security of hosted data. By breaking down files into hashed components, the system can quickly confirm the accuracy of the content being transferred.
Linus has adopted a straightforward encryption method, using the one-time pad cipher for its uncompromising security guaranteed by the bitwise XOR operations. “If the encrypted file does not decrypt correctly, the client can derive a succinct fraud proof,” the Bitstream white paper explains.
After Linus published the paper several people were enthusiastic while others were more critical. “Are you just planning to keep revolutionizing Bitcoin every 2 months or so?” one person asked the programmer.
“File hosting is already an at the margin commodity service, and hash based redundancy is achieved over Webtorrent where needed,” another more critical individual said. “A less perfomant inclusion of user edge storage and bandwidth doesn’t solve any particular problem.”
Linus has also been working on the BitVM concept after unveiling that specific white paper last month. We just broadcasted the first mainnet transaction having a Blake3 hash lock implemented in Bitcoin Script,” Linus posted on X on November 6. “One small opcode for BitVM, one giant script for Bitcoin,” the developer added.
The Bitstream framework offers a variation to conventional data hosting methods, yet its practical application remains to be seen. The white paper’s proposal believes it has proposed an “incentive system for decentralized file hosting without relying on trust or heavy-weight cryptography.”
What do you think about the Bitstream white paper? Share your thoughts and opinions about this subject in the comments section below.
Bitgo Launches Storage and Tracking Solution for Bitcoin-Based Ordinal Inscriptions
On Thursday, digital asset custody provider, Bitgo, announced the launch of its storage and tracking solution for Bitcoin-based Ordinal inscriptions. Moreover, users can use Bitgo’s Ordinal inscription storage system to inscribe their own inscriptions onto the Bitcoin blockchain.
Bitgo’s New Solution Allows for Safe Sending of Ordinal Inscriptions
Bitgo has announced a new storage solution for Bitcoin-based Ordinal inscriptions that allows users to store and track inscriptions. Bitgo has detailed that in the “coming days,” users who leverage Bitgo’s new solution will be able to send “inscribed satoshis to an address of their choice safely.” The company says that starting today, “you can add inscription tracking to any bitcoin hot wallet on Bitgo.”
Transactions received into the Bitgo wallet are now checked for inscriptions and frozen to prevent the loss of inscriptions. Bitgo’s dashboard will have a new “Unspents” view that displays inscriptions and links to the public Ordinals explorer for more information. Users can unfreeze the inscription from this view if they want to use the bitcoin in a normal transaction without worrying about where the inscribed satoshis are sent.
Ordinal inscriptions have become quite popular this year, and to date, there are more than 657,000 inscriptions residing on the Bitcoin blockchain. So far, close to 150 BTC worth .24 million have been paid to miners to confirm Ordinal inscriptions. At present, the ecosystem is still nascent, but certain Ordinal inscription collections have swelled in value, and statistics show that 13 markets have seen .74 million in trades.
“Bitcoin Ordinals brought an entirely new layer of engagement to the Bitcoin Network but, upon launch, the surrounding ecosystem missed key security components to ensure high-value Ordinals inscriptions were safeguarded,” Chen Fang, Bitgo’s COO said in a statement on Thursday. “That’s why we’re very excited to announce the release of Bitgo’s solution to securely store inscriptions and prevent them from being accidentally transferred or sent to mining fees.”
What do you think the future holds for the use and adoption of Ordinal inscriptions in the Bitcoin ecosystem? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
Crypto Hardware Wallet Maker Ledger Raises $100M Amid Growing Demand for Secure Storage Solutions
The cryptocurrency hardware wallet manufacturer Ledger has raised €100 million (9 million) in funding, according to the company’s disclosure on Thursday. Ledger CEO Pascal Gauthier says there has been significant demand for hardware wallets. He added, “2023 is even better for us because now you can’t even leave money at a Swiss bank.”
Ledger to Expand Distribution, Production, and Research and Development With New Funding Injection
According to a Thursday report by Bloomberg, Ledger, the cryptocurrency hardware wallet maker, has revealed it raised €100 million (9 million) from investors. The capital raise comes at a time when crypto companies have been going insolvent and laying off significant portions of their workers. Ledger CEO Pascal Gauthier told Bloomberg’s Anna Irrera that the company will leverage the cash injection to expand distribution, production, and research and development.
Gauthier noted that in 2022, people became very aware that leaving money on centralized crypto platforms can be risky. The CEO also stressed that in the traditional finance world, people are having a hard time trusting financial institutions due to the recent bank collapses. “Suddenly people were like ‘wow, to leave crypto on an exchange is actually dangerous,’” Gauthier told Irrera. “And 2023 is even better for us because now you can’t even leave money at a Swiss bank.”
Ledger’s financing follows the company’s announcement of a new crypto hardware wallet called the Ledger Stax, which was designed by iPod creator Tony Fadell. The news also follows the launch of 1inch’s new hardware wallet and Coinkite’s higher-end Coldcard device. Furthermore, the hardware wallet competitor Trezor revealed last month that it was taking control of its chip production.
The report on Thursday notes that Ledger’s chief experience officer Ian Rogers said the internet has changed how people perceive value. “The internet was this revolution of information, and now it’s given birth to this revolution of value,” Rogers said in a statement. “From the speculation, to NFTs, to digital collectibles, digital tickets, digital memberships and ultimately digital identity.”
What are your thoughts on the future of hardware wallets in the cryptocurrency industry, and how do you think they will continue to evolve to meet the needs of crypto investors and traders? Share your opinions in the comments section below.
As Crypto Storage is Still a Major Problem, Can NFT integration Solve the Issue?
Now a trillion-dollar market, the crypto ecosystem has withered some of the toughest conditions within its period of existence. However, like any other technological innovation, it is not short of native challenges. This ‘lucrative’ market faces a myriad of shortcomings, including criticisms from regulators and long-standing financial institutions. But the most significant hurdles are currently attributed to the underlying infrastructures.
In a recent interview during the Paris Blockchain Week, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao identified crypto custody as one of the hardest challenges that remains unsolved. According to CZ, the inaccessible and complex nature of crypto wallets is undoubtedly hindering mass adoption in the digital asset space. He was also keen to highlight that this one of problems he would prioritize given an opportunity,
“If I had no financial pressure, I would want to solve the most difficult problem that is blocking adoption. That would be the problem I would try to solve.”
The Loophole in Crypto Custody
Anyone who has interacted with crypto long enough understands there is a thin line when it comes to storing the newly found wealth. Stakeholders have in the past lost huge sums of money as result of wallet breaches or forgetting one’s seed phrase. As it stands, 20% of the BTC in supply cannot be accessed due to lost private keys.
Is this efficient for an ecosystem touted as the future of finance? While Rome wasn’t built in a day, the issue of crypto wallets needs to be addressed sooner than later. Some crypto diehards would argue that non-custodial wallets are a long term solution. However, the complexities involved in securing one’s seed phrase paint a different picture.
“But today, most people cannot store their private keys securely. The wallets require them to be technical. Your computer cannot get a virus. If your computer gets a virus, there’s all kinds of problems that will happen. You will lose your money.” added CZ Binance.
Even worse, the current infrastructure of most non-custodial wallets does not feature a solution for passing heritage to future generations. It is quite unfair to invest in an industry where there is no guarantee that one’s offspring will benefit in the event of their death. After all, this is standard practice in the traditional finance scope.
Unfortunately, custodial wallets offered by crypto exchanges are not any better; while they might feature a heritage structure, users are not in control of their private keys. In the event of a breach such as the infamous Mt Gox hack, chances are high that any investor holding funds with the affected exchange will have to incur significant losses.
So, what is the ultimate solution to a secure crypto storage ecosystem? The perfect answer would be it’s neither white nor black, but the emergence of Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) seems to be paving way for tamper-proof and heritage-designed Web 3.0 wallets.
NFTs; The Future of Crypto Wallet Infrastructures
The NFT hype has taken the crypto industry by a storm, with digital creatives such as Beeple cashing big on their work. Though a relatively new area of innovation, the indistinguishable (unique) nature of NFTs could be a game-changer in the development of non-custodial crypto wallets.
Emerging DApps such as Serenity Shield are implementing NFT technology to introduce a strongbox solution that addresses seed recovery and heritage issues. Launched in 2021, this Web 3.0 project features a fully encrypted solution for storing digital assets. Ideally, Serenity shield allows crypto natives to create an account where they can securely store their seed recovery phrases.
Serenity’s strongbox then partitions the sensitive information into three unique NFT keys. The first NFT is allocated to the account owner, the second to a prospective heir while the final key is stored in the Serenity Shield smart contract. To unlock the information in the strongbox, one requires at least two of the NFT keys, making it possible for a user to recover sensitive information or transfer ownership to an heir.
Going by the trends in NFT integrations, the value stretches beyond play-to-earn and the metaverse economies. There is a wide range of crypto applications that could benefit from scaling through NFT infrastructure. Most notably, this upcoming crypto niche provides a building base for secure DApps, ultimately solving pertinent issues such as seed recovery and digital asset heritage.
Conclusion
Cryptocurrencies might have come of age but there is a lot to be done to ensure that investors sleep comfortably knowing their assets are safe. As highlighted in the introduction, it is still a murky world for crypto wallets, whether custodial or non-custodial. This is not to say that existing issues cannot be solved; newer technologies like NFTs present an opportunity to tackle a majority of the underlying problems.
StorX Network Becomes the Answer to XDSea Marketplace’s Storage Needs
Decentralized Storage Provider StorX Network has joined hands with NFT Marketplace XDSea on a partnership set to eliminate IPFS based centralized storage. Under the terms of the collaboration, it follows that XDSea will leverage StorX decentralized storage network as a store for their art, images, and documents.
We are thrilled to announce the Partnership between @StorXNetwork and @XDSeaNFT.XDSea will use Storx decentralized storage network to store art, images, and documents. This will remove file storage centralized using ipfs.#StorX #SRX #partnership https://t.co/zfM7asYJaz
— StorX Network (@StorXNetwork) March 3, 2022
Standing as the first-ever, and largest P2P decentralized marketplace in the world to provide an avenue for selling and buying NFTs, XDSea is built atop the XDC Network and runs on the XRC blockchain. The collaboration and expected offerings are a testament to the numerous promises made by DIMO and XinFin who hosted the official debut of the XDSea network. From being the first NFT marketplace to join the XRC blockchain, and now offering safer and more reliable storage for digital collectibles, the possibilities remain endless for XDSea.
Already XDSea is reputed for its game-changing role offering very affordable gas fees in the market today thanks to its association with XinFin. Beyond that, it also offers the lowest transaction fees in the market today. By meeting users at the junction linking gas fees, transaction fees and now security, XDC is a game-changer in an extremely agile and dynamic industry.
Competitive features of StorX Network’s Decentralized Cloud
StorX Network has revolutionized data storage, providing a blockchain-based decentralized cloud storage solution. This solution evades tracking, censorship, blocking, or the presence of any downtime whatsoever. With these offerings, StorX leads netizens to a safer and more secure internet version where decentralization is the theme. XDSea is the first among many who are poised to leverage this future.
With this partnership, XDSea intends to leverage StorX decentralized storage for the safe storage of NFTs in the range of art, images and documents; an action that will eliminate the centralization element of storing files characteristic of IPFS.
IPFS is basically the hard drive of blockchain with a specific approach for data storage. IPFS stores data in such a way that when data is added to the IPFS network, the network splits it into groups of 256Kb capacities. Each group is identifiable using a specific hash and is thereafter spread across multiple nodes on the hash-linked networks.
StorX is safer than IPFS
While both use transport encryption, StorX offers more security thanks to its content-encryption property. While user data is safer when being sent between individual IPFS nodes, that data is accessible to anyone who wishes to download and view it provided they have the CID. StorX enhances security by providing the content-encryption property.
Moreover, the XDSea will benefit from, among other privileges offered by StorX, the assurance of offering users a safer and more reliable storage network for their digital collectibles on the cloud. With this collaboration, XDSea, therefore, expects to deliver a safer and more unregulated storage experience for its esteemed user community so that they can design and develop their valuable NFTs on the open-source NFT Marketplace, XDSea.
Notably, the partnership makes for a notable milestone for StorX, positioning them as the first storage provider to collaborate with XDC NFT marketplace for purposes of solving their storage needs. The mechanics hold that every file that a user uploads on StorX is split into multiple parts before encryption into several fragments and finally stored within independent storage nodes. The nodes are run by different operators located in various parts of the world.
The hallmark of StorX network’s offering centers on the fact that the system is designed as a group of autonomous storage networks. This means that there is no one operator who holds total access to the data belonging to a single user. With different parts held by different operators, the amount of power or influence held by a single holder is therefore significantly reduced to an almost invaluable minimum, hence enhanced user security.
#XDCNFT are coming to the #XDCNetwork. It is still early days but new artists, fans and innovators are rapidly joining the #XDC community. Buckle up, this space is about to explode! pic.twitter.com/YjvilI4Nox
— PiusVirXDC (@PiusVir) March 21, 2022
Decentralized Cloud Storage as a Response to Cybersecurity Issues
- Cybersecurity trends in 2021 involve attacks at higher rates than in the past.
- Centralized storage solutions are prone to plenty of data protection challenges.
- StorX aims to introduce users to Decentralized storage solutions with blockchain.
Cybersecurity had a difficult time in 2021 with high-profile breaches such as Colonial Pipeline and Solar Winds. Aside from that, there were also dozens of other breaches that resulted in major economic and security-related impacts.
Work has rapidly shifted into remote and hybrid offices, and hackers have taken advantage of this. Vulnerabilities and gaps in security are prevalent in unsecured locations that remote working has introduced. These gaps have been exploited at higher rates than in the past.
This 2022, cybersecurity is something to look out for considering the trend in the previous years.
One section of cybersecurity is the Global Cloud Storage market. This market is estimated to grow from .1 billion in 2020 to 7.3 billion by 2025. This market– serviced by companies like Dropbox, Apple, and Google– have changed the way company operations work thanks to their cloud storage services. However, this service isn’t free of problems.
Centralized Cloud Storage has plenty of data protection challenges. Issues such as data privacy, cyber-attacks, and data manipulation still exist among others. This is a direct cause of having third-party entities govern users’ private data.
For this reason, Decentralized Cloud Storage is an important alternative to look out for. This concept aims to democratize the market of cloud service providers, which is highly monopolized. Rather than bringing users to a centralized service provider, it instead allows users to rent storage from individual farmers.
There are several advantages of a decentralized method of storage. Namely, the separation from centralized intermediaries increases security and decreases forms of censorship.
Companies such as StorX are proponents for Decentralized Cloud Storage. Companies that help users in securely encrypting, fragmenting, and distributing important data across multiple hosting nodes scattered across the globe.
StorX specifically is an upcoming start-up with a network based on the XDC network, allowing it to be faster; cheaper; and more energy-efficient than its competitors.
Image: Pixabay
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