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The Walt Disney Company is #71 of the top 2000 companies in the world ranked by Forbes. It has an annual revenue in the tens of billions of dollars, assets near 100 billion dollars, and recently developed a keen interest in blockchain technology for use within its massive organization, which includes online retail, television endeavors, and, of course, their world-famous theme parks.   The most obvious benefit of a blockchain system is easier tracking of inventories, sales, shipments, and even people in the case of the parks, but Dragonchain innovates on existing blockchain implementations. According to their design document, they introduce something called “context-based verification.” Their blockchain will have various types of nodes, and a “level 5” of these nodes will interact with an existing public blockchain like Bitcoin, notably providing a “public checkpoint” or “proof of existence” for the blocks within the permissioned ledger.   The other levels of the Dragonchain should be

  As we approach the release date for the SEGWIT (Segregated Witness) update to the blockchain, we were pleased to see a complete update from the BitcoinCore team about how this update will affect the network, what will change and where are we going to proceed in the future.   For those of you who don’t know what SEGWIT is software that is used to produce transactions for which it separates the TxID transaction signatures from the rest of the data, thus Segregated Witness. This allows miners to place the transaction signatures outside of the block-chain.   Pros and cons There are benefits that we will immediately be able to enjoy once the update has been complete. The first benefit is that malleability will be ultimately eliminated, and third-parties won’t be able to interfere with the transaction process, and transaction ID’s will be hidden from everyone, while at the same time allowing the transaction software to calculate the transaction without reference to the witness. This update

  Umbra, launched for privacy, is a new crypto currency aimed at privacy. With so many ways to use it, it's no wonder so many are using it today- it was built primarily for security and has many secondary features, like opening up a chat lobby or creating a marketplace that's completely anonymous. Interested? Let's take a look at it.   Privacy Built for privacy, the Umbra project was created open-source and has more security features than most crypto currencies do, on top of having excellent usability. Umbra allows you to stack additional security measures on top of the existing ones built into the client, so attackers have multiple barriers to break to find who you are and more. Plus, the messaging platform is built for Tor and L2P, so you can carry out your transactions with even more security!   Encrypted Messaging Encryption is one thing built into the Umbra platform, and it's one of the most integral features that provide security to it. Many messages do provide go

EE, October 11, 2016 at 13:57 BST   October 11, 2016 a well-established cryptocurrency exchange, HitBTC, publicly increases support for EUR and USD depositing. From now on, all new registered users can easily pass the verification process, deposit fiats on their accounts, and proceed to cryptocurrency trading.   While there's a number of cryptocurrencies, paired directly with USD or EUR, including most popular Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Ethereum, a whole set of more peculiar digital currencies can also be traded. Altogether, the exchange provides more than 20 trading markets, continuously listing new, promising digital assets.   By enhancing support for fiat currencies, HitBTC is aiming to attract professionals, engaged with conventional types of trading, like stock markets, forex trading, commodities, etc. Here are the words of Paul Clarkson, product manager at HitBTC: "After three years of hard work, we're finally ready to bring mainstream traders to cryptocurrencies, and vi

South Korea’s largest credit card company is set to use a blockchain identity solution developed by local bitcoin startup Coinplug. The service will be based on what Coinplug calls FidoChain, a “private blockchain technology” aimed at providing a distributed means of verifying and maintaining digital identities. KB Koomkin Card, a subsidiary of KB Koomkin Bank, plans to complete its integration by the end of this year.   The startup has been working in the area of digital identity for some time, netting a $45,000 prize last year after submitting a prototype system based on the concept to a competition held by JB Financial Group. It’s a use case that has been pursued by established enterprises as well as new companies working in the blockchain space. Now, following additional development, Coinplug is pushing ahead with what it calls the “Coinplug Identification System”, or CIS. According to Richard Yun, director and chief operation officer from Coinplug, KB Koomkin wants to integrate th

  At this moment in time, Ethereum represents the basis of a popular digital currency, alongside with a decentralized platform meant to support apps that run as they are, without facing censorship, fraud or any form of third part interference.   However, during its reign so far, the network was forced to implement a hard fork, to prevent the theft of millions of dollars’ worth of DAO funds, after the systems had been hacked. Whenever a fork is suggested on the digital currency market, its purpose is to divide the supporters of two different ideas, and continue the branch which has the most supporters at the time of the fork.   Recent reports indicate that after the recent DDoS attack, Ethereum is planning to carry out another fork, in order to deal with the EIP150 gas cost changes being implemented. With this in mind, last month, on the 22nd of September, Ethereum representatives announced that the network was facing a strong DDoS attack, thus causing an immediate slow0down of the netw

The human brain, consisting of roughly 86 billion neurons, rivals the world’s best supercomputers in terms of magnitude, efficiency, and speed, using as little energy as a small 20-watt light bulb. Human evolution took tens of thousands of years to adapt noticeable brain size and architecture changes.   Evolution is a slow process that can take eons for changes to occur. Technology, on the other hand, is amazing in terms of how fast it is moving along, blending into the world seamlessly. The technological evolution notably occurs at a faster pace compared to biological evolution.   To further understand the situation, imagine a frog in a pot of water that heats up 1/10th of a degree Celsius every ten seconds. Even if the frog remained in that water for, say an hour, it would be unable to feel the minute changes in temperature. However, if the frog is dropped into boiling water, the change is too sudden and the frog jumps away to avoid fate.     Let's take a gigantic chessboard and

Conventional thinking about blockchain technology's use in stock markets may be wrong, according to one academic. The argument was put forward by Professor David Yermack, chairman of the finance department at New York University, this week at Imperial College London's first FinTech-focused academic conference. There, Yermack presented an unpublished report that argues blockchains will evolve differently in capital markets than widely expected. For example, according to Yermack, functions such as stock settlements will one day be carried out on public blockchains like bitcoin, as opposed to private or premissioned alternatives. Overall, Yermack, who teaches a cryptocurrency course at NYU’s Stern School of Business, offered a much broader vision for the use of blockchain in finance than what the industry is considering, as well as more critical takes on how incumbents are exploring the tech. Taking a dig at DTCC, for instance, Yermack said its report "E

Beijing and Shanghai, China's two most populous and developed cities, are often reminiscent of two siblings. They are similar, but each has its own distinct character. In this light, some rivalry is as inevitable, and it's now spilling over into the country's blockchain industry. In Beijing, visitors are likely to meet "bitcoin maximalists", those who shrug at the idea an alternative blockchain or bank consortium could challenge the network effect of a $10bn digital economy. In Shanghai, the difference of attitude is pronounced – there, you are more likely to be told that bitcoin is passé. Metaverse, a company based in the Shanghai's Huangpu district, is in many ways representative of the city's new blockchain startups. Relatively unknown even in its home country, Metaverse has over 20 employees – no small feat for a blockchain startup that has been around for less than a year, and it recently held a blockchain token crowdsale, raisin

  Blockchain is almost always right, and has an incredible number of associated opportunities – from storage, to coding, and far beyond. The most popular and supported example is the Ethereum smart contract, which has revolutionized the coding and cryptocurrency world forever. It showed thousands that crypto isn’t just for payments, but for coders and programmers alike. With so many choices, programmers or cryptocoiners may be wondering – what’s so great about the blockchain? In this article, we have all the information you need so you can make your own decision.   Blockchain has many pros – the fact that data can be stored on it is a huge one. A notable example is in the very beginnings of Bitcoin – the genesis block. What’s interesting about this specific block is that it doesn’t reference any other block, because there were not any blocks to reference, and so it has a lot of zero bytes. All blocks have a special section called the coinbase, which is the area that is capable of stori

When it comes to cryptocurrencies one treasured goal is the ability to remain private, which requires both an anonymous and fungible currency. At times, it seems fungibility is the holy grail of the ecosystem. Bitcoin definitely achieves most of the qualities of sound money, but some believe it needs a lot of work in the development of fungibility.   Privacy cannot work without the basics of a fungible asset as both fundamentals are mutually exclusive. The rise in popularity concerning both fungibility and anonymity can be seen with the latest trends in market trading and development.   Just recently Bitcoin.com spoke with Daniel Krawisz about his new bitcoin shuffler, Shufflepuff. Krawisz explained he was still in the developmental process but had achieved the first shuffled transaction on August 15th. The Coin Shuffle protocol finds other users to tumble their bitcoins as variants of this technology are the most common protocol for mixing Bitcoins.   On August 29th, another tumbling

Now more than ever, your online privacy is under attack. ISPs, advertisers, and governments around the world are increasingly interested in knowing exactly what you’re up to when you browse the web. Whether you’re a political activist or simply someone who hates the idea of third-parties scrutinizing your surfing habits, there are plenty of tools available to keep prying eyes off of your traffic.   In this post, I’m going to highlight 19 ways to increase your online privacy. Some methods are more complicated than others, but if you’re serious about remaining private, these tips will help shield your traffic from snoops. Of course, internet security is a topic in and of itself, so you’re going to need to do some reading to remain thoroughly protected on all fronts. And remember, even the most careful among us are still vulnerable to imperfect technology.   The Onion Router (Tor) If anonymity is what you're after, The Onion Router (Tor) is what you need. It uses a vast network of com

The world of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency never has a dull moment. Now that Blockstream has officially appointed Adam Back as their CEO, a few interesting things are bound to happen soon. But Jeff Garzik, who runs his own company called Bloq, hinted at a potential partnership between both groups. Jeff Garzik Remains Keen on Blockstream The name Blockstream has been a topic of substantial controversy among Bitcoin enthusiasts over the past few years. Even though this group of developers and engineers is looking to improve the Bitcoin ecosystem, there are lots of people in the community who feel they are trying to bring Bitcoin down eventually. While there may have been some dubious discussions involving Blockstream in the past, they continue to receive a lot of support as well. Jeff Garzik, one of the most prominent people in the Bitcoin world, has high hopes for what the team is trying to achieve. In fact, he feels Blockstream will "help Bitcoin grow into the future". T

Venezuela, the South American country famous for its cheap gas (fuel) prices, has experienced a surge in both Bitcoin volume and price. The country is in the middle of the worst economic crisis ever seen in its recent history. According to the Venezuelan consulting firm, Ecoanalítica, the country’s annualized inflation reached the 1.108% mark. The Venezuelan government has unofficially banned the country’s central bank (BCV) from releasing economic indicators such as inflation figures and price indexes. After much pressure from banks, consulting firms, and other institutions, the BCV reported an 180.9 percent inflation for last year. Consulting firm, Econoanalítica, criticized the methodology used by the BCV to calculate inflation. BCV altered the weight of several goods and services used to “embellish” the figure. Amidst this grim landscape, bitcoin has gone through highs and lows. In Venezuela Bitcoin and other currencies prices are calculated using the unofficial black market

Kim Dotcom has told the public many times that Bitcoin will be an integral part of Mega Upload 2 and Bitcache. Now, with the help from BnkToTheFuture, Dotcom is raising funds to scale the project. According to Max Keiser, the project is nearing 50 percent of its $1 million minimum goal. Over the course of the Summer, Kim Dotcom has been teasing his new "Mega" file-sharing project and Bitcache. Dotcom said every file transfer will be "linked to a tiny Bitcoin microtransaction." Now the infamous Mega creator is teaming up with investment platform BnkToTheFuture to raise funds. According to BnkToTheFuture CEO Simon Dixon, the Mega2 investment has raised half a million dollars using bitcoin only. Appearing on the Max Keiser show, Dixon explained there have been many investors who wanted to invest, but came to a barrier at its "Bitcoin only" stipulation. He also detailed that many "hardcore bitcoiners" have also asked about technical aspects of

Investors have benefited from algorithmic ('algo') trading programs under many different circumstances, but these 'trading bots' can prove particularly valuable to those interested in cryptocurrencies. Bot trading has reduced user error, enabled more rapid processing of information and given traders more time and flexibility. However, it may hold even greater potential in the crypto markets due to their immature nature. Trading bots have been around for decades, seeing growing use in stock markets as digitization has taken hold. However, the digital currency markets are less than a decade old and with far less tenure than more mature markets, have had significantly less time to integrate algo trading. Tim Enneking, chairman of cryptocurrency investment manager EAM, highlighted the differences between high-frequency trading (HFT) in traditional markets and those for cryptocurrencies. He told CoinDesk: "When it comes to use HFT for stocks, milli – and even micro – se

"We were all busy arguing about the block size, but everything else is crucial." That statement, by Cornell's Emin Gün Sirer, may have come in the middle of the second and final day of the Scaling Bitcoin conference, but it was perhaps the overriding theme of this year's edition of the digital currency network's developer summit. Despite the public visibility of a protest event scheduled in parallel with the conference, the content of this year's event did much to showcase that, for many developers, the "block size" is no longer a significant factor in discussions on how the network should increase capacity. Over the course of both days, talks largely moved on to more incremental discussion of the various "trade-offs" that should be considered when making changes to bitcoin's basic components and the complex ways they interact. Bitcoin Core developer Eric Lomborozo told CoinDesk: "All engineering requires trade-offs. We're tryi

Nasdaq is looking to patent a way in which a blockchain can be used to record exchange transaction records. On 6th October, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USTPO) released an application for "systems and methods of blockchain transaction recordation", originally submitted by Nasdaq on 31st March. It is attributed to Tom Fay, Nasdaq's senior vice president of enterprise architecture, and Dominick Paniscotti, associate vice president for enterprise architecture. Essentially, the application details an exchange system comprising digital wallets, an order book and matching engine, with a "closed blockchain" utilized as a record of transactions that is updated in real-time as participants act. As the application details: "A match is identified between data transaction requests and hashes associated with the digital wallets associated with the respective data transaction requests are generated. The counterparties receive the hashes of the other party along wi

You might not have noticed, but ethereum is under attack. What began over two weeks ago with spam attacks that led to large-scale ethereum node outages has escalated into a battle that has pitted the platform's developers against unknown antagonists. This might sound like an exciting Hollywood movie, but it's mostly been carried out on message boards and with code. Shots were first fired at ethereum's big developer conference, Devcon2, with a mysterious message written in German and delivered via transaction method payload. The message said "Go home", but to those who have been following the network's contentious changes this summer, the full meaning was clear. Since then, block creation and transactions have continued to be impacted, with nodes syncing up to the network more slowly. But while various fixes have since been implemented, the attacker continues to find vulnerabilities to exploit and, in turn, create new ways to launch denial-of-service (DoS) atta

The North Carolina Money Transmitter Act was recently extended to cover bitcoin traders with House Bill 289, signed in July 2016 by State Governor Pat McCrory. Deemed as the 'virtual currency law' in the state, the bill introduces a legal framework for regulating bitcoin and blockchain technology. While the legislation had to go through an elaborate and long discussion period, including the feedback of various stakeholders, the bill is seen today as business-friendly by many. It brings legal clarity in the field of virtual currencies in North Carolina, but does not open venues for over-regulation. The Chamber of Digital Commerce and other involved parties contributed to the formulation of this addition to the act. They have also expressed satisfaction with the outcome. Naturally, this definition has been the first step towards regulating the virtual currency field in North Carolina.  According to the act, bitcoin traders will fall in the category of money transmitters a