BitcoinInsider

A recent report states that Bitcoin isn’t anonymous enough, and to an extent, the report is correct. While part of Bitcoin’s reputation has been built on the notion of privacy, the truth is that the blockchain records every transaction in real time, and nothing can escape its shuttering technology. In the long run, no matter how private Bitcoin claims to be, there always seems to be an open window to one’s financial history. But one has to wonder if this isn’t a bad thing. Two of the cryptocurrency world’s most recent additions, Zcash and Monero, tout complete anonymity for those looking to remain duly private, but there seem to be issues emerging from the backend, and many investors and crypto-enthusiasts are having a hard time deciding where they stand. First off, let’s look at criminal activity. Anonymity is often showered with praise, but when something is completely hidden like this, it can potentially give rise to back-door dea...

The city of Memphis will now have a Bitcoin ATM as the firm Coinsource installs three new machines in the state of Tennessee. The company is the largest Bitcoin ATM provider in the U.S. and has averaged over one installation per week in 2016. Memphis Bitcoin ATM One of Three in Tennessee logo2-id-fa176b8a-9aee-44f6-9ad5-4672e628e52e-300x300Memphis, in Tennessee’s southwest, will get its first Bitcoin automated teller machine. Additionally, the company Coinsource installed two Bitcoin ATMs in the city of Nashville. Coinsource has established 60 Genesis Coin brand cryptocurrency ATM across the U.S. since its inception. “The demand for bitcoin ATMs has never been higher than it is today. The most rewarding part of our job is to answer the call when requests come in for new locations, so it is exciting to make history in Tennessee,” said Coinsource CEO and co-founder Sheffield Clark. “Our reach in the South is growing. So far, we have 60 machines across eight states, and look forward ...

Only weeks after the execution of a hard fork to mitigate various DoS (denial-of-service) attacks, the Ethereum network and its developers are struggling to deal with yet another major flaw. This time, major issues in regards to smart contracts have emerged, which have rendered the efforts of decentralized applications in the Ethereum network purposeless. On November 1, the Ethereum development team and the founder of Solidity warned users and developers against a bug that allowed variables to be overwritten in storage. Variables in a smart contract are agreements made between two or more parties. Thus, if an attacker can gain access to the storage and alters the variables, crucial agreements in decentralized applications can be affected and funds may be extracted, which may pressure developers to discard previous smart contract-based projects to recompile contracts. Ethereum developers including Ansel Lindner stated that the development of an Ethereum application is failing to opera...

At its core, bitcoin is about giving users better control of their money. Often called "programmable money", bitcoin has scripts that limit how future bitcoin transactions can be spent (and that control variables like who can spend them). One such script ensures the correct person is spending the bitcoin by checking if the correct signature was used before unlocking and sending the funds.  This week, Blockstream core tech developer Russell O'Connor revealed he's been testing a couple of new scripts on an Elements Alpha sidechain (which is pegged to the bitcoin testnet) that could add new functionality. Called "covenants", the new style of scripts potentially opens up possibilities for how bitcoin users can control, or restrict, spending of their money — possibly for their protection. (This is an idea that was previously explored by researchers Malte Möser, Ittay Eyal, and Emin Gun Sirer). One use case for these scripts is to help users rein in their coins in...