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The Segwit2x working group has been quiet lately, but now it seems the development wheels are turning once again. On Wednesday, October 25 the lead developer of the Segwit2x (BTC1) working group, Jeff Garzik, addressed the public with a status update. According to Garzik, everything is "still full steam ahead for Segwit2x upgrade" scheduled for mid-November. Segwit2x Upgrade is "Full Steam Ahead" Segwit2x Developer Says November Hard Fork is Full Steam AheadThe maintainer of the Segwit2x code, Jeff Garzik has revealed an October "status update" to the development community through the Linux mailing list. The last time Garzik greeted the public was back in August when the Segregated Witness (Segwit) protocol was applied to the Bitcoin network. Like the previous time, Garzik's email seems upbeat and cuts to the formalities right away with the developer stating:   To state the obvious, everything is still full steam ahead for the Segwit2x upgrade in mid-N

This week the lead Bitcoin ABC developer, Amaury Séchet, proposed to add a Bech32 address format to the Bitcoin Cash (BCC) network. Currently, the BCC community has been discussing modifying the bitcoin cash address format, alongside preparing to fix the protocol's Emergency Difficulty Adjustment (EDA). The Bitcoin Cash Community and Developers Propose Changing the Protocol's Address Format Bitcoin Cash Developers Propose a New Address FormatOn October 14, Amaury Séchet proposed to implement a new address format to the bitcoin cash network. The subject of changing the BCC address format has been debated for a few months now, but even more so after Bitpay released a new address format for the company's BCC integration in its Copay wallet. The discussion initially started on the Bitcoin ABC Github repository back in July. A few weeks ago Bitpay stated it had created "new conventions to ensure users don't accidentally send BTC to a BCC wallet or vice versa." Howe

Proof of Stake (PoS) was first introduced in a paper by Sunny King and Scott Nadal in 2012 and intended to solve the problem of Bitcoin mining's high energy consumption. At that time, it cost an average of $150,000 a day to maintain the Bitcoin network. Today, this figure is at a staggering $6.7 million (if we assume a $0.12/watt cost and multiply that with the estimated 56,209,833 KWh of electricity that the Bitcoin network consumed on Oct. 13, 2017). Rather than relying on the energy-dependent work of miners to add blocks, Sunny and Scott suggested an alternative method called "staking" where a deterministic algorithm would choose nodes based on the number of coins an individual had. In other words, stakers would have more chances of being selected to add a block to the chain and reap the reward if they "staked" more coins in their wallet.  They hoped this would avoid the ever increasing energy costs and hashrate difficulty of mining. However, their new consen

PNC Bank Threatens to Close Customer's Account for Buying Bitcoin The PNC bank recently threatened one of their customers for purchasing bitcoin. The bank wanted to shut down the customer's account. This has been a story floating around the internet the last few days. The victim was Elitoohey. He elaborated on the situation in a Reddit post, saying the bank started by asking him questions about recent bitcoin purchases.  "For What Purpose are You Buying Bitcoin?" The banker wanted to know why he was purchasing bitcoin. The bank PNC Bank Threatens to Close Customer's Account for Buying Bitcoinseemed to be concerned about him buying and owning the digital currency. They goaded him about his purchase and pried into his business. Toohey said, "He asked me to confirm a couple transactions then asked, 'For what purpose are you buying Bitcoin?' (he saw Coinbase and Xapo transactions). I told him I wouldn't answer, he then asked 'What are you going to

Most Bitcoin users are well aware that Bitmain is one of the largest ASIC hardware manufacturers in existence today. It is also one of the few companies still selling cryptocurrency mining equipment to mainstream consumers. The company recently made the decision to only accept Bitcoin Cash payments for its latest batch of Antminer S9 units. It's an interesting decision, although a controversial one as well. Although the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem has seen its fair share of growth as of late, there is still a lot of work to be done. When it comes to spending BCH especially, things are not necessarily straightforward. A lot of companies still don't accept BCH payments right now and that situation will not change anytime soon. Bitmain is setting an interesting precedent in this regard, even though it may hurt business in the process. Indeed, the mining hardware manufacturer has made a very bold decision by requiring that the new batch of Antminer S9 mining units be paid for with Bit