BitcoinInsider

With over 50 privacy coins on the market, purveyors of anonymous transactions are spoilt for choice. This smorgasbord of privacy-centric coins can be a little overwhelming though. To help you pick the best of the bunch, here's our rundown of the main contenders. How Privacy Coins Work Bitcoin transactions are semi-anonymous: every transaction on the blockchain is broadcast publicly and visible for all eternity, but the owner of each wallet is unknown. Tying addresses to real-world identities is now relatively easy for the powers-that-be, because everyone has to cash out somewhere, and that usually involves linking bitcoin addresses to bank accounts. Most privacy coins still rely on a bitcoin-style public ledger, but use technology that obfuscates the path of the transaction. It might still be possible to determine that a certain amount of cryptocurrency was sent, but the path leading from sender to recipient has been concealed. The way in which various privacy coins go about this d...

Social media influencers are marketing manna, coveted for their highly engaged audience who hang on their every word. Sites such as Tomoson and Meltwater link brands with influencers who are eager to spread the word – for a fee. In the cryptocurrency space, however, where influential figures can send coins soaring via a single tweet, the practice is controversial. A number of prominent individuals now stand accused of promoting pump and dumps. The Price of a Tweet Cryptocurrency traders, who dispense advice which newcomers gratefully lap up, don't give away their skills for free. They earn something in return, from buying their recommended picks before these tips are shared, and also via referral links to exchanges. These practices are at least transparent, and few would take issue with a cryptocurrency influencer profiting from their own knowledge. But what about influencers who do little more than shill a coin before sitting back and watching the carnage unfold? One figure whose ...

Is there a huge unmet demand for 100% private 2-party transactions? ... Yes. ... Privacy centric markets e.g. Particl (PART) are useful for:   Privacy enthusiasts. People who wish to live independent of fiat. People who live in localities where crypto is not taxed or recognized as a legal unit of exchange (potentially legally bypassing local tax laws). Grey market purchases (nootropics, pharmaceuticals, tobacco, alcohol, luxury goods, knockoff's (including unbranded device clones or items which are essentially legal but copyright may be an issue). Embarrassing legal goods purchases or purchases you do not want appearing on a credit card statement (sex toys is an obvious one; I'm sure there are more) People in countries with unstable economies (Venezuela, Zimbabwe) where local currency hyperinflation means purchasing various goods in native currency is pointless/expensive/cumbersome but using alternative non-private currencies to transact (e.g. Bitcoin) may result in prosecuti...

Twenty-four hours ago the decentralized cryptocurrency bitcoin and its US$300Bn market capitalization just surpassed the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) Special Drawing Rights market (SDR $291Bn). Bitcoin's Market Valuation Outpaces the IMF's Special Drawing Rights Reserves Bitcoin's value has grown immensely in 2017 outperforming nearly every world currency, stock, and commodity this year. With a global average of over $18,000 per BTC and a $300Bn+ market valuation bitcoin has surpassed the IMF's international reserve assets ($291Bn). The SDR is comprised of a 'basket of legal tender' from five nation-states. The value of the SDR, also known as XDRs, is based off a percentage of Chinese renminbi, U.S. dollar, the Japanese yen, the euro, and the British pound sterling. The SDR was created in 1969 using the Bretton Woods exchange system, and before 1973 it contained the value of 0.8 grams of gold. The SDR Gains Traction This Year As the U.S. Loses Ground,...

The half a trillion dollar cryptocurrency market is for the taking, and savvy market makers are not going to give up positions easily. Cboe was the first futures market for bitcoin, launching last Sunday a full week ahead of its crosstown and much larger competitor, CME Group Inc. With the might and heft CME brings into the space on Monday, Cboe is stealing a little of its thunder with TD Ameritrade's announcement that it too will allow clients bitcoin futures on the same day. Manic Monday, TD Ameritrade's Cboe Bitcoin Futures Play "At this point," TD Ameritrade announced in an email, "we believe the market is showing signs of adequate liquidity for the Cboe product. Therefore, on Monday, December 18th, we will launch the Cboe bitcoin futures contract on our platform for a subset of qualified retail clients." The popular online retailer will require a minimum 25,000 USD in order to trade futures. It's also increasing the margin one-and-a-half times beyon...

How will Particl succeed in gaining price appreciation, adoption and network effect where centralised anonymous marketplaces fail? It's real simple. Particl is not a centralised marketplace so you would need to take the majority of the nodes down to compromise the network.   Contrast this with tradtional centralised marketplaces where taking down a handful of servers can shut down the entire service leading to loss of any funds held there. The Particl nodes can be run on the tor network for added security thus the network is inherently more resistant to tradtional hacks, takedowns and DDOS attacks. Integration of the currency into the platform means that the value of the PART token will increase rapidly as use of the marketplace increases. This is because although Particl can accept multiple cryptocurrencies, these will all be converted in the Particl client into PART token via integration of shapeshift exchange and other decentralized exchanges into the Particl client before bei...

Blockstream trying to take over Bitcoin  BlockstreamLocated in San Francisco, is perhaps the most important and at the same time, the least comprehensive company in the community of Bitcoin-World.  Bitcoin is an open source software project where everyone can view the code and propose changes, but only a small group of people accompanying the project can approve the changes and run them into the implementation. Blockstreamhas gathered under its wing many of the most experienced and productive developers of the Bitcoin Core team, including Gregory Maxwell, Peter Will, and Matt Corallo, who over the past year together made more than 1,212 contributions to the Bitcoin code on GitHub. For this reason, people working in Blockstream may have the deepest knowledge of crypto protocols and have the greatest impact in the crypto world.  While the positive influence of many people in the company on Bitcoin is obvious, some people blame the company for the lack of an experimental approach to Bitco...

A woman has appeared in court after trying to pay a darknet assassin in bitcoin to kill her partner. Her attempt failed, not due to high transaction fees or a mempool backlog, but because the hitman was fake. Now, the 58-year-old is facing a possible life sentence for attempted murder. On The Deep Web, Trust No One As the adage goes, every teenage girl on the internet is a cop and every darknet hitman is a fraud. Despite this truism having been proven time and again, it hasn't deterred hapless chancers who seem to think that ordering an assassination is as easy as ordering a pizza. In a case that should be filed under "You couldn't make it up", a Danish woman requested a homicide, paid in bitcoin, from a darknet site named Crime Bay. She Bought a Bullet for Bae on Crime Bay The site, which purports to be operated by Chechen gangsters, is almost certainly a honeypot or the work of larpers. Such sites have proliferated on the darknet for years, where they've provide...

Currently Particl trades in the $5-10 range on Bittrex with a relatively low market cap. Present valuations are determined solely by market speculators (mostly accumulators aware about the project potential).   However on release of their decentralised marketplace module in Q1 2018, provided its released with full atomic swaps and shapeshift/exchange integration, it's buy side dynamics will change significantly.   This will be driven by the fact that whilst multiple cryptocurrencies will be accepted on the Particl network to automatically convert to the native PART token via in-client integration of shapeshift, decentralized exchanges and widget implementation of atomic swaps (direct conversion of other cryptocurrencies to the native PART token without intermediary  if  they possess atomic swap functionality),  all buying and selling transactions on the marketplace and other Particl modules will be conducted solely via the native PART token.   At this stage I estimate a 5x to 20x...

China's Financial Channel (CCTV-2) aired a special bitcoin documentary this week to analyze reasons behind the recent price rally. The program invited Li Cangyu, financial columnist and Wan Zhe, chief economist at China National Gold Group Corp. as commentators who believe that Huobi has undoubtedly violated regulations on cryptocurrency services.  Does Huobi Violate the Spirit of the PBOC's Document? Earlier this November, CCTV journalist reported that many OTC platforms don't have any KYC requests, which leaves room for illegal activities. The latest documentary exclusively mentioned that Huobi and Huobi.pro have no legal base to provide RMB-related OTC services. China's Financial Channel Reports that Huobi Violates the Spirit of the PBOC's Document Log-in to Huobi and one can see that they still use RMB to measure bitcoin and altcoins. At the front page of Huobi.pro, there are a large banner reading "buy coins with RMB, three steps only" along with a de...