Featured

Ethereum Network Fees Jump Above Bitcoin Transaction Fees for Two Weeks Straight

23/06/2020 by Idelto Editor

This week digital currency enthusiasts have been discussing network fees, specifically transaction fees associated with the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains. Last Sunday on June 21, one Ethereum proponent noted that during the last 16 days, Ethereum users have paid more to leverage the network than Bitcoin users.

Digital currencies like bitcoin, ethereum, bitcoin cash, and litecoin all have a network or miner fee associated with sending each and every transaction. This means in order to send a fraction of bitcoin (BTC), there must be enough BTC in the wallet to also cover the sending fee.

At the time of publication, the data site bitinfocharts.com shows the average BTC network fee was $1.14 per transaction on June 22. Ethereum (ETH) network fees show the average fee on that day was around $0.62 per send. Bitcoin cash (BCH) has an average fee of $0.006 per transaction or six-tenths of a U.S. penny. Now not all BTC fee recording websites are exactly the same as there are many different averages depending on the site used.

According to the fee calculation website offered by billfodl.com, the next block fee required to have your transaction mined on the next block (10 minutes) is $0.87 today. Similarly, for June 23, the average fee for getting into the next three blocks is the same price. If an individual paid $0.73 per BTC fee, the transaction would possibly confirm within six blocks (1 hour).

The six-block fee would bring ETH transaction fees much closer to current BTC fees which bitinfocharts.com shows is $0.62. Coin Metrics charts show that ETH transaction fees have been consecutively higher than BTC’s fees in June. The well known ETH proponent on Twitter Eric.eth (Eric Conner – @econoar) told his 15,000 followers on Sunday:

For 16 straight days, Ethereum users have paid more to use the network than Bitcoin users.

Since the tweet, Ethereum transaction fees have dropped according to Coin Metrics data. The web portal ethgasstation.info, a website that provides ether gas price recommendations, notes that ETH fees are much lower than BTC’s average as far as stats on billfodl.com is concerned.

All the fees measured in gwei highlight that the gas amount it takes to send an ETH transaction and ERC20 token as well, is $0.26 for the fastest transaction confirmation time. Every tier lower is only a U.S. penny cheaper for standard and safe but low fee transactions.

Now during the last few years and especially since 2017, we know that when the price of ETH or BTC rises and is used more often, fees grow much larger. At the height of 2017, BTC fees jumped higher than $50 per transaction on December 22, 2017. On that same day, ETH fees were around $1.40 per ETH transaction.

Now, this occurrence doesn’t happen with bitcoin cash (BCH) since the block size has increased to 32MB. Before the block size upgrade, on that same day in mid-December 2017, the average BCH fee did rise to $0.31 per transaction. However, during the September 2018 stress tests, after confirming over 2.4 million transactions per day outshining BTC’s best day by 5x, the average BCH transaction (txn) fee was $0.003 per txn.

Since then BCH fees have not risen past the $0.008 txn fee naturally and have been consistently under a U.S. penny per transaction for the last two years. According to Coin Dance stats it is currently 815.51x more expensive to transact on Bitcoin (BTC) on June 23, 2020.

Transacting on the Bitcoin Cash chain is also much cheaper than transacting in ETH as it is 8,566.66% more expensive to transact in ETH than it is to leverage bitcoin cash. This data is all publicly available by leveraging sources like ethgasstation.info, bitinfocharts.com, Coin Metrics data, and billfodl.com.

What do you think about the difference in transaction fees between ETH and BTC lately? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

The post Ethereum Network Fees Jump Above Bitcoin Transaction Fees for Two Weeks Straight appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Bitcoin’s Rise Driven by Institutional Trading, Says Research and Investor Sentiment

19/06/2020 by Idelto Editor

The cryptocurrency bitcoin is trading at an all-time high relative to its social activity, explains the crypto research firm Tie. The analysts at Tie believe the ratio indicates that bitcoin is being driven by institutional trading. Meanwhile, statistics from Google Trends shows the terms “bitcoin” and “buy bitcoin” dropped from the 100 point highs to 65 on June 14, 2020.

Tie Research: ‘Market Cap Increasing More Than Social Media Activity May Suggest Bitcoin Is Now More Driven by Institutional Trading’

This week the research firm the Tie tweeted about bitcoin’s (BTC) social activity to the company’s 6,300 Twitter followers. The company thinks that institutional interest and trading is a driving force right now. “Bitcoin is trading at an all-time high (ATH) relative to its social activity,” the Tie tweeted on Thursday.

“Increasing NVTweet Ratio may suggest BTC is now more driven by institutional trading as market cap is increasing faster than social volume. NVTweet Ratio = Market Cap / 1M / 30Day Average Tweet Volume,” the researchers added.

A number of speculators believe that institutional interest has been involved with the cryptocurrency market ecosystem for quite some time now.

On Friday, one of the top banking firms in Japan, Nomura launched it’s highly anticipated custody service for the company’s institutional clientele. The service called “Komainu” is a partnership between Nomura and Coinshares and Ledger. Moreover, the research team at Fidelity Digital Assets revealed in a recent report that out of 800 institutional investors worldwide, 36% have invested in crypto assets.

Billionaire Investor and Galaxy Digital Founder Mike Novogratz: ‘This Is the Time for Bitcoin’

Discussing the subject of institutional interest toward bitcoin (BTC) with the fintech journalist Paddy Baker, Galaxy Digital founder Mike Novogratz said his company would “suck” if institutional investors don’t come around.

“Bitcoin specifically is a story about adoption,” the billionaire Novogratz told Baker. “And the next big group that’s going to adopt bitcoin as a store of value, as a digital gold, are the financial advisers.”

On June 12, Novogratz also appeared in an AIM Summit video broadcast sponsored by Invictus Capital and said:

This is the time for bitcoin.

Google Trends Shows Retail Interest Sees a Lull

It may have something to do with the coronavirus economy, but retail investor-based interest in digital assets seems to be lacking these days. Google Trends data shows that the searched term “bitcoin” is lower than it was on the week of May 10 through the 16th. At that time, the term “bitcoin” had a score of 80 out of 100 points.

Today, Google Trends (GT) shows the number tied to the term has dipped to 44 points. The phrase “buy bitcoin” used to be at the highest level of 100 on that same May 10-16 week, but today “buy bitcoin” is around 66 points for GT data.

On Thursday, news.Bitcoin.com covered a number of economists and macro traders on Twitter who are extremely optimistic toward bitcoin’s future performance. The “bitcoin price target is set at five times the prior high,” explains a Finsmes crypto market analysis on June 18.

“Finally, bitcoin is no longer an asset that exists solely in the digital universe. Instead, bitcoin futures trade alongside other commodities on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Institutional investors are taking a bigger interest in bitcoin and the broader cryptocurrency industry,” the Finsmes bitcoin price analysis further noted on Thursday.

What do you think about institutional trading driving bitcoin’s rise? Let us know in the comments section below.

The post Bitcoin’s Rise Driven by Institutional Trading, Says Research and Investor Sentiment appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Crypto 101: How to Send and Receive Bitcoin Cash Via the Bitcoin.com Wallet

15/06/2020 by Idelto Editor

Bitcoin 101: How to Send and Receive Bitcoin Cash Via the Bitcoin.com Wallet

During the last few months in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak and faltering global economy, many individuals have shown an interest in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. However, oftentimes people can find the process a bit daunting because they are not used to using crypto assets and have never experienced the process. The following article is a quick guide on how to get a cryptocurrency address, receive digital assets, and send them as well.

Creating a Bitcoin Cash Wallet and Obtaining a Receiving Address

Amid the crazy economy, a lot of people have noticed a number of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin (BTC), ethereum (ETH), and bitcoin cash (BCH) have done far better performance-wise than a majority of stocks, bonds, and commodity assets worldwide. For instance, the crypto asset bitcoin cash (BCH) dropped to a low of $150 per unit on March 12, 2020, otherwise known as ‘Black Thursday.’ The price of bitcoin cash has gained 60.66% since then at today’s BCH price of roughly $241 per BCH. At a price of $9,453 per unit, Bitcoin (BTC) has gained 162% since March 12, when it traded for $3,600 for a brief period that day.

Besides the price rises, many people are beginning to understand the importance of a censorship-resistant and permissionless, electronic peer-to-peer cash. However, many people get frustrated when they try and learn the process of obtaining a crypto address, receiving digital currencies, and sending them to people after learning to store them in a wallet. In this article, you will learn the basics of all three of those tasks by leveraging a noncustodial Bitcoin.com Wallet and some practice.

Want to store BCH, BTC, and SLP tokens, as well as sending and receiving them, download the Bitcoin.com Wallet today.

In order to get a cryptocurrency address, you need a wallet. Basically crypto wallets are software applications that allow you to send, receive, and store digital currencies on a mobile phone, laptop, tablet, or desktop computer. The Bitcoin.com Wallet allows people to use bitcoin cash (BCH), bitcoin (BTC), and crypto tokens built using the Simple Ledger Protocol (SLP). For today’s testing, we are only focusing on the cryptocurrency bitcoin cash with the ticker symbol BCH. The Bitcoin.com Wallet is noncustodial, which means the company has zero access to the funds and you are 100% in control of the storage. This means when you create a wallet, you need to back it up immediately using the twelve-word mnemonic phrase.

Generating an Alphanumeric Address and Receiving Crypto Assets: QR Code or Copy & Paste

Once you have created a Bitcoin.com Wallet on one of your devices, the process of storing, sending, and receiving is very simple. All you need to do to obtain a bitcoin cash (BCH) address via the Bitcoin.com Wallet is by simply pressing “receive.” You need to choose what wallet you will be receiving to and in this example, it would be bitcoin cash (BCH). After selecting BCH, the wallet will generate an alphanumeric address that allows you to accept BCH to that specific address.

Receiving bitcoin cash is easy with the Bitcoin.com Wallet, by either sending a QR code or copying a bitcoin cash (BCH) address and sending it to another individual. With a crypto wallet, most applications allow you to change the address after every transaction. Leveraging a different address for every transaction improves privacy.

There are two ways to copy the address. One way is giving someone a copy or picture of the QR code, and a person with a QR code reader tied to their bitcoin cash wallet will be able to scan the code. The second way is by copying and pasting the BCH address by copying it to your device’s clipboard and sending it to another person. With this address, any person from anywhere around the world can send you bitcoin cash.

Sending Bitcoin Cash by Scanning a QR Code or Copying an Address to a Device Clipboard and Pasting It Into the Wallet’s Sending Screen

Once someone has sent you some bitcoin cash, you then have the ability to send it all to another address or send it in fractions to various individual addresses. To send someone some BCH, simply launch the Bitcoin.com Wallet and select the “send” button. This will direct you to a screen that allows you two options; either copy and paste the recipient’s wallet address into the address box or you can select “scan QR code.”

Sending BCH is just as simple. Just scan a QR code that’s tethered to a public BCH address or copy and paste an address that someone sent you in alphanumeric form.

After one of those two options has been completed, you need to choose a wallet that holds your unspent bitcoin cash (BCH) and enter the amount you wish to send to the individual. After selecting the number of funds you want to send, simply press the “next” button. There will be a confirmation screen that shows you all the details of your transaction and if you are happy with the details, simply “slide to send” to deliver the transaction. Alternatively, you can also send money from one wallet to another wallet within your device’s application.

Practice Makes Perfect

Obtaining a cryptocurrency address is very easy once you download a wallet, and most wallets follow the same standards when it comes to getting an address and the sending and receiving processes. There are many wallets that allow people to store cryptocurrencies in a noncustodial fashion.

Crypto 101: How to Send and Receive Bitcoin Cash Via the Bitcoin.com Wallet — The difference between an Ethereum (ETH – Top gray box) address and a Bitcoin Cash (BCH – Bottom white box) address. The sending and receiving process is relatively the same.

Also if it is a different cryptocurrency, obtaining an address and sending and receiving an address is pretty much the same process. The biggest difference is, each cryptocurrency has an alphanumeric string, but they look different in the beginning of the address. For instance, bitcoin cash (BCH) addresses look different than ethereum (ETH) addresses, but the process of sending and receiving is the same.

After doing these steps a few times, you should easily get the hang of obtaining a crypto address, and using a wallet to send and receive digital currencies. When practicing, try sending small fractions of a cryptocurrency like bitcoin cash (BCH) in order to feel more comfortable with the processes. A great number of crypto assets have a network fee associated with sending a cryptocurrency, and bitcoin cash (BCH) fees are always less than a U.S. penny per transaction.

On the BTC and ETH networks, fees could be higher than you realize, and you may have to adjust a transaction accordingly. Besides fees, doing this step-by-step process regularly with even just a few dollars in bitcoin cash, will turn you into a well-seasoned machine in no time. Also, check out the video below to get a visual presentation of these processes as well.

What do you think about the step-by-step process of obtaining an address and sending and receiving cryptocurrencies? Let us know in the comments below.

The post Crypto 101: How to Send and Receive Bitcoin Cash Via the Bitcoin.com Wallet appeared first on Bitcoin News.

A Number of Hong Kong Vending Machines Support Bitcoin Cash Payments Over BTC

04/06/2020 by Idelto Editor

Just recently, cryptocurrency evangelist Roger Ver shared a video on Twitter that shows a number of vending machines in Hong Kong that accept bitcoin cash and ethereum, but not bitcoin. A bunch of people got upset at the Tweet, including the crypto-pundit Tone Vays because they couldn’t deal with the fact that onchain bitcoin transactions could not provide such services. The reason bitcoin cash is supported by these vending machines in Hong Kong is because bitcoin transaction fees are 1,931x more expensive than bitcoin cash transactions.

Hong Kong Vending Machines Choose Ethereum and Bitcoin Cash

For years now the concept of leveraging cryptocurrencies with vending machines has been a popular trend because the two ideas go hand in hand. In the early days, when bitcoin (BTC) fees were cheaper, vending machines that utilized BTC were gathering steam. News.Bitcoin.com reported on the subject back in 2016, just before BTC fees skyrocketed to $50+ per transaction at the end of 2017. The network clog and higher fees have made it so bitcoin vending machines are not realistic if they are powered by BTC transactions. There have been a few Lightning Network-powered vending and candy machines, but the Lightning Network is riddled with issues like failed transactions and a myriad of other vulnerabilities. Hardcore BTC maximalists don’t like to admit it, but in a much shorter period of time, the Ethereum blockchain handles more BTC-based offchain transactions by a long shot.

Why do these HK vending machines accept #BitcoinCash and #Ethereum but not #Bitcoin? pic.twitter.com/NosqL8ZVgP

— Roger Ver (@rogerkver) May 29, 2020

Just recently, the well known digital currency investor, Roger Ver, tweeted about a few vending machines in Hong Kong that only accept ETH and BCH. “Why do these Hong Kong vending machines accept bitcoin cash and ethereum but not bitcoin?” Ver asked his Twitter followers. The reason why cryptocurrency vending machines cannot use BTC is because it is currently 1,931.56x more expensive to transact on Bitcoin (BTC) in USD,” according to Coin Dance statistics. So let’s just say a candy bar or can of soda in the machine costs $1, and according to Billfodl’s BTC fees web portal the average transaction will cost a user between $1.23 or $1.72 per transaction. So that dollar soda would cost a person a minimum of $2.23 for an 8oz can of cola, and anyone with some brain cells knows that’s not sustainable for vending machine operations.

Maximalists Dismiss Facts, Bitcoin Network Fees Crippled a Number of Concepts

Despite the facts, the Youtuber and crypto-pundit Tone Vays busted out a logical fallacy and said: “Because you probably paid for that feature of the machine.” Vays then switched goalposts, and said that the real question was “how many transactions have they processed since that demo.” Vays didn’t get into the fact that leveraging BTC is not sustainable to run a vending machine with dynamic and unreliable transaction fees. Vays forgot to mention that vending machines are not the only projects BTC’s high fees have neutered. Bitcoin cash fees are always low and less than a U.S. penny per transaction. BCH fees even remained that way in September 2018, when the BCH chain processed 2.4 million transactions in 24-hours.

Vays and the other people who decided to dismiss simple facts, didn’t mention that coin tumbling and coinjoin applications are much harder when BTC fees are so high. A number of mixers and tumbling services that operated in the early days are hardly used these days because of BTC high network fees. On the other hand, BCH fees are super low and have allowed for projects like Cashshuffle and Cashfusion to thrive. Both of these applications continue to allow people to shuffle millions of dollars because of low transaction fees. Let’s not forget that BCH developers pioneered Cashfusion and even BTC proponents are beginning to understand it offers more privacy than traditional coinjoin practices.

The Replace-by-Fee Vulnerability and No One Wants to Use Bitcoin for Color Coin Projects These Days

Critics of Ver’s tweet forgot to mention all the great companies that dropped BTC because of expensive and unreliable transactions. Well known companies like Fiverr, Expedia, Reddit, Steam, Stripe, Paypal, and Dell all dropped BTC support over the last few years. People on the vending machine thread on Twitter did discuss zero-confirmation transactions and how BCH benefits from them. Of course, maximalists claim that zero-confirmation transactions are “unsafe,” but the chances of them being unsafe are extremely minimal. However, as far as BTC is concerned the software called replace-by-fee (RBF) is not safe for zero-confirmation transactions and double spending can happen with any amount of funds on the BTC network using RBF.

Unfortunately, people forget that even color coins (tokens) were eclipsed from the BTC chain too for the most part because of fees. This reasoning alone is likely why Tether has moved most USDT over to other blockchains instead of relying on Omni. Ethereum is BTC’s sidechain because projects like Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) have outperformed the Lightning Network.

High transaction fees and network congestion has done a lot of damage to certain ideas like micropayments as well. If you cannot purchase a $1 soda in a reasonable manner, sending micropayments of $0.10 to $0.25 is even worse. The real reason the vending machines in Hong Kong accept bitcoin cash and ethereum is because it is not sustainable to run a vending operation with BTC’s expensive and unreliable transaction fees. No more no less.

What do you think about the response to Roger Ver’s tweet? Let us know in the comments section below.

The post A Number of Hong Kong Vending Machines Support Bitcoin Cash Payments Over BTC appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Roger Ver Donates $10K in Bitcoin Cash to Casa de Amparo Children’s Shelter

04/06/2020 by Idelto Editor

Just recently Bitcoin.com’s Roger Ver donated $10,000 worth of bitcoin cash to the charitable organization Casa de Amparo, a 501(c)(3) charity that helps children escape child abuse and neglect. Since 1978, Casa de Amparo has offered a myriad of programs that help those affected by and at risk of child abuse in San Diego County.

Casa de Amparo: A Major Force in the Field of Child Abuse Prevention

In the 2019 28th edition of the Child Maltreatment Report, it notes that there are millions of U.S. children who are subject to various forms of neglect, physical abuse, verbal abuse, and sexual abuse. Children have little choices and it is very hard for them to escape violence and abuse without help from an adult. Since 1978, the nonprofit Casa de Amparo has been helping children who are currently affected by child abuse or are at risk of maltreatment. Casa de Amparo has expanded a great deal since it was initiated, and the organization offers “six programs serving all of San Diego County, with locations in Oceanside and San Marcos.”

“Casa de Amparo was founded by a small group of local women concerned about domestic violence and the welfare of children,” explains the charity’s mission statement. “Led by the Women’s Resource Center and supported by local police, this team pushed for a safe home for children (then known as The Crisis Center and now called Residential Services) for those affected by or at risk of child abuse. It was at this point that Casa de Amparo opened its doors.” Casa de Amparo message adds:

Our vision is that Casa de Amparo is recognized as a major force in the field of child abuse prevention. Partnering with the greater San Diego community, we ensure that children and their families receive unique and innovative services for healing, for stopping child mistreatment of any kind, and for ending generational cycles of abuse. The result is a community where child abuse and neglect are not tolerated, and where child abuse awareness and prevention are priorities.

Ver Donates $10K to Casa de Amparo – And Peter McCormack’s Maximalism

On June 1, 2020, Bitcoin.com’s Roger Ver donated $10,000 in bitcoin cash to Casa de Amparo. Ver had donated to the children’s shelter where Bitcoin.com’s new podcast host, Dustin Plantholt, lived as a young child. Plantholt is also currently a Board Member of Casa de Amparo. Ver donated the money to help the Casa de Amparo children’s shelter because it was one of the hardest-hit programs, after the coronavirus lockdowns and industry shutdowns hurt the local economy.

“Roger graciously made the donation, upon hearing of the financial impact to the home, that was caused due to the Covid 19 impact,” Plantholt told news.Bitcoin.com. Plantholt also detailed that news.Bitcoin.com readers can also donate via Casa de Amparo’s donation portal the nonprofit uses for cryptocurrency donations. Readers can also give to Casa de Amparo via credit card donation as well.

Readers can donate bitcoin cash (BCH) via Casa de Amparo’s donation portal.

Moreover, Ver had also challenged the host of the podcast “What Bitcoin Did,” Peter McCormack, to write a blog post documenting how Ver has allegedly lied to the crypto community. McCormack on many occasions publicly accused Roger Ver of telling lies to the Bitcoin community, but fails to give any real evidence or prove it. The podcast host always resorts to logical fallacies, ad hominem attacks, and many crypto users also believe McCormack doesn’t even understand the technology he talks about.

Despite all the accusations, Ver had offered McCormack to simply “document in a blog post” all the lies he thinks Ver is telling or has told. Just for writing a blog post, Ver offered McCormack another $10,000 to Casa de Amparo, if he simply wrote the blog post. However, McCormack has refused the offer, even when Ver offered to donate $10K in the name of the charity of his choice. Unfortunately, McCormack wouldn’t take Ver up on the offer no matter the cause. After the offer, McCormack also claimed to be creating a historical documentary that will likely be filled with maximalist revisionism, ad hominem attacks, straw men, and a poor understanding of Satoshi’s gift.

Donations Help Provide a Capable Staff That Can Support the Youth During the Post-Covid-19 Economy

When Bitcoin.com’s Roger Ver or any associate from our web portal donates funds, we leverage the software from Cashfusion.org to send the bitcoin cash in an anonymous fashion. That way no one can track the origin of the funds, making BCH the easiest to use, most widely accepted private cryptocurrency. Bitcoin Cash transactions are always lightning fast, and have super cheap transaction fees, and donations like these wouldn’t even be possible using Lightning Network. Bitcoin cash can be used to save 20% on Amazon purchases using Purse.io, so if Casa de Amparo uses the BCH on Purse they could actually get $12K worth of goods with Ver’s donation.

Ver’s gift of $10K worth of bitcoin cash to Casa de Amparo will go to children in need and kids who deserve shelter. Casa Family member and Executive Director Tamara Fleck-Myers recently explained that the charity is facing challenging times with the Covid-19 pandemic. Donations and community support give Fleck-Myers, Plantholt, and other Casa Family members hope that they can stay “prepared and have an amazing family of staff capable of supporting each other and our youth during these times.”

What do you think about Casa de Amparo and the recent bitcoin cash donation? Let us know in the comments below.

The post Roger Ver Donates $10K in Bitcoin Cash to Casa de Amparo Children’s Shelter appeared first on Bitcoin News.