Bitcoin Core

High-Powered Mining Rigs Drive Bitcoin’s Accelerating Hashrate

20/08/2019 by Idelto Editor

On August 19, the combined SHA-256 hashrate between the BCH and BTC networks touched a massive high of over 91 exahash per second (EH/s). One notable contribution to today’s network hashrates is the manufacturing of next-generation mining rigs that produce a significant number of terahash. Currently, the top machine released this summer is Pangolin’s Microbt Whatsminer M20S, generating a whopping 68-70 terahash per second (TH/s).

Also read: Another Self-Proclaimed Satoshi Fails to Sway Crypto Community

Bitcoin’s Hashrate Keeps on Climbing

After the birth of application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) built for the SHA-256 consensus algorithm (BTC, BCH), the landscape of manufacturers has looked very different. Even over the course of the last two years, mining producers have changed substantially except for Bitmain, which has managed to survive through every stage. The top mining rig creators in 2019 include companies like Bitmain, Pangolin, Innosilicon, Ebang, Asicminer, and Canaan.

Pangolin, Innosilicon, Bitmain, and Strongu have all produced new miners in 2019. The top mining rig this month is the new Pangolin Microbt Whatsminer M20S, a machine that produces 68-70TH/s at top speeds. Unlike most of the manufacturers located in China, the Shenzhen Bit Microelectronics Whatsminer M20S hasn’t sold out yet. The unit consumes about 3360W off the wall and its two fans have a higher sound level than most competitors as the M20S generates 75db.

The M20S has TSMC wafered 12nm chips powering the devices. Pangolin is known for creating machines that produce competitive hashrates but with different sized chips. More than a year ago when companies like GMO and other manufacturers were seeking to score 7nm chips, Pangolin was still using 28nm and 16nm chips. However, the Whatsminer M3 and M10 produced between 12TH/s to 33TH/s using those chips. Pangolin may have got a deal on the 12nm chips as TSMC had slow orders on the 12nm and 8nm in April. According to the business, there have been six batches of Whatsminer M20S models sold so far. Each device is $2,629, and at $0.13 per kWh, the device makes between $9-11.50 a day at current BTC prices and network difficulty. Today, at a price of $318-325 per BCH plus the difficulty (287,507,454.73), profits can fluctuate between -2% to +2% processing either the BTC or BCH chains. The new Whatsminer M20S has received good reviews in comparison to the Asicminer 8 Nano Pro which was released in May 2018.

Three Antminer Models With More Than 50 Terahash

Statistics show that the Asicminer 8 Nano Pro would be the second most powerful SHA-256 miner with 76TH/s per unit. However, the company is completely sold out and second market reviews are not very good. In fact, there are videos and reviews online warning people not to invest in the Asicminer 8 and the 8 Nano Pro. There are no second market resellers and nearly all the reviews stemming from every Asicminer product in existence have been negative. With a machine launched last year that costs $11,600 per unit and requires a minimum order of five units, it seems most mining operations did not invest in this model.

Following the Asicminer statistics, the next three miners in the top five are manufactured by Bitmain, namely the Antminer S17 Pro series (53TH/s), S17 (56TH/s), and the 50TH/s S17 Pro version. The three new Antminers pull in around $7-10 per day with electricity rates at $0.13 per kWh.

Older Mining Rigs Still Profit

All of Bitmain’s new S17 series miners are available to the public and the latest batches begin shipping in December. The prices for the new Antminer models are between $2,727 to $2,969 per unit. The Bitmain mining rigs are equipped with TSMC wafered 7nm chips and depending on the model each machine consumes 1975W to 2520W off the wall. The only other company that manufactures a mining rig that performs above 50TH/s would be the sixth most profitable miner today: the Innosilicon Terminator 3 (T3). The T3 processes the SHA-256 algorithm at around 53TH/s and can make anywhere between $5-9 a day with an electric rate of $0.13 per kWh. Mining rig manufacturers that have a few machines that produce terahash just below the 50TH/s mark include the new Strongu STU-U8 (46TH/s) launched in January and the Ebang Ebit E11 ++ (44TH/s) released in 2018.

Newer machines producing 40-70+TH/s are definitely leading the pack despite the fact they pull a lot more wattage. Although with current crypto prices still quite profitable, many older machines are still taking in daily revenue. This includes the Antminer T15, Bitfury Tardis, and the Ebang Ebit E11+, making between $2-4 per day. At today’s prices, the two most profitable SHA-256 coins (BCH, BTC) continue to gain hashpower. The hashrate growth doesn’t look like slowing down anytime soon, with the new high-powered machines responsible for much of the increase.

What do you think about the next-generation mining rigs pushing the SHA-256 hashrate upwards? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Disclaimer: Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the mentioned companies, and websites associated with this article. Bitcoin.com or the author is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services, mining manufacturers, and mining products mentioned in this article. This editorial review is for informational purposes only.

Image credits: Shutterstock, Bitmain, Pangolin-Microbt, Asicminervalue.com, Fork.lol, and Pixabay.

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Another Self-Proclaimed Satoshi Fails to Sway Crypto Community

19/08/2019 by Idelto Editor

Another person has attempted to claim the title of Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin. According to a blog post published on August 18, this new person aims to expose his “real-life identity” through a series of written memoirs. The final ‘reveal’ will allegedly give the public the true answers to the decade long mystery. Despite the attempt so far, the cryptocurrency community is not buying the story and the huge effort stemming from the website, Satoshi Nakamoto Renaissance Holdings, has been quite feeble. Some community members are not pleased with some elements of the story either.

Also read: Bitcoiners Brace for More Performance Art and Another ‘Satoshi Reveal’

Another Person Hopes to Convince the World He’s Satoshi With a Few Blog Posts

The latest person to claim to be Satoshi had published a slew of press releases explaining that he would be publishing a series of posts leading to the ultimate reveal. News.Bitcoin.com reported on the story when the press release came out and explained how most people assumed it was a marketing tactic to get people’s eyes on something else. It still might be a marketing effort or ruse of some sort, but the person truly attempts to claim the Satoshi Nakamoto monicker. In addition to the declaration, the person wrote a 3,300-word blog post about the origins of Bitcoin and his pseudonym. The post says it was written “as told to Ivy McLemore,” the PR team behind the so-called ‘reveal.’ It was also edited a few times since it was published at 4 p.m. EDT, when the word “cyberpunk” was changed to the word “cypherpunk” on two occasions. The blog edit was a pretty foolish mistake as the two words have different meanings.

Another Self-Proclaimed Satoshi Fails to Sway Crypto Community — The post was published at 4 p.m. EDT on Sunday, Aug. 18, 2019. It was also edited multiple times and the original can be seen on Archive.org.

The so-called creator of Bitcoin said he’s always been a believer in freedom and that’s why he began the blockchain journey. In the post, he explained that Hal Finney was his “closet ally and mentor” and the technology was not designed overnight. “Bitcoin was created through circumstantial requirements, but its current exposure cannot be attributed to design,” he noted. The author then veered off into a tone that’s similar to the Australian Craig Wright’s recent blog posts. The new Satoshi claimant said that the creation of Bitcoin led him to hide so he couldn’t be tied to something deemed illegal by governments. “At its conception, Bitcoin was worth mere cents,” the author remarked. “Later, when its usage was hijacked for illicit means, I made decisions and set off a chain of events to create distance between my creation and myself.” In order to further highlight the alleged misappropriation of the technology he invented, he added:

Today, when Bitcoin is understood by the advances of technology, but at the same time is being hijacked by greed, I feel I have a duty to work hard and make my creation better and take its vision to the next level.

After discussing the origin of how everything transpired, the blog post explained how the author came up with the name “Bitcoin.” The name stemmed from a Pakastani bank called “BCCI,” a financial institution shut down in 1991 by the Bank of England for money laundering. His father worked for United Bank Limited and he got a unique perspective of the banking system. The financial crisis of 2008 was the “final push for Bitcoin to be created” and he was also dealing with difficulties obtaining a bank account.

“I didn’t like the way banks controlled and utilised other people’s money and I wanted to at least try to change this. I felt like a failure and was humiliated by the banks so I made it my mission to invent something that would enable a common layperson to access money without involving the big banks,” the memoirs detail. The term Bitcoin came from the BCCI name, as so: “Bank of CredIT and COmmerce INternational.” The author also stated:

I wanted to empower the poor person, empower the little man, and create something that was accessible as the people’s money – the people’s bank with no boundaries, no nationalities, and no discrimination – where nothing was controlled by the government and where no one dictated and destroyed people for the sake of misplaced politics.

No need to wait til Tuesday, seems like these two jokers are behind it

MR BILAL KHALID

MR MUNIR ASLAM MALIK pic.twitter.com/XLJe9DVmad

— SeekingSatoshi (@jimmy007forsure) August 18, 2019

Using Hal Finney’s Good Name and the New Vision

The last part of the blog post is one reason why people didn’t appreciate this so-called reveal because it involves the now deceased Hal Finney. Using Finney’s good name to promote a marketing ploy would be vile and disgusting to say the least. Before explaining the alleged relationship with Finney, the so-called inventor clarified how Chaldean numerology was used to create his moniker and he emphasized that numerology was a way to encrypt many of the decisions he made during the development of Bitcoin.

and using hal finney death for a PR stunt is absolutely digusting !

— Xavier59 (@TheCryptoBird) August 18, 2019

As far as Hal Finney was concerned, the author gives a lot of credit to the renowned cryptographer and the man who received the first bitcoin transaction. He considered Finney his “closest ally” and referred to him as the “Steve Wozniak” of Bitcoin, which means Finney did a lot of the leg work. “I always looked at how it would be successful commercially with a vision to change the financial world while he looked at the technical aspects,” the writer expounded.

Of course, a good portion of the crypto community thinks the entire story is a farce and they believe this is just another “Faketoshi” trying to steal some thunder. The website BCCI’s domain credentials and the company registration show two people behind the business – Bilal Khalid, and Munir Aslam Malik. Both names are very common in Pakistan and the blog post notes that Satoshi flew to Pakistan regularly from the UK. The blog announcement also says he changed his legal name in the UK, soon after the technology was up and running. There’s not much information on these two individuals online, minus a few connections to BCCI and a few other domains. There are other websites that are connected to the BCCI name which include tdwnpro.com, 5ato5hi.com, insidecaf.com, and onlinemarketing.net. The domain “5ato5hi” shows a lot more information about this debacle as the website’s home page says “Satoshi Nakamoto: A Round Peg in a Square Hole.”

The website’s “about” section shows the business is awfully fascinated with the word “blockchain” and clearly shows the creator of the website thinks blockchain will disrupt “42 business verticals.” There’s the “Blockchain Operating System” which claims to be a distributed ledger framework that will become the “default operating system (OS)” for personal, business, and enterprise users. The associated websites and the ‘revealing’ story are all very tacky as all of the published material has been riddled with grammatical errors, misspellings, and using the word “cyberpunk” and changing it to “cypherpunk” after the internet called out the mistake. So far, many crypto proponents assume that the man who will step forward will be Bilal Khalid. “Hey Ivy McLemore, just so you’re aware, Bilal Khalid is not Satoshi Nakamoto. Have fun promoting his ‘reveal’ whilst your name gets dragged through the mud,” Monero’s Riccardo Spagni tweeted after the reveal post published.

No One Believes the New Satoshi But People Love Fictional Satoshi Stories

Of course, the latest ‘reveal’ got attention as people do love the fan fiction behind Satoshi Nakamoto stories. It’s safe to say that a lot of observers will visit the URL to read the next blog post installments which plan to publish on Monday and Tuesday at 4 p.m. EDT. The next post will continue to cover his strong belief in Chaldean numerology. But the second installment will also “reveal all facts” related to his alleged 980,000 bitcoins. People will have to wait until the third published post to find out his “real-life identity” and decide whether or not his claims are legitimate.

So far, just like the pushback Craig Wright has seen, no one considers this new ‘reveal’ valid. Bitcoiners think the website, Satoshi Nakamoto Renaissance Holdings, is simply a tasteless marketing ploy. A lot of people also think the author’s writing is not at all similar to Satoshi’s old posts on Bitcointalk.org, and the self-proclaimed Satoshi over accentuates a U.K.-based undertone and says the word “whilst” quite a bit. However, the website has been getting a lot of traffic. The site’s server was down multiple times yesterday due to a traffic overload after the un-edited version of the blog post published.

What do you think about the so-called Satoshi reveal? Do you think it’s just another marketing ruse? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Disclaimer: Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the mentioned companies, and websites associated with this story. Bitcoin.com or the author is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article. This editorial review is for informational purposes only.

Image credits: Shutterstock, the Satoshi Nakamoto Renaissance Holdings website, 5ato5hi.com, and Twitter.

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How Coinbase Quietly Became the World’s Biggest Bitcoin Bank

18/08/2019 by Idelto Editor

On August 15, the San Francisco-based digital currency exchange Coinbase announced that it had acquired the cryptocurrency custody service Xapo’s institutional branch. The business move puts Coinbase in the limelight, making it the largest custodial service for digital assets worldwide, with more than $7 billion under custody.

Also Read: Hong Kong Protest Leader Hopes to Incite Run on Chinese Banks

Coinbase Acquires Xapo’s Institutional Arm and Now Commands $7 Billion Worth of Digital Assets

As early as 2010, Bitcoin supporters such as Hal Finney predicted that someday most BTC transactions would occur between massive bitcoin-backed banks. Finney believed that if a digital currency like bitcoin was to gain mass adoption, the network would not be able to include every single financial transaction in the world. The renowned cryptographer said that large bitcoin-backed banks would fill the void and “work like banks did before the nationalization of currency.” Fast forward to today, where firms like Coinbase are holding massive amounts of digital assets in custody. On Thursday, the California exchange announced that it had acquired Xapo’s institutional crypto operation and established itself as one of the largest crypto custodians worldwide. Coinbase published a blog post in regard to the acquisition and stated:

In just over one year since launch, Coinbase Custody has grown to over $7 billion in Assets Under Custody (AUC) stored on behalf of more than 120 clients in 14 different countries, making it the largest, most globally recognized and most trusted institutional custodian in the world.

Coinbase Growth Since 2012: $8 Billion Valuation, $600 Million in Annual Revenue

Coinbase has come a long way since Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam started the company back in 2012. That year Coinbase allowed users to buy and sell BTC using a bank transfer and quickly became one of the biggest BTC providers next to Mt. Gox. Throughout 2012 and 2013, investors and venture capitalists started seeing potential in Armstrong and Ehrsam’s company and began to invest. The founders participated in a Y Combinator startup incubator, received $5 million from Fred Wilson in May 2013, and $25 million from Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures (USV), and Ribbit Capital in December 2013. By 2014, Coinbase users grew to more than one million accounts and the assets under the company’s control continued to grow exponentially from there. The cryptocurrency community really took notice of how large Coinbase had grown two years later, when in February 2016, Brian Armstrong told the public that “[Coinbase is] now storing about 10% of all bitcoin in circulation.”

Coinbase is now valued at over $8 billion, after closing a funding round in 2018 for $300 million to “accelerate the adoption of cryptocurrencies and digital assets.” In 2019, despite stiff competition, the San Francisco tech company has estimated revenue between $569-650 million. Binance comes close to Coinbase, with The Block reporting in February that the exchange pulled in $446 million in profits. Kraken captures $150 million annually, Bitstamp $17M, Bitfinex $10M, and Itbit $4M in revenue. Coinbase has around 800 employees and the firm has made roughly 10 acquisitions since 2012. The company acquired startups like Blockr, Earn.com, Cipher, Digital Wealth, Keystone Capital, Blockspring, and now Xapo’s institutional arm. Coinbase has also made various equity investments like the recent cryptocurrency derivatives exchange Blade as well as acquiring Horizon Games, Textile, Near, and Dharma.

In 2017 Speculators Estimated Xapo Held $10 Billion Worth of Bitcoin With Keys Spread Across 5 Continents and a Swiss Military Bunker

Xapo started its business similarly to Coinbase, but did not offer its bitcoin wallet and cold storage vault services until March 2014. The Hong Kong-based company was founded by Wences Casares and Federico Murrone and quickly became a well-known crypto brand. In 2015, the company moved its headquarters to Zug and two years later the firm was granted a European e-money license in Gibraltar. That year, during the all-time highs of 2017, it was estimated that Xapo’s Swiss bitcoin vaults held billions of dollars’ worth of digital assets. Quartz columnist Joon Ian Wong reported on Xapo’s vault in Attinghausen, Switzerland when he visited the facility. The security was extreme and resembled a James Bond movie, Wong noted during his visit.

“[Xapo] won’t tell me how much bitcoin is stored in the vault, but he says he sometimes takes customers with “millions” of dollars worth of the cryptocurrency stored with Xapo to tour the vault,” the reporter wrote in October 2017.

Despite the company not disclosing how many coins are held in the Swiss vault, estimates from Bloomberg in the spring of 2018 said Xapo held more than $10 billion. By the summer of 2018, Xapo Inc. received the sixth Bitlicense and was approved to operate in the state of New York as a regulated Bitcoin business.

The @xapo bitcoin vault in a former swiss military bunker 320 m inside a mountain is seriously impressive. Thanks for arranging @tedmrogers. pic.twitter.com/H0n36lZfNX

— Marc van der Chijs (@chijs) October 5, 2017

Over the last two years, Xapo has made around $4.2 million in revenue annually. Additionally, Xapo employs around 52 people and the company has raised a total of $40 million since its inception in 2014. Reports stemming from Xapo’s vault in Switzerland have made speculators believe the company’s institutional vault still has a massive amount of digital wealth under its wing. Moreover, during Wong’s visit to the vault three years ago, Xapo told him the vault operators can never unwind. “This is not a race. It is a chess game. You have to think about the opponent’s next movement. You can never relax,” the Xapo executive detailed.

Sure. Consumers won’t mind bitcoin banks, but that is a huge systemic risk. Say goodbye to all of the core benefits of Bitcoin. Inflation resistance, censorship resistance, Gone.

— Paul Puey (@paullinator) August 16, 2019

Members of the Crypto Community Discuss the Current Custodial Trend

Coinbase and Xapo have scared some cryptocurrency advocates who think that storing a vast array of coins in custodial services might not be a good idea. Digital currency pundit Jill Carlson tweeted: “The Xapo [and] Coinbase collaboration has me asking: ‘What happens if someday one entity just custodies all 21 million bitcoins? Aren’t we just recreating the same, broken financial system?’” Edge Wallet founder Paul Puey responded by saying: “You need more than just the option too. You need a majority of crypto held in noncustodial solutions. Otherwise, we run the risk of losing the ability to transfer funds without a third-party.” Puey continued:

Bitcoin then just becomes an overleveraged asset class like a gold ETF.

Using a cringe-face emoji, Monero developer Riccardo Spagni jokingly wrote: “A few months back a VC told me that ‘custody is the most exciting space in the ecosystem right now.’” The Block writer Frank Chaparro (Fintech Frank) said that no smart asset manager would custody all of their coins with one provider. “There is a need for multiple custodians – we see this even in the so-called broker financial system,” Chaparro insisted. However, Coinshares executive Meltem Demirors revealed that she believes “everyone custodies their coins with one provider.” “Did you know that everyone in the U.S. custodies their share certificates with one entity – the DTCC?” Demirors wrote.

Mega Bitcoin Banks Issuing Their Own Digital Bucks and Verifiable Proof-of-Reserves

The mega crypto bank discussion has many crypto enthusiasts wondering if the massive amount of digital currency custodianship is good for the environment. Coinmetrics executive Nic Carter sarcastically explained that he’s “waiting for a major custodian/exchange to implement proof of reserves” with a picture of a rotting skeleton next to a computer. It’s a stark cry from Hal Finney’s 2010 prediction, when he said that megabanks would be “the ultimate fate of Bitcoin.” “Most Bitcoin transactions will occur between banks, to settle net transfers,” Finney detailed. He also said that these banks would use the BTC to be “high-powered money,” which would serve as a reserve. Then these Bitcoin-backed banks could “issue their own digital cash,” Finney emphasized.

We have seen Hal’s prediction already start to occur within the cryptocurrency industry as large exchanges, which have silently become the largest crypto banks in the world, are starting to mint their own digital assets. Binance has created binancecoin (BNB), which holds the sixth largest crypto valuation out of more than 2,000 digital asset markets. Coinbase and Circle Financial have the Centre foundation, which controls the regulated stablecoin USDC. With a transparent blockchain system, a true “proof-of-reserves” type of scheme could transpire, unless people decide to trust these companies like the financial institutions today. If the community simply trusts these mega crypto banks without verification, then unsustainable banking techniques like fractional reserves could proliferate unchecked.

The way things are moving, with the recent Coinbase acquisition of Xapo and digital currency exchange providers becoming far bigger than traditional institutions, it begs the question: are mega bitcoin banks the shape of cryptocurrency custody to come? It may not be the future we chose, but it’s the one that’s fast becoming a reality.

What do you think about the Coinbase acquisition of Xapo? Do you think that custodial services will dominate the crypto industry? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Image credits: Shutterstock, Coinbase, Xapo, Pixabay, Twitter, Centre, Circle, Jamie Redman, and Wiki Commons.

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Samsung Adds Bitcoin Support to Its Blockchain Keystore

15/08/2019 by Idelto Editor

Tech Giant Samsung Adds Bitcoin Support to the Blockchain Keystore

On August 13, Samsung, the South Korean multinational conglomerate, published the company’s new Blockchain Keystore SDK for developers and the latest release supports Bitcoin Core (BTC). The version follows Samsung’s previous Keystore release which only supported ETH and the ERC20 standard.

Also Read: Exploring the SLP Token Universe Built on the Bitcoin Cash Chain

Samsung Quietly Adds BTC Support to Its Blockchain Keystore

Cryptocurrency advocates were pleased to notice that Samsung (OTCMKTS: SSNLF) had finally added BTC support to the company’s Blockchain Keystore software development kit (SDK). The news came on Tuesday, August 13, when Samsung published the SDK with release notes, API reference, and programming guide. The reference to BTC can be found in a table that mentions “Cryptocurrency Specification,” “Cryptocurrency Limits,” and “Transaction Type Limits.” The cryptocurrency limits section notes that there’s a limit of 21,000,000 BTC or 2,100,000,000,000,000 satoshis. Transaction type limits include P2PKH (Pay To Public Key Hash), P2PK (Pay To Public Key), P2SH (Pay To Script Hash), and P2WPKH (Pay To Witness Public Key Hash). The transaction type limits are meant to require a sender to supply a valid signature within a wallet application that utilizes the Samsung Blockchain Keystore.

Samsung Adds Bitcoin Support to Its Blockchain Keystore — The Samsung Blockchain Keystore specs

The new Samsung BTC support can only be accessed by app makers and developers right now and only residents from South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, the U.S., Germany, Canada, and the U.K. can use the Samsung Blockchain Keystore. Interestingly, the tech giant added support for the Klaytn blockchain as well. This means developers using the Note10s, Galaxy S10, S10e, S10+, S10 5G can use ETH, any ERC20, BTC, and KLAY tokens. Samsung says there are two benefits to integrating the Samsung Blockchain Keystore SDK into an Android application:

Developers can use Samsung Blockchain Keystore API to request the Samsung Blockchain Keystore to sign a cryptocurrency transaction.
Developers can link a user’s Blockchain address like a user’s account. With the address returned from Samsung Blockchain Keystore, developers can check and show users how much cryptocurrency balance is in the account as well as view the transaction history.

Software engineers who use the Samsung Keystore SDK are able to leverage many features that are commonly used in applications like noncustodial lite wallets. For instance, the Keystore will generate a cryptocurrency’s keypair (public & private key) on the device itself, while also storing the keys in a secure environment within the mobile device. “[Samsung] does not rely on other network or a third party to generate these keys,” the Keystore 1.1.0 version SDK specification reads. All the mnemonic words (seed phrase words) are compatible with the BIP-39 standard allowing users to deploy the recovery phrase on another device if the phone was ever lost or stolen. However, sending a signed transaction is out of Samsung’s scope, the company explains, and engineers who want to send signed transactions need to rely on their own nodes or a public node.

Opening the Door for Bitcoin Cash Support and the Race to Lead Blockchain Development Within the Smartphone Industry

With BTC being added to the Samsung Keystore, the cryptocurrency spec opens the door for similar networks like Bitcoin Cash. BCH also uses transaction types like P2PKH and P2PK and has a hard cap of 21,000,000 BCH or 2,100,000,000,000,000 satoshis. In the Keystore specs, Samsung notes “We plan to support more cryptocurrencies and expand supported regions in the near future.” People who want to test the Keystore functionality cannot simply download the application from the Galaxy store as Samsung’s blockchain SDK is preloaded on selected devices only. Software developers can test the Keystore application by using Samsung’s Remote Test Lab, which is located in the Samsung Developers Site.

Posts on social media and Reddit forums show that crypto advocates appreciate Samsung finally adding BTC to the Keystore. Currently, there are 17 cryptocurrency-related applications that can be used with the select Samsung phones and the Keystore. This includes decentralized applications (dapps) such as Enjin, Cryptokitties, Coinduck, and Cosmee. Samsung’s dapp store also recently gained two new dapps in the form of Mars and Jupiter, developed by fellow South Korean tech company Trustverse.

There have been unconfirmed rumors that eventually Samsung Pay will sync with the Keystore wallet so people can pay for goods and services with digital assets. The recent BTC support from Samsung follows the released Cryptokit for iOS 13 from the company’s California-based rival Apple. The Cryptokit from Apple gives speculators reason to believe that the Cupertino tech giant will release its own in-house crypto wallet system. Similar to Samsung’s Keystore SDK, the Apple Cryptokit provides three specific attributes:

Compute and compare cryptographically secure digests.
Use public-key cryptography to create and evaluate digital signatures, and to perform a key exchange. In addition to working with keys stored in memory, you can also use private keys stored in and managed by the Secure Enclave.
Generate symmetric keys, and use them in operations like message authentication and encryption.

Apple and Samsung entering the cryptocurrency industry by silently releasing software development kits shows that mobile phones that have blockchain capabilities and offer cryptocurrency solutions are here to stay. The mobile phone giants are neck and neck in terms of sales, and adding cryptocurrency features may give them an edge among the lucrative tech- and crypto-savvy demographic.

The Chinese communications technology company Huawei already beat Samsung and Apple to the punch by selling phones pre-installed with Btc.com’s cryptocurrency wallet in May 2018. Even the phone manufacturer Oppos is on the heels of these three tech giants with its system that could help a peer-to-peer network of cryptocurrency node operators validate transactions in regions with poor internet services.

According to reports, Oppo’s Mesh Talk system could allow phones to exchange blockchain key data without using Wifi, Bluetooth, or cellular data within a radius of three kilometers. With all of the blockchain-related developments from Huawei, Samsung, Apple, and Oppos smartphones, it’s safe to assume that the mobile giants are well aware that cryptocurrencies are here to stay.

What do you think about Samsung adding BTC support to the company’s in-house Blockchain Keystore? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Image credits: Samsung, Wiki Commons, Huawei, Apple, Oppos, and Pixabay.

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Guix Makes Bitcoin Core Development More Trustless

14/08/2019 by Idelto Editor

Back in 2016, Bitcoin development became a model for the entire open-source community with the integration of Gitian building — a “computer within a computer” framework that let developers verify binary computer files in a more transparent way. But with the recent merging of Guix, which supports deterministic and bootstrappable Bitcoin Core builds, work on the protocol has become even more trustless.

Though the process involved is rather sophisticated and mostly concerns developers, the two issues at stake involve trust and language — components of Bitcoin that matter to all of us. As any crash course in computer science will tell you, computers receive instructions in binaries (“ones” and “zeroes”), but humans must write in a programming language that’s logical and comprehensible to them. After the coding part is completed, the instructions need to be compiled into the kind of language that computers can understand. And when developers need to share the resulting binaries, there is a degree of trust that they must have in one another (unless the process involves extra steps for verification, which are time consuming).

As a decentralized protocol, Bitcoin requires extra attention and caution. If there happens to be a slight third-party alteration (like a malevolent hacking, for example) in the binaries, which gets exchanged between developers, then the new version of the client may have bugs and side effects that lead to massive losses of funds. Unless a proper verification process is established, this issue can easily become a single point of failure.

Gitian and Guix

The idea that all developers would run the same code and compare binaries is unrealistic, as differences — even small differences — in variables such as system architecture, the operating system, and even compilation time may provide different results. Therefore, in order to tackle this issue, a pseudonymous developer who goes by the name of Dev Random created Gitian.

As described by Bitcoin Magazine’s Aaron van Wirdum, Gitian is a “computer within a computer” which provides a virtual space where binaries can be compiled without variables. No matter which device or operating system is used for the process, the results are guaranteed to always be the same.

However, the procedure is not sufficient for the needs of Bitcoin Core developers, as it relies too much on the Ubuntu operating system. This dependency in and of itself can become a point of failure, and the verification process requires more transparency and auditability.

As Chaincode Labs engineer Carl Dong told Bitcoin Magazine, “The standardized environment depends heavily, and somewhat blindly, on Ubuntu. In fact, the way we constructed the environment was by downloading un-auditable, opaque binaries (in other words, ‘trusted binaries’) from Ubuntu, exposing us to third-party risk. One could imagine how an attacker can poison all Bitcoin Core release executables through an intrusion of Ubuntu’s infrastructure (or, perhaps simply by working there).”

Dong is responsible for the introduction of Guix, a binary verification system which makes development more trustless and is set to completely replace Gitian.

“Guix allows us to construct the environment in a way where we rely on a severely reduced set of trusted binaries,” he said. “Most of the environment is constructed by building from a tiny binary seed, and this building process is much more auditable.”

Furthermore, the trust minimization implementation (which was merged into Bitcoin Core on July 12, 2019) aims to eliminate third-party risk. Dong considers it to be a simpler and less platform-specific approach to working on Bitcoin Core. In the future, Guix will also allow developers to build on different CPU architectures and produce reproducible executables across time. These features are essential for transparent and ethical development, and they will also make the exchange of binaries faster and more efficient.

Admittedly, Dong has taken inspiration from the intentions and architecture of Gitian. Nonetheless, there is no room for both, and Guix is set to become the replacement.

“My work on integrating Guix into Bitcoin Core certainly took inspiration from Gitian, but they don’t complement each other much,” Dong said. “I expect that once the cross-compilation support for OS X and Windows targets are finished, Gitian will be retired.”

Guix and the Average Bitcoin User

If Guix is a tool that’s created by developers and for their own exchange of compiled binaries, then why would the average user care? Well, it also eliminates the trust in the data downloaded for the Bitcoin Core client. Though the odds are pretty slim, malevolent third parties such as phishing websites may intervene during the process and, in the absence of a proper verification framework, steal your bitcoin. Guix follows precisely the “don’t trust, verify” philosophy which is deeply rooted in the Bitcoin culture.

According to Dong, “Guix allows users to verify that the Bitcoin Core client they download corresponds exactly to the code that Bitcoin Core developers write. It mitigates attacks that target the way we turn our codebase into the client executables we release.”

In spite of the clear focus on the needs of developers, Guix is also something that users may need and want to use if they choose to be cautious about the software that they run.

At press time, Guix is only available for Ubuntu builds. However, Dong estimates that the Windows and Mac OS versions will be released “optimistically” by the end of 2019. In the true conservative spirit of Bitcoin, a “when it’s completed and thoroughly tested” clause is attached, so we shouldn’t hold our breath for deadlines when the clear priority is robustness.

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