Bitcoin Diamond

Silk Road Bitcoin Seizure: Analytics Firm Claims Tokens Worth Millions Still Outstanding

22/11/2020 by Idelto Editor

Analytics firm Coinfirm says the US Department of Justice (DOJ)’s seizure of digital assets associated with the now-defunct Silk Road left behind tokens worth millions of dollars. According to Coinfirm, there are still valuable balances held on forked addresses originating from that wallet.

On November 5, the DOJ announced that a hacker known as Individual X had cooperated with law enforcement and agreed to relinquish control of over $1 billion worth of bitcoins. At the time of the seizure of the 69,370 BTC, news.Bitcoin.com reported the DOJ confirming that 1HQ3-the address that was controlled by Individual X also contained approximately 69,370 BCH, BTG, and BSV.

However, in its update following “a self-funded investigation”, the analytics firm says the US “government seemingly overlooked and left it in the hands of whoever has access to the private keys of the main wallet.” While Coinfirm is claiming that funds worth millions of dollars are still outstanding, the firm has so far only released information on tokens whose total value does not exceed $1 million.

According to the investigation, the following digital assets were left behind by the DOJ:

693701 Bitcoin Diamond (“BCD”), which is presently worth approximately 310,000 USD.
69370 Super Bitcoin (“SBTC”), which is presently worth approximately 66,000 USD.
69370.11453606 Bitcoin Private (“BTCP”), which is presently worth approximately 11,000 USD.

After cooperating with US authorities “Individual X walked away from the incident without facing any criminal charges” according to Coinfirm. It remains to be seen if this latest revelation (if confirmed true) is going to result in changes to Individual X’s deal.

Meanwhile, Coinfirm claims that its cryptographic tracing efforts have identified dozens of cases in which law enforcement authorities may have unknowingly left substantial funds accessible to suspects instead of properly accounting for and seizing those assets.

Do you agree with Coinfirm that the DOJ left tokens worth millions of dollars after the Silk Road seizure? Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

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Active Development for Most Bitcoin Forks Evaporates

12/03/2019 by Idelto Editor

A report published by Electric Capital has estimated that the number of developers working on public cryptocurrencies has doubled since January 2018. The research found that Ethereum has the largest development team of all established crypto assets, with 216 developers contributing to its codebase each month on average.

Also Read: EY Executive Says Bitcoin Has No Practical Use in India

Report Studies Active Monthly Development Across 3,000 Crypto Assets

The report’s authors indexed more than 21,000 code repos, analyzed 16 million commits, and examined 130,000 developers across approximately 3,000 crypto assets to identify the scale of development regularly taking place among prominent cryptocurrencies.

Electric Capital highlights that the study ignores “commits from integrating open source libraries,” “projects built on Ethereum,” and “code and developer activity from merging changes from the original, forked codebase” with regards to forked cryptocurrencies.”

The report also notes that its findings comprise an under-representation of total development occurring within the sector, as “some of the biggest repos are private, not yet shipped, or not a coin.”

Monthly Development on Crypto Projects Doubles in Two Years

The analysis found that the number of developers contributing to public cryptocurrencies has doubled in approximately two years, with the number of monthly developers growing from 2,190 in Jan. 2017 to 4,352 today.

However, the report shows that the cryptocurrency bear trend has had a slight cooling effect on active development, with monthly active developers falling by 4 percent since the markets’ peak during Jan. 2018. The analysis estimates that more than 4,000 developers currently contribute to approximately 2,800 public on a monthly basis.

Bitcoin Forks Among Projects Witnessing Greatest Decline in Developer Activity

The report finds that forks of the Bitcoin protocol have seen among the greatest recession in active development.

During the last 12 months, monthly Litecoin development fell from 40 to three developers, while Bitcoin Diamond and Bitcoin Gold have both had less than five active developers each month since Oct. 2018.

Dogecoin has had no active developers working on its code for five of the last 10 months.

Ethereum Comprises Most Actively Developed Crypto Asset

When looking at the number of developers contributing to core protocol, Ethereum has the most active development with 99 active developers contributing to the protocol on a monthly basis. BTC ranks second with 47 core protocol developers per month, followed by Cardano and Status.

When analyzing contributions to total code, Ethereum again leads with 216 active developers per month. BTC has the fourth most active development when looking at the total code, with 51 active developers each month, following Cardano and Status.

Are your surprised by the recession in development that has taken place since Jan. 2018? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!

Images courtesy of Shutterstock

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These Are the Worst Performing Cryptocurrencies of 2018 – So Far

31/03/2018 by Idelto Editor

2018 has been a tough year for cryptocurrencies. It all started so promisingly, as January broke with the promise of $3 ripple and, in tron, an altcoin that was up 14,000% in 30 days. Things swiftly went south from there, and have been sinking ever since. Judged by their all-time high (ATH), the following coins are 2018’s greatest fallen angels.

Also read: Chinese Investors Use Wechat Brokers to Bypass ICO Ban

Meet 2018’s Worst in Class

Having shed $600 billion in three months, the cryptocurrency markets are having a torrid time. They’ll rally eventually, and when they do, more all-time highs may even be back on the agenda. With every single cryptocurrency mired in the red, singling out altcoins for underperforming seems a little unfair. But even without obsessing over USD value, analyzing the coins that have dropped the furthest from their ATH reveals 2018’s most over-hyped assets.

Recording the percentage drop and number of days since a coin reached its all-time high has become a popular metric on crypto tracker sites. In addition to Onchainfx, there’s now a dedicated site in the form of ATHcoinindex.com. Excluding coins whose ATH was fleetingly achieved as the result of a pump and dump, the biggest losers of this year is plain to see.

Lying in the Gutter While Looking at the Moon

Bitcoin Diamond: Astonishingly, someone once paid $105 for this garbage. It’s currently trading at $2.19. That’s a 98% retrace.

Bitcoin Gold: Spot the recurring theme. Bitcoin forks that add no real value have been hit the hardest. BTG somehow once traded at over $500. Now it’s sitting at $45, and even that feels expensive.

Einsteinium: This shitcoin has gone from $2.83 to $0.11 in 101 days, and the team have only got themselves to blame. The coin dumped following a “big announcement” that proved to be anything of the sort, and the crypto bear market took care of the rest.

Siacoin: It’s hard not to feel sorry for sia, which has had a tough year, what with Bitmain ASICs threatening its algorithm and increased competition from decentralized storage tokens. Sia’s down 90% in just 83 days.

NEM: NEM’s 2018 resembles Britney Spears’ 2007. First it pumped. Then it dumped, after Coincheck lost half a billion NEM in the biggest hack of all time. Then it pumped again after Coincheck began reimbursing victims of the hack. And now it’s dumped again and is sitting at $0.22, down 89% from its peak of $2.09.

Cardano: Like other entrants on this list, cardano isn’t a total shitcoin. It simply got pumped too fast, too soon amidst January’s ebullience and now it’s paying the price, down 89% in 85 days.

Verge: And then there’s verge, which was destined to dive deep the moment John McAfee began shilling it. The fact that the supposed privacy coin’s fundamentals are a mess and its developers can’t stop failing hasn’t helped either. Still, things are looking up. In just two weeks’ time, the verge team will announce the new partnership their community has stumped up $3 million for, whereupon a moon mission surely beckons. Surely.

Bytecoin: An 88% retracement isn’t justice enough for this bonafide scamcoin. And nothing of value was lost.

Digibyte: If there’s one thing digibyte can be relied on, it’s to disappoint. It’s down 88% in 82 days.

Ripple: If any coin encapsulates the altcoin mania that characterized the nascent days of 2018, it was ripple. It’s down 87% in 85 days, despite Ripple announcing a string of partnerships and pilot programs. Still, word on the street is Coinbase is going to list it any day now…

A Plea of Mitigation

The above coins are 2018’s worst performers in a close-run race that includes the likes of SALT, Gnosis, Civic, and Status. While these coins were clearly overbought and over-hyped, their decline owes a lot to bitcoin’s slippage. Some of these coins will recover when bitcoin starts to mend, while others will fade into oblivion, and not before time.

Do you think these altcoins have a chance of surpassing their all-time high again? Let us know in the comments section below.

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