N-Technology

Lightning Network’s Antifraud Methods Inferior to Nakamoto Consensus, Research Shows

17/07/2019 by Idelto Editor

The Lightning Network, the touted scaling solution for the BTC chain, has recently seen its capacity decrease significantly and the beta project is still best suited for a cliche of technically savvy users. Now according to an analysis by Bitmex Research, the Lightning Network’s nodes have taken 2.2 BTC in “justice transactions” even though the connections might not be dishonest.

Also read: Looking Beyond the Lightning Network Hype: Everyday Users Experience Issues

2.2 BTC Taken in Justice Scenarios on the Lightning Network

It’s been well over 18 months and the Lightning Network is still in an experimental form, and one that has strayed away from Nakamoto Consensus. The project is intended to be a second layer solution for BTC payments and microtransactions, but the undertaking has been slow and filled with technical issues. Lightning started on Jan. 18, 2018, with around 60 nodes and it was highlighted to be very “experimental” and “in testing.” At that time, there was around 1.2 BTC held within the network and now there’s more than 940 BTC or $9.8 million, on July 15. A great majority of those funds stem from a node called Lnbig.com and some other big channels like Acinq, and Lightningpowerusers.com. On July 15, Bitmex Research examined the Lightning Network and studied how a mechanism called a “justice transaction” punishes alleged ‘dishonest’ parties. So far, justice transactions stemming from the Lightning Network have confiscated 2.2 BTC or a touch over $20,000.

“We explain how to arbitrarily construct a “justice” scenario and present data on the prevalence of this type of transaction on the Bitcoin network,” The Bitmex Research report highlights. “We have potentially identified 241 justice transactions, representing 2.22 Bitcoin in value, since the Lightning Network launched at the end of 2017.”

According to Bitmex Research, when a ‘thief’ attempts to pilfer BTC on the Lightning Network and they are caught, they lose the funds they tried to steal and the funds within the channel as well. Bitmex Research said while conducting the study, the team executed their own justice transactions. Moreover, a member of the company Lightning Labs developed a tool that can detect these types of justice transactions. In total, Bitmex did 5 test justice transactions, which means the software’s “justice” scenario may not be accurate when it comes to identifying dishonesty.

“It is also possible that many of the 241 justice transactions do not indicate genuine dishonestly, for instance, it could be users testing the system, where the same user owns both lightning nodes in question,” the Lightning Network analysis explains. “For example Bitmex Research is responsible for 5 of the 241 justice transactions, when there was no victim, as Bitmex owned all the nodes and funds.”

But Who Will Watch the Watchtowers?

The report follows the recent discussion concerning the idea of watchtowers on the Lightning Network. Watchtowers is another system of nodes that will attempt to protect the Lightning Network users from fraud. Basically, watchtowers are Lightning Network nodes that operate with a distinct algorithm and are meant to stop Alice from stealing Bob’s funds by monitoring transactions and channel states. Being permissionless by design, anyone will be able to run a watchtower, like individuals and companies, but blockchain surveillance firms could use them as well.

Because the Lightning Network (LN) does not use Nakamoto Consensus (the system that confirms onchain transactions), funds on the Lightning Network could essentially be double-spent by issuing a former channel state. So if your LN node is not online 100% time and you go offline for a couple of days, your funds could get stolen. Watchtowers could easily bring unwanted third parties into the LN design, but proponents say that anyone could subscribe to a group of watchtowers by running one themselves.

The 940 BTC or $9.8 million is actually a decline in the Lightning Network’s capacity as it has been slowly dropping over the last few weeks. According to Blockstream developer Rusty Russell, the latest rise in price may be the reason why the capacity has declined while also highlighting the project is still in its infancy. “I hope this is an indication that people are remembering that Lightning is still beta,” Russell noted. “and [are] reducing capacity to control their risk profile as the bitcoin price rises.” The problem, however, took place during the height of the last price pump as onchain BTC fees skyrocketed upwards of $3-5 per transaction and the mempool (transaction queue) became backed up. LN proponents have said that high fees may push more people into using the LN system, but this hasn’t come to fruition yet.

The controversial discussion concerning justice transactions made its way to social media and forums on Tuesday, which invoked criticism against the Lightning Network and the idea of using watchtowers. On the Reddit forum r/btc, the user known as u/Mobtwo condemned the justice transactions concept and said: “In other words, Lightning Network is not immutable — Who will be watching the watchtowers to make sure they are not in cahoots with the bad guys? And why does it have to be so complicated?” Professor of computer science, Jorge Stolfi wrote on Reddit that [justice transactions] could have been an accidental error like someone trying to close a channel with a backup copy of an LN wallet. “Or an LN wallet in a different computer, that does not have a record of the most recent payment through that channel,” Stolfi emphasized. Commenting further, Stolfi added:

Note that there is no safe way to sync [Lightning Network] wallets — like there is, sort of, for ordinary bitcoin wallets. That’s because payments made through a channel are not stored anywhere, except on the two nodes connected by it.

Will Lightning’s Topology Concerns, Centralized Hubs, and Routing Problems Be Addressed in the Next 18 Months? Skeptics Think Not

Lightning has been criticized by many individuals and with a quick Google search, anyone can find lengthy studies about LN’s topology concerns, discussions about centralized hubs, and routing problems. Electron Cash developer Jonald Fyookball thinks liquidity is the Lightning Network’s biggest issue. For example, in order to get your payment to someone, every hop in the route has to have a channel open and ready with at least as much funds as you wanted to send, Fyookball explained. The blockchain engineer commented further and stated that the best-case scenario for LN liquidity would be mega superhubs like banks which wouldn’t be peer-to-peer anymore.

“All [Lightning Network] nodes have to online all the time. So the user needs an always full bitcoin node plus a lightning node,” Fyookball said summing up his LN critique. “There are a bunch of other [LN] issues too, like [developers] don’t know how to actually solve distributed routing as it’s a known hard, unsolved problem in computer science. And even if LN worked great, it would take decades to onboard the world based on BTC’s low capacity.”

What do you think about the Lightning Network’s justice transactions and watchtower concepts in order to combat against fraud? Do you think the Lightning Network will help BTC scale? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Image credits: Shutterstock, Twitter, Bitmex Research, Bitcoin Visuals, fubar-bdhr and Pixabay.

Verify and track bitcoin cash transactions on our BCH Block Explorer, the best of its kind anywhere in the world. Also, keep up with your holdings, BCH, and other coins, on our market charts at Markets.Bitcoin.com, another original and free service from Bitcoin.com.

The post Lightning Network’s Antifraud Methods Inferior to Nakamoto Consensus, Research Shows appeared first on Bitcoin News.

How to Create and Airdrop Your Own Token to Your Friends

16/07/2019 by Idelto Editor

Roughly a year ago, the Simple Ledger Protocol (SLP) debuted on the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) network, giving anyone the ability to mint, store, receive, and send SLP tokens. Since then there’s been a ton of tokens created on the BCH network as the simplicity of the system outpaces tokens built on alternative chains like ERC20s and sending the tokens is far cheaper than most networks as well. The following walkthrough describes how to create SLP tokens and airdrop them to your friends and family in a short space of time.

Also read: Bitcoin Cash Update: Multi-Party Escrow, Vitalik Suggests BCH as Data Layer for ETH

Creating an SLP Token Using Memo.cash

Over the last few months the Simple Ledger Protocol, a tokenization platform built on top of the Bitcoin Cash network, has grown very popular among BCH enthusiasts. The reason for this is due to how easy it is to create an SLP token in a matter of minutes. To show how simple it is to mint, store, and airdrop tokens using the SLP tokenization platform, we’ve created a guide on the two easiest ways to get started. After reading this post and performing a few test runs on either the Memo.cash or Electron Cash applications, you’ll be able to create SLP tokens faster than the Fed prints dollars.

One of the quickest ways to mint a token on the BCH network using the SLP platform is through the application Memo.cash. You first need to sign up for Memo.cash and load the account with a small number of satoshis (nickel or dimes’ worth will do) because every action on Memo is basically created with a BCH transaction. If you already have a Memo account you can skip ahead, but if you don’t have an account you can quickly create one here.

After the Memo account is created, the top right-hand side of the account page shows a Bitcoin symbol which leads to Memo’s native wallet. To fund the account, choose and copy the BCH address on the right-hand side of the page or simply scan the QR code. After the Memo account is created and funded, you can play around with Memo’s functionality or head directly to the memo.cash/token/create page. Again, your account needs to be funded with a small fraction of BCH in order to create a token using the Memo platform.

The memo.cash/token/create page shows all the custom fields that can be customized before minting an SLP token. This includes the token’s ticker, name, decimal amount, custom URL, and the initial quantity. After deciding on the specifics of your new token, press “Create” and the new SLP token creation will be broadcast to the BCH network. Memo provides an SLP wallet so after you create a token, it will be stored in your account which can be found in the wallet section. After that step, you can do whatever you want with the new tokens and send them to people on a whim. There is one thing to remember when creating an SLP token on Memo.cash: everything is recorded onchain when you mint a token or send tokens to someone else from your Memo account. Of course, if you wanted you could create a throwaway account on Memo to build an SLP token in a private manner.

Designing an SLP Token Using the Electron Cash Light Client

Another way to create an SLP token is using the Electron Cash wallet SLP version. You can download the Electron Cash SLP 3.4.14 release here and the wallet is supported by Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems. Electron Cash SLP allows you to create, mint, burn and send SLP tokens using the light-wallet implementation. After downloading the wallet, the software will ask you to create a new wallet or import existing funds into the platform. If this is your first time, create a new wallet and record the seed phrase on paper as you would normally do when creating a new wallet. After that step, just like Memo, you will need a small fraction of funds to start creating tokens and for sending them as well. So at the top of the Electron Cash wallet, choose one of your BCH addresses and send a fraction of BCH ($0.05-0.10 is plenty) to the address. Once the wallet is funded you can now create a token using the Electron Cash wallet in a matter of minutes.

At the top of the wallet, there’s a tab on the right-hand side that says “Tokens” and you choose this tab to create an SLP token using the wallet. After selecting the “Tokens” tab at the bottom of the wallet, there’s a tab that says “Create New Token” which will bring you to the token creation window. The customizable fields in the creation window include an optional ticker symbol, token name, document URL or email, a document hash, decimal amount, token quantity and the ability to customize the SLP receiving address.

The Electron Cash wallet has a few more functions as well, including the ability to upload a token document from the wallet itself, and you can also preview the customized settings before broadcasting the token’s genesis transaction to the network. The Electron Cash SLP version can also make it so your token is fixed or you can keep the baton open making minting more tokens possible in the future at any time. If you are comfortable with all the settings you chose, simply press “Create New Token” and Electron Cash will initiate the genesis creation transaction.

Creating a token on the SLP tokenization platform is super easy and creating one is much faster than designing an Ethereum-based ERC20 token. There’s a number of wallets that support SLP tokens now as well including Badger Wallet, Electron Cash, Memo, Ifwallet, and Crescent Cash. Users can put even more time into creating a token and design something that might gain value like collectibles or coupon tokens. For instance, I created a set of coins called PKMN S1 which stands for Pokémon Series 1. The Pokémon collection isn’t quite finished, but can be viewed at this address.

Each token is nondivisible and there is only one coin for each Pokémon character in the series. Each token is also tied to a unique URL that leads to the official Pokédex. In order to make sure my tokens are unique, I used one address for the genesis creation of PKMN S1. I also signed and verified a message that proves I own the address that is tethered to the Pokémon series. My idea is to one day airdrop these rare Pokémon characters to random people who share their SLP address online. So if you happen to randomly get a Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Charmander, or Squirtle sent to your wallet, you’ll know where it came from. If you want to airdrop your newly created tokens to your friends all you need is their SLP address.

BCH Tokenization Using SLP Has Matured a Great Deal With Wallet Support and People Making a Variety of Tokens

The BCH tokenization platform the Simple Ledger Protocol (SLP) has been gathering steam lately as many Bitcoin Cash proponents and businesses have been experimenting with the protocol. For instance, the most popular SLP tokens used today include Honk, Spice, the Official SLP Token, Honestcoin, and Dogecash. Then there’s the micronation of Liberland which created Merits which acts as Liberland community funding coin. The city of Dublin, Ohio is in the midst of creating a city-based token using the SLP platform and the coin will be used for city-wide discounts and rewards in Dublin.

The Tokyo-based Alliance Cargo Direct minted the SLP-minted token ACD which is now traded on the Altilly exchange. The ACD token will be used at online and brick-and-mortar merchants from Japan, according to Alliance Cargo Direct, a subsidiary of ANA Holdings (ALNPF). Additionally, on June 12 the digital asset exchange Coinex announced the listing of a new SLP-based stablecoin USDH. Created by the Honestcoin.io team, USDH is fully regulated and backed 1-to-1 for U.S. dollars.

Making a token isn’t hard and they are fun to send to friends and people learning about the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem. You can even follow the vast amount of SLP tokens created using the Simpleledger.info transaction explorer or other explorers like Bitcoin.com’s BCH Block Explorer. After experimenting with SLP you’ll be well versed in creating tokens on top of the Bitcoin Cash network in no time and who knows, maybe after airdropping your token it could become used widely or gain monetary value.

What do you think about creating SLP tokens using either Memo.cash or the Electron Cash wallet? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the mentioned applications and services. Bitcoin.com and the author are 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.

Image credits: Shutterstock, Simple Ledger Protocol, Bitcoin.com, Jamie Redman, Memo.cash, the official Pokédex, Badger Wallet, Ifwallet, Crescent Cash, and Electron Cash.

Enjoy the easiest way to buy Bitcoin online with us. Download your free Bitcoin wallet and head to our Purchase Bitcoin page where you can buy BCH and BTC securely with a credit card.

The post How to Create and Airdrop Your Own Token to Your Friends appeared first on Bitcoin News.

An In-Depth Look at Iris, a New Decentralized Social Network

13/06/2019 by Idelto Editor

Cryptocurrency advocates have been discussing a new social media platform designed by one of Bitcoin’s earliest developers Martti Malmi, otherwise known as Sirius. The project he designed, called Iris, is a social networking application that stores and indexes everything on the user’s devices and connects directly with peers rather than using centralized and privacy-invasive algorithms.

Also read: Coinex Exchange Lists the first SLP-Based Stablecoin Built on Bitcoin Cash

Former Bitcoin Developer Creates Social Networking That Uses Cryptographic Key Pairs

Over the last decade, people have been on the hunt for the ultimate decentralized social networking experience that puts users 100% in control of their data. This quest has been a holy grail of sorts for cryptocurrency proponents as well as those who believe digital assets will be integral in driving a proper social media solution. There have been a few attempts where people have tried to design decentralized versions of Twitter and Facebook but so far none of them have really caught on. Although, one application called Memo.cash, a platform that utilizes the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) network, has gained some traction since it first launched over a year ago. The Iris platform created by one of Bitcoin’s earliest programmers, Martti Malmi, is another social networking alternative that is quite different than its centralized predecessors.

Iris stores and indexes everything on the user side and in the back end it uses cryptographic key pairs and a reputation system called the web of trust. The application promises to offer a social media experience that cannot be censored by authoritarian governments and it’s not controlled by a giant corporation. Iris aims to curb trolling and eliminate spam and advertisements that can be found on most of today’s social media networks.

“Iris is a social networking application that stores and indexes everything on the devices of its users and connects directly with peers who run the application – no corporate gatekeepers needed,” explains the software’s Github repository documentation.

Testing the Social Networking Platform

To provide an idea of what this application has to offer, I created an account on Iris on June 13. Iris is available to use at three different domains, iris.to, iris.cx and irislib.github.io, but it also offers browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox. Moreover, there are plans for an Electrum desktop app with Bluetooth and LAN peer finding. When using Iris, similarly to posting onchain using Memo.cash, everything you post is public.

To create an account on Iris I simply pressed the login tab and wrote my name in the new user field. Existing Iris users can paste their private key or drop the key file in the login window below. After creating a new account the software gave me access to the Iris dashboard where I can post and change my profile settings. In order to get a feed going in order to upvote friends, you can ask people for their QR codes to scan in order to make their posts visible. You can also browse an Iris address book as a starting point so you can follow other people’s posts.

In the settings section, you can gain access to your private key and it’s good to remember that if you log out you cannot log back in without the private key backup. When creating your account make sure you back up the Iris private key in the settings section. When you start to use Iris over time, by following a list of users and upvoting content, you start building upon what Iris calls the ‘web of trust.’ Essentially when you upvote another Iris user they become your first-degree contact, following this the accounts they upvote become secondary contacts and so on. This is how the web of trust builds and you can filter this scheme while also having the power to downvote.

“This way we can avoid spam and other unwanted content without giving power to central moderators,” the Iris documentation notes. “You can also add to your contacts list and rate people and organizations who are not yet on Iris.”

Web of Trust, GUN, and IPFS Solutions

On top of this, identity verifications can take place by utilizing peers trusted by your web of trust. For instance, if you lost the private key to your account you can simply create a new one and link your old Iris data by asking your web of trust for verifications. Iris creators have revealed other concepts that could be tied to Iris like cryptocurrency wallets. Digital asset wallet curators could design an Iris-based human-recognizable identity system that’s tethered to payment addresses. The developer specifications say that Iris could be used instead of telecom-bound phone numbers on mobile messaging apps like Signal. Additionally, users can opt to connect imports from existing services and have them digitally signed for verification purposes.

“In other words: message author and signer can be different entities, and only the signer needs to be on Iris — For example, a crawler can import and sign other people’s messages from Twitter,” Iris developers theorized. “Only the users who trust the crawler will see the messages.”

An In-Depth Look at Iris, a New Decentralized Social Network — **A look at how a user can post and follow the feed of people they choose to follow. Users can also create polls.**

Getting used to Iris takes a few minutes, but after getting the hang of the interface it works quite well. Malmi’s creation still has an incredibly large hurdle to overcome which is attracting an active user base. This issue is what every decentralized social media app faces because it’s not really an enjoyable experience with no active people. Still, Iris offers what most incumbent social media giants don’t, which is decentralization stemming from messages and contacts stored and indexed on GUN and IPFS for backups. Moreover, other social media applications have issues with profiles being cloned in a malicious manner and Iris greets identity and reputation head-on. With more activity, Iris could become a successful social network. The problem is that enticing people to switch over is easier said than done.

What do you think about Martti Malmi’s social networking platform Iris? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Disclaimer: This editorial is intended for informational purposes only. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the mentioned organization, social media platform, software or any of its affiliates or services. 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.

Image credits: Shutterstock, Twitter-Martti Malmi’s profile, Iris, Jamie Redman, and Pixabay.

Did you know you can verify any unconfirmed Bitcoin transaction with our Bitcoin Block Explorer tool? Simply complete a Bitcoin address search to view it on the blockchain. Plus, visit our Bitcoin Charts to see what’s happening in the industry.

The post An In-Depth Look at Iris, a New Decentralized Social Network appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Bitcoin Mining With Solar: Less Risky and More Profitable Than Selling to the Grid

31/05/2019 by Idelto Editor

The energy used to mine bitcoin has long caused debate over whether it’s a wasteful process. As the arguments have rumbled on, some people have been focused on mining coins with renewable energy. On May 29, Christian Ander, the founder of Stockholm’s Btcx exchange, explained how instead of selling surplus solar energy, he’s been using it to mine bitcoin and making 10X the money he would selling the electricity to the grid.

Also read: Hackers Have Looted More Bitcoin Than Satoshi’s Entire Stash

Choosing to Mine Bitcoin Over Selling Power to the Grid

Mining cryptocurrencies like bitcoin cash (BCH) and bitcoin core (BTC) utilizes electricity in order to power the ASIC machines that profit from mining coins. Over the last few years, as digital assets have grown more popular and the SHA-256 hashrate (the BTC and BCH consensus algorithm) has climbed to all-time highs, people have complained that the amount of energy used to mine is excessive. However, while some people spend a lot of time debating whether or not mining is using too much energy, there are lots of miners using a variety of renewable energy methods like wind power, hydropower, and solar. A great example of this can be seen in Christian Ander’s explanation of how he was making more money using excess solar to mine bitcoin than he was selling the energy to the power station.

“Time to start your miners tonight almost free energy in Stockholm tomorrow — instead of selling my surplus solar energy, I mine bitcoin,” Ander remarked. “1 kWh = 1,16 Kr($0.12) — That is more than 10 times the money if I would sell it to the grid. Using the most common miners on the market ($100 each which convert 1,3 kW -> BTC).”

Right now, certain miners in China and Canada are using hydropower to help offset electric costs and other mining operators use low-cost geothermal power in Iceland as well. But Ander isn’t the only person who has furthered the idea of minting digital assets with solar power. Lots of people have been promoting the concept while the SHA-256 hashrate climbs exponentially, pushing operators toward greener energy solutions. For instance, on July 1, 2017, a man from San Diego detailed how he’s been mining in the desert with twenty-five S9 miners inside his greenhouses. According to the San Diego desert miner, he ran everything 100% off-grid with solar and battery power and said he was “profitable.” Solar farming, in general, can be profitable for those simply selling to the grid but it depends on the land’s rental costs, geographic location, and the size of the solar installation. Recent estimates disclose that on average a typical solar farm can produce between $21,250 and $42,500 per acre every year.

The Grid Backup Plan Provides Minimal Risk

Tam Hunt, the founder of a renewable energy project called Community Renewable Solutions, has outlined how solar energy could boost bitcoin mining while at the same time reduce energy consumption. Hunt’s study reveals that instead of selling electricity to the grid, mining cryptocurrency could be far more lucrative. The research claims that the “solar-plus-Bitcoin operation pays for itself in about two years” and after the return-on-investment (RoI) is completed “there is minimal risk remaining.” This is because if the price of bitcoin suddenly crashed below profitable levels, the operation has a backup plan because they can just sell the power to the grid. Hunt describes how off-grid mining operations can be done in areas with no power lines and where acreage is extremely affordable.

“Under this scenario, the miners are connected to the internet via a satellite connection, but otherwise the entire project is off-grid — All solar power is used for mining,” Hunt notes in his study. “This kind of facility could also include onsite storage to both smooth production and to extend mining operations beyond daylight hours.”

No Major Solar Mining Operations in 2019, but One Firm Claims to be Building a 20MW Sun-Powered Facility in Australia

Over the last few years, there’s been a lot of FUD surrounding bitcoin mining consuming too much energy. China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) detailed on April 9 that the department believes bitcoin mining “waste resources and pollutes the environment.” But there’s a lot of data and reports that show otherwise and that mining rigs can also produce their own heat power as well. A recent Coinshares study indicates that 78% of bitcoin miners utilize renewable energy sources. In March 2018, the co-founder of the Nakamoto X exchange, Kamil Brejcha, showed the world how he used excess mining heat to grow tomatoes. Later that year people read about a residential block in the freezing Russian province of Siberia with local grandmothers mining coins for profit and heat dissipation. Known as the Siberian babushkas, one woman explained how they used the hot air from miners to dry spices. “All the hot air is perfect for drying pumpkin, tea, and herbs — It dries very quickly — In just one day,” one of the babushkas explained.

There are all kinds of methods people use to harness renewable energy to mine bitcoins. Oddly enough, solar energy is not being used by major mining operations as the dominant renewables powering facilities have been hydro and geothermal. Although last summer, reports indicated that Hadouken Pty Ltd was approved to build a 20-megawatt solar farm that will be specifically used to mine digital currency. The mining operation is said to be situated in Collie Australia near a power company called Muja that produces 854 megawatts of electricity. Similarly, if there were a sudden cryptocurrency price downturn and mining wasn’t that profitable, Hadouken could simply sell the power to the grid. If individuals like Christian Ander have noticed that using solar-generated electricity to mine bitcoin makes 10X what could be made selling the power to the grid, then many other people are likely aware of the same idea.

What do you think about solar powered bitcoin mining? Do you think solar energy will help power the next phase of crypto mining? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Image credits: Shutterstock, Youtube, Twitter, and Pixabay.

At Bitcoin.com we just enhanced our cloud mining contracts and they’re now more profitable for you. It’s the perfect time to consider taking out a new contract with us so you can start earning bitcoin cash today!

The post Bitcoin Mining With Solar: Less Risky and More Profitable Than Selling to the Grid appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Cashscript Is Coming, Bringing Ethereum-Like Smart Contracts to Bitcoin Cash

29/05/2019 by Idelto Editor

On May 27, the analytics and data web portal Coin Dance announced the team has added the Cashscript project to the website’s development tracker. Cashscript is a high-level language that enables basic smart contract functionality on the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) network.

Also Read: Crypto Assets Outshine Most Traditional Investments in 2019

Meet Cashscript: A High-Level Programming Language for Bitcoin Cash

Smart contract functionality is coming to the Bitcoin Cash network, which will allow developers to not only use the peer-to-peer cash as a medium of exchange, but also execute unique decision-based transactions. This week, data website Coin Dance added a new project called Cashscript to the site’s development tracker so BCH supporters can get a glimpse of this concept.

The creator of Cashscript, software engineer Rosco Kalis, has been working relentlessly on the protocol and a sneak preview of the project’s potential was shared on Reddit. On May 28, news.Bitcoin.com discussed the Cashscript project with Kalis to give our readers an inside look at this innovative concept. Kalis explained that Cashscript is a high-level language that compiles down to Bitcoin Script. The developer said he was inspired by Tendo Pein’s Spedn language, but found it too difficult to integrate into his web development workflow.

“With Cashscript we are mainly focusing on making that integration easier by providing a Javascript Software Development Kit (SDK) that allows you to plug in Cashscript contracts into any web application,” Kalis told news.Bitcoin.com. “For this workflow as well as the syntax of the language we took a lot of inspiration from Ethereum’s Solidity language and Web3.js / Truffle libraries,” Kalis remarked, adding:

The goal with this is also to make it easier for developers of either community to get involved with the other.

A Javascript SDK That Allows Developers to Easily Plug Cashscript Contracts Into Web Applications

Cashscript is still a work in progress and still has a ways to go before the project is close to being released to the public. Kalis detailed that he believes clear documentation will be added in the coming weeks, and people could start playing around with Cashscript after that. But the developer emphasized that there needs to be a lot of testing and more time to make sure that Cashscript is safe to use. Kalis is also currently writing his Master’s thesis about the project and high-level Bitcoin Script languages. At the moment the engineer said that most of the internal compiler work for the language is done, but the Script output is far from optimized. Right now the generated Scripts are quite a lot bigger than they have to be, Kalis noted.

“What we’re currently working on is the Javascript SDK that allows us to easily plug Cashscript contracts into web applications — We have the first version of this SDK, but we’re still working out the details of it,” Kalis said. “The compiled Scripts and SDK should also still be tested more to make sure that they can safely be used — Finally, we’re also still working on creating the documentation for the language and SDK, as we currently only have a few examples online.”

Bringing Talented Blockchain Developers Together to Create Smart Contracts With a Common Workflow and API

Kalis and other BCH developers have been testing the Script output on the BCH testnet and the software engineer has also been steadily working on the documentation of the language. News.Bitcoin.com then asked Kalis to explain what types of decision-based transactions could be created using the Cashscript protocol. Kalis highlighted that Cashscript could be used to implement zero-confirmation forfeits, a concept that could reduce the amount of time a malicious entity has in an attempt to double spend zero-confirmation transactions. An example of Cashscript and zero-conf forfeits can be seen here on the project’s Github repository. Behind the scenes, the Cashscript SDK uses Gabriel Cardona’s Bitbox library, which handles all things Bitcoin Cash. “For usage, any web application that would like to handle Bitcoin transactions other than P2PKH could use a CashScript contract for that,” Kalis asserted.

“Something else that we have in our SDK is the ‘ABI’ or Application Blockchain Interface — This is a concept from Ethereum, and it is basically a JSON object with all the information that is needed to interface with a smart contract,” the developer said. “So it would also be possible to share this ABI with other people, and the CashScript SDK has a function to import this ABI and use it to generate a “Contract” object that can be used to send and receive money to this contract.”

During the end of the conversation about Cashscript, Bitbox creator Gabriel Cardona joined the discussion. Cardona said a big motivation behind Cashscript was to bolster on-ramping developers from other ecosystems, such as Ethereum. “Since P2SH is BCH’s version of smart contracts we’ve needed a higher level application programming interface (API) for writing Script for a while as writing Script manually is incredibly awkward and error-prone,” Cardona mentioned. The programmer further confided that Kalis leveraged the look and feel of Solidity, hence the API. “[Cashscript] is meant to help talented developers from Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum and other chains create smart contracts with a common workflow and API,” Cardona concluded.

What do you think about the Cashscript language for creating smart contracts on Bitcoin Cash? Let us know what you think about this project in the comments section below.

Image credits: Shutterstock, Twitter, and Pixabay.

Want to create your own secure cold storage paper wallet? Check our tools section. You can also enjoy the easiest way to buy Bitcoin online with us. Download your free Bitcoin wallet and head to our Purchase Bitcoin page where you can buy BCH and BTC securely.

The post Cashscript Is Coming, Bringing Ethereum-Like Smart Contracts to Bitcoin Cash appeared first on Bitcoin News.