Characteristic of the most ambitious altcoin projects are technical roadmaps which look suspiciously like Bitcoin's, "only better." Mimblewimble, a protocol embodied in two projects called Grin and Beam, has announced its own "second layer" to rival Bitcoin's Lightning Network. Other networks like Ethereum claim to be working on similar scaling protocols, but unlike Lightning network itself, these non-Bitcoin efforts seem to have stalled. Will the Mibmlewimblers fare better? If so, it might be a result of Beam's implementation of new ideas, namely "scriptless scripts," which promise to reduce resource consumption. But the magic of scriptless scripts is owed to the use of Schnorr Signatures, which are capable of aggregating multiple signatures into one. Schnorr is also a hot topic in the Bitcoin community, and could be implemented there within 1-2 years. Few of cryptocurrency's most cutting-edge ideas cannot be incorporated into Bitcoin, a fact which continues to undermine the "multi-coin" world view.
Mimblewimble Compatible Lightning Network
Discover how we're planning to develop and launch a Mimblewimble compatible Lightning Network https://t.co/2bCa4409nt #mimblewimble #SovereigntyByDesign
— @Beamprivacy (@beamprivacy) February 12, 2019
Turns out the potential privacy break in Zcash is *still* an issue, as they never bothered to add the necessary parameter verification code, and so far there aren't any independent reports of people recreating the original Sprout parameters, let alone auditing that code. https://t.co/X4cBeU0i80
— Peter Todd (@peterktodd) February 13, 2019
Litecoin’s Halving Is Months Away, But Traders May Already Be Pricing It In
"LTC’s strong performance comes at least five months ahead of the mining reward halving, or the time at which the amount of litecoins produced as a network subsidy for each transaction block falls is cut in half. On Aug. 8, the mining reward will be reduced from 25 LTC to 12.5 LTC. Markets are always forward-looking and hence could be pricing in the impending supply drop."
Anatomy Of The Next Global Financial Crisis
"'When is the next global financial crisis going to happen?' We attempt to answer this by first explaining how that since 2008, the epicentre of financial risk seems to have shifted from the banks to the asset management industry. We therefore argue that a repeat of 2008, where retail banking deposits and payment systems are under threat, is unlikely. In particular, we assert that corporate debt investment funds and unconventional debt investment vehicles, encouraged by the deceptively low volatility and low return environment, could be the area where the fragility in the financial system is most significant."
Join the Lightning Network
"Use the tools and recommendations in this guide to select, install, and fund a wallet, connect to the network, and experiment with Lightning-powered payments today."
ASIC chip technology is renewable energy’s future
"It appears profitable to integrate ASIC chips with VRE sources at the time of deployment – by building them into solar panel installations, for example – to help offload surplus energy instead of curtailing it. Start by predicting the maximum curtailable electricity per VRE in KWh at a given time and work backwards to figure out how many ASICs to include using the formula above. "
Yesterday set a record in terms of Bitcoin's daily average block size, at 1.3mb on averagehttps://t.co/lVL49saVL0 pic.twitter.com/onKHiX5anG
— CoinMetrics.io (@coinmetrics) February 13, 2019
Don't Save Your Private Keys On the Cloud
WARNING: I don’t find this secure & believe it violates best practices of digital asset key storage. Reason: humans are bad at creating passwords & reuse them. If you must, use unique EFF diceware, but then you have to protect that password! Just protect your mnemonics instead! https://t.co/jXIA9jzeP2
— Christopher Allen (@ChristopherA) February 13, 2019
Simple Takes Discipline and Skill
If there's one thing analyzing modern hardware and software teaches us, it's that it is insanely difficult for most engineers to resist the siren call of complexity. Simple solutions to simple problems aren't simple at all; it takes enormous discipline and skill to do simple.
— Perry E. Metzger (@perrymetzger) February 13, 2019
CryptoChat_009 - Holding the Lightning Torch on the Rollo & Slappy Show
"If you haven't heard it yet, don't miss an awesome discussion all about Lightning and holding the Torch with the guys from the Rollo and Slappy Show! Check out @RolloMcFloogle and @Slappy_Jones_2 for more awesome content & definitely check out the amazing playlist for a deep understanding of Bitcoin over at 10HoursOfBitcoin.com"
Based on high demand, Zap iOS now allows you to manage multiple wallets! Hold down the “⚡️Wallet” icon and easily toggle between your wallets.
— Jack Mallers (@JackMallers) February 13, 2019
I’m toggling between my personal node and Zap’s routing node. Switched to my personal to make a quick @YallsOrg article purchase 🌩😃 pic.twitter.com/vfNUFe2JQ7