Bitcoin developers representing some 90 percent of the commits to Bitcoin Core in the last years have written and signed an open letter to the Bitcoin community; the government is exploring the use of blockchain technology in a bid to improve its recordkeeping, and more top stories for September 2.
Bitcoin Developers Write Open Letter to Bitcoin Community
Bitcoin developers representing some 90 percent of the commits to Bitcoin Core in the last years have written and signed an open letter to the Bitcoin community. Through the letter, the developers call for support from the Bitcoin community in their efforts to scale Bitcoin while keeping the system decentralized and secure.
The letter reads:
“We ask the community to not prejudge and instead work collaboratively to reach the best outcome through the existing process and the supporting workshops. It’s great to already see broad excitement for the event and the high concentration of technical participants attending.”
Gov’t Explores Use of Blockchain Recordkeeping
The government is exploring the use of blockchain technology in a bid to improve the transparency and accuracy of its record keeping. Technical architect Paul Downey of the Government Digital Service, a unit of the UK Cabinet Office, explained that his team has been examining how registers could potentially be improved through the use of a blockchain.
“We’ve spent a lot of time looking at a large number of such lists, and what’s become apparent is that they’re all held and maintained quite differently. That causes problems.”
Preliminary Implementation of Lightning Network Released
Developer Mats Jerratsch has launched a preliminary, simplified lightning network implementation dubbed the “Thunder Network.” Jerratsch’s implementation, written in Java and available as open source code on GitHub, is less watertight than the full Lightning Network proposal, but doesn’t require a fork and can be used now as it is.
Jerratsch noted:
“I […] changed the channel design of the initial paper such that it can be implemented with the tools currently available in bitcoin. While such a channel does no longer work in a completely trustless manner, it is a good trade-off to start implementing LN. Most importantly, it allows deployment of software using something similar to the future LN implementations for now.”
BitPay Calls on Industry to Form 'Bitcoin Association'
Sonny Singh, chief commercial officer at bitcoin payments processor BitPay said it's about time the biggest companies in the space began working together. He even informally suggested the formation of a “Bitcoin Association” to help promote the currency.
Singh:
“I think a problem Bitcoin faces is that the largest companies - Coinbase, BitPay, Circle, Xapo - they should all kind of work together and talk more among each other.”
Coinsecure CTO Talks Bitcoin Liquidity in
Benson Samuel is the CTO & Co-Founder of Coinsecure, a startup focusing on solving the liquidity problem of bitcoin in . Following a career in the payments space, Samuel realized that cryptocurrency could solve many of the issues that plagued the industry and took an instant liking to bitcoin. He did, however, find a critical problem early on, which was the lack of liquidity for bitcoin in the Indian market. This eventually led to the founding of Coinsecure: a bitcoin exchange which hopes to make bitcoin a part of every Indian’s wallet.
In the interview with Cointelegraph, Samuel goes into detail about his initiative.
Factom to Release Factom Genesis
Factom's live Factom Genesis version we be released starting this week. This will be a step by step launch where the Factom client and related software is released over the course of the period.
On its blog, Factom explained:
“The first federated server will go live with the Genesis block, then Factom beta testers / early adopters can begin downloading the Factom Genesis client to their computers, then the broader community can begin checking their Factoid balances on the Factom Explorer website and users can begin making entries into the Factom Network.”
BitFury Releases Report on Bitcoin Block Size Debate
Bitcoin mining company BitFury released a research report into what the company believes an increase in the Bitcoin block size limit will do for the network. In the report, BitFury reiterated its support for BIP100, the block size proposal that allows miners to vote on the maximum block size. The mining company did, however, suggest some improvements on the current proposal.
Indian startup SearchTrade Wants to Reinvent the Search Engine
Indian startup SearchTrade is looking to change how the Internet functions today by rewarding people with bitcoin for their time spent using search engines. Along with the ability to purchase keywords like assets, they believe the innovative approach to search engine monetization may usher in a whole new industry.
According to founders Vishal Gupta and Rashmit Gupta:
“Users should gain the maximum benefit from their valuable time and information; hence the reason for this unique approach in rewarding them with bitcoin. Time is money and the time has come for Internet users to be paid for their input. This proactive approach will change the way the Internet functions today.”
European Forex Broker FXPrimus Starts Taking Deposits in Bitcoin
Clients of the based forex brokerage firm FXPrimus will now be able to fund their trading accounts via bitcoin. To enable this, FXPrimus has partnered with BitPay.
FXPrimus’s CEO and Director Terry Thompson said:
“With security at the forefront of our operations here at FXPRIMUS, we are now delighted to announce the appointment of BitPay – an experienced and established provider of the virtual currencies. This announcement forms part of our overall efforts to increase our range of offerings to our clients worldwide, whilst not compromising on safety.”