PATREONItems tagged with bitcoin
Every few weeks we talk about Bitcoin hitting another record high, and today is no different. Earlier this month, Bitcoin hit a new high of $7,500, sending its market cap soaring above $120 billion. But things got a bit interesting when the scheduled SegWit2x hard fork, which was set to take place this month, was abruptly canceled last week. A number of community leaders and cryptocurrency miners withdrew their support for SegWit2x, which put the fork in limbo. However, a small group of miners have decided to ahead with the fork anyway, which is now set to take place today. With this uncertainty, a few cryptocurrency exchanges -- including CoinBase and GDAX -- have taken the added measure of...
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Bitcoin mining is a very common practice today with the price of the cryptocurrency soaring to over $7,000 earlier this month before settling back down in the $6,000 range. With prices soaring more and more people are getting into mining, there has been a marked effect not only on pricing and availability of video cards, but on electricity consumption as well. Most computer users simply plug in their PC and leave it connected never thinking about how much power that machine is slurping. According to Digiconmist, it would be profitable for Bitcoin miners to consume over 24 terawatt-hours of electricity annually as they try and mine the cryptocurrency. That is around as much electricity as the...
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It was just a few weeks ago when we were last talking about the massive gains that Bitcoin has made during 2017. Today, Bitcoin is still shooting skyward, sitting pretty at a record $7,555, despite China's apprehension towards the cryptocurrency “gold standard”. The $7,555 figure is nearly $1,500 higher than our previous article on October 21st. That means that Bitcoin is currently sitting pretty with a market cap of roughly $125 billion. For comparison, second place Ethereum has a market cap of “just” $28 billion. It was just a few months ago when everyone thought that Ethereum was going to eclipse Bitcoin in market cap, but at this point, we don’t see that happening anytime soon. Despite some...
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Bitcoin has been on an enviable winning streak this year, and reached a new intraday high earlier today. Bitcoin hit a record high of $6,183.98 at around 10:30 AM EST this morning, which comes just after the cryptocurrency pushed through the $6,000 barrier on Friday. Currently, Bitcoin is trading at around $6,080, giving it a market cap of just over $100 billion. This is a meteoric rise from the start of the year, when Bitcoin was trading at just $968. Not even negative commentary from some in the financial industry has been enough to dull the luster of Bitcoin. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon declared back in September that Bitcoin is "just not a real thing" and that it would eventually be shut...
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What is a blockchain? When considering cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum, it's best to first understand the underlying technology and framework that makes their existence possible. At its core, a blockchain is a what is described as a "shared ledger" technology that is used to record the complete history of transactions that have been made. More importantly, this ledger cannot be altered in any way, making it ideal for historical analysis and peer review. When it comes to everyday transactions -- be they financial, inventory or even account-based, traditionally, each party that is involved keeps a record of the transaction. Having these multiple ledgers can lead to discrepancies in transaction...
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Udpate, 9/17/17: It turns out the actual cryptocurrency being mined by TPB is actually Monero. As such this article has been updated. The Pirate Bay made its name as the site to go to if you want to download pirated applications, games, music or movies. The site is infamous for skirting the jurisdiction of authorities in the U.S. and abroad while letting people download and share copyrighted materials without paying. This time around, the website has allegedly added some changes to make it a bit of extra cash on the side, and pirates aren't likely to be happy. Reports are that Pirate Bay has added a Javascript-powered Monero CryptoNote miner to its website. The specific...
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Bitcoin is living up to its billing as a volatile currency. It was a big deal last month when Bitcoin first flirted with a $2,900 valuation. Just a couple of weeks later, it jumped past the $4,000 mark, setting yet another new high in the process. More recently, Bitcoin has hit a rough patch, causing its value to fall as low as $2,915.15, its lowest level since it surge in early August.Cryptocurrency investors seemingly panicked in the wake of negative news this week. It started with JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon calling cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin a fraud. Speaking at the Delivering Alpha conference, Dimon said Bitcoin is "just not a real thing" and warned that "eventually it will be closed."...
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Just a day after JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon unleashed a fury of attacks on Bitcoin (and cryptocurrencies in general), another salvo is incoming. It was reported last week by Caixin that China was contemplating shutting down cryptocurrency exchange trading, and further confirmation of that order arrived today. The news sent Bitcoin into another tailspin, extending its losses for a fifth straight day, its longest losing streak in over a year. BTC China, the second largest exchange in China, announced that as to today, it will no longer accept new user registrations. It also announced that the exchange will halt all trading effective September 30th, 2017. 1/ After carefully considering the announcement...
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There has been a run on cryptocurrencies in the past year or so, especially when it comes to Bitcoin and Ethereum. The latter has especially been popular, with enthusiasts quickly gobbling up high-performance NVIDIA and AMD GPUs to bolster their mining efforts. While many enthusiasts and even some well-respected financial institutions have flocked to cryptocurrencies, one high-profile executive takes the stance of "Just Say No", to quote the late Nancy Reagan. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon isn't just down on cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin; he thinks that they are a fraud, plain and simple. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon (source: Steve Jurveston/flickr) Speaking at the Delivering Alpha conference...
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Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that Equifax was hacked surfaced and 143 million Americans have potentially had their personal information stolen. What many have been wondering is what exactly do the hackers plan to do with all that stolen data. A report making the rounds claims that the hackers want a massive ransom from Equifax to return the data. Hackers made the ransom demand on an unnamed Darkweb site stating that they would delete the data if they receive a ransom payment of 600 BTC, which would be worth about $2.6 million at current valuation. The value of Bitcoin is at one of its highest points ever right now, having jumped past $4,000 for the first time in mid-August...
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The cryptocurrency market is red-hot right now, with Ethereum (ETH) helping to lead the charge. That surge in popularity was readily on display this week, when the Ethereum network surged past 410,000 transactions during a 24-hour period — actually, it was 410,061 to be exact. This is the highest number of daily transactions on record for any public blockchain to date. Ethereum’s performance put it more than 40,000 transactions ahead of Bitcoin’s record daily high. However, despite this performance for the record books, Ether hasn’t exactly budged much in value over the past week or so. Over the past 24 hours, Ether prices have risen around 5.74 percent to $301.93. Ether prices hit $314...
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The life of a cryptocurrency miner is fast and furious, especially if that person is mining Bitcoin, the most popular digital currency in existence. Consider that it was just two months when Bitcoin hit the $3,000 mark for the first time since it was introduced in 2009. Now just eight weeks later it is trading at around $4,300, hitting a new all-time high after activating a plan to speed up transaction times. Without getting into the somewhat complicated nitty-gritty details of cryptocurrency and the mining process, the relevant bit of info here is that Bitcoin recently split into two directions, as some users sought to shorten the time it takes to process a Bitcoin transaction and lift the cap...
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Cyber crooks have found a new way to ruin a person's day with ransomware. Traditionally most ransomware encrypts a victim's storage device and then demands a ransom in order to unlock the files. Some of the nastier versions will put a time limit on receiving payment before the ransomware starts permanently deleting files. Now there is version making the rounds that not only encrypts a victim's files, it steals Bitcoin wallets as well.The new variant of the Cerber ransomware takes a dual approach to extracting fund from a victim. It searches for one of three Bitcoin wallet applications, those being Bitcoin Core, Electrum, and Multibit. If it manages to find one, the ransomware sends it to the...
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There is a cryptocurrency war brewing in Bitcoin land. On Tuesday, Bitcoin forked, leaving us with the original Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). During its first week of trading, Bitcoin Cash has been on a wild rollercoaster ride when it comes its valuation. On Wednesday, just one day after its trading debut, Bitcoin Cash was riding high with a price of $756 (at its intra-day high). However, the past few days have seen Bitcoin Cash tumble, falling to just $289 today in afternoon trading. This is hovering near an all-time low for the cryptocurrency. Bitcoin Cash has also been rocked by the fact that while it has the same mining difficulty of Bitcoin, it has a fraction of the hash power resulting...
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The hackers behind the WannaCry ransomware that became an overnight global scare did not strike it rich over their nefarious deeds, though they did make around $143,000 after cashing out all of the Bitcoin payments made by victims. Had it not been for the quick response of security researchers, and one in particular who accidentally discovered a kill switch of sorts, they might have made much more. Elliptic, a London-based start-up that aids law enforcement with tracking down cybercriminals that use Bitcoin, confirmed that the WannaCry withdrew 52.2 BTC from online wallets this week. Bitcoin currency is currently worth around $2,740, resulting in the six-figure payday for the people behind the...
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Getting rich has never been easy, and depending on how you go about it, there can be certain risks involved. That was certainly true of the gold rush that sent miners packing for California, and it is true today as digital miners go in search of fortune by digging up cryptocurrencies. Even the co-founder of Ethereum, one of the hottest digital currencies in existence right now, warns that things are coming to a head. "People say ICOs are great for Ethereum because, look at the price, but it's a ticking time bomb," Charles Hoskinson, one of the people responsible for developing Ethereum, told Bloomberg. "There's an over-tokenization of things as companies are issuing tokens when the same tasks...
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Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past six months or so (and especially within the last two months), then you know that there’s been a “gold rush” of sorts in the cryptocurrency market. Bitcoin has fallen out of favor with some miners, as they have switched their attention to the rising star power of Ethereum. The relative ease of building a GPU mining rig, favorable difficulty levels and booming prices have made Ethereum a popular choice for those looking to score some extra funds on the side. However, is this rapid rise to fame for Ethereum destined to make a fiery crash back down to Earth? No one knows for sure, but there are some troubling signs for prospective miners...
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If you’ve been keeping up with the cryptocurrency market at all over the past few years, then you’ll recognize Bitcoin as the posterchild for the digital currency movement. However, in recent months, Ethereum has been surging in popularity as more miners have discovered the relative ease in which money can be made using off-the-shelf hardware components — namely mid-range graphics cards. In addition to the hardware that you’ll need to purchase (or repurpose) for mining, there’s also energy consumption to keep in mind. Even though mining GPUs like the ASUS MINING P106 and Biostar Radeon RX 470D have been designed and optimized for efficiency, electrical consumption is still a big cost that must...
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The rise of cryptocurrency has been quite something to watch. A decade ago, the mere concept might have sounded a little bit too futuristic, but today, many use cryptocurrency on a regular basis, and perhaps even more than one type. The most notable option up to this point has been Bitcoin, which has great support the world over (as far as cryptocurrency goes), but catching up fast is Ethereum, which we've wrote about a few times in recent weeks (and even put to a performance test for transaction processing chores). Because of how out-of-nowhere cryptocurrency hit us, it would be understandable if you considered it to be a fad, or something that might not last. At this point, though,...
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Late last month, we brought you news of some new graphics cards that are specifically geared towards Ethereum miners. The cryptocurrency mining cards included the MINING RX 470 and MINING P106 from ASUS, which are based on the Radeon RX 460 Polaris and NVIDIA P106 graphics architectures respectively. Biostar is getting into the Ethereum mining mix as well with a new card, the RX 470D. Rather than retaining the full 2048 stream processors that would typically complement an RX 470-based GPU, the RX 470D has just 1792 stream processors with a core clock of 1200 MHz. This will likely limit mining performance, but it should help cut down on power consumption and [hopefully] pricing. On the other hand,...
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Cryptocurrency like Bitcoin and Ethereum are big business these days. While Bitcoin has received the lion’s share of the attention since its introduction in 2009, Ethereum is poised to overtake it in market cap in the near term. With all of the momentum in the cryptocurrency mining market — and the hardware that helps make it possible — it should come as no surprise that nefarious parties are looking to take advantage of unsuspecting users. Unfortunately, these bad actors are making use of the NSA’s leaked DoublePulsar trojan which is a particularly nasty piece of malware. It all starts with Trojan.DownLoader24.64313, which is downloaded to a computer via a backdoor provided by DoublePulsar....
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The so-called cryptocurrency market is booming, or at least parts of it are. One of the most popular digital currencies is Bitcoin. It recently topped the $3,000 mark for the first time since its debut in 2009, and had you owned just $27 worth at that time, you'd be sitting on $15,000,000. While volatile, the price just keeps going up over time. This has kept the mining market alive, and NVIDIA reportedly plans to capitalize on it by releasing specialized Pascal cards tuned specifically for digging up crytocurrencies. News of NVIDIA's plans can be found all over the web, though most reports trace back to a couple of sources. One is a tech site called Goldfries that claims it received word that...
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