Items tagged with blockchain
Blockchain technology is beginning to take off, as we saw with the 10-second video that sold for $6.6 million at auction. Simultaneously, trading cards have also taken off in certain markets, but it can be difficult to find cards and packs. Combining both ideas, Ubisoft has partnered with the Belgian Pro League to develop the One Shot League, a blockchain-based fantasy football game. One Shot League will be a free-to-play game “in which players form a 5-player team from a previously selected deck of cards of Jupiler Pro League football players.” Each match day, a new team is selected, hence the “One Shot” name. Besides just playing the football games (soccer in the US),...
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It was a good day for a collector of digital art, who managed to score an insanely rich payday for what amounts to a short 10-second multimedia clip. The digital clip sold for $6.6 million at auction. That works out to $660,000 per second of video and audio, and here is the kicker—the clip is available to anyone with internet access to view for free. So why did it command so much? In a word, blockchain. The video is the creation of digital artist Mike Winkelmann, otherwise known as "Beeple" online. This particular pieced, titled "Crossroads," appears to show former President Donald Trump keeled over with various disparaging remarks tattooed or written on his unclothed boby. It sold as an...
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The cryptocurrency market is full of peaks and valleys but at the moment, it appears that Bitcoin has hit a peak. Bitcoin surged past $11,000 USD for the first time in a year. The value of Bitcoin has jumped by 13% in the last 24 hours. Although the cyrptocurrency’s value dropped slightly once the heat of the excitement wore off, it is currently sitting pretty at roughly $10,600. Other cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum have also hit a ten-month high. Bitcoin reached an all-time high in December 2017 at nearly $20,000. Its value dipped by 74% at the beginning of 2018, thanks to a slew of cryptocurrency regulations. A Bitcoin was only worth roughly $3,100 at the end of December 2018, but...
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Hold onto your wallet. Researchers at ESET have discovered the first known instance of a relatively new strain of cryptocurrency-stealing malware, called a "clipper", on the Google Play Store. They reported their findings to the Play Store's security team on February 1st, who quickly took down the offending application. The attack uses a remarkably simple trick to part users with their digital funds. Cryptocurrency values are assigned to a long, unique string of characters known as a wallet. In order to make a transaction, a sender typically needs to enter the recipient's wallet address in their app. This is similar to how you would put a real-world address on an envelope in order for it to be...
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Facebook might be joining the blockchain party in a potentially big way, by developing its very own cryptocurrency that would enable users to transfer money over WhatsApp, the cross-platform messaging service the company acquired in early 2014 for $19 billion. On the surface, blockchain and WhatsApp seem like a natural fit. The appeal of WhatsApp is that it utilizes end-to-end encryption and is viewed as a secured messaging platform. It's also available to the public at large and boasts over 1.5 billion monthly users, who collectively send 60 billion messages every day, according to data Mark Zuckerberg provided for the fourth quarter of 2017. Those figures are undoubtedly even higher today....
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HTC is accepting pre-orders for a new flagship phone, though there is a caveat. Users can only purchase the Exodus 1, as it's called with cryptocurrencies—specifically either Bitcoin or Ethereum, the two most popular blockchain currencies in existence. It is, for all intents and purposes, a blockchain phone and not a typical Android handset. That would not be evident at first glance of the specs. The Exodus 1 sports a 6-inch HD+ display with an 18:9 aspect ratio, and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor and 6GB of RAM. It also features 128GB of onboard storage, dual 8-megapixel cameras on the front with "natural Bokeh," 12-megapixel and 16-megapixel cameras on the rear, and...
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It was only a few months ago when there was talk of Bitcoin being on a trajectory to perhaps hit $50,000 or even $100,000, which could make late adopters wealthy and early adopters obscenely rich (more so than they have already become). Fast forward to today, however, and the future is as murky as ever. Not that it was ever crystal clear. However, the virtual currency dipped below $6,000 today, it's lowest value since November. The recent drop further underscores the volatility of cryptocurrency, and the overall uncertainty over its future. Proponents of cryptocurrency will say they have heard this a million times before, and that analysts are once again overreacting to a drop in value. And they...
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In the early days of computing, fancy and powerful number crunching devices were incredibly large. Things have evolved since then, and we can now fit what are essentially PCs (smartphones) into our pockets, giving us access to much more powerful machinery in a portable form factor that would have been unheard of several decades ago. But why stop there? At the IBM Think 2018 conference, IBM unveiled the world's smallest computer, a blockchain system that is tinier than a grain of salt. The minuscule PC was born out of IBM Research. Each year the division showcases some of the biggest breakthroughs coming out of the company's labs as part of its annual "5 in 5" technology predictions. These consist...
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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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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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