Items tagged with cryptocurrency
When it comes to cryptocurrency exchanges, most of the news that we hear is regards to the latest hack attempt, where poor souls lose millions of dollars (usually never to be seen again). This Wild Wild West atmosphere in the cryptocurrency market has led many to doubt the sustainability of investing in Ethereum and Bitcoin. However, Coinbase is doing its best to help legitimize its cryptocurrency exchange in the eyes of investors with the hiring of veteran finance exec Jeff Horowitz. Horowitz served as the managing director and global head of compliance for Bank of New York...
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The ups and downs of the cryptocurrency market have meant that it's been a wild year for PC gamers. Cryptocurrency miners rushed out to purchases hordes of NVIDIA and AMD GPUs, which drove up the prices for people that just wanted to play Doom in 4K without having to pay an arm and a leg for a graphics card. Luckily, graphics cards prices are starting to fall back to normalcy as the cryptocurrency craze wanes, and the latest deal to come as a result is on the MSI Gaming Radeon RX 580 8G V1. Amazon has the card on sale for $259.99 with free two-day shipping for Amazon...
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To the delight of anyone who's been eying a new graphics card for a while, there seems to be a definitive end in sight to the price-gouging supply/demand effect in the GPU market. In recent months, mining has seemingly died down quite a bit, as a result of cryptocurrency values likewise taking a major turn for the worse. Currently, crypto values are low enough that for the vast majority of people, mining is much less lucrative than it was even just a few months ago, with the most ardent miners continuing along in hopes that the value of their coins of choice increase over time. Some of those miners...
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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...
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If you're a developer thinking of a way to slip a cryptocurrency mining app into the iOS App Store to make a quick buck, Apple is putting stop to that. The company has updated its developer guideline to explicitly ban cryptocurrency mining on the iPhone and the iPad. The updated rules can be found in Apple's App Store Review Guidelines under the "Hardware Compatibility" heading. Apple clearly states that power efficiency should be a clear goal for developers, given the battery constraints of a portable device like an iPad or iPhone (but especially the iPhone). "Apps should not rapidly...
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Things aren't exactly rosy in the cryptocurrency world; particularly when it comes to Bitcoin. Over the weekend, South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Coinrail confirmed that it had been hacked. The site says that it was the victim of a "cyber intrusion" and that roughly 30 percent of the coins trades on the exchange were stolen. Coinrail said the remaining 70 percent of coins were safeguarded and have been moved to a "cold wallet". At this moment, it is believed that hackers got away with 40 billion won in Bitcoin, which amounts to $37.2 million. Not surprisingly, this latest hack sent the...
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Cryptocurrency mining appears to be evening out somewhat with regards to demand on hardware, which has thankfully resulted in GPU prices heading closer towards normalcy. However, for those that are still committed to build kickass rigs to mine for cryptocurrencies, ASUS is launching the new H370 Mining Master motherboard, which is based (obviously) on Intel's H370 Coffee Lake chipset. The LGA 1151 motherboards supports 8th generation Intel Core, Pentium and Celeron processors, and includes two DIMM slots for a maximum of 32GB DDR4-2666 memory. You'll find a single PCIe x16 slot,...
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One of the biggest criticisms of cryptocurrency, and Bitcoin in particular, is the highly volatile nature of digital coins. However, that's for investors and miners to worry about. A larger concern that is starting to draw increased attention is the power usage that comes from mining cryptocurrencies on a large scale. Over in Washington, where power is relatively cheap compared to other parts of the country, there's a twofold concern—that power bills will go, and that electric utilities will not be able to keep up with demand. These are not new concerns. It was reported earlier this month...
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If the current political climate has you wanting to pack your bags and get off the grid, you might be interested in what is to become the world's first independent floating nation. Called the Floating Island Project, this independent nation will consist of around 300 homes built on the island, along with a spattering of hotels, restaurants, an airport, and more, and will run under its own government using a cryptocurrency called Varyon. The concept has drawn the attention of philanthropists, academics, and various investors. It will cost up to $50 million and is being funded in large part by PayPal...
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It's no secret that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum have their loyal followers along with scathing detractors. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett has never been a fan of cryptocurrencies, but he ratcheted up the rhetoric this week by calling Bitcoin "rat poison squared". Buffett helms Berkshire Hathaway and made the comments at the company's 2018 annual shareholder meeting. He went on to further explain his comments to CNBC, stating, “It does create a rising price, creates more buyers ... If you don’t understand it, you get much more excited. People like to speculate,...
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MyEtherWallet confirmed on Twitter that hackers hijacked its Domain Name System (DNS) servers and redirected users to a phishing site in Russia. By obtaining private keys from affected users, the hackers reportedly were able to swipe around 215 Ethereum coins (ETH) worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $150,000. The attack lasted for several hours, and one user in particular lost more than 85 ETH worth almost $60,000. In the Twitter post, MyEtherWallet emphasized that the security breach did not take place on its side of the equation, and that it's currently in the process of verifying exactly...
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Bitmain, a popular manufacturer of ASIC hardware, is now taking pre-orders for a new model that could potentially (and finally) reduce the demand on graphics cards for cryptocurrency mining. Called the Antminer E3, the new Ethash ASIC is purpose built for mining Ethereum, the second biggest form of cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, and other cryptos based on the Ethash / Dagger-Hashimoto algorithm. Image Source: Bitmain ASICs (application-specific integrated circuit) are customized for a specific use and, generally speaking, are more efficient at mining certain types of cryptocurrencies than processors...
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Cryptocurrency mining software has become quite an annoyance in recent months, as many unsavory types have latched on to the software to make a quick buck (at the expense of your computer's resources). Google is attempting to get a firm grasp on the situation before it gets out of hand inside the Chrome Web Store. Until recently, the policy of the Chrome Web Store has been to allow cryptocurrency mining extensions under the condition that this was its sole purpose. The intention was that if they were only mining-specific and that users were properly informed, they would know what they were getting...
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When it comes to cryptocurrency mining, many small- and large-scale outfits have cornered the GPU market, buying up large quantities of current generation AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards. Gamers have especially been hit hard by miners, as even mainstream graphics cards that should be heading towards the bargain bin at this stage in their lifecycle are priced above MSRP. However, it looks as though Intel might have come up with a solution for a way to more efficiently mine for cryptocurrency instead of using hardware that was originally designed for an unrelated task. Intel's patent was filed on September...
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