One of the biggest challenges Bitcoin faces is scalability. Transactions can be slow and costly, making mainchain settlement less efficient for everyday transactional use. Enter the Lightning Network, an innovative solution that has the potential to make Bitcoin unstoppable. In the latest episode of Bitcoin Backstage, we explore the concept behind the Lightning Network, its role in Bitcoin’s growth, the involvement of David Marcus with LightSpark, and the unstoppable nature of Bitcoin itself. Understanding the Lightning Network Before we delve into the incredible impact the Lightning Network has had on…
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Strategic Competition and Digital Currencies: Insights from Daniel Flatley, Sarah Kreps, Chris Meserole, and Matthew Pines
In the world of finance, Bitcoin has emerged as a game-changer. This novel virtual form of money has the potential to revolutionize the global economy and transform the way the world conducts transactions. However, as with any disruptive innovation, the intersection of strategic competition and digital currencies raises crucial questions and challenges. To shed light on this complex landscape, we turn to the insights of leading experts: Daniel Flatley, Sarah Kreps, Chris Meserole, and Matthew Pines. Understanding the Intersection of Strategic Competition and Digital Currencies The central question that arises…
Read MoreDigital Asset Infrastructure as a Success Factor for Financial Institutions
Andy Flury is founder and CEO of Wyden, a company providing institutional trading technology for digital assets. Over the past nine months, Bitcoin has seen a surge of around 50 percent. Blackrock, the world’s largest asset manager, has applied for a BTC ETF. And Germany’s largest credit institution, Deutsche Bank, is currently in the approval process for a crypto custody license. Added to this is MiCA and thus increased regulatory security for institutional investors. All this leads to institutional adoption being at a significant threshold – which makes the decision…
Read MoreBitcoin Optimism Rising in Developing World Despite Price Declines: Block Survey
Digital transformation is rapidly shaping the global financial landscape, and bitcoin, the pioneering decentralized cryptocurrency, stands tall as a symbol of this revolution. While bitcoin’s global popularity is undeniable, there’s an emerging trend spotlighted in a recent survey conducted by Jack Dorsey‘s Block, Inc., in conjunction with Wakefield Research: developing nations are displaying a burgeoning optimism around bitcoin. The survey, covering 15 nations and garnering insights from 6,600 individuals, offers an intriguing snapshot of how bitcoin perceptions are evolving. Between 2022 and 2023, bitcoin underwent substantial price fluctuations. However, instead…
Read MoreFinalists for $1 Million in Seed Funding by Samara Bitcoin Magazine PRO, Announced
Three finalists have been selected for the Bitcoin Alpha Competition, a crowd-sourced campaign to find the next top Bitcoin fund manager. The manager with the most promising approach for generating alpha in the bitcoin market will be awarded $1 million USD in seed capital and announced on the Main Stage of the Bitcoin Amsterdam Conference on Friday, October 13th by Samara Alpha Management. Samara Alpha Management and Bitcoin Magazine PRO reviewed more than 150 applications from traditional finance and digital asset fund managers, and have selected the following finalists: Andrey…
Read MoreWhitney Webb: Bitcoin And The Plot To Destroy Financial Privacy
This article is featured in Bitcoin Magazine’s “The Withdrawal Issue”. Click here to subscribe now. A PDF pamphlet of this article is available for download. Late last month, a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators introduced the Financial Technology Protection Act, which would “create a working group tasked with studying how terrorists or other criminals might use cryptocurrencies and other new financial technologies, and create proposals for Congress and regulatory agencies aimed at countering these uses”. This working group “would be composed of representatives from the U.S. Treasury Department, Financial Crimes…
Read MoreYou’ll Activate The Covenants And You’ll Like It
Shinobi’s Strawman is a weekly series where our Technical Editor Shinobi challenges the Bitcoin community, aiming to stir up conversation around heated technical debates. ______________________________________________________________ It’s been two years since the last upgrade to Bitcoin, Taproot, activated and went live on the network. Since then there has been a proliferation of proposed changes for the next upgrade to the protocol, and they seem to keep piling up faster than people can keep up with. These proposals mostly fall into a single category of change: covenants. The basic purpose of a…
Read MoreNBA Champion and Former LeBron James Teammate Now Working in Bitcoin
Today, Bitcoin only exchange, Swan Bitcoin, welcomed NBA Champion Matthew Dellavedova to its team as Vice President of Business Development, according to a press release sent to Bitcoin Magazine. Dellavedova is most well known for his illustrious professional basketball career and achievements in the NBA, including an NBA Championship in 2016 with the Cleveland Cavaliers and an Olympic bronze with the Australian national team in 2020. Dellavedova, who has been actively involved in start-up investing and advisory roles since 2017, is now turning his attention to the Bitcoin industry. “I’m…
Read MoreThe Great Inscription Renumbering Debate: The Code & The Culture
These days we often wax eloquent about the “early days of Bitcoin” and the great visionaries who participated in the discussions on protocol development. However we often forget that the cypherpunks of olde were human too — that early oversights & unresolved disagreements resulted in cumbersome idiosyncrasies that define our sacred blockchain today. If you weren’t around in 2009 and want to get a taste of what it was like back then, come join the discussion in Ordinals land. We’re speedrunning Bitcoin Consensus. What is the debate about? Ordinal Theory…
Read MoreThe Future Of Energy: Bitcoin Mining
“Time-series analysis (Stern, 1993, 2000) shows that energy is needed in addition to capital and labor to explain the growth of GDP. But mainstream economics research has tended to downplay the importance of energy in economic growth. The principal models used to explain the growth process (e.g. Aghion and Howitt, 2009) do not include energy as a factor of production.” – The Role of Energy in the Industrial Revolution and Modern Economic Growth, Stern and Kander (2012) If energy is so important to any and every economy, why is it…
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