Tag: bch

How to Buy Bitcoin Cash in South Korea: Bitcoin.com and Mecon Cash Will Enable BCH Withdrawals at ATMs

A strategic partnership between Bitcoin.com and Mecon Cash made it possible for Bitcoin Cash to be added to Mecon Cash’s M.Pay platform which has over 13,000 ATMs in South Korea, thereby making the withdrawal of BCH to South Korea nationals easy especially in places that are yet to integrate peer-to-peer electronic cash transactions.

Bitcoin.com Executive Chairman, Roger Ver explained in a statement saying, “Mecon Cash is enabling Bitcoin Cash to be used at 13,700 ATM locations across Korea. Bitcoin.com is proud to be working with Mecon to help bring Bitcoin Cash and Mecon Cash to Korea and the world.” Bitcoin.com’s mission to bring economic freedom to the world and thus, it keeps supporting and promoting the global adoption of BCH as P2P electronic money.

The service being provided by this collaboration is meant to serve crypto holders who are in need of quick cash. It is also meant to help people who transfer more than $6 billion in remittances to Korea from other countries on a yearly basis.

This partnership will also increase Bitcoin Cash adoption as Mecon Cash also has other services other than payment options. Mecon Cash operates an e-commerce platform that allows users to buy a wide range of products, known as the Mecon Mall. It also has mobile games that make use of  M.Pay for rewards.

Jo Jae Do, Chairman of Mecon Cash stated, “Through our partnership with Bitcoin.com, we will grow the presence of Bitcoin Cash throughout the Korean market starting with the ATM withdrawal services. We have huge applications coming up where the close collaboration between Mecon Cash and Bitcoin.com will see positive synergies in the upcoming future not only in the Korean market but also in the global market.”

Image via Shutterstock

Tether's Blockchain Ecosystem Continues to Grow with USDT Launch on Bitcoin Cash Network

Tether’s USDT token, the world’s largest stablecoin by marketcap, has launched on the Bitcoin Cash network.

As the Coronavirus disruption has taken hold of the markets, it appears that people are not turning to either Bitcoin or Gold in the face of the crisis but cold hard cash and their digital alternatives. Tether in particular has seen a surge of interest and its stablecoin, USDT, currently has a market cap of over $5.7 billion and over $180 million in new tokens have been created over the last few days.

USDT is available on the Bitcoin Cash network via the Simple Ledger Protocol (SLP) which is BCH’s token conceptually similar to Etheruem’s ERC20. USDT is also available on Algorand, EOS, Tron, Omni and the Liquid Network.

The SLP protocol allows anyone to create tokens on the Bitcoin Cash network in a permissionless way. The majority of Tether token run on Ethereum and a moving a significant proportion to the Bitcoin Cash network , which has larger blocks and lower fees than bitcoin itself, may help reduce demand on the Ethereum network and lower gas fees.

“A key strength of Tether is that it is underpinned by a rich diversity of different blockchains,” said Paolo Ardoino, CTO at Tether. “Our latest collaboration with Bitcoin Cash will provide Tether with a variety of benefits. We expect the adoption after launch to be pretty easy for any integrator. The launch will also support more applications on the Bitcoin Cash chain, with Tether facilitating payment for these applications.”

Bitcoin Cash Wallet Upgrade

Bitcoin Cash’s Bitcoin,com recent wallet upgrade supports its users in accessing SLP tokens and now USDT as well.

“It’s extremely exciting to hear that the world’s biggest stablecoin will be using the Bitcoin Cash Blockchain and that the millions of Bitcoin.com wallet holders will be able to send and receive Tether using SLP tokens,” said Roger Ver, Executive Chairman of Bitcoin.com.

With built-in token management support, users can send, receive, and store a variety of tokens that represent anything from dollar-pegged stablecoins to virtual gaming assets and company loyalty points, with the private keys held only by the user.

USDT hosted by different platforms

Tether has emerged as a behemoth in the stablecoin arena as it is the most utilized by traders on market capitalization and has existing partnerships with other platforms, such as Tron, Omni, EOS, Ethereum, and the Liquid Network.

Prior to the Bitcoin Cash announcement, Algorand became the latest platform to host USDT, and its users will be able to access it using high scalability and speed. For instance, it has been revealed that Tether’s presence on Algorand will see block confirmation undertaken in less than four seconds, and transaction fees will be a fraction of a cent, which optimizes blockchain opportunities for micropayments.

Tether’s  CTO, Paolo Ardoino, acknowledged, “Our collaboration with Algorand leverages the speed and security of Algorand’s protocol to give traders fast settlement and reduced counterparty risk in their fiat to digital asset transactions. Tether and Algorand both share a desire to keep building next-generation financial products, and we feel our growing customer base will appreciate and benefit greatly from this collaboration.”

Image via Shutterstock

Hong Kong Vending Machines Accept Bitcoin Cash not Bitcoin Boasts Roger Ver

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) advocate Roger Ver recently took to Twitter to share a video of a Hong Kong vending machine which accepts BCH and Ether as payment options but not Bitcoin.

In the video, Ver pointed to Bitcoin’s high fees and congested network as the reason it was likely omitted from the payment options. However, YouTube Bitcoin influencer Tone Vays and trader Willy Woo responded tweeting that it’s more likely Ver paid for Bitcoin’s exclusion.  

Roger Ver posted the video above of the Hong Kong vending machine transacting a BCH payment. He explained, “You’ll notice there’s Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Binance Coin and some other ones, but there is no Bitcoin at all because it’s been broken.”

Ver’s Beef With Bitcoin

Ver has been outspoken on the topic of fees and network speeds in Bitcoin and believes Bitcoin Cash to be a purer version of Satoshi Nakamoto’s original vision of the cryptocurrency. He has also very adamantly disapproved of the efforts of those seeking to solve Bitcoin’s scaling issue by other means than larger blocks on the Bitcoin blockchain—which developers of the Lightning and Liquid Networks have called a dead end.

Ver’s frustrations at the advocates of the Lightning Network—Bitcoin’s most notable scaling solution—came to the forefront at Deconomy 2018 during his famous Bitcoin scaling debate with Blockstream’s Samson Mow. Ver’s main arguement is that Bitcoin is not close enough to a practical digital cash and should be a payment system on its own, while Mow argues that Bitcoin is actually meant to be a settlement system to build scalable payment solutions upon. 

Tone Vays and Willy Woo Suspiscious of Roger Ver

One of the most popular traders in crypto and YouTube influencer, Tone Vays was not impressed by the video and suspects Ver may have paid for the Hong Kong vending machine to prefer BCH over BTC. Vays also questioned whether the Hong Kong vending machine had ever transacted in BCH since the demonstrative video.

Another popular crypto trader, Willy Woo admitted that his first inclination was to agree with Vays’ assessment. Woo claimed it was common for “lower tier altcoins to pay to get access to ATMS” and thinks the video raises red flags on centralization of the crypto space.

— Tone Vays – TheFinancialSummit.com (@ToneVays) May 30, 2020

Ver has reportedly denied any involvement with the Hong Kong vending machines choosing Bitcoin Cash over Bitcoin. 

Bitcoin Cash Network Upgrade Will Continue as Planned Despite Tensions Within the BCH Community

The Bitcoin Cash (BCH) network’s planned upgrade has been scheduled for November 15, 2020, which includes improvements to the Bitcoin ABC node software.

According to Amaury Séchet, the lead developer of Bitcoin Cash (BCH), the upgrade in November will involve two primary improvements to the Bitcoin ABC full node software implementation.

The Bitcoin ABC network will be implementing the aserti3-2d (ASERT) algorithm proposed by Jonathan Toomin and Mark Lundeberg, which is also supported by a number of Bitcoin Cash full node implementations. 

The second improvement mentioned by Séchet is the inclusion of the new Coinbase Rule. The Coinbase Rule improvement means that newly mined blocks will definitely contain an output assigning 8 percent of the newly mined coins to a specific address.

The November upgrade will witness Bitcoin ABC’s addition of a Coinbase Rule, which “fully aligns the incentives of Bitcoin ABC with the sustainability and security of the network.” according to the lead developer.

“The addition of this new rule represents a significant step. This step is not being taken lightly. Less significant alternatives have been attempted for years,” wrote Séchet. “Node implementations, as a result of those alternatives, have developed a financial reliance on powerful interests such as mining corporations, venture capital funds, and angel investors.”

Séchet concluded that although some users in the crypto community may not prefer this new Bitcoin ABC implementation. However, Séchet added that the decision has been made and the November upgrade will continue as planned.

Bitcoin Cash recent tensions—another split?

Chris Pacia, the lead developer of the peer-to-peer marketplace OpenBazaar and BCH developer tweeted on Aug. 4 that a meeting consensus was not reached over whether to make adjustments to the network’s difficulty algorithm.

A difficulty algorithm adjustment (DAA) is an algorithm that adjusts the mining difficult parameter. Bitcoin (BTC) has the adjustment of the mining difficulty parameter every 2016 blocks.

Vitalik Buterin responded to the tweet saying that Bitcoin Cash people “care so much” and that its algorithm is fine as is.

The Bitcoin Cash community plans for an upgrade every six months, and users are concerned about another chain split.

The crypto community has reported that there have been growing tensions over the difficulty algorithm—which may lead to another Bitcoin Cash split.

Chainlink Flippens Bitcoin Cash by Market Cap, DeFi Push May Take LINK Price Even Higher

Despite a slight correction seen in the last few days, Chainlink (LINK) has continued to rally higher, reaching another new all-time-high, almost reaching $17.

Chainlink has set a new all-time high, the third time in less than two months, reaching $16.98 on Binance. LINK has surpassed Bitcoin Cash (BCH) by market capitalization and claimed the number 5 spot on CoinGecko. 

Cane Island Digital Research previously analyzed LINK and predicted that the cryptocurrency would reach $8 by December 2020, and LINK has already exceeded this expectation. According to crypto analytics company Santiment, Chainlink has reached a record high in active addresses, over 15,600. 

Investment analyst Timothy Peterson previously predicted the Bitcoin Cash flippening, back in mid-July, before Chainlink showed promising gains. He said that LINK would eventually be worth the combined value of Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV (BSV) in terms of market capitalization. He tweeted:

“#ChainLink is a young & promising iteration of Blockchain 3.0 with practical application to nearly every industry on the globe. $BCH and $BSV are cult-of-personality based Blockchain 1.0 that will by washed away by digital fiat. $LINK mktcap should be worth twice these combined.”

Will LINK edge out Tether and XRP?

The decentralized finance (DeFi) space has seen massive growth this year, which could be due to the reasons the demand for oracles, including Chainlink and Band Protocol have spiked. In June, the total value of locked in DeFi protocols have surged by four-fold.

At this rate of injection of capital and steady double-digit gains, Chainlink could be gunning for Tether or even Ripple (XRP)’s spot in terms of market capitalization. However, for LINK to have a chance to flippen Tether at its current market cap at $10.06 billion, Chainlink must be valued at around $28.9. To overtake XRP, Chainlink would need to be valued at $36.53 at Ripple’s current market cap of $12.84 billion. 

Peterson said that Chainlink could be valued at $32 by the end of 2020, but prices above $32 might not be sustainable. He added:

“Did some quick analysis of Chainlink’s network growth rate and historical deviations in price put LINK at $32 by the end of the year, but that price would not be sustainable. Investors who buy at high levels risk losing 50% of their investment or more. Most growth priced in already.”

Grayscale Investments Opens Trading for Grayscale Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin Trusts

Grayscale Investments, the world’s largest digital currency asset manager has opened public trading for two prominent altcoins, the Grayscale Trust for Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin.

Grayscale Investments has announced eligible Shares of Grayscale Bitcoin Cash Trust will be available to trade on OTC Markets under the symbol: BCHG and eligible Shares of Grayscale Litecoin Trust will be available to trade on OTC Markets under the symbol: LTCN.

The institutional-grade digital asset investment firm Grayscale, has launched these public altcoin offering after receiving the approval of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) back in July.

The BCHG and LTCN trusts are not registered with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) but allow mainstream investors exposure to cryptocurrency assets without having to buy and store the tokens themselves.

Institutional Interest in Crypto Investments Skyrockets

Grayscale investments company has been at the forefront of providing a means of investing in cryptocurrency without having to actually hold the digital assets. This service has gained lots of popularity among traditional investors who want to bypass volatility in the crypto space.

The Trusts have offered private placements to accredited investors since March 2018. As of July 31, 2020, there were 2,500,800 Shares outstanding of LTCN and each Share represented ownership of 0.09413112 Litecoin. Shares created through each Trust’s respective private placement become eligible to sell into the public market after a statutory one-year holding period under Rule 144 of the Securities Act.

All investors with access to US securities will be able to buy and sell freely-tradable shares of BCHG and LTCN through their investment accounts in the same manner as they would other unregistered securities.

There is currently $16.8 million worth of BCH under management in the Bitcoin Cash Trust and $13.5 million in Grayscale’s Litecoin Trust. The New York-based Grayscale will take a 2.5% cut of the trust each year—this means that the amount of Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin held in its trust will decrease over time.

Grayscale has been providing several cryptocurrency products for OTC trading, and the latest being shares of the company’s Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash Trusts for trading on OTC markets. Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash are now the company’s sixth and fifth publicly-traded cryptocurrency products.

In the recent past, the company obtained approval to offer shares for Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum Classic (ETC), and Ethereum (ETH). Zcash (ZEC), Stellar Lumens (XLM), Horizen (ZEN), and XLM are also offered for trading via a trust at the company. These are the largest coins by marketcap on the market, except for Chainlink which recently surged into fifth position.

Chainlink (LINK) to Expect a Bullish Trend Reversal After Recent Crash? Price Predictions are Mixed

Chainlink has had its year in 2020, reaching multiple all-time highs before slumping back to the mid $15 levels this week. Plunging 20 percent from its all-time-high in 2020, analysts have mixed feelings about the future of Chainlink.

At press time, LINK is trading at $15.20 and has been trading sideways. Chainlink has remained on the Top 10 list of cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, however, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is now back on top. LINK previously flippened Bitcoin Cash by market cap, taking the fifth place according to CoinMarketCap, but has since dropped back to sixth place.

Given LINK’s latest bearish trend, analyst Nicholas Merten predicted that LINK will continue this downtrend. He recommended to LINK investors that they should start taking profits, before LINK gets a potential pullback. He explained in a new episode of DataDash:

“Again, I’ve emphasized the point here that as much as I don’t want to fight the trend here – I’m not trying to short this – if you hold some LINK, I wouldn’t say to just sell it all or anything like that, but start raising a stop in this case on some of your position. Take a partial share. Consider here that we might start to get a little bit of a pullback here.”

Merten added that LINK whales may start liquidating their positions to make profits. Chainlink’s recent price plunge was said to be due to LINK’s developers selling tokens, as the developers have been moving 500,000 LINK every week. 

On the other hand, on-chain data showed that this trend could just be normal market movement, with investors trying to make a profit after the massive bull runs in the past few weeks. This could mean LINK whales are moving out of the network.

Positive price predictions for Chainlink

Chainlink has seen an increase in volatility in the past weeks and has influenced the market from mainstream media attention to Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy. Although analyst Merten believes that there is an inevitable bearish drop to come, many still believe Chainlink still has the strength for a bull run.

On-chain data showed that Chainlink’s slump will be followed by a bullish trend reversal, according to blockchain analytics firm Santiment. Santiment wrote:

“Coinciding with the bottom of LINK’s rare major 16% drop (which many are referencing as THE dip buy opportunity), the largest token age consumed spike in 3 months occurred ~7 hours ago. Price is volatile, as is the corresponding result of these spikes.”

Others in the LINK community believe that LINK whales have increased their balances, and will continue to purchase more LINK. The recent correction only acted as a buying opportunity, according to LINK marines, and some expect a bullish signal after the recent crash.

Journey to New Highs: Why XRP, LTC, and BCH Are Still Left Behind

The ongoing bull run which seems to have been spurred since the end of 2020 has benefitted hundreds of cryptocurrencies.

A bull run is a period of time when the price of a particular cryptocurrency increases, owing to a massive buy-up or other factors.

Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) are among the flagship beneficiaries of the current bull run of the global cryptocurrency market, with numerous altcoins surging higher thanks to their momentum. From a low of about $5,000 following the global market crash back in March 2020, Bitcoin has risen more than ten-fold to a recent all-time high (ATH) above $52,000.

Despite the ongoing price rallies, however, XRP, Litecoin (LTC), and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) are clearly not riding the tides as they should. Each of these altcoins recorded its all-time high in price more than 3 years ago, and current price movements do not suggest the possibility of retesting this milestone anytime soon.

The underperformance of these coins has led to other relatively new coins outranking them, with Binance Coin (BNB), Polkadot (DOT), and Chainlink (LINK) outperforming them. A little analysis below shows the events around XRP, LTC, and BCH that have kept them below their highly coveted all-time highs.

XRP

XRP was once a well-celebrated cryptocurrency, renowned as the third-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. It has long been unseated by the stablecoin Tether (USDT), and much recently, by Binance Coin (BNB), who took USDT’s spot.

XRP cryptocurrency was unable to take advantage of this bull cycle owing to a lawsuit filed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against Ripple and its executives. Through the lawsuit, some exchanges including Coinbase have halted the trade of the cryptocurrency, further straining XRP’s ambitions to soar to new price levels.

XRP is 86% below its all-time high price of $3.84 set three years ago on January 4, 2018. Many long-term HODLers are hoping for a favourable court hearing for Ripple as lawyers believe the SEC argument against Ripple for XRP is flawed.

Litecoin (LTC)

Litecoin’s ambition to retest its all-time high (ATH) price of $375.29 set back in December 2017, has been dragged down by stiff competition in the advent of alternative cryptocurrency options. Litecoin’s appeal was once higher, as its market capitalization increased to displace XRP as the fourth-largest cryptocurrency at the beginning of the year. This push was however short-lived.

The cryptocurrency is now comfortably sitting in the 8th position and is a little over 38% from beating its all-time price record. When might this happen?

Bitcoin Cash (BCH)

Bitcoin Cash was created as a hard-fork of Bitcoin, making an entry into the crypto space as a faster and more scalable cryptocurrency network. Despite the attempts to shill the coin by Roger Ver and other promoters on Twitter, BCH is still undervalued, at least compared to its past price records.

Having traded at an ATH of $4,355.62 back in December 2017, the cryptocurrency is clearly not taking the right advantage of this ongoing bull run. Nonetheless, the coin has surged over 35% in the past week to trade at $721 at the time of writing according to CoinMarketCap.

Google Finance Pushes Crypto Further into Mainstream with Bitcoin, ETH, LTC Tabs

Crypto prices may be falling but mainstream interest is certainly rising as tech giant Google adds a dedicated “Crypto” tab to monitor Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash on Google Finance.

Google Finance has added crypto prices to its finance.google.com domain with a prominently featured tab entitled “Crypto”—allowing mainstream investors to monitor the market with ease. The tab is featured alongside traditional currency and stock markets and is a bullish sign for the health of the nascent digital asset category.

The section appears in the “Compare Markets” section and provides key pricing information for major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH).

The move should give the cryptocurrency market users some confidence in the staying power of the nascent digital asset space, particularly as YouTube—also owned by Google’s parent, Alphabet—has consistently censored educational and news content on the space.

Google Finance’s addition of the “Crypto” tabs is following a recent slight downturn in the cryptocurrency market but overall space has attracted mainstream attention over the past year, as institutional investors and corporations have started to invest in the asset class—allowed the overall market cap to exceed $1.7 trillion in February before the pullback. Currently, the global crypto market cap is sitting around $1.4 trillion.

The update also comes as Coinbase, the most popular and largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States gets closer to being listed on the NASDAQ as a publicly-traded company.

Paypal's Crypto Services to Land in UK this week

Digital payment giant Paypal said on Sunday, August 22, that the platform would officially launch its cryptocurrency service in the UK this week.

This is the first expansion of this service in other countries after its launch in the US in November last year, an important milestone for Paypal to enter the cryptocurrency service.

In November 2020, PayPal announced that all US users would be able to buy bitcoins and three other cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ethereum (ETH), or Litecoin(LTC), directly through their PayPal digital wallet.

The U.S. online payment giant stated that it would support British customers to buy, hold and sell digital currencies this week.

Customers can enjoy trading service by conducting four cryptocurrency transactions of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, or Litecoin at prices as low as 1 pound. Currently, it is only available for verified UK users and does not support PayPal-related corporate accounts.

Jose Fernandez da Ponte, the general manager of PayPal’s blockchain, encryption, and digital currency, stated that PayPal expects encryption services to perform very well in the UK and added:

“Our global reach, digital payments expertise, and knowledge of consumer and businesses, combined with rigorous security and compliance controls provides us the unique opportunity, and the responsibility, to help people in the U.K. to explore cryptocurrency.”

As early as the end of July, Paypal had revealed its cryptocurrency service expansion to the UK. As reported by blockchain.News on July 30, PayPal Global payment provider PayPal Holdings Inc. announced the company was planning to develop the next market in The United Kingdom to provide its crypto trading services.

Da Ponte said that:

“We definitely have ambitions to continue to expand the product range in the U.S., the U.K., and other markets,”

In addition, PayPal has also integrated cryptocurrency services into its popular mobile wallet Venmo. Paypal‘s Venmo mobile payment service announced on Tuesday, August 10, that it had launched a credit card feature that allows users to convert their cash-back rewards into Bitcoin and other crypto-assets.

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