reward - Pwim.Net

Can We Expect a Bitcoin Bull Run Amid the Upcoming Bitcoin Halving and Coronavirus Pandemic?

The next Bitcoin halving is expected to take place in May 2020. Each time Bitcoin halving takes place, the number of Bitcoins entering circulation every 10 minutes, also known as block rewards, will fall to half, to 6.25 from 12.5 in May. As the amount of supply of the crypto is decreasing, the demand most likely will stay the same, but possibly lead to an increase in Bitcoin’s price. Experts believe that there will be less Bitcoin available in the market if the miners will be selling less of the cryptocurrency.

Around every four years, and in precisely 210,000 blocks, the total number of Bitcoin that miners are rewarded with is halved. Blocks are produced by miners who use extensive electronic equipment to earn and mine Bitcoin. The process is expected to end with a total of 21 million Bitcoins, predicted in the year 2140.

Bitcoin differs from most state-issued currencies such as the US Federal Reserve, which uses securities as a tool to enable to addition or removal of dollars from its circulation if the economy is under duress. The supply schedule for Bitcoin has been locked in from the beginning, and Bitcoin’s monetary policy has been written into code and distributed through the network. With its fixed supply and predictable inflation schedule, its predetermined number enables Bitcoins to be made scarce, although its utility will ultimately depend on its market value.

What can we expect from the coronavirus pandemic-induced market crash?

Central banks and governments around the world have released trillions of dollars in aid to combat the economic impacts of the coronavirus into the financial system.

Some experts believe that the COVID-19 market crash has reduced the risk of a halving price dump and could lead to a Bitcoin bull run. Chainalysis hosted an online panel with a group of industry experts to discuss the possible impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on Bitcoin and what lies ahead.

Head of Research at CoinShares, Chris Bendikson, believes that Bitcoin’s price crash in March acted as preparation for miners in light of the Bitcoin halving event. With the price crash, the sudden impact on profitability would be reduced. However, the periodic decrease in mining rewards will eventually become an issue, as miners need to get paid to run those electronic equipment to be able to mine cryptocurrency. Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous person or persons who developed Bitcoin, wrote, “In a few decades when the reward gets too small, the transaction fee will become the main compensation for nodes. I’m sure that in 20 years, there will be either be very large transaction volume or no volume.”

Bitcoin Cash and BSV halving considered to be a non-event

Bitcoin Cash, the cryptocurrency that forked from the Bitcoin blockchain in 2017, had its first programmable halving on April 8. Bitcoin Cash’s rewards were halved, which had a tremendous impact on miners’ gross revenues, as the mining difficulty and hash rate were already on a downward trend up to the halving.

Roger Ver previously said, “The last two times, basically nothing happened at all. It was a non-event; it wasn’t exciting at all, and that’s my prediction for what’s going to happen this time as well. Bitcoin SV’s halving is expected this Friday, April 10.

Bitfinex Launches $400 Million Bounty Hunt for 2016 Hackers Who Stole $1.3 Billion in BTC

Bitfinex has launched a 400 million dollar bounty hunt in search of the hackers responsible for the theft of nearly 120,000 Bitcoins from the global exchange in 2016.

Bitfinex is offering a 400 million dollar reward to anyone that can lead them to the hackers responsible for the theft of the 120,000 Bitcoins, now valued at over $1.3 billion. The global exchange is also offering a reward to the hackers themselves for the return of the stolen Bitcoin.

According to the Bitfinex blog on Aug 4, the hack that defrauded the exchange of 120,000 Bitcoins in 2016 is a “dark chapter” in the history of the exchange and the bounty reward is evidence of their determination to obtain the stolen Bitcoin. The reward of up to $400 million would equate roughly one-third of the Bitcoin’s value at the time of writing.

Aggregate Bitcoin Bounty Hunt

On August 2, 2016, hackers breached Bitfinex’s security systems. Subsequently, 2,072 unauthorized transactions (representing 119,755 BTC in aggregate) were broadcast on the Bitcoin network, resulting in the loss.

The Bitfinex Bitcoin bounty reward can be paid out to informants and hackers returning the stolen cryptocurrency in aggregate.

According to the blog post:

“Those who put Bitfinex in contact with the hacker will receive 5% of the total property recovered (or equivalent funds or assets at current market values), and the hackers will receive 25% of the total property recovered (or equivalent funds or assets at current market values). Any payments made to those connecting Bitfinex with the hackers and the hackers themselves will be classified as costs of recovery of the stolen property.”

Through the aggregate rewards recovery program, the total reward could be worth up to US$400 million at the current BTC price if all bitcoins were to be fully recovered.

“We will reward anyone with information that can put us in direct contact with those responsible for the 2016 security breach at Bitfinex,” said Paolo Ardoino, CTO at Bitfinex. “The hackers will receive a share of the returned property.”

Twitter Hack Demonstrates Danger For Digital Assets

The official post also cited the recent Twitter hack as an example that hacks and cybercrime continue to be a threat for all cryptocurrency and digital asset businesses in the as well as wider technology sphere. No-one in our community can afford to be complacent about the ingenuity of criminal gangs to perpetuate new types of fraud.

“As the recent hack of Twitter demonstrates, the threat posed by maliferous hackers remains,” said Ardoino. “We urge all exchanges, investors, and stakeholders in the space to remain vigilant and to work together to counter the threat that hackers pose to the digital asset industry.”

Since the 2016 Bitfinex hack, the exchange has made security its number one priority and continued to work with law enforcement agents in investigating the security breach. In February 2019, US authorities recovered 27.66270285 bitcoins stolen in the 2016 hack, which were converted to US dollars and paid to RRT (Recovery Right Token) Holders.

Origin Protocol Puts $1 Million Bounty on Hacker As OUSD Stablecoin Loses Stability

Origin Protocol’s issued stable coin the Origin Dollar (OUSD) was hacked earlier this week, resulting in a loss of $7 million. Origin has now announced a $1 million bounty reward for anyone who can bring the hacker responsible for destabilizing its stablecoin to justice.

Following the $7 million dollar hack on Origin Protocol’s OUSD, the stablecoin which should be stable at $1 has fallen to a value of 86 cents.

On Nov.18, Mathew Liu, the co-founder of Origin Protocol, confirmed the incident and said that the cause of the attack was a flash-loan transaction.The attacker used a flash loan and exploited vulnerabilities within OUSD contracts to initiate what is called a “reentrancy attack”, which led to the loss of funds.

According to an update to its official blog, Origin is now offering a reward for the defi protocol’s attacker to be brought justice. Origin Protocol’s co-founder Josh Fraser wrote in the update:

“We are offering a bounty of $1,000,000 USD to anyone that supplies substantial information or evidence leading to the return of customer funds.”

The OUSD stablecoin project hack resulted in a loss of funds worth $7 million in combined Ethereum and DAI stablecoin cryptocurrency, including $1 million deposited by the company employees and founders.

In the update on Nov.19, the article makes an appeal to the hacker’s to keep Origin’s $1 million portion of the money but to consider returning the $6 million in customer funds who may not all be rich.

The update reads:

“If you examine the wallet addresses that held OUSD, you will realize that many of our users are not degens or whales… Keep Origin’s funds, but don’t punish our users, many of whom were new to crypto.”

Origin Protocol said that they have traced the funds and know that the hacker used both renBTC and Tornado Cash (mixers) to wash and move the funds.

Original Protocol is the latest to suffer from flash loan attacks, which have become common in the DeFi sector. Flash loans are a new emerging service within the DeFi landscape that allows users to instantly borrow funds without the need for collaterals to access the loans. However, criminals try to exploit borrowed funds to manipulate the DeFi market – commonly identified as flash loan attacks.