Updates from the Bitcoin.com Team

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Horizen AMA

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On Tuesday, August 3rd at 17:00 UTC, our Marketing Manager Naomi will be joining a Live AMA with the team at Horizen to talk more about the crypto space, privacy and trading.

If you have any questions for our speakers, please submit them here; the earlier you submit, the better your chances of getting your question answered.

The AMA is taking place in the telegram community of Horizen. Join the Horizen telegram channel and save the date.

We’re looking forward to your questions and participation.

Filed Under: Exchange Tagged With: , ,

Introducing the Callisto Network

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As many recent hacks have made painfully obvious, the (or the lack of) security of smart contracts is still a pressing issue in the world of Blockchain. After Mark Cuban lost thousands in an algorithmic stablecoin protocol promising a very high yield, he cried out for regulation.

Sure, indeed, customer protection in DeFi doesn’t exist as it does in traditional finance, but it’s also on investors to do their own research, and often when something is too good to be true, it’s worth digging a little deeper.

Instead of stifling innovation with regulation, another approach is to increase the security of existing networks and smart contracts. While there are many renowned security auditing firms, most of those are run by centralized teams and charge projects, hiring them at quite a high fee. Therefore, for smaller developers, it’s simply not feasible to upfront such a cost.

Another challenge in the blockchain is scalability. Ethereum Classic, just like its originator chain, is still figuring out how to increase scalability without sacrificing security or decentralization.

Callisto Network aims to solve both challenges with its open-source, decentralized platform. It’s essentially a sidechain that will help scale and introduce the process of cold staking. The platform’s native coin, CLO, if the main purpose is to pay for the blockchain’s gas fees. It also allows investors to earn passive income when placed Cold Staking, and it is planned to give holders voting rights in governance decisions.

Proposed by the leaders of the Ethereum Commonwealth, Callisto was introduced as a way to boost the platform and community growth of the Ethereum Classic blockchain.

Over time Callisto Network evolved to become a project in its own right and is now a reference in smart contract security.

Auditing

As the team believes that security is the true catalyst for the adoption of any technology, they have created Callisto’s Security Department, a team of decentralized auditors, and a trusted audit process.

Everyone can submit an auditing request that a full-time team of smart-contract auditors will then review.

It’s interesting to note that the team relies on real auditors to conduct their audits. In fact, they believe that automated tools and formal verification cannot provide sufficient security for mission-critical systems and DApps.

Since 2018, Callisto Network’s security experts have made numerous contributions to improve, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, EOS and have audited more than 350 smart contracts.

Cold Staking

Cold staking is a feature that encourages users to hold their coins for a longer period of time to enhance the store of the value property of CLO. It’s implemented through solidity smart contracts and enables holders to receive a percentage of mining rewards constantly.

The RoI is dynamic and depends on the amount of CLO engaged in cold staking, but there is no minimum amount for stakers. As real-time on-chain computations are impossible, staking rewards are only calculated when stakers claim them.

Governance

Cold stakers can participate in governance. The treasury governance system will allow community members to manage the distribution of treasury funds. The community will go through various stages to get initiatives funded, including an initial proposal with a request for funding and voting. Each holder has a vote with a weight equal to their cold staking deposits. They can only cast for, against, or abstain.

Callisto is providing much-needed security for the blockchain space. With increasing awareness of security breaches, such networks might just become more important in the future.

CLO is now trading with BTC, ETH, and USDT pairs on our exchange.

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About Pirate Chain and the Importance of Privacy

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Wondering what the team of Piratechain’s been up to in the last few months? So did we, so we got some answers from them. But first, I’d like to give a bit of an intro to why privacy currencies are maybe even more important than ever — considering how much of our lives have moved online over the last year.

Online Tracking

Cookies sound cute and can be a dream for marketers but a nightmare for consumers. Did you know that Google tracks you on 75% of the top million websites, which means that there will be some tracker on any random website you’re on? Facebook doesn’t come close with its 25% but considering that they own WhatsApp and Instagram as well, they potentially have a good idea of us as a person.

Sure, you can take the side that you don’t have anything to hide, but do you really want advertisers to know all about you? Privacy isn’t just about having things to hide but being in control over who gets to know what about yourself. Simply an argument we shouldn’t be making any more in a world where often convenience is picked over privacy.

Incognito? Think again

You thought you’d be protecting your privacy better when using the incognito mode offered by chrome? Sorry to break it to you, but Google was sued earlier this year for at least $ 5 billion because they failed to cease tracking. The name is misleading, which one will realize when reading the text that says, “your activity might still be visible to websites you visit, your employer or school, your internet service provider” — so pretty much everyone.

While incognito mode doesn’t use the existing cookie stories and deletes auto-fill data, it doesn’t change the way websites work nor block invasive tools. So, if you’re really interested in staying private, Chrome is not the browser to use.

The incoming wave of CBDCs

When asked, what world events highlight the necessity of privacy, the PirateChain highlighted the incoming increase of central bank digital currencies. While celebrated by some blockchain advocates as a sign of adoption, the transparency of blockchain, the immutable nature in the hands of a central bank, gives them a way to track citizens transactions reducing financial privacy to non-existent.

With China, a country not known for being tolerant nor very respectful of the right to privacy, questions do arise about the negative use of CBDCs as a tool to keep citizens in check.

And also the Pirate Chain team notes that “The DCEP (China’s digital currency) will only give the Chinese government a stronger grip on their panopticon.”

A CBDC, in fact, plays perfectly into the social scoring system that has citizens downgraded in their score for bad social behaviour. And what’s good social behaviour is ultimately up to the government — not surprisingly, the regime faces constant criticism from human rights activists.

Increasing Acceptance of transparent cryptocurrencies

The Pirate team’s controversial yet valid point is the growing acceptance of transparent digital currencies. One major issue is that many new users still aren’t aware that Bitcoin isn’t anonymous nor protecting their privacy. Hailed as a milestone for Bitcoin adoption, the Bitcoin airdrop El Salvador plans to do raises privacy questions.

If only citizens using the government-issued wallet can receive it, will they have to KYC before receiving their BTC? If so, is it far-fetched to assume this way, the government will be able to tie a citizens Bitcoin address to their person? I doubt that many will start creating various wallets for their daily transactions. When keeping all money in one wallet, they open themselves up to attacks that can risk their personal security.

So, what’s the solution? Private cryptocurrencies like Pirate Chain.

Pirate Chain

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How would you describe Pirate Chain to someone who isn’t familiar with cryptocurrencies?

Pirates: “Pirate Chain is a digital currency designed with the mission to protect financial privacy.

As the closest iteration of cash, Pirate Chain is the best form of digital currency available to date.

Pirate Chain is the first cryptocurrency to implement a mandatory, private-only usage of the strongest and most highly acclaimed privacy protocol in the industry, zk-SNARK (Zero Knowledge-Succinct Non-interactive Argument of Knowledge).

All wallet addresses are by default invisible to the public, as are all transactions. This information is only available to the transacting parties who retain the power to opt-out of privacy by revealing the transaction ID as proof of transaction.

Hence, Pirate Chain turns the privacy industry on its head and returns the power of privacy to users by empowering them with the option to opt out.

Pirate Chain was fairly launched after a public announcement. No coins were pre-mined, and there was no private sale. Pirate Chain staffed by a team of dedicated international volunteers. Unlike most cryptocurrency projects, Pirate Chain does not levy a tax on the mining rewards to fund the project. All efforts have been generously raised through the community.”

Major Updates in the last few months

  • Launch of the world’s first z2z mobile wallet: the first wallet that completely uses shielded transactions. Generally, it is complicated to integrate ZK-snarks shielded transactions into a platform, so many projects chose to combine shielded/transparent addresses. But Pirate Chain is Privacy by default, so; they spared no effort to create a completely private mobile wallet.
  • PiratePay testing release: This merchant gateway makes it easy for merchants to accept payments with $ARRR (the token of Pirate Chain). With improved security, the merchant’s credentials are even protected when compromised. Thanks to the graphical user interface/dashboard, even non-technical merchants will be able to monitor their payments, transaction and conversion rates.
  • Halving: just like Bitcoin Pirate Chain is halving every once in a while. The 4th halving happened on the 2nd of December 2020, and minders saw the mining rewards reduced from 32 to 16 ARRR per block.
  • Treasure Chest Wallet Release: the full node wallet was released to give users a way to manage their ARRR completely anonymously while being part of the network.
  • Changelly Listing: ARRR now trading on the Changelly exchange and Pro platform, enabling instant conversions from other cryptocurrencies to ARRR and vice versa.
  • KuCoin Listing: In the last weeks, Pirate Chain was also added to the trading pairs available on KuCoin.

Tacos

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Anyone following Pirate Chain will come across Tacos sooner or later. So we asked what Tacos have to do with Pirate Chain. Here’s the answer:

Tacos are very nutritious food. Rich in fat and protein they help Pirates stay healthy at sea.

Tacos are also the favourite food of Lucy, Jeff Berwick’s dog, who is a major supporter of Pirate and a recently launched meme.

People are asking us why we are playing with memes when we really are, a very serious project. For me, this is the whole point. The private sector does not have to be always solemn. We can have fun whilst pursuing our freedom and we think that this is needed when fighting against everything the system stands for. Humour is part of life. Tacos are part of life. 🌮🌮🌮

Thoughts on the illicit use of privacy currencies

One of the first concerns by people hearing about private cryptocurrencies and also held by many government officials is that they’ll finance illicit activities.

The stance of the Pirate team is two-fold:

  • As with fire, electricity and nuclear energy, Privacy technology is a tool that can enhance the human experience, or it can be used for harm.
  • Cash is the most private currency globally; the US dollar is the biggest culprit used for illegal activities: 90% of US currency has traces of Cocaine (Source). Everyone has been using private currencies since the invention of money. Stones/coins/paper bills have always been a private transaction between 2 parties. Private digital currency is just an extension of that.

A few words on enhancing financial privacy

The financial privacy that Pirate provides is complete and unassailable.

However, the user’s data connection is an area prone to attack and frequently targeted.

  • Always use a VPN
  • Avoid transparent cryptocurrencies

Last but not least.

How to best get started with ARRR

Big thanks to the Pirate Team for answering our questions and providing some background on the need for privacy in an increasingly transparent world.

Filed Under: Exchange Tagged With: , ,

Trade the Chain -SENT AMA

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On Thursday 8th of July at 14:00 UTC we’re going live with the team behind the SENT Token.

SENT is the native community and utility token of the Trade The Chain community. Trade The Chain was built by professionals with great expertise in financial markets, journalism, media and more. The platform gives trader access to unique market analytics and sentiment analysis to enable better trading decisions.

Join the SENT AMA on Youtube on the Digital Assets News Channel and ask us anything in the chatbox for a chance to win $20 SENT.

Get questions ready and save the date. We’re looking forward to seeing you!

Filed Under: Exchange Tagged With: ,

Bonded Finance AMA

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We’re thrilled to share that we’ll be holding an AMA with the team of Bonded Finance.

On June 28th at 20:00 UTC Paul Mak, CEO of Bonded.Finance and Dave D, Senior Advisor to the project will join us to answer all the questions you might have.

Bonded Finance taps into billions of dollars in dormant assets that currently lie in DeFi with their innovative platform that enables altcoin holders to make the most of their holdings.

We’re also giving $100 BOND to the best questions in our AMA, so your question might win you $20 in the native Bonded Finance token.

Join our telegram channel and save the date.

Terms and Conditions

  1. Winners will need to provide us with their e-mail address linked to their Bitcoin.com Exchange account.
  2. We will contact all the winners via telegram, so please don’t change your telegram name for 24 hours after the AMA.
  3. If winners don’t respond within 3 days after the AMA, they will not be eligible for the prize anymore.

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SENT Token listing on Bitcoin.com Exchange

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Bitcoin.com Exchange is listing the SENT token with USDT pair on June 23rd at 10:00 UTC. SENT is the native governance token of the Trade the Chain community, which veterans with backgrounds in asset management, prime brokerage, journalism, and more built to help traders make better decisions. 

The Trade the Chain community gives crypto enthusiasts access to AI-driven sentiment indicators, which help them beat the market and make better trading decisions. The platform leverages technology to parse through thousands of media sources in multiple languages to deliver actionable insights and provide members with trading opportunities. 

The team behind Trade the Chain recognized the importance of fostering the reciprocal relationship between their platform and their members and created the SENT token to engage and reward their members. SENT is a multi-faceted token incentivizing holders through exclusive offers, discounts, and other exciting opportunities from Trade the Chain and its partner ecosystem. 

SENT prioritizes its community and ensures fair distribution of tokens. Token holders participate in the governance of the project from the very start, including voting on ecosystem fees, the SENT rewards program structure, how the Trade the Chain 2.0 platform will interface with the SENT token, and interfacing with the advisory council to ensure impact resolutions are passed. 

Bitcoin.com Exchange CEO Danish Chaudhry highlights the community aspect: “SENT is a great example of projects putting community first. There will be several benefits to Trade The Chain members holding this token, and we’re excited to be the first launch venue for this new token.”

Despite being a reasonably young token, SENT is already partnering with the popular cryptocurrency Dash to enable lower fees for SENT token holders and accepting dash payments for memberships. Another partner includes decentralized exchange Zero that hosted the fair SENT launch. 

To celebrate the listing of the SENT token, Bitcoin.com Exchange is hosting a 10-day trading competition with a prize pool of $20,000 SENT, giving traders the chance to win the exciting token and participate in Trade the Chain. For more information on the competition, click here. 

Alex Mascioli, Co-Founder of Trade The Chain, added that “Trade The Chain and Bitcoin.com Exchange both share a community-first mentality, and they are an ideal partner for the first SENT listing. We’re excited to partner with them and look forward to seeing how the trading competition turns out.”

As sentiment continues to dictate crypto markets and more traders look for better ways to make decisions, Trade The Chain and SENT offer a unique proposition for anyone wanting to trade like a professional. 

Sent Token

Website: https://www.senttoken.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SENTtoken

Telegram:https://t.me/ttcsenttoken

Trade the Chain 

Website: https://www.tradethechain.com/ 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/tradethechain

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Jigstack AMA

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On Tuesday, June 22nd at 17:00 UTC we’re welcoming the CBDO of Jigstack, Charles Robinson to our telegram channel for our next AMA session.

Jigstack is working on unifying a fragmented DeFi landscape, enabling anyone to combine different products and services to create their own financial universe.

To learn more, join us and ask away.

We’ll be giving $200 STAK in total to the best question, so get ready and save the date. We’re looking forward to your questions.

Terms and Conditions

  1. Winners will need to provide us with their e-mail address linked to their Bitcoin.com Exchange account.
  2. We will contact all the winners via telegram, so please don’t change your telegram name for 24 hours after the AMA.
  3. If winners don’t respond within 3 days after the AMA, they will not be eligible for the prize anymore.

Filed Under: Exchange Tagged With: ,

GamerHash AMA

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On Tuesday, June 8th at 17:00 UTC we will be welcoming our next guest to our telegram channel for an AMA.

This time, the CMO of GamerHash Artur Pszczółkowski will join us to answer questions around the GamerHash platform that is already enabling more than 600,000 gamers worldwide to earn passive income in crypto with their computing power.

As most of their early adopters are not crypto-native, the GamerHash team has made it as easy as possible to get started. Users don’t need to get involved in the technicalities of mining, which might be one driver of their success.

To learn more about the idea behind GamerHash, what their views are on the energy efficiency of mining (which is a hot topic these days), and what they have planned in the future, join us in our telegram channel on Tuesday.

We’re also awarding the 5 best questions with $20 in GHX, so get your questions ready.

Terms and Conditions

  1. Winners will need to provide us with their e-mail address linked to their Bitcoin.com Exchange account.
  2. We will contact all the winners via telegram, so please don’t change your telegram name for 24 hours after the AMA.
  3. If winners don’t respond within 3 days after the AMA, they will not be eligible for the prize anymore.

Filed Under: Exchange Tagged With: , ,

Bitcoin.com Exchange partnering with Mercuryo

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While it’s been more than 10 years since the inception of Bitcoin, buying crypto via bank transfer or with bank card still remains a challenge. For one, oftentimes traders can only buy cryptocurrency with a specific currency, not their local currency, and secondly, some fiat-to-crypto payment gateways charge quite high transaction fees.

At the Bitcoin.com Exchange, we’re dedicated to making it easier for anyone to get into crypto, regardless of where they’re from and what their level of expertise is. Therefore, we’re partnering with Mercuryo, a leading cryptocurrency payment provider, to make buying crypto on our exchange easier. 

Mercuryo is a fast-growing fintech company that was founded in 2018 in Estonia and has since expanded to operate worldwide with offices in Tallinn, London and Moscow. Thanks to the integration with Mercuryo, traders on the Bitcoin.com Exchange will be able to benefit from a wider range of currencies they can use to purchase bitcoin, such as Euro, the USD, Ruble and the fast verification process. 

All data taken by customers is treated according to PCI DSS international security standards which include tight control measures surrounding storage, transmission and handling of data collected. It’s the same standard used by traditional payment processors such as Visa or Mastercard. 

Traders that want to buy crypto on the exchange simply need to head to their wallet and click on the “Buy crypto with a bank card” button. On the widget that appears, they can then specify the amount they want to purchase and below pick between different payment providers. This is where Mercuryo will be added as another attractive option to pick. 

With high transaction speed, a comprehensive fee structure and a network of over 200 diverse partners as well as a customer base surpassing 650,000 users Mercuryo is a trusted payment provider for anyone looking to buy the first or hundredth crypto. 

As Danish Chaudhry, CEO of the Bitcoin.com Exchange puts it:

“We’re thrilled to add Mercuryo to our payment providers. As a well-established player, they bring peace of mind as well as attractive buy options for our traders to the table. We’re looking forward to working together with the team and increase the adoption of cryptocurrencies.” 

Danish Chaudhry, CEO Bitcoin.com Exchange

Mercuryo is now integrated with Bitcoin.com Exchange. To buy crypto on our exchange, go to the “Buy crypto” tab and pick Mercuryo at check-out.

To learn more about Mercuryo, visit their official channels: 

Website : https://mercuryo.io

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mercuryo-io/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Mercuryo_io

Filed Under: Announcements, Exchange Tagged With: ,

Redd: The Social Currency

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Many cryptocurrency developers are focused on solving problems encountered in the traditional financial system. Issues like unfair lending practices and lack of access to financial services have inspired a wide array of digital projects in the Decentralized Finance space. Redd, formerly known as Reddcoin was inspired to optimize any area of the digital landscape that has experienced exponential growth over the past decade: Social Media. 

Redd makes it easy for anyone to get paid for social media posts and content across the web. Dubbed “The Social Coin”, Redd facilitates quick and easy transactions between users, perfect for fee-free tipping on social media posts. 

Driven by a dedicated team of volunteers, Redd was released in 2014, and has been compared to multiplatform, blockchain-based Patreon in the past. Users can already be paid in Redd on platforms like Twitter, Reddit, Twitch and YouTube. 

The team also runs the independent  Social Media platform, Reddcoin Talk, which hosts a community of over 60,000 members spread across 50 countries worldwide. 

Proof of Stake Velocity

One interesting feature of the Reddcoin blockchain is its unique consensus algorithm: Proof-of-Stake-Velocity. When Bitcoin was created, the Proof-of-Work algorithm solved the problem of double spending elegantly and efficiently. As mining hardware has advanced though, individual miners have been replaced by large mining operations the world over. 

As Bitcoin’s energy consumption has come under fire over recent months, blockchain projects have to employ different algorithms to achieve consensus. As a fork of the Litecoin blockchain, Redd switched from Proof of Work to a proprietary algorithm that combines Proof of Stake and the velocity of the currency to achieve consensus.

Proof-of-Stake has been criticized for encouraging accumulation rather than spending in the past, but the Reddcoin team skirted this pitfall by introducing the concept of velocity into the equation. A currency’s velocity is the number of times a unit of currency changes hands within a specified period of time. As a rule of thumb, the higher the velocity, the more likely it is that an economy is flourishing and members are doing well. 

This unique algorithm encourages users to mine, spend and tip Reddcoin, rather than simply accumulating the currency. By connecting Reddcoin wallets to the internet, everyday users can participate in the mining of the cryptocurrency. Additionally, a penalty is levied on inactive nodes, which again incentivizes active participation in the network. 

PoSV v2

Since moving from Proof of work to PoSV, the Redd team has been continuously working on bringing further improvements to the network. One of them was implementing a second version of the PoSV algorithm in 2020, which enhances stake rewards for actively participating users and provides a revenue stream for developers to fund operational costs and provide further financial support.

We’re excited to announce that Reddcoin has joined Bitcoin.com Exchange. You can trade RDD today with BTC. 

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