Updates from the Bitcoin.com Team

The Bitcoin.com Company Blog

The Graph making Blockchain queries easy

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The average app-user doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about what happens in the background of the applications we use on a daily basis. With the advent of decentralized applications, an interest in distributed computing has piqued amongst blockchain developers. While many of these apps are decentralized on the back-end, many more use centralized computing resources like Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services to get the job done.

The Graph introduces an often forgotten but crucial part to the existing blockchain infrastructure. Decentralized indexing enables the organization of blockchain data into open and easily accessible APIs that are called Subgraphs. Developers can then access and search these subgraphs to build their blockchain apps.

In common terms, imagine you wanted to find out how many crypto punks a certain wallet address owns and at what price they acquired their first crypto punk. If you don’t want to go through that process manually — and when this is done for an app, you can’t have an intern sit in the backend searching everything manually. With Graph protocol, the first step would be to compile the data. It is then indexed into a subgraph that manifests interest for it and includes events the contract needs to pay attention to and how the event data should be mapped to other data that Graph stores in its database.

When this process is complete, you can query all the data to answer whichever cryptopunk related question you had by using the graphQL API.

To make this possible, four different kinds of participants play a crucial role in the graph network: indexers, curators, delegators, and consumers.

Curators: Curators are in charge of curating blockchain data and assessing which subgraphs of high quality need to be indexed. To signal which subgraphs are of more importance, they attach the network token GRT to it.

Indexers: Indexers operate nodes and earn rewards for querying and indexing. They select subgraphs based on their curation signal and prioritize them accordingly to be indexed. When indexers add incorrect data or act maliciously, the GRT they hold can be slashed.

Delegators: delegate their GRT holdings to indexers to contribute to running the network.

Consumers: companies or individuals looking to add blockchain data to their apps and services. They pay for using the Graph network in GRT.

To compensate network participants for keeping things running, all participants are rewarded with a portion of the platform’s network fees. GRT, an ERC-20 token is the native currency of the protocol, and is used for all payments and rewards.  With an initial supply of 10 Billion GRT, the developers announced plans to burn 1% of GRT in circulation every year.

The Graph has already been implemented across various popular platforms in the blockchain space. Decentraland, a blockchain game with NFTs, uses the graph to find and list items from other apps on their marketplace, enabling users to buy in a centralized place.

The decentralized exchange Uniswap also uses the graph to access historical trading and price data and conduct analytics. The lending platform Aave employs the graph data to monitor their contracts, check for trade history, and analyze liquidity on the platform.

While invisible to the end-user, the graph is already powering various crypto companies and will continue to do so. With backing from known blockchain investors such as coinbase ventures and the digital asset group, the graph makes it easy for developers to build dApps decentralized on all levels. This full-stack decentralization makes them robust and facilitates interoperability. As GRT is the only way to pay for using these vital services, it’s an asset to watch out for.

GRT is now trading on Bitcoin.com Exchange with BTC and USDT pairs.

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Akropolis Introduction

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In the developed world, many countries are facing a dire situation with aging populations and a lack of funds to finance paying pensions to citizens. While some are able to save for retirement independently, many seniors around the world are dependent upon state-funded pension plans that barely cover the cost of living. For many, simply leaving money in a bank account might often not be the most capital-efficient solution. This is where existing DeFi protocols can potentially help, and Akropolis was launched for just this purpose.

While decentralized Finance (DeFi) aims to make financial services and products more readily available to a wider array of users, anyone wanting to get into DeFi at the present moment will still need at least some understanding of the underlying ecosystem. Anyone who has ever tried to sign-up for a yield farming platform is familiar with the various challenges one can face ranging from not having the correct paperwork to verify to meeting high gas fees that immediately cancel out all potential gains one would make on such a platform.

To address the difficulties in accessing DeFi for users with less technical knowledge, Akropolis raised funds of $2.4 Million on Huobi by selling 320 AKRO tokens. Ana Andrianova, founder of Akropolis and former fund manager and web3 advisor, ensured that the company would continue living up to Web3 standards by making a significant part of its code accessible and open-source, including its staking portal and the cross-chain bridge. Akropolis has also heavily contributed to the flourishing Polkadot ecosystem. 

Akropolis offers a wide range of products for end-users as well as for developers.

Akropolis OS

The Akropolis OS is a development platform allowing communities to monetize their ideas and assets. It’s highly customizable, allowing users to create their own innovative incentivization schemes. Akropolis OS also includes automated liquidity provision to ensure that assets are tradeable, making it the perfect platform for developers to build secure DeFi platforms for use cases ranging from pensions, savings, loans, and more.

Sparta

Another product by the Akropolis team is Sparta. Sparta is a lending platform that allows traders to take out undercollateralized loans. This immediately differentiates Sparta from all other crypto lending platforms because on Sparta, borrowers are not required to deposit twice the amount that is being taken out in collateral. Instead, users simply pledge 50% of the loan in ASPT token — other platform participants will contribute the rest of the loan amount and earn a share of the interest paid on it. 

Every time a stablecoin is deposited or withdrawn, ASPT is minted or burned accordingly, tying the value of ASPT directly to the value tied in the Sparta lending platform DAO.

Delphi

Delphi took inspiration from the Oracle of Delphi and was built to guide people on their journey through the DeFi space. The easy-to-use yield farm aggregator offers a one-stop shop for investors looking to benefit from yield farming opportunities across platforms. The UI is designed explicitly for non-technical investors that can pick between earning interest on stablecoins, using the DCA (Dollar-Cost Averaging) tool, or making the most of liquidity mining or staking. 

Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA) describes a strategy that involves splitting a large sum that is to be invested into periodic purchases of a target asset. For example, instead of investing $10,000 in ETH at once, a trader using DCA would split this into 10 purchases of $1000 each that would be executed over a certain time span, for the sake of this example once a month. DCA is used to reduce the impact of volatility and to avoid making the mistake of investing a big sum at the wrong time. 

The Delphi platform also has its own governance token called ADEL used similar to governance tokens in other lending platforms to vote on proposals and earn rewards for providing liquidity.

All these platforms have been combined into the bigger Akropolis ecosystem, which is governed by the AKRO token. AKRO is also the most traded asset across exchanges, and we’ve now added it to our exchange. 

Akropolis has partnered with various known protocols and projects to increase the interoperability and functionality of its platform, including crypto household names such as Maker, Polkadot, Chainlink, and Bancor. With inflation slowly creeping up in most of the first world, traders might soon start looking more seriously at investing stablecoins in DeFi protocols. Then a platform like Akropolis might capture a lot of the interest making it easy to gain an overview of existing opportunities and investing in them.

AKRO is now trading on Bitcoin.com Exchange paired with BTC and USDT.

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Origin Protocol is bringing NFTs and DeFi To The Masses

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Remember that YouTube video “Charlie bit my finger”? It was the one where a boy sitting on the sofa is repeatedly bitten by his baby brother, who’s sitting on his lap. If you haven’t seen it before May 23rd, we’re sorry to say that it’s not available anymore. Charlie, who is now 14 years old, converted the Youtube video into a Non-Fungible-Token and auctioned it on the Origin Protocol.

After intense bidding by several parties, the video sold for $760,990, making Charlie quite a rich 14-year-old.

The platform facilitating this auction, Origin Protocol, made it its mission to bring NFTs and DeFi to the masses. With a vision to bring change to the sharing economy, the team lead by Josh Fraser and Matthew Liu has launched a comprehensive platform that enables anyone to trade digital goods and services without any third-party involvement.

The main commerce platform that Origin Protocol built is called DShop and is already used by hundreds of merchants, including Brave or Kyber network. It’s supported by various partnerships, including Big Tech names like Amazon and Google Clouds. The DShop is powered by the Ethereum blockchain and uses the InterPlanetary File System (IFPS), which stores data like pictures, descriptions of products, and reviews while creating a cryptographic hash to them, which is stored on the blockchain. This reduces the load on the main chain, contributing to lower listing fees.

Sellers looking to start selling items on the Origin marketplace should first download the Origin dApp. This is the Front-end dApp that anyone can use to create their first listing on the Origin Platform. It connects to the Ethereum IFPS and the indexing network to create readable listings with images, descriptions, prices, and reviews. All of the steps are executed through smart contracts that communicate with different nodes on the platform.

For businesses, Origin offers proprietary software enabling them to create their own dApp with the origin software.

The third component and the Ethereum blockchain and IFPS that keeps the platform running is an indexing server. This server is an open-source server that researches and responds to queries. The server prevents users of the platform from having to search the entire Ethereum blockchain for their listings but have them readily available. The indexing server makes it possible for dApps on Origin to function similarly to centralized apps.

Unlike other blockchain marketplaces that require payments only in their native currency, Origin Protocol enables buyers and sellers to list items in fiat currencies. Therefore, the booking contracts and indexing servers rely on Oracles to reflect prices correctly according to the exchange rates outside of Origin. On the backend, the appropriate amount of digital tokens will be calculated and transferred, making it easy for non-crypto users to get started.

OGN Token

The native token of the Origin protocol blockchain goes under the Ticker: OGN and has various use-cases. The team behind OGN emphasizes that the coin was built to provide secure transnationality through various uses:

  • Deposit-challenge: users deposit OGN in escrow whenever they create a new listing, file a complaint, or do other tasks. If they provide valid data, they receive their deposit back. When submitting fraudulent data, the deposit will be taken from the user.
  • Token-verified accounts: buyers and sellers that stake OGN can increase their trustworthiness on Origin Protocol
  • Rewards: small amounts of OGN are given to participants contributing to the network by buying, selling, rating, and reviewing products on Origin.
  • Referrals: entrepreneurs, developers, and businesses are major contributors to the Origin ecosystem. Therefore, OGN will be given as rewards to those who built dApps and add-ons. Providers of new add-ons or dApps can also require users to pay in OGN for usage either on a subscription base or with a pay-per-use model.
  • Governance: every holder of OGN has a chance to contribute to the future direction of the platform by casting votes.

The Origin team is constantly upgrading the platform and has already onboarded hundreds of merchants. To facilitate the entry for non-crypto knowledgeable peers, Origin has also launched the OUSD, a USD-backed stablecoin that makes it easy for anyone to start earning yields between 20% — 150% at any given time.

In a low-interest-rate environment with a lack of trust in centralized e-commerce platforms grows, Origin Protocol is well-positioned to capture more demand from buyers and savers looking for higher yields at stable base currency.

OGN is now trading on Bitcoin.com Exchange with BTC and USDT pairs.

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What is Siacoin, and how does it provide a better storage solution?

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The sudden surge of remote workers in 2020 puts a huge strain on the existing cloud infrastructure. With companies relying increasingly on a limited number of cloud providers like AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure, these centralized systems also became even more enticing targets for hackers. Regardless of many resources centralized services can dedicate to increasing their security, centralized structures only need a single point of failure to be compromised. Many times, its social engineering and not technology that provides the best opportunity for bad actors to infiltrate.

Social engineering is a manipulation technique that involves exploiting human error and misjudgment to gain information or access to a service. Despite training employees to be wary of social engineering, it isn’t easy to mitigate it altogether.

Siacoin proposes a solution to centralized cloud storage security risks with the Sia Server and Hosting Network. Siacoin offers similar services to the big cloud companies you’re already familiar with, but with the key difference of running on a decentralized blockchain infrastructure.

Clients can rent storage space on the Sia platform and pay in the native currency SIA for services. A central entity does not provide resources, but anyone with spare storage space can rent it out in return for Sia. With this in mind, some have compared Sia to the “Airbnb” of hard drives since it’s bringing the sharing economy to cloud storage.

File Contracts

On Siacoin, transactions aren’t overseen by a third party but governed through so-called file contracts. Whenever a user wants to store files on Sia, a contract is drawn that defines the terms of their storage, such as the duration, security, pay-out, and how many times a provider must provide proof of storage.

Users on Siacoin govern their own choice of provider; it’s up to them who they want to trust based on the reputation and reviews of a provider; it’s also completely up to them to define the terms of an agreement. If they want to pay extra for higher uptime, there’s an option to do so, which incentivizes providers to provide high-quality storage.

Whenever a file contract is created, the client will deposit Siacoin into it for future use. Throughout the agreement, the token will automatically be transferred to the provider according to specified pay-out terms. If at the end of the contract coins are still in the contract, they will be returned to the client.

Proof of Storage

Proof of storage is essential in protecting clients from malicious or fraudulent providers who would take the payment but not store their data. Providers must prove that they have stored what the client wanted to have stored in specified regular intervals to prevent this from happening. If a provider fails to prove that they stored the data, they will not receive any payments and might even be hit with a penalty.

Benefits of Siacoin

  • Privacy: all data on Sia is encrypted. Unless the provider has the data’s private key, they won’t be able to see what is stored in their space. Therefore, the client has ownership and control over their data at all times.
  • Affordability: Sia can be a lot cheaper than alternative cloud storage like Dropbox or AWS. Prices are mostly market-driven without one-size-fits-all pricing. Storing one terra byte of data on Sia might just cost $2 while you pay 10 times that price for storing it on AWS.
  • Security: since everything is encrypted, no one other than the rightful owner of data can access it. Additionally, all files are decomposed into 30 parts before storing them. This maintains the stability of the network, ensures that data processing doesn’t fail.

Sia is a project by Nebulous inc and was launched in 2015 by the computer scientists David Vorvick and Luke Champine. The name is a reference to the Egyptian God of Perception.

Unlike many other projects in the earlier crypto days, Siacoin didn’t raise funds through an ICO but sold tokens in a private sale to investors like First Star Ventures and Fenbushi capital.

Considering that the importance of cloud storage is probably going to increase, there is a good chance that Siacoin’s network will gain further traction as a more secure and cost-efficient alternative to storing data. 

Considering that all data remains encrypted, it is even an attractive option for businesses having to stay compliant with data protection laws.

Siacoin (SC) is now trading on Bitcoin.com Exchange with BTC and USDT pairs.

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How Marlin improves Blockchain on Layer-0

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Earlier last month, the CEO of Tesla took to Twitter that they’d stop accepting payments in Bitcoin because of the high energy consumed in the Bitcoin mining process. At the same time, it’s doubtful that Elon Musk just happened come to this realization recently, so his tweet and the subsequent 20% drop in Bitcoin’s value have generated suspicion. 

The reason for Bitcoin’s controversial energy consumption is the cryptocurrency’s consensus algorithm: Proof-of-Work, which relies on miners using powerful computing machines to solve increasingly difficult algorithms to verify transactions. Unfortunately, Proof-of-Work is also limiting the scalability of Bitcoin and all other networks that are built with the same consensus algorithm. Their throughput will never be equal to the throughput of a centralized network without further innovation.

Therefore, other blockchain projects have focused on using different consensus algorithms, like Proof-of-Stake (PoS). In PoS networks, a defined set of nodes with enough tokens at stake verify transactions, increasing the speed with which transactions can be validated. Major market-cap Proof-of-Stake networks include Cardano and Tezos. 

As these Proof of Stake projects are ever expanding, some teams have focused on creating scalability solutions for Bitcoin and Ethereum. For Bitcoin, the Lightning network is a project that aims to reduce transaction load from the mainchain, driving down fees and increasing scalability. This is a Layer 2 solution that still relies on the base layer for its security.

The Ethereum network, which is still running on a proof-of-work network, is looking to migrate towards Proof-of-Stake within the next year. Having implemented a technique called sharding, the number of nodes participating in the validation process is restricted to increase scalability. Sharding is a Layer 1 solution, but it suffers from similar problems as the main chain because making the shard big enough to ensure security limits its scalability.

Most people forget that with either Layer 2 solutions or Layer 1 solutions, all blockchains are ultimately still restricted by the same major issue: Networking Latency.

When using the internet, users connect to a host of centralized servers. These servers belong to major tech companies like Amazon, Microsoft, or Google which host much of the web’s content, which means that the vast majority of the web users experience on a daily basis is hosted within a centralized network of Big Tech servers.

That’s where networks like Marlin Protocol come in. Currently, decentralized networks are still similarly inefficient as primitive societies that tried making decisions. Only when we moved to political systems such as representative democracy did it get easier to communicate and implement changes.

Marlin Protocol is a Layer 0 solution that focuses on network layer optimization, in a similar fashion to Filecoin. It was launched by Siddharta, Prateesh, and Roshan, who all share vast experience in the world of peer-to-peer networking. With Prateesh previously working on Zilliqa, he currently holds 2 US patents. Marlin protocol is furtherly supported by several former researchers from the Ethereum foundation who were passionate about improving networking for Blockchain and Web3 apps.

Marlin is blockchain agnostic and offers a gateway that can be deployed by layer one and layer two solutions without sacrificing security, decentralization, or performance. Therefore, Marlin appears to solve one of the biggest challenges in blockchain so far.

The network is powered by two different tokens: MPOND and POND. The total supply of MPOND is set to 10,000, and POND is set with a maximum supply of 10,000,000,000. Traders can convert between MPOND and POND facilitated by a bridge that converts 1 million POND into one MPOND. POND is mainly used to reward validators and provide transactability to the community. Every Marlin Meta node is furtherly required to stake pond and then receives pond as a reward.

Marlin is built atop of Ethereum with a set of meta nodes that ensure marlin smart contracts are executed. If meta nodes fail to verify content entering the system correctly and, consequently, the protocol faces a DDoS or spam attack, they risk losing any staked POND.

A network of third-party auditors is probing the work of the meta nodes across the globe, providing consistent performance and coverage monitoring for dApps that require higher reliability.

For developers looking to build with POND, the team offers an SDK that gives devs the option to stream apps that require low latency and one to many communications. The marlin cache works as a decentralized content delivery network storing popular requests from API feeds and data stores. Lastly, the Marlin gateway allows clients, traders, miners, and validators to exchange large blocks and validations via a low latency network — giving them an edge in gas price auctions and increasing scalability.

Named after the world’s fastest fish which can reach speeds of 129kmh, the Marlin Protocol is working on enabling faster peer-to-peer communications and low network latency to allow blockchains to scale without being restricted by layer 0. As a simple plug-and-play solution, it’s compatible with a variety of blockchains regardless of consensus algorithms.

A lot of attention goes to layers one and two, developers are now focusing on layer 0. With blockchain adoption increasing, we’ll eventually see more demand for more decentralized networking infrastructure. If you also believe in the future of layer 0, it’s a great time to check out Marlin and the POND token.

POND is now trading on Bitcoin.com Exchange with BTC and USDT pairs.

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Verge (XVG) — a new coin seeking to improve private transactions

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Currently, Verge is trading around $0.04, still far away from its heights in 2018 when the price rallied to $0.28 for a short time. But price performance is only one metric of how a cryptocurrency is performing.

Verge was originally launched in 2014 under the moniker Dogecoin Dark. Apart from the name, the young currency didn’t have much in common with Dogecoin as it isn’t a fork of Litecoin, nor is its supply infinite as with the non-dark brother. The addition of the word “dark” was added to emphasize the privacy aspect that Dogecoin Dark brought to the crypto world. In 2016 the team decided to rebrand to the verge and has since been offering its token under the ticker XVG.

The misconception that all cryptocurrencies are equally anonymous still runs rampant, as it did in 2014. Nevertheless, whenever a trader transfers Bitcoin, a record of the transaction will always be stored on a public ledger. While the connection between an individual and a public wallet address isn’t always obvious, chain-analysis companies leveraging Big Data have made quite some advances in being able to circle in on who might be behind a public address.

Verge was created in an attempt to create a completely private cryptocurrency. In line with the blockchain’s ethos, we still don’t know who the founder behind Verge is; the only thing we know is that they’ve been operating under the username Sunerok. Verge is an open-source protocol where anyone who shares the belief that transacting money privately is a human right can contribute.

The maximum supply of Verge has been set to 16.5 billion coins, and transactions are processed within 30 seconds in contrast to the 10 minutes it takes on average for one bitcoin transaction to be verified. What differentiates Verge from many other currencies is that miners can decide which mining algorithm they want to run to verify blocks.

Verge offers the choice between Scrypt, x17, Lyra2rev2, Myr-groestl, and Blake2s, which describe different implementations of the same Proof-of-Work consensus algorithm. In the case of most Proof-of-Work networks, miners have to run specialized hardware for a chance to receive rewards. Verge wants to give anyone a real chance to participate and contribute to the network by supporting different algorithms.

Instead of running ASICs mining machines, individual miners can use a consumer-grade CPU, GPU or Asics to mine Verge, potentially increasing the number of nodes that secure the network.

The team of volunteers running Verge is also implementing the Wraith protocol. Whenever sending crypto over traditional blockchain networks, all details are stored publicly on the blockchain. Verge is different in that addresses on the chain are anonymized, so transactions typically follow the pattern: XXX sent 1000 Verge to XXX, whereas Bitcoin transactions read: Public Wallet address 1 sent 1000 BTC to public wallet address 2, removing a layer of anonymity.

In contrast to Bitcoin, Verge works together with TOR to enable encryption of data, including the information on the destination nodes. Using TOR, all data sent is encrypted and run through a network of nodes provided by thousands of volunteers worldwide to hide where the information came from. The Verge wallet integrates with Tor to reduce the probability of transaction tracking and ensures that neither hackers nor governments and other organizations gain insights.

In addition to TOR integration, Verge also provides traders with stealth addresses. These addresses grant additional security. When sending money, it’s obligatory to create a random single-use address (Stealth address) rather than sending it to the same address every time. The recipient will be able to claim the funds on the stealth address by using a key.

The team has also implemented another cryptographic tool to make it possible for sender and recipient to exchange mutually agreed upon key and transaction signatures: Elliptic Curve Diffie Hellmann.

To make it easier to use Verge, it’s also implemented messaging payments. This way, users can make transactions in Verge via telegram, discord, or Twitter. To send funds, users just need the username of the recipient. The transaction is then facilitated by a bot that holds the funds and sends the recipient instructions on claiming the funds.

In 2018 Verge made headlines by partnering with a Canadian IT company named MindGeek which also runs the famous adult video site PornHub. Later that year, PornHub even started taking payouts in Verge.

Though the Verge team has been tightlipped about their future plans, the team is integrating with RSK (rootstock) to enable smart contracts. As the team inches closer to creating a private smart-contract platform, we’re excited to welcome Verge to Bitcoin.com Exchange.

Verge is trading on Bitcoin.com Exchange with BTC, ETH, and USDT pairs.

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Superbid Aims to Disrupt Social Media

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Since the beginning of the pandemic, time spent online has increased exponentially, with lockdowns driving a rapid increase in remote work and limiting outdoor leisure activities. The rapid expansion of time online has seen users meeting via Zoom and consuming more content from social media influencers.

When it comes to engaging with influencers, most users are limited to watching and commenting on content, limiting the ways in which everyday users can engage with public personas. 

Superbid has released a game-changing app that aims to bring together Social Media, Influencer marketing, and e-commerce. Having completed multiple rounds of fundraising, the company is already valued at $800 million by investors. 

Suberbid’s platform allows influencers and celebrities to auction experiences, personal items, and NFTs to the world at large. Users can participate in auctions for a chance to interact with public personas and to purchase exclusive merchandise and memorabilia. 

At this time, auctions haven’t been implemented on any of the major social media platforms, but auctions have brought the adrenaline, excitement, and thrill of victory to Superbid in a way that uses have not experienced before.  While the app is still in development, it has already garnered over 10,000 pre-registrations including high profile public personas and social media influencers, some of whom have more than 15 million followers. 

On-platform, users will be able to make purchases with cryptocurrency, bridging the gap between social media and the crypto world. The Superbid app offers something that hasn’t existed before by enabling Influencers to easily monetize their online presence through auctions and give users a chance to engage with public figures in a whole new fashion. 

The CEO behind Superbid, Patrick Gajda, has over 10 years of experience working in business management and product development and as an advisor on several executive boards for global companies and silicon valley unicorns. With the current valuation even before the launch of the app, we’re excited to see if Superbid will turn into a unicorn itself.

So far, Superbid has already partnered with various players in the cryptocurrency world as well as NFT consultants to ensure that NFT issuance, trading, and cryptocurrencies work flawlessly. 

The native currency of the platform called SUPERBID will enable payments and can also be staked. SUPERBID is an ERC-20 token that can easily be stored in any ERC-20 wallet. 

SUPERBID is now trading on Bitcoin.com Exchange with USDT pair

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How Theta Network makes it easier to stream video content

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Since the beginning of the pandemic, video streaming content and platforms have expanded exponentially. Though the big names of Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime account for much of the content people are consuming these days, social media platforms like TikTok have also experienced an explosion of users and content streamed through the platform. While video streaming has become an integral part of many of our lives, have you ever stopped to think about where the videos you watch actually come from?

All of the content we watch on a daily basis is stored on massive servers located around the world.

Storing large video files on one server can cause long load times and delays for people accessing the content from afar, so streaming businesses rely on systems called Content Delivery Networks. These networks store content on various servers around the world and provide a greatly improved viewing experience, but can be very costly, with costs increasing as viewers increase. 

Theta Network offers streaming businesses a better platform to host video content. Backed by Sony and Samsung, the global peer-to-peer mesh network raised $20 million during  token sale in 2017 with the aim of bringing a decentralized streaming infrastructure into fruition. 

Theta network doesn’t target end-users, but rather helps businesses deliver seamless viewing experiences to global audiences. By leveraging a decentralized network of nodes sharing bandwidth and data, Theta allows businesses to cut costs and reduce the load on existing CDNs.

In a sense, Theta works similarly to BitTorrent, where people share video content via a decentralized network of servers around the world. The network isn’t looking to replace streaming services like youtube or twitch, but offers a way for companies to reduce operating costs and secure streaming networks. When businesses decide to use Theta, the data isn’t completely delivered by the streaming website, but is delivered by local peers providing computing resources to the network. 

When users offer computing power to the Theta Network, they’re not required to stream entire videos. Like a BitTorrent, fragments of video files are broadcast from multiple users, and then re-assembled at the recipient’s end. 

To encourage network participants to offer resources, Theta rewards users with the Theta Token. In the end, those who pay for streaming are the video sites and not the end-users, and payments by streaming are made through the platform’s second token, TFUEL. 

The Theta token has recently debuted, and is the governance token at the core of the network. Still in its infancy, the blockchain’s development is still largely directed by Theta Labs, the development team behind the network. In order to support a truly decentralized ecosystem though, the team plans to give up governance of the coin to the network as the platform matures. 

The total supply of Theta is fixed to 1 billion tokens without any inflation, while TFUEL has a maximum supply of 2.5 billion tokens with a fixed rate of 5% inflation. 

Theta token holders can stake Tfuel. 

Theta Blockchain

Upon launch, Theta was built on Ethereum but has since migrated to run a Proof-of-Stake chain on Tendermint. This enables the network to pay users in near real-time and pay contributors for their computing power.

2 different sets of validators run the Theta Blockchain:

  • Validator nodes: these are powerful computing machines that process transactions quickly and verify blocks. There is only a handful of them, and they’re mostly run by bigger corporations — such as Samsung and Sony — who can afford to stake 1 million Theta tokens.
  • Community nodes: these are run by network participants who want to help run the Theta network. To start running a community node, users need to stake 1000 Theta. All community nodes work together to verify that validator nodes are only confirming valid transactions. Even if all validator nodes together decided to validate a malicious block, the community nodes would reject it, which keeps the system in check.

To ensure that participants don’t try to stream to themselves, Theta has features in place that don’t allow users to specify whom they stream to and disallow streaming from the same IP address. Video streaming platforms can put further restrictions in place to comply with their internal policies.

Theta Labs is also hosting their own streaming site Theta.tv, with their blockchain solution, which makes it a working product rather than just working in theory. The company has received 3 patents from the US patent and trademark office related to video streaming and keeps expanding from the US to opening an office in Korea.

In 47 days, the Theta mainnet 3.0 will go live, which will introduce new features to the infrastructure, including more professional nodes and the ability for TFUEL holders to stake their tokens.

Exciting times for Theta with demand for video and VR content streaming certainly increasing in the future.

The Theta Token is now trading with BTC on our exchange.

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Bitcoin.com Wallet now supports Ethereum

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Starting today, you can buy, receive, store, swap, and send Ether (ETH) using the Bitcoin.com Wallet!

What’s ETH?

ETH is the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum network, which is a decentralized, open-source blockchain platform featuring smart contract functionality. Founded in 2015 and spearheaded by Russian-Canadian developer Vitalik Buterin, the Ethereum network has attracted the largest community of blockchain developers and garnered the widest adoption amongst smart-contract platforms.

What is ETH used for?

Like Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash, ETH can be used as a peer-to-peer ‘permissionless’ digital currency. So, rather than relying on an intermediary like a bank or payment provider, you’re free to send and receive money to or from whoever you want – whenever you want – without asking for permission. And just like with BTC and BCH, this is done pseudonymously, meaning your identity isn’t directly tied to your Ethereum wallet.

ETH is also the fuel needed to use Ethereum, which can be thought of as a globally distributed shared computing network. In this sense, smart contracts are analogous to software. Developers use smart contracts to create Decentralized Applications (DApps).

Read more: Learn more about Ethereum, smart contracts, and decentralized applications.

Why support Ethereum in the Bitcoin.com Wallet?

Bitcoin.com is committed to providing safe and user-friendly access to the growing array of use cases and applications in the crypto world, and many of those are built and deployed on the Ethereum network.

As the #2 cryptocurrency by market capitalization, Ethereum has proven that it provides utility to a wide range of users. Further, the community of users and developers behind Ethereum have many of the same goals as Bitcoin.com. By adding support for ETH, we hope to build more bridges across the growing cryptocurrency landscape.

What can you do with ETH in the Bitcoin.com Wallet?

Currently, the Bitcoin.com Wallet provides the ability to buy, receive, store, swap, import, and send ETH.

Buying ETH

Tapping the “BUY” button will prompt you to enter a purchase amount. If you’ve already connected your payment method to the Wallet, your purchase will go through instantly. Otherwise, you’ll need to follow the steps to set up your payment method – but it really is that easy.

Swapping ETH

You can swap instantly between ETH and a variety of other cryptocurrencies in just a few taps. This means you can move in and out of tokenized USD ‘stablecoins’ and diversify your portfolio – right there from the convenience of your mobile device.

Sending and receiving ETH

You can also send and receive ETH using the Bitcoin.com Wallet, just like you do with any other asset.

Read more: How do fees work when sending Ethereum?

Importing an Ethereum wallet

You also have the option to import an existing Ethereum wallet. Just tap the “ADD/IMPORT” button on the home screen and scan the QR code or enter the 12-word secret phrase from your existing wallet.

Storing ETH

When you hold ETH in the Bitcoin.com Wallet, you’re taking full custody of it. That means you – and you alone – have control of, and access to your ETH. But with great power comes great responsibility, so be sure to brush up on the basics on of cryptocurrency security.

Read more:

Digital asset security and password management

How to backup your ETH Wallet and protect your digital assets

How to recover your ETH Wallet from a backup

Unstoppable Domains and Ethereum Name Service (ENS)

We’ve also integrated support for both Unstoppable Domains and ENS. These are decentralized alternatives to the traditional Domain Name System (DNS) that has come to dominate Internet real estate. By supporting these new systems in the Wallet, it means you can now send cryptocurrencies, including BTC, BCH, ETH, and more, to human-readable aliases like brad.crypto and vitalik.eth, rather than having to input long alphanumeric cryptocurrency addresses.

You can buy your own Unstoppable Domain in the Wallet via the Discovery tab and set it up to receive cryptocurrencies to your human-readable domain name.

Read more:

How to use Unstoppable Domains

How to use ENS

How to send cryptocurrency to an ENS or Unstoppable domain

What’s Next?

In line with our vision of creating more economic freedom in the world, we’ll be rolling out more functionality and features in the Bitcoin.com Wallet over the coming months. This will include the ability to sell ETH, support for Ethereum-compatible (ERC-20) tokens, and more. Sign up to our mailing list to learn about these new features and be the first to use them.

Filed Under: Wallet Update Tagged With: , , , ,

GamerHash’s Gamercoin now trading on Bitcoin.com Exchange

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GamerCoin (GHX) is the first EU token to be licensed for gamers. The digital asset is part of the GamerHash platform, a cutting-edge platform that has already enabled more than 600,000 users around the world to monetize idle computing resources.

The GamerHash ecosystem was launched in 2017 as a web platform and a mobile app to reward gamers for sharing excessive computing resources. Research has found that computer users typically only use 15% of available processing power when using the computer. By connecting to GamerHash, users can now monetize the remaining 85% of computing power by dedicating it to cryptocurrency mining.

Unlike other mining platforms that require users to own specified mining equipment or rent a space in a mining pool, GamerHash has waived all entry barriers by allowing anyone to connect to the platform. Though cryptocurrency mining is the first use-case for this technology, the team behind the platform has plans to expand the applicability of their platform to a wider array of processor-intensive tasks.

Users can get started with GamerHash by downloading the app and completing the 3 minute signup process. Once registered, they’ll start earning incentives as soon as they can allocate computing resources. 

The GamerHash proprietary algorithm matches the allocated hardware with the most optimal cryptocurrency to mine. 

Currently, the ecosystem mines mainly Proof-of-Work cryptocurrencies and aeternity, which has its own consensus algorithm.

Proof-of-Work is a consensus mechanism that involves nodes having to solve a cryptographic puzzle to verify a block. It was implemented for the first time in the Bitcoin protocol and solved the double-spending problem. Proof-of-Work also makes a 51% attack too expensive to be economically viable on most protocols, increasing security of the protocol.

Since most gamers using GamerHash don’t have a particular interest in earning a specific cryptocurrency but are more interested in the dollar amount of their earnings, the algorithm has more freedom to pick the most optimal coin. Whenever the algorithm has allocated computing resources to mine altcoins, these are exchanged for Bitcoin in the backend before being sent to users. This whole process takes place automatically without any involvement from users. This means users don’t need to get involved in the process of withdrawing and exchanging altcoins.


If users don’t want to receive Bitcoin, they can choose to receive their mining rewards in GUSD instead, which is a stablecoin representing their earnings in a dollar amount. GUSD can only be used on the GamerHash platform, while Bitcoin can be withdrawn to a user’s wallet. Users can use the GUSD for purchases in the GamerHash Store.

GamerHash users can pick between more than 600 available products ranging from gaming items to retail gift cards, vouchers, and more in the store. 

In January 2019, the team launched a new Play and Earn product that makes it possible for users to earn additional funds by completing specific tasks. These tasks can include anything from downloading an app to completing 5 quests in a game, depending on what affiliate partners have specified. Whenever a user selects a task, other tasks will be blocked for 12 -72 to prevent scams from exploiting the system. Any user can have a maximum of 3 tasks in progress at the same time. 

The whole GamerHash ecosystem is designed with the idea of making cryptocurrencies and blockchain accessible to a wider array of users. The majority of early adopters of GamerHash have been gamers who don’t necessarily want to be directly involved in cryptocurrencies, but would like to earn a passive income from mining rewards.

GHX token

The GamerCoin (GHX) token is a vital part of the whole GamerHash ecosystem. It’s an ERC-20 token issued with a maximum supply of 880,000,000. GHX is used for: 

  • Buying products in the GamerHash store and qualifying for an additional bonus, lowest price, or token paybacks of up to 50%
  • Accessing dedicated competitions or events
  • Receiving bonuses in the GH ecosystem 
  • Receiving rewards for participating in the ecosystem
  • Qualifying for additional GHX pay-out on top of mining rewards for sharing idle computing resources, up to 20%. When earning $100 for mining rewards, a gamer could receive an additional $20 in GHX
  • Reward payments on tasks performed as part of play and earn

The GamerHash team revealed recently that the platform has joined the Blockchain Game Alliance, one of the most powerful alliances in the space, as a Silver partner. GamerHash continues expanding its reach and is plotting a large expansion South Korea in the coming months. In addition to helping users earn passive income from their idle computing power, the team plans to launch an NFT marketplace with the aim of becoming the Amazon of NFTs.

The GamerCoin (GHX) is now trading on Bitcoin.com Exchange, paired with BTC.

Filed Under: Exchange Tagged With: , ,