{"id":11760,"date":"2019-01-18T23:34:48","date_gmt":"2019-01-18T23:34:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/?p=11760"},"modified":"2019-01-18T23:34:48","modified_gmt":"2019-01-18T23:34:48","slug":"news-us-investors-lose-1-7b-on-bitcoin-lightning-network-cryptopia-hack-quadrigacx-founder-ceo-dies-tether-timeline-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/2019\/01\/18\/news-us-investors-lose-1-7b-on-bitcoin-lightning-network-cryptopia-hack-quadrigacx-founder-ceo-dies-tether-timeline-update\/","title":{"rendered":"News: US investors lose $1.7b on Bitcoin, Lightning Network, Cryptopia hack, QuadrigaCX founder\/CEO dies, Tether timeline update"},"content":{"rendered":"

US investors have seen about $1.7 billion — of actual money — in realized Bitcoin losses.<\/a> And there’s an additional $5.7 billion in unrealized losses \u2014 that is, hodling has cost them $5.7b.<\/p>\n

I’m just shocked<\/em> to hear that Tron’s $1 Million dapp contest looks like it was just a price pumping scheme.<\/a><\/p>\n

I’m sure your funds are $100% safe<\/a> in (checks notes)<\/em> Cryptopia, the exchange that never saw a [engage euphemism substitutor]\u00a0minor altcoin<\/em> it didn’t like. Thread<\/a> from Larry Cermak.<\/p>\n

QuadrigaCX’s CEO and founder died in India in December \u2014 and the exchange only announced this highly material fact this week.<\/a> Meanwhile, users still can’t reliably get actual money out.<\/p>\n

“Starting in October, a large number of holders who hadn\u2019t touched their Bitcoins for between six months and more than 2\u00bd years began moving their coins.<\/a>” Some of this is exchange wallets being shuffled … but not all of it.<\/p>\n

The Lightning Network proves its superiority as a cryptocurrency facility \u2014 by thoroughly centralising right out the gate.<\/a> One entity runs 20 nodes (0.7% of total nodes), with 64% of the network\u2019s capacity.<\/p>\n

Developers Point Out Flaw in Lightning Network\u2019s Cross-Chain Functionality<\/a> \u2014 you can arbitrage if you delay settlement on one chain that’s paying off differently to another chain. This was known early on in Lightning Network development, but advocates still talk up this angle. I love that the fix is … a trusted third party! Much like crypto in general, the Lightning Network will only work when it’s finally evolved into an inefficient, unreliable copy of the correspondent banking system.<\/p>\n

A tragic tale of kidnapping, murder, and Bitcoin<\/a> \u2014 it turns out yet again that doing crimes on a permanent immutable public ledger is still not the brightest idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd one day, Bitcoin will become big oil,<\/a> and all who dabble in it will be reborn as enemies of the environmental movement, seen as plunderers of the planet and the bad guys in the fight against climate change \u2014 just like oil.\u201d<\/p>\n

In November, CoinCenter \u2014 a Bitcoin lobbyist group who actively sought out economists<\/a> to tell the world that Proof-of-Work<\/a> was good and not reprehensible,<\/a> actually \u2014 put out a paper: The Bitcoin Mining Network – Trends, Marginal Creation Cost, Electricity Consumption & Sources<\/a> \u2014 with some remarkable<\/em> claims about how good Proof-of-Work was, actually. Maximilian Fiege has written a comprehensive rebuttal:\u00a0Bitcoin Doesn\u2019t Incentivize Green Energy.<\/a> Here’s the Tweetstorm version,<\/a> if you want a summary. I still get bozos tweeting the CoinCenter report at me claiming “Bitcoin mining uses green energy!” and I have to tweet back “yes, they displace the previous users to coal,<\/a> for a net increase in carbon.” Which I already covered in my post from May last year.<\/a><\/p>\n

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https:\/\/twitter.com\/fiege_max\/status\/1082681545905688576<\/p>\n

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Tether presently accounts for 5% of daily Bitcoin transactions.<\/a><\/p>\n

Amy Castor wrote up a timeline of Tether for Bitcoin Magazine last year<\/a> \u2014 she’s now updated it for her new crypto news blog,<\/a> and will be adding more to it. Contribute details!<\/p>\n

Did I mention you should subscribe to Amy Castor’s new blockchain blog?<\/a> You totally need to.<\/p>\n

BitMEX Research: Tracking US$24 billion Of Tokens ICO Teams Gave Themselves.<\/a> How the “print your own private money” scam works.<\/p>\n

I’m told by one of the implementors of an early version that the blockchain bit of the HSBC “FX Everywhere” puffery<\/a> doing the rounds is absolutely minimal \u2014 it’s pretty much just a Merkle tree ledger bolted on the side. The phrase “blockchain technology” is what utter weasels say when they can’t even claim their thing is actually a blockchain.<\/p>\n

“So only 5\/10 countries where Binance wants to start trading fiat are literally listed as top 20 tax havens.<\/a>”<\/p>\n

Ben Munster at Decrypt Media has updated his KodakOne article<\/a> with further confusion \u2014 and is gaining added insight into how my coverage ended up being a year-long series.<\/a><\/p>\n

Chris Zappone, The Age: Cryptocurrency is radical \u2014 but who does the radicalism benefit?<\/a> With extensive quotes from David Golumbia and his book T<\/em>he Politics of Bitcoin<\/i> (US<\/a>, UK<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Academic paper on blockchain in music by\u00a0Nancy Baym, Lana Swartz and Andrea Alarcon: Convening Technologies: Blockchain and the Music Industry<\/a> in the International Journal of Communication<\/em> \u2014 quotes me, so it must be brilliant.<\/p>\n

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At coffeeshop. This dude is pitching VR on the blockchain to an investor who is trying not to laugh. <\/p>\n

They just got into burn\/projections, investor cant keep laugh in anymore. He just asked dude if this pitch is a joke. Dude is now angry.<\/p>\n

OMG. stop having these mtgs in public.<\/p>\n

— Alex Marshall (@grlalx) January 17, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n