On block # 9200000 in the Ethereum blockchain on January 2, 2020, the companys development team launched a new update called Muir Glacier. Thanks to this, the activation of the so-called "complexity bomb" was delayed by almost four million blocks. On the morning of January 3, almost all clients of this company were able to synchronize with this update. This technology was proposed by the developer Eric Conner back in November of the previous year. The main purpose of this update is to suspend the "difficulty bomb" for almost 611 days, which is a pretty good indicator. Thanks to this, the increase in the cost of transactions is canceled, so it is even more profitable to buy Ethereum on exchanges.

It is likely, as many experts confirm, that at the end of this period the presented problem may no longer be relevant due to the transition to PoS. The developers made the decision to launch a new update on the network at the beginning of winter, and even before the New Year, full deployment was planned. In the event that the team refused to implement new updates, the cost of transactions on the Ethereum network would increase significantly. Due to the daily mining of less blocks, the price of Ethereum in the field of transactions increases.

The developer of the update claims that when a new block is mined every thirteen seconds, it is possible to create almost six and a half thousand blocks daily. If the interval reaches 20 seconds, it will be possible to mine four thousand blocks daily. If the network is fully utilized, competition will increase. As a result, Ethereum can be bought with a higher commission, which will also grow for users to conduct transactions. The developers could not allow this, so a large-scale work was launched to implement the update, which allows to avoid such negative consequences.

On December 8, the Istanbul hard fork was successfully activated. This system update is not the first for this network in the previous year. There were already three of them. It is planned by the development team that the next part of this hard fork on the network will be the last before the transition to Ethereum 2.0. However, this is only if additional unexpected obstacles do not arise in the way of developers. However, from a perspective, Ethereum will be very successful in the future through innovation.

A new record was set for the aggregate computing power of the Bitcoin network, which is now 119.35 EH / s. The above indicators were recorded already in January 2020, namely on the first day. In addition, the mining company ArgoBlockchain launched 3616 additional Antminer T17 ASIC devices until January 10. Due to this, the power indicators increased by 159 PH. By the end of winter, it is planned to increase the capacity of this company to 640 PH. Many experts believe that this will affect the price and it will be possible to buy Bitcoin more expensive.

There was an increase in the hash rate of the bitcoin network throughout the year. In autumn, 50 TH / s was reached, but over time it decreased slightly. Despite this, it soon doubled - from 40 TH / s to 90 TH / s. The reason for the growth is the launch of new mining rigs in large numbers. At the same time, old models are gradually being replaced by new ones that are more efficient. However, after conducting a study, Binance specialists found that not all miners rationally used new opportunities. It was noted that many miners were mining Bitcoin SV in the past year when Bitcoin was much more profitable. As a result, almost $ 13 million was lost.

Bitcoins above the plan

Most likely, it was precisely because of the rapid increase in the speed of calculations that a rather interesting phenomenon was observed, which consists in the production of so-called over-planned bitcoins by miners. The algorithm of operation of this altcoin allows mining 52,560 blocks in one year. Despite this, in the previous year, almost a couple of thousand more were produced. If you translate these numbers into monetary equivalent, then the total value of Bitcoin is $ 100 million.

The studies carried out made it possible to obtain confirmation that the share of Chinese miners has increased to 65%. This is the maximum level in two years, during which such monitoring has been carried out. Of these, 54% of all computing power is located in Sichuan province. The rest (31%) are located in the USA, Canada, Iceland, Russia, Norway, Georgia, Iran and Sweden.

Special attention was paid to the fact that large mining companies, which are located in the United States of America, began to rapidly develop. Bitcoins prospects for mining are pretty good. At the same time, the Bitcoin blockchain remains one of the most reliable.

Bitmain specialists built a mining center in Texas with a capacity of 50 MW. The possibility of growth to 300 MW is also noted. In addition, there is an even larger project in the area. We are talking about a mining farm that was built by the German company Northern Bitcoin. The capacity is 1 GW, and the area is equal to 57 football fields.

Miners will need new, state-of-the-art equipment with high efficiency rates, which will create greater opportunities for manufacturers. The result is likely to be a redistribution of the market. Some experts believe that after that it will be possible to buy Bitcoin at a higher cost, but others are confident that the Bitcoin price will not change.

On January 3, 2009, the official launch of the Bitcoin cryptocurrency network took place. An unknown group of developers called Satoshi Nakamoto was involved in the extraction of the BTC genesis block. A couple of months after the launch of the network, the whitepaper of the very first cryptocurrency was published. Bitcoins prospects at that time seemed very dubious. At the very beginning of its journey, the coin attracted the attention of only fans of digital money; mining was also not popular.

Until today, both the motives behind the creation of bitcoin and the personality of Satoshi Nakamoto are unknown. They are working to uncover this secret not only directly in the crypto community, but also far beyond it. The search for the creator of the first world cryptocurrency does not stop. The number of versions is added annually. Many are interested in the questions whether he was in fact a libertarian, what was the purpose of developing the coin, what were the political motives. A particularly frequent question is whether he was Japanese, and also what contributed to the choice of such a pseudonym. No one doubts the fact that this is not a real name. Translated from Japanese, Satoshi means "wise or clear thinking", "naka" means "inside," and "moto" means "base." As a result, the pseudonym of the creator of the worlds first cryptocurrency may mean "clear thinking within the framework."

The hash of the genesis block of this cryptocurrency contains the title of one article from the popular periodical The Times in the UK, so there is an assumption that the developers come from this particular country. Despite everything, it is safe to say that Bitcoin received a new round of development due to the disappearance of the developer, because at that moment this community was deprived of a leader who was engaged in prescribing further actions. As a result, the Bitcoin protocol faced long and rather serious tests regarding censorship resistance. It should be noted that all the obstacles were successfully overcome.

It is believed that the main stimulating factor contributing to the creation of the worlds first coin could be the great financial crisis that began in 2007-2008. It was accompanied by an absolute fiasco of many banks, a decrease in production volumes and a significant decline in demand for various goods, a decrease in their value. In addition, there was a shortage of jobs and there was a fairly active intervention of government agencies in the economy.

On January 12, 2009, a Bitcoin transaction occurred for the first time. At that time, Satoshi Nakamoto sent 10 altcoins to Hal Finney. Just three days before this event, the release of the Bitcoin software version 0.1 was released. Already in July 2010, the first rally in the price of the coin took place. Bitcoin price has increased from $ 0.0008 to $ 0.08. Since then, the price of bitcoin has skyrocketed to reach 9 million percent. The rise in the cost of gold over this period of time is noted by only 25 percent.

Today, you can buy bitcoin at a rate that is approximately $ 7,000 per coin. At the same time, the capitalization of the flagship of the cryptocurrency market is approximately USD 131 million.

Features and Benefits

The following main advantages of financial assets should be highlighted:

transactions are carried out directly between users, completely regardless of their location;
everyone can get access to the network;
no centralized control;
absolute confidentiality of transactions is guaranteed;
maximum security of the system itself.
The bitcoin blockchain is reliable, this coin is considered the most promising today, and experts predict an excellent future for it. Despite the fact that the number of players has rapidly increased in the modern cryptocurrency market, leading exchanges offer to buy bitcoin. Displacement of the main digital currency from the leading place in world rankings is currently an unattainable task.

Due to the rapid growth in the popularity of the coin, many users had to face some inconveniences when conducting transactions, among which a long wait for the implementation of monetary transactions plays an important role. For this reason, developers have been actively working to find ways to modernize the network. The result was the emergence of offshoots of the platform that became relatively independent. Bitcoin has been on the market for over ten years, which is quite a long time. During this period, the coin has become a significant player in the financial arena, which boasts a billion-dollar capitalization and a high price.

The Waves Decentralized Exchange is undergoing massive changes. The project developers announced the launch of the updated platform, which will take place on December 2.

The new exchange will be named Waves Exchange, which will clearly define the purpose of the site for new users. The main changes will affect storage methods and transaction tools. Now all operations will be decentralized, but at the same time optimized at the level of modern fiat exchanges. Trading will be safer, but still affordable.

The problem of centralizing cryptocurrency exchanges often alienates new clients and investors. In an effort to maintain privacy and security, users are increasingly choosing multi-currency wallets and official digital currency client programs for trading.

Following other major exchanges, Waves wants to provide its users with reliable passive income tools. In particular, add the possibility of staking stablecoins.

The developers assure that the new platform will be balanced and will combine a variety of online trading tools. The Waves Exchange will improve margin trading and trusted securities trades.

The first stage of implementation is scheduled for November 18, when service customers will be able to transfer their accounts and passwords to the new platform.

During the annual Devcon developer conference, the creator of the cryptocurrency ETH published five articles on his blog. In them, he talked about the problems of Ethereum, methods of solving them and the transition to the 2.0 version of the system.

According to the plans for the implementation of Metropolis updates, the initial start of Ethereum 2.0 should take place as early as January 3, 2020, if the last hard forks are not transferred. The global transformation of the system is primarily necessary for the transition of cryptocurrency to the Proof-of-Stake consensus system. This algorithm will eliminate the possibility of a 51% attack and stop traditional mining of ETH coins.

The published articles have become very popular both in the Ethereum community and among all crypto enthusiasts. In them, Buterin describes the known vulnerabilities of the digital currency and how to fix them:

Ethereum and Ethereum unification time 2.0. Initially, the Beacon chain system, which will do all the work on the Ethereum 2.0 network, will operate in a centralized manner. Because of this, certain difficulties will arise with the unification of the two systems. The full integration of the PoW blockchain into the PoS network will only take place in a few years. Most developers believe that this will not prevent the two networks from running in parallel.
Transactions cannot be performed atomically. For different decentralized applications, Ethereum 2.0 will split the transaction load into different shards. Therefore, dApps developers will not be able to conduct transactions between them directly, as it was before. This complicates the programming of such applications, but does not affect the overall usability and popularity of the system.
Moving coins between two versions of Ethereum. Due to the fact that the structure of the two versions of the Ethereum network will be different, this will not allow users to move their ETH between the networks. This opportunity will appear after combining the two algorithms and creating a bridge. Vitalik Buterin says that in the short term, after the introduction of version 2.0, users will be able to transfer their coins to the new architecture.
Increased commissions for developers on the new network. PoS coin transactions will be stored differently. All information about a specific state in the blockchain is stored locally, so dApp developers will have to request more information when deploying applications. According to the creator of Ethereum, this problem can be easily solved by regulating the number of witnesses and the amount of gas spent.
Ethereum 2.0 is throughput will be half what was planned. In the last article, Vitalik suggested using 64 shards in the network instead of 1024. This will simplify development and greatly speed up communication between different blocks of Ethereum 2.0, and reduce the number of vulnerabilities. In this case, the total network bandwidth will be lower than with 1024 shards.
Despite the creators statement, development of the second version of ETH is still ongoing. Even after the start of the zero stage of implementation, many things will be finalized and added to the initial project. Therefore, it is too early to talk about specific network parameters.

During the night of October 25 and the morning of October 26, the price of BTC went up again: for a short while, the cryptocurrency broke the level of 10,000 USD per coin.

After the famous rally in 2017, the rise of Bitcoin to $ 10,000 does not seem to be really significant. However, it was one of the most rapid leaps in the history of cryptocurrency.

Users note that in terms of its pace, BTCs breakthrough became the 4th of all sharp changes in the rate of the first cryptocurrency. A similar leap in the chart could be observed only until 2011, when only advanced fans of IT technologies knew about digital currency.

According to most investors, the sharp increase in the value of Bitcoin is associated with the latest statements by the head of the Peoples Republic of China Xi Jinping. In his address dated October 25, 2019, he spoke about the importance of blockchain technologies and called for supporting the development of this direction throughout the country.

Such a statement immediately increased the interest of Chinese people in cryptocurrencies and the blockchain sphere, and Bitcoin is the first and dominant digital currency. Also, sales growth was observed on services for institutional investors.

On October 25, China hosted a meeting of the Politburo Committee on Economic Development and Modern Technologies. At it, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for the development of the blockchain industry and the introduction of similar technologies throughout the country.

Within the framework of the meeting, other possibilities of the Chinese economy were also discussed, but special emphasis was placed on the blockchain and its possibilities. The Chinese leader said that the government should focus on specific areas for the development of this technology and stimulate the development of the industry financially.

Xi Jinping is confident that the introduction of a decentralized database into management systems will allow the country to make another leap in the economy. The rulers statement instantly affected the economic performance of many blockchain startups and cryptocurrencies.

The PRC government can become a leader in blockchain systems and related technologies. Most companies and financial institutions based on a decentralized database exist in China or nearby regions.

It should be noted that the country has introduced more than 12 documents regulating activities related to digital currency. Officially, the government has completely banned ICOs and partially trading on cryptocurrency exchanges. Perhaps it is the Chinese thaw in digital money that will give a new impetus to the entire market.

The development team has published two proposals to improve its structure on the Litecoin public network. They are both related to privacy in the popular cryptocurrency system, where information is stored on a public blockchain with access to transaction data.

Litecoin (or LIP) improvement proposals have been numbered 0002 EB and 0003 MW. Changes to the code allow introducing MimbleWimble technology into the system, which will make information about the exchange confidential, but at the same time will not break the structure of transactions. Privacy will be created through special extension blocks. They will be created parallel to the main chain, and the interval for adding to the blockchain will be 2.5 minutes.

With the advent of cryptocurrencies such as DASH, Zcash, and Monero, as well as external blockchain solutions to create privacy, users expectations for digital currencies have skyrocketed. Online stores and exchange platforms can collect user data and then transfer it into the hands of cybercriminals. To avoid this, public transactions need protection.

The block in the MimbleWimble system does not contain detailed information about the owner, his address and the amount of LTC transferred. An improvement proposal will take effect if at least 75 percent of the Litecoin network users vote for it.