The confidence game “We have every confidence in the ability of [person about to be sacked]” It happens all the time, particularly in sport. Confidence needs to be reinforced which means, it’s gone. Fiat currency is a confidence game too. You cannot redeem it for gold any longer and when confidence goes, the stampede for
Bloomberg & Bitcoin Bitcoin has a mixed relationship with Bloomberg. We have discussed before some of the negative takes on that platform which I have taken issue with. All told though, the criticism is good. No financial asset is more criticised and maligned than bitcoin, so it was rather encouraging this week to read a
And Why Markets are still immature Some interesting action in privacy coin markets today as a new currency took centre stage thanks to a severe code bug. MimbleWimble based privacy coin Beam saw its blockchain halted, as miners began improperly propagating invalid blocks. Beam has only been live on mainnet since January 4th, so it is
Why regulators are not avant-garde IMF Chief Christine Lagarde gave a speech last week at the Singapore Fintech Festival that was based around digital currencies. Her speech followed a well trodden path for regulators views on digital currency, where the benefits of decentralised currencies are dismissed or outright ignored for the purposes of pushing the
The Wright Way? In what has been a relatively flat period for the rest of the market, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) has been at the centre of an increasingly controversial hard fork debate. The division of the community and subsequent development from that has been an incredibly interesting case study in how decentralised protocols deal with decision
One of the major characteristics driving innovation in blockchain is the prevalence of open source projects. Making protocol code accessible to community developers has seen massive acceleration in the technological development of networks. Whilst this system may be good for the development and evolution of protocol technology, it hasn’t been able to facilitate the creation
Weapon’s Grade Privacy A recent hard fork in the privacy network Monero has seen the implementation of its Bulletproof Update. The update has generated a lot of interest in the Monero community, as it provides a clear improvement in the scalability of the network. We will unpack the technical portion of the update, and evaluate what it
You may have seen a recent announcement regarding the launch of Blockstream’s new Protocol called “Liquid”. In development since 2015, the Liquid Protocol represents part of a paradigm shift in blockchain. With major networks experiencing scalability and efficiency issues, developers and investors have looked to the potential of layer-2 sidechain based solutions in order to improve usability
One of the fundamental aspects of blockchain design is the development of blockchain governance mechanisms. Blockchain governance, in simple terms, is the mechanism by which design changes are enacted on a blockchain. A governance system which encourages the ability to adapt and evolve to change is key in a blockchain that aims to be successful
One of major hurdles to online commerce today is the difficultly in empowering individuals to control their own online information, including proving their identity. The potential for smart contracts and their associated platforms to provide a secure and efficient way to manage digital identity is a major source of investment and research in the blockchain
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