The question of how to best increase the transaction processing capacity of the blockchain may be bitcoin’s current crisis, but that isn’t stopping researchers from working to solve more forward-looking issues. Held last weekend in Montreal, the inaugural Scaling Bitcoin marked the first major conference for developers, and as such, it featured a broad sampling of technical experts working on solutions to problems that may come to light as knowledge of blockchain technology advances. One of the more novel proposals to debut at the event was developed by Cornell post-doc student Ittay Eyal, PhD student Adem Efe Gencer, computer science professor Emin Gün Sirer and research scientist Robbert Van Renesse. Called Bitcoin-NG (the “NG” is short…
IBM is working on a new blockchain project for smart contract creation. The Wall Street Journal reports the company’s research arm is using the basic bitcoin codebase to create a new blockchain system that will eventually be released as open-source software. IBM said that “dozens” of employees are involved in the initiative, and that the project is distinct from ADEPT, a proof-of-concept for the Internet of Things unveiled earlier this year. The Journal spoke with IBM research senior vice president Arvind Krishna, who told the newspaper that the company’s blockchain system won’t have an internal currency and will be designed to “ensure that contract details remain private” while making it easier for companies to “embed business…
Billed as a potential venue for debate on more heated issues surrounding the long-term viability of the bitcoin network, Scaling Bitcoin saw a who’s who of developers decamp to Montreal to talk about the underlying technical issues facing bitcoin yesterday. Often reduced in conversation to mentions of its price or market cap, Scaling Bitcoin succeeded at showcasing the breadth of challenges posed by bitcoin’s approach to incentivizing disparate parties to maintain a common and equally beneficial distributed resource. Held in Montreal, day one of the much-anticipated event focused more on how incentivizes for network participants should be balanced and less on the positives and negatives of any of the competing proposals – whether Bitcoin Core, its…
How much have Ashley Madison customers been blackmailed for since their personal data was leaked last month? One cybersecurity firm thinks it might have the answer. In a 1st September blog post from network security firm CloudMark, software engineer and research analyst Toshiro Nishimura suggested that as much as $6,400 may have been extracted from those seeking to buy the silence of the blackmailer. CoinDesk reported last month that customers Ashley Madison, a website that advertised itself as a platform for infidelity, were receiving blackmail threats by email that contained personal information derived from the cache of released information. Nishimura said the team tracked bitcoin payments around the time the blackmail threats emerged using blockchain…
The Connecticut Technology Council (CTC) has partnered with blockchain startup Tierion for a trial that will find government survey data secured on the bitcoin blockchain. As part of a drive to glean data from some 200 Connecticut technology companies, the state’s Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD) is seeking perspective on issues including workforce demand and tax code awareness, among other issues, in a broad survey. As explained by Tierion CEO Wayne Vaughn, the company’s blockchain technology is not essential to the survey process, but rather provides the startup with a chance to expose new entities to the potential benefits of decentralized ledgers for recordkeeping. Bruce Carlson, president and CEO of the CTC, suggested that…
Last updated: 2nd September As the block size debate rages on – given added fuel by the recent release of Bitcoin XT – stakeholders in bitcoin are picking sides on how the currency should scale. Whether it’s an 8MB increase, or a dynamic limit chosen by the currency’s mining elite, we’re keeping tally of the industry’s decisions so far. Below you can see results from the 15 biggest mining organisations and the 10 best-funded bitcoin service providers. Hover to see the date, and toggle between miners and services using the buttons at the top. The map below also indicates where each proposal has received the most support geographically. We’ll keep updating both the table and the map as more companies make their plans known, or change…