Bitcoin has reached a new all-time high of $7,888 as participants of the SegWit2x hard fork announce they have “suspended” it.
A circular sent to the mailing list by major proponent Mike Belshe says that it was “clear” the project “had not built sufficient consensus for a clean blocksize upgrade at this time.”
Bitcoin Fork Pens (Image: BTC Keychain/Flickr)
SegWit2x will therefore not activate Nov. 16 as planned, Belshe not naming a possible future date.
The message reads:
“Our goal has always been a smooth upgrade for Bitcoin. Although we strongly believe in the need for a larger blocksize, there is something we believe is even more important: keeping the community together. Unfortunately, it is clear that we have not built sufficient consensus for a clean blocksize upgrade at this time. Continuing on the current path could divide the community and be a setback to Bitcoin’s growth. This was never the goal of SegWit2x.”
If you have solar panels on your house you are eligible to receive free SolarCoins in proportion to how much energy you can generate (specifically each year you get your solar system’s capacity in kW multiplied by a fixed ratio of 1.314). I have previously described the process of installing a SolarCoin Wallet and shown how to register a claim for SolarCoins.
I went through these steps for the two solar arrays on my house (front and rear, installed at different times). Officially you should receive any coins you claim in the first week of the month following your claim.
I am pleased to confirm that my coins came through this week exactly on schedule. The amounts are almost exactly what I expected (the small discrepancies likely relate to whether you calculate the time the panels have been operating in years, months or weeks, for example).
First SolarCoin claim received (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)
The amounts I received were:
Rear roof: 33.9 coins (3.7kW x 7 years x 1.314)
Front roof: 18.6 coins (3.2kW x 4 years x 1.314)
The total came to 52.4775 SolarCoin which at their current value is worth about $18, so about £14.
I have been following Bitcore (symbol: BTX) for some months. It seems to be one of the more interesting new altcoins as it seems to have momentum. It has regular airdrops and community discussions which is more than most here-today-gone-tomorrow altcoins.
I first heard about it because it had an airdrop that allowed you to claim free Bitcore if you had Bitcoin in a private wallet on a specific date (26 April 2017). On that day I had 2.8 Bitcoin in my Ledger so I decided to claim. I assume this airdrop is still open so if you had some Bitcoin then you can still claim yourself.
The process is pretty straightforward – download and install a Bitcore Wallet from the Bitcore website as per the usual process (much like I detailed in How to Make a Bitcoin Wallet). You then need to sign a message using your Bitcoin Wallet to prove you own the Bitcoins, and then you register for the airdrop by providing the Receive address for your Bitcore Wallet, plus the message, on the Bitcore Airdrop page.
For me an additional complication was that my old Ledger Nano can’t sign messages so I had to import the account into Electrum and sign it there. I therefore didn’t make the claim until August.
From that original airdrop I received 2.8 BTX. They have held their value fairly constant at about $6 so that was worth $17 or about £13. Not as great as some airdrops (e.g. eBTC) but not bad.
I missed a trick, though, as Bitcore provides free airdrops weekly worth 3% of your current balance. That certainly beats the 1% per year you might get with a conventional fiat savings account! However, you only get the airdrop with a minimum balance of 10 BTX which, of course, I didn’t have.
Anyway, when I heard of proposed changes in BTX airdrops from 30 October I decided to do something about it. The airdrops would only be available to those who registered, but would start with a free 25% airdrop which seemed rather attractive. Therefore last week I bought £100 worth of BTX (so 19.77 BTX) – that brought my total to 22.6 which was more than enough.
My reasoning was that £100 was enough to be worth doing – since I would get about £25 free for the effort of registering – and that I didn’t have the nerve to do what I maybe should have done. Which was buy £10000 worth of BTX and make £2500 overnight. Of course, the latter would have left me open to big losses if BTX devalued quickly.
Anyway, I’m pleased to report the free 25% BTX (5.64 BTX so worth about £30) has arrived in my wallet. And the price has remained relatively stable so I should really have bought much more…
I plan to keep hold of my BTX for some time (whereas I usually sell airdrops fast) because of the weekly airdrops I should now get. Of course, Bitcore know that’s what people will do and I credit them with coming up with a very clever way of keeping their currency stable and with significant value.
A bounty is a reward paid out for the completion of a certain task.
In the “Old West,” sheriffs used to post bounties in order to encourage bounty hunters to capture dangerous criminals. This concept is alive and well in today’s world and the cryptocurrency space has made it a core concept of its very special culture. In the crypto world, bounty rewards are almost exclusively paid in Bitcoin and ICO tokens.
Star Wars Bounty Hunters (Image: PopCultureGeek/Flickr)
Bitcoin faucets
Bitcoin faucets are websites or apps that dispense rewards in the form of Bitcoin. Visitors can claim this reward in exchange for completing a captcha or task as described by the platform. The main revenue stream from this faucets comes from advertisements.
Back in 2009, Bitcoin faucets used to pay up to three Bitcoin per hour. With today’s Bitcoin prices, that would net around $19k. It’s important to note that back then the Bitcoin price was just a fraction of a cent. Nowadays, faucets pay rewards in “Satoshis,” which is a hundredth of a millionth Bitcoin.
Bounty campaigns
In the ICO space, a bounty program is an offer made by many startups which enables individuals to receive compensation for performing marketing tasks, reporting bugs or improving a product or service. Blockchain startups that plan to hold a crowdsale often allocate a certain percentage of their total tokens to such a campaign.
Bounties are mainly found on forums like Bitcointalk and bounty networks. There are rarely any barriers of entry at all and the only thing a bounty hunter needs to do in order to participate is submit a link to his work. This submission will then be checked by the admin of the campaign who will decide if the submission deserves a reward or not.
[Update: Bitcoin’s price passed $7,000 soon after 10:00 UTC, and has reached a record high of $7,034.14 so far today.]
Another day, another record…
Bitcoin prices have continued to climb overnight, building on
Bitcoin Price Chart (Image: NikonD300/MaxPixel)
consecutive highs in recent days and ultimately reaching a new all-time high close to $7,000.
At 07:00 UTC, bullish bitcoin trading saw the cryptocurrency soar to a peak of $6,994.01, having opened the session at $6,750. At press time, the price of a bitcoin is $6,939, according to CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index – a 2.8 percent gain for the day so far.
As per CoinMarketCap, bitcoin is up over 20.56 percent for the last 7 days, and its market capitalization has now peaked at over $116 billion.
Bitcoin is gearing up for what could be the biggest (and least understood) change to its software to date.
Often called simply a “digital currency,” bitcoin is best viewed as a protocol (a set of code) that delivers data (in this case bitcoins) in defined quantities (called blocks) that are then stored in a sequence (called a blockchain) on a distributed set of global computers. Bitcoin is decentralized – in that many people help make the network function, and in choosing to run its software, users all agree to abide by the same rules to keep it operational.
It’s these qualities that make the proposed change particularly divisive.
Bitcoin Fork Pens (Image: BTC Keychain/Flickr)
Called Segwit2x, the plan calls for a very specific fork (or a change to bitcoin’s rules), one that would make certain rules valid that weren’t valid before. Specifically, Segwit2x would change the size of the blocks passed regularly around the network and stored in the blockchain from 1 MB to 2 MB.
Some users think this is a good idea, others don’t.
But to begin, it’s important to note how this fork differs from others. Coming on the heels of the bitcoin cash and bitcoin gold forks, bitcoin users might be accustomed to certain outcomes – ones that might not be guaranteed in the case of Segwit2x.
With bitcoin cash and bitcoin gold, for example, bitcoin users could have paid little to no attention and it wouldn’t have impacted their transactions. If you held bitcoin on certain exchanges (or your own wallet), you received new cryptocurrency.
This smooth outcome, however, isn’t guaranteed with Segwit2x. Complicating matters is that in many ways, Segwit2x sounds (and is) similar to other bitcoin forks.
The hard fork part of the New York Agreement is scheduled to take place within about two weeks.
This incompatible protocol rule change is set to increase Bitcoin’s block weight limit, to allow for more transactions on the network — if everyone adopts the change. Otherwise, it will create a new blockchain and currency that may or may not be considered to be “Bitcoin.”
Bitcoin split (Image: MaxPixel)
The list of signatories of this agreement includes several of the largest Bitcoin startups and mining pools that, together, claim to represent a majority of users and hash power. Yet, it is far from clear that this 2x part of SegWit2x proposal really has much support outside of these signatories. Most of Bitcoin’s development community, a significant number of other companies, some mining pools, user polls as well as futures markets suggest otherwise.
And now, a growing list of international Bitcoin communities is putting out public statements against the SegWit2x hard fork as well.
Despite its steadily increasing price, not to mention a growing acknowledgment from the financial mainstream, the technical roadmap for the cryptocurrency has never been so hotly contested.
After years of debate on the best path forward, a new code proposal called Segwit2x is set to put the cryptocurrency – the world’s largest by value – to the test. And while it boasts significant support from miners and businesses, it remains unclear whether the new code will change bitcoins’ rules, or if another new cryptocurrency will be created (one already being branded bitcoin2x by some).
Bitcoin fork pen and bitcoin keychains (Image: BTC Keychain/Flickr)
Quite simply, there’s never been a larger change to the platform, nor one that has been the subject of such criticism and scrutiny.
And it might not be all free money. As developers are keen to note, this is bleeding-edge science; in short, we’re in uncharted territory, and if past forks are any indication, decisions could lead to consequences – for users, investors and the market at large.
If you own a solar array you can claim free SolarCoins. To do so you will need the MCS Installation Certificate provided by your installer (or equivalent) in electronic form (e.g. PDF or JPG).
Click on the Login / Register button to get to the Log in page, then select the Create new account tab. There enter your Email address and your preferred Username, and click to enter the prompted security code.
SolarCoin Create New Account screen (Image: Bitcoin Investors UK)
You will then be sent an email to verify your email address – click the link in this email to activate your account. You will then be able specify a password on the site (as usual, I recommend creating a new one at PasswordsGenerator.net).
Login and you’ll see your My Account page. Click on the link to add a solar facility; this is also available as a menu item in the right sidebar – Add Solar Facility.
On the Create Solar Facility Registration page enter details as follows:
Facility identifier: this is just the name you want to give your solar array so you know what’s being referred to – it could just be ‘my solar’ or, if you have multiple systems, perhaps the property address and, say, ‘front roof’, ‘rear roof’, etc.
First Name, Last Name, Email address : these are self-explanatory. The Address is that of the property with the solar array.
Facility Nameplate Capacity: This is the power of the solar array in kW, and should be specified clearly on the Installation Certificate, typically as Declared Net Capacity. For most UK residential systems it will be between 2.0 and 4.0.
Facility Interconnection Date: This is the date the solar array started generating, and will be specified on the Installation Certificate.
Documentation: Press the Choose file button and navigate to and select your copy of the MCS Certificate, or equivalent supporting documentation. If you have an online system that monitors your solar array then you can also enter its website address here, but it’s not required.
SolarCoin Public Wallet Address: This is an address in your SolarCoin Wallet where you want your free SolarCoins to be deposited. To find it, start up the Wallet app, wait for it to synch, then press the Receive button.
Initially this will just show a single Address value – this is what you need so right-click it and select Copy Address. Go back to the SolarCoin website and Paste. Valid addresses begin with the number 8.
(NB: You can have as many receive addresses as you want, so if you have more than one solar array you can choose to press the New Address button and create more, one for each array. In this case you should also right-click in the Label column, select Edit and give each address a name to help identify it.)
Optional: Were you referred by someone to register with SolarCoin? (Click to open): Click on this to open it up – it would be appreciated if you could fill this in with my details. It won’t cost you anything and will earn me about 10p per referral.
Referral Resource Contact Email: Copy flipener@gmail.com and paste it there.
Referral Resource SolarCoin Public Wallet Address: Copy 8ccFy7EaMPziwwe2qH3SkfEtJB4k6qL9gt and paste it there.
The remaining entries can be completed or not as you wish. Click Save. Your solar array is now registered and you will have an entry in the right-hand sidebar under My Solar Facilities.
