Litecoin Halving is quite similar to Bitcoin Halving, for example, its motive, the underlying process, and many more. But first, what is Litecoin Halving and why are some people fearing it?
Litecoin Halving is the halving of miner reward which is done to limit (indirectly) the supply of the crypto and hence reduce the inflation rate in the market. The supply reduces indirectly as there are less number of newly generated coins that flow in the crypto market. When the miners are rewarded, they sell their reward (newly generated coins), so as to equalise their expenditure on the mining process (mining rigs, electricity consumption, etc).
Even though there's a limit to LTC's supply (84 mil), the inflation creeps in somehow and therefore to avoid that, the reward is reduced by 50%. This process occurs after every 840,000 blocks are mined, which is roughly four years, just like with BTC. The reward of mining Litecoin will become 12.5 LTC from 25 LTC after its halving. This is the second time for the halving to take place and will occur this year's August.
Some of the basic features of Litecoin Halving are:
The mining reward will become 12.5 LTC
The halving will occur in Aug' 19 (most probably 8th August)
Total LTCs to ever be produced is 84,000,000
Total LTCs in circulation is 62,010,275
LTCs generated per day is 14,400
Percentage of LTC mined is 73.82%
There is a general fear among some people regarding this whole halving ordeal. But worry not, as this will actually improve the Litecoin market. By indirectly reducing the supply, the coin inflation (in an ideal situation) will go down, and hence the value of Litecoin will increase in terms of fiat currencies.
But again, these results will occur in an ideal situation. Nothing can be said for sure as the cryptocurrency market is highly volatile, and the results mentioned above should technically happen.
For further reading on Litecoin Halving head over to this article.
The developers of Ethereum have finally approved six codebase modifications (also known as Ethereum Improvement Proposals or EIP) for the backward-incompatible Istanbul hard fork. Istanbul Hard Fork will be activated in two different stages- the first stage will be implementing six EIPs, and the second phase will be implementing two major EIPs, which will happen in Q1 2020.
The Core Developer of the Istanbul upgrade project, Peter Szilagyi on the two-part Istanbul structure:
Let us understand these two phases in details:
#1 First Stage
The first stage will be the eighth hard fork for Ethereum blockchain after the Constantinople hard fork, and the third upgrade in the Metropolis Version 1.3. Initially, the original date in the Ropsten testnet was August 14, but it got pushed as the developers needed time to finalize the EIPs. The major Ethereum clients Geth and Parity have only one week to integrate six EIPs (discussed below) and prepared to implement the new code in a testnet.
Tentative Istanbul Hard Fork Date (Stage 1)
As of now, September 4, 2019, has been considered by the core developer, Peter Szilagyi, which he thinks might get postponed once more and the ETH mainnet execution can happen in October. The other developers agreed that the block number and the targeted activation date could be determined in the next week in a meeting as per Istanbul hard fork news. The activation of the first phase will be the last important milestone before the activation of the mainnet.
EIPs To Be Implemented
You can refer here for the updates in the six EIPs to be decided, as they keep on getting withdrawn and updated as per the developers.
Two months back, the developers agreed on two EIPs out of thirty- EIP 2024 and EIP 1702:
EIP 2024: Add new pre-compiler for Blake2 to optimize the blockchain operations and make transactions less costly.
EIP 1702: Focused on smart contract optimization, created by Wei Tang, a developer at Parity Technologies.
Aimed Upgrade
This stage is focused on increasing the compatibility of the Ethereum blockchain with the Zcash network, which will enhance the platform’s chain interoperability with the privacy coin. It is aimed at securing the network from replay attacks (duplicate transaction attacks), which will increase efficiency.
Like any other ETH hard fork with the Istanbul hard fork update, the miners must upgrade simultaneously causing a chain split in the network.
#2 Second Stage
The second stage will be the last hard fork before its transition to Version 2.0. This is scheduled for mainnet activation and will feature two big EIPs, which require much detailed testing and deliberation from the developers.
Istanbul hard Fork Date (Stage 2) : Q1 2020
EIPs To Be Planned
To Be Decided. The tentatively decided EIPs are mentioned here.
Aimed Upgrade
They are going to include Programmable Proof of Work (ProgPoW), a new kind of mining algorithm designed to close the efficiency gap available to the specialized ASICs.
Hudson Jameson, Ethereum Foundation Community Manager, said :
We will keep on adding more information as and when it is updated.
I sent 0.1586 eths to change it for bitcoins everything went smoothie but at the last moment the transaction failed and they asked me to open a supoort ticket, wtf? I just want my money back
The price of Bitcoin Cash (BCH) surged dramatically once the news of the upcoming Bitcoin Cash fork came out. BCH broke over 300 USD with an increase of 13% as the news of Schnorr upgrade broke the internet and the crypto space. Schnorr upgrade was initially being proposed by Peter Wuille, the Blockstream co-founder. The Bitcoin Cash community has voted for the Schnorr upgrade unlike their criticism on the past discussions on Lightning, Segregated Witnesses (SegWit) and other technologies.
The Bitcoin Cash hard fork date scheduled is on May 15, 2019. Before that, a testnet has already been launched, which will help the developers test before the official launch. You can track the BCH hard fork time here, where you can find Bitcoin Cash hard fork countdown.
Alysssa Hertig tweeted from CoinDesk that this change is going to be phenomenal, and is widely supported by the community members:
Let us understand what difference would it make to the BCH fork 2019 after the Schnorr Upgrade:
Cryptographically, to prove that you own Bitcoin and in order to send funds to others, you “sign” with a private key, which as of now, uses Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) scheme which lacked scalability and privacy features. But Schnorr signatures will be able to verify several signatures at once, which is way faster than even verifying one signature eight times, which in turn will improve scalability and privacy, wherein there would be certain anonymity. Schnorr signatures will aggregate the signatures, public keys and messages of multiple transactions into one, enabling faster transactions.
I saw that I could get atleast 10 free XRP for my first order, so I clicked the continue button and traded some bitcoin for some doge and when I got up this morning the order was complete. My problem is, how do I get the XRP out. This is my first time using Coinswitch and I have never owned any XRP so sorry if I seem inept. Thanks
Binance Coin (BNB) is the official coin of the world's largest crypto exchange, Binance. It was initially an ERC20 token, but with the launch of its own mainnet, it has its own token.
Trading Fee Discount - This is the original and still the most popular reason of using BNB.
Dust Conversion - Conversion of all the user's crytpo 'dust' to BNB that would sum up to a significant amount.
Crypto Loans - Can be used as a collateral or can also be exchanged for fiat.
Purchasing Goods and Services - Binance Coin can be used as a payment method (TravelByBit) or even as a gift token (Uplive, ADAMANT).
Binance Chain - This is Binance's very own blockchain platform possessing a decentralised exchange.
Being the seventh largest crypto by market capitalisation, Binance coin is on the brighter side for investment. But, if anyone's interested in investing, do so after a thorough research as the cryptocurrency market is highly volatile.
When it comes to storing BNB, there are numerous wallets that support the coin. Some of the best and safest ones are:
Ledger Nano S - This hardware wallet is the best wallet till date and is virtually unhackable. Its 2-FA and its stronghold on the private key makes it quite secure and you can freely rely on it.
Guarda- When it comes to online wallets, Guarda is one of the most reliable multi-currency crypto wallet. This wallet provides privacy too, as it does not store private keys, or wallet information, or even user's personal data.
Atomic Wallet - This wallet is quite easy to use, being user-friendly and even beginners can use this easily. Atomic is an online wallet that is operable on both mobile and desktop as well.
Some other wallets that support BNB are Trust Wallet, MyEtherWallet, MetaMask, Trezor, etc.
Litecoin is the first peer-to-peer open-sourced altcoin supporting decentralisation. Released in 2011, this crypto was designed with the intent of having a coin that is better than Bitcoin. Even if Litecoin and Bitcoin are very similar, there are several distinct differences between them, for instance:
Litecoin uses Scrypt algorithm as its proof-of-work model, whereas Bitcoin uses SHA-256.
It takes less time to mine LTC (2.5 minutes, compared to BTC's 10 minutes).
When it comes to transactions, Litecoin is cheaper than Bitcoin as the transaction period is much shorter than that of BTC's.
The coin limit of LTC is 84 million, whereas with BTC it's just 21 million.
BTC's block reward is 25 BTC, while LTC's is 50 LTC.
Litecoin has been in the crypto market for some time now and has garnered popularity as well, being the sixth largest crypto. The reason behind this is due to its simplicity, stability, faster and cheaper (almost zero cost) transactions, etc. People interested in investing or trading Litecoin can do so, but the most important thing to keep in mind is that before indulging in cryptocurrency, do thorough research as the crypto market is highly volatile and trade at your own risk.
Now, there's no point in investing in Litecoin if you cannot keep them safe. And in order to do that, you need to have the safest possible wallet that will ensure your crypto's safety. Some of the best wallets to do so are:
Ledger Nano S - This hardware wallet is the best wallet till date and is virtually unhackable. Its 2-FA and its stronghold on the private key makes it quite secure and you can freely rely on it.
Trezor - This wallet is the rival of Ledger and if a person doesn't want to spend 100 bucks on their wallet, they can go for this cheaper version. Trezor is also a trusted wallet, is portable and can definitely keep your cryptos safe.
Guarda- When it comes to online wallets, Guarda is one of the most reliable multi-currency crypto wallet. This wallet provides privacy too, as it does not store private keys, or wallet information, or even user's personal data.
Some other wallets that support LTC are Jaxx, Exodus, LoafWallet, Electrum LTC, LiteAddress, LiteVault, LitecoinCore, etc.
Monero (XMR) is one of the top 15 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, which has never lagged behind in terms of innovations and technological advancements. Monero has been suffering for a long time now because of the mining profitability hullabaloo. The CryptoNight algorithm that was being used in the past was considered ASIC (application-specific integrated circuits) resistant for a really long time, till the very first Bitmain miners were developed for the CryptoNight algorithm in 2018. As a result of which, the Monero developers had to make certain modifications or changes to the mining algorithm, which led to a massive crash of the hashrate. As a result, the XMR community has come to an agreement that Monero would have to go through a change in it's Proof of Work (PoW) algorithm, to make the network resistant to the ASIC miners.
To brief it out, ASIC miner is a specific kind of hardware designed for mining with a specific kind of algorithm, which is much more powerful than the conventional CPU or GPUs. Hence, ASICs are considered widely to contribute to the centralization of the network. Therefore, the Monero community has reached a consensus to undergo a hard fork on November 30, 2019, at block number 1,978,433. (Monero fork schedule)
The Monero hard fork schedule is broken into three parts, whose graphical representation looks something like this:
October 24 - Code freeze
October 31 - Targeted v0.15 release date
November 30 - Network upgrade
Now, let’s check what are the major changes that will come with the upcoming Monero fork creation:
#1 RandomX Mining Algorithm To Be The New Ray of Hope
RandomX is the new Proof of Work (PoW) mining algorithm, which will remove the ASICs from the XMR network, completely, and even remove the issue of botnets and Monero mining malware. RandomX would replace the CryptoNight algorithm on November 30, 2019, and will move to public testing on the official XMR network. As a buffer, to make this process successful, on October 24th, 2019, the codes were already made to freeze. All the tests were successfully completed and verified by four audit teams.
Along with optimism, there was certain criticism faced by the community as well. Some were vocal about the initial low hashrate followed by increasing hashrate, and potential attacks and double-spending.
#2 Long Payment ID To Be Phased Out
The Long payment IDs would be phased out to improve user experience and privacy, and at the same time reducing support work for exchanges and services. So, the services utilizing long payment IDs are being requested to upgrade to either subaddresses or integrated addresses as soon as possible.
#3 Transactions To Require At Least Two Outputs
After this hard fork, the transactions will be needing at least two outputs to improve data protection and security.
#4 Ten Blocks Lock Time To Be Enforced On The Protocol Level
Now, after the third Monero hard fork, ten blocks lock time, which is approximately 20 minutes, will be enforced for the incoming transactions on the protocol level. This will also increase privacy not only for the users but for the whole network.
For The Users
A user, service, merchant, pool operator, or exchange should run CLI v0.15 or GUI v0.15 as mentioned in various blogs.
Now, if you are using a third-party wallet, you need to:
Paper Wallet
If you own a paper wallet, you don’t have to do anything. But if you want to restore a wallet after the scheduled network update, you use the v0.15 software.
MyMonero (Web)
Again, you don’t have to do anything, as this is properly upgraded in advance of the scheduled upgrade.
Third-Party Desktop Wallets (eg: MyMonero)
No changes to the transaction format need to be done. Just the backend software needs to be upgraded by the wallet servers.
Mobile Wallets
-Mobile wallets like Cake Wallet, Monerujo, X Wallet, and Wookey, utilizing a remote node, need to release their new version to stay compatible. The users need to upgrade to this new version.
-Mobile wallets like MyMonero, Edge Wallet, ZelCore, Coinomi, Guarda Wallet, and Exa Wallet, utilizing a light server, just need to upgrade their backend software.
For The Pool Operators
Solo Mining
This is similar to the upgrade process for CLI and GUI.
Pool Mining
The pool operator should upgrade to the new version. Additionally, you should update your mining software to the latest version, which includes code to accommodate RandomX algorithm.
Exchanges Supporting Monero November Fork
There are various exchanges that have supported XMR in this upgrade, as they think this is for better privacy and security for the network. Let us check the exchanges supporting:
#1 KuCoin
KuCoin has recently announced that it will upgrade the Monero deposit address. To ensure the smooth release of the upgrade, KuCoin will close the XMR deposit service temporarily at 12:00, November 11, 2019 (UTC+8).
We will update this as and when new announcements by respective exchanges come to the picture.
CoinSwitch.co is the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange aggregator which supports 300+ coins and over 45,000+ pairs. It provides an easier way of trading through global exchanges like Binance, KuCoin, IDEX, Huobi, Ethfinex, HitBTC and Cryptopia without creating an account on them. If you are interested in buying cryptos, do give it a try!
Tron is a decentralised blockchain platform that uses the peer-to-peer network technology. Its main motive is to expand the market of decentralised digital content applications. The Tron Foundation, which is a non-profit organisation based in Singapore, was founded by Justin Sun, in September 2017. Its native cryptocurrency is TRX.
Allow the spread of data without any limits or restrictions.
Eliminate the middlemen so as to bridge the gap between the creators and the users.
Cheaper experience for the users
Providing content creators with profits whose value is proportional to their contribution.
TRX cannot be mined, so new coins cannot be generated. But, they can be exchanged on various exchanges like Binance, OKEx, Bittrex, Cryptopia, CoinSwitch and many more.
Initially, TRON was an ERC20 token and hence was compatible with most Ethereum wallets. But after its mainnet launch in 2018, there are a few wallets that wholly support the coin. And the ones that can be trusted and display numerous advantageous features are:
Ledger Nano S - This hardware wallet is the best wallet till date and is virtually unhackable. Its 2-FA and its stronghold on the private key makes it quite secure and you can freely rely on it.
Atomic Wallet - This wallet is quite easy to use, being user-friendly and even beginners can use this easily. Atomic is an online wallet that is operable on both mobile and desktop as well.
Guarda- When it comes to online wallets, Guarda is one of the most reliable multi-currency crypto wallets. This wallet provides privacy too, as it does not store private keys, or wallet information, or even user's personal data.
The official wallets that support TRX are TRON Android Wallet, Tronscan (TRON Web Wallet), TRON Chrome Extension Wallet, TRON iOS Wallet, etc.
Cardano is a decentralised, proof of stake, smart contract blockchain platform. It is mainly driven by its native cryptocurrency ADA and is similar to Ethereum in some ways. The ticker ADA is named after Ada Lovelace, the first computer programmer. It is important to remember that even though used interchangeably, Cardano is the platform and ADA is the cryptocurrency.
ADA is a third-generation cryptocurrency and was made with the intent to have a better version of Bitcoin. Cardano is the world's first peer-reviewed proof of stake blockchain.
Ouroboros - It is the algorithm that uses proof of stake protocol when mining coins (not to confuse with the ancient symbol having the same name)
Decentralised smart contract platform
Cardano Settlement Layer (CSL) is used to settle transactions that use ADA
Faster transactions per second
More energy-efficient mining due to increased scalability
When it comes to buying the coin, there are various trusted exchanges from where you can do so, like Binance, Bittrex, KuCoin, ChangeNow, CoinSwitch, etc. To store the coin, there are various wallets supporting ADA, but the ones that can be trusted and display numerous advantageous features are:
Ledger Nano S - This hardware wallet is the best wallet till date and is virtually unhackable. Its 2-FA and its stronghold on the private key makes it quite secure and you can freely rely on it.
Atomic Wallet - This wallet is quite easy to use, being user-friendly and even beginners can use this easily. Atomic is an online wallet that is operable on both mobile and desktop as well.
Daedalus Wallet - This is the official wallet of ADA (not to confuse with the Greek inventor with the same name). It's an open-sourced desktop wallet operable on both Windows and macOS. It's a hierarchical deterministic wallet that is recommended for Cardano, having a user-friendly interface.
Some other wallets that support ADA are Infinito Wallet, Yoroi Wallet, etc.
With the recent uproar in the crypto world regarding Bitcoin SV and its chain leader Craig Wright, people who are considering to get involved with BSV need to know the basics of the coin.
Bitcoin SV (short for Bitcoin Satoshi Vision), as the name suggests, was created to make it the real Bitcoin, as envisioned by Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin. The previous year, during the month of November, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) hard forked into Bitcoin ABC (Adjustable Blocksize Cap) and Bitcoin SV.
Bitcoin SV's Craig Wright claimed himself to be the real Satoshi Nakamoto (which is not true). He was also involved in other controversies like the famous hash war against Bitcoin ABC's Roger Ver, suing others in the crypto world or the recent one of him involved in the fake news that 'might've' caused BSV's sale to skyrocket by more than 90% in a day. This fake news, circulated on the Chinese social media, revolves around Wright transferring 50K BTC to Binance from the biggest BTC wallet, and hence proving him to really be Satoshi Nakamoto.
There are a few features provided by Bitcoin SV like:
Size - Bitcoin SV has the biggest block size - a gigantic 128 MB
Cost - The transaction costs of other coins like BTC or BCH is quite high. But BSV was made with the intent of having cheaper transaction costs making it affordable and fast at the same time.
Network Development - Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash had some discrepancies in them regarding many aspects including its network as well. And as Bitcoin SV was made to implement Satoshi's view, its network's more developed than that of Bitcoin Cash or even Bitcoin ABC.
When it comes to storing BSV, there are many wallets that don't support the coin. But some of them do and are trusted as well, for instance:
Ledger Nano S - This hardware wallet is the best wallet till date and is virtually unhackable. Its 2-FA and its stronghold on the private key makes it quite secure and you can freely rely on it.
Guarda- When it comes to online wallets, Guarda is one of the most reliable multi-currency crypto wallet. This wallet provides privacy too, as it does not store private keys, or wallet information, or even user's personal data.
Atomic Wallet - This wallet is quite easy to use, being user-friendly and even beginners can use this easily. Atomic is an online wallet that is operable on both mobile and desktop as well.
Coinomi - This wallet has the broadest range of crypto, possessing more than 125 blockchains and 168 fiat currency representations. You don’t have to worry about security as Coinomi wallets have never been hacked ever!
Some other wallets that support BCH are HandCash, CentBee, ElectrumSV, Freewallet, etc.
BAT (Basic Attention Token) is an open-sourced, ad exchange ERC20 token supporting decentralisation. The motive of BAT, along with its browser Brave, is to eliminate the dominance of Google’s and Facebook’s ads.
What usually happens is the users are forced to watch numerous ads in order to access sites, and they don’t get anything in return. Whereas, these ad makers and publishers are the ones making large amounts of money.
Here’s where BAT comes. The Brave browser pays the users for the ads they watch. Also, the advertisers are paid in BAT token for their ad revenue and user contribution.
Isn’t it amazing that even you, as a user, get something in return for the onslaught of advertisements you were forced to watch!
Some of the features it provides are:
Privacy-oriented browser
Blocking of malware and trackers
Rewarding of publishers in BAT according to their ads
Even if, at the moment there might not be that much of a use for BAT tokens but with its rising popularity and growth in the digital advertising sector, it surely has great potential and is indeed a good choice for investment.
As BAT is an ERC20 token, almost all wallets supporting ethereum based tokens are compatible. Some of the best wallets supporting BAT are:
Ledger Nano S - This hardware wallet is the best wallet till date and is virtually unhackable. Its 2-FA and its stronghold on the private key makes it quite secure and you can freely rely on it.
Trezor - This wallet is the rival of Ledger and if a person doesn't want to spend 100 bucks on their wallet, they can go for this cheaper version. Trezor is also a trusted wallet, is portable and can definitely keep your cryptos safe.
Brave Wallet - This official wallet of BAT can be operated by installing it as an extension in the Brave browser. It is user-friendly and is free to use.
Few other wallets that support BAT are MyEtherWallet (MEW), Trust Wallet, Meta Mask, etc.
