• Russell Starr, Head of Capital Markets at DeFi Technologies, which has launched a new ETP that allows inverse tracking of bitcoin.
    Bitcoin,  Cryptocurrencies,  Innovators

    DeFi’s Valour Engineers a Hedge for Bitcoin

    New ETP provides convenient way to establish inverse position

    April 19, 2024 /

    Bitcoin investors looking for ways to lock in their gains without having to sell their beloved HODL stash have a new option. DeFi Technologies, via its subsidiary Valour, has an innovative Exchange Traded Product (ETP) that trades inversely to the coin. They’re calling it Valour Short Bitcoin (SBTC). Maybe you’ve ridden up from 26K in October to 73K in mid March, and then agonized on the recent fall back to the high 50s. If so, you’ve probably thought about how great it would be to lock in the gains at 70 without having to sell, since you’re dead certain Bitcoin 100K is right around the corner. Well, now you can.…

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  • Image from Etcher's The Halvening: an interdisciplinary collaboration between artists from around the globe
    Bitcoin,  Innovators,  Technology

    Beyond Overpriced JPEGs

    The hottest new NFT projects are on Bitcoin?

    November 29, 2023 /

    “The nature of Bitcoin is such that once version 0.1 was released, the core design was set in stone for the rest of its lifetime… I don’t believe a second, compatible implementation of Bitcoin will ever be a good idea.” The creator of Bitcoin, known by the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, wrote these words in a forum post on June 17, 2010, and they set the tone for the protocol’s slow evolution in the 13 years since. Bitcoin’s deliberate approach to change and innovation is rooted in a commitment to security, stability and decentralization. Developers and thought leaders in the Bitcoin community have emphasized the importance of maintaining a slow and…

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  • Image by pikisuperstar on Freepik
    Bitcoin,  Security,  Technology

    Undermining Bitcoin’s ECDSA

    Part 2 of a look at the threats quantum computing poses for crypto

    November 10, 2023 /

    In the first installment of this series, we introduced the concept of “quantum computing” and how, while still experimental, its implications for blockchain security include the potential exposure of public keys, the theft of funds—and thus the transformation of cryptocurrencies as we know them. That article focused on the SHA-256 algorithm’s contribution to Bitcoin security primarily via its consensus mechanism, but SHA-256 is only one side of the coin so to speak. In this second part, we will examine the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA). A signature algorithm deeply embedded within the Bitcoin protocol, ECDSA adds a layer of authentication by linking a public key with its corresponding private…

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  • Image of the email that announced the Bitcoin white paper
    Bitcoin,  Innovators,  Technology

    Bitcoin Is 15, and the Tributes Are Legion

    Commemorating Satoshi Nakamoto’s seminal white paper outlining a peer-to-peer electronic cash system in 2008

    October 31, 2023 /

    On the 15th anniversary of Satoshi Nakamoto publishing the Bitcoin white paper, Modern Consensus has gathered a selection of tributes – a mix of the poignant, the thought provoking and since Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gensler felt the need to weigh in, the clownish. Bitcoin Magazine One of the very first publications devoted to Bitcoin, Bitcoin Magazine was co-founded in 2012 by a 17-year-old Vitalik Buterin, whose father had piqued his interest in the young technology the year before – and who went on to invent Ethereum, announcing it in his own white paper in November 2013. In a feature published today entitled “The Reformation of Money: Bitcoin’s Whitepaper…

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