If you had the pleasure to watch ‘The Revenant’, you might have noticed how nature helps, as well as torments, the protagonist during his struggle to survive. And it is this protagonist who, despite facing the harshest evils, triumphs over his insufferable pains. He emerges as a hero — tormented yet alive. It might sound like an exaggerated comparison but Bitcoin has seen this same struggle. It had a wonderful year in 2015, with lots of investments and adoptions coming its way. In terms of trading, Bitcoin was named the most profitable investment of 2015 by many mainstream media outlets. …

Mike Hearn says the new XT version will include a “bigger blocksize only” branch; Factom raises US$1.1 million in crowdsale; Australian Securities regulator blocks Bitcoin IPO and more top stories for July 23. Hearn: New XT Version Will Include ‘Bigger Blocksize Only’ Branch Bitcoin core developer Mike Hearn has said that the new XT version will include a “bigger blocksize only” branch as a compromise for the blocksize debate. In a Reddit post, Mr. Hearn also mentioned that developers are working on a manifesto that will lay out the principles for future development. Hearn: “Once XT 0.11A is launched (which …

Three of the biggest Western mining pools – representing a total of some 19% of hashing power on the Bitcoin network – stand divided on raising the block size limit. An inquiry by Cointelegraph has shown that both KnCMiner and Slush Pool are in favor of Gavin Andresen's proposal(s) to raise this limit. But the biggest of the three, BitFury, is more conservative. As such, a network-wide switch to Bitcoin XT to allow for bigger blocks seems even more unlikely, for now. Block Size Limit Lacking consensus among Core developers on how and when to raise the block size limit, …

Bitcoin Core developer Gavin Andresen today proposed a hard fork change for Bitcoin XT in order to allow for an increased block size limit on the Bitcoin network. So far, however, it has failed to appease most critics of his previous proposals to increase the block size limit. Hard Fork It is widely agreed that at some point an increase of the block size limit will be needed to allow the Bitcoin network to handle more than seven transactions per second. The Bitcoin Core development team, however, has so far not been able to reach consensus on the correct timing …

Overstock sold its first cryptobond, the cryptography team at Blockstream unveiled its first prototype sidechain and more top stories for June 9. Overstock Sells World's First Cryptosecurity Overstock has become the first company to solicit qualified institutional buyers in a digital corporate bond which will trade using blockchain technology. CEO Patrick Byrne purchased the world's first cryptobond for US$500,000. The pioneering development is part of the company's larger cryptofinance initiative known as Medici, on which Overstock expects to sell a total of US$25 million in digital bonds. Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne said: "The cryptorevolution has arrived on Wall Street [...] …

Of all Bitcoin web-wallet providers as listed on bitcoin.org, Blockchain.info, Coinbase and Xapo are in favor of raising Bitcoin's block size limit from 1 to 20 megabytes as advised by Bitcoin Core developer Gavin Andresen, while Coinkite and GreenAddress have come out against the proposal. This means that Bitcoin's major wallet providers based on venture capital investments as well as the total amount of users – Blockchain.info, Coinbase and Xapo - all agree on Andresen's proposal to raise the maximum size of Bitcoin blocks to 20 megabytes. But with Coinkite and GreenAddress opposing the idea, an industry consensus remains out …

Two of China's biggest bitcoin exchanges - BTCChina and Huobi - have criticized Bitcoin Core developer Gavin Andresen's proposal to raise the block size limit to 20 megabytes by next year. Speaking to Cointelegraph, both BTCChina as well as Huobi indicated that they believe any increase in Bitcoin's block size limit should be approached conservatively. While both exchanges recognize that the current one megabyte block size limit is probably too small for Bitcoin to reach mainstream adoption, they are skeptical of Andresen's proposal. BTCChina and Huobi shared concerns that a jump to 20 megabytes might be too big, while suggesting …

In an announcement made on the Bitcoin development mailing list, Bitcoin core developer and Bitcoin Foundation chief scientist Gavin Andresen suggested that, if the development community could reach no consensus on increasing the one-megabyte block size limit, he would shift his efforts from the main Bitcoin implementation (Bitcoin core) to the alternative Bitcoin-Xt implementation. Such a move could represent a watershed moment for Bitcoin as a whole, as it would mean that its former lead developer would effectively leave his own project to join a forked version. Bitcoin-Xt is a patch placed on top of Bitcoin core and developed by …