In a Cointelegraph interview, Adam Back provided additional clarity on his perceived Bitcoin (BTC) maximalism. Blockstream’s CEO believes that Bitcoin is enough and there is no need for a multitude of derivative projects. Back said, “I think it's like TCP/IP the internet exists. We don't need 5800 TCP/IP copies trying to monetize and profiteer off pumpanomics or such. It detracts from value (I gather there are about 5,800 altcoins as of today)”. He noted that innovators should focus on Bitcoin instead: “It's modular, you can build anything you want using it, if you're trying to innovate, go ahead and innovate”, …

Adam Back recently took to Twitter with controversial comments on many of the industry’s largest crypto projects — including Ethereum (ETH), Cardano (ADA), Ripple (XRP), and Stellar (XML). His tweets placed these projects in the same category as a number of bonafide scams, which he considers to have been orchestrated as “premines”. We interviewed Back in order to clarify his position on the matter, starting with questions of how he feels about Satoshi Nakamoto essentially premining over one million Bitcoin. Back responded that “Bitcoin has no premine”, adding that he considers Patoshi research to be “highly speculative”. However, he agreed …

Blockstream’s Liquid Network is now featuring its own Javascript library for developers to easily interact with the blockchain. Named LiquidJS, it was developed and announced by pTokens, an interoperability project working to bring assets cross-chain. The open-source library simplifies access to the Liquid Network for external applications, with no requirements of setting up dedicated nodes. Thomas Bertani, pTokens’ founder, described it as the equivalent of Ethereum’s web3.js library in a conversation with Cointelegraph. Javascript is currently among the most popular programming languages used by virtually all web applications in some form. As such, Javascript libraries for interfacing with blockchains are …

A malfunction in Blockstream’s Liquid bridge for Bitcoin (BTC) resulted in a Blockstream-owned 2-of-3 multisig contract briefly controlling over 870 BTC, worth $8 million. This was discovered on June 26 by James Prestwich, founder of blockchain software development company Summa, which contributed to the tBTC project. According to his findings, the spending script for the transaction was configured so as to transfer control to a simple 2-of-3 multisig contract after 2,015 blocks, or about two weeks. While this is intended behavior, this is only meant to be triggered as a last resort if the Liquid network were to collapse, as …

Former Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles insists that the 80,000 Bitcoin (BTC) that Craig Wright lays claim to was stolen from the exchange in March 2011. Cryptocurrency experts side with Karpeles. Bitcoins were stolen Karpeles confirmed to Cointelegraph that the Bitcoin residing at 1FeexV6bAHb8ybZjqQMjJrcCrHGW9sb6uF was stolen from Mt. Gox: “I confirm, this was confirmed in 2011 and records are also part of court documents available publicly.” Also, speculating about Wright’s motivation in this turn of events in the Tulip Trust saga, Karpeles opined that nChain’s chief scientist is just trying to put forward some “evidence” of his status: “To be …

Japanese blockchain development company Crypto Garage announced it was launching commercial service on its Settlenet platform for the crypto OTC market. According to an update on Digital Garage’s website posted on June 8, its Crypto Garage venture is launching commercial service for Settlenet, a settlement system using Blockstream’s Liquid Sidechain. Specializing in over-the-counter (OTC) transactions of digital assets for trading companies, crypto exchanges, asset managers and brokers, Settlenet has been in development since before January 2019, when Crypto Garage obtained regulatory approval from Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) for a demo version. “In this demo, we went beyond proof of …

New research compares how much gamers and game developers made in the year following the launches of some of the most popular blockchain-based games. According to data from Flipside Crypto, the overwhelming majority of revenue was earned by just one, very famous, game. Revenue Earned By Blockchain Gamers & Gaming Companie Cat breeding is very lucrative No one could have envisioned that cat breeding could become such a lucrative business. CryptoKitties generated $27 million in revenue in the first year with $7 million going to the company and $20 million to the breeders. In CryptoKitties, gamers breed virtual cats that …

Blockstream, the firm behind the Bitcoin (BTC) sidechains Liquid and Lightning Network, has launched its "Liquid Ventures Initiative," which seeks to connect developers looking to build on the commercial sidechain with crypto investors. The announcement follows the completion of the first Liquid Demo Day, which saw participation from startups and developers from Hong Kong, Israel, Spain, Switzerland, Japan and the United States. The Liquid Ventures Initiative is backed by over twelve Bitcoin-centric venture capital firms and entrepreneurs — including Nogle, Seven Seas VC, Blockchain Capital, Castle Island Ventures, Digital Garage Lab Fund, Electric Capital, Fulgur Ventures, Lemniscap, Proof of Capital …

Blockstream’s Adam Back says that unlimited money printing will drive retail investors toward Bitcoin and push the price to $300,000 within five years. In an interview with Bloomberg — in which he once again denied he was Bitcoin (BTC) creator Satoshi Nakamoto — Back outlined his thinking behind the sky-high price prediction. The cypherpunk OG — who was cited in the Bitcoin white paper — added that BTC may not need the long-awaited flood of institutional money to push it into a bull run. “It might not require additional institutional adoption because the current environment is causing more individuals to …

In a recent Cointelgraph interview, Ethereum co-founder and Cardano founder Charles Hoskinon said that he believes that Adam Back “checks all the boxes” as a Satoshi Nakamoto candidate. The puzzle of Satoshi’s true identity never seems to get old. Although Hoskinson admits that he does not have any hard evidence connecting the Blockstream’s founder to the pseudonymous Bitcoin creator, he did make a mental profile of Satoshi — Back seemingly has a perfect fit. Hoskinson believes that Satoshi was somebody, who lived either in Western Europe of the coastal United States, was comfortable with British English, and had a background …

On Monday, a Bitcoin (BTC) miner — or multiple Bitcoin miners — signed a message calling Craig Wright a fraud. One of the addresses used had been previously attributed to the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. The message was signed with 145 signatures belonging to the 145 corresponding addresses, and one of those addresses — 12CTHhyJtr49LgoUShbWgebLBviLAFj6nj — was a coinbase address for the Bitcoin mined in block 30169. Previous research conducted by Sergio Demian Lerner identified this block as one mined by Satoshi. Block 30169 Part of “Patoshi” Pattern. Source. SatoshiBlocks. Experts disagree However, Lerner told Cointelegraph that this is …

At Consensus Distributed on May 12, Blockstream presented Lightnite, a Fortnite-like game that uses the Liquid Network for storing non-fungible tokens (NFT) representing game items. While the game is developed by independent company Satoshi’s Games, Blockstream has sponsored the game by running a token giveaway. The announcement has garnered a considerable amount of criticism from Ethereum (ETH) fans, given the longstanding rivalry with the Bitcoin (BTC) “maximalists.” Non-fungible tokens are traditionally associated with Ethereum and other smart contract blockchains, and received constant criticism from Bitcoin community members as part of that association. Benjamin DiFrancesco, an Ethereum contributor and founder of …