Blockchain and crypto world is full of innovations, assumptions and sometimes wildly wrong predictions. If you’ve missed the top stories of this week, this post provides a comprehensive look at the top crypto news that made headlines. A lot has happened in the cryptocurrency and blockchain world. Here is a quick round-up of this week’s related stories you may have missed:
Bitcoin Lightning Network Touches 6,000 Nodes
Bitcoin’s mainnet Lightning Network has touched a new milestone across the community as its speedy completion advances in the year 2019. According to a data monitoring website, the amount of active nodes at 6124, with 24,458 channels, and the Lightning transaction volume is at an all-time high at 660 BTC ($2.4 million).
Bitcoin’s blocks are restricted to 1MB in size. However, as cryptocurrencies meet mainstream enactment, the number of transactions is developing exponentially, and the current block size is by no means adequate to concoct the extensive number of transactions taking place on the Bitcoin network. The improvement in size arrives as Lightning gains clout past the Bitcoin professional society thanks to a user-operated action receiving other familiarized with how the network operates. Definitely, Lightning Torch, a relay transaction being hopped between nodes, has previously gained support from Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in what became a broadly advertised issue.
Is $136 Million Worth Of Cryptocurrency Disappeared?
QuadrigaCX, a Canadian cryptocurrency exchange states that approximately $136 million worth of customers’ savings is blocked in an electronic vault because the company’s founder Gerald Cotten expired without giving the password.
Two independent researchers have said that openly accessible transaction histories with QuadrigaCX imply that the money may be withdrawn, not blocked. They say it seems Quadriga shifted client funds to other cryptocurrency exchanges, although it isn’t clear what might have occurred to the money. Gerald Cotten started Quadriga in December 2013. The exchange maintained to be one of the biggest in Canada, enabling clients to exchange a few of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ether.
Will Ethereum Constantinople Fork Occur by February 28th, 2019?
Constantinople, Ethereum’s newest system hard fork upgrade, was intended to occur on Wednesday, January 16, 2019, block 7,080,000. The network upgrade would have injected a set of delayed inconsistent variations also recognized as a hard fork. Some significant bugs were discovered before the upgrade was stationed and the entire fork to be delayed for about a month.
To circumvent this from happening, the team concluded that there would be two hard forks on the same block. The first fork will implement all the changes recommended, whereas the second fork – Petersburg will impair the protocol in which problems were recognized.
Nasdaq Stock Exchange to Add Bitcoin and Ethereum Indexes
Nasdaq stock exchange has associated with New Zealand based Blockchain data company Brave New Coin to add Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) indexes. The second largest stock exchange in the world declared on its website that it will send real-time Bitcoin and Ethereum index level data on the Nasdaq Global Index Data ServiceSM (GIDS) from February 25th.
The two indexes are Bitcoin Liquid Index (BLX) and the Ethereum Liquid Index (ELX). They both are planned to present a real-time scene or implication rate for the price of 1 BTC and 1 ETH respectively, priced in USD, and based on the most liquid outcomes of their markets. Both indices are determined by applying a methodology that has been separately examined against important IOSCO policies.
JPMorgan Launches its Own Crypto Coin
JP Morgan has announced the launch of their own cryptocurrency, JPM (JP Morgan) coin. JPM Coin is a digital coin like Bitcoin or Ethereum but with some improvements designed to make instantaneous payments using blockchain technology. Digital currency is required for exchanging value such as money between different parties over a blockchain, and instead of choosing already existing cryptocurrencies, the bank has created the JPM Coin.
This month, J.P. Morgan became the first bank to create and successfully test a digital coin (cryptocurrency) representing a fiat currency, the US Dollar. The JPM Coin runs on a blockchain-based technology which enables the instantaneous transfer of payments between institutional accounts. The JPM Coin isn’t a legal tender, the bank has made that clear. It is a digital coin representing the United States Dollars held at JPMorgan Chase.
Disclaimer: This information should not be interpreted as an endorsement of any cryptocurrency. It is not a recommendation to trade. The crypto market is full of surprises and overhyped assets. Do your research before buying anything. Do not invest more than you can afford to lose.
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