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Segregated Witness has become the most talked-about breakthrough in Bitcoin development since the concept was presented in early December to the Scaling Bitcoin Workshop in Hong Kong by Bitcoin Core Developer Pieter Wuille. One of the men that Wuille thanked in the last slide of that presentation was Bitcoin Developer and Ciphrex CEO Eric Lombrozo.

Lombrozo gave a presentation on the future of Bitcoin scalability at the recent Blockchain Agenda Conference in San Diego, where he outlined some of the key benefits of Segregated Witness (SegWit). Although much of the Bitcoin community thinks of SegWit in terms of getting more transactions into each block, the reality is that this innovation offers more than that. When first mentioning this concept to the audience at the San Diego Convention Center, Lombrozo stated:

“This is one of those ideas that – in hindsight – once you understand it, you think this is how it always should have been done.”

1. Stuffing More Transactions Into Blocks

Lombrozo first pointed out that most nodes are interested only in the transactions that affect themselves. He explained:

“Scripts take up a lot of space and consume bandwidth. Most nodes are not interested in every single script and every single signature of every transaction on the blockchain. They’re usually mostly interested in the [transactions] that concern them.”

Lombrozo explained that SegWit allows nodes to ignore data that they were unlikely to use anyway. He added that this new feature would essentially free up more space for transactions in each new block:

“Every single time that you have to download blocks and transactions, you download all of this data that most nodes are just going to end up throwing away anyway. This can actually give us about two-thirds or more additional space, so we can put [more transactions] in the blockchain.”

Although the Bitcoin community has focused on an increase in the block size limit to increase transactional capacity, SegWit is able to achieve the same goal through alternative means.

2. Fixing Transaction Malleability

Transaction malleability has been a thorn in the sides of Bitcoin developers for years. During the collapse of Mt. Gox, Mark Karpeles attempted to blame the loss of customer funds on this issue in the Bitcoin protocol. Transaction malleability has also been used to perform DoS attacks on the Bitcoin network.

During his talk, Lombrozo noted that SegWit has the ability to slay the dragon of malleable transactions once and for all:

“It fixes transaction malleability. Now, you can sign transactions independently of transaction identification, so you can construct these very long transaction chains and make it so that the order they get signed in doesn’t matter.”

A fix for transaction malleability is also required for the Lightning Network to function properly, so it’s possible that SegWit will be able to improve Bitcoin’s ability to scale in more ways than one.

3. A Mechanism for Adding New Opcodes

Adding new opcodes to Bitcoin has been a difficult proposition in the past, but SegWit creates a better method of upgrading the scripting language. Lombrozo noted:

“It provides a powerful script upgrade mechanism. Up until now, we really didn’t have a good way to upgrade or add new opcodes to the scripting language.”

Lombrozo then took his statement to another level, saying:

“With this, I believe we can actually replace the scripting language entirely with a soft fork.”

Opcodes are what enable various types of transactions on the Bitcoin network. One of the most recent opcodes added to Bitcoin was OP_CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY. As a side note, new opcodes are required to bring sidechains functionality to the Bitcoin blockchain.

4. A More Flexible Security Model

Lombrozo also talked about how SegWit can enable new security models for Bitcoin transactions. He explained:

“It makes it possible to add new, partial proofs for future soft forks. This allows for fraud proofs and other kinds of cryptographic proofs, which would allow us to have more flexibility in the security model, so we can decide how much we want to trust other peers and how much we want to validate for ourselves.”

Validation on some transactions can be much lower than others, so it makes sense to allow users to choose the level of security they need in different situations. For example, someone purchasing their morning coffee does not require the same level of validation as a financial institution settling a day’s worth of transactions with another entity. Transactions with less validation can bring more efficiency and scalability to the Bitcoin blockchain, but it’s important to understand the security tradeoffs.

5. Bandwidth Requirements Are Lowered

Bandwidth availability is one of the key requirements for running a full node on the Bitcoin network. Lombrozo explained how bandwidth requirements are lowered via SegWit:

“When we separate the effects from the scripts and signatures, now we can download these things from different peers at our own leisure – however we want. This allows us to optimize for the peer-to-peer layer significantly, since now we no longer need to be propagating everything all the time. We only propagate the things that are necessary at that moment for the particular peer.”

There may be some downsides to SegWit, too, but these advantages are hard to ignore. Both Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Classic have plans for implementing this new concept into their respective software clients.

Kyle Torpey is a freelance journalist who has been following Bitcoin since 2011. His work has been featured on VICE Motherboard, Business Insider, RT’s Keiser Report and many other media outlets. You can follow @kyletorpey on Twitter.

The post Bitcoin Developer Eric Lombrozo on Five Benefits of Segregated Witness appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

The European Commission has said that it plans to tighten reporting standards for digital currency exchanges in the region.

Bitcoin exchange Kraken announced a multi-million dollar agreement with SBI Investment, one of Japan’s leading and most respected venture capital firms, to invest in and lead the Series B round of financing in Kraken.

SBI Investment is the venture capital arm of SBI Holdings, the world’s first Internet-based financial conglomerate. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

SBI Investment is a unit of SBI Holdings, an Internet-based financial conglomerate with operating revenues of more than $2 billion in 2015 and operating income of around $570 million. The SBI Group consists of 208 companies operating in approximately 20 countries and regions, in sectors including financial services, asset management and biotechnology.

According to the company’s website, SBI Investment takes many factors into consideration, including market growth potential, uniqueness, differentiation from competitors and feasibility of business model.

A communication issued by SBI Holdings notes that Kraken has a high level of safety and has never been hacked since it has stringent security control measures in place. It has attained a position as a market leader, including the largest global market share in terms of the volume of Bitcoin transactions and liquidity in the European market.

“SBI’s investment means a lot to us,” said Kraken founder and CEO Jesse Powell. “We’re proud to have such a strong strategic partner leading our round. It’s a fantastic first step toward completing Series B, which will ultimately enable us to scale our business worldwide. Kraken will be prepared to meet the fast-increasing demands of an emerging ecosystem of blockchain-enabled assets.”

Speaking to Bitcoin Magazine, an industry insider noted that this announcement was particularly impressive given the “brutal” fundraising climate for bitcoin exchanges. Before this investment round, Kraken had raised $6.5 million from backers such as Hummingbird Ventures, Blockchain Capital and Digital Currency Group.

Founded in 2011, San Francisco-based Kraken was the first Bitcoin exchange to have trading price and volume displayed on the Bloomberg Terminal, and the first to pass a cryptographically verifiable proof-of-reserves audit. According to the company’s website, Kraken is trusted by hundreds of thousands of traders, the Tokyo government’s court-appointed trustee, and Germany’s Fidor Bank. In October 2014, Fidor Bank and Kraken partnered to create the world’s first cryptocurrency bank.

SiliconANGLE notes that the investment from SBI comes at a busy time from Kraken, following the announcement that it had acquired New York-based Bitcoin exchange Coinsetter Inc. and Canadian exchange Cavirtex in mid-January and the launch of new products in 2015, including a dark pool exchange service and a maker-taker fee model.

Buying Coinsetter is just one part of the equation in order to add volume, noted TechCrunch. Kraken also needs to make it easier to deposit U.S. dollars on the platform. The company is partnering with SynapsePay to allow USD deposits in 37 U.S. states and Washington D.C. for just $5.

“We knew that we wanted to invest in Bitcoin and the blockchain,” said SBI Holdings CEO Yoshitaka Kitao. “We wanted a company that would be a wise strategic investment. Kraken has been a leading global Bitcoin exchange for years. They have grown tremendously during that time while building a strong reputation as one of the most innovative, secure, compliant and reliable companies in this emerging financial services area. Kraken was the clear choice.“

Kraken now claims to be the world’s largest Bitcoin exchange by euro volume and transactions, and that in the last two years traders have made more than $1.4 billion in transactions on the platform while trading bitcoin and other digital assets in euros, U.S. dollars, Japanese yen, British pounds and Canadian dollars.

SBI notes that Kraken is developing blockchain-based financial infrastructure that permits reducing system costs significantly, and dramatically shortening payment processing times, which is attracting attention from the many financial institutions that need to process large volumes of data in short times. The investment represents a vote of confidence in the potential of both blockchain fintech and Kraken.

Photo via Kraken

The post Bitcoin Exchange Kraken Lands Multi-million Dollar Investment from Japanese Venture Capital Firm SBI appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (MUFG), the largest bank in Japan, has revealed that it is developing its own digital currency called MUFG coin. MUFG began the trial for its own virtual currency MUFG coin last fall and the smartphone application prototype that goes in tandem with the currency is also nearly done, as reported by […]

The post Japanese Banking Giant Reveals Plans for a Digital Currency appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

The former Secret Service agent who was caught stealing bitcoins during the Silk Road case appeared to be fleeing the country ahead of a nearly 6-year sentence

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The post Why Bitcoin Will Thrive First in the Developing World appeared first on WIRED.

There is still very little to deduce from the bitcoin price chart. Whether looked at in the larger or smaller timeframes, there are no definite signals to trade. This analysis is provided by xbt.social with a 3-hour delay. Read the full analysis here. Not a member? Join now and receive a $29 discount using the […]

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Along with the China slowdown, oil's virtually unceasing slump over the past year or so, is undeniably the biggest story in global markets right now.

The price of the world's most crucial commodity has fallen from highs of $114 per barrel in mid-2014 to just over $30 per barrel right now, a fall of more than 70% in just over 18 months. The effect of the slump have rippled across the globe.

Oil's crash has stoked fears of a global recession in some corners, with notoriously bearish economist Albert Edwards saying in January that things are set to "turn very ugly indeed."

But how would the global economy look right now if we completely ignored oil? Analysts at Morgan Stanley, led by Andrew Sheets, tried to answer just that question in a note released on Monday evening. Titled "A World without Oil", the note looks at how the global economy would be performing if we were to simply ignore the impact of oil.

Basically, the analysts argue that the way oil is driving markets right now is an overreaction. Here's Morgan Stanley (emphasis ours):

Oil’s role in driving hour-by-hour market moves is overstated. But its place in the broader macro debate remains central. Recent market volatility is being driven, in part, by concerns that industrial production, corporate earnings, balance sheet health and inflation are all rolling over. Oil often plays an important role in why they look the way they do.

That "hour-by-hour" market movement being led by oil can clearly be seen in a chart from Morgan Stanley. Asset class prices across the board are now correlated to the price of oil at some of their highest levels in nearly two years. Here's how that looks (note — the higher the line, the more oil is moving the price of other assets.):In the USA, industrial production has been falling at a worrying rate in recent months, which some are using as an indicator of a potential recession, but strip out the energy sector — driven by oil — from the figures, and things look a lot more peachy. Here's the chart:

And here's how things would look without oil:The note points out that:

Energy companies are no longer leading equity or credit indices higher or lower. In our view, oil and markets are moving together because they are driven by similar things: concerns over growth, a lack of risk appetite, [and] a relentlessly strong trade-weighted dollar.

Another area concerning people across global markets right now is the perceived slowdown of earnings growth in major companies, but that too is being largely driven by the oil slump. Here's Morgan Stanley again:

We commonly hear that corporate earnings are ‘rolling over’. It may be more accurate to say that commodity sector earnings are collapsing, while profits for the remainder of the market are still posting moderate growth.

Morgan Stanley's analysts also note that if we ignore the impact of the energy and food sectors on core inflation in the US, Japan, and Europe, the measure actually shows decent growth in recent months, despite real figures being consistently stagnant.

So there we have it. Without oil, or more broadly, the entire commodities sector, the global economy would be looking in significantly better health than it is right now. Clearly, all of this is just playing Devil's Advocate given the fact that we do have oil and that it has a massive impact on global markets. But it's an interesting experiment nonetheless.

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The post Bitcoin Community’s Scorn – Mike Hearn appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

The 6th annual Remittance & Mobile Money Expo, held today and tomorrow – Feb. 2 and 3 in Lagos, Nigeria, will address the challenges and opportunities in the emerging African remittance market. Billing itself as the largest gathering of stakeholders in the remittance ecosystem serving Africa, the conference will be at the Lagos Oriental Hotel. […]

The post Remittance &Amp; Mobile Money Expo Will Address Remittance Challenges in Africa appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is including and inviting blockchain technology startups to apply for its ‘Innovation Fund’ with the ultimate goal of improving the lives of vulnerable children around the world. UNICEF’s recently established Innovation Fund is calling for technology startups to apply for funding with ideas and solutions with the potential to […]

The post UNICEF Innovation Fund Invites Blockchain Startups appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Berger Singerman LLP counsel Andrew Hinkes discusses bitcoin's lack of precedent in common law and the problems it may create for users.

You'd think that a former Secret Service agent caught stealing Bitcoins during the Silk Road case would know better than to try to elude authorities, but apparently that isn't the case. Ex-investigator Shaun Bridges was re-arrested January 29th after...

U.S. District Court in Baltimore, Md. sentenced a Utah man whose faked murder helped law enforcement put an end to the Silk Road Marketplace, according to The Baltimore Sun. The court sentenced Curtis Clark Green, a senior administrator for the Silk Road website, to time served — two days — and four years of supervised release […]

The post Judge Sentences Silk Road Administrator; Corrupt Agent Gets Rearrested appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Japan’s leading venture capital firm SBI Investment has been revealed as the lead investor in the Series B round of financing in bitcoin exchange Kraken. In an announcement via a press release today, bitcoin exchange Kraken revealed it had secured a “multi-million dollar agreement” with SBI Investment. The exact terms of the deals weren’t disclosed. […]

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