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Latam Insights: Unlicensed Crypto Exchanges Still Allowed to Operate in Brazil, Lightning Strikes Salvadoran Bitcoin ATMs
14.11.2023
Welcome to Latam Insights, a compendium of Latin America’s most relevant crypto and economic news during the last week. In this issue: The Central Bank of Brazil confirms that unlicensed exchanges can still operate in the country; El Salvador will integrate Lightning Network transactions...
Lightspark Open Sources Email-Like Protocol UMA; Raises Debate on Compliance
25.10.2023
Lightspark, a Lightning Network (LN) financial services company, has announced it has open-sourced Universal Money Address (UMA), a protocol similar to email, but for money. The protocol will be interoperable, allowing platforms to exercise due compliance on the transactions facilitated,...
Coinbase Founder Brian Armstrong Reveals Plans to Integrate Lightning Network
13.9.2023
According to Coinbase founder and CEO Brian Armstrong, Coinbase is actively working on integrating the Lightning Network (LN), the second-layer scaling protocol. Armstrong emphasized that bitcoin “is the most important asset in crypto” and added that the integration of LN would...
Bitcoin Core’s Version 24.0 Full-RBF Proposal Sparks Controversy, Synonym CEO Calls ‘Pet Agenda’ an ‘Attack’
4.11.2022
During the last few weeks, a number of individuals have been discussing the upcoming release of Bitcoin Core version 24.0 and how the codebase will include full-replace-by-fee (RBF) logic. The discussion has become controversial as a few Lightning Network and zero confirmation advocates have...
Microstrategy Is Seeking a Full-Time Lightning Network Engineer to Build a SaaS Platform
1.10.2022
The mobile software, cloud-based services, and business intelligence (BI) firm Microstrategy is seeking a full-time Lightning Network software engineer, according to a job listing published this week. The developer, if hired, will build a Lightning Network-based software as a service (SaaS)...
Fintech Firm Galoy Raises $4 Million, Startup Introduces Bitcoin-Backed Synthetic Dollar Product
3.8.2022
On Wednesday, Galoy, the firm behind El Salvador’s Bitcoin Beach Wallet, announced that the company raised $4 million in funding in an investment round led by Hivemind Ventures. On the same day, the startup launched a new product called Stablesats, a stablecoin concept that leverages...
Zebedee Inks Deal With Mobile Game Studio Viker to Add BTC Rewards to Solitaire, Sudoku, Missing Letters
26.7.2022
Seven days after the financial technology and bitcoin payments firm Zebedee announced it secured a $35 million capital raise, the company has revealed a new partnership deal with the mobile game studio Viker. The two companies have enhanced three classic video games with Zebedee’s bitcoin...
Cash App Introduces Paid in Bitcoin, BTC Roundup and Lightning Network Services
7.4.2022
At the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami, Block, Inc., formerly Square, Inc., announced three new bitcoin services for the company’s mobile payment platform. The mobile payment platform Cash App will feature a “paid in bitcoin” service that allows users to auto-invest their work...
Visa should be 'scared': Lightning Labs raises $70M to add stablecoins
6.4.2022
The firm has built a new protocol called Taro to enable stablecoins to be sent and received on the Bitcoin Lightning Network
Argentina-Based Mobile Wallet App Belo Adds Lightning Network Support via Opennode
11.1.2022
On Monday, January 10, the Argentina-based mobile wallet company Belo announced that the platform has added support for the Lightning Network by partnering with the bitcoin payment processor and infrastructure provider Opennode. The mobile application allows users to trade and transact in pesos...
Custodial Lightning Network Service Attack Discovered by LN ‘Newbie’ — Hacker Strikes 6 LN Custodians
20.9.2021
On September 18, a Redditor posted to the r/bitcoin forum and explained how he discovered a way to “attack [the] lightning Network’s custodial services.” The Reddit account dubbed “Reckless Satoshi” wanted to figure out if a “discrepancy between real...
Jack Dorsey Discusses Square Building a ‘Bitcoin-Native’ Dex Platform, Project Lead Shares Insight
28.8.2021
On Friday, the CEO of Twitter and Square, Jack Dorsey talked about the decentralized exchange Square is constructing called “TBD” or the “TBD BTC DEX.” First mentioned in July, Dorsey tweeted that the company has “determined [TBD’s] direction and he also...
The IRS Investigation Division Is Requesting Information About Privacy-Centric Cryptocurrencies
4.7.2020
The United States tax agency has published a request for information pertaining to privacy-centric cryptocurrencies and technologies that obfuscate crypto transactions. The IRS-CI Cyber Crimes Unit request is also asking for information in relation to “layer two offchain protocol networks...
Researcher’s Scathing Lightning Network Analysis Finds Flaws
9.1.2020
On January 7, digital preservation researcher David Rosenthal published an overview of BTC’s Lightning Network (LN) which claims LN infrastructure isn’t decentralized and privacy-preservation is a myth. Rosenthal’s analysis found significant flaws with the LN fee system and...
Here’s What Happens When You Use Lightning Network for the First Time
16.12.2019
Do you remember receiving your first bitcoin? Seeing those satoshis arrive in your wallet is a magical, almost spiritual, experience. In that moment, the most beautiful thing about bitcoin is not its censorship resistance or pseudonymity: it’s that it works at the first time of asking....
Lightning Network Wiki Page Faces Removal for Lack of Notability
13.12.2019
A slew of Wikipedia editors would like to delete the Lightning Network (LN) Wiki page because the subject matter does not hold notability. Wikipedia editors use notability as a test to find out if a topic warrants its own article. The LN article debate on Wikipedia is still raging as a few editors...
Lightning Network User Confused By Protocol: Lost 30,000 USD
24.10.2019
The Lightning Network has long been touted by its proponents as a speedy, low-cost solution to Bitcoin’s scaling issues. A series of security scares and UX issues have called that vision into question however. The latest LN slip-up saw a user lose 4 BTC in one fell swoop. Also read: Hidden...
‘Avoid Biased Calculations’ Says Crypto Researcher After Cherry-Picked Chart Debate
8.9.2019
On Friday, crypto analytics site Messari and data analyst Zack Voell shared a controversial chart called “Bitcoin Cash versus Lightning,” which claims to display a comparison of activity for both networks. Voell contended that the Lightning Network was growing at a faster rate than...
Lightning Network’s Antifraud Methods Inferior to Nakamoto Consensus, Research Shows
17.7.2019
The Lightning Network, the touted scaling solution for the BTC chain, has recently seen its capacity decrease significantly and the beta project is still best suited for a cliche of technically savvy users. Now according to an analysis by Bitmex Research, the Lightning Network’s nodes have...
What’s the Deal With the Lightning Network?
17.6.2019
Remember that layer two scaling solution they promised for Bitcoin back in the day? Does anyone know what happened to it? It feels like we’ve been waiting for a finished Lightning Network longer than Mt. Gox victims have been awaiting restitution. For now, Lightning is accessible to users...