The total fees paid for on-chain Bitcoin (BTC) transactions over the last 24 hours increased over 50% since yesterday. On-chain data analytics service, Glassnode, pointed out several major developments shown by Bitcoin’s blockchain data. According to the firm, total Bitcoin fees paid over the last 24 hours increased by 50.7% to over $9,500. Furthermore, the Bitcoin mean fee paid by users increased by 58.8%, reaching $0.78. Meni Rosenfeld, the Chairman of the Israeli Bitcoin Association, told Cointelegraph that he believes 24-hour fees show too short a timeframe to be particularly significant. He pointed out that historic data shows that the …

Vietnamese online ticketing agency Future.Travel now accepts Bitcoin (BTC) payments via the Lightning Network (LN), with funds being converted into local currency at the time of sale. To enable LN-based Bitcoin payments, Future.Travel collaborated with Canada-based tech firm Neutronpay, which will provide Future.Travel its multi-currency merchant platform, according to an April 20 announcement. With the newly integrated option, the BTC transaction processing time will ostensibly be cut down to three to four seconds in most cases. Eliminating fraud, reducing transaction processing time Overall, Future.Travel has been supporting BTC payments for over six years and recently added other cryptocurrencies like Litecoin …

The Fold app — a Lightning-compatible mobile app that offers users Bitcoin rewards (BTC) while shopping — has joined Visa’s Fintech Fast Track Program. Joining the program will enable the app to launch a new Visa co-branded card, which continues the offer of Bitcoin rewards for purchases made at retailers. Speaking to Cointelegraph, Fold’s CEO Will Reeves said that Visa would be providing the company with financial support and a dedicated team to bring the new Bitcoin cash-back rewards card to market. Earn, don’t spend, your Bitcoin As reported, the Fold app has so far been offering users the ability …

Blockchain firm Lightning Labs drafted the specifications of a new Lightning Network-based authentication system that could replace traditional email-based accounts. According to a March 30 announcement, the Lightning Service Authentication Tokens (LSAT) is a new authentication protocol for paid services. The system issues Lightning-based tokens for users after they paid for the service in Bitcoin (BTC) instead of providing their personal information for traditional email-based accounts. The lightning tokens in question act as tickets for the purchased resources and encode what resource it grants access to. The tokens can be exchanged, revoked and modified after being issued. LSAT also reportedly …

The man who claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto says 2020 is the year the law comes for Bitcoin. Writing on his personal blog, Craig Wright offered a view of Bitcoin’s future which doesn’t bode well for operators of Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, or the coin’s miners. One of Bitcoin’s biggest attractions is its supposedly permissionless, authority-resistant nature. But according to Wright, these are illusions. Wright claims that any amount of Bitcoin purchased without meeting legally recognized CDD (customer due diligence) and KYC (know your customer) requirements is, in effect, stolen Bitcoin. According to Wright, that spells trouble for Lightning Network operators …

The NULS Technical Community (NULS) has released a blueprint for Nerve Network, a cross-chain protocol. Until now, the mysterious mastermind behind the network was known only known as “Berzeck”. Vitalik’s dream come true Nerve Network is tackling the same issue as Cosmos (Atom) and Polkadot — a lack of cross-chain interoperability. This is something that Vitalik Buterin has recently lamented about: “We should put resources toward a proper (trustless, serverless, maximally Uniswap-like UX) ETH <-> BTC decentralized exchange. It's embarrassing that we still can't easily move between the two largest crypto ecosystems trustlessly.” Nerve Network has two layers of super-nodes. …

On March 4, Twitter topman Jack Dorsey’s digital-assets payment company Square Crypto released a statement showcasing its support for Bitcoin (BTC) development with the creation of a grant program that aims to contribute toward the enhancement of the premier cryptocurrency’s native ecosystem. More specifically, the company revealed that its grant program is open to developers interested in pursuing this field of work. Two developers have already received monetary support from the company: BTCPay Server received $100,000 to continue its work relating to Square’s open-source payment processor, and a pseudonymous developer received an undisclosed sum for working on the Lightning Network. …

For a currency to be considered useful as money, it has to serve three fundamental purposes. It should function as a medium of exchange, as a store of value and as a unit of account. The fact that Bitcoin doesn’t fulfill all of these purposes to an adequate extent at least partially explains why it hasn’t gained the widespread adoption that many of its earlier supporters had hoped for. There are two main challenges. Firstly, Bitcoin is considered too slow to serve as a satisfactory medium of exchange, with transactions taking anywhere from several minutes to days to get confirmed. …

The Lightning Network’s (LN) configuration is becoming increasingly centralized, with multiple hubs being formed. This is the finding of a yet-to-be-reviewed research paper, released on pre-print site arXiv on Feb. 7. A team of academics from Switzerland, France, Italy and Canada authored the paper. Jian Hong-Lin and Kevin Primicerio conducted the analysis, while others, including Blockstream Inc. researcher Christian Decker, designed the research. Core-periphery model The team gathered Lightning Network information for a period of 18 months from Jan. 18, 2018 to July 13, 2019. Researchers then analyzed the payment network in terms of its node and wealth distribution. They …

Cryptocurrencies could not exist without cryptography. Advances in this field can have far-reaching impacts on blockchain technology and its potential. We will examine the opinions of industry experts on the latest cryptographic advances and their potential for cryptocurrencies. Zero knowledge proofs: more than just privacy Director of research at blockchain firm Blockstream and mathematician Andrew Poelstra told Cointelegraph that zero-knowledge proof (ZK-Proof) systems are “one of the most exciting areas of development” in the cryptography space. This kind of cryptography is known and appreciated for being the basis of privacy-preserving solutions. ZK-Proofs are the basis of the privacy-preserving technology included …

After more than a decade of Bitcoin’s existence, Satoshi Nakamoto, author of Bitcoin’s white paper back in 2008, remains the most mysterious person within the crypto community. Despite who he, she or they might be, Satoshi’s brainchild — the first decentralized currency — is still thriving, and it has changed the world as we knew it. The past 10 years were not a straight path: We have been witness to a lot of criticism of crypto, which was claimed to be “the mother and father of all bubbles”; Bitcoin’s record price hitting around $20,000 per coin and the subsequent collapse …

Perhaps the two most prominent supporters of Bitcoin’s (BTC) Lightning Network have seen their share prices rocket this week as the technology gains fresh recognition. Data covering the share prices of Twitter and sister company Square, the payment gateway which directly supports Bitcoin, shows both companies sealed major gains in recent days. Cash flows towards BTC, Lightning Twitter stock (TWTR) appreciated by close to 20%, while Square (SQ) hit local highs of $81.65, almost 10% up on last week and nearly 25% since Jan. 1. The former recently revealed that it had turned its first quarterly revenues in excess of …