The Kadena network, which is led by JPMorgan blockchain veterans, has gone live on Monday, with the firm announcing a new $20 million token sale. Kadena mainnet launch unlocks mining Kadena coins According to an announcement on Nov. 4, Kadena has launched its mainnet Chainweb alongside the Kadena token wallet Chainweaver. The firm is also planning to carry out its third token sale from Nov. 5–Nov. 22. As specified on Kadena’s website, the launch of Kadena’s mainnet means that miners can participate in the Kadena public blockchain network and mine for real Kadena coin. Co-founded in 2016 by early JPMorgan …

Major global crypto exchange Bitfinex now supports Bitcoin (BTC) bech32 addresses generation and deposits to bech32 addresses. Following the launch of Bitcoin withdrawals on bech32 addresses on Oct. 29, Bitfinex officially announced on Nov. 4 that the exchange now also supports Bitcoin deposits to bech32. As previously announced, a bech32 Bitcoin address is a Segregated Witness (SegWit) address format specified by Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) 0173. Also known as "bc1 addresses,” bech32 format starts with the alphanumeric characters bc1 and consists only of lowercase letters, making each address not case-sensitive. This updated address format provides better protection against typing errors …

Bitcoin (BTC) technology pioneer Adam Back explained at the Transylvania Crypto Conference that there’s a greater financial incentive to creating altcoins compared to building on Bitcoin. Forbes reported Back’s remarks on Oct. 21, noting that he is also the co-author of the “Enabling Blockchain Innovations with Pegged Sidechains” paper about Bitcoin sidechains released about five years ago. In the document, he and his fellow researchers first expressed the idea that Bitcoin’s sidechains will have substantial advantages over altcoins. It is worth mentioning that Back’s Blockstream is the company that launched the Liquid Bitcoin sidechain. In July, Blockstream also launched a …

Researchers have developed a new algorithm for distributed ledger protocols, which reporters claim could achieve security without the high power consumption of Bitcoin (BTC) mining. The algorithm, “Scalable Byzantine Reliable Broadcast,” was outlined in a paper first published this August and being presented today, Oct. 16, at the International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2019) in Budapest, Hungary. The paper’s authors, Rachid Guerraoui, Petr Kuznetsov, Matteo Monti, Matej Pavlovic, Dragos-Adrian Seredinschi — based at the Federal Polytechnic School in Lausanne, Switzerland — have won the DISC 2019 Best Paper Award for their research. A new way of tackling Byzantine fault-tolerant …

Blockchain development firm LiquidApps has introduced a new blockchain scalability solution for decentralized application (DApps) developers. The new service called vCPU aims to scale blockchain processing power horizontally, which provides more computing power per action than native blockchains, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph on Oct. 14. LiquidApps states that vertical blockchain scaling creates a barrier to entry for potential miners and block producers, as it requires the validation of nodes to add more capacity. More power to developers VCPU ostensibly allows developers to access a greater supply of decentralized computation as it tasks DApp service providers (DSPs) …

The next release of major Bitcoin (BTC) wallet software Electrum will support off-chain scalability solution Lightning Network (LN). The Electrum official Twitter account announced the upcoming LN integration in a tweet sent on Oct. 14. The tweet announced: “The next release of Electrum will support Lightning payments. Our lightning node implementation has been merged into Electrum's master branch.” Electrum also confirmed that the wallet will employ a new implementation developed in-house, written in Python. High hopes for Lightning Network Lightning Network is believed by many Bitcoin proponents to be the solution to the network’s scalability limitations. Recently, the chief strategy …

The Skale Network, a decentralized Ethereum-compatible network, has completed a $17.1 million funding round for its mainnet launch. Solid global backing Backed by the Liechtenstein’s Node Foundation and United States-based Skale Labs, the network now has over 40 investors in the U.S., European Union, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore, according to a news release shared with Cointelegraph on Oct. 1. The new financing round featured major industry investors including Arrington XRP, ConsenSys Labs, Winklevoss Capital, Multicoin Capital, Blockchange, Hashed, HashKey and Recruit Holdings. $9.65 million raised in 2018 As previously reported, the network is a fully permissionless, open source, …

It’s one of the biggest challenges facing blockchain and crypto — a hurdle only the industry can solve. Without a solution, even CEOs from major global exchanges fear that mass adoption will never be achievable. Scalability is the long-running thorn in the side of this fledgling technology, which is still relatively young and has yet to make meaningful inroads into the world’s economy. At a basic level, this relates to whether a blockchain network is capable of providing the same fast, high-quality experience to all of its users — irrespective of how many are online at any given time. Consumers …

Following investment from Coinbase Ventures, Offchain Labs has opened up the Alpha version of its Ethereum (ETH) scaling solution, dubbed Arbitrum. Enterprise-focused blockchain startup Offchain Labs said that their solution will enable processing speed of more than 500 transactions per second for Ethereum applications, industry-focused news outlet Crypto Briefing reported on Sept. 5. Arbitrum has reportedly secured new investment from Coinbase Ventures, the investment arm of major American cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. Faster than Ethereum Deploying Arbitrum, developers can build smart contracts on Ethereum’s Solidity code. However, unlike regular Ethereum decentralized apps, such smart contracts are compiled by the new solution’s …

The crypto startup behind a self-learning, self-optimizing blockchain says it is determined to solve the problems still hampering the technology’s progress — and deliver “tremendous scalability” of up to 30,000 transactions per second. Velas says substantial hurdles are holding the industry back. Many blockchains are centralized to some extent, and scalability is an ongoing concern that has yet to be addressed adequately. Although still relatively in their infancy, major networks such as Bitcoin and Ethereum are already running at maximum capacity — hampering efficiency and increasing costs. And, to compound the problem, Velas claims block producers are not always incentivized …

Australian software programmer and Bitcoin’s (BTC) Lightning Network coder Rusty Russell warned users that “security issues have been found in various Lightning projects which could cause loss of funds.” Urgent update recommended On Aug. 30, Russell published a tweet urging LN nodes operators to update their software as soon as possible. According to the message, his warning concerns all versions of c-lightning prior to 0.7.1, lnd older than 0.7, and eclair up to version 0.3. Notably, just earlier this month blockchain development company Blockstream announced the release of the version 0.7.2 of its BTC scalability software c-lightning. Details to be …

Blockchains and the related field of decentralized technologies represent a massive opportunity for humanity — not to mention the fact they appeared with almost perfect timing. Our largest institutions have become so powerful that they can take advantage of normal people without repercussions. Look no further than Facebook spying on its users and the surveillance state run by the Communist Party of China. Fortunately, blockchain technology, cryptography and other distributed systems act as a counterbalance to this extreme consolidation of power. They are defensive technologies that empower the many against the few. Like BitTorrent disrupting the music industry, cryptocurrencies and …