Since the summer of 2017, more than 44 forks of the Bitcoin network were created and so far many of them have lost considerable value and are near worthless. To-date only a few of the forks that stem from Satoshi’s creation have remained relevant during the last three years.

There are three branches of Satoshi Nakamoto’s codebase that have commanded top positions within the top fifteen coins in the crypto coin market economy. Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Bitcoinsv (BSV) have all been top contenders for quite some time. Between the price, onchain activities, and community size only these three branches have data worth calculating.

Out of the $335 billion market cap stemming from all 7,600+ crypto assets, BTC captures 58% of the valuation, while BCH commands 1.2%. BSV’s market cap dominance on Sunday, September 20 is 0.83% Meanwhile, over 40 other Bitcoin network forks that were born after August 2017, have lost significant value during the last two years.

In 2017, just before the all-time price highs in the crypto economy, a great number of individuals and organizations decided to create forks from the BTC network. That year if you participated in the crypto economy, you surely heard about all the forks, snapshots, and airdrops that took place during the 12-month timeframe.

Each and every one of them had a unique name tied to the word “bitcoin,” and they all offered some benefits that BTC does not offer network participants.

This included bitcoin zero (BZX), micro bitcoin (MBC), bitcoin clean (BCL), bitcoin gold (BTG), classic bitcoin (CBTC), bitcoin cloud (BCL), big bitcoin (BBC), bitcoin atom (BCA), bitcoin interest (BCI), bitcoin smart (BCS), bitvote (BTV), bitcoin private (BTCP), and bitcoin rhodium (BTR).

The list goes on and on and most all of these coins besides the top three branches have shuddered in value during the last two years. Before launching these forks the creators told the public that every fork had a special purpose.

For instance, bitcoin gold (BTG) was supposed to make bitcoin mining decentralized by trying to bring CPU mining back to the codebase. Essentially, BTG changed BTC’s consensus algorithm from SHA256 to Equihash but quickly learned that the chain was far less secure.

Just like the Ethereum fork (ETC), bitcoin gold has been 51% attacked on various occasions since it was born. A recent study shows that a single BTG whale controls more than half the supply and the 51% attacks have caused the coin to get delisted from prominent exchanges.

Bitcoin gold is down 98.32% from the coin’s all-time high of $484 three years ago. The crypto asset has 898 KH/s of hashrate securing the chain but the cloud mining operation Nicehash controls 52.24% of the BTG hashrate on Sunday, September 20, 2020.

Another BTC fork project called bitcoin private (BTCP) told the public the coin’s benefits would be privacy features called zk-snarks. BTCP is down 98.8% since it’s ATH at $$86 two years ago and today the cryptocurrency is swapping for $0.10 a pop.

A BTC fork called bitcoin god (GOD) created by the well-known Chinese cryptocurrency investor, Chandler Guo, is down 99.9% since the coin’s ATH on January 13, 2018.

“Bitcoin God (GOD) will be forked off the main bitcoin chain at the block height of 501,225, which will happen on December 25th to be symbolic of me giving candy to all bitcoin holders,” Chandler Guo said via Twitter. Unfortunately, even though Chandler Guo shot for Christmas day, the fork at block height 501,225 happened two days later on December 27, 2017.

One of the early BTC forks born on November 24, 2017, called bitcoin diamond (BCD) is down 99% since the cryptocurrency’s ATH. Data shows that BCD’s highest price point was the day after it was born at block height 495,866.

At this time (11/25/17), BCD traded for $99 per coin and has steadily declined in value ever since that day. Interestingly enough, BCD is still worth $0.57 per coin and on Saturday, September 19, BCD saw a million dollars in trade volume. The bitcoin diamond trade volume globally is much larger than GOD’s $24 worth of swaps during the last day.

Each and every BTC fork, snapshot, and airdrop that is still trading on exchanges for a small amount of value can still be acquired today. However, most major cryptocurrency exchanges do not support these small market cap BTC forks unless they have decent liquidity.

Smaller crypto trading platforms, however, do still support these coins and it’s possible to still trade them for a fraction of value. Although, news.Bitcoin.com has reported on various occasions on how obtaining forked assets can be a “long and annoying process.”

Oct 3rd, 2020 12:47:41

The Wyoming Division of Banking has turned to blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis in an effort to combat cybercrime, money laundering and other criminal activities.

Wyoming to Work Closely with Chainalysis

The news of the partnership was announced on Chainalysis’ blog on Sept. 17. According to the blog post, the blockchain analytics firm will help the division strengthen its monitoring capabilities that it uses for tracing illicit activities pertaining to digital assets.

The Wyoming regulator will be using Chainalysis products and tools “to verify Wyoming banks’ compliance with anti-money laundering, Bank Secrecy Act, Know-Your-Customer, and sanctions.’’

The news of the partnership came just a day after the U.S. State of Wyoming granted the banking charter to the major cryptocurrency exchange Kraken.

Software for Verifying Wyoming Banks’ Compliance

The Wyoming Banking Board approved the application of Kraken to form a Special Purpose Depository Institution (SPDI) and allowed the exchange to develop a bank in the State of Wyoming. This is a significant step for the crypto space as Kraken becomes the first regulated cryptocurrency bank in the history of the U.S. With the Chainalysis partnership, however, it is clear the state also wants to maintain control and monitor closely crypto transactions.

Previously reported on how blockchain analytics firms provide insights to identify real-world threat actors, with Chainalysis stating that it could map addresses to real-world entities and further explaining:

“So that means, when you are in our product you can see that someone at Coinbase just sent X number of Bitcoin to someone at Kraken, or to a darknet market or to a child pornography site, or any number of services or entities on the blockchain. The way that we map it is through proprietary heuristics. It’s a combination of technology […] and actual people who work at our company and validate certain services.”

Wyoming at the Forefront of Crypto Regulation in the U.S.

The partnership with Wyoming is said to be a one-year agreement, during which time the blockchain analytics firm will train senior examiners at Wyoming on crypto tracing practices.

The Division will also be granted two monitoring software licenses to the Division of Banking as well as investigatory support as it eases into its new crypto-facing compliance duties.

In the meantime, Wyoming has been at the forefront of digital asset regulation in the U.S. ever since 2018.

Just last year, the Wyoming Legislature authorized the chartering of SPDIs as a new bank charter, and also established a legal framework for digital asset custody and fiduciary activities. Currently, Wyoming is working on developing regulatory policies revolving around crypto assets, so that digital currencies can be monitored and transacted in a secure way.

Wyoming Division of Banking is working to find a middle ground between crypto and traditional banking institutions, and it seems to have progressed and succeeded in integrating both, starting with Kraken crypto exchange.

Oct 3rd, 2020 12:46:19

The South Korean Government is working on integrating blockchain technology into people’s homes to make it easier for them to vote and enjoy other services

As the blockchain frenzy in South Korea continues, the government is taking the technology to the housing sector by pledging $1.27 million to the cause. The funds will go towards developing a blockchain-based platform that targets people living in apartments across the country.

The Ministry of Science in South Korea has chosen a local firm, Ksign, for this project. Ksign will develop a contact-free platform that would enable residents to engage with electronic voting while enjoying other benefits, such as parking space management and a few other housing-based measures.

The new blockchain platform will enable people to vote from their homes. The national government seems to be making this move as the country conducted its latest legislative elections on April 15, 2020, at a time when the Coronavirus pandemic continues to impact the world.

The platform will be designed to aid social distancing; the creators of the platform believe this will boost public health in apartment spaces. The blockchain platform will be available for use by homeowners, residents and the management of apartment buildings. In addition to electronic voting and parking space management features, the platform will also provide video conferencing and electronic payment solutions.

Keo Ja-in, vice president of Ksign, while commenting on the development of the platform, stated they are developing a decentralised identifier (DID) that can be applied to the token ecosystem. They intend to achieve this by controlling personal information and verifying the identity of users by controlling personal information. “The goal is to also create a token ecosystem that can be used in any store,” he added.

The DID is a new type of digital identifier that supports a verifiable, decentralised digital identity. A DID identifies a subject (an organisation, a person, a thing, data model, abstract entity or more).

Blockchain voting has been one of the main talking points in South Korea recently. On September 11, the head of the Seocho regional government discussed the possibility of bringing a blockchain-powered voting platform to residents.

The developers have no set timeline for the completion of the blockchain voting platform. However, South Korea will hold its presidential elections in 2022, and it would be exciting to see blockchain technology playing a role in the upcoming election.

Oct 3rd, 2020 12:44:51

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Nov 6th, 2017 17:22:51