In the articles below, the authors discuss the history of Bitcoin, and the nuanced disagreements nursed by different factions within the community.
Bitcoin: past and future
(By Murad Mahmudov and Adam Taché)
"Mainstream, Keynesian, and Monetarist economists have expressed concerns with Bitcoin’s fixed-supply. They fear the possibility of harsh deflationary pressures if bitcoin becomes the predominant currency through the process known as hyperbitcoinization."
Bitcoin(BTC) / Bitcoin Cash (BCH).Pt2
(Hackernoon, by Aleksandar Svetski)
"In the previous article, I attempted to set the stage for the arguments (on both sides), set down a couple of disclaimers, laid the foundations for what I believe Bitcoin is, and why it’s thus far succeeded, and then gone on to dispel some of the main arguments in the space."
Bitcoin Q&A: Proof-of-work changes
News & Commentary
So I had a videochat with Jihan Wu
(Zcash Forum, by Zooko)
"I asked whether they use a pool for their own mining operations. I said, assuming that their mining operations are sufficiently large, they might not even need to use a pool at all. He said that was a good point and technically correct, that a large enough mining operation wouldn’t necessarily need to pool, but that they point their mining operations at their own pool."
Traders with pockets full of crypto quit Wall Street
(Bloomberg, by Alastair Marsh)
"While the Wall Street establishment debates whether cryptocurrencies will become a profit center or a legal liability, some employees have gotten wealthy enough from personal investments in digital assets to turn their backs on promising jobs at top firms. A small but growing group of finance professionals has built up a big enough financial cushion to eschew the safety net of a monthly salary."
Choose-your-own-security-disclosure-adventure
(Hacking, Distributed, by Emin Gün Sirer)
"The security flaw reporting game is completely broken. Empirically, we can see that we have an undeniable problem. People do not come forward, and if we think critically, there is absolutely no reason for them to come forward. There have been so many bad actors that the few people who step up ought to be sainted."
"Musk is caught between a rock and a hard place. He is struggling to produce a mass-market car. If he cannot do it, it means Tesla should be valued closer to Porsche than to Ford, and the stock price should fall. But if the stock price falls, he won’t be able to raise money, Tesla will run out of cash, and the dream of a mass-market Tesla will be dead (or at least it will not be fulfilled by an independent company controlled by Musk)."
Technical & Updates
Exploring Lightning Network routing
(Lightning Blog, by Bryan Vu)
"This post is oriented toward budding enthusiasts like Carol who are interested in running Lightning nodes, who are building applications for the Lightning Network, or who are just curious about Lightning. Note that this post is targeted at users who already have some basic knowledge of Lightning and payment channels."
Commentary thread on Mimblewimble
1/ Just had a good discussion on the Mimblewimble whitepaper. Here are my notes:
— Taylor Pearson (@TaylorPearsonMe) May 30, 2018
Commentary on the lack of collision resistance in IOTA
Very nice write-up on the lack of collision resistance in the Curl hash function previously used by the #IOTA cryptocurrency. Includes source code for generating collisions, formal proofs, and will be the final say in this debate. https://t.co/HsLZ4ahldr pic.twitter.com/Vds3grKibT
— Jonathan "not giving away IOTA" Jogenfors (@Jogenfors) May 28, 2018