Altcoins may come and go; hacks may challenge exchanges; mainstream financial advisors might not get it — but even in the face of a protocol bug, Bitcoin perseveres and develops. Here are this week’s top stories from Bitcoin Magazine.
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A Bug Fix and a New ASIC Miner
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Details of One of Bitcoin’s Nastiest Bugs Yet
For well over a year, versions of Bitcoin Core — Bitcoin’s leading software implementation — contained a severe software bug. The bug was fixed with Bitcoin Core 0.16.3 (and 0.17.0rc4), released this week, and the status of the Bitcoin network now appears to be safe, with no harm done. The Bitcoin Core project has since released a full disclosure report, revealing that the bug was even worse than previously thought.
Our technical editor, Aaron Van Wirdum, takes a look at the good, the bad and the ugly details of the bug that didn’t take down Bitcoin.
Innosilicon’s Impending ASIC Miner Could Challenge Bitmain’s Dominance
Innosilicon claims to have a new ASIC miner for bitcoin — the T3 — in the works that will outperform any current hardware in speed, profitability and efficiency. Purportedly consuming only 44 watts of power per tera hash (44W/TH), the T3 could become the most energy-efficient miner on the market when it is released.
Altcoin News
Crypto Exchange Poloniex Dumps Eight Underperforming Coins
Poloniex has announced its intention to drop 8 altcoins from its trading platform: BitcoinDark (BTCD), Bitmark (BTM), Einsteinium, (EMC2), Gridcoin (GRC), NeosCoin (NEOS), PotCoin (POT), VeriCoin (VRC) and BitcoinPlus (XBC). A spokesperson from Circle, the parent company of Poloniex, told Bitcoin Magazine that the coins were delisted in keeping with guidelines spelled out in Circle’s Asset Framework.
Battle of the Privacycoins: Verge Offers Little Privacy and Nothing Unique
Another altcoin, Verge, comes under the privacy microscope in this month’s ongoing series about privacy coins. Check out the reasons why it’s not really as private as we’d like it to be.
This Week in Hacks
In First Half of 2018, Japan Counts $540 Million Lost to Crypto Thefts
Another Cryptocurrency Exchange Hack Hits Japan [UPDATED]
The same week that a study was released, detailing the ongoing trouble that Japanese exchanges are experiencing with cryptocurrency thefts, another major exchange announced that is had been hacked. Japanese exchange Zaif was drained of 6.7 billion yen ($60 million USD) worth of company and user funds. The three virtual currencies stolen include bitcoin, monacoin and bitcoin cash. Of those, $37.8 million were in bitcoin funds (5,966 BTC).
Investing
Op Ed: Why Your Financial Advisor Won't Talk to You About Bitcoin
Financial advisors should be willing and able to discuss bitcoin and cryptocurrencies with their clients in the same way that they discuss other alternative investments such as gold, hedge funds and real estate investment trusts. But many of them simply don’t. In this op ed, Eric C. Jansen, the founder, president and chief investment officer at AspenCross Wealth Management, looks at some of the reasons why this is the case and why it should change.