Ledger will soon be hiring and training 60 more employees to generate a new business unit. The core of ‘Enterprise Solutions’ will be the already existing Ledger Vault custody service.

The Ledger Company, a manufacturer of hardware wallets for Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies, will create from scratch a new business unit specialized in institutional clients. Ledger Enterprise Solutions will provide training, as well as consulting and auditing services.

As a company, this new area’s goal is “to help institutional clients address the implementation of technology, security, and governance in their crypto-asset wallets.”

The core of Enterprise Solutions will be Ledger Vault, a cryptocurrency custody service launched in 2018. Among the vault features, users can find “the use of hardware security modules and personal security devices.”

“We recognize the drastic need for enterprise-grade solutions to maintain and secure digital assets,” said The Vice President of Business Solutions at Ledger.

For this new business unit’s development, Ledger, which already counts on at least 50 professionals in its ranks, will hire another 60 qualified workers during 2021. As reported in a press release, it is to “enable for the crypto industry to become a multi-billion dollar industry globally. ‘

Ledger Seizes Corporate Interest in Bitcoin

Since 2020, many institutional investors began to incorporate bitcoin as a reserve asset in their treasuries.

Gigantic corporations such as MicroStrategy, Tesla, and Square join the list of companies that consider the cryptocurrency created by Satoshi Nakamoto to be a good store of value. As a result, Ledger’s new business unit seeks to leverage corporate interest by offering specially tailored services for these types of customers.

Among the companies, Ledger currently competes with firms specializing in custody technology, such as Anchorage, BitGo, Fireblocks, and Curv. The latter is now the acquisition of the online payments giant PayPal.

Ledger Keeps Working on its Hardware Wallets

The creation of the Enterprise Solutions unit will not play down the products that Ledger creates for its private users. The best known are the Ledger Nano S and Nano X wallets. These physical devices (hardware wallets) seek greater security than wallets for computers or mobile devices. Like these, they allow the self-custody of the coins without the need for a trusted third party.

Thanks to regular software updates, Ledger wallets constantly add new cryptocurrencies and features. One of the most recent is the possibility of storing and staking Polkadot directly from the device.

Ledger’s hardware wallets are multicurrency tools that serve as storage and private keys for cryptocurrencies. These tools also help to lead transactions using cryptocurrencies and with the use of cryptographic private keys.

Cryptocurrency users have developed alternative systems to store their values. These include hot wallets (which are online), mobile wallets (wallets in smartphones), and even paper wallets (stored on paper).

Hardware wallets are another way to store values offline. A hardware wallet is a cryptocurrency wallet that saves the user’s private keys (a critical piece of information used to authorize outgoing transactions on the blockchain network) in a secure hardware device.

By: Jenson Nuñez

 Signal Technology Foundation, the non-profit organization that developed the messaging application, switched-on the receipt of contributions in cryptocurrencies through The Giving Block, a company that manages donations.

The cryptocurrencies that became donations on its website are bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH, from Ethereum), BAT (Basic Attention Token), litecoin (LTC), bitcoin cash (BCH), and zcash (ZEC), and many others.

“As a non-profit organization, we mainly depend on your support. Suppose you have been patiently waiting for Signal to accept donations in cryptocurrencies. In that case, you no longer need to save (sic. ‘Hodl’) your generosity,” they said on Twitter, as an apparent reference to the viral term in English “hodl,” which means to resist as much as possible to sell the cryptocurrencies.

When a user confused the term Hodl with a typo, as it originated on the BitcoinTalk forum in 2013, from the Signal Twitter account, they said: “Soem typso becoem realyl populra” (Some typos become very popular), and then they adhered an explanation about Hodl.

The Signal Technology Foundation was created in 2018 by entrepreneurs Moxie Marlinspike and Brian Acton, who provided funding of $ 50 million, according to a TechCrunch report published in January 2021. But since its creation, Signal relies mainly on supportive donations.

Signal, the message application, became a monster (enormous) and grew that way since January of this year. Its rival WhatsApp’s privacy policy changes received massive downloads mainly because of the direct recommendation of influential personalities such as Elon Musk.

Given the features adorning this application, this niche may be a portal to reach many relevant opportunities, knowing that enthusiasts and users of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies tend to place a high value on privacy.

According to reports, in January 2021, the application was conducting tests on issuing its cryptocurrency, a project on which there is no further information to the date.

What is Signal, and what is its Purpose?

Signal is an instant messaging application. It appears to be for users an alternative to other more popular ones like WhatsApp or Telegram. It is less used but no less popular among advanced users because it brings more excellent privacy features. It is almost impossible for other users to generate an interception through other users’ communications as it can happen in many other apps.

Signal works with an end-to-end encryption protocol called Open Whispers Systems for all communications. The messages leave your mobile wholly encrypted and under encryption only when they reach the recipient’s mobile.

If someone intercepts the messages on the way, they won’t be able to read them. Signal’s encryption is so popular that WhatsApp itself decided to use it.

Unlike other applications, which only apply end-to-end encryption when you deliberately open a private conversation, both Signal and WhatsApp use this encryption by default in all discussions.

By: Jenson Nuñez

Delo pleaded not guilty during a remote process. He traveled from the United Kingdom to the USA and then returned to the European country.

One of the BitMex exchange founders, Benjamin Delo, surrendered to the United States authorities and is now facing charges of alleged money laundering against him.

According to a note published on March 16 by the Bloomberg news agency, Delo went to New York from the United Kingdom. He received accusations before the American judge Sarah L. Cave during a remote process, pleading not guilty. He gets back to his freedom with a $ 20 million bail before returning to the UK.

Delo is an Oxford-educated computer scientist who created a high-frequency trading system for JP Morgan Chase & Co. In 2014, together with Arthur Hayes and Samuel Reed, he launched BitMex.

The Allegations against Delo

BitMex generated its futures and options trading platform in 2014. In October 2020, all of the firm’s founders faced several charges from federal prosecutors in New York who accused them of outflanking banking laws to ensure that the platform won’t turn into a tool to accomplish illegal purposes.

Furthermore, according to the US authorities, BitMex did not register with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), like any exchange that offers future trading options.

Officials noted that BitMex allowed users to deposit bitcoins without registering. They also allowed the consumption of essential products without verifying the whereabouts of origin. Similarly, they questioned why BitMex allowed deposits without any KYC verification.

However, a BitMex spokesperson said that the charges against Delo are unfounded and, in their opinion, are an excess by the US authorities. He assured that Delo intends to defend himself against the charges and clear his name in court.

Federal prosecutors said another of the exchange’s founders, Arthur Hayes, is in Singapore and is negotiating with authorities to surrender in Hawaii on April 6. Meanwhile, Reed was arrested in Massachusetts in 2020.

BitMex Publishes Book on Bitcoin Blockchain Size War

BitMex’s executive management changed in full on October 8, 2020, right after accusations from the CFTC. Arthur Hayes, and the other co-founders, were removed by consensus from their positions, with “immediate effect.” Instead, the company appointed Alexander Hoptner as CEO in November 2020.

BitMex was spared another lawsuit in court, having reached a monetary settlement with two of its former founders. Frank Amato and Guido Capone, two of BitMex’s early founders, will receive $ 44 million as part of the deal.

Recently, BitMex Research, a research arm of the cryptocurrency and derivatives exchange, BitMex, announced on Twitter the publication of its book, The Blocksize War, which talks about the war Bitcoin’s block size, which has spanned from August 2015 until November 2017.

The Blocksize War chronologically narrates the most important events and conflicts of the conflict from August 2015 to November 2017 due to the amount of data allowed on the Bitcoin blockchain.

By: Jenson Nuñez

Willy Woo said that bitcoin would soon reach $ 74,000 amid the most considerable supply shock in its history.

As BTC is in short supply from exchanges, more and more now reaches the hodlers hands. Few want to divest an asset with a market valuation of $ 1 trillion.

The price of bitcoin (BTC) will soon hit $ 74,000, predicts statistician Willy Woo in his latest analysis of the cryptocurrency pioneer.

 6% of the crypto asset’s market capitalization remains in user portfolios. Capital then flows continuously to show a more robust demand. Therefore, it finds good fundamentals to determine that the uptrend will continue in the coming weeks.

Woo adds that bitcoin is facing the biggest supply shock in its history, and it will soon break the resistance of $ 63,000 by climbing to $ 74,000. The analyst states that BTC will end the year around $ 250,000 as previously noted; Instead, because of the consolidation, its maximum target now centers around $ 300,000.

For the past three weeks, large BTC streams have been pouring out of exchanges, which for Woo means that institutional investors are purchasing the cryptocurrency at a more significant and faster rate. This flow is even stronger than January purchases.

Two prominent investors recently received BTC. One of them was a Chinese company that focused on developing artificial intelligence for mobile applications, which invested USD 40 million in BTC.

The other is the Norwegian company Aker, which incorporated a cryptocurrency-focused company called Seetee. Through this new subsidiary, it made an investment of USD 58 million in bitcoin. Given this, Woo suspects that other institutions and individuals will soon appear that prefer cold storage rather than leaving their funds on exchanges.

Bitcoin, an Asset with a Market Valuation of 1 Trillion Dollars

Woo sees another sign stating that the price of BTC will continue its rise due to the plentiful supply and supportive shock that bitcoin is receiving. The support band explained that it appeared due to the substantial purchases reported during the last three weeks.

The analyst explained that 6% of the available offer reached a value of 1 trillion dollars, creating a permanent consolidation to BTC as an asset that now has a more substantial valuation.

Given that 16% of the available supply went to new wallets with a price range between USD 46,000 and 58,000, there is reason enough to suspect that the cryptocurrency price will no longer return below those levels.

Another reason that bitcoin will never be that cheap again relates to the bullish streak that the cryptocurrency went through in 2017. In 2016, bitcoin was scarce in the exchanges. At that time, the depletion endured five months and was the prelude to the high peak that the asset reached the year after.

Now the inventory of BTC on spot exchanges has been running low for 13 months. That’s what Woo defines as the most extensive supply shock the cryptocurrency has experienced in its 12-year history. For this reason, he believes that the current bullish streak will not stop in the short term.

By: Jenson Nuñez

The protocol hides and mixes transactions, increasing fungibility and privacy. The use of the tool will be optional for users and exchanges with support for Litecoin.

The Litecoin (LTC) MimbleWimble Extended Block (MWEB) protocol code reached its completion and now is waiting for a formal audit. Developer David Burkett’ made the announcement. The developer spent a year working hard on a tool that focuses on giving fungibility and privacy.

The MimbleWimble protocol ran smoothly under the eye of a team of technicians and users during the past six months. Once the audit reaches its maturity and its compatibility gets its verification, it will be ready for implementation.

The code receives the name MimbleWimble in association with one of the spells in the Harry Potter saga and books, which works by binding an opponent’s tongue to prevent him from communicating.

That concept is the primary source of the protocol, and it is public since 2016. Someone named Tom Elvis Jedusor (the French name for Voldemort in the famous series of books by JK Rowling) published the original white paper of MWEB on a bitcoin research channel.

The document presented a proposal to increase privacy, scalability, and fungibility in cryptocurrencies. The document’s theory emphasized bitcoin’s condition, whose system makes every transaction and balance available for the world to see and track.

So with the idea of ​​achieving greater fungibility and improving privacy as a fundamental human right, in 2019, the Litecoin Foundation decided to adopt the MWEB protocol. That same year, the protocol became a reality due to Grin and Beam’s projects, which managed to incorporate it.

MimbleWimble works as a combination of different technologies, including confidential transactions and currency mixing. An implementation that would also be active as an adjacent chain interconnected next to the main chain of Litecoin, and, therefore, its use is entirely optional, as detailed in the official LTC blog.

Litecoin users require a cryptocurrency wallet to integrate MimbleWimble and decide whether they want to move their funds privately. On the other hand, exchanges that support Litecoin can decide whether or not to support the MWEB feature without being obliged to adopt it.

Litecoin Seems now to be as Private as Monero

The Litecoin Foundation has also revealed that the community said that MWEB should be optional after understanding that private cryptocurrencies face the risk of suffering exclusion from the market. This situation happened to Monero.

Monero was not well received in countries like South Korea and others that adhered to the Financial Action Task Force’s guidelines to avoid and fight against money laundering, including the controversial travel rule. This rule obliges virtual asset service providers or VASPs, including cryptocurrency exchanges, to disclose their clients’ information.

All Monero transactions are as fungible and private as cash payments. Litecoin, with the extra features of MWEB, will be the most cash-like cryptocurrency. It will reach an essential spot in the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.

By: Jenson Nuñez

The pieces that the robot and the artist Andrea Bonaceto have created will be up for auction on March 23^rd. The world’s first NFT exhibition will take place at the Beijing Contemporary Art Center.

The first non-fungible tokens (NFT) by robot Sophia, considered the most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) in the world, will be up for auction. The humanoid has been creating this collection of digital artworks together with Italian artist Andrea Bonaceto. They received the patronage of IV Gallery, whose headquarters is in Los Angeles, United States.

This will be the first sale of digital images that an AI and a human artist have created together. The works will be up for auction at the Nifty Gateway market, which is dedicated to trading these creations, on March 23^rd.

The robot’s creator David Hanson said that he incorporated Bonaceto’s work into her neural networks. Besides, he equipped the humanoid with other works that the Italian artist had already created. Sophia thus created a series of new images that she later replicated, both digitally and with brushstrokes of her own hands.

Sophia herself said that her pieces of art demonstrate what artificial intelligence is capable of. She said that she believes that “human beings need love and compassion, which is easy to convey to the world through works of art.” She also commented that “we are moving towards a new paradigm in which robots and humans participate together in the creative process.”

A few days before the sale, the creations of both artists will appear on the social networks of Andrea Bonaceto and Sophia. The Italian artist, who is a member of the Royal Art Society of France, is a well-known connoisseur of the world of blockchains. He believes that NFTs are a catalyst to help achieve the ideal balance between creativity and rationality.

Bonaceto classified his work with Sophia as “fascinating” and said that the robot’s decisions even surprise Hanson. The artist explained that the humanoid has sometimes made artworks “based on her own contributions.”

Sophia can learn, adapt to human behavior, and work in a successful integrated way. She has had press conferences worldwide and became a Saudi (robot) citizen, the first in the world, in 2017.

The Popularity of NFTs Is Growing around the World

NFTs have gained increasing popularity in recent weeks, apparently due to the characteristics of these tokens. This allows certifying that there are also rare, unique and, therefore, collectible works in the metaverse.

Artists embrace this feature to tokenize their creations and auction them off to thousands of avid fans. Currently, so-called collectible tokens are leading many fans to pay millions of US dollars per piece. Some of those works have cost USD 7.5 million, such as CryptoPunk # 7804.

According to Artnet Magazine, exhibitions of this type of artwork have the potential to grow alongside the NFT ecosystem. Artist Mike Winkelmann, better known as Beeple, auctioned the digital work entitled “Everydays: The First 5,000 Days.” That has been the first purely digital artwork to go up for auction at Christie’s. Its current owner paid USD 70 million for the piece, making it the most expensive NFT in the history of this market.

By Alexander Salazar