Coronavirus Tracking System Developed by Zcash to Protect Privacy

Alexander Salazar
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Coronavirus Tracking System Developed by Zcash to Protect Privacy

The TCN protocol is open source, free and does not sacrifice user data. Experts see tracking as a critical tool in the battle against the coronavirus.

In its report for the first quarter of 2020, the Zcash Foundation reported the advances that it has been working on. The company acknowledges that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected almost the entire cryptocurrency industry, but its projects continue to advance given the remote work that characterizes them. Zcash notes that it has taken advantage of its privacy-based network to develop a coronavirus-infected people tracking application, which preserves personal data.

In the document titled “Zcash Foundation Q1 2020 Report”, published on April 17th, the company highlights that it developed a free and open-source application as part of the fight against the coronavirus. The foundation has been working on this project as part of the TCN (Temporary Contact Number) coalition group, with collaborators from around the world that have joined to design, implement and deploy the monitoring of contacts without surveillance, always preserving user data.

Experts see contact tracking as a critical tool in the battle against the coronavirus. The system creates an anonymous temporary contact number to privately record interactions between compatible mobile devices without allowing anyone to track them. To achieve its objectives, the foundation has appealed to the world’s leading technology companies, application developers, and governments to implement applications that are compatible with TCN’s shared protocol.

Regarding Zcash’s solution to tracking the coronavirus, blockchain solutions expert Sydney Ifergan said that people need contact tracking technologies that do not steal private data. It is necessary to think beyond the pandemic. He considers that it is good that the Zcash Foundation is part of the search for unsupervised contacts in the TCN Coalition.

As people connect over time, their interactions are anonymously linked to each other. Anyone testing positive for Covid-19 can report it through the application without revealing his or her identity.

Network Updates

The report for the first quarter of the year shares several updates on the projects that the company is working on.  Among them are the advances in Zebra, cross-chain integration, and research on privacy and development enhancements.

Concerning work on Zebra, the node client compatible with the Zcash consensus, the company details that it is still working on it and is expecting the NU3 hard fork. It was initially scheduled for April 2020, but it was postponed to July. However, the report clarifies that the company will announce the date later with a new road map.

Regarding the ZecWallet project, the foundation reported that it is still working on the development of the lightweight wallet version, which allows Zcash users to protect their ZEC tokens. Last January, the Electric Coin Company (ECC), the company behind the development of the Zcash project, enabled new libraries to integrate shielded transactions with Z addresses on Android and iOS mobile devices.

Finally, the report provides an update on the current state of the budget and the financing options for the project. The new Zcash Foundation budget outlines about USD 2.68 million in expenditure compared to the previous figure of USD 3.24 million. The Foundation currently has about 101,000 ZEC, 42 Bitcoin (BTC), and USD 4 million in cash, according to the report.

By Alexander Salazar

New DeFi Bitcoin and Ether Futures Markets are Launched

Alexander Salazar
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New DeFi Bitcoin and Ether Futures Markets are Launched

The DeFi platform dXdY provides its users with perpetual contracts with Bitcoin. The decentralized platform Futureswap offers leverage on Ether of up to 20x.

The launch of two new markets for perpetual futures contracts with the cryptocurrencies Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) was announced on April 20th.

The decentralized finance (DeFi) lending platform dXdY enabled the trading of any non-Ethereum-based asset, in addition to Bitcoin. Even though the option was already available as early access, users can now interact with this new feature.

Perpetual contracts with BTC and USD Coin (USDC) will offer leverage on BTC of up to 10x, with no expiration date, and with settlement and margin in USDC. In this sense, one of the characteristics that dXdY highlights is that this market will separate from the existing spot markets on the platform.

A perpetual contract is a special type of futures contract that does not have an expiration date. The user can hold a position for as long as wished, and the contract price uses an underlying index price. This measure is based on an average price calculated according to the main spot markets and their relative trading volume.

In this case, dXdY uses MakerDAO BTCUSD Oracle V2 to find out the index price. For the calculation of the index, it is also important to take into account the exchanges Binance, Bitfinex, Bitstamp, Coinbase Pro, Gemini, Kraken, and Bittrex.

In this way, instead of creating a BTC ERC-20 token, the dXdY team decided to generate a new protocol for their trading margin product, as the team explained. The smart contracts for this product are open source and were implemented on the Ethereum mainnet.

Leverage on Ether up to 20x

Last April 20th, the decentralized exchange FutureSwap was launched on the Ethereum mainnet. The exchange allows users to purchase ETH futures contracts with leverage of up to 20x. Futureswap is integrated into Chainlink to offer all the price indices that users need.

FutureSwap (FST), the native token of this platform, works as an underlying government token that allows any user to propose new exchanges or updates in the system. Users can add any ERC-20 token to the platform through a governance vote.

Apart from having a governance role in the system, the token also plays an incentive role, since it is possible to obtain it by interacting with the platform. All Futureswap participants get the token, depending on their weekly trading volumes. FST serves as an incentive for trading, but it also allows discounts of up to 30% on trading rates.

The fact of having settlement providers is another relevant feature of the platform. All exchanges that users make on the platform have stablecoin and ERC-20 token reserves. Users must deposit the same value ​​in both currencies so that they can become settlement providers on the platform.

This is not the first time that perpetual futures contracts have been used in the ecosystem. Last February, BitMEX added perpetual Ripple (XRP) futures contracts with Bitcoin to its financial products, which means that the said niche of the market is growing.

By Alexander Salazar

Bitcoin’s Price Increased by 8% in a Week

Alexander Salazar
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Bitcoin’s Price Increased by 8% in a Week

Bitcoin’s market capitalization increased by 5% during the week between April 15th and 22nd. The trading volume of the main cryptocurrency in the market grew by 2.1%.

This article shows how the market keeps driving the slow advance in Bitcoin’s price. Besides, it indicates changes in metrics like market capitalization and daily trading volume, which will help better understand the current behavior of the Bitcoin market.

Regarding mining in the Bitcoin network, the processing speed in the network reached all-time highs not seen since last March, but this metric is currently dropping. Besides, by looking at the number of transactions to be confirmed, it is possible to see that the network is somewhat congested.

Bitcoin Market

Between April 15th and 22nd, Bitcoin’s price had a bullish momentum. The lowest price on the 15th was USD 6,569, while at the time of writing this article, the price is around USD 7,126, which represents an increase of 8.47%. On the other hand, Bitcoin’s market capitalization increased by USD 7.345 million, so this metric had an increase of 5.95%.

Regarding daily trading volume, the daily amount on April 15th was USD 32,042 million. In other words, this metric only increased by 2.1%, considering the 32,709 million current trading. These data could indicate a relative calm of the Bitcoin market since there are no abrupt changes in the daily amount.

Bitcoin underwent a major change in volatility, which was 22.42% that week. Its volatility is now in the 18.86% range. A drop of 3.56% may not seem much, but this metric allows calculating how much the price of Bitcoin can change in a period. On the other hand, the dominance of Bitcoin, which has not shown alarming changes, is currently 63.5%.

Bitcoin Mining

During the week between April 15th and 22nd, the size of the Bitcoin blockchain increased by exactly 1,199 megabytes. On the other hand, the processing speed of the network on April 15th was 118 Hexahash per second, figures seen since last March. However, the processing speed steadily dropped to 113.8 Hexahash per second on April 22nd. Besides, the network’s mining difficulty increased from 14,715 Terabytes to 15,625 Terabytes.

It is worth noting that there was a change regarding the distribution of the hash rate among the 5 main Bitcoin mining pools. F2Pool, Poolin, BTC.com, AntPool are still the top 4, but ViaBTC took fifth place from OKEx. F2Pool, Poolin, and BTC.com lost 1% of hash rate, compared to April-15 values. Meanwhile, AntPool increased by 2% and Via BTC went up by 6%.

In the Bitcoin mempool, the weight of each transaction per second is 4,383 vBytes. Also, the size of the mempool is 40 megabytes, which is equivalent to 36 blocks to be confirmed. At the time of writing this article, there are about 25,550 transactions to be confirmed in the Bitcoin mempool for every 1 sats/vByte. These values ​​indicate that there is congestion on the network.

The average cost of making a transaction on the Bitcoin network remains at the same values ​​as the week between April 15th and 22nd, that is, USD 0.51 sats/vByte. On the other hand, the number of daily transactions decreased, compared to 299,391 of that week. The current 310,851 represents an increase of 3.82% in the number of daily transactions.

By Alexander Salazar

Natural Gas Could Be a Source of Energy for Bitcoin Mining

Willmen Blanco
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Natural Gas Could Be a Source of Energy for Bitcoin Mining

Shortly, China-based Bitcoin miners could migrate to other places. In recent years, the oil industry has discarded billions of cubic meters of natural gas.

The upcoming event that reduces the reward of Bitcoin miners by half and the drop of the oil market could be decisive in drawing a new map in the ecosystem. In this new situation, Bitcoin mining could be conquering a territory with the use of residual natural gas.

Regarding the state of Bitcoin mining, Jan Čapek, Co-CEO of Braiins, said that people complain about miners, claiming that they waste energy. However, they are seeking unused energy sources that could otherwise be wasted and they are willing to pay for it or use it in some way.

According to data from the Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership (GGFR), the oil industry burned around 141 billion cubic meters of natural gas in 2017. These figures began to be noticeably drastic in 2012 when the amount was estimated at 160 billion cubic meters. Taking into account the consumption of natural gas in the USA, this is equivalent to 25% and 30% of the consumption in the European Union.

Bitcoin Mining with Natural Gas

Jan Čapek suggests that Bitcoin miners will possibly start moving to those natural gas sources soon, an opinion that is already widespread in the ecosystem.

However, if oil companies seek to continue extracting fuel, they would have to burn natural gas in some way. At least, they could use it in a way that can generate profits, which creates an opportunity for natural gas-powered Bitcoin mining facilities. Čapek wonders about the resulting balance sheet once these facilities are equipped with gas turbines. Given that this is not low-end equipment, it would cost a lot of money.

The models that Bitcoin mining startups using natural gas implement could provide a solution in this situation. Some of those new companies include Upstream Data (from Canada) and Crusoe Energy (from the USA). Even independent miners like DJ Bitwreck, who operates in Texas, are using natural gas.

For instance, Upstream Data aims to attract oil companies for the rental and installation of their mining equipment. On his part, DJ Bitwreck seems to be buying equipment that others no longer use to strengthen his infrastructure.

However, the use of natural gas as an alternative to hydroelectric sources seems to depend on the price of Bitcoin. There are expectations about the incidences of the upcoming Bitcoin halving, which will reduce the reward miners by half. Besides, oil production levels are seriously threatened by the Covid-19 crisis. To understand this better, global extraction increased by 50% in 2017, compared to previous years. In other words, many companies could be disposing of a lot of natural gas shortly.

It is difficult to determine the effects of using residual natural gas for Bitcoin mining on the levels of energy expenditure on the planet. However, data on the burning of natural gas indicate that about 350 million tons of CO2 are released into the atmosphere as a result of the oil extraction process. This situation also causes the emission of unburned methane and black carbon, extremely harmful to the environment.

By Willmen Blanco

Bitcoin Miners Using Waste Gas Affected by Drop in Oil Prices

Alexander Salazar
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Bitcoin Miners Using Waste Gas Affected by Drop in Oil Prices

Some miners could be left without energy sources due to the fall in the price of oil. Some North America-based Bitcoin mining farms use the waste gas from oil-extracting companies.

Those North American Bitcoin miners that have established their businesses around fossil fuel extraction waste are excited rather than fearful about the oil market since the price of this commodity plunges to all-time lows.

To protect the environment, oil-extracting companies need to reduce their gas emissions. For that reason, some Bitcoin mining companies, such as Upstream Data in Canada, Crusoe Energy in Colorado, and DJ Bitwreck in Texas,  are using excess gas as fuel for many Bitcoin mining devices, instead of burning it on immediately.

If oil markets collapse and stop these sources of power, it will be a problem for Bitcoin miners as they will not be able to take advantage of their waste gas.

When the price of Bitcoin drops drastically, as occurred last March, the mining of the first cryptocurrency can rapidly become unprofitable. Some mines prefer to close their operations rather than lose money. Only large industrial mining farms can withstand the lack of profits for months if the price of Bitcoin remains low.

Oil and Bitcoin Miners in Texas

A Bitcoin miner, working in Texas under the alias DJ Bitwreck, said that he is building new hardware too. His team, which has four co-founders, will require another five months to finish building the device.

DJ Bitwreck said that they have used about 40 kilowatts per year (kW/yr) in their proof-of-concept phase. This miner is seeking to add at least 1 megawatt of power from burning gas. He said that they want to find a site that will allow them to place a generator and a mining cabin as big as a shipping container at the eruption site. Most producers consider that burning gas is a problem, but their real problem is gold mining.

Great American Mining co-founder Marty Bent has run that type of Bitcoin operations in North Dakota since last December. He said that there would be no production of gas to be consumed if oil companies stopped operating. On the other hand, Bent estimated that in this site alone there are “hundreds” of megawatts of energy.

In DJ Bitwreck’s opinion, apart from negative oil prices, it does not make sense for miners to rely on any strategies. He thinks that it is better to wait until the Bitcoin halving occurs in May, which will reduce by half the reward that miners could receive for their work.

Waiting until June

The aforementioned initiatives will remain moderately profitable and lean, even though the price of Bitcoin does not increase in 2020.

However, it is necessary to see what will happen to most Bitcoin farms if both the price of oil and the price of Bitcoin remain low throughout the year.

DJ Bitwreck stated that they expect the waters to become murky, but they are excited about it. For that reason, they are not buying equipment at the moment as their objective is to collect equipment from other ships that capsize in rough water.

By Alexander Salazar

Closer Move to Bullish Cross Preceding USD 10,000 in Bitcoin’s Price

Alexander Salazar
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Closer Move to Bullish Cross Preceding USD 10,000 in Bitcoin’s Price

Bitcoin price bulls build the fifth consecutive weekly green candlestick. However, they remain at the mercy of traditional markets as the price of the cryptocurrency dropped below USD 7,000 last April 20th once again.

The price of Bitcoin (BTC) closed the week between April 13th and Aril 19th at USD 7,126 with highs of USD 7,306 and lows of USD 7,472. This represented a 3.16% gain and a fifth consecutive week of buying pressure since the sharp fall of USD 3,000.

Bitcoin started the week between April 20th and April 26th with a massive sell-off and prices below USD 7,000, after traditional markets, which also dripped around 2%.

Ether (ETH), which went up by 14% the week before with highs that reached USD 190 and had outperformed Bitcoin, went down by about 2.86% to USD 175.

EOS, which had a strong week, gained 4% and is proving to be stronger than Bitcoin and Ether, has a price of USD 2.60.

Bitcoin’s dominance fell by around 1.2% the week before, just below 64%, primarily due to the profits that ETH, EOS, Link, and Tezos made.

Bitcoin 1-Week Chart

The 200- and 100-week moving averages previously acted as support and resistance, whilst the 100-weighted moving averages were tested repeatedly during the previous five weeks, defined by higher weekly closings illustrating a lack of selling interest.

The weekly closing marginally above the 100-week moving average (MA) also means that bulls have pushed prices 50% towards 2020 highs, with the 20-week MA and 61.8% retracement as the next obstacle to overcome just under USD 8,000, if the momentum can be maintained.

Meanwhile, the Moving Average Convergence/Divergence (MACD) indicator shows that bulls are close to achieving a bullish cross, which previously preceded larger bullish moves, with the last two instances of occurrence bringing the price of Bitcoin to USD 10,000.

Besides, there is an unconfirmed bullish divergence in the histogram, which supports the case that bears are no longer in control of the momentum. Additionally, the previous week’s volume remained relatively high, proving that buyers have remained in control of price action for five weeks in a row.

Bitcoin Price Moves Closer to Buying Opportunity

The On-Balance-Volume (OBV) indicator clearly shows the purchase volume, which tracks the cumulative volume that the direction of the price dictates. Therefore, this particular indicator highlights the impact of continued high-volume buying, reaching record highs and exceeding the 2020 high, further illustrating that bulls have been firmly in control in the last few weeks.

The previous week’s lows of USD 6,500 showed that bulls are interested in buying the USD 6,500 level once again, like in December 2019, which defined the accumulation period before the rapid move to USD 10,000.

Bitcoin seems to have regained this accumulation range once again and people would expect USD 6,500 to be a buying area of ​​interest if it is tested again. However, bulls need to hit the top USD 7,000 to show that they are strong.

By Alexander Salazar

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