Toon of the Day - Kim Gym

Proof of Volatility Improvement

Waves Reapeating - Bitcoin Price $2400 by June 2016

As the old stock markets have been shut down over the Christmas/New Year season there has been a lot of time for me to take a step back and look at the long term charts. For some time I have suspected a pattern in bitcoin boom waves, and i'm not alone on this. But until now I hadn't given it to much credence. Looking at the long term gold chart however has lead to this admittedly bazaar conclusion.

Bitcoin

Gold 

Silver

There's a similarity in these precious metal charts that seems to be giving guidance for the price of bitcoin. The "boom an wobble down to boom"  pattern is repeated on different time scales. It maybe caused by some kind of psychological phenomenon in relation to safe havens for value and bubbles. I'm not sure why its doing this but it seems to be repeated at least 3 times in btc and twice in gold. Considering also that trading bots are looking for repeating patterns and make up a big part of the market, I was compelled to overlay the charts.

I wouldn't want to get all Nostradamus on it, but now is the season. I feel this level of market capitalisation is reasonable so in good faith I'll  time stamp my prediction for the year in the blockchain.

"I, MidwayCrypto estimate a price of $2400 by mid 2016 followed by a dip to $1400 by year end"

Toon of the Day - Wall Street "Sell Sell Sell"

Segregated Witness - Endorsed by the Wu Tang Clan

There has been a new development in bitcoins scaling debate and its triggering a reddit battle rap. Whatever "segregated witness" is it seems to be holding ground in this hostile world. Those who are not familiar with programming and more with Wu Tang will like what they are getting here, more transactions. Understanding how it works is another thing.

The bitcoin improvement proposal increases the amount of transactions that bitcoin can process with out increasing the block size, something once considered impossible without a hard fork. It does this by folding transaction data into encrypted signatures. The result is increased transaction capacity by up to four times. Thats 28 transactions per second or around 2.4m per day.

There are auxiliary benefits to the proposal as well. It fixes long standing concerns about malleability and allows the existing block chain to be trimmed without compromising security. "SegWit" is also compatible with other scaling projects such as the lightning network and sidechains. It gives these systems more time to be fully dispersed and reduces the risk of a transaction bottleneck before they are fully utilised. It seems holding out on change, in this case, has paid off with more innovation.

Bitcoiners are having a decentralised block party on this and it shows in the price. It has been years in the making. Gregory Maxwell of the bitcoin "core" first floated the concept for testing at the Hong Kong scaling conference. Following that Pieter Wuille, another prominent bitcoin coder made a presentation streaming live on the 14th of December. The price of bitcoin rose by $15 that day to $460 USD. The proposal now has at least 31 signatures from the bitcoin core group, which is by far the most significant group of bitcoin coders, bitcoin gurus so to speak so far. There are now 50 signatures on a road map to have this implemented by April 2016 along with other measures.

Its not unanimous, people have come back and said that the SegWit code is ugly. They debate the idea of adding many lines of code to solve a solution that can be solved with just one line in the consensus code. Even though SegWit does not change the consensus code it may add complexity to the overall system and it is unclear what the repercussions of the change could be. The code in itself could be considered quite elegant or atrocious, judge for yourself. In the end it depends on your opinion of a hard fork. Increasing block size means that all bitcoin software needs to be updated to avoid major disruption to the system. SegWit doesn't require this simultaneous upgrading of nodes.

It's exciting to see such practical results and problem solving developing far a decentralised community. Segregated witness at the very least proves the ability of bitcoin and core developers to innovate and make wise decisions under pressure. An early change as proposed by Mike Yearn certainly seems foolish now. Group think concerns seem to have given way to the hive-mind. This is positive progress without a true leader. We will be watching this space into 2016 and eager to hear more. With some relief this could be the end of the argument and start of a new phase for bitcoin addoption. 

"Can I get Segwitness to testify that we take care of business?"

Gridcoin, Proof of BOINC and the French Revolution

The french revolution was trigered by a financial crisis's, over spending by Frances royalty and all that fighting with the Brits. In the end it was a good thing and it reduced inequality, but it was a scary time. People where killed, people starved and the sanctity of the artisan, the way of life did come under fire. We owe a lot of our democratic development to France.

Going back further we had the Renaissance where the silk road and Marco Polo from Italy brought a heightened and combined culture to repressed feudal Europe over a long period of time. These social revolutions form the basis of whats good in the world.

This is all changing. With the internet and de-industrialisation in developed countries, i think that we are in the middle of a shift to something new. The question is "what is a revolution supposed to look like?"

For mellenials, Assassins Creed might come to mind. Jumping off balconies with a sabre in hand. Its all well and good to play but it's certainly not all glory when it's real. It's hard to tell whos on whos side and whose side is right, what the fighting is about and what the what the most important change is. What happened to peace and love anyway? Was the 60 and 70s a revolution? Its hard to know, but I think it's the feeling that counts. If your looking for the answer I'm pretty sure a Gridcoin guru will have a good one.

We have ddos attacks on banks, we have half a dozen new dark net silk roads in the place of the last one momentarily taken down, we have corrupt cia security officials. In the world in general we have terrorism in Paris and across the world, inequality and ongoing bailouts for banks now in the form of extended asset purchases in Europe. What once seemed quite good is all pretty messed up now and clearly deteriorating. One thing that makes sense, a shining light of goodness is the Gridcoin white list. A directory of projects approved by gridcoin users to contribute computer power to. 

In a world where money sometimes feel like its taken over an we want to fight that what can we do? “The pope says money is OK, capital is OK, but when money becomes a god, an idol, more important than man, that’s not OK - - whatever people in Wall Street think,” said Andrea Tornielli, author of “This Economy Kills,” on Francis’s thinking in a recent article. He may have a point. Some large corporations  now have power close to that of the catholic church. They have nit got the same moral compass that we are hoping for in our institutions. So often money drives companies to do socially destructive things. Somehow we need to try and make our economic system prioritise things that help the world as a whole and let us work together locally at the same time.

Gridcoin may be the answer your looking for. It uses a computer network system called BOINC. This is the largest network in the world, apart from bitcoin, but it uses computer power in a far more versatile way. Users can create useful projects requiring computer facilities and people can freely contribute to this. Projects range from cancer research to climate and earthquake monitoring, to asteroid tracking. Anyone with a computer and an internet conection can join. For doing this BOINC credit is recorded.

Traditionally BOINC credits were worth nothing more than kudos amongst scientists and computer nerds with computers catching fire in their basements, but now with Gridcoin they can be spent or converted to cash. There is a flash crypto wallet from which to save and send them, the wallet is actually sleeker than most bitcoin wallets! It's relatively easy to use even for mining, it's integrated into the wallet and can be profitable with no programming skills on a normal computer. In this way Gridcoin as can make money in itself a power for good.

For those in the know Gridcoin combines a variable proof of stake system with a proof of boinc system to manage wealth. This is how the crypto currency creates and distributes value in a fair way. It is revolutionary because it means that poeple who contribute the most good to the world as a whole end up being rewarded. Activities that may otherwise be unfunded or lost to the tragedy of commons can be upheld, like fixing global warming for example. What can be done is only limited to what we choose to put in the white list. The variable way that the POS and POB system works also helps to redistribute wealth more evenly among active members of the community.

Gridcoin can be the heart of some kind of science revolution. It things like this that can create a completely new type of world. Everyone who uses it can contribute. It's not science fiction it's the foundation for the temple of the new digital renaissance.

Container Tracking with Bitcoin

Having just moved into a new place in New Zealand which overlooks the harbour I came up with this plan for container tracking and custodianship.

Let me know if you like the idea or want to work on it?