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October 12, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Altcoins

Building a decentralized exchange on Bitcoin would be a “step backward,” for example, said Bitcoin developer Super Testnet.

One of the developers working on “BitVM” — a Bitcoin-based virtual machine — reiterates the tech is intended to scale Bitcoin rather than launching Ethereum-like decentralized finance applications on the network.

BitVM’s whitepaper was released by ZeroSync’s project lead Robin Linus on Oct. 10 with technical support provided by pseudonymous developer “Super Testnet” — implementing BitVM’s first proof-of-concept and working on expanding BitVM’s capabilities.

Upon its release, some industry pundits formed the impression that BitVM would bring DeFi to Bitcoin like what the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) did for Ethereum.

Lightning also fall short in the scaling department. It's nowhere near solving scalability.
We need more complementary things.

> this is just another defi on bitcoin attempt.

Again, the motivation behind BitVM by the author was not DeFi. It was scaling.
— Hampus (@hampus_s) October 12, 2023

However, Super Testnet tells Cointelegraph that BitVM is scaling-focused rather than being about implementing smart contracts and an avalanche of altcoins:

“The real killer app is scaling Bitcoin. [Robin Linus isn’t] a big fan of smart contracts. He's not a big fan of increasing Bitcoin's expressivity. He really is interested in making it so that Bitcoin can process millions of transactions per second.”

Super Testnet said he doesn’t want BitVM to be flooded with (EVM)-like tokens because it’ll bring bad actors to Bitcoin:

“I don't want to see everything from the Ethereum ecosystem because most of it is Ponzi schemes.”

Building a decentralized exchange on Bitcoin would be a “step backward,” he added.

Meanwhile, Super Testnet notes that BitVM won’t be an “instant death” for Ethereum’s altcoins, which some have suggested — though it could take demand away from them.

Hot Off the Press: BitVM White Paper Drops! Experience a groundbreaking computing approach for smart contracts on #Bitcoin

Unlock functionalities previously assumed to demand a soft fork with these enhanced smart contracts.

Could this be the end of #altcoins? pic.twitter.com/1GA43VE7If
— RichQuack (@RichQuack) October 10, 2023

The developer hopes that Bitcoin (BTC) essentially remains the only monetary unit on the Bitcoin network:

“A big property that makes Bitcoin important is maintaining one monetary asset that everyone can agree on instead of having floating exchange rates that are a burden for commerce,” he said.

BitVM could patch up one of Lightning’s flaws

Meanwhile, Super Testnet said BitVM’s intended payment infrastructure will also aim to improve one of the Lightning Network’s shortfalls — payment reliability.

“Lightning is wonderful as a system and it's much faster than probably anything we can make on Bitcoin. But one thing that Lightning doesn't do well is payment reliability.”

River, a Bitcoin-only exchange, revealed its Lightning payments success rate was 99.7% in August across 308,000 transactions.

He hopes BitVM can reach 60% of the transaction speed of the Lightning network.

BitVM: The 24 hour update.

After thousands of Twitter posts and hours of spaces and discussions, we know much more about BitVM than we did yesterday. Here’s a quick update:

Excitement

1. BitVM is a new computing paradigm that leverages the universal gate NAND (along with other… pic.twitter.com/zBws7gOhjA
— Bob Bodily, PhD | #BTC #ETH #ICP (@BobBodily) October 11, 2023

The developer has also stressed that BitVM is optional like the Lightning Network and anyone will be able to transfer BTC or Bitcoin-assets out of the virtual machine back into cold storage or wherever they were beforehand.

“No one is forcing you to send your money into a virtual machine. If you want your money safe, keep it safe.”

'Compute anything' misconception

Super Testnet also clarified a possible misunderstanding, explaining that BitVM, in its current state, cannot compute “anything” like its whitepaper suggests.

“We have to build more primitives in order to make it so that anything can run in it.” Implementing SHA-256 and encryption are some of the additions that need to be made, they noted.

However, Super Testnet revealed on Oct. 12 that BitVM is already processing basic functions:

Update: bitvm can perform *3* functions now and I'm in the middle of making a webpage where you can play with it pic.twitter.com/bXYOZKx2GV
— Super Testnet (@super_testnet) October 12, 2023

Linus and Super Testnet met at a Bitcoin conference around 18 months ago and have been working to scale Bitcoin at the scripting level almost ever since, he said.

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Coinbase CEO says Bitcoin Lightning is ‘something we’ll integrate’

April 10, 2023 Coin Telegraph

BASE

“Lightning is great and something we’ll integrate,” Armstrong said in response to an allegation that he was “ignoring” the network.

Bitcoin (BTC) layer 2 scaling solution Lightning may feature on the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase in some capacity, according to its chief Brian Armstrong.

In a tweet on April 8, Armstrong said that “Lightning is great and something we’ll integrate” in response to a tweet criticizing him for “actively ignoring” the network.

My tweets auto-delete after some number of months, so there is no search history.

Lightning is great and something we’ll integrate.
— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) April 8, 2023

Armstrong provided no further details on what a Lightning integration with Coinbase would involve or when it could be expected.

Coinbase, along with Binance and the now bankrupt FTX, has been called out in the past for not integrating the Lightning network which enables faster and cheaper BTC transactions than the Bitcoin base network.

According to a GitHub repository by Lightning enthusiast David Coen, Coinbase would join Bitfinex, Kraken and OKX as the largest trading platforms to have integrated Lightning, if Armstrong stays true to his word.

Coen had previously suggested that Lightning integration may go against the business plan for many of these trading platforms, “since the priority seems to be to integrate as many altcoins as possible and follow the trends of the market.”

Armstrong claims to have tested out a Lightning network application in recent days, and sent Cointelegraph reporter Joseph Hall $100 in BTC after Hall shared a video of himself using Bitcoin in Senegal.

The $100 was a prize by Armstrong for those who shared the “best” examples of how people are using crypto in Africa. Hall said he would give away the funds to onboard others to Bitcoin.

Here is a video of me using #Bitcoin in Africa

I used #lightning for instant, free payments. Does Coinbase Wallet have lightning? ⚡️

#BitcoinAfrica > #CryptoAfrica pic.twitter.com/1Syz71swR4
— Joe Nakamoto (@JoeNakamoto) April 7, 2023

Hall reported, however, that he hasn’t received the payment, prompting Bitcoiner Derek Ross to suggest that Armstrong “needs a lesson on Lightning.”

Coinbase has lately been more active in the Ethereum ecosystem having launched “Base” on Feb 23 — an Ethereum layer 2 application-focused network powered by fellow layer 2 Optimism.

Interestingly, Armstrong wrote a “Scaling Bitcoin” article in January 2016, where he said that he would throw support behind Bitcoin scaling solutions:

“We also did it to show our support for scaling Bitcoin, and encourage things to move forward, since we’d like to see a solution sooner rather than later.”

Lightning was launched about two years later in March 2018, with last month marking the fifth anniversary of the network.

Cointelegraph contacted Coinbase for comment but did not receive an immediate response.

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Bitcoin market cap ‘flips’ payments giant Visa for the 3rd time

February 20, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Centralized Payment Processors

While the collapse of FTX shaved $100 billion off of BTC's market cap in just four days last year, BTC has managed to fully recover and stack on another $65 billion.

A 48% Bitcoin (BTC) price surge since the start of the year has pushed BTC's market cap past that of payment processing giant Visa once again.

With the BTC price currently at $24,365, its market cap of $470.16 billion is now marginally above that of Visa with a market cap of $469.87 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.

*BTC has “flippened” Visa again. Source:* *CoinMarketCap.*

This is the third time that BTC has "flippened" the market cap of Visa, according to Companies Market Cap.

The first time came in late December 2020 when BTC also happened to hit $25,000 for the first time. This was achieved during a price surge that saw BTC rally from $10,200 in September 2020 to $63,170 seven months later in April 2021.

Visa re-took the lead between June and October 2022, which then saw BTC surpass Visa for a very brief moment on Oct. 1 before the payments company re-captured the lead again.

This lead was widened when the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX shaved off over $100 billion from the BTC in four days between Nov. 6-10, 2022.

However, since then, BTC has fully recovered and stacked an additional $65 billion on top of its Nov. 6 market cap of $408 billion to overtake the payment processing giant.

BREAKING: #Bitcoin market cap is now worth more than Visa ‼️#BTC #Crypto #CryptoNews #cryptocurrecy #cryptomarket pic.twitter.com/rZrLufkwLj
— Ajay (everything hindi) (@EverythingAjay) February 19, 2023

It should be worth noting that given the small difference in market cap between BTC and Visa, the two are currently flipping each other by the hour.

As for BTC’s impressive start to 2023, its third “flippening” of Visa came on the back of 14 consecutive days of price increases between Jan. 4-17.

BTC is also well ahead of the second largest payment processing network Mastercard, which currently has a market cap of $345.24 billion, according to Google Finance.

The #Bitcoin Strategy is the Winning Strategy. pic.twitter.com/AR9R1Dxj5G
— Michael Saylor⚡️ (@saylor) February 17, 2023

BTC is still however down 63% from its all-time-high price of $69,044, which was reached on Nov. 10, 2021.

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transaction speed

BitVM could patch up one of Lightning’s flaws

'Compute anything' misconception

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