Category: Crypto News

ICON Project P-REPs and Censorship

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Can the ICX ICON Project be turned around?

ICON Project

Do we think a failing blockchain like the ICON project can be turned around?

Yes, it’s never too late to change course and steer away from the rocks.

Would we recommend software developers use the ICON blockchain?

No, at this present time we would advise them to use the Ethereum Classic (ETC) network.

How long have we been critical of the ICON Foundation?

Our supporters know that we raised issues more than 18 months ago but they were never addressed by the Foundation or Min Kim.

Why did we stand down from the P-REP testnet?

It became quite clear that the only way to make it into the top 22 was to hide the truth from the ICON community and we were not prepared to do this.

P-REP Candidates

Why do we support IConnect Global of Africa as a P-REP?

IConnect has been reluctant to join in the P-REP cartel practises (see censorship below) and this indicates they are a truly an independent team. It would be an injustice for an entire content to be excluded from the ICON network. Africa has a large proportion of the world’s un-banked and Satoshi’s vision for blockchain technology was for it to be available for all.

Do we think known rogue P-REP candidates are interested in the ICON community?

Candidates like ICX Australia and UBIK Capital thought it was appropriate to “buy votes” and their sudden change of heart doesn’t make them worthy of your ICX vote.

Why have we been so critical of Rhizome?

A leopard doesn’t changes it’s spots and in our opinion anyone that votes for this candidate is just hoping to offload their ICX to new investors that haven’t seen the uncensored data we hold. With ICON trying to arrange a listing for ICX on US cryptocurrency Exchanges it’s vital that shilling is stamped out.

Is this website or the BLOC8 team associated with IConnect?

Absolutely not and the IConnect team became a P-REP candidate in March 2019. Details of their team and proposal are available on the ICON website. Outside of Africa it’s quite easy for candidates that were involved in the ICO to buy a position in the top 22 i.e. less than $160,000 required when the ICO bonus is taken into account.

Censorship

Do we think P-REP candidates should also be social media moderators for the ICON network?

There is a clear conflict of interest and when a team becomes a P-REP candidate they should give up their right to moderate on social media platforms like Reddit, Twitter and Telegram.

How can the ICON community be better represented on social media platforms?

The ICON Project needs to prevent anonymous individuals from moderating social media posts. Technology exists to validate a moderators ID without exposing it to the wider internet community.

Why is censorship resistance important?

It ensures existing and potential investors of blockchain tokens are able to establish fact from fiction.

What are we doing to ensure data is not censored?

We use Steemit and ironically the ICON blockchain to ensure the data that we painstakingly collate is available for all to see. We also own several Unstoppable Domains like cryptonewsarticles (.zil and .crypto), ICONProject.zil and ICONProject.crypto. We will be publishing our data about the ICON Project via IPFS in due course like these .

12 Ways to spot a failing ico

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failing ICO projects identified by crypto news article writers

Those of you that follow us on Twitter or Telegram may already know how to spot a failing ICO but we were asked to add the details here and in the general Cryptocurrency sub Reddit. It’s widely accepted that most altcoins will ultimately fail. Some ICOs were outright scams, others were simply ill-conceived and others are years away from providing a return for their investors. Let’s get started with the 12 ways to spot a failing ICO:

  1. Lack of direct contact between Founders and community
  2. Reluctance to discuss the project in social media channels that they don’t have full control over i.e. constantly shot down in general Crypto sub-Reddit threads.
  3. Banning critical thinking from their social media channels i.e. removing posts and banning users if they are not 100% positive towards the project
  4. Arranging for individuals to be blocked from posting in ANY public Telegram groups
  5. Arranging for individuals to be shadow blocked on Twitter
  6. Supporting known bad actors in the ecosystem like Rhizome to promote the project
  7. Token moon boys and P-Rep stooges try to discredit articles and videos of known influencers
  8. Failure to build anything meaningful since ICO launch
  9. Producing fake news to promote the project
  10. Founders with a lack of integrity
  11. Making the mistake of thinking everyone is in crypto for the money
  12. Disrespecting the community that pays their salary every month

Have you spotted the ICO you invested in from the red flags above? Should you continue to hold altcoins like ICX, XRP and TRX? If 99% of altcoins are destined to fail then it’s unlikely you have picked a winner and it’s probably time to look at another blockchain project.

ICX whale Dr Ben Lee dreaming of 10,000 transactions per second on ICON blockchain
Dr Ben Lee Tweet 6 September 2019

A few weeks earlier ICX whale Dr Ben Lee was asked by Michael Gu of BoxMining what level of transactions he hoped to achieve in the next 5 years. His answer “we are aiming for something like 500 TPS but it’s really hard to get“.

ICON blockchain project struggling?

Please add your comments about the ICO you invested in or the altcoin you bought that you think might be failing. If the Founders of the associated tokens read your comments they will have the opportunity to prove without any doubt that they are not a failing ICO.

P-Rep candidates NOT TO STAKE YOUR ICX WITH

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Brian Li of Rhizome accused shiller of ICX and BitConnect

P-REP candidates have been canvassing ICONists to stake their ICX with effect from 26 August 2019. We have spent hundreds of hours over the last few months reviewing P-REP candidates. As per our earlier articles the blockchain ecosystem is riddled with bad actors and this article will highlight the P-REPs you need to avoid. As per the needlessly complex IISS 2.0 published by the ICON Foundation you risk losing 6% of your ICX if you stake with a rogue P-REP.

We have been pushing the ICON Foundation to produce documentation that the average ICONist can understand. We believe they are reluctant as it will highlight the inflationary effect of IISS 2.0 based on the current levels of transactions on their blockchain. Millions of transactions will be required everyday to counter the inflation caused by paying rewards to ICONists and P-REPs. At present the ICON blockchain shows just 7,000 to 39,000 transactions per day.

P-REPs have been accused of a whole host of unsavoury antics including:

  • Doxing (doxxing) innocent families – see victims Tweet
  • Shilling ICX to over $13 and promoting BitConnect (see Comments section)
  • Trying to bribe ICONists by handing over P-REP rewards
  • Producing fake or misleading articles about ICON
  • Publishing blockchain verified lies about an ICX TX Challenge contractor
  • Banning ICONists from social media groups without justification
  • Lacking integrity and showing no respect towards ICON community members
  • Creating cartels of P-REPs to control the network

Please note the accusations have come from various sources including fellow P-REPs and the ICON Foundation. Some P-REPs have made our list purely by demonstrating over and over again that they don’t have the required knowledge to take on the task as a block producer. Let’s look at a particular example of some of the data we hold. Telegram user Sigmoid Freud posted this fairly innocuous comment in the main ICON group a few days ago.

P-REP Brian Li of Rhizome accused of shilling ICX and BitConnect

Within minutes the post was removed by moderators standing as P-Rep candidates. Sigmoid was of course referring to a well known article on Steemit that was heavily edited when the community rumbled what Brian Li of RHIZOME was up to. This is an archived screenshot of the original article with a reference to an insider that Brian Li was working with to shill ICX. This helped pump ICX to over $13 and that is why there are so many disgruntled token holders today.

Brian Li buy ICX before January

Screenshot of article revised by Brian Li and as recorded on Steemit today. Significant differences and the unacceptable shilling has changed to marketing. Ask yourself are these really the kind of people we want controlling the ICON network? The before and after screenshots are recorded on the ICON blockchain as a permanent record of how some unfortunate investors were duped into buying ICX at grossly inflated prices.

Here is the list of P-REP candidates that do not deserve your vote based on our painstaking research. If you would like copies of the data that we hold or feel your team was unfairly included in this list please use our Contact form or add your comment below this post. Remember this is a dynamic list and P-REPs will be added and removed as they change their policies. In addition further disclosures are included in the comments section below this article. Readers should familiarise themselves with our earlier articles about ICON which we posted in the months prior to producing this list. Please be sure to review the list on a regular basis and stake you ICX accordingly. We recommend ICONists join Telegram groups that are not heavily moderated by P-Rep candidates such as this one. Also subscribe for updates to this article by clicking the bell “icon” that appears in most browsers as you read through the article.

  1. ICON Foundation
  2. RHIZOME (only Rhizome team should vote for this P-Rep)
  3. ICX Australia
  4. ICX_Station
  5. ICONation
  6. Ubik Capital
  7. Everstake
  8. DSNC
  9. Certus One (possibly stood down as a P-REP)
  10. Sharpn
  11. PICONbello
  12. VELIC
  13. Signal9

We do NOT invest in ICX and we have not received any payment for publishing this article. If you are looking for details of the BLOC8 DApp they can be found here. Unlike most of the DApps currently on the ICON blockchain BLOC8 can be used from smartphones and desktop PCs. Whichever teams you select for ICX staking we advise covering a large number as it keeps the teams on their toes and reduces your potential losses from token burn penalties. If rogue actors are selected as block producing P-REPs for the ICON blockchain it could have untold consequences for ICONists and the price of ICX. If you are reading this post via the homepage rather than the direct URL click Comments for feedback and latest updates.

We are now in a position to recommend IConnect Global (Twitter Telegram value for money team) as one of our preferred P-REPs for the ICON blockchain. As soon as you are able, cancel any votes you have placed with Rhizome and move them to IConnect but remember not to stake all your ICX with a single P-REP for fear of the 6% ICX burn penalty. Here are a few of our tweets about IConnect and recommend you FOLLOW BLOC8 on Twitter for independent news of the ICON blockchain. https://twitter.com/BLOC810/status/1166752403133292545 https://twitter.com/BLOC810/status/1166692630345986048

Email 1 MILLION ICX ICON TX Challenge

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ICX ICON TX Challenge email

Email sent by BLOC8 2 July 2019 regarding the 1 Million ICX ICON Tx Challenge

한국어:

편견이없는

6 월 24 일 월요일에 BLOC8에게 6 월 22 일 토요일에 보내 드린 이메일에 다음 답장을 이메일로 보냈습니다.

친애하는 Bloc8
중복 의심되는 서비스를 일시 중지했습니다.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Nc5jUI5q1P-VX3W36TpyC4G2ZjF3aSqLGFZwd50fd7k/edit#gid=0
거의 의심되는 서비스를 확인한 후 확인 후 상태가 변경됩니다.

물론 확인 된 중복 레지스터는 더 이상 보상을받을 수 없습니다.
협조 해 주셔서 감사합니다.
ICON 팀.

블록 체인 서비스가 중복 되어도 더 이상 보상을받지 못한다는 확신을 갖고 있음에도 불구하고 6 월 25 일 화요일에 수만 회의 ICX를 지불했습니다. 이것은 hx976bdedbc5b7a5be2fcc59b5b6acbbc14bb5be60에 의해 작성된 SCORE cxef795d2e19cada777511640d591735e1cc47c471로 확인됩니다.

ICON 추적기 https://tracker.icon.foundation/addresstx/hx976bdedbc5b7a5be2fcc59b5b6acbbc14bb5be60 는 600 ICX (하루에 200 ICX에서 3 일간)를 지불했다고 표시합니다. 블록 체인을 확인하면 해당 주소에서 ICON을 ICON Challenge Wallet 주소에서 132,579 개의 ICX를받은 https://tracker.icon.foundation/addresstx/hx14f6654b25e044d5b39abc177138a644b926ab67 로 보냅니다. https://tracker.icon.foundation/address/hx210d9faa489d0d1b71d568349551273612a4619a 도 ICON에서 83,852 ICX를 받았습니다.

BLOC8 프로젝트는 ICON 재단과 계약을 맺어 하루 200 ICX의 대가로 하루에 2 만 건의 거래를 창출했습니다. 계약 조건에 따라 재단은 단일 단체가 한 번만 유사한 계약을 체결 할 수 있도록 허용했습니다. ICON TX Challenge 지갑에서 지불 한 금액은 귀하가 BLOC8과 합의한 조건을 위반 한 것으로 나타났습니다.

BLOC8은 한국 및 다른 국가에서 마케팅 목적으로 절실히 필요로하는 네트워크 스트레스 테스트를 수행하는 데있어 최고의 팀임을 분명히 보여주었습니다. 이것은 BLOC8이 246 개 프로젝트 중 하나 인 ICX보다 더 많은 돈을 지불 받았다는 점에서 입증되었습니다.

재단에 귀하가 https://buycryptonewsarticles.com/icon-tx-challenge/ 에 문서화 된대로 여러 차례 계약 조건을 위반했다는 증거가 주어졌습니다.


재단은 7 월 31 일까지 네트워크 스트레스 테스트를 위해 BLOC8 12,000 ICX를 지불하기로 동의했습니다. 우리가받은 ICX는 4,200 개 뿐이므로 여전히 ICX는 7,800 달러입니다. 다음 24 시간 이내에 7,800 개의 ICX가 BLOC8 프로젝트로 전송되도록 준비하십시오. ICX ICON TX Challenge는 한국 기업인 ICONLOOP에게 큰 수치를 불러 왔습니다.

English:

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

On Monday 24th June you emailed BLOC8 with the following reply to an email we sent you on Saturday 22nd June.

Dear Bloc8
We suspended duplication suspected services. 
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Nc5jUI5q1P-VX3W36TpyC4G2ZjF3aSqLGFZwd50fd7k/edit#gid=0
We checked almost duplication suspected services and will change status after check.

Of course, confirmed duplication registers cannot get rewards anymore.
Thank you for your support.
ICON Team.

Despite your reassurances that duplicated blockchain service would not receive anymore rewards you proceeded to pay them tens of thousands of ICX on Tuesday 25th June.  This is confirmed with SCORE cxef795d2e19cada777511640d591735e1cc47c471 which was created by hx976bdedbc5b7a5be2fcc59b5b6acbbc14bb5be60.

ICON Tracker https://tracker.icon.foundation/addresstx/hx976bdedbc5b7a5be2fcc59b5b6acbbc14bb5be60 shows you paid them 600 ICX (3 days at 200 ICX per day). If you check your blockchain you will see that address sent ICX to https://tracker.icon.foundation/addresstx/hx14f6654b25e044d5b39abc177138a644b926ab67 which received 132,579 ICX from the ICON Challenge wallet address. https://tracker.icon.foundation/address/hx210d9faa489d0d1b71d568349551273612a4619a also received 83,852 ICX from ICON.

The BLOC8 project entered into a contract with the ICON Foundation to generate 20,000 transactions per day in return for 200 ICX per day. The terms of the contract stated that the Foundation would only allow any single entity to enter into a similar contract once. The payments from the ICON TX Challenge wallet shows you are in breach of the terms agreed with BLOC8.

BLOC8 has clearly demonstrated they were the best team at carrying out the stress test of your network as you desperately required for marketing purposes in Korea and elsewhere. This is evidenced in that BLOC8 was paid more ICX than any of the 246 projects stress testing the network for the Foundation.

Evidence was given to the Foundation that you were in breach of the terms of the contract on numerous occasions as documented at https://buycryptonewsarticles.com/icon-tx-challenge/

The Foundation agreed to pay BLOC8 12,000 ICX for stress testing your network up to the 31st July. As we have only received 4,200 ICX you still owe us 7,800 ICX. Please arrange for the 7,800 ICX to be transferred to the BLOC8 project within the next 24 hours. The ICX ICON TX Challenge has brought great shame to South Korean business ICONLOOP.

Dev BLOC8

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

챌린지의 주요 부분 ( “ICON blockchain 테스트”)을 “승리”로 설정하면 BLOC8은 도전 과제의 최종 (사소한) 부분에서 선두 주자 중 하나 여야합니다. ICX ICON TX Challenge를 위해 Reddit 스레드를 upvoting하여 BLOC8 팀이 수행 한 우수한 업무에 대한 귀하의 지원을 보여주십시오.

Having “won” the main part of the challenge (stress testing ICON blockchain) BLOC8 must be one of the front runners in the final (minor) part of the challenge. Please show your support for the excellent work done by the BLOC8 team by upvoting their Reddit thread for the ICX ICON TX Challenge.

Tether and Bitfinex Response to NY Attorney General Claim of Fraud

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Tether and Bitfinex response to New York Attorney General claim of fraud

Tether and Bitfinex have submitted their defense against the claims of fraud made by NY Attorney General, Letitia James. Stuart Hoegner has submitted an affidavit and Zoe Phillips a Memorandum of Law. In this post we will review the assertions offered by the legal counsel for Tether and Bitfinex.

Fractional Reserve Banking

Hoegner and Phillips argue that as the Federal Reserve is only required to hold 10% of deposit funds in cash then the defendants shouldn’t need to hold 100% in cash. This is a very weak argument as the Federal Reserve holds fiat and Tether is a cryptocurrency which is expected to be traded 24 / 7. If banks have liquidity problems they can simply shut up shop for a few weeks, as they did in Cyprus in 2013 while they were waiting for an EU bailout. Legal counsel is wrongly trying to compare fiat and crypto. One reason people invest in cryptocurrencies is their distrust of fractional reserve banking so this argument hardly provides any comfort.

Website Disclosure

Legal counsel asserts that the website of Tether Ltd disclosed details of the $900 million loan facility prior to the filing by the NY Attorney General. On this basis, they argue that they didn’t try to mislead anybody regarding Tether funds. Again this is a weak argument as the Tether website, even today, states 100% backed and “from time to time, may include other assets and receivables from loans made by Tether to third parties, which may include affiliated entities.” If the defendants were being open and above board they wouldn’t use the term “from time to time” and fail to disclose the size of the loan between the related parties. In the documents submitted by Hoegner and Phillips, they accept that USDT is currently only backed 74% in cash and if the full loan amount is drawn down this will fall to just 68%.

No Harm Done to Citizens of New York

The defense team argues that Tether has always been redeemable at par value and that citizens of New York have not lost any funds, to date. Effectively they are asking the Attorney General to withdraw the case until such time as Tether can’t be redeemed at par value. By that argument, if the Civil Aviation Authority knows that Boeing 737’s are not safe we should wait for a few planes to fall out of the sky before we ground them.

Summary

A lot of case law is cited, especially by Phillips, including the claim that Tether is neither a security nor a commodity and furthermore Tether is not an investment. Maybe not, when measured against traditional securities and commodities, but crypto traders use Tether as a hedge against the rise and fall of cryptocurrencies with the expectation that USDT can be redeemed on par with USD. Traders might want to consider an exchange like Coinbase until such time as the related party loan between Tether and Bitfinex is confirmed as lawful.

UPDATE 2 May 2019

The arrest of Reginald Fowler was announced Tuesday 30 April 2019 for alleged bank fraud. The indictment refers to various bank accounts held by Fowler and Global Trading Solutions LLC (GTS). For those that have still not figured this out, it is believed that GTS via Crypto Capital processed fiat transfers on behalf of Bitfinex.

Import Private Key from MEW or Saturn Into Trust Wallet

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Use your private key to import tokens into Trust wallet

Access to cryptocurrency tokens, like BitUnits, on the Ethereum Classic (ETC) blockchain, is made available with public and private key cryptography. As the name suggests the public key can be made available to anyone as it works as a pair with the private key to secure your assets.

If you are already familiar with MyEtherWallet (MEW) or the Saturn wallet you might want to “transfer” your crypto tokens into the user-friendly Trust wallet. Wallets don’t actually hold tokens but they provide a facility to control access to the tokens on the blockchain. So the transfer is passing authority from one wallet to another, rather than the actual tokens. You will need your private key from MEW or Saturn to give this authority to the Trust Wallet. Below are the steps you need to complete in the Trust Wallet.

Import Private Key from MyEtherWallet or Saturn Into Trust

We have provided links to the Trust Wallet website in a previous article and this, in turn, gives the links to install the app on your iPhone or Android phone. Once you have installed the app it will bring up the following screens. Select IMPORT WALLET and on the next screen select the Ethereum Classic network.

 Import Private Key from MEW or Saturn Into Trust WalletEthereum Classic network tokens

You will then be shown a screen containing four tabs marked as PHRASE, KEYSTORE JSON, PRIVATE KEY and ADDRESS. For security purposes the app prevents screenshots being taken at this stage so we can’t provide an image here. Click the PRIVATE KEY tab and you can paste in your private key or use the QR code scanner. Now click the IMPORT button and your phone will now have authority to transfer tokens via the blockchain.

Never ever make your private key available to third parties as this will give them access to your tokens and once they move the tokens to their address it will be impossible for you to recover them. If you have any technical questions you can contact the Trust wallet team in their Telegram group which currently has close to 10,000 members.

Cryptocurrency BitUnits, Ticker UNITS, Now Trading on Saturn Network Decentralized Exchange (DEX)

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Earlier today the BitUnits cryptocurrency token began trading on the Saturn network decentralized exchange (DEX). Trading is performed directly between the DEX and the Saturn proprietary digital token controller (SPDTC or more commonly known as a digital wallet). I don’t like the term wallet because it gives the impression that it contains the tokens whereas it simply gives access to them on the respective blockchains.

Saturn DEX

The Saturn network is currently available for Ethereum Classic (ETC) tokens, and we are lead to believe it will include the Ethereum network within the next seven days.  The DEX looks to be running well, and we were able to trade with Firefox on our Android phone, but it was a lot more straightforward on our laptop. Below is a screenshot of the SPDTC (wallet) and the DEX which we took on our smartphone.

 BitUnits in Saturn Wallet  Saturn DEX on mobile

What we were really impressed with was that the team behind the DEX were up and running almost 24 hours ahead of schedule. The crypto space is full of missed deadlines and meaningless whitepapers, so it came as a pleasant surprise to find a team ahead of the game. I also liked this promotional video that was produced in the run-up to the Saturn DEX release.

Firefox is available for iOS 10.3 so in theory, the Saturn DEX can be used on the newer iPhones, but it might be worth waiting until the site is a little more mobile friendly, especially if you already have access to a desktop system.

BitUnits Club

BitUnits is an ERC223 token with a fixed supply of 10,000,000 and a stock ticker of UNITS. The philosophy behind the BitUnits club can be found on their website and within their whitepaper, but in short, it is to educate individuals that are new to crypto. What better way to learn crypto than with FREE tokens and from a team dedicated to bringing blockchain to the masses?

5,000,000 BitUnits tokens have been airdropped to crypto enthusiasts over the last few weeks. The team used a variety of methods to distribute the tokens, and all of them had some element of learning about crypto from “hacking” wallets, crypto bingo through to educational surveys, etc. Lots more to come regarding the BitUnits club in the coming months but one of the crypto puzzles I was very successful with was the Trust wallet “hacks”. The Trust wallet was recently taken over by the “number one” centralized exchange Binance and the wallet is developing at a rapid pace. Binance is also working on their own DEX, but Saturn is the one we would recommend at the moment.

Trust the user friendly crypto wallet from BinanceThe screenshot to the left is the Trust wallet and to use the Saturn DEX the UNITS have first to be sent to the SPDTC. For individuals new to crypto the Trust wallet is much easier to use than the SPDTC, and this is why the BitUnits team airdropped the tokens into this wallet. Trust is a smartphone app, available for Android and iOS rather than the browser extension wallet as provided by the Saturn team.

Fingers crossed, Saturn will make their wallet easier to use on a  smartphone as there are many people around the world that don’t have a PC and sharing one is not very practical based on the security required to trade tokens.

We will put together a more detailed breakdown of how to move BitUnits from one wallet to another in due course, but meanwhile, if you have any questions or comments, please post them below or in the BitUnits Telegram group.

Financial disclosure – as shown in the wallets above I hold BitUnits and other cryptocurrencies. If you found this article informative, you can donate BitUnits or ETC to the address shown below, thanks.

UNITS or ETC address:

0x070A5cBCAD2954A69A5Ab5241EC465DbfF8B09D9

For more crypto news stories join us in our Telegram group.

Welcome to Buy Crypto News Articles

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Welcome to Buy Crypto News Articles. If you have an interest in crypto as a reader, writer or editor you have come to the right place. We hope you will find the site a useful resource and that you will help us promote Satoshi Nakamoto’s vision.

Nakamoto published the Bitcoin whitepaper, “A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” in October 2008. The first ten years have been quite eventful, yet disappointing for some members of the community. Progress has been relatively slow with many teams duplicating the work of others and needless forks to the original protocol.

There is currently a wide variation between the rules and regulations adopted by nation States across the globe. Some countries have been quite positive towards Bitcoin and blockchain technology whereas others have attempted to ban it.

Buy Crypto News Articles

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