The price of a single bitcoin leapt to its highest level in more than three years on Tuesday, as traders bought up coins in anticipation of the Securities and Exchange Commissions ruling on a proposed bitcoin exchange-traded fund.

One bitcoin US:BTCUSD went for as much as $1,105.48 on Tuesday, its highest level since December 2013, according to data from Coin Market Cap.

Both Amith B. Nirgunarthy, director of marketing & HNW Partnerships at Bitcoin IRA, and Chris Dannen, a founding partner at Iterative Instinct, a small New York-based private-equity fund that trades crypto-assets, said investors are attempting to so-called front-run the SECs decision on the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust ETF. Front-running refers to buying an asset with the expectation of a larger buyer, or group of buyers, expected to come to push prices higher.

In this case, the SEC is expected to deliver its final decision on the trust by March 11. Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, who were famously portrayed by actor Armie Hammer in the hit movie The Social Network, first filed for creation of the ETF back in 2013. If approved, it will trade on the BATS exchange and could support prices of bitcoin.

This is probably front-running for a potential Winklevoss ETF, Nirgunarthy said.

To be sure, even if the Winklevoss ETF isnt approved, a Japanese law that introduces a regulatory framework for bitcoin is set to take effect in April, potentially leading to an influx of institutional money from that country, Dannen said.

There will be a lot of fresh fish out there next month, either way the [SEC] decision goes, Dannen said.

Read: And 2016s best-performing commodity isbitcoin?

Read: Path to Bitcoin ETF still uncertain but may be easier under Trump

Read: Bitcoin hits milestone of $1,000 as 2017 begins

Competition to launch what would be the first exchange-traded bitcoin fund has intensified in recent months. Back in January, Grayscale, the creator of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust GBTC, +2.78% filed to list shares of the trust on the New York Stock Exchange. It presently trades over the counter, with a large premium over its relative net-asset value in bitcoin. In January, the SEC delayed its decision on a third fund, the SolidX Bitcoin Trust, which would also trade on the NYSE.

Resurgent trading volume in China, which was, until recently, bitcoins largest market, has also helped to support the price, Nirgunarthy said.

Since the beginning of the year, Chinas largest bitcoin exchanges have imposed new transaction fees and halted customer withdrawals while they upgrade their antimoney laundering systems. These decisions, undertaken in response to stepped-up scrutiny from the Peoples Bank of China, initially caused trading volume in the country to plummet.

The bitcoin price more than doubled in 2016 as Chinese investors sought ways to protect their wealth from a depreciating yuan. Crackdowns on cash in India and Venezuela also helped support the digital currencys ascent, Dannen said.

Spencer Bogart, a bitcoin analyst at Needham & Co., doubts the SEC will approve a bitcoin ETF. However, if it does, it could lead to as much as $300 million in institutional money entering the bitcoin market during the first week alone.

This would likely have an outsize impact on the price of a single coin, he said.

Original post:
Bitcoin prices touch fresh 3-year high - MarketWatch

Even thoughthere are fewer bitcoin mining pools supporting Bitcoin Unlimited compared to SegWit, it would seem both solutions have virtually the same level of overall network support. With a total of six pools supporting BUright now, it is evident there is still a long way to go before this solution is activated on the network. That being said, this alternative branch of development is off to a good start, all things considered.

The newly launched Canoepool signals support for Bitcoin Unlimited right out of the gate. That is not unusual, albeit it would seem this pool is dealing with some controversy. Many people believe it is operated by the ViaBTC team in an effort to fake Bitcoin Unlimited mining decentralization. For now, Canoe represents a minuscule portion of the BU support.

One of the oldest mining pools in the world of bitcoin is trying to keep an open mind. Slush pool has different servers for both SegWit and Unlimited support, giving their miners all of the choices they need. Right now, Slush is the second-smallest Unlimited mining pool, although they are a valuable addition to the list.

While most people know the Bitcoin.com domain for other reasons, the team is also running a dedicated Bitcoin Unlimited mining pool. It was one of the first of its kind to support BU, yet has been overtaken in size by three others ever since. Nearly 10% of all BU blocks are mined by this pool, making them an invaluable pillar of the Unlimited ecosystem.

While most people may have never heard of the BTC.top mining pool, it is the third-largest pool supporting Bitcoin Unlimited. No one knows for sure who runs this pool, even though many believe the Antpool team is behind this project. That has not been proven to be either wrong or right up until this point. Either way, BTC.top is generating one in four BU blocks on the network right now. An intriguing pool to keep an eye on, that much is certain.

It has to be said, the GBMiners pool quickly limbed the Bitcoin Unlimited support ranks and is currently the second-largest mining pool on the list. It is good to see some of these pools gain such a large market stake, albeit it does not necessarily benefit decentralization in the long run. Then again, Bitcoin Unlimited is till in the early stages of gaining support right now.

No one will deny ViaBTC has taken the world by storm, as they are the leadingBitcoin Unlimited mining pool right now. Looking back over the BU blocks mined over the past seven days, ViaBTC is responsible for generating roughly 35% of all blocks. They are a vital part of BUs chance of success right now, although for nowit remains unclear if this scalability solution will activate anytime soon on the network.

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Originally posted here:
Top 6 Mining Pools Signaling Bitcoin Unlimited - The Merkle

The much-anticipated bitcoin ETF, which has been going through the bureaucratic process for now more than three years, will likely be rejected according to a Bitmex prediction contract launched almost two weeks ago.

Since its listing, the market has always given Winklevoss ETF a less than 50% chance, usually standing at around 40% for much of the past week, falling to as low as 18% yesterday.

The Bitcoin ETF has only a 24% chance of approval according to a prediction contract image from Bitmex

There were suggestions its sharp drop was due to a bug, but Greg Dwyer, Business Development Manager at BitMEX, told CCN:

There have been no bugs with the ETF prediction market and it is operating exactly as intended. It is currently trading in a range between 24 37%. That is, the price represents the probability of the ETF being approved by the SEC come March 11.

Spencer Bogart, Vice President of Equity Research for Needham & Co, gave the ETF only a 25% chance of approval.

The main reason appears to be due to bitcoins volatile nature, but stock markets have previously crashed, some company stocks have instantly become worthless and some have instantly jumped in price.

Furthermore, Kevin Lu, a hedge fund analyst, describes in a detailed article for Seeking Alpha how Bitcoin is a unique, uncorrelated asset class and that makes bitcoin extremely desirable from a portfolio construction perspective.

The SECs thinking on the matter is not quite clear. We have reached out for comments, but have received no response in time for publishing.

SEC personnel has just changed or is in the process of changing. As such, the decision might be made in somewhat chaotic circumstances with the new personnel potentially not fully up to speed on the fairly complicated matter.

To illustrate, SECs page still lists the old chair, but President Trump has chosen a new nominee, Walter J. Clayton, described by the New York Times as the Wall Street Lawyer and as the insiders insider. It further states:

He had a front-row seat to the financial crisis, advising Barclays Capital in buying the assets of the bankrupt Lehman Brothers in 2008 and Bear Stearns in its fire sale to JPMorgan Chase in 2007. He has advised on mergers and initial public offerings, including the biggest ever, the $25 billion offering by Alibaba Group of China in 2013.

Whether that experience makes him more favorable to bitcoin or more against it, remains to be seen, but the new administration does have some bitcoin supporters in its cabinet and emphasizes de-regulation with the aim of fostering economic growth. However, Clayton himself, a law graduate, has not previously made any comments on bitcoin.

He will soon be familiar with the digital currency, if he is not already, and will most probably be a very influential figure in this space. The ETF decision, whether approved or rejected, will have considerable implications. Equally, and perhaps more importantly, he might eventually want to give some sort of guidelines on the currently booming ICO markets.

Finally, the new administration might wish to allow margins and futures trading on regulated exchanges such as Coinbase and Gemini for its refusal by inaction so far has forced many to use somewhat shady and seemingly amateurish exchanges which has led to losses, opening the relevant agencies to criticism for failing to protect the public and worse, for indirectly causing the losses.

Whether they will take any such action is too early to say, but we might soon get a glimpse of the new administrations approach towards digital currencies, the blockchain space and, more widely, the Fintech industry.

Image from Shutterstock.

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The Bitcoin ETF Will Be Rejected According to Prediction Markets - CryptoCoinsNews

Ransomware is one of the oldest cyberthreats, but ithas made a big comeback in the past couple of years because it has become much easier to perpetrate against consumers, businesses, hospitals, and government agencies.

With ransomware, cyber thieves steal a users data and threaten to destroy it unless the user pays them a ransom. One studyby Infobloxfound that ransomware increased 3,500 percent from the fourth quarter of 2015 to the first quarter of 2016. Ransoms paid also went up 10 times during that period. (Heres a chronicle of ransomware attacks).

Chris Young, CEO of Intel Security, said last week at a private dinner and in his keynote speech at the RSA security conference that ransomware was first detected in 1989, but it didnt explode until recently. In the past, it was easier for law enforcement to catch the perpetrator as they tried to pick up the ransom.

It wasnt until the advent of Bitcoin in our society that ransomware was able to take off, Young said. Because now, as an attacker, I can anonymously monetize my target.

Above: Chris Young, CEO of Intel Security, at RSA.

Image Credit: RSA

He added, The weaponization of data becomes a real threat to all of us. Id argue its quite likely to be our next advanced, persistent threat.

Bitcoin, the crypto currency introduced in 2008, enables two parties to exchange money without knowing who the other one is. During the past year, security firm Kaspersky identified ransomware as the biggest cybersecurity threat.

At first, cyber criminals used ransomware schemes against unsuspecting consumers. The criminals stole their passwords, locked down their computers with cryptography, and then demanded ransoms in the hundreds of dollars to unlock the computers. Faced with no choice, the victims paid the ransoms in Bitcoin. And that helped the problem grow and become much more lucrative, saidSteve Grobman, chief technology officer at Intel Security, at the dinner.

The ransomware threat has been growing.A ransomware app even made it into the Google Play store in January.

Young said that the growing number of attack types has also come with new attack surfaces, as the number of devices that we use in our daily lives is growing well beyond computers and smartphones. The Internet of Things devices, such as security cameras or TV webcams, are also vulnerable to viruses and other attacks. And they can be used as stepping stones to larger, more threatening attacks.

Andransomware is moving on to bigger targets. The focus is increasingly on places like hospitals, which have restrictions on what they can do with patient data. The bad guys find out where the computer backups are stored, they penetrate them and encrypt them, and then they hold the data for ransom.

Cyber attackers held an Austrian hotel network for ransom. The criminals demanded $1,800 in Bitcoin to unlock the network while preventing guests from checking in and out of the hotel and locking them out of their guest rooms. The hotel paid up.

A crypto ransomware attack also hit San Franciscos Municipal Transportation Agency as an infection spread across the Muni systems networks, taking down ticketing systems. The criminals asked for $73,000 in exchange for restoration of the Muni data.

Above: Ed Skoudis, instructor at the SANS Institute.

Image Credit: RSA

Ed Skoudis, instructor at the SANS Institute, predicts that the crypto ransomware perpetrators will go after small to mid-sized banks next.

One of the biggest problems in the last couple of years has been the explosion of crypto ransomware, Skoudis said in an RSA talk. Crytpo ransomware is so much more powerful, especially when it uses public key cryptography.

Crytography is useful in enabling secure communications and ecommerce, but there are 150 active families of crypto ransomware today, Skoudis said. Companies say this is one of their biggest fears, he said, and many more increasingly sophisticated attacks against networks are expected.

Young, meanwhile, worries about the attack targets in homes, thanks to the Internet of Things.

The target is now the weapon, Young said. Now we have to turn our attention to data being weaponized against us. What we used to think about protecting we now have to be protectedagainst. Its the strangest irony. The target is now the weapon. Weve given the enemy all of the scale they could possibly want by connecting our homes with smarter, better, faster devices.

Above: No More Ransom helps ransomware victims.

Image Credit: nomoreransom.org

And yes, Im still waiting for some good news on this front.

To prevent ransomware attacks, companies and individuals have to make themselves into harder targets. If one workstation gets attacked, it shouldnt make the whole network and its servers vulnerable.

If your organization gets hit with ransomware, who is going to decide whether to pay the bad guys? he said. Your business principles might get hit by the business reality.

Young said that the fragmented cybersecurity industry must work together.

Were the most fragmented sector in all of IT, he said.

The industry has formed the collaborative Cyber Threat Alliance group, and it has created No More Ransom, a site that helps victims of ransomware recover their data.

Read more from the original source:
Ransomware has exploded thanks to Bitcoin's anonymity - VentureBeat