Privacy-focused bitcoin wallet Samourai is having its hand forced
by Google.

According to a Samourai blog post, the wallet provider is disabling
privacy features that are key to its design before its latest version,
0.99.4, hits the Google Play store tomorrow. The removed features
include Samourai's Stealth Mode, remote text message (SMS)
commands, and SIM Switch Defense (a measure to protect against
sim swaps).

The privacy restrictions only affect the version of the wallet
available on Google Play. To bypass these restrictions, users can
also download what Samourai calls the "non-nerfed version" of
the wallet client's latest version directly from the project's Github .
Down the road, the team also hopes to get the wallet, privacy
features fully-enabled, listed on F-Droid and other alternative,
open-source app stores, as well.

"In October, Google announced changes to their policies regarding
SMS and Dialer permissions that apps are allowed to use. The way
that our Stealth Mode, Remote SMS commands, and SIM Switch
Defense work require use of these permissions," a Samourai
Wallet representative told Bitcoin Magazine in an email
correspondence.

Samourai proceeded to file for an exemption, but they were notified
of their exemption's rejection just "a few days ago," according to
the representative.
"Unfortunately, they didn't tell us anything specifically, we learned
of everything through automated emails that could not be
responded to," they continued.

Samourai is only available for Android, in part because it can't pin
down iOS developers who "are willing to work for the passion of it
over the profit," the representative indicated. The project hasn't
"had much luck with iOS developers so far," but it is "committed to
bringing some version of Samourai to the iOS store eventually,"
they claimed.

With these restrictions, Samourai lamented the changing
landscape of Android over the past few versions. These changes
have, in Samourai's words, created a "walled garden," something
the wallet provider discusses in its blog post and reiterated in our
correspondence.

"Very strict changes in background data a few versions ago meant
that Samourai users would no longer receive alerts on incoming
payments unless we routed all alerts through Google's own
servers. We obviously decided not to do that, but that was - in our
view - the beginnings of the walled garden being built. The latest
policy changes regarding SMS and Dialer permissions show a
marked change of strategy for Google, bringing it closer in
alignment with the Apple iOS Store than ever before."
If users opt to download the wallet directly from Samourai's
Github, the team cautioned that they should "verify the integrity of
the APK they download by comparing the SHA-256 hash of their
APK with the SHA-256 hash published on Github."

At time of publication, Google had not responded to Bitcoin
Magazine's request for comment.

https://m.nasdaq.com/

Hardware wallet manufacturer Ledger has unveiled its newest
cryptocurrency wallet. The Ledger Nano X is Bluetooth-enabled
and can hold up to 100 different cryptocurrencies at a time. A
mobile app is also being launched for both iOS and Android to pair
the device to smartphones.

Newest Ledger Wallet
Ledger unveiled its new cryptocurrency hardware wallet on
Sunday at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las
Vegas. The company then wrote on its website on Monday:

"The Ledger Nano X is Bluetooth enabled. Connect
it to your smartphone with Ledger Live Mobile app
and safely transact anywhere. All Bluetooth
communications are encrypted end-to-end to
protect against any security threat."

The new wallet has been redesigned and can be pre-ordered
starting on Monday. It is priced at $119 and is expected to start
shipping in March. The company will also launch a mobile app,
the Ledger Live Mobile, for both iOS and Android platforms.
The Nano X joins Ledger’s two existing consumer hardware
wallets: the Nano S and the Ledger Blue. The former currently
retails for $59 and the latter $269.99. The company claims in its
Monday’s announcement that over 1.5 million Ledger Nano S
devices have been sold worldwide. The Nano X is only available in
one color at present while the Nano S comes in six colors.
About Ledger Nano X

According to Ledger, up to 100 cryptocurrency apps can be
installed on the Nano X at the same time. The device also
supports over 1,100 assets with more to be added each month. In
comparison, the Nano S can simultaneously run up to 18
cryptocurrency applications with support for only 40 assets in
total.
Unlike its predecessor which draws power through a USB cable,
the Nano X has a 100mAh built-in battery to power it for wireless
use. Several security improvements are listed on Ledger’s website
for the latest model, and the company explained that private keys
stored on the new device are isolated inside its EAL5+ certified
secure storage chip.
With dimensions of 72mm x 18.6mm x 11.75mm, the Nano X is
shorter but slightly wider than the Nano S which measures 98mm
x 18mm x 9mm. However, at 34g, it is over twice as heavy as the
Nano S which weighs 16.2g.

Navigation on the new model is also improved due to its larger,
round buttons on the face of the device compared to two small
buttons located at the top of the Nano S. Ledger further described
that the new device has “Bigger screen for an improved
experience.”

https://news.bitcoin.com/

I still imagine, how is cryptocurrency in 2030?
is the usecas clear? is there still a new ICO project that appears, or is it even cryptocurrency dead?
if in the year 2030 the cryptocurrency is still there, then the age of the cryptocurrency has been more than 20 years, and this is not a long time, and if you see age, crypto should have been much more developed than now.
what do you think about cryptocurrency in 2030?

When I saw the topic of this post I bursted out with laughter! I'm sorry don't get me wrong but the reason why I laughed is because we are not even sure of how crypto will be in the next few minutes how much more about 11 years from now.

I see the market of crypto is unpredictable. When the market of crypto currency will more stable?

If you expecting a complete stable market in crypto then you are in the wrong business my friend. Crypto's volatile nature is part of its attraction. You need to understand this else you might continue to frustrated.

How volatile Ethereum and bitcoin market is! Today I enter my Ethereum Wallet and see that my Ethereum amount is reduced to $1000 from $1100 just ($100). What would be happening now??

You shouldn't find that surprising because the market is yet to stabilize. We have been seeing it thus way for the past few months, we need to still be patient as we have been all this while.

Many crypto enthusiast and traders were aware that there might
be massive volatility as we headed into the Holiday Season of
2018. Many had expected a Santa Claus rally or a false breakout
as many traders were cashing out to spend time with family. By
December 24th, Bitcoin (BTC) was trading at $4,200 and up
$1,000 since its recent low of $3,200 on the 15th of December.
However, the excitement before Christmas got exhausted a few
hours later with the King of Crypto dropping to $3,600 by the
28th of December: a drop of 14.2% from the earlier mentioned
$4,200.

All Green Today, the 2nd of January
As we entered the New Year, Bitcoin was trading at $3,700. The
same BTC is now valued at $3,900 and up 4.70% in the last 24
hours. Further looking at the top 10 cryptocurrencies according
to Coinmarketcap.com , we find that Ethereum (ETH) has
reclaimed the number 2 spot from XRP as the Constantinople
hard fork approaches. The upgrades on the Ethereum network
are meant to be initiated on the 16th of January, thus providing
ETH with the necessary momentum to gain considerably in the
past few days.

The January Effect Explanation
In traditional stock markets, the January effect is defined as…

[A] seasonal increase in stock prices during the month of
January. Analysts generally attribute this rally to an increase
in buying, which follows the drop in price that typically
happens in December when investors, engaging in tax-loss
harvesting to offset realized capital gains, prompt a sell-off.
Another possible explanation is that investors use year-end
cash bonuses to purchase investments the following month.
Given the entry of crypto investing by Wall Street institutions
such as Hedge Funds and regular crypto exchanges wooing
institutional investors, it is safe to assume that the January
effect could have crossed over to the crypto markets.

New Capital Might Have Also Found its Way Into Crypto
This then brings us to the second reason why the markets are in
the green. The just concluded year of 2018 saw many major
cryptocurrencies decline by 80% to 93% from their All Time High
(ATH) values. These digital assets are still currently massively
discounted when using ATHs as reference points. Such
discounts are not easily missed by Hedge Fund managers who
would be quick to transfer funds from banks – as soon as they
reopened today, January 2nd – to start their crypto investment
strategies for 2019.

Conclusion
Summing it up, January 2nd has provided a pleasant day in the
crypto markets as many of the digital assets have experienced
considerable gains in the last 24 hours. This then brings us to
observe that such a ‘rally’ could be as a result of The January
Effect in the crypto markets. Also to note, is that many digital
assets are massively discounted when compared to their All
Time High values of late 2017 and early 2018. As a result, new
capital could have entered the crypto markets from Hedge Funds
wishing to capitalize on these opportunities.

https://ethereumworldnews.com/

NEO developers are happy to put what they described as a
“tumultuous” year behind them. Despite the markets,
developer activity has been robust. The number of
decentralized applications (dApps) on the NEO blockchain
surged by 3,000 % in 2018 , as competition for the “killer
app” continues to heat up.

There are nearly 100 dApps on the NEO platform today, and
that number is only set to increase as the project nears its
annual developer conference next month. NEO
Founder Da Hongfei is also stirring the base by engaging
with the community after what, to the NEO community,
seemed like forever.

"Happy NEO Year! In 2019 we will work
harder to improve infrastructure.
Personally I'll focus on modules that
can be added to NEO incl. distributed
storage, identity, layer2, to improve
NEO's crypto-economics, and to deliver
the best developer experience."
https://t.co/RCT5yjMaye pic.twitter.com/
bPPYbxuzSB
— Da Hongfei (@dahongfei) January 2,
2019

The message didn’t go unnoticed in the NEO community,
with followers cheering Hongfei’s message with responses
like: “Thank GOD you tweeted” and “the people need to
hear directly from you more often.” While some might wish
for the NEO founder to speak out more often, well, at least
he’s not Justin Sun .

ETH-Less in Seattle
NEO may be nicknamed the Ethereum of China, but it
headlines its own developer conference. The upcoming NEO
DevCon 2019 is scheduled to take place Feb. 16-17 in
Seattle, and it’s drawing some big names. In addition to
Hongfei and other key leaders at NEO, the first batch of
speakers includes two Microsoft executives — Steven
Guggenheimer and Harry Pierson, corporate vice president
and senior software engineer, respectively.
The theme of the conference is to “explore Layer 2
solutions, distributed storage, consensus mechanisms and
other hot topics with senior technical engineers and
developers.”

NEO Projects And dApps To Watch
One of the teams to watch is City of Zion (CoZ), an
independent group of open source developers for NEO. They
caught the attention of the NEO team early on after taking
on the task of translating the white paper for the project.
Since then, CoZ has built NEON, which has risen to become
“the most popular NEO wallet.” CoZ was also behind the
“Go compiler and Python compiler that went live in
2018.” City of Zion hold its cards close to the vest but on
GitHub they are comprised of 80 repositories across
approximately three dozen people.

Singapore-based Alchemint is behind the SDUSD
stablecoin, which is a “fiat pegged coin on NEO,” as Crypto
Briefing has previously reported . Alchemint’s stablecoin
differentiates itself by offering more diversity to dApps,
exchanges and merchants via “mortgaging digital assets
on the NEO blockchain, implemented via smart contracts.”
Another team that could take the spotlight is
NewEconoLabs, a China-based community of open-source
developers for NEO. They’re behind the BlaCat project,
which is a platform and software development kit for game
developers.

Speaking of games, NEO may soon have another first: the
first virtual girlfriend on the blockchain.  NEO.Girl has
recently launched the open beta version of Luna, the first
virtual reality girlfriend on the blockchain. Developed as a
collaboration between BlaCat and YYMOON Network, an
earlier version of the game received a JPY 500,000 prize in
a NEO Game Development contest last year.

https://cryptobriefing.com/

* Ethereum (ETH) has finally managed to return to its
position of a second largest coin by market cap,
after spending a month and a half in XRP’s shadow.

* The project expects a busy month as there are
several hard forks that Ethereum’s network will
undergo in mid-January.

After almost two months of being in third place on the
coin market cap list, Ethereum (ETH) has finally made
its comeback. Today, January 2nd, ETH managed to
surpass XRP as the second largest cryptocurrency.
For months now, the crypto community speculated
about the future of ETH, with some claiming that the
coin’s glory days are over. Others remained convinced
that ETH will bounce back, and while retaking its place
from XRP is a significant milestone, it might only be the
first step for ETH, in anticipation for a hot January.
As of now, Ethereum seems to be advancing at a steady
pace, with the current ETH price $150 per coin, after
seeing an 8% increase in the last 24 hours and over
80% in two weeks. Ethereum’s market cap is $15.6
billion, while Ripple’s is $14.9 billion.

WHAT DOES THE SHORT FUTURE HOLD FOR ETHEREUM?
The Ethereum community remains optimistic regarding
the coin’s future, and so far, their hopes are seemingly
coming true. Ethereum is getting ready for a busy
January, as there are several hard forks that the coin is
expected to have.

The three most significant ones are scheduled to occur
in the next two weeks, and they are as follows:
1. January 11th — Classic Vision Hard Fork
2. January 12th — Ethereum Nowa Fork
3. January 16th — Constantinople Fork
The Classic Vision Hard Fork is expected to provide all
ETH holders with 3 ETCV coins for each ETH that coin
holders possess in their wallets. The Nowa Fork will
grant ETH holders with an ETN coin for each ETH in
coin holders’ possession, while the Constantinople Fork,
which may even occur earlier than January 16th,
remains the most significant one, as it will play a large
part in Ethereum’s transition to PoS protocol .

HARD FORKS TO IMPROVE ETH ECOSYSTEM
Ethereum is responsible for the still-growing popularity
of dApps and smart contracts, and it revolutionized
token creation by allowing other tokens to develop on
its blockchain.
With several hard forks almost ready to be performed,
investors are wondering what to expect. While the forks
can be beneficial to Ethereum, there is always the
danger that they will weaken the network by splitting
into new coins. The possibility is quite real, and the
incident revolving around BCH hard fork in mid-
November is still fresh in investors’ memory.
Having the same type of an incident would make it very
difficult, if not impossible, for Ethereum to handle the
competition. Even if the forks occur without any
conflicts, it is still nearly impossible to predict the
potential consequences, especially when it comes to
long-term predictions. Experts’ forecasts claim that
significant volatility can be expected in days following
the forks.

For now, there are no certainties, and most of the new
development will be known after the forks take place.
For now, at least, Ethereum is handling itself quite well,
and the new year has started on a positive note once
more.

https://cryptopotato.com/