We all see how the bounty hunting business was last year, how too many scam projects one out to waste our time, but do you believe that bounty in 2019 will be better than 2018?

Researchers from crypto exchange Gate.io report they have confirmed that a 51 percent attack successfully occurred on the Ethereum Classic (ETC) blockchain. The company published an analysis of their findings Jan. 8.

Gate.io Research has published its analysis of ETC transactions on its platform during the alleged attack, claiming it has detected seven rollback transactions — four of which were reportedly conducted by the attacker, transferring a total of 54,200 ETC in total (worth $271,500 at press time).

Gate.io reports that the incident occurred over a period of 4 hours between 0:40 and 4:20 Jan.7, 2019 UTC, during which the transactions were normally confirmed on the blockchain and then subsequently invalidated after the malign network rollback. After providing details of three ETC addresses purportedly used by the attacker, Gate.io continues to explain:

“Gate.io's censor successfully blocked [the] attacker's transactions at the beginning and submitted them to [a] manual exam. Unfortunately, during the 51% attack, all the transactions looked valid and confirmed well on the blockchain. The examiner passed the transactions. It caused about 40k ETC loss due to this attack.”

Gate.io states it will compensate its users’ losses, stating “Gate.io will take all the loss for the users.” The exchange also advises other crypto trading platforms to block transactions stemming from the identified suspect addresses. The exchange also states it has raised its ETC transaction confirmation number to 500 and launched a more robust 51 percent detection security mechanism.

Today, Jan. 9, Chinese blockchain security firm Slow Mist also published a report also confirming a 51 percent attack and containing and the same rollback transactions reported by Gate.io.

As previously reported, several major crypto exchanges — United States-based Coinbase and Japanese exchanges bitFlyer and Coincheck — have have all temporarily suspended withdrawals and deposits of ETC as early as Jan. 5. The exchanges all reportedly moved to respond to unusual hashpower activity indicating a potential 51 percent attack, as well as Coinbase’s own findings of double spending and “chain reorganizations.”

The ETC dev team initially responded by refuting that a 51 percent attack had taken place, stating that double spends had not been detected. At the time, they claimed that majority control over the network’s hashrate was “most likely selfish mining,” attributable to the testing of new 1,400/Mh ethash machines by application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) manufacturer Linzhi.

More at: https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-exchange-gateio-confirms-51-attack-on-ethereum-classic-promises-refunds

The Department of Energy (DOE) of the United States has announced $4.8 million in funding for university research of technologies including blockchain, according to an announcement published Jan. 7.

The funding has been announced by the department’s office of fossil energy. Projects eligible for funding include those researching emerging technologies, “such as blockchain and decentralized, peer-to-peer [P2P] internet protocols” to secure data from fossil power generation sensors.

The developed systems would be used to securely process data from the sensors and other unspecified information flows within distributed sensor networks for fossil-based power generation systems.

The DOE said it “anticipates selecting up to 12 projects” to receive the funding allocation.

As Cointelegraph reported in December, Spanish renewable energy company Acciona Energía  — recognized as one of the largest renewable energy operators globally — is set to deploy blockchain tech to trace electricity generation.

Also in December, news broke that South Korea’s government will spend about $3.5 million to set up a blockchain enabled virtual power plant in the country’s second most populous city, Bausan. The plant is meant to integrate the idle capacities of multiple energy sources to optimize power generation.


Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/us-dept-of-energy-grants-48-million-to-fund-research-of-tech-including-blockchain

It has not been easy for the second most respected cryptocurrency worldwide to gain back its position just after Ripple over took it few months back, but finally it has managed to get back to its position, but the question is will Ethereum maintain its position?

Most financial institutions will not use Bitcoin (BTC), payment network Stellar’s co-founder and CTO Jed McCaleb stated in an interview with Yahoo Finance Dec. 31.
Speaking to the online news outlet, McCaleb — who is also known as one of the founding fathers of defunct Japanese Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, as well as the co-founder of Ripple — made an argument in favor of the use of permissionless, open blockchains in finance. He told reporters bluntly:
“It doesn’t need to be the bitcoin blockchain, but if it’s not a public chain, then you’re missing the point.”
McCaleb also levelled criticism at cryptocurrency projects that were not Bitcoin, Ethereum or his own Stellar.
“Ninety percent of these projects are B.S. I’m looking forward to that changing,” he said when asked about the outlook for the cryptocurrency industry in 2019, continuing:
“Things like Tron, it’s just garbage. But people dump tons of money into it, these things that just do not technically work.”
Billed as an alternative token development platform to Ethereum, TRON (TRX) has upped its publicity efforts this year, with CEO Justin Sun regularly lambasting the Ethereum network over its alleged shortcomings.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/stellar-co-founder-brands-90-of-crypto-projects-bs

Digital assets platform Bakkt — created by the operator of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) — has announced the completion of its first funding round in a blog post today, Dec. 31.
The institutional investor-focused cryptocurrency platform from the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) has officially raised $182.5 million from 12 partners and investors, according to the post.
The partners and investors reportedly include major names in both traditional finance and crypto-oriented investing, including ICE, Boston Consulting Group, Galaxy Digital, Goldfinch Partners, Alan Howard, Horizons Ventures, Microsoft’s venture capital arm and Pantera Capital.
Bakkt also noted in the announcement that the company is working with United States regulators — namely the  Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) — to obtain “regulatory approval for physically delivered and warehoused bitcoin,” adding:
“We have filed our applications and the timing for approval is now based on the regulatory review process.”
Also today, ICE separately announced in a notice that the firm “expects to provide an updated launch timeline in early 2019, for the trading, clearing and warehousing of the Bakkt Bitcoin (USD) Daily Futures Contract.” In late November, the long-awaited digital assets platform stated that it was targeting Jan. 24, 2019 as a launch date, pending CFTC approval.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/nyse-operators-crypto-platform-bakkt-completes-1825-million-funding-round

I know that cryptocurrency has been around for about 10 years now thereabout, hut we that entered into cryptocurrency investment for now, can we say we are among the early adopters of cryptocurrency?