🗞 Daily Crypto News, February, 3rd💰

Is Bitcoin New Ethereum Killer? ;
Bitcoin Usage Among Merchants Is Up, According to Data From Coinbase and BitPay ;
Libre Not Libra – Thinking Critically About Facebook’s Blockchain Project ;
Here’s What Bitcoin’s 2 Biggest Privacy Wallets are Working on in 2020 ;
*Twitter Adds Bitcoin Emoji, Jack Dorsey Suggests Unicode Does the Same ;
🗞 Daily Crypto Calendar, February, 3rd 💰

Welcome to the Daily Crypto News: A complete Press Review, Coin Calendar and Trading Analysis. Enjoy!

🗞 Is Bitcoin New Ethereum Killer?

Looking for the next Bitcoin (BTC, Rated "A-")?

Some people have long thought it would be Ethereum (ETH, Rated "B+").

Unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum is more than just a payment system. It’s a platform for running an infinite variety of applications, called “smart contracts” or “distributed applications” (dapps).

In fact, Ethereum aspires to be a worldwide computer capable of doing anything that a single, standalone computer can do, with two key differences: It’s everywhere, distributed all across the internet. And nobody owns it.

That was the Ethereum dream. But then began the Ethereum nightmare — a traffic jam of epic dimensions.

🗞 Bitcoin Usage Among Merchants Is Up, According to Data From Coinbase and BitPay

Although bitcoin adoption may move at a glacial pace, merchants are seeing sustained traction regardless of market dips.

According to BitPay CMO Bill Zielke, the payment processor facilitated $1 billion worth of cryptocurrency transactions in 2019, with bitcoin leading the pack. Likewise, a Coinbase spokesperson said Coinbase Commerce processed $135 million worth of cryptocurrency payments for thousands of merchants in 2019, which represents a 600 percent increase in the number of unique transactions via Coinbase Commerce since 2018.

Ether and various stablecoins make up a small percentage of both of the above-mentioned totals, with Chainalysis reportedly estimating roughly $4 billion in bitcoin alone was sent through payment processors in 2019. As such, Coinbase is looking to build out its merchant services in 2020.

Of course, the number for credit card payments is much higher, dwarfing bitcoin’s $4 billion purchasing power. Credit card purchase volume in 2018 was $3.7 trillion, according to a 2019 report from the U.S. Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.

🗞 Libre Not Libra – Thinking Critically About Facebook’s Blockchain Project

Years of jokes about “FaceCoin” and “ZuckBucks” have finally come to life – sort of. In a previous episode,

Antonopoulos talked about how some venture capitalists are monkeying around by downplaying the killer applications of open blockchains in favor of … bananas. Now he makes us wonder whether Libra will even survive to become a production network. Is Silicon Valley coming for banking? Will Libra’s challenges have any impact on open public blockchains?

Episode Credits:

Today’s show featured Andreas M. Antonopoulos, with a little narration by Stephanie Murphy and Adam B. Levine, as well as the live crowd and that guy with the great laugh about three quarters through.
Photo by Anna Tukhfatullina Food Photographer/Stylist on Unsplash.

🗞 Here’s What Bitcoin’s 2 Biggest Privacy Wallets are Working on in 2020

It’s no secret that Bitcoin has issues when it comes to privacy. After all, it’s pretty difficult to implement privacy features in a system that puts the entire history of transactions on a public ledger for everyone to see.

That said, improvements to Bitcoin privacy have been slowly implemented over time. And the two wallets pushing the limits of privacy in Bitcoin more than anyone else these days are Samourai Wallet and Wasabi Wallet.

While these two wallets have similar goals, they use a variety of different methods to improve privacy for their users. And these differences have led to a rather nasty feud between the two projects.

🗞 Twitter Adds Bitcoin Emoji, Jack Dorsey Suggests Unicode Does the Same

Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted the newly added Bitcoin (BTC) emoji on Feb. 2 and tagged Unicode, the consortium managing the character standard, in an apparent suggestion to do the same.

Dorsey’s tweet showed that, now, whenever a Twitter user writes the Bitcoin or BTC hashtag, an image showing its symbol appears next to it.

🗞 Daily Crypto News, February, 3rd💰

Insolar (INS)

"Insolar MainNet will be launched on February 3, 2020 at 12PM UTC"

Matic Network (MATIC)

"In preparation for our mainnet launch, we will be announcing 5 new Dapps from February 3-7..."

CasinoCoin (CSC)

"We are pleased to invite all CasinoCoin members for drinks. Come meet the team! Date: Monday, February 3rd, 2020 Time: 6:00 PM"

Centrality (CENNZ)

"Just a reminder that they [merch store gear] won't be available for sale until 3 Feb 2020..."

Last Updates

🗞 Daily Crypto News, February, 3rd💰

Welcome to the Daily Crypto News: A complete Press Review, Coin Calendar and Trading Analysis. Enjoy!

🗞 Is Bitcoin New Ethereum Killer?

🗞 Bitcoin Usage Among Merchants Is Up, According to Data From Coinbase and BitPay

🗞 Libre Not Libra – Thinking Critically About Facebook’s Blockchain Project

🗞 Here’s What Bitcoin’s 2 Biggest Privacy Wallets are Working on in 2020

🗞 Twitter Adds Bitcoin Emoji, Jack Dorsey Suggests Unicode Does the Same

🗞 Daily Crypto News, February, 3rd💰

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