Bitcoin Fork, Hyped ICOs – Immutable Gold and Silver

– Latest developments show risks in crypto currencies
– Confusion as bitcoin may split tomorrow
– SEC stepped into express concern over ICOs
– ICOs have so far raised $1.2 billion in 2017
– ICOs preying on lack of understanding from investors
– Physical gold not vulnerable to technological risk
– Beauty and safety in simplicity of gold and silver

Editor: Mark O’Byrne

Forks and ICOs solves bitcoin v gold debate

There is still a huge amount of noise in the bitcoin and cryptocurrency space but there have been a few developments of late which have pushed the space further into maturity.

From what I can tell from dinner party conversations people who are vaguely aware of bitcoin now know that there are two terms they need to throw into the chat in order to sound like they know what they are talking about. These two terms are ICO and Fork.

Price is also a major talking point at present. As ever the price of bitcoin remains volatile and headline-worthy.

This week will mark a point in cryptocurrency history as the most powerful of cryptocurrencies, bitcoin will experience a major technical change and the US regulator SEC has just made a significant announcement about fundraising in the space.

We have written previously about how bored we are with the bitcoin vs gold debate, but for those who still like to peddle it then they would do well to see how these latest developments put the issue to bed.

The break-up of the year

For a long time there has been a debate about the scaling of the bitcoin network. What is ultimately a required software upgrade has caused many arguments and fall-outs in recent years.

Pressure has been ramping up within the bitcoin community as to how certain problems can be resolved. The discussion may seem like something which is just technical but has at times become philosophical and political.

The main items up for debate are as follows:

Bitcoin is currently limited in the number of transactions it can process. Today, it can only process up to 1MB of transactions roughly every 10 minutes.

Owing to this limit, transactions take longer to approve during times of heavy use.

As all users pay a fee to miners to make transactions, this limitation on space has increased average fee costs.

Increasing the block size makes network nodes more costly, as node operators must store the entire copy of the blockchain as computer files.