A Bitcoin Halvening Is Two Years Away -- Here's What'll Happen To The Bitcoin Price

Organised as a weekly newsletter, it presents an overview of the current international blockchain debate. You may find below a selection of the best ideas from the most influential media.

A Bitcoin Halvening Is Two Years Away -- Here's What'll Happen To The Bitcoin Price In around two year's time (on May 27, 2020, unless wild swings in the mining hashrate change anything) the coin reward for mining new Bitcoin blocks will drop from 12.5 Bitcoin to 6.25 Bitcoin — and people are already thinking about what this could do to the Bitcoin price. Much has changed for Bitcoin, cryptocurrency and blockchain since the last Bitcoin halving (something the community calls a halvening), which happened July 9, 2016, and each time it happens no one is entirely sure how the Bitcoin price, or the economy that has built up around it, will react. A Bitcoin halvening — there have been two since Bitcoin's creation in 2009 — is a fixed event and will occur after every 210,000 blocks are mined, or confirmed, by the system. Some 12 months after the first Bitcoin halving event in November 2012, the Bitcoin price reached what was then an all-time high of $1,000. The 2016 halvening heralded last year's bull run which peaked in December 2017 with the Bitcoin price reaching an eye-watering $19,000. Since then it's fallen sharply back — but the same happened after the 2012 halvening and subsequent boom, with the Bitcoin price falling as low as $200 per coin before picking up in the lead up to the 2016 halvening. May 29, 2018 by Billy Bambrough READ FULL ARTICLE https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2018/05/29/a-bitcoin-halvening-is-two-years-away-heres-whatll-happen-to-the-bitcoin-price/#10719b015286

An 'Emergency Sale' of Bitcoins Just Earned $14 Million for German Law Enforcement The German authorities have just made around $14 million from the sale of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies that they seized in criminal investigations. It was an emergency sale, according to a Monday report in the Tagesspiegelnewspaper, because the Bavarian justice treasury was concerned about the wild fluctuations in cryptocurrency prices. Emergency sales are usually reserved for perishable goods, such as food, or items that typically depreciate in value, such as cars. The cryptocurrencies that were sold—1,312 Bitcoins, 1,399 Bitcoin Cash tokens, 1,312 Bitcoin Gold tokens and 220 Ether—were mostly seized in a crackdown on a platform called LuL.to, which was illegally selling copyrighted ebooks and audiobooks at very low prices. The site was seized and blocked last June, its operators were arrested and its assets went into a fund that is typically used for police resourcing. The sale took place over a couple of months, in a series of more than 1,600 transactions on a German cryptocurrency trading platform. According to Der Tagesspiegel, the proceeds totalled just over €12 million ($13.9 million.) The selloff began in late February, when the price of one Bitcoin had crashed from its December highs—almost $20,000—to around $11,400. Over the course of the sale, the price dipped below $7,000 and cleared $9,000 again. Since then, it has fallen again to a price of $7,230, so the cops’ timing looks pretty good for now, unless Bitcoin makes a surprising rebound in the near future. May 29, 2018 by David Meyer READ FULL ARTICLE http://fortune.com/2018/05/29/germany-seized-bitcoin-emergency-sale

HOW WIRED LOST $100,000 IN BITCOIN Back in 2013, when you could still mine bitcoins at home, WIRED was sent a small, sleek mining device manufactured by the now-defunct Butterfly Labs. We turned on the Roku-looking machine in our San Francisco offices and allowed it to do its job. A small fortune was soon amassed, now wortharound $100,000. Then, we lost the money. Forever. Here's what happened to WIRED's 13 Bitcoins—and to the millions of others that have faced the same fate. Stefan Antonowicz, WIRED's then-head of engineering, set up the miner. Robert McMillan, a former senior writer for WIRED (who now works at The Wall Street Journal), then wrote about it. "When we received that Butterfly miner, we had a new ethical question: What do you do with the proceeds of a review device that essentially prints money?" says McMillan. First, it's probably worth explaining how WIRED accrued its six-figure Bitcoin fortune. While fiat currencies, like the dollar, rely on banks and government regulators, Bitcoin runs on a peer-to-peer network monitored by an army of volunteer miners that run specialized software. Every 10 minutes, all the miners in the network race to solve a series of complex cryptographic math problems. The computers that win are awarded a slice of 12.5 new bitcoins. (That number halves every four years; it was 25 when we got our miner.) Usually, the fastest computers in the network solve the problems first. May 28, 2018 by Laouise Matsakis READ FULL ARTICLE  https://www.wired.com/story/wired-lost bitcoin/utm_campaign=Weekly+Bits+May+29%2C+2018+%5BSponsored+by+Ask.fm%5D+%28PWSnEV%29&utm_medium=email&_ke=aXRhbHkudGVpQGdtYWlsLmNvbQ%3D%3D&utm_source=Bitcoin+Magazine+Newsletter+2.0

Here's What Happened At Graceland’s Ethereum Conference Throughout 2018, blockchain and cryptocurrency hackathons are taking place on every continent but Antartica. In the United States alone, conferences are happening in Las Vegas, Atlanta, Berkeley, Raleigh, San Francisco, New York City, Seattle and, of course, Silicon Valley. Some conferences will be more inclined toward a particular sector like Blockchain Health in Washington D.C. Others will target a specific demographic like Women4Blockchain in New York City. Some conferences will attract thousands in attendance; others might charge thousands of dollars for attendance. In its first year, EthMemphis distinguished its place on the blockchain conference circuit for displaying an under-the-hood glimpse at what actually moves this young industry forward, specifically on the Ethereum network. Taking place at the University of Memphis’ Fedex Institute of Technology, EthMemphis focused on Ethereum-based blockchain topics and projects applied to supply chain, healthcare, tourism/hospitality, education and law. Specifically, the three-day conference consisted of a hackathon interspersed with a Saturday full of blockchain talks, technical workshops, drone racing and a collaborative effort between the Decentraland team of Buenos Aires and the Memphis Game Developers to create a game within the virtual world. May 23, 2018 by David Hollerith READ FULL ARTICLE https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/heres-what-happened-gracelands-ethereum-conference

Hong Kong Does Not Plan To Issue Its Own Cryptocurrency The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), which is the region's central bank, is not planning to issue the сentral bank's digital currency (CBDC). For the first time, HKMA reported that it was conducting a CBDC study a year ago. The monetary authority suggested that it would complete the first stage by the end of the year, and based on its results, it would determine the feasibility of issuing a digital currency. A year later, legislator Denis Kwok asked the government if it was considering issuing a cryptocurrency to maintain Hong Kong's competitive advantage in financial innovation. The answer to his question was made at a recent meeting of the Legislative Council in Hong Kong. Joseph Chan, acting secretary for financial services and the treasury, said that after conducting a CBDC study, HKMA concluded that the digital currency would be less useful in Hong Kong: "The HKMA has carried out research on CBDC. At the same time, the HKMA notes that the benefits of CBDC and its efficiency gains will depend on the actual circumstances of a jurisdiction. In the context of Hong Kong, the already efficient payment infrastructure and services make CBDC a less attractive proposition. The HKMA has no plan to issue CBDC at this stage but will continue to monitor the international development," – he said. May 31, 2018 by Ekaterina Ulyanova READ FULL ARTICLE https://en.insider.pro/topnews/2018-05-31/hong-kong-does-not-plan-issue-its-own-cryptocurrency/?topic=crypto

About STARBIT

Starbit aims at spreading theoretical - practical knowledge among ordinary people, without being an expert or willing to become an expert. Starbit is aware of the impact that blockchain and crypto currencies will have on people's lives: for this reason it promotes a mass literacy.
Starbit selects everything needed for a person to be informed and about blockchain technologies and various applications, making it easier, in a progressive manner, accessible to all, thus saving time and resources to anyone interested in this area. The goal is to offer various degrees of knowledge (first level is free as Club Member, or included in Blockchain Information Packages for customers) to those who are interested in playing an acting rule. Starbit also offers an opportunity to those who want to transform all this in a work from home opportunity.

DISCLAIMER: Registration to the Club is totally free and gives access to the basic information on Blockchain and its applications on the market, the most important of which is constituted by the so-called crypto currencies. At the Club members who are interested in having a more complete knowledge and information is also offered the possibility (it is an option, not an obligation) to buy an Information Pack of 2 or 12 months (The acquisition of knowledge is a fact known to be progressive over time). The information pack includes in addition to a continuous theoretical section, a practice section with the use of an authomatic software (artificial intelligence) also designed to generate itself specific information that the customer can see, compare, analyze (the extent, with the frequency and with the intensity that will choose autonomously). For this section is included in the cost of the package also making available remotely, for the entire period, specific robot software. Any coins (among those chosen for the practical exercise) that may result gradually, will of course be the exclusive property of the customer and should not be considered in any relationship with the information package purchased. For maximum clarity applies the following example: if a person acquires an organic farming course that includes in addition to the theory, also a practical detection of cultivation of an organic garden (like Michelle Obama at the White House), any products (carrots, tomatoes, peas, etc.) that will enrich his table, will obviously be of full ownership of those who have grown the organic garden and will not of course no relation to the person who sold the course, even if he has supplied the equipment for the practical test, such as seeds, tools, pots, fertilizers, various preparations, etc. Subscribers to the Club have the power to start the business, if authorized and in acceptance of all the terms and conditions for the Promoter, explained in the Promoter Agreement and in the Policies and Procedures. They should not incur any fees and never any obligation to buy anything. If as a result of the promotion done, some new Club member, decide to buy a package Information, the Promoter will receive a commercial fee as provided by the terms and conditions above mentioned. It is not authorized anyone to provide news other than those listed here and on the official website, to promise false gains and / or try to push the purchase of the Information Package, which must instead be the result of personal conviction. In particular, it must never be made no reference to any kind of investment if not purely cultural nature. This Club is fully committed to compliance with the laws of the countries in which it operates. It's also open to collaboration with those who help him to improve.For each queries or suggestions please contact via the official website. For questions please contact support@starbit.com