Beginning new blog series today. We will be summing up the most important Bitcoin and Crypto news from the past week every Friday.
Bitcoin News for week June 1st to June 5th.
Latest Bitcoin Core release protects against Nation wide attacks
Bitcoin Core released the new version 0.20.0 on Wednesday, June 3rd.
The most exciting part is that it includes experimental features that can help prevent attacks from players the size of nation-states or large internet providers, attacks that could fracture the Bitcoin network.
It is called Asmap and it protects the P2P architecture of bitcoin nodes by mapping connections to Autonomours Systems (AS) or internet operators capable of connecting to multiple networks with defined routing plans such as AWS, and then limiting the connections made to any single said AS.
This protects against the Erebus attack that allows an AS to censor large parts of the Bitcoin network by limiting and spoofing P2P connections. Failure to address the flaw could lead to highly undesirable consequences for Bitcoin such as a major mining pool or exchange being cut off from the rest of the network.
Bittrex, Poloniex Added to Lawsuit Claiming Tether Manipulated Bitcoin Market
A lawsuit alleging stablecoin issuer Tether and sister exchange Bitfinex manipulated the bitcoin market is getting bigger.
On Wednesday, cryptocurrency exchanges Bittrex and Poloniex became the latest defendants accused of fraudulently toying with crypto asset prices in an ongoing class action whose plaintiffs have been pursuing Tether and Bitfinex on allegations of fraud, deception and market-manipulation since October 2019.
The 156-page amended suit filed Wednesday continues to allege that Tether and Bitfinex orchestrated a grand scheme to launder and circulate billions of allegedly unbacked USDT stablecoins through the market to the detriment of their customers – the crux of plaintiffs Matthew Script, Benjamin Leibowitz, Jason Leibowitz, Aaron Leibowitz and Pinchas Goldshtein’s case.
Plaintiffs further claim that Poloniex and Bittrex were essentially backdoor conduits in that scheme. They claim the pair set up wallet addresses “specifically” to receive huge USDT transfers and “knew” that Bitfinex was the one sending it along.
Crypto Derivatives Volume Just Hit a New Record High
Crypto derivatives monthly volume increased by one-third in May to hit a new all-time high of $602 billion, according to U.K.-based data aggregator CryptoCompare.
The new record is only just a shade past the previous record in March of $600 billion, however,.
Derivatives are becoming ever more popular and now account for 32% of the crypto market — up from 27% in April. In percentage terms, the monthly volume increase in May for derivatives was six times larger than the increase in spot volumes, which was up 5% to $1.27 trillion.
Huobi, OKEx and Binance accounted for about 80% of May’s derivatives volume combined. In percentage terms, CME saw the largest monthly increase of 59%, though its $7.2 billion in volume was dwarfed by market leader Huobi — posting a 29% monthly gain in volume with $176B..
‘Bitcoin and Black America’ Author: Protest by Buying BTC
Bitcoin & Black America author Isaiah Jackson says that people invoking Bitcoin during the protests over the police killing of George Floyd have identified the “real enemy” — a legacy financial system that shuts out African Americans.
Jackson spoke to Cointelegraph on June 4, saying he welcomed pictures on social media of protesters holding up signs promoting the cryptocurrency.
He said the result of black people being shut out of the economic system was tragedy. “When the economic system is broken … no matter how hard you try, you get pushed to areas where police oversight is very heavy. You get these clashes and police start killing black men and it’s all just a domino effect,” he said. “So I think them holding signs is them saying, ‘Hey once this is over, remember who the real enemy is’.”
Jackson cited economic factors including the Federal Reserve printing money and 40 million people unemployed. “What is the strategy we could leverage for our community in the future?” he said. “I think they just realize Bitcoin could be that, so [I’m] glad to see it.”