22 march 2019

Facebook ramps up hiring as blockchain team tops 60 employees The social media giant is now advertising for 20 blockchain-related jobs in it's website's career section. Facebook’s current blockchain team is composed mostly of internal hires plucked from other Facebook product teams. TheBlockCrypto

Ethereum Creator Vitalik Buterin Proposes Wallet Fee to Fund Developers “I propose we consider supporting a community norm that client/wallet devs can/should charge a 1 gwei/gas fee for [transactions] sent through their wallet,” - Creator of Ethereum blockchain, Vitalik Buterin tweeted. He suggested that a "one-off" payment of 1 gwei (a billionth of Ether) for transactions sent to ethereum wallets could collectively raise up to $2 million in a year. Community responses thus far to Buterin’s proposal have been mixed. CoinDesk

US Authorities Arrests Alleged OneCoin Leader The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York has indicted 2 figureheads on charges of fraud and money laundering. According to a press release by the US Justice Department, prosecutors are alleging that OneCoin is a pyramid scheme. Other than the US, at least 16 other nations are cracking down on Onecoin project since 2016. CoinDesk

Monero's hashrate drops 90% after ASIC resistance hard fork Monera's network hashrate plummeted after a hardfork to increase ASIC resistance. As of now, the Monero Blockchain will experience significantly slower blockchain time and the difficulty readjusts consequent to the hashrate drop.  Chepicap

What Are Atomic Swaps? Atomic swaps, or atomic cross-chain trading, is the exchange of one cryptocurrency to another cryptocurrency, without the need to trust a third-party.  A relatively new piece of technology, atomic cross-chain trading is looking to revolutionize the way in which users transact with each other. Atomic swaps utilizes what is known as hash time-locked contracts (HTLCs).  Hash time-locked contracts ensure that the atomic swap process is completely trustless by ensuring both parties fulfill the requirements of the trade.  HTLCs require the recipient of a payment to acknowledge receiving payment prior to a deadline by generating a cryptographic proof of payment.  Or the recipient risks losing the right to the claim the payment, therefore returning the funds back to the sender. Therefore, for a trade to take place, both parties must submit their transaction to their respective blockchain in order to complete the transaction. Read more about Atomic Swaps