One of the oldest pieces of contrarian investment wisdom is to buy when there is blood in the streets. If it were that easy, crypto investors would be euphoric at all the buy opportunities right now. If you’re rattled by the bear market, which has been especially brutal even by crypto standards, don’t beat yourself up over it. Cryptocurrency is still an unproven asset class that operates in the shadow of regulators. I don’t blame you for not buying an asset class that’s down over 70% this year. With those caveats in mind, a quiet herd of smart money investors …

The depths of a bear market may not be the best time to raise funds but that is exactly what Blockstream is doing. The crypto infrastructure firm is seeking fresh funding, but at a much lower valuation than previous rounds, according to a Dec. 7 Bloomberg report. Blockstream was valued at $3.2 billion when it held its last Series B funding round raising $210 million in August 2021. Today that valuation may have fallen almost 70% to below $1 billion according to the report. The company, founded in 2014, has raised a total of $299 million in funding over four …

Adam Back, the co-founder of Blockstream, took a timeout from the mainstage of Bitcoin Amsterdam, a three-day Bitcoin conference in the Netherlands, to talk with Cointelegraph. Perched at a park table amidst tulips and bicycles, the man behind the Proof-of-Work algorithm challenged Cointelegraph to a game of Jenga and made a case for beaming Bitcoin into space. One of the few people to be cited in the Bitcoin whitepaper, (BTC) Back also discussed his childhood and his first interactions with computers. The video will soon be published on Cointelegraph's Youtube channel. But why do we need the Bitcoin blockchain–a decentralized …

The research unit of Bitcoin (BTC)-focused blockchain tech firm Blockstream has published a proposal for a new type of multisignature standard called Robust Asynchronous Schnorr Threshold Signatures (ROAST). It hopes to avoid the problem of transaction failures due to absent or even malicious signers and can work at scale. The term multisig, or multisignature, refers to a method of transaction in which two or more signatures are required to sign off before it can be executed. The standard is widely adopted in crypto. According to a Wednesday blog post from Blockstream research, the basic idea of ROAST is to make …

The week was filled with several new project developments and key updates from leading decentralized applications (DApps) and decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols. Fireblocks has expanded its institutional access to Terra’s DeFi ecosystem and Solana partnered with the Notifi network to improve the abysmal participation rates in governance votes. We will also look into the Cointelegraph research into the Terra ecosystem’s future and see if it can sustain the current growth. Samson Mow, the former executive at Blockstream, questions the decentralized aspect of the DeFi ecosystem. Top DeFi tokens saw another week of bearish price action despite several new developments and …

Samson Mow, former chief strategy officer of Blockstream and founder of Pixelmatic, said on Thursday that he has started a new company called JAN3 which will focus on accelerating Bitcoin adoption. The Chinese-Canadian Bitcoin entrepreneur told Reuters that JAN3 has already signed a memorandum of understanding to assist in developing digital infrastructure in El Salvador. "It's a general MOU that says we'll work together to build digital infrastructure for the country and for Bitcoin City.” Mow added that making the decision for JAN3 to work with El Salvador was an easy choice, "I just set up my company and I …

Blockstream chief strategy officer Samson Mow has announced he will be leaving the blockchain firm after five years. In a Tuesday Twitter thread, Mow said he would continue to be a “#BlockstreamSpy” following his departure from the Canada-based firm where he had worked since April 2017. He said he would stay on as CEO of game development company Pixelmatic, a position in which more “attention is being demanded,” but planned to focus on “nation-state Bitcoin adoption” in the future. ”With everything happening at light speed in El Salvador, and more and more countries interested in adopting #Bitcoin, I found my …

Major global cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex is finally moving forward with its security token platform (STO) in Kazakhstan, opening the first day of trading. Bitfinex Securities, Bitfinex’s blockchain-based investment platform, is officially starting on Tuesday, the company representatives announced to Cointelegraph. Announced in September 2021, the new STO platform is regulated within Kazakhstan’s national financial hub known as the Astana International Financial Center (AIFC). Bitfinex Securities specifically operates from a special economic zone in Kazakhstan, which has an independent court system, according to Bitfinex Securities chief technology officer Paolo Ardoino. The platform is not available to citizens or residents of countries …

Major blockchain technology company Blockstream has completed six tranches of its Bitcoin (BTC) mining security token offering (STO), securing a total of 30.9 million euros ($36 million). Blockstream officially announced Thursday that the company raised 13.9 million euros ($16.1 million) in the sixth tranche of its Bitcoin mining-focused security token known as Blockstream Mining Note (BMN). According to the announcement, the latest raise was the largest tranche that Blockstream has ever issued, marking increasing interest from individual and institutional investors. The raise brings the total BMN supply to more than 122, with the total number of investors amounting to 70. …

Block production on Blockstream’s Liquid network has resumed after technical problems related to a functionary upgrade caused many transactions to queue for hours. In a Monday update from a Liquid oversight board member identified only as Wiz, Liquid’s failsafe mode was activated yesterday as “an unexpected issue occurred causing block signer nodes failing to validate certain parameters against each other.” As a result, the network stopped producing blocks and transactions steadily queued in the Liquid mempool for roughly 22 hours, starting at approximately 5:19 pm Eastern Time on Monday. Wiz reported Liquid developers have upgraded 10 of the 15 functionaries, …

Blockchain infrastructure developer Blockstream has partnered with Macquarie Group, an Australian multinational investment bank, to launch a new pilot for a Bitcoin (BTC) mining facility with a mandate to explore carbon-neutral alternatives. As part of the pilot project, Macquarie Group is investing in one of Blockstream’s enterprise-grade mining facilities, the companies announced Wednesday. This will allow Macquarie Group to uncover new opportunities in renewable energy that can be bootstrapped for more sustainable Bitcoin mining initiatives. Macquarie Group is one of the largest institutional investors in the renewable energy infrastructure, with 44 gigawatts of generation under development or construction as of …

Canada-based Bitcoin (BTC) infrastructure firm Blockstream, co-founded by cryptographer and cypherpunk Adam Back, has hit unicorn status with its latest valuation at $3.2 billion. The company, which focuses on various Bitcoin-related areas — including operating as a mining service provider and developing renewables-based infrastructure intended to “green” the veteran cryptocurrency — has raised $210 million in its latest financing round, according to Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail. Blockstream’s new backers, which join existing investors such as Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, are the United Kingdom-based private equity firm Baillie Gifford and Hong Kong-based iFinex, the operator of crypto exchange Bitfinex. …