The orange pilling adventure in El Salvador continues. In a video that beggars belief, 44 central bankers and financial delegates from emerging markets around the world shout “Bitcoin!” while posing for a photo in El Zonte, El Salvador. And all the Central Bankers screamed…. pic.twitter.com/MxdOrYD3lc — Bitcoin Beach (@Bitcoinbeach) May 20, 2022 It seems that by day three of El Salvador’s financial inclusion conference, the central bankers were warming to Satoshi Nakamoto’s innovation, enjoying a trip to Bitcoin (BTC) Beach. El Zonte or "Bitcoin Beach" is the home of Bitcoin in El Salvador, an iconic destination for Bitcoin enthusiasts. It …

The Lightning Network (LN) just got a bit faster, as the suitably named Bolt Card now enables Bitcoin (BTC) enthusiasts to pay for goods and services using contactless technology. A data analyst at the company behind the card, CoinCorner, took the Bolt card on a trial run on the Isle of Man, a British Crown dependency in the Irish Sea. “MSW” — as he is known — tapped to pay at more than eight point-of-sale (PoS) devices during his lunchtime investigation. It worked like this: For any PoS device showing a Lightning invoice, MSW simply hovered the NFC-enabled Bolt Card …

This week, 44 central bankers from developing countries around the world are attending a conference in El Salvador to discuss financial inclusion, financing for small and medium-sized businesses and Bitcoin (BTC). Central bank delegates from Ghana to Burundi, Jordan to the Maldives and Pakistan to Costa Rica arrived in San Salvador for the conference upon El SalvadorPresident Nayib Bukele’s invitation. Organized by the Alliance for Financial Inclusion, a global policy leadership alliance, and in partnership with El Salvador’s central bank, the conference will run for three days. In a tweet, the head of El Salvador central bank, Douglas Rodríguez, shared: …

Further distancing itself from any concerns of planned attacks on the blockchain, the Bitcoin network established a new mining difficulty all-time high of 31.251 trillion — exceeding the 30-trillion mark for the first time in history. The creator of Bitcoin (BTC), Satoshi Nakamoto, warranted the security of the BTC network through a decentralized network of BTC miners who are tasked with confirming the legitimacy of transactions and minting new blocks. Given the extensive community support — from developers to hodlers to traders to miners — that spans over 13 years, the BTC network was witness to a historic 10-month-long rally …

Bitcoin (BTC) is for all. For you, for Michael Saylor in Miami, and for 38-year-old Jorge, a Mozambican family man who's using the largest cryptocurrency to make ends meet. Jorge, who goes by his first name for anonymity, lives in the tiny village of Bomba, Mozambique, on its southeast coast. Since the COVID-19 pandemic stripped away tourism from the sleepy surf town, one of Jorge’s primary wage earners—tourism—disappeared. Luckily, Bitcoin adoption is slowly swelling in Africa–from the Central African Republic across to Senegal and further north. Mozambique is also showing signs it's warming to the world's most popular crypto. Mozambique …

Samson Mow, former chief strategy officer at Blokstream and founder of JAN3, is convinced that most decentralized finance protocols can’t compete with Bitcoin when it comes to providing an effective monetary network because of their lack of decentralization. As Mow pointed out, DeFi projects are governed by entities that can modify the protocol at will. “Bitcoin, at the fundamental level, is money, and it should be immutable,” explained Mow. “If you can change it at will, then you’re no better than a fiat currency governed by the Fed.” Bitcoin’s (BTC) decentralization makes it very difficult to modify its protocol, which …

The Bitcoin Lightning Network integration started to take off among the cryptocurrency exchanges worldwide. However, some of the world’s largest crypto trading platforms seemingly are not in the hurry to integrate the protocol. Last week, Robinhood crypto trading app became the latest major industry player to announce the Lightning integration, following in the footsteps of BitPay and the Kraken crypto exchange. As the main goal of the Lightning integration is to reduce the cost of Bitcoin (BTC) transactions and accelerate the network transfers, one may wonder what cryptocurrency exchanges have still not added the Lightning support. Binance, Coinbase and FTX …

A new report highlights how the Lightning Network has grown in popularity as a way of transferring digital assets quickly and efficiently around the globe. CNBC today told the story of Alena Vorobiova, a Ukrainian refugee currently seeking sanctuary in Poland. Vorobiova used Lightning to transfer $100 worth of Bitcoin from Miami, where it was then withdrawn from an ATM in the equivalent Polish currency — all within the space of three minutes. That’s the sort of low cost, high speed transaction that has seen the Layer 2 scaling solution for Bitcoin grow 410% in payment volume over the past …

Following the announced integration of the payment app Strike with e-commerce platform Shopify to accept Bitcoin (BTC) through the Lightning Network, the crypto community raised concerns over the legal implications of the move. Crypto researcher Matt Ahlborg believes that the event is a very significant development for BTC as it allows the offloading of BTC without the need to go through the know-your-customer (KYC) process. What Jack Mallers is really saying is that you will be soon be able to offload your Bitcoins in the real world without KYC'ing through an exchange first. If this is true, it is actually …

Chicago-based payment app Strike has integrated with global e-commerce giant Shopify so merchants can accept Bitcoin payments via the Bitcoin Lightning Network. The Lightning Network (LN) is a Layer-2 scaling solution for Bitcoin designed to facilitate faster and cheaper transactions. Strike CEO Jack Mallers revealed the new integration on stage at Miami's Bitcoin 2022 conference today. The move could allow Shopify’s almost two million global merchants to accept Bitcoin payments denominated in USD. However the only merchant partner cited in Strike's official release was Warren Lotas, an LA based streetwear brand — and that site was down at the time …

Australia’s opposition Labor party is facing criticism over its lack of formal policy regarding the cryptocurrency industry just days before a national election is expected to be called Prime Minister Scott Morrison, from the Liberal Party, is expected to fire the starters pistol for a Federal election this weekend. However, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) is well ahead in the polls at this stage and their crypto policies are less than comprehensive. With at least 18% of Australians having invested in crypto at some point according to new figures from Gemini, cryptocurrency is becoming an election issue that cannot be …

It’s a great time to move Bitcoin (BTC) between wallets and exchanges. Bitcoin transaction fees have hit all-time lows in BTC, according to research by Galaxy Digital. #bitcoin fees are at all-time lows. the craziest thing? fall 2021 was the first bull run not accompanied by a major spike in fees. how is that possible? what does it mean? here's a thread explaining the most confounding (and awesome) chart in bitcoin. (remember june 2021) pic.twitter.com/gnWssTckX2 — Alex Thorn (@intangiblecoins) April 5, 2022 As shown on the graph below, the Bitcoin mean transaction fee has plummeted to 0.00004541 Bitcoin ($2.06) in …