During the last couple of years, the popularity of blockchain technology has quickly increased, with start-ups, corporations and financial institutions investing considerable amounts of money in its development.

Now, recent reports indicate that the Alphabet Inc. unit, the parent company of Google, is working on their very own blockchain to help support its cloud business, while also staying ahead of the competition. Companies mostly use blockchain technology to record transactions, and process data securely over the internet. This is a service that Google could definitely use in various ways, such as assuring customers that their data is protected, even when stored in their data centres, powering up the cloud storage facilities.

If you have been involved in the bitcoin market, then chances are that you’ve heard of Bitcoin Pizza Day, a celebration of the time when Laszlo Hanyecz purchased two pizzas with 10,000 BTC, in order to prove that the digital currency can be used as a means of value.

When it happened, the transaction represented one of the world’s first purchases made directly via the digital currency. At current value, this is roughly worth over $100 million, a massive price for two pizzas.

Now, recent reports indicate that the early adaptor and bitcoin developer, wanted to test out the Lightning Network, a fairly controversial technology whose purpose is to run parallel to a blockchain, to speed up transactions. To do this, Hanyecz decided to purchase 2 pizzas for 0.00649 BTC, equal to $67 at the current market value. The transaction cost for this purchase using the Lightning Network was of only 6 U.S. cents, considerably lower when compared to current transaction fees for bitcoin.

Craig Wright is perhaps one of the most well-known names in the digital currency industry, especially since he has proclaimed himself as the inventor of bitcoin. While Wright has never managed to prove that he is in fact Satoshi Nakamoto, he has recently come under fire, as he is being accused of swindling $5 billion worth of digital currency alongside other assets from the estate of a computer security professional.

To put things better into perspective, Craig Wright allegedly used phony contracts and signatures, to lay claim to bitcoin that had been mined by Dave Kleiman, one of Wright’s colleagues, who unfortunately died back in 2013.

Given its versatility, Ethereum has grown to not only be known as a digital currency, but rather as a platform for creating innovative, crypto-based projects as well. In an effort to further encourage development of apps, services and tokens on the Ethereum platform, six large blockchain-related companies alongside with a Japanese venture capital firm, have decided to create the Ethereum Community Fund (ECF).

According to recent reports, the purpose of the ECF will be to fund projects and businesses that are part of the Ethereum ecosystem. At the beginning, the community fund will start with $100 million, raised by six projects alongside the venture capital firm. Reports indicate that the Ethereum creator, Vitalik Buterin, will be part of the advisory body.

During the last couple of weeks, the digital currency market has been affected by massive price swings, which have led to high speculation, bearish trends and an overall decrease in popularity for the market.

However, things are about to change, as recent statements given by economic analysts, are predicting that prices will return to the high values that they’ve been known for. While BTC is currently priced at $10,000, this figure remains low when compared to its $20,000 all-time high, yet still much higher when compared to its value several months ago.

While digital currencies seem to be losing value given the massive bear going on at this moment in time, institutions, governments and international organizations throughout the world are showcasing an increased interest towards blockchain, the underlying technology of bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies.

With this aspect in mind, recent reports indicate that the European Commission has decided to launch their very own EU Blockchain and Observatory Forum, in order to boost blockchain-related projects within the European Union. For those who do not know, the European Commission is the executive body of the EU, in charge with legislative initiative, budget management and control over other EU institutions.

Leaving aside the massive growth in value for Bitcoin in 2017, the digital currency is off to a rocky start in 2018. This is mostly due to increased volatility, given the end of the holiday season, alongside with several world events, with direct consequences in the bitcoin price.

Therefore, on the 9th of January, the bitcoin price plunged by roughly 13.5%, which is approximately $2,000, following news that South Korea is actively planning to ban digital currency trading within the country.

Ethereum’s evolution during the last couple of days creates big hopes for the smart contracts and digital currency system. On the 10th of January, the digital currency managed to hit another all-time high, marking a 60% increase in value in a single week.

With this in mind, Ethereum managed to hit an all-time high of $1,416, which gives it an increase of 13,000% in around a year, a figure enviable by many other cryptocurrencies. While the massive growth in price begun recently, it is expected that it will last for a longer period of time.

If you've been following the recent news, you might have heard about two major security vulnerabilities that had been revealed to general public on the first days of 2018. Spectre and Meltdown are possibly the biggest vulnerabilities ever discovered that affect billions of devices with modern CPUs with speculative execution on board.

Even though these severe vulnerabilities are determined by CPU logic design flaws, they still can be mitigated by software patches that make its exploitation impossible. CoinsHOST have installed and tested all the latest patches and fixes available for every piece of hardware on our network that may be affected by Spectre and Meltdown, including Cloud Hosting and Virtual Private Server infrastructure and hypervisors. If you rent a VPS or Cloud server with our company, your data is absolutely secure and no action is required on your side.

 

Dedicated Server Owners Attention Needed

Please be advised that you still need to update your dedicated servers' operating systems on your own, as long as our engineers do not have access to your bare metal servers. If you experience any issues while updating your server's operating system, please contact our dedicated support team for assistance. 

Your personal devices, such as phones, laptops and even TV boxes can also be affected by these vulnerabilities and may require software update to the latest OS build available.

Stay safe and secure!

Dear Clients!

The most wonderful and special time of the year has come! CoinsHOST team is happy that you chose our products and stayed with us throughout this year. We wish you and your loved ones a joyful holiday season and all the best in the coming year.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!