Is cryptocurrency dead 2020

Cryptocurrency bubble risks exposed by Bitcoin's recent slide. They seem to be almost everywhere. Cool looking hipsters livin' the dream after amassing a fortune in the world of crypto. Social media sites are overflowing with them. Even old school glossy magazines, barely clinging to life, have dialled in with tales tall and not so true of the fabulous riches to be earned in the ether. There's no doubt they exist.

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Content:

• Diem is dead. What next for stablecoins?
• Is Bitcoin Dead?
• Bitcoin faces uncertain 2022 after record year
• John McAfee, antivirus software pioneer, found dead in Spanish prison
• 'It may not last much longer': Expert's warning as Bitcoin price plunges
• Dead cryptocurrency chief Gerald Cotten was ‘Ponzi scheme fraudster’
• Crypto diehards are about to find out if it really was a bubble
• Crypto scammers stole almost $8 billion in 2021, up 81% from 2020

WATCH RELATED VIDEO: 7 Crypto Coins That Will 15x Early 2022 (Last Chance)

Diem is dead. What next for stablecoins?

Blockchain is widely regarded as a breakthrough innovation that may have a profound impact on the economy and society, of a magnitude comparable to the effects of the introduction of the Internet itself. In essence, a blockchain is a decentralized peer-to-peer network with no central authority figure, which adds information to the distributed database by collectively validating the accuracy of data. Since each node of the network participates in the review and confirmation of the new information before being accepted, the need for a trustworthy intermediary is eliminated.

However, as trust plays an essential role in affecting decisions when transacting with one another, it is important to understand which implications the decentralized nature of blockchain may have on individuals' sense of trust.

In this contribution, we argue that the adoption of blockchain is not only a technological, but foremostly a psychological challenge, which crucially depends on the possibility of creating a trust management approach that matches the underlying distributed communication system. We first describe the decentralization technologies and possibilities they hold for the near future. Next, we discuss the psycho-social implications of the introduction of decentralized processes of trust, examining some potential scenarios, and outline a research agenda.

The blockchain phenomena started within a cryptography mailing list known as Cypherpunks Assange et al. The premise of the paper was to have a system for electronic transactions without relying on third-party trust Nakamoto, In blockchain, there is no central server or central point of control.

All users of the blockchain run a software node to connect to the peer-to-peer network. All nodes have equal access and control, and they all should agree on the final state of the blockchain based on the defined set of rules known as the consensus protocol.

Bitcoin, the first and one of simplest blockchain applications, is technically a decentralized ledger database , where all the nodes have a fully verifiable copy of the ledger. Nodes can use their processing power to verify recent transactions and append them as batches, called blocks, to the blockchain. They do so by solving complex mathematical equations and broadcast the solution to the network once found.

All other nodes verify the solution, and the first verified answer adds its block to the blockchain and receives newly minted Bitcoins as a reward from the protocol Figure 1. An important implication of blockchain's decentralized approach concerns identity management. With the rise of the Internet, the concept of username and password was introduced as the authentication method for users in websites and services. The identity of each individual within a service is saved on the website's database and can be modified by website administrators at will.

In contrast, in blockchain the identity of an individual or an entity boils down to a pair of cryptographic keys, a public key used as the address name, public identity and a private key used to prove the ownership of the identity, which should remain confidential.

Only the public identity of the user is saved on the service provider's end and only the user could prove their identity using their private key signature. Crucially, private key cannot be recovered if lost, and if it is leaked, anyone could impersonate or steal the digital asset controlled by that private key.

The choice of using keys instead of passwords is still specific to tech-savy users, and regular Internet users do not seem to be ready for such a change Eskandari, Actually, for better user experience, it is common for users to trade off security for usability. The service provider could keep the keys and the user could use a traditional username and password authentication method to login; however, in this scenario, it would be difficult to distinguish such system from current central technologies where the service provider is in full control of the users' assets.

Another fundamental difference between blockchain applications and current technologies is with whom users associate the application. There is no main or central entity to think about and address in blockchain applications, unlike other technologies commonly run by a company or a consortium to address.

When having an issue with the system, no one entity is responsible, but the collective network of developers and people should be notified. Their effort to fix the issue depends on the severity or means of the report, not to mention the consensus required to deploy the changes within the network De Filippi and Loveluck, Permissionless or public blockchains are defined as such because they don't require an authorization for accessing the network, execute transactions or partake to the verification and creation of a new block.

Bitcoin and Ethereum are the most popular examples of permissionless networks, which are characterized by a fully decentralized structure, whose access authorizations are shared among all nodes of the network. In permissionless blockchains, no network user has more privileges than others; furthermore, no one can control, modify or eliminate other's information which are stored in the network, or altering its functioning protocol.

They are subject to a central authority, which defines who can access the network and which roles the user can have, also defining rules about the accessibility of registered data. Thus, in these kinds of networks, only a selected and trusted set of nodes are allowed to partake in the verification of the transactions. An example of this type of blockchain network is Hyperledger by IBM, which is an open-source collaborative project of blockchains and other similar tools.

That said, public blockchains software are open source and can be used in a different setup as a private blockchain e. However, there is currently little consensus as to whether or not this claim is valid, since, as it will be shown later, trust is an elusive and multifaceted concept.

Would users really accept a shift in trust from people and legal systems to technology? We start from a brief review of literature on trust section Defining Trust , then we discuss and compare psycho-social issues of trust in blockchain and other information systems section Trust in ICTs and Blockchain ; finally, we sketch what we consider as the most relevant challenges for psycho-social research in this field section A Research Agenda for Studying the Psychosocial Implications of Trust in Blockchain.

Trust is a key element that mediates the interaction between human and non-human agents, which is commonly regarded as a fundamental enabler of network relations Jarillo, ; Newell and Swan, and a driver of social capital Coleman, ; Fukuyama, Although trust is one of the most-referenced constructs in the social sciences, no generally-accepted agreement exists on its definition, which depends on the actors, relationships, behaviors, and contexts that are considered Castaldo et al.

Despite this heterogeneity, scholars tend to converge on at least some essential dimensions of trust Rousseau et al.

This definition suggests that vulnerability is a core aspect for trust to occur, and that the lower is the degree of trust, the lower is the risk-taking behavior, which means lower involvement by the trustor in an activity characterized by higher perceived risk.

Mayer et al. Ability refers to the capability of the trustee to fulfill a task or an obligation, address a request, or provide a competent answer. Benevolence is the extent to which a trustee is believed to care about the trustor, aside from an egocentric profit motive; also, benevolence suggests that the trustee has some specific attachment to the trustor. The third determinant of trust is integrity, which is described by Mayer et al.

A further useful distinction is between individual and interpersonal trust. Individual or dispositional trust concerns how personality characteristics influence the process of making a trust-related decision. In contrast, interpersonal trust refers to the social dimension of this process and focuses on the factors that affect trust relationships among people. Interpersonal trust has received much more attention in the psychological literature, given the central role that this aspect has in shaping relationships across the life-course of the individual Erikson, ; Bowlby, ; Deutsch, Three broad perspectives on trust can be identified.

The behavioral perspective sees trust as a reciprocal relationship, which facilitates cooperation through the observable choices that are performed by an actor in an interpersonal context Lewicki et al.

The cognitive perspective grounds trust on evidence of trustworthiness and available knowledge, i. Finally, the affective view focuses on the role that emotions play in shaping trust, i.

This definition highlights three key features of trusting: first, trust is associated with a risk and an uncertain outcome; second, trust involves vulnerability; third, trust is based on the expectation that the trusted party will reciprocate the initial trust act. This conceptualization also separates the cognitive and the behavioral component of trust, by differentiating between expectation i. According to Thielmann and Hilbig's model, an individual's decision to trust results by the interplay of three determinants, which are: i attitudes toward risky prospects i.

Noteworthily, the authors suggest that these components of trust are linked to individual differences and personality traits. Specifically, from their summary of the literature they conclude that the first component attitudes toward risky prospects is influenced by an individual's trait anxiety and fear; betrayal sensitivity is affected by the trait forgiveness; and trustworthiness expectations are influenced by the personality trait social projection, which reflects an individual's own trustworthiness i.

Trust is commonly regarded as a key driver of user's adoption of ICTs. In this context, trust can be defined as the willingness to depend on and be vulnerable to an information system in uncertain and risky environments Gefen et al. For example, at the turn of the century, the development of e-commerce raised a challenge similar to the one that blockchain is facing nowadays: online businesses needed to create adequate initial trust in order to convince consumers to adopt e-commerce sites.

To address this issue, different frameworks and models were developed to help the design of e-commerce systems that support customers' trust Gefen, ; Gefen et al. In contrast, comparatively little research has examined trust in the blockchain context Hawlitschek et al. Yet, as it will be discussed below, the introduction of blockchain may impact trust in fundamental ways, as machines will be tasked with ensuring it while supposedly diminishing or eliminating the need for human intermediates' i.

As a first example, we can compare a blockchain application e. If Alice sends money to Bob using Paypal, both parties of the transaction should trust Paypal to intermediate this transaction and transfer the money. Other than the privacy issues it entails Preibusch et al. However, in Bitcoin, when the transaction is sent, no trust in a central authority or trusted party is required and the distributed consensus network will confirm the valid transaction irreversibly.

However, while this definition can be considered correct from a pure technical perspective—since in blockchain mathematical algorithms and cryptographic keys guarantee the integrity of the ledger rather than humans—it nevertheless overlooks the role of psycho-social factors could play in the process. Actually, as Auinger and Riedl correctly pointed out, the blockchain and its applications such as Bitcoin are not pure technical systems; rather, they are socio-technical systems Auinger and Riedl, ; Castelle, , that is, systems where the technological, social, and managerial components interact Emery, A further implication of the emergence of blockchain is that people will be increasingly required to trust non-human entities.

Actually, in a blockchain-powered world, transactions will not only happen between unfamiliar human parties, but also between humans and autonomous-connected devices.

The contract manages the operation of an insurance-like business process. The user selects their preferred policy and pays the premium to the smart contract, when the flight lands, the smart contract gets the flight information from the airline website using Oracles i. In the total absence of a human-made interpretation, smart contracts require extremely accurate definitions of various circumstances and situations under which the flight schedule may occur.

Since no human intervention is involved in this process, the smart contract must guarantee to each party, e. However, will this guarantee—enabled by blockchain—be enough for users to trust in a smart contract? One possibility is that trust in smart contracts and autonomous applications will come from the open source nature of their code, as the deployed smart contract code on a blockchain can be verified to be identical to the open source repository code. Yet trust in the open source code may still be questionable.

This is in contrast with the legal contracts where lawyers—legal experts—verify the content beforehand or in the case of dispute, ensure a fair resolution.

Another layer of trust is on the network layer in which the smart contract code is running on. Technically the trustlessness is in regard to permissionless public blockchains, and permissioned private blockchains are generally considered as trusted systems, as the entities operating the verification nodes have control over the transactions.

However, if a known trusted entity, such as a bank, is running their private blockchain, does that add more trust for the users or not? This question might require further technical knowledge from the users.

As depending on the implementation, the blockchain-based system can be identical to the current centralized model, or it can be toward decentralization and transparency which will add more trust for the entity in question. The above examples stress the crucial role that user's subjective perceptions play in building trust in blockchain systems. As pointed out by Francisco and Swanson , users may be reticent to use a technology if they perceive it as insecure.

However, the more experience and knowledge users gain from using the technology, the more trustworthy the technology appears to them p. The third type, called the intermediary trust, involves a central entity that manages transactions between people an example is the credit card system, which allows untrusting buyers and sellers to make commercial transactions.

The blockchain security system, Werbach argues, enables a fourth trust architecture, in which an individual will need to trust the system as a whole, and no longer its individual components. As the author notes, on a blockchain network the three core elements that may be trusted in any transaction—the counterparty, the intermediary, and the dispute resolution mechanism—are replaced by software code, thus nothing in the system is assumed to be trustworthy, except the output of the network itself Werbach, , p.

On the other hand, users still need to trust the system for adopting it. Support for this claim can be found in a recent study carried out by Frey et al. Their main hypothesis was that users would share more personal information with blockchain because the system promises to be cryptographically secure and misuse of data is practically impossible. Surprisingly, the results did not confirm this assumption, as the participants shared similar amounts of personal data regardless of whether they used blockchain-supported approaches or standard privacy policies.

Furthermore, the authors found that data sharing increased for technically-affine people when they were presented with the opportunity to monetize their data. Thus, although preliminary, these findings support the notion that users' subjective perception and understanding of the blockchain security system may play a key role in determining its acceptance.

Is Bitcoin Dead?

Unlike dollar bills and coins, cryptocurrencies are not issued or backed by the U. The lack of a physical token to count and hold may confuse some. Rather, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are a form of digital currency used in electronic payment transactions—no coins, paper money or banks are involved; there are zero to minimal transaction fees; transactions are fast and not bound by geography; and, similar to using cash, transactions are anonymous. Digital currencies are stored in digital wallets, which are software or apps installed by users on their computer or mobile device. Each digital wallet contains encrypted information, called public and private keys, that is used to send and receive the digital currency.

Bitcoin faces uncertain 2022 after record year

While authorities investigated, one online sleuth decided to dig deeper to find the money. The announcement followed news that Gerald Cotten, the company's year-old CEO, had reportedly died under peculiar circumstances the month before, while on his honeymoon in India. On the morning of Dec. That day he and his wife, Jennifer Robertson, checked into the luxury resort Oberoi Rajvilas in Jaipur and told staff he wasn't well. The hotel's general manager drove them to a nearby hospital and within 24 hours, Cotten was declared dead. That's when things took a bizarre turn. According to reports, a doctor was asked to embalm the body, but refused because the request had come from a hotel employee, not the hospital. Cotten's body was then transported — although it is unclear how — to another facility that accepted the corpse for embalming.

John McAfee, antivirus software pioneer, found dead in Spanish prison

After a slew of news related to renewed crackdowns from China triggered a Bitcoin selloff, chartists and analysts are turning to a sinister-sounding technical signal. The original cryptocurrency has formed a death cross, meaning its average price over the last 50 days fell below that of its day moving average. The indicator is typically seen as a closely-watched technical measure that could offer a hint at more pain to come. But a death cross in November saw the coin trading lower one month later.

'It may not last much longer': Expert's warning as Bitcoin price plunges

Crypto has creeped into the mainstream and even become a viable idea for virtual stocking stuffers, with services like Coinbase and Square allowing users to send crypto as gifts. Then, they drive up publicity around the token on popular channels such as Telegram or Discord, so that people buy in hoping that the price will skyrocket. Once people swap their cryptocurrency for the questionable tokens, the developers withdraw all the pooled funds that were used to acquire the tokens. The price of the token then plummets down to zero. As it turns out, irony is dead. The token, which is still available on decentralized exchanges, is now trading around 9 cents.

Dead cryptocurrency chief Gerald Cotten was ‘Ponzi scheme fraudster’

The price has been on the slide since hitting a small surge in September. This is despite its increasing reputation as a preferred blockchain platforms for the development of smart contracts and dApps. Renamed from AntShares in June , Neo is now an established coin despite the volatile nature of its pricing. The project offers a smart contract framework called NeoContract to facilitate different blockchain use cases. They include various decentralised finance DeFi applications, for example, data exchange marketplaces and investment management tools, and new processes for interacting with decentralised exchanges DEXs.

Crypto diehards are about to find out if it really was a bubble

More than 2 crore people own cryptocurrencies in India, according to the popular crypto-exchange platform WazirX. With more and more people investing in popular Bitcoin and relatively lesser know Shiba Inu, all thanks to Elon Musk probably, cryptocurrency craze has indeed gripped India. At present, over startups operate in the blockchain and cryptocurrency space. While new age investors, especially millennials, taking to crypto with such gusto, the million dollar question is right now — is cryptocurrency legal in India?

Crypto scammers stole almost $8 billion in 2021, up 81% from 2020

The cryptocurrency-trading hamster Mr Goxx has died. The rodent, who shot to internet fame for his ability to often outperform human investors using a specially built trading cage, died on Tuesday. The furry financier's official Twitter account announced the hamster's death to his 18, followers on social media. What we personally learned from this project has little to do with crypto. We feared this day like no other and are truly shocked for it to happen just now. In deep sorrow, we have to announce the loss of our beloved furry friend.

Want to discuss? Please read our Commenting Policy first. Bitcoin-mania is back with its dizzying rallies and sudden crashes. The cryptocurrency dropped by 8. The slump comes after Bitcoin surged around 50 per cent over the past three months and per cent this year. Read more: Another Guelph resident falls victim to Bitcoin scam, police say.

Cryptocurrency projects have been popping up left, right and center in the past 18 months, but over of those are now dead, adding to comparisons between the current digital coin market and the dotcom bubble in New digital tokens are created via a process known as an initial coin offering ICO where a start-up can issue a new coin which investors can buy. The investor doesn't get an equity stake in the company, but the cryptocurrency that they buy can be used on the company's product.