Speaking to Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood on her company’s podcast, he said Bitcoin’s challenge now is becoming a coin as trustworthy as gold – an assert that has earned its status the hard way over thousands of years.
Forbes chairman and editor-in-chief Steve Forbes has described Bitcoin (BTC) as a “high-tech cry for help” driven by a lack of trust in traditional currencies.
Although Forbes starts out by saying that Bitcoin prices fluctuate too much – “steak one day, dog food the next” – he shows a deep understanding of what Bitcoin is and its current and future role in the financial markets, adding:
“It’s performed a very important role in helping people in distressed situations around the world: getting around governments that want to control you and starve you and hurt you.”
Forbes’ views on cryptocurrency and Bitcoin in particular were quite positive, which is perhaps surprising considering the traditional financial environment he thrives in.
Bitcoin outshining gold?
Cointelegraph previously reported that another traditional financial institution, the German bank BayernLB, suggested that Bitcoin was getting ready to make a big leap forward in 2020.
The bank published its latest research report, which stated that the forthcoming Bitcoin halving effect is yet to be factored into its current price of about $8,200 and that a “vertiginous price of around USD 90,000” might emerge in 2020.
Bitcoin Startup Casa Updates Lightning Nodes After Shipping 2,000 in Year 1
Casa, a bitcoin custody provider and manufacturer of hardware nodes for lightning, bitcoin’s scaling layer, is launching a new version of its flagship device.
The new node will process transactions faster because of its larger memory unit (4 GB versus the current node’s 1 GB), better processor and new software, Casa CEO Jeremy Welch told CoinDesk.
Also, unlike the current version, the new node will have a built-in BTCPay server, a self-hosted crypto payment processor for accepting bitcoin payments, Welch said. New features are expected to make the whole experience of opening lightning channels and sending funds much smoother, he said, adding:
“It’s like going from iPhone 3 to iPhone 11.”
The new node has been about six months in the making and comes in response to a growing community of lightning users, Welch said.
This community, according to Welch, ranges “from young software engineers to older people, from doctors to students.”
Since the company started selling the lightning nodes last fall, Casa has shipped over 2,000 devices to buyers in over 65 countries, according to Welch. The firm, however, can’t see where all these nodes ended up plugging into the network.
“The beautiful thing is, we have no idea where all these nodes are”, Welch said. “They are connecting via Tor – it’s all about privacy protection.”
Lightning is an experimental network for faster bitcoin transactions, allowing users to open channels between each other by staking the bitcoin they want to use. Only the final settlement results – not each small transaction – are recorded onto the bitcoin blockchain.
