Bitcoin Global News (BGN)
October 09, 2018 -- ADVFN Crypto NewsWire -- The cryptocurrency
industry seems to be stabilizing in the wake up last year's
incredible run upwards. Now that awareness of the industry has
grown from just niche areas, many companies, investors and
individuals are seeking ways to integrate the technology to their
business or their daily lives.
As with traditional currencies, the most widely
used are the most important and reliable. They have the liquidity
to be moved in large quantities and the acceptance to be used for
payment of goods or services around the world. Currently, this is
USD. For cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin was the groundbreaking coin to
gain global awareness, and has continued to push boundaries of
public awareness. It is still criticized for its ability to scale
to a truly global user base, and especially for its relatively slow
transaction speed compared to major credit card
networks.
Lightning Network
Ethereum was launched in 2015, bringing a vast set
of new features to what people think of as cryptocurrencies.
Ethereum’s versatility and smart contracts have allowed for the
multi-billion dollar ICO industry. However, several start ups have
been working to bring these same benefits to the Bitcoin network.
BTC sidechain create a method to transfer assets between the
sidechain and the main blockchain in a similar way to
Ethereum.
The most influential contributor has been
Blockstream. The organizations raised $76 million in their early
funding rounds and is most well known for the Lightning network.
These side chains allow the Bitcoin network to settle transactions
almost instantaneously, and then be blocked to the root Bitcoin
network ledger in the most efficient manner possible
Acinq
One of the new comers to startups developing on
the lightning network is Acinq. They recently closed a$1.7 million
funding round led primarily by Serena Capital, with further funds
from Talend co-founder Bertrand Diard, Sebastien Lucas, Alistair
Milne and Snapcar founder Yves Weisselberger.
"With this raise, we're very excited to be able to
do a lot more with more resources. We'll be able to make even more
cool services for lightning. This is not only good for us but for
lightning in general and for pushing adoption forward."
Earlier this year, the company introduced Strike,
their first payment processing Application Program Interface (API)
for easy off-chain-on-chain settlements. Other cryptocurrency
payment processing options payout directly into a fiat conversion.
Strike collects payments on behalf of the client, and settles the
collected amount to a Bitcoin wallet.
RSK Smart Bitcoin
Recently another start up launched their side
chain layer to the Bitcoin network called Smart Bitcoin. Their SBTC
token “Smart Bitcoin” will essentially be a 1 to 1 peg of Bitcoin
held on the original Bitcoin network. CEO Scott Yoon believes "RSK
... will be dominating [the smart contract] ecosystem and [for]
bitcoin that will open another era of bitcoin, like
ethereum."
By: BGN Editorial Staff