Tag: German

  • Bitcoin retreats as German government selling intensifies

    Bitcoin retreats as German government selling intensifies

    • Bitcoin (BTC) price fell to under $56,000 as the German government sold more BTC
    • On-chain data shows Germany sent more than 16,000 BTC to exchanges on Monday – the largest transfers in a single day.

    Bitcoin price fell below $56,000 again on Monday, dropping by about 2% at the time of writing as Germany took its BTC selling spree to a new level.

    Per on-chain data tracking the Bitcoin held by the German government, Monday saw more than 16,000 BTC sent to crypto exchanges – the largest such dump by the government-controlled wallet in a single day.

    The selling intensified amid transfers of 2,700 BTC, 5,200 BTC and 8,100 BTC in quick succession over a two hour period.  

    “The German Government sent another 5200 BTC ($297.3M) to Kraken, Bitstamp, Coinbase and 139Po right after we posted this tweet. That makes this the biggest day for them so far – over 16,000 BTC in total,” the Arkham team posted on X.

    Bitcoin price dips amid sell-off

    Bitcoin reaction to the selling, which has persisted over the last few weeks, saw Bitcoin price dip from intraday highs of $57,877 to around $55,130.

    Germany seized 50,000 bitcoin from Movie2k earlier this year. Over the last few days, it has accelerated its selling to see the total holdings reduce rapidly to 23,787 BTC at the time of writing. The bitcoin’s value reached over $3.6 billion when BTC price skyrocketed to it’s all-time high in March.

    However, with more than half sold and BTC price hovering around $55.8k, the total value of the BTC has dropped to $1.34 billion.

    Bitcoin price has declined more than 10% in the past week.

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  • 3 German computer scientists bringing scalability to Bitcoin using zk-proofs

    3 German computer scientists bringing scalability to Bitcoin using zk-proofs

    • The three German scientists formed ZeroSync Association to bring Zero-Knowledge Proofs to Bitcoin.
    • The association has received sponsorship from Geometry Reaserch and StarkWare Industries.
    • Geometry Reaserch is a crypto investment firm while StarkWare Industries is the software company behind StarkNet.

    Bitcoin currently uses the proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism which in a way limits its scalability. Its rival blockchain Ethereum also used PoW but changed to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism through the Merge Upgrade.

    Three German computer scientists have created a Swiss non-profit association called ZeroSync Association to help bring scalability to Bitcoin using zero-knowledge proofs (zk-proofs), a cryptographic technique whose popularity on Ethereum has surged considerably.

    What is Zero-knowledge Proofs?

    Zero-knowledge Proofs, commonly referred to as zk-proofs, is a cryptographic technique that uses cryptography to prove the validity of information revealing the information to the public.

    By deploying kz-proofs on Bitcoin means nodes will be able to sync almost instantly compared to hours and sometimes days that it takes to download the chain’s current 500GB data.

    ZeroSync Association already has a working prototype

    At the moment, ZeroSync has already developed a working prototype that allows users to validate who owns what and the transaction history on Bitcoin without having to download the entire chain or using a third party.

    The prototype can however only verify Bitcoin consensus rules but not transaction signatures. The prototype is also a bit chunky and still needs to be optimized for security and speed.

    When fully deployed on Bitcoin ZeroSync will allow verification of transaction of Bitcoin using cryptographic proof instead of trusting honest nodes as suggested by the Bitcoin founder Satoshi.

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