Yesterday's Top News

Segwit Reaches 80% of the Bitcoin Hashrate as Activation Looms

Bitcoin miners have seemingly made a decision to activate Segwit2X, locking in the solution at 80% of the hashrate. BIP 91 needs to maintain this 80% level of support for 122 more blocks (at the time of writing), which means it needs 99 out of these 122 blocks to signal BIP 91.

Antpool, the biggest Bitcoin mining pool, is currently voting for segwit. As is Bixin, BW, BTCC, Bitfury, ViaBTC, BTC.TOP and some smaller pools. F2Pool is expected to follow soon, as will, most likely, Slushpool. If neither F2Pool nor Slushpool signal for BIP 91, it is possible that the proposal will not be activated, given that the hashrate level that supports SegWit2X has dropped to 77.7% even though no pools have stopped signalling BIP 91.

$30 Million: Ether Reported Stolen Due to Parity Wallet Breach

An unknown hacker has used a vulnerability in the Parity Ethereum client to steal over 153,000 Ether, worth over $30 million dollars which were transferred to this Ethereum wallet. The hack was possible due to a flaw found in multi-sig wallets created with Parity clients 1.5 and later. Parity 1.5 was released on January 19, 2017. The attack took place around 19:00-20:00 UTC and was immediately spotted by Parity who promptly issued a security alert on its blog.

Because Parity spotted the attack in time, a group named "The White Hat Group" used the same vulnerability to drain the rest of Ether stored in other Parity wallets that have not yet been stolen by the hacker. This money now resides in this Ethereum wallet. Parity founder and CTO Gavin Wood wrote:

"There is an effort by the foundation underway to secure funds in other wallets to prevent any further compromises; they will make an announcement in their own time."

Billionaire Investor Tucks Away 1% of Net worth in Bitcoin

Forbes recently published a report on the 67-year-old legendary investor, Bill Miller, that reveals he has 1% of his net worth in Bitcoin, invested 2014. The report doesn’t reveal Miller’s total net worth, but it does add that the investor is looking for incredible returns on the cryptocurrency and that, since he invested in it, he is up nearly tenfold. The report reads:

“Indeed, Miller still has a keen eye for change. In 2014, he put 1% of his net worth into Bitcoin, judging that the digital currency’s potential for large-scale economic disruption (see Forbes’ cover story on the coin revolution) outweighed the risk of a total loss. He’s up nearly tenfold, and Bitcoin is now a top holding of his hedge fund.”

Peter Todd: Wait For 6 Confirmations After BIP 91 Activates

Peter Todd, the highly regarded Bitcoin Core developer and well-respected cryptography consultant, encourages users not to accept transactions with one confirmation when BIP 91 activates. Todd explained that a high probability exists for the activation of SegWit via BIP 91 which will lead to multiple reorganisations. Amidst such change, Todd noted that users should only accept transactions with six confirmations for security purposes. Peter Todd wrote:

“More Warning: if/when BIP 91 activates, there's a high chance it'll lead to multiple reorganizations. Do not trust one confirmation transactions for now; wait for six+ confirmations.”
“BIP 91-related double-spends are likely to be a temporary event that's mostly resolved in only a few hours or days; this is a one-time risk. Since BIP 91-related dbl-spends are very likely to be a one-time event, a valid strategy could do nothing, and shut down if losses happen.”