Hong Kong and Singapore are linking their trade finance platforms via blockchain. Bitcoin faces two forks: Bitcoin Gold already happened, and SegWit2x is coming, with debate over block size and whether the community actually agrees on it.
Hey, this is Maria Jones at cointelegraph Channel with a rundown of our hottest news stories from across Cryptocurrencies this week Blockchain across Borders Hong Kong and Singapore announced their cooperation on a cross border blockchain based trade project linking their trade finance platforms. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the Monetary Authority of Singapore second signing and exchange cooperation agreement to strengthen cooperation on fintech with a view to bolster ties between the two cities and fostering fintech development within the region. The cooperation on this project will enhance the trade finance corridor between the two financial centers. The platform could significantly increase the efficiency of trade in the future as well as replace humans on time consuming paperwork. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the Monetary Authority of Singapore stated that linking the two platforms is just one part of a broader plan between the future collaboration on blockchain and other fintech projects. Details about their corporation will be announced by the two authorities next month. A new iteration at the Bitcoin blockchain, Bitcoin Gold came into existence on Tuesday. This fork came less than three months after the controversial bitcoin cash fork whose effects are still being felt. Bitcoin gold is an adjustment for the bitcoin blockchain that claims to try and make mining accessible to the general public again. Bitcoin dropped 4.4% on Wednesday. However, cryptocurrency is still up 36% this month. Thomas Gluksman, head of marketing at Hong Kong based crypto exchange Gatecoin, state that Bitcoin's recent downturn has been driven by the traders anticipation of minor disarray in the wake of the upcoming hard forks. The Bitcoin exchange and wallet community has been divided over decisions to support or reject these contemptuous hard forks. There has also been speculation at a bitcoin rally ahead of the forks due to the opportunities to essentially double your coin. Bitcoin holders will also be credited with equal amount of bitcoin gold. However, not many exchanges have come out in support of bitcoin gold. Further splits along the way with SigWID2x Bitcoin's hard fork explained right now there is a 1 megabyte limit to the size of bitcoin blocks. This was done to keep network nodes from upcoming under attack. In Bitcoin's early days, one megabyte was set as a limit as blocks were 99% empty at the time. As bitcoin grew, so did the number of transactions processed by on the network. This transaction will begin to pile up and queue blocks are created roughly every 10 minutes. However, in 10 minutes transactions exceed 1 MB, causing delays and in a future block can be mined. This congestion caused delays in transaction verification times and applied pressure on senders to increase their transaction fee. This fee incentivizes miners to include that transaction in the current block. As blocks fill up, the fee required to be included on a new block grows proportionally. Bitcoin transactions began to get very expensive if senders pay higher fees or very slow if senders choose to pay lesser fees. Bitcoin's current developers came up with a segregated witness. Segrit is included in Bitcoin's current software. It works by separating the transaction data from the signature data with back up to four times as many transactions into a block. Not everybody is happy just with implementing cekwid. Some people wish to increase the maximum size of Bitcoin's blocks as well. This would give the network more room for growth. However, Bitcoin's car developers don't want a block size increase. This is because it involves a hard fork. A hard fork appears when computers running new versions of the software are no longer competitive with those running the old versions. If done incorrectly, that can cause major problems. On May 23, 2017, the digital currency Group published the New York agreement. The NYA was signed by a large number of Bitcoin companies and miners representing over 80% of Bitcoin hash power. The signatories at the agreement accepted a compromise called Cerex. This plan calls for the near immediate activation of cewid followed by a hard fork in November to double the block size CEWIT tracks as a hard fork. That will happen around November 16th. As a result, there will be two chains. One will be the Bitcoin core legacy Bitcoin and the other will be the CEGWIT2 version of bitcoins. If the core continues to be supported by the majority of miners, there will be serious confusion over which chain is the real Bitcoin. The principal concern about Sigweed 2. X is that it does not provide replay protection. This leaves users on a Thock chain susceptible to attack on the legacy chain. However, enough in has been recently included. Co developers believe that the hard fork is coming too fast only three months after secret implementation. They argue for the fork to take place and be accepted. A lot of time is required to prepare the community and reach a consensus regarding it. Many members of the crypto community dislike hard forks as they weaken what is supposed to be a united, decentralized community. The irony is real for the very latest news and events from the crypto Justin check out Cointelegraph.com and subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you would like to ask me a question or share your story with us, just leave a comment right here and see you next week.
