Posts tagged Kieran Edstrom
Attack on Ethereum Classic Highlights a Vulnerability

On January 7th Coinbase paused trading on Ethereum Classic (ETC) after it fell victim to a 51% attack. The attack resulted in over $500,000 of ETC being spent twice (Olga Kharif, Bloomberg Law). To appreciate what this means for the ETC mining community, two things must be understood: Hash rates and a 51% attack.

“Hash rates” or “hash power” refers to the total computing power of a decentralized network. Proof of Work (PoW) blockchains, like Bitcoin and Ethereum, are driven by miners “hashing,” which is essentially solving complicated math problems. (Bisade Asolo, MyCryptopedia).

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CryptocurrencyRace to the BottomKieran Edstrom
Fraudulent Bounty Program Provides a Warning to Every ICO Promoter

Last month the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) obtained a permanent officer-and-director and penny stock bar against Tomahawk Exploration LLC founder, David T. Laurance, for perpetrating a fraudulent initial coin offering. (SEC Press Release). On its face, the decision shows the SEC merely enforcing its previous statements that anything resembling a security will be labeled as such and regulated under the Securities Act. The ruling, however, extends the umbrella of SEC oversight to explicitly include “Bounty Programs”—a mainstay practice for many initial offerings.

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CryptocurrencyRace to the BottomKieran Edstrom
Racing to Regulate Cryptocurrencies

The regulatory landscape for cryptocurrencies is fast paced, ever-changing, and hard to pin down (see Element Group report). To understand why governments are interested in regulating cryptocurrencies, background about their potential function is necessary. Cryptocurrencies enormous potential comes from the use of “public ledgers” which, through a complicated application of cryptology and software, reduce transaction costs associated with value transfer by creating independently verifiable transaction validations. The public ledger system, however, only documents transactions and ownership. The only identity recorded on the ledger is "a set of letters and numbers . . . representing the [user's] public cryptocurrency address."

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Cryptocurrency, Summer 2018 Special TopicRace to the BottomKieran Edstrom