We built the Blockchain Wallet because we’re driven by a relentless passion for making crypto easy to use. We want everyone to be able to use it, not just invest in it.
We believe that owning and controlling your own private key is the single most important aspect of using crypto. Without a private key, you aren’t using crypto – you’re just speculating and you’re missing the defining part of crypto: user controlled, sovereign money.
It was enabling that exact need that underpinned the development of the Blockchain Wallet six years ago. The mission? Make it easy for every user to have their own private key, to get users away from storing funds at exchanges and “bitcoin banks”, and to enable everyone to be their own bank.
Fast forward six years and we’ve achieved a few things that we’re proud of:
Building the first cross-platform, non-custodial, and cross-chain wallet
Signing up 30 million wallets in 140 countries globally
Powering over $200 billion in consumer transaction volume and over 80 million consumer crypto transactions in the last two years alone
Championing the cause of financial sovereignty and user-control with regulators around the world. (We’ve spent thousands of hours and millions on education and outreach.)
Helping our users store millions of BTC, BCH & ETH coins and generate over a quarter of bitcoin network traffic alone
Most importantly, it’s been a honor and privilege to be the first place tens of millions of people turn in order to actually use crypto and hold their own keys.
But there’s a lot still to do.
At the end of the last bull run, we did a serious self-assessment and asked ourselves, what do users need that we aren’t delivering today? We identified four common requests and frustrations:
Better, faster ways for new users get their first crypto and make their first transaction
More storage types, like hardware, as users’ balances increased
More assets as users want to store and use an increasingly diverse asset set
Better, more reliable sources of liquidity as trading and investing across assets continues to increase
Satisfying these demands meant building a huge extension of our platform, at scale. We’ve had our heads down much of this year doing exactly that and starting today we’re excited to begin delivering new solutions to you, beginning with two new capabilities.
First, we’re launching Swap by Blockchain: a next generation trading product with best-in-class liquidity and execution, powered by our new machine trading software platform that ensures best execution across assets. Blockchain Wallet users will now have access to exchange-like prices without giving up control of their keys or their crypto. And trade limits will increase from hundreds to thousands of dollars of crypto per trade.
While the system currently has deep liquidity drawn from a variety of sources, we plan to add more liquidity sources over time, including decentralized exchange protocols. We’ve rebuilt our risk and KYC systems, so that you can onboard with ease, in minutes. Swap ensures our users stay liquid and can trade at the best prices in the market, regardless of overall market volatility and challenges. We’ve started rolling Swap out today and everyone will have access over the next two weeks.
Secondly, we’re launching Lockbox: a hardware vault in your pocket, built in partnership with hardware leader Ledger. Lockbox is simple to use and is even more secure thanks to a locked endpoint that prevents phishing and spoofing attacks. It’s hardware made easy, with a setup that takes just a few moments thanks to our custom hardware-software integration.
With Lockbox you’re able to check your balance and receive transactions, on mobile and web, without the inconvenience of having to plug your device in every time. In an industry first, you’ll also be able to trade directly from your Lockbox while still maintaining your keys. In conjunction with Lockbox, we’re also excited to let current Ledger device owners seamlessly pair with the Blockchain Wallet and trade directly from the Ledger device they already own.
And we have more coming this year, including additional assets and new products within the Blockchain Wallet that will bring you new, faster, and better ways to get started in crypto.
We’re here to build a new financial system and the Blockchain Wallet is your passport to that new world. Store crypto, trade crypto, transact with crypto and most importantly truly own and control your crypto.
We’re dedicated to building the functionality you want, without compromising your control of your key. Your crypto is yours, and it should stay that way.
Tinseltown turns its gaze back to technology in “Trust Machine: The Story of Blockchain,” which opens on Oct. 26 at Cinema Village in New York City. However, unlike most popular media representations of the cryptocurrency revolution, Alex Winter’s new documentary film doesn’t dwell on the price of bitcoin or its frequently alleged ties to criminal activity.
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Political Implications
A UNICEF team learning about blockchain technology (Trust Machine)
The feature-length documentary, narrated by actress Rosario Dawson, does look at cryptocurrencies and related subjects such as mining. However, it mainly focuses on the political aspects of blockchain technology and why governments and the big banks fear it. It also looks at technological applications with potentially profound socio-economic implications, particularly those that are designed to help improve the lives of “unbanked” refugees, as well as individuals in countries such as Venezuela who might lack access to traditional financial services.
The film primarily chronicles the story of Lauri Love, a British activist and computer scientist who was accused of hacking into computers to steal sensitive data from NASA, the U.S. Army and the Missile Defense Agency. He also faced potential extradition to the U.S. for his alleged involvement in a series of online protests that followed the persecution and untimely death of Aaron Swartz.
Cypherpunk Roots
Winter has built a name for himself as a director in recent years, even though he is still most widely known as the character Bill from the 1989 comedy cult classic “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.” Among other projects, Winter directed “Deep Web,” a 2015 documentary about and the Silk Road marketplace. He also directed “Downloaded,” a 2013 look at the file-sharing phenomena.
“I’m not a mathematician, or a cryptographer or a coder. I’m old enough to have totally come from the analog world, but became very involved and interested in the internet and technology in the ’80s,” Winter said. “I came to know a lot of people in that space like the cypherpunk community going back to the ’60s and ’70s, who had been trying to solve the problem that Satoshi, whoever Satoshi is, solved. I understood what the problem and solution were before I understood it as this thing called blockchain.”
Winter said he was motivated to focus on Love because he likes to make films about people, but also about technology. “I think it creates a human face of the technological era we’re in, which is very paradoxical,” he explained. “Love really represents the cypherpunks of today. He’s brilliant, he’s contradictory, he’s contentious, he’s not an easy pill to swallow. You may not like him — it’s a question of how you respond to someone like that.”
“Trust Machine: The Story of Blockchain” was co-produced by Singulardtv, Trouper Productions and Futurism Studios.
Are you planning to go see this movie? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
Images courtesy of Shutterstock.
Verify and track bitcoin cash transactions on our , the best of its kind anywhere in the world. Also, keep up with your holdings, BCH and other coins, on our market charts at , another original and free service from bitcoin.com.
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In the run-up to ‘s 10th anniversary, it is high time to analyse the expiring decade and to make predictions about the crypto market’s future. October 31, 2018, will be the day, when the world will celebrate 10 years since Satoshi Nakamoto published his white paper on bitcoin and initiated crypto revolution.
A week ahead of “bitcoin’s birthday”, Nigel Green, founder and CEO of deVere Group, one of the world’s largest independent financial advisory organisations, which launched deVere Crypto, the pioneering cryptocurrency app earlier this year, forecasted the future of the world-changing cryptocurrency in his interview with CCN.
According to Mr Green, the next decade will be not the same for the cryptocurrency. He points out that, although bitcoin has irrevocably changed the traditional financial system, its price is expected to “drastically reduce” in the next 10 years, while the entire market capitalisation is going to expand by 5,000% before 2028. If today it is more than $400 billion worth, it means that it will reach the $20 trillion mark by the deVere CEO’s prediction:
“Next week bitcoin, the original and still largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation, celebrates its 10th anniversary. bitcoin is what kickstarted the crypto revolution and it has changed the way the world handles money, makes transactions, does business, and manages assets, amongst other things, forever. It all began with bitcoin. However, whilst I don’t wish to rain on anyone’s parade, I believe that bitcoin’s influence and dominance of the cryptocurrency sector will drastically reduce in its second decade.”
Concerning the point of bitcoin’s price reduction, Mr Green explains that it is going to happen for the reason of stiff competition. As the mass adoption of cryptocurrencies grows, more and more digital assets appear on the market, struggling for the top-rate.
Since appeared on the market in 2013, hundreds of cryptocurrencies have exploded onto the scene, many of which were born and died in the cryptocurrency gold rush of 2017. bitcoin has maintained its so-called dominance over the sector, however. Though it has fallen somewhat from those highs, it has remained above 50%.
Among the list of bitcoin’s major competitors for the next decade, Mr Green mentioned and ETH, which would probably steal bitcoin’s shine:
“I believe that…XRP will be one of the main digital assets to dent bitcoin’s market share over the next few years due to its apparent focus on integrating with banks and other financial institutions. Another one would be its current main challenger Ethereum. This is because a growing number of platforms are adopting Ethereum as a means of trading; there’s an increasing use of smart contracts by Ethereum; and due to the decentralization of cloud computing.”
Mr Green’s predictions about the future of bitcoin are shared by other analysts. As, for instance, bitcoin bull , who used to believe in the cryptocurrency’s breaking $10000 mark by the end of the year, has recently expressed his doubts in an interview with Bloomberg:
“One thing you learn in this process is that everything takes a little longer than you hoped it would. I don’t don’t see us breaking $10,000 by the end of the year.”
However, , a founder and CEO of Onchain Capital as well as crypto investment and advisory, stays positive to bitcoin, noting that its price is about to grow exponentially when bitcoin ETF will be finally approved by SEC.
Although some experts believe the approval may not happen this year, recent events suggest that an ETF is likely to be approved. This, many believe will increase the tendency of investors rushing into the market to give bitcoin a big boost in line with the predictions.
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