An emerging use-case of digital assets is to accept campaign donations and political contributions in the form of or other cryptocurrencies. While the authorities are certainly giving this a thought; two fundamental issues impede development.
and all other cryptocurrencies seem to face a couple of problems when it comes to payments or any real-world application. The two widely echoed criticisms are anonymity of the source and their notorious volatility.
During a in Wisconsin on April 24, the subject of making donations using bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies was put forth to the Ethics Commission. Phil Anderson urged the allowance of cryptocurrency donations owing to the increasing adoption made by cryptocurrency in the society.
Being the chairman of the , Anderson is running for governor and is a firm advocate of using bitcoin in political affairs.
“There are People that Want To Use it as Money for Contributions”
Anderson a previously used procedure – make it a necessary mandate, i.e., required by state policy, to convert bitcoin donations into duly reported dollars immediately. However, the Wisconsin committee voiced two issues, very similar to the generic problems faced by .
The traditional method of campaign donations via cheque or credit cards allows authorities to trace their source and learn about the donor’s identity. However, bitcoin’s famed pseudonymity makes this impossible, and adding to this is the inherent lack of trust that the government and other regulating bodies place in . The anonymity of the source isn’t the only hurdle. Of all the cryptocurrencies out there, bitcoin is infamous for its volatility. From its peak near $20,000 in December 2017 to $6,600 in January 2018, bitcoin as a method of donation becomes tough to analyze.
While the Wisconsin Ethics Commission has taken no immediate action, the attorney general is confident on the county adopting a policy sooner or later.
In 2014, when the was around $400, the offered the use of the crypto, only as an in-kind contribution. However, certain states are yet to adopt this over the concerns mentioned above.
While some districts allow digital currencies as means of contributing towards the campaign, a majority of U.S. states are still skeptical about accepting it. For Montana and Washington D.C., it is mandatory for cryptocurrency donations to be converted to USD or used as an in-kind contribution, respectively. On the other hand, regulators in Kansas have rejected the use of bitcoin to fund political campaigns while the state of California has advised against it.
Upcoming ‘Young’ Government May Accept Crypto
In March 2018, Austin Petersen, a Republican party candidate from Missouri, that he received 24 bitcoins as donations. The donation was the single largest amount received by a political representative via cryptocurrencies.
Petersen was later evangelizing bitcoin, calling it the modern version of the type of monetary policy that liberty advocates have been proposing for years. At 37 years old, Petersen is younger than most government officials, and the new wave of politicians might be more progressive regarding the acceptance and regulation of cryptocurrencies.
Petersen added:
“As someone who strongly believes in deregulating money, it was a natural fit for me to accept for my campaign and I’m more than delighted to be the US record holder for the largest donation to a candidate in US history.”
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ilmatic is building a secure, wearable, hardware wallet so you can spend cryptocurrency in real life.
is building a secure, wearable, hardware wallet to put cryptocurrency on your wrist.
The company is taking direct aim at one of the biggest challenges in cryptocurrency – real world commerce. Founder and CEO Danny Tamez says that the ilmatic wallet’s hardware is critical to unlocking true cryptocurrency payments in physical spaces.
“Secure hardware is the key to putting virtual currency into the hands of everyday people. Software alone will always be less secure and leave you more exposed to hackers.” The device contains a NFC chip to make wireless transactions and a secure element microcontroller to protect the user’s private keys.
While other crypto payment ideas have launched as mobile apps or credit cards, ilmatic delivers an innovative solution by combining contactless payments with various cryptocurrency protocols. The engineering team has been quietly working on connected devices for the last two years and brings experience from the technology research center EURECAT, consumer electronics in Silicon Valley, the LoRaWAN project, and the U.S. Department of Defense. Now, ilmatic looks like the first wearable crypto wallet to arrive in the blockchain space.
Last year Ledger sold 1 million units of a cold storage hardware wallet that looks like a USB stick. ilmatic delivers similar storage, plus a spending wallet, which may present a more well-rounded product. The company says it will support cryptocurrencies that deliver fast and inexpensive transactions and named bitcoin on the Lightning Network, bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, and Ripple as possible integrations. The team is also working on its own coin protocol designed specifically for its ilmatic wallet.
Tamez finished by saying: “We are making cryptocurrency tangible. When people can hold an object that represents their money, then it becomes easier to understand and use. We want to change the way that people experience money.”
The San Francisco based technology startup is now taking Tesla-like reservations for the , which costs $20, gives you priority in the queue, and guarantees a special early bird price.
This is a paid press release. BTCManager does not endorse and is not responsible for or liable for any content, accuracy, quality, advertising, products or other materials on this page. Readers should do their own research before taking any actions related to the company. BTCManager is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in the press release.
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developer Peter Todd has finally praised the implementation of the long-awaited second layer , the .
Todd’s recent experience with the scaling solution saw him take to Twitter on April 21, 2018, when he attempted to make a payment via Bitrefill over the Lightning Network but was not successful. In the subsequent attempt with , however, the payment went ahead without any hiccups.
A few weeks ago I unsuccessfully tried to pay my cellphone bill with Lightning via 's Eclair wallet and ; kept failing due to what were apparently routing problems.
Just tried again, and out of the box it was a perfect success! $40 payment confirmed instantly.
— Peter Todd (@peterktodd)
A few weeks ago I unsuccessfully tried to pay my cellphone bill with Lightning via 's Eclair wallet and ; kept failing due to what were apparently routing problems.
Just tried again, and out of the box it was a perfect success! $40 payment confirmed instantly.
— Peter Todd (@peterktodd)
The Lightning Network
bitcoin, like most , is built on top of . If there is a large backlog of transactions pending in the , transfer fees and wait times tend to skyrocket. Given that every new transaction must be included in a block of a fixed size, it takes longer to handle the increased load.
The Lightning Network is as, “A decentralized system for instant, high-volume micropayments that removes the risk of delegating custody of funds to trusted third parties.” It is essentially a second layer, off-chain scaling model that will help speed up bitcoin transactions by taking them off the blockchain. The main chain will only be used to store the net result of all transactions that took place off-chain.
Using bitcoin’s Lightning Network
At first, Todd used , an online wallet that allows users to pay their utility bills using bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Since the transaction was not successful, he tried it again, but this time using Eclair wallet. His payment of $48 went through near immediately, and the bill was paid.
He referred to this improvement as a symbol that the Lightning Network is maturing and could now be opened up to the real world. In time, it should also be able to handle more significant and more complex transactions.
The Lightning Network opens a peer-to-peer micropayment channel between two transacting parties. Lightning helps in moving payments off the main chain, thus freeing up space for bigger, aggregated transactions on the blockchain.
Developer Todd paid his bill in three small transactions, each worth $3, $5 and $40. He wrote on Twitter, “Each one worked just as well as the rest.” He broke the payment into three smaller amounts to test the reliability of the Lightning Network.
Todd’s Criticism of Lightning
On February 26, 2018, Todd said that he was not sure if it was a good option to use the C programming language for developing and working on the Lightning Network testnet. A testnet is a copy of the blockchain used by developers for testing, without risking the loss of cryptocurrency. He felt that using C would make the whole network susceptible to DDoS attacks among other problems.
Initial impressions of Lightning on testnet: c-lightning segfaults a lot, and when it's not crashing payments fail more often than not. Writing it in C – a notoriously dangerous language – doesn't strike me as a good idea.
— Peter Todd (@peterktodd)
Todd was also involved in a series of tweets with Ethereum co-founder as the pair argued over the possibility to scale on chain or not.
However, reported, “Buterin has successfully implemented a highly valuable project that has taken the world by storm and has fired much imagination. Todd, in contrast, has absolutely nothing whatever to show for himself, and with such flawed assumptions as shown, above, it’s not very surprising. He used to be the lead developer of an altcoin that has fallen into such obscurity we can not even name it from memory. Nor can we really recall what Treechains was about.”
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