Stellar acquires blockchain startup backed by Visa and Nasdaq-Computerfanfield

A long-speculated acquisition has finally come to fruition. Stellar’s for-profit arm Lightyear has acquired San Fransisco-based blockchain startup Chain, Reuters reported today.

The two companies will now retire their individual brands and form a single entity called “Interstellar.” The new company will move Chain’s existing users onto the Stellar blockchain platform, and enable organizations to issue, exchange, and manage assets.

Chain CEO Adam Ludwin will also serve as the CEO of Interstellar, while Stellar Development Foundation’s (SDF) co-founder Jed McCaleb will serve as the CTO of the newly-formed company. Interstellar will also retain all of Chain’s existing employees.

The companies have not revealed the financial details of the acquisition, but Chain maintains that this is a “good outcome” for its investors as they have all been cashed out.

According to Ludwin, Chain agreed to the acquisition because it wanted to move its existing products from a private to a public blockchain.

“When we started a few years ago, our customers were not ready for a public network. Fast forward to three years, they’re willingness has gone up, and the maturity of the public networks has changed a lot,” Ludwin told Reuters.

Chain grabbed headlines in 2014-2015 as it raised more than $40 million in investments from some of the most well-known financial institutions including Visa, Nasdaq, Citi Ventures, Pantera Capital, and RRE Ventures among others.

Lightyear was founded by SDF in May 2017 to help integrate businesses with the Stellar Protocol and serve as the organization’s for-profit arm. Although Lightyear branched out from SDF and shares the same founding team, it is a separate entity with its own board of directors.

The founders of Chain and Lightyear believe that it is a win-win situation for both companies. Chain wants to develop its products and services and Stellar has the right money for it. Lightyear wants to see Stellar Protocol integrated with more businesses and Chain has the right engineering talent for it.

Inside North Korea’s evil masterplan to siphon Southeast Asia’s cryptocurrency

North Korea might be posturing to attack Southeast Area’s growing cryptocurrency sector, and experts say it demands international response to reduce the threat.

British defense think-tank Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) has warned countries like Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam could soon become targets of state-sponsored hackers intent on skirting international economic sanctions, CNBC reports .

“North Korean networks have engaged in fundraising and have evaded trade and financial restrictions through the use of front companies, agents and deceptive financial techniques at banks across the region,” RUSI declared.

“North Korea could cash out its cryptocurrency profits by relying on its extensive overseas financial networks to open and operate accounts at cryptocurrency exchanges in the region,” it continued.

RUSI was especially concerned with the hackers behind the monstrously successful WannaCry ransomware campaign. It says this signalled North Korea‘s interest and ability to exploit the emerging cryptocurrency industry.

In May 2017, WannaCry spread across the internet , infecting upwards of 230,000 machines. When targets were hit, the virus automatically encrypted data and demanded ransoms be paid in Bitcoin, or else it would be deleted altogether.

US authorities later charged and sanctioned a North Korean hacker over his role in the attacks (as well as 2014’s Sony hacking scandal).

They maintain the man worked with Lazarus, the supposedly state-sponsored crew linked to $670 million worth of stolen fiat and cryptocurrency , most of it taken from digital asset exchanges .

North Korea later denied the existence of the alleged hacker , after a government official labelled him a “non-entity,” and refuted any wrongdoing.

Want more blockchain news? Come to TNW2019 , our tech conference in Amsterdam, and check out our Hard Fork track .

Satoshi Nakaboto: ‘Bitcoin rises for third day in a row’

Our robot colleague Satoshi Nakaboto writes about Bitcoin every fucking day.

Welcome to another edition of Bitcoin Today, where I, Satoshi Nakaboto, tell you what’s been going on with Bitcoin in the past 24 hours. As Habermass used to say: Fight the power!

Bitcoin Price

We closed the day, October 27 2019, at a price of $9,551. That’s a respectable 3.35 percent increase in 24 hours, or $310. It was the highest closing price in thirty-three days.

We’re still 52 percent below Bitcoin‘s all-time high of $20,089 (December 17 2017).

Bitcoin market cap

Bitcoin’s market cap ended the day at $172,087,039,875. It now commands 68 percent of the total crypto market.

Bitcoin volume

Yesterday’s volume of $32,593,129,501 was the lowest in one day, 108 percent above the year’s average, and 27 percent below the year’s high. That means that yesterday, the Bitcoin network shifted the equivalent of 673 tons of gold.

Bitcoin transactions

A total of 256,138 transactions were conducted yesterday, which is 23 percent below the year’s average and 43 percent below the year’s high.

Bitcoin transaction fee

Yesterday’s average transaction fee concerned $0.62. That’s $3.09 below the year’s high of $3.71.

Bitcoin distribution by address

As of now, there are 13,434 Bitcoin millionaires, or addresses containing more than $1 million worth of Bitcoin.

Furthermore, the top 10 Bitcoin addresses house 5.6 percent of the total supply, the top 100 14.5 percent, and the top 1000 34.5 percent.

Company with a market cap closest to Bitcoin

With a market capitalization of $168 billion, China Mobile has a market capitalization most similar to that of Bitcoin at the moment.

Bitcoin’s path towards $1 million

On November 29 2017 notorious Bitcoin evangelist John McAfee predicted that Bitcoin would reach a price of $1 million by the end of 2020.

He even promised to eat his own dick if it doesn’t. Unfortunately for him it’s 92.3 percent behind being on track. Bitcoin‘s price should have been $124,753 by now, according to dickline.info.

Bitcoin Energy Consumption

Bitcoin used an estimated 200 million kilowatt hour of electricity yesterday. On a yearly basis that would amount to 73 terawatt hour. That’s the equivalent of Austria’s energy consumption or 6,8 million US households. Bitcoin’s energy consumption now represents 0.3% of the whole world’s electricity use.

Bitcoin on Twitter

Yesterday 17,460 fresh tweets about Bitcoin were sent out into the world. That’s 6.4 percent below the year’s average. The maximum amount of tweets per day this year about Bitcoin was 41,687.