2017 will likely go down in history as Bitcoinu2019s first real u2018hair-on-fireu2019 year u2014 and there will likely be many more to come. As the wild ride winds down though, we thought a review of some u00a02017u2019s most well-read stories might assist in putting some perspective around the events of the year u2014 and help us prepare us for a 2018 that promises to be just as eventful.u00a0
1. Bitcoin Gold u2014 A friendly dividend fork, or Bitcoinu2019s disaster recovery plan? Luke Parkeru2019s early October preview of the upcoming Bitcoin Gold (BTG) hard fork makes fascinating reading. The personalities, the motivation, the finances and the politics. Especially interesting when you can check the latest market status and see how it all panned out.
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When smart contracts go bad – perspectives on loss and liability Minter Ellison Rudd Watts partner Tom Massland asks the timely question of exactly what should happen when a smart contract goes wrong – and examines the divergent points of view.
u00a0 3. Fourth largest Bitcoin exchange Bithumb hacked for billions of Won Exchanges continued to fall victim to hackers in 2017 u2014 this article looks at the events and techniques relating to the hack of the Korean exchange Bithumb in June.
u00a0 4. Ethereum scaling solution plasma could facilitate billions of transactions per second.
Months before CryptoKitties virtually ground the Ethereum network to a halt, Christine Chiang took a look at Joseph Poon and Vitalik Buterinu2019s white paper u201c Plasma: Scalable Autonomous Smart Contracts .u201d The issue of how to effectively scale transaction volumes continues to challenge both Bitcoin and Ethereum.
u00a0 5. Five Bitcoin lessons for every investor
Thereu2019s never any shortage of doomsayers when the topic of Bitcoin investing comes up, but this thoughtful piece by Nicholas Colas introduces some alternative perspectives to some common BTC investment themes.
u00a0 6. The bitcoin mining hardware race is on
We have all heard the phrase u2018a license to print moneyu2019. For many this u2018licenseu2019 has been granted by bitcoin mining hardware u2014 technology which continues to evolve at pace, as Luke Parker discovered.
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Segwit2x hard fork abandoned u2014 what happened and why The proposed Bitcoin hard fork back in November was very contentious and caused huge concern throughout the community before finally being canned just before it was to go ahead. Here Luke Parker performs a succinct postmortem on what, for many, was Bitcoin’s defining moment of 2017.u00a0 u00a0 8. Another crypto bubble and the rise of altcoin markets Back in May Piotr Piasecki u2019s piece examined the u201cBitcoin bubbleu201d of the day (BTC was around $1400 at the time) and explored the rise of the altcoins.u00a0 u00a0 9.
How to hold cryptocurrency in a retirement account – without fees Among other things, 2017 was the year that Inland Revenue departments around the world started to sit up and take notice of crypto. Here, New Jersey lawyer and taxation expert Jeff Vandrew exploresu00a0how to minimize fees using crypto in an IRA account. u00a0 u00a0 10. The Bitcoin bubble – pinpointing where bitcoin is among the four phases In this article Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigueu2019s famous u201cPhases of a Bubbleu201d chart is applied to Bitcoin. Written in June, our man Luke provides some solid arguments that Bitcoin could be sitting in at least three of the chartu2019s four possible phases. Play along at home by making your own guess as to where it sits today
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The post A year in review – Brave New Coinu2019s top 10 stories of 2017 first appeared on Brave New Coin.
