Curious new theory links Bitcoin’s inventor to Estonia

Is it a coincidence that an Estonian startup began testing blockchain in 2008—the same year that the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto published his pioneering Bitcoin white paper? 

A new theory suggests that the company, Guardtime, which has since grown into a multinational corporation producing military-grade blockchains, merits closer investigation. It may hold the key to the identity of Bitcoin’s elusive inventor. 

Estonia has been linked to Satoshi before. In 2018, Estonian press reports suggested that cryptographer Helger Lipmaa was behind the white paper, which he has since denied. But a new theory, put forth yesterday by tech consultant Kimberly Forsythe, casts a spotlight beyond Lipmaa, onto a group of scientists connected to him. 

Those scientists—a group that included Joitcho Ito, who currently heads MIT’s Media Lab—were working on projects that eerily resemble blockchain in everything but name.

The gateway forum to the crypto world is about to get even more appealing.

Native support for cryptocurrency-based tipping is coming to Reddit, for users of the Brave browser.

That will come as a big plus to the many diehard crypto-lovin’ Redditors that spend their time crawling its forums on a daily basis. There are so many of these that the biggest crypto subreddit has a subscriber count of more than one million people (or bots)—outnumbering even the Harry Potter subreddit.

Reddit already provides some non-native support for tipping. Users are able to create “tip bots” that enable people to pay each other small amounts of some of the most well-known cryptocurrencies. However, they aren’t particularly easy to use, and it can be hard for users to see their balances and cash out.

But now, privacy-focused Brave will be introducing a button that allows users on Reddit to tip each other with the basic attention token (BAT), made popular on the Brave browser itself. 

Here are the biggest stories in the cryptoverse:

• VeChain now available on payment app Metal. 
• First blockchain company listed on Deutsche Xetra exchange. 
• City of Berkeley moves ahead with blockchain based municipal bond program.
• KuCoin to launch OTC renminbi service trial for USDT.

Golem is dividing in two, in the belief that the two halves will be greater than the whole

What you need to know

The Zug-based, Golem Factory, which maintains the eponymously named blockchain platform, has split into for-profit Golem Factory, and the nonprofit Golem Foundation. In so doing, Golem hopes its new, unbridled non-profit arm will be able to move faster and take bigger risks that could speed up the network’s development.

Why it's important

Splitting companies up into for-profit and not-for-profit entities have happened before in crypto. The Electric Coin Company, which builds Zcash, created a non-profit foundation in March, 2017, to cater to the community and show that it isn’t solely managed by a centralized company. However, in that case, tensions between the two—which were pursuing different aims—actually led to stagnation of the blockchain’s growth.

The Coinbase effect strikes again

All it takes is a bull market and a little-known coin for a Coinbase listing to send a coin’s price skyrocketing. So, what’s next?

The “Coinbase Effect” is back.

The most recent beneficiary of the Effect? Chainlink, a low-capped (until now) and relatively unknown cryptocurrency, whose price surged after landing on Coinbase last week: LINK was worth just over $2 before its listing was announced. By yesterday it had doubled, peaking at  $4.40.

Read the whole thing here.