October 31, 2023, marks the 15 anniversary of Bitcoin white paper, the first cryptocurrency laid-out legacy worldwide.
Notably, on October 31, 2008, the pseudonymous person/persons called Satoshi Nakamoto released the Bitcoin white paper through mail to some cryptographers. In an opening sentence to his mail, Nakamoto titled the BTC document “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.”
“I’ve been working on a new electronic cash system that’s fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party.”
Through the white paper, Nakamoto introduced the concept of decentralization in the financial system. He projected the process as a solution to issues of ‘double spending’ on digital currency while promoting peer-to-peer transactions. The white paper indicated that Bitcoin will function as a network of nodes.
It will ensure the validation and recording of transactions via a Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism. Two months later, Bitcoin was launched on January 3, 2009, as the first cryptocurrency.
At the time of the release of the Bitcoin white paper in October 2008, the global system of money, markets, and finance was shaking.
There were implosions of prominent financial firms like Lehman Brothers while the stock market tanked. BTC brought in a system with a resuscitating and revolutionary effect on the global financial system.
BTC mining attracted more attention through its real-life use in purchasing pizzas, boosting the Bitcoin blockchain.
Ripple Unlocks 1 Billion XRP as November Begins
According to Whale Alert, the 1 billion XRP was unlocked in three different transactions on October 1 at exactly 00:00 (UTC). For the first transaction, a total of 500 million XRP worth $299.9M XRP was unlocked from the escrow account.
This was followed by another 400M XRP release valued at around $239.92 million. Later The final transaction saw a total of 100 million XRP, worth $59.98 million, unlocked from the escrow account.
The 1B XRP unlocked from escrow is part of a routine token unlock program Ripple performs on the first day of each month. The leading blockchain company introduced the initiative in December 2017 as part of efforts to provide stability in the XRP markets.
At the time, Ripple locked 55 billion XRP in an escrow system programmed on the XRP Ledger (XRPL). Ripple programmed the system to release at least 1B XRP coins monthly over a period of 55 months.
To further protect the price of XRP from high volatility, Ripple took a more conservative approach by locking a huge chunk of the 1B XRP it releases monthly. In most cases, the company usually returns up to 800M XRP from the 1B coins released monthly.
At the time of writing, Ripple has yet to relock any portion of the recently released 1B XRP.
CFTC Pays Whistleblowers $16M for Crypto Tips This Year
Two of the CFTC’s crypto tipsters scored $15 million alone, which brought successful enforcement cases for the regulator.
The United States commodities regulator has paid $16 million this year to whistleblowers who gave information leading to successful enforcement actions, with the majority of the tips involving crypto.
In an Oct. 31 statement, Commodity Futures Trading Commission Commissioner Christy Goldsmith Romero said most of the tips received this year involved crypto, which she claimed was “an area that continues to have pervasive fraud and other illegality.”
Two whistleblowers received $15 million alone for their information, which led the CFTC to successful enforcement cases in September; however, the regulator didn’t delve into the nature of those cases in its statement at the time.
Romero said whistleblowers are vital to mitigating commodities fraud and that the CFTC wouldn’t be able to “fully protect” customers and markets without them.