Longreads | ForkLog

ForkLog 9 04.12.2020

Why blockchain voting won’t solve the trust problem in election results

Office work and public services are moving to digital formats, but governments are not rushing to implement online voting. Reasons include technical problems, a never-ending string of failed experiments, and public distrust. The obvious way out of this impasse is blockchain technology — after all, it was designed to solve the problem of trust. ForkLog investigates whether this is feasible in practice.

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ForkLog 26 01.12.2020

When to report Bitcoin: A Look at the cryptocurrency taxation bill

A government-approved bill on cryptocurrency taxation has been submitted to the State Duma. The document provides for fines for breaches of the reporting regime for digital currencies, but the penalties are significantly more liberal than the amendments to the Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code proposed earlier by the Finance Ministry, experts say.

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ForkLog 27 01.12.2020

ForkLog’s Person of the Year 2020 — It’s Time to Vote!

The Bitcoin industry is built by people. Some become role models, while others are anti-heroes.

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ForkLog 23 30.11.2020

Launch of Ethereum 2.0 Phase Zero: what’s coming and what users should expect

At the core of Ethereum is the idea that a blockchain can do more than just underpin decentralized money—for example, to run an entire decentralized economy.

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ForkLog 18 28.11.2020

How to Spot Manipulation: A Comparison of the Silver and Crypto Bubbles

From January to December 2017, the price of Bitcoin rose from $1,000 to $20,000. Experts predicted $100,000 price for Bitcoin, and investors took loans to buy Bitcoin and traded cars for ASIC miners. In 2018, Bitcoin’s price fell to $4,000. Some users lost their savings, and some went into debt.

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ForkLog 24 27.11.2020

NFT as a New Class of Virtual Assets: Prospects (Part Two)

ForkLog publishes the third part of Dmitry Bondar's series on non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as a new class of virtual assets. The first part introduced the NFT market, the second discussed the deep kinship between cryptocurrencies and collectibles, the third examines the prospects for NFTs.

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ForkLog 19 26.11.2020

NFT as a New Class of Virtual Assets: Prospects (Part I)

ForkLog publishes the third part of Dmitry Bondar's series on non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as a new class of virtual assets. The first part is an introduction to the NFT market, the second on the close kinship between cryptocurrencies and collectibles, the third on the prospects for NFTs.

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ForkLog 25 24.11.2020

Why Bitcoin Is Rising: Fundamental Drivers, Opinions, and Forecasts

The year 2020 proved not only tumultuous but also extraordinarily successful for bitcoin investors. Fueled by global uncertainty, turbulence in financial markets and currency devaluations, the price of the world’s first cryptocurrency approached December 2017 levels.

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ForkLog 24 23.11.2020

An Unprecedented Experiment in Wealth Distribution on the Bitcoin Network

ForkLog magazine presents readers with a translation of the article 'Bitcoin: An Unprecedented Experiment in Fair Distribution'. Its authors are Lucas Nuzzi, cofounder of Digital Asset Research, and the Coin Metrics team—who found that despite demand from institutional investors, the first cryptocurrency is distributed relatively evenly among a broad base of users.

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ForkLog 88 19.11.2020

From hackers and cypherpunks to online freedom advocates — five software manifests of the Internet

According to a recent report by the rights advocacy organisation Freedom House, the coronavirus pandemic has negatively affected global freedom on the Internet. For ten years running, users have faced a broad erosion of their rights, and this trend is contributing to a crisis of democracy worldwide.

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ForkLog 26 18.11.2020

Bitcoin and Other Cryptocurrencies in Our Lives: ForkLog Survey Results

In 2020, in ForkLog's annual survey “Bitcoin and Other Cryptocurrencies in Our Lives,” 1,815 people from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, the United States, and countries across Asia and Europe participated. Key takeaways: 94.6% of ForkLog's audience are men. Bitcoin and Ethereum remain the most popular cryptocurrencies. In 2020, 72.3% of respondents reported a return on their investment portfolios. Survey participants prefer trading on the Binance exchange and generally trust centralized trading platforms. Half of respondents use a VPN. Uniswap is one of the most-used DeFi services. Portrait of ForkLog Readers: The majority are aged 26–35 and mostly men. About 91.7% live in Russia and nearby regions. Top five visitors include Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Kazakhstani, and Polish residents. A profile of ForkLog readers is shown through several image galleries. Forty-five percent report a middle income, 30.7% low, 19.1% above average, and 5.2% high. A third can afford occasional trips abroad; a slightly smaller share did not travel outside their home country. One in three owns their own business. 28.9% are directly connected with the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector. 7.6% learned about cryptocurrencies in the early years of their existence, but most learned during the Bitcoin boom of 2016–2017. Cryptocurrencies are held by a large majority; almost half bought digital assets during 2016–2017. 57% plan to expand their portfolios, 10% are considering creating one, and 72.3% earned a return in 2020. The report also covers mining and staking, anonymity and the darknet, DeFi, trading, wallets, ICO/IEO/STO investments, and media consumption. The majority trade on centralized exchanges like Binance, with some participation in derivatives and limited use of DeFi services such as Uniswap. The document also notes privacy measures, VPN use, and media preferences, including ForkLog as a primary source for crypto information.

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ForkLog 49 18.11.2020

Bank Heists, Security Services and the Democratic Party Hack: The Story of Russia’s Lurk Hackers

In late October 2020, the Sverdlovsk Regional Court freed Konstantin Kozlovsky from custody — one of the alleged leaders of the Lurk hacking group, whose activities have been investigated for years by law enforcement and cybersecurity specialists. He is accused of stealing more than a billion rubles from Russians’ bank accounts.

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