Reading Time: 11 minutes
Introduction Public blockchains are not suited to function as a data storage provider. Since they are append-only ledgers, storing many large files would result in a dramatic increase of the whole distributed ledger. That would force the network nodes to store huge databases leaving it in the hands of just a few providers. Likewise, the […]
Reading Time: 6 minutes
Cryptocurrency Exchanges Anyone who wants to get into the cryptocurrency market and does not want to mine blocks needs to exchange his fiat money at an exchange, the only alternative to this is to get cryptocurrency from another holder. Centralized exchanges like Bitfinex, Coinbase, Kraken, Poloniex or Shapeshift intermediate the bid and offer matching process […]
Reading Time: 2 minutes
We are compiling a list of recent developments in the sector of blockchain technology. Our focus is mostly on projects which promise scalability, but includes also proposals which aim to overcome some deficiencies in Bitcoin´s PoW based blockchain, e.g. which aim to improve fairness, usefulness, or privacy. You can find the current state of our work […]
Reading Time: 4 minutes
It is important to have an estimate of risk for a portfolio when trading with financial assets. Two basic and commonly used risk measures are value-at-risk and expected shortfall. We will illustrate the two concepts with an example and provide the necessary R code to actually calculate the values of both measures. If we take […]
Reading Time: 2 minutes
Transactions in Bitcoin are recorded in its blockchain. This makes it possible to see whether coins sent through the network are still valid unspent coins. At the same time, however, the transparency of the data stored in the blockchain can be used to infer private information of users. There are already many cryptocurrencies and “money […]
Reading Time: 1
The full technical article is available here. Introduction Payment confidentiality is a property for cryptocurrencies which allows the user to hide the sender and receiver, as well as the amount of a transaction in the blockchain. Monero Research Lab invented Ring Confidential Transactions, while Zcash uses a different approach based on recent scientific progress in the field […]
Reading Time: 1
Synopsis of our full article: Though the research on quantum computers is still facing big challenges, there is also some progress in this field. The National Institute of Security and Technology (NIST) recently published a report on Post-Quantum Cryptography which informs about new developments. They believe that it is time to think of quantum-safe primitives, […]
Reading Time: 3 minutes
Working for our customers in our blockchain development company we built this spreadsheet which is a work in progress, comments are welcome here, which describes the features of multiple blockchain and sidechain technologies. Views about blockchain technologies range from hype to skepticism. A blockchain is a distributed database and consensus network that can be used to […]
Reading Time: 1
The challenge of modern cryptography is to find efficient but secure encryption schemes. The Elliptic Curve Integrated Encryption Scheme (ECIES) is a widely used encryption scheme which is specified in many standards. It is used for example in Ethereum’s Whisper. While Bitcoin Core does not implement ECIES, it can be employed to send secure messages […]
Reading Time: 1
Coinbase has official client libraries for Python, Ruby, PHP, Node.js and Java, but what about other languages? Enter Swagger. Swagger is an open-source project which includes an specification for describing APIs in JSON or YAML and tools for generating ready-to-go client libraries in several languages. Here at CoinFabrik, we have been writing a first draft […]
Reading Time: 1
Elliptic curve cryptography is becoming more and more popular. One of its main supporters is the cryptocurrency system Bitcoin which uses an elliptic curve scheme for their digital signatures. Smaller key size, a more efficient implementation than the RSA system, and a similar level of security make elliptic curve cryptography an interesting alternative to RSA. […]