Archive for the ‘Crypto News’ Category

New and Improved Ethereum Wallet 0.5.1 (Beta 9) Released

5, Mar 2016

ethereum-gui-wallet-0-5-1

The work on the official Ethereum graphical wallet (GUI wallet) is continuing and the software is getting improved and becoming more user friendly with each new beta release, making it easier for new people to get started with ETH. The wallet relies on geth (by default) or the eth client as a backend and provides a user friendly interface with the most important information and functions available to the user without requiring him to type console commands to execute them. The latest version Ethereum Wallet 0.5.1 (Beta 9) is ready for the upcoming Ethereum hardfork as the crypto currency moves to the next phase of its development called Homestead that is planned to happen at block 1150000 or in other words in less than 50 thousand blocks.

ethereum-gui-wallet-0-5-1-wizard

The Ethereum GUI wallet can be used as a new installation to get you started with a new wallet, it will start with an easy step by step guide to help you get started by generating a new wallet and even import pre-sale wallet if you have participated in the pre-sale and still have not imported your coins. If you already have a local wallet and were using the geth or eth console clients, then you can use the GUI wallet with your existing address and the blockchain data will not need to be re-downloaded as you already have it available locally and the GUI wallet will use it. It took some time for the official Ethereum GUI wallet to become available and to offer the functionality users needed in an easy graphical user interface, but you can say that now, even thought still in beta, the GUI wallet works very well and makes it really easy for new users to get into Ethereum.

– To download an try out the latest official Ethereum GUI Wallet 0.5.1 (Beta 9)…

Bitcoin Transfers are Slow, a Lot of Unconfirmed Transactions

1, Mar 2016

bitcoin-unconfirmed-transactions

If you’ve made a Bitcoin transfer in the last hours you probably are wondering why it still hasn’t gone through. The reason is that that the number of unconfirmed transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain is really large at the moment, so things are moving slowly. The wait time for transactions with standard network fees could take quite some time, so be aware of that when sending payments or transferring BTC between wallets. Increasing the network fee might help in moving your transfer faster than others, but with such high number of unconfirmed transactions it could still take more time than usual. There is no very apparent reason why the number of unconfirmed transaction is over 35 thousand at the moment, so it could as well be somebody testing/flooding the network with many small transactions. Issues like that are bringing up yet again the question about the increase of blocksize over the current limit of 1 MB, even though it has been a few months since we’ve last had too many unconfirmed transactions, it is issues like these that might become more common in the future due to the small block size and larger number of transactions happening.

– To check the number of unconfirmed transactions on the Bitcoin network at the moment…

Ethereum Hardforking to Homestead at Block 1150000

29, Feb 2016

ethereum-logo

The Ethereum project has released an official update regarding the next phase called Homestead that will need a hardfork and that will take place at block 1150000 or roughly around Pi Day (March 14th). Homestead is the second major version release of the Ethereum platform, which includes several protocol changes and a networking change that requires the hardfork. This does not mean that Ethereum will be switching to PoS yet, Homestead will continue to rely only on PoW mining with Proof of Stake switch phase planned for a later time in the future. After the Homestead hardfork everything should continue to run normally as it is now.

The Go version of Ethereum (geth) for Homestead will be release 1.3.4 and includes the above mentioned changes to the protocol and network. Following the release of Homestead the Go team will also shortly come with the 1.4 release, which is our big feature release and includes months of work. The C++ version of Ethereum (eth) for Homestead will be version 1.2.0. Apart from the protocol and network changes, it also tries to be as compatible to geth as possible. So make sure you keep track of the development in the newt two weeks as you will have to upgrade your Ethereum client if you are running a local node or have a local wallet when the new versions with support for Homestead become available.


top