Bitcoin Network Difficulty Up ~1.88% With Subsidy Halving Days Away

Bitcoin network difficulty went up 1.88 percent from 209453158595.38098145 to 213398925331.32391357 today. This is the last difficulty adjustment before the mining subsidy is cut in half at block 420,000.1 At press time we are at block 419376. Tick, tock, tick, tock!


  1. It also coincides with the anniversary of the BIP 66 Clusterfuck event. Imagine that. Bitcoin has enough history for major "This day in history" type events to begin filling up a calendar. 

First Anniversary of BIP 66 Clusterfuck

One year ago the BIP 66 clusterfuck happened. The chainsplit following the "activation" revealed that many miners were using simplified (and dysfunctional) chain verification, which led to abundant lols and chain splits. Turns out "soft" forks aren't all that soft! More splits happened after the initial split that inaugurated the clusterfuck, and they happened for the same reason. Never forget!

Latest Fork Noise Arrives On Schedule

This past week supporters of the failed ClassicCoin coup attempt have attempted to socially engineer a fresh round of buzz for their failed effort. They are referring to their latest effort as the "Terminator Plan" which supposes that somehow people are going to switch en masse to their stillborn and irrelevant ClassicCoin client from the moribund and also irrelevant "Core" fork of the reference Bitcoin client.

This time the fork effort had still less fanfare than the original ClassicCoin announcement, just as the ClassicCoin announcement had still less fanfare than the XTCoin announcement which preceded it. The sudden push for the "Terminator Plan" in addition to being exactly on schedule has arrived swiftly after the effort to suppose Bitcoin could be replaced with the ether huffing habit effectively ended.

Discussions taking the "Terminator Plan" seriously have been absent from venues engaging in actual economic activity involving Bitcoin. Most discussions have been limited to English language outlets controlled by Roger Ver1 (WOT:nonperson) and Chinese language outlets similarly removed from actual economic activity despite occasional appearances by miners.

Meanwhile the price reported by fiat/Bitcoin interfaces remain above where it was when the ClassicCoin coup was defeated, which is above where it was when the ClassicCoin Coup was unveiled, which is above where it was when the XTCoin coup was defeated, which is still further above where it was when the XTCoin coup was unveiled.

Beyond all this drama and distraction the miner subsidy halving looms and the economic deterrent to unwelcome forks abides. Sorry for your loss.


  1. Who notably is no longer unable to travel to the United States. As Roger Ver did not arrive on a ship and take the place over, it is probably he made one or more deals with people.  

Symantec Snake Oil Goes Rancid

Researches with Googles Project Zero security team announced on Wednesday a major vulnerability affecting nearly all Symnatec snake-oil antivirus products. The kernel vulnerability requires no user action, which would allow attackers to corrupt system memory without requiring users to even open an email used to trigger the flaw.

These vulnerabilities are as bad as it gets. They don’t require any user interaction, they affect the default configuration, and the software runs at the highest privilege levels possible. In certain cases on Windows, vulnerable code is even loaded into the kernel, resulting in remote kernel memory corruption.

Symnatec indicated they were not aware of anyone actually exploiting the bug as of yet, and responded by making a new panacea that supposedly fixes the problem.

Preet Indicts Hondurans In Honduras

Evil itselfAgent of oppresion Preet Bharara handed out indictments to 6 Honduran policemen on Wednesday. These officers are not of Preet's District in Manhattan or even the United States. The officers allegedly conspired to smuggle cocaine between points that are not in the United States, though Preet assures the destination was the United States and not one of the other countries that likes cocaine too.1Undercover officers fraudulently misrepresenting themselves as Mexican narcotics wholesalers offered the officers a million United States dollars in bribes to "ensure the safe passage of tons of cocaine through the jungles of Honduras" Bharara said. The officers allegedly operated the smuggling ring over a ten year period. Last month Fabio Porfirio Lobo, the son of a former Honduran president, plead guilty to some charges and introduced the accused officers to the fake merchants. Sorry for your laws Mister World Police.


  1. This list consists of all of the countries.  

US Customs Seeks To Control Social Media Imports

A proposal from US Customs and Border Protection will ask visa applicants to reveal their social media identities, a move they claim will keep the country safer from terrorists. The announcement on thefederalregister.gov website stated "It will be an optional data field to request social media identifiers to be used for vetting purposes, as well as applicant contact information. Collecting social media data will enhance the existing investigative process and provide DHS greater clarity and visibility to possible nefarious activity and connections by providing an additional tool set which analysts and investigators may use to better analyze and investigate the case." No mention was made on how the agency plans to verify the data found within the social media profiles, seeing as terrorists will likely just make fake profiles or be in possession of multiple identities.