Bison Trails has announced it will support NuCypher’s protocol and that users can run nodes through the network. Blockchain infrastructure-as-a-service company, Bison Trails, announced support for the NuCypher network, as well as its permissionless token distribution system, WorkLock, on April 2.According to the announcement, the Libra Association member assured users that anyone would be able to run nodes and participate in the NuCypher network on the Bison Trails platform.NuCypher’s use casesThe network is based on three use cases: secret management, dynamic access control, and secure computation.The company highlights that NuCypher’s cryptographic infrastructure allows this alliance to be carried out, which consists of privacy-preserving applications that give users access control mechanisms to encrypted data stored online.Joe Lallouz, Bison Trails CEO, said the following after the announcement:“We are excited to support NuCypher as they prepare for their mainnet launch. Their secrets management system, dynamic access control, and secure computation give users more control over the security of their data, significantly contributing to the decentralized ecosystem both our teams are striving for.”Bison Trails has had a proven track record of successful NuCypher deployment, which makes the alliance more robust. They also hope to coordinate with the protocol team for the design of WorkLock.Over 100 NuCypher nodes operated by Bison TrailsThe company operates over 100 NuCypher nodes, and states that they will continue to spin up more nodes in preparation for the mainnet launch.MacLane Wilkinson, NuCypher’s co-founder and CEO said:“NuCypher’s upcoming mainnet launch is the culmination of over three years of work towards making privacy-preserving blockchain applications a reality. Bison Trails has been a key contributor - both via running testnet nodes and providing technical feedback on multiple aspects of the protocol. We’re excited for them to continue to play a large role during WorkLock and the subsequent mainnet launch.”Cointelegraph reported on March 27 on Bison Trails’ intention to provide support for an open-source project that implements permissionless blockchain technology called the Solana protocol. […]

The director of policy at the Australian Taxpayers' Alliance has purchased her first Bitcoin, triggering excitement in the crypto community. A top executive from a prominent Australian taxpayer group has publicly endorsed the world’s biggest cryptocurrency by announcing her first ever Bitcoin purchase.Emilie Dye, director of policy at the Australian Taxpayers' Alliance, or ATA, tweeted on April 1 that she had bought her first Bitcoin: “Today, I made my first Bitcoin purchase. Wahoo!” This triggered excitement in the crypto community, with the tweet amassing about 5,900 likes as of press time.Dye clearly didn’t expect the excitement and later elaborated:“I couldn’t have asked for a warmer welcome to the Bitcoin fold. If anything, the number of comments and likes shows thousands are invested in Bitcoin and confidence is high. Feeling even more secure in my investment, if that is possible. Thank you all!”BTC tax situation in AustraliaThe ATA is a major activist and advocacy organization in Australia. They are committed to promoting the rights of local taxpayers, and frequently oppose over-regulation and overtaxation. Cointelegraph reached out to Dye with additional queries and will update if we hear back.The ATA’s latest move towards crypto comes amid extreme global and local economic turmoil. Yesterday, Australia’s major stock market index, ASX 200, dropped nearly 2% as shares of the country’s major banks, such as Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Westpac, sold off.According to Australia’s official guidance framework on crypto taxation, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are subject to capital gains taxes as a form of property. In a March 12 interview with Cointelegraph, the Australia Tax Office said that they had launched a major campaign to prompt as many as 350,000 crypto investors to comply with their tax obligations. […]

Bitcoin price has shown a strong recovery over the past two weeks but there is still a chance that a rally to $8,500 could be a bull trap. The Bitcoin price (BTC) has recovered strongly from $5,200 to $7,200 in the past two weeks, despite the declining appetite for high-risk assets including single-stocks and cryptocurrencies. One prominent trader predicted the entire price movement of Bitcoin since its initial drop from $10,500 to sub-$6,000, and in the medium-term, the digital asset’s trend remains gloomy.Crypto market daily price chart. Source: Coin360The rationale behind a short-term rally to $8,500PentarhUdi, a well known technical analyst and trader who has deftly predicted multiple Bitcoin market cycles in the past, initially estimated that Bitcoin price would plunge from $10,500 to $5,800 in the first week of February.On February 10, 2020, the trader explained that based on candlestick wicks, $10,500 was technically a lower low at a macro level and given that this level was a historically heavy resistance, a drop to $5,800 was highly probable.Citing PentarUdi’s $10,500 to $5,800 prediction, crypto whale and Bitfinex trader Joe007 said: “There is one, and only one, TA analyst in the world that I really respect, and just today, a few hours ago, he came up with this piece of analysis.”Due to a significant selloff in the U.S. stock market and the worsening Coronavirus pandemic that has since swept across the U.S. and Europe, the price of Bitcoin over extended its downtrend and fell to $3,600 on crypto futures exchanges.The fact that buyers quickly stepped in to buy the dip and pushed the price from $3,600 to $5,200 led PentarUdi to suggest that Bitcoin price is likely to rally to $8,500 over the short term.PentarUdi stated:“This should bounce up from weekly sma 200 ($5,200) up to daily sma 200 ($8,500). Break up of the upper trend line invalidates this bearish count. I remind this is a hypothetical bearish outcome of previously published ideas.”As a note of caution, PentarhUdi warned that as a result of the current global financial panic, Bitcoin is still likely to fall below $3,000 after rebounding past $8,000.According to the trader:“I got a bearish target between $1,800 and $2,500. In this case weekly 200 SMA will be broken and become resistance. Many times and affords will require to break it up and make it support.”BTC-USDT daily chart. Source: TradingViewIn short, Bitcoin price is currently seeing a relief rally to the 200-day SMA, a point which has acted as a strong resistance area throughout the past several years. Yet, there is a strong possibility that the entire rally becomes susceptible to a deep correction.The next upside move could be a fake-outWith instability in the global equities market and dire warnings from governments that the novel Coronavirus pandemic could potentially lead to increased deaths over the next several months, a recovery to $8,500 could still be a bull trap.On March 29, Anthony Fauci, the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said that the Coronavirus could potentially lead to 200,000 fatalities.If efforts to contain the outbreak in the U.S. and Europe fail and the development of a vaccine takes 12 to 18 months, the sentiment in crypto and equities markets could take an even deeper bearish turn. […]

The Stellar Development Foundation will give away up to 2.5 million Lumens to charities to help during the crisis. The Stellar Development Foundation has committed up to 2.5 million Lumens to six non-profit organizations to help out during the coronavirus crisis — and they’re calling on the community to help. The SDF will kick the initiative off by donating 100,000 XLM each to six charities, with the remaining funds used to match community contributions on a one-to-one basis throughout April. Strong balance sheetSDF CEO Denelle Dixon told Cointelegraph the Foundation was lucky enough to be in a strong financial position to be able to help:“We're in the fortunate position of having stability during this time, we have a strong balance sheet, we also have XLM reserves, we want to be able to support as many initiatives as possible during this time that is very challenging for a lot of folks.”The Lumens will be made available to six of the non-profit organizations listed on Lumenthropy, which is the organization’s charity arm whose stated mission is to “make Stellar the philanthropic gamechanger”.The chosen non-profits include UNICEF, Tor Project, Heifer International, Watsi, Freedom of the Press and Women Who Code.Healthcare, education, poverty and free speechAsked why only six of the ten organizations listed on Lumenthropy are eligible for the initiative, Dixon said they are focused on organizations whose missions most closely align with problems presented by the current crisis such as providing healthcare, fighting poverty, protecting free speech from censorship and enabling education.Dixon said the SDF may choose to extend the program after April, and that other worthy non-profits are welcome to apply. […]

Recent changes to Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) in iOS may have killed off iPhone ‘burner wallets’. Recent changes to Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) in iOS may have killed burner wallets for iPhone users.Burner wallets are non-custodial wallets that store a user's private key in the browser’s local storage. A change made by Apple to Safari’s Webkit engine meant to enhance user privacy may jeopardize this model.This change will cap “the expiry of client-side cookies to seven days”. This implies that burner wallets will be destroyed after that short period. Although burner wallets were never intended for long-term storage of cryptocurrency, some users choose not to follow this rule.Exception to the ruleFortunately, there is one exception to this change — adding an app to the home screen. The blog post announcing the change states:“The seven-day cap on script-writable storage is gated on ‘after seven days of Safari use without user interaction on the site’. That is the case in Safari. Web applications added to the home screen are not part of Safari and thus have their own counter of days of use. Their days of use will match actual use of the web application which resets the timer. We do not expect the first-party in such a web application to have its website data deleted.”Unfortunately, adding a burner wallet to the home screen is no easy task. Former Google software engineer David Mihal wrote a blog examining the changes, and noted:“Unfortunately, there’s no ‘easy’ way to prompt a user to add a website to their home screen, users must find the button hidden inside Safari’s ‘share’ panel. Future Burner Wallets will likely display warnings to Safari users, prompting them to add the wallet to the home screen & secure their funds.”Back in 2017 there were 720 million iPhones in use around the world, it is unknown what percentage of iPhone owners use Safari-based burner wallets. […]