Segregated Witness (SegWit) has reached its lock-in threshold. The long-debated scaling upgrade reached the necessary threshold to "lock in" yesterday at block 479,707 with 100% of bitcoin mining pools signalling support for the proposal as expected.

According to network data, the block was mined by BitClub. But the change won't officially lock-in until today, once the signalling period has ended. The network will move into a two-week "grace period," to give users and mining pools a chance to upgrade their software. After that, which looks to end August 21, SegWit will activate and miners will start rejecting blocks that do not support the change.

Australian Senators Call On The Reserve Bank to Back Bitcoin

Senators in Australia are putting their political differences aside and are banding together to urge the Reserve Bank to back bitcoin as an official currency. As part of their efforts to get the central bank on board Senators have formed a group called the Parliamentary Friends of Blockchain.

With the digital currency gaining prominence in value and increased adoption it has suddenly become a contender in the financial sector. So much so, that Australia’s lawmakers want the central bank to create its own digital currency and blockchain to use on the market. Ronald Tucker, the chairman of the ADCCA, said that a digital currency in Australia that was backed by the government would cut settlement times.

HBO Hackers Demand Over $6 Millions in Bitcoin Not to Release Files

Last month, HBO announced that they had experienced a cyber attack. The hacker(s) have managed to steal around 1.5 terabytes of data including the full written scripts to future Game of Thrones episodes. Other shows produced by HBO, such as Ballers and Room 104, have had entire episodes stolen and they may be published online in the coming days.

Yesterday, the hacker going by the pseudonym “Mr. Smith” released the newest batch of files taken from HBO’s servers. It included scripts from five future Game of Thrones episodes, along with emails from the inbox of Leslie Cohen, HBO’s VP of film programming.

The hackers are now demanding a ransom not to release the stolen data. While an exact number was not given, the hackers demanded Plepler’s “six-month salary in bitcoin”, implied to be at least $6 million. No further word has been given by HBO on their response to the threat.

Bitcoin Analyst Identifies Clear Spoofing Pattern at Bitfinex

According to author “Bitcrypto’d,” there is a high likelihood that Bitfinex is spoofing the entire market place. Phil Potters, CSO of Bitfinex, responded to the article saying that anti-spoofing measures are “philosophically off-base anyway”. It was also noted that Bitfinex has had trouble maintaining bank accounts and this could lead to serious problems in the future.

State of the Crypto

Bitcoin is down 1.86% at $3,397.230 with a volume of $104.8k - $357.8M on the USD pairs.

Litecoin is up 5.78% against the dollar for the day at $49.02 and up 7.99% to Ƀ0.014 on volumes of Ƀ11.0k.

Ether is up 12.85% against Bitcoin at Ƀ0.089 per Ether and up 10.78% against the dollar to $301.8 with average volume Ƀ76.5k on the ETH/BTC pair.

Dash is up 3.92% at Ƀ0.06 with Ƀ5.4k volume and up 2.09% against the dollar at $201.56.

Ripple is up 8.1% to Ƀ0 with volumes of Ƀ11.0k and up 6.43% against the dollar at $0.192.

Zcash is up 15.71% for the day to Ƀ0.072 per ZEC and up 13.95% against the dollar to $243.08 with an average volume of Ƀ4.9k for the 24 hour period.

Monero is up 3.95% against the dollar at $52.69 and up 6.32% against Bitcoin at Ƀ0.016 on volumes of Ƀ2.4k.

Ether Classic is up 6.49% to Ƀ0.005 with volumes of Ƀ3.2k and up 5% against the dollar at $15.97.

Waves is down 4.31% to Ƀ0.002 on Ƀ5.5k volume.

Stratis is down 0.82% to Ƀ0.002 on Ƀ5.0k volume.