Bitcoin, digital currency and blockchain technology experienced another explosive year in 2016. While bitcoin breached the all-time high in USD market cap, several new digital currencies claimed a place in the spotlights as well, while the blockchain buzz arguably peaked it all.
Of course, Bitcoin Magazine kept up with all of it. Looking back on 2016, we compiled three top 6 lists, with our best-read topics in technology, business and news.
These were 2016’s six top stories in technology, by popularity.
6: BIP 151’s End-to-End Encryption
Communication between Bitcoin nodes — and between nodes and SPV clients — is currently not encrypted by default. Unless precautions are taken, data transmitted over the Bitcoin network can be tracked by internet service providers, open-WiFi providers and anyone monitoring the Bitcoin network.
But that may soon change. Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) 151, drafted by Bitcoin Core developer Jonas Schnelli, is designed to make encryption between Bitcoin nodes the standard. If widely adopted (and alternative Bitcoin implementation bcoin already did adopt the solution), this should make it harder to censor specific transactions or blocks, while potentially offering increased privacy to Bitcoin users.
Although not everyone believes BIP 151 is preferable over conventional methods such as Tor or VPNs, the proposal garnered a lot of interest among Bitcoin Magazine readers, securing a sixth place on our list for 2016.
5: The Lightning Network
Throughout most of 2016, the central topic of debate within the Bitcoin community was, undoubtedly, scaling. The question of how best to increase transaction throughput on the Bitcoin network was on nearly everyone’s mind, while preferred solutions vary.
As one of the most promising proposals, the lightning network could just be a game changer. The innovative solution — which is especially suited for micropayments — should minimize the amount of “on-chain” transactions required, while also realizing instant confirmations and increased privacy.
The lightning network and similar, compatible projects like Amiko Pay and Thunder were first proposed in 2015, and are by now developed by at least six companies. In a best-case scenario, production-ready software could be launched this winter — though much depends on activation of the Segregated Witness soft fork as proposed by the Bitcoin Core development team.
Whether the lightning network will be as successful as many hope remains to be seen, but it was definitely one of the most popular topics on Bitcoin Magazine, placing fifth on this year’s list.
4: Multisig
Number four on our list is an oldie but a goodie: multisignature, or multisig, transactions.
Multisig transactions are transactions that require multiple signatures to be valid. Using multisig, several people can for example share a single wallet and be sure no single person runs off with the funds. More recently, multisig has become the basis for more complex solutions, such as the lightning network.
Technically, multisig has been part of the Bitcoin protocol ever since Satoshi Nakamoto launched the code in 2009, though it was nonstandard during the first years. It became a standard part of the Bitcoin protocol in 2012. Over the four years since, multisig has become fairly common, with several wallets offering the option by default.
Multisig is probably still the most basic, but also the most used, smart contract application to date, which could explain why Bitcoin Magazine’s article on the topic is still among the most popular pieces on the website.
3: Ethereum and Turing Completeness
In many ways, 2016 was the year of Ethereum. The smart contract platform itself (Ethereum) and its native token (ether/ETH) experienced a boom throughout the first half of the year: ETH increased from less than $1 to over $20. And while the exchange rate has since dropped to around $8, it’s still one of the best-performing digital currencies of 2016.
The Ethereu