Bitcoin Daily: Moon Browser Allows Use Of Bitcoin For Amazon Purchases; Bitcoin Price Swings Could Make A Comeback

New York-based startup Moon will allow customers to pay for their Amazon purchases with bitcoin via the Lightning Network, bitcoin, Litecoin or Ether.

“We believe that cryptocurrency is the future of money. Our team is building the technologies to bring this future to fruition. We are engineers, builders and enthusiasts who love bitcoin and the change it will bring to the world. We hope our efforts drive adoption of cryptocurrency and help educate consumers on the benefits of crypto for payments,” the company wrote on its website.

The company has already released a desktop browser extension for Google Chrome, Brave and Opera.

In other news, it looks like bitcoin’s notorious price swings could be making a comeback. According to Bloomberg, the difference between the crypto’s upper and lower band in the Trading Envelope indicator is at its narrowest since mid-September, while it also closed below its opening price in six of the last seven trading sessions. It last showed that pattern in September when it lost around 20 percent in one week.

“As it becomes more and more obvious that the Libra thing is not going to take off — it’s going to be a long time before it becomes an important part of anything Facebook’s doing — as that becomes more obvious, the volatility will pick up again,” Matt Maley, equity strategist at Miller Tabak + Co., said. “This issue with what’s going on with Libra and Facebook is a definite headwind and it’s not going to go away.”

A research paper is warning that the bitcoin lightning network could be hit with simple denial-of-service (DoS) attack that could be used to slow down or even stop a large percentage of payments on the network.

“It is extremely easy to execute. It takes opening a few lightning channels to key points, promising zero fees, and then not relaying any payments,” said Aviv Zohar, one of the authors of  “Hijacking Routes in Payment Networks,” according to CoinDesk.

And CoinDesk Korea reported that four more institutions have joined a South Korean decentralized identity initiative that wants to secure and share personal information via blockchain.

Launched in July, the Initial DID Association consortium includes recent additions Shinhan, NH Nonghyup, BC Card and Hyundai Card, as well as Samsung Electronics, KEB Hana Bank, Woori Bank, as well as Korea’s three major mobiles carriers — SK Telecom, KT and LG U+.