It's now safe to say that the Beta version of Lightning network is now available for Bitcoin users.

I’m sure it will take a bit of time for this software to be adopted by exchanges and other major wallets, but for now the future is looking mighty fine for Bitcoin.

Many of you may be thinking, well, cool Bitcoin is making progress with Lightning Network, but it would be better if the price would reflect this.

There are many different reasons for this recent slump in value for Bitcoin and most all other cryptocurrencies out there today. I mean, we’ve got to consider the Bitcoin ETFs, the Mt. Gox sell offs, and overall lack of positive sentiment for the newcomers to crypto who bought at the top a couple months ago.

Let me take the time now to remind you that cryptocurrency is here,

• It’s making waves in a whole bunch of other industries
• It’s caught the attention of governments around the world
  The U.S. for example is trying to label it as a commodity, a security, as anything it can so different departments can control and tax the crap out of it.

^^^Check out the Video Here^^^

But looking past all that drama and the disappointing prices, the teams behind many of these cryptocurrencies are continuing to innovate, and improve and make progress towards scalability. The main downside to Bitcoin is it’s relatively slow progress towards addressing it’s scalability issues.
Other then this, it has the largest, most secure network.
Now this same network has made a huge step towards implenting a solution that will help immensely towards scaling for the masses who have yet to jump into this wild west of cryptocurrency.

What I’m trying to say here is that although the prices may have gone into a bit of a slump for now, even if this lasts for a good amount of time, when the prices do pick up, and I know that they will, this time Bitcoin will be ready to handle the increase, which will only encourage even more adoption of this new kind of financial freedom.

Monero Hard Fork: When, Why, How to Prepare:

On the surface, this Monero hard fork seems pretty standard.
After finding a flaw in the code of Monero, the team now behind MoneroV wants to make some other changes in regards to the coin’s economics.
So at a certain block they’ll take a snapshot of all holders of Monero and allow those individuals to claim their right to the new MoneroV coins.

But there’s more to this hard fork than meets the eye.

If you’re interested in taking part in this airdrop please pay attention to this video because I’m going to tell you the safest way to participate in this airdrop, or any airdrop really.

This hard fork was originally planned to take place a few days ago, but after requests from exchanges, mining pools and users, it has been delayed and now is rescheduled to take place on April 30th.

Airdrops are cool, you get different new coins just for hodling. But like many good things in life, they often come with trade-offs and airdrops are no different.
The whole point of owning Monero is for it’s privacy features, right?
This means that ideally no one would know you actually own it, this also means you’d ideally be storing it in the official wallet in order to take advantage of it’s privacy features, not on an exchange.
So here’s why an airdrop for a privacy based cryptocurrency seems questionable: for those using these types of wallets to be able to take part in and claim the new MoneroV coins they’d have to claim the new tokens by submitting their wallet address, ultimately admitting that they are indeed holding Monero.

However, there is a way to take part in airdrops that can reduce your exposure, again this isn’t completely fool proof but it’s at least a better layer of security. If you’re really wanting to take part in this airdrop, enough so that you’d risk giving up your privacy, consider using this technique:

To make sure that your XMR and keys can't be compromised in any way you should do the following:

• Create a new wallet especially for the fork and move your XMR to this wallet.
• ‎After the snapshot move your XMR back to the original wallet
• ‎You can then use your newly created wallet, that holds no XMR anymore after the snapshot, to claim your MoneroV.

If you do choose to take part in this one you’ll receive 10 XMV for every Monero that you hold in the wallet that you register.

In addition to the airdrop situation and how that brings the possibility of compromising users anonymity, we have to take into consideration the very methods that Monero uses to establish privacy, that is the ring signatures. This protocol works because there are large numbers of addresses that can be used to mix coins and establish anonymity. With this new fork and a limited supply of addresses available to mix, you need to understand that this will play an effect on how effective ring signatures will be for both the original Monero chain and the new chain of MoneroV.

I’ll include links down below so you can venture down this rabbit hole yourself and come to your own conclusions whether or not you want to participate in this one.

Additional Reading/Sources/Links:

Bitcoin Lightning Network
MoneroV Website
Downside to this Airdrop
MoneroV ANN Thread(GREAT discussions here)
Andreas Antonopolous' Take on Airdrops