Coin News

Mt. Gox isn't rising from the ashes after all and its customers will likely never see the hundreds of thousands of bitcoins the shattered exchange lost

Dogecon SF will bring the area's dogecoin community together to celebrate its history over panel talks, food and fun.

Blockchain and the Bitcoin Foundation will co-present the Blockchain Awards at the Bitcoin 2014 Conference in Amsterdam next month.

New York-based SecondMarket is now offering a professional-level bitcoin exchange service available for institutional traders.

SecondMarket ha lanzado un nuevo exchange de Bitcoin completamente regulado y establecido en los EEUU. Este nuevo Exchange tiene el objetivo de implicar a instituciones y grandes inversores con la finalizad de facilitar el acceso a Bitcoin. Los recientes sucesos con Mt. Gox han acelerado su desarrollo ante la necesidad de un Exchange que cuente […]

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Online marketplace CeX now pays bitcoins to UK customers selling used technology and entertainment products on its site.

This morning, students at Aston University claimed they'd narrowed down the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, to a writer named Nick Szabo.

Forty forensic-linguistics majors in their final year looked at similarities in language used by Satoshi in his original Bitcoin spec paper and that used by 13 people "regularly referred to as suspects."

Matches with Szabo were strongest. Dr. Jack Grieve, a lecturer in forensic linguistics at Aston University, said:

The number of linguistic similarities between Szabo’s writing and the Bitcoin paper is uncanny, none of the other possible authors were anywhere near as good of a match. We are pretty confident that out of the primary suspects Nick Szabo is the main author of the paper, though we can’t rule out the possibility that others contributed."

In fact, this is just the latest instance that the hunt for Satoshi has landed on Szabo. In December, an anonymous blogger created a WordPress site with the express purpose of publishing his linguistic match findings between Szabo and Satoshi.

The blogger doubled-down on his claim a month ago, saying his latest research "confirms that Nick Szabo’s writing matches the Bitcoin whitepaper, not only in the expressions it uses, but also on hard-to-fabricate style metrics."

For awhile, Hilary Sargent, now with the Boston Globe, was tracking possible Satoshi candidates on her ChartGirl blog. Szabo figured on the top of her list because, among other things, he'd written about a theoretical technology called "Bit Gold," which bears an uncanny similarity to Bitcoin.

Szabo's personal website contains papers on a galaxy of different topics, including ones key to Bitcoin's technology. Here's a sample of his writing on "Formalizing and Securing Relationships on Public Networks":

All public key operation can be performed inside an unreadable hardware board or smart card on a machine with a very narrow serial-line connection (ie, it carries only a simple single-use protocol with well-verified security) to a dedicated firewall. This is economical for high traffic servers, but may be less practical for individual users. Besides better security, it has the added advantage that hardware speeds up the public key computations. 

And here's a cut from the Bitcoin spec paper:

As an additional firewall, a new key pair should be used for each transaction to keep them from being linked to a common owner. Some linking is still unavoidable with multi-input transactions, which necessarily reveal that their inputs were owned by the same owner. The risk is that if the owner of a key is revealed, linking could reveal other transactions that belonged to
the same owner.

Szabo may be hiding in plain sight. Gavin Andresen, one of Bitcoin's core developers, told Business Insider in an email that he had attended the Princeton Bitcoin conference with Szabo in March. Business Insider has tried calling and emailing several phone numbers and addresses associated with Szabo over the past few months, to no avail.

In November 2011, Wired's Benjamin Wallace said Szabo had denied it, though it was unclear where and how this occurred. Szabo's most explicit disavowal came in a May 2011 blog post in which he wrote the following on the advent of Bitcoin and what made it special: 

Myself, Wei Dai, and Hal Finney were the only people I know of who liked the idea (or in Dai's case his related idea) enough to pursue it to any significant extent until Nakamoto (assuming Nakamoto is not really Finney or Dai). Only Finney (RPOW) and Nakamoto were motivated enough to actually implement such a scheme. 

Finney, who was the first person to ever receive Bitcoins from Satoshi, explicitly denied being Satoshi. Correspondence between Dai and Satoshi has been catalogued, and Dai has twice stated he does not believe Szabo is Satoshi. 

One person who did not feature on that list is Dorian Nakamoto, the elderly California man fingered in a Newsweek cover story as Satoshi. In March, that Nakamoto submitted a letter reiterating his claims in an AP interview that he was not Satoshi. Newsweek has not formally retracted the story, but did append the letter to the story's web version. In an exclusive comment emailed to Business Insider, Dorian Nakamoto's lawyer, Ethan Kirschner, hammered the publication for using weak evidence and bringing unwanted attention to his client:

Even a cursory review of the record shows that Satoshi was incredibly careful about preserving his anonymity. I don't believe Newsweek actually thought they got the right guy. It was drive-by journalism in an effort to relaunch their print edition with a splash. As interest in Bitcoin grows, Satoshi's anonymity is increasingly impacting others. Dorian Nakamoto isn't the first person to be falsely accused of inventing Bitcoin, though he may be the first private person to have the details of his life, including his health history and unemployment, in a national newsmagazine. Hal Finney, an early Bitcoiner and another subject of press speculation, was apparently the victim of an extortion attempt."  

The Bitcoin community remains almost violently opposed to any outside effort to out Satoshi. He is often referred to simply as "the creator." Leah McGrath Goodman, who reported the Newsweek story, received threats on reddit. 

At the same time, Kirschner noted Satoshi has so far enjoyed the resources to protect himself.

But it seems like the pressure for Satoshi to out himself will not go away.

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  Bitcoin Magazine is currently considering breaking up the magazine into categories. The motivation for this is a desire for our readers to know what section they are in without looking at the table of contents. We also want to group similar stories near each other and possibly color code our sections to assist in automaticity while navigating through the magazine. We also want these sections to reflect our readers favorite areas of interest, and hope this poll will help us as we consider using categories/sections to group magazine content. If you want to suggest a different category please enter it in the comments or email [email protected].

The post Survey Says: Bitcoin Magazine is Considering Categories appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Today, SecondMarket has revealed their “Experienced, Full Service Bitcoin Trading Services.”  SecondMarket has launched America’s first fully regulated Bitcoin Exchange.  Buyers and sellers now have a fully compliant source of Bitcoin trading from the fabled NYC. As PJ wrote days ago, Wall Street is coming onboard.  Wherever Wall Street takes an interest in the financial […]

The post SecondMarket Launches First Fully Regulated American Bitcoin Exchange appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

The first customer-facing marijuana vending machine to debut in the US will accept bitcoins as a form of payment.

The technology industry can be a fickle business. Research firm Gartner has a name for it: 'the hype cycle'.

La cartera Mycelium acaba de añadir a su aplicación la posibilidad de comprar y vender bitcoins de forma local, al estilo localbitcoins.com. Cartera Mycelium Hasta ahora, Mycelium era una de las carteras más populares para terminales Android, y con la actualización de hace tan sólo unas horas, probablemente mantenga esa posición durante un tiempo. Mycelium […]

The post Compra y vende bitcoins en persona con Mycelium “local trader” appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President Narayana Kocherlakota addressed bitcoin during a town hall meeting today.

What is the deal with knowing who the person behind a pseudonym is? A secret is only exciting when it remains a secret, so why don’t we keep it that way? I think we can all agree that this is just human nature. A month after Newsweek claimed to have found Satoshi Nakamoto, now a […]

The post UK University claims law professor Nick Szabo authored Bitcoin whitepaper appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

Peercoin was the first Bitcoin-based monetary system to use proof-of-stake as a mechanism to ensure its own integrity. However, there are some objections to Peercoin’s proof-of-stake model. This article presents those objections along with a similar system redesigned to address them. In a simplified version of Peercoin’s proof-of-stake design, each node can use part of its balance as a stake allowing it to chain blocks. The bigger that stake, the more chances this node has of increasing the block chain. The reward for chaining blocks is 1% of the used stake as newly minted coins, annually. Conversely, making transactions requires paying a fee that destroys 0.01 coins per transaction. For example, after having chained a block using one coin of […]

The post Transaction Rights: The Necessary Product of Block Chaining appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Peercoin was the first Bitcoin-based monetary system to use proof-of-stake as a mechanism to ensure its own integrity. However, there are some objections to Peercoin’s proof-of-stake model. This article presents those objections along with a similar system redesigned to address them. In a simplified version of Peercoin’s proof-of-stake design, each node can use part of its balance as a stake allowing it to chain blocks. The bigger that stake, the more chances this node has of increasing the block chain. The reward for chaining blocks is 1% of the used stake as newly minted coins, annually. Conversely, making transactions requires paying a fee that destroys 0.01 coins per transaction. For example, after having chained a block using one coin of […]

The post Transaction Rights: The Necessary Product of Block Chaining appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Beginning Monday, technology enthusiasts in Brazil became able to convert the Brazilian Real to Bitcoin using a Bitcoin vending machine, also known as a Bitcoin ATM. The unveiling marks the first Bitcoin ATM to be installed in Latin America, with a permanent position at a Sao Paulo bar which is already accepting Bitcoin. As the popularity of digital currency in Latin America continues, many businesses and individuals are taking advantage of the benefits that this new payment method provides. For businesses in developing countries, Bitcoin gives businesses the ability to end costly trade restrictions that decrease profits and hinder their ability to compete in the global marketplace. Bitcoin can also cut transaction fees associated with debit and credit card transactions. […]

The post First Bitcoin ATM Lands in Latin America appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Today, Mycelium announced that their Local Trader App has successfully made it through Beta testing and is now ready for the general Bitcoin populace.  Mycelium Local Trader App allows users to create geographically tied sell orders.  You can choose an exchange rate from BitStamp or Coinbase or BTC-e, then set a percentage above that which […]

The post Mycelium Local Trader App Is Out Of Beta: The Most Decentralized Exchange You Can Use Today appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

Bitcoin, the revolutionary currency. It sounds nice and, for many Bitcoin fanatics, it is a means to a revolution. When we speak of modern day revolutions, social media are always lurking around the corner. They unite people with a common goal and are not always loved by certain governments (Hi Turkey government, tweeted anything lately?). […]

The post PulpSpot, a free speech media portal with Bitcoin integration appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

A group of forensic linguistics experts believe the real creator of bitcoin is former law professor Nick Szabo.

A Japanese court-appointed administrator is now in control of Mt. Gox following an unsuccessful attempt to save the business. The Bitcoin exchange filed for bankruptcy in February after losing 850,000 Bitcoins, though it later found around a quarter...

Mark Karpeles, the CEO of collapsed Bitcoin exchange Mt Gox, has said via lawyers that he is "not willing" to go to America yet, refusing a US court demand to testify in person over the issue. The news comes as Mt Gox was officially placed in administration by a Tokyo district court, which turned down the company?s plan to begin recovering its losses.

A Tokyo court on Wednesday dismissed a bid by Mt. Gox to restart its business, allowing what was once the world's largest bitcoin exchange to be liquidated after it filed for bankruptcy protection in February following an attack by hackers

CNBC.com airs their much-anticipated documentary “The Bitcoin Uprising” tomorrow morning. The documentary follows cnbc.com reporter Mary Thompson into the world of bitcoin, from home-based mining operations to the deep web.  Thompson and her producer, Karina Fraser, decided to create this piece after realizing that a 1-minute ‘hit’ (or story) on the currency was too difficult to do.  The documentary will only be available online, as that is the “most appropriate place for it, considering the bitcoin community is completely immersed in the digital world,” Thompson explains. Thompson’s journey through the bitcoin sphere started from a place of “pure curiosity.”  However, she quickly recognized that this new technology had many “strong voices backing it, and strong voices criticizing it.”  Bitcoin Uprising […]

The post CNBC Explores Bitcoin appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - BTC China, one of the country's leading digital currency exchanges, has installed China's first bitcoin ATM and launched an online app allowing individuals to buy and sell bitcoins using mobile phones, skirting local banking regulations seen as increasingly hostile to so-called crypto-currencies.

Rising interest from mainland Chinese speculators was credited for driving up global bitcoin prices last year to above $1,000 on some exchanges. But a subsequent crackdown by the People's Bank of China (PBOC) has seen the digital currency sag, changing hands below $530 on Wednesday, according to exchange-tracker CoinDesk.

That, in combination with scandals involving hacking, theft, and fraud, have put pressure on digital currency markets around the world. Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox has given up plans to rebuild under bankruptcy protection and asked a local court to allow it to be liquidated, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Unlike conventional money, bitcoin and other crypto-currencies are generated by computers and are not backed by any central bank or government, or by physical assets. They can be exchanged through nearly any file transfer mechanism for goods, services or cash - but the latter has proved a problem.

Many regulatory agencies around the world are concerned that digital currencies can be easily used for money laundering or the illegal purchase of weapons and narcotics, and have moved to control or prohibit their use in ordinary commerce.

In December, the PBOC banned financial institutions from trading in bitcoin, saying the government would act to prevent money laundering risks from the digital currency. It did not ban trading by individuals. Last week, two bitcoin exchanges said their trading accounts at certain domestic banks would be closed down by the lenders.

Bitcoin China CEO Bobby Lee said by telephone that his exchange is still in operation and has yet to receive any notice from the bank that his accounts are being closed. "News reports said it would be shut down by April 15. It's April 16 and nothing has happened," he said.

While trading volumes on his exchange are down 80-90 percent from their peak, transaction levels were still healthy, said Lee, on par with levels last September prior to bitcoin's spike.

CAFE ATM

The new ATM-like services from BTC China do not involve the banking system at all.

The physical ATM, located in a cafe at a mall in Shanghai's Zhangjiang technology park area, allows people to buy bitcoin directly from the exchange for yuan inserted into the machine. Users cannot withdraw cash.

The machine was lightly used during a visit by Reuters, with just one client appearing to use it, but cafe manager Cheng Mengyao said she had seen a steady stream of customers use the machine for small transactions since it was installed.

The web app essentially allows transactions on a direct peer-to-peer basis, as opposed to selling them on an open exchange. This also avoids using the banking network or a public online exchange, but means transactions are between individuals and liquidity is limited to how much cash they have.

(Reporting by Shanghai Newsroom; Editing by Ian Geoghegan)

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CoinDesk's Kadhim Shubber visits the offshore vault where Bullion Bitcoin trades digital gold for the real thing.

MtGox has asked to liquidate its holdings after a Japanese court dismissed its plan for reorganization, the Wall Street Journal's Takashi Mochizuki and Katy Stech report.

In February, the exchange, once the world's largest, claimed that 850,000 Bitcoins had gone missing. In a new note posted on its website, Gox said that after a month-and-a-half investigation into the disappearance of the funds, Japanese authorities had determined that plans for "civil rehabilitation" under Japanese bankruptcy statutes "appear difficult," though did provide more details.

Citing sources close to the situation, Mochizuki and Stech report Gox has in effect given up hope of restarting operations in a Chapter 11-style reboot. Any creditors will now recoup less of their investment, the pair write, though they add that Gox retains some hope of a last-minute fire sale. Last week, the Journal reported that a group led by Brock Pierce, a former child actor, had expressed interest in bailing out the exchange.

Read the full report here » 

SEE ALSO: An Interview With St. Louis Fed Economist David Andolfatto On Bitcoin

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The defunct bitcoin exchange is now less likely to ever recover missing or seized funds, diminishing relaunch hopes.

When it comes to new technology, old stereotypes hold surprising -- and dismaying -- power.

Does the headline "How to Explain Bitcoin to Your Dad," seem ridiculous to you?

If so, you're obviously a whole lot better at marketing to women than the folks over at the New York Times, who somehow approved the headline "How to Explain Bitcoin to Your Mom," recently. Given that moms control about $2.4 trillion in spending nationwide, and that women influence or control 85 percent of household purchases, you'd think a little respect was in order. Instead, the Times has given us a textbook case on how not to market to women. Entrepreneurs, beware.

It gets better. Or, depending on your tolerance for irony, way worse. As if the headline alone weren't condescending enough, the "explaining" to Mom was done via cartoon panels, rather than by a traditional story. Obviously, there are lots of graphic novelists doing sophisticated work. But it's hard not to see the message, in this case, as, "We have to make Bitcoin super-simple--like a cartoon!--to make it accessible to our most unsophisticated readers. Like, you know, moms."

Granted, Bitcoin, an electronic proto-currency, can take some explaining. But the supposition that those who haven't had children are automatically more qualified to pontificate upon it than those who have is ageist to the core. Youth trumps a lot of things, but when you're trying to explain a somewhat complicated technical matter, youth is of no import whatsoever. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there, a generation younger than I, who can explain Bitcoin perfectly well, to their parents or to anyone else. But their age has nothing to do with it.

Then there's the tired old trope that women--moms, particularly--are especially and hopelessly out of the loop. That's as infuriating as it is unoriginal, and the percentage of moms who are online has long been higher than it is for women overall. "Mom jeans," and "mom haircuts" have long been part of the popular lexicon, and neither is a compliment. My favorite online riposte to the Times' Bitcoin headline comes from @lisamacintire on twitter: "My mom was a futures trader, thanks."

As a finance and technology reporter who writes about entrepreneurship and small business, I've spent my fair share of time trying to explain new technologies, and I can personally attest that confusion over the new new thing transcends gender. My favorite and most exasperating moment was over a Thanksgiving dinner in the early 90s, when a frustrated male in-law asked me, "What's with all this dot-com crap?" My relative was under the impression that when he typed "broken septic system" into Yahoo or Alta Vista (remember?), the computer was somehow raiding his neighbor's collection of home repair CDs. Not quite.

Now, it's Bitcoin. Among the many people who don't "get it" is my husband. Yet his lack of understanding (or caring, frankly) isn't going to be reflected in the popular media anytime soon, nor is it going to be attributed to his gender or the fact that he has kids. He's in sales, and he works mostly with professional audio hardware and software. That takes a fair amount of tech savviness, and he can say "dongle" with a straight face, which I've never quite managed. The reason he doesn't understand Bitcoin is simply that right now, it's irrelevant to his life. When I explain it to him, he only listens with one ear.

Ironically, in this one particular case, he fits into the most pernicious stereotype about moms: That technology is meaningless to us, and that innovations in the business world don't apply. Consider, just for a moment, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer or Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, who are both parents, and it's clear just how ridiculous this is. I'm sure Mayer and Sandberg have wiped their share of snotty noses--as have countless dads--and yet somehow, they still have the brain power to run huge tech companies. I'm pretty sure they don't need anyone to explain Bitcoin to them.

Yes, those of us with newborns often spend a few months, or maybe a bit more, in a sleep deprivation-induced haze. Although it may not feel that way, the truth is that for many professional women, baby boot camp lasts just a few months. What few men ever stop to consider is that that's about the same amount of time many Wall Streeters are required to take as so-called "garden leave" in between gigs. No one assumes that, while on garden leave, these alleged masters of the universe suddenly lose all interest in business or commerce.

Plus, moms have professional reasons to keep up with or create the latest tech iterations, be they fads or game-changers. Not just Mayer and Sandberg, but Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman, Xerox CEO Ursula Burns, and Wall Street giant Sallie Krawcheck, among others. If they're not up to speed on this stuff, and if they don't push technology forward, huge corporations will suffer, American competitiveness will decline, and masses of people will lose their jobs.

Plus, who will explain Bitcoin to their kids?

A version of this story originally appeared at One Thing New.

Cryptocurrencies (abbreviated ‘cryptos’) have been having a great day — most of their values are up. Out of the top ten cryptos (measured in market cap), Quark is up the most in the last 24 hours with a 73% rise in value, Dogecoin the second most at 58%, followed by Peercoin at 39%. What’s causing […]

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The failed bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox has given up on its plan to rise from the ashes under bankruptcy protection. Instead, according to the Wall Street Journal, it's asked a Tokyo court for permission to be liquidated

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Coinfloor will be "publicly auditable", allowing users to validate the company's records and compare them to the bitcoin ledger.

The hot-tempered former NFL wide receiver wonders how 'easy’' the complicated cryptocurrency is. Don’t even get us started

The bad-boy founder of the Bitcoin Foundation and BitInstant is back at his mom and dad's place and he's in big trouble for allegedly funneling $1 million into shady Silk Road dealings

I got into cryptocurrencies when I discovered Dogecoin. I had heard about Bitcoin prior to this but had never researched it in depth. Dogecoin was (and still is) very inexpensive, so I got some to see what cryptocurrencies was all about. This lead to me discovering Satoshi’s original whitepaper and seeing all the benefits cryptocurrencies offered […]

The post How To Do An Altcoin Right: Coinye Vs Dogecoin appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

William Quigley, part of a group aiming to relaunch Mt. Gox, appeared on CNBC today to discuss his bid.

The price of bitcoin rose today as a long-rumored PBOC deadline passed without further action from the regulator.