Coin News

LocalBitcoins users are reporting that their wallets have been emptied and that transactions via the service have been delayed.

Blockchain.info junto con la Fundación Bitcoin, se han unido para anunciar la celebración de la primera edición de los premios Blockchain. Los premios Blockchain tienen como objetivo homenajear la innovación y la excelencia dentro de la comunidad de Bitcoin. Esta será la primera edición de estos premios, que se espera que se repitan cada año. La […]

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Compliance software developer Strevus has added support for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to its existing compliance software service.

This afternoon, Texans for Greg Abbott announced acceptance of Bitcoin for campaign donations. Greg Abbott is running as the Republican candidate in the Texas Gubernatorial race. Striving to be a cutting edge candidate, Abbott stated, “I’m excited to see our campaign add another tool to our cutting-edge digital outreach, which is allowing us to reach more Texans than any previous campaign in the state.” It is great to see that Abbott as well as other policymakers note the opportunities Bitcoin has to promote free market economics and ingenuity across the board. Abbott’s campaign will certainly not be the first to embrace Bitcoin in the 2014 election cycle. Abbott’s campaign team published the following press release: April 17, 2014 For Immediate […]

The post Texans for Greg Abbott to Accept Bitcoin Contributions appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

A former US government consumer finance watchdog has come out in support of bitcoin.

Bitcoin is most often discussed as a volatile digital currency, with a value that seesaws depending on the latest news — good and bad. It's beloved by some, derided by others. But where Bitcoin's real value lies is as a payments technology that has the potential to revolutionize the legacy payments industry. 

Bitcoin offers merchant and individuals an extremely low-cost, virtually frictionless payments system. Value can easily be transferred around the world without transmitting sensitive information that could be used for fraud, and without forcing merchants to pay extortionate transaction fees.

But, while the emergence of Bitcoin brings with it numerous advantages, it also faces incredible hurdles.

In  a new report from BI Intelligence, we explain how Bitcoin works, from the moment when local currency is exchanged for bitcoins, to the moment when it reaches the electronic wallet of a receiving party. We look at the key advantages of Bitcoin compared to the legacy players in the payments industry and examine the challenges that Bitcoin faces as a payment network. 

Access the Full Report By Signing Up For A Free Trial Today >>

Here are some of the key elements from the report: 

• Provides an easy-to-understand explanation of how Bitcoin works as a payments system, including the anatomy of a Bitcoin transaction and a description of the Bitcoin blockchain. 
• Along with a number of Bitcoin insiders which we interviewed for our report, we believe Bitcoin's greatest potential is as a global payments network.
• Unlike government-backed currencies, Bitcoin's elegant design places a strict limit on how many units can be created — 21 million. But each coin can be divided into 100 million pieces, which will allow it to scale as a payments technology.
• Bitcoin's daily average transaction volume stands at just $89 million compared to $16.5 billion for Visa and $9.8 billion for MasterCard. 
• In a nutshell, Bitcoin allows for the simple and secure transfer of value online, without intermediaries. There are many players in the Bitcoin ecosystem that help to make this happen, including Bitcoin exchanges, Bitcoin wallets, and miners.
• Third-party bitcoin payments processors already are stepping in to address flaws such as price volatility and the length of time that it takes the Bitcoin network to clear transactions, allowing merchants to instantly process bitcoin transactions and avoid exchange risk.
• Bitcoin faces other significant threats, though, including fraud and regulation. And right now, too much power is concentrated among a small group of miners, which opens Bitcoin up to further vulnerabilities.
• Despite the barriers, we believe the efficiency and low cost of Bitcoin in comparison to legacy payments tools — including credit cards, money transfer services, and letters of credit — will ultimately prove too tempting for merchants, individuals, and business-to-business applications to resist.

In full, the report:

• Examines the problems Bitcoin was created to solve and the elegant solutions it provides which have clear advantages over the current payments system. 
• Gives an insider's view of Bitcoin with exclusive interviews from Bitcoin Investment Trust Founder Barry Silbert and BitPay's Vice President of Marketing Stephanie Wargo.
• Explores the open questions surrounding Bitcoin pertaining to security, volatility, and regulation and provides potential answers to these questions. 
• Analyzes the players in the legacy payments system which Bitcoin has the potential to eliminate if it catches on as a transaction network. 

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Huobi made an announcement to their website on 4/17/14. 尊敬的火币网用户： 为了解决非工作时间充值到账较慢的问题，火币网经过和点卡代理商协商后，我们将于今日17：00恢复点卡充值服务，支持所有主流银行充值，7*24小时即时到账。欢迎各位币友体验。 Dear Valued Huobi customers: In order to resolve the current issues with recharges during off hours, and as a result of Huobi negotiations with recharge card dealers, today at 17:00 we will be resuming our recharge card services. It’s supported at all major banks, […]

The post Chinese Bitcoin Exchanges Adapt: Huobi Resumes Recharge Cards And OKCoin Reveals ATM Partner appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

Adam Draper, CEO of Boost VC, talks to CoinDesk about his commitment to accelerate 100 bitcoin startups by 2017.

There have been numerous reports of funds being stolen from the popular bitcoin trading website LocalBitcoins.com, the most popular of which was posted on reddit 34 minutes ago. None of these reports have been confirmed by LocalBitcoins staff. The post on reddit suggested that this is not related to the recent heartbleed bug, as the […]

The post Breaking: Reports of LocalBitcoins.com funds going missing appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

The Bitcoin Foundation and Blockchain.info have come together to announce the first annual Blockchain Awards.  Additionally, there will be a Blockchain Awards ceremony at the Bitcoin 2014 conference exactly one month from this date. The #BlockchainAwards wants to honor exceptional people in #Bitcoin! Nominate them here: http://t.co/gyrGUuCFb3 #WeAreSatoshi #Bitcoin2014 — Blockchain.info (@blockchain) April 16, 2014 […]

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There is continued uncertainty for China's bitcoin exchanges tonight as some reported verbal closure notices from banking partners.

Yesterday, we wrote up a study from Aston University in Birmingham, England that broke down linguistic matches between 13 individuals "regularly referred to as candidates" and Satoshi Nakamoto, the apparently pseudonymous inventor of Bitcoin.

Of the group, they narrowed it down to Nick Szabo, a writer and blogger.

As we discussed in our piece, these were not the first independent researchers to conclude Szabo is Satoshi. Yet Szabo has refuted the charge (albeit indirectly), and is not even seeking to avoid attention: Although he has not returned multiple emails and phone calls, he attended a Bitcoin conference at Princeton University in March.

We emailed some of the professors who attended the conference to ask about their interactions with Szabo there. Many said they either did not encounter him, or if they did, only for a moment.

Jeremy Clark is an assistant professor for  Information Systems Engineering at Concordia University in Montreal He said he'd met Szabo for the first time there, and chatted with him during the dinner. 

He also sent back the following critique of the Aston study, which we thought was worth posting:

I think the recent evidence linking Nick to Satoshi is grossly insufficient. I buy that out of 13 people, his writing is the most similar. Actually, if you take 13 people, SOMEONE will always be the most close by definition. If you look at the common phrasing they found, you don't see anything that wouldn't see in nearly any crypto paper on digital cash or time-stamping (and there are a ton).

Further, I've seen nothing to indicate that Nick can write even one line of code, while Satoshi implemented a very complex peer-to-peer network, to say nothing of the cryptography involved. Nick also still maintains that his bit gold proposal is a better design than Bitcoin so I don't see why he'd propose one and deploy something different.

I can't help but wonder if Linux was released under a pseudonym, would anyone guess that it was written by a Finnish masters student? Someone that was otherwise unknown? Of course not. Someone would compare the writing to Richard Stallman, Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and some super random patent holders, and declare Stallman the winner. Then Newsweek would find him at the end of his driveway, annoyed and in a crumpled t-shirt, chewing on something he pulled off his foot. :)

Satoshi: If you'd like to respond, you know where to reach us.

SEE ALSO: See Some Of The Evidence That Szabo May Be Satoshi

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Celebrating three years accepting bitcoin, bar owner Joerg Platzer reflects on bitcoin's evolutionary changes from the merchants' side.

I am so excited I can't contain myself. — Nic Cary (@niccary) April 15, 2014 On 4/15/14. Blockchain.info‘s Nic Cary took to Twitter to tease the Bitcoin populace with an upcoming announcement… Many were reminded of the last time Cary promised an announcement; the announcement fell short of many’s expectations.  This time around expectations were met […]

The post Bitcoin.com Gets A Fantastic Revamp Thanks To Blockchain.info appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

Blockchain.info has reached a five-year deal to manage premium domain name Bitcoin.com.

A few weeks ago, I saw a funny comic. The comic portrayed a thief who demands a woman’s money. She says she only has bitcoins, and the thief doesn’t understand. He asks her to give it to him, but she explains that it’s not tangible and that she needs his bitcoin wallet address. Upon learning […]

The post The future of everyday life with digital currencies appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

Recently I was able to ask Tyler Roye of eGifter.com about what his impetuous was for adding Litecoin and Dogecoin as forms of accepted payment alongside Bitcoin. I also asked him about why Walmart left Gyft. On eGifter’s impetuous to add LTC and especially Dogecoin to the marketplace One of eGifter’s biggest priorities for choosing […]

The post Why eGifter added Litecoin and Dogecoin, and the reason to Walmart’s Departure From Gyft appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

Recently I was able to ask Tyler Roye of eGifter.com about what his impetuous was for adding Litecoin and Dogecoin as forms of accepted payment alongside Bitcoin. I also asked him about why Walmart left Gyft. On eGifter’s impetuous to add LTC and especially Dogecoin to the marketplace One of eGifter’s biggest priorities for choosing […]

The post Why eGifter added Litecoin and Dogecoin, and the reason to Walmart’s Departure From Gyft appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

Recently I was able to ask Tyler Roye of eGifter.com about what his impetuous was for adding Litecoin and Dogecoin as forms of accepted payment alongside Bitcoin. I also asked him about why Walmart left Gyft. On eGifter’s impetuous to add LTC and especially Dogecoin to the marketplace One of eGifter’s biggest priorities for choosing […]

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If you can understand the organization of ants, you can understand MaidSafe.[1] Alone, by itself, an ant is both vulnerable and easily marginalized.  Yet when working with the rest of the colony, ants with roughly the same petite attributes can take down larger prey, clear paths and protect the mound from disasters (both natural and man-made). I spoke with David Irvine, the CEO of MaidSafe and he used this type of analogy to describe how the decentralized attributes of MaidSafe works.  MaidSafe bills itself as a wholly decentralized internet wherein it acts as a decentralized storage platform available to anyone globally.  Over the past 8 years, the team has concocted a cauldron of algorithms which harmonize, orchestrate and control individual […]

The post MaidSafe Makes Data Safe appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

A yacht priced at 22,305.134 BTC ($11,000,000) may be the most expensive bitcoin product ever.

One reality often grappled with in the digital currency sector is what’s seen as an unequal distribution of newly created bitcoins. While Satoshi Nakamoto originally envisioned a currency everyone could participate in and be rewarded, powerful hashing-farms have muscled out even the most determined hobbyists – forcing them to mine more profitable alt-coins. First came […]

The post Fluttercoin Wants to Reward Your Spending: Interview with TheKidCoin appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

Medienberichten zufolge soll die insolvente Bitcoinbörse Mt. Gox aus Japan abgwickelt werden, da sich bisher kein Investor gefunden hat, der das Handelshaus sanieren möchte. Die Pläne der Mt. Gox Chefs, die Tauschplattform selbst wieder aufzubauen, lehnte das Gericht in Tokyo ab.  Mögliche Ermittlungen gegen die Manager werden geprüft. Rückblick Die damalige größte Börse für Bitcoin […]

The post Abwicklung der insolventen Bitcoin-Börse Mt. Gox scheint beschlossen! appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

Mardi 15 avril, la Fondation Bitcoin annonçait officiellement la programmation de l’évènement le plus attendu de l’année: la conférence Bitcoin 2014, qui aura lieu cette année à Amsterdam du 15 au 17 mai 2014.  Cette année, le conférencier d’honneur sera Patrick M. Byrne, fondateur, président et directeur général d’Overstock, un site marchand de vente au […]

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Ron Paul detailed his thoughts on Bitcoin in one of two posts he wrote on the question-and-answer site Quora Wednesday. While the former Republican presidential candidate and congressman expressed support for the cryptocurrency, he also said it is not "true money."

"Though I don’t personally believe that Bitcoin is true money, it should be perfectly legal and there should be no restrictions on it, there should be no taxes on it," Paul wrote. "The people who operate Bitcoin would, of course, be prohibited from committing fraud but the people should be able to have competition whether it is a basket of commodities or crypto-currencies - it should be perfectly legal."

Paul described Bitcoin as an "introduction" to competition for the dollar that could improve our "terrible monetary system."

"Bitcoin is a very interesting subject because for many years in Congress I was a champion of legalizing competition in currencies," wrote Paul. "We have a terrible monetary system today. We have a government that purposely counterfeits and debases the currencies and I believe that the alternative would be a competition. That means that anything that wants to substitute for the American dollar should be permitted. There should be no prohibitions; there should not be a monopoly and a cartel running our monetary system because it so often benefits the privileged few. ... Bitcoin is an introduction to that."

Paul also noted Bitcoin requires "freedom from government intervention when it comes to the Internet" to flourish. He said he is "concerned that the government ultimately wants to curtail the Internet."

"The internet is the salvation for those of us who believe in liberty because it is an alternative way of getting around the system not only in the spreading of our ideas in this instance but in in terms of getting around the monetary system on the whole if they do permit crypto-currencies and other forms of transactions. So, this is something that we should all be concerned about whether we endorse it or not," Paul wrote.

Read Paul's full discussion of Bitcoin here. 

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Could student sleuths have finally uncovered the true identity the mystery man behind the world's most enigmatic currency? Or is this just another false alarm

Why does Bitcoin’s value fluctuate? Why will it continue to fluctuate? Simple! It’s because that’s what small caps do! It’s what they’ve always done and always will do, and here’s why. Bitcoin fulfills two functions; it is a currency and it is also an investment. As a currency, it fulfills many of the functions and […]

The post Bitcoin Volatility: It’s How Wall Street Works! appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.