Coin News

GenesisCoin is releasing its second-gen Bitcoin ATM. Priced at $7,500, at about half the price, the Satoshi1 offers one way Cash->Bitcoin, Cash->Litecoin, Cash->Dogecoin transactions. This machine has been specially designed to meet all international guidelines for AML/KYC with high grade network encryption, and it even features an optional fingerprint sensor to be required at the […]

The post GenesisCoin Satoshi1 Crypto ATM Releases Soon appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

GenesisCoin is releasing its second-gen Bitcoin ATM. Priced at $7,500, at about half the price, the Satoshi1 offers one way Cash->Bitcoin, Cash->Litecoin, Cash->Dogecoin transactions. This machine has been specially designed to meet all international guidelines for AML/KYC with high grade network encryption, and it even features an optional fingerprint sensor to be required at the […]

The post GenesisCoin Satoshi1 Crypto ATM Releases Soon appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

GenesisCoin is releasing its second-gen Bitcoin ATM. Priced at $7,500, at about half the price, the Satoshi1 offers one way Cash->Bitcoin, Cash->Litecoin, Cash->Dogecoin transactions. This machine has been specially designed to meet all international guidelines for AML/KYC with high grade network encryption, and it even features an optional fingerprint sensor to be required at the […]

The post GenesisCoin Satoshi1 Crypto ATM Releases Soon appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

Bitcoin pre-loaded cards in Singapore aim to be convenient, friendly to beginners, and in manageable amounts.

 We’re hearing that Bitpay, a platform that processes payments in Bitcoin for merchants, is raising the field’s biggest round yet. The company is raising $30 million on a roughly $160 million valuation in a round led by Index Ventures, with Richard Branson and Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang participating. Bitpay declined to comment. With Bitpay’s previous funding round, the… Read More

Colorado Democrat Jared Polis announced Thursday that he will begin taking contributions in Bitcoin. Polis' decision to start accepting the cryptocurrency came a day after the Federal Election Commission issued guidance for politicians who want to receive Bitcoin donations.

"I am thrilled that the FEC has chosen to take a forward looking stance on digital currencies, recognizing the rights of individuals seeking alternatives to government backed currencies to participate in our democratic political process," Polis said in a statement. "Bitcoin, and other digital currencies, are just beginning to show the world what a tremendous tool they can be; whether it is reducing transaction costs in developing nations, giving people more options for engaging in commerce, or sending Representatives dedicated to advancing personal freedom to Congress."

Polis' statement declared, "Jared Polis for Congress is the first campaign to begin accepting Bitcoin under the new guidance from the FEC." Texas Congressman Steve Stockman began taking Bitcoin contributions for his unsuccessful Senate bid late last year.

In the announcement, the Polis campaign noted it would " continue to accept dollars."

Join the conversation about this story »

The Bitcoin Foundation, gearing up for the Bitcoin 2014 conference and, has announced the shortlist of Blockchain Awards finalists.

Today, Coinbase Co-founder Fred Ehrsam announced on twitter that any student that signs up on Coinbase with a school email account (the domain ending in .edu) will receive $10 worth of Bitcoin in their account for signing up. He then added the offer was for a limited time and that it would only work for select schools, […]

The post Coinbase Launches Student Bonus Promotion, Kind Of appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

Citi is out with its list of disruptive technologies for 2014.

It's a brand new list from the one did they did last year.

And it's really good. Check it out:

4-D Printing

Description: The movement is spearheaded by a guy named Skyler Tibbits, a researcher in MIT's architecture department. The idea is this: You used 3-D printers to print out smart materials that can shape or assemble themselves. The concept is still in its infancy, but Citi says this could help individuals build stuff in extreme conditions, or allow medical devices to construct themselves once they're implanted.

"Utilizing a 3D printer to build the object layer by layer, intelligence can be imprinted directly into the actual structure [via more rigid or flexible materials] dictating the transformation and the eventual shape of the object."

Insane stat: The US Army recently contributed $855K, split between Harvard, University of Illinois and University of Pittsburgh to help advance projects focused on 4D printing.

Relevant graphic: Watch THIS! 

4D Printing: Truncated Octahedron from Skylar Tibbits on Vimeo.

Digital banking

Description: Citi says that, though it remains at an early stage, mobile banking is going to take off around the world. They forecast an 86% compound annual growth rate to $447 billion from $69 billion in 2016. Although the largest volumes will be in developed markets, the greatest opportunities for new entrants lie in emerging markets thanks to the relative lack of established financial institutions. 

Meanwhile, more and more banking services will become automated, resulting in savings costs.  

Insane stat: Norway, Finland and Sweden operate at branch per population densities 2x or more below developed market peers.

Relevant graphic: Cash intensity by country

Digital Currency

Has Bitcoin finally made it? Citi's Steven Englander, who's written about the cryptocurrency in the past, gives a basic introduction and talks up the potential of the block chain (both Bitcoin's and the concept in general). He poses the technology's potential thusly: "Bitcoin advocates who benefit from Bitcoin appreciation argue strongly for its role as an asset, but the transactions technology is generic and efficient and less complicated than introducing an intermediate currency (Bitcoin) to facilitate USD to USD or USD to EUR transactions."

Insane stat: As of April 2014, Bitcoinpulse counted 29,000 merchants accepting Bitcoin.

Relevant graphic: Price vs. transaction volume

Digital Marketing

Description: There's nothing new here per se but Citi says growth will start accelerating. The main outcome of this will be more user data. "...The digital market uses and generates massive amounts of data and it is this data that differentiates digital marketing from traditional offline marketing. The result is a highly personalized experience for a consumer across all channels in an experience that the prospective or current customer appreciates and they in turn encourage through greater access to their personal data."

Insane stat: Real-time-bidding-based digital ad spending will see a 66% compound annual growth rate into 2016. (Real-time bidding means the ad buying and placement process is automatic.)

Relevant graphic: the return to publishers from ads is not what it used to be

Electric Vehicles

Description: Citi's interesting suggestion, from analyst Itay Michaeli, for wider market goes like this: "The consumer purchases a new EV at a much lower price ($11-13k depending on size/ cost) and does so worry free of any residual value risk tied to future battery technology advancements. The operator would own the batteries, bill customers and operate battery switching stations that allow consumers to quickly (and robotically) switch batteries when desired or when taking very long drives."

Insane stat: Tesla plans to offer a Gen-3 model priced at $35,000. "A $35k price point is historically what’s required to begin the path towards achieving sizeable volume of over 100k units (typically 2-3 years after launch), in theory enough to crown Tesla as the 1st mover in the affordable pure EV market."

Relevant graphic: This cost comparison table

Energy Storage

Here is the clearest justification for energy storage we've yet seen, from Citi's Jason Channell: Solar generates its electricity when most households are empty, or have limited demand. Saving that electricity for later would dramatically offset consumption prices. He continues: "The potentially greater value is in terms of avoided capacity payments, and the grid stability which storage could provide. If storage could be combined with smart metering and demand response, we could conceivably move to a situation where load is managed (i.e., by dishwashers etc. being turned on automatically when demand was lowest and vice versa) and supply is being managed by storage. This could significantly reduce the amount of stranded capacity and hence wasted cost on an electricity system, as well as improve its reliability.

Insane stat: In the first quarter of 2014, solar and wind combined generated 28% of German electricity.

Relevant graphic: Here is the breakdown of the potential market size for different storage technologies

Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy involves training the immune system to both better recognize cancer cells, and attack them so that cancer becomes nothing more than a chronic condition. From Citi's Andrew Baum: "While existing chemotherapy or even newer oral drugs have a powerful initial effect on tumor shrinkage (the so called “response rate”), the durability of these responses are typically very short, after which the tumor begins to grow again and starts to spread (metastasize). In contrast, the durability of responses with immunotherapy can last a decade or longer, due to the induction of an ongoing immunological memory, targeting cancer cells for an indeterminate length of time and making it a potential tool to transform a significant percentage of cancers into something akin to a chronic disease."

Insane stat: Two-thirds of Western cancer incidence could be successfully treated with immunotherapy.

Relevant graphic: Here's how many more people immunotherapy will keep alive 

Insurance Securitization

Description: Insurance securitization represents a threat to reinsurance, which is how insurers currently pool their own risk. Instead of having to dump all that risk into one or two firms, insurance securitization would allow an insurer to spread their risk across capital markets in the form of securitized bundles.

Insane stat: Reinsurers had to cut their prices 15% in response to securitizers.

Relevant graphic: Most insurance-linked securities are focus on property policies, like hurricane insurance. But some tried to get smart and sell life insurance policies into the capital markets. After the financial crisis, they wised up:

Precision Agriculture

Description: Citi bundles a bunch of different technologies into this category. They include: yield mapping, soil sampling and mapping, hyper-local weather detectors, a farming machine Internet, and big data. "Unless there is a major divergence from historical trends, new land will not be nearly enough to meet [global food demand]. Farm productivity needs to take another step higher, and we think Precision Agriculture will be an important avenue to achieve these productivity gains."

Insane stat: The average age of a U.S. farmer is 57. 

Relevant graphic: Here's how much more food Citi says we're gonna need in coming decades

Robots

Description: The world leader? China — thanks to "the up-trend of wages (albeit from relatively low levels), the peaking out of the working population, the high level of job-hopping and the general trend of Chinese workers not wanting low-paid manual assembly, picking, inspecting or packaging jobs in factories."

Insane stat: U.S. manufacturing comprises just 12% of GDP, meaning that in that sector at least, there may not be that many more replaceable workers.

Relevant graphic: The CAGR for global volumes is ~8.5%

SEE ALSO: Everything you need to know about mobile money

Join the conversation about this story »

De Nederlandsche Bank has issued a warning on the perceived dangers of digital currencies.

The cryptocurrency industry is not only becoming popular for spenders, but also for those seeking an education. Gigaom reports that university students are now being given the opportunity to receive bitcoin upon enrollment, and some institutions are even accepting the alternative currency as payment for tuition. This fall, more than 4k students enrolled at one of the world’s leading tech-focused institutions will receive $100 worth of bitcoin. Jeremy Rubin, a computer science sophomore at MIT, and Dan Elitzer, President of the MIT Bitcoin Club and a first year student in the MBA program at MIT Sloan, have successfully raised more than half a million dollars for their new project. With help from MIT alumni and the bitcoin community, together they’ve […]

The post Bitcoin’s Growing Versatility Creates New Opportunities appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Earlier this year Benjamin Lawsky, New York’s financial services superintendent, said he intended to initiate the biggest move towards regulating bitcoin. Lawsky told CNN Money that he planned do this by administering “BitLicenses” to companies dealing with bitcoins, allegedly to protect the public from fraud. Without explaining how exactly, Lawsky said he’d impose regulation on Bitcoin-related businesses, similar to those that govern banks. Given the government’s track record on managing finances, including simple tasks like balancing a checkbook, the notion the government is either trustworthy, or competent, to successfully carry out such a task is debatable; some might say laughable. “We’ve found in other areas of the financial world that strong, clear, concise disclosures are critical to earning the long-term […]

The post Crypto-anarchists Versus Government, Who Will Win The War to Regulate Bitcoin? appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

SINGAPORE – MAY 7, 2014 - Later this month, Coin Congress will hold its first event in Singapore. The two-day Coin Congress Digital Currency Conference will take place on May 21-22 at the Shangri-La Hotel and will bring together digital currency professionals from around the world. Coin Congress is focused on more than just Bitcoin, digital currency, monetization, integration and user acquisition; the inaugural event will bring together the culture of individuals and companies who are ready to break the mold and spark change. The conference hopes to provide the opportunity to meet and discuss the growing segment of digital currency. “The Bitcoin platform is creating an upheaval in financial services, and we are just beginning to grasp how the […]

The post Coin Congress Digital Currency Conference to be Held in Singapore appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

The proposed plan to revive bankrupt Japan-based bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox has received a key preliminary nod of approval.

“To the moon!!” That is the traditional rallying cry of digital currency fanatics. Now it appears that Dogecoin will not only go to the moon, but it will race three mini-rovers on its surface. Courtesy of RevUp Render, Team Phoenicia, and the newly formed VeryCharity Inc., the Lunar Iditarod will be a multi-stage robotics challenge […]

The post Lunar Iditarod: Dogecoin is Literally Going To The Moon, And More appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

(PORTLAND, Ore.) — Workers are human. That means sometimes they have needs that take them away from work for extended periods of time. Babies, illnesses and even sabbaticals can mean a long time away from a job and a paycheck, too. MoreWeddings Can Be Pricey, Even For GuestsSEC Warns Investors on BitcoinFlight MH370 Families: We…

5/8/14, at an open meeting, the United States Federal Election Commission (FEC) has voted 6-0 to pass the Advisory Opinion Request 2014-02 Draft C which will expressly allow Bitcoin donations to Make Your Laws.  This draft, which was today unanimously accepted by the FEC, represents the FEC’s bipartisan compromise on the issue of allowing Bitcoin donations. […]

The post US Federal Election Commission Votes Unanimously To Allow Bitcoin Donations For Political Action Committees appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

The US Federal Election Commission has determined that bitcoin donations may be treated as in-kind political contributions.

BTCTrip is one of those special companies in the Bitcoin space that knows how to evangelize for the cryptocurrency. While they already allow users to book flights around the world with Bitcoin, they are now preparing to expand into the hotel market. In addition to allowing users to book hotels with their online reservation system, […]

The post BTCTrip Wants to Turn 150,000 Hotels into Local Bitcoin Exchanges appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

The Australian bitcoin platform will switch to BPAY as its sole means of topping 'Filler' balances with cash.

Avalara has added a bitcoin module to its AvaTax compliance engine, making it the first to offer bitcoin functionality.

A roundup of the day's news--curated by the Inc. editorial team--to help you and your business succeed.

Building a venture-backed company when you're a woman is a tough road: A recent Harvard study found that even when the pitches are identical, investors choose male-led startups 68 percent of the time. But there are workarounds to the problem, according to a number of entrepreneurs interviewed in Newsweek: Give investors a reason to personally connect with your product, and consider crowdfunding.--Newsweek

Google has acquired Stackdriver (terms undisclosed), a Boston-based cloud-software startup with 30 employees, $15 million in funding--and no CEO. Co-founders Izzy Azeri and Dan Belchersay have no formal titles. Half of the employees report to Azeri and the other half to Belcher, and those employees don't have titles either. The unusual management structure has "allowed us to go fast," Azeri says. "There's not just one person responsible for the whole company, and that alleviates pressure." It's worth keeping in mind, if your startup's top team is haggling over titles.--The Boston Globe

The end of net neutrality rules is already taking a toll on startups. Venture capitalists such as Union Square Ventures partner Brad Burnham are now saying that they plan to stay away from funding companies in mobile payments, media, and other industries whose businesses rely on fast Internet connections.--MIT Technology Review

Employees are fed up with--and maybe giving up on--their health insurance. A new survey finds only 59 percent are satisfied with their health care coverage, compared to 70 percent just three years ago. Some 62 percent of workers said they would pay more to get guaranteed retirement benefits, but only 32 percent were willing to pay up for stability in health care costs.--The Washington Post

A new San Francisco startup is encouraging drivers to auction off their primo parking spots to other drivers--and promoting the idea that individuals with cars can make a living off of sitting in (rare) parking spots downtown. Drivers are furious, and are taking to Twitter to rant about MonkeyParking's attempt to profit off of public streets.--SF Weekly

Evernote released an update to its iPhone app Wednesday that allows for better scanning of business cards and a more streamlined interaction with LinkedIn. The two companies announced late last year that they would team up to take the here's-my-business-card transaction mobile and digital, and it looks like this update might be the first step.--VentureBeat

The Securities and Exchange Commission warned investors against dealing with bitcoin, saying that the currency is unregulated and virtually untraceable in case of fraud. But PandoDaily argues that the statement ignores one of the most severe threats: the ability of the government to seize and liquidate bitcoin before successfully convicting someone of wrongdoing, which was demonstrated during the shutdown of the Silk Road marketplace.--PandoDaily

The Singapore-based bitcoin exchange's new staff come with experience at PayPal and SecondMarket.

The block chain is more than the bitcoin ledger – it offers potential for other radical new services too.

EveryDice is a relatively new addition to the bustling Bitcoin Dice sector. But it has set new standards for the niche industry. he casino draws in users with its comfortable, minimalist website. While many Bitcoin gambling sites good reputation, they often do not look the part. EveryDice’s website is clean, bright, and welcoming. It is a […]

The post EveryDice: Bitcoin Dice With Low 0.99% House Edge appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

Switzerland: The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, FINMA, has revised the Collective Investment Schemes Ordnance. This time it includes information and guidelines on Bitcoin. Coming from one of the most conservative and secretive financial systems in the world, this is an indication of Bitcoin’s progress. FINMA’s role is:  “To protect creditors, investors and policy holders […]

The post Switzerland: Swiss Financial Market Authority (FINMA) considers Bitcoin appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.