Coin News

Should the first rule of popularizing Bitcoin be not to talk about Bitcoin?

Day one of the industry conference had no shortage of big predictions and controversial statements.

A number of countries offer investment-based citizenship, which offers nonresidents the chance to acquire citizenship in return for injecting money into the local economy. Now, under a new economic program sponsored by the local government, people can use Bitcoin to apply and pay for citizenship in a popular Caribean nation popular among tourists. Passports for […]

The post Passports for Bitcoin Offers Privacy to Consumers appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

A panel of US bitcoin business executives said today it is difficult to build relationships with banks.

Day one of Bitcoin2014 wrapped up with Blockchain Awards, we reveal the big winners.

  PrepaidBitco.in is a Bitcoin service that offers Prepaid Bitcoin™ cards to the masses.  The cards that PrepaidBitco.in has for sale on its website are similar in function to Xbox Live, or iTunes, or League of Legends Riot Points prepaid cards which are sold at locations all over the world.  The Prepaid Bitcoin™ card, once purchased, […]

The post PrepaidBitco.in Offers Prepaid Bitcoin™ Cards appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

Apple released a device update weeks ago that made large improvements on existing iBeacon technology. The update allows devices to search for existing beacons without the application being open on the device, while also enabling nearly all iOS7 devices to send and receive beacon signals. This means that retailers can send messages to customers, accept touchless payment and gain valuable customer information, all without dedicated hardware. There is little question that Apple has plans to dominate mobile commerce, but did they make a mistake by outlawing digital payment systems like Bitcoin? iBeacon technology began simply as a device offering a low powered system for sending push messages to devices within a determined proximity. The technology uses Bluetooth Low Energy 4.0 […]

The post The Future of Touchless Payments – Why iBeacon Technology Needs Bitcoin appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Mexican Bitcoin Exhange Bitso has officially launched as the first Ripple Gateway in Mexico. Bitso will be the first issuer of Mexican Peso (MXN) balances on the Ripple Network. The company intends to use the unique characteristics of the Ripple network and protocol to tackle the remittance market between Mexico and the US. Bitso is a Mexican-based provider of cryptocurrency services, including remittance facilities and consultation. The company has offices in Mexico City, Puebla and Vancouver. The intention with becoming a Ripple gateway is to extend service offerings available to its clients. Through the Ripple network Bitso will enable its clients in Mexico to send and receive value to or from anywhere in the world instantly, at negligible cost. This […]

The post A Ripple Gateway in Mexico appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Mexican Bitcoin Exhange Bitso has officially launched as the first Ripple Gateway in Mexico. Bitso will be the first issuer of Mexican Peso (MXN) balances on the Ripple Network. The company intends to use the unique characteristics of the Ripple network and protocol to tackle the remittance market between Mexico and the US. Bitso is a Mexican-based provider of cryptocurrency services, including remittance facilities and consultation. The company has offices in Mexico City, Puebla and Vancouver. The intention with becoming a Ripple gateway is to extend service offerings available to its clients. Through the Ripple network Bitso will enable its clients in Mexico to send and receive value to or from anywhere in the world instantly, at negligible cost. This […]

The post A Ripple Gateway in Mexico appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

We took a break from Bitcoin2014 to bring you the digital currency news highlights of the past week.

Mycelium has recently come out with a feature for their Android wallets called Local Trader, which allows people to buy and sell bitcoins locally, in person, with cash. Initially, the trades were limited to sell ads, meaning people willing to sell bitcoins could put up an ad, and those wishing to buy bitcoins could contact them and set up a time to meet and trade. The option to set up a buy ad, which would allow locals to convert their bitcoins back to cash, was delayed, since Mycelium wanted to first focus on helping those new to Bitcoin to have an easy way to get their first bitcoins. Now, with the release of Mycelium Bitcoin Wallet version 1.2.9, which finally […]

The post With Buy Ads, Mycelium Local Trader Becomes a Fully Functional Exchange appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

The Chinese government may be moving to suppress bitcoin adoption by limiting access to popular industry websites, reports say.

In the annual ‘State of Bitcoin’ address, the Bitcoin Foundation's Chief Scientist expressed concern over bitcoin mining.

Startup EAZE has released a beta of its innovative payments app that lets you send bitcoin with a nod.

 While Google may be working on adding Google Wallet to Glass, and other big payment players are “eyeing up” (!) ways of integrating into Google’s computing headgear, a Dutch startup has beaten them to the punch. Eaze is a new app, out in beta today, that uses voice and image recognition to activate the service, and nodding head gestures to confirm and complete… Read More

This post is also in issue 18. Every Bitcoin transaction runs a small program that describes under which conditions the transaction is valid. This surprising behavior can be exploited to construct a variety of contracts on top of bitcoin. In this article you will learn how basic transaction scripts work in principle. A new transaction is valid if the transaction scripts of its own input field and the transaction script of its predecessing transaction validates to true. Figure: An output tx is valid only if a script program results in a boolean TRUE. The script is composed of two scripts blocks; the execution order of the scripts is: first ScriptA from OutputTX is executed, then ScriptB from InputTX. The scripting […]

The post Thinking in Transactions appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Recently we wrote about all the problems that still plague how we make payments in 2014. 

Bitcoin was supposed to address many of them — the costliness of sending money (especially small amounts), the lack of security, cumbersome receipts  — but the Bitcoin ecosystem that's developed to this point has itself been largely disappointing and self-defeating, with much of it has been focused exclusively on profit seeking.

Circle hopes to be at the vanguard of bringing Bitcoin out of this speculative era and into a more useful one. We wrote about them a couple months ago, when they said they wanted to be the Skype of Bitcoin.

Today, at the Bitcoin2014 Conference in Amsterdam, they officially launched their service on an invitation-only basis.

The idea is that you can be your own Bitcoin bank — but it won't even feel like you're even using Bitcoin at all.

"The product is...really oriented around a set of 'metaphors' we think will be more accessible to the average user," CEO Jeremy Allaire told us recently. "You’re making deposits and withdrawals, you’re sending and spending, your balances are in dollars, you're sending money in dollars. That will make more sense for the average person who would say, Why would I want Bitcoin, what can I do with that that I can't already do?"

The service is free, and comes with insurance, although Allaire says users will have a "risk score" attached to their identities that will determine how much of the digital asset users will be able to instantly access. And you'll still have to submit information about your fiat debit account, although that is also the case with Coinbase, the largest Bitcoin wallet service.

That of course creates another huge breach with one of Bitcoin's ostensible initial purposes: complete anonymity. Allaire observes most mainstream customers don't possess the libertarian streak of Bitcoin's earliest adopters. 

"It has all these features that will make sense to people and will resonate with people," he said, "but it’s not about overthrowing world governments or undermining the banking system or things like that. It’s about how do you do something that's faster, cheaper, easier, et cetera."

Circle is backed by an interesting mix of Valley and Bitcoin funds, including ones run by Jim Breyer, an early Facebook investor, and SecondMarket's Barry Silbert. Circle now has a large enough capital base to both not have to charge consumers to use the base-line service and to be able to to pay for all the risk, security and compliance that goes into creating this kind of service.

Allaire says the primary up-front benefit will be sending free and instant global money transfers, and does not expect overnight adoption. To truly take off, he said, Bitcoin must go from a few hundred thousands actual users of Bitcoin worldwide, which he admitted was "startingly" few given the amount of media attention the digital currency has received, to hundreds of millions. But it has to start somewhere, and Allaire believes Circle can lead the way.

Join the conversation about this story »

Bitcoin2014 kicked off today in earnest, with Patrick Byrne addressing future plans and past controversies in his keynote speech.

Bitcoin services don't perhaps have the best of track records right now, and they can often appear niche and daunting. Circle hopes to change to change that,though, by offering a free and accessible bitcoin banking service for everyday folks.

Read more...

If Bitcoin is meant to be an anonymous, decentralized currency that is free of intermediaries and national restrictions, then today's launch of a new Bitcoin bank, called Circle, might seem deeply antithetical. Circle's website does its utmost to...

For many months now, Bitcoiners have been wondering exactly what services Circle would offer to the fledging Digital Currency community.  Since 2013, Circle has been notoriously tight-lipped on the specifics of its operation.  Some in the community even went as far as to compare Circle to vaporware.  Today, all the speculation is laid to rest. […]

The post Circle Reveals The First Worldwide Bitcoin Bank; Offers $10 In Bitcoin To All New Customers appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

 Circle, the bitcoin-based financial services company, is emerging from stealth with a suite of products and services aimed to take bitcoin’s blockchain to mainstream consumers. Since its launch in 2013, Boston-based Circle has been very quiet about its planned offerings based on bitcoin’s exchange technology. Now, as the international bitcoin conference in Amsterdam shifts into gear,… Read More

Circle shares detailed insights about how it intends to market and build a consumer-friendly bitcoin business.

BitPay is partnering with electronics manufacturer Toshiba on a bitcoin integration for the latter company's point-of-sale platform.