Coin News

BitPay's new open-source, multi-signature wallet service, Copay, aims to solve a critical security need for bitcoin users.

 Today the Bitcoin Foundation announced that it has retained a lobbying group to press its interests in the nations capital.  The selected firm, Thorsen French Advocacy, will “introduce Bitcoin and the foundation to Capitol Hill offices” according to the Foundation. Consider it a sign of the times. Lobbying and political activity has risen among technology companies, as their… Read More

Stocks finished higher after two straight losing sessions, as the minutes from the latest FOMC meeting indicated the Fed sees a potential end to its QE program coming in October. 

First, the scoreboard:

• Dow: 16,974.89, +68.3, (+0.4%)
• S&P 500: 1,971.71, +8, (+0.4%)
• Nasdaq: 4,415.83, +24.4, (+0.6%)

And now, the top stories of the day:

1) The minutes from the latest Federal Reserve's latest Federal Open Market Committee meeting were released at 2:00 pm EST, and for the first time indicated a potential end to the Fed's monthly asset purchase program, or Quantitative Easing (QE). The Fed has been reducing QE by $10 billion at each meeting since December 2013, and the latest minutes indicated that if the economy continues as the FOMC's members expect, QE could end with a single $15 billion reduction at its October meeting. The minutes also showed that the Fed plans to clearly indicate to the market when it plans to begin raising rates.

2) The FOMC minutes indicated that the Fed is concerned about investors growing too complacent given the current market environment. Following the minutes release, Joe Brusuelas and Josh Wright, economists at Bloomberg LP, said, "Of special note, some on the committee observed that results from the primary dealer survey suggested that low realized volatility, generally favorable economic news and less uncertainty for the path of monetary policy might have generated complacency on the part of market participants about potential risks. Given that one purpose of the Fed’s quantitative easing policy is to encourage risk taking in order to suppress yields at the longer end of the curve, investors will probably now look closely at the Fed’s intentions regarding macroprudential measures going forward." 

3) In its earnings release yesterday afternoon, Kip Tindell, CEO of The Container Store, gave an ominous warnings about the state of retail activity. "Consistent with so many of our fellow retailer, we are experiencing a retail 'funk,'" Tindell said. Shares of The Container Store fell 9%. as the company also reported same store sales that fell 0.8% and reported a loss of $0.07 per share.

4) Shares of Gigamon cratered, losing more than 30% after the company warned investors that its revenue would be way below forecasts. BI's Julie Bort noted that this is the second straight quarter the enterprise tech company has reduced its revenue outlook, and since topping out at $41.81, the stock is down more than 70%.  

5) Next Monday, July 14, will begin a three-week period in which 72% of the S&P 500 reports quarterly earnings. In a research note earlier today, Goldman Sachs' Amanda Sneider highlighted 22 companies that the firm expects to beat expectations. Among the notable companies Goldman is currently forecasting to beat earnings expectations are healthcare giant McKesson and energy company CONSOL Energy. 

Don't Miss: It's Still Ridiculously Difficult To Buy Bitcoin »

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As transaction fees come back into the light, new research shows low fees could be unsustainable.

The government and legal community may still be arguing over whether bitcoin can be defined as “money.” But the judge presiding over the landmark Silk Road drug case has declared that it’s at least close enough to get you locked up for money laundering. In a ruling released Wednesday, Judge Katherine Forrest denied a motion […]

The e-payments firm is giving app new easier tools to put credit-card, PayPal buttons and eventually Bitcoin buttons in their apps.

Facebook has successfully dismantled a major bitcoin botnet operated by a small team of cyber criminals based in Greece.

In a recent press release, the Bitcoin Foundation announced that they have retained Thorsen French Advocacy as an outside lobbying firm to represent the Bitcoin Foundation’s interests in Washington. Thorsen French Advocacy is run by Alec French and Carl Thorsen, long time professional acquaintances of Jim Harper, the Bitcoin Foundation’s Global Policy Counsel. French is a […]

The post The Bitcoin Foundation Hires Washington D.C. Firm To Do Some Bitcoin Lobbying On Capitol Hill appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

Like penny stocks traded on the NYSE or those on pink sheets, cryptocurrency is a prime target for pump and dump scams. For those with buying power, it’s an easy way to get rich quick by inflating the price. For everyone else, nine out of ten times, you will lose. This is one of several […]

The post Pump and Dump: Know the Signs when Trading Altcoins appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

The Bitcoin Foundation has hired Washington, DC-based lobbying firm Thorsen French Advocacy.

Lately Bitcoin seems to have entered a kind of equilibrium. On the one hand, it has mostly purged itself of the potential for major scandals like MtGox to cause another crisis of confidence. At the same time, the amount of Bitcoin being transacted on a daily basis remains at about the same level it was a year ago. 

There may be a simple reason for why we the next big breakout has been put on hold: It remains exceedingly difficult to purchase Bitcoin. 

Much of this is related to the regulatory difficulties Bitcoin sellers are still encountering. Very few U.S. states allow money transmitting businesses that can sell Bitcoin to operate without a license. As a result, American prospectors are confined to from the handful of exchanges operating in the U.S., or must take their chances with an overseas exchange. 

But not all encumbrances are the result of government restrictions. Simply because of its recent vintage, having a totally secure Bitcoin wallet — one that only you control access to, because remember, you are supposed to not have to use a bank anymore — remains elusive. There continue to be reports of compromised Bitcoin wallets at even the most reputable firms, although not all of these are the firm's direct fault.

So one's options for a safe purchase are limited. And attaining that security has created a contradiction for the cryptocurrency: The most trusted sites require you to give up your anonymity, which was supposed to be one of Bitcoin's principal virtues.  

By consensus, the safest option for buying Bitcoin in the U.S. is Coinbase. The firm has put itself through a rigorous security audit to ensure there are no holes in its system, and enjoys some institutional heft (it's backed by Andreessen Horowitz's Chris Dixon, among others). 

But with Coinbase, you trade security (though even this is not guaranteed) for convenience. First, you must connect your bank account, something that takes two-to-four business days for Coinbase to process. And if you're looking to use two-step identification for an extra layer of security, you must download a whole separate app that will give you a temporary PIN to key in to make your transaction. Then, buying the Bitcoin itself can take another four days — Coinbase uses the traditional (not to mention antiquated) ACH bank transfer system to collect money from your bank. ACH still uses batch transfers, and each step of making an ACH transfer takes about a day. 

To their credit, Coinbase has a 24-hour live-help-chat feature to help resolve issues that come up with the purchase. They also admit that the whole process takes a long time.

Another service, which comes recommended by mega Bitcoin wallet site Blockchain, is China-based ANX. Here too they seem to provide, but again this comes at the price of ease of use. Here's the form and all the identification required to purchase Bitcoin there:

This form embodies the anonymity dilemma Bitcoin now faces: Registering for a Bitcoin account now requires about the same amount of effort as it does a regular bank account. 

St. Louis Fed Senior Vice President and Director of Research David Andolfatto recently Tweeted that he wanted to experiment with buying Bitcoin — despite having written one of the most cogent breakdowns of the digital currency, he'd yet to actually used it. We asked him how it went. "So far, I've managed to download a wallet (easy)," he told us in an email. "I had no Bitcoins at the time and I didn't really know how to get some. So I went on Twitter and asked people to send me some (I sent [them] right back). That was pretty easy, although in one case the payment took about 2 days to clear."

He did mention one other way that speeds up the process a bit: ATMs. But even here, you can end up waiting up to five minutes, at least for your initial purchase, for your account to be verified. And there still aren't that many in the U.S.

Bitcoin was supposed to be the most convenient form of money in the world. But if it wants to keep growing, it will have to start acknowledging that, while it may have other virtues, convenience isn't necessarily one of them.

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This article first appeared in Issue 21: Bitcoin & Art A Book by Irwin Schiff I often cop a lot of flack for claiming that the fundamental laws of economics, like the laws of physics, are immutable. I stand by this statement because the basic principles of economics are based on scientific logic. The only reason they are so poorly understood is because they are made deliberately confusing by those who benefit from your ignorance. Economics is routinely cloaked in technical jargon and obscure terminology. I am a huge fan of any work that can explain these principles simply and make them accessible. For this reason I maintain that Irwin Schiff’s ‘How an Economy Grows and Why it Doesn’t‘ is the […]

The post How an Economy Grows and Why it Doesn’t: A Review appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

The bitcoin entrepreneur has announced a new cryptocurrency backed one-to-one by US dollar reserves.

Richard Waters, writing in Financial Times, is reporting that Silicon Valley’s A-Listers seem to be fast climbing onto the Bitcoin bandwagon. More and more of Silicon Valley’s venture capitalists have been queuing up to invest in Bitcoin start-ups. Yesterday, some of Silicon Valley’s heavy hitters bought into the $20 Million funding round for Xapo. This […]

The post Silicon Valley is moving into Bitcoin appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

Workers sending money home face high fees from 'legacy' payments services. Now some Philippines startups want to change that.

Welcome to the CryptoCoinsNews weekly altcoin news update, where we examine important altcoin stories that have gone under-the-radar. This week’s article examines Litecoin‘s recent price struggles, Darkcoin‘s recent progress toward anonymity, and QuarkBar‘s introduction of adaptive coin creation. Litecoin Price Struggles Since its release in 2011, Litecoin has consistently remained cryptocurrency’s silver standard. However, hundreds […]

The post Weekly Altcoin News Update: Litecoin Price Struggles, Darkcoin Progress, and More appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

Brock Pierce, an entrepreneur, investor and former child actor, has launched “Realcoin”. A Dollar-backed cryptocurrency that aims to fix Bitcoin’s volatility problem. Sounds familiar? Realcoins CEO Mr. Collins told Wall Street Journal that: “we are digitizing the dollar and giving that digital dollar access to the bitcoin blockchain.” Since February I have been working on […]

The post How Brock Pierce and Realcoin copied Coinaaa appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

Online game company Coinplay.io recently earned the support of startup incubator BetaBlox, helping the Dogecoin-based website gain traction as it readies to move out of the beta phase in August. The partnership with BetaBlox will provide six months of mentorship in return for a five percent equity stake in Coinplay.io. The startup’s CEO and co-founder Shane […]

The post Kansas City Startup Incubator Partners with Dogecoin-Based Coinplay.io appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

Poland’s Deputy Finance Minister released a document confirming that bitcoin can be considered a financial instrument.