Coin News

Happy Sunday! With the end of a rather eventful week, it’s time for the Bitcoin News in Review. This week was all about New York’s BitLicense, Dell accepting Bitcoin, Charlie Lee re-proposing merged mining, and more. Check out this week’s top stories after the break. BitLicense If you’ve been following this week’s Bitcoin news, you’ve probably […]

The post Bitcoin News in Review: BitLicense, Dell, Merged Mining, and More appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

The announcement finds the German startup seeking to better serve its strongest market.

If you still don't understand what the deal with Bitcoin is, don't worry: Even it's biggest boosters admit it is still probably still too early to be useful to the mainstream.

In a talk this week sponsored by the NYC Foundation for Computer Science Education, Union Square Ventures founder Fred Wilson identified the two key hurdles Bitcoin still must overcome to be useful to an average consumer.

The first is the cryptocurrency's chicken and egg problem: Nearly six years after Satoshi Nakamoto published his Bitcoin spec paper, demand for Bitcoin remains largely speculative, or induced. And even then, it's still cumbersome to get your hands on some. Here's what Wilson told his audience:

We said, If you come tonight, you're either a student, in which case we have sponsors who were making donations to cover the students, or you're buying a $25 ticket...But you had to pay it in Bitcoin. And I got a lot of emails from people, particularly in the last few days, who said, I don't have any Bitcoin, I would have to buy the Bitcoin, it's going to take me three days for the Bitcoin to show up in my account. So I'm not going to be able to get the Bitcoin in time to make it to the event. If you had Bitcoin in your account it was simple, you just gave 1/20th of a Bitcoin and you come. So, not enough people have it. And forcing people to buy the Bitcoin to give the money to the charity isn't a great model, and we actually saw that in this event. 

The other obstacle Wilson identified to mainstream adoption is that the security systems surrounding Bitcoin remain — though he also says this is in itself represents a huge investment opportunity, as it will help address the first issue:   

One of the real issues with Bitcoin right now is that it's not that secure, and the reason it's not that secure is, it's easy to hack into people's computers, if they have a wallet on their own computer, it's easy to get in there and steal the Bitcoin. Bitcoin theft is a big issue. Bitcoin fraud is a big issue. And what will have to happen is we will need to see companies like Coinbase and others merge that can invest heavily in security. And that's both technological security, and also process security — to make you comfortable to keep your Bitcoin there. And I think that that's probably going to be first big commercial opportunity in Bitcoin, is to create secure systems. Because without that, I don't think we'll ever get enough confidence and trust in the system for people to really start using it.  

This is a big deal. Wilson, who was one of the earliest investors in Twitter and Tumblr, was also one of the first major VCs to get into Bitcoin. He was among a tiny handful of investors to be asked to speak before the New York Department of Financial Services in January as the agency prepared to craft BitLicenses (they just announced proposed guidelines this week).

So for Wilson to admit that there still aren't immediately tangible reasons to get into Bitcoin is perhaps a reassuring sign that hardcore Bitcoin evangelists are starting understand that a lot more work needs to be done before the cryptocurrency can truly break out.

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Bruce Fenton, founder of Atlantic Financial Inc. and the Bitcoin Association, spoke this past weekend at the North American Bitcoin Conference in Chicago. The primary topic of his heated speech was that of Benjamin Lawsky and the proposed BitLicense in New York. While the topic has been on everyone’s tongue and has become quite the […]

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Bureh looks to East and Southern Africa as it brings bitcoin to the Western region.

Trends help predict price movements, but how does one identify a trend and draw it on a bitcoin chart?

The proposal for regulating Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies called BitLicense could have far-reaching and chilling effects. Not only does the licensing issues affect businesses and invade citizens privacy with overly big brother type burdensome identifications of users, it will also likely shut down Bitcoin and cryptocurrency mining in the US. One of the most respected […]

The post The Proposed Bitcoin Regulation “BitLicense” Could Shut Down Mining And Bitcoin Businesses In The US appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

Feeling sadistic? Check out Kadhim Shubber's list of the nine worst screwups in bitcoin’s short history.

Day one of the North American Bitcoin Conference included major announcements from Blockchain, OKCoin and more.

OKCoin has opened up its platform to international buyers with the addition of USD services.

Last month our family spent nearly a month living on the road while spending only Bitcoin. During the course of our travel we were invited via Twitter to make a change to our route so we could experience the cutting edge Bitcoin Boulevard, founded by Nikhil Chand and his amazing wife, Rebecca. The pair has helped dozens of restaurants and shops set up to accept Bitcoin through BitPay. We immediately changed our route to include an overnight stop in Cleveland Heights, Ohio so we could test out the local Bitcoin scene and get to know their community. When we pulled up to their vintage 1920s house, Nikhil and Rebecca were waiting for us in their driveway. They helped us unload […]

The post Our Uncoinventional Journey to Bitcoin Boulevard US appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.