Coin News

Researchers have investigated the conditions under which bitcoin mining pools will attack one another or co-exist peacefully.

Coin-Swap is going to retire their markets for about half of the altcoins currently listed on their site. This was publicly mentioned today around 7:30 AM Eastern in the #coin-swap IRC channel on Freenode by Ian Childress, owner of Cryptocurrency of America, the company that built Coin-Swap. This move comes just day after the sale of […]

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Anarchist Cody Wilson has launched his candidacy for the Bitcoin Foundation board elections, and reaffirmed his aim to disband the organisation.

Bitcoin was the single worst performing investment of 2014. From a January high of $914-$1,012 (depending on the exchange used), it fell consistently over the year: its value stands at around $315 at the time of writing.

Why did it tank? The continuing government clampdown on sites selling illicit services (where anonymous bitcoins are often used as payment) didn’t help, said Extreme Tech.com. But, in reality, illicit trades made up a small proportion of Bitcoin transactions.

The bitcoin ‘crisis’ was a crisis of confidence. Over 850,000 bitcoins, worth a total of $450m, were stolen from Mt Gox, the largest bitcoin exchange site, and an enormous amount of bitcoin’s value wiped. The collapse shook faith in the currency’s security, its real selling point.

Who are the losers?

Internet entrepreneurs the Winklevoss twins, said by The Guardian to own around 1% of theentire bitcoin market.

Who are the winners?

Nasdaq.com’s Martin Tillier advised purchasing bitcoin as recently as the beginning of this month, arguing that this year’s crash was merely a correction. Others think bitcoin’s value lies not in the possession of the currency, but in the technology it exploits, which may pave the way for cheaper and more secure ways to transfer funds.

What have we learned?

Unregulated, anonymous currency is volatile. Who’d have guessed?

Here are the other 11 worst investments of last year:

Number 2: Crude Oil

Brent crude oil started it slide in June, and by the end of the year it had fallen by 45% as the price war between Opec, the US and Russia raged.

Number 3: Quindell

Outsourcing firm Quindell saw its share price fall from 682p to just 34p after a damning research report, and the questionable share dealings of several senior staff.

Number 4: the Russian rouble

With Russia’s Vladimir Putin locked in a war of wills with the West, the rouble’s gentle decline became a crash – losing 12% in just one week.

Number 5: Tesco

Tesco shares almost halved in value in the last year, as it faced competition from discount supermarkets and suffered the mother of all accounting scandals.

Number 6: Greek Athex index

Greek stocks slid to their lowest in 17 months this year. The country faces huge political challenges, as the spectre of a ‘Grexit’ rears its head again.

Number 7: copper

Prices for non-precious metals have plummeted in the past year. And copper has been the worst affected — sliding more than 15% in 2014.

Number 8: Argentinian peso

The Argentinian peso began the year with a 20% slide. It has continued to fall steadily, leaving the economy in almost as bad a state as it was in 2001 and 2002.

Number 9: Twitter

Concerns about cash-flow and a failure to compete with Facebook meant Twitter’s share price slid by 42% this year.

Number 10: Mattel

Mattel’s share price plunged 36% in 2014 as sales of its Barbie and Fisher-Price brands plunged, and a 20 year partnership with Disney bit the dust.

Number 11: Russian corporate bonds

Yields on Russian corporate bonds soared this year as billions of dollars’ worth of capital left the country in the wake of sanctions by the EU and US.

Number 12: Avon Products Inc

Mismanagement, declining sales and the long arm of the law each played their part in a terrible year for Avon, the world’s largest direct seller of beauty products.

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Although few Bitcoin Bowl merchants report more than a handful of sales, most are optimistic about the technology and its perceived benefits.

Taking the block chain out of Bitcoin and applying it to concepts beyond currency will be a key part of 2015. Their trustless, decentralized nature and future smart contracts provide more than just currency. Today, block chains are the data structure core to decentralized cryptocurrencies. Block chains are bubbles of market-driven nascent economies and platforms […]

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Bitcoin developer Mike Hearn takes a look at how bitcoin's technology has advanced this year and predicts where things will go in 2015.

Transactions are committed to the block chain about every 10 minutes. Zero confirmation transactions do not reside in a block yet. Instead, they reside in the memory pool of miners. Until a block is mined that includes the transaction, it is said to have ‘zero confirmations.’ Once included in a block and written to the […]

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2014 was a great year for bitcoin, but its success has drawn bad actors to the space. So how should you keep your funds safe in 2015?

When Wendell Davis started building Vizor.io three years ago it was merely a tool for creating high-end web graphics. Then, three months ago on a trip to Helsinki with friends, he got his hands on an Oculus Rift headset for the first time. He had an epiphany, Upstart Business Journal reports. Also read: 2015 – […]

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It's almost a year since the Bitcoin locker Mt. Gox went offline and took its digital currency with it. Now, a report in Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper claims that 99 percent of the bitcoins that went missing from Mt. Gox falls were a result of "internal system manipulation."

Read more...

Bacchus Entertainment, produced by Saffron and Dennis Bacchus, who love to make high-quality niche fetish porn, is according to its creators the world’s first Bitcoin-only porn membership site. Also read: xHamster Porn Site Helps You and Bitcoin “Rise a Little Bit” “We started our porn making adventure on January 1st 2014, and have been living […]

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Good morning! Welcome to 2015. Here's what you need to know for Friday. 

1. Iran's deputy foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, said in an exclusive interview with Reuters that Saudi Arabia is making a mistake by not taking action to prevent the continuing slide of oil prices, which is going to hurt countries across the Middle East.

2. Powerful winds thwarted efforts on Thursday to bring the crippled Norman Atlantic ferry back to its home port in Italy where officials will check for more bodies, after a fire on board led to the death of at least 13 people. 

3. 37 people were killed and 47 injured in a New Year's Eve stampede in Shanghai.

4. A breakthrough study reveals that 65% of cancer cases of different types are caused by random mutations and not heredity or unhealthy habits like smoking. 

5. New figures from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights show that 76,021 people died in Syria's civil war last year, making 2014 the deadliest since the Syria conflict began in 2011. 

6. A fire that has been raging for a week at Libya's biggest oil port has been extinguished at all but one oil storage tank, officials said Friday.

7. Former New York Governor Mario Cuomo died Thursday at the age of 82, just hours after his son, Andrew, was sworn in for a second term as governor of New York.

8. French economist and author Thomas Piketty refused on Thursday to accept the country's top award known as the Legion d'honneur because, he said, it's not the "government's role to decide who is honourable" and it would "do better to concentrate on reviving (economic) growth in France and Europe."

9. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reportedly said he would be open to talks with South Korea in a New Year's speech broadcast on state television Thursday.

10. Sierra Leone's president asked the country on Thursday to participate in a week of fasting and prayer to end the Ebola epidemic, which has claimed around 7,900 lives to date.

And finally ... 

50,000 people participated in the traditional New Year's Dive on the beach in Scheveningen, Netherlands, plunging into frigid waters hovering around 7 degrees Celsius (44 degrees Fahrenheit). 

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Bitcoin Price continues moving in a narrow range in indecisive trade. Today’s analysis is presented during early Asian session market activity and will be updated during the US session in case of any notable chart activity. Time of analysis: 03h00 UTC Bitcoin Price Analysis Readers, I have an all-day commitment and present this analysis during […]

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Earlier this year, Accenture conducted their 2014 North American Consumer Payments Survey, which revealed surprising data about the rate of digital currency adoption. The Accenture survey revealed that those in the 18-34 age group or those that had higher income were more likely to use digital currencies such as Bitcoin. Of those that used digital currencies, the majority […]

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