Coin News

Gem, the Venice, Calif.-based Bitcoin startup offering a multi-signature-based security platform to Bitcoin developers, has partnered with expresscoin, the Santa Monica, Calif.-based digital currency retailer. The partnership will offer Gem’s scale-able and secure API wallet to expresscoin users, initially powering internal accounts and operations and eventually powering co-branded, end-user wallets with Gem’s multi-signature security solution, […]

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Bitso launched an ecommerce API and POS system today, positioning itself as a more wide-ranging provider of bitcoin services in the Mexican market.

ZeusHash, the cloud mining service, has announced that it may shut down its bitcoin cloud mining because of unprofitability.

A good discussion here, from Coinbrief, is whether wages paid in Bitcoin would lower volatility. In short the proposal put forward is as follows: Bitcoin wages > businesses need more Bitcoin, they either buy directly or offer goods/services or increased incentives for Bitcoin sales to customers > or use Bitcoin wages (which amounts to the […]

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A Spanish political party has submitted a proposal to the country's Congress outlining the need for bitcoin regulation.

After only three days into the trial of Ross Ulbricht, the alleged kingpin of the underground drug marketplace known as the Silk Road, the defendant's situation is going from bad to worse. I previously wrote how the prosecution could follow the Bitcoin to show that Ulbricht ran Silk Road. Its no longer speculation: I've already identified a 3255 BTC (roughly $300,000 at the time) payment from Silk Road to Ulbricht. The prosecution can undoubtedly find many more.

Bitcoin Price is trading sideways, today, following two emotionally charged days of volatile trade. CCN presents summary analysis that looks for clues to what the Bitcoin price may be up to next. This analysis is provided by xbt.social with a 3 hour delay. Read the full analysis here. Bitcoin Trading and Price Analysis Time of […]

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Bitcoin & the Blockchain is the first of a series of O’Reilly Radar Summits, one-day events on disruptive technologies that are on the cusp of commercial viability. This first Radar Summit will offer an overview of crypto currency, security and compliance, payments, smart contracts, and a glimpse into the future of bitcoin. The Summit will […]

The post Bitcoin & the Blockchain – O’Reilly Radar Summit appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

A witness for the prosecution admitted that he had actively pursued Mark Karpeles, the erstwhile CEO of the notorious failed Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, as a possible match for the Dread Pirate Roberts, the operator of the Silk Road, less than two months before the arrest of Ross Ulbricht.

Bitcoin has been smoked this year. 

The digital currency is down 34%. It's valued around ~$200. That is significantly down from its peak, which was near $1,000.

If bitcoin were simply a digital currency that exploded and collapsed, that would be that. We could all move on, and act like nothing happened. 

But, bitcoin is more than another fad according to venture capitalists who are pouring millions of dollars into it.

A year ago, when bitcon's value was flying to the moon, Marc Andreessen wrote an op-ed for The New York Times on why bitcoin matters. In it, he compared bitcoin to the internet and personal computers. He believes bitcoin has the potential to be that transformative. 

Another influential VC, Fred Wilson, is a big believer in bitcoin. He also believes it has a chance to be a transformative technology. He has invested in companies working on bitcoin.

But now that the price is cratering, are Wilson and Andreessen going to see their investments go poof? No, at least, not in their opinions. 

On Twitter, Wilson said the price collapse could actually be a good thing. He said the "price decline will certainly have impact." But, he added, the "best thing to come of it may be to get people to stop focusing on & talking about price."

Another investor in bitcoin, Barry Silbert, said he's seen "no impact" from the price of bitcoin falling. 

So, what has these people so excited about bitcoin, even though the price is falling?

I spoke with Scott Rosenberg about it on the podcast I do with Farhad Manjoo of The New York Times. Rosenberg is veteran technology writer who co-founded Salon. He wrote a big piece on bitcoin, and its potential for Backchannel, a new technology site. 

The reason people are excited about bitcoin has less to do with bitcoin and more to do with the technology that supports it. That technology is called "blockchain." Essentially, blockchain creates a new type of internet. Bitcoin is just the first application on top of the blockchain. 

To look at the failure of bitcoin, and say that it was just a fad, according to Rosenberg, is to look at early web products that were bad and say, "Well, looks like the internet isn't going to work!"

The internet came together when Netscape was built. It took years before Google search existed. It took years for Facebook, and all sorts of other great applications to be built. In theory, blockchain will do the same. 

There are, of course, many problems with this idea, which we dig into on our podcast:

You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes here. Here's an RSS link to the show. I use SoundCloud as a host, so you can listen to the show over there, too.

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Bitcoin-loaded gift cards will be hidden around Miami during the North American Bitcoin Conference over the next few days.

Brush up on the latest from Apple, Google, Bitcoin, Etsy and other innovation news in a snap

A researcher in Berlin has described a way to compromise a core algorithm underpinning bitcoin so that transactions leak private-key data.

As previously reported on CCN, PayPal has taken steps forward to endorse Bitcoin as a form of online payments, and the integration of Bitcoin into PayPal’s payments services is going forward. Since PayPal and Bitcoin are global services, how Bitcoin is treated internationally is of great import to PayPal. Australia has a love-hate relationship going […]

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In a new blog post, Bitcoin company Xapo has revealed more about how they do security. Xapo has also revealed that they have passed a Service Organizational Control 2 (SOC2) financial audit by Burr, Pilger & Mayer LLP. The SOC2 financial audit is a component that many of Xapo’s institutional partners require.   Xapo’s CEO Wences Cesares […]

The post Xapo Bitcoin Security Measures Use Satellites, Military Bunkers, and “Deep” Cold Storage appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

By Nate Raymond

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. agent investigating Silk Road told jurors at a trial of accused operator Ross Ulbricht that he believed in 2013 that the former chief of the Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange, Mark Karpeles, may have been the mastermind behind the black market website.

Questioning of Jared Der-Yeghiayan, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security special agent, showed Ulbricht's defense was seeking to cast doubts over the allegation that Ulbricht was Silk Road's operator, known as "Dread Pirate Roberts."

Ulbricht's lawyer Joshua Dratel pointed to Karpeles, who was CEO of Mt. Gox. The company filed for bankruptcy a year ago after saying it lost nearly half a billion dollars worth of virtual coins.

"Our position is he set up Mr. Ulbricht," Dratel said outside jurors' presence.

Karpeles, who was never charged, denied he had anything to do with Silk Road.

"This is probably going to be disappointing for you, but I am not and have never been Dread Pirate Roberts," he said in an email sent to Reuters and other media.

"The investigation reached that conclusion already - this is why I am not the one sitting during the Silk Road trial, and I can only feel defense attorney Joshua Dratel trying everything he can to point the attention away from his client."

Dratel, in opening statements on Tuesday, said that while Ulbricht created Silk Road, he handed it off to others and became their "fall guy."

Der-Yeghiayan testified on Thursday in Manhattan federal court that as late as August 2013 he believed that Karpeles actually controlled the website, where drugs and illicit goods could be bought anonymously.

Under questioning by Ulbricht's lawyer, Der-Yeghiayan said that as part of a search warrant for Karpeles' Google email account he had said there was probable cause to believe he controlled Silk Road.

It was not clear from the trial how Der-Yeghiayan's views had since changed. He testified on Wednesday that an Internal Revenue Service agent had flagged Ulbricht that September as Dread Pirate Roberts’ possible alter ego.

Silk Road, which took payment in bitcoin, operated from 2011 to October 2013, generating $200 million in drug sales, prosecutors say.

Ulbricht, 30, faces seven counts including operating a continuing criminal enterprise and conspiracy to commit narcotics trafficking.

The investigation of Karpeles was separate from the events leading to the hacking attack on Tokyo-based Mt. Gox last year that led to its filing for bankruptcy.

Der-Yeghiayan said that at the time he was investigating Karpeles, investigators theorized Silk Road was operated in part to drive bitcoin prices up.

The August 2013 search warrant followed earlier grand jury subpoenas and another search warrant that Der-Yeghiayan said were issued targeting companies linked to Karpeles as part of the Silk Road probe.

But in July 2013, Der-Yeghiayan, who worked in Chicago, testified that over his objections, federal prosecutors in Baltimore met with Karpeles as part of an investigation over unlicensed money transfers.

Exact details of the meeting were unclear and are expected to be part of Der-Yeghiayan's testimony when trial resumes Tuesday.

Dratel sought to elicit testimony that Karpeles had offered to "tell the government who he thought runs Silk Road" to avoid charges.

The case is U.S. v. Ulbricht, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 13-06919.

(Additional reporting by Ritsuko Ando in Tokyo and Emily Flitter in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler and Lisa Shumaker)

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