Coin News

Bitcoin price pushed higher toward a 2.618 Fib extension at $240 / 1,500 CNY without hitting the target convincingly. Another push may follow and how the market negotiates the resistance layer at $240 / 1,500 CNY will determine the course of price action in the coming days. This analysis is provided by xbt.social with a […]

The post Bitcoin Price Rising From Support appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Clogged ports along the West Coast reopened to cargo vessels on Friday after a daylong closure, but shippers planned to re-impose a partial shutdown through the holiday weekend barring a settlement in stalled labor talks with the dockworkers union.

The shipping companies and terminal operators planned to halt loading and unloading of container ships again starting Friday night and keep the suspension in place through Monday, the Presidents Day holiday, unless contract negotiators clinch a breakthrough deal.

Negotiators for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, representing 20,000 dockworkers, met at union headquarters in San Francisco on Thursday with officials from management's bargaining agent, the Pacific Maritime Association, for the first face-to-face talks in nearly a week.

But the session, presided over by a federal mediator, ended with no agreement reached. It was not immediately clear whether the parties would resume direct negotiations on Friday.

The PMA has said the talks, which have dragged on for nine months, hit a snag over a new demand by the union for changes in the system of binding arbitration of contract disputes.

In the meantime, inbound cargo vessels continued to stack up at anchor, with 27 freighters left idle on Friday morning waiting for a berth outside the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the nation's two busiest cargo hubs.

The numbers are likely to grow by the end of the weekend as additional vessels arrive from Asia with no place to park at the docks.

EXPORT-IMPORT CRUNCH

The 29 affected ports handle nearly half of all U.S. maritime trade and more than 70 percent of imports from Asia. Severe congestion at those harbors has rippled through the U.S. commercial supply chain, disrupting deliveries of a wide range of goods, from agricultural produce to housewares and apparel.

Farmers have been especially hard hit, with port disruptions posing a major barrier to perishable goods headed to overseas markets and export losses estimated to be running at hundreds of millions of dollars a day.

The shippers first suspended vessel operations at the ports for two days last weekend, and suspended operations again on Thursday.

Citing months of chronic slowdowns in freight traffic they blame the union for instigating, the shipping companies said they were unwilling to pay union workers higher holiday and weekend wages while productivity declines and the cargo backlogs grow.

Union officials said the shippers were engaged in brinkmanship, using the partial shutdown to exaggerate the magnitude of the crisis as a pressure tactic.

The West Coast ports were not left entirely dormant, however. The companies said work will continue in the dockyards, rail yards and terminal gates as they seek to clear some of the cargo containers already stacked up on the waterfronts.

The PMA has warned that conditions at the ports have become so congested that they are at the brink of total gridlock.

The companies have accused the union of orchestrating work slowdowns since October to gain leverage in negotiations, while the union has faulted changes in shipping practices instituted by the carriers themselves for the worsening backlogs.

The longshore workers have been without a contract since July.

The last time contract talks led to a full shutdown of the West Coast ports was in 2002, when the companies imposed a lockout that was lifted 10 days later under a court order sought by President George W. Bush, invoking the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act.

The shipping industry has estimated the 2002 lockout caused $15.6 billion in economic losses. When it ended, some 200 freighters were waiting at anchor up and down the coast.

The retail and manufacturing industries have projected that a full, extended shutdown of the ports now could cost the U.S. economy some $2 billion a day.

(By Steve Gorman; Editing by Chris Reese)

Join the conversation about this story »

For the past ten days, I've been getting my news from Snapchat. I've learned stuff about internet dating, celebrity plastic surgery, Ukraine peace talks, and Bitcoin mines. But mostly, I've learned what old media thinks app media really wants. And it's not pretty.

Read more...

The internet was a vague idea for most people, before AOL arrived and gave the world a usable, daily internet access tool. The recent launch of Coinbase Exchange will change Bitcoin no less spectacularly. If you need further evidence, compare the early user growth rates of AOL with those of Coinbase. Coinbase adoption rates are significantly outpacing those that AOL made history with back in the early 1990s. Here’s how and why. Since Bitcoin growth rates seem to be stagnating compared to their 2013-2014 highs, most of us are accustomed now to leadership and innovation in the industry coming from the heavily venture-backed companies. From the standpoint of a VC, the space has matured over the past year from a […]

The post The AOL of Bitcoin Has Arrived: Coinbase Launches First True Global Bank appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

CoinDesk examines this week's bitcoin headlines, breaking down the MyCoin scandal and more.

Located in San Francisco, Nakamoto's offers customers 10% savings on Amazon items when paying in bitcoin.

Porn.com reports that bitcoin now accounts for 5% of its total sales, just over a year after first accepting the payment method.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CHANGETIP TEAMS UP WITH FIRST 501 (c) (3) BITCOIN CHARITY BITGIVE Tip-Redirect Feature Allows For Automated Donations SAN FRANCISCO – February 9th, 2015 — Today, fintech start-up ChangeTip announced that it has selected BitGive, the first Bitcoin charity registered as a 501 (c) (3), to benefit from its Tip Redirect feature. ChangeTip has many users who, due to their social or employment status, wish to not receive tips for their work. As a result, the company has set up an automatic Tip Redirection feature, enabling users to channel all their money to the charity of their choice. This week, ChangeTip launches with popular Bitcoin not-for-profit BitGive to highlight the benefits of frictionless payments over social media to […]

The post ChangeTip Teams Up with First 501(c)(3) Bitcoin Charity BitGive appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

The MIT Bitcoin Expo will be held on 7th and 8th March at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

It doesn't matter if the payments are in crumpled, wet $1 bills or casual swipes of a black Amex: New York City makes a shitload of money from fees and fines, and it's looking for new ways to get people to pay up. And that includes cryptocurrency. NYC councilman Mark Levine has proposed a bill allowing Bitcoin as a form of payment for fines and fees, including parking tickets.

Read more...

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has banned a bitcoin company from issuing statements on its proposed initial public offering (IPO) until a formal prospectus has been lodged. The ban was imposed following a post by Melbourne-based Bitcoin Group on social media platform Wechat to gauge interest from investors if the company were to be listed on the […]

A group of investors has launched a funding initiative on Indiegogo to establish an international ATM network that will support bitcoin, local e-currencies and the network’s own cryptocurrency called DOLLAR. The investors hope to create a decentralized electronic currency similar to bitcoin with low or no fees and faster transactions. The current fundraising campaign goal […]

The post DOLLAR Wants to Install 5500 Bitcoin ATMs Worldwide by 2016 appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

A Singapore company has created a way for customers to buy gold and silver directly from a Lamassu bitcoin ATM.

Google and Square announced Thursday that they were working on new payment systems that would be able to accept Bitcoin. The move is expected to heat things up in the payments market in general, and with Apple Pay, in particular. Google is currently testing the new payment processing method that will be known as Plaso […]

The post Google May Introduce Bitcoin on New Payment System appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

When the Chinese Ponzi scheme MyCoin vanished without a trace, stealing investment money from patrons across the board, many people went to the Hong Kong police first and foremost. MyCoin stole their money, and they want it back. Also Read: Hong Kong Bitcoin Exchange MyCoin “Lost” $387 Million of Customers’ Money MyCoin was supposed to be […]

The post Hong Kong Shouldn’t Ban Bitcoin Because of Bad Actors appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.