Coin News

A notorious Italian spyware maker has developed tools for monitoring cryptocurrency software usage, according to new leaked files.

Genesis Mining has launched a new web interface which will enable miners to gain greater control of their bitcoin mining operations.

Bitcoin Press Release: HYPER has been fully integrated into the free market trading platform for in-game resources in MMO RPG Dragon Knights of Valeria. The HYPER project runs over 10 HYPER enabled game servers including CSGO, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Rust, Poker and much more.The official HYPER strategy and roadmap document was also recently released. Over a year old, HYPER is pleased to announce that it has been fully integrated into MMO RPG Dragon Knights of Valeria. Anyone can now deposit and withdraw HYPER; trading it for other in-game resources as players build up their kingdom. Dragon Knights of Valeria is a popular MMORPG game with over 400 players. Players can earn HYPER, GoldPieces and Dragon Points (DP) as they play […]

The post Bitcoin Gaming Alternative HYPER Added to MMORPG Dragon Knights of Valeria – HYPER Roadmap Document Released appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Bitcoin Press Release: With Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras suggesting the Greek government could issue their own digital currency – is this a viable solution? Alan Yong of DNotes explores how an established, ethical digital currency may be the most sustainable long term solution for Greece, and why digital currency enables anyone to access their money whenever they need it. “This is a very sad and tragic situation. The rich may end up losing a vacation home in a foreign country but many of the less fortunate are at risk of losing their entire life savings, while being too old to rebuild their nest egg. It is even more depressing when no viable political solutions exist to give Greece’s citizens […]

The post Grexit Digital Currency Long Term Solution? Co-Founder of DNotes, Alan Yong Shares His Vision. appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Las Vegas, NV – July 6, 2015 – In the middle of August 2015, the National Aten Coin’s groundbreaking new cryptocurency, the Aten “Black Gold” Coin and its patented pending digital wallets will be available. Collaboration agreements with governmental entities in the European Union has resulted in NAC adding in additional features to the Aten “Black Gold” Coin to fulfill their requirements. All newly required features as well as beta testing will be completed prior to the new launch date. The Aten “Black Gold” Coin can be purchased through collaboration between AtenPay, SA and ANXPro, one of the globe’s most revered online trading platforms. The Aten “Black Gold” Coin will be available in all fiat currencies including, USD, EUR, HKD, […]

The post Pioneering Aten ”Black Gold” Coin to Offer New Patented Digital Wallets appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

CCN recently published an article about the various ways that you can get a small business funded in the cryptocurrency sphere, but we didn't do the crowdfunding segment justice. As such, it's time we covered a company called BitBond, which is based in Germany, which facilitates crowdfunding in much the same way that BTCJam does. However, because of the problems that BTCJam has had, our first question for Chris Grundy, a representative of the company, was how they can ensure that funds are repaid. After all, a Bitcoin loan can very much be like a cash loan, in that once […]

The post A Bitcoin Alternative to Banks and Venture Capital: BitBond appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin News.

A bill currently before the California Senate has been amended to include a provisional application process for early-stage bitcoin startups.

Blockchain has launched an alpha version of its latest wallet, a streamlined version of one of its most popular products.

Taking a page out of Bitcoin's playbook, the banking giant is exploring innovative ways to transact across borders without a bank account

Over the past 24 hours, the blockchain has been inundated with small, spam-like transactions that are large in data size, but significantly small in bitcoin value transferred. At the peak, there were more than 50,000 unconfirmed transactions waiting to be mined into a block, resulting in delays for normal transactions to be confirmed. While the network has been working to decrease this backlog — transactions are down to 31,000 at time of this article’s writing — the type of transactions that are being sent suggest this is a continuation of a stress test that has been put on the system. There have been numerous transactions hitting the network with tiny transaction values, such as 0.0001 bitcoin being sent repeatedly. While […]

The post Bitcoin Network Still Backlogged With Tens of Thousands of Unconfirmed Transactions, Causing Delays appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Recently quantum computing company D-Wave Systems announced that it had broken the 1000 qubit barrier - an important breakthrough, according to experts who speculate on the really weird physics behind quantum computing.

The post Venture Capitalist Explains How Quantum Computers Harness Parallel Universes appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin News.

The confusing, user-unfriendly format of Bitcoin addresses has turned off many possible new users in the past, but Onename has been working on a solution to this ease-of-use issue for quite some time. Although the ability to link a Bitcoin address to a Onename username has been available for a while now, a newly released API will allow bitcoin users to share one easy-to-understand name with their friends and work colleagues. Privacy Concerns Remain Although Onename allows users to map their username to a static Bitcoin address, there are a few issues with the current setup. Reusing addresses is known to be bad for privacy in Bitcoin, and not many knowledgeable bitcoin users want to move to a system that […]

The post Reusable Payment Codes May Be the Solution to Onename’s Privacy Concerns appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Bitwage, an automated international bitcoin payroll platform has partnered with bitcoin cloud-based financial service provider Bitreserve, to implement its newly developed platform called Bitreserve Connect and developed a new product called Bitwage Cloud Savings. Bitreserve Connect, which was launched on June 16 at MoneyConf in Belfast, is a cloud-based bitcoin/money platform which allows businesses to: Hold, send and convert money instantly — and for free — to anyone Incorporate Bitreserve’s best-in-class anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) security and information infrastructure to ensure businesses meet regulatory requirements. Conduct completely transparent transactions, where all money held, sent and converted can be traced in real-time; Secure and protect customer deposits with one-to-one reserve backing. Bitwage is one of the first four financial […]

The post Bitwage Introduces Bitwage Cloud Savings, Implements Bitreserve Connect appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

In June, Bitcoin Magazine reported that Bitcoin investment fund Bitcoin Capital raised more than $1 million on the equity crowdfunding platform Bnk To The Future. Bitcoin Capital, a high-risk, high-return fund, is run by renowned financial journalist Max Keiser and Simon Dixon, co-founder of Bnk To The Future, an online investment website for crowdfunding small businesses mainly focused on financial innovation. They have now launched a second tranche for $5 million to invest further in the sector. A recent Bnk To The Future press release titled “$10 million for Bitcoin and Financial Innovation, while banks scramble to adjust” reveals that, while the banks are trying to get their heads around the blockchain, Bnk To The Future relaunched its brand new platform […]

The post Equity Crowdfunding Platform Bnk to the Future Passes the $10 Million Invested Mark appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Digital currencies are still relatively unknown in Japan. This week, one of the country's pioneering VC firms aims to change that.

Greeks are rushing to buy Bitcoin as their economy slides deeper into crisis, but the currency's decentralized system may not be able to handle that kind of volume, Bloomberg reports.

Over the weekend, Bitcoin, which has trading at its highest since March, had a stumble. It took nearly five-times longer than usual to process transactions, said Gil Luria, an analyst at Wedbush Securities.

A payment could take up to five hours to be confirmed, while some users were also unable to create new Bitcoin, he said. 

The lag was caused by an update to the payment system's PC software over the weekend — or more precisely, it was caused by a disjunction in the versions of software users own. Operators who hadn't updated the software "put the whole system out of whack," the article said.

It's not the first time Bitcoin has seen this kind of software problem.

"I don't know that it's (ever) happened to this extent, because Bitcoin has never been this big," Luria said.

Bitcoin's customer base has increased, with nearly 120,000 transactions occurring a day in early June — an increase of 10 times since the same period in 2011, reported Coindesk, a Bitcoin researcher. Last week, Coinbase, a Bitcoin client, waived fees for customers buying with euros due to the Greek Crisis.

According to Bloomberg, Bitcoin will need to take market share from Bitcoin machine hobbyists to make software updates something to look forward to rather than dreaded in the future.

"This is test of a decentralized network," Luria said. "Every time Bitcoin passes one of these tests, it gets stronger."

Read the full article at Bloomberg>

SEE ALSO: Bitcoin fans eyeing potential in the Greek Crisis.

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If one could combine in a financial asset four key attributes: the anonymity of cash, a guaranty of trustworthiness, the convenience and scalability of digital transfer, and a reliable store of value, you would have an extraordinary product. It would be ideal for champions of individual liberty and anathema to governments seeking to tax and regulate them.

In an interesting turn of events, a traditional bank has been experimenting with its own cryptocurrency. Citibank has developed at least three of its own cryptocurrencies based on the same principles as Bitcoin. This is on the heels of other major league bankers admitting that block chain technology makes some traditional financial services redundant. The traditional banking industry stands to gain a great deal by adopting Bitcoin into its strategy, and this is why it probably comes as no surprise to many readers that Citibank would experiment in such a way. Also read: The Greek Bank Run is Real - […]

The post Breaking: Citibank Developing Its Own Cryptocurrency appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin News.

It’s getting harder by the day for traditional investors to ignore bitcoin. Today, The Wall Street Journal reports that the Bitcoin Investment Trust (BIT - which began trading on the OTCQX market May 4 under the ticker symbol GBTC) could bring bitcoin broader acceptance by investors. Some analysts think the fund could prompt speculative interest in bitcoin like the launch of gold exchange traded funds (ETFs) in precious metals a decade ago. The Securities and Exchange Commission is currently reviewing an application for what would be the first official bitcoin ETF, the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust, the article noted. Also read: […]

The post How The Bitcoin Investment Trust Pushes Bitcoin Into Mainstream Finance appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin News.

Greeks rejoiced when their Syriza-led government let them decide their own fate by giving them a vote on whether to accept the bailout the EU was offering them.

But two days later, it is looking like the referendum was completely pointless.

Greece was given the simple "Yes" or "No" ("Nai" or "Oxi" in Greek) choice on July 5, over whether it should accept a range of austerity measures set out by the country's creditors in exchange for more cash to keep the nation afloat. This included pension cuts and tax increases.

In the end, over 60% of Greeks voted "No," which is hardly surprising considering the country's unemployment rate is over 25%, the average income for a family is at a 12-year low, and 40%  children in Greece now live below the poverty line.

They don't want more painful austerity measures.

Can you blame them? Look how terrible Greece's economy is at the moment. This chart from the Royal Bank of Scotland summed up how the collapse in its GDP "is among the worst advanced economy falls since 1870." (Even more devastating, most of the other economies collapses were due to war.)

However, all that the referendum has done has put Greece in a worse position than it ever has been before: The announcement of the referendum immediately triggered strict capital controls — a closure of the banks, limits on depositors' cash transfers and how much they can take out of ATMs and still the country is down to its last €500 million ($772.6 million). The mere announcement also led to deal talks being suspended. Greece has no cash, is further away from a deal, and has a weakened its position at the negotiation table. 

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker confirmed what many people were thinking today. He says the referendum result is "no longer valid":

The Greek Prime Minister knows that the question asked in the Greek vote was no longer valid. I'm against a Grexit but we must discuss what 'respecting the Greek vote' means ... I'm very saddened that the Greek delegation left the negotiating table — you don't do that in Europe. It was a big mistake. We must try and find a solution.

Technically pointless from the start

Not only was the call for a referendum pointless in getting Greece "a better deal", what Greeks were voting for didn't apply after June 30. This is because Greece defaulted on its €1.6 billion (£1.1 billion, $1.8 billion) payment to the International Monetary Fund and the terms of the bailout were only valid up until that date.

This is not a trivial claim – it's a technical and legal one. Like most deals, terms and conditions are presented to you on receiving the offer. A date is applied to your decision and you have a deadline to deliver your verdict.

If something massive happens, like say defaulting on payments from another loan you already have, this can also invalidate the offer in front of you.

My colleague Jim Edwards suggested the Greeks wanted to teach Germany and its other creditors a lesson:

Debt is not a guarantee of future payments in full. Rather, it is a risk that creditors take, in hopes of maybe being paid tomorrow.

The key word there is "risk."

If you're willing to take the risk, you'll get a premium — in the form of interest.

But the downside of that risk is that you lose your money. And Greece just called Germany's bluff.

That may have taught the creditors "a lesson" but that doesn't mean it will improve Greece's future. Who wants to lend to someone who can't, or simply refuses, to give you your money back, or even work through how you can help repair the tattered remains of their balance sheet? It hurts the Greek credit rating too, making it even more expensive for the country to borrow money.

So from the outside, the markets and European politicians saw the call for a referendum as a diversionary tactic – Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' way of passing the pressure and the blame onto the Greek people when the country tumbles into a recession.

Post-referendum: "the Greek economy is now in much worse shape"

The banks have been loud and clear on this issue.

This week, Bank of America Merrill Lynch's wrote a note titled "Greece: Time for the Adults to Speak." Here is the key passage, which is worth reading in full:

The paradox is that Greece will now have to agree on a new program with the creditors, with tougher conditions than in the proposal that the referendum has just rejected. This is because the Greek economy is now in much worse shape following this week's events, and particularly the closure of banks and the introduction of capital controls.

The economy will go back into recession, the fiscal targets will be even more out of reach, and banks are likely to need more capital. Negotiating and approving such a program will take time, while the Greek economy will be deteriorating.

Moreover, everything needs to be finalized in the next two weeks. Greece needs more loans to repay €3.5bn to the ECB on July 20. And Greek banks need an increase in the ELA, as they could run out of cash as early as this week. Therefore, the two sides will need to finalize a deal on a new program this week, and the Greek and European parliaments will need to approve it next week. Otherwise, a Greek economy starved for cash and a default to the ECB will increase substantially Grexit risks, in our view.

Essentially, now, Greece finds itself in an absolutely terrible position to get any sort of deal if it really, really wants to stay in the euro.

The referendum did not make its requirement to repay €240 billion ($266 billion) of loans from Eurozone creditors and the IMF disappear. It still has to make those payments. Only now it has managed to cripple itself by taking itself away from the negotiating table, as Juncker put it.

Here is the timeline for Greece's next set of payments:

July 20 is the next deadline for a debt payment but as Barclays' analysts said earlier this week, it is unlikely to make this payment or others, as the country has run out of cash.

Barclays said in a July 5 research note that Greece will almost certainly default on its debt, maybe exit the EU, abandon the euro and therefore will re-adopt its old currency, the drachma and use IOUs to recapitalise its banking system.

This is hardly "progress" that was touted to be made by voting "No." The "Oxi" vote pretty much has only succeeded in speeding up the process in pushing Greece out of the euro and isolating itself from the nations that funnelled cash into its battered balance sheet.

Greece can now only get a worse deal

But, Societe Generale's Michala Marcussen reiterated in a note earlier this week, Greece will not leave the euro immediately:

The Greek government has already clearly indicated that it is not actively seeking to take the country out of the euro. We have long argued that the day the European Central Bank cuts off (emergency funding) ELA is de facto the day that Greece would leave the euro. At the same time, it is clear that the ECB has no appetite to front run the political process and as long as discussions are ongoing between the Greek administration and the euro area we consider it unlikely that the ECB would fully cut the ELA and Greek banks’ access to ECB liquidity facilities.

But whether the Greek government is not actively seeking to leave the euro or not, it looks like the referendum and the outcome will do just that. And even if it managed to stay in the eurozone, it is now almost impossible for Greece to get a deal that isn't worse than what it voted against in the first place.

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Iran and major powers will continue negotiations on an historic nuclear deal past Tuesday's deadline for a long-term agreement, European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said.

"We are continuing to negotiate for the next couple of days. This does not mean we are extending our deadline," Mogherini told reporters.

The deal under discussion between Iran, Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States is aimed at curbing Tehran's most sensitive nuclear work for a decade or more, in exchange for relief from sanctions that have slashed Iran's oil exports and crippled its economy.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that around eight issues remained to be "finalised" before a nuclear deal between Iran and six powers is reached, Interfax news agency reported.

"We might see some ministers leaving in the next hours and then ready to come back," Mogherini said.

"We are interpreting in a flexible way our deadline, which means that we are taking the time, the days we still need, to finalize the agreement," she said, adding that there remained several difficult issues to resolve.

The negotiators missed a June 30 deadline for a final agreement and then gave themselves until Tuesday. 

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The former operator of a bitcoin poker site has plead guilty to one count of operating an unlicensed gambling site in the state of Nevada, reports say. Having avoided a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, Bryan Micon, who ran the now-defunct Seals with Clubs, will have to pay a $25,000 fine and serve a probation term, VegasInc reports. […]

 In a move that should be of no surprise to anyone familiar with the space, Citibank has admitted to running a test platform for digital currencies and is pondering its own solution, CitiCoin. According to the International Business Times, Citigroup has built its own digital currency based on bitcoin and the blockchain. This, in itself, isn’t very difficult – anyone can create a… Read More

Bitdeals.io, the idea of two high schoolers, strives to help people find online stores that offer discounts in bitcoins, already offering the largest selection of bitcoin deals on the Internet.  Raymond Mancini and Giovanni Armonies-Assalone, the company's two co-founders, hope to bridge the gap between online stores that offers discounts when using Bitcoin and those who hold the currency. “We agreed that this was a good idea because not only would it be a domain that would connect consumers to bitcoin-friendly, online retailers, but it would also connect consumers to discounts, a big advantage when using bitcoin,” Raymond Mancini, co-founder […]

The post Bitdeals.io Strives To Bring All Of Bitcoin's Best Deals Together In One Place appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin News.

The Bitcoin price advance topped out near $280 and 1740 CNY in typical jumpy market-high price action. Currently, a declining wave has dropped below $270 and looks to be heading lower. xbt.social technical analysis examines the most recent price wave and options for its destination. This analysis is provided by xbt.social with a 3 hour delay. Read the full analysis here. Not a member? Join now and receive a $29 discount using the code CCN29. Bitcoin Price Analysis Time of analysis: 05h41 UTC Bitfinex 1-Hour Chart From the analysis pages of xbt.social, earlier today: Yesterday's advancing wave topped out near […]

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Emerging markets-focused bitcoin services provider BitX has launched services in Nigeria.