Coin News

Attendees of a recent Arcadia Association of REALTORS (AAR) event in California were each given $1 worth of bitcoin as part of a 9th July talk.

Writing on Nasdaq.com, bitcoin observer David Floyd claims the quest to increase the size of the bitcoin block is a critical issue for establishing bitcoin as a major currency. The quest, however, has no ready solution, Floyd notes in his essay, titled, “The Crypto-Cold War: Bitcoin's Politics of Scalability.” Floyd, who writes about investing, energy and politics, says at present, bitcoin’s processing capability dwarfs in comparison to Visa, which can process 56,000 payments per second. Increase The Block Size? Increasing the bitcoin block size could solve the issue, he writes, but this presents drawbacks. Floyd compares the debate over increasing […]

The post The ‘Crypto Cold War’: Bitcoin’s Politics Of Scalability appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

A British cybersecurity watchdog has issued a warning about new bitcoin ransomware attacks disguised as messages from several UK government agencies.

Bitcoin Press Release: Licensed UK based Bitcoin gateway Cubits is pleased to announce Jon Matonis has joined the company’s board of directors. Supporting over 15 currencies, Cubits offers instant Bitcoin trading for consumers, and robust gateway solutions for merchants. “Europe’s Gateway to Bitcoin” – Cubits welcomes Jon Matonis to its board of directors. Jon Matonis is also currently in the BPI Committee for the curated “Bitcoin Price Index” at Coindesk, and is the former Executive Director of the Bitcoin Foundation. The news comes as Cubits re-focus their services to the consumer market across Europe by celebrating the launch of their new-look website. Cubits’ new interface offers speedy verification and instant buying and selling of Bitcoin. Jon Matonis brings with him […]

The post Former Bitcoin Foundation Director Jon Matonis Joins Cubits Board of Directors appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Bitcoin and space travel startups are raking in the dough from venture capitalists, despite the various problems of those industries.

Professional services company Deloitte has partnered with an Australian digital currency trade group to develop new accounting standards.

Since last year, the number of bitcoin merchants in Argentina has doubled, according to the Financial Times. This growth comes primarily from small businesses, which are showing the highest bitcoin growth and adoption rate in all of Latin America. Argentina, South America’s second-largest economy, has been restricted from access to foreign currencies and has suffered from an overvaluation of exchange rates, unstable inflation and complicated economic dynamics. This prolonged exposure to economic instability has motivated Argentinian merchants to shift from fiat-based financial platforms to bitcoin to avoid frozen payments which sometimes are locked up for two or more weeks. Argentina has also been a key player behind the rapid growth of monthly bitcoin transactions in Latin America, as more businesses started to accept bitcoin […]

The post Number of Argentinian Merchants Accepting Bitcoin Doubles Amid Inflation Concerns appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

The Bank of Canada has confirmed that, after two quarters of negative growth, the Canadian economy is technically in a recession although the bank would prefer to call it a “mild contraction.” The dollar is at a six-year low, mainly due to the falling price of oil and gas. There have been persistent rumors for some time here that New York-based digital currencies exchange Coinbase is planning to expand into the Canadian market. One of the largest exchanges in the world, and a benchmark for the NYSE’s bitcoin index NYXBT, Coinbase was named one of the 50 “Smart companies” of 2015 by MIT Technology Review. When Bitcoin Magazine asked Coinbase’s International Expansion Head Sam Rosenblum to comment on the speculation, he would […]

The post Canada’s Shifting Economic and Political Climate May Affect Bitcoin Exchanges’ Plans appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Tomasz Tunguz, a partner at venture capital firm Redpoint, has written a post titled “The Fastest Growing Areas of Startup Investment in 2015” on his personal blog. “Which lesser known startup sectors are starting to raise venture dollars?” asks Tunguz. “Where are founders finding unique opportunities to innovate?” The answer: Bitcoin is the fastest growing sector. Tunguz focuses on software investments. Prior to joining Redpoint, he was a project manager at Google working on AdSense. Before Google, Tunguz worked as a Java engineer at Appian Corporation, building tools for the Department of Homeland Security and co-founded a SaaS startup building software for law firms. In the list of fastest-growing sectors, Bitcoin is followed by photo-sharing and physical storage (which includes […]

The post Tomasz Tunguz: Bitcoin Is the Fastest Growing Area of Startup Investment appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Bitcoin services firm Coins.ph has launched Teller, an Abra-inspired mobile app in Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand.

Hong Kong-based startup Bitspark has been one of the seven startups to join Accenture’s FinTech Innovation Lab Asia-Pacific 2015, a “collaboration between a number of the world’s leading banks, such as Bank of America Merrill Lynch, China Citic Bank International, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, and J.P. Morgan.” This year, Accenture’s FinTech Innovation Lab has been heavily focusing on giving opportunities to startups to work with global banks and financial establishments, and enable the startups to implement their technology within the banks’ infrastructures and existing systems, to optimize operations and to support its clients. As the world’s first end-to-end bitcoin remittance system, Bitspark will closely work with Accenture’s mentors and investors to potentially attract international angel […]

The post Bitspark Joins Accenture Asia-Pacific FinTech Innovation Lab appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

The use of bitcoin has more than doubled in the past year in Argentina as government controls have delivered economic stagnation and double-digit inflation, according to the London, U.K.-based Financial Times. The government has restricted access to foreign currency and created an overvalued currency exchange rate. One small business owner, the owner of a budget hostel in Buenos Aires, has found bitcoin helpful in the face of the country's overvalued currency exchange rate. She takes credit card payments from foreign tourists in return for bitcoin. She can then sell bitcoins on Argentina’s unofficial currency market for 50 percent more than […]

The post Bitcoin Growth More Than Doubles In Economically Ravaged Argentina appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Currently ranked fifth on the CoinATMRadar list for most Bitcoin ATM's, Czech Republic based General Bytes has positioned itself to succeed in the Bitcoin ATM market. Some of the most stable companies, for sure, have received the least amount of press. General Bytes appears to be one of those. The company stepped up amid the Robocoin crisis to bail out some of the embattled company's operators and has been reputable. General Bytes (GB) develops Android and Bitcoin technologies, focusing on Android because it is the leading platform for phones and tablets. The firm strives to bring Android technology to other […]

The post From Their HQ In Prague, General Bytes is Rising in the Bitcoin ATM Ranks appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Bitcoin is the fastest growing area of startup investment since mid-2012, a venture capitalist at Redpoint has claimed.

Ashley Madison, a website infamous for being a mainstream portal encouraging extra-marital affairs, has been hacked. The website claims to have more than with nearly 37 million registered users. The unknown individual and/or hacking group behind the cyber attack are threatening to expose the personal data of millions of users unless certain demands are met, according to numerous sources including Time.

The post Ashley Madison Hacked, Millions of Adulterers' Details at Risk appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Last week turned out to be a mixed bag of economic developments culminating in the release of "strong" US Housing and Inflation figures late on Friday. The notional "improvement" in the US economy has raised expectations that the Fed may raise interest rates during the course of the year. This morning, precious metals markets dropped in unison with Gold plumeting over $40 at the open. Greece's banks open their doors today and Chinese officials rejoice in their regulatory ability to control the stock market. This post is powered by the Bitcoin Trading Network xbt.social - CCN29 and get 29USD off! […]

The post Global Economic Outlook: Gold Crashes appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Bitcoin price, over the weekend, unfolded five declining subwaves and should now advance. The prevailing pattern of price shows similarities to a pattern at the end of January (prior to consolidation) and another in mid-February (prior to advance). 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: 04h45 UTC Bitfinex 15-Minute Chart From the analysis pages of xbt.social, earlier today: Bitcoin price has made five declining subwaves and should now advance. Advancing in […]

The post Bitcoin Price Successfully Tests Support appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

What is Angela Merkel going to do with Greece? It's not an easy question to answer, judging from what she told German broadcaster ARD yesterday.

On the one hand, she was insistent that there should be no "haircut" on Greek debt. But on the other, she admitted "this question will be discussed" at some date in the future, once the EU has examined the success of Greece's reforms. 

Her answers — there will be no haircut, except for when we might discuss a haircut in the future — show you a lot about the impossible situation faced by both Greece and Germany. These are the two key issues:

• When will Germany realise that it is not possible for the puny Greek economy to pay back its debts?
• When will the Greeks realise that staying inside a monetary union that keeps them crippled with debts they cannot pay isn't working?

Here's what Merkel said yesterday, from the BBC translation:

But Mrs Merkel said again on Sunday that "a classic haircut of 30, 40% of debt cannot happen in a currency union".

"Greece has already been given relief. We had a voluntary haircut among the private creditors and we then extended maturities once and reduced interest rates," she said in an interview with ARD TV to be broadcast later on Sunday. "And we can now talk about such possibilities again... once the first successful review of the programme to be negotiated has been completed, then exactly this question will be discussed - not now, but then," she said.

To recap, Greece took an €86 billion euro bailout from the EU, which it must now pay back. But the IMF — which is owed about €32 billion ($35 billion / $22 billion) — believes the debt is unsustainable, given that it represents about 200% of Greece's GDP.

It looks increasingly clear that the only way out of the Greek crisis is to face it head on — by letting Greece leave the euro, re-adopt the drachma, and then get the benefit of devaluing its currency. It wouldn't be pretty, but it would give Greece the one economic lever it currently doesn't have, the ability to make its goods and services attractively cheap.

But the EU's position on this is, again, beset by contradictions. On the one hand, you've got European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker saying: "We should make sure that everyone understands that the economic and monetary union is irreversible." At the same time, the BBC reports, Juncker had "a Grexit scenario, prepared in detail" earlier this month.

So the EU is both insisting Greece can never leave while simultaneously preparing a plan for it to leave.

The current bailout will probably let Greece pay / refinance the 3.5 billion euro bond it owes to the ECB today. But that doesn't solve the long term crisis of Greek debt. One solution, pushed by Germany, is to execute a haircut on Greek bank deposits, according to the Financial Times:

Under the terms of a potential third, €86bn EU bailout agreed by the prime minister last Monday, the country must adopt the bloc’s Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive. This strengthens Greek powers to write down senior bondholders and big depositors in a “bail-in” to shore up lenders’ balance sheets. Up to €25bn would also be available to further recapitalise the banks.

During crunch talks last weekend in Brussels when the deal was agreed, German officials pushed for any deposits over €100,000 to also be used in the recapitalisation. 

The problem with that idea is that the majority of deposits over  €100,000 belong to Greek businesses, according to a Greek banking source who spoke to the FT:

“If you go after that money, you would cause a massive wave of corporate defaults. It would be completely foolish. It would be devastating,” he said. “It would cause irreparable damage to the economy.”

It would also turn Greek businesses against Merkel. While the Greek left — and the Syriza government — have been anti-Merkel all along, Greece's pro-business conservatives have stayed loyal to the EU. But that loyalty would end if the Germans insist that private bank deposits be used to bail out Greek government debt.

At which point, there would be no one left in Greece who sees any advantage in staying inside the eurozone.

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