Coin News

LOT Polish Airlines is now accepting bitcoin payments, meaning the digital currency can be used for flights to 60 global destinations.

Though Swedish online checkout giant Klarna believes bitcoin holds promise, it doesn't see immediate use cases for the technology today.

Preceding this weekend’s Coin Congress in San Francisco, the inaugural Keynote 2015 took place Monday at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, focusing on practical applications of the blockchain as an easily implementable and scalable solution to a number of problems that extend far beyond digital payments. With the help of an experienced and passionate audience who continued conversations past the end of any specific lecture, Keynote 2015 was able to effectively educate a wide variety of developers and innovators about the seemingly endless list of use cases for public ledgers. Speakers included Marc van der Chijs, managing partner at CrossPacific Capital, Brennan Byre, CEO of Clef, and Pete Rizzo, U.S. editor at Coindesk. Partners included Blockchain, Netki, and […]

The post Keynote 2015: FinTech Conference Focuses on Public Ledgers and the Blockchain appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Last week, wallet provider Blockchain became the first bitcoin company to take part in an official government mission.

In June, Bitcoin Magazine reported that Symbiont had secured $1.25 million of seed funding from influential financial market leaders including Duncan Niederauer, former CEO of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).  Symbiont, a fintech company focused on fostering the symbiotic relationship between traditional financial markets and cryptographic blockchain technology, was founded in March by Counterparty and MathMoney f(x) founders to create the first issuance and trading platform for smart securities based on the blockchain technology. Now, Symbiont has issued the first Smart Securities on the Bitcoin blockchain. Symbiont’s live platform allows institutions and investors to issue, manage, trade, clear, settle and transfer a range of financial instruments more efficiently on decentralized and distributed peer-to-peer financial networks that are cryptographically secured. […]

The post Symbiont Issues Securities on the Bitcoin Blockchain to Usher Capital Markets into the Blockchain Era appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

The inquiry of the Australian Senate committee may overrule the decision of the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), which classified bitcoin as an intangible/foreign asset that falls under the coverage of Goods and Services Tax. The proposal submitted by the Australian government will have bitcoin considered as a traditional currency, and thus will nullify many of the regulations or legal “restrictions” set to be applied on bitcoin. “The opportunities for trade, investment, high salaries and world-leading skills are far more important [than any potential loss of revenue], and I urge the states to work with the Commonwealth to make what amounts to simple change,” Labor Senator Sam Dastyari told the Australian Financial Review. Dastyari said that such leniency on the currency […]

The post Bitcoin Considered a ‘Traditional Currency’ by Australian Senate Committee appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

The arrest of Mt Gox CEO Mark Karpeles on Saturday is the latest twist in a lengthy plot surrounding the now-defunct bitcoin exchange.

There is increasing concern these days about young people in North America who are being radicalized and then declaring allegiance to foreign extremists such as ISIL, Al Qaeda or Boko Haram. For example, according to an article in The Telegraph, American officials believe that about 150 of their citizens have traveled to Iraq and Syria to join ISIL and that about 40 are believed to have returned home. New York Times journalist Somini Sengupta points out,

(T)he prospect of radicalized youths’ becoming hardened on the battlefields of Syria and Iraq has sent a new ripple of anxiety through nations of all stripes, reviving a longstanding tension, especially in democratic countries, over how to balance civil liberties and security in an age of transnational terrorism.

Microsoft's Bing rewards site gets a great deal of traffic. Many visitors of the site may have gotten their first taste of Bitcoin this morning, noticing a $500 sweepstakes sponsored by Snapcard. CCN previously reported about Snapcard and the way that it accepts multiple cryptocurrencies at real world businesses, among other stories. Today Bitcoin got a rather big boost thanks to Snapcard's promotion of a $500 sweepstakes. The company will open the winner a wallet on their own platform and provide them with the money. Presumably there would then be nothing stopping the winner from moving the money to their […]

The post Snapcard Running $500 Bitcoin Sweepstakes Through Microsoft appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

The way in which digital currency transactions are taxed should be reviewed, according to the Australian Senate Economics References Committee.

Bitcoin Press Release: BitCasino.io, the world's first legally licensed and regulated online Bitcoin-only casino gaming operator has announced the launch of its sportsbook for the new English Premiership football season commencing 8th August 2015. The new bitcoin sportsbook will provide over 10,000 live betting markets per week, including popular fast-developing betting sports such as MMA and eSports. A spokesperson for BitCasino.io said, “We have over 100,000 Bitcoin players and many of them have been asking for the ability to place sports bets with our brand. This new sportsbook allows our players, the ability to place larger bets on sporting events […]

The post Bitcasino.io launches Sportsbook and chance to win 20,000 mBTC appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

meXBT, a Mexico-based bitcoin exchange, will use bitcoin to facilitate financial transactions between Latin America and Asia with its recent acquisition of Coin Republic, a Singapore-based bitcoin brokerage. The acquisition gives meXBT the ability to allow financial transactions between Latin America and Asia using bitcoin without the parties having to purchase bitcoin. meBXT announced the acquisition on its website. The purchase price was not disclosed. "The strategy is to use technology as the basis bitcoins payment system between companies and evidently between international trade is one of the areas where we see greater opportunity," meXBT announced on its website. Exchange […]

The post Mexican Exchange meXBT Buys Coin Republic To Facilitate Asia/Latin America Financial Trade appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

One of Bitdefender’s servers has been hacked by DetoxRansome. The hacker claimed to have stolen some of the login credentials of Bitdefender’s users. He has also threatened to release the details of the users if the sum of $15,000 is not paid as ransom. The breach has been confirmed by Bitdefender, an antivirus software provider. Bitdefender, however, claimed that the total amount of data that was leaked is less than 1 percent of its users’ data. They further stated that the login credentials that were compromised were those of accounts belonging to small to medium sized businesses. They implied that […]

The post Hacker Breaches the Database Of Bitdefender, Demands Bitcoin as Ransom appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Trade body Innovate Finance has teamed up with the Open University to offer an online course on financial technology, or fintech, pitched at executives.

Topics covered in "Fintech 101" include the blockchain software that underpins bitcoin, the evolution of payment systems, digital banking, and cyber security.

Members of Innovate Finance including online small business lender iwoca, peer-to-peer lender RateSetter, and social trading platform eToro all helped shape the course. More traditional names like Lloyds and MasterCard also contributed to the programme.

The course aims to educate executives on the new wave of financial innovation that has sprung up in the wake of the financial crisis.

A combination of lowered technology costs, distrust of banks in the wake of the financial crisis, and lay-offs at banks after 2008 has led to a surge of innovation in finance.

Startups are reinventing everything from borrowing to payments through things like crowdfunding, peer-to-peer lending, cryptocurrencies, and blockchain payments. There are an estimated 135,000 people now employed in fintech in the UK, according to trade body Innovate Finance.

The new £695 online course will take 50 hours to complete and is aimed at "senior level executives, managers, associates and analysts who wish to understand how FinTech impacts economies and societies through disruption and innovation," according to the prospectus.

Innovate Finance CEO Lawrence Wintermeyer told Business Insider over email: "This new FinTech landscape needs to be understood to fully appreciate its impact to economies and societies."

"We are therefore thrilled that Open University, one of the world’s most exciting and advanced centres of study, is offering a comprehensive course on this subject."

Liz Moody, senior lecturer at the Open University, says in the course's prospectus: "The brief for this course was to demystify a new era of financial services unfolding in the UK."

"Traditional banking models and financial systems face uncertain futures and startup founders seeking a foothold in the marketplace will be encouraged to think critically about the implications and opportunities of changes happening in the FinTech ecosystem."

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Catherine Nicholson is the CEO of BlockCypher, which is the company that powers instant trades at ShapeShift. Its Confidence Factor is used in several other applications as well. CCN spoke in depth to BlockCypher's Developer Advocate, Josh Cincinnati, in a recent podcast. In this video, Catherine is sent some very basic questions about Bitcoin, which she handles with vigor. Questions range from the public good to micro transactions. At one point, Catherine says: People who live on $2.50 a day, they don't have a bank account. They don't have access to capital. They can't ever escape the cycle of poverty.

The post Video: BlockCypher CEO Explains Bitcoin for Singularity University appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Private Equity is a big force in the investment scene. There are nearly 4,000 of these firms in the US, and they’ve invested in about 13,000 companies. They’re considered the “smart money” because of their acumen, insider knowledge, and ability to time the markets, which they have to in order to profitably exit their their long-term illiquid investments.

OK, even the smartest among them got caught with their pants down last year when the oil price crashed. And those that invested in natural gas drillers have been regretting this move for years, after the natural gas price crashed in 2009 without ever really recovering since. Fracking, which boomed thanks to a near endless flood of money from Wall Street, including PE firms, has dished out costly lessons in return.

So, even the ultimate “smart money” can get carried away by its own hype. But recently, they’ve been doing something else: they’ve been dumping existing investments at record pace.

In the second quarter this year, exit volume by US-based PE firms “exploded” to $125 billion, according to a report by the Private Equity Growth Capital Council. This includes sales to the public via IPOs and to “strategic and financial investors,” such as corporations.

It brought the first-half exit volume to $195 billion, up 46% from the same period in 2014 and up a stunning 275% from the same period in 2013. Something is going on, and they want out.

And they’re not going to slow down anytime soon, “as corporate acquirers clamor for deals,” according to The Wall Street Journal:

On Monday, McGraw Hill Financial agreed to buy SNL Financial LC, the data provider backed by New Mountain Capital LLC, for $2.2 billion. That came on the heels of a $2.35 billion deal launched by WPX Energy Inc. for First Reserve-backed RKI Exploration & Production LLC.

They figured out, in an environment where nearly all assets are overpriced, it’s a great time to sell.

They already waited too long exiting their oil-and-gas investments, which now have started to collapse under the weight of debt and negative cash flows. Instead of struggling to salvage parts of their portfolio companies during restructuring or bankruptcy proceedings, they should have exited in 2013 and early 2014, when exuberance about oil covered up even the depression among natural gas drillers.

But elsewhere, things are still hopping. And it’s high time to get out before the energy debacle and the turmoil at the riskiest end of junk bonds spread more deeply into the PE firms’ portfolios.

And there have been eager buyers: the unsuspecting public via funds that invest in IPOs; and corporations that are buying everything in sight.

Corporations have been buying back their own shares. They’ve been buying privately held companies, including those dumped by PE firms. And they’ve been buying each other in the most awe-inspiring wave of mergers and acquisitions the world has ever seen. The higher the price and the premium, the better. Corporations have become the relentless bid.

And they’re funding this binge with cheaply borrowed money. Junk bonds have seen rough waters recently, with investors getting re-spooked by the energy debacle, and issuance is down so far this year, compared to last year. But high-grade bonds are still booming though the first ripples have appeared.

US corporations issued a total of $802.9 billion in investment-grade bonds this year through July, according to Dealogic, up 27% from the same period in 2014. The most ever.

Of that, $701.7 billion were issued in the US, the highest ever, up 32% from the prior record set during the M&A bubble in 2007 (a now paltry $531.3 billion).

The average deal size jumped 33% from last year to $672 million, also the highest ever.

Yet, even in this rosy scenario, there were problems in July. For seven trading days early in the month, as the turmoil around China and Greece percolated through the markets and as commodities spiraled into a rout, no investment-grade bonds were issued at all. But then the floodgates opened. During the week ended July 17, a “blockbuster $46.9 billion” in investment-grade bonds were issued, according to S&P Capital IQ’s LCD.

In total, $130 billion in investment grade bonds were issued in July, despite the shuttered first week, the highest volume on record for a July, “dwarfing the $47 billion printed” in July 2014 and the $69 billion printed in July 2013. LCD:

July’s blockbuster issuance is owed predominantly to large M&A-driven deals. Earlier on in the month, Charter Communications printed a $15.5 billion bond offering in six parts, as it sought funds to complete its $80 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable. This was the largest deal of the month.

During a year fueled by M&A action, the Charter bond issue ranked fourth in size, so far this year, behind Actavis ($21 billion in March), AT&T ($17.5 billion in April), and AbbVie ($16.7 billion in May).

Other mega bond deals hailed down in July: CVS Health placed a $15 billion offering to fund its acquisition of Omnicare and Target’s pharmacy businesses. UnitedHealth sold $10.5 billion in bonds for its purchase of Catamaran. Intel sold $7 billion in bonds for its acquisition of Altera. Etc. etc.

Corporations are buying everything in sight, offering huge premiums on top of the already insane valuations, and they relentlessly bid for their own shares, no matter what the price, and they do all this with cheaply borrowed money, even the smart money is dumping assets at record pace.

PE investments are largely illiquid. Exits take months and sometimes much longer to pull off. PE firms know that the window of opportunity will eventually close, and they can’t wait for the last minute.

Corporations are on the other side. Their angle is financial engineering and oligopoly building; to perfect this game, they’ve become the ultimate dumb money. But it doesn’t matter to their executives; they’re rewarded for financial engineering. And when the party is over, stockholders and bondholders pick up the tab.

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New voices from the FinTech community joined ongoing debates in the bitcoin and blockchain space at yesterday's Keynote 2015 conference.