Coin News

The price of bitcoin broke past $450 this week, as markets rallied in response to perceived progress surrounding the network's block capacity dilemma.

The rising price of Bitcoin, reaching $450 at press time, follows several months of steady growth in Bitcoin price and transaction volumes,...

The post Despite Naysayers, Rising Bitcoin Price Suggests the Digital Currency Is Alive and Well appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

European Parliament member Antanas Guoga called blockchain a "perfect technology" when advocating for a new virtual currency task force.

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Capital One has been making a concerted effort to grow its digital and tech offerings, and it's taken another step in that direction.

The financial company has hired former Microsoft and Amazon employee Andy Reeves to its U.K. team as the vice president of technology, according to Finextra. Reeves will develop software, create products that enhance the user experience while banking, and grow the firm's U.K. engineering team.

Reeves' addition to Capital One is just the latest in a long line of moves the company has made to enhance its tech offerings. Capital One has brought on numerous former tech executives to its board of directors and U.S. staff.

Capital One was also the first company in the U.S. to debut a mobile wallet based on host card emulation (HCE) for its Android customers. Furthermore, the company recently launched an app that helps users evaluate their credit scores.

And Capital One is also investing outside of itself. The company has participated in funding rounds for fintech firms such as electronic billing firm Transactis.

The inclusion of Revees could help push Capital One as a true fintech presence in the U.K., while also enhancing innovation throughout the company.

Capital One is trying to stay ahead in the most profound era of change for financial services companies since the 1970s brought us index mutual funds, discount brokers and ATMs.

No firm is immune from the coming disruption and every company must have a strategy to harness the powerful advantages of the new fintech revolution.

The battle already underway will create surprising winners and stunned losers among some of the most powerful names in the financial world: The most contentious conflicts (and partnerships) will be between startups that are completely reengineering decades-old practices, traditional power players who are furiously trying to adapt with their own innovations, and total disruption of established technology & processes:

• Traditional Retail Banks vs. Online-Only Banks: Traditional retail banks provide a valuable service, but online-only banks can offer many of the same services with higher rates and lower fees

• Traditional Lenders vs. Peer-to-Peer Marketplaces: P2P lending marketplaces are growing much faster than traditional lenders—only time will tell if the banks strategy of creating their own small loan networks will be successful

• Traditional Asset Managers vs. Robo-Advisors: Robo-advisors like Betterment offer lower fees, lower minimums and solid returns to investors, but the much larger traditional asset managers are creating their own robo-products while providing the kind of handholding that high net worth clients are willing to pay handsomely for.

As you can see, this very fluid environment is creating winners and losers before your eyes…and it’s also creating the potential for new cost savings or growth opportunities for both you and your company.

After months of researching and reporting this important trend, Evan Bakker, research analyst for BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has put together an essential report on the fintech ecosystem that explains the new landscape, identifies the ripest areas for disruption, and highlights the some of the most exciting new companies. These new players have the potential to become the next Visa, Paypal or Charles Schwab because they have the potential to transform important areas of the financial services industry like:

• Retail banking

• Lending and Financing

• Payments and Transfers
• 
Wealth and Asset Management

• Markets and Exchanges

• Insurance

• Blockchain Transactions


If you work in any of these sectors, it’s important for you to understand how the fintech revolution will change your business and possibly even your career. And if you’re employed in any part of the digital economy, you’ll want to know how you can exploit these new technologies to make your employer more efficient, flexible and profitable.

Among the big picture insights you'll get from The Fintech Ecosystem Report: Measuring the effects of technology on the entire financial services industry:

• Why financial technology is so disruptive to financial services—it will soon change the nature of almost every financial activity, from banking to payments to wealth management.
• The basic conflict will be between old firms and new—startups are re-imagining financial services processes from top to bottom, while incumbent financial services firms are trying to keep up with new products of their own.
• Both sides face serious obstacles—traditional banks and financial services firms are investing heavily in innovation, but leveraging their investments is difficult with so much invested in legacy systems and profit centers.
• Meanwhile, startups are struggling to navigate a rapidly-changing regulatory landscape and must scale up quickly with limited resources.
• The blockchain is a wild card that could completely overhaul financial services. Both major banks and startups around the world are exploring the technology behind the blockchain, which stores and records Bitcoin transactions. This technology could lower the cost of many financial activities to near-zero and could wipe away many traditional banking activities completely.

This exclusive report also:

• Explains the main growth drivers of the exploding fintech ecosystem.
• Frames the challenges and opportunities faced by incumbents and startups.
• Breaks down global and regional fintech investments, including which regions are the most significant and which are poised for the highest growth.
• Reveals which two financial services are garnering the most investment, and are therefore likely to be transformed first and fastest by fintech
• Explains why blockchain technology is critically important to banks and startups, and assesses which players stand to gain the most from it.
• Explores the financial sectors facing disruption and breaks them down in terms of investments, vulnerabilities and growth opportunities.
• And much more.

The Fintech Ecosystem Report: Measuring the effects of technology on the entire financial services industry is how you get the full story on the fintech revolution.

To get your copy of this invaluable guide to the fintech revolution, choose one of these options:

1. Subscribe to an ALL-ACCESS Membership with BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report AND over 100 other expertly researched deep-dive reports, subscriptions to all of our daily newsletters, and much more. >> START A MEMBERSHIP
2. Purchase the report and download it immediately from our research store. >> BUY THE REPORT

The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, you’ve given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of the fast-moving world of financial technology.

Join the conversation about this story »

Ethereum startup Ethcore has raised $750,000 in a preliminary, pre-seed funding round led by Silicon Valley-based Blockchain Capital and...

The post Ethcore Raises Financing Round as First Venture Capital Funded Ethereum Startup appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Gavin Andresen, Chief Scientist at the Bitcoin Foundation and Lead Developer of Bitcoin until 2014, held an extensive Q&A session with the Chinese bitcoin community yesterday. Answering a range of questions from a diverse array of topics, the session focused on the most pressing issue in bitcoin, transaction capacity. Acknowledging the Beijing meeting between miners […]

The post Bitcoin Exchanges “Seriously Considering” Funding a Competitor – Gavin Andresen appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

We’ve entered the most profound era of change for financial services companies since the 1970s brought us index mutual funds, discount brokers and ATMs.

No firm is immune from the coming disruption and every company must have a strategy to harness the powerful advantages of the new financial technology (“fintech”) revolution.

The battle already underway will create surprising winners and stunned losers among some of the most powerful names in the financial world:  The most contentious conflicts (and partnerships) will be between startups that are completely reengineering decades-old practices, traditional power players who are furiously trying to adapt with their own innovations, and total disruption of established technology & processes:

• Traditional Retail Banks vs. Online-Only Banks: Traditional retail banks provide a valuable service, but online-only banks can offer many of the same services with higher rates and lower fees
.
• Traditional Lenders vs. Peer-to-Peer Marketplaces: P2P lending marketplaces are growing much faster than traditional lenders—only time will tell if the banks strategy of creating their own small loan networks will be successful
.
• Traditional Asset Managers vs. Robo-Advisors: Robo-advisors like Betterment offer lower fees, lower minimums and solid returns to investors, but the much larger traditional asset managers are creating their own robo-products while providing the kind of handholding that high net worth clients are willing to pay handsomely for.

As you can see, this very fluid environment is creating winners and losers before your eyes…and it’s also creating the potential for new cost savings or growth opportunities for both you and your company.

After months of researching and reporting this important trend, Business Insider Intelligence has put together an essential briefing that explains the new landscape, identifies the ripest areas for disruption, and highlights the some of the most exciting new companies. These new players have the potential to become the next Visa, Paypal or Charles Schwab because they have the potential to transform important areas of the financial services industry like:

• Retail banking

• Lending and Financing

• Payments and Transfers
• 
Wealth and Asset Management

• Markets and Exchanges

• Insurance

• Blockchain Transactions


If you work in any of these sectors, it’s important for you to understand how the fintech revolution will change your business and possibly even your career. And if you’re employed in any part of the digital economy, you’ll want to know how you can exploit these new technologies to make your employer more efficient, flexible and profitable.       

Evan Bakker of BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has written a new report entitled The Fintech Ecosystem Report: Measuring the effects of technology on the entire financial services industry. The big picture insights you’ll get from this new report include:

• Why financial technology is so disruptive to financial services—it will soon change the nature of almost every financial activity, from banking to payments to wealth management.
• The basic conflict will be between old firms and new—startups are re-imagining financial services processes from top to bottom, while incumbent financial services firms are trying to keep up with new products of their own.
• Both sides face serious obstacles—traditional banks and financial services firms are investing heavily in innovation, but leveraging their investments is difficult with so much invested in legacy systems and profit centers.
• Meanwhile, startups are struggling to navigate a rapidly-changing regulatory landscape and must scale up quickly with limited resources.
• The blockchain is a wild card that could completely overhaul financial services. Both major banks and startups around the world are exploring the technology behind the blockchain, which stores and records Bitcoin transactions. This technology could lower the cost of many financial activities to near-zero and could wipe away many traditional banking activities completely.

This exclusive report also:

• Explains the main growth drivers of the exploding fintech ecosystem.
• Frames the challenges and opportunities faced by incumbents and startups.
• Breaks down global and regional fintech investments, including which regions are the most significant and which are poised for the highest growth.
• Reveals which two financial services are garnering the most investment, and are therefore likely to be transformed first and fastest by fintech
• Explains why blockchain technology is critically important to banks and startups, and assesses which players stand to gain the most from it.
• Explores the financial sectors facing disruption and breaks them down in terms of investments, vulnerabilities and growth opportunities.
• And much more.

The Fintech Ecosystem Report: Measuring the effects of technology on the entire financial services industry is how you get the full story on the fintech revolution.

To get your copy of this invaluable guide to the fintech revolution, choose one of these options:

1. Subscribe to an ALL-ACCESS Membership with BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report AND over 100 other expertly researched deep-dive reports, subscriptions to all of our daily newsletters, and much more. >> START A MEMBERSHIP
2. Purchase the report and download it immediately from our research store. >> BUY THE REPORT

The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, you’ve given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of the fast-moving world of financial technology.

Join the conversation about this story »

Nicolas Dorier is the main developer behind NBitcoin, which is a comprehensive Bitcoin library for the .NET framework. NBitcoin is used in...

The post This Bitcoin Developer Is Working Hard to Prepare Projects for Segregated Witness appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Bitcoin mining company BitFury has inked a deal with the Georgian government to develop a system for registering land titles using the blockchain.

Bitcoin price achieved $450 (Bitstamp) and 2900 CNY (BTCC) overnight. Since then price has entered a pullback that appears incomplete at the time of writing. 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 […]

The post Bitcoin Price Advance Halts At $450 appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

CGI Group has become the latest firm to integrate distributed ledgers into an existing payments product.

It has been a long time coming. Valve is gearing to implement Bitcoin support on Steam, going by screenshots taken from Steam’s private developer forums. The rumors surrounding Steam’s support for Bitcoin payments came to a head in February this year, when new translation strings in Steam’s translation server suggested that the world’s biggest PC […]

The post Bitcoin Support is Coming to Steam appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Noted Bitcoin entrepreneur, thought leader, and activist Andreas Antonopoulos recently spoke at a Barcelona Bitcoin Community meetup. Addressing a variety of topics, Antonopoulos delivered his message with the clarity and foresight we have some to expect from one of Bitcoin’s most influential advocates. Antonopoulos titled his speech “Thoughts on the Future of Money” and delivered on […]

The post Bitcoin Evangelist Antonopoulos: Big Banks Are Experiencing Stages of Grief appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

The bitcoin blockchain could let us realize the promise of the blockchain, revolutionizing not just local economies, but communities as well

The price of one bitcoin is too low, even at the current price of $440, according to this former JP Morgan trader.

Cashila, a bitcoin payment and bitcoin-to-euro conversion service, has partnered with Bitnik Reload, a Slovenian bitcoin service that automatically repurchases spent bitcoin from exchanges. The partnership will allow people to live truly on bitcoin, according to Jani Valjavec, co-founder of Cashila. The partnership allows users to pay quickly and easily while repurchasing bitcoin from a […]

The post Cashila Aims to Enable Total Bitcoin Dependency with Instant Repurchases appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Loyalty and payments platform provider nanoPay had a memorable start to 2016. The Toronto-based startup acquired MintChip, a digital currency developed by the Canadian Mint as a fiat alternative to bitcoin and originally backed by the Canadian dollar. With the acquisition, nanoPay CEO Laurence Cooke sees an inevitable future wherein digital currencies will revolutionize society and […]

The post Interview: CEO of Payments Platform Provider nanoPay appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Bitcoin Press Releases: Follow My Vote has launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise funds for the development of a verifiable open-source blockchain voting software, making voting honest and convenient, once and for all. 21 April 2016, Blacksburg, VA – Follow My Vote has launched a Kickstarter campaign to help fund the blockchain technology powered voting […]

The post ‘Follow My Vote’ Launches Kickstarter Campaign for Revolutionizing Open-source Blockchain Voting Software appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

The news last week that production for Bill & Ted 3 will most definitely begin soon came as welcomed news to the Internet. In 1989, when Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure was released, there was no Internet, and George Herbert Walker Bush was President. That’s a long time ago, dudes.  Since then, both Alex Winter and […]

The post Will Bill & Ted 3 Feature Bitcoin, Dark Web? appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Merriam-Webster updated the "unabridged" version of its comprehensive dictionary this week, giving a nod of approval to a whole host of slang, technology and internet culture terminology. Some of the highlights include Bitcoin, dox and nomophobia (th...

By Naomi Tajitsu

TOKYO (Reuters) - Toyota Motor's <7203.T> close ties to its "keiretsu" - or family of affiliates and suppliers - have helped it become the world's top automaker. But two major production stoppages this year highlight the risks, too.

The car maker's reliance on Aisin Seiki Co <7259.T>, an affiliate, for door and engine parts forced Toyota to halt much of its production at virtually all its plants in Japan this week after an earthquake damaged Aisin plants in the south.

The stoppage follows another week-long production halt in February after a fire at another affiliate, Aichi Steel <5482.T> and could initially cost Toyota up to 90,000 vehicles and 30 billion yen ($275 million) in profit, by some estimates.

Toyota says it will restart production at most of its assembly plants in Japan next week.

Nonetheless, the two incidents at the two affiliates illustrate the delicate balance for manufacturers like Toyota to disaster-proof the supply chain - a crucial part of the 'Just in Time' production system it pioneered over half a century ago to improve efficiency and reduce wastage.

"Just in Time works when everything's running smoothly," said CLSA analyst Christopher Richter. "But if you balance the cost (of holding more inventory) for however long you have between these disruptive events, it would probably be worth sticking with the system."

And that's what Toyota is doing.

"The Just in Time system is to ensure we receive supply as we need and only in amounts required at the time. We have no plans to change this policy," a company spokesman told Reuters.

"It takes time to procure the 30,000 parts we need to produce each vehicle. Bringing all these parts together is a massive process, so we're always looking to strengthen our supply chain, but we're not considering changing the inventories we hold (because of the recent earthquake)."

RIPPLE EFFECT

Toyota says it needs to produce at least 3 million vehicles domestically each year to keep its plants, and those of its suppliers, operating efficiently, while also making its product development arm competitive.

"If this base were to crumble because we shifted too many operations overseas, we would lose our domestic manufacturing expertise," the Toyota spokesman said.

Toyota has, though, pushed some of its core suppliers to find more customers so they don't over-rely on the 'keiretsu' at times of disruption.

Around 62 percent of Aisin's sales now go to Toyota, down from 68 percent before the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Big, non-Toyota customers now include Volkswagen , Audi , Peugeot and Volvo.

But the sheer size of orders from Toyota - which gobbles up 90 percent of Aisin's Japan-made door check straps - means any disruption at just one supplier can have a disproportionate ripple-on effect across the automaker's production lines.

'MADE IN JAPAN'

Also, Toyota's 'Made-in-Japan' ethos carries risk when disaster strikes. Investors will have noted that while Toyota shut down in Japan because of quake damage to its supply chain, rival automaker Nissan Motor <7201.T> remained operational.

Nissan, and third-ranked Honda Motor <7267.T>, make less than a fifth of their vehicles in Japan, having shifted more production overseas after 2011. Toyota produces 40 percent of its global output at home.

But for Toyota, which with its group companies employs well over 150,000 people in Japan, its status as the country's flagship company also carries a high responsibility and can come before maximizing profits in the short term.

Nissan, and others, though, are changing tack to minimize the disruption from a seismically active domestic production base.

"We have implemented measures since 2011 so we are better equipped to deal with natural disasters," said Masahide Amada, Nissan's chief product specialist. "These include diversifying production capabilities and supply chains."

Analysts said Nissan's plant in southern Japan avoided serious impact from the recent earthquake because it sources parts both in Japan and from South Korea and China.

"Nissan sources more parts from overseas than Toyota. This gives it a longer supply chain to avoid possible disruptions," said Koichi Sugimoto, auto analyst at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities.

Nissan declined to comment in detail on its supply chain.

(Reporting by Naomi Tajitsu, with additional reporting by Maki Shiraki and Ami Miyazaki in TOKYO and Hyunjoo Jin in SEOUL; Editing by Ian Geoghegan)

Join the conversation about this story »

A father-son duo from the state of Louisiana pleaded guilty to operating an illegal, unlicensed bitcoin exchange. An announcement from the U.S. Department of Justice revealed that Randall Lord, 58 and his son Michael Lord, 29, both from Shreveport, Louisiana, plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money servicing business. In […]

The post Father-Son Duo Plead Guilty to Running Unlicensed Bitcoin Exchange appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

This story was delivered to BI Intelligence "Payments Industry Insider" subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, please click here.

PayPal customers are completing purchases at a higher rate than all other competitors, according to new data from comScore.

PayPal customers made 15 million transactions per day on the PayPal platform, according to a company press release. And the firm’s completion rate — defined here as any user who does not switch payment methods during the checkout process — is higher than that of its peers. PayPal users are completing purchases 87.5% of the time, compared to 55.1% of the time for Visa Checkout users and 46.5% for users of other platforms.   

And this could continue to soar as PayPal’s single-click buy button option, which reduces friction and makes purchasing easier, becomes more popular:

• PayPal OneTouch, the firm’s one-click payment product, is on the rise. In December, OneTouch counted over 10 million users from 23 countries. That number is now at 21 million customers in 203 markets. And it still has considerable room to grow — OneTouch users only comprise roughly 7.5% of PayPal’s 179 million total customers.
• As a larger share of PayPal customers use OneTouch, conversion rates will likely increase. Buy buttons make online and mobile purchasing simpler by allowing users to skip friction-filled steps associated with online purchasing, like entering shipping and billing information. As more PayPal users begin using the simpler OneTouch platform, it’s plausible that conversion rate could rise even higher. 

The way we pay is changing rapidly thanks to innovative technology from companies such as PayPal that provide increased convenience for consumers. But that's just one piece of a much larger ecosystem.

Evan Bakker and John Heggestuen, analysts at BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, have compiled a detailed report on the payments ecosystem that drills into the industry to explain how a broad range of transactions are processed, including prepaid and store cards, as well as revealing which types of companies are in the best and worst position to capitalize on the latest industry trends.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

• 2016 will be a watershed year for the payments industry. Payments companies are improving security, expanding their mobile offerings, and building commerce capabilities that will give consumers a more compelling reason to make purchases using digital devices.
• Payments is an extremely complex industry. To understand the next big digital opportunity lies, it's critical to understand how the traditional credit- and debit-processing chain works and what roles acquirers, processors, issuing banks, card networks, independent sales organizations, gateways, and software and hardware providers play.
• Alternative technologies could disrupt the processing ecosystem. Devices ranging from refrigerators to smartwatches now feature payment capabilities, which will spur changes in consumer payment behaviors. Likewise, blockchain technology, the protocol that underlies Bitcoin, could one day change how consumer card payments are verified.

In full, the report:

• Uncovers the key themes and trends affecting the payments industry in 2016 and beyond.
• Gives a detailed description of the stakeholders involved in a payment transaction, along with hardware and software providers.
• Offers diagrams and infographics explaining how card transactions are processed and which players are involved in each step.
• Provides charts on our latest forecasts, key company growth, survey results, and more.
• Analyzes the alternative technologies, including blockchain, which could further disrupt the ecosystem.

To get your copy of this invaluable guide, choose one of these options:

1. Subscribe to an ALL-ACCESS Membership with BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report AND over 100 other expertly researched deep-dive reports, subscriptions to all of our daily newsletters, and much more. >> START A MEMBERSHIP
2. Purchase the report and download it immediately from our research store. >> BUY THE REPORT

The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, you’ve given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of the payments ecosystem.

Join the conversation about this story »

With assets lacking legal title estimated to total $20 trillion around the globe, the pilot, using the technology behind Bitcoin, aims to ultimately help unlock that capital.