Coin News

While bitcoin has long dominated the digital currency space, ether has been grabbing headlines - and trading volume - this week.

Bitcoin is being tested like never before as one of the biggest and oldest Bitcoin company, Coinbase, announced their exchange will be renamed to Global Digital Asset Exchange (GDAX) to support Ethereum trading. A first for the four years old bitcoin company which has never added any other digital currency. The move comes as Ethereum […]

The post Bitcoin’s Price Tanks as Coinbase Pivots and Users Complain appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Blockchain technology, which is best known for powering Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, is gaining steam among finance firms because of its potential to streamline processes and increase efficiency. The technology could cut costs by up to $20 billion annually by 2022, according to Santander.

That's because blockchain, which operates as a distributed ledger, has the ability to allow multiple parties to transfer and store sensitive information in a space that’s secure, permanent, anonymous, and easily accessible. That could simplify paper-heavy, expensive, or logistically complicated financial systems, like remittances and cross-border transfer, shareholder management and ownership exchange, and securities trading, to name a few. And outside of finance, governments and the music industry are investigating the technology’s potential to simplify record-keeping.

As a result, venture capital firms and financial institutions alike are pouring investment into finding, developing, and testing blockchain use cases. Over 50 major financial institutions are involved with collaborative blockchain startups, have begun researching the technology in-house, or have helped fund startups with products rooted in blockchain. 

In BI Intelligence’s Blockchain Report, we explain how blockchain works, why it has the potential to provide a watershed moment for the financial industry, and the different ways it could be put into practice in the coming years.

Here are some key takeaways from the report.

• Spending on capital markets applications of blockchain is expected to grow at a 52% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) through 2019, according to Aite Group, to reach $400 million that year.
• Banks and major financial institutions are working both collaboratively and independently to develop blockchain tech. Over 50 major financial institutions are involved with collaborative blockchain startups, like R3 CEV or Chain. And many are investing in the technology on their own as well.
• Putting blockchain to use for real-world transactions is likely not that far off. If working groups' tests are successful, firms could be using it to transact real value as early as the end of this year and we could see widespread industry application within the next few years. 

In full, the report:

• Examines the funding increases that are pouring into blockchain
• Assesses why blockchain is becoming so popular and what factors are driving up increased research and development
• Explains in full how blockchain technology work and what assets make it valuable and vulnerable
• Identifies pain points in the financial industry and profiles how various firms are using blockchain to solve them
• Demonstrates the challenges to mainstream adoption and their potential solutions

Interested in getting the full report? Here are two ways to access it:

1. Subscribe to an All-Access pass to BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report and over 100 other expertly researched reports. As an added bonus, you'll also gain access to all future reports and daily newsletters to ensure you stay ahead of the curve and benefit personally and professionally. >> Learn More Now
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A well-known Chinese bitcoin miner gets into Ethereum as a wide range of high-profile organizations begin to capitalize on the digital currency.

The Linux Foundation has named Brian Behlendorf executive director of the Hyperledger Project, a blockchain initiative to create an open distributed ledger platform for the foundation, a nonprofit organization committed to professional, open source management. Behlendorf was a primary developer of the Apache Web server. He is also a founding member of the Apache Software […]

The post Open Source Hyperledger Blockchain Project Gets a Director appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Altcoins have a long tradition in the Bitcoin community, but they tend to cause a contentious divide among those who think they’re useful...

The post Are Altcoins Bitcoin’s Friends or Enemies? appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Altcoins have a long tradition in the Bitcoin community, but they tend to cause a contentious divide among those who think they’re useful...

The post Are Altcoins Bitcoin’s Friends or Enemies? appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

30 years ago, the concept of being able to communicate instantly over video with anyone around the world was unimaginable.  Today, the same can be said about fully autonomous corporations, without any leadership, management or employees, being able to drive a return on investment for their stakeholders.  The funny thing is that it is not artificial intelligence that is making this change possible.  In fact, it is all being made possible from the ideas that have been inspired from the most popular digital currency, bitcoin. The DAO, short for The Distributed Autonomous Organization, is an entirely new way of organizing investment.  It has raised over $150m in crowdfunding dollars by over 20,000 individuals since April 30th, making it is the largest crowdfunded effort in history.  The DAO’s features depend on a new Bitcoin-inspired blockchain called Ethereum. Ethereum is a blockchain implementation created in 2014 by Vitalik Buterin, who was just nineteen at the time. Bitcoin was five years old then and Buterin carefully studied its strengths and weaknesses. Vitalik recognized that while Bitcoin could function well for companies looking to use it as a way to send money faster and cheaper across borders, it lacked the flexibility to achieve the promise of a fully programable currency.  As a result, he built the Ethereum blockchain such that every node involved in Ethereum has a fully functional virtual computer inside built specifically to run programs known as smart contracts.

Bitcoin price fell through $440 (Bitstamp) and has subsequently pushed back above this initial decline target level. The market has found support but today’s retracement lacks bounce. 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 […]

The post Bitcoin Price Holds Long-Term Support appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

DAO: a distributed, autonomous corporation. (A backgrounder can be found here.) Just more than a year ago, as I was completing work...

The post Holy DAO! Reflections on the $155 Million (And Growing) Autonomous Behemoth appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Misaligned mirrors are being blamed for a fire that broke out yesterday at the world’s largest solar power plant, leaving the high-tech facility crippled for the time being. It sounds like the plant’s workers suffered through a real hellscape, too.

Read more...

The Bitcoiners “FU” (shorthand for fuck up on the subrredit r/tifu) started six years ago when he was in college. As he states on the forum known as ‘Today I Fucked Up:’ Back then, “I had a hugely over-inflated sense of how intelligent I was. Rare for someone on reddit I know.” He chose to, […]

The post Landfills Are Filling Up With Bitcoin appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Bitcoin Press Releases: As of today (Friday 20th May 2016), BTCPOP is the first-ever P2P bitcoin lending company that offer Collateral Instant Loans. BTCPOP are renowned for being a unique and innovative bitcoin lending platform, however, over the past year, they have strived to become the first bitcoin bank. In December 2014, BTCPOP started with […]

The post BTCPOP offer Collateral Instant Loans! appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Bitcoin exchange Coinbase has revealed that it is adding support for Ethereum’s native currency Ether. Prominent bitcoin exchange Coinbase will soon add digital currency on its trading platform, with trading to commence on Tuesday, May 24. The inclusion of ether on the trading platform comes at a time when there is an increased interest in […]

The post Bitcoin Exchange Coinbase Adds Ethereum Trading; Set for Rebrand appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Long one of the most important developers in Bitcoin, Mike Hearn rewrote much of Satoshi Nakamoto’s code. Hearn also openly theorized about what the technology’s potential and future uses could be. In a much-publicized decision, Hearn divorced Bitcoin last fall, causing high drama in the Bitcoin community. He had been pondering how the cryptocurrency could […]

The post Mike Hearn: Bitcoin’s “Young, Unripened Democracy” Suffers Under Authoritarian Developers appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase will begin offering trading of Ether, the currency of the Ethereum network, perhaps signaling the arrival of digital currencies as a new asset class.

The recently founded Sydney Stock Exchange is turning to  blockchain technology in developing a settlement system that will see it provide an open blockchain settlement platform, enabling any company or broker to use the blockchain. The Sydney Stock Exchange (SSX is building a blockchain solution for the private equity market in an effort to provide […]

The post Sydney Stock Exchange is Building  a Public Blockchain System appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

A hacker who claimed responsibility for the Hacking Team and Gamma Group breaches has sent €10,000 of stolen bitcoin to the autonomous region of Rojava in northern Syria, according to arstechnica.co.uk.   Using the pseudonyms “Hack Back!” and “Phineas Phisher” and “@GammaGroupPR,” the hacker indicated an unwillingness to name the victims since there is hope […]

The post Hacker Sends €10,000 in Stolen Bitcoin to Revolutionary Anti-ISIS Group appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.