Coin News

Digital currency exchange Bitfinex has issued its own digital token in an unusual attempt off-set about $66m worth of bitcoin stolen.

The U.K. Government has awarded the first G-Cloud 8 framework agreement for the supply of distributed ledger technology to technology...

The post U.K. Government Awards Framework Agreement to Blockchain-As-A-Service Company Credits appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Delta Air Lines got very lucky this morning.

Even though a computer outage at the airline's Atlanta headquarters on Monday crippled its global operations for more than six hours, it could have been far worse for the airline and its passengers.

The airline managed to work through its computer issues and get its planes back in the air by 8:40 a.m. eastern time.

The quick fix isolated much of the direct effect of the outage to the relatively calm overnight period and early morning flights without disrupting too much of the Monday morning rush.

In addition, many of the flights affected are of the long-haul international variety which have longer turnaround times — allowing the airline more leeway to reallocate it resources to make those flights work. However, Delta warned that passengers should expect further cancellations and delays throughout the day.

The grounding of Delta's 800-airplane fleet comes less than three weeks after a computer failure forced Southwest Airlines to cancel more than 1,100 flights over a 24-hour span.

Effect on Delta's business

"The negative effect on revenue will be minimal," Airways senior business analyst Vinay Bhaskara told Business Insider. That's even after you factor in how much each flight cancellation will cost Delta.

The failure has, thus far, forced the airline to cancel 451 of the 6,000 flights scheduled for Monday, Delta announced in a statement.

According to Bhaskara, each cancelled domestic flight could cost an airline as much as $17,000 once you factor in the downstream costs resulting from the cascading effects on later operations.

At the same time, the cancellation of an international flight could cost airlines in the neighborhood of $65,000.

Common in the age of automation

There are still thousands of Delta passengers who have had their travel plans thrown into disarray.

Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian apologized to customers in a video posted to the airline's Twitter account.

The airline announced that affected passengers will be allowed to rebook their flights free of cost by August 12.

With the increasing level of automation in the airline industry, computer outages have become more and more common.

In January, JetBlue temporarily halted operations across its network because of a power outage at Verizon data center.

American and United have also been forced to temporarily ground its fleets over the past two years because of crippling computer outages.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: TONY ROBBINS: Here’s the secret to investing like hedge fund billionaire Paul Tudor Jones

The U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) announced today that they will be auctioning off $1.6 million worth of bitcoins later this month. The more than 2,700 bitcoins were forfeited from various cases including that of the notorious online black market, Silk Road, which was shut down by the FBI in 2013. In an announcement released today […]

The post US Government to Auction off $1.6 Million Bitcoins appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Compared to the days of Silk Road in 2013, the number of transactions of illicit drugs on the cryptomarkets has tripled, with revenues doubling, says a new report by RAND Europe. The not-for-profit research institute, whose mission is to help improve policy and decision-making through research and analysis, names vendors who indicated they were operating […]

The post US, UK Top Cryptomarkets Online Illegal Drug Trades appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Chaincode Labs developers Alex Morcos and Suhas Daftuar, and Blockstream developer Matt Corallo — three regular Bitcoin Core contributors ―...

The post Bitcoin Core Devs Reach Out to Coders With Month-Long Coding Classes appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Chaincode Labs is offering a new training course and mentorship program for developers who want to learn the basics of bitcoin.

 Late last week we reported that Bitfinex, a popular Hong Kong-based Bitcoin exchange was hacked, losing about $70M worth of customer’s bitcoin. The loss caused the price of Bitcoin to drop about 20%, and it still hasn’t fully recovered to pre-hack levels. In the days following the hack little information was known about how it happened and how Bitfinex would reimburse affected… Read More

In the aftermath of the recent theft of more than $65 million worth of bitcoins from Bitfinex, parts of the Bitcoin community have been...

The post After the Bitfinex Hack, Here’s Why Bitstamp Is Sticking With BitGo appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Bitfinex has announced that it is slowly getting back online after announcing to its users that they will lose 36 percent of their assets. Last week the Hong Kong-based bitcoin exchange suffered a security breach which saw $65 million worth of bitcoins stolen and the price of bitcoin plummeting 20 percent. It has since climbed […]

The post Bitfinex Slowly Getting Back Online after Users Suffer 36% Loss appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. government said on Monday it plans to auction over 2,700 bitcoin that were forfeited during several cases, including the prosecution of the creator of the online black market known as Silk Road.

The U.S. Marshals Service said that the online auction would be held on Aug. 22, and that potential bidders must register by Aug. 18. The bitcoin are worth nearly $16.1 million, according to the Bitstamp exchange.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

Join the conversation about this story »

The US government has announced it intends to sell off just over $1.6m in bitcoin confiscated from various criminal cases.

Bitspark Limited, a remittance service that leverages bitcoin and blockchain technology, has partnered with Vitaxel Group, a direct sale organization, to bring Bitspark’s payment platform to Malaysia, the company announced in a blog. Bitspark enables money transfer businesses to send and receive money faster, cheaper, and more securely to more than 100,000-plus destinations worldwide. The two companies seek […]

The post Bitspark Partners With Vitaxel Group To Launch Remittance Platform In Malaysia appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

People who stored bitcoins at a popular exchange are told they will lose 36% of their assets following a cyber-attack.

Digital currencies such as bitcoin are attractive for terrorism financing, according to Australia’s financial intelligence agency, AUSTRAC, which is calling for them to regulate it under its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing laws. A report published by AUSTRAC, Terrorism financing in Australia 2014, stated that terrorism financing was turning its attention to electronic and online […]

The post Australia Moves to Regulate Bitcoin appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Delta Air Lines has resumed flight operations following a massive computer outage that crippled the airline for more than six hours on Monday.

According to Delta, a "major system-wide network outage" on Monday had delayed flights worldwide.

The widespread computer problem was caused by a power outage at its headquarters in Atlanta, the airline said in a statement.

The outage meant flights worldwide were being delayed and airport screens and Delta's website were not showing updated flight status information.

"A power outage in Atlanta, which began at 2:38 a.m. ET (6:38 a.m. GMT), has impacted Delta computer systems and operations worldwide, resulting in flight delays and cancellations today," Delta said.

Flights scheduled for departure were grounded, but those already in the air operated normally, Delta said in a statement.

Even though flights have resumed, Delta cautioned travelers to expect further delays and cancellations as the airline ramps up its operations.

"A Delta ground stop has been lifted and limited departures are resuming following a power outage in Atlanta that impacted Delta computer systems and operations worldwide. Cancellations and delays continue.

Customers heading to the airport should expect delays and cancellations. While inquiries are high and wait times are long, our customer service agents are doing everything they can to assist. There may also be some lag time in the display of accurate flight status at delta.com, the Fly Delta App and from Delta representatives on the phone and in airport."

Delta, the world's second-largest airline measured by revenue passenger kilometers flown, operates 5,000 departures a day and is a member of the SkyTeam alliance alongside airlines including Air France-KLM.

It also partners for transatlantic flights with Virgin Atlantic, which said its flights were operating normally but cautioned that passengers should check tickets in case their flight was due to be operated by Delta as part of a code-share agreement.

The outage affected flights globally, a London-based spokeswoman for the airline said.

Passengers stuck in check-in lines in airports across the world, or aboard planes waiting to depart, shared photos and frustration at the delays on Twitter.

"1 hr.+ lines @HeathrowAirport for @Delta due to system outage," user @MITJAKE tweeted with a picture of passengers waiting to check in.

The glitch follows several high-profile computer problems faced by US airlines in recent months.

The budget carrier Southwest Airlines Co. last month had to halt departures after a technical outage, while American Airlines had to suspend flights from three of its hubs in September after technical problems.

Industry consultants say airlines face an increasing risk from computer disruptions as they automate more of their operations, distribute boarding passes on smartphones, and outfit their planes with Wi-Fi.

(Reporting by Abinaya Vijayaraghavan in Bengaluru and Victoria Bryan in Berlin; additional reporting by Sarah Young in London; editing by Gopakumar Warrier and Jason Neely)

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: This one room in Atlanta acts as a mission control for all of Delta's planes

Here is what you need to know.

US stocks are at record highs. Friday's dynamite jobs reported propelled both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq to record high closes. However, the 0.8% gain in the S&P 500 extended the average's streak without a move of 1.0% to a 17th straight session.

Walmart is buying Jet.com. The deal will be worth about $3 billion, according to Recode's Jason Del Rey, citing anonymous sources. Walmart hopes the acquisition will help jump start its struggling online business which is just a sliver of the size of Amazon's. Walmart generates about $14 billion in annual e-commerce sales, compared to about $99 billion from Amazon.

Berkshire Hathaway earnings miss. The Warren Buffett-led conglomerate reported operating earnings per share of $2,803 ($2,911 expected, according to Bloomberg) and a 25% year-over-year jump in net income to $5 billion.

Delta Airlines flights are grounded nationwide. A nationwide system outage has caused grounded Delta Airlines flights across the country. "Our systems are down everywhere. Hopefully it won't be much longer," the airline's Twitter account tweeted in response to passenger inquiries, Reuters reports.

Airbnb is now worth $30 billion. Bloomberg reports, the home-sharing company has raised another $850 million, bringing its total to $3.2 billion. Airbnb is the second most valuable startup, behind only Uber (~$68 billion).

The bitcoin exchange that was hacked says all its customers will lose some of their funds. Bitfinex, the Hong Kong-based bitcoin exchange that was hacked for $65 million, says all of its customers will lose 36% of their funds. The company says customers will be given digital "tokens"that record their losses, which may one day be redeemed or exchanged for shares of iFinex, the company that operates Bitfinex.

OPEC will meet in September. OPEC members will hold reportedly an informal meeting on a possible production freeze along side the International Energy Forum in Algeria on September 26 to September 28, Reuters reports. "OPEC continues to monitor developments closely, and is in constant deliberations with all member states on ways and means to help restore stability and order to the oil market," Mohammad bin Saleh al-Sada, Qatar’s minister of energy and industry, said in a statement. West Texas Intermediate crude oil is up 1.6% at $42.48 per barrel. 

China trade data. Trade data released by the General Administration of Customs showed China's trade surplus grew to $52.31 billion in July. Exports fell 4.4% in dollar terms and imports sank 12.5%, leading to the largest surplus since January.

Stock markets around the world are higher. Japan's Nikkei (+2.4%) paced the advance in Asia and Germany's DAX (+0.9%) leads the way up in Europe. S&P 500 futures higher by 4.00 points at 2,180.75.

Earnings reports continue to flow. Allergan, Dean Foods, Sotheby's, and Tyson Foods are among the names reporting ahead of the opening bell while Hertz Global, Lending Club, News Corp., and Twilio highlight the companies releasing their quarterly results after markets close.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Scientists just collected a mysterious 'purple orb' at the bottom of the ocean, but no one could anticipate what happened next

Bitcoin Press Release: OXBTC (www.oxbtc.com) – the China-based cloud mining platform lately announced its business shift from pure cloud hashrates selling to cloudhash hosting services – which provide more lucrative mining options for investors with much lower prices and maintenance fees. It has also released two cloudhash hosting contracts for Bitcoin and Ether mining (first in […]

The post OXBTC Releases New BTC/ETH Cloudhash Hosting Services appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

The Gaming Industry is keen to embrace technological advances, says the executive chairperson of the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA), Joseph Cuschieri. However, there should be flexible regulatory frameworks that would innovate the industry to take advantage of the full developments that should also minimize risks to consumers. One area the structures would be considered is the use of cryptocurrencies […]

The post Malta Gambling Regulatory Body Cautious of Bitcoin appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

A bitcoin exchange that was hacked for $65 million says that all of its customers will lose 36% of their funds to account for the losses.

Bitfinex, one of the largest bitcoin exchanges in the world, had almost 120,000 bitcoins stolen by hackers on August 2. 

On Saturday, the Hong Kong-based business announced these losses will be "generalized" — meaning all the losses will be shared between all users, even if none of their bitcoins were taken.

In return, customers are being given digital "tokens" that record their losses, which may one day be redeemed or exchanged for shares of iFinex, the company that operates Bitfinex.

It's not yet clear what the nature of the breach of the exchange was, or who was responsible for the attack. In the immediate aftermath, the price of bitcoin dropped 20% compared to its 24-hour high — as low as $480, down from $607.

It's a huge hack — the second-largest ever successful confirmed attack on a bitcoin exchange. Back in 2014, MtGox, then the largest exchange, collapsed after $460 million in bitcoin was stolen by apparent hackers.

Ethereum — an alternative digital currency — has recently been rocked by an attack on the DAO, a decentralised organisation that ran on its blockchain. The attacker managed to obtain $50 million-worth of Ether, but the community effectively split the currency in a "hard fork" to prevent them from being able to use it.

Bitfienx is one of the biggest exchanges out there: It dominates bitcoin-USD trading, making up 50% of total volume. It also disrupts what has been a bullish year for the currency thus far. As recently as January 2016, bitcoin was trading at just over $200 — less than a third of its $740-odd June 2016 highs.

Here's the full blog post from Bitfinex, published on August 6:

"Following the theft on August 2nd, the Bitfinex team has been working tirelessly towards bringing the platform back online in a secure and controlled manner. We have finalized the accounting of losses incurred and are currently coordinating strategic plans for compensating customers.

We intend to come online within 24-48 hours with limited platform functionality. Additional announcements will be made as we progressively enable more platform features and return to full operations. We appreciate that our customers and the public want this handled quickly, but it needs to be done a way in which all assets are secure and immune from vulnerabilities. Every resource is being leveraged to make that happen in a safe and optimal way.

As disclosed in earlier announcements, all withdrawals, open orders, and open funding offers have been canceled and all financed positions have been settled. Exact settlement prices were published on August 3rd.

After much thought, analysis, and consultation, we have arrived at the conclusion that losses must be generalized across all accounts and assets. This is the closest approximation to what would happen in a liquidation context. Upon logging into the platform, customers will see that they have experienced a generalized loss percentage of 36.067%. In a later announcement we will explain in full detail the methodology used to compute these losses.

We are actively discussing various strategic options with numerous potential investors as part of our strategy to fully compensate our customers. Such discussions, however, are in early stages and will likely take time to play out. In the meantime, In place of the loss in each wallet, we are crediting a token labeled BFX to record each customer’s discrete losses. Tokens will be distributed without release or waiver. The BFX tokens will remain outstanding until redeemed in full by Bitfinex or possibly exchanged—upon the creditor’s request and Bitfinex’s acceptance—for shares of iFinex Inc. We are still sorting out many details on this; we will post further updates in the coming days.

Thank you for your continued patience and for the many generous offers of support that we have received over the last several days. Notwithstanding this attack, we continue to believe in the possibilities associated with bitcoin. We will continue to update our customers and the public as and when we can."

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: How to find Pokémon in 'Pokémon Go'

Fake bitcoin wallet apps have emerged in the Apple iTunes App Store, potentially putting bitcoin accounts at risk and reinforcing the need for people to make sure they are downloading apps from official wallet websites, according to Kyt Dotson, a senior editor at Silicon Angle. A representative of Breadwallet, a bitcoin app available in App […]

The post Fake Bitcoin Apps Emerge in Apple iTunes App Store appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.