28 June 2014

Gaming Portal First Merchant To Check in On Danish Bitcoin Exchange CCEDK

June 28, 2014 at 05:14AM



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A Bitcoin Gaming Portal Offering an 80% Revenue to Affiliate Members Registering Before September 1st 2014, has Checked in on the Bitcoin Exchange CCEDK


Online PR News – 28-June-2014 – Blokhus, Denmark, Jun 28, 2014 — With FUN-CASINO added to the trading platform, CCEDK expects to make a strong presence in the bitcoin gaming industry, as it is expected this gaming portal will be the first of many to join the CCEDK merchant program (http://ift.tt/1yWdkqA) in near future. It is a sector so far with the highest bitcoin usage, and is the first of many industries, where setting up a merchant account on our platform seems the right thing to do, Ronny Boesing, CEO CCEDK ApS said in an interview.


Once the gaming portals dealing with crypto currencies worldwide realize what we are offering, I expect them to stand in line to sign up for our merchant program, Boesing says, and he continues. This program is of course also meant for all other enterprises believing in crypto currencies to be the no. 1 alternative way to pay for goods and services in the future!


This first merchant to be listed on CCEDK online trading platform softly launched in Aprilwith support for gaming in Bitcoin and Litecoin. Already on the site is offered 40-plus games, including roulette, blackjack, Texas hold em and slot machines. Worth noticing is the sites security which is backed by iTECH Labs.


Multilingual presence:

Working well together with the CCEDK strategy to be the most multilingual bitcoin exchange worldwide, FUN-CASINO at http://ift.tt/1jXIW54 can offer some synergy to that area by being already available in the languages: English, Russian, Chinese, German, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese, Japanese, Swedish, Dutch and Turkish and many more to come!


Good news to holders of crypto currencies in general:

Today it is possible to play with Bitcoin and Litecoin on FUN-CASINO, and later on it is possible to play with all other crypto currencies via a special FUNcoin currency, which will be available for free exchange on CCEDK Boesing says:


In co operation with project managers of FUN-CASINO we are working on the integration and presentation of FUNcoin on our trading platform, enabling holders of alternative crypto currencies to convert for free to FUNcoin which will then be possible to be used as currency on the FUN-CASINO game portal similar to Litecoin and Bitcon.


With numerous users of virtual currencies indulged in the world of Bitcoin Games CCEDK is already poised to generate high volume of trades. With the potential of adding future merchants from other industries as well, CCEDK seems to be going down the right track to become the natural choice of exchange for crypto currency transactions worldwide.


About CCEDK ApS:

CCEDK.com is an online trading platform of digital currencies order-to-order, on which seller and buyer meet to perform their transactions peer-to-peer from crypto to crypto or fiat to crypto or vice versa. The company is registered in Denmark, a country in the EU, under the name CCEDK / Crypto Coins Exchange Denmark ApS, providing exchange services of crypto currencies like BTC, LTC and PPC paired with the fiat currencies USD, EUR, GBP, NOK, and DKK in a safe, secure and transparent environment. Payment services are provided on the basis of SOFORT instant pay system, SEPA transfers, Wire transfers and various alternative payment service providers.


###


If you would like more information about this topic, or to schedule an interview with Ronny Boesing, please call +45 36 98 11 50 or e-mail Ronny at ron...@ccedk.com




U.S. auctions some 30,000 bitcoins from Silk Road raid


NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Marshals Service on Friday auctioned off about 30,000 bitcoins seized during a raid on Silk Road, an Internet black-market bazaar where authorities say illegal drugs and other goods could be bought.



An online auction took place over a 12-hour period on Friday for the bitcoins, valued at nearly $17.7 million. It consisted of nine blocks of 3,000 bitcoins and one block of 2,657 bitcoins. The Marshals Service has said it would notify the winning bidders on Monday.



A spokeswoman for the Marshals Service declined to say how many bids the office received. Among those who said they registered to participate in the auctions were SecondMarket and Bitcoin Shop Inc. (BTCS.PK)



Silk Road was shutdown after an FBI raid in September 2013 as agents took control of its server and arrested a Texas man, Ross Ulbricht, that the authorities said owned and operated the website.



The auction was for 29,655 bitcoins contained in files residing on its servers, which were forfeited in January.



Chris DeMuth, a partner at Rangeley Capital who had been considering bidding, said last week the chance the Marshals Service gets the market price for the bitcoins is low.



"Anyone could pay market prices on existing exchanges," he said. "So the key question is how much of a discount do bidders want."



The Marshals are holding about 144,342 additional bitcoins found on computer hardware belonging to Ulbricht that were subject to a civil forfeiture proceeding.



Ulbricht, 30, is scheduled to face trial Nov. 3. He has pleaded not guilty to the four counts against him, including money laundering conspiracy and engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise.



U.S. authorities have separately charged three men - Andrew Jones, Gary Davis and Peter Nash - in connection with their alleged roles in assisting Ulbricht in operating Silk Road.



Bitcoin prices were up 3.1 percent Friday at $597.41 per coin, according to the digital currency exchange CoinDesk.



(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Andre Grenon)



June 28, 2014 at 04:47AM



Latest Bitcoin News | BTC/LTC Robot | Mining ASICS | BTC Debit Card

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Bitcoin?

[fivefilters.org: unable to retrieve full-text content]


The price of the virtual currency has been in constant flux since it came to life in 2009, ranging from just a few pennies to more than a thousand dollars. High-profile heists and government shutdowns haven’t helped. But bidders are lining up to ... June 28, 2014 at 03:31AM



Latest Bitcoin News | BTC/LTC Robot | Mining ASICS | BTC Debit Card

Japan considering tax on Bitcoin deals



World Bulletin / News Desk


Japan will this week set out rules on how to handle bitcoins, the first sign that the government is taking action on regulating the virtual currency after the collapse last week of Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, once the world's dominant bitcoin exchange.


The cabinet will decide on Friday how to treat bitcoins under existing laws, said people familiar with the matter, adding that banks and securities firms will not be able to handle bitcoin as part of their main business, suggesting the crypto-currency will be treated more as a commodity, like gold.


Japan has struggled to define its approach to bitcoin since the collapse of Mt. Gox, which filed for bankruptcy protection in Tokyo on Friday, saying it had lost bitcoins and cash worth some half a billion dollars due to hacker attacks on what it said was its lax computer system security.


Bitcoin, a digital currency that is traded on a peer-to-peer network independent of central control, has engendered a wave of creative criminality - from bitcoin theft by hacking online platforms to potentially using the crypto-currency in money laundering, bribery and buying illicit products. Its value has soared in the past year, and the total worth of bitcoins minted is now about $7 billion.


Flexcoin, a Canada-based bitcoin bank, said on Tuesday it was closing after it lost $600,000 worth of the online currency - all the bitcoins it stored - to hacker theft.


TAXING PROBLEM


Japanese authorities are looking at possibly taxing bitcoin transactions, but it remains unclear how they could do this, given that one of the attractions of using bitcoin is that transactions are largely anonymous.


"We haven't yet thoroughly grasped the situation, but some kind of regulation is needed from the perspective of consumer protection, and we will also discuss (bitcoin) from the perspective of imposing asset tax," said Takuya Hirai, head of an IT panel in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.


The panel heard on Wednesday from consultant Deloitte about bitcoin and from officials of the Consumer Affairs Agency, the Financial Services Agency (FSA) the Finance Ministry, central bank, Cabinet Office and the National Police Agency about the Mt. Gox collapse, Hirai told reporters.


The FSA and the Finance Ministry have said bitcoin is not a currency and doesn't fall under their purview, while the Bank of Japan has said it was studying the bitcoin phenomenon with interest. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the relevant Japanese ministries will be in close contact with each other on matters relating to bitcoin.


A former insider at Mt. Gox told Reuters the exchange had repeatedly approached the FSA in the past, asking it to define the handling of bitcoin, but received no definitive answer. Last week, the FSA said it had not recently been in contact with Mt. Gox, but did not specify whether it had ever been in touch with the company. A lawyer for Mt. Gox declined to comment.


Taxing bitcoin is not without precedent.


U.S. online retailer Overstock.com collects sales tax on sales to places where the company has a physical presence, such as its home state of Utah, said vice chairman Jonathan Johnson. "It's pretty easy to do with bitcoin as at this point we are converting bitcoin into dollars immediately," he told Reuters.


But Hiroshi Mikitani, a prominent Japanese e-commerce billionaire and CEO of Rakuten Inc, expressed caution about trying to regulate the virtual currency. "They should not act hastily," he said, according to Kyodo News. "As for whether we need regulations, they should first examine the situation a bit more and discuss it in depth."


INTERNATIONAL EFFORT?


Japan doesn't want to go it alone in trying to get a grip on bitcoin. Any regulation of the crypto-currency should involve international cooperation to avoid loopholes, Vice Finance Minister Jiro Aichi said last week.


U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen has said Congress should look into legal options for regulating virtual currencies such as bitcoin.


Shanghai-based BTC China, the world's largest bitcoin exchange by volume, has imposed regulations to curb bitcoin trade weeks after Beijing banned financial institutions from trading in bitcoin due to the risks involved.


Russian authorities have issued warnings against using bitcoin, saying treating it as a parallel currency is illegal. Britain, however, has supported bitcoin and is preparing to abort plans to tax bitcoin trading, the Financial Times reported.


FLEXCOIN SHUTDOWN AFTER HACKING THEFT


Flexcoin, a Canada-based bitcoin bank, said it was closing down after losing bitcoins worth about $600,000 to a hacker attack enabled by flaws in its software code.


Flexcoin said in a message on its website that all 896 bitcoins stored online were stolen on Sunday. Its collapse came after Mt. Gox, once the world's dominant bitcoin exchange, filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan and said it may have lost some 850,000 bitcoins due to hacking.


"As Flexcoin does not have the resources, assets, or otherwise to come back from this loss, we are closing our doors immediately," Flexcoin said. ()


It later posted an update on its site saying that the attack exploited a flaw in its code on transfers between users and involved inundating the system with simultaneous requests to move coins between accounts.


"Flexcoin has made every attempt to keep our servers as secure as possible, including regular testing," it said, adding it had repelled thousands of attacks over the past few years. "But in the end, this was simply not enough."


The Alberta, Canada-based firm, which said it is working with law enforcement agencies to trace the source of the hack, said it would return bitcoins stored offline, or in "cold storage", to users.


Cold storage coins are held in computers not connected to the internet and therefore cannot be hacked.


Flexcoin said on Feb. 25 it was not affected by Mt. Gox's closure. "While the Mt. Gox closure is unfortunate, we at Flexcoin have not lost anything," it had tweeted then.


Bitcoin is a digital currency that, unlike conventional money, is bought and sold on a peer-to-peer network independent of central control. Its value soared last year, and the total worth of bitcoins minted is now about $7 billion.


According to Bitstamp, one of the largest exchanges for trading bitcoins, a bitcoin was valued at about $658 on Wednesday.




June 28, 2014 at 01:57AM



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38th director of U.S. Mint to keynote bitcoin conference in Raleigh




It’s not very often that a government official, either past or present, immerses himself into the world of peer-to-peer decentralized virtual currencies. Most civil servants have the mindset that bitcoins, litecoin and other digital currencies will pose a threat to the status quo rather than improve the marketplace.


Count Edmund C. Moy, the 38th director of the United States Mint from 2006 to 2011, is a government employee that has become an important analyst when it comes to bitcoin. On his website, he publishes articles relating to bitcoin, such as “The Currency Revolution, Courtesy Of Bitcoin.”


BitcoinMoy, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, even went to social media to aver how the major financial institutions are getting competition from the five-year-old cryptocurrency: “It’s Time Banks Got Competition. Time for Cryptocurrencies,” Moy tweeted last month.



Bitcoin media outlets are now abuzz after it was confirmed that Moy will be addressing a bitcoin conference in Raleigh, North Carolina as a keynote speaker for Cryptolina. The news was announced by event organizer Faruk Okcetin, who has noted that more than 500 new guests will be in attendance.


“This is a game-changer. Ed Moy is widely respected among the finance and exchange industry, and is among the highest level officials yet to recognize both the future and inevitability of cryptocurrency. The Carolinas are thrilled to be hosting Mr. Moy’s first appearance at a Bitcoin conference,” Okcetin stated in a press release.


Cryptolina will take a look at the current state of bitcoin and address the issues surrounding the cryptocurrency community. Other important speakers at the event include Elizabeth Ploshay of BitPay and the Bitcoin Foundation, and angel investor Mark Easley.


Moy has been a key figure in government as he has advised the Treasury Secretary, collaborated with the Federal Reserve to project demand and worked intimately with Congress. He has also analyzed payment systems and trends in outlays.





June 28, 2014 at 01:50AM



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Bitcoin Closes Above $600 As US Government Auctions Off 30,000 Coins Seized from Silk Road



Bitcoin prices came back to $600 levels after the US Marshals Service auctioned off 30,000 bitcoins seized from online black-market Silk Road on 27 June.


The bitcoin rate closed at $600.86 (£359.37, €449.09), up 3.71% on 27 June, according to CoinDesk. It is currently trading a little lower at $597.40 as at 6:50am BST, down 0.58% from the previous close.


The bitcoins valued at about $18m were auctioned off in nine blocks of 3,000 bitcoins and one block of 2,657 bitcoins over a 12-hour period.


The bidding details are not yet available, as the Marshals Service declined to provide information; they will notify the winners on 30 June.


SecondMarket, Pantera Capital, Binary Financial and Bitcoin Shop Inc earlier revealed that they were participating in the auction.


US prosecutors earlier arrested Ross William Ulbricht, the alleged owner and operator of Silk Road which was accused of helping drug trafficking, computer hacking, money laundering and contract killings.


The website, which had a turnover of more than a million dollars a month, had been using bitcoin as its preferred mode of payment.


The prosecutors also seized more than 29,000 bitcoins from the website, and a US judge signed a forfeiture order on the "proceeds of crime".


The bitcoin community was closely watching the auction. If the coins were valued higher in the auction, the overall bitcoin prices are expected to shoot up from the current levels.


"Pumping such a large quantity into the market should weigh on prices. The terms of the auction make it difficult for small bidders ($200k deposit, each of the nine blocks valued around $1.8m), so the downward pressure is probably exacerbated by the limited number of investors interested in and capable of bidding," Now Citi, the New York-based financial services giant, said in a research note.


Bitcoin was launched in 2008 and is traded within a global network of computers. They can be transferred without going through banks or clearing houses, reducing fees involved in the services significantly.


Transactions in bitcoins are done anonymously over peer-to-peer networks, and this feature has been a serious concern for regulators.




June 28, 2014 at 06:21AM



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US Consumer Agency Told to Play Bigger Role Against Risks of Bitcoin



The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should play a bigger role in shielding people against risks from virtual currencies such as Bitcoin, a government watchdog said on Friday.


Federal regulators have started working together to gauge the risk in these virtual currencies, which are generated by computers outside the control of governments.


But their efforts have mainly centered on money laundering, and the CFPB, a new agency set up after the 2007-09 crisis, had not participated in these discussions, it said.


(Also Read: US Prepares for Unusual Sale of Bitcoins Seized in Raid on Silk Road)


"Recent events suggest that consumer protection is an emerging risk," the report by the Government Accountability Office said. "However ... participation by the federal government's lead consumer financial protection agency, CFPB, has been limited."


For that reason, the CFPB should take part in these discussions between the agencies, the report said. The CFPB had agreed to the recommendation.


Recent mishaps have brought Bitcoin under heightened scrutiny from regulators. Mt. Gox, a Tokyo-based Bitcoin exchange, filed for bankruptcy after losing an estimated $650 million worth of client Bitcoins.


So far, U.S. federal regulators have been relatively mum on Bitcoin. The Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) last year classified administrators or exchangers of Bitcoin as money transmitters, which puts them under the remit of state regulators.


(Also Read: US Marshals Accidentally Leak Potential Silk Road Bitcoin Bidders List)


The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is studying whether it has jurisdiction, given that some firms are considering offering Bitcoin derivatives. The U.S. Internal Revenue Service has designated Bitcoin as property, not currency.


Senator Tom Carper, a Democrat from Delaware, had requested the GAO report. The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, which he chairs, is conducting its own investigation into Bitcoin.


© Thomson Reuters 2014




June 28, 2014 at 05:53AM



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Gaming Portal First Merchant To Check in On Danish Bitcoin Exchange CCEDK

June 28, 2014 at 05:39AM



Latest Bitcoin News| BTC/LTC Robot| Mining ASICS| BTC Debit Card





A Bitcoin Gaming Portal Offering an 80% Revenue to Affiliate Members Registering Before September 1st 2014, has Checked in on the Bitcoin Exchange CCEDK


Online PR News – 28-June-2014 – Blokhus, Denmark, Jun 28, 2014 — With FUN-CASINO added to the trading platform, CCEDK expects to make a strong presence in the bitcoin gaming industry, as it is expected this gaming portal will be the first of many to join the CCEDK merchant program (http://ift.tt/1yWdkqA) in near future. It is a sector so far with the highest bitcoin usage, and is the first of many industries, where setting up a merchant account on our platform seems the right thing to do, Ronny Boesing, CEO CCEDK ApS said in an interview.


Once the gaming portals dealing with crypto currencies worldwide realize what we are offering, I expect them to stand in line to sign up for our merchant program, Boesing says, and he continues. This program is of course also meant for all other enterprises believing in crypto currencies to be the no. 1 alternative way to pay for goods and services in the future!


This first merchant to be listed on CCEDK online trading platform softly launched in Aprilwith support for gaming in Bitcoin and Litecoin. Already on the site is offered 40-plus games, including roulette, blackjack, Texas hold em and slot machines. Worth noticing is the sites security which is backed by iTECH Labs.


Multilingual presence:

Working well together with the CCEDK strategy to be the most multilingual bitcoin exchange worldwide, FUN-CASINO at http://ift.tt/1jXIW54 can offer some synergy to that area by being already available in the languages: English, Russian, Chinese, German, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese, Japanese, Swedish, Dutch and Turkish and many more to come!


Good news to holders of crypto currencies in general:

Today it is possible to play with Bitcoin and Litecoin on FUN-CASINO, and later on it is possible to play with all other crypto currencies via a special FUNcoin currency, which will be available for free exchange on CCEDK Boesing says:


In co operation with project managers of FUN-CASINO we are working on the integration and presentation of FUNcoin on our trading platform, enabling holders of alternative crypto currencies to convert for free to FUNcoin which will then be possible to be used as currency on the FUN-CASINO game portal similar to Litecoin and Bitcon.


With numerous users of virtual currencies indulged in the world of Bitcoin Games CCEDK is already poised to generate high volume of trades. With the potential of adding future merchants from other industries as well, CCEDK seems to be going down the right track to become the natural choice of exchange for crypto currency transactions worldwide.


About CCEDK ApS:

CCEDK.com is an online trading platform of digital currencies order-to-order, on which seller and buyer meet to perform their transactions peer-to-peer from crypto to crypto or fiat to crypto or vice versa. The company is registered in Denmark, a country in the EU, under the name CCEDK / Crypto Coins Exchange Denmark ApS, providing exchange services of crypto currencies like BTC, LTC and PPC paired with the fiat currencies USD, EUR, GBP, NOK, and DKK in a safe, secure and transparent environment. Payment services are provided on the basis of SOFORT instant pay system, SEPA transfers, Wire transfers and various alternative payment service providers.


###


If you would like more information about this topic, or to schedule an interview with Ronny Boesing, please call +45 36 98 11 50 or e-mail Ronny at ron...@ccedk.com




U.S. auctions some 30,000 bitcoins from Silk Road raid


NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Marshals Service on Friday auctioned off about 30,000 bitcoins seized during a raid on Silk Road, an Internet black-market bazaar where authorities say illegal drugs and other goods could be bought.



An online auction took place over a 12-hour period on Friday for the bitcoins, valued at nearly $17.7 million. It consisted of nine blocks of 3,000 bitcoins and one block of 2,657 bitcoins. The Marshals Service has said it would notify the winning bidders on Monday.



A spokeswoman for the Marshals Service declined to say how many bids the office received. Among those who said they registered to participate in the auctions were SecondMarket and Bitcoin Shop Inc. (BTCS.PK)



Silk Road was shutdown after an FBI raid in September 2013 as agents took control of its server and arrested a Texas man, Ross Ulbricht, that the authorities said owned and operated the website.



The auction was for 29,655 bitcoins contained in files residing on its servers, which were forfeited in January.



Chris DeMuth, a partner at Rangeley Capital who had been considering bidding, said last week the chance the Marshals Service gets the market price for the bitcoins is low.



"Anyone could pay market prices on existing exchanges," he said. "So the key question is how much of a discount do bidders want."



The Marshals are holding about 144,342 additional bitcoins found on computer hardware belonging to Ulbricht that were subject to a civil forfeiture proceeding.



Ulbricht, 30, is scheduled to face trial Nov. 3. He has pleaded not guilty to the four counts against him, including money laundering conspiracy and engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise.



U.S. authorities have separately charged three men - Andrew Jones, Gary Davis and Peter Nash - in connection with their alleged roles in assisting Ulbricht in operating Silk Road.



Bitcoin prices were up 3.1 percent Friday at $597.41 per coin, according to the digital currency exchange CoinDesk.



(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Andre Grenon)



June 28, 2014 at 04:47AM



Latest Bitcoin News | BTC/LTC Robot | Mining ASICS | BTC Debit Card

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Bitcoin?

[fivefilters.org: unable to retrieve full-text content]


The price of the virtual currency has been in constant flux since it came to life in 2009, ranging from just a few pennies to more than a thousand dollars. High-profile heists and government shutdowns haven’t helped. But bidders are lining up to ... June 28, 2014 at 03:31AM



Latest Bitcoin News | BTC/LTC Robot | Mining ASICS | BTC Debit Card

Bitcoin Closes Above $600 As US Government Auctions Off 30,000 Coins Seized from Silk Road



Bitcoin prices came back to $600 levels after the US Marshals Service auctioned off 30,000 bitcoins seized from online black-market Silk Road on 27 June.


The bitcoin rate closed at $600.86 (£359.37, €449.09), up 3.71% on 27 June, according to CoinDesk. It is currently trading a little lower at $597.40 as at 6:50am BST, down 0.58% from the previous close.


The bitcoins valued at about $18m were auctioned off in nine blocks of 3,000 bitcoins and one block of 2,657 bitcoins over a 12-hour period.


The bidding details are not yet available, as the Marshals Service declined to provide information; they will notify the winners on 30 June.


SecondMarket, Pantera Capital, Binary Financial and Bitcoin Shop Inc earlier revealed that they were participating in the auction.


US prosecutors earlier arrested Ross William Ulbricht, the alleged owner and operator of Silk Road which was accused of helping drug trafficking, computer hacking, money laundering and contract killings.


The website, which had a turnover of more than a million dollars a month, had been using bitcoin as its preferred mode of payment.


The prosecutors also seized more than 29,000 bitcoins from the website, and a US judge signed a forfeiture order on the "proceeds of crime".


The bitcoin community was closely watching the auction. If the coins were valued higher in the auction, the overall bitcoin prices are expected to shoot up from the current levels.


"Pumping such a large quantity into the market should weigh on prices. The terms of the auction make it difficult for small bidders ($200k deposit, each of the nine blocks valued around $1.8m), so the downward pressure is probably exacerbated by the limited number of investors interested in and capable of bidding," Now Citi, the New York-based financial services giant, said in a research note.


Bitcoin was launched in 2008 and is traded within a global network of computers. They can be transferred without going through banks or clearing houses, reducing fees involved in the services significantly.


Transactions in bitcoins are done anonymously over peer-to-peer networks, and this feature has been a serious concern for regulators.




June 28, 2014 at 02:53AM



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Bitcoin foundation hit by resignations over new director



World Bulletin / News Desk


As the most prominent trade group pushing adoption of the electronic currency Bitcoin begins its annual conference on Friday, it is being roiled by controversy.


At least 10 members of the nonprofit Bitcoin Foundation have resigned over last week's election of onetime Disney child star and current Bitcoin entrepreneur and financier Brock Pierce as a new director, officials at the group said.


Some of the members cited Pierce's troubled past. That includes allegations in lawsuits from three employees of Pierce's first company, bankrupt web video business Digital Entertainment Network, that he provided drugs and pressured them for sex when they were minors.


Pierce has denied the accusations, which first surfaced in 2000.


"The allegations against me are not true, and I have never had intimate or sexual contact with any of the people who made those allegations," Pierce told Reuters via email.


Court records show 33-year-old Pierce, who played the title role in Disney's "First Kid," paid more than $21,000 to settle one employee suit, and he said others dropped their claims without money changing hands.


While Bitcoin Foundation officials played down the defections, several members who resigned from the Foundation assailed its governance track record.


"The track record of prominent Bitcoin Foundation members has been abysmal," said Patrick Alexander, a resigning Foundation member in a post on its discussion pages. "I no longer want to be associated with these people." Attempts to reach him for additional comment were unsuccessful.


Though it is highly volatile, the value of the electronic currency in existence has skyrocketed into the billions of dollars as the number of businesses accepting it has increased and investors have sought to create new ways for it to be used.


More than 1,000 Bitcoin investors, business people and enthusiasts are expected to attend the conference in Amsterdam.


The programming effort that governs how Bitcoin works is led by Gavin Andresen, who is chief scientist at the Foundation and gets a salary from it. The Foundation also plays an important role for Bitcoin in lobbying on its behalf in various jurisdiction as authorities grapple with how to police the semi-anonymous currency.


CALL TO VET CANDIDATES


Other members who resigned called on the board to more carefully vet future candidates as well as remove Pierce from the board.


Bitcoin Foundation General Counsel Patrick Murck said that his group had more than 1,500 members and would bounce back from the latest controversy.


"Democracy is messy sometimes," Murck said. "If in the future members decide they want to have a vetting process, that's great."


Some Bitcoin Foundation members say they weren't aware of Pierce's past until after the election, when others circulated media accounts concerning the allegations.


Pierce was voted in by the Foundation's industry members, who pay higher dues, to fill one of two spots vacated by others who had resigned: Mark Karpeles, chief executive of the bankrupt top Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, and Charlie Shrem, who has been charged with conspiring to launder money for users of the shuttered Silk Road underground drug bazaar.


Pierce has made a splash in the insular Bitcoin world by backing more than a dozen startups, speaking frequently at conferences, and leading a bid to buy Mt. Gox for one Bitcoin, currently worth less than $500.


Bitcoin startups have attracted investment from some venture capital firms and from individuals through "crowdfunding," in which many amateurs support projects, often with small investments and without the due diligence typically conducted by professional investors. Pierce has been a major beneficiary of the trend, garnering pledges of more than $700,000 for his investment syndicate on the crowdfunding site AngelList.


Cyan Banister, a startup CEO who made a nonbinding pledge of $5,000 to Pierce's investing syndicate, after learning of the allegations said she would withdraw from his group.


Phil Sanderson, an IDG Ventures investor in San Francisco who follows Bitcoin, said that the currency's growth was being hindered by the lack of effective public faces. "Bitcoin hasn't really had a strong, vocal leader with a great background," he said.




June 28, 2014 at 01:57AM



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Japan considering tax on Bitcoin deals



World Bulletin / News Desk


Japan will this week set out rules on how to handle bitcoins, the first sign that the government is taking action on regulating the virtual currency after the collapse last week of Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, once the world's dominant bitcoin exchange.


The cabinet will decide on Friday how to treat bitcoins under existing laws, said people familiar with the matter, adding that banks and securities firms will not be able to handle bitcoin as part of their main business, suggesting the crypto-currency will be treated more as a commodity, like gold.


Japan has struggled to define its approach to bitcoin since the collapse of Mt. Gox, which filed for bankruptcy protection in Tokyo on Friday, saying it had lost bitcoins and cash worth some half a billion dollars due to hacker attacks on what it said was its lax computer system security.


Bitcoin, a digital currency that is traded on a peer-to-peer network independent of central control, has engendered a wave of creative criminality - from bitcoin theft by hacking online platforms to potentially using the crypto-currency in money laundering, bribery and buying illicit products. Its value has soared in the past year, and the total worth of bitcoins minted is now about $7 billion.


Flexcoin, a Canada-based bitcoin bank, said on Tuesday it was closing after it lost $600,000 worth of the online currency - all the bitcoins it stored - to hacker theft.


TAXING PROBLEM


Japanese authorities are looking at possibly taxing bitcoin transactions, but it remains unclear how they could do this, given that one of the attractions of using bitcoin is that transactions are largely anonymous.


"We haven't yet thoroughly grasped the situation, but some kind of regulation is needed from the perspective of consumer protection, and we will also discuss (bitcoin) from the perspective of imposing asset tax," said Takuya Hirai, head of an IT panel in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.


The panel heard on Wednesday from consultant Deloitte about bitcoin and from officials of the Consumer Affairs Agency, the Financial Services Agency (FSA) the Finance Ministry, central bank, Cabinet Office and the National Police Agency about the Mt. Gox collapse, Hirai told reporters.


The FSA and the Finance Ministry have said bitcoin is not a currency and doesn't fall under their purview, while the Bank of Japan has said it was studying the bitcoin phenomenon with interest. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the relevant Japanese ministries will be in close contact with each other on matters relating to bitcoin.


A former insider at Mt. Gox told Reuters the exchange had repeatedly approached the FSA in the past, asking it to define the handling of bitcoin, but received no definitive answer. Last week, the FSA said it had not recently been in contact with Mt. Gox, but did not specify whether it had ever been in touch with the company. A lawyer for Mt. Gox declined to comment.


Taxing bitcoin is not without precedent.


U.S. online retailer Overstock.com collects sales tax on sales to places where the company has a physical presence, such as its home state of Utah, said vice chairman Jonathan Johnson. "It's pretty easy to do with bitcoin as at this point we are converting bitcoin into dollars immediately," he told Reuters.


But Hiroshi Mikitani, a prominent Japanese e-commerce billionaire and CEO of Rakuten Inc, expressed caution about trying to regulate the virtual currency. "They should not act hastily," he said, according to Kyodo News. "As for whether we need regulations, they should first examine the situation a bit more and discuss it in depth."


INTERNATIONAL EFFORT?


Japan doesn't want to go it alone in trying to get a grip on bitcoin. Any regulation of the crypto-currency should involve international cooperation to avoid loopholes, Vice Finance Minister Jiro Aichi said last week.


U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen has said Congress should look into legal options for regulating virtual currencies such as bitcoin.


Shanghai-based BTC China, the world's largest bitcoin exchange by volume, has imposed regulations to curb bitcoin trade weeks after Beijing banned financial institutions from trading in bitcoin due to the risks involved.


Russian authorities have issued warnings against using bitcoin, saying treating it as a parallel currency is illegal. Britain, however, has supported bitcoin and is preparing to abort plans to tax bitcoin trading, the Financial Times reported.


FLEXCOIN SHUTDOWN AFTER HACKING THEFT


Flexcoin, a Canada-based bitcoin bank, said it was closing down after losing bitcoins worth about $600,000 to a hacker attack enabled by flaws in its software code.


Flexcoin said in a message on its website that all 896 bitcoins stored online were stolen on Sunday. Its collapse came after Mt. Gox, once the world's dominant bitcoin exchange, filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan and said it may have lost some 850,000 bitcoins due to hacking.


"As Flexcoin does not have the resources, assets, or otherwise to come back from this loss, we are closing our doors immediately," Flexcoin said. ()


It later posted an update on its site saying that the attack exploited a flaw in its code on transfers between users and involved inundating the system with simultaneous requests to move coins between accounts.


"Flexcoin has made every attempt to keep our servers as secure as possible, including regular testing," it said, adding it had repelled thousands of attacks over the past few years. "But in the end, this was simply not enough."


The Alberta, Canada-based firm, which said it is working with law enforcement agencies to trace the source of the hack, said it would return bitcoins stored offline, or in "cold storage", to users.


Cold storage coins are held in computers not connected to the internet and therefore cannot be hacked.


Flexcoin said on Feb. 25 it was not affected by Mt. Gox's closure. "While the Mt. Gox closure is unfortunate, we at Flexcoin have not lost anything," it had tweeted then.


Bitcoin is a digital currency that, unlike conventional money, is bought and sold on a peer-to-peer network independent of central control. Its value soared last year, and the total worth of bitcoins minted is now about $7 billion.


According to Bitstamp, one of the largest exchanges for trading bitcoins, a bitcoin was valued at about $658 on Wednesday.




June 28, 2014 at 01:57AM



Latest Bitcoin News | BTC/LTC Robot | Mining ASICS | BTC Debit Card

38th director of U.S. Mint to keynote bitcoin conference in Raleigh




It’s not very often that a government official, either past or present, immerses himself into the world of peer-to-peer decentralized virtual currencies. Most civil servants have the mindset that bitcoins, litecoin and other digital currencies will pose a threat to the status quo rather than improve the marketplace.


Count Edmund C. Moy, the 38th director of the United States Mint from 2006 to 2011, is a government employee that has become an important analyst when it comes to bitcoin. On his website, he publishes articles relating to bitcoin, such as “The Currency Revolution, Courtesy Of Bitcoin.”


BitcoinMoy, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, even went to social media to aver how the major financial institutions are getting competition from the five-year-old cryptocurrency: “It’s Time Banks Got Competition. Time for Cryptocurrencies,” Moy tweeted last month.



Bitcoin media outlets are now abuzz after it was confirmed that Moy will be addressing a bitcoin conference in Raleigh, North Carolina as a keynote speaker for Cryptolina. The news was announced by event organizer Faruk Okcetin, who has noted that more than 500 new guests will be in attendance.


“This is a game-changer. Ed Moy is widely respected among the finance and exchange industry, and is among the highest level officials yet to recognize both the future and inevitability of cryptocurrency. The Carolinas are thrilled to be hosting Mr. Moy’s first appearance at a Bitcoin conference,” Okcetin stated in a press release.


Cryptolina will take a look at the current state of bitcoin and address the issues surrounding the cryptocurrency community. Other important speakers at the event include Elizabeth Ploshay of BitPay and the Bitcoin Foundation, and angel investor Mark Easley.


Moy has been a key figure in government as he has advised the Treasury Secretary, collaborated with the Federal Reserve to project demand and worked intimately with Congress. He has also analyzed payment systems and trends in outlays.





June 28, 2014 at 01:50AM



Latest Bitcoin News | BTC/LTC Robot | Mining ASICS | BTC Debit Card

Gaming Portal First Merchant To Check in On Danish Bitcoin Exchange CCEDK

June 28, 2014 at 05:39AM



Latest Bitcoin News| BTC/LTC Robot| Mining ASICS| BTC Debit Card





A Bitcoin Gaming Portal Offering an 80% Revenue to Affiliate Members Registering Before September 1st 2014, has Checked in on the Bitcoin Exchange CCEDK


Online PR News – 28-June-2014 – Blokhus, Denmark, Jun 28, 2014 — With FUN-CASINO added to the trading platform, CCEDK expects to make a strong presence in the bitcoin gaming industry, as it is expected this gaming portal will be the first of many to join the CCEDK merchant program (http://ift.tt/1yWdkqA) in near future. It is a sector so far with the highest bitcoin usage, and is the first of many industries, where setting up a merchant account on our platform seems the right thing to do, Ronny Boesing, CEO CCEDK ApS said in an interview.


Once the gaming portals dealing with crypto currencies worldwide realize what we are offering, I expect them to stand in line to sign up for our merchant program, Boesing says, and he continues. This program is of course also meant for all other enterprises believing in crypto currencies to be the no. 1 alternative way to pay for goods and services in the future!


This first merchant to be listed on CCEDK online trading platform softly launched in Aprilwith support for gaming in Bitcoin and Litecoin. Already on the site is offered 40-plus games, including roulette, blackjack, Texas hold em and slot machines. Worth noticing is the sites security which is backed by iTECH Labs.


Multilingual presence:

Working well together with the CCEDK strategy to be the most multilingual bitcoin exchange worldwide, FUN-CASINO at http://ift.tt/1jXIW54 can offer some synergy to that area by being already available in the languages: English, Russian, Chinese, German, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese, Japanese, Swedish, Dutch and Turkish and many more to come!


Good news to holders of crypto currencies in general:

Today it is possible to play with Bitcoin and Litecoin on FUN-CASINO, and later on it is possible to play with all other crypto currencies via a special FUNcoin currency, which will be available for free exchange on CCEDK Boesing says:


In co operation with project managers of FUN-CASINO we are working on the integration and presentation of FUNcoin on our trading platform, enabling holders of alternative crypto currencies to convert for free to FUNcoin which will then be possible to be used as currency on the FUN-CASINO game portal similar to Litecoin and Bitcon.


With numerous users of virtual currencies indulged in the world of Bitcoin Games CCEDK is already poised to generate high volume of trades. With the potential of adding future merchants from other industries as well, CCEDK seems to be going down the right track to become the natural choice of exchange for crypto currency transactions worldwide.


About CCEDK ApS:

CCEDK.com is an online trading platform of digital currencies order-to-order, on which seller and buyer meet to perform their transactions peer-to-peer from crypto to crypto or fiat to crypto or vice versa. The company is registered in Denmark, a country in the EU, under the name CCEDK / Crypto Coins Exchange Denmark ApS, providing exchange services of crypto currencies like BTC, LTC and PPC paired with the fiat currencies USD, EUR, GBP, NOK, and DKK in a safe, secure and transparent environment. Payment services are provided on the basis of SOFORT instant pay system, SEPA transfers, Wire transfers and various alternative payment service providers.


###


If you would like more information about this topic, or to schedule an interview with Ronny Boesing, please call +45 36 98 11 50 or e-mail Ronny at ron...@ccedk.com




U.S. auctions some 30,000 bitcoins from Silk Road raid


NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Marshals Service on Friday auctioned off about 30,000 bitcoins seized during a raid on Silk Road, an Internet black-market bazaar where authorities say illegal drugs and other goods could be bought.



An online auction took place over a 12-hour period on Friday for the bitcoins, valued at nearly $17.7 million. It consisted of nine blocks of 3,000 bitcoins and one block of 2,657 bitcoins. The Marshals Service has said it would notify the winning bidders on Monday.



A spokeswoman for the Marshals Service declined to say how many bids the office received. Among those who said they registered to participate in the auctions were SecondMarket and Bitcoin Shop Inc. (BTCS.PK)



Silk Road was shutdown after an FBI raid in September 2013 as agents took control of its server and arrested a Texas man, Ross Ulbricht, that the authorities said owned and operated the website.



The auction was for 29,655 bitcoins contained in files residing on its servers, which were forfeited in January.



Chris DeMuth, a partner at Rangeley Capital who had been considering bidding, said last week the chance the Marshals Service gets the market price for the bitcoins is low.



"Anyone could pay market prices on existing exchanges," he said. "So the key question is how much of a discount do bidders want."



The Marshals are holding about 144,342 additional bitcoins found on computer hardware belonging to Ulbricht that were subject to a civil forfeiture proceeding.



Ulbricht, 30, is scheduled to face trial Nov. 3. He has pleaded not guilty to the four counts against him, including money laundering conspiracy and engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise.



U.S. authorities have separately charged three men - Andrew Jones, Gary Davis and Peter Nash - in connection with their alleged roles in assisting Ulbricht in operating Silk Road.



Bitcoin prices were up 3.1 percent Friday at $597.41 per coin, according to the digital currency exchange CoinDesk.



(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Andre Grenon)



June 28, 2014 at 04:47AM



Latest Bitcoin News | BTC/LTC Robot | Mining ASICS | BTC Debit Card

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Bitcoin?

[fivefilters.org: unable to retrieve full-text content]


The price of the virtual currency has been in constant flux since it came to life in 2009, ranging from just a few pennies to more than a thousand dollars. High-profile heists and government shutdowns haven’t helped. But bidders are lining up to ... June 28, 2014 at 03:31AM



Latest Bitcoin News | BTC/LTC Robot | Mining ASICS | BTC Debit Card

Bitcoin Closes Above $600 As US Government Auctions Off 30,000 Coins Seized from Silk Road



Bitcoin prices came back to $600 levels after the US Marshals Service auctioned off 30,000 bitcoins seized from online black-market Silk Road on 27 June.


The bitcoin rate closed at $600.86 (£359.37, €449.09), up 3.71% on 27 June, according to CoinDesk. It is currently trading a little lower at $597.40 as at 6:50am BST, down 0.58% from the previous close.


The bitcoins valued at about $18m were auctioned off in nine blocks of 3,000 bitcoins and one block of 2,657 bitcoins over a 12-hour period.


The bidding details are not yet available, as the Marshals Service declined to provide information; they will notify the winners on 30 June.


SecondMarket, Pantera Capital, Binary Financial and Bitcoin Shop Inc earlier revealed that they were participating in the auction.


US prosecutors earlier arrested Ross William Ulbricht, the alleged owner and operator of Silk Road which was accused of helping drug trafficking, computer hacking, money laundering and contract killings.


The website, which had a turnover of more than a million dollars a month, had been using bitcoin as its preferred mode of payment.


The prosecutors also seized more than 29,000 bitcoins from the website, and a US judge signed a forfeiture order on the "proceeds of crime".


The bitcoin community was closely watching the auction. If the coins were valued higher in the auction, the overall bitcoin prices are expected to shoot up from the current levels.


"Pumping such a large quantity into the market should weigh on prices. The terms of the auction make it difficult for small bidders ($200k deposit, each of the nine blocks valued around $1.8m), so the downward pressure is probably exacerbated by the limited number of investors interested in and capable of bidding," Now Citi, the New York-based financial services giant, said in a research note.


Bitcoin was launched in 2008 and is traded within a global network of computers. They can be transferred without going through banks or clearing houses, reducing fees involved in the services significantly.


Transactions in bitcoins are done anonymously over peer-to-peer networks, and this feature has been a serious concern for regulators.




June 28, 2014 at 02:53AM



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Bitcoin foundation hit by resignations over new director



World Bulletin / News Desk


As the most prominent trade group pushing adoption of the electronic currency Bitcoin begins its annual conference on Friday, it is being roiled by controversy.


At least 10 members of the nonprofit Bitcoin Foundation have resigned over last week's election of onetime Disney child star and current Bitcoin entrepreneur and financier Brock Pierce as a new director, officials at the group said.


Some of the members cited Pierce's troubled past. That includes allegations in lawsuits from three employees of Pierce's first company, bankrupt web video business Digital Entertainment Network, that he provided drugs and pressured them for sex when they were minors.


Pierce has denied the accusations, which first surfaced in 2000.


"The allegations against me are not true, and I have never had intimate or sexual contact with any of the people who made those allegations," Pierce told Reuters via email.


Court records show 33-year-old Pierce, who played the title role in Disney's "First Kid," paid more than $21,000 to settle one employee suit, and he said others dropped their claims without money changing hands.


While Bitcoin Foundation officials played down the defections, several members who resigned from the Foundation assailed its governance track record.


"The track record of prominent Bitcoin Foundation members has been abysmal," said Patrick Alexander, a resigning Foundation member in a post on its discussion pages. "I no longer want to be associated with these people." Attempts to reach him for additional comment were unsuccessful.


Though it is highly volatile, the value of the electronic currency in existence has skyrocketed into the billions of dollars as the number of businesses accepting it has increased and investors have sought to create new ways for it to be used.


More than 1,000 Bitcoin investors, business people and enthusiasts are expected to attend the conference in Amsterdam.


The programming effort that governs how Bitcoin works is led by Gavin Andresen, who is chief scientist at the Foundation and gets a salary from it. The Foundation also plays an important role for Bitcoin in lobbying on its behalf in various jurisdiction as authorities grapple with how to police the semi-anonymous currency.


CALL TO VET CANDIDATES


Other members who resigned called on the board to more carefully vet future candidates as well as remove Pierce from the board.


Bitcoin Foundation General Counsel Patrick Murck said that his group had more than 1,500 members and would bounce back from the latest controversy.


"Democracy is messy sometimes," Murck said. "If in the future members decide they want to have a vetting process, that's great."


Some Bitcoin Foundation members say they weren't aware of Pierce's past until after the election, when others circulated media accounts concerning the allegations.


Pierce was voted in by the Foundation's industry members, who pay higher dues, to fill one of two spots vacated by others who had resigned: Mark Karpeles, chief executive of the bankrupt top Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, and Charlie Shrem, who has been charged with conspiring to launder money for users of the shuttered Silk Road underground drug bazaar.


Pierce has made a splash in the insular Bitcoin world by backing more than a dozen startups, speaking frequently at conferences, and leading a bid to buy Mt. Gox for one Bitcoin, currently worth less than $500.


Bitcoin startups have attracted investment from some venture capital firms and from individuals through "crowdfunding," in which many amateurs support projects, often with small investments and without the due diligence typically conducted by professional investors. Pierce has been a major beneficiary of the trend, garnering pledges of more than $700,000 for his investment syndicate on the crowdfunding site AngelList.


Cyan Banister, a startup CEO who made a nonbinding pledge of $5,000 to Pierce's investing syndicate, after learning of the allegations said she would withdraw from his group.


Phil Sanderson, an IDG Ventures investor in San Francisco who follows Bitcoin, said that the currency's growth was being hindered by the lack of effective public faces. "Bitcoin hasn't really had a strong, vocal leader with a great background," he said.




June 28, 2014 at 01:57AM



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Japan considering tax on Bitcoin deals



World Bulletin / News Desk


Japan will this week set out rules on how to handle bitcoins, the first sign that the government is taking action on regulating the virtual currency after the collapse last week of Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, once the world's dominant bitcoin exchange.


The cabinet will decide on Friday how to treat bitcoins under existing laws, said people familiar with the matter, adding that banks and securities firms will not be able to handle bitcoin as part of their main business, suggesting the crypto-currency will be treated more as a commodity, like gold.


Japan has struggled to define its approach to bitcoin since the collapse of Mt. Gox, which filed for bankruptcy protection in Tokyo on Friday, saying it had lost bitcoins and cash worth some half a billion dollars due to hacker attacks on what it said was its lax computer system security.


Bitcoin, a digital currency that is traded on a peer-to-peer network independent of central control, has engendered a wave of creative criminality - from bitcoin theft by hacking online platforms to potentially using the crypto-currency in money laundering, bribery and buying illicit products. Its value has soared in the past year, and the total worth of bitcoins minted is now about $7 billion.


Flexcoin, a Canada-based bitcoin bank, said on Tuesday it was closing after it lost $600,000 worth of the online currency - all the bitcoins it stored - to hacker theft.


TAXING PROBLEM


Japanese authorities are looking at possibly taxing bitcoin transactions, but it remains unclear how they could do this, given that one of the attractions of using bitcoin is that transactions are largely anonymous.


"We haven't yet thoroughly grasped the situation, but some kind of regulation is needed from the perspective of consumer protection, and we will also discuss (bitcoin) from the perspective of imposing asset tax," said Takuya Hirai, head of an IT panel in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.


The panel heard on Wednesday from consultant Deloitte about bitcoin and from officials of the Consumer Affairs Agency, the Financial Services Agency (FSA) the Finance Ministry, central bank, Cabinet Office and the National Police Agency about the Mt. Gox collapse, Hirai told reporters.


The FSA and the Finance Ministry have said bitcoin is not a currency and doesn't fall under their purview, while the Bank of Japan has said it was studying the bitcoin phenomenon with interest. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the relevant Japanese ministries will be in close contact with each other on matters relating to bitcoin.


A former insider at Mt. Gox told Reuters the exchange had repeatedly approached the FSA in the past, asking it to define the handling of bitcoin, but received no definitive answer. Last week, the FSA said it had not recently been in contact with Mt. Gox, but did not specify whether it had ever been in touch with the company. A lawyer for Mt. Gox declined to comment.


Taxing bitcoin is not without precedent.


U.S. online retailer Overstock.com collects sales tax on sales to places where the company has a physical presence, such as its home state of Utah, said vice chairman Jonathan Johnson. "It's pretty easy to do with bitcoin as at this point we are converting bitcoin into dollars immediately," he told Reuters.


But Hiroshi Mikitani, a prominent Japanese e-commerce billionaire and CEO of Rakuten Inc, expressed caution about trying to regulate the virtual currency. "They should not act hastily," he said, according to Kyodo News. "As for whether we need regulations, they should first examine the situation a bit more and discuss it in depth."


INTERNATIONAL EFFORT?


Japan doesn't want to go it alone in trying to get a grip on bitcoin. Any regulation of the crypto-currency should involve international cooperation to avoid loopholes, Vice Finance Minister Jiro Aichi said last week.


U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen has said Congress should look into legal options for regulating virtual currencies such as bitcoin.


Shanghai-based BTC China, the world's largest bitcoin exchange by volume, has imposed regulations to curb bitcoin trade weeks after Beijing banned financial institutions from trading in bitcoin due to the risks involved.


Russian authorities have issued warnings against using bitcoin, saying treating it as a parallel currency is illegal. Britain, however, has supported bitcoin and is preparing to abort plans to tax bitcoin trading, the Financial Times reported.


FLEXCOIN SHUTDOWN AFTER HACKING THEFT


Flexcoin, a Canada-based bitcoin bank, said it was closing down after losing bitcoins worth about $600,000 to a hacker attack enabled by flaws in its software code.


Flexcoin said in a message on its website that all 896 bitcoins stored online were stolen on Sunday. Its collapse came after Mt. Gox, once the world's dominant bitcoin exchange, filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan and said it may have lost some 850,000 bitcoins due to hacking.


"As Flexcoin does not have the resources, assets, or otherwise to come back from this loss, we are closing our doors immediately," Flexcoin said. ()


It later posted an update on its site saying that the attack exploited a flaw in its code on transfers between users and involved inundating the system with simultaneous requests to move coins between accounts.


"Flexcoin has made every attempt to keep our servers as secure as possible, including regular testing," it said, adding it had repelled thousands of attacks over the past few years. "But in the end, this was simply not enough."


The Alberta, Canada-based firm, which said it is working with law enforcement agencies to trace the source of the hack, said it would return bitcoins stored offline, or in "cold storage", to users.


Cold storage coins are held in computers not connected to the internet and therefore cannot be hacked.


Flexcoin said on Feb. 25 it was not affected by Mt. Gox's closure. "While the Mt. Gox closure is unfortunate, we at Flexcoin have not lost anything," it had tweeted then.


Bitcoin is a digital currency that, unlike conventional money, is bought and sold on a peer-to-peer network independent of central control. Its value soared last year, and the total worth of bitcoins minted is now about $7 billion.


According to Bitstamp, one of the largest exchanges for trading bitcoins, a bitcoin was valued at about $658 on Wednesday.




June 28, 2014 at 01:57AM



Latest Bitcoin News | BTC/LTC Robot | Mining ASICS | BTC Debit Card

38th director of U.S. Mint to keynote bitcoin conference in Raleigh




It’s not very often that a government official, either past or present, immerses himself into the world of peer-to-peer decentralized virtual currencies. Most civil servants have the mindset that bitcoins, litecoin and other digital currencies will pose a threat to the status quo rather than improve the marketplace.


Count Edmund C. Moy, the 38th director of the United States Mint from 2006 to 2011, is a government employee that has become an important analyst when it comes to bitcoin. On his website, he publishes articles relating to bitcoin, such as “The Currency Revolution, Courtesy Of Bitcoin.”


BitcoinMoy, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, even went to social media to aver how the major financial institutions are getting competition from the five-year-old cryptocurrency: “It’s Time Banks Got Competition. Time for Cryptocurrencies,” Moy tweeted last month.



Bitcoin media outlets are now abuzz after it was confirmed that Moy will be addressing a bitcoin conference in Raleigh, North Carolina as a keynote speaker for Cryptolina. The news was announced by event organizer Faruk Okcetin, who has noted that more than 500 new guests will be in attendance.


“This is a game-changer. Ed Moy is widely respected among the finance and exchange industry, and is among the highest level officials yet to recognize both the future and inevitability of cryptocurrency. The Carolinas are thrilled to be hosting Mr. Moy’s first appearance at a Bitcoin conference,” Okcetin stated in a press release.


Cryptolina will take a look at the current state of bitcoin and address the issues surrounding the cryptocurrency community. Other important speakers at the event include Elizabeth Ploshay of BitPay and the Bitcoin Foundation, and angel investor Mark Easley.


Moy has been a key figure in government as he has advised the Treasury Secretary, collaborated with the Federal Reserve to project demand and worked intimately with Congress. He has also analyzed payment systems and trends in outlays.





June 28, 2014 at 01:50AM



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Gaming Portal First Merchant To Check in On Danish Bitcoin Exchange CCEDK

June 28, 2014 at 05:14AM



Latest Bitcoin News| BTC/LTC Robot| Mining ASICS| BTC Debit Card





A Bitcoin Gaming Portal Offering an 80% Revenue to Affiliate Members Registering Before September 1st 2014, has Checked in on the Bitcoin Exchange CCEDK


Online PR News – 28-June-2014 – Blokhus, Denmark, Jun 28, 2014 — With FUN-CASINO added to the trading platform, CCEDK expects to make a strong presence in the bitcoin gaming industry, as it is expected this gaming portal will be the first of many to join the CCEDK merchant program (http://ift.tt/1yWdkqA) in near future. It is a sector so far with the highest bitcoin usage, and is the first of many industries, where setting up a merchant account on our platform seems the right thing to do, Ronny Boesing, CEO CCEDK ApS said in an interview.


Once the gaming portals dealing with crypto currencies worldwide realize what we are offering, I expect them to stand in line to sign up for our merchant program, Boesing says, and he continues. This program is of course also meant for all other enterprises believing in crypto currencies to be the no. 1 alternative way to pay for goods and services in the future!


This first merchant to be listed on CCEDK online trading platform softly launched in Aprilwith support for gaming in Bitcoin and Litecoin. Already on the site is offered 40-plus games, including roulette, blackjack, Texas hold em and slot machines. Worth noticing is the sites security which is backed by iTECH Labs.


Multilingual presence:

Working well together with the CCEDK strategy to be the most multilingual bitcoin exchange worldwide, FUN-CASINO at http://ift.tt/1jXIW54 can offer some synergy to that area by being already available in the languages: English, Russian, Chinese, German, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese, Japanese, Swedish, Dutch and Turkish and many more to come!


Good news to holders of crypto currencies in general:

Today it is possible to play with Bitcoin and Litecoin on FUN-CASINO, and later on it is possible to play with all other crypto currencies via a special FUNcoin currency, which will be available for free exchange on CCEDK Boesing says:


In co operation with project managers of FUN-CASINO we are working on the integration and presentation of FUNcoin on our trading platform, enabling holders of alternative crypto currencies to convert for free to FUNcoin which will then be possible to be used as currency on the FUN-CASINO game portal similar to Litecoin and Bitcon.


With numerous users of virtual currencies indulged in the world of Bitcoin Games CCEDK is already poised to generate high volume of trades. With the potential of adding future merchants from other industries as well, CCEDK seems to be going down the right track to become the natural choice of exchange for crypto currency transactions worldwide.


About CCEDK ApS:

CCEDK.com is an online trading platform of digital currencies order-to-order, on which seller and buyer meet to perform their transactions peer-to-peer from crypto to crypto or fiat to crypto or vice versa. The company is registered in Denmark, a country in the EU, under the name CCEDK / Crypto Coins Exchange Denmark ApS, providing exchange services of crypto currencies like BTC, LTC and PPC paired with the fiat currencies USD, EUR, GBP, NOK, and DKK in a safe, secure and transparent environment. Payment services are provided on the basis of SOFORT instant pay system, SEPA transfers, Wire transfers and various alternative payment service providers.


###


If you would like more information about this topic, or to schedule an interview with Ronny Boesing, please call +45 36 98 11 50 or e-mail Ronny at ron...@ccedk.com




U.S. auctions some 30,000 bitcoins from Silk Road raid


NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Marshals Service on Friday auctioned off about 30,000 bitcoins seized during a raid on Silk Road, an Internet black-market bazaar where authorities say illegal drugs and other goods could be bought.



An online auction took place over a 12-hour period on Friday for the bitcoins, valued at nearly $17.7 million. It consisted of nine blocks of 3,000 bitcoins and one block of 2,657 bitcoins. The Marshals Service has said it would notify the winning bidders on Monday.



A spokeswoman for the Marshals Service declined to say how many bids the office received. Among those who said they registered to participate in the auctions were SecondMarket and Bitcoin Shop Inc. (BTCS.PK)



Silk Road was shutdown after an FBI raid in September 2013 as agents took control of its server and arrested a Texas man, Ross Ulbricht, that the authorities said owned and operated the website.



The auction was for 29,655 bitcoins contained in files residing on its servers, which were forfeited in January.



Chris DeMuth, a partner at Rangeley Capital who had been considering bidding, said last week the chance the Marshals Service gets the market price for the bitcoins is low.



"Anyone could pay market prices on existing exchanges," he said. "So the key question is how much of a discount do bidders want."



The Marshals are holding about 144,342 additional bitcoins found on computer hardware belonging to Ulbricht that were subject to a civil forfeiture proceeding.



Ulbricht, 30, is scheduled to face trial Nov. 3. He has pleaded not guilty to the four counts against him, including money laundering conspiracy and engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise.



U.S. authorities have separately charged three men - Andrew Jones, Gary Davis and Peter Nash - in connection with their alleged roles in assisting Ulbricht in operating Silk Road.



Bitcoin prices were up 3.1 percent Friday at $597.41 per coin, according to the digital currency exchange CoinDesk.



(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Andre Grenon)



June 28, 2014 at 04:47AM



Latest Bitcoin News | BTC/LTC Robot | Mining ASICS | BTC Debit Card

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Bitcoin?

[fivefilters.org: unable to retrieve full-text content]


The price of the virtual currency has been in constant flux since it came to life in 2009, ranging from just a few pennies to more than a thousand dollars. High-profile heists and government shutdowns haven’t helped. But bidders are lining up to ... June 28, 2014 at 03:31AM



Latest Bitcoin News | BTC/LTC Robot | Mining ASICS | BTC Debit Card

Bitcoin Closes Above $600 As US Government Auctions Off 30,000 Coins Seized from Silk Road



Bitcoin prices came back to $600 levels after the US Marshals Service auctioned off 30,000 bitcoins seized from online black-market Silk Road on 27 June.


The bitcoin rate closed at $600.86 (£359.37, €449.09), up 3.71% on 27 June, according to CoinDesk. It is currently trading a little lower at $597.40 as at 6:50am BST, down 0.58% from the previous close.


The bitcoins valued at about $18m were auctioned off in nine blocks of 3,000 bitcoins and one block of 2,657 bitcoins over a 12-hour period.


The bidding details are not yet available, as the Marshals Service declined to provide information; they will notify the winners on 30 June.


SecondMarket, Pantera Capital, Binary Financial and Bitcoin Shop Inc earlier revealed that they were participating in the auction.


US prosecutors earlier arrested Ross William Ulbricht, the alleged owner and operator of Silk Road which was accused of helping drug trafficking, computer hacking, money laundering and contract killings.


The website, which had a turnover of more than a million dollars a month, had been using bitcoin as its preferred mode of payment.


The prosecutors also seized more than 29,000 bitcoins from the website, and a US judge signed a forfeiture order on the "proceeds of crime".


The bitcoin community was closely watching the auction. If the coins were valued higher in the auction, the overall bitcoin prices are expected to shoot up from the current levels.


"Pumping such a large quantity into the market should weigh on prices. The terms of the auction make it difficult for small bidders ($200k deposit, each of the nine blocks valued around $1.8m), so the downward pressure is probably exacerbated by the limited number of investors interested in and capable of bidding," Now Citi, the New York-based financial services giant, said in a research note.


Bitcoin was launched in 2008 and is traded within a global network of computers. They can be transferred without going through banks or clearing houses, reducing fees involved in the services significantly.


Transactions in bitcoins are done anonymously over peer-to-peer networks, and this feature has been a serious concern for regulators.




June 28, 2014 at 02:53AM



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Bitcoin foundation hit by resignations over new director



World Bulletin / News Desk


As the most prominent trade group pushing adoption of the electronic currency Bitcoin begins its annual conference on Friday, it is being roiled by controversy.


At least 10 members of the nonprofit Bitcoin Foundation have resigned over last week's election of onetime Disney child star and current Bitcoin entrepreneur and financier Brock Pierce as a new director, officials at the group said.


Some of the members cited Pierce's troubled past. That includes allegations in lawsuits from three employees of Pierce's first company, bankrupt web video business Digital Entertainment Network, that he provided drugs and pressured them for sex when they were minors.


Pierce has denied the accusations, which first surfaced in 2000.


"The allegations against me are not true, and I have never had intimate or sexual contact with any of the people who made those allegations," Pierce told Reuters via email.


Court records show 33-year-old Pierce, who played the title role in Disney's "First Kid," paid more than $21,000 to settle one employee suit, and he said others dropped their claims without money changing hands.


While Bitcoin Foundation officials played down the defections, several members who resigned from the Foundation assailed its governance track record.


"The track record of prominent Bitcoin Foundation members has been abysmal," said Patrick Alexander, a resigning Foundation member in a post on its discussion pages. "I no longer want to be associated with these people." Attempts to reach him for additional comment were unsuccessful.


Though it is highly volatile, the value of the electronic currency in existence has skyrocketed into the billions of dollars as the number of businesses accepting it has increased and investors have sought to create new ways for it to be used.


More than 1,000 Bitcoin investors, business people and enthusiasts are expected to attend the conference in Amsterdam.


The programming effort that governs how Bitcoin works is led by Gavin Andresen, who is chief scientist at the Foundation and gets a salary from it. The Foundation also plays an important role for Bitcoin in lobbying on its behalf in various jurisdiction as authorities grapple with how to police the semi-anonymous currency.


CALL TO VET CANDIDATES


Other members who resigned called on the board to more carefully vet future candidates as well as remove Pierce from the board.


Bitcoin Foundation General Counsel Patrick Murck said that his group had more than 1,500 members and would bounce back from the latest controversy.


"Democracy is messy sometimes," Murck said. "If in the future members decide they want to have a vetting process, that's great."


Some Bitcoin Foundation members say they weren't aware of Pierce's past until after the election, when others circulated media accounts concerning the allegations.


Pierce was voted in by the Foundation's industry members, who pay higher dues, to fill one of two spots vacated by others who had resigned: Mark Karpeles, chief executive of the bankrupt top Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, and Charlie Shrem, who has been charged with conspiring to launder money for users of the shuttered Silk Road underground drug bazaar.


Pierce has made a splash in the insular Bitcoin world by backing more than a dozen startups, speaking frequently at conferences, and leading a bid to buy Mt. Gox for one Bitcoin, currently worth less than $500.


Bitcoin startups have attracted investment from some venture capital firms and from individuals through "crowdfunding," in which many amateurs support projects, often with small investments and without the due diligence typically conducted by professional investors. Pierce has been a major beneficiary of the trend, garnering pledges of more than $700,000 for his investment syndicate on the crowdfunding site AngelList.


Cyan Banister, a startup CEO who made a nonbinding pledge of $5,000 to Pierce's investing syndicate, after learning of the allegations said she would withdraw from his group.


Phil Sanderson, an IDG Ventures investor in San Francisco who follows Bitcoin, said that the currency's growth was being hindered by the lack of effective public faces. "Bitcoin hasn't really had a strong, vocal leader with a great background," he said.




June 28, 2014 at 01:57AM



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Japan considering tax on Bitcoin deals



World Bulletin / News Desk


Japan will this week set out rules on how to handle bitcoins, the first sign that the government is taking action on regulating the virtual currency after the collapse last week of Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, once the world's dominant bitcoin exchange.


The cabinet will decide on Friday how to treat bitcoins under existing laws, said people familiar with the matter, adding that banks and securities firms will not be able to handle bitcoin as part of their main business, suggesting the crypto-currency will be treated more as a commodity, like gold.


Japan has struggled to define its approach to bitcoin since the collapse of Mt. Gox, which filed for bankruptcy protection in Tokyo on Friday, saying it had lost bitcoins and cash worth some half a billion dollars due to hacker attacks on what it said was its lax computer system security.


Bitcoin, a digital currency that is traded on a peer-to-peer network independent of central control, has engendered a wave of creative criminality - from bitcoin theft by hacking online platforms to potentially using the crypto-currency in money laundering, bribery and buying illicit products. Its value has soared in the past year, and the total worth of bitcoins minted is now about $7 billion.


Flexcoin, a Canada-based bitcoin bank, said on Tuesday it was closing after it lost $600,000 worth of the online currency - all the bitcoins it stored - to hacker theft.


TAXING PROBLEM


Japanese authorities are looking at possibly taxing bitcoin transactions, but it remains unclear how they could do this, given that one of the attractions of using bitcoin is that transactions are largely anonymous.


"We haven't yet thoroughly grasped the situation, but some kind of regulation is needed from the perspective of consumer protection, and we will also discuss (bitcoin) from the perspective of imposing asset tax," said Takuya Hirai, head of an IT panel in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.


The panel heard on Wednesday from consultant Deloitte about bitcoin and from officials of the Consumer Affairs Agency, the Financial Services Agency (FSA) the Finance Ministry, central bank, Cabinet Office and the National Police Agency about the Mt. Gox collapse, Hirai told reporters.


The FSA and the Finance Ministry have said bitcoin is not a currency and doesn't fall under their purview, while the Bank of Japan has said it was studying the bitcoin phenomenon with interest. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the relevant Japanese ministries will be in close contact with each other on matters relating to bitcoin.


A former insider at Mt. Gox told Reuters the exchange had repeatedly approached the FSA in the past, asking it to define the handling of bitcoin, but received no definitive answer. Last week, the FSA said it had not recently been in contact with Mt. Gox, but did not specify whether it had ever been in touch with the company. A lawyer for Mt. Gox declined to comment.


Taxing bitcoin is not without precedent.


U.S. online retailer Overstock.com collects sales tax on sales to places where the company has a physical presence, such as its home state of Utah, said vice chairman Jonathan Johnson. "It's pretty easy to do with bitcoin as at this point we are converting bitcoin into dollars immediately," he told Reuters.


But Hiroshi Mikitani, a prominent Japanese e-commerce billionaire and CEO of Rakuten Inc, expressed caution about trying to regulate the virtual currency. "They should not act hastily," he said, according to Kyodo News. "As for whether we need regulations, they should first examine the situation a bit more and discuss it in depth."


INTERNATIONAL EFFORT?


Japan doesn't want to go it alone in trying to get a grip on bitcoin. Any regulation of the crypto-currency should involve international cooperation to avoid loopholes, Vice Finance Minister Jiro Aichi said last week.


U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen has said Congress should look into legal options for regulating virtual currencies such as bitcoin.


Shanghai-based BTC China, the world's largest bitcoin exchange by volume, has imposed regulations to curb bitcoin trade weeks after Beijing banned financial institutions from trading in bitcoin due to the risks involved.


Russian authorities have issued warnings against using bitcoin, saying treating it as a parallel currency is illegal. Britain, however, has supported bitcoin and is preparing to abort plans to tax bitcoin trading, the Financial Times reported.


FLEXCOIN SHUTDOWN AFTER HACKING THEFT


Flexcoin, a Canada-based bitcoin bank, said it was closing down after losing bitcoins worth about $600,000 to a hacker attack enabled by flaws in its software code.


Flexcoin said in a message on its website that all 896 bitcoins stored online were stolen on Sunday. Its collapse came after Mt. Gox, once the world's dominant bitcoin exchange, filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan and said it may have lost some 850,000 bitcoins due to hacking.


"As Flexcoin does not have the resources, assets, or otherwise to come back from this loss, we are closing our doors immediately," Flexcoin said. ()


It later posted an update on its site saying that the attack exploited a flaw in its code on transfers between users and involved inundating the system with simultaneous requests to move coins between accounts.


"Flexcoin has made every attempt to keep our servers as secure as possible, including regular testing," it said, adding it had repelled thousands of attacks over the past few years. "But in the end, this was simply not enough."


The Alberta, Canada-based firm, which said it is working with law enforcement agencies to trace the source of the hack, said it would return bitcoins stored offline, or in "cold storage", to users.


Cold storage coins are held in computers not connected to the internet and therefore cannot be hacked.


Flexcoin said on Feb. 25 it was not affected by Mt. Gox's closure. "While the Mt. Gox closure is unfortunate, we at Flexcoin have not lost anything," it had tweeted then.


Bitcoin is a digital currency that, unlike conventional money, is bought and sold on a peer-to-peer network independent of central control. Its value soared last year, and the total worth of bitcoins minted is now about $7 billion.


According to Bitstamp, one of the largest exchanges for trading bitcoins, a bitcoin was valued at about $658 on Wednesday.




June 28, 2014 at 01:57AM



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