DAOs Are Not Scary, Part 2: Reducing Barriers

In the last installment of this series, we talked about what “smart contracts” (or, perhaps more accurately, “self-enforcing contracts”) are, and discussed in detail the two main mechanisms through which these contracts can have “force”: smart property and “factum” currencies. We also discussed the limits of smart contracts, and how a smart contract-enabled legal system might use a combination of human judgement and automatic execution to achieve...

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Top Alabama Regulator Says Mt. Gox Was a ‘Disaster About to Happen’

New York, California, Texas – home to high-tech incubators and venture capital firms, these are states you expect to issue statements regarding a disruptive technology like digital currency. Alabama? Perhaps not.But, if you were surprised by the Alabama Securities Commission’s recent warning about Mt. Gox and the dangers of digital currency investments, its director Joe Borg suggests you shouldn’t be.The motorcycle-driving, mustachioed regulator...

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Does the Mainstream Media Assist Wall Street In Hypocritical Hypothesis For Fear Of The Next Paradigm Shift?

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Does the Mainstream Media Assist Wall Street In Hypocritical Hypothesis For Fear Of The Next Paradigm Shift?

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Does the Mainstream Media Assist Wall Street In Hypocritical Hypothesis For Fear Of The Next Paradigm Shift?

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Singapore Shopping Mall Debuts Bitcoin ATM, Draws Impressive Queue

Singapore received its second official bitcoin ATM on 28th February when a Lamassu unit debuted at Citylink Mall.With a retail space of 60,000 square feet, the country’s first underground mall is not the largest to host a bitcoin ATM. But, the venue is still in a high-profile location that connects City Hall with local transit and hotels, which should help ensure its visibility.Of the launch, Zann Kwan, executive director of Singapore-based Bitcoin...

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India Under Bitcoin Regulation? Or Not?

Recently in December 2013, the Indian Central Bank (Reserve Bank of India, RBI) decided to not regulate, and stated clearly that they lacked expert knowledge on the subject at that time. So they cautioned people not to trade in Bitcoin or any other similar crypto-currency. A few days after, one exchange and a Bitcoin information (and dust holder) site closed down, BuySellBitCo.in and rbitco.in, respectively. These actions were undertaken by the...

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Optimism Grows as Mt. Gox Chapter Ends and Bitcoin Turns the Page

The death bells tolled loudly for Mt. Gox this week as the threads of its elaborate cloak of cover-ups, lies and poor business practices came undone, first with the release of documents the revealed a struggling company desperately seeking new capital, then ultimately with its formal bankruptcy filing on 28th February.The news reverberated beyond the industry, with mainstream media plunging headlong into the sensational story that was likened to...

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HighKart Launches as India’s First Bitcoin E-Tailer

HighKart.com has become the first e-commerce site in India to exclusively accept bitcoin as a payment method.Launched by Delhi-based entrepreneur Amit Kumar, the online store retails more than 150 products, ranging from digital currency mining equipment to fashion accessories.Currently, there are more than 500 e-commerce startups in India – most having popped up within the last five years. Companies like Flipkart are dominating the local market,...

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Why Citigroup’s ‘Three Risks Facing Bitcoin’ is Misguided

In the wake of massive problems that brought down the Japan-based bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, some seem to think that bitcoin is experiencing a crisis of sorts.For those who have long known about the problems and possible hazards of Mt. Gox, however, this news doesn’t seem incredibly startling.For the financial establishment, though, Mt. Gox’s ineptitude appears to be bitcoin’s fatal blow.Continue reading at CoinDesk February 28, 2014 at 07:1...

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Vietnam Warns Against Bitcoin, Invokes the Ghost of Gox

Vietnam’s State Bank has issued another statement warning against bitcoin, blocking credit institutions from offering any digital currency services.Authorities had already issued a strong warning back on 14th February, stating that the government and State Bank did not recognize bitcoin as a legitimate method of payment.It also contained all the usual admonitions about money laundering, tax evasion, illicit trade, and the risk of speculation. Consumers...

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BitTorrent Client Integrates Bitcoin Donations

Popular BitTorrent client Frostwire has integrated an experimental mechanism that will allow users to donate bitcoins to torrent sharers. In addition to bitcoin, the same mechanism can be used for litecoin, dogecoin and even PayPal.FrostWire believes the idea will allow small content creators to easily monetize their content simply by getting tips from those who download it using the P2P client. Needless to say, Big Content is probably not thrilled...

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Mt. Gox Files for Bankruptcy, Claims $63.6m Debt

Mt. Gox is officially filing for bankruptcy protection with an outstanding debt of ¥6.5bn ($63.6m).The exchange’s lawyer announced the news during a conference at the Tokyo District Court late on Friday afternoon, Japan time.It’s not mentioned if the $63.6m debt figure includes any bitcoin value, or just what Gox owed in fiat currency. If bitcoin losses are as great as the 744,408 mentioned in the leaked report (a document since described by CEO...

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Bitcoin Transaction Fees To Be Slashed Tenfold

The bitcoin developers are about to reduce the transaction fees on the bitcoin network tenfold, thanks to the relatively high value of the digital currency.Transaction fees are small amounts paid to send bitcoin transactions around the network (think of them like postage stamps) and to get miners to confirm them by including them in a mining block. They’re paid in satoshis (tiny amounts of bitcoins), which means that as the price of bitcoin rises,...

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Your Central Bank Steals Your Money. Here’s How.

We operate in a particular financial paradigm: a centralised order with extraordinary power concentrated at the top.However, Bitcoin has created what was once unimaginable: a working, resilient and voluntary financial system with power distributed evenly according to contribution.It may or may not be possible to reconcile the legacy financial order with this new system. The jury’s still out. Even without reconciliation one would assume that the...

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News update

YELLEN: Fed Has No Authority To Regulate BitcoinBitcoin Startup Coinbase Surges Past 1M Consumer Wallets In The Post-Mt.Gox EraSingapore Firm Tembusu Launches Customizable Bitcoin ATM February 27, 2014 at 10:0...

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EXCLUSIVE: Charlie Shrem Speaks Out About Mt. Gox, His Arrest and the Bitcoin Bromance

“I’ve known Mark Karpeles for a very long time. Mark is a very sweet guy. Very non-confrontational, but has he made bad business decisions? Yes. Has he failed to do everything he should have? Yes.”So says Charlie Shrem, the troubled bitcoin entrepreneur, speaking to me from his parents’ house in New York, where he’s currently under house arrest.He tells me he classes Karpeles, CEO of the disastrous bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, as a good friend, but...

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Federal Reserve Chair: US Central Bank Can’t Regulate Bitcoin

After months of silence on the matter, Federal Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen has stated that the US central bank does not have the authority to regulate bitcoin.Yellen was appointed as chair of the Federal Reserve last October after she was nominated to replace Ben Bernanke.During an address to the Senate Banking Committee on 27th February, the top US banking official, said:Continue reading at CoinDesk February 27, 2014 at 06:1...

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Nearly 150 Strains of Malware Are After Your Bitcoins

Computer security firm Dell SecureWorks has managed to identify 146 types of bitcoin malware in the wild.The company’s researchers found the distinct breeds of malware had been specifically designed to steal bitcoins – a number of them presenting quite a danger to owners with coins stored either online or on their computers.The firm concluded that the number of Windows-compatible cryptocurrency stealing malware (CCSM) strains has gone up in line...

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Ukraine Protestors Turn to Bitcoin to Ease Cash Crisis

The dust is yet to settle on the recent, often violent protests in Ukraine that began last November and saw at least 82 people killed and hundreds injured, many seriously. President Viktor Yanukovych was removed from office and has gone into hiding.On the ground in the capital, Kiev, particularly around the protests’ focal point, the central square known as Maidan Nezalezhnosti or simply ‘Maidan’, there are thousands of people volunteering to deal...

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Leaked Mt. Gox Document Linked to Consulting Firm Mandalah

Earlier this week, I published a document I received from a reliable source entitled “Crisis Strategy Draft”, which was allegedly a roadmap to show how Mt. Gox could recover from insolvency despite the mind-blowing loss of nearly 750,000 customer bitcoins.Since that initial leak, I have had a number of conversations with industry insiders who have spoken about the situation both on and off the record.They have confirmed the best news possible for...

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How To Prove That Exchanges Really Have Your Money

From all the news surrounding Gox’s demise, it seems pretty certain at this point that it was operating with a fractional reserve, trading with only a small proportion of the money that it was supposed to have. The question now is, how can we be sure that others aren’t doing it, too?Whether you’re a straightforward bitcoin wallet or an exchange, the hope is that you’ll have enough bitcoins to cover everyone’s accounts, should they all decide to empty...

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BREAKING: Full Mt. Gox Story coming...

I now have all of the pieces to the Mt. Gox puzzle. Mt. Gox acted alone and in desperation. Comprehensive post after I lawyer up.Due to some angry Gox depositors, I’ve been advised to disclose that Karpeles was overstating the fact that he had “lined up” investors. The truth is, in a move of desperation, Mark asked several investors for a bailout, all of which seemed to have immediately notified the authorities once they learned the extent of the fraud, negligence or incompetence at Mt. Gox.That is to say, my leak did NOT cost depositors their...

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Toronto Bitcoin Expo Speakers Announced, Tickets On Sale

The Bitcoin Alliance of Canada, the oldest and largest Bitcoin advocacy organization in the country founded by Anthony Di Iorio in April 2013, has announced a host of new updates relating to the Bitcoin Expo, an upcoming event that will take place in Toronto from April 11 to 13. Although there already have been two smaller Bitcoin-related gatherings in Canada, with the Bitcoin Summit in Toronto last October and Coinfest in Vancouver in February,...

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Bitcoin is trendy in Spain with 100+ ATM installations

Today, February 22, was the inauguration of the first Spanish bitcoin ATM in Diagonal Mar, a shopping center situated in one of the main avenues of Barcelona. With its installation comes 100 more ATMs over the next three months in the rest of Spain – a clear sign that interest in bitcoin, in this country, is settled.This ATM, designed and operated by the Spanish companies Paymaq and Bbank respectively, starts the bitcoin fever that in the next three...

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Robocoin Bitcoin ATM to Debut in North America’s Largest Mall

Las Vegas-based bitcoin ATM provider Robocoin has announced that its newest unit will open for business on 26th February at the West Edmonton Mall in Alberta, Canada, the largest shopping center in North America, and until the 2000s, the biggest shopping mall in the world.Inspired by traditional urban bazaars, West Edmonton Mall includes 5.3 million square feet of retail space, features more than 800 stores and sees 30.8 million visitors annually....

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First Bitcoin Inspired Art Show: March 6th 20Mission

Image by San Francisco based artist Dan Gribben Bitcoin inspires individuals around the world and certainly can spark creativity. On Thursday, March 6, 20Mission will host the first ever Bitcoin Inspired Art Show entitled, “The Time is Now”. As Bitcoin truly prompts individuals to rethink finances and the future of our financial system, now this innovative technology has also inspired artists. Bitcoin Magazine was pleased to learn of this event.“The...

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