Why The Bitcoin Industry Must Recognise Its Responsibilities

Michael Jackson is a software engineer, entrepreneur and venture capital investor at Mangrove Capital Partners. The most significant issue affecting the adoption of cybercurrencies is the safety of bitcoin holdings.This is a fundamental deficiency of what is a software-defined asset, totally accessible instantaneously and online. In short, bitcoin’s very characteristics make it too easily accessible for criminals.Continue reading at CoinDesk March...

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Why Isn’t Your Business Accepting Bitcoin?

Arianna is a bitcoin enthusiast and investor, who organizes a bitcoin meetup group in New York. Bitcoin has been blowing up the news lately, mostly with bad press stemming from Mt. Gox’s recent collapse.If you’re a business owner who is considering accepting the digital currency, this may be causing heart palpitations. Despite the temporary market unrest, there are huge opportunities for merchants to benefit from accepting bitcoin – I’ve outlined...

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$113m in Gox Money Believed To Be Moving Through Block Chain

Large amounts of bitcoins previously handled by Mt Gox, which have lain dormant for years, have started moving on the block chain.Since the exchange blew up at the end of last month, people have been wondering where the stolen coins went, and have tried to trace some movements between Gox addresses. One participant on the bitcoin talk forum recalled an IRC conversation between Gox CEO Mark Karpeles and various users, which allegedly took place on...

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FreedomPop’s Snowden Phone – A Mobile Service Built for Privacy

In a society that is increasingly reliant on mobility, the privacy of information is of utmost importance. Now, thanks to FreedomPop, there is a solution that gives mobile users government level security. With a platform that is based on privacy, FreedomPop’s Privacy Phone, nicknamed “The Snowden Phone,” allows mobile users to take advantage of encrypted mobile service.The Snowden Phone is able to protect your privacy from hackers, government agencies...

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Community Fundraiser Nets $7k and Counting for Alleged Bitcoin Creator Dorian Nakamoto

Noted security expert and bitcoin developer Andreas Antonopoulos announced a fundraising campaign on 7th March for Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto, the 64-year-old California engineer who Newsweek has suggested is the inventor of bitcoin.The funds, according to Antonopoulos, will serve as a small “thanks” from the community should Nakamoto turn out to be the founder of bitcoin. If not, Antonopoulos said the money could still be used by Nakamoto and his family...

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Bitcoin Decentral Launches Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency 2.0 Accelerator

Over the past few months, Bitcoin Decentral, the new Toronto-based Bitcoin community center and coworkingspace that has been operational since the start of the year, has come to take center stage in the Canadian Bitcoin economy. Progress toward renovating and furnishing the upper floors of the four-storey house are well underway, and even now the location serves as the headquarters of KryptoKit, the Bitcoin Alliace of Canada, the organizing committee...

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One Does Not Simply Find Satoshi Nakamoto

Newsweek’s decision to out Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto as the creator of bitcoin appears to be backfiring spectacularly.Nakamoto was quick to deny that he was the ‘real’ Satoshi Nakamoto and he attributed the misunderstanding to his less than perfect command of the English language.He told the Associated Press that he refused to discuss his employment with Newsweek reporter Leah McGrath Goodman because he had signed confidentiality agreements, not because...

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Satoshi Nakamoto Denies Being Creator of Bitcoin Amid Media Frenzy

The man Newsweek named as bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto has denied any involvement with it or cryptocurrency.Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto, a Japanese-American resident of Los Angeles, found himself thrust into the the limelight just a day ago when Newsweek reporter Leah McGrath Goodman claimed the anonymous, or pseudonymous, man who released bitcoin on the world had been found at last.Newsweek ran the story on the front cover of its newly-relaunched...

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CoG Flies iOS Bitcoin Wallet Under Apple’s Radar

A Kentucky organization thinks that it has found a way to install fully-functional bitcoin wallets on Apple iOS devices, bypassing the infamously draconian vendor’s app store.The Cycle of Goodness (CoG) co-operative launched its iOS wallet, Pheeva, at the Texas Bitcoin Conference this week. The wallet, built using Bitcoinjs, is installed via a link mailed to users by the organization.Apple is notoriously anti-bitcoin, having wiped several wallets...

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Vault of Satoshi Halts US Bitcoin Exchange Service, Cites Worsening US Regulatory Conditions

Toronto-based bitcoin exchange Vault of Satoshi, announced via its Facebook account on 6th March that it will cease its US operations effective immediately.Most notable, however, was the reasoning the company gave for the abrupt move. It suggested that the changing attitudes of US regulators were to blame for the service shutoff.Citing a recent “Let’s Talk Bitcoin” Interview with Charlie Shrem, the company elaborated on its reasoning, saying:Continue...

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Bitcoin Inventor Satoshi Nakamoto ‘Found’ in California

Ever since bitcoin was created five years ago, the crypto community has been trying to find out the real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto. Many tried and failed, so eventually Satoshi Nakamoto became the Keyser Söze of the bitcoin world.As the Söze saying goes, the biggest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn’t exist. Nakamoto’s biggest trick was convincing the world that his name was a pseudonym.A new report claims it was...

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New Toronto Accelerator to Invest $250,000 in Bitcoin Startups

The second cryptocurrency accelerator has opened in north America this week, this time in Toronto, targeting entrepreneurs working in “second generation cryptocurrencies”.Bitcoin Decentral Accelerate will begin with a $250,000 fund, but hopes to score at least $1.5m in investment to sustain its first eight months of operation, according to its organizers.The accelerator, launched by Bitcoin Alliance of Canada founder Anthony Di Iorio, is a spinoff...

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US Congressman Launches Satirical Bid to Ban the US Dollar

Just over one week ago, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin made headlines when he wrote an open letter to federal regulators calling for an outright ban of bitcoin, and now he has received a tongue-in-cheek response from a fellow politician, Congressman Jared Polis.The Colorado representative issued a letter today to the same federal regulators that Manchin addressed, and in the letter Polis satirically calls for a ban on the physical US dollar.Elaborating...

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Robocoin to Debut First Traveling ATM at SXSW Interactive Festival

Las Vegas-based bitcoin ATM specialist RoboCoin has revealed new plans for this week’s upcoming South By Southwest (SXSW) Interactive festival, set to begin on Friday 7th March and run through 11th March.SXSW is one of the more notable events on the annual tech calendar, having helped launched major brands such as Twitter and Foursquare.Robocoin, which debuted the first bitcoin ATM in Vancouver in October to massive fanfare, has a similarly stylish...

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Coinbase and Overstock.com: The results are in!

Coinbase and Overstock.com: The results are in!:coinbase:In January, we announced a partnership with Overstock.com which makes it possible for consumers to purchase items on Overstock.com using bitcoin. Today, we are excited to announce that Overstock.com has surpassed $1,000,000 of sales in bitcoin transactions. We also think it’s a fitting time to…March 05, 2014 at 04:4...

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How Economist Milton Friedman Predicted Bitcoin

Bitcoin and its crypto-cash counterparts are essentially trustless monetary systems that upend the banking establishment’s ideals of how a financial system should operate.Intriguingly, the concept of digital money was predicted as far back as the late ’90s.Economist Milton Friedman was one of the most renowned economists of the 20th century and his ideas radically changed the way that policymakers made their decisions.Continue reading at CoinDesk...

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dashburst: How to Explain Bitcoin to Your...

dashburst:How to Explain Bitcoin to Your Grandparents http://ift.tt/1pXWIu9 March 05, 2014 at 04:1...

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Ripple Courts Developers, Entrepreneurs With New Initiatives

Ripple Labs is on the lookout for developers and entrepreneurs alike this week.The Ripple Accelerator, an incubator designed to help companies using the Ripple protocol, opened in San Francisco. And Ripple Labs, the firm behind the open-source digital payment protocol, has launched a developer offensive to encourage third-party apps and services to support it.The Ripple Accelerator is designed as an independent entity, not influenced by Ripple Labs....

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The BTC Foundation's Power Struggle

Loyal Idiots,For those of you who have been regular readers, you know that it is incredibly rare for me to miss a Daily Bit. These past 72 hours have been among the most stressful of my life, and I have been betrayed by some of those within the industry whom I had trusted.Either I was misled by my sources or my sources were misled by Peter Vessenes and Jon Matonis over the weekend. I reported on Sunday that they were stepping aside gracefully following their absent leadership during the Mt. Gox scandal. However, yesterday and today I received conflicting...

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Overstock Tops $1m in Bitcoin Sales, Projects Up to $20m By Year’s End

It has been less than two months since e-commerce giant Overstock.com began accepting bitcoin payments on their website, and the online retailer has already surpassed $1m in total sales.Overstock’s CEO Patrick Byrne confirmed the company’s plans to embrace bitcoin back in December, and bitcoin payment processing officially went live on Overstock.com on 9th January.Byrne spoke with CoinDesk about its $1m milestone, asserting that while the initial...

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$1 Million Up for Grabs at Texas Bitcoin Conference Hackathon

The lucky winners of the upcoming Texas Bitcoin Conference Hackathon could walk away with up to $1m thanks to David Johnston, CEO of Engine, a personal information services startup.While it might sound like a very generous gesture on Johnston’s part, he views it as a rather prudent investment instead.The Hackathon will be held on 5th – 6th March in Austin, Texas, with the CEO taking to reddit to explain his plan in an AMA. There was no shortage of...

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ZeroBlock Acquires Real-Time Bitcoin Trading Platform RTBTC

ZeroBlock, the bitcoin mobile app specialist recently acquired by Blockchain.info last December, has purchased real-time bitcoin trading platform and market visualization provider RTBTC.Most notable, is that the acquisition is part of a larger play by Blockchain to attract institutional investors to its ZeroBlock property. RTBTC will power ZeroBlock’s new trading platform, and ZeroBlock’s proprietary news feed will be embedded in the new trading...

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Bitcoin Bank Flexcoin to Close After $600,000 Bitcoin Theft

Alberta-based bitcoin storage specialist Flexcoin has announced that it will shut down following an attack and subsequent robbery that saw cybercriminals abscond with 896 BTC (roughly $600,000 at press time) stored in the company’s hot wallets.Flexcoin, which styled itself as the “first bitcoin bank”, though it was not legally such an entity, took to its homepage to announce the theft and closure.The statement reads:Continue reading at CoinDesk ...

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Polish Soccer Club to Accept Bitcoin for Tickets and Merchandise

In a bid to boost its popularity and endorse the cryptocurrency in the process, Polish soccer club GKS Katowice has announced plans to enable bitcoin payments for tickets and club-related merchandise.The club’s supporters can now make donations to their favourite side in the digital currency, GKS Katowice said in a statement.“We are open to new technologies. We want to be innovative and [...] show our fans that we have great ambitions,” said Wojciech...

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Japan Mulls Bitcoin Tax Following Mt. Gox Failure

Japan is taking the Mt. Gox collapse seriously and is already looking into measures to address the digital currency conundrum – one of which is to levy taxes on bitcoin transactions.According to the Yonimuri Shimbun newspaper, Japan’s ministry of finance and the national tax agency are studying “possible rules” that could govern digital currency transactions.It appears that Japanese authorities think purchases made with digital currencies could be...

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BTC China Launches Litecoin Trading Thanks to Lee Brothers

Exchange BTC China is introducing litecoin trading, effective immediately and with 0% commission. It will become the first widely-used exchange after BTC-e to trade the world’s second most popular cryptocurrency.CEO of BTC China, Bobby Lee, announced the move this morning, saying “users have been clamouring for this for ages”.Digital currency watchers will also note that BTC China’s CEO, Bobby Lee, is the elder brother of litecoin inventor Charles...

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Cue The Bit-Peso – Unbanked And Potentially Bitcoined

Sidewalk cook in La Libertad, Ecuador.We stand poised on the cusp of something altogether new. A huge percentage of the human race is either “unbanked” or “underbanked”, that is to say that maybe half of humanity either does not have a bank account of any sort and/or makes limited use of banking institutions or uses other non-bank institutions or informal financial services to conduct their financial affairs.There are a variety of reasons for...

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London Hostel Chain Clink Now Accepts Cryptocurrencies

Bitcoiners visiting London no longer have to stray into the fiat world to pay for their accommodation. A chain of hostels in the UK capital is now accepting payments in both bitcoin and litecoin.Clink Hostels, which owns two hostels in central London, including one in a former courthouse, began accepting the currency last month.Dave Double, sales manager for Clink, encouraged the move towards bitcoin payments and is heavily involved in digital currencies,...

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Will Florida’s Money Laundering Laws Apply to Bitcoin?

Lawyers for the two men recently arrested in Miami for engaging in “too-large” bitcoin transactions are claiming that the men’s actions were legal because state law covers only money issued by the US or another country.Many in the bitcoin community are hopeful that this argument is persuasive, seeing money laundering laws as an attempt to regulate thoughtcrime in finance. Others also argue that citizens do not currently owe the state of Florida any...

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Coin Miners Dogged By Mining Pool Security Flaws

Distributed denial-of-service attacks have posed an increasingly severe problem for cryptocurrency exchanges and mining pools in recent weeks.Last month, several major pools in the mining community suffered debilitating DDoS attacks that resulted in significant delays, lost mining time and frustration for miners.In extreme cases, as explained by TeamDoge administrator Forrest Suqua, some pools received ransom messages from hackers demanding payoffs...

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