Betting on the Blockchain: Sports Gambling and Bitcoin

Sports gambling in America is big business. It is also, largely, illegal. According to the National Gambling Impact Study Commission, nearly $400 billion is wagered on sports by United States citizens during a given year, with only $3.5 billion of those bets being placed at legal books in Nevada.With only one state offering legal sports betting, how is it that U.S. citizens are able to gamble so much on games?While a significant portion of illegal...

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Mt. Gox To Be Liquidated

A Japanese bankruptcy court declared this week that collapsed Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox will not be permitted to reorganize and therefore must enter liquidation. The court rejected Mt. Gox’s petition (similar to a Chapter 7 filing in the United States) on the grounds that the plan of reorganization submitted by Mt. Gox is unlikely to be successful. Moreover, the court claimed that CEO Mark Karpeles has lost the confidence of creditors and customers...

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LocalBitcoins Releases Investigation Report on Site Wallet Issues

Following yesterday’s statement from LocalBitcoins regarding issues with its wallet service, the website has released its follow-up investigation report.The report focused in part on claims that the site’s two-factor authentication failed to prevent a wallet breach. LocalBitcoins also addressed the cause of withdrawal delays that took place as users tried to move their bitcoins away from the site following the posting of user concerns on reddit.The...

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What Will Become of Your Bitcoins When You Die?

The Law Society is urging people to leave clear instructions for their intellectual property and digital media in case of death.Most of the digital legacy people leave behind when they shuttle off this mortal coil has sentimental value – it is not something that can be appraised or valued in hard cash.Social network accounts, images, music, emails and backups of all of the above constitute the majority of our digital legacy. Families may want to...

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Texans for Greg Abbott to Accept Bitcoin Contributions

by Elizabeth Ploshay on April 17, 2014 { } This afternoon, Texans for Greg Abbott announced acceptance of Bitcoin for campaign donations. Greg Abbott is running as the Republican candidate in the Texas Gubernatorial race. Striving to be a cutting edge candidate, Abbott stated, “I’m excited to see our campaign add another tool to our cutting-edge digital outreach, which is allowing us to reach more Texans than any previous campaign in the state.”...

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Strevus Compliance Software Adds Digital Currency Support

Compliance software developer Strevus has added support for bitcoin and other digital currencies to its existing compliance software service. The company says it will offer institutional-level compliance and support to bitcoin as well as other digital currencies.Strevus appears to be aiming to carve out a niche for itself by offering cutting edge know your customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) features for bitcoin platforms. The company...

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Former US Consumer Finance Watchdog Voices Support for Bitcoin

Raj Date, the former Deputy Director of the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a consumer finance watchdog, said in an interview this week that he supports – and is now investing in – bitcoin.During a segment of Bloomberg Television’s “Street Smart ,” Date commented that, on a personal level, he sees a lot of potential in digital currencies like bitcoin.“The thing I like about innovation in consumer finance, like bitcoin, like digital...

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China’s Banks Close More Bitcoin Accounts Following PBOC Deadline

There is continued uncertainty for bitcoin exchanges in China tonight as some large-volume exchanges reported verbal closure notices from banking partners today.Exchanges OKCoin and Huobi said they had bank accounts closed as of Friday afternoon China time, posting the news on their respective sites.China has still not ‘banned bitcoin’, despite certain rumors. The implied restrictions refer only to the way bitcoin exchange accounts are funded by...

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Survey Says: Bitcoin Magazine is Considering Categories

by Ruben Alexander on April 16, 2014 { } online poll by Opinion Stage Bitcoin Magazine is currently considering breaking up the magazine into categories. The motivation for this is a desire for our readers to know what section they are in without looking at the table of contents. We also want to group similar stories near each other and possibly color code our sections to assist in automaticity while navigating through the magazine. We also want...

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SecondMarket Officially Launches Institutional Bitcoin Exchange

New York-based SecondMarket is now letting investors know that it has a professional-level bitcoin exchange available for institutional traders.The company had previously confirmed it would launch a US-regulation exchange by summer.SecondMarket, a registered broker-dealer that has experience offering unique asset classes and alternative investments, is targeting investors interested in trading a minimum of 25 BTC per trade.That level of bitcoin...

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Side Chains: The How, The Challenges and the Potential

Disclosure: the author of this article is the founder and Chief Scientist of the Ethereum project Last week, Adam Back and Austin Hill came out with an announcement on Let’s Talk Bitcoin, in which they announced their newest project: “sidechains”. The idea, they described, would allow for the existence of alternative blockchains, perhaps with different rules allowing various kinds of additional features or transaction types, but with a currency...

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BTC China Launches First ‘Soft Bitcoin ATM’ Interface for International Markets

A new web-based app from BTC China called ‘Picasso ATM’ allows anyone with a smartphone to become a ‘walking bitcoin ATM’, without the need to invest thousands of dollars in hardware. Sellers can use the app to upload and sell bitcoins nearly anywhere in the world, in a range of major currencies. It could be the first of many moves by Chinese bitcoin exchanges to appeal to international customers. BTC China is the most prominent of China’s bitcoin...

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Jimmy Wales Reveals Wikimedia is ‘Cautious’ About Accepting Bitcoin

Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, said in a Twitter conversation that Wikimedia, the non-profit foundation that operates the site, was “cautious” about the Internet encyclopaedia accepting bitcoin donations.When Twitter user ‘Mister Schief’ asked Wales for an update on Wikimedia Foundation accepting bitcoin donations, Wales responded by saying that staff were looking into a lightweight implementation:@mrschtief Staff are looking into lightweight...

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Chamath Palihapitiya Predicts 7.3 Million Bitcoin Wallet Downloads in 2014

Former Facebook and AOL executive Chamath Palihapitiya has updated his projection on wallet downloads in 2014.In January, Palihapitiya, who is one of the largest individual owners of bitcoin, had predicted 11.5 million wallet downloads, but after the bitcoin price stabilised below $500 in the first quarter of the year, he has readjusted his forecast to 7.3 million.He shared this information via a tweet last night:If you are wondering why USD/BTC...

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Chamath Palihapitiya Predicts 7.3 Million Bitcoin Wallet Downloads in 2014

Former Facebook and AOL executive Chamath Palihapitiya has updated his projection on wallet downloads in 2014.In January, Palihapitiya, who is one of the largest individual owners of bitcoin, had predicted 11.5 million wallet downloads, but after the bitcoin price stabilised below $500 in the first quarter of the year, he has readjusted his forecast to 7.3 million.He shared this information via a tweet last night:If you are wondering why USD/BTC...

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New Paper Explores Cooling Challenges In Bitcoin Mining Industry

A new white paper from Allied Control, a technology cooling solutions provider, surveys the current large-scale bitcoin mining ecosystem and explores the implications of current and future cooling technologies.According to author Alex Kampl, Allied’s vice president of engineering, there are significant deficiencies in how mining hardware is manufactured and deployed worldwide. As a result, investors already involved risk losing money and new ones...

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