Ripple Labs Joins Mainstream NACHA Financial Industry Alliance

Ripple Labs announced yesterday it has joined the NACHA Payments Innovation Alliance – a move it says will increase its influence within the financial and payments industry, as well as help promote new technologies in the space.

NACHA, previously the National Automated Clearing House Association, is a not-for-profit industry body of financial institutions that serves as trustee for the Automated Clearing House (ACH) network, the backbone for electronic payments and movement of money and financial data in the US.

The ACH Network is similar to the SWIFT network that facilitates international money movements.

Although Ripple Labs is a software company rather than a financial institution per se, it provides an open-source base platform “that resides at the bottom of the payment stack” for others to build upon.

Ideally, the company sees itself as replacing some of the most basic infrastructure functions of the ACH network:

The company posted the following statement on its blog:

“Our membership with the NACHA Alliance provides us with further opportunity to further our mission of working with everyone within the industry to help drive innovation around the movement of money.”

Increasing compliance

Ripple Labs has always claimed the Ripple protocol is perfectly suited for use by financial institutions and enterprise, saying its involvement has been a long-standing drive by the company.

Recent announcements and improvements reflect this stance. On 4th June, the company announced it was working to add features to its protocol that would empower gateways to freeze non-XRP balances they have marked for further investigation if they suspect related accounts have been hijacked or are engaging in suspicious behaviour.

The new features are part of Ripple Labs’ commitment to helping gateways with regulatory compliance and giving those gateways tools to better manage compromised and suspicious balances, according to the Ripple wiki.

The protocol will soon gain new messaging and identity features, plus other tools to allow stakeholders to identify such suspicious activity and communicate it to other users who wish to avoid those accounts.

‘Suspicious activity’ would involve money laundering, fraud, or other attempts to manipulate digital currencies and their networks.

Stakeholders would still have the freedom to decide whether or not to implement the tools and enforce risk controls, but could highlight the increased compliance in advertising to potential new customers.

Ripple Labs says it is working on these improvements in order to be more regulation, compliance and law-enforcement friendly – words that will be reassuring to the traditional financial industry.

About NACHA

NACHA represents over 11,000 US financial institutions who fund the organization either directly or via regional associations. The ACH Network itself, which is separate, moves about 22 billion transactions and $39tn (yes, trillion) annually.

NACHA members cooperate to set private sector operating rules including risk management and security of the network, with a mission “to facilitate the expansion and diversification of electronic payments on the ACH Network.”

Image via My Life Graphic / Shutterstock

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June 10, 2014 at 11:41AM



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Blockchain’s SharedCoin Users Can Be Identified, Says Security Expert

Bitcoin users in need of serious transaction privacy should avoid popular services like Blockchain.info’s SharedCoin and other CoinJoin implementations, according to a well-known security expert.

Consultant Kristov Atlas, author of the book Anonymous Bitcoin, published a security advisory today saying weaknesses in SharedCoin offered privacy only from “unskilled examiners of the bitcoin blockchain” – and even then, only until more sophisticated analysis tools were made user-friendly enough for the average user to deploy.

CoinJoin Sudoku

Using such a tool he created himself called ‘CoinJoin Sudoku’, Atlas analyzed thousands of transactions identified as using SharedCoin and determined he could identify relationships between specific payments and payees.

Coinjoin Sudoku works by searching for common ownership of the multiple transaction inputs and outputs that SharedCoin uses to obscure identity, grouping them where ingoing and outgoing amounts match.

Blockchain.info has responded to the warning with a blog post reminding customers that SharedCoin and CoinJoin offer protection only against “casual observers”.

“They do not prevent a determined investigator from correlating transactions or an adversary with information about specific addresses from correlating them to specific payments and payees.”

How SharedCoin works

Blockchain.info’s SharedCoin service is an open-source implementation of the CoinJoin privacy protocol, and is often referred to as a ‘mixer’.

While transactions on the bitcoin blockchain are open for all to see (at least at the public address level), SharedCoin will collect a group of users wishing to increase privacy and join their transactions into one ‘master transaction’ before broadcasting it to the network.

The transaction that then appears on the blockchain would have multiple outputs and inputs, supposedly making it worthless for analysis.

Customers may select the number of times to repeat the SharedCoin process, between two and ten.

While offering enhanced privacy to users, SharedCoin and mixing services hope to better protect all users by making the bitcoin blockchain overall a less dependable tool for connecting bitcoin addresses to individuals.

Need for privacy

Blockchain.info officially began offering SharedCoin as a free service to its users last November, around the time Matt Mellon’s ‘CoinValidation‘ and other services that promised to track specific bitcoins and addresses connected to suspicious or other investigation-worthy activity. It did not claim, however, to provide 100% protection from such services.

Older style mixing tools (also known as ‘tumblers’) would forward a payment around several different addresses to make the originator hard to find, usually on a private server, or ‘off-chain’. Such systems, however, required trust from users that anonymous operators would not simply confiscate or steal the bitcoins before they emerged from the mixer.

SharedCoin, and the CoinJoin protocol itself, provided a system that required less trust in the operator, by taking advantage of a bitcoin transaction’s ability to have multiple inputs and outputs.

Crunching through transactions

Atlas analyzed 20,000 transactions across 45 blocks on the bitcoin blockchain and found around 2.6% fit the profile of a SharedCoin transaction.

CoinJoin Sudoku identified groups within a transaction with equal amounts (marked red and blue in the diagram below) then examined inputs and outputs one digit at a time to identify possible relationships.

identifying matches within a multiple input-output transaction

Currently, he wrote, the new tool is still inefficient and required over 30 hours to complete the analysis on a single processor, even with testing limitations he introduced. More thorough de-anonymization would take much longer, though it remained possible.

“Despite the limitation, the tool was able to group 69% of inputs and 53% of a single transaction’s outputs.”

Through this kind of grouping, he could identify a maximum of two users within that transaction.

Atlas recommended anyone using SharedCoin set the number of cycles to the maximum 10, while remembering that even this did not guarantee 100% privacy.

Taint

Blockchain.info provides a ‘Taint Analysis’ tool to test traceability of funds and is designed to evaluate the effectiveness of mixers. If it works, users should not be able to identify sending addresses in the list.

Atlas says the Taint Analysis is a “poor measurement” for this, identifying a 100% and 50% chance of relationship between an output and two inputs, where the Taint Analysis had claimed 4.2% and 4.5% respectively.

He plans to release CoinJoin Sudoku as an open-source project in two weeks. The delay, he said, was to provide SharedCoin users with adequate time to take the steps necessary to protect their privacy.

Blockchain.info response

Blockchain.info disclosed it paid Atlas a bounty (via SharedCoin) for finding the vulnerability and had worked with him to coordinate a schedule to release the information:

“Blockchain.info sincerely appreciates the thoughtful nature of this disclosure from community member Kristov Atlas. We look forward to working with Mr. Atlas and other security researchers, on future improvements and enhancements to SharedCoin.”

“As always, Blockchain.info is committed to transparency, the community, and improving bitcoin services for everyone.”

The company invited everyone to visit its GitHub repository to review its many open-source projects.

“If you want to truly hide transactions, SharedCoin and other implementations of CoinJoin are not for you ­ they are neither sufficient nor convenient. SharedCoin provides a basic level of enhanced privacy transaction but doesn’t guarantee anonymity nor was it intended to.”

Blockchain.info saw SharedCoin’s primary user base as corporations wishing to protect privacy of payroll and bill payments, individuals wishing not to display records of salaries or tips, and political and charitable organizations protecting their donors.

SharedCoin, Blockchain.info says, is actually “not a mixing service” as it never controls or sends any funds on behalf of its users.

Repeating a warning often given to anyone who claims the bitcoin payment network is ‘anonymous’, the company said anyone with sufficient time, money, motivation and computing power could correlate transaction outputs and inputs.

Image via igor.stevanovic / Shutterstock

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June 10, 2014 at 05:48AM



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Korean Bitcoin Gambling Site Seeks Asian Customers

A new bitcoin gambling site has opened for beta testing, specifically targeting customers in the Asia region.

Based in South Korea, Satoshinori.com is available in Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese and English.

It features an array of multi-player games including Seven Card Poker, Texas Hold-em and Matgo, plus simpler web based games like Rock Paper Scissors, Riding Ladder and Mine Sweeper. More are due to arrive in future.

Aiming for professional image

Satoshinori’s operator said the site is produced by a leading Korean game publishing company, with emphasis on fair games low fees, and security.

The site itself says:

“All customers’ deposited Bitcoins are stored securely with the safest and most qualified methods. Also, world renowned web engineers are participating to protect this site from hackings and DDOS cyber attacks.”

Bitcoin deposit and withdrawal addresses change with every transaction to add an extra layer of anonymity for users.

Satoshinori provides a list of bitcoin exchanges available in most countries for those acquiring bitcoins for the first time,

Proving bitcoin’s usefulness

He said bitcoin was chosen as the primary currency mainly for ease of setup and the relative anonymity it provides, particularly in parts of the target region where bitcoin businesses endured a degree of legal uncertainty.

Gambling sites also serve as a useful demonstration of bitcoin’s utility to the uninitiated, showing off how smoothly it works in a high-transaction environment and allowing commerce and transfers at any time of day or night, anywhere in the world.

This was another reason for setting up Satoshinori, the site’s owner added. Mainstream interest has been lagging in Northeast Asia and vendors proving a little slower to sign on to bitcoin than hoped.

Gambling sites could play a major role in stimulating the bitcoin economy by putting the currency into more hands.

Lucrative market

The legal online gaming market alone in the region was worth about $12.7b, he continued, with that size possibly exceeding $49bn if illegal online gambling sites were considered.

The large majority of potential gamers reside in the countries Satoshinori targets with its language options, plus Taiwan.

Satoshinori now hopes to claim at least some of that market for bitcoin.

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June 07, 2014 at 12:35PM



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IRS: No Bitcoin Reporting Required for FinCEN Foreign Banking Tax Form

The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) declared during a 4th June webinar that US taxpayers are not required to report bitcoin on Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) Form 114, a document also known as the Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Account (FBAR), for this year’s tax season.

According to Bloomberg Bureau of National Affairs (BNA), a senior IRS program analyst remarked that taxpayers face no reporting requirements when filling out their Form 114 for 2014. Taxpayers that hold more than $10,000 in a foreign bank are required to a file this form with FinCEN.

The move is the latest guidance offered to US taxpayers on the subject of bitcoin, coming months after the government agency ruled that bitcoin would be taxed as a property rather than a currency.

The analyst, Rod Lundquist, announced the policy guidance when asked about bitcoin during the webinar, saying:

“At this time, FinCEN has said Bitcoin is not reportable on the FBAR, at least for this filing season.”

The IRS official went on to acknowledge that this policy is subject to change as the IRS clarifies its policies on digital currencies. He added that the agency continues to review its policies regarding bitcoin and that the FBAR guidance in particular may be adjusted in the future.

Taxes image via Shutterstock

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June 05, 2014 at 10:35PM

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June 05, 2014 at 11:24PM



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Maturing Middle Eastern Bitcoin Ecosystem Emerges at ArabNet Conference

The past year and a half has seen the slow but steady march of bitcoin across the financial landscape, gaining market share and investor interest with each passing month. Yet, in the Middle East, digital currency remains a fringe prospect in the eyes of the region’s financial players.

A small group of startups and entrepreneurs are hoping to change this mindset with a new array of bitcoin platforms and tools that could deliver much-needed financial resources to an area where only 20% of the population has access to banking services.

Before this can happen, however, cultural and technological challenges must be overcome before bitcoin gains any lasting influence in the Middle East.

Tarik Kaddoumi, co-founder bitcoin retail payments service Umbrellab, told CoinDesk that he see’s bitcoin success in the region arising from the financial barriers that currently exist for most people, saying:

“Bitcoin will play a vital role in the Middle East mainly due to the very low credit card penetration in the region, and the difficulty of acquiring a credit card or sometimes even a bank account.”

Kaddoumi recently spoke at the ArabNet Digital Summit 2014 in Dubai, where he was joined by David El Achkar, founder of bitcoin payments provider Yellow. The panel, entitled “The State of Bitcoin”, was warmly received and has set the stage for future bitcoin developments in the region.

In conversations with CoinDesk, the two entrepreneurs agreed that the soil is fertile in the Middle East for bitcoin to rise to prominence.

ArabNet Digital Summit

El Achkar told CoinDesk that many participants expressed great interest in bitcoin at ArabNet. He noted that roughly half of the crowd was familiar with digital currencies, and that the bitcoin panel received a large number of questions both during the discussion and afterward.

On the other hand, he suggested that members of the tech community are still researching bitcoin and haven’t made up their minds about the technology, a fact that was on display at ArabNet.

He elaborated:

“The tech and broader community in the Middle East is definitely still in the early learning phase about Bitcoin. For example, I generally ask, at every event I participate in, who understands Bitcoin. I’ve found the average to be at around 20%.”

Kaddoumi added that bitcoin remains in its “infancy” in the Middle East, and that more outreach is needed before conference attendees in the tech world — and the broader public — embrace digital currencies.

The path to bitcoin adoption

Both Kaddoumi and El Achkar are focused on the payments ecosystem in the Middle East, and both told CoinDesk that this area of finance represents one of the possible gateways for bitcoin adoption in the region.

Notably, most e-commerce transactions are cash-on-delivery (COD), meaning that consumers pay for goods upon receipt. According to El Achkar, this payment method accounts for roughly 80% of eCommerce sales in the Middle East.

He elaborated:

“This greatly increases the cost and complexity of online purchases, not to mention it can regularly take three weeks for a merchant to receive payment. If that isn’t bad enough, a customer is far more likely to return a product unpaid for when it is ordered COD. Clearly, there is a lot of room for improvement in payments.”

Kaddoumi sees this as a reflection of the region’s large underbanked or unbanked population. Unable to access credit or banking services, most rely on cash as a means of payment. Bitcoin, he said, presents an “immediate solution” that enables merchants in the Middle East to gain access to revenue faster than traditional methods.

Opportunity for fintech startups in the Middle East

According to El Achkar, the Middle East is a challenging environment for fintech companies. He said that operational costs keep startups at bay, a problem that is exacerbated by the fragmented nature of the region’s market.

Digital currency, he continued, could make the environment more amenable for fintech startups, saying:

“The regulatory environment is not supportive enough of small business. Bitcoin can potentially address [these] issues by lowering the cost and complexity of innovation as well as eliminating the borders.”

El Achkar cautioned that, by and large, the tech community in the Middle East is still wary of bitcoin. Calling them “fairly skeptical on average,” he nonetheless declared that businesses in the eco system are actively exploring bitcoin. The question remains whether or not tech companies in the Middle East embrace the digital currency.

El Achkar explained:

“People will often point to the many ways in which the region lags behind technologically (e.g., internet penetration, credit card penetration), and say it simply is not the right time for bitcoin.”

Possible role for bitcoin in Islamic banking

Banks worldwide have begun to look at bitcoin and the possible integration of its underlying technology. While no bank in the Middle East has expressed openness in this regard, Kaddoumi sees bitcoin fitting into the broader institution of Islamic banking, which presents several key differences from Western-style banking.

Islamic banking is founded on key principles established in the Qur’an, most notably the abolishment of charging and receiving interest on loans. Additionally, investments made by Islamic banks must meet certain ethical and moral thresholds, with an emphasis on sound risk assessment and societal benefit.

He said:

“As bitcoin resembles a commodity with finite existence, transparency that promotes ethical use and the general similarities to precious metals as a commodity, there are a lot of reasons to believe that it will take a very comfortable seat in islamic banking, even more so that fiat currency.”

Kaddoumi said that Umbrellab is conducting a study to see exactly how bitcoin fits into this system, consulting with legal and Islamic banking experts.

Education key to bitcoin’s future

For Kaddoumi and El Achkar, as well as other bitcoin entrepreneurs in the Middle East, education and outreach remain top priorities. This includes appearances at events like ArabDigital and contacts with other tech startups, as well as relationship-building with the region’s merchants and consumers.

From a technological standpoint, this process also means educating the populace about bitcoin tools like wallets and exchanges. Kaddoumi remarked that “lack of knowledge and skepticism are still the two main factors standing in the way of increased adoption.”

Additionally, El Achkar suggested that cultural distrust surrounding online payments could be assuaged with the broad integration if bitcoin, saying:

“There remains a lack of trust in online payments on average in the region leading to low credit card usage and a small (but growing) eCommerce sector. This, I believe, can be turned around with proper education as Bitcoin addresses many of the concerns raised against conventional online payment options.”

Bitcoin, it seems, may come to play a prominent role in the Middle East. Only time will tell if long-standing cultural barriers and a lack of technological integration keeps digital currency from becoming more deeply rooted in the region.

Middle East image via Shutterstock

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June 05, 2014 at 10:34PM



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CAVIRTEX Cuts Fees by 50% in Bid to Boost Customer Morale

Calgary-based digital currency exchange CAVIRTEX took to reddit today in a bid to solicit community feedback about its policies and performance, and announce that its CEO, Joseph David, would soon partake in an upcoming Ask Me Anything conversation on the site.

Most notably, representative Kyle Kemper indicated that the company is cutting trading fees by half to 0.75%, and updating its account activity fee policy so that users now receive three alerts before new changes are made.

Kemper also sought to bolster the narrative surrounding the company, which has garnered criticism for mishandling the implementation of past policies, being slow to respond to customer concerns and for not providing investors with promised dividends from company revenue.

Nonetheless, Kemper was optimistic heading into the discussion with the community, placing a firm emphasis on how CAVIRTEX is looking to put its troubles behind it:

“We’ve got a solid roadmap ahead of us, but in the past we’ve made mistakes. It is my goal to change this and fix our reputation amongst one of the most impressive communities on the planet and have your support moving forward.”

Kemper also defended the company’s inactivity fees, which charge users $50 a month for keeping bitcoin in the exchange after more than 12 months of inactivity.

The representative added: “The message that the dormant activity fee tries to get across is that we are an exchange and not a bank/wallet. As part of your long-term bitcoin plan you shouldn’t use an exchange to store your coins.”

Customer refunds

Though Keeper wrote enthusiastically about his company’s need for such fees, he did acknowledge that CAVIRTEX did not communicate the policy change effectively and that this caused understandable frustration within the community.

Kemper wrote:

“The way we implemented this was terrible, and we apologize. We didn’t communicate it properly, we didn’t include proper alerting, and we didn’t test the system properly.”

Kemper continued by telling reddit that the company has since refunded select users, and stating that those who feel as though they were improperly charged can submit a complaint ticket to address their concerns.

Vibrant debate

Community reaction to the post ranged from warm to hostile, with users reporting varied experiences with and reactions to the company.

For example, some chose to take aim at CAVIRTEX for the lack of dividends they say were promised to investors, while others, though upset regarding past issues, were willing to provide the exchange with feedback and recommendations about how it could improve.

Support and communication were two of the most often cited areas where users said improvement was needed, though others took aim that the company’s current website.

CAVIRTEX hinted that updates to the site are forthcoming, and that a French version of the site is also in the works.

Company at crossroads

Despite its mixed reputation, CAVIRTEX has been one of the more successful crowdfunded bitcoin companies to emerge from a digital currency IPO, raising its initial funding on Havelock Investments and launching in March 2013. Along with competitor Vault of Satoshi, it is one of the more well-known exchanges serving the key North American market.

CAVIRTEX has also been among the more visible members in Canada’s bitcoin ecosystem, speaking before the Canadian Senate earlier this year alongside bitcoin ATM manufacturer BitAccess and advisory services firm Bitcoin Strategy Group.

For more on the company and its planned launch of ATM services, read our most recent report.

Image via CAVIRTEX

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June 05, 2014 at 09:50PM



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Google, Facebook et al: If You Really Cared About Freedom and Privacy [Time Machine]

This post was published on bitcoinmagazine.com on June 8th, 2013

The past few days we have seen shocking revelations from the sphere of digital communications. The Guardian published a leaked top-secret court order requiring Verizon to hand over the metadata (caller, receiver, time, location, duration) of all phone calls made through Verizon’s networks (and not tell anyone about the order’s existence), and the site also verified the authenticity of a leaked slide presentation about PRISM, a program through which the NSA was collecting data including emails, chat messages, photos and stored data from nine major corporations. The White House has now admitted this and President Obama himself has seen it fit to deliver a speech defending the surveillance. Much less recent, but equally shocking, is the fact that, as Business Insider reminds us, the US government has the right to demand the disclosure of any email more than six months old – no warrants required.

Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberg and other CEOs have rushed out to defend their companies against the more extreme allegations, saying that they have never heard of PRISM until today and reminding users of their strict commitment to only complying with those government requests that they are legally required to. One poster on Hacker News noticed that the defenses are all suspiciously similar, perhaps suggesting some kind of coordination either before or immediately after the leak. But this, while interesting, is beside the point; what these events show more than anything else is that, in this day and age, simply complying only with those court orders and subpoenas that follow the correct legal procedures and being open about as much as legally possible is not enough. This may seem absurd at first glance; it is obviously ridiculous to expect established large corporations to brazenly violate court orders and federal laws simply to preserve a few individuals’ privacy. But Google, Facebook and all of the other companies that run the critical technological infrastructure that we use today also have a third option: deliberately act to make their services mathematically unsubpoenable.

The way to do so is simple: keep minimal logs and, more importantly, use encryption wherever possible. Private messages inside services like Facebook should be actually private, encrypting every message sent with the recipient’s public key on the client side. Browser-based Javsacript cryptography today has plenty of weaknesses, but Google, with its heavy influence over Firefox and Chrome, is in the prime position to fix many of the issues by pushing for a standardized set of cryptography tools to be included in all browsers. Email encryption and signing will take a massive leap forward if Google enables it internally for Gmail-to-Gmail emails by default. Google should back down on its decision to move away from open protocols like XMPP, and focus on creating a powerful chat and hangout protocol suited for the modern web, with encryption mechanisms like OTR built-in from the start.

These suggestions are certainly radical; they go against what has so far been the dominant philosophy of these corporations, that of gathering as much data as possible to maximize advertising revenue. However, technology is bringing about an age of extremes, and “going dark” may be the only way we have to prevent society from losing the last traces of any privacy that it has left. Otherwise, services like Mega are rapidly picking up speed, with Mega itself expressing an implicit intent to become “the privacy company”, and decentralized approaches like Bitcoin and BitMessage are gaining strength weekly. The internet has brought us the first great wave of unprecedented global freedom, and companies like Google and the telecom industry were instrumental in making that happen. Now, either join us or we will continue the revolution without you.

June 05, 2014 at 09:04PM



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Brazil World Cup Gets Unique Bitcoin Bookies

A unique Bitcoin betting service for the Brazilian World Cup 2014 has launched, with a unique approach for the gambling world: Bitcoin bookies.

Bitkup, which offers home-grown sweepstakes for the tournament due to kick off in two weeks’ time, is setting itself apart from traditional services both in its structure and hard figures, while its creator envisages universal appeal:

“We created Bitkup with the main objective of disseminating Bitcoin interest beyond enthusiasts and providing the currency to people that just want to have fun and want to try their luck with predictions for the World Cup in Brazil 2014.”

This whole approach was conceived by independent developers with a passion for the new Bitcoin currency and football. Bitkup.com was created for the enjoyment and the popularization of this incredible technology.

The world of sport betting has become searingly competitive, particularly for major international events. Perhaps in an attempt to counter this and provide an attractive alternative for non-Bitcoiners, Bitkup is offering an initial buy-in of 0.05BTC. Interestingly, this fee represents a one-off payment, after which players can bet on all the games in the World Cup.

The low cost does not mean lax regulation, however, something which Fring is keen to reiterate:

“We have a policy of transparency and very tight security. To ensure the transparency of all participants, each user can follow each other’s betting history from past games that have happened at that moment.”

Bitkup’s rewards are similarly transparent, as perhaps would be expected. A total of 20 winners will receive a portion of the jackpot ranging from 50% for first place to approximately 1.3% for those coming between fourth and twentieth.

The financial buy-in and jackpot refer to Bitkup’s PRO League service, while the Free League running concurrently will allow those who would rather not part with their cash to play for fun.

It would be difficult to imagine a setup more unlike traditional gambling, where privacy is key, to be alluring for potential risk-takers. Whether an open-format community will attract the desired lay fans thus remains to be seen. Developers are confident of the initial scheme’s credentials, however, and are already considering their next move.

Fring notes:

“We do have plans for the future and will possibly incorporate other international sports competitions.”

All the bets are redirected to a public address (wallet) of the Blockchain portal which can be visualized at any point of time following a link.

All bets are entirely deposited in that wallet, without charging our implementation fee of 0.01 BTC of the platform. At the end of the competition each person will receive their share, including the team at Bitkup.com to pay for the costs of implementation, server and others.

The developers assure users that backups of all data are made regularly and the whole system is equipped with safety mechanisms which guarantee the integrity of all the information.

There is also the option to register in the platform for free. The user will automatically take part in the free Bitkup League, competing just for fun, with no options of winning the BITPOT accumulated prize.

June 05, 2014 at 04:14PM



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Simon’s Hot Dogs Becomes Sedona’s First Store Accepting Bitcoin

Sonoran Cousin at Simon’s Hot Dogs

PRLog (Press Release) – Jun. 3, 2014 – SEDONA, Ariz. – .

Simon’s Hot Dogs (http://ift.tt/1m8PNZT) , famous for its culinary hot dogs announced it is now accepting bitcoin payments, becoming the first Sedona store to accept the new digital currency. Sedona is one of the top ten natural beauty tourist’s destination in the United States and is less than two hours north of Phoenix, Arizona. It is a common destination for people who want to experience the beauty of the Sedona Red Rocks and visit the Grand Canyon.

Simon’s Hot Dogs is an award winning gourmet beef and vegetarian hot dog store nested in Sedona that is recognized for its famous Colombian style hot dogs, which include fancy toppings, such as pineapple with crushed potato chips and mozzarella, or the Tokyo Madness with Teriyaki onions, Wasabi Mayo and Toasted Sushi Nori. Simon Hot Dogs is using the Coinbase merchant payment application to process its transactions.

“We decided to start taking bitcoin payments because we want to support this nascent technology, which we believe can transform the world, it is really easy and secure to use”, said Felipe Roldan, Manager of Simon’s Hot Dogs, “and also because customer and business do not have to pay transactions fees, and that is a great deal for everybody.”

During the month of June Simon’s Hot Dogs will be offering 25 percent discount in all their menu when pay with Bitcoin.

Contact

Marcela Roldan

***@simonshotdogs.net

Photo:

http://www.prlog.org/ 12332095/1

June 04, 2014 at 12:03AM

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June 04, 2014 at 03:00AM



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Eric Voorhees Faces $50,000 Fine Over Unauthorized Securities Sale

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has formally charged and settled with serial bitcoin entrepreneur Eric Voorhees for the public offering of securities without registering with the federal government.

The settlement bans Voorhees from making a bitcoin security offering for the next five years, according to an official SEC release. He must also relinquish profits totalling $15,843.98, as well as pay a penalty of $35,000.

The case stems from Voorhees’ solicitation of shares in two of his bitcoin-related ventures, SatoshiDICE and FeedZeBirds, which according to the SEC took place between 2012 and 2013. The SEC began investigating SatoshiDICE earlier this year.

SEC Division of Enforcement director Andrew Ceresney reiterated that entrepreneurs need to remember that the agency’s regulations still apply to bitcoin-related ventures, saying:

“All issuers selling securities to the public must comply with the registration provisions of the securities laws, including issuers who seek to raise funds using bitcoin.”

Ceresney added that the SEC will “continue to focus” on targeting companies that illegally offer securities for bitcoin investments.

Findings point to unsanctioned securities offering

According to the SEC, Voorhees was found to have violated sections of the Securities Act of 1933. He was accused of using online forums and social media platforms like Facebook to solicit investors between 2012 and 2013.

Voorhees raised more than 50,000 bitcoins from investors, although he later conducted a buy-back transaction in July 2013 which returned 45,500 bitcoins to investors.

It was during this period, the SEC reported, that Voorhees actively engaged in unlawful securities activity without federal approval.

The SEC findings noted:

“The first unregistered offering was explicitly referred to as the ‘FeedZeBirds IPO’. Despite these general solicitations, no registration statement was filed for the FeedZeBirds or SatoshiDICE offerings, and no exemption from registration was applicable to these transactions.”

Notably, Voorhees agreed to cease and desist without conceding or denying the SEC’s findings. CoinDesk has reached out to Voorhees for comment but has not received a reply at press time.

SEC sharpening tone against bitcoin?

The SEC charges against Voorhees represent one of the most high-profile cases against a bitcoin entrepreneur for securities violations to date.

Previously, the SEC had hinted that it was only investigating bitcoin and companies in the ecosystem in a bid to warn investors about the dangers of investing in digital currencies.

In May, the federal agency released an investor alert, citing the high risk of investment fraud and the prevalence of bitcoin-related scams that target unsuspecting consumers.

At the time, the SEC said:

“Potential investors can be easily enticed with the promise of high returns in a new investment space and also may be less skeptical when assessing something novel, new and cutting-edge.”

Image via Wikipedia

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June 03, 2014 at 06:21PM



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CoinGecko: Buy, Sell or Hold

Just got dumped?

We all know the feeling: you read an article promising wonders, getting all pumped up and then…

Well, the one thing that nerds love, data, is helping to solve this social problem when it comes to getting dumped in the world of alternative currencies.

In an era of numerous altcoins, deciding which ones are a buy, sell or hold can become an arduous task for an individual. Thankfully, your life is about to become a lot easier thanks to CoinGecko.

CoinGecko is cryptocurrency ranking and evaluation site that breaks down quantitative and qualitative data for a number of different metrics. The metrics used include items such as Twitter followers, Reddit subscribers, coin community, the cost of a 51% attack, the number of developers working on the coin and much more to provide an overall score of the coin and a rating for each category.

You would not believe all the meticulous sorts of data that can be used to determine a coin’s value. No need to do that though, CoinGecko illustrates this data in a clean user interface and nice graphs and now CoinGecko has an alpha version of their dashboard (below).

The story of CoinGecko starts with its founders, Bobby Ong and TM Lee. Bobby is a University College London Economics graduate while TM Lee is a Purdue University Computer Science graduate. At UCL, Bobby learned all about financial stability and prevention of bank runs with federal deposit insurance schemes. However, as Bobby saw with Cyprus in 2013, “the trust between government and savers can be broken when depositors are forced to take a haircut on their savings.”

This one incident got Bobby thinking about Bitcoin and how there is some sort of inherent “underlying utility to this sort of digital asset.” But after getting involved in Bitcoin, Bobby got lost in a sea of altcoins.

Bobby and TM, like a lot of people, read some articles about this and that altcoin, and they bought some coins on “gut feeling” without doing much research.

“Some purchases did well, but some did pretty bad.”

Bobby learned more about trading strategies on cryptocurrencies and found that there are “several fundamental reasons why certain altcoins may hold good value in the mid/long term. The basic idea goes along the line of technical innovation, community strength and developer team.”

Dogecoin, what a joke Bobby once thought: “Who would buy into a me-too copy with dogs.”

What Bobby failed to realize was that Dogecoin had a great community supporting it and developers working hard to see it succeed.

“I decided to dig deep into the Dogecoin community numbers and found out that they are pretty impressive. Looking at the Dogecoin subreddit and how active the community members there, I became an instant Dogecoin convert and started mining Dogecoin myself.”

Realizing what he had missed out, it came to him.

“I thought that it would be a good idea to collect all this information to rank and benchmark other cryptocurrencies.”

Bobby went to his friend, TM who had also missed out on the Dogecoin phenomena and they decided to give this idea a whirl. Since then the two have been making better trades.

“We wanted to help people make more quantitative decisions before buying cryptocurrencies and help provide a 360 degree overview by looking at a lot more metrics.”

Since CoinGecko launched in April it has already gotten a lot of positive feedback on Reddit and bitcointalk forum. It was already a top post on the Dogecoin reddit thread. The interface is easy to use with information presented clearly.

There is still a lot going on for CoinGecko; they are adding new coins and metrics every week to get a more comprehensive view of each coin compared to others. Maybe they will even add live charts to make it the perfect investment tool, but hey, who knows?

June 03, 2014 at 06:21PM



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50 Cent Catches the Bitcoin Bug

50 Cent announced today that he will sell his new album Animal Ambition for bitcoin through BitPay. As 50 Cent will not be the only artist interested in providing bitcoin as a payment option, BitPay makes it easy for artists to accept bitcoin. 50 Cent is using a Shopify store to sell his latest album and can, through BitPay’s partnership with Shopify, accept payment in bitcoin.

There could not be a better combination of innovation in music and payment. We look forward to seeing which other musicians follow suite. With 50 Cent as the first large independent artist to accept bitcoin as a payment and Tatiana Moroz’s recent launch of her artist coin, we can expect many more musicians to recognize the promise of cryptocurrency in payment for and promotion of their work.

BitPay issued the following press release:

Animal Ambition from 50 Cent will be available for purchase using Bitcoin

ATLANTA, GA — June 3, 2014 — BitPay, world leader in business solutions for the Bitcoin digital currency announces today that 50 Cent’s new album Animal Ambition can be purchased at http://shop.50cent.com with bitcoin.

BitPay makes it easy for artists to accept bitcoin as a form of payment. When a customer checks out of 50’s Shopify store and chooses the option to pay in bitcoin, BitPay processes the transaction accepting the bitcoin from the customer and letting the merchant know the order had been paid. BitPay settles the next business day and offers the merchant the option of depositing dollars, bitcoins or a percentage split between the two.

“We are excited to see high profile independent artists use bitcoin and 50 Cent’s trail as an innovator is outstanding” said Tony Gallippi, Executive Chairman of BitPay.”

As one of hip hop’s most prolific artists, 50 Cent has sold over 30 million records worldwide and is one of rap’s most successful businessmen with SMS Audio, SK Energy, and SMS Promotions among his ventures.

About BitPay

BitPay is a Payment Service Provider (PSP) specializing in eCommerce, B2B, and enterprise solutions for the Bitcoin digital currency.

Contacts:

BitPay

Jan Jahosky

(404) 331-4699

jan@bitpay.com

June 03, 2014 at 05:43PM



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