Saturday, May 11, 2013

Ed and Ethan's Bitcoin cast #12

Ed and Ethan's Bitcoin cast #12


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Keiser Report: Virgin Bitcoin vs Old Hag Pound (E443, ft. Frankie Boyle)

In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss the currency of an independent Scotland. Max argues that bitcoin will force the banking system to reinvent itself or die, for what can be more of an invisible hand but a cryptologically guarded, invisible currency. In the second half, Max talks to Glaswegian comedian, Frankie Boyle, about Scottish independence, Boris Johnson, the mainstream media, being semi-banned from the BBC and about George Osborne's Help to Buy housing scheme being like eating toilet tissue while trapped in a loveless marriage caused by negative equity.

FOLLOW Max Keiser on Twitter: http://twitter.com/maxkeiser

Keiser Report: Virgin Bitcoin vs Old Hag Pound (E443, ft. Frankie Boyle)

Let’s Talk #Bitcoin Episode 006 - “Cyprus & Serendipity”

letstalkbitcoin.com / By Adam Levine / May 10, 2013.



Each episode takes about 10 hours to produce, please support the show if you like what we’re doing.

If you’d like to support Michael Hill’s Cypriot Bitcoin Project, you may donate to him here. Bitcoins for Cyprus 0.24000 Donations will be used to print informational material (posters, leaflets, ads) about Bitcoin and the Bitcoin Forum.

Hosts:
Adam B. Levine
Stephanie Murphy, PhD
Andreas M. Antonopoulos

Shownotes for Episode 5 – “Communication is Key”

  • The Forbes Meetup & Andreas
  • The Smallest ASIC Miners yet! Is it worth your time?
  • Michael Hill on Bitcoin and the Cypriot Calamity
  • Making History – Satoshi’s Square & The Cafe Meetups that became the Stock Exchange
  • Bad Actors on the Blockchain – Busting Myths & Rumors
  • The Distinguished Jeffrey Tucker  on the Serendipity of Bitcoin, and his journey from Skeptic to Enthusiast

Bitcoin – to regulate or not to regulate? And by whom?

Bitcoin – to regulate or not to regulate And by whom - asicminer, asic miner, free bitcoins, best free bitcoin 2013, free bitcoin list, bitcoin atm, terrahash mining
BY SANDRA KILHOF NIELSEN PUBLISHED 08 MAY 2013 8:48. The virtual currency Bitcoin has pretty much taken the world by storm since it’s launch in 2009. With impressive value growth, the currency has quickly become a popular choice for traders and investors. Some have even suggested that the Bitcoin and other virtual currencies could be the saving grace for countries in dire economic straits.

In March, the world’s first Bitcoin ATM was opened on Cyprus after banks had been closed for a week. The ATM allows customers to deposit “real money” into a Bitcoin ATM in exchange for bitcoins and vice versa – making the virtual currency, a very real option for those who didn’t have access to money during the Cypriot crisis.

So seemingly, the cyber-currency seems to be taking off. Stateless and bankless, Bitcoins are not subject to regulation or fees, and therefore enjoy extreme volatility, according to its proponents. But according to regulators, this is exactly the problem. - Read more here: http://www.newstatesman.com/business/2013/05/bitcoin-%E2%80%93-regulate-or-not-regulate

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Users plead Apple for Bitcoin wallets

Users plead Apple for Bitcoin wallets - asicminer, asic miner, free bitcoins, best free bitcoin 2013, free bitcoin list, bitcoin atm, terrahash mining
Published On May 10, 2013 at 10:53 | By John Oates. An aggrieved user has started a petition to force Apple to approve bitcoin wallet applications for its shiny iPhones.

San Francisco gent Joshua Seims has started the petition on change.org to request Apple change its policy.

The petition says:

“To:
Apple
Please allow Bitcoin wallets on the iPhone. Read more here: http://www.coindesk.com/users-plead-apple-for-bitcoin-wallets

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Why Apple Is Afraid Of Bitcoin



Amazingly Best list of Free Bitcoins Websites | You can find more information about Bitcoin Mining here: ASIC Bitcoin Mining - News and Information

Absolutely Fantastic Documentary on Money and Wealth: The One Percent - Jamie Johnson Documentary

This 80-minute documentary focuses on the growing "wealth gap" in America, as seen through the eyes of filmmaker Jamie Johnson, a 27-year-old heir to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical fortune. Johnson, who cut his film teeth at NYU and made the Emmy®-nominated 2003 HBO documentary Born Rich, here sets his sights on exploring the political, moral and emotional rationale that enables a tiny percentage of Americans - the one percent - to control nearly half the wealth of the entire United States. The film Includes interviews with Nicole Buffett, Bill Gates Sr., Adnan Khashoggi, Milton Friedman, Robert Reich, Ralph Nader and other luminaries.

The One Percent is a 2006 documentary about the growing wealth gap between America's wealthy elite compared to the overall citizenry. It was created by Jamie Johnson, an heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune, and produced by Jamie Johnson and Nick Kurzon. The film's title refers to the top one percent of Americans in terms of wealth, who controlled 42.2 percent of total financial wealth in 2004

In this hard-hitting but humorous documentary, director Jamie Johnson takes the exploration of wealth that he began in Born Rich one step further. The One Percent, refers to the tiny percentage of Americans who control nearly half the wealth of the U.S. Johnson's thesis is that this wealth in the hands of so few people is a danger to our very way of life. Johnson captures his story through personal interviews with Robert Reich, Adnan Khashoggi, Bill Gates Sr., and Steve Forbes, during which both Johnson's and his subjects' knowledge and humor shine. And he's not afraid to butt heads with Milton Friedman, the economist who coined the term "the trickledown effect."

He also shows how the other half lives, using real-world examples of the wealth gap: he takes a tour of a dilapidated housing project in Chicago, rides around with an enlightened taxi driver, and sees the human toll of the unfair economics of the Florida sugar industry. Johnson's film is at its most powerful when it reveals how the super-rich work to preserve their own monetary dominance. As a member of the "Johnson & Johnson" family, he gets rare access to an exclusive wealth conference at which the über rich learn strategies for preserving their fortunes, and learns the personal management styles of some of the countries wealthiest employers. No great society has survived such a massive wealth gap; who knows if ours will? Written by Schafer, Nancy

Absolutely Fantastic Documentary on Money and Wealth: The One Percent - Jamie Johnson Documentary

Bitcoin Now Accepted Almost Everywhere (video)

Bitcoin Now Accepted Almost Everywhere (video)

Friday, May 10, 2013

Humble Bundle now accepts the Bitcoin digital currency

Humble Bundle now accepts the Bitcoin digital currency - asicminer, asic miner, free bitcoins, best free bitcoin 2013, free bitcoin list, bitcoin atm, terrahash mining
May 9, 2013 1:48 PM Jeffrey Grubb. The future is now. We have heads-up displays on our glasses, and we can buy things with virtual spacebucks.

Today, those spacebucks just got a little more real because the Humble Bundle revealed it will accept the Bitcoin digital currency as a payment option for its Double Fine collection. Humble Bundle is an organization that sells packages of games to consumers under a name-your-price model. The group then splits the funds with developers, charities, and nonprofits.

“Buying a bundle using Bitcoins is as easy as using our other payment processors, [like] PayPal, Amazon Payments, and Google Wallet,” Humble Bundle spokesperson Joshua Knoles wrote in a statement. “Simply name your price for a bundle and select ‘Pay with Bitcoin’ when checking out, and you’ll be well on your way to playing some truly double fine Double Fine games.” Read more here: http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/09/humble-bundle-now-accepts-the-bitcoin-digital-currency

Bitcoin is a trillion dollars deal

Bitcoin is tailor-made for tax evasion, money laundering, and hard-to-trace transactions, and these things cause problems for governments (and for regular people, too). But there’s already tons of that stuff going on anyway through various means (and on a much larger scale than Bitcoin – to the tune of trillions every year), and while it makes the state work less well in the places where it’s very widespread, it is no threat to its existence.

Has the Mafia ever indicated that it will cause New York or Las Vegas to cease to be? It’s a bit of a side question – but what share of crimes committed within its borders do you think a typical “liberal state” actually detects? 10%? 5%? Contrary to a lot of rhetoric you hear these days, most governments, including the government of the United States, are not iron-fisted dictatorships, but instead exist as a web of institutions that people tend to adhere to willingly, and that have to be able to bounce back from a _lot_ of failure in order to persist for any length of time.

Anyway, the question is whether a crypto-currency can become such a large share of the transactions within a country that it becomes difficult for the government to conduct activities like taxation on a large scale. And that most likely isn’t going to be a problem, because if crypto-currencies scale up (which is debatable), they will probably scale up through a three-step process - Read more here: http://www.insidermediagroup.com/bitcoin-trillion/

One good reason to accept Bitcoins: It screws credit card companies

One good reason to accept Bitcoins It screws credit card companies - New Bitcoin World, Latest Bitcoin News, ASIC Miner news, Free Bitcoins Info, BTC, LTC Litecoin, economics behind bitcoin
BY ADAM L. PENENBERGON MAY 9, 2013 Seemingly every week, you come across news stories and press releases from restaurants, bars, dating sites, domain registration, and other services announcing that they have begun accepting Bitcoins. It reminds me of the early days of e-commerce, when companies would trumpet that they had a website, and mid-90s TV news anchors would stumble over the URLs, usually butchering the www part of addresses: “double-u-dub-ya-dot…”

Despite mad fluctuations in value, the threat of digital theft, inconvenience of purchasing them, dearth of places where you can spend them, and ties to sleazy underground marketplaces where drugs are sold, a growing number of establishments are adopting Bitcoins as a mode of payment. Their reasons vary. Some recognize a cheap marketing opportunity, a way to seem cutting edge. Others are companies run by early adopters who love technology, intrigued by the promise this completely virtual currency born of cryptography offers.

But there’s also an economic argument: Accepting Bitcoins is like telling usurious credit card companies to go to hell.

It’s well known that consumers despise credit card companies. One survey ranked credit card companies first in its “Hall of Shame,” followed by banks, cable providers, mobile phone carriers, and insurance companies as industries consumers most loathe. Consumer Reports claims that credit cards are one of the lowest-rated services on which the magazine has ever shined its klieg lights. But the people who use credit cards aren’t the only ones to detest these companies. So do, by and large, merchants. - Read more here: http://pandodaily.com/2013/05/09/one-good-reason-to-accept-bitcoins-it-screws-credit-card-companies



Amazingly Best list of Free Bitcoins Websites | You can find more information about Bitcoin Mining here: ASIC Bitcoin Mining - News and Information

Bitcoin Primer: What You Need to Know About the New Virtual Currency

Bitcoin Primer What You Need to Know About the New Virtual Currency - New Bitcoin World, Latest Bitcoin News, Free Bitcoins, ASIC Bitcoin mining, Litecoin
Bitcoin startups are beginning to raise sizable investment capital even as industry leaders warn that hackers are abusing the Internet virtual currency for profit. Supporters of Bitcoin say it offers anonymity and a cheap way to transact business across borders. But critics say Bitcoin faces so many regulatory and technical hurdles it will never mature into a mainstream currency. Here’s what you need to know:

What is Bitcoin?


It’s a virtual form of currency that can be used to make payments over the Internet without transaction fees or involving a financial institution. Each Bitcoin is subdivided into 100 million smaller units called satoshis, defined by eight decimal places.

Where does it come from?

Bitcoin was created in 2009 by a person or group that goes by the name Satoshi Nakamoto. A 2008 paper written by Nakamoto proposed the creation of a “peer-to-peer electronic cash system” that would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution. Instead of a trusted third party like a bank, Bitcoin creates trust through a cryptographic system.

How is it made?

Like gold, no central bank controls Bitcoin currency so governments can’t print or mint more of it. Using computers and complex software, people can “mine” Bitcoins by solving complex mathematical problems. If they solve the problem, they get Bitcoin. But since the process is so difficult most people just buy Bitcoin from various exchanges popping up. - Read more here: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/05/08/a-bitcoin-primer-what-you-need-to-know-about-the-new-virtual-currency


Amazingly Best list of Free Bitcoins Websites | You can find more information about Bitcoin Mining here: ASIC Bitcoin Mining - News and Information

Big Question: Is society ready for Bitcoin?

Is society ready for bitcoin - New Bitcoin World, Latest Bitcoin News, Litecoin mining, Free Bitcoins, ASIC Bitcoin Mining.jpg
Our society has been using digital money for years. Every time we pay online or with a mobile device, we are using a digital form of payment, though it is — ultimately — translated into dollars, euros, pounds or whatever currency we use to fund our bank accounts, PayPal accounts or credit cards.

The question is, Are we ready to take the next step in digital currency? That is, to use the digital medium itself as the measure and store of value, as well as the channel for exchange?
Some would answer with a resounding, “Yes.” The early adopters of bitcoin truly believe it is the wave of the future.

But for those who are present-oriented, the fact remains that you are still going to need some regular cash and credit cards to pay your way … as most businesses are not accepting bitcoin for payment yet. That could change over the next few years, of course, as forms of payment really do evolve over time.

Life before money


In the beginning, there was a world filled with various animate and inanimate objects, and people who found they could possess these things. Sometimes, people noticed they didn’t have in their possession something they wanted. Maybe Joe Stone-Age decided he would like to eat an egg … but realized he didn’t have any. If he didn’t care about maintaining peace and calm in his society, he could decide simply to take someone else’s egg. However, he could also propose to trade something he had in return for what he wanted. - Read more here: http://www.coindesk.com/is-society-ready-for-bitcoin/

Thursday, May 9, 2013

TruLite Industries, LLC Now Accepting Bitcoins For Purchases Of LED Grow Lights

TruLite Industries, LLC Now Accepting Bitcoins For Purchases Of LED Grow Lights - New Bitcoin World, Latest Bitcoin News, ASIC Mining News, Free Bitcoins Info, Litecoin GPU mining
Atlanta, GA (PRWEB) May 08, 2013: Add TruLite LED to the list of businesses accepting Bitcoin payments for online purchases. Now, buying LED grow lights online can be safe, secure, and anonymous.

TruLite Industries, LLC, operating through TruLiteLED.com, will now accept Bitcoin as a payment method for purchases of LED grow lights.

Businesses accepting Bitcoin cite growing demand and privacy concerns for online purchases and TruLite’s acceptance of Bitcoin is the first in the LED grow light industry. While a majority of their customers are individual & greenhouse growers of vegetables, herbs, and fruits, some are growers of cannabis in states where it is legal. - Read more here: http://bitcoinviews.com/trulite-industries-llc-now-accepting-bitcoins-for-purchases-of-led-grow-lights


Amazingly Best list of Free Bitcoins Websites | You can find more information about Bitcoin Mining here: ASIC Bitcoin Mining - News and Information

What is a Casascius coin?

A Casascius coin is the name of a certain type of physical – rather than purely digital — bitcoin. Mike Caldwell, a resident of Sandy, Utah, in the US, first introduced physical bitcoins for purchase in 2011. He coined the name “Casascius” from an acronym for “call a spade a spade.” Caldwell posts updates about his coins on the blog, “Casascius: You asked for change, I gave you coins.”

How does a Casascius work?

Each coin holds the key to the digital value assigned to a particular bitcoin account.
Though the coins are designed to reflect the relative worth of an account, they’re actually just secure containers for the digital information that unlocks the bitcoin’s value. The eight-character code on the outside of the coin corresponds to the first eight characters of an individual bitcoin address, which is assigned specifically to that coin. The individual bitcoin account’s “private key” is embedded on a card inside each coin.

The digital bitcoin, of course, is located online, found in the public “block chain” that records every bitcoin transaction on the internet. The digital coin connected to each Casascius is accessible only to the person who has the private key from the physical coin.
To spend a Casascius, the owner uses the code embedded into it to access the digital bitcoin online. The private key code can be imported directly into bitcoin clients or exchanges like Armory, Blockchain.info or Mt. Gox to deposit funds. Read more here: http://www.coindesk.com/whats-a-casascius-coin

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Creator of Casascius Coins: Dr. Ron Paul, Bitcoins really do fit in your pocket! May I explain?

Your Bitcoins Are Finally Worth Something

Your Bitcoins Are Finally Worth Something - New Bitcoin World, Latest Bitcoin News, Free Bitcoins info, ASIC Bitcoin mining, GPU Litecoin mining, BTC, LTC
Bitcoins are nominally worth $113 as of this very moment. That means very little in the real world. As Forbes writer Kasmir Hill notes, it’s pretty difficult to go up to the McDonald’s cashier and offer an invisible cryptocurrency that resides entirely on the Internet in exchange for a Big Mac. She’s survived a week using nothing but Bitcoins and, although she’s still alive, her experience wasn’t friction-free.

That’s changing. While I find most announcements that so-and-so website is now accepting Bitcoins to be little more than PR stunts, the fact that Gyft, a gift card site, is now accepting BTC is important. In essence, it allows Bitcoin users to turn their value into store credit and, more importantly, this credit can be spent at places you actually want to spend it. - Read more here: http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/09/your-bitcoins-are-finally-worth-something/

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What other digital currencies are there?

Bitcoin might currently be getting the lion’s share of media attention, as far as digital currencies go. But it’s not the only form of electronic money being mined, traded and spent. Let’s meet some of the other digital currencies making the rounds online: BBQCoin, ChinaCoin, DevCoin, FeatherCoin, GroupCoin, IxCoin, LiteCoin, NameCoin, NovaCoin, OpenCoin/Ripple, PPcoin, TerraCoin, Ven, Zen. - Read More here: http://www.coindesk.com/what-other-digital-currencies-are-there/

21 Things I Learned About Bitcoin From Living On It For A Week

1. It is possible to live on Bitcoin in San Francisco for a week. It cost me about 4.85 Bitcoins. I sometimes had to live on the fringes to get by.

2. It is only recently possible to live on Bitcoin for a week. Three of the four merchants I relied on for my most basic need – food – only started accepting Bitcoin in the last month.

3. It would have been much easier to do my experiment in Berlin. I could have just hung out all week in Kreuzberg, a neighborhood with the highest concentration of merchants accepting Bitcoin, including, importantly, a bar.

4. It’s disconcerting to live on Bitcoin with the currency volatility. The buying power of my little 5 Bitcoin bank has fluctuated wildly since I created it, from a BTC valuation high of $140 USD to a low of $90 USD. I bought 28 mini-cupcakes at the low point for .5896 BTC. They were $56 at the time (which is already crazy). Reevaluating at BTC’s high point, I spent $86 on cupcakes. My expense report is going to be a nightmare. Bitcoin will not be able to stabilize as a currency until there are more places that list their prices in Bitcoin.

5. It’s hard to convince someone who has never heard of Bitcoin before to accept it as payment. You can simply choose to walk away from the person who won’t accept Bitcoin payment, but that is hard to do when the person is your landlord. - Read more here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/05/09/25-things-i-learned-about-bitcoin-from-living-on-it-for-a-week/

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Silicon Valley Startup to Sell ASIC Based Bitcoin Mining Equipment

Silicon Valley Startup to Sell ASIC Based Bitcoin Mining Equipment - ASIC Bitcoin Mining, BTC, ASIC Bitcoin News, Free bitcoins
TerraHash, a Silicon Valley based startup company, announced today that it will start selling ASIC based Bitcoin mining equipment based on BitSyncom's Avalon ASIC chip.

(PRWEB) May 07, 2013 TerraHash (http://www.terrahash.com), a Silicon Valley based startup company, announced today that it will start selling ASIC based Bitcoin mining equipment in the near future. The company's equipment will be based on an ASIC chip developed and sold by another company called BitSyncom. BitSyncom is one of the first few companies to have successfully developed an ASIC for Bitcoin mining. BitSyncom's ASIC chip is known as Avalon.

Bitcoin is a decentralized virtual currency that is not controlled by any central authority but is based on a peer-2-peer network. First described in a 2008 paper by pseudonymous developer Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin has recently gained huge popularity. Bitcoins are mined on ordinary computers processing transactions on the network. Bitcoins are designed to be finite in number, and with time it gets harder and harder to find more coins. The faster a computer is, the higher the probability that it will find Bitcoins. Starting with CPUs (Central Processing Unit), the miners slowly graduated to GPUs (Graphics Processing Unit), which were an order of magnitude faster than the CPUs.

Slowly the network difficulty caught up, and the miners began migrating to FPGAs (Field-Programmable Gate Array), which were an order of magnitude faster than GPUs. Recently the network difficulty has gone very high, and it is no longer feasible to mine with CPUs or GPUs and even the FPGAs barely break even. ASICs (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) are the end of the road for technological advancement in Bitcoin mining, and they are an order of magnitude faster than FPGAs. Although the current ASICs do not exploit the latest technology, and there is still some room for improvement. There is a speculation in the community that quantum computers might throw everything off the rails, but quantum computing technology is still in a fledgling stage and it may take decades before quantum computers start appearing on work desks - Read more: http://www.asicbitcoinmining.info/2013/05/silicon-valley-startup-to-sell-asic.html

Powerful mining machines are changing the nature of the popular cryptocurrency

Powerful mining machines are changing the nature of the popular cryptocurrency - ASIC Bitcoin Mining, Bitcoin News, Mining Bitcoins for Free - Pyramining
Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency powered by a decentralized peer-to-peer network of computers, has been hot this season. With the exchange rate bobbling around US $100, those involved in creating new bitcoins—and upholding the network that makes them valuable—have become locked in an arms race of sorts, seeking new, powerful machines that will enrich them but could also destabilize the nascent virtual money.

Bitcoins exist only as records on a virtual ledger that’s shared over a global peer-to-peer network, each node of which must agree to changes in the accounting—payments or receipt of payments. Arriving at this consensus takes massive amounts of computing power.

You can use your bitcoins even if you’re not plugged into the network that runs the operation, but there is a strong incentive to help out. At an average of once every 10 minutes, the software spits out a handful of newly minted bitcoins to one computer, as a kind of lottery payment to the people (referred to as “miners”) who run it. The way you enter this lottery is by solving “hashes,” trivial functions that reformulate meaningful data sets into unique strings of letters and numbers. Each time a computer completes a hash, it’s as if it has filled out another lottery ticket, choosing the numbers and hoping they match up. Only a specific hash will be accepted, and the first computer to find the right one gets the prize.

However, there’s one more feature in Bitcoin that controls the profitability of mining. “It has everything to do with difficulty,” says Jeff Garzik, one of the core developers of Bitcoin. As the hashing power of all the combined computers increases, it becomes less likely that a particular machine will compute the right answer. In the lottery example, this would be like making people choose more numbers on a ticket. And if the hashing power goes back down, so too does the difficulty.

As the price of a bitcoin has gone up, more people have been building and buying dedicated machines they call “mining rigs” and driven the hash rate higher. Back in January, when miners were getting less than $20 for their bitcoins at the online exchanges, the hash rate was around 25 000 billion hashes per second. At the rate of participation on 2 May, the network computed 69 123 billion hashes per second. - Read more here: http://www.asicbitcoinmining.info/2013/05/powerful-mining-machines-are-changing.html

The Future of Bitcoin and Rebuilding the Financial System (video lecture)

Mike Hearn discusses "The future of Bitcoin: new applications and rebuilding the banking system" at the London Bitcoin Conference 2012.

Bitcoin 2012 London: Mike Hearn

To Mine Bitcoins or Not to Mine Bitcoins? | Plan B 5

We answer your Mining questions, and face reality: difficulty is up, ASICs are hitting the market, and it's getting hot outside. Should you still mine bitcoin?

Plus the surge in alternative crypto-currencies, ESEA League's DRM slips in a bitcoin miner, new regulators looking at bitcoin, and a Bitcoin health check.
To Mine Bitcoins or Not to Mine Bitcoins? | Plan B 5

CoinMama: World’s First Service Allowing the Purchase of Bitcoins with PayPal

CoinMama - World’s First Service Allowing the Purchase of Bitcoins with PayPal - New Bitcoin World, Bitcoin News, Litecoin News, ASIC Mining News, Free Bitcoins, Mining Bitcoins for Free - Pyramining
“I think these guys have finally cracked it with regard to easily and securely buying BTC’s & LTC’s – Great concept…..” – Derek N.

A new website called CoinMama is the world’s first service allowing safe and easy purchase of the virtual currency Bitcoin.

While Bitcoin, the new decentralized digital currency, is gaining more and more popularity, it is still relatively difficult to become the happy owner of a single digital coin.

The Bitcoin exchanges require account funding by processing international wire transfers to bank accounts in exotic countries, and additionally the process costs time, money, and offers zero protection.

The other alternative is finding Bitcoin sellers online and paying them, hoping to get the desired digital coin.

Needless to say, the anonymous nature of this digital currency attracts a lot of scammers and almost 1/3 of the transactions are frauds.

CoinMama is aiming to change that reality:

“We created a platform that allows the safe and secure purchase of Bitcoins using PayPal, saves time and effort, and basically allows everyone to take part in the Bitcoin madness,” says Jack Nill, Marketing manager at CoinMama. - Read more here: http://bitcoinviews.com/coinmama-worlds-first-service-allowing-the-purchase-of-bitcoins-with-paypal/


Amazingly Best list of Free Bitcoins Websites | You can find more information about Bitcoin Mining here: ASIC Bitcoin Mining - News and Information

BitcoinATM World Debut. Gold Silver Bitcoin co-founder displays working BitcoinATM

Evan Rose, CEO of BitcoinATM and co-founder of http://goldsilverbitcoin.com talks about his ATM machine and its capabilities to revolutionize how people can buy and sell Bitcoin.

BitcoinATM World Debut. Gold Silver Bitcoin co-founder displays working BitcoinATM


BitcoinATM world debut part 2

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Bitcoin Startups Begin to Attract Real Cash

Bitcoin Startups Begin to Attract Real Cash - New Bitcoin World, Bitcoin News, Free Bitcoins, ASIC Bitcoin Mining
Bitcoin startups are beginning to raise sizable investment capital even as industry leaders warn that hackers are abusing the Internet virtual currency for profit.

In the past year, fledgling businesses Coinbase Inc., Coinsetter Inc. and CoinLab Inc. have raised millions of dollars collectively from prominent venture-capital firms and angel investors, adding credibility to a digital currency that isn’t backed by a central bank.

On Wednesday, Bitcoin, which can be used to make payments over the Internet without transaction fees or involving a financial institution, is expected to win its biggest validation to date with a $5 million investment in San Francisco-based Coinbase led by Twitter Inc. investor Union Square Ventures.

That investment would top last month’s more than $2 million put into OpenCoin Inc., another virtual currency startup whose backers include venture firm Andreessen Horowitz.

“This is going to be a trigger point,” said Union Square managing partner Fred Wilson of the Coinbase investment. “You’ll see lot more venture money being poured into this space.”

Coinbase operates an online service that allows users to buy Bitcoin, store the virtual currency in a digital wallet and pay merchants for goods or services with it. The company was founded last year by Fred Ehrsam, a 24-year-old former Goldman Sachs trader, and 30-year-old Brian Armstrong, previously an engineer at short-term rental startup Airbnb.

In April, the Coinbase co-founders said the company had about 116,000 members who converted $15 million of real money into Bitcoin, up from $1 million in January. Mr. Ehrsam said its dollar conversions are increasing by about 15% a week, and its user base is growing at a weekly rate of about 12%. - Read more here: http://stream.wsj.com/story/latest-headlines/SS-2-63399/SS-2-227783/

Bitcoin startups are beginning to raise sizable investment capital even as industry leaders warn that hackers are abusing the Internet virtual currency for profit.

Why Bitcoin Is Being Taken Seriously

Wary of Bitcoin? A guide to some other cryptocurrencies

It might have passed you by, but an essential part of the internet's infrastructure took a heavy knock last week. The Silk Road -- you know, " the website where you can buy any drug imaginable" -- was subjected to a series of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

Calling the Silk Road "essential" might seem an exaggeration, but it won't be if you're one of its many regular users. Nor if you're a regular user of Bitcoin -- its journey to mainstream acceptance began with the Silk Road, being as it is perfect for anonymous, untraceable transactions (as long as you're careful not to make your identity obvious, of course).

Right now, Bitcoin is undeniably a mainstream currency, even if it is not necessarily popular in the sense of being used by a significant proportion of society. That is, it is viewed as a legitimate method of payment, and a legitimate asset, by the people who matter in these issues -- CNBC has it as a ticker on its website, for example, and there's a Bitcoin hedge fund in Malta.

That isn't to say it doesn't have issues, though. The Bitcoin bubble was a fascinating game of musical chairs played out over several months -- everyone knew the music would stop, but nobody wanted to guess when that might be while there was easy money to be made. Also, DDoS attacks have been incredibly effective at manipulating Bitcoin's value. Closing a large exchange like Mt Gox, even if only for a few hours at a time, could cause enough of a price fluctuation for canny hackers to buy low and sell high at their own whim. - Read more here: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-05/7/alternative-cryptocurrencies-guide

Living On Bitcoin For A Week: Bitcoin Is The Internet Applied To Money (And I Survived It)

Day 7. Monday is the last day of Bitcoin living and it’s off to an exhausting start. My first night in the Bitcoin-paid hostel was not especially restful due to noise filtering in from Mission Street and my body’s usual skepticism about an unfamiliar bed. I have plans to meet with security researcher Dan Kaminsky in the Mission in the afternoon so it would be silly to head to the office. I’d love to go to a cafe to work but none in the area take Bitcoin. I don’t think I can take Bitcoin seriously as a currency until tech-forward San Francisco has at least one BTC-friendly coffee shop.

20 Mission has Wi-Fi. I place a Skype call to Pyry Lehdonvirta who is in Helsinki. He is the 29-year-old CEO of SC5, a Finnish HTML5 software developer that started paying 20 of its full-time employees partially in Bitcoin last October when Bitcoin was valued at $40 USD.
“The increase in [BTC’s] value has been bad for us,” says Lehdonvirta. “It has paralyzed our experiment. You can’t spend them because it’s changing around too rapidly. We haven’t stopped using it, but it’s turned into this currency game.”

Lehdonvirta traded most of his own Bitcoin when the price spiked to over $250 USD.

“We are willing to accept Bitcoin as payment. We want to be part of an ecosystem, but the fluctuating currency rates are a problem,” he says. The security of Bitcoin payments appeal to his company. “Banks and credit cards are not very secure. If someone steals someone’s credit card, it’s easy to use it and commit fraud. Fraud is much harder with Bitcoin.”

Bitcoin was on Lehdonvirta’s radar very early, in part because his economist brother, Vili Lehdonvirta, was fingered by the New Yorker as one of two people who might be the true identity behind Satoshi Nakamoto, the person(s) who invented Bitcoin. (Both brothers call the guess wildly incorrect.) - Read more here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/05/07/living-on-bitcoin-for-a-week-bitcoin-is-the-internet-applied-to-money-and-i-survived-it

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Living On Bitcoin For A Week: The Bitcoin Diet - Day 3
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Living On Bitcoin For A Week: Can’t Pay The Rent - Day 6

Let’s Talk #Bitcoin Episode 005 - “Communication is Key”

letstalkbitcoin.com / By Adam Levine / May 8, 2013.



Shownotes for Episode 5 - “Communication is Key”

  • Project Talk - Watchdog Coalition  - Bitcoin Press Center -B2013 Conference Plans!
  • Listener Mail - Music?  How do the hosts deal with exchanges?
  • Much Ado About Dust with Community Roundtable Member Jack Byer
  • Open Source, Bitcoin & the reality of Corporate Involvement with Charles Hoskinson of the Bitcoin Education Project
  • The Trojan’s Back! Competitive Gaming gets infected!

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Why bitcoin needs competitors (such as Litecoin)

Why bitcoin needs competitors (such as Litecoin) - New Bitcoin World, Latest Bitcoin News, Free Bitcoins, ASIC Bitcoin Mining, Avalon ASIC
Although there are several different peer-to-peer currencies, bitcoin currently stands head and shoulders above the rest in terms of public understanding and use … a bit like Betamax video did before VHS took over the world’s living rooms.

There is litecoin – based on bitcoin protocols – which aims to provide faster processing times and easier mining. It hopes to produce a total of 84 million coins.

There is opencoin, which is still in the process of developing client software.

There are LETS — Local Exchange Trading Systems — and other pegged currencies like Brixton pounds, which are spendable only within one community. So the world has continued to turn for many years with alternative or parallel currencies.

The difference for the likes of bitcoin is the scale and anonymity, and — of course — distributed computing, provided by the internet.

We can also say that bitcoin at the moment has an actual value. In fact, it has two values. There is the price that an exchange will give you — about £60 or $92 dollars at the time of writing. And there is the cost of computing power required to mine a bitcoin, which depends on electricity, computing hardware and other variables.

Until all the coins are mined — for a total of 21 million units (expected around the year 2140) — there is no way of saying how, or even if, the currency will stand up against dollars or euros. Digital currencies might retain a high perceived value or they might go the way of Beenz or cowrie shells – although, to be fair, cowrie shells remained a solid currency in some parts of the world for several thousand years. - Read more here: http://www.coindesk.com/why-bitcoin-needs-competitors


Amazingly Best list of Free Bitcoins Websites | You can find more information about Bitcoin Mining here: ASIC Bitcoin Mining - News and Information

Luxurious Trump SoHo condo being sold for 24,700 BITCOINS (that’s $1.9 million)

It’s the most expensive bitcoin item ever! The anonymous digital currency, created in 2009, varies dramatically in value, so the condo’s worth in the currency fluctuates.

A luxury condo in the Trump SoHo can be yours — all for the low price of around 24,700 Bitcoins.
That’s by far the biggest-ticket item ever offered for sale in the virtucal currency. “The most expensive purchase was a car for around $28,000," Vitalik Buterin, a writer at Bitcoin magazine, told the Daily News.

He called the multimillion-dollar Trump listing an "unprecedented" move.
Luxurious Trump SoHo condo being sold for 24,700 BITCOINS (that’s $1.9 million) - New Bitcoin World, Latest Bitcoin News, Free Bitcoins, Bitcoin Mining, Litecoin, BTC, LTC, ASIC Miner
An anonymous seller has listed the one bedroom, 1.5 bath deluxe suite on a bitcoin luxury marketplace listing site, BitPremier, which offers high-end goods and properties available for purchase exclusively by using the digital currency.

Bitcoins, a digital currency created in 2009, serve as tokens stored in an electronic database. They allow buyers to complete transactions online under the cloak of anonymity, and unlike any currency before it, Bitcoins are not tied to any one country's government or organization.

As trading values for Bitcoins change, the price for the condo adjusts accordingly. Within the span of Friday morning, the price rose from 20,600 to 20,800 bitcoins. The USD price of $1.947 million remained constant.

Located in the Trump SoHo building, the property offers 741 square feet with a guest room, living room, full bath, and powder room. - Read more here: http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/real-estate/trump-condo-offered-24-700-bitcoins-priciest-bitcoin-article-1.1334192

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WOW! Someone In The Trump SoHo Is Selling His Condo, And He'll Only Accept Bitcoin

Will Bitcoin Taxation Be the End of its Anonymity? - Breaking Analysis (video)

Since it's creation Bitcoin has come under scrutiny over its plausibility as a currency. Now Canada wants to deploy taxes on Bitcoin transactions. Joining us to provide his breaking analysis surrounding Bitcoin's infrastructure is SiliconANGLE Founding Editor Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins.

Just in time for Canadian tax season, the Canada Revenue Agency says that users of Bitcoins will have to pay taxes on their Bitcoin transactions stating there are two separate tax rules that apply to the electronic currency, depending on whether they are used as money to buy things or if they were merely bought and sold for speculative purposes. Mark there's been much debate about whether Bitcoin even counts as a legitimate currency. What are your thoughts on the taxation of Bitcoins? Is this fair?

How have other countries approached Bitcoins when it comes to taxes?

Is the taxing of Bitcoins a good thing or a bad thing? Does it give more weight and legitimacy to the currency or will it turn those users away who find the appeal of Bitcoin in its anonymity?

A study of the Bitcoin exchange industry has found that 45 percent of exchanges fail. The study conducted by computer scientists Tyler Moore and Nicolas Christin followed 40 exchanges on the web and concluded that of the 40, 18 have gone out of business -- 13 of which closed without warning, and five closing after suffering security breaches. Four other exchanges suffered serious attacks but remained open. Mt Gox, the largest Bitcoin exchange, is one of those exchanges, recently falling victim to a huge number of DDoS attacks over the past month during a Bitcoin surge. Mark, do you think Mt Gox is becoming a weak link in Bitcoin's infrastructure?

We know all investments inherently come with a deal of risk, but does Bitcoin come with more risks than potential for rewards?

How is Bitcoin doing at the moment?

Will Bitcoin Taxation Be the End of its Anonymity? - Breaking Analysis


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  1. IRS may soon create department to deal with growing Bitcoin currency
  2. US Regulators Eye Bitcoin Supervision
  3. Ridiculousness: IRS Takes A Bite Out Of Bitcoin
  4. Bitcoin Dealers Are Running Into Problems In Canada - Biggest Bank Froze accounts
     

CoinLab Files $75 Million Lawsuit Against Mt.Gox

CoinLab Files $75 Million Lawsuit Against MtGox - New Bitcoin World, Latest Bitcoin News, Free Bitcoins, ASIC Bitcoin Mining, Butterfly Labs ASIC
Last week, CoinLab, a US based startup that got attention last month for being the first venture funded Bitcoin firm, announced that they were suing Mt.Gox for $75 million due to breach of contact. The lawsuit stems back to a partnership that was agreed between the two firms in February. Under the terms of the deal, Mt.Gox, the world’s largest Bitcoin exchange, which accounts for over 70% of total daily volumes being conducted through its trading venue, had granted CoinLab as its exclusive partner in the US and Canada.

In its case against MtGox, CoinLab is claiming that the exchange failed to provide data in regards to existing clients. Additionally, they accuse Mt.Gox of continuing to market in the US and Canada, and failing to abide by their revenue share agreement; thereby breaching the partnership agreement between the two firms. According to CoinLab CEO, Peter Vessenes in his statement to clients, “what tipped us into filing the lawsuit was our complete inability to get MtGox to deliver on the few simple things left that were needed for customers to move over en-masse; we were often left just apologizing to our alpha customers while their own businesses suffered. I’m just not willing to put any of our customers in that position – if we can’t do a good job for you, I won’t promise that we can.”

Under the agreement from February, beginning March 29th, the servicing of both existing and new US and Canadian account holders would be conducted by CoinLab; thus providing faster deposit and withdrawals and local support for this market. On its part, CoinLab agreed not to partner with any other sources of liquidity for two years. - Read more here: http://forexmagnates.com/coinlab-files-75-million-lawsuit-against-mtgox/

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Lawsuit halts US bitcoin exchange partnership (Mt. Gox, Coinlab)

IRS may soon create department to deal with growing Bitcoin currency

IRS may soon create department to deal with growing Bitcoin currency - New Bitcoin World, Latest Bitcoin News, Bitcoin News, ASIC Bitcoin mining, Litecoin, BTC, LTC, Free Bitcoins
The Treasury Department has already established a departmental segment to regulate Bitcoin usage, and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) may not be far behind. In a Forbes piece on Bitcoin and the IRS, Bitcoin transactions may soon be taxed and regulated the same as barter is, and become treated as an income source, verses a free flowing currency.

"The IRS already gets a piece where you swap one product or service for another, as the IRS explains at its Bartering Tax Center. Soon the IRS may have a Bitcoin Center too. The Treasury unit called FinCEN, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, already has rules about Bitcoin and the IRS is likely to follow.

In the meantime, the tax rules seem pretty clear. If you provide services or sell goods for Bitcoin, you have income. If you exchange Bitcoins for cash, whether you have gain may depend on whether Bitcoin is really currency or commodity. The latter seems more likely, meaning you have gain to the extent of the appreciation in your Bitcoin. - Forbes"

In reality, the United States is attempting to regulate an electronic currency under archaic rules (Barter), without the ability to fully enforce them. Bitcoin is an electronic currency, which runs peer to peer across a global domain, not residing in a single nation or sovereign state. And while the system documents all transactions publicly, users of the currency remain anonymous, and unable to be tracked. - Read more here: http://www.examiner.com/article/irs-may-soon-create-department-to-deal-with-growing-bitcoin-currency

US Regulators Eye Bitcoin Supervision

US Regulators Eye Bitcoin Supervision - New Bitcoin World, Latest Bitcoin News, Free Bitcoins, ASIC Bitcoin mining, Litecoin
Senior officials at a top U.S. financial regulator are discussing whether Bitcoin, the controversial cybercurrency, might fall under their regulatory remit.

Bitcoin "is for sure something we need to explore," Bart Chilton, one of the five commissioners at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission told the Financial Times. A person familiar with the CFTC's thinking said that the regulator is "seriously" examining the issue.

Said Mr. Chilton: "It's not monopoly money we're talking about here—real people can have real risk in these instruments, and we need to ensure that we protect markets and consumers, even in what at first blush appear to be 'out there' transactions."

Four-year-old Bitcoin is attracting the interest of regulators amid volatile booms and busts in the value of the cybercurrency and fresh media interest. Intensified regulatory scrutiny could pose challenges for proponents of Bitcoin, who have praised the currency for its independence from traditional authorities.

In March, a branch of the US Treasury department said that all firms that exchange or transfer the virtual currency will be considered "money services businesses."

That means they must provide information to the government and introduce policies to prevent money laundering. It could also make it risky for other financial institutions to do business with firms that are not in compliance. - Read more here: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100712529

Monday, May 6, 2013

Living On Bitcoin For A Week: Day 6: Can’t Pay The Rent - Day 6

Living On Bitcoin For A Week Day 6 Can’t Pay The Rent - Day 6, New Bitcoin World, Latest Bitcoin News, Free Bitcoins
Day 6: It’s Sunday morning. I have only two days left of living on Bitcoin. I can see the US-minted light at the end of the tunnel, but the end of my week is going to be an adventure. My landlord didn’t want to take Bitcoin for rent. Understandably. I think she’d be similarly put off if I offered to pay the rent in Starbucks gift cards or in the form of a week’s supply of succulents (which are all the planting rage in San Francisco). She’s willing to accept the rent late when I’m back to using greenbacks after the week is up, but that’s a time-traveling violation of my rule for this experiment: all transactions must happen in Bitcoin.

It is May 5, the deadline for my rent payment. I have to move out.

I polish off my bottle of Stumptown cold-brewed coffee and add cold water to an ‘Espresso Maca’-flavored oat-concoction that I bought from the BTC-accepting artisanal grocer. Bitcoin’s value is holding steady in the $115 USD zone. I check my Coinbase account. During the course of this story, I’ve been receiving tips from enthusiastic Bitcoiners, or cyphervegans, who are excited to see their beloved cryptocoin get attention and who want to see my experiment succeed to prove the viability of the digital money in the real world. The more than 90 “tips” I’ve gotten now add up to more than 10 BTC, which is some serious coin in all manner of currencies. Part of the security of Bitcoin is its radical transparency. Despite its reputation for privacy, Bitcoin is a heavily surveilled coinage. The whole network sees every transaction occur. You can get a taste of how this works by looking at the transaction history of the address at which I’ve been receiving my tips. - Read more here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/05/06/living-on-bitcoin-for-a-week-cant-pay-the-rent/

Living On Bitcoin For A Week: Bitcoiners Are The New Vegans - Day 4

Kashmir Hill's experiment continues: Day 4

Living On Bitcoin For A Week Bitcoiners Are The New Vegans - Day 4 - New Bitcoin World, Bitcoin News, Free Bitcoins, ASIC Bitcoin Miner, Butterfly Labs
On Friday, I skip breakfast again; it’s an unavoidable part of the Bitcoin diet as there are no places that serve food before 10 a.m. accepting my currency. I lose my appetite anyway when I check the value of Bitcoin; it has plummeted to $90 over night. It has been on a steady decline since I started my Bitcoin challenge. Is it me? My editor suggests the value is falling because I’m showing “what a drag” it is to use it.
But I think it’s due instead to a huge Bitcoin lawsuit that became public Thursday night. The virtual money has sparked a $75 million (real world currency) complaint; Seattle start-up Coinlab is suing Mt. Gox, saying the Japanese Bitcoin exchange has failed to follow through on the partnership they inked, refusing to let Coinlab take over management of Mt. Gox’s American and Canadian accounts as it allegedly agreed to do. Wrote Adrian Chen at Gawker:

"The Coinlab-Mt. Gox juggernaut was supposed to bring a new level of service, along with the legitimacy that came with the Silicon Valley Bank’s backing, to Mt. Gox and the economy as a whole. The partnership was considered so important to the growth of Bitcoin that some observers credited it with sparking a massive 40% surge in Bitcoin prices past $250 when it was first announced, during which some big Bitcoin hold probably made millions. (At least until the price crashed back down again.) Now the biggest hope of Bitcoin has devolved into the biggest lawsuit."

Lawyers are about to make a killing on Bitcoin, even if it’s not the currency they get paid in.

I hop on my bike and head to work, and my appetite comes roaring back to life. I order Greek food from Melody via Foodler. It’s a whopping $30 or .3 of a BTC but I don’t care. The restaurant delivers lattes, so I’m willing to pay the ridiculous $10 delivery fee. When the order comes, the wrap with roasted veggies is pretty good but they forgot the f***ing latte. Day 4 of not being able to order coffee with my Bitcoin. - Read more here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/05/04/living-on-bitcoin-for-a-week-bitcoiners-are-the-new-vegans/


Amazingly Best list of Free Bitcoins Websites | You can find more information about Bitcoin Mining here: ASIC Bitcoin Mining - News and Information

The Best Legal Things Bitcoins Can Buy

The Best Legal Things Bitcoins Can Buy - Pizza for Coins - New Bitcoin World, Latest Bitcoin News, Bitcoin News, ASIC Bitcoin Mining, Free Bitcoins
You might have heard a little of the noise Bitcoins were making earlier this month. The digital currency saw a huge spike in trading and worth, setting off a roller coaster filled with dips, rises, and some hacking problems along the way.

Some explanation might be in order. Bitcoins are a completely digital currency – unlike the dollars and cents in your online bank and PayPal accounts, Bitcoins have no real world counterparts. In fact, that’s the point – Bitcoins were originally founded as a currency that would be free from the hands of governments and banks, enabling anonymous, peer-to-peer exchange – no middleman.

The number of Bitcoins available on the market is strictly controlled – as of now, only 21 million Bitcoins can exist, and about 11 million do. The rest will eventually come into being through Bitcoin mining, as (extremely tech savvy) prospectors hope to happen upon Bitcoins through a really, really arcane process. The concept is simpler – it’s like trying to dig up precious metals from the earth in the hopes of striking it rich. An algorithm controls how much of the currency is available and will be available, making it self-regulating, in an economic sense.

And, they can be yours. The biggest Bitcoin exchange site is called Mt. Gox, and you can buy some of the virtual currency there. You’ll probably wish you had done so earlier, though – before this month, one Bitcoin was worth about $20. This month, it spiked up to well over $200 before settling down to $134, where it is at the time of writing. Mt. Gox was also hit with a DDoS attack, which some blamed for the subsequent crash from over $200 down to where it is now, raising questions about stability – which is fair enough, considering that in one month, a single Bitcoin went from paying for a pizza to paying for an iPhone.

But, maybe you’re not interested in currency trading and the effects of digital currency on real world economics. After all, money is for buying things, right? So, what can you actually buy with the things? Take a look below for some of the best legal things Bitcoins can buy. Read more here: http://www.chipchick.com/2013/05/legal-bitcoins-can-buy.html


Amazingly Best list of Free Bitcoins Websites | You can find more information about Bitcoin Mining here: ASIC Bitcoin Mining - News and Information

NZ Bankers’ Association boss: Bitcoin could be problem for governments

The CEO of the New Zealand Bankers’ Association Kirk Hope told TVNZ’s Q+A programme that a decentralised digital currency like Bitcoin could present problems for governments.

Bitcoins can be used to buy and sell items anonymously online.

“That’s one of the challenges, I think, for governments. We’ve got some anti- money laundering legislation coming in to force here on the 30th of June. Bitcoins are untraceable, virtually, and they are being used to buy things like arms and drugs, so those types of activities can lead themselves to the types of things that governments are trying to prevent.”

The digital currency also means governments and banks are cut out of financial transactions, which is of concern to bankers.

“Well, I think one of the interesting things about Bitcoin is that it is a cheap way to transfer funds internationally, and that’s one of the things that have been picked up.” - Read more here: http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/nz-bankers-association-boss-bitcoin-could-be-problem-governments-139654

Shadow currency: How Bitcoin can finance terrorism

Shadow currency How Bitcoin can finance terrorism - New Bitcoin World, Latest Bitcoin News, ASIC Bitcoin Mining, Free Bitcoins
This week, the “underground” website known as “the Silk Road” made headlines when a DDoS attack brought the website’s servers crashing down. The Silk Road is known as the black market of the internet, a site where the anonymous browser can obtain a wide range of illegal substances. The site is accessible only through a Tor network (a software protocol that reroutes traffic through hundreds of servers and computers to conceal identities).

Most interestingly enough, the Silk Road’s transactions are not in dollars or euros, but in Bitcoins. Bitcoins are a decentralized electronic currency that is free from government control or interference. Recently, Bitcoins have traded as high as $260 USD, before a crash brought them back down to roughly $150 USD per coin. Libertarians and anarchists hail Bitcoin as the herald of a free, internet-based economy with minimal regulatory interference, but Bitcoin has a potentially sinister side as well.

This “crypto-currency” has already been the inspiration for several online robberies where cyber-thieves hack into a computer to steal the vital electronic information at the heart of Bitcoins. Beyond cyber-larceny, the secrecy of Bitcoin poses unique, and even frightening security challenges for a world that has yet to fully understand the problems posed by the internet age.

For example, consider the various national and international anti-money laundering statutes. These laws seek to prevent the illegal flow of currency between criminals, terrorists and other unsavory characters. But these laws require that there are actual shipments of cash between countries and criminal networks (or at the very least funds transfers between banks).

The Bitcoin protocol promises to remove the fundamental risk in money laundering: the risk of interception and detection. By using a monetary exchange like Mt.Gox, criminals can buy Bitcoins at the market rate and then they can sell to a confederate across the world at a higher price, effectuating the exchange of money. Even if Bitcoin performs poorly, it nevertheless provides an opportunity to exchange money via the anonymous P2P network. - Read more here: http://theworldoutline.com/2013/05/shadow-currency-how-bitcoin-can-finance-terrorism

Sunday, May 5, 2013

Ed and Ethan's Bitcoin cast #11

Ed and Ethan's Bitcoin cast #11


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Let’s Talk #Bitcoin Episode 004 - “The Future of Money”

letstalkbitcoin.com / By Adam Levine / May 5, 2013.



Shownotes for Episode 4 - “The Future of Money”

  • Project Talk - Fr33Aid  - Bitcoin ID  — Bitcoin Neutrality
  • Listener Mail - Litecoin & Asics. Bitcoin Bank?
  • Interview with Joe Cascio about controlling your identity, and attacking spam on the internet with Bitcoin
  • Discussion #1 - Bitcoin ATM gets fired up
  • Discussion #2 - Coinlab  Vs. MtGox - What’s going on here? - Read the Contract & Complaint

10 Brilliant and Useful Bitcoin sites


10 Brilliant and Useful Bitcoin sites | New Bitcoin World - Latest Bitcoin News, Free Bitcoins, Free Bitcoin sites, Pyramining, Rent Bitcoin Hashing Power
Whether you’re dipping a toe into the bitcoin economy for the first time, or are a long-time veteran of the digital currency, you’ll find there are several websites that prove to be invaluable resources for understanding bitcoin trends and transactions. Sites any serious bitcoiner will likely want to bookmark include:

Bitcoin.org


The original bitcoin client, bitcoin.org includes an introduction to how bitcoins work, definitions of essential bitcoin vocabulary, links to bitcoin specifications and charts, and information for individuals, developers and businesses.

Bitcoin Foundation


The Bitcoin Foundation states its primary goals as helping to standardize, protect and promote the bitcoin system:

“As the bitcoin economy has evolved, we have all noticed barriers to its widespread adoption – botnets that attempt to undermine the network, hackers that threaten wallets, and an undeserved reputation stirred by ignorance and inaccurate reporting.
“To us, it became clear that something had to be done. We see this foundation as critical for bringing legitimacy to the bitcoin currency. Only then can we increase its adoption and positive impact on the world’s finance.”


Bitcoin Forum


An active discussion site for all things bitcoin, the Bitcoin Forum features information for beginners, general discussions, boards focused on the bitcoin economy, areas for technical support and project development, mining help and local boards for speakers of Chinese, Spanish, German, Hebrew, French, Italian, Korean and other languages.

Mt. Gox


One of the oldest bitcoin businesses, Mt. Gox is a trading platform that continues to handle the lion’s share of all bitcoin trades. It enables the global purchase, exchange and reselling of bitcoins in multiple currencies. It also provides tools to enable merchants to accept bitcoin payments through their websites.

Bitcoin wiki


This wiki provides information for the bitcoin community in a format similar to that of Wikipedia. In addition to articles on hundreds of bitcoin-related subjects, the wiki also offers information in multiple languages, links to local bitcoin meetups, technical articles and best practices, and links to various bitcoin forums and chatrooms.
Read more here:  http://www.coindesk.com/10-brilliant-bitcoin-sites