On Saturday morning, I get to start the day with breakfast and coffee for the first time this week, thanks to the bottle of “Stumptown cold brew” and “organic Superfood oat-based cereal” that I bought the day before at an artisanal grocery store that now accepts Bitcoin. Even though my boyfriend says my oat-based cereal “looks like puke” after I add water to it per the directions, it is glorious to be able to have a morning meal. It’s also glorious that Bitcoin’s value is back on the rise; it went from a $96 USD valuation Friday night to $114.
At 11 a.m., I meet Jeff Anderson at a coffee place around the corner from my home (that I must vacate on Sunday due to my landlord not accepting Bitcoin as rent). Anderson, 30, started Blue Plate Wines in 2010 along with two friends. They are the first winemakers to accept BTC for their product. I bought mine online for .2375 BTC on Wednesday. Anderson had offered to hand deliver it and to give me a ride out to Mill Valley in his Toyota so that I can attend my brother-in-law’s birthday party, 15 hilly miles out of the city. I insist on paying him for the ride and we settle on a nominal fee of .125 BTC ($14.25 USD at the time); he may have regretted the low rate when the drive took nearly an hour and a half thanks to traffic. - Read more here: - http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/05/05/living-on-bitcoin-for-a-week-birthday-bittycoins/
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Living On Bitcoin For A Week: Birthday Bittycoins - Day 5
Friday, May 3, 2013
Living On Bitcoin For A Week: The Bitcoin Diet - Day 3
Day 3: The value of Bitcoin has been dropping steadily since I started living on it.
I wake up on Thursday morning and eat the leftover cinnamon breadsticks from my PizzaForCoins.com order the night before. I still haven’t found a coffee place that accepts Bitcoin, so I’m hoping that that my BitcoinCoffee.com delivery (.068 BTC) arrives soon. My colleague (kiddingly?) suggests I seek out other stimulants on Silk Road since they seem to be easier to procure with Bitcoin than is a latte.
I open my computer to disturbing news. The price of Bitcoin dropped overnight. It had been at about $115 USD when I went to sleep but it is now worth $103 USD. The value of my current 1.445 BTC is now just $145, and I still have to live on it for four days. Luckily, tips from random Bitcoiners are flowing in at a good pace. The Bitcoin community is an enthusiastic one and it’s clear from the tips – both of the virtual currency variety and advice for how I can survive – that they don’t want this experiment to fail.
I ride my bike to work. Mother Nature must be a Bitcoin enthusiast as well. The weather has been glorious this week, making it easy to walk and bike everywhere, my only BTC-paid options for transportation at this point. - Read more here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/05/03/living-on-bitcoin-for-a-week-the-bitcoin-diet/
This is more than Awesome: Here Comes the World's First Bitcoin ATM (pics & video)
First Article on Bitcoin ATM: Here Comes the World's First Bitcoin ATM
Bitcoins, the alternative online currency that last month endured a roller-coaster ride of price fluctuations, may soon be coming to an ATM near you.
Lamassu, the startup behind a prototype Bitcoin ATM shown at New Hampshire's Liberty Forum in February, said this week that it's preparing to showcase a production model of the machine on May 17 at the Bitcoin Foundation's 2013 conference in San Jose, Calif.
The New Hampshire-based company is pitching its tabletop device as a more stable way to transfer bitcoins than doing so through strictly online services, while still promising users anonymity in their bitcoin purchasing.
"Vendors will profit both from commissions on the automatic exchange, and by accepting bitcoin at their establishment in return for goods or services. Additionally, the price point is quite low compared to legacy ATMs, so it's easy for the vendor to make the investment back," Lamassu co-founder Zach Harvey said in a statement.
Lamassu's Bitcoin ATMs accept currency notes like a vending machine and credit a customer's bitcoin account following a transaction. The machines charge a 1 percent transaction fee and require a smartphone app that presents a QR code to the ATM, designating where the bitcoin payment should be sent.
The machines themselves are about a quarter the size of standard ATMs, according to the company. Lamassu also notes that converting cash to bitcoins takes about 15 seconds using one the startup's machines—as opposed to the weeks it can take to process a bitcoin order via an online broker.The prototype ATM shown earlier this year accepted U.S. dollars in denominations up to $100. During the Liberty Forum presentation, Lamassu's machine exchanged more than $5,500 for bitcoins, which the startup noted is currently valued at about $25,000.
The production version of the Bitcoin ATM will be far more versatile than the prototype, according to Harvey.
"This compact machine can be programmed to accept any world currency, and border cities will be able to simultaneously accept multiple currencies, such as U.S. dollars, Canadian dollars and Euros. Due to the reduced size and weight of the Bitcoin Machine, it can be shipped via post or courier services to any location in the world," he said. - http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2418496,00.asp
Digital dollars- a Bitcoin machine in operation at Nashua's Liberty ForumSecond article: Bitcoin ATM Makes Life Easier For Currency Conversion
Could the next tulip mania actually have something to do with this form of e-currency known as Bitcoin? The jury is still out on this one, and if you are one who have invested a fair amount of real world money into some Bitcoin currency, perhaps you might be interested in checking out the Bitcoin ATM. The Bitcoin ATM is basically a small computer which will take your paper notes and convert them into Bitcoin, right on the spot, doing away with all the headache of figuring out various exchange rates and the like.
How does the Bitcoin ATM work? Well, it will first prompt the users to use the machine in order to scan a QR code on their smartphone, which will then inform the ATM as to where to send the Bitcoin. Once that is done, you will have to insert real world currency notes that are then gobbled up, counted and verified, before being “exchanged” as the corresponding amount of Bitcoin to your user account. Sounds like a chore? Not really, as the entire process takes approximately 15 seconds or so to complete. The startup behind the Bitcoin ATM would be Lamassu, and they claim that this is the first of its kind in the world. So far, a production mockup of the Bitcoin ATM is available as you can see above, where it will cost approximately $5,000 with cheaper deals applicable for wholesalers. - http://www.ubergizmo.com/2013/05/bitcoin-atm-makes-life-easier-for-currency-conversion/
Amazingly Best list of Free Bitcoins Websites | You can find more information about Bitcoin Mining here: ASIC Bitcoin Mining - News and Information
Lawsuit halts US bitcoin exchange partnership (Mt. Gox, Coinlab)
A partnership that sought to make it easy for Americans and Canadians to buy the virtual currency bitcoin has dissolved into a US$75 million lawsuit.
Bitcoin startup CoinLab alleges that the largest bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox in Tokyo, breached a November 2012 agreement that would connect the companies' IT systems for North American bitcoin purchases.
The suit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, alleges Mt. Gox failed to transfer the account of North American users, including login and password information, to CoinLab. Gawker posted a copy of the lawsuit which was not yet available on online court records.
The suit also contends that despite an exclusivity agreement with CoinLab, Mt. Gox continued to court North American customers and accept new business.
CoinLab, based in Seattle, had been strangely quiet in recently weeks in regards to its Mt. Gox partnership. In late February, CoinLab said the cooperation with Mt. Gox would begin around March 22, but it didn't appear to take off.
Mt. Gox runs the largest exchange for bitcoin, which allows people to purchase the currency on an open electronic market. Mt. Gox holds a large majority of the market for bitcoin exchange services, but according to the lawsuit, has no established banking relationships in the U.S. or Canada. Read more here - http://www.pcworld.com/article/2037143/lawsuit-halts-us-bitcoin-exchange-partnership.html
Amazingly Best list of Free Bitcoins Websites | You can find more information on Bitcoin Mining here: http://www.miningbitcoinsforfree.info and here: http://www.asicbitcoinmining.info
Creator of Casascius Coins: Dr. Ron Paul, Bitcoins really do fit in your pocket! May I explain?
A concise explanation of what Bitcoin is, in terms of everyday items like rocks and real estate. I am Mike Caldwell, the creator of Casascius Coins, the most widely known functional physical Bitcoin collectible in the hands of Bitcoin enthusiasts. Today, my coins are appearing in the press regularly. Casascius Coins were created as an educational pursuit to bring Bitcoins from minds like mine into minds like yours. This is a short video I recorded as a response to Ron Paul's saying he is uncomfortable with Bitcoin since he can't put it in his pocket. As the person responsible for more Bitcoins put in more pockets than anybody else, I think a reply from me is warranted and hopefully welcome.
Dr. Paul, Bitcoins really do fit in your pocket! May I explain?
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Why Apple Is Afraid Of Bitcoin
When you finally grasp the magnitude of Apple’s play in the payments business, it becomes clear that potential competitors will be shunned from the platform. As Daniel Terdiman suggests in CNET, “New Apple features may leave fresh app roadkill in their wake as Apple is likely to undercut several existing third-party applications.” With the introduction of Passbook, Apple has launched mobile payments on iOS and competing virtual payment systems, including bitcoin, must be terminated.
Roadkill in payment apps has already occurred and they were never given the chance to be made irrelevant. The decentralized digital currency bitcoin has had two functioning payment applications on the Apple App Store — Blockchain Wallet and BitPak, both of which have since been unceremoniously evicted. Several other bitcoin-related apps currently appear in the store but they don’t seem to be restricted by Apple since they don’t enable send/receive transaction capability as the wallets do.
In April, I covered the extraordinary Blockchain Wallet product in Forbes only to see the app abruptly removed from the store in less than two weeks. The explanation given by Apple was that “apps must comply with all legal requirements in any location where they are made available to users.” Apple further stated, “it is the developer’s obligation to understand and conform to all local laws” and the developer was referred to the legal department for an exact explanation of which law it violates. Clearly, they will not be able to cite a law as no laws prohibiting bitcoin currently exist in any jurisdiction. Fortunately, the wallet app is still available here at the Cydia Repository for jailbroken iPhones. - Read more here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/06/13/why-apple-is-afraid-of-bitcoin
Ridiculousness: IRS Takes A Bite Out Of Bitcoin
Bitcoin is virtual currency much in the news these days. It’s peer-to-peer so there’s no central bank or government. But if you think that means the IRS won’t get a piece, think again.
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.
Income is income, whether you get it in cash or in kind. Bitcoin may be accepted as currency and may not be easy to trace but so are trades and barters. When you barter or swap one item for another, both parties have tax consequences. That’s so even if one party wants credit for later.
Trade or barter dollars allow you to barter when one party wants goods or services and the other wants credit for the future. Earning trade or barter dollars through a barter exchange is considered taxable income, just as if your product or service was sold for cash. And even trades are still taxed.
Plumbing for dental work? The IRS taxes it. You name the swap, it’s income to both sides just like cash. Both must report the fair market value of goods or services received on their tax returns. See Do You Barter? The IRS Wants Its Cut. Read more here - http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2013/05/02/irs-takes-a-bite-out-of-bitcoin
WOW! Someone In The Trump SoHo Is Selling His Condo, And He'll Only Accept Bitcoin
Here's more evidence Bitcoin isn't going anywhere. We've found a guy who claims to be putting his Trump Soho condo up for sale.
And he will only take payment in Bitcoin.
Later today, he will advertise the property exclusively on BitPremier, the first-ever online Bitcoin exchange exclusively for luxury goods. The site launches today.
Here's the condo owner's exact note to us, via BitPremier founder Alan Silbert: I prefer to own Bitcoin to property that's why I would be happy to sell it in bitcoin. I think property is a better asset class than USD, and bitcoin a better asset class than property.
We recently spoke by phone with Silbert, who also serves as a VP for GE Capital, about the goals for BitPremier.
He said purchasing options for people who own lots of Bitcoin have thus far been limited.
"There are plenty of Bitcoin millionaires out there, and it's burning a hole in their pocket," he said. "I think buyers will be easy to come by."
Along with the choice condo, the site will also launch with a Bahamas villa, a Leroy Neiman artwork, and a high-end watch. A Ferrari and Mercedes are also imminent, Silber said.
"We're finding a lot of wealthy, smart people are getting into the game with Bitcoin," he explained. "I think as the ecosystem matures, I think you're going to see a lot more of that."
Bitcoin was trading near $110 on Mt. Gox today. - http://www.businessinsider.com/bitpremier-sells-luxury-goods-for-bitcoin-2013-5
Living On Bitcoin For A Week: Transportation Woes - Day 2
Day 2: After one day of living only on Bitcoin, I’ve become very tired of having to walk everywhere. The San Francisco public transportation system won’t accept my digital tokens. I contacted Lyft, Sidecar and Uber to see if any of those tech savvy ride services would take my virtual coin, but to no avail. (Fred Ehrsam of Bitcoin exchange company Coinbase mentioned that he’s in talks with a ride-sharing or –giving company about accepting Bitcoin but wouldn’t say which one, and regardless, it wouldn’t help me much this week.) When I inquired about paying in Bitcoin at a bike rental place, the clerk responded, “Bit what?”
I asked Reddit’s Bitcoin subreddit for help finding transportation. One person offered to rent me his bike for .05 BTC for the week. As that was only $6 at the time, I wasn’t surprised when he said he was kidding and revealed that he lived in Georgia. Another Redditor named “WillworkforBTC” offered to fill up a Clipper Card – San Francisco’s smart card for public transportation – for me allowing me to get around by bus, ferry and subway, but that seemed like cheating. Another Redditor offered to chauffeur me personally, but then disappeared when I asked him how much he would charge. - Read more here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/05/02/living-on-bitcoin-for-a-week-solving-my-transportation-troubles/
What if Bitcoin/Litecoin is a step toward this: Sacred Economics with Charles Eisenstein (A Short Film)
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Sacred Economics traces the history of money from ancient gift economies to modern capitalism, revealing how the money system has contributed to alienation, competition, and scarcity, destroyed community, and necessitated endless growth.
+-+New+Bitcoin+World+-+ASIC+Bitcoin+Miner,+Latest+Bitcoin+News.jpg)
Today, these trends have reached their extreme - but in the wake of their collapse, we may find great opportunity to transition to a more connected, ecological, and sustainable way of being.
This short contains some visuals from the upcoming feature doc Occupy Love http://occupylove.org
Directed by Ian MacKenzie http://ianmack.com
Produced by Velcrow Ripper, Gregg Hill, Ian MacKenzie
READ THE BOOK http://sacred-economics.com
Sacred Economics with Charles Eisenstein - A Short Film
For some perspective:
Woody Harrelson 'Ethos' - Epic Documentary! - Time to Unslave Humanity
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Interesting Experiment: Living On Bitcoin For A Week: The Journey Begins
Day 1. On Tuesday morning, I emptied my wallet of all of the cash and credit cards before I left my house. Many journalists have been writing about the mechanics of buying Bitcoin and the resulting heart palpitations as they watched the dramatic rises and falls in the digital currency’s worth over the last few weeks. But that’s just a story about gambling. My editor issued a different challenge to test the currency’s legitimacy: “Don’t just buy Bitcoin. Live on it for a week.”
Here’s to hoping I survive on the virtual tokens that promise to make online transactions more anonymous and decentralized. No handing over your name and credit card number every time you make a purchase. It’s the online equivalent of paying cash.
Last week, I bought five Bitcoins through Coinbase after a failed attempt to do so via Mt. Gox, the value-setting Bitcoin exchange based in Japan; my bank refused to send funds to Mt. Gox’s account saying it was suspended so I instead transferred more than $600 to Coinbase to purchase my virtual coins for $126.69 each. The transfer – initiated on a Monday – didn’t present me with Bitcoins until Friday. By the time they arrived, they were worth $142 each.
The first order of business was figuring out how to get fed. Two places in San Francisco accept BTC: a sushi restaurant miles away from where I live and a cupcake shop between my house and work. I was worried about the distance (and the mercury levels) involved in dining at the sushi place all week; my Bitcoin isn’t currently accepted by taxis, ride sharing services or the public transportation system in San Francisco. And I was concerned about the waistband effect of every meal at the cupcake place.
There were a couple of online options: BitcoinClassifieds – with people were offering to sell Taco Bell gift cards and homemade preserves for BTC – and SurvivalFood.com – a site offering weeks worth of high calorie energy bars for those people preparing themselves for a zombie attack or other apocalyptic events. The Bozeman, MT-based site accepted Bitcoin. I was on the verge of dropping one of my five on the not-very-appealing-but-surprisingly-expensive emergency food supplies when a friend Googled “Bitcoin and food delivery.”
He pointed me to Foodler, a food delivery service that has partnered with dozens of San Francisco restaurants and which started accepting Bitcoin on April 17. I breathed a huge sigh of relief and deposited a Bitcoin into an account on the site, taking my bank down to 4 Bitcoins and giving me $130 to spend on delivery services for the week.
But this isn’t very helpful to me on Tuesday morning when I wake up and want yogurt, granola and a coffee. I have to walk to work as I can’t pay to take the BART as I usually would. I try to stop by the Bitcoin-accepting bakery, Cups and Cakes, but it is closed. There is nowhere else I can go. I pass by a Starbucks and start salivating. - Read the whole story here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/05/01/living-on-bitcoin-for-a-week-the-journey-begins
Expensify CEO David Barrett on SkyNews to Talk about Bitcoin
Expensify CEO David Barrett was asked to speak on SkyNews about Expensify's recent Bitcoin Reimbursement feature.
Expensify CEO David Barrett on SkyNews to Talk about Bitcoin
Earlier article on Expensify: 2013-04-28 This is Great: Expensify CEO David Barrett discussing Bitcoin on the News
Amazingly Best list of Free Bitcoins Websites | You can find more information on Bitcoin Mining here: http://www.miningbitcoinsforfree.info and here: http://www.asicbitcoinmining.info
Ashton Kutcher Bites Into 'Bitcoin Revolution'
The "bitcoin revolution" is here, and it offers an investing opportunity, Ashton Kutcher tells the TechCrunch Disrupt conference Wednesday.
"I think bitcoins are obviously becoming more and more relevant," said the actor, who is also founder of the A-Grade venture firm.
"The fact that people are hacking bitcoins really hard, it almost hearkens back to when banks first started and they didn't have safe safes and people were going into the banks and just robbing money out of the safe. It actually validates the value of the money itself," he said. "I think the fact that you can buy drugs and ammo with it is actually (a) validator of the currency itself."
(Read More: Bitcoin Continues Plunge After 'Powerful' Attacks)
But there's also huge potential for the technology behind the decentralized currency, Kutcher said.
Bitcoin is a digital currency that is open source and has no central authority. Transactions and minting of bitcoins is maintained by the users in the bit coin network. (Learn More: CNBC Explains Bitcoin)
"The bigger thing with bitcoin is not bitcoin itself, but what does that decentralized technology really do?" Kutcher said.
(Read More: Winklevoss Twins Are Bitcoin Moguls)
For example, Kutcher said that the same technology could be used for cybersecurity.
Because of cyberthreats, governments are trying to regulate the Internet in a way that does not keep users anonymous. By using the same technology as bitcoin, people could anonymously monitor each other on the Internet for criminal behavior and this civic participation would help eliminate government intrusion, Kutcher said.
"The notion that we could civically monitor each other in an anonymous way actually keeps the anonymity of the Internet. We don't have to worry about big brother," Kutcher said. "The same infrastructure that built out bitcoin could be used in the security industry for mass good." - http://www.cnbc.com/id/100696230
http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/01/ashton-kuchers-a-grade-fund-raising-at-100-million-valuation
Bitcoin section starts at 14:30 mark.
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
The Next Big thing? As BitCoins Roll In, The Pirate Bay Adds Support For LiteCoin Donations
Last week The Pirate Bay began accepting BitCoin donations and it’s been a successful move so far. In just seven days the site has received 174 donations via BitCoin with a dollar value of $2,063. Keep that up for a year and BitCoin exchange rates aside, the site could be adding around $107,000 to its coffers. Adding to the options to donate anonymously, The Pirate Bay is now supporting a second cypto-currency called LiteCoin.
For many years it was relatively easy to fund file-sharing sites. There were a number of options available, from advertising and affiliate schemes, to straightforward PayPal-type donations.
While all of these mechanisms still exist today, there has been a tightening of restrictions.
Pressure is being applied to advertisers like never before and outfits such as PayPal are clamping down on payment processing for file-sharing sites. Unless they successfully pass through PayPal’s pre-approval system, facilities can be withdrawn in an instant.
File-hosting sites have suffered a great deal from this new regime too, and the signs are that private torrent sites – who rely heavily on donations – are also feeling the pain. Both are generally unwelcome to do business with PayPal and the signs are that companies such as Mastercard and Visa are also hardening their stances too.
However, as these forces come into play, sites are looking to augment their income by other means and as we’ve seen recently the crypto-currency BitCoin is appearing more regularly on file-sharing sites and services.
More and more VPN and seedbox companies are accepting BitCoin payments and last week The Pirate Bay added their BitCoin link to the site’s main page.
The site has never accepted donations from its users but the decision to add this anonymous chip-in option has turned out well. In just seven days the site has received a total of 174 Bitcoin donation transactions with a value today of around $2,000, a decent amount that could stretch out to more than $100,000 over the next 12 months.
While BitCoin (BTC) is definitely the number one player in the crypto-currency market, there are other options, some of which claim technical improvements over BTC making them more usable on a day to day basis. The Pirate Bay has just added donation support for one such currency – LiteCoin. - Read more here: http://torrentfreak.com/as-bitcoins-roll-in-the-pirate-bay-adds-support-for-litecoin-donations-130501
Amazingly Best list of Free Bitcoins Websites | You can find more information on Bitcoin Mining here: http://www.miningbitcoinsforfree.info and here: http://www.asicbitcoinmining.info
I love this - Simply Awesome: Codex Nerdicus Episode 6 - Bitcoin
Codex Nerdicus Episode 6 - Bitcoin
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- What if Bitcoin/Litecoin is a step toward this: Sacred Economics with Charles Eisenstein (A Short Film)
- Currency of the Revolution by Danny Panzella - Bitcoin Summit
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- Why Bitcoin Is Poised To Change Society Much More Than The Internet Did
- Keiser Report: Bitcoin vs Banksters (E426)
Lightspeed VC Jeremy Liew loves bitcoins: Here's why
Jeremy Liew of Lightspeed Venture Partners sees several ways that startups will take advantage of the growing use of bitcoins as currency.
The partner at the Menlo Park firm recently backed OpenCoin, the developer of the Ripple payment protocol and says Lightspeed has put money in another undisclosed bitcoin play.
Early adopters of using the virtual electronic currency were attracted because it is an anonymous and free way to buy and sell goods and services. But it has also been the target of several runs, temporarily crashing its value.
Click here to subscribe to TechFlash Silicon Valley, the free daily email newsletter about founders and funders in the region.
But in a conversation with me, Liew explained why he thinks startups that are being built around the use of bitcoin are potentially big growth investments.
He also talked about a pair of social networking startups that are carving markets in areas that were once thought to be the exclusive domain of Facebook.
Here are excerpts of our conversation:
What interests you about bitcoins?
Bitcoins offers two advantages, or two distinctions to most other forms of digital payment. The first is that it’s anonymous. And the second is that it has zero transaction cost.
Up until this point, I think most of the people or many of the people who are excited about using bitcoins to pay for transactions were attracted to the first of those advantages, anonymity. And if you want to keep yourself anonymous in a transaction, half the time it was because there’s something a little bit shady involved in the transaction. You saw a lot of that in the first generation of people using bitcoins.
What is just starting to happen is there’s a preponderance of people who are interested in the second distinction, which is zero transaction cost. That has an appeal to a much broader set of people. It has the opportunity to really disrupt a number of fairly important use cases, whether it would be micro transactions, international trade or international money transfer. I’m interested in bitcoins because I’m starting to see a much broader and more legitimate set of use cases starting to emerge relative to what was driving it in the beginning. Read more here: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2013/04/29/lightspeed-vc-jeremy-liew-loves.html
Will Bitcoin Be Accepted by PayPal?
EBay may open its wallet to the virtual currency Bitcoin.
The e-commerce heavyweight is exploring ways to integrate bitcoins into its PayPal payments network, Chief Executive John Donahoe said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.
“It’s a new disruptive technology, so, yeah, we’re looking at Bitcoin closely,” Donahoe said. “There may be ways to enable it inside PayPal.”
Integration into PayPal’s network would give Bitcoin some much-needed legitimacy. Accepted by few retailers, the currency is held mostly by speculators hoping to profit from price fluctuations, which have been particularly volatile in recent weeks.
Donahoe said eBay hasn’t yet made any commitments to use the currency.
He said Bitcoin was reminiscent of music sharing sites Kazaa and Napster, which were found to violate trademark rights, but helped spawn legitimate sites such Pandora and Spotify. “Virtual currency is something that’s here to stay,” Donahoe said.
Within the next five years, Bitcoin or other virtual currencies, such as airline miles, could be converted to cash and used in retail, Donahoe said. Integrating such virtual currencies into its payment network would help eBay in its effort to push PayPal use at bricks-and-mortar retailers, rather than just online. PayPal brought in $1.55 billion in revenue for eBay in this year’s first quarter, an 18% jump from a year earlier. - Read more here: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/04/30/could-paypal-be-on-horizon-for-bitcoin
Fantastic! Bitcoin on BBC News - 1st May 2013 - BTC media coverage
Bitcoin on BBC News - 1st May 2013 - BTC media coverage recorded from DVR.
Bitcoin on BBC News - 1st May 2013 - BTC media coverage
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Remarkable: Bitcoin, a currency and payments opportunity for Zimbabweans?
Conventional currencies are broken. No one knows that better than the Zimbabwean who watched helplessly as institutions – government, politicians, bankers – they trusted to look after the value of their money conspired and eroded hard earned savings to nothing over a few years.
Paper was printed wantonly, and the value of savings lost faster than the average Zimbabwean could figure out what was going on, or learn how to protect their money. As if this was not enough, unscrupulous bankers resorted to using depositor funds speculatively to buy bricks and cars, which eventually got them shut down, and the biggest loser was none other than the depositors. A system trusted for so long to deliver, bared its inherent weaknesses and more importantly, that it didn’t care about the depositors that oiled it. People moved back in time to barter trade and mattress banking.
Much of the western world was to learn this hard lesson too. The conventional currency system, previously trusted to deliver, has proved it has so many holes allowing it to be abused by institutions that control and run it.
But this is not the only problem. Payments with conventional currency on the internet are a huge pain. And again no one knows that better than a Zimbabwean. Anyone that has tried to make (or receive) internet payments in Zimbabwe has realised soon enough that conventional currency is alien to the open nature that makes the internet the powerful system it is. They realise that on the internet PayPal answers to the US banks and the US government. They realise that Amazon does to. And so does Facebook. The ultimate realisation is that a political squabble between two governments can effectively close and break internet functionality for ordinary people that just want to transact.
Bitcoin, a relatively new digital currency whose recent hype, highs and lows have afforded it mainstream attention, suggests a solution to these fiat money problems. Bitcoin does away with the need for a third trusted party – like PayPal, governments, banks etc… – by basing the currency on an open peer to peer network of computers that maintain, together, a public definitive ledger of all transactions going through the system. The public ledger means a Bitcoins are not double spent.
The Bitcoins are like virtual gold with new Bitcoins mined on the internet by very powerful machines, predictably adding more to the universal pool of Bitcoins at given intervals. This is done in such a fail proof way that makes it impossible for anyone to create new Bitcoins wantonly the way governments “quantitatively ease” problems with conventional currency. The Bitcoins are also finite and will stop being produced by the machines when they reach $21 million, all without intervention from central ‘trusted’ regulatory authority. - Read more here: http://www.techzim.co.zw/2013/04/bitcoin-a-currency-and-payments-opportunity-for-zimbabweans
Bitcoin’s Biggest Impact Could Be Changing How Others Build Products, Say Digital Money Firms
What do digital payments companies make of Bitcoin? Here at TechCrunch Disrupt NY, a digital money panel featuring PayPal, Stripe and Gumroad gave its thoughts on the currency that has VCs emptying their bank accounts to invest afresh.
Stripe’s John Collison said what stands out most to him about Bitcoin is its accessibility. “Bitcoin is still pretty small in the scheme of things right now but the interesting thing about it is access. No one needs to enable Bitcoins for South Africa, for Pakistan — no one can prevent you from having it. It’s everywhere.
“As we think about new ways to accept payments, there is that desirable aspect to Bitcoin.”
Gumroad’s Sahil Lavingia also chipped in with his two cents – suggesting Bitcoin’s biggest impact could be how it inspires others to build products, not least because of its niche appeal.
“A lot of the ideas that it contains are really interesting and will affect the way other people think about building stuff – that might come off of it. But I don’t think it’s big enough for anyone to have any real impact on things,” he said, adding:“ I think it could use a name change. Bitcoin sounds really techie.”
Meanwhile Hill Ferguson from PayPal – the granddaddy of digital payments firms – confirmed the company is keeping an eye on the crypto-currency.
“It’s the perfect currency by design,” he said. “I’m curious to see how governments respond to it and how regulation may impact consumers’ ability to get money in and out. I think it’s a fascinating phenomenon and we are definitely watching it.”
Ferguson also sounded a skeptical note. “What problem is Bitcoin trying to fix? There’s no clear answer.” - http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/30/disrupt-digital-money-panel-on-bitcoin/
Amazingly Best list of Free Bitcoins Websites | You can find more information on Bitcoin Mining here: http://www.miningbitcoinsforfree.info and here: http://www.asicbitcoinmining.info
This is Huge: Mike Maloney On Bitcoin & Future Of Monetary System
In this video, Mike Maloney explains Bitcoin and what his thoughts are on the concept. Coming soon: An in-depth discussion on Bitcoin with Chris Martenson. Get the latest breaking news and more videos by signing up to GoldSilver.com's free weekly newsletter: http://goldsilver.com/join-our-newsletter/
Mike hits on all of the big points:
· Bitcoin is an experiment; Mike is for whatever the free market picks. If it turns out to be an honest system, Bitcoin could act as the world’s payment system.
· Mike wonders if the computer code underlying the Bitcoin system is vulnerable to being compromised.
· Government/central bank deposit grab in Cyprus is an attack on depositors’ purchasing power, just as printing paper currency is. Like gold, Bitcoin seeks to nullify this kind of abuse, as Bitcoins, like gold, are limited in supply.
The Cyprus deposit-grab motivated people to buy Bitcoins. Prices of the online currency shot up above $60, Mike notes, as Europeans traded out from under the control of current currencies. When we deposit funds in a bank, we are creditors to that bank, yet few of us deposit funds in the expectation of suffering overnight losses.
Mike’s point is that overnight losses are happening every day; they’re just small, incremental losses and thus go virtually unnoticed by most of us.
If prices rise 3% annually over 10 years, “that’s 34% that they stole from your purchasing power, and they do this continuously, but very, very slowly, so that we’re the frog in the pot that eventually boils,” Mike explains. - Read more here
Mike Maloney On Bitcoin & Future Of Monetary System
Fantastic! Big VC Says Bitcoin Is 'Gold 2.0. It's a Huge, Huge, Huge Deal'
Think the recent collapse in Bitcoin’s value was the end of the experimental currency’s, um, currency? Not even close, says Chamath Palihapitiya, the longtime Facebook executive who now runs The Social + Capital Partnership.Likening Bitcoin to the “red pill” from the movie “The Matrix,” which exposes those who take it to a hidden reality, Palihapitiya sounded as bullish as could be during a Q&A at TechCrunch Disrupt NY on Monday morning. “We are entering a complete world of uncharted water right now,” he said.Palihapitiya went on:I personally own Bitcoin in my hedge fun, I own Bitcoin in my fund, I own Bitcoin in my private account. It is a huge deal. It’s a huge, huge, huge deal. Because what you’re talking about right now is, for the next three to five years, an unbelievably better stored value. It is gold 2.0. Right? The value of gold that hedges the world economy, about $9 trillion, right? Thirteen hundred an ounce, of which only a hundred to a hundred and fifty dollars is the actual production value. So all the rest is imputed….Well, guess what? I can do the same thing with Bitcoin only I can do it outside the purview of every single government. It’s being used everywhere you would think it would be used. Russia, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Venezuela, Argenina. Everywhere you have currency pressure. Everywhere you want to basically shield your assets. And then, after that, it will probably become a payment mechanism. - http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2013/04/29/big-vc-says-bitcoin-is-gold-2-0-its-a-huge-huge-huge-deal/
Bitcoin segment starts around 18:35.
[ Related posts ]:
- What if Bitcoin/Litecoin is a step toward this: Sacred Economics with Charles Eisenstein (A Short Film)
- Currency of the Revolution by Danny Panzella - Bitcoin Summit
- Introduction to Bitcoin by Josh Harvey - Bitcoin Summit
- Why Bitcoin Is Poised To Change Society Much More Than The Internet Did
- Keiser Report: Bitcoin vs Banksters (E426)
Hackers are trying to create an untraceable and comprehensive financial system using bitcoin.
What’s often missed about alternative currencies like bitcoin is that they weren’t just made for buying and selling things. Nor are they simply tools for financial speculation. Bitcoin is also a payment system, allowing anyone to transfer money anonymously, immediately, irreversibly—and, if you like, illicitly.
As virtual currencies grow, that could have profound implications for governments trying to keep track of and regulate the flow of money across their borders. What’s more, this ghost of a banking system is key to understanding that there’s a real demand for bitcoin—just not as a currency in the old-fashioned, pay-for-goods sense.
Anonymous banking
It is possible to remain anonymous online. Services like BitTorrent, for file-sharing, and Tor, for web broswing, route data through networks of computers in order to protect the identities of their users. Although it was developed by the US Navy, TOR has evolved into a public service, allowing political dissidents, journalists, government officials, and geeks to surf the web anonymously.
Bitcoin is, if anything, the opposite, perfectly transparent. A ledger of all transactions made on the bitcoin is broadly accessible—in fact, that publicness is what makes bitcoin work and maintains faith in the network. But people aren’t identified by name, just algorithmically generated public keys that serve as the user’s wallet.
“The exciting thing about these new currency schemes is that you have these anonymous payment systems grafted onto anonymous networks,” Chris Dixon, a partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, which has invested in bitcoin startups, said recently.
A new initiative called Open Transactions, led by a programmer known only as FellowTraveler, is attempting to blend the anonymity of privacy networks like Tor with the openness of virtual currencies like bitcoin. The idea is to create decentralized transactions involving three completely blind parties: an issuer (who announces that he has some amount of currency up for sale), a server or network of servers (who manage the transaction), and a user (who wants to purchase the currency).
By routing the the transaction through intermediaries and using a privacy network, money can flow anonymously through the web. And the same concept can apply to other asset classes, as well—including, according to the developer, collateralized debt obligations, a financial product that’s about as arbitrary as bitcoin. - Read more here: http://qz.com/75457/using-bitcoin-hackers-are-trying-to-create-an-untraceable-financial-system
Three Reasons Gold is Like Bitcoin - Gold Could Collapse Just Like Bitcoin Did
The power of fear is amazing to me.
For the most part, otherwise sane individuals will do all sorts of crazy things once things become a little bit dicey.
Want proof? Look no further than the gold market. How else can you explain the massive move in an otherwise worthless metal over the last decade?
If you are honest, ask yourself what real utility is there for gold?
Don’t recite what the so-called analysts or experts will tell you about gold being the only real currency in the world (it is not). Those folks will tell you that gold is the only thing that will protect you and your family when things go horribly wrong (fear mongering).
Really, what do you think the world is going to be like if things do really go horribly wrong? I highly doubt that gold bar will get you much if chaos truly takes hold.
Where’s the cash?
How about inflation?
Those who love gold spew all sorts of nonsense about inflation – again, all of it is fear-based.
The global powers are printing money across the globe. All that money is going to make paper currency worthless. Prices across the board are going to rise in an unrelenting, unstoppable wave of inflation.
Oh, really?
If there is so much cash out there. Where in the world is it? I know I don’t have it, do you?
For inflation to truly take hold there needs to be cash dispersed to the masses. That isn’t happening. Not even close.
I’m sorry, but aside from being used in jewelry, gold does not have the utility the market is telling you today, even with the recent selling.
Sure there has been a ton of money made owning gold over the last decade, but that has little to do with true value of gold in a market. What it does tell you is that there is a ton of fear out there and that fear can create a massive bubble in any investment.
The hot new currency
Take for example, hmmm let me see . . . Bitcoin.
You know about Bitcoin, that supposedly hot new digital currency that everyone must have. Come on. Admit it, gold owners. You gave serious consideration to adding some Bitcoin to your portfolio or maybe you actually pulled the trigger and bought some before it collapsed.a
You might laugh at the lunacy of Bitcoin, but is it any different than the lunacy of gold?The answer is no, no and no again. Here are three very simple reasons why gold is like Bitcoin:
1. All bets are off during the apocalypse. I’m pretty sure those dreams of buying a loaf of bread with your gold coins during Armageddon might not be as easy as you think. A better currency in that situation might be your gun and its ammunition. Or maybe gasoline, since transport will take on premium value if such a disaster were to occur. I guarantee you the zombies will scoff when you try to pawn your gold for anything of real value in such a scenario.
2. When the air comes out of the bubble, the pain will be very real. A near 10% drop in the price of gold in one day is nothing. Bitcoin lost $100 in value in a matter of moments. Gold prices could see the same. Those gold ETFs have disaster written all over them. When the money starts to flow out, there will be nothing to backstop the selling. 10% is nothing to what could happen when gold really starts selling off.
3. What someone needs to tell me is how gold and Bitcoin are NOT different. I suppose it is ultimately the market. At the moment the market is telling us that gold is indeed a real currency and Bitcoin is not, but frankly the two are more similar than they are different and that should be cause for alarm for anyone that owns gold.
I can imagine the hate mail and negative comments I might get for raising this issue, but I stand by my beliefs: gold could collapse no differently than what happened with Bitcoin.
If you own the yellow metal, don’t be a fool. Take some of those fat profits off the table before it’s too late. - Read more here: http://www.businessinsider.com/three-reasons-gold-is-like-bitcoin-2013-4
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Extraordinarily Cool! Butterfly Bitcoin ASIC Teardown (video)
The day is here! Nathan from Syn Shop, Las Vegas' local hackerspace, helps me disassemble BFL's fancy new ASIC miner. I see a bunch of chips and capacitors, he sees a lot more. Of course the one downside to filming in an active hackerspace is it can be a bit noisy, so please forgive the audio. As promised in the video I did get ahold of the BFL folks and they confirmed that the ASICs in this unit are running at 170 MHz.
Well this took a lot longer than I expected. I’m certainly no stranger to a screwdriver but it’s been about a decade since I’ve wielded a soldering iron. I wanted to take the BFL ASIC apart on camera for you guys but I also wanted the commentary to be meaningful and while I’m not a complete hardware noob, I’m hardly the right guy for this particular job.
Thankfully, Las Vegas has a local hackerspace called Syn Shop and they were kind enough to lend me some space, tools and a guy named Nathan who knew a lot more at a glance than I would have found after an hour of googling part numbers. The only downside is that an active hackerspace might not be the best environment for filming, they tend to be a bit noisy… But now I’m rambling, and you want to see the teardown, video and the best pictures my cheap cellphone camera could take, so without further ado... Check out more of these cool pictures here: http://codinginmysleep.com/video-teardown-of-bfl-asic
Special thanks to Syn Shop for lending me space, tools and a brain:
How Cool is this? Butterfly Bitcoin ASIC Teardown (video)
[ Related posts ]:
- What if Bitcoin/Litecoin is a step toward this: Sacred Economics with Charles Eisenstein (A Short Film)
- Currency of the Revolution by Danny Panzella - Bitcoin Summit
- Introduction to Bitcoin by Josh Harvey - Bitcoin Summit
- Why Bitcoin Is Poised To Change Society Much More Than The Internet Did
- Keiser Report: Bitcoin vs Banksters (E426)
Awesome & Informative Podcast: Jon Matonis, Bitcoin Foundation
Jon Matonis is an e-money researcher and crypto economist focused on expanding the circulation of non-political digital currencies. His career has included senior influential posts at Sumitomo Bank, VISA, VeriSign, and Hushmail. Currently, He serves on the Board of Directors for the Bitcoin Foundation, is Tech Contributor to Forbes Magazine, and Op-Ed Contributor to American Banker. Jon is also Editor of The Monetary Future economics blog and board advisor to startups in bitcoin, gaming, mobile, and prepaid.
He earned his B.A. in Economics at George Washington University in 1985. He also studied Economics and Computer Software Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park.
This podcast is provided under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 licence [CC-BY-SA]. You are free to share, to remix and to make commercial use of this work provided you attribute it to the Tomorrow's Transactions podcast series and include a link to http://www.chyp.com/media/podcasts and that you distrbute the work only under the same licence.
The podcast includes "stingers" from Apple Garageband that is copyright Apple and licensed as follows: You may use the Apple and third party audio loop content (Audio Content), contained in or otherwise included with the Apple Software, on a royalty-free basis, to create your own original music compositions or audio projects. You may broadcast and/or distribute your own music compositions or audio projects that were created using the Audio Content, however, individual audio loops may not be commercially or otherwise distributed on a standalone basis, nor may they be repackaged in whole or in part as audio samples, sound effects or music beds. - http://chyp.com/media/podcast/jon-matonis-bitcoin-foundation/
Listen interview here: http://chyp.com/media/podcast/jon-matonis-bitcoin-foundation
Download MP3 here: http://chyp.com/assets/uploads/Audio/2013/04/tt132_matonis.mp3
This is Great: Expensify CEO David Barrett discussing Bitcoin on the News
Expensify CEO David Barrett was asked to come and discuss Bitcoin amid the marketing fluctuations. Expensify added support for Bitcoin, allowing its users to get reimbursed in Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a great tool for reimbursing international as it avoids international money transfer fees.
Expensify CEO David Barrett discussing Bitcoin on the News
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