The Rise of the ALTCOINS

altcoin-ftw These days, it’s easy to get a little flack for recommending alt coins. Those people tend to think only this new great ‘adoption’ of technology will be only for bitcoin, thats far from the case.

Both namecoin and litecoin have hit new highs in the last 48 hours, sitting ~250% increase. They are starting to get support from those looking for bitcoin alternatives, usually something cheaper.

Namecoin offers something unique to the crypto currency market, a new TLD called ‘.bit’.

Litecoin offers faster transaction times and a higher quantity of coins.

You can purchase bitcoins in 10 minutes or less and convert some into altcoins on popular exchanges like BTC-e, to diversify your crypto wallet.

New Local Way of Trading Litecoins

new_litecoin_logo_large litecoin imageA new website, similar to localbitcoins.com, has opened trading the 2nd most popular cryptocurrency, litecoin. Litecoinlocal.org is out to increase liquidity in the litecoin market at a crutial time for most investors.

Bitcoin has increased so much recently that whole ones are starting to become out of reach for some.

Thats where an alternative coin (altcoin) comes in, Litecoin is a less expensive, faster, and a higher quantity coin that is within reach of everyone – at least for now.

Check out litecoinlocal.org to buy and sell litecoin today.

Bitcoin a perfect currency, says Chinese investor

Bitcoin, a digital currency circulated on the internet and functioning without the intermediation of a central authority, has drawn controversy over its status as an emerging currency or as a potential bubble economy since 2009.

Bitcoins Rise

The former chief technology officer of the Chinese-language online social reading platform Docin, Xu Mingxing, believes bitcoin “is a social experiment.” He is willing to risk losses by investing in the currency, he said. Continue reading

Bitcoin Hearing on CSPAN Today at 3PM EST

cspan C-SPAN will be hosting a meeting today and the topic? Bitcoin.

Live stream schedule can be found here, a direct link to the hearing here, as well as chat details on mIRC.

The support for bitcoin is surprising so far from officials, Bloomberg stated in an article today:

The Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission are telling a U.S. Senate committee that Bitcoins are legitimate financial instruments, boosting prospects for wider acceptance of the virtual currency.

BTC-e has Trouble Keeping up with Demand, again.

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Popular exchange BTC-e is down. 

This may be another ddos attack which would not be the first time this exchange has suffered from one. This comes at at a time when BTC is hitting all times high well over $500 each. LTC and other altcoins are also frozen in charts from other websites that source BTC-e’s market prices, pretty irie.

So, at this moment it looks like BTC is tipping over into sell off on markets like Mt Gox and Bitstamp, which would usually equal dipping LTC prices – not so far.

Ah – I can hear the trollbox now… Sell Sell Sell!

Bitcoin Price Hits $500, a 50x Increase in Just 12 Months

Those bitcoins that made you gasp at $300 just a couple of weeks ago? They were a bargain — the value of 1 BTC has now passed $500.

bitcoin hand bitcoinne.wsPrices hit this record and landmark figure at 11.50am GMT on 17 November, and at the time of writing were trading at $503.10 on Mt. Gox.

That means: if you bought a stash of bitcoins at their absolute highest peak price of $266* in April 2013 and then felt nauseous as the price plunged to $65 the same week, you have now almost doubled your investment. Provided you didn’t cut your losses and sell prematurely, that is.

The bitcoin value began rising again almost immediately after that, breaking through the $100 mark again before May and hovering around that region throughout the northern hemisphere summer. It broke through $200 in late October and since then the price charts have been close to vertical, hitting $300 on 6 November and $400 on all exchanges by 15 November.

Rest of the article here: http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-price-hits-500-50x-increase-12-months/

24 Hour BTC Turnover – $1Billion

The quantity of money is important for most economic calculations, but the velocity of money is what’s important to the common user. See, without money currency being exchanged from hand to hand, less and less come in contact with it. If less come in contact with it there is money scarcity in which everyone feels poor.

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Now in a free market, this would be corrected by the cost of goods and services coming down to the amount that people can actually pay for. But, in todays age, far too often the price of goods and services increases (usually due to inflation) when the money velocity slows.

If only there was a currency where velocity was greatly improved by technology. Alas, there is! Bitcoin.  Continue reading

Acquire First Bitcoin in 10 Minutes or Less

Coinbase has become notorious lately for taking close to a week to receive bitcoins after making payment. Not anymore! Up to 1 0.1 bitcoin can be purchased instantly and will deposited into your account in less than 10 minutes. This would have been laughable when coinbase opened and bitcoins were only $10. But today that could be close to a $500 $120 investment, pretty significant.

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Part of our goal at Coinbase is to make acquiring Bitcoin as easy as possible. Since August, we’ve had an instant-buy feature available to users who have made a purchase and been with us for 30 days.

Starting today, all new Coinbase users can acquire a small amount of bitcoin (just 1) without the 30-day wait period provided they meet the rest of the required verifications (verifying their ID and adding a backup credit card).

Get started today: Up to 0.1 Bitcoin Instantly after purchase with Coinbase

Edit: Updated Coinbase’s new policy of .1 bitcoin per week instantly. 

Bitcoin – To Be, Or Not to Be less Volatile

Riding those waves on a daily basis making you sick? A new website from BitcoinAverage.com is out to calm the seas. With many more exchanges now in existence, averaging them all together can give us a clearer price point for USD/BTC and other exchange pairs. BitcoinAverage

I know I personally use to have many windows with different exchanges open all the time, not anymore. As more and more exchanges open all over the world, knowing the average cost of a bitcoin will provide more stability in the market, most likely in ways we have yet to see.

One of my favorite features of the website is the ability to take infamous Mt. Gox out of the equation. This is huge for anyone that has issues getting their currency out of the exchanges like USD as it no longer has to be factored into the price in your currency.

More exchanges will open over time, and thats a win win for websites like BitcoinAverage.

Why Bitcoin’s Growth is Normal

Economists are up in arms, claiming that bitcoin’s 1000% annual growth is faster than anything they’ve ever seen. Because of that, they lash out, calling bitcoin volatile, a bubble, a pyramid scheme, etc. But don’t worry, we put on our VC glasses, compare the 4.5 year old bicoint to facebook, twitter, google at the same periods in their growth. The result is that Bitcoin’s growth is as exponential, as volatile and as normal as any enormous tech giant.

Winklevosses: Bitcoin worth at least 100 times more

twins-bitcoinCNBC covers recent volatility concerns about Bitcoin with the Winklevoss twins this morning.

The twins commented:

The small bull case scenario is a $400 billion market cap. So the market cap is around $4 billion right now
[…]
As for what regulators in Washington think about bitcoin, I think everyone recognizes the innovation and doesn’t want to stifle it. They just want to make sure there’s healthy regulations so it’s used in a safe and productive manner.

Video and Full Article: http://www.cnbc.com/id/101190181

Bitcoin Makes Cyber Security Hot Topic

bitcoin locked file hackersLittle are immune to lengths a hacker will go to steal beneficial information. With the advent of Bitcoin, that information is now a form of currency that can be stolen with no recourse in getting it back.

One of the lastest threads on Reddit’s /r/Bitcoin subthread go over just that.

Depending on how much is lost it will probably only take one or two instances of losing money before most people start to understand what we tech guys have been trying to tell you this entire time.

Here is the takeaway, the most important thing you can do is store your Bitcoin on a NON-networked computer. Disable any way for a hacker to access your data remotely and there is just that, no way to hack in and steal your money.

Visit the full post here, http://redd.it/1qc3az and learn more about protecting your investment in Bitcoin.

Ebay of Bitcoin; Bitmit is Closing it’s Doors

bitmit-closes-bitcoin

Email sent to Bitmit Customers

Bitmit announced today that it will be closing up shop and those still in the system should remove anything of value and move on.

It’s surprising one of the most well know online auctions sites that uses bitcoin will no longer be connecting buyers and sellers. Furthermore with bitcoins recent significant rise in value, it raises big questions on how their business model has failed.

Bitmit reports that: “There has not been any hack, missing funds etc. ”

More to come as we get it, comment if you have any updates or comments!

10% off w/ Bitcoin at Subway Sandwich Shop

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The number of things you can buy with bitcoin has just become a little bit bigger. Now you can add Subway sandwiches to your list of bitcoin-friendly products. If you live in Russia, that is.

What’s more, the Moscow-based Subway shop is offering a 10 percent discount for customers who are savvy enough to pay with the digital currency.

The shop is likely the first Subway sandwich shop anywhere in the world to accept bitcoin payments.

The advertisement appears in a photo tweeted on 3 November by bitcoin software developer Alberto Gomez Toribio. He says the photo was taken by a friend who is currently travelling in Russia.

Rest of the article here: http://www.coindesk.com/subway-sandwich-russia-bitcoin-payments/

11 or 12 Things I Learned About Life While Daytrading Millions

Editors Note: James Altucher has long traded with the best of the best in the stock market. As for us Bitcoin traders, we may think we know everything, but these tips provided by James really hit home for those trying to daytrade in the bitcoin market as well. 

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I was a day trader for many years, and it almost killed me.

I made money by making profits on my own money and also taking a percentage of the profits for the people I traded for. I traded up to $40 million or $50 million a day at my peak. I did this from 2001 to 2004.

I learned about day trading but I also learned a lot about myself and what I was good at, what I was horrible at, and what I was psychotic at. Things that had nothing to do with day trading.

Day trading is the best job in the world on the days you make money. You make a trade, then maybe 20 minutes later you are out of the trade with a profit, and for the rest of the day you think about how much money you made. Continue reading

BTC-E Becomes the Heavy Weight of Exchanges

btc-e_bitcoin-exchange-makes-history

via cryptocoincharts.info

Long gone are the days of Mt. Gox ruling the bitcoin world of Mordor, who up until recently boasted their 80% market domination 2011 statistic on their homepage. BTC-e, a russian exchange that usually trends behind, has made tremendous headway in becoming the most traded exchange today.

Unlike Gox that trades only bitcoin, BTC-e trades a variety of popular cryptocurrencies as well as traditional currencies like USD, EUR and RUR. As more traders learn about alternative (to Mt. Gox) exchanges, they realize it’s a much bigger risk to only have the pair of BTC/USD available to them. With BTC-e’s hand selected currency pairs, a trader can move their wealth into a plethora of popular currencies depending on their needs and ideals, making BTC-e a more stable exchange overall.

High-profile investors reveal just how bullish they are on bitcoin

It’s important to put money where your mouth is. Of course, if it is BTC, then putting bitcoin where your mouth is makes all the difference.

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The proclamation of former Facebook executive and investor Chamath Palihapitiya that he owns $5 million in bitcoins, around 23,000 bitcoin at current CoinDesk BPI prices, is an exercise in confidence for the electronic currency.

And the fact that he wants to own at least $10 million more shows serious investor interest in a new type of asset class that some critics have in the past considered worthless.

Rest of the article here: http://www.coindesk.com/investors-bullish-bitcoin/