Andrea Castillo Discusses Bitcoin on News Channel 8
Coinkite and Virtex trial bitcoin debit cards and POS terminals
Bitcoin debit cards and point of sale terminals are coming to Canada. Two Canadian companies – Coinkite and Virtex – are about to offer them, each taking a different approach.
The biggest problem getting a physical merchant to accept bitcoin is probably the interface. A lot of small business retailers like the black box nature of a point of sale system.
They can buy it and have it installed without having to know much about it. Understanding the nuances of QR codes, exchange rates and confirmation times is beyond many, as is fiddling with phone- and tablet-based wallets and scanners.
Coinkite wants to bridge the gap between bitcoin and small brick-and-mortar retailers by offering them and their customers a three-part ecosystem: a POS service, debit card, and ‘cryptobanking’ infrastructure.
Full Article Here: http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-debit-cards-come-canada/?v=r
Chinese Investors Flock to Litecoin
Recently a number of Chinese Bitcoin Exchanges have begun accepting Litecoin, they include:
- http://www.okcoin.com (over 90k LTC/BTC trading volume today).
- fxbtc.com (over 19k LTC/BTC trading volume today).
- btctrade.com/ltc (over ￥202,890 trading volume today).
In the last 24hrs we have also seen many occasions in which Litecoin prices have been higher on some exchanges based in China when compared to BTC-e. It would appear that Litecoin is now established on multiple high volume exchanges. The current BTC-e price is $3.05 up from a low of $2.60 in the last 24hrs.
Source: http://litecoin.auz.cc/chinese-investors-flock-litecoin/
Bitcoin Hits an All Time Market Cap High!
http://blockchain.info/charts/market-cap
Bitcoin, at the time this article was written, hit a new all time high market cap of $2.65+ billion! As more capital flows into bitcoin not only is it great for anyone holding Bitcoin but it continues to add stability to the market. Long gone are the days that a few million USD could really increase or drop the price. I suspect more and more will trickle into ALT coins (other crypto currencies) since they have a much smaller market cap and % wise there are more gains to be made if you know what you’re doing.
Lets not forget, 150 BTC/hr is being released to the network which also adds to the market cap value as the price hovers around $230 on the popular Mt Gox exchange as well as $216 on BTE-e.
Adventurer to make first ever bitcoin transaction from the South Pole
In a bid to prove that bitcoin funds cannot be frozen, Frenchman Faysal Hanneche may soon be the first person to make a digital currency purchase from the South Pole.
Danish bitcoin broker Sirius Money is leading the bid to sponsor Hanneche €2,000 to carry a bitcoin sticker on his sledge all the way to the Amundsen-Scott base station in Antarctica, and make the first ever bitcoin purchase from the south pole, purchasing a pizza online via satellite connection just prior to his arrival back in Chile. Continue reading
Keiser Report 516: Bitcoin
Bitcoin makes the main talking point on The Keiser Report this week while Herbert backs up claims made by industry professionals:
Yes, bitcoin. The currency is already creating economic value across Africa, China and the developing world…
Bitcoin; Carving Out History!
i.imgur.com/9XDpVrY.jpg?1
Happy Bitcoin Halloween! Finishing up October with a treat, bitcoin remains over $200 on popular exchange Mt Gox which is a ~66% increase since the 1st. Latest pushes upward are speculated to be from China increasing its interest and urning for a way to shed the dollar along with Silk Road’s seizure gaining mainstream attention. Just how high bitcoin can go is unknown, but the math says we will see increases for a long time to come.
Imagine if just 1% of USD moves into Bitcoin, each one would be ~$500,000!
Check out our resources page for more information on charts and other useful bitcoin services.
BitPay processes $1 million bitcoin order for Butterfly Labs
photo by BitcoinNe.ws
This means that, at the current price of $192 per bitcoin, Butterfly Labs received an order for around 5,208 BTC-worth of mining equipment. BitPay then processed this order, depositing the equivalent in fiat currency in Butterfly Labs’ bank account.
Despite the size of the order, the cryptocurrency payment processor processed it in their usual one-business-day timeframe.
Tony Gallippi, co-founder and CEO of BitPay, said: “The speed, reliability, and certainty of payments over the bitcoin network is expanding at a rapid pace, and in many regards has already surpassed the functionality of our 60-year old credit card networks.” Continue reading
Man Forgets About Buying $27 of Bitcoin, Is Now Worth About $1 Million
Four years ago, Oslo-man Christopher Koch’s girlfriend scoffed at his purchase of $27-worth of Bitcoin. Chances are she was singing a decidedly different tune last April, when Koch checked back in on his investment and found out it was worth $886,000. And over a cool million today.
Back in 2009, Koch was working on a thesis paper about encryption, which introduced him to the relatively unknown world of Bitcoin. On little more than a whim, he decided to throw down $27 for 5,000 Bitcoins because the encryption process fascinated him and because why not. Koch then promptly forgot about the purchase—until Bitcoin started popping up in the news four years later, that is. Continue reading
WIRED Tour of Robocoin: First Bitcoin ATM
Wired.com – Robocoin Goes Live
Today marks the day when automated personal banking will truly reach new heights, possibly eliminating the need for human assistance in banking. Wired.com has the latest on the new Bitcoin ATM machines being released in Canada by a company called Robocoin.
The Robocoin isn’t like other ATMs. It doesn’t take debit or credit cards. It’s a cash-only machine. You put your money in, and it gives you numbers — addresses that link to bitcoins, the world’s most popular digital currency. Or, if you already own some bitcoins, the machine can scan a QR code on your mobile phone and dispense cash.
Murck says it won’t be long till we see them in the US. Continue reading
Bitcoin IS Intrinsically Valuable
By Dan Roseman
Image credit: Flickr
It has been said a lot. Bitcoin is risky because it not “backed” by any government, asset, or commodity and has no intrinsic value in and of itself. It is true that Bitcoin is risky, but not for any those reasons. Bitcoin is risky because it is an entirely new disruptive technology with revolutionary potential in an unknown regulatory environment. The risk lies in Bitcoin’s ability to persevere despite the uncertain regulatory climate and realize its unspoken potential. The jury is still out on that. Continue reading
Obama asks if “Bitcoin is Anything He Has to Worry About”
Here’s a story recently related to me by a guest at a White House dinner, which included Google’s Eric Schmidt: The president, whose most important job is surely to protect the integrity of the monetary system, smugly asked Schmidt if Bitcoin, one of many growing challenges to currency hegemony, was anything he had to worry about.
– From a USA Today article titled: How CEOs are Clueless About Technology
If the above is accurate (and I have no reason to suspect it isn’t), it is priceless information on so many levels. Continue reading
Bitcoin Bubble? – China and Bitcoins – Bitcoin & the Homeless
Popular bitcoin news outlets are getting together and talking bitcoin in this second episode of a weekly installment of The Bitcoin Group. This week is featuring Andreas M. Antonopoulos, Derrick J. Freeman, Davi Barker and MadBitcoins:
THIS WEEK: Issue 1 – Bitcoin Bubble? Issue 2 – China and Bitcoins. Issue 3 – Bitcoin Island. Issue 4 – Bitcoins and the Homeless.
Bitcoin makes moves from low $100’s to low $200’s
Bitcoin Chart – BitcoinWisdom.com
As we all watched, bitcoin has made major moves lately as trends from around $100 just a month ago have moved up into the 200’s, actually reaching mid $230’s at one point.
It seems to be holding strong so far, while major swings may continue as large transactions occur globally, that shouldn’t be any reason to say bitcoin is too volatile. Bitcoin’s recent gains seem due to continued news reports and the natural awareness that raises.
Over the long run we will see this trend continue – bullish on bitcoin.
Accepted here: introducing the bitcoin neon sign
Source Imgur
The neon bitcoin sign has arrived.
In order to add some pizzazz to the act of spending in bitcoins, a redditor has built a vibrant sign so that merchants can easily let customers know that they accept bitcoin.
“I only designed the initial concept of the sign and worked with a manufacturer in California to get them produced,” said Crypt0queen, the entrepreneur behind the sign. Crypt0queen says that half of the sign inventory has already been sold after only being available for a 24-hour period. Continue reading
World’s First Bitcoin ATM Set to Go Live Tuesday
Three high school buddies from a tiny Canadian town say that they will flip the switch on the world’s first bitcoin ATM next week. It will operate near the entrance of a downtown Vancouver coffee house.
Photo: Robocoin
Built by a Nevada company called Robocoin, the machine will trade bitcoins for cash and vice versa. Bitcoin is the world’s most popular digital currency, and it exists only on the internet, but it can be traded for traditional dollars and euros. Continue reading
Don’t fret!
Bitcoin will be back up shortly. Someone just unloaded 26,000 bitcoin and the market is still way up over the last 2 weeks. Now that the market cap for bitcoin has been increasing steadily over the last 6 months, it’s much harder for traders to dramatically affect the market as much. Once these large transactions flush out, it’s great for the stability of bitcoin as now MANY people own that same 26,000 bitcoins instead of 1 person. As we all know, bitcoin will continue to increase in terms of fiat currency it is by nature, a natural deflationary currency.
Bitcoin Core Development Update #5 brings better features
Bitcoin is about to get two significant updates: a way to embed information about ‘smart property’ into transactions, and a better way to calculate transaction fees. Bitcoin’s lead developer Gavin Andresen made the announcement yesterday in his fifth Core Development Update.
The latest update uses a new type of transaction to give people the chance to associate their own data with their bitcoin transactions, which is something that wasn’t explicitly allowed before. The team is doing this by enabling OP_RETURN, a transaction parameter that will let people embed a tiny 80 bytes of data into a blockchain transaction record directly. Continue reading
How “dumb mistakes” can lead to costly bitcoin losses
It’s great that bitcoin gives you the power to “be your own bank”, with almost zero fees and full control over your finances. But even banks discover sometimes such power can backfire. Nothing can stop human error, technical glitches, human nature or a combination of all three from wreaking havoc on the balance sheet.
But bitcoin is also like a pocketful of cash. Like that time you shelled out $100 instead of $10, or two bills instead of one, a simple concentration lapse can see exponentially more bitcoin leave your wallet than you’d intended, never to be seen again. Continue reading
Meanwhile, In Bitcoin…
Just last week we noted that the cryptocurrency was quietly surging towards record highs once again as the debacle in Washington, China’s comments on the USD, and Baidu’s acceptance of Bitcoins all interplayed to disrupt whatmany called the end of Bitcoin following the shuttering of Silk Road. Continue reading
