Sunday, May 31, 2015
How Trustless Off-Blockchain Transactions Could Solve the Block Size Problem (Op-Ed)
The Future of Bitcoin Is Bright; Jesus Would Know
Weekend Roundup: OKCoin Faces Severe Image Crisis, Ross Ulbricht Gets Life in Prison
UN Report: Freedom of Expression Depends on the Use of Encryption
Fintech Fusion: ‘Reinforcing the Position of Switzerland as a Worldwide Hub’ for Innovation
Saturday, May 30, 2015
Ulbricht, Who Wanted to Empower Others to Be Free, Will Spend His Own Life in Prison
BitSpark Wins Innotribe 2015 Singapore Semi-Finals and Announces New Offline Service
Bitcoin remittance startup BitSpark, alongside four other fintech startups, won the Innotribe 2015 Singapore Semi-Finals held Thursday at the Red Dot Design Museum. The event was organized through a partnership with NextBank Asia and sponsored by international bank Wells Fargo and European startup accelerator Level39.
BitSpark will now progress to the finals, which will be held in October at Singapore Sibos, where it will have the opportunity to win $50,000 and as well as support from the international payment network SWIFT.
Other winners of the Singaporean competition were social consumer credit rating startup Trustingsocial, automated risk management platform provider Jewel Paymentech, online payment processor Codapay, and mobile payments solution provider goSwift. Each of the 15 startups that participated in the event had to pitch the company to a panel of judges, which was composed of financial technology experts and entrepreneurs from the Asia-Pacific region.
BitSpark will be competing against 20 other fintech startups in the finals. Besides the Asian competition winners, finalists from Innotribe competitions held in North America, Africa and Europe will also be competing. The North American showcase has yet to held, and so far only one other digital currency startup progressed to finals. Elliptic, a secure storage service for a variety of assets using the blockchain, won the European showcase in April.
Connecting offline remittances
BitSpark secured a spot in the finals with a new service they announced during the competition. BitSpark CEO George Harrap told Bitcoin Magazine the new service is a way for offline remittance agents to offer online remittances through the startup’s Bitcoin international technology.
“With Bitspark, traditionally offline small business remittance shops (who can service the unbanked) are brought online, and online remittance services (who cannot access the unbanked/unconnected) are now able to connect with unbanked customers,” said Harrap.
The new service aims to solve of one of Bitcoin remittances’ biggest hurdles: digital. The vast majority of senders and receivers are still offline, cash-loving and might not have the best access to the Internet.
Online is still tiny part of global remittances, around 10 to 15 percent, though that is changing. BitSpark will continue to follow the company’s philosophy of “bitcoin in the background,” or cash-in and cash-out, so consumers don’t need to bother handling the digital currency.
BitSpark already operates its online Bitcoin remittance service in a several parts of Asia, including mainland China, Indonesia, the Philippines and Hong Kong. The startup uses only Bitcoin as payment rails, and users send and receive fiat. It has previously explored ways to cater to offline remitters with pre-paid cards in the Philippines and a physical point-of-presence in Hong Kong.
Developing an agent network
BitSpark will try to entice remittance agents to join the startup’s service by offering a subscription-fee model instead of the commission model offered by Western Union, MoneyGram and others. Attracting agents and building a large agent network is crucial for the success of the service.
Instead of giving a cut of each transaction to BitSpark, agents within their network will pay a yet-to-be-defined monthly fee to be part of the service. According to Harrap, the pricing model will put much more cash in the pockets of agents compared to existing remittance companies.
The Bitcoin startup said it already has a number of operators signed up, but whether the different fee model will be compelling enough to incentivize the number of agents it needs to join is a big if. Established offline remittance services offer a trusted brand and large customer base, both of which are huge for getting volume and subsequent agent earnings. Though it varies from country to country, in many places agents make between 30 percent to 45 percent.
That percentage might seem small, but even with a large cut going to remittance companies such as Western Union, agents are likely making a good living from the large volume provided by such brands.
BitSpark did not elaborate in detail about the new service but said more information would be available closer its launch in July.
Deep Web Documentary Shines Light on the Rise and Fall of the Silk Road
On February 4, 2015, a young man named Ross Ulbricht was convicted of seven charges laid in a U.S. Federal Court in Manhattan. On May 29, 2015, he was sentenced to life in prison for his crimes.
He was accused of being the owner and operator of the Silk Road website, the most popular online drug marketplace.
The indictment charged Ulbricht in seven counts, including narcotics trafficking, narcotics trafficking by means of the Internet, conspiring to commit narcotics trafficking, engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiring to commit or aid and abet computer hacking, conspiring to traffic in fraudulent identification documents, and conspiring to commit money laundering.
Filmmaker Alex Winter has written, directed, and produced a film outlining the story of the rise and fall of Silk Road called Deep Web. It premieres on May 31st at 8PM on Epix.
The documentary tells the story of the rise and fall of Silk Road, bringing the viewer into the world of U.S. law enforcement agencies during their early monitoring and seizure of the website, follows Ulbricht’s court case, and documents the present work of one group of people trying to rebuild a decentralized version of the Silk Road.
It includes testimonials from government officials, law enforcement, crypto-anarchists, ex-Silk Road vendors, and people who knew Ulbricht personally.
The filmmakers provide an impartial recounting of this shocking story while bringing to light important topics of discussion.
“I really tried to shine a light on aspects of the story that I wasn’t seeing,” says Winter. “It’s a complex thing to tell a story about for that reason. It’s very easy to paint a story black and white, So a lot of painstaking effort was made to dig into the roots of what these movements are about and examine the grays of what’s seen as a black and white story.”
The documentary’s footage of Ulbricht reveals an idealistic, fun-loving, and liberty-minded young American man whose life is paradoxically juxtaposed with that of a drug kingpin. His character straddles the line of between hero and villain throughout the story.
Creating such a comprehensive look at this whole story wasn’t without its challenges for the filmmakers.
“Creating this film required a fairly comprehensive understanding of the tech,” says Winter. “You also have to have an understanding of the people in the tech communities and get at what their motives are and what they’re trying to accomplish; look at hard truths that may not be palatable to people, and just try to paint a human face of the individual convicted of this crime since the counter narrative is so strong; trying to swim against that current is also challenging.”
Bitcoin Magazine spoke to Lyn Ulbricht, Ross Ulbricht’s mother at the SXSW premiere of Deep Web.
“He was pretty upset,” said Lynn Ulbricht. “It was very tough on him. The trial was emotionally draining; very hard on all of us. Since then, he really tries to be positive. He’s strong and resilient. He tells me that when he was feeling restless he started working out. He’s coping but it’s tough. He’s very cut off. I’m proud of him. “
“This case is very important,” concluded Lynn Ulbricht. “There’s evidence pointing to the fact that the Silk Road server was accessed illegally. It sets precedent going into the digital age that will affect all of us. It’s not just about Ross.”
News that two federal agents used their government position for the robbery and extortion of large sums of money from the Silk Road has recently surfaced.
Ulbricht’s attorneys filed a motion for a new trial on March 6 on the grounds that the government’s failure to provide this exculpatory material in a timely manner denied Ross his fifth amendment right to due process and fair trial.
Not denying that the criminal case against these former agents alleges corruption, judge Katherine Forrest has denied a retrial for Ulbricht. According to her ruling, “This motion for a new trial…does not address how any additional evidence, investigation, or time would have raised even a remote probability that the outcome of the trial would be any different.”
Winter is hoping to bring this story to everyday people and make them think about things that they would’ve otherwise given thought to.
“I hope that this project challenges people enough to dig deeper. I hope that people have enough humanity to question things. I hope that it provides impetus for more nuanced discourse about the internet and the movements around the internet that I think are very important.”
Overall, this gripping documentary demands the viewer’s’ attention and contains the staunch realization that we are entering the “future”. Along with that comes problems like cyber crime and unknown hacking methods used by both citizens and governments. Some questions to be asked are: Is it safer for drug deals to go on online? What are the US citizen’s relationship to their government? Is this altering?
FinTech Digest: Android Pay Arrives, CBA Integrates Ripple, Bitcoin ATMs Hit Milestone
Former OKCoin CTO: ‘OKCoin is Seriously Violating its Obligation'
Andresen Will Shift Efforts to Bitcoin Fork, If No Consensus Reached on Block Size
Top Global Banks Are Deeply Involved in FIFA Bribes Scandal
6 Unconventional Uses of the Blockchain
Friday, May 29, 2015
Citi Names GetGems App the ‘Most Visionary Social Solution’ In Mobile Challenge
Bitcoin Gets ‘Slashdotted’ and the Creation of Mt. Gox
From DIGITAL GOLD by Nathaniel Popper
Headphones on and an oversize can of MadCroc energy drink by his side, Martti sat at his dorm room desk, giddy. Slashdot, a go-to news site for computer geeks the world over, was going to post an article about Martti’s pet project. Bitcoin, largely ignored over the last year, was on the verge of receiving global attention.
The campaign to get Bitcoin real press coverage had begun a few weeks earlier, not long after Martti finished his three-month internship at Siemens. A new version of Bitcoin, version 0.3, was being prepared for release by Satoshi, and the regulars on the forum saw a perfect opportunity to get the word out. Martti agreed with a handful of other users that Slashdot would be the best place to do this.
“Slashdot with its millions of tech-savvy readers would be awesome, perhaps the best imaginable!” Martti wrote on the forum. “I just hope the server can stand getting ‘slashdotted.’ ”
A small crew went back and forth about the right language to submit to the Slashdot editors. Satoshi got his hackles up when someone suggested Bitcoin be sold as “outside the reach of any government.”
“I am definitely not making any such taunt or assertion,” Satoshi wrote.
He quickly apologized for being a wet blanket: “Writing a description for this thing for general audiences is bloody hard. There’s nothing to relate it to.”
After Martti suggested his own changes, the final version made the more modest assertion that “the community is hopeful the currency will remain outside the reach of any government.”
When the item went online, shortly after midnight in Helsinki, it wasn’t anything more than the single paragraph the Bitcoin team had submitted.
“How’s this for a disruptive technology?” it began. “Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer, network-based digital currency with no central bank, and no transaction fees.”
Despite the modesty of the item, the Internet chat channel that Martti had established for the Bitcoin community quickly lit up. NewLibertyStandard wrote: “front page!!!”
Regulars like Laszlo made a point of being on the Bitcoin chat channel, to answer questions and serve as a tour guide of sorts for any newbies who checked in after reading the story. In his dorm room, Martti posted a message on Facebook: “If I was a smoker, I would have smoked two packs already.”
Martti watched as the counters, which tracked the number of users on the forum and the chat channel, ticked steadily upward. Messages crowded his forum in-box; and the Bitcoin website, running on servers that could not handle more than one hundred viewers at a time, began to slow. Within an hour, the limit was reached and the whole site went down. Martti scrambled to scale up the site’s capacity with the company that rented him space. But this, and the derogatory comments that showed up under the Slashdot item, did not dampen his enthusiasm. This was what he’d been waiting for for months.
Chapter 5
July 12, 2010
When he awoke late, the morning after the Slashdot posting, Martti Malmi saw that the attention was not a hit-and- run phenomenon. People weren’t just taking a look at the site and moving on. They were also downloading and running the Bitcoin software. The number of downloads would jump from around three thousand in June to over twenty thousand in July. The day after the Slashdot piece appeared, Gavin Andresen’s Bitcoin faucet gave away 5,000 Bitcoins and was running empty. As he begged for donations, he marveled at the strength of the network:
Over the last two days of Bitcoin being “slashdotted” I haven’t heard of ANY problems with Bitcoin transactions getting lost, or of the network crashing due to the load, or any problem at all with the core functionality.
But while the Bitcoin software itself was working well, new users quickly ran up against the limitations of the Bitcoin ecosystem. Those who immediately wanted to acquire more Bitcoins than were available from Gavin’s faucet were left with only a few meager options, one of them a creaky, unreliable service that Martti had set up a few months earlier.
Jed McCaleb was one of the people who encountered this weakness. A native of Arkansas, Jed had been raised by his single mother, who made a living as a journalist. From a young age, Jed had been something of a math and science prodigy, and this allowed him to make it to Berkeley for college. Jed, though, had trouble sticking with things, and he soon dropped out of Berkeley and moved to New York. There he and a partner set up what became one of the main successors to Napster. His software, eDonkey, made it possible for individuals to trade large files like movies and it proved so successful that the Recording Industry Association of America sued Jed and his business partner. They eventually paid $30 million to settle the case and shut eDonkey down, but they also earned a few million along the way.
Despite being a soft-spoke introvert, Jed had a cool way about him that helped him make friends and girlfriends. When one of his romantic flings ended up pregnant, he and the woman, MiSoon, decided somewhat spontaneously to keep the baby and make a go of it. They used some of Jed’s earnings to buy an estate with a pool an hour or so north of New York City, just as they were expecting a second baby. In the sprawling, mostly empty house, Jed threw himself into an online game he had created called The Far Wilds, which had attracted only a few aficionados. He spent endless hours in a first-floor bedroom, which he had turned into a den. Books about neuroscience and artificial intelligence piled up around him—as did old food, attracting bugs that MiSoon initially tried to get rid of, but later came to accept as one of the side effects of Jed’s brilliant mind.
When Jed came across the Slashdot post about Bitcoin he was immediately intrigued. It seemed to fulfill many of the ideals behind Napster and eDonkey—taking power from authorities and giving it to individuals. But when Jed tried to buy some actual Bitcoins, he ran into the limitations of the few existing sites that sold them.
MiSoon was nursing their newborn son when she wandered into Jed’s study one night and encountered his frustration.
“There’s this really cool thing called Bitcoin— it’s like this nerd, libertarian thing,” Jed told MiSoon, in his hushed, intense voice. “But it’s so lame. I can’t buy any at night.”
Jed said he wanted to build a site himself where he could buy coins at any hour. When MiSoon arose the next morning, it was done. With some experience in amateur foreign-currency trading, Jed knew the basics of what an exchange required. But he had never actually set up a website before, having previously worked more on the sophisticated back-end software. His new Bitcoin exchange was something of a fun experiment.
He and MiSoon discussed possible names for the site. He mentioned an old domain name that he owned and was not using—mtgox.com. Jed had bought the site in 2007, for use as an online exchange to buy and sell the cards used in the role-playing game Magic: The Gathering hence the acronym for Magic: The Gathering Online Exchange. It had operated for just a few months before Jed shut it down and the site had been vacant since.
“Yeah, you should use that,” MiSoon replied. “That’s kind of weird and easy to remember. Why not if you already have it registered?”
Seven days after the Slashdot post, Jed casually advertised his new site on the Bitcoin forum:
Hi Everyone,
I just put up a new Bitcoin exchange.
Please let me know what you think.
Mt. Gox was a significant departure from the exchanges that already existed, primarily because Jed offered to take money from customers into his PayPal account and thereby risk violating the PayPal prohibition on buying and selling currencies. This meant that Jed could receive funds from almost anywhere in the world. What’s more, customers didn’t have to send Jed money each time they wanted to do a trade. Instead, they could hold money—both dollars and Bitcoins— in Jed’s account and then trade in either direction at any time as long as they had sufficient funds, much as in a traditional brokerage account.
These advances made it significantly more convenient to buy and sell Bitcoins, but also brought new dangers that threatened to betray some of the currency’s basic principles. Satoshi had designed Bitcoin to eliminate the need for trusted central authorities. It was supposed to be a new money that people could hold on their own, without a bank, secured with a private key that only the user knew. Mt. Gox customers would be moving back to the old model in which a single institution—Jed’s company—held everyone’s money. If Jed offered good security measures, this might prove safer than holding coins on a home computer. But Jed was not a security expert, and if he did somehow lose the private keys to the exchange’s digital wallets, his customers had little recourse. Unlike the banks that Bitcoiners had bashed, Mt. Gox had no deposit insurance and no regulators overseeing the safety and soundness of Jed’s operation. The choice was between security and principles on one hand and convenience on the other.
From DIGITAL GOLD by Nathaniel Popper Copyright © 2015 by Nathaniel Popper. Reprinted courtesy of Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
Blockstream Starts Development on the Lightning Network
The authors of the much-discussed Bitcoin Sidechains paper “Enabling Blockchain Innovations with Pegged Sidechains,” released in October, have formed the company Blockstream to develop new ways to accelerate innovation in digital currencies, open assets and smart contracts. In November, Blockstream closed a $21 million seed funding round with nearly 40 investors, including well-known pioneers of the Internet and financial services sectors.
The Bitcoin Sidechains paper envisages an ecosystem of “sidechains” separate from the main Bitcoin blockchain but interoperable with it. A sidechain can carry bitcoin as currency, in which case users will be able to seamlessly transfer bitcoin between the sidechain and the main blockchain. At the same time, the sidechain can implement changes from Bitcoin Core. For example, a sidechain can implement more powerful scripting features or more watertight privacy.
For a readable explanation of sidechains, see “A simple explanation of Bitcoin ‘Sidechains,” by Richard Gendal Brown, executive architect for banking innovation at IBM UK.
“[A]t any point, whoever is holding these coins on the sidechain can send them back to the Bitcoin network by creating a special transaction on the sidechain that immobilizes the bitcoins on the sidechain,” explains Gendal Brown. “They’ll disappear from the sidechain and become available again on the Bitcoin network, under the control of whoever last owned them on the sidechain.”
The deployment of sidechains interoperable with Bitcoin requires the implementation of suitable hooks in Bitcoin Core. That will inevitably take some time, but it’s worth noting that some Blockstream team members are also Bitcoin Core developers.
In February, developers Joseph Poon and Thaddeus Dryja released a first draft version another much-discussed paper, proposing a decentralized Bitcoin Lightning Network where related transactions can take place instantly on “micropayment channels” off-chain, and only the final settlement is processed by the blockchain. According to the authors, lightning networks would enable bitcoin scalability, efficient micropayments, and near-instant transactions.
The implementation of lightning networks would also require appropriate tweaks to Bitcoin core. Some developers have noted that there is a certain degree of affinity between sidechains and lightning networks.
“Other approaches seek to modify Bitcoin protocols in various ways,” wrote Robert McGrath. “For example, Sidechains aim to create alternative blockchains hanging off the main blockchain, which would help limit the costs of the main blockchain. Another variant is the Lightning network, which aims to allow some transactions to be performed “on the side,” and on send the results to the main blockchain.”
Rusty Russel, an Australian developer known for his work on the Linux kernel, wrote a series of blog posts about interesting features of lightning networks. “The key revelation of the paper is that we can have a network of arbitrarily complicated transactions, such that they aren’t on the blockchain (and thus are fast, cheap and extremely scalable), but at every point are ready to be dropped onto the blockchain for resolution if there’s a problem,” he said. “This is genuinely revolutionary.”
Now it appears that the development efforts for sidechains and lightning networks are coming together. Russel, who joined Blockstream a few weeks ago, is working on lightning networks, and one of his first actions was to set up a Blockstream-hosted mailing list for “Discussion of the development of the Lightning Network, a caching layer for bitcoin.” The new mailing list archives are freely accessible.
“They hired me,” Russel said on Reddit. “We agreed I’d be working on developing lightning. I set up a mailing list and am developing a toy prototype to explore the ideas. Will put on github once that’s ready (two weeks?) but it’s a long long way from anything someone could use. I’m excited about lightning, but it’s a marathon, not a sprint.”
Two Bitcoin Companies Make the Fox Business List of 30 Hot Fintech Startups
Fox Business published a list of 30 top fintech startups to watch in the Bay Area. The list includes two Bitcoin companies that offer simple and effective solutions for important real-world problems.
BTCjam allows users to invest their bitcoin and earn a high rate of return. This process is secure and allows investors to participate in peer-to-peer lending. BTCjam is also a great place for those seeking loans, and especially for the residents of developing countries without a national credit scoring system who are subject to aggressive predatory lending practices when they need to borrow money from traditional lenders.
Using cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, and tapping foreign lenders, helps BTCjam avoid regulatory issues, TechCrunch reported in 2014.
“We are one of the first real use cases for bitcoin,” said founder Celso Cardoso Pitta Jr. “Today people circle around buying and selling of bitcoin, but I don’t think bitcoin increases in value because it’s a commodity or a currency. It needs to be useful.”
BTCjam is a marketplace where people from around the world connect to borrow and lend using bitcoin. By the end of 2014, the company had facilitated bitcoin loans in excess of $10 million dollars in value with more than 100,000 users worldwide. BTCjam created an online credit scoring system to qualify borrowers from all over the world and allow them to build a transparent credit profile on the platform.
“Our disruptive credit model is providing a new path to financial freedom for users from over 200 countries around the world,” states the BTCjam website. The investors, who loan their money to qualified borrowers, can earn interest up to 19.3 percent. Therefore, the BTCjam solution seems a win-win for both borrowers and investors – provided, of course, the borrowers repay their loans.
Credit ratings on BTCJam are determined by many variables. Borrowers can improve their score by having their identity, address, credit score and social accounts verified, and developing a good credit history on BTCJam. The company recently announced its new feature AutoInvest, which automatically diversifies an investment budget into select loans that meet an investor’s selected portfolio criteria and risk preferences.
Epiphyte (a name that will be familiar to readers of Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon) provides enterprise software solutions for financial service providers to securely integrate with cryptofinancial networks. The company’s software allows financial service providers to convert the currency of one nation to bitcoin, make an international transfer, and change the bitcoin into the currency of the destination country. Epiphyte, a winner of the Innotribe Startup Challenge in October 2015, claims that its software operates well with crypto-financial networks and bridges the traditional financial services with the latest in bitcoin technology.
Epiphyte’s solution avoids traditional money movement avenues and instead converts currency to bitcoin, moves the coins, then cashes them out on the other end in the local tender. The bitcoin are moved for a fraction of the cost of traditional money transfers using exchanges such as Coinbase and BitPay, which take on the currency risk.
Banks, for example, will be able to integrate with cryptocurrencies over traditional protocols such as SWIFT. Epiphyte’s first product provides banks with a low-risk way to provide services to their customers. The company is rolling out a pilot implementation of this product.
The value proposition of the company is to help banks to provide lower-cost international remittance services by leveraging the innovative solutions provided by Bitcoin startups, which, again, is a win-win for banks and Bitcoin companies, and, of course, for consumers.
Actress Lucy Liu Goes Blockchain at Branson’s Caribbean Island Conference
Commonwealth Bank of Australia to Integrate Ripple for Instant Settlements
MAY 29 DIGEST: US Govt Says Ross Ulbricht Owes Them Nearly $184M, Apple Mentions Bitcoin in Patent Application
Eris Industries Leaves UK After Orwellian Bill Reintroduced
‘Using Smart Bitcoin like Dumb Assets is akin to buying a Ferrari and pushing it Around Town’
Thursday, May 28, 2015
The Community Responds on the Day Before the Sentencing of Ross Ulbricht
Russia Blacklists Another Bitcoin Website, but BitNovosti Finds Workaround
Bitcoin ATMs Reach 400 Units Worldwide, 2-Way Machines on the Rise
Tembusu Systems to Launch TRUST Digital Money Platform for Businesses and Governments
Tembusu Systems Pte Ltd., a digital currency platform provider based in Singapore that counted Greece’s Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis among its advisers, announced that it will soon begin implementing digital currency payments using its TRUST framework.
According to the Tembusu website, Tembusu’s TRUST framework is a global infrastructure that lets verified individuals transfer and manage assets instantly, securely, simply and inexpensively. Based on blockchain technology, it enables payment using different currencies – real-world, digital or even gold and silver. The system was developed to integrate traditional currency platforms with the emerging blockchain technology that drives digital currencies such as bitcoin.
“TRUST is taking its first step into getting widespread adoption and integration with existing systems,” said Tembusu co-founder and CEO Andras Kristof. “We’re planning to try out several possible use cases with current payment systems in Singapore, and the success of this trial will see the use of digital currency payment systems being extended into real-world context.”
A first demo, conducted in local uptown bar The Spiffy Dapper – which also hosted Singapore’s first Bitcoin ATM in 2014 – showed how the TRUST framework could be easily implemented with a computer or mobile device attached to existing POS systems. An interesting feature of the TRUST system is that it allows consumers to withdraw cash through participating businesses by processing currencies from their digital wallets to the POS systems. Businesses will then be able to cash out the digital payment into cash for consumers over the counter.
“The potential for blockchain technology is seemingly limitless, and Tembusu Systems is continuously exploring using our TRUST platform in other applications,” said Tembusu co-founder and COO Jarrod Luo. “Our goal is not to replace other payment systems like NETS and credit cards, or even checks. In fact, we are hoping the TRUST platform can be developed to integrate with these other systems, to become an organic payment integrator in time to come.”
TRUST, a next-generation distributed blockchain technology, stands for “Tembusu Reputation-based Universally Secure Transaction System.” The Tembusu website outlines the advantages of the platforms for consumers and businesses, and includes as well a section titled “TRUST for Governments.”
The government section outlines the benefits of TRUST from the point of view of central banks, law enforcement and regulatory bodies: Every user on the TRUST network is a real and identifiable person, every transaction is permanently recorded and verifiable on the blockchain (so taxes can be easily filed and verified), and the cost of maintaining and creating physical money can be reduced by using a robust, persistent, low-cost cryptocurrency.
These statements seem to imply that Tembusu is planning to develop custom implementations of the TRUST platform for governments. In fact, governments are warming up to the idea of state-controlled cryptocurerncies, with rumors of “Fedcoin” in the United States and some kind of “Eurocoin” in Europe. Greece’s Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis wrote a blog post in February proposing a cryptocurrency dubbed Future Tax Coin (FT-Coin). Varoufakis is not impressed by bitcoin as a currency, but he is persuaded that its underlying technology could be put to effective use in troubled economies.
Varoufakis was an adviser to Tembusu Systems and helped to build a key part of its founding strategy until the end of 2014. Though Varoufakis has not played any active role for Tembusu since his decision to stand in Greece’s elections, the company still considers him as an adviser because of his foundational contributions. Therefore, it seems plausible that systems such as TRUST for governments could be candidates for actual implementation in Greece. In fact, Tembusu System stated that it is keen to explore working partnerships with institutions that want to leverage the power of the blockchain for their operations.
Image via tembusu.sg.
Vegascasino.io Launches Into The Bitcoin Casino And Online Gaming Markets
Bitcoin Press Release: Just launched Bitcoin Casino Vegascasino.io offers bettors and players an industry leading online betting and online gambling experience that is second to none.
Vegascasino.io is a new player in the Bitcoin gambling market, but boasts an experienced team of professionals behind the platform. The team comes from a fiat currency gambling background running casinos, sportsbooks and poker for over a decade:
It is a new and an exciting venture for us. Bitcoin popularity is growing every day and we want to make sure the industry has more trusted providers. We do our utmost to treat each customer individually and offer them the best service. To make sure all of their needs are met with the highest standards.“ Says Vegascasino’s PR manager.
Vegascasino.io went on to say that a sportsbook is planned in near-future to make sure users have a variety of services to choose from. The Bitcoin casino has launched using the well-known Coingaming platform for Bitcoin gambling operators.
Compared to many other Bitcoin casinos Vegascasino.io’s quantity, and quality, of games is very high. With such game providers like Betsoft, Play’n’Go, Takisto, Ezugi, Betgames, Gameart and Endorphina they are instantly one of the biggest Bitcoin casinos by game selection.
Customers Bitcoin casino experience does not get any easier or faster than it does withVegascasino.io. Users can make Bitcoin deposits and withdrawals within seconds, inside the games and from the cashier.
Vegascasino.io’s Bitcoin casino games are thoroughly tested by Gaming Labs to ensure fair and competitive payout ratios to provide the maximum casino entertainment.
For more information please go to: http://vegascasino.io
Media Contact:
E-mail: media@vegascasino.io
Address: Vegas Royal S.A., Obelisk Plaza 1 km west the Forum on Route 27. Santa Ana, San Jose Costa Rica.
Please download the media package from here:http://ift.tt/1KALMP4
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12charge.com Launches Worldwide Mobile Recharge With Bitcoin, Utility Bills Payments With Cryptocurrency, And More
Bitcoin Press Release: 12charge.com launches worldwide mobile recharge, utility bills payment, TV, Internet, Skype and more; aiming to “charge everything” with Bitcoin and other options, in just a few clicks.
Accepting Cryptos
Hong-Kong based company Sam Sien Trading Ltd recently launched startup 12charge.com. This global online recharge service allows users from 110+ countries to top up their mobile phones or buy airtime from over 450 providers and to pay utility bills, loans, TV, internet and other services in some of these countries with Bitcoin, cryptocurrency and other payment methods. Besides topping up cell phones and paying for utility bills, 12charge allows to recharge a variety of global services like IP telephony (VoIP) including Skype, travel sim cards top up, as well as to purchase game currency in a number of online games, fund social networks accounts and more.
Anton Vereshchagin, founder and CEO of Sam Sien Trading, company running 12charge website says:
“We are proud to present our users all around the world the possibility to recharge mobile phones virtually everywhere and to pay online for a number of other expenses. 12charge is not just a typical “recharge website” – a lot of services are available to our users; and we are working hard to add support of each and every existing carrier, and to make it possible to pay online for utility bills, TV/internet, etc. worldwide! Our aim is to “charge everything” that can be recharged. Besides that, we are focused on ease of using the service (we have handy options like payment reminders, favorites, etc.) and on increasing the number of payment options available. We accept credit/debit cards, PayPal and other e-wallets, online bank transfers and – most exclusive options – bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin are already supported; and this is just the beginning!”.
Available For Everyone
The services of 12charge.com are targeted to many groups of clients. Besides frequent travelers, expats working/studying abroad, international businesses, freelancers/webmasters and e-business owners/workers receiving salary in electronic payment systems – everyone preferring to top up mobile and pay for other services online will find this website extremely useful. The process of recharge is very easy, taking no more than a couple of minutes and does not require registration. Although, registered users have access to all features like reminders, repeated payments, managing lists of phone numbers/contracts details, et cetera.
“Besides increasing the number of supported providers , our mission is to provide our clients a possibility to pay using virtually any existing online payment system with a reasonable fee. It’s a real challenge, and currently there are countries and services we can’t support yet; but we are working very hard to create our dream top up service. In some countries – USA, Russia and a few others we have already managed to provide services with 0% fees. Now we are looking forward to increase a number of such countries!” – Sergey Karpovich, the project manager of 12charge explains. – “We especially welcome users from the bitcoin and altcoin communities. Thanks to lowest processing fees, our rates are the best when you are paying using cryptocurrencies!”.
12charge, as well as the carriers, has special offers and promos almost every day (for example, special “X2 top ups days”, when recharge amounts are doubled for specific countries/operators). Detailed information is available at the website and 12charge’s social networks accounts.
To learn more please go to: http://12charge.com
Media contact:
Name: Sergey Karpovich
Organization: Sam Sien Trading Ltd
Tel.: +85221270645
E-mail: pr@12charge.com
Twitter: @12charge
Virtual currency is not legal tender, is not backed by the government, and accounts and value balances are not subject to FDIC and other consumer protections. This press release is for informational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice.
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New Bill Could Mean Lower Taxes For Bitcoin Startups in New Jersey
A new bill by proposed by two New Jersey assemblymen could mean tax and regulatory breaks for digital currency companies operating in the state.
According to The Star-Ledger, the bill would lessen burdens for cryptocurrency companies in an attempt to incentivize job creation in the state. Proposed by Assemblyman Rai Mukherji (D-Hudson) and Assemblyman Gordon Johnson (D-Bergen), the 30-page bill would create a regulatory framework for digital currency companies to operate within as well.
The bill comes two months after New Jersey’s Assembly Financial Institutions and Insurance committee held a two hour hearing about Bitcoin. The New Jersey Treasury officially recognized the digital currency in April when it wrote that digital currency transactions were subject to sales tax and would be treated as barter.
The Star-Ledger reported that the new bill, titled the “Digital Currency Jobs Creation Act,” would qualify companies for up to $5,000 in tax write-offs for each new job they create and exempt Bitcoin companies from having to pay tax on electricity. The legislation would also require companies to have an “effective cyber-security program” and hire a chief security officer.
“You need a lot of firepower by way of technology to be in this business,” Mukherji said. “It would try to ease some of that burden.”
He added that he is unsure whether the bill, which was yet to be introduced to the state Senate, would advance, but said some regulation would be needed.
“The legislation clarifies where digital currency stands sort of in the rubric of New Jersey law. In other states that’s been confusing,” Mukherji told The Star-Ledger. “I think this would be the first statute of its kind in the country. We would be establishing the framework legislatively.”
The bill is yet to be made available to the public, but Bitcoin Magazine will continue to follow this developing story.
Photo The Virginia House / CC BY-SA 2.0
BitStamp Launches Bitcoin Debit Card For EU Citizens
European Bitcoin exchange BitStamp launched a pre-paid debit card that can be loaded with bitcoin on Wednesday.
According to the London-based exchange, the debit card is accepted at anywhere major credit and debit cards are accepted. The card’s balance can be denominated either in British pounds, euros or American dollars.
The debit card has three stages of verification, each with its own spending limit. The most basic stage requires no know-your-customer verification and allows for €2,500 worth of transactions annually. Government ID, proof of residence, and a certified source of funds document is required for the highest annual spending limit, €125,000.
Crypto Debit Card
The debit cards can be ordered now. They are first received in a digital form that can be used only at online websites. A physical card for usage at brick-and-mortar retail stores can be ordered for $10. The card will take 10 to 15 business days to arrive.
After receiving the card, users can transfer bitcoin from a BitStamp account to it; a $10 flat fee will be taken for transfers of $1,000 or less. A 2 percent fee will be taken for anything above that.
Card holders will be able to see their transaction history, retrieve their PIN, order new cards and more at cardportal.com.
The debit card was launched through a partnership with the European and Latin American payment processor AstroPay. The London-based company operates the largest payment network in Latin America and has partnered with several Bitcoin companies in the past, including Latin American Bitcoin exchange Bitex.la, cryptocurrency development company Ripple Labs and the now-defunct exchange Mt Gox.
The card currently is not available to U.S. citizens. The Bitcoin exchange hopes to expand the service to United States, but BitStamp founder and CEO Nejc Kodrič said no launch date has been determined.
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Ex-Investment Bank CCO Joins Bitcoin Exchange Kraken To Prepare For US Expansion
Bitcoin exchange Kraken has announced that financial compliance veteran Howard Bernstein has joined the company as chief compliance officer as the trading platform looks to expand to the United States.
Bernstein, who has more than 20 years of experience in American financial regulations, constructed the entire anti-money laundering program of the publicly traded investment bank Merriman Capital, Inc. He also helped Merriman comply with SEC and FINRA requirements. Much like the current state of Bitcoin regulations, the compliance requirements for the SEC and FINRA were new and very unclear at the time.
According to a Kraken blog post, Bernstein will help manage the company’s day-to-day compliance program and begin to engage regulatory officials and lawmakers. But the new CCO also marks a change of heart for the exchange about the U.S. market, a country Kraken doesn’t operate in, but which contributes greatly to bitcoin’s trading volume.
The San Francisco-based exchange previously swore off the U.S. market, having said that the country’s regulations were too nascent to know what they needed to comply with. Kraken instead focused its efforts on Europe and Japan, which it found to have simpler financial regulations.
Bernstein will now led the exchange’s efforts to get a U.S. banking partner and necessary financial licenses so the trading platform can operate in the country.
“We are working toward being able to operate legally in the United States,” Kraken CEO and founder Jesse Powell told Bitcoin Magazine. “Unlike most other services, we’ve chosen to stay out of the U.S. until we have the necessary licenses, which has put us at a substantial competitive disadvantage. We’re looking forward to entering our home market.”
He added that the new CCO is also re-evaluating Kraken’s existing compliance programs in Japan and Europe.
“We plan to better localize our compliance efforts and adjust to a more customized risk-based model, as opposed to the generalized policy we have now, which might in some cases be too strict, and in other cases not strict enough,” Powell said.
Image via Kraken.
3 Bitcoin Podcasts Featuring Industry Leaders
With the news of SoundCloud’s integration with Changetip, it only makes sense that there is a surge in appeal toward Bitcoin news and analysis podcasts.
While constantly refreshing the most popular Bitcoin news sites is addictive to some, it does not always capture the true passion behind digital currency enthusiasts because they lack one thing podcasts have: a passionate voice. Whether you’re traveling on a WiFi-free flight, or waiting for the next price change, the Bitcoin podcasts below are sure to satiate your appetite.
Decentralize.fm
Bitcoin Magazine had the chance to speak to Decentralize.fm’s Tony Sakish, who spoke about how they
“did not want to be a podcast exclusively about Bitcoin, as there are plenty of those.” This led to Decentralize taking a different route and really covering other things that are related, but that do not exclusively involve Bitcoin. Topics range from decentralization of education, to virtual worlds and politics related to everything crypto.
Run by Eric Martindale (Bitpay), James Walpole (Bitpay), Tony Sakish (Augur) and Chaz Ferguson, Decentralize.fm started eight months ago with their first guest, country singer Shooter Jennings, who talked about cryptocurrency as well as decentralization in music.
Their latest episode is with Ryan X. Charles, former astrophysicist, veteran of BitPay and Reddit, and current software engineer at BitGo. Ryan comments on BitGo’s Innovators Patent Agreement which has recently created a stir.
Their unbiased approach toward Bitcoin adds a new flavor to podcasting about the digital currency, an example being their interview with Steve Albini, who’s produced records for Nirvana, The Pixies, PJ Harvey, Cheap Trick and many others. Albini’s take on Bitcoin might not be positive, but is a refreshing one nonetheless.
Trace Mayer’s Bitcoin Knowledge Podcast
Considered a Bitcoin legend by many, Trace Mayer is most renowned for being one of digital currency’s earliest adopters, while the market cap was still less than $2 million, Mayer had already helped fund Armory, Bitpay & Kraken.
His podcasts usually span 15 to 30 minutes and are updated as often as once every three days. One of his most popular podcasts is his interview with Erik Voorhees, author of Money & State, and current CEO of Shapeshift.io.
Other notable mentions are his interviews with Kraken CEO Jesse Powell, and more recently with Roger Ver, who funded big names such as Blockchain.info & Coinlab.com.
Let’s Talk Bitcoin
Boasting more than 9,000 community members, Let’s Talk Bitcoin (LTB) prides itself on being more than just a podcast. Episodes are uploaded almost every day, and have been consistently covering all aspects of cryptographically secured money since April 2013. The website has numerous hosts and sub-shows, and content is largely volunteer-based. Dubbed as an “an experimental community platform,” the LTB network is “home to many ACTs (Autonomous Content Teams) who create what they want and when they want, according to their own rules.”
The network’s podcasts ideas range from breaking news to interviews and even satire. Popular episodes include the interview with founder of Bitinstant Charlie Shrem and Andreas M. Antonopolous’s episode about his book Mastering Bitcoin.
Citi Persuaded that Digital Money is Inevitable, Encourages U.K. Government to Create its Own
In March, after receiving more than 120 replies to a call for information on digital currencies, the U.K. government released a Treasury document titled “Digital Currencies: Response to the Call for Information,” which summarizes the submissions received and outlines the government’s views and proposed next steps. In particular, the government is launching a £10 million (U.S. $14.6 million) research initiative on digital currencies.
One of the replies to the U.K. government call for information came from the global bank Citi. The bank is persuaded that digital money adoption is inevitable, and the U.K. government should consider issuing its own digital money, Finextra reports. The full text of the Citi document was obtained by CoinDesk via a Freedom of Information request.
Headquartered in Manhattan, Citi is an American multinational banking and financial services corporation. As of January 2015, it is the third-largest bank holding company in the United States by assets and has one of the world’s largest financial services networks.
“Due to the potential benefits, we believe the adoption of Digital Money is inevitable,” notes the Citi document. “While we believe that the use of Digital Money is certain, the future of specific cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin is less clear.”
The wording shows that Citi agrees with the growing persuasion, in the financial and regulatory sectors, that the promising blockchain technology will eventually have to be adapted to non-Bitcoin blockchains with different features, more appealing to the financial mainstream.
Recently the Bank of England itself called for further research to devise a system that could use distributed ledger technology without compromising a central bank’s ability to control its currency. Similar ideas were discussed at a research workshop organized by the European Commission.
“The greatest benefits of digital currencies can be realized through the government issuing a digital form of legal tender,” notes the Citi document. “This currency would be less expensive, more efficient, and provide greater transparency than current physical legal tender or electronic methods.”
Citi recommends that the U.K. government work together with regulators in other nations to establish a common platform, if possible, within the framework of existing regulations and laws.
“The decision by a government to issue its own digital money would resolve the majority of national AML, KYC and sanctions concerns,” adds the Citi document. “Clearly this creates possible privacy concerns on the side of the citizen, but it could be offset by the additional value digital money provides.”
The idea of a government-sponsored digital currency has been around for quite some time. In February, David Andolfatto, vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, wrote a blog post about “Fedcoin: On the Desirability of a Government Cryptocurrency.” Similarly, Greece’s Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis envisaged some kind of “Eurocoin” for Europe, especially for financially troubled economies such as Greece’s.
One thing is certain: Governments and established financial institutions risk obsolescence if they don’t act soon.
“We believe that Governments and the Financial Industry incumbents are not currently leveraging the benefits of emerging technologies and risk similar challenges to that of the Post Office during the shift to digital forms of communication,” warns Citi.
Photo Uris / CC BY-SA 3.0
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BitSent Expands its Fleet of Bitcoin ATMs to British Columbia’s Simon Fraser University
One of Canada’s first companies to launch Bitcoin ATMs across the country is expanding its fleet of Lamassu-brand ATMs to Vancouver, British Columbia’s Simon Fraser campus bookstores in Vancouver, Surrey and Burnaby.
BitSent now has Bitcoin ATMs in 11 locations across the country and is looking to expand internationally in 2015.
While other Bitcoin companies are experimenting with newer technology such as QuadrigaCX’s SumoPro Bitcoin ATMs, BitSent has chosen to stick with the Lamassu model despite some hiccups in the operation and maintenance of the earlier models.
Their Simon Fraser Bookstore locations will also be the first university bookstore to accept bitcoin as payment for books and other products carried in their stores. Mike Yenug, the founder of the Simon Frazer University bitcoin club, expressed his excitement to Bitcoin Magazine. “As the founder of SFU’s Bitcoin club I’m proud that SFU has the first university administered bookstore in the world to take Bitcoin for purchases.”
Silicon Valley North – Waterloo Innovation Triangle
BitSent is one of the new pioneering high-tech companies thriving in Ontario, Canada’s innovation triangle just west and north of Toronto.
Also known as “Canada’s Technology Triangle” the area is a hotbed of new and future tech startups and includes the towns of Waterloo, Kitchener and Cambridge.
The best-known member of this network is BlackBerry, but the area also includes development offices of established companies such as Microsoft, Google and Oracle.
The region is home to close to 1,000 companies that generate about $30 billion in annual revenues. In addition to BlackBerry, the Waterloo area has launched hundreds of successful tech startups, including OpenText, Christie Digital, COMDEV International and Clearpath Robotics.
Photo Soggybread / CC BY-SA 3.0
Nasdaq to Push Forward with Blockchain Applications
On May 11, the leading stock exchange Nasdaq announced that it would begin experimenting with the blockchain technology that powers Bitcoin. The Wall Street Journal reported that Nasdaq will start with a pilot project in Nasdaq Private Market, a recently launched marketplace that handles pre-IPO trading among private companies.
“Utilizing the blockchain is a natural digital evolution for managing physical securities,” said Nasdaq CEO Bob Greifeld in the announcement. Speaking with The Financial Times, Greifeld noted that he wants Nasdaq to be “a leader in the field.” He added that the network could potentially revolutionize the time it takes to finalize deals on U.S. securities markets.
“I am a big believer in the ability of blockchain technology to effect fundamental change in the infrastructure of the financial services industry,” said Greifeld. “Clearinghouses are a wonderful invention, but if you have a public ledger that is trusted, you can evolve back to a bilateral (trading) world but proceed with instantaneous settlement. We currently settle at T+3 [within 3 days]. Why not settle in 5-10 minutes?”
The Financial Times notes that shortening settlement times for trading could reduce the risk that counterparties would not be paid, while also cutting the amount of collateral, or insurance, used to back trades. For the Nasdaq Private Market, using the blockchain means transforming the recording of transactions from paper certificates and spreadsheets to an audited record of the lineage of ownership of private securities.
The Financial Times’ article includes a video with explanations about Bitcoin and the blockchain. The video notes that everyone from banks to stock exchanges and Silicon Valley technologists are starting to make bets on Bitcoin companies.
David Birch, Director of Consult Hyperion, a specialist electronic transactions consulting firm that advises governments and large companies on electronic identity and electronic money, believes that the real value of Bitcoin is independent of the highly volatile exchange rate of the bitcoin currency.
“I think when you see people investing in Bitcoin, it sounds like they are investing in the currency,” Birch says in The Financial Times video. “But I think you’ll find they are not really. The institutional money that is going in, is going into the underlying technology, not the payment instrument itself. So, investing in Bitcoin doesn’t really mean investing in bitcoin. It means investing in what they call the blockchain technology, which is the new technology that sits underneath Bitcoin.”
Birch acknowledges the importance of bitcoin price as a means to incentivize end-users to participate in keeping the Bitcoin blockchain going, but he is persuaded that “in the long run, that is unsustainable.” He notes that the Bitcoin blockchain is not the only blockchain, but there are other blockchains and other ways of incentivizing people to maintain blockchains.
It appears that Birch agrees with the growing persuasion, in the financial and regulatory sectors, that the promising blockchain technology will eventually have to be adapted to non-Bitcoin blockchains with different features, more appealing to the financial mainstream. In a recent research paper titled “One Bank Research Agenda,” the Bank of England called for further research to devise a system that could use distributed ledger technology without compromising a central bank’s ability to control its currency.
Nasdaq isn’t planning to develop an alternative blockchain. Rather, it plans to leverage the colored coin protocol Open Assets, which works on the original Bitcoin blockchain.
Photo bifshadow / Flickr
Bitcoin Gains Traction amid Steady Growth in Indonesia
Indonesia, one of the world’s most beautiful archipelagoes and travel destinations, has had a consistent increase in bitcoin adoption at popular tourist spots including Bali, Jakarta and Denpasar, since the launch of BitIslands in March 2014.
Initiated by the largest Indonesian Bitcoin exchange Bitcoin Indonesia, the project was sponsored by leading Bitcoin merchant platforms and mobile services in Asia, including a Singaporean startup Coin of Sale, Artabit, CoinPip, Quantified, Tukarcash and Bitwyre. Since 2014, Bitcoin Indonesia continued to aggressively push the project in Bali, where BitIslands launched a bitcoin Information Center and Bali’s first offline Bitcoin exchange.
Due to the increase of bitcoin’s market awareness and merchant adoption, the majority of the locals started to use bitcoin online, and began to appreciate bitcoin’s low transaction fees and speed, The Wall Street Journal reports.
“Most Indonesians currently use bitcoin to pay for services online, such as web hosting. They can also use the digital currency to book hotel rooms through travel websites hosted overseas rather than use credit cards, which only a small percentage of the population currently own,” the Journal article says.
Furthermore, major bitcoin exchanges such as Bitcoin Indonesia have seen a substantial growth in both the number of users and daily trading volumes. The largest bitcoin exchange in Indonesia currently trades around 200 bitcoin daily and supports more than 56,000 users.
“Many people think that Bitcoin is unheard of in Indonesia, but the fact is its popularity is soaring now,” Bitcoin Indonesia CEO Oscar Darmawan said.
In September 2014, several projects emerged to increase bitcoin mainstream adoption in the nation, by allowing Indonesian residents to purchase bitcoin at popular stores or tourist spots. The project ran by Bitcoin Indonesia enabled users of its exchange to purchase bitcoin at any of the 10,000 Indomarket convenience stores via a partnership with iPaymu, a merchant payment platform.
Such services, along with the rising volume of Bitcoin exchanges, influenced Indonesian merchants to accept bitcoin in other parts of Indonesia apart from Bali, where most of the Bitcoin projects began. Currently, Indonesia has more than 50 Bitcoin merchants, and the majority are located in Denpasar.
Rise of Bitcoin Startups
Since early 2015, some Bitcoin startups began to relocate to Indonesia, targeting the poor banking systems and payment infrastructure of the country. One of the startups was Blossom, which recently moved from San Francisco to Indonesia to offer the country’s first bitcoin-based global lending/investing platform.
Blossom connects international investors to small businesses in Indonesia which are ready to launch. Through an established local microfinance institution, Blossom delivers the bitcoin funds to the businesses. After 12 months, profits from the businesses are collected to be distributed to the investors, with around 7.5 percent to 12.5 percent in return.
“In conventional investment, I have to rely on the statements and numbers publicized by my partners. With Bitcoin, it’s clear to everyone what’s going on,” said founder Matthew Martin.
As the number of bitcoin merchants and trading volumes continue to grow at a consistent rate, Bitcoin startups and establishments, including Bitcoin Indonesia, aim to achieve mainstream bitcoin adoption in popular tourist spots in the country.
Xapo Adds Visa Founder and Former Citibank CEO to Advisory Board
Universal Bitcoin services startup Xapo has announced that former executives from Visa and Citibank, alongside a former secretary of the treasury, has joined the company’s board of directors.
In a Xapo statement, Visa founder Dee Hock, former Treasury Secretary and President Emeritus of Harvard University Lawrence H. Summers and former Citibank CEO and Chairman John Reed, said they joined the company because of the potential of Bitcoin’s technology and currency to advance financial services.
Reed highlighted how Bitcoin could change financial services, noting they have “remained largely untouched by the digital revolution.” He added that Bitcoin is a large improvement over the “historical form of currency,” highlighting the digital currency’s scarcity and divisibility.
Summers, who also serves on the board of Bitcoin startup, 21 Inc., made mention of Bitcoin’s payment network being the first time someone could send money without having to rely on a third party, which historically have been banks, clearinghouses or third-party payment networks. In a Xapo blog post, he added that this peer-to-peer (P2P) aspect could soon cause “many billions of people sending bitcoin every day as easily as they currently send a text message.”
“We live in the 21st century but are still using command and control organizational structures from the 16th century,” Hock said. “Bitcoin is one of the best examples of how a decentralized, peer-to-peer organization can solve problems that these dated organizations cannot. Like the Internet, Bitcoin is not owned or controlled by any one entity, so it presents incredible opportunities for new levels of efficiency and transparency in financial transactions.”
Global Bitcoin Services
Xapo offers a suite of Bitcoin services, including a wallet and connected debit card, merchant payment processing, and secure bitcoin storage. The company is best known for its bitcoin cold storage service for individual and institutions with large amounts of bitcoin.
Since its founding in 2012, the company has raised $40 million from a large selection of tech and financial investors, including PayPal co-founder Max Levchin, Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, Benchmark and Greylock Partners. The new additions to Xapo’s board will be joining Ribbit Capital Managing Partner Meyer Malk and Benchmark General Partner Matt Cohler, who joined the company earlier this year.
BitQuick Goes Passwordless
BitQuick is the latest Bitcoin company to integrate Clef’s passwordless two-factor authentication to make logins safe and easy for a big audience.
Oakland, CA – May 26, 2015 — BitQuick, the fastest way to buy Bitcoin, announced an integration with Clef today to protect the accounts on their platform. Clef is becoming increasingly popular for Bitcoin companies who are interested in growing their audience, especially companies on the rise like BitQuick. BitQuick has rapidly grown their volume by circumventing some of the traditional requirements for buying Bitcoin and making the process take hours instead of days. In an industry where every millisecond is tracked to help increase sales, speed is a huge asset both for the company and for the entire Bitcoin ecosystem.
A growing appeal of Clef is the network of sites which already use it. More than 70,000 sites, including popular Bitcoin networks like AlphaPoint, have already integrated Clef. Users of those sites have already gotten rid of some passwords, but actively seek out new sites where they can use Clef. This translates to an influx of new users for sites that integrate Clef and then a steady stream as it is added to Clef’s recommendation engine. The increased traffic had overwhelmed some unprepared sites, so Clef now works to even out the initial spike.
BitQuick’s speed is the headline selling point, but the service has also developed a reputation for spotting and thwarting potential scams. The slowness of other services is rooted in their fraud-prevention systems, so BitQuick has used its volume to focus on learning patterns that help identify fraud and squash it before it happens. Other services leave the fraud detection completely to the users, who cannot have the same high-level perspective and learnings. BitQuick has also integrated with Purse, and Fold to make their speedy Bitcoin purchases available for people making purchases at Amazon or Starbucks.
“Everyone in the ecosystem is talking about friction, and how we can reduce the friction in using Bitcoin,” said Brennen Byrne, CEO of Clef. “But the first Bitcoin purchase is still unforgivably slow on most systems. That’s why we’re so excited to see BitQuick solving the Bitcoin purchase problem. To get more people owning and spending Bitcoin is the key, and I know that Clef users are going to love BitQuick.
BitQuick does not require everyone trading on their platform to make accounts, but the cases where users do need to log in are particularly important to protect. Making two-factor authentication accessible for those users, and also making it really easy to use, helps them build more trust with their users. Typically, sites that offer two-factor auth see fewer than 1% of users opt in to protect their accounts, but sites that use Clef have seen more than 50% of their users opt in to the safer login. To make the process simple and seamless, Clef recognizes a user’s phone instead of anything they need to remember or type.
“For us, Clef is more than just an evolved two-factor solution,” said Jad Mubaslat, CEO of BitQuick. “We’re excited about using Clef to replace confusing passwords altogether. This improves both the experience and security habits of our users.”
A customer can log into BitQuick on any computer in the world by holding their phone up to the computer screen. Clef uses the phone’s camera and an animation called the Clef Wave to seamlessly sync with the computer and log the user in. The process is backed by the same public key cryptography as Bitcoin wallets and is available for free on any iOS or Android device.
About Clef
Clef is an Oakland startup building the two-factor of the future. By taking advantage of the rapid spread of mobile devices, Clef has built technology that is not only much more secure than traditional logins, but also much easier to use. Since 2013, Clef has spread to more than 70,000 sites and received accolades from The New York Times, Inc. Magazine, and The Economist. Clef is funded by Morado Ventures and angels from a broad variety of product and security backgrounds. For more information on Clef, visit getclef.com or email press@getclef.com.
Bitcoin Alternative DNotes Launches World’s First Digital Currency Employee Incentive Benefits Plan
Bitcoin Press Release: DNotes is pleased to announce the launch of the world’s first Digital Currency Employee Incentive Benefits Plan – the latest in a family of unprecedented digital currency financial instruments from the DNotes team.
Chicago, Illinois. [May 25, 2015] – DNotes announces the release of their Employee Incentive Benefits Plan, the latest addition to their family of CRISPs (Cryptocurrency Investment Savings Plans) that already provides an investment vehicle for Children, Students, and Retirement funds. The Employee Incentive Benefits Plan combines knowledge of the employer/employee relationship with macro-economic foresight to maximize its users’ long-term potential benefit.
Employee benefits play an important role in the lives of employees as well as their families. Benefits offered by an employer can be a deciding factor for a potential employee’s job decision. The cost of doing business is ever increasing, and with it, employee savings requirements. The traditional idea that pension plans will take care of an employee’s financial needs upon retirement is quickly becoming obsolete. The relationship between employers and employees needs urgent re-examination, and a new mindset of partnership for mutual benefit and survival is necessary.
“Employees are struggling to secure their financial future. This means high stress, increased anxiety, lower productivity, and diminishing loyalty that breeds high staff turnover. High interest credit cards are being used to supplement cash flow. Furthermore, these fraud-prone cards have high transaction costs and shockingly high chargebacks that are paid for by the merchant, anywhere up to 8%, thus impeding business, jobs, and wage growth. I see Digital Currency adoption as a solution to high transaction costs for merchants, and inflated prices for essential consumer goods,” said DNotes Co-founder Alan Yong.
Self-Employment Trending Down
Yong, a pioneer from the early days of mobile computing, pointed out that while small businesses continue to be the main incubator of job creation in the US economy, the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed that entrepreneurship is in steady decline, with both incorporated and unincorporated self-employment dropping nearly ten percent since 2004. Small business numbers have not recovered in line with economic growth since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. Yong attributes this in part to small business owners having difficulty meeting costly payroll, healthcare obligations, mounting regulations, and funding their own retirement accounts.
Why is CRISP for Employee Incentive Benefits Plan the Solution? And What are DNotes?
CRISP for Employee Incentive Benefits will facilitate the distribution of digital currency called DNotes – a cryptographically secure digital currency which is the most reliably appreciating and stable currency in its class. DNotes has increased against the US dollar more than 30 fold since its inception in February 2014 and centers its business strategy on creating a stable trustworthy digital currency from the ground up for everyone, whether they are rich or poor. DNotes promotes trust and integrity for the long-term mutual benefit of all as it continues to work towards further capital appreciation. As DNotes positions itself to be the predominant digital currency used for global payments, with instantly cleared payments at near zero transaction costs, multiple strategic plans are systematically executed to ensure that DNotes becomes the foremost digital currency to supplement fiat currency worldwide.
How Will the Program Work?
Director of CRISP for Employee Incentive Benefits, Marc Fortenberry, said that employers will register for the program by completing a simple online form at http://ift.tt/1FaQVq7. Each employer will have a main dashboard which will include a company specific link for their employees to sign up. The employer dashboard will also have a table that shows employee details to facilitate instant balance transfers into their accounts. The employer will then be able to send DNotes to reward their staff as they see fit. Every approved employer registration will receive 1,000 DNotes to get them started.
Employees need to have a DNotesVault account, and sign up with the link given to their employer, which requires only the employee’s e-mail used to register at DNotesVault. When submitted, a new address is created in the employee’s DNotesVault account that is identified with their company name.
About Alan Yong:
DNotes Co-Founder Alan Yong is a well regarded visionary since the early days of personal computers. He founded Dauphin Technology in 1989 and is best known for creating the Dauphin DTR, the most powerful window-based miniature computer that competed head on with Apple’s Newton computer that became the Apple Iphone as we know it today. In 2007, Yong co-founded Smokeys Daylily Gardens, one of the largest daylily growers in the world. Smokeys Daylily Gardens is the first merchant to accept DNotes as payment for daylily purchases. Alan recently shared his thoughts on the disruptive potential of Bitcoin, blockchain technology and DNotes in an interview.
Yong agrees with other industry’s visionaries that digital currency and the Blockchain technology will be the greatest technology revolution since the Internet. However, he passionately believes that to gain mass acceptance, the currency must be built from ground up for everyone with trust and integrity. There must be strong leadership and sufficient self-interest from its community to promote and protect the currency’s stability for the long-term mutual benefits of all participants.
For more information about us, please visit: http://ift.tt/1FaQVq7
To trade Bitcoin with DNotes please go to: http://ift.tt/1RhgQF9
Follow DNotes on twitter: http://twitter.com/dnotescoin
Media contact:
Name: Alan Yong
Email: Contact@DNotescoin.com
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