Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Beyond Bitcoin: How the Blockchain Can Power a New Generation of Enterprise Software

This is a guest post by Jesus Rodriguez. Bitcoin has become one of the most intriguing and revolutionary technologies created in the last few years. From a functional standpoint, the cryptocurrency has challenged the most fundamental principles of the world’s financial systems by providing a decentralized, secured and trusted model to process financial transactions. To enable its magic, Bitcoin relies on an architecture powered...
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Andreas Antonopolous: ‘50 Currencies Today Have a Value Less Than Goat S**t’ (Op-Ed)

Every market niche has a great orator. Joel Osteen within religion, Alex Jones for geopolitics, and Bitcoin has Andreas Antonopoul...
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Bitcoin Used to Pay Utility and Credit Card Bills in the Philippines and Australia

Over the past year, bitcoin startups in the Philippines and Australia have begun to target day-to-day expenses and remittances; markets that are in desperate need of instantaneous, secure and cost-effective payment systems. Startups including Australia-based Living Room of Satoshi and Manila-based Rebit.ph, also known as the parent company of Bills Ninja, have been trying to educate the global population to use bitcoin in day-to-day...
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Building a Risk Market for the Digital Age Using Bitcoin

This is a guest post by Michael Folkson. The Internet was originally developed as a network for information exchange. Now, a multitude of entrepreneurs and software developers are building the Internet for value exchange. The next logical progression is to build the Internet for risk exchange. Just as units of currency can be transferred to a third party, insurance contracts transfer risk exposures to a third party. Blockchain...
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R3 Blockchain Development Initiative Grows to 22 Banks Worldwide

The international R3 blockchain project to develop blockchain commercial applications and standards for the financial world just got a whole lot weightier as 13 new global banks joined the distributed or “shared” ledger initiative. R3, the international financial innovation firm, based in New York, London and San Francisco, is a multidisciplinary team including experts from the worlds of electronic banking, new tech startups,...
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Transaction Remote Release, a Tor-Inspired Proposed Change to Bitcoin Protocol for Anonymous Transactions

It’s well known that bitcoin transactions are not anonymous. Every transaction and the full transaction history of any bitcoin address are permanently recorded in the tamper-proof public blockchain and open to analysis. A bitcoin addresses isn’t explicitly associated to its owner, but blockchain network analysis can often de-anonymize bitcoin users. Bitcoin Magazine recently reported that two companies, Chainalysis and Elliptic...
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San Diego Employees Paid In Bitcoin ‘Never See a Paycheck’

San Diego based cryptocurrency wallet provider AirBitz was featured on ABC’s 10 News as the local news network reported on companies in the city accepting and paying workers with bitcoin and how the...
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Truthcoin's Paul Sztorc: 'Buying Predictions is Just like Buying Orange Juice'

Prediction markets sound crazy. People “bet” on what the future will be, and the reported results end up accurate predicting the futur...
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Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Vaultoro Seeks to Provide a Store of Value to the Underbanked World Using Gold and Bitcoin

Previously reported by Bitcoin Magazine , bitcoin and gold exchange Vaultoro has reached $1 million in gold trading volume, recording an average monthly trading growth rate of 91 percent and rapid increase of its user base. Following its milestone, Vaultoro plans to expand its team and services internationally, to become the “key ingredient...
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The Dark Web: A Closer Look at the World’s Largest Bitcoin Economy

The closure of Silk Road and Silk Road 2.0 did not mean the end of “The Dark Web,” only the mainstream’s exposure to it. Shutting down “The Dark Web” is like shutting down an ant colony or life at t...
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Deutsche Bank: The Blockchain is a ‘Truly Disruptive Idea’

Deutsche Bank, a German global banking and financial services company has released yet another research paper about the blockchain technology entitled “Attack is Probably the Best Form of Defense...
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Crypto IPOs and Why ‘Private Deals are Coming to the Masses’

CoinTelegraph caught up with Mike Gropp from UK-based bitcoin trading platform BitBays to discuss its new cryptocurrency-powered “IPO” option for use...
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Monday, September 28, 2015

Bank of America Files Patent Application for Cryptocurrency-Mediated Wire Transfers

Bank of America (BoA) has filed a patent application titled “System and Method for Wire Transfers Using Cryptocurrency .” The application was filed in March and published on September 17 by the U.S. Patents and Trademarks Office. The BoA filing describes an alternative to traditional wire transfers. The funds are first transferred to a cryptocurrency exchange, then converted to a cryptocurrency such as bitcoin, then sent to another...
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Bitcoin Tracker One ETN Offers Liquidity to European Investors

Financial disruption from the inside Regulation makes it impossible today for most institutional investors to invest in Bitcoin. However, there are many new players trying to circumvent regulatory boundaries, or innovate from inside, instead of trying to change the regulations altogether. Innovation, instead of regulatory change, is a faster, cheaper and easier approach to change in many innovators' and entrepreneurs' eyes. One...
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NeuCoin Launches a New Digital Currency for Online and Mobile Gaming

NeuCoin, the international digital currencies project supported by three nonprofit foundations, has launched its digital currency for online games, videos and music and has already listed the coin on two exchanges with more to come. NeuCoin is designed for use cases such as playing freemium games online or on mobile phones without needing a wallet address or QR code – the new NeuCoin will be payable right onthe game site whether...
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World Leaders Meet at United Nations; Control of the Internet on the Table

It was an exciting week in the northeastern United States as world leaders from China, Russia, and even The Vatican gathered to discuss the future of mankind at the United Nations headquarters in N...
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Digital Currency Derivatives Exchanges Prepare for Regulation after CFTC Bitcoin Ruling

Only a week after ruling that bitcoin and other digital currencies are commodities, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced on Thursday that they have settled charges filed against TeraExchange LLC (Tera) for arranging a “non-deliverable forward contract” last October. Neither of the parties entering the trade were looking to profit off of future bitcoin price changes, but rather to test Tera’s network....
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FBI Agent Threatens to Kill Silk Road Architect, Ulbricht’s Family for Bitcoin

Diamond, which is believed to be an online alias of an unknown corrupt FBI agent, has been threatening to kill Silk Road Architect Variety Jones and torture Ross Ulbricht’s mother and sist...
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Sunday, September 27, 2015

Bitcoin Derivatives Company LedgerX Appoints Ex-CFTC Commissioner Wetjen to Board

LedgerX, an institutional bitcoin trading and clearing platform, announced this week that Mark Wetjen, the ex-commissioner of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Comission (CFTC), will join its board. Nominated by President Barack Obama in 2011 and unanimously confirmed by the Senate as one of the five CFTC commissioners, Wetjen both helped to implement the first trading mandate for certain types of interest rate and credit default...
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Bitcoin Hardware Wallet KeepKey Launches and Begins Shipping

In a rare move in the Bitcoin space, KeepKey has simultaneously begun to take orders for and to ship their flagship bitcoin hardware wallet. As of Wednesday, customers are able to purchase the USB device for USD$239 on Amazon, or directly from the KeepKey website using bitcoin. Worldwide shipping is included in the cost. The KeepKey hardware wallet is designed to store and secure bitcoin while protecting them from virtual attacks...
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Three Bitcoin Finalists Vie for BBVA Open Talent Competition Honors in Barcelona

On September 22nd, the winners of the European division of the BBVA Open Talent Competition were announced in Barcelona, Spain. This year, three of the 15 finalists come from the Bitcoin and blockchain sector: Everledger , Safello and Vaultoro . The purpose of the competition is to discover and support up-and-coming innovators in financial technology who are poised to “disrupt [the banking] industry in e-commerce, security, mobile...
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Australian Regulators Investigating Banks for Closing Accounts of Bitcoin Companies

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has confirmed the launch of a formal investigation about the abrupt termination of banking support for many bitcoin companies in the country. “It appears to me to be an amazing coincidence that a number of large banks have all of a sudden decided to deny services to fledgling Bitcoin and digital currency operators. They are clearly competitors to their business model, albeit...
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Bank of England Chief Economist: Blockchain-based Digital Currency Issued by Central Banks Could Replace Cash

In a talk given at the Portadown Chamber of Commerce in Northern Ireland on September 18, Andrew G Haldane , Chief Economist at the Bank of England (BoE), has hinted at the possibility that the U.K. government might issue a digital currency. Though the disclaimer “The views are not necessarily those of the Bank of England or the Monetary Policy Committee” ensures plausible deniability, Haldane’s talk seems to indicate that the...
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Sig3 Launches an Automated Policy-Based Transaction Cosigner for Multisig Bitcoin Transactions

Bitcoin startup Sig3 has introduced an independent third-party automated co-signer which automatically co-signs transactions based on the policies and criteria implemented by its users. With Sig3, users can customize and set their own policies to determine the criteria for transaction authorization and verification. Based on the policies implemented by the user, Sig3 automatically co-signs the transaction, adding another layer...
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BitGo Processes Over $1 Billion in Bitcoin Transactions in Third Quarter

Leading bitcoin security platform and multi-signature / P2SH (pay-to-script hash) bitcoin wallet provider BitGo has transacted more than $1 billion worth of bitcoin transactions in a single quarter. “BitGo was the first to pioneer the secure, multi-signature wallet platform for bitcoin,” said BitGo CEO and co-founder Mike Belshe. “Security is never a finished feature, so we’re continually raising the bar. As we reach this billion-dollar...
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Storj Network Passes 1 Petabyte Storage Space

Decentralized cloud storage provider Storj Labs Inc. has announced that its second round of network testing called “Test Group B” has reached the 1 petabyte milestone of managed storage space. Test Group B is an in-depth test of the platform’s storage client DriveShare , a software that enables users to earn money by sharing extra hard drive space. The Storj Test Group B has reached 1,173 terabytes in storage space and currently...
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Bitcoin and Gold Exchange Vaultoro Reaches $1 Million in Gold Trading Volume

Real-time bitcoin-to-gold exchange and banking 2.0 Vaultoro has reached a significant $1 million milestone in gold trading volume, recording an average monthly trading growth rate of 91 percent. The exchange has seen a rapid increase of its user-base, especially in developing countries such as India, which are severely underbanked or unbanked. “The developing world skipped the landline and went direct to mobile phones. They are...
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Bitcoin According to Regulators: Money, Currency, Property, and Now a Commodity

Bitcoin is now officially a commodity according to U.S. regulators, Bloomberg Business reports . The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced on Thursday that it had filed and settled charges against a Bitcoin exchange for facilitating the trading of option contracts on its platform. “In this order, the CFTC for the first time finds that Bitcoin and other virtual currencies are properly defined as commodities,” notes...
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U.S. Runs Out of Internet Addresses; Pressure on ISPs to Bridge Protocols

The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN), the organization which assigns IP addresses to devices connected to the internet, recently announced that it has run out of IPv4 address...
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World’s First Decentralized Fintech Exchange OpenLedger Launches

Leading Danish bitcoin cryptocurrency exchange CCEDK has introduced the world’s first decentralized multi-lingual fintech exchange Open Ledger, allowing users to convert bitcoin to fiat-pegged Smart...
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Friday, September 25, 2015

BitFury Invests $100 Million into Republic of Georgia for Mega-Data Center

Global bitcoin blockchain infrastructure provider and transaction processing company BitFury is planning to invest US$100 million to build its second data center in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi and the...
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BitPay in Peril? Massive Layoffs Follow Recent Price Hike

Bitcoin’s leading global merchant processor, BitPay, has reportedly begun massive layoffs to cut costs at their Atlanta headquarter...
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Digital Currency Derivatives Exchanges Prepare for Regulation after CFTC Bitcoin Ruling

Only a week after ruling that bitcoin and other digital currencies are commodities, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced on Thursday that they have settled charges filed against TeraExchange LLC (Tera) for arranging a “non-deliverable forward contract” last October. Neither of the parties entering the trade were...
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Bitcoin Derivatives Company LedgerX Appoints Ex-CFTC Commissioner Wetjen to Board

LedgerX, an institutional bitcoin trading and clearing platform, announced this week that Mark Wetjen, the ex-commissioner of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Comission (CFTC), will join its board. Nominated by President Barack Obama in 2011 and unanimously confirmed by the Senate as one of the five CFTC commissioners, Wetjen both helped...
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Coinbase on Bitcoin Patents: ‘Don't Hate the Player, Hate the Game’

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong responded to the backlash against his company when it was revealed that it filed nine Bitcoin patent applications with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO...
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Bitnik Reload: Automatically Re-Buy Bitcoin without ‘Vendor Bias’

Interview with Bitnik Reload Founder Peter Trc...
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Thursday, September 24, 2015

Bitcoin Hardware Wallet KeepKey Launches and Begins Shipping

In a rare move in the Bitcoin space, KeepKey has simultaneously begun to take orders for and to ship their flagship bitcoin hardware wallet. As of Wednesday, customers are able to purchase the USB device for USD$239 on Amazon, or directly from the KeepKey website using bitcoin. Worldwide shipping is included in the cost. The KeepKey hardware...
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Three Bitcoin Finalists Vie for BBVA Open Talent Competition Honors in Barcelona

On September 22nd, the winners of the European division of the BBVA Open Talent Competition were announced in Barcelona, Spain. This year, three of the 15 finalists come from the Bitcoin and blockchain sector: Everledger, Safello and Vaultoro. The purpose of the competition is to discover and support up-and-coming innovators in financial...
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