Cointelegraph SA recently attended the African Cards & Payments Conference in Sandton, Johannesburg, where local bitcoin payment processing company PayFast stood out as a technology company with a vis
Sunday, March 29, 2015
‘Bitcoin Should be Used as a Currency Tool, Rather Than a Currency Itself’
Cointelegraph SA recently attended the African Cards & Payments Conference in Sandton, Johannesburg, where local bitcoin payment processing company PayFast stood out as a technology company with a vis
Online Banking Fraud Up By 48 % While Bitcoin Could Reduce That
Online banking fraud rocketed 48 % to £60.4 million in 2014 compared with 2013, according to a report released by Financial Fraud Action UK (FFA UK).
Everything is Set for the First Ever Bitcoin Conference in Africa
Bitcoin and Africa are often mentioned in the same sentence, particularly when talking about remittances and the unbanked.
Weekend Roundup: Bitcoin Exchange Takes Tax Authority to Court, BIT Becomes World's First Public BTC Fund
Weekend Roundup from CoinTelegraph
ChangeTip Adds Disqus To Its Growing List of Support Networks
ChangeTip, the self-titled “love button of the Internet,” has been integrated into yet another social network – this time, with the comment service Disqus.
Bitcoin and M-Pesa; What Stands between Them
Being a Kenyan, who uses both the mobile money service and bitcoin, it made me think about how the two technologies compare.
Saturday, March 28, 2015
Houston Bitcoin Embassy Opens
Houston, we have a problem. We need more cutting edge tech entrepreneurs.
Luckily there’s a new space in Houston, Texas, built just for that, provided by Cryptospaces, which is backed by bitcoin consulting company, FinalHash. Located at 6907 Almeda Rd., the Houston Bitcoin Embassy is an incubator/ coworking space dedicated to tech startups. There are also plans to install a bitcoin ATM in the facility by the end of April.
The Embassy is home to the Texas Coinitiative, a non-profit organization that promotes the use of Bitcoin in Texas.
The Coinitiative mission statement reads:
“We believe that our growing community will help to shape progress in this field. Come network with traders, entrepreneurs and innovators working in one of the most interesting sociological and technological innovations in recent times.”
The Texas Coinitiative hosts several meetups — at least one meet-up each week — including the Houston Bitcoin meetup, an Ethereum meetup and an upcoming Houston Bit Business meetup: a meeting place specifically designed for Bitcoin entrepreneurs.
The Texas Coinitiative invites speakers once or twice a month and is always looking for new speakers. Some of the speakers they’ve recently hosted include Bitcoin Core developer, Peter Todd; Changetip CEO, Nick Sullivan; and Ziftr CEO, Bob Wilkins.
“The city of Houston is still very early in adoption phases in terms of Bitcoin,” says Adam Richard, president and co-founder of the Texas Coinitiative. “There aren’t many merchants that accept bitcoin here. We want to help grow that.”
The Embassy is also spearheading an educational project led by Jay Campuzano of Yo Soy Bitcoin, a series of educational video courses on Bitcoin for beginners in both English and Spanish.
In order to grow, the Texas Coinitiative is looking for sponsors.
“The help from sponsors,” says Richard, “will be used for anything from food and drinks for events to printing of educational materials; all for the purpose of education and inspiring others to become more involved in the Houston Bitcoin ecosystem.”
The Houston Bitcoin Embassy currently has vacancies for anyone interested in an incubation/ coworking space.
The Texas Coinitiative will have a booth at tomorrow’s upcoming Texas Bitcoin Conference. It encourages attendees to visit the booth and talk to any of its representatives there.
“We want to put Houston on the map in the Bitcoin space,” says Richard. “Houston has a lot going on that people don’t realize. There are currently 12 local Bitcoin startups in the city.”
The Houston Bitcoin Embassy is open Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
For more information about the Houston Bitcoin Embassy, visit their website, send them an email, or sign up to attend the Houston Bitcoin meetup at meetup.com.
Why You Need to Love Bitcoin to Love the Blockchain
Most people following developments in Bitcoin are familiar with the often repeated mantra proclaiming the blockchain an innovative technological breakthrough, but Bitcoin an unnecessary and superfluou
Bitcoin Embassy Amsterdam Founder Booted From Organization, Starts Second Embassy
Bitcoin Embassy Amsterdam "forks" into two versions
Friday, March 27, 2015
Bitrefill and Celery Make Bitcoin Remittances Easy: A Conversation With CEO Sergej Kotliar
Bitcoin airtime merchant, Bitrefill, has partnered with New York-based Bitcoin exchange Celery to enable bitcoin remittances of phone minutes to more than 100 countries – without the sender ever having to touch the digital currency.
“The integration uses all of the benefits of Bitcoin but hides the complexities from the user, just uses Bitcoin as settlement rails,” said Celery CEO IIya Subkhankulov.
The process does not require a user to buy bitcoin or handle the digital currency. Airtime purchases made from Celery’s exchange take the money straight from the person’s bank account, similar to the process of buying bitcoin.
In addition, Bitrefill is eliminating fees for airtime remittances to India. The U.S.-India corridor contributes largely to the $70 billion worth of remittances that flow into the Asian country each year.
A Proven Model
Ismail Ahmed, founder and CEO of WorldRemit, told Mobile World Live in 2014, that informal airtime remittances could make nearly half of the $40 billion worth of remittances that flow into Africa each year.
Ahmed made that comment shortly after raising $40 million from Accel Partners and others in a Series A Round, so his money transfer company could pursue airtime and other remittance services.
Airtime remittances are particularly valuable for people sending amounts of money worth under $20. According to TransferTo‘s CEO Eric Barbier, that’s the “sweet spot” for the unconventional money transfer. Remittance companies charge too much to make remittances of such a small amount possible, but airtime services’ low fees make it a viable option.
In many parts of the world, airtime minutes are not only serving as an informal money transfer system, but also as actual money. According to the Economist, in places such as Haiti, Zimbabwe and Egypt, airtime minutes are used to buy things such as gasoline, water and electricity.
According to Hannes Van Rensburg, Visa’s head of their sub-Saharan Africa division, airtime as money is particularly popular in countries where rigid regulatory schemes have made it very difficult for banks to offer new kinds of electronic money.
Even places such as Kenya, where mobile money such as M-Pesa is extremely popular, airtime as money has found a use case. Airtime minutes’ relatively stable price serves as a better store of value than the Kenyan shilling, causing people to hold airtime minutes rather than shillings.
Bitcoin’s UX Problem
A lot has been said about how non-user-friendly bitcoin can be, but according to Bitrefill CEO and co-founder, Sergej Kotliar, it’s really bad. During an interview with Bitcoin Magazine, Kotliar said users in many countries remain confused how to use bitcoin when paying for Bitrefill’s service.
“They had to be walked, step by step, through the process,” he said.
The partnership with Celery will allow users to take advantage of Bitrefill’s cheaper rates and convenience, while never having to touch the rather confusing digital currency.
After signing in, Celery users will see a “Phone Refill” feature toward the bottom of the screen. The user then chooses the amount he or she wants and clicks “Purchase.” The same amount is deducted from the customer’s bank account by Celery, which sends the order for airtime minutes to Bitrefill. The recipient receives the airtime a few seconds later.
But overcoming Bitcoin’s UX problem is just one of the steps the company is taking to reach its grander goal.
“We want to connect the worlds of prepaid and bitcoin. For bitcoin to be used by developing countries, they need to be able to spend it,” said Kotliar. “You can’t exchange bitcoin easily in the developing world, but you can spend airtime easily.”
Full-Fledged Startup
“As Westerners, we didn’t realize how much of the world used prepaid phones. It’s actually the way the majority of the world receives their phone minutes and data,” said Kotliar.
Bitrefill launched in October as a side product for its two co-founders, Kotliar and Aleksandra Derikonja. But a month after launching the service, the company received a lot of interest from the press and, subsequently, from users.
That provoked Kotliar and Derikonja to think more deeply about the prospects of bitcoin in the prepaid airtime industry. After researching the industry more, they discovered that a bitcoin-powered airtime service could solve issues of convenience, price and more.
Bitrefill is headquartered in San Mateo, California, as part of the Bitcoin startup accelerator program Boost VC. They are using the opportunity to further develop their business and to network with other Bitcoin companies.
In the upcoming year, the company will be signing deals with exchanges in Europe and then other parts of the globe. They wish to bring the same “bitcoin-in-the-background experience” to more countries around the world.
The Bitcoin airtime merchant also will be releasing an API that will allow any Bitcoin business to integrate Bitrefill into its website.
Do Cryptocurrencies Need a Better Unifying Identity?
With over 600 cryptocurrencies out there, each with their own branding and identity, do we need a better unifying brand to represent them all?
Warning! Kaspersky Alerts Users of Malware and 'Blockchain Abuse'
Could malware be injected into the blockchain and be used to steal user's private keys? Cyber security firm Kaspersky Labs seems to think so.
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