Bitcoin Plaza

Monday, May 4, 2015

MAY 4 DIGEST: Melotic Exchange Shuts Down, CNET Founder Wants to Bring Bitcoin to India

Melotic exchange has announced it is closing down , Kim DotCom has been awarded US$96,000 monthly living expenses, CNET founder Halsey Minor wants to bring Bitcoin to India, and more news.

Lebanon Moves Towards Digitalized Stock Markets

In order to boost the Lebanese startup scene, the United Kingdom, in collaboration with Lebanon's central bank, the Banque du Liban (BDL), has launched the UK Lebanon Tech Hub.

BitGo Bug Reveals Bitstamp Deposit and Withdrawal Information

Bitcoin API provider Blocktrail has discovered a bug in BitGo’s security platform that causes Bitstamp's transaction data to be identifiable on the blockchain.

Sunday, May 3, 2015

BTCs Announces Merger with Spondoolies Tech Following Recent US$2.3M Financing

Bitcoin Shop (BTCs) announced on April 28 that it signed a letter of intent (LOI) to a merge with Spondoolies Tech, an Israeli mining hardware manufacturer.

How Bitcoin’s Merchant Adoption Guides the Way to Consumer Adoption (Op-Ed)

From 2013 to 2015 we saw a significant rise in merchant adoption of Bitcoin. In this short time period, Bitcoin moved from being a purely speculative instrument to having actual commercial use.

Weekend Roundup: Ukraine Central Bank to Remove Bitcoin Obstacles, Ripple Labs Partners With Western Union

Weekend Roundup from CoinTelegraph

Modest CEO Harper Reed: Bitcoin Is the Future, But It's Not Ready Yet

Modest, Inc. is an interesting name for a company started by someone who proclaims himself to be “probably one of the coolest guys ever,” but the company is rising and worth keeping an eye on.

Saturday, May 2, 2015

LazyPay Enters Virgin Mobile’s Pitch to Rich 2015 as the Only Bitcoin Startup

Virgin Mobile’s Pitch to Rich competition invites startups to compete with each other to win a share of more than £1,000,000 in prizes.

While Core Development Declines, Gregory Maxwell and SF Devs Remain Focused

Despite being a decentralized project, which presumably should result in faster and more efficient development, Bitcoin has been experiencing a decline in its development pace in 2015.

Bitcoin-Powered Remittance Startup Wins Deloitte Tech Competition

TransferB, a startup looking to disrupt the international money transfer market using Bitcoin, has won the 2015 Deloitte Top Technology Talent Competition, Deloitte Ireland announced on Tuesday.

This Week's Bit Pics: Crypto Time Capsule, US$1000 Tip, Bits on the Strip

There are the Bitcoin pics that make news headlines (typically piles of shiny tokens that people think are bitcoins), and then there are the Bitcoin pics that make the social rounds.

Friday, May 1, 2015

Western Union Exploring ‘Pilot Settlement Project’ With Ripple Labs

The global remittance giant Western Union might use the digital currency ripple in a pilot program. Western Union has confirmed it is currently in talks with Ripple Labs, the company behind the digital currency, but details remain scarce. However, if the program comes to fruition, it would be a landmark moment for ripple and the larger digital currency industry.

Vice President of Marketing and Communications at Ripple Labs Monica Long did not confirm the details of the project but did add, “In general, financial institutions and networks use Ripple as a technology that powers real-time settlement in any currency to lower the cost of liquidity and compliance. Ripple was created to enable an Internet of Value in which the world can move value as easily as information moves today.”

Ripple Labs has long promoted the digital currency’s payment network as a way to improve global payments, and many suspect that the remittance giant could use the digital currency as a way to send money faster and cheaper, though this has not been confirmed.

According to a comment made to Bitcoin Magazine by Western Union’s Director of Global Corporate Communications Kristin Kelly, it does appear the remittance giant is interested in using the digital currency for “settlements” but declined to elaborate.

“We have had preliminary discussions with Ripple regarding a pilot settlement project, but it is too early to discuss details at this time,” Kelly said.

Financial Inclusion

The announcement of the possible partnership was made by Ripple Labs’ co-founder and CEO Chris Larsen during a panel at the Milken Institute Global Conference on financial inclusion.

“We’re trying to solve the problem of connecting local banks and financial institutions to the global economy,” Larsen said during the panel. “We have this problem where we have a variety of different networks, whether they are in the U.S. or Kenya or Europe — they’re not connected. You can make a phone call to anyone with a phone number and you can send an email to anybody with an email address, but you can only pay people that are in your payment network. The goal is —how do you get all of these things operating together?”

Other members of the panel were Western Union’s Chief Information Officer and Executive Vice President of Global Operations and Technology David Thompson, MasterCard Center for Inclusive Growth Executive Director Shamina Singh, Safaricom and M-Pesa CEO Bob Collymore, and founder and CEO of Abra Bill Barhydt.

Thompson, who declined to comment, previously admitted to being interested in, and even mining, digital currency in the past. He also has said Western Union was taking note of digital currencies but was taking a passive “watch and see” approach.

If the program does come to fruition, it would mark a dramatic change of policy by the global remittance giant and an advancement for the digital currency industry.