Bitcoin Plaza

Friday, January 23, 2015

Winklevosses Launch Bitcoin Exchange Registered and Banked in New York

The Winklevoss twins have this week unveiled their new Bitcoin project – and it sees them take on the ever-expanding currency exchange market.

Thursday, January 22, 2015

PayPal's Braintree Is Now Open to US Merchants

Braintree has launched its private beta program. Thousands of U.S. merchants can now accept bitcoin.

What Would Kim Dotcom's MegaNet Look Like? (Op-Ed)

Kim Dotcom is a controversial figure. More controversial, it could be argued, than even Bitcoin itself. Cryptography in general is our best tool against not only snooping, but censorship.

Is Bitcoin Truly Decentralized? Yes – and Here Is Why It’s Important

Jan 22. 2015 for BitcoinMagazine.com

Those within the industry understand that one of Bitcoin’s most important features—and perhaps its true core innovation—is its decentralized structure.

Bitcoin has no central control: no central repository of information, no central management, and, crucially, no central point of failure. And yet, most of the actual services and businesses built within the Bitcoin ecosystem are centralized. They are run by specific people, in specific locations, with specific computer systems, and they are susceptible to specific legal entanglements.

This situation creates tension and certainly a little irony—we have a decentralized technology, yet most things existing upon it are centralized.

To a casual observer, and even more to a cynical one, it may appear that the claim of Bitcoin’s decentralization is a myth—an overstated feature conjured up as a bullet point in Bitcoin’s marketing brochure, but suspiciously not apparent in the actual product.

Consider the structure of CoinBase, which is arguably the most successful Bitcoin wallet and payment service in existence. There is nothing decentralized about it.

Consider CoinBase’s internal policies—they resemble PayPal’s, not the distributed utopia Bitcoiners imagine. Coinbase wants to know who you are. They want to know what you’re doing with your money, and they’ll block you if they disapprove. They spy on you and control you as much as any traditional financial institution (and to be fair, it’s not really their fault—enforcers with guns will throw them in a cage if they don’t do these things; it occurs under duress).

So the question arises: How can Bitcoiners claim decentralization when the premier Bitcoin service has essentially become a bank itself?

Critics point to centralized exchanges, wallets, and payment processors to condemn Bitcoin’s claims of decentralization. When Mt. Gox exploded, losing half a billion dollars of customer money, critics expressed immense skepticism that Bitcoin was really anything unique at all—to them, it looked like just another new medium by which people are spied on at best, and ripped off, scammed, and defrauded at worst.

So isn’t Bitcoin’s claim of decentralization a lie?

No.

And here’s why: to understand Bitcoin one must understand the difference between coercive centralization and market-based centralization. Bitcoin possesses the latter, but avoids the former, and that is a crucial distinction.

Coercive centralization is what we all experience in the legacy financial industry. The world’s monetary system, based upon national fiat currencies created and managed by government-sponsored central banks, is coercive. It is coercive because the entities with the power over money’s creation, regulation, and transfer have the will and the power to hurt you if you disobey. Not only that, but you are coerced into it in the first place, being forced to pay taxes and settle debts using only your government’s anointed currency.

If you’d like to experience the coercion first-hand, try creating some dollars, and you will find yourself thrown in prison, your property taken from you. Or try transferring dollars in any way that is “unauthorized.” Then you will see what coercion means.

The entire financial system as it exists today rests upon this anti-market model of coercion—money moves only with the permission of those in control, and they’re not in control by mutual contract, but by the privilege of violence. The various poisons such coercion bestows upon society are a topic for another essay, but the only reason people suffer this system is because it’s been the only game in town.

Market-based centralization is fundamentally different. Its key feature is the ability to opt out.

Yes, CoinBase is a centralized entity. But you needn’t use CoinBase to use Bitcoin. Yes, a Bitcoin exchange or web wallet is centralized, but you can always trade coins with a friend directly over the blockchain, or store it in a local wallet, without the permission of any third party.

A user of fiat is always forced to utilize a centralized service. A user of Bitcoin is never forced to utilize a centralized service. This is the key distinction between centralization found in Bitcoin (which is market-based) and centralization found in the traditional banking industry (which is coercive).

And this ability to opt out, while it may seem modest, enables wonderful things to happen, for the discipline of the marketplace can be realized. Consider: since every CoinBase user can opt out and leave the platform, this presents a natural check on CoinBase’s ability to act with impropriety, and makes coercion impossible. Compare this to the model of a bank, which is able to burden its customers to a far more significant degree because it knows that if the customers want to participate in a meaningful way in the financial system, they have to use a bank and its associated fiat currency system.

It should thus be clear that Bitcoin enables users to withdraw into the neutral pasture of decentralized finance at any time, which means that any centralized service within the sphere exists only at the pleasure of its customers.

And thus the forms of market-based centralization found within Bitcoinland needn’t be feared or condemned as one would the coercive centralization of the legacy financial system. What we have is indeed something fundamentally different, which is wholly compatible with the free-market structure and intent of Bitcoin’s genesis. Indeed, a free market will inevitably lead to some points of market-based centralization when economic efficiencies can be found. Every voluntary organization of people or resources is market-based centralization, and by definition, there’s an inability to coerce those who partake.

The key to judging the legitimacy of centralization is always the ability of users to opt out. Bitcoin provides this, while fiat and central banks do not.

That is the difference, and it is one that the world will soon come to appreciate.

LinkedIn Founder Tells Davos Forum: ‘We Want Bitcoin to Be a Success’

This year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland has seen Bitcoin taking center stage in one business director’s hopes for economic innovation in 2015.

Bill Gates Takes Digital Currency Advocacy to Primetime TV

Bill gates surprised listeners in an interview with Jimmy Fallon this week, saying that the future of increased financial liquidity in Africa for the everyday user lies in mobile payments, and not in

Dutch Anycoin Direct Announces €500k Funding, Partners With Salt Technology to Expand to Canada

Anycoin Direct, an instant buying and selling platform for cryptocurrencies, announced it had raised €500,000 in funding, and had partnered with Salt Technology to expand its services to Canada.

Bitcoin's Price Over Next 3 Years - Survey Results Released

Hedgeable, a digital wealth manager founded in 2009, asked 300 members of the Bitcoin community for one, two, and three-year price predictions earlier this month. They asked respondents to categorize

Multi-Sig: Gem’s 2 Big Deals Underline New Security Standard for Bitcoin

Amid the rapid adoption of multi-signature technology by industry players, Gem is going from strength to strength, partnering with several high-profile cryptocurrency service providers who have learnt

Bitcointalk Forum Down Again Amid Data Retention Problems

The popular cryptocurrency forum Bitcointalk.org is currently inaccessible for the second time in two months.

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

BTC Media Acquires Bitcoin Magazine

January 21, 2015

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Tyler Evans 256-539-6100

BTC Media Acquires Bitcoin Magazine

NASHVILLE, TN—BTC Media LLC, parent company of financial technology magazine yBitcoin and its website www.ybitcoin.com, has as of January 21, 2015 completed the purchase of Bitcoin Magazine from Coin Publishing LLC.

Bitcoin Magazine is the first publication devoted exclusively to Bitcoin, the digital currency that burst onto the international economic scene as open source software in 2009. Magazine founders Mihai Alisie and Vitalik Buterin published their first issue in May, 2012 and later joined forces with Orlando, Florida-based Coin Publishing LLC to produce 22 issues. The magazine is mailed to subscribers worldwide, sold at Barnes & Noble bookstores and published online at http://ift.tt/1BG0mAA.

BTC Media founders Calli S. Bailey and David F. Bailey plan to capitalize on the acquisition by increasing their company’s online news and analysis, among other benefits of the merger.

“This purchase and the enhanced resources it brings into our fold make BTC Media the world’s leading Bitcoin media group,” said CEO David Bailey. “Our readers will now have access not only to the same in-depth feature stories they’ve always found in yBitcoin, but also to breaking news about a cryptocurrency world that is growing exponentially. We aim to be the most trusted source for news in this field by offering relevant information to every reader, regardless of their familiarity with Bitcoin.”

Tony Gallippi, co-owner of Coin Publishing LLC and executive chairman of BitPay, commented, “The BTC Media publication yBitcoin has played an instrumental role in introducing Bitcoin to the world. We knew this would perfectly fit our effort to spread the Bitcoin story to a larger audience. We’re extremely proud of Bitcoin Magazine’s accomplishments, but know that we’ve only scratched the surface. The opportunity to join forces with BTC Media’s extremely capable and visionary team was the strategic move we needed to fully realize our potential.”

BTC Media plans to relaunch Bitcoin Magazine and add a lineup of industry experts as contributors. The company is also expanding its team to manage the expanded joint publishing effort. BTC Media is committed to investing heavily in BCM’s digital offerings and establishing BitcoinMagazine.com as the leading brand in cryptocurrency news and analysis.

yBitcoin will continue its editorial strategy of informing a general readership about Bitcoin.

“Our mission is to educate the world about Bitcoin and expand its reach,” said BTC Media Publisher Calli Bailey. “Bringing yBitcoin and Bitcoin Magazine under one united media group provides us with multiple platforms for doing just that.” The company also plans to begin publication of yBitcoin in other languages which will significantly expand its international presence.

BTC Media has also established a partnership with decentral.tv, a leading video content provider, and is co-hosting a “Bitcoin House” at this year’s SXSW™ music, film and interactive conference in Austin, TX. “Between print, digital, video and events, BTC Media is prepared to engage our audience through every medium and carry cryptocurrency forcefully into the mainstream,” said David Bailey.

The company plans to establish new headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee, where it will avail itself of the vibrant publishing and tech sectors flourishing there.

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ShapeShift Adds Instant Conversion of Ripple

Ripple has been added to ShapeShift, allowing XRP to be instantly converted to or from most of the currencies available on ShapeShift. After some early issues, it seems to be running smoothly.