Kaspersky recently uncovered Equation Group, a nasty cybercrime operation that embeds malware in hardware all around the world. It's hard to detect. Once malware is installed, it's difficult to get ri
Saturday, February 21, 2015
Are Bitcoin Companies Vulnerable to Equation Group Style Attacks?
Kaspersky recently uncovered Equation Group, a nasty cybercrime operation that embeds malware in hardware all around the world. It's hard to detect. Once malware is installed, it's difficult to get ri
10 Tips to Create Your Own Cryptocurrency
DemocraticCoin, or DCoin for short, is a project seemingly born of necessity. Vanchuk Dmitriy, DCoin's developer, lives in Russia. You know – the Russia where state actors are making it harder and sca
Int. Virtual Crypto Summit 2015 Presents Rare Opportunity to Connect with Global Crypto Community
On Feb 26, the Crypto Virtual Summit 2015 will go live, offering the global crypto community a rare opportunity to connect and get a global perspective on the state of the crypto economy for free!
DAILY DIGEST: Stripe Launches Bitcoin Integration, 'Inside Man' Covers Bitcoin
BITCOIN DAILY DIGEST about Crypto Media Outlets Targeted by Fraud Ring, Stripe Launches Bitcoin Integration after Nearly a Year of Testing, “Inside Man” Covers Bitcoin, Dell Now Accepting Bitcoin in t
Robocoin Relaunches to Become ‘Android of ATMs’
BTM developer Robocoin has unveiled its hotly rumored new direction in the form of a software development kit (SDK), which will allow any ATM to function as a Bitcoin ATM (BTM).
Bitcoin-Wave Announces Bitcoin Debit Card
Bitcoin-Wave, a Seychelles incorporated Bitcoin exchange dedicated to the European market, announces it will soon offer Bitcoin debit cards, enabling users to make transactions in the Euro-zone for fr
Friday, February 20, 2015
Greece’s Varoufakis: Bitcoin Can Be Used in Eurozone ‘As Weapon Against Deflation’
Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has hit back at criticism resulting from his appraisal of Bitcoin in a blog post last month, calling Bitcoin “too deflationary to work” while continuing to supp
U.S. Marshals Hold Third Bitcoin Auction
The U.S. Marshals Service is holding its third Dread Pirate Roberts (DPR) bitcoin auction this March 5th, 2015. These bitcoin were seized from Ross Ulbricht, allegedly the Dread Pirate Roberts, in relation to the Silk Road prosecution, an online black market bust primarily related to the sale of illegal drugs.
At auction are 50,000 bitcoin separated into two series. The first (series A) will consist of ten blocks of 2,000 bitcoin each, requiring a deposit of $100,000. The second series (B) will consist of ten blocks of 3,000 bitcoin each, requiring a deposit of $150,000.
Not all of the coin at auction were necessarily involved in some form of illegal transaction. There were some legitimate merchants who sold perfectly legal goods through the Silk Road platform.
Like the previous two auctions, the current one is blind, meaning that bidders will not know the value of the other bids. The first auction was held last summer for just under 30,000 bitcoin, in nine blocks of 3,000 and a partial tenth block. Participants had to deposit a minimum of $200,000 to take part.
Tim Draper won all the blocks up for sale in the first auction.
He also claimed 2,000 bitcoin from the second auction of 50,000 bitcoin that was held in early December, 2014. The remaining 48,000 bitcoin (19 of 20 blocks) were won by syndicate bidders led by SecondMarket and the Bitcoin Investment Trust (BIT).
The second, most recent auction had 11 registered bidders and 27 resulting bids.
Parties interested in the upcoming third auction should be aware that the bidder registration has opened from February 17th, but will close at 12:00 EST on Monday, March 2nd, 2015.
Deposits for the auction must originate from a bank located within the United States, and bidders must confirm that they have no association with Ross Ulbricht.
Registration consists of the deposit along with a manually signed pdf copy of the registration form, a copy of a government issued photo ID (of the bidder or control person) and a copy of the wire transfer receipt.
The auction starts at 08:00 EST on March 5th and will last until 14:00 EST the same day.
For more information about the auction, visit the U.S. Marshals site here.
Airbitz Enables BLE-driven Wireless Payments for iPhone and Android
If you’ve ever used bitcoin currency, you know that it can be frustrating to try to send and receive money when QR codes aren’t cooperating.
Solar reflection, phones with cracked screens, and poorly focusing cameras are among the issues that are hampering widespread use of QR codes and impeding Bitcoin adoption.
Developers at Airbitz, a Bitcoin wallet and business directory, have found a solution.
In October of 2014, Airbitz unveiled technology that allowed for iPhone users in close proximity to pay each other wirelessly via Bluetooth technology on their app– all without the need to pair iPhones. No more QR codes.
This is made possible by Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE).
When compared to Classic Bluetooth, the newer BLE uses less power and lowers costs while providing a similar communication range.
But not everyone uses iPhones.
The latest android software update (Android 5.0), however, has BLE capabilities. As a result, Airbitz has recently launched wireless Bitcoin payments for Android. The Airbitz protocol is compatible between iPhone and Android devices.
The idea for wireless Bitcoin payments emerged out of dissatisfaction with the QR code method of transacting with Bitcoin.
Paul Puey, CEO of Airbitz, explained:
“The idea came about after many frustrating experiences with QR codes, and the realization that most people are not familiar with them and their scary appearance. The advance of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), which can work without pairing, gave us the motivation to develop this feature and protocol.”
“Android was far more difficult to implement than iPhone,” adds Paul. “Our usage of BLE requires a mode called Peripheral Mode, which allows a device to behave like a beacon, broadcasting info to receiving devices. iPhone has had this capability since the iPhone 4S, allowing it to both broadcast and receive BLE payment requests. Android only introduced this Bluetooth feature (Peripheral Mode) as of version 5.0 (Android Lollipop). We developed the early beta versions of 5.0 with the expectation that old devices would support this feature. Before release, at the last minute, Google disabled Peripheral Mode for all devices except Nexus 6 & 9. Although a bit crippled by Google, the Airbitz wallet allows full send and receive via Bluetooth on Nexus 6 & 9, but only sending capabilities on most Android 4.3 devices and higher.”
Ultimately, this initiative is a move toward making Bitcoin user-friendly, something that the cryptocurrency will need if it hopes to thrive.
“Our focus,” concludes Paul, ” is to deliver software with an amazing user experience, both visually and functionally, simplifying this advanced technology and delivering it to the masses while still retaining Bitcoin’s core principles of decentralization and privacy.”
This important innovation can potentially make the process of adopting Bitcoin less like pulling out molars, and more like learning how to tweet.
Check out Airbitz’s website here.
Elliptic Welcomes Aboard Bitcoin Foundation’s Former Exec
Former Bitcoin Foundation Membership Director, Kevin Beardsley, will join Elliptic where he will be in charge of growth with investment funds and trading firms that are looking to securely store bitco
Scam Exposed: Crypto Media Outlets Targeted by Fraud Ring
CoinTelegraph has uncovered a profit sharing scheme where self-proclaimed “hackers” lure unsuspecting clients to sell their coins after reading promotional articles purportedly posted on crypto media
DAILY DIGEST: US Auctions off 50,000 bitcoins, Mt. Gox Investigation Update
The US Marshals are beginning the process to auction of 50,000 bitcoins seized from Silk Road, Mike Hearn warns about the dangers of autonomous machines and suggests a self-ownership solution, Google
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