New York Unveils Bitcoin License Rules – Jul. 18, 2014

He explained then that his biggest fear is a repeat of what happened in Tokyo, when the world’s largest Bitcoin exchange, Mt.Gox, went bankrupt and lost close to $400 million in users’ accounts. “What I would never want to see is… that there was something we missed and an exchange collapsed,” Lawsky said at the time. “We’re going to work very hard on our blind spots so we put protections in place — that may seem overly conservative to some — to make sure we don’t have a collapse.” But as Lawsky said then, he doesn’t want rules “so burdensome or unwieldy that the technology can’t develop.” The UK’s first Bitcoin ATM The rules also show Lawsky understands how Bitcoin works. Exchanges must secure exactly the number of bitcoins they owe customers.
read more http://money.cnn.com/2014/07/18/technology/bitcoin-license/index.html

Winklevoss twins break into the art world | Page Six

<img src='http://i.imgur.com/6oB7TtI.jpg&#039; width='350px' .. [read more] style=’float:left;padding:5px’ />

To celebrate, the techie twins and Paddle8 co-founders Alexander Gilkes and Aditya Julka on Thursday hosted a private dinner, where guests included banking heir Matthew Mellon, Creative Times Anne Pasternak and Warby Parker co-founder Dave Gilboa, who ate paella and swilled from magnums of Pommery champagne. The evening toasting the Bitcoin-backing Winklevii included an auction appropriately titled Currency of monetarily inspired works by Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Banksy and David LaChapelle. The auction runs online till Thursday.
read more http://pagesix.com/2014/07/19/winklevoss-twins-break-into-the-art-world/

New York Unveils Bitcoin License Rules – Jul. 18, 2014

Dell now accepting bitcoin for payment | Albuquerque Journal News

You can read the full proposal here . Bitcoin exchanges must now keep detailed records on all their customers. It’s an attempt to clamp down on black market uses for bitcoin, such as money laundering and buying illegal goods. Currently, the backbone of the Bitcoin system logs all transactions, but it only lists peoples’ anonymous digital wallets. By forcing exchanges to log everyone who acquires a Bitcoin, the system is suddenly traceable to actual people. The tough part?
read more http://money.cnn.com/2014/07/18/technology/bitcoin-license/index.html?section=money_topstories

The LA Times is reporting that computer giant Dell will begin accepting bitcoin as payment, making the Texas-based company the largest business to accept the virtual currency. Dell, which reported $56.9 billion in revenue for 2013 and employs more than 100,000 people, announced the decision to begin accepting bitcoin via a tweet by company founder, Michael Dell, according to the store. Dell customers can begin using bitcoin as payment immediately, and the company is offering a discount for Alienware-brand computer hardware if payments are made in bitcoin. The company is partnering with bitcoin payment processing company Coinbase, which works with tens of thousands of merchants in accepting and using bitcoin.
read more http://www.abqjournal.com/431675/biz/dell-now-accepting-bitcoin-for-payment.html

New York proposes regulations for bitcoin | Business & Technology | The Seattle Times

Post a comment ALBANY, N.Y. State regulators trying to curb money laundering and safeguard investors on Thursday proposed a special set of rules for firms involved in trading and storing virtual currencies. New York is the first state to propose issuing separate regulations for virtual currencies, demonstrating the importance regulators attach to the fledgling field. New York City is home to several startups dealing in bitcoin, the most popular virtual currency, and some Wall Street firms are edging into the field as well. Some industry firms vowed to comply. But the Bitcoin

Bitcoin Falls 1% In Subdued Trade – Nasdaq.com

Europe Bitcoin Investment Surge – Business Insider

Prices held in a narrow range between $617.93 and $626.88. The price of a Bitcoin on Bulgaria-based BTC-e shed 0.77%, or $4.79, to trade at $613.72. According to the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index, which averages prices from the major exchanges, prices of the crypto-currency dipped 0.23% to trade at $618.80.
read more http://www.nasdaq.com/article/bitcoin-falls-1-in-subdued-trade-cm368635

In its quarterly State of Bitcoin report , released Thursday, CoinDesk shows Bitcoin VC funding in Europe nearly doubled in Q2, to $30.9 million from $15.6 million in Q1 .Investment in North America climbed 21% to $186.3 million.Asian funding fell 18% to $20.8 million. Here’s CoinDesk’s chart: CoinDesk Within Europe, Netherlands-based Bitfury, a mining hardware developer, captured the greatest share, raising $20 million. That funding round alone made the Netherlands the second-largest recipient of VC funds in the world. We recently showed that European countries hold the top-5 positions for downloads per capita of Bitcoin’s core protocol. We got further evidence of the surge in Europe today, as Barry Silbert’s Bitcoin Opportunity Corp. venture capital fund announced a $250,000 investment in Stockholm-based Bitcoin service provider Safello. “In a very short period of time, the Safello team has created a leading European platform for buying, storing and selling bitcoin,” Silbert said in a statement. “Their user and transaction growth is accelerating and Im thrilled to join a group of fantastic investors to help support Safellos rapid growth and ambitious product plans.” Silbert said the opportunity in Europe is strong, though is still unlikely to match America’s anytime soon. “While there is a growing number of bitcoin investment opportunities in Europe, the companies are much earlier stage and funding rounds much smaller than in the U.S.,” he said in an email.
read more http://www.businessinsider.com/europe-bitcoin-investment-surge-2014-7

“Bitcoin and the Marijuana Industry” – BG Medical Technologies CEO Speaking at National Conference, Shareholders Invited – Yahoo Finance

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Western Union Ceo Suggests His Company Could Adopt Bitcoin When It’s Regulated | Newsbtc

Bitcoin Leads The Way For Undercover Money – iExpats

complete listing of Bitcoin exchanges

It must first be regulated.
read more http://newsbtc.com/2014/06/25/western-union-ceo-suggests-company-adopt-bitcoin-regulated/

Bitcoin lets users ring fence their wealth, invest free from government control and maintain privacy.
read more http://www.iexpats.com/bitcoin-leads-way-undercover-money/

Western Union Ceo Suggests His Company Could Adopt Bitcoin When It’s Regulated | Newsbtc

Bitcoin Weekly 2014 June 25: Swarm redefines crypto-crowdfunding, Just-Dice suspends betting, one year of BitcoinAverage | SiliconANGLE

Particularly, Ersek suggested that his company, a leader in money remittences, could look to adopt bitcoin if customers demand it with a catch. It must first be regulated. But on the bitcoin, you know we settle and pay out in 121 currencies […], once bitcoin should be regulated, by the regulator which should be a proper currency, why not we should also use bitcoin? he responded when asked byRegan for comment on the digital currency and how it relates to their present model. Its not regulated as a currency, he added, thats the issue with bitcoin. Thats not to say that things cant change but there will need to be some laws on the books. We are a very regulated industry, Ersek said. If bitcoin is regulated and the customer wants that, I mean why not? Missing an opportunity Could Western Unions waiting for widespread regulation of bitcoin spell the end to the company? Already bitcoin has proven that money can be moved around the world in mere minutes for very little (were talking cents here), so Western Union is making it more about how the government would react toward them over how they could help customers.
read more http://newsbtc.com/2014/06/25/western-union-ceo-suggests-company-adopt-bitcoin-regulated/

Bitcoin has risen from the dead… again – Yahoo News

Ron Jackson, who publishes industry title Domain Name Journal , says the trade in bitcoin domains is too new for a discernible pattern to be observed: There havent been enough significant bitcoin-related domain sales to call anything a trend. The only major one we have seen this year is BitcoinWallet.com. Domain investors like Younts, though, will hope that Jackson is proved wrong, and soon. Younts said that BitcoinWallets.com (note the plural in wallets), which he also owns, has been attracting lots of attention from potential buyers, including three six-figure offers. Prices rising Younts also noted that competition and asking prices have been rising, saying that several domain names that include a country name and the word bitcoin are now beyond his budget.
read more http://www.coindesk.com/speculators-seek-cash-bitcoin-domain-name-boom/

Speculators Seek to Cash In on Bitcoin Domain Name Boom

Please enter your Phone Number. Send Thanks! A link has been sent. Done Bitcoin has risen from the dead again By Tero Kuittinen 4 hours ago 0 shares View photo Bitcoin Bitcoin has risen from the dead again Bitcoin survived a hellish spring period when its value crashed to $320 from winter highs topping $1,000. With the price now hovering around $570, the cryptocurrency faces a series of important events in the coming weeks that could determine its future. On June 27th, the U.S. Government will auction astashof seized Bitcoins worth around $17 million, derived from the shutdown of the notorious Silk Road marketplace. The level of interest in this auction and the quality of the buyers are going to be under close scrutiny.
read more https://news.yahoo.com/bitcoin-risen-dead-again-224522829.html

Canadas new Bitcoin-as-money regulations have already caused some casualties with Just-Dice and Doge-Dice suspending service to bring themselves in line with the upcoming law. BitcoinAverage is fast coming up on one year of service (this August.) And, Chinese Bitcoin-exchange OKCoin is adding algorithmic trading tools that favor high-volume traders. Swarm seeks to redefine crowdfunding Launched publicly in early June, Swarm hopes to redefine crowdfunding by using the Bitcoin second gen protocol CounterParty and crowdsourcing engagement. Crowdfunding started June 17th and the company raised 1,200 BTC in 18 hours (approximately $720,000). That number has increased to approximately 1,359 BTC (30.2% of a 4,500 BTC goal.) The crowdfunding platform functions by selling its own cryptocurrency, Swarmcoin, to backers. These coins will then be redeemable for crowdfunding services in the future. Further lots of coins will continue to be sold in lots of progressively higher and higher prices to encourage investment. Coins will be sold until all 100 million swarmcoins are sold.
read more http://siliconangle.com/blog/2014/06/25/bitcoin-weekly-2014-june-25-swarm-redefines-crypto-crowdfunding-just-dice-suspends-betting-one-year-of-bitcoinaverage/?angle=silicon

Bitbeat: Coinbase Promotes Bitcoin Discounts; Ripple Hits Latam – Moneybeat – Wsj

US Marshals Service to auction ‘Silk Road’ bitcoin valued at $17 million – CSMonitor.com

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Us Marshals Service To Auction ‘silk Road’ Bitcoin Valued At $17 Million – Csmonitor.com

Feds to hold a Bitcoin auction for seized Silk Road money – CNET

The USMS plans to auction 29,657 bitcoins, valued at $17.4 million by the CoinDesk bitcoin price index , in blocks of 3,000 bitcoins on June 27. The auction will not include the roughly 144,000 bitcoins seized from the computers of the alleged-Silk Road founder, Ross Ulbricht. Recommended: Ready to invest in Bitcoin? Test your knowledge with our quiz. The value of a single bitcoin varies according to demand, much in the same way that stock prices rise and fall.
read more at http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2014/0613/US-Marshals-Service-to-auction-Silk-Road-bitcoin-valued-at-17-million

Silk Road was an online drug marketplace where its nearly 1 million anonymous users could buy and sell all sorts of drugs using the secure Tor browser. The purchases were typically made with Bitcoin and sales are said to have totaled more than $1 billion. Related stories FBI seizes online drug marketplace Silk Road, outs owner in indictment Last October, the FBI seized Silk Road and arrested its alleged mastermind Ross Ulbricht, aka “Dread Pirate Roberts.” Reportedly, Ulbricht, 29, had earned nearly $80 million operating the site. In the days after Ulbricht’s indictment, eight people in three different countries were arrested for allegedly being connected to the sale of drugs on Silk Road. The US Marshals Service Bitcoin auction could be the first of many. The agency noted that it has tens of thousands more bitcoins from the Silk Road seizure. “This auction is for the bitcoins contained in wallet files that resided on Silk Road servers,” the US Marshals Service wrote. “This auction does not include the bitcoins contained in wallet files that resided on certain computer hardware belonging to Ross William Ulbricht that were seized on or about October 24, 2013.” Ulbricht has been charged with narcotics trafficking, computer hacking, and money laundering and he faces a minimum of 30 years in prison and a possible maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted. (Via CoinDesk ).
read more at http://www.cnet.com/news/feds-to-hold-a-bitcoin-auction-for-seized-silk-road-money/

Yep, You Can Pay for College In Bitcoin Now

Much like the first universities or businesses to obtain email addresses, The King’s College is standing at the forefront of change. Sure, okay, makes sense to embrace new tech, and apparently lower costs, which was another part of the explanation for the acceptance of Bitcoin into the college’s heart. And after all, if people are going to give you money, you might as well take it however it comes. Will it make King’s College the next Harvard?
read more at

Could Bitcoin Miners Help Pay For Pirated Games? | Torrentfreak

Gamers tend not to own dedicated mining hardware, but people playing a game like Watch Dogs more often that not will have rather juicy graphics cards on board which could be coaxed into a bit of mining. Question is, would they be up to the task? Roger Ver , an angel investor in several Bitcoin startups including Blockchain.info, BitcoinStore and BitPay, has been referred to in the press as the Bitcoin Jesus . In his opinion, could the Watch Dog hackers who sparked this story make much money with their illegal trojan? It depends a lot on the hardware of the machines, but to the hacker, it is all profit since he doesnt have to pay for any of the hardware or electricity costs, Ver told TF. So with free money for the hackers established, we come back to the key question: could a Bitcoin miner installed with the permission of the downloader generate enough fractions of a single bitcoin on a single machine to keep the developer happy, in Watch Dogs case, to the tune of around $60?
read more http://torrentfreak.com/could-bitcoin-miners-help-pay-for-pirated-games-140601/

This week in bitcoin: Do we blame the bots? — Tech News and Analysis

The report seems to echo what a lot of people have been postulating on bitcoin forums that some obvious market manipulation was at play to drive the price up that high. However, some of the logs that this paper is based off appear to be incomplete as other users are showing that some of their confirmed transactions are not in the logs. Either way, it seems like it would have been hard for MtGox to not know something about this or catch the patterns themselves, which just ends up casting a larger shadow over the once preeminent exchange. The market this week Bitcoin has been climbing slowly this week, closing at $565.51 Thursday almost $40 higher than last week. But the slow climb of the week turned into an upwards race as price jumped another $40 in the last 16 hours, trading for $604 as of 9:30am PDT. For background on why were using Coindesks Bitcoin Price Index, see the note at the bottom of the post. In other news we covered this week: Coinbase added payment pages to make it easier to send or donate bitcoin to its users using vanity URLs instead of sometimes cumbersome QR codes.
read more http://gigaom.com/2014/05/30/this-week-in-bitcoin-do-we-blame-the-bots/

BitBeat: As Bad News Subsides, Bitcoin Prices Rising Again – MoneyBeat – WSJ

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This Week In Bitcoin: Do We Blame The Bots? — Tech News And Analysis

Dish’s move to accept bitcoin seen as effective marketing maneuver – Los Angeles Times

The market this week Bitcoin has been climbing slowly this week, closing at $565.51 Thursday almost $40 higher than last week. But the slow climb of the week turned into an upwards race as price jumped another $40 in the last 16 hours, trading for $604 as of 9:30am PDT. For background on why were using Coindesks Bitcoin Price Index, see the note at the bottom of the post. In other news we covered this week: Coinbase added payment pages to make it easier to send or donate bitcoin to its users using vanity URLs instead of sometimes cumbersome QR codes.
read more http://gigaom.com/2014/05/30/this-week-in-bitcoin-do-we-blame-the-bots/

Dish Becomes Largest Company To Accept Bitcoin Starting in the third quarter of this year, Dish Network will start accepting bitcoin for television subscription services making them the first subscription model payTV provider to accept bitcoin. The company claims this will also make Dish the largest company (by market cap about $27bil) to date to accept bitcoin. Their payment processor is Coinbase and they will exchange their bitcoins into US dollars at the moment of the transaction. Gil Luria of Wedbush Securities told the New York Times that she sees this as more of a marketing play. Mary Meeker Highlights Bitcoin Wallet Growth Mary Meekers Internet Trends Code Conference Report is a must read for anyone in the tech industry. She dedicated one slide to the extraordinary interest in cryptocurrencies highlighting the growth in the number of unique bitcoin wallets, which have increased eight times year-over-year. The significance of the queen of the net highlighting bitcoin wallet growth is that she has a track record for spotting e-commerce market trends, although she was criticized for picking a few bad tech stocks in the late 1990s during her tenure at Morgan Stanley. Mary Meekers Internet Trends Code Conference 2014 slide 53 Wedbush Securities Predicts Bitcoin Implementation Within 1-3 Years Wedbush Securities, a private financial services firm with the goal of becoming the first financial institution to accept bitcoin, published an investors report titled, Timing and Sizing the Era of Bitcoin this week. Wedbush is bullish on bitcoin, but believes bitcoin related technologies will disrupt payments markets and other trust-based markets, however, broader implementation of the technology is still 1 3 years away. The report cites the breakthroughs in the disruption of decentralized trust, which allows for the flow of financial services without a trusted third party. It also describes how bitcoin technology can be used for Machine-to-Machine communication and possibly has a role at decreasing DDoS attacks and even spam mail. Facebook and Google Veteran Joins BitGo Smart minds, not just smart money are entering Bitcoin. Ben Davenport, co-founder of Beluga, a mobile messaging platform acquired by Facebook, left Facebook this week to join BitGo, the first multi-signature wallet servicer. Davenport will serve as Co-founder helpful Bitcoin insight and Chief Product Officer at BitGo.
read more http://www.forbes.com/sites/perianneboring/2014/06/02/the-boring-bitcoin-report-week-of-june-2/2/

The Boring Bitcoin Report: Week Of June 2 – Forbes

A man arrives for the Inside Bitcoins conference and trade show in New York in April. (Mark Lennihan / Associated Press) Riley Snyder Analysts: @Dish accepting #bitcoin is primarily a marketing move .@Dish becomes one of largest companies and first TV provider to accept #bitcoin Idea to accept #bitcoin came from within @dish Add Dish satellite TV subscriptions to the growing list of products and services that can be bought with bitcoin, joining Tesla cars, Zynga video games and goods on Overstock.com. Dish customers can start making one-time payments with bitcoin by the end of September through its website, the company announced Thursday. Bitcoin, introduced in 2009, is an online-only currency that has drawn significant attention from investors and the media after several volatileprice swings over the past months.
read more http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-dish-accepts-bitcoin-20140530-story.html

Bitcoin Atm Installed At Downtown Vegas Casino – Abc News

The D Las Vegas Casino Hotel introduced its new Robocoin machine on Thursday. The kiosk allows customers to deposit cash into their Bitcoin wallets or exchange Bitcoin for dollars. D co-owner Derek Stevens declined to say how many Bitcoin transactions the hotel does each day, but said the number of people who use it is much higher than he thought it would be when he started accepting the virtual currency in January. Bitcoin is accepted at the D’s front desk, restaurants and gift shop, but not on the casino floor.
read more http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/wireStory/bitcoin-atm-installed-downtown-vegas-casino-23841520

‘Bitcoin Pizza Day’: Why 2 Pies Are Now Bitcoin information Worth $5 Million – ABC News

like maybe 2 large ones so I have some left over for the next day. I like having left over pizza to nibble on later. You can make the pizza yourself and bring it to my house or order it for me from a delivery place, but what I’m aiming for is getting food delivered in exchange for bitcoins where I don’t have to order or prepare it myself, kind of like ordering a ‘breakfast platter’ at a hotel or something, they just bring you something to eat and you’re happy!” the post read. He continued: “I like things like onions, peppers, sausage, mushrooms, tomatoes, pepperoni, etc.. just standard stuff no weird fish topping or anything like that. I also like regular cheese pizzas which may be cheaper to prepare or otherwise acquire. If you’re interested please let me know and we can work out a deal.” Hanyecz posted on May 22 that someone had taken him up on his offer — marking what is believed to by many in the community to be the first crypto currency exchange for goods. Bitcoin was in its infancy at the time and so Hanyecz continued his feeding frenzy through the summer of 2010, until he wrote that he could no longer afford to fork over so many bitcoin for pizza. “I ended up getting cleaned out pretty quick,” Hanyecz said.
read more http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/bitcoin-pizza-day-pies-now-worth-million/story?id=23824128