Bitcoin is slowly and steadily growing and now a part of many online platforms and systems. Online gaming is also taken by a storm by bitcoins, including poker.
Bitcoin Poker is trending these days, as the digital currency world is getting into online gaming systems and making life easy of many gamers and traders. Online poker industry also these days make use of Bitcoins. There are many online poker platforms now using only BTC as a transaction medium.
As we all know Bitcoins are one of the easiest ways to transfer funds with very less fees. Many companies saw this as an opportunity and embedded it to make life of gamers easy. In this way, they avoid any transaction with traditional banks.

http://www.newsbtc.com/2016/09/14/bitcoin-poker-making-noise-days-know/

While a bitcoin hard fork isn't imminent, its developers have begun to research how the complex technical change could be enacted, if needed.
The proactive steps illustrate the new responsibility Bitcoin Core, the network's mostly volunteer developer group, has taken on as the protocol has grown from the pet project of its mystery creator to a broad network of consumers, businesses and stakeholders.
As bitcoin remains the most widely used blockchain platform (one that many people see as having the greatest potential to change the way society transacts), this responsibility, the bitcoin developers argue, should be treated with caution and respect.
In this light, there has been a renewed emphasis within Bitcoin Core to explore how it could implement a hard fork, a type of protocol change that has proved a lightning rod for controversy during bitcoin's ongoing scaling debate and resulted in schisms in other blockchain networks.

http://www.coindesk.com/preparing-bitcoin-hard-fork/

Romania's first order-book exchange is closing down.
Statements on the BTCXchange website informed users of a possible sale of the service on 18th August, and on 4th September, users were asked to withdraw funds ahead of an expected 12th September shut down.
According to Romanian news source Bihon, it remains unclear whether the exchange, the first of its kind in Romania, is still for sale. Owners originally said they would accept offers on the platform through 16th September.
In past statements, owner Horea Vuscan expressed his hope the exchange would be acquired as he said it was "highly profitable", though he expressed reservations about continuing in the face of the Bitfinex hack and continued worries about the security of bitcoin exchanges.

http://www.coindesk.com/romanian-bitcoin-exchange-shuts/

Since the Bitfinex hack, bitcoin capital markets have shown resilience and pricing risk is more realistic, according to Gavin Smith, CEO of trading and financial services firm First Global Credit, who offered a positive assessment of the post-Bitfinex environment at the recent Capital Markets Blockchain Conference in London, reported Finance Magnates.
Smith gave a summary on how his company and others have reacted to the Bitfinex hack. Market participants took collateral not required to fund existing hedge positions and put it in cold storage. Rates on BTC have since improved, but they are still lower than loaning U.S. dollars. Smith thinks this will improve

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitcoin-stronger-since-bitfinex-hack/

Analysts and enthusiasts everywhere have enjoyed the large rise in the bitcoin price. After breaking $600, the price hovered in the $620 range for a while. Unfortunately, another drop has occurred, and bitcoin now finds itself stuck in the low $600s. Some believe OKCoin deserves the blame for this fall. However, despite the retraction, market patterns still look bullish.

http://bitcoinist.net/okcoin-blame-bitcoin-price-fall/

At present, Bitcoin is a good way to transfer money, trade and speculate on the value of money, and store money. It is not itself a money, not yet. If we want it to be a money, here’s what we need to do. First, a bit of background.
Here’s an exercise. Hold a dollar bill in your hand, or $5 or $10 or whatever, or a euro, or a £5 note. Think about what you’re holding, and think about why it has value. Hard money libertarian types often like to say things like “The Dollar has no intrinsic value,” and that’s kind of true. But let’s sharpen that statement and try to figure out where exactly whatever value fiat money has, comes from. Certainly it has some kind of value, but from where does that value stem?

http://calvinayre.com/2016/09/13/business/how-to-turn-bitcoin-into-a-bona-fide-money/

Bitmain, the Bitcoin Mining ASICs manufacturer has launched a new open source mining pool. The new mining pool is part of BTC.com, the company’s Bitcoin block explorer, analytics tools and wallet services arm.
According to the company’s blog post, Bitmain is offering a great deal to all the users joining its new mining pool. All miners on BTC.com mining pool will be able to mine the digital currency without having to pay any mining fee until next year. Available for anyone from across the world, BTC.com’s mining pool has introduced a lot of new features that can potentially change the way Bitcoin in currently mined.


http://www.newsbtc.com/2016/09/13/bitmains-btc-com-mining-pool-goes-live/

Running Bitcoin exchanges requires a lot of time, effort, and money. But despite a lot of hard work, regulatory issues can always force a shutdown. Romania’s BTCXChange has shut down its services for good. Users had until yesterday to withdraw all of their funds. It is the second time BTCXChange is shut down, albeit it remains to be seen if they will return.
The announcement about BTCXchange shutting down was posted on the website in August of 2016. Users were advised to move all of their funds off the platform by September 12. Horeo Oradea Vuşcan, the owner of BTCXchange, has taken the decision to shut down the platform the second time.

http://www.newsbtc.com/2016/09/13/romanias-btcxchange-discontinues-bitcoin-exchange-service/

Bitcoin and mobile messaging have emerged as tools in addressing the global remittance market to lower the cost of transferring funds across national borders.
This past spring, KakaoTalk, based in Seoul, South Korea, a chat app, purchased a 40% stake in Satoshi Citadel Industries (SCI), a Manila, Philippines bitcoin startup as reported by Quartz. KakaoTalk joins Viber and WeChat in addressing the global remittance market, estimated at $500 billion annually.

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitcoin-startups-team-with-mobile-messaging-to-tackle-the-500-billion-remittance-market/

We're often being told that the blockchain – the tech behind Bitcoin – will rewire not just the banking sector, but social security payments, healthcare and even digital voting. Until now, it's all been theoretical tech industry talk. However, in recent months there's been a flurry of interest from the wider world, and some big developments that look set to shape a future blockchain economy.
It emerged recently that China will use blockchain for making social security payments, while Australia has proposed using blockchain to run its voting systems. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton has publicly backed using blockchain for public services.
Is blockchain – and its associated technologies and platforms, including Bitcoin and Ethereum – about to blossom from being an obscure niche technology to become the basis of a new kind of global public infrastructure?


http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/bitcoin-vs-distributed-ledger-vs-ethereum-vs-blockchain-1328432

MasterCard, one of the largest credit card payment operators and financial institutions worldwide, is being sued for US$19 billion for overcharging 46 million British customers for 16 years, from 1992 to 2008.
The suit was filed by prestigious multi-billion dollar law firm Quinn Emanuel, which accused the credit card network operator of charging substantially higher interchange fees that affected millions of businesses and individuals for over a decade.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/brits-sue-mastercard-over-high-fees-bitcoin-fees-still-lowest-in-the-market

The Bitcoin community now has more worrying things on its plate. As if hacking incidents plaguing cryptocurrency exchanges aren’t enough, the number of malware and ransomware threats on the rise. In the past couple of weeks, a number of new malicious programs were detected by multiple cyber security firms. One look at the list is enough to know that no device is currently safe.

http://www.newsbtc.com/2016/09/11/malware-alert-put-bitcoin-users-in-danger/

PowerBTC , a newcomer to the global cryptocurrency market, is revolutionizing the Bitcoin exchange industry by offering sellers an unprecedented price: over 10% of the current market value. Without charging fees, PowerBTC offers a straightforward Bitcoin exchange service with guaranteed anonymity.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/powerbtc-offers-fast-easy-bitcoin-exchange-at-10-over-market-value-2016-09-11

Bitcoin price continues advancing even while most of the market is trapped short. At $680 most will go long, but not the readers of this analysis post. Precluding a surge to $900, from $680 we’d expect to see price revisit $600 brfore The Big One.

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitcoin-price-advance-building-pressure/

If anyone needed more validation of Bitcoin being useful in the remittance sector, look no further. A new post on Quartz goes to show a lot of money is flowing through Bitcoin right now. KakaoTalk, a company with 93% market penetration in South Korea, invested in SCI not too long ago. Some people assumed this was an odd decision, but so far, things are working out quite well.

http://www.newsbtc.com/2016/09/11/kakaotalk-eyes-bitcoin-remittance-corridor-solution/

Replicas, an upcoming American science fiction thriller directed by Jeffrey Nachmanoff and Chad St. John, stars bitcoin enthusiast Keanu Reeves. It’s started filming this week in Puerto Rico, marking the start of the countdown to  the star’s next film.

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/reeves-deep-web-replica/

Bitcoin has presented itself as an excellent investment vehicle in the past few years. However, the nature of cryptocurrencies combined with the absence of clear regulations has kept traditional investors away from it for a long time.

http://www.newsbtc.com/2016/09/11/dlt-financial-tracker-fund-after-crypto-index/

At just over six years old, Seoul-based KakaoTalk has more than 170 million registered users on its flagship chat app, and enjoys nearly 93% market penetration in South Korea. But when the $2.9 billion company made its first-ever overseas investment this spring, it was a surprising one: a 40% stake in Satoshi Citadel Industries (SCI), a Manila-based Bitcoin startup with no connection to messaging.
The decision is puzzling, unless you know something about how money moves between the Philippines and South Korea. While there are only 60,000 migrant Filipinos working in South Korea—far fewer than in neighboring Japan—they collectively send home more than $231 million in personal funds each year. That works out to about $300 per person, 50% higher than the global average.
A few large players tend to facilitate these payments, and the lack of competition in certain markets (including the Philippines-South Korea corridor) can make costs prohibitive. Enter Kakaotalk, one of a growing crop of companies aiming for a cheaper alternative.


http://qz.com/775159/theres-a-500-billion-remittance-market-and-bitcoin-startups-want-in-on-it/

The price of bitcoin rebounded sharply this week, climbing back above $600 for the first time since August 1 as improved investor confidence and technical trading brought more buyers to the market.
The BTC/USD closed at $621.80 on Friday, capping off a weekly gain of 8.3%, according to CoinDesk. The BTC/USD advanced 0.2% on Saturday, reaching $623.19 as of 3:00 pm ET. At its current price, bitcoin’s market capitalization is approximately $15.9 billion.

http://www.economiccalendar.com/2016/09/10/btcusd-bitcoin-price-spikes-8-this-week/

The number of reports discussing Bitcoin’s impact on mainstream banking and financial sector is overwhelming. Adding to the list is yet another report focused on Brazil, published by Banco Santander.
The report titled “Brazil: Banks and Financial Services – To Bitcoin or Not to Bitcoin?”  is a result of last month’s meeting with Banco Santander, Mercado Bitcoin — the leading Latin American Bitcoin exchange and local investors. The meeting revolved around the potential long-term impact of Bitcoin on businesses dependent on the conventional financial system.
The Santander report lists Bitcoin and blockchain technology’s impact on 5 major segments. These segments include Acquirers and issuer banks, Card brands, Card suppliers, Cryptocurrency exchanges and Brazilian banks. It states that the banking and payments industry as a whole will have a mixed impact, depending on the focus verticals of the businesses.

http://www.newsbtc.com/2016/09/10/another-bitcoin-report-santander/