Portland-based Gliph has been building a secure, anonymous messaging app for two years without a strong use case for the technology. It’s also done so while bootstrapping.

And then, as co-founder Rob Banagale put it, ”bitcoin sailed in.” When the virtual currency began to take off this year, the founders knew that they’d found an application for their technology.

“We knew identity and payments and transactions were important but how it was going to fit together we weren’t sure,” he says. “We just knew we needed to start at security and privacy and getting people to connect.”

Could consumers learn to love a virtual currency favored mostly by venture capitalists, the black market, libertarians, and engineers? An increasing number of businesses, from restaurants and bars to WordPress and OKCupid, are betting that the answer is “yes” by announcing that they will allow customers to pay using bitcoin, the ever-scandalous virtual currency that has yet to cede the hype cycle to a new topic du jour. Now the only problem is figuring out how to get bitcoin into the hands of the masses.

With all of the recent chatter about the rise of Bitcoin, a number of theories have been put forth as to how the "digital gold" achieved its status. In this week's issue of our slate mag, we examine whether the so-called virtual currency is the prototype for a digital economy or if the anonymity that it carries will lead to black market dealings. As far as reviews go, HP's ElitePad 900 and Sony's Xperia XP both get extended time in the hands of our editors. Eyes-On takes to the streets of San Francisco with Stealth's Bomber, Hands-On tackles the latest from Google I/O and Gears of War designer Cliff Bleszinksi offers up his thoughts on next-gen gaming. The weekend is almost here, so we'll let you get right to it via the usual download links that follow.

The president of Western Union scoffed at the invention of the telephone, calling it little more than an “electric toy,” and the company informed Alexander Graham Bell that his brainchild to place one in every home was “utterly out of the question.” A couple of years later, Oxford University professor Erasmus Wilson predicted that when the 1878 Paris Exhibition closed, the electric light would “close with it and no more will be heard of it.” When Henry Ford sought investors for his car company in 1903 a Michigan banker advised his client against it, forecasting that “the horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty.” In 1946, Darryl Zanuck, president of 20th Century Fox, said, “Television won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.”

Earlier this week, the US government took its first action against the bitcoin ecosystem, freezing the US accounts of Mt. Gox, which is the largest bitcoin exchange in the world, processing 75 percent of all transactions in the last 30 days. Since that time, the questions on most people’s mind has been, what does this mean for the future of bitcoin and other virtual currencies? Is this an isolated incident based on the actions of one bitcoin exchange, or is it a harbinger of a broader offensive against the ecosystem as a whole?

At this month’s PandoMonthly in New York, Dixon, a partner at Andreessen-Horowitz, talked about the need for a diverse investment portfolio, and part of the thrill of working for such an influential venture capital firm is keeping tabs on what could be the next big thing. Dixon thinks it could be bitcoin.

BitPay, the startup with ambitions to become the PayPal of the bitcoin world, is today announcing that it has raised another $2 million. And in a kind of poetic justice, the round is led by none other than the Founders Fund, the VC started by what’s commonly called the PayPayl Mafia.

Bitcoin exchange service Mt. Gox is experiencing some issues with U.S. authorities. The Department of Homeland Security issued a seizure warrant to Dwolla for the money in Mt. Gox’s Dwolla account. Mt. Gox users can’t use Dwolla as a funding option anymore even though it was one of the most popular options. The Japanese startup failed to register in the U.S. as a money transmitting company — president and CEO Mark Karpeles now faces up to five years in prison.

Sick of Bitcoin yet? WELL BUCKLE IN. We’re in for a long summer of Bitcoinery. While it may be too late to effectively mine for Bitcoin of your own, the ecosystem of services and platforms for the currency have only begun development, hype nothwithstanding And that has investors excited.

I also note Gavin is participating on the legitimate tech thread, just not this troll thread.

reddit has a reward system for authors, translators, and sharers?

I will make no effort to try to prove these are legit. If you think the price is too high then don't bid.

2.6 Satoshi Play http://www.satoshiplay.com/

2.4 Namecheap http://www.namecheap.com/