Andreas Antonopoulos: ‘The Open Blockchain Will Change This World’

Bitcoin expert Andreas Antonopoulos recently told an audience of executives and regulators that private “intranet” blockchains will need to interoperate with “the internet of money” i.e. Bitcoin, whose open blockchain “will change this world.”

https://news.bitcoin.com/antonopoulos-open-blockchain/

Original vision of Bitcoin

Some people feel bad about Bitcoin being harder to scale than any successful centralized system such as Myspace or Altavista. They often claim that “I signed up for a P2P Electronic Cash System, not a settlement layer” which is a way to say that Satoshi envisioned something else than what we have today.

http://blog.oleganza.com/post/145248960618/original-vision-of-bitcoin

A16z, USV Lead $1.5 Million Round for Blockchain Startup Mediachain

New York-based Mediachain has become the latest blockchain startup to join the portfolios of VC heavyweights Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures.

The two firms announced today that they led a $1.5m seed round for the digital media startup. RRE Ventures, Digital Currency Group and LDV Capital also participated in the round, as did angel investors Alexis Ohanian, William Mougayar, Kanyi Maqubela, David Lee, Mathieu Drouin and Brian Message.

The funding comes four months after the launch of Mediachain’s core product, a metadata protocol that envisions content creators timestamping their work to the bitcoin blockchain while also storing it with the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS).

http://www.coindesk.com/mediachain-1-5-million-funding-a16z-usv/

R3 Meets Obama Advisors at DC Blockchain Event

Participating in the event were R3 managing director Tim Grant; Jerry Brito, executive director of non-profit advocacy group Coin Center; Joseph Bonneau, a researcher for the Applied Crypto Group at Stanford University; and Simon Johnson, professor of entrepreneurship at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

http://www.coindesk.com/r3-obama-advisors-white-house-blockchain/

Microsoft to Develop Identity Platform for Multiple Blockchains

Tech giant Microsoft has partnered with startups Blockstack Labs and ConsenSys to build an open-source identity platform aimed at integrating the bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains.

http://www.coindesk.com/microsoft-identity-platform-multiple-blockchains/

just hold some Litecoin and Bitcoin and you are fine

Three reasons why bitcoin’s price is surging higher

Bitcoin is trading at its highest price in almost two years, driven by several factors including market conditions in Asia, according to experts in the cryptocurrency.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/three-reasons-why-bitcoin-price-130253117.html

Kraken and Bitstamp are fine. The last one was hacked last year but there is always the advice : "dont leave coins on an exchange".

Bitcoin Price Soars as Chinese Investors Look for Safe Haven From Devaluation and Capital Controls

Many have speculated that the recent increase in the price of bitcoin ($542 USD on Bitfinex at time of publication) can be traced to China, where Bitcoin trading has doubled on some exchanges in the last four days as Chinese investors respond to a recent currency devaluation, and look for ways to avoid the government’s stringent capital controls.

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/bitcoin-price-soars-as-chinese-investors-look-for-safe-haven-from-devaluation-and-capital-controls-1464703000

Bitmain’s Antminer S9 Announced at 14 th/s Using 16nm ASICs

The new S9 uses 189 chips to achieve this speed across 3 boards. Power consumption has been dropped to 0.1 J/GH for a power pull of roughly 1380 watts. This step up in chip speed and power is still presented in a S7-type design for easy deployment and long term use. Bitmain sees this step from 28nm to 16nm as a crucial change in the mining cycle and long term use of the miners — as opposed to the traditional cycle of releasing a new generation every few months.

http://bitcoinist.net/bitmain-antminer-s9-announced/

S&P 500 Top? An Idea For Pricey Markets

Summary

-Stock market prices are high.

-One should have plenty of cash.

-Bitcoin is one way to diversify cash.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/3978637-s-and-p-500-top-idea-pricey-markets

Japan’s Trade Ministry: Government Should Promote Blockchain Use Cases

Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has released the results of a new survey on blockchain technology, recommending that government groups play a leading role in “verifying the validity” of its use cases.

http://www.coindesk.com/japans-government-blockchain-use-cases/

Deconstructing the Bitcoin Market Cap

There is clearly a widely distributed misunderstanding of what a market capitalization actually is, and specifically as it refers to crypto currencies, and in particular, Bitcoin. I felt compelled to write this post as a result. This is by no means an exhaustive analysis, but it’s a good start to help clear up some market confusion. Please recommend this post on Medium and distribute this post to financial writers/journalists covering Bitcoin to help clear up the confusion.

https://vinnylingham.com/deconstructing-the-bitcoin-market-cap-ce52b0d87035#.ujcf6bcp3

not a big deal. should not move the price.

Find more of that on:

https://forum.bitcoin.com/topic334.html

 

Ethereum’s $150-Million Blockchain-Powered Fund Opens Just as Researchers Call For a Halt

At 9 a.m. GMT this morning, funding closed on an entity called The DAO. It’s a blockchain-enabled financial vehicle that’s structured kind of like a cross between Kickstarter and a venture capital fund and which now runs autonomously—no humans needed—on the fledgling Ethereum network. The DAO (short for decentralized autonomous organization) raised over US $150 million worth of the bitcoin-like cryptocurrency, Ether, during a feverish, 27-day sale.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/networks/ethereums-150-million-dollar-dao-opens-for-business-just-as-researchers-call-for-a-moratorium