Why would he. U have all information u need here. And this is official thread. All questions u have u should ask here.

Leading Middle East Music Streaming Service ‘Anghami’ Embraces Bitcoin
Nermin Hajdarbegovic | Published on March 10, 2014 at 11:21 GMT | BitPay, Merchants, News

Anghami, the leading mobile music streaming platform in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has announced that it will start accepting bitcoin payments.

Anghami says it is the first music service in the world to accept bitcoin, although a number of smaller music services have announced plans to accept the currency over the past couple of months.

For its part Anghami will start accepting bitcoin subscription fees and incorporate bitcoin into its ‘freemium’ model. The service is available on all major mobile platforms, including Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Blackberry, as well as Nokia’s Asha and Symbian platforms, which are big in the emerging markets.

Alternative payment methods

In addition to bitcoin, Anghami is also using prepaid cards, telecom billing and PayPal, so it is no stranger to the world of alternative payments. However, the company points out that bitcoin offers the lowest transaction fee of all the methods currently available. It has chosen BitPay as its payment processor.

“Bitcoin is still in its early days – especially in the Middle East. But just like everyone was sceptical that streaming [was] the future of music, we believe that Bitcoin is the future of payments,” Anghami’s co-founder Elie Habib said. “Moreover, Anghami being a mobile service, paying via your digital bitcoin wallet is a no brainer.”

Fellow co-founder Eddy Maroun pointed out that bitcoin is getting “major backing” from entrepreneurs and technologists worldwide. He added that Anghami is sending a message that it believes in bitcoin and that it wants its user base of digital enthusiasts to get on board.

Anghami launched in late 2012 and so far it has managed to attract four million users, mostly from the MENA region.

Bitcoin and digital media – a match made in heaven?

Although bitcoin has received a fair amount of coverage lately, the focus still appears to be on wild price fluctuations, turbulence in the bitcoin ecosystem and various sideshows like the events which unfolded in California last week.

While the attention is focused on headline grabbing stuff, the industry is starting to look seriously into the potential of digital currencies in the content industry. Earlier this year PriceWaterhouseCoopers published a very bullish report on bitcoin’s prospects in the entertainment industry.

The Chicago Sun Tribune’s bitcoin pseudo-paywall has also attracted a lot of attention from publishers worldwide. In essence, bitcoin’s low transaction fees and potential for micropayments have the potential to change the way content is monetized.

‘BOOST:Bitcoin’ Event Draws a Crowd in Hong Kong
Jon Southurst (@southtopia) | Published on March 10, 2014 at 10:07 GMT | Companies, Events, News

Over a hundred people, including a large number of absolute beginners, turned up to an event in Hong Kong last week to promote the use of bitcoin for consumers and businesses in daily life.

Co-sponsored by Singapore-based payment processor startup CoinPip, the Hong Kong event, known as RISE:Bitcoin, featured its own mini trading desk (or ‘Satoshi Square’) to help newcomers set up wallets and make their first transactions with guidance from more experienced users.

Future similar events, like one in Kuala Lumpur near the end of March, will be called BOOST:Bitcoin.

There was also a “Bitcoin 101” talk for beginners. Helping bring everything together were two local bitcoin community enthusiasts, Jehan Chu and Leonhard A Weese.


IMG_7177

Merchants such as pancake maker Mr. Bing and Coffee Alchemy were also there to accept bitcoins, offering both a Hong Kong dollar price and discounted price for people paying with bitcoin.

Growing phenomenon

Bitcoin meetups, Satoshi Squares and information sessions are fairly commonplace these days – with the Silicon Valley and Los Angeles events regularly drawing a large crowd. But the BOOST:Bitcoin meetup was notable for attracting over 100 for perhaps the first time in Asia, and being a special event mainly aimed at novice users.

So what’s a Singapore startup doing organizing bitcoin promotions in Hong Kong?

CoinPip co-founder and ‘Chief Crypto Enthusiast’ Anson Zeall says he “knows both Hong Kong and Singapore inside and out, but Hong Kong has a way bigger bitcoin market than Singapore does right now, looking at transactions on the exchanges.”

“Hong Kong has a stronger foothold in understanding bitcoin because of the problems of the pegged Hong Kong dollar/USD. People have been looking for alternatives. And Hong Kong people like to take risk, it’s just in their nature.”

“Unfortunately that startup scene there is not as friendly as Singapore. So working in Singapore, expanding in Hong Kong is the best combination.”

Template for future events

Zeall also said CoinPip now has an event template in place and the company is happy to help out if anyone elsewhere wants to host something similar.

Although his company provided the payment system for the BOOST:Bitcoin event, he said it’s not necessary for participating merchants at this event or any future ones to be CoinPip clients, as the company can accept payments and convert to local currency on the spot.


IMG_7255

“The most fulfilling part is buying and spending bitcoins and newcomers that don’t have bitcoins will experience what it is like too,” Zeall said.

CoinPip helps out by suggesting the most suitable types of merchants should be approached for events, what financial logistics are necessary and how the day should be run in general.

Hong Kong bitcoin innovations

The Special Administrative Region of China is shaping up to be a bitcoin hub. Its autonomous government runs a low-tax jurisdiction aimed at easing financial services and attracting startup businesses from around the world, and authorities have also signalled they will not be interfering in bitcoin business.

The very night before the BOOST:Bitcoin event recorded another landmark as local exchange Asia Nexgen (ANXBTC) opened the world’s first ‘bitcoin shop’.

The 400 square-foot physical outlet has a walk-up counter where users can convert cash to bitcoins face-to-face, on condition they show photo ID and proof of address as Hong Kong residents.

I guess much is changed, including autobet. So there is always need for testing.

Forget Bitcoin vs Fiat, Welcome the Hybrid Economy
Sean Neville (@psneville) | Published on March 9, 2014 at 17:00 GMT | Analysis, Bitcoin protocol, Exchanges, Law, Merchants, Regulation

Choosing bitcoin
Evangelists and skeptics alike tend to frame digital currency protocols and state fiat currencies in stark conflict, but the promising moderate view sees them coexist as mutual optimizations of one another.

Bitcoin doesn’t need to replace fiat currencies in order to be successful – it merely needs to optimize away the pain of (and expose new value in) transferring currency.

Conversely, fiat currencies don’t need bitcoin to fail or see it regulated into the shadows in order to ensure continued sovereign coin sustainability; traditional economies can instead assimilate digital currency protocols to grow a stronger, safer, less expensive and more valuable hybrid economy.

Optimizing traditional currency

BankDespite the complexities of cryptographic trust and the protocol’s potential beyond transfers alone, the payments advantage is simple: more of our money reaches its destination, safely and without exchange of personal information, quickly and without potential for future reversals. We have more control over our own money.

For a digital age, sending money remains unreasonably expensive, slow and insecure. Fraught with risk, the payments path is policed by gateways that levy tolls at each tightly controlled yet still insecure step along the way.

Banks levy fees for transfers cleared by a central bank; mere access to the closed network rails requires a fee. The ‘APIs’ and ‘protocols’ to accommodate these transfers usually equate to batch uploads of files via SFTP — welcome to the 1970s, ripe for protocol overhaul.

Meanwhile, credit card networks levy interchange fees for authorizing and executing debits from issuing banks — which themselves also exact a toll – on top of the tolls required by payment processing gateways and intermediary services. Most of the fees exist not for value-add, but, a) to compensate for authorization and administrative fraud, and, b) for access to private card network rails. The distributed trust protocols of the bitcoin system eliminate both altogether.

Adam Shapiro of Promontory Financial Group illustrated that sending $1,000 USD to a merchant requiring that equivalent in euros would cost $50 via credit card and as much as $80 via bank wire, while the same payment would cost around $15 if exchanged in/out of bitcoin at both ends of the transaction.

Even in scenarios in which consumers don’t see such fees directly, merchants could be given incentive to pass along transaction savings to those customers. Mainstreamers would then flock to digital currency’s viral utility, low cost and security, rather than to make a deliberate political statement or speculative investment. That benefits everyone in the ecosystem, even those advocates who look at bitcoin very differently.

While the existing clearing houses may see short-term threat in losing these fees, they stand to gain far more in the long term through new business opportunities. Greater value exists in innovation above the network layer, and the cost of operating the network layer itself should diminish. The new protocols and distributed ledger want to do far more than merely transfer numbers, which presents opportunity for companies old and new alike.

In light of recent breaches, the security and push model is worth highlighting: Consumers do not need to provide personal information (let alone keys or card numbers) to a merchant, and the merchant does not need to hold it. You can’t hack or steal what isn’t there in the first place.

Further, note that in Shapiro’s scenario, the same KYC and AML (Know Your Customer and Anti-Money Laundering) policing would be just as possible for bitcoin as it would be for traditional credit or wire transactions, given the use of bitcoin for only one transaction between two gateways in that example (assuming the gateways, as banks or as money services backed by banks, comply with those regulations).

In some ways, this is a typical and predictable Internet story. The days are numbered for exacting a toll merely for access to network rails used to move information from one place to another.

In domains of content, communication and media, business process automation, search and so many others, the Internet wants access to the network to be free, or very close to free. We don’t expect to pay a fee for sending an email, for example. This is not so true in the domains of finance and payments, yet.

That is now changing, and it’s inevitable that fees move to value-added layers above the rails, to layers that expose new opportunities from payments to smart contracts to programmable money and more. That innovation starts with optimizing the transfer of money, not by replacing state money altogether.

Optimizing digital currency

Fiat vs bitcoinFiat currency optimizes digital currency as well, even beyond the obvious case of enabling payments to merchants who don’t (or won’t) accept digital currency:

Traditional currencies offer a volatility solution for merchants more concerned with payment for goods and services than speculative investment.

Bitcoin currently trades at low volume through a handful of exchanges, similar to a single small-cap stock, so it’s natural for volatility to exist. This should improve, but for the purpose of payments specifically, a merchant can nearly ignore volatility by trading out of bitcoin into fiat at pegged value. Most bitcoin merchant services shelter their clients from intra-day bitcoin volatility so long as they trade back into fiat by close of business.

Taxation and supporting communal nation-state schools and infrastructure is another obvious value that state currencies provide, and this includes taxation on earnings related to bitcoin as well.

“Bitcoin may prove to be more like NCSA Mosaic is to Google’s Chrome – an early informative breakthrough instead of what we’re all actually using 20 years later”

Any definition of bitcoin as a protocol, a payment vehicle, a currency or an asset must be fluid in order to be accurate, as the definition varies by context and time. As a protocol-currency-asset, however, it can, if held, result in material gains (or losses) subject to taxation.

Gateways into fiat offer a simple means of applying tax at exchange points rather than attaching tax complexity to the protocol itself. Instead of attempting to apply taxation to a world of digital currency, existing taxation on the fiat side might account for digital currency as part of money flowing through the hybrid economy.

Trust is a sensitive topic. On the digital currency side, trust is strong and decentralized for transactions, but that doesn’t mean trust of specific parties is altogether absent.

Whether it’s trust of the peer review and open development meritocracy of the core implementation code, or trust of a custodial service to manage keys, or trust of a piece of local software to manage wallets, or trust of an exchange service to protect fiat gateway and personal information; except for the actual transaction validation and confirmation, some trust of strangers is still implied, even in bitcoin.

When it comes to trust of such parties in the world of state, a long line of laws and regulations is designed to protect consumers. Although large institutions have famously breached that trust, formal consumer protections more often than not do protect consumers from fraudulent charges and provide a ‘lender of last resort’.

The same is not quite true of digital currency, as the loss or theft of keys is more akin to the loss of cash than to a fraudulent charge.

It’s not a simple matter of whether to trust digital currency vs traditional banks or card networks, but a matter of which one to trust, for what specific purpose, at what time and for what amount. Taking control of our own money involves making responsible decisions about trust.

Digital currency’s push model, identity protection features, decentralized transaction clearing and easily-audited open ledger make it trustworthy for payments, especially as its transaction throughput increases.

At the same time, custodial implications for exchanges, service providers and software developers can make traditional institutions trustworthy partners for other kinds of asset storage for mainstream users. Money can happily flow between both.

Gateways to a new world

Gateway to a new worldGateways throttle the flow. In a hybrid economy, customers and merchants alike must be able to get into and out of digital currency quickly, easily and securely.

In a pure payment scenario, a customer wants to acquire bitcoins using fiat instantly, execute a payment immediately after acquiring them, and, at some point shortly thereafter, the merchant wants to acquire fiat in exchange for those bitcoins. This is not the only valid scenario, but it’s helpful as a lens for discussion.

A gateway enabling that scenario must meet several challenges. For mainstream users, the gateway cannot be a trading desk, exposing an order book and price spikes to users through a bid/ask metaphor; the transition must feel seamless in design.

This entails some short-term credit risk for the gateways. Bitcoins credited to customers immediately can be spent and never recovered, while the credit card charges used to acquire the bitcoins can be reversed.

Also, in a scenario in which fiat is traded for bitcoins, bitcoins are transferred from one address to another, and then immediately traded back into fiat – bitcoin is not always much of an optimization because the one transaction may not always be sufficient to overcome the fees at the two gateways.

The threshold at which paying digitally becomes valuable fluctuates across use cases for different domains, and for different goods and services within domains.

When multiple bitcoin transactions occur before trading back into fiat, the optimization increases. The more transactions introduced into the digital chain before exchange into a gateway, the greater the increase in value of bitcoin (as for any full reserve model applied to increasing transaction velocity against a finite resource) and the greater the optimization through fee avoidance — but the AML risks also increase.

Moreover, if the gateway holds fiat on behalf of customers, then the gateway must be a bank. If the gateway merely transfers and does not hold fiat funds, then the gateway must have a banking partner.

Partnering with a bank is no trivial task. Bank risk departments can be far more conservative than state regulators. Transacting bitcoin from one address to another, whether for remittance purposes or for the exchange of goods and services, cannot always enforce KYC, AML or anti-fraud rules. Banking partners are either comfortable with these cash-like traits or they’re not. These days they’re mostly not, and this hinders gateway innovation considerably.

So mainstream gateways will need to manage short-term credit risk, potentially on a per-individual basis, while also simplifying the forex trading function, optimizing gateway fees, satisfying a banking partner and addressing AML policies – all while speeding up exchange and transaction throughput. A tall order. Capable, responsible, experienced innovators required.

Although the challenges for such a gateway are great, the reward is even greater: transform disparate economies into a global hybrid economy and grow digital currency into lasting evolution rather than shadowy revolution.

It will require some time, and in the end it’s possible that bitcoin may prove to be more like NCSA Mosaic is to Google’s Chrome, an early informative breakthrough instead of what we’re all actually using 20 years later, but that would still equate to smashing success and world-changing innovation, and it’s illogical and unwise to bet against innovation.

Current Criticisms of Bitcoin Are at Least 10 Years Too Early
Scott Rose (@scotty321) | Published on March 9, 2014 at 12:36 GMT | Analysis

Scott Rose is a professional actor, host, writer, and comedy improviser living in Austin, Texas, and was one of the top professional speakers for Apple Computer at its events nationwide for six years. He is the creator of the viral hit video series Shit Apple Fanatics Say. He recently released his video series Shit Bitcoin Fanatics Say. Follow him on Twitter @scotty321.

The mainstream media often overlooks all the amazing and positive developments that are happening in the bitcoin world, as well as the incredibly innovative and supportive community that is building around bitcoin. To paraphrase Mark Twain: “The reports of bitcoin’s death have been greatly exaggerated.”

Any criticisms of bitcoin at this point are at least 10 years too early. Bitcoin is in its infancy. Criticizing bitcoin today would be like criticizing email in 1985, which was the first year that I started sending emails. That was at least a decade or more before the world really caught up and email started becoming ubiquitous.

Early email

I was trying to get everyone that I knew onto email in the 80s, but it was too early. The technology hadn’t matured enough yet. People’s eyes just glazed over when I told them about email. It made absolutely no sense to anyone I knew at the time, nor did there seem to be any reason for email.

It sounds so silly to even say that now, but it was truly a completely foreign concept that seemed to have absolutely ZERO value proposition at the time. Even if you could come up with some fanciful reason to send an email, who were you going to email anyways? Barely anybody had an email address!

On top of this, email was extremely slow (dial-up modems at 1200 baud) and extremely expensive ($300 to buy your modem, then CompuServe cost $30 per hour, and there was no such thing as composing an email offline – if you were typing up an email, you were paying).

Email was also extremely complicated (my email address was a set of numbers like “78704,6572″ and you could only email me if you were using the CompuServe service yourself), and people thought email was just a fad (some local computer shop owner yelled at me over the phone when I asked him to email me a price list, telling me that he would never waste his time on email because it took 20 times longer than a phone call).

On the contrary, I loved email because I worked as a 13-year-old writer for Enter Magazine, one of the first computer magazines, and they bought my modem for me and paid for my CompuServe account. Because they were paying, I was logged on three or four hours per day. They required that all my magazine articles be emailed to them via CompuServe.

Maturity

There were a bunch of legitimate reasons to criticize email in 1985, because it wasn’t fully mature yet. Bitcoin isn’t fully mature yet either, but it is evolving rapidly.

“There were a bunch of legitimate reasons to criticize email in 1985, because it wasn't fully mature yet.”

When bitcoin evolves to a certain point, the masses will suddenly wake up to an incredible future that empowers all of us in ways that we can’t even imagine today.

In the 80s, people had absolutely no idea how important email would become, and today, we still don’t even know what bitcoin will become in the future.

Like I say in ‘Shit Bitcoin Fanatics Say: Video #1′, currency is just the first app of the bitcoin network. The genie is out of the bottle now, and there’s no going back.

Bitcoin is so much in its infancy right now that we truly haven’t even begun to see anything yet. All the best brains in technology are talking about bitcoin now, can you even imagine what the future will hold?

Hearing about bitcoin

I first heard mumblings about bitcoin in late 2012, but I didn’t really pay much attention to it at the time. It didn’t really click for me that bitcoin was something special until early 2013, when I learned that WikiLeaks was still able to receive donations via bitcoin – even though all the major credit card companies had prohibited them from receiving donations.

Next I read about the Cyprus banking shenanigans, where they arbitrarily took money out of everyone’s savings and froze accounts for large withdrawals. That’s when the lightbulb turned on in my head. I suddenly realized the value of a decentralized currency. I suddenly realized what it meant to be outside the control of a central authority that can censor whatever it decides it doesn’t like. I suddenly realized that bitcoin represents freedom.

I suddenly realized that many of the qualities that I stand for in my life (such as integrity, honesty, transparency, peace, and freedom) can all be reinforced and supported by a decentralized network like bitcoin. As I say at the end of Video #1, I really am in this to change the world. I am the starry-eyed dreamer who sees the ideals in all of this.

But even just from a currency point-of-view, the gears really started turning in my head. I started questioning everything, like why do I have to constantly exchange currency every time I travel to a foreign country? And why are my credit cards charging me exorbitant international fees and unfair exchange rates every time I make credit card purchases in other countries? And why are my clients still sending me checks via postal mail and then I have to wait while my bank puts holds on large deposits? And why do I have to work around banking hours? And is my US dollar really funding wars I don’t approve of?

Those questions were just the tip of the iceberg. Bitcoin made me start questioning everything. And the questions will continue for a lifetime.

Mt. Gox Hackers Claim to Release Transaction Details, CEO’s Personal Data
Jon Southurst (@southtopia) | Published on March 9, 2014 at 23:08 GMT | Companies, Exchanges, Mt. Gox

Hackers (or disgruntled insiders) claim to have released a 700+MB file of Mt. Gox operational information and transaction data, including one sheet claiming the exchange could still have a balance of over 951,116 BTC.

One of the hackers managed to post the data on Gox CEO Mark Karpeles’ own blog, then announced the feat on Reddit. Karpeles’ site has since gone completely offline and Reddit moderators deleted the original post. At press time the mods were engaged in a cat and mouse game with other community members who re-posted the original quote and several links claiming to be mirrors of the stolen data.

Revenge

In a profane rant, the original announcement said:

“It’s time that MTGOX got the bitcoin communities wrath instead of Bitcoin Community getting Goxed. This release would have been sooner, but in spirit of responsible disclosure and making sure all of ducks were in a row, it took a few days longer than would have liked to verify the data.”

“Included in this download you will find relevant database dumps, csv exports, specialized tools, and some highlighted summaries compiled from data. Keeping in line with fucking Gox alone, no user database dumps have been included.”

“Repost and share this info before it’s gone. Lots of people, including us, lost money and coins.”

Of primary interest to others was a file called ‘trades_summary’, which purported to show Mt. Gox’s balances in all available currencies. This showed a balance of 951,116.21905382 bitcoins, with an accusation that Karpeles was lying about his company having no bitcoins to return to customers.


Screen Shot 2014-03-10 at 7.39.15 AM

Many have pointed out that, even if the data is genuine, it could only represent the amount Mt. Gox believed it had in its reserves before shutting down, rather than an actual amount, and is not evidence of actual reserves.

Also included in the dump were a collection of .csv files detailing transactions and trades, Mark Karpeles’ own CV and a document containing two separate ‘home addresses’ of his in Tokyo.

The directories contained several executable files that readers would be well advised not to open on internet connected computers, no matter how many online commenters claimed their authenticity. Supposedly they are Mt. Gox’s own proprietary back office tools, though CoinDesk has not verified this and original files could have been altered before being posted on mirror sites.


screenshot

Reddit users claim to have verified the data by examining spreadsheet material and looking up their own account balances.

Forbes reported that another post on the bitcointalk forums (also since deleted) claimed to have 20GB of stolen Gox data on a hard drive that they were willing to sell to cover their bitcoin losses. This supposedly included all user information, including photo ID scans from customer applications.

CoinDesk is monitoring this developing story and will post any new and relevant information if it becomes available.

Stunna , me and Dakota, won't sleep till PD3 comes out. Do it today pls !

Haahaha... Also don't forget to say , u would never ask girls for naked pictures Haahah... Coz that fake Stunna was doing that

Bing and yahoo combined 18ish % They use same bing backend.
Also Apple's siri uses bing.

Still no primedice.com on bing, and yahoo search .

Why Isn’t Your Business Accepting Bitcoin?
Arianna Simpson (@ariannasimpson) | Published on March 8, 2014 at 13:50 GMT | Analysis, Companies, Merchants


Arianna is a bitcoin enthusiast and investor, who organizes a bitcoin meetup group in New York.

Bitcoin has been blowing up the news lately, mostly with bad press stemming from Mt. Gox’s recent collapse.

If you’re a business owner who is considering accepting the digital currency, this may be causing heart palpitations. Despite the temporary market unrest, there are huge opportunities for merchants to benefit from accepting bitcoin – I’ve outlined a few below.

Cost

Credit card fees usually run around 2 to 3%, which can make a considerable dent in the profits of businesses operating on low margins. With bitcoin, you can pay substantially lower fees (~1%) without needing a huge volume of transactions as leverage with the credit card company.

And that’s only if you transfer your money back into local currency – if you keep it in bitcoin, you can essentially avoid fees altogether.

It’s true that as your business scales, you can negotiate lower fees from existing credit-card companies. But let’s be honest: if you’re an entrepreneur, do you really want to spend your time haggling over a fraction of a percent with a rep in a call center on the other side of the planet? Didn’t think so.

There’s nothing quaint about it. You’re trying to build a company, and this isn’t a Moroccan spice market.

bank

If you’re using a service like PayPal, you’re generally being charged a fixed rate of $0.30 per transaction, plus a percentage transaction fee based on volume. Bitcoin enables peer to peer (or individual to merchant) transactions on a very small scale, making micropayments much more viable than they previously had been, and transactions can be completed for less than half of the cost.

Let’s take a simple example in which you have a business with an annual revenue of $1m. Your credit card processor currently charges you 2% per transaction, or $20,000. If you switch to a bitcoin payment processor, say Coinbase or BitPay, you can get very close to 1%. You just cut your bill in half, and saved $10,000 by essentially doing nothing.

I can think of a lot of things I’d like to do with $10,000, and giving it to a credit card company isn’t one of them. Personally, I think it’s a toss up between a hobbit home or a water thrusting jet bike.

Safety from exchange rate risk

There’s no question that bitcoin has been volatile. It still is, and it would be shocking if it weren’t – very few big ideas reach maturity in a span as short as five years.

Personally, I view dips in price as opportunities to buy more, but if the possibility that your money could be worth half as much tomorrow keeps you up at night, that’s understandable. The delightful thing is that you needn’t actually hold any of the bitcoin you receive as payment. Most merchants who currently accept it set prices in their local currency and get paid in their local currency. Voilà!

Bitcoin operates as the “payment rails” – it’s the medium through which the transaction takes place, but you don’t have to expose yourself to any exchange risk.

International sales

Bitcoin transactions allow you to expand your markets to basically anywhere, so long as you’re willing to ship there (if you’re selling a physical product). You can accept payments from anywhere. Since there’s no intermediary bank, you don’t have to deal with waiting for ~3 days for the transaction to complete.

NYC

You can also avoid transfer limits and outrageous fees. As they currently stand, international transactions are a hassle, and there’s a great deal of room for bitcoin to help streamline the process (Timothy Lee of the Washington Post wrote a good piece on this).

No chargebacks

Chargebacks are quite a headache, and dealing with them can sap a considerable amount of time and energy that could be better spent growing your business. Bitcoin transactions are irreversible, which means that you needn’t worry about chargebacks.

Publicity

It’s still early enough in Bitcoin’s adoption that there are press stories to be written about “the first xxx” to accept bitcoin in a given city or town. Free press—Why not? This shouldn’t be your main rationale for taking bitcoin, but it’s something of an added bonus; leverage the exposure to expand your customer base.

These shoppers are also likely to be new customers who may be trying your product or service just because they can pay for it with bitcoin, and that’s your chance to hook them in via a great experience.

Ease of use

Bitcoin isn’t hard to deal with, and it’s only going to get easier. Please don’t buy into the argument that bitcoin is some complicated, mysterious thing and because you don’t fully understand it, you can’t use it.

I would posit that if you polled 1,000 college-educated Americans and asked them to describe in detail how a phone, TV, or refrigerator works, the majority wouldn’t be able to do so.

I certainly encourage everyone to become educated on bitcoin before taking the plunge, but a deep technical understanding of cryptographic hashing or how the block chain works is not necessary.

There are a number of companies that are already making it quite easy for you to accept bitcoin. Two that I have used personally, and therefore feel comfortable recommending, are Shopify and Coinbase.

If you use Shopify as a platform for your e-commerce sales, integration is a breeze. You can add it just as simply as you would Paypal or Visa. Coinbase is also super simple to integrate, and offers a solid degree of customization. As an added perk, merchants get the first $1,000,000 in transactions free of charge.

Sales

There is a myth in circulation that people tend to save bitcoin as an investment or a form of speculation rather than spending it, but there’s increasing evidence that it’s actually being used as a transactional currency.


show-me-bitcoin

This is not surprising, because as the number of merchants accepting it grows, people have more opportunities to spend it, which then leads more businesses to accept it, and so on. The bottom lefthand section of the infographic above shows an enormous increase in the number of people who spend bitcoin shortly after acquiring it.

People are willing to spend bitcoins –  you might as well encourage them to do so at your business.

The number of companies offering B2B services build on the Bitcoin protocol is still fairly small, but there’s already a solid core of reputable, safe ones to choose from.

As the network effect widens and more people start accepting bitcoin, you’ll be increasingly able to benefit from the new currency, and even today there’s very little downside and a lot of upside to accepting Bitcoin. And after all, don’t you want to go buy that water thrusting jet bike?

Why The Bitcoin Industry Must Recognise Its Responsibilities
Michael Jackson (@overdrev) | Published on March 8, 2014 at 14:47 GMT | Analysis, Bitcoin protocol, Mt. Gox, Regulation

Michael Jackson is a software engineer, entrepreneur and venture capital investor at Mangrove Capital Partners.

The most significant issue affecting the adoption of cybercurrencies is the safety of bitcoin holdings.

This is a fundamental deficiency of what is a software-defined asset, totally accessible instantaneously and online. In short, bitcoin’s very characteristics make it too easily accessible for criminals.

Last week we saw Mt. Gox cease to exist, this week Flexcoin. Both closures caused by errors in the companies’ systems, but with likely no recourse for their customers.

We will see more companies go under in this way, without a doubt. So if bitcoin is to widely adopted, the customer must be better protected.

Consumer protection

With existing currencies, you know that if a bank goes down, you are protected and will likely be refunded. In this case, you can say, the balances in the bank (which are effectively virtual too) are zeroed and then reissued by the central bank.

There exist other examples of consumer protection too. In the case of the travel industry, operators pay into a central pool that can be used for compensation in the event of a travel company collapsing. Those that pay into the pool are able to use the consumer protection badge, giving consumers the assurance they need to pay up front for their holidays.

Industry-backed consumer protection schemes are not new. In order to ensure consumer protection and regain trust, we need a similar scheme for digital currencies. By working together to define the criteria for accepting businesses into the scheme and sufficiently vetting each business, the same could be done for bitcoin.

Traceable coins

Of course, some environments are simpler than others. Charter holidays are relatively straightforward while bitcoin is, in practice, much more complex.

The protocol means that while it is easy enough to prove that you own a bitcoin, it is much harder to prove that the original bitcoin has disappeared and that a refund is therefore due.

Bitcoins held by Mt. Gox have seemingly disappeared, but they may still reappear. The bitcoin industry therefore needs a central body capable of cancelling the relevant bitcoin and the same would have to apply to any digital currency.

Some may argue that bitcoin is an ideology as much as a product – an ideology that would be totally destroyed if a governing body was given the power to control it.

Case study

However, the Internet itself has proven huge decentralized projects can be workable. If there are disputes regarding Internet governance or protocols, they can be escalated so that decisions are made for the greater good of the Internet.

In this case, this is possible because the web is such a large, diverse entity with no single self-interest.

Just now, it is not clear where the responsibility lies and it is important that the open-source nature of bitcoin is preserved – where the only self-interests are those that are building applications and services on top of the cryptocurrency.

The Bitcoin Foundation has the right structure and it could have the jurisdictional capability to reproduce and refund currency.

With many of those involved having significant self-interests – half of them own exchanges of their own – this could be a good thing, as they will be motivated to regain the trust of bitcoin users.

New challenges

As is often the case with bitcoin, asking one question raises many more. Yet while there is still so much to be worked out, many of the challenges arising are not ones that haven’t been overcome before.

Similarly, there are many other technologies that were once unproven or unpopular, but are now multi-billion-dollar industries. It’s clear, however, that it will require effort, investment and trust between the various different components to take bitcoin forward.

Without renewed effort to gain consumer trust, this industry may die before it even reaches childhood. All bitcoin companies need to collect a levy, used to compensate unfortunate consumers. Some would call this a tax. Maybe bitcoin isn’t so far from the real world after all.

And i got my payment.

Meet Roger Dickinson, The Man Behind California’s Bill to Legalize Bitcoin
Pete Rizzo (@pete_rizzo_) | Published on March 8, 2014 at 12:49 GMT | News, Regulation, US & Canada

In the world of digital currency, misinformation spreads quickly, and there may be no greater recent example of this than California Assembly Bill 129, a piece of proposed legislation that has been heralded somewhat incorrectly as an already successful move by the state to “legalize cryptocurrencies“.

Though, the bill would recognize digital currencies as “lawful money”, it would also ensure the legal footing of additional forms of legal tender such as points and coupons, and is currently only halfway to becoming law.

Regardless, many in the digital currency community have high hopes that AB 129 and AB 786 (a bill passed in September that lowered capital requirements for money transmitters) signal that California will be among the more progressive US jurisdictions when it comes to digital currency.

With this in mind, CoinDesk set out to speak to California Assemblymember Roger Dickinson, the man who introduced both laws, to determine the extent to which the bills were crafted for the still-nascent industry.

However, if bitcoiners were hoping for a more progressive alternative to New York’s Benjamin Lawsky, Dickinson doesn’t exactly fit the mantle.

An advocate for a wide range of issues from job creation to climate change, Dickinson isn’t exactly a bitcoin expert, and he indicates that the laws were not made specifically for virtual currencies. Rather, he said they’re meant to address the sweeping changes that mobile and digital forms of payments are bringing in all their forms.

Dickinson explained:

“It wasn’t so much setting out to look at the issue of alternative currency, it was more evolutionary, leading into the breadth of the subject matter that suggested to us you couldn’t ignore alternative currencies.”

A neutral approach

Dickinson described his state’s approach to digital currency as “neutral”, stating that the bills don’t expressly advocate for the survival or demise of bitcoin.

Said Dickinson:

“We’re not trying to deter or advance the development of alternative currencies. We’re trying to say that to the extent that alternative currencies are developed and in use, we will consider that to be a legally acceptable activity in California.”

Most notable is another thing AB 129 doesn’t do, which is regulate alternative digital currencies. Dickinson indicated that any regulation would need to come from the California Department of Business Oversight and commissioner Jan Owen, who notably has worked for Apple and JPMorgan.

Dickinson did suggest that the issue may be further addressed by California, but stated that he believes digital currency regulation may need federal attention.

Personal exploration

A newcomer to the field, Dickinson said that he first learned of bitcoin when developing AB 786. At the time, the California Committee on Banking and Finance had begun looking broadly at digital payment systems, but he said that digital currencies stood out as “intriguing and unavoidable”.

The lawmaker revealed he was surprised by the research, stating:

“Even though there had been actually relatively recent regulation in 2009 establishing guidelines and requirements for money transmission, the practice of money transmission had evolved so rapidly over the course of three years that there was a need to revisit the subject.”

The result has been two bills attempting to bring guidelines up to speed. Yet, Dickinson doesn’t see his legislation as part of the larger digital currency movement, saying he hasn’t looked at how New York regulators are moving on the issue.

Further, he said he hasn’t spoken to any local bitcoin businesses, despite California being a hotbed for innovation in the field.

The future of AB 129

The assemblyman said that though digital currencies have become a lightning rod for controversy, events regarding the now-bankrupt Japan-based bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, are unlikely to threaten the bill.

Though, Dickinson didn’t rule out that another event could potentially compound the situation and raise additional questions before the end of March or April, when it is expected to be heard in the Senate.

“I think in the end, people will see that what we’re doing is simply that alternative currencies are something we need to recognize out there in the world, and that we shouldn’t have some archaic prescription that applies.”

Even if bitcoin does collapse, Dickinson reasons, that’s not to say that other digital currencies won’t go on. For now, it seems, California is preparing for any and all conclusions.

South Korea Launches its First Two-Way Bitcoin ATM
Jon Southurst (@southtopia) | Published on March 8, 2014 at 12:36 GMT | Bitcoin ATM, Companies, News

South Korea is the latest country to introduce its first bitcoin ATM. Not only is the machine produced locally by a home-grown company, it is also two-way, meaning users can also sell bitcoins and withdraw cash.

The machine, which officially began operating yesterday, sits in the Coffee Sedona cafe in one of Seoul’s largest shopping malls, the Coex Mall which is also close to the Coex Intercontinental Hotel and a casino in the city’s world famous Gangnam district. For those wanting to buy bitcoins, it accepts cash and credit cards.

It is the result of a joint venture between bitcoin exchange Coinplug and Nautilus Hyosung, the number one ‘regular’ ATM manufacturer in Korea and which also has the world’s fourth largest market share. Coinplug’s Richard Yun said the machine’s launch was well attended by the Korean media.

The machine also has one other key feature, or lack thereof: unlike other two-way bitcoin ATMs, such as the one produced by US company Robocoin, the Coinplug machine does not collect any identification or biometric information from users. Robocoin, as what it calls a security feature, requires photo ID and takes a palm vein scan of users, although the company says this information is not uploaded to a database anywhere and that palm vein scans function like a secondary PIN, representing the “most anonymous biometric on the market”.


South-Korea-ATM

Yun said the company was able to produce a two-way machine thanks mainly to the South Korean government’s light touch approach to bitcoin regulation so far. The government, like many others, has declared bitcoin is not a currency and will not regulate it, and has not made any attempts to restrict its use.



Coinplug has been busy in Korea this year, recently launching three separate Android bitcoin apps for merchants and traders, and a wallet app for everyday users. The company has also been funded so far 50% each in bitcoin and fiat currency by its Silicon Valley based partner, new venture capital firm Silverblue.

Bitcoin Payments Removed from Fancy’s iOS App at Apple’s Request
Pete Rizzo (@pete_rizzo_) | Published on March 7, 2014 at 22:09 GMT | Merchants, News

New York-based social e-commerce website Fancy has removed bitcoin payments from its iOS app at the request of Apple.

The announcement was made in conjunction with its release of Version 3.3.0 of its iOS app on 5th March, and was visible under the “What’s new” portion of the App Store where app updates are displayed.

Fancy has been accepting bitcoin since 23rd January, when it revealed the news to customers via email, thereby becoming one of the largest and most well-funded merchants to accept bitcoin.

The company announced that it would add a bitcoin payment option for both its Android and iOS mobile apps at the time of the launch, and had been enabling customers to make purchases for some time before the shutoff.

Fancy iOS app users confirmed to CoinDesk that BTC buying did function effectively prior to the update. Though, there had been hopes previously that the initial launch might represent a softening in Apple’s stance toward bitcoin.

Wrote one interested bitcoin user in an email to CoinDesk on 4th March:

“Either Apple’s policy towards Bitcoin has changed [or] is changing, or they have made a special exception for Fancy.”

Fancy did respond to CoinDesk requests for comment, but did not elaborate on any interaction with Apple.

Apple’s latest bitcoin snub

The action is unsurprising given Apple’s notorious anti-bitcoin stance, one that was on display in February when it abruptly removed bitcoin wallet provider Blockchain’s wallet app from its App Store.

That decision inspired the bitcoin community to erupt in a somewhat violent display of solidarity against the company’s products, and led to accusations that Apple had abandoned its principles by turning its back on innovation.

Bitcoin wallet and merchant services provider Coinbase’s iOS app was similarly removed on 15h November.

Community angered but unsurprised

The revelation sparked outrage on reddit, though users certainly found the company’s decision consistent with its past actions.

Butterfly Labs Delays Continue, 28nm Monarch Delivery Pushed Back to April
Pete Rizzo (@pete_rizzo_) | Published on March 7, 2014 at 18:27 GMT | Butterfly Labs, Companies, Mining, News, Technology

Kansas-based bitcoin mining supply firm Butterfly Labs has announced that deployment of its 28nm Monarch mining ASIC will be delayed roughly four weeks.

The most recent setback means those who ordered units, some more than six months ago, will need to wait until April to receive their products.

Butterfly Labs informed the community of the news in a statement on 4th March, which explained that the delay is the result of an issue with the top metal layer of its chips.

Jeff Ownby, the company’s VP of marketing and corporate communications, elaborated on the problem in an interview, suggesting that this will be the last roadblock to delivery.

Said Ownby:

“The metal [layer] as designed for [our] 65nm [unit] doesn’t necessarily copyover to [the] 28nm [unit]. [...] Everything else that’s depending on us putting together a final product is in stock and ready to go, it’s just a matter of getting the chips back and putting them on the boards.”

Josh Zerlan, the company’s VP of product development, also moved to calm frustrated buyers, revealing they would ultimately receive a unit that boasts power consumption numbers that are “better than anticipated”, and that some customers would be eligible for full refunds and delay compensation.

Announced in August, the 28nm Monarch unit has been delayed since September when optimism was high that production issues would soon be ironed out. At the time, the company was already developing a reputation for delays and delivery issues, but said it expected the first run of shipments to begin in January or February.

The latest announcement will likely do little to quell concerns about further setbacks.

Performance upgrades

Though he acknowledged some consumers will be disappointed about the delay, Ownby moved to put the focus on the improved product Butterfly Labs’ buyers will receive.

Ownby said Butterfly Labs expects the Monarch unit to consume 0.45W/GH, down from the 0.6W/GH originally announced. According to Ownby, this means the end result will be a chip that is less power hungry and more economical than those offered by competitors.

Explaining the significance of the change, Zerlan said:

“To put this in perspective, this makes the Monarch chip nearly twice as power efficient as compared to our 28nm competition whose products operate between 0.9W/GH and 1.0W/GH at the wall.”

Delay compensation

In an attempt to assuage customers, buyers who ordered 600 GH Monarchs prior to a reduction in price on 28th November will be given the Imperial Monarch, a high-performance version of the card. The original asking price for the 600 GH Monarch was $4,680, but this retail cost has since been reduced to $2,196.

Individuals who have been waiting for less than six months for their order, but paid the full original amount will receive an Imperial Monarch, as well as a 50% off voucher for an additional standard Monarch unit to be delivered at the end of the current queue.

Those who have been waiting for their order for more than six months can elect to receive a full refund in US dollars or double the amount of hardware they ordered.

The post details:

“This latter option will come in the form of (a) first shipping you the new Imperial Monarch, giving you an expected 160-175% of your ordered hashrate, and then (b) an additional Standard 600 GH Monarch at the end of the queue, giving you another 100% hashrate boost, totaling an expected 250+% of your ordered hashrate once all products have shipped.”

Customers who ordered the 300 GH Monarch at full price are now eligible for additional offers, though the full details of available compensation plans are not yet available.

Changing industry to blame

The news of yet another delay angered some customers, though others were less surprised by the announcement given the company’s history of shipment setbacks.

However, Ownby suggested that these buyers should have patience with the company as it works through new issues. In his statements, Ownby evoked comparisons to Butterfly Labs’ performance, which he suggested is on par with its competitors.

“The only thing that you can do when you’re talking about chip development in an industry that’s unknown, is you give it the best case that you possibly can from experience. [...] I don’t think it works out for anybody. Everybody who’s tried to develop a chip has missed their target by some degree. You know it’s just the nature of the way things are.”

Ownby said that his company has been under the microscope, but that this is due in part to the “exaggerated timelines” it works under.

When asked whether delays will become less regular soon, Ownby once again indicated that this would need to be the result of an industry-wide change.

“The one thing that could come out of this at some point is if someone developed a chip and sold it off the shelf, but I don’t see it happening.”

Hiding in Plain View, Too Much Secrecy, and Where Next for Space-Bound Twins?
John Law (@scotonomist) | Published on March 7, 2014 at 16:30 GMT | Analysis, News

Welcome to the CoinDesk Weekly Review 7th March 2014 – a regular look at the hottest, most thought-provoking and most controversial events in the world of digital currency through the eyes of scepticism and wonder.

Your host … John Law.

There’s a clue in the name

Dorian Satoshi NakamotoEven in the Internet hall of mirrors that has replaced much journalism, the story seemed too bizarre to be taken seriously. After years of rumour, speculation and answerless questions – could it really be true? Could this mysterious entity, known only from historical documents, claim and counter-claim, finally have stumbled into the light?

Yes. It is true. Newsweek really does exist.

That’s all that can be said for sure at the moment. Although Newsweek itself has made an equally incredible claim, that it traced Bitcoin’s creator Satoshi Nakamoto by looking up people called Satoshi Nakamoto, actual evidence is thin.

That the paper had found someone by that name living in southern California is undeniable, and he has led the sort of life that someone who invented bitcoin could have led. A 60-something model train obsessive who lives with his mother in secluded retirement after a career in secretive technical engineering? If it wasn’t for the fact John Law knows many equally qualified eccentrics – the tech world has no shortage of the species –  it’d be a slam-dunk.

However, having made some initially ambiguous statements when doorstepped by the Newsweek reporter, Mr Nakamoto has most recently denied everything in exchange for sushi. Admirable man. It’s not really the action of someone sitting on a hoard of nearly half a billion dollars’ worth of early-mined bitcoin, which block chain analysis suggests belongs to the creator. But then, there are plenty of stories of threadbare recluses who die leaving enormous and unexpected wealth.

You can, in short, believe what you want to believe. And John Law believes that Newsweek’s mega-scoop falls some way short of sealing the deal it promises.

It would be entirely fitting if bitcoin, an anonymous system that works entirely in the open by hiding nothing, was created by an anonymous genius who lives the same way. But it doesn’t matter. Bitcoin as a once-in-a-lifetime invention stands apart, and it’s not as if there’s any reasonable expectation that its creator can come up with another; nor that, having invented it, the creator will have any particular insight into its subsequent career.

Like the admirable Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the web, the best that can be hoped for is a mild celebrity and a muted amount of influence in subsequent events.

Which means the converse is also true – there is no abdication of responsibility in choosing to exempt oneself, tick the ‘no-publicity’ box and vanish silently away. Privacy seems an awfully small price to ask in exchange for such a valuable gift, although fame rarely works that way.

If Satoshi Nakamoto really is Satoshi Nakamoto and not just Satoshi Nakamoto – or even if he isn’t – then he should be left alone unless he chooses otherwise.

Amid all this confusion, John Law trusts that this at least is clear enough.

That’s torn it

EavesdroppingFurther to privacy, there is news that a future version of bitcoin will use the Tor network for transactions. This will have the advantage, says the developer, that transactions will be not only encrypted but that their passage across the Internet will be untraceable and untappable – even by the NSA and GCHQ.

There’s a lot of truth in that: Edward Snowden’s copious notes from inside the heart of the NSA (themselves delivered to the Guardian and the New York Times via Tor) revealed that those organisations couldn’t crack Tor, didn’t expect to, and didn’t much like the fact. And Silk Road operated entirely inside the Tor network and proved untraceable – its demise came through poor security in the real world.

Although there have been various semi-successful attacks against elements of Tor, which works by shuffling messages between lots of nodes that only know about their immediate neighbours, it remains a very high quality guarantee of network privacy.

It may not, however, be a good fit for bitcoin. John Law has used Tor from time to time, not to evade detection or commit seditious acts, but by way of experiment. It’s not been a good experience. Despite much work by the Tor Project in building software that disguises the underlying complexity, it can be a frustrating business getting it going and quite slow in operation. You may have 120-Mbps broadband, but expect that to drop by 95%.

It’s also quite nerve-wracking. If you elect to become a node, which means your computer can be used by the network to relay packets, then you run the risk of being the point at which an anonymous, untraceable user’s requests finally decloak and hit the unprotected Internet. Which, if that user is transferring illegal images or other unmentionables, can lead the plod to your door with some awkward questions to answer. But without a lot of nodes, Tor doesn’t work well.

Bitcoin is already robustly secure, most certainly for the vast majority of users who aren’t up to anything interesting or dangerous and just want to use it in their everyday lives.

What it isn’t, yet, is particularly painless to use. It needs more simplicity before it gets more security: the two aspects must be in balance at each stage in bitcoin’s development to get the sort of widespread traction it needs to fulfil its potential.

Adding Tor right now, although John Law completely understands the reasoning, will not help the balance that’s needed right now.

In any case, if you want to use bitcoin via Tor, you can do so – just drop by the Tor Project and download some software. Give it a whirl. It will make your online life more private but – unless you’re a Chinese dissident or like annoying the NSA – not that much better.

As the Dead Kennedys said (ask your grandfather) – “Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death”. Human nature is as much a factor in network privacy as uncrackable encryption. It’s just much harder to engineer.

Space – not quite the final frontier

Space twinsAnd further to human nature – it’s not that hard to see why the Winklevii twins attract so much opprobrium. Privileged, handsome and prone to grandiose claims that never quite got tested in court, their rebirth as bitcoin entrepreneurs can be seen either as far-sighted techno-economic acumen or another monstrous ego trip. Feel free to choose.

“I hope it’s one-way”, grumbled one of John Law’s less generous colleagues on hearing that the Winklevii had not only bought two tickets on Richard Branson’s “this year, I promise” Virgin Galactic space tourism plane, but they’d done so with the world’s favourite cyber-cash. Although he hates to disappoint the disaffected, John Law had to point out that since the craft wasn’t going into orbit, the one thing that is guaranteed is that it and all aboard will return to Earth quite swiftly – although in what state remains to be seen.

It’s a bit worrying, however, that the number of things one cannot buy with bitcoin is dwindling rapidly, which could lead to a price crash as the free publicity available to anyone in commerce in exchange for setting up a bitcoin wallet disappears completely. If you can buy cars, cannabis, politicians, plots of land, space trips, wine, women and song – what on earth is left in life?

So far, the only major asset not yet exchanged for the demon digital dosh seems to be companies. John Law ardently recommends this to Cameron and Tyler, once they return safely to land, as it may be their last chance to be really, really annoying in an innovative way. It’s probably best to pick an organisation beloved by the liberal chatterati: the Guardian newspaper, perhaps, or a micro-finance company working in developing nations with an explicit social remit.

The finder’s fee will be modest by Winklevossian standards – a mere handful of million dollars.

Bitcoin, naturally, is entirely acceptable.

John Law is an 18th Century Scottish entrepreneur, financial engineer and gambler. Having reformed the French economy, invented paper currency, state banks, the Mississippi Bubble and other ideas essential to modern economics, he took 300 years off in a small cottage outside Bude. He has returned to write for CoinDesk on the foibles of digital currency.

Lets try this one to ... I am first deposit