Last (Bitcoin) Supper Painting has now officially been placed on auction:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=231280050208

It deserves a good home. I've never seen or touched a painting more beautiful, and more imbued with deep meaning. I am deeply appreciative of the painter Youl for the work he did, I am excited for it to find the right home, and just as excited for it to be an important next-step transaction for Project Bitcoin!

When most Westerners hear the word “Thailand” they usually envision and exotic tropical local where anything is available for a price. If these images were real then Thailand would seem to be the type of open economic environment that is perfect for cryptocurrencies of all types.

The real world is seldom the way that we see it however, especially if the way we see it is from our televisions. Thailand is a thriving, diverse county with many opportunities as well as risks. The Bitcoin community in Thalland is thriving with four unregistered exchanges and now two fully legal exchanges. The first legal exchange in Thailand was opened by Bitcoin Company Limited.

But, like most of the world, the government in Bangkok has been, to say the least, hesitant to embrace Bitcoin and their overall negative attitude has led to rumors that the government had banned cryptocurrencies all together. Whatever Thailand's stance on Bitcoin was in the past doesn’t matter as the country approved its first and second fully-legal and fully-regulated Bitcoin exchanges.

The country began to take a hard stance against Bitcoin in July, 2013 after Bitcoin Company Limited presented the idea of Bitcoin operations in the country to the Bank of Thailand. The Bank was mainly concerned with the lack of regulation or even applicable laws and capital controls. They also had concerns about the ability to control Bitcoin because it applies to so many different facets of the economy. But this stance began to relax in the spring after the Minister of Finance made the statement that Bitcoin was not in their legal jurisdiction “so long as foreign currencies are used to make the exchanges.”

The stance changed from a ban on trading to ‘permitted trading’ but to/from Thai baht only within a few months. When the restrictions were first relaxed, the Bank of Thailand said that it had no plans to make any expansions in the law with regards to regulating Bitcoin. One reality however is that the Bitcoin community in Thailand is thriving and growing and ruling that Bitcoin was not “currency” was not a ban on using or holding Bitcoin. We must remember that while the government shut down the countries biggest Bitcoin exchange, it later allowed it to resume operations.

But until now Bitcoin exchanges in Thailand were unregulated. Then an exchange opened earlier this year to complement the Bitcoin Company LTD. The company's E-Commerce registration was approved on June 20, 2014 by the Huay Khwang District Office and the exchange’s website (coins.co.th) is open for business.

Coins (Thailand) Co. Ltd. is now the second fully regulated Bitcoin exchange in Thailand alongside Thai Bitcoin marketplace with only these two exchanges obtaining e-commerce registrations. But Bitcoin is still being traded as a commodity and not as currency. And the Thai government does not appear ready to change this anytime soon while merchants are not obligated to accept it as legal tender. The good thing is however that more and more merchants are accepting Bitcoin, which now number over 30 according to some estimates.

Maybe this fresh news can help you?
http://rt.com/business/170112-russia-may-legalize-bitcoin/

who cares how much he paid. thats his private business. after 4 years of people wanting governments to stay out of bitcoins and not have regulations and not make everything public,... a few of you now want full disclosure of someones bitcoin transaction.

seriously?

how about you reveal every transaction you have done. and get all your family and friends to upload their credit card statements.

knowing about a 30k bitcoin transaction is meaningless. bitpay do more then this all the time.. so does coinbase, so does alot of merchants. so how about asking for businesses to show you their business audit/financial reports, before asking for someones private deals

Washington-based online travel booking giant Expedia announced it would begin accepting bitcoin for payments on 11th June, and in a new interview the company confirms that its first foray into the ecosystem is already a success.

Speaking to CoinDesk, Expedia’s executive vice president of global product Michael Gulmann declined to release firm figures regarding the total bitcoin sales the company has seen so far, but reported that they have exceeded estimates.

Gulmann told CoinDesk:

“We did some estimates based on the size of Overstock and the size of Expedia, and came up with our own estimates of what we could expect, and we’re meeting and exceeding those.”

Further, Gulmann moved to dismiss suggestions that Expedia may simply be testing bitcoin as a payment method, and that it doesn’t yet have plans to integrate the payment more broadly. He stated that hotel bookings were rather a logical starting point for adding bitcoin due to the fact that it accounts for the lion’s share of the company’s sales, adding:

“Certainly, there are people who want to book airline tickets with Expedia, but it made sense from a technology standpoint, from a business standpoint and from a customer demand standpoint to jump out with hotels first.”

Gulmann went on to suggest that, should it have been considering bitcoin payments as a trial, it has already received the feedback it sought.

The announcement that Expedia would accept bitcoin through Coinbase added yet another billion-dollar company to the ecosystem, providing new evidence to support Coinbase’s prior assertions that as many as 10 companies of that size could begin accepting bitcoin in 2014.

Global hotel expansion

To date, Expedia only offers bitcoin payments for hotel bookings to US customers, and only as part of its ‘Pay Now‘ payment option for which it accepts payment on behalf of the customer. This allows the company to offer bitcoin payment services for all 45,000 of its hotels, “in one fell swoop”.

But Gulmann suggested that the company is likely to extend the payment method to its other offerings, including flight bookings, car rentals and more.

He implied the addition of the company’s bitcoin payment option for all global hotel services could be the next step in expanding the service, stating:

“I think we’ve already seen what we’ve needed to see, now it just comes down to timing. The primary [goal] would be to get it up globally for our hotels.”

This would require the addition of the payment option for hotel bookings on all or a greater number of the company’s global sites.

Expedia also offers a ‘Pay Later’ option for hotel bookings, in which customers can select to reserve lodging with its services, but pay proprietors directly on arrival. In this case, Expedia does not facilitate payment, so its bitcoin services are not applicable.

South Koreans will be able to use bitcoin to pay on thousands of websites, after payments gateway giant Galaxia Communications announced it will add bitcoin as a payment option.

Galaxia is one of the top three companies processing online payments in Korea, with more than 10,000 domestic and international websites on its client list.

It is also one of the top mobile gift certificate and voucher sellers in Korea, which may now be purchased with bitcoin as well.