Believe it or not a decentralized Bitcoin exchange has already existed for 5 years. Ever since the creation of the first Bitcoin mining pool – Eligius – a decentralized exchange was formed. Bitcoin pool mining is in fact a completely functional and currently the most reliable Bitcoin exchange available.

Our definition of a decentralized exchange is a globally accessible network which allows for a secure exchange of fiat currency to digital currency. There are a few forms of decentralized exchanges in existence such as Localbitcoins, Coiffeine, EtherEx. However, due to the peer to peer nature of these exchanges one is faced with high risks of fraud, there are many limits on how many coins one can buy from each vendor, and in some cases one is still required to hand over personal information to a bitcoin seller. The beauty of pool mining serving as a decentralized exchange is that a competent miner can reduce the risk of fraud to zero. A transaction with a bitcoin seller on a platform like Localbitcoins is much more likely to go wrong versus paying the electricity bill.

Read More: http://themerkle.com/the-decentralized-bitcoin-exchange-that-existed-for-five-years/

When used in the context of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology a DAO is a Decentralized Autonomous Organization.  It is a self governing organization whose rules are embedded into the blockchain via smart contracts. There is no centralized server or entity overwatching the organization’s operations, a group of shareholders have a say in the direction which the organization will take.

Make no mistake that DAOs do have a central manager who has a say in the voting rules and decides who the members will be. In a way a DAO is a true democratic organization where every proposal can be verified on the blockchain for the amount of votes it has received.

Read More: http://themerkle.com/what-is-a-dao/

Expanse is a community driven cryptocurency and a smart contracts platform much like Ethereum and Lisk. It was first announced in September of 2015 and differs from its competitors by utilizing a DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) in order to make decisions to the design, operation, development path, and investment strategy of the project.

Unlike Ethereum and Lisk, Expanse did not have an ICO phase and the team’s main focus was on fair coin distribution upon launch.

Read More: http://themerkle.com/expanse-community-driven-smart-contract-platform-and-cryptocurrency/

Shake is an Android mobile app which lets you pay for items at any retail location supporting contactless payment with NFC (Near Field Communication). These days almost any point of sale terminal supports contactless payments either via NFC or RFID. Unlike it’s competitors Android Pay and Apple Pay, Shake uses Bitcoin as it’s underlying currency and lets users top up their Shake wallet using Bitcoin.

The Shake app is not currently available for purchase but you can sign up for an early access list by going to shakepay.co. You can also send an email to alpha@shakepay.co to possibly try the Shake app before the official release.

Read More: http://themerkle.com/shake-giving-android-apple-pay-run-for-money/

The Bitcoin market is making a steady rise to the $420 resistance zone as it is currently trading at $416.12 on Bitstamp. In our previous Bitcoin technical analysis we mentioned that if no major selloffs occur the price will keep climbing, so far the market has proved that theory to be true. How much longer the price will rise depends on how well support will hold at $416. While the monthly trend is bullish, looking at the 24 hour chart we can see the price slouching after a high of $420 – an infamous resistance zone.

Read More: http://themerkle.com/bitcoin-technical-analysis-for-32416-slow-and-steady/

Coinsource launches its first low-fee Bitcoin ATM in The Golden City

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (March 23, 2016) – Coinsource, the reliable and secure national bitcoin ATM network, today announced the installment of a new bitcoin ATM at Mission Groceries at 2128 Mission Street in the heart of San Francisco, California.

The new machine is only the third bitcoin ATM in the colorful city by the Bay and the only one open every day. It also boasts the latest closing time for a bitcoin ATM in the entire city, with doors open until 2:00 AM daily.

Read More: http://themerkle.com/san-francisco-receives-first-bitcoin-atm-from-coinsource/

The Bitcoin market is never boring and this past week didn’t disappoint with the flash crash to $380. The price has since rebounded and Bitcoin is currently trading at $414. One of the main factors which undeniably contributed to the price slump is Bitcoin’s transaction backlog which occurred around March 3rd.

Last week the network got flooded with spam transaction, which effectively increased the fee required to confirm transactions in a timely manner. As a result, many services that accepted Bitcoin received a flood of customer complaints that their payments weren’t going through. This caused many merchants to remove Bitcoin as a payment options from their store, furthermore an article published on The Verge titled “Bitcoin’s nightmare scenario has come to pass” received an extraordinary amount of shares which also attributed to the weekend selloff.

Read More: http://themerkle.com/technicalanalysis/bitcoin-technical-analysis-for-030716/

NEW YORK, NY, Feb 26, 2016 – Ribbit.me, a NY-based blockchain technology startup, announced that it closed a $1.5 million seed round, led by Hayaat Group, an investment company based in Dubai, with Privity FZ LLE acting as advisor.

Ribbit.me has built the world’s first universal platform for the loyalty and rewards industry using blockchain and smart contract technology. Currently, program operators such as airlines or hotels, are faced with high operational costs and outdated processes, resulting in a poor customer experience.

Ribbit.me’s universal platform coupled with its patent-pending technology enables program operators to reduce costs by sharing a distributed ledger, thus streamlining the customer experience while more effectively managing the rewards liability.

http://themerkle.com/news/ribbit-me-raises-1-5-million-seed-round/

Bitcoin was first introduced in 2009 when Satoshi Nakamoto’s invention became an open-source software. It provides a peer-to-peer transaction system that is managed using a public distributed ledger without the need for a third party. One does not need to wait for the payment to be approved and completed by the mediators such as banks. It is considered a decentralized and virtual currency since there is not central authority or governing body that manages it. Bitcoin’s largest strength is also it’s weakness as countries like Russia are looking to ban the use of Bitcoin in Russia.



Where credit card payments require the payment of fees by the vendor, Bitcoins require the purchaser to pay the fees. This has led to some criticism by world governments, for they are of the viewpoint that Bitcoins fail to protect customers by refund rights or charge-backs. Furthermore, the perceived amount of anonymity Bitcoin provides scares some governments which believe cryptocurrency to be a threat to their state. It is for reasons like these that the usage of Bitcoins has not made it to all markets as well as all countries.

Read More: http://themerkle.com/news/bitcoin-in-russia/

Austin, TX (Feb. 23, 2016) Factom Inc. and Ancun Zhengxin Co, Ltd (“Ancun Zhengxin” thereafter) have announced a partnership to integrate Factom’s blockchain technology with Ancun Zhengxin’s electronic data notarization services in China. This partnership represents an opportunity for both parties to further its mission of enhancing integrity in information management. Factom will offer advice and technical guidance as Ancun Zhengxin shapes its blockchain strategy for its notarization services for more than 100 locations in 28 provinces across China.

Mr. Bing He, who is responsible for the technology of Ancun Zhengxin said:

“We are focused on providing our customers with a one-stop shop Internet technology solution,  to meet their electronic data storage and notarization needs.

Read More: http://themerkle.com/news/factom-and-ancun-zhengxin-integrate-blockchain-technology-in-china/

Sports Betting and Gambling attracts people from every part of the world, and there are fewer areas more suited for gambling other than sports. The unpredictability and the sheer thrill of sports betting results in billions of dollars spent on sports betting each year. In the USA alone around $400 billion was spent on sports betting last year alone.



The United States is a country where betting is legal only in four states, namely Nevada, Delaware, Montana, and Oregon. As a result, only around 10% of all bets are placed legally in the USA. In most European countries, though, betting is not criminalized but it is regulated to quite an extent.

How Bitcoins can help

The internet changed the betting scenario drastically as it made it a lot simpler for people to place bets. The need to drive down to the betting office and place bets after checking out the odds is a thing of the past. However, there are still quite a few things that could be improved upon.

Read More: http://themerkle.com/news/sports-betting-with-bitcoin/

KeepKey is a great looking hardware wallet with a sleek design. It delivers innovative security features to keep your Bitcoins safe. It is easy to setup and is cross platform compatible.

However, it comes at a high price of $239 which may be out of budget for some. Alternatives such as Trezor and the Ledger Nano are not only cheaper but offer almost the same features.

KeepKey is a Bitcoin hardware wallet. It stores your private keys offline making it near impossible for hackers to steal your bitcoins using traditional means. In this keepkey review we unbox the wallet and show you how to receive and send bitcoins using the KeepKey chromium apps.

Read More: http://themerkle.com/reviews/keepkey-review/

Is Bitcoin Mining Worth It?



Before we delve into the details of whether Bitcoin mining is still a profitable venture for miners in today’s world, we first need to establish a basic understanding of what exactly is meant by Bitcoin mining. Bitcoin mining is the process of receiving bitcoins in return of validating transactions for Bitcoin users. Unfortunately, the Bitcoin network isn’t preceived to be trustworthy as for many the concept of digital currencies is still a mystery.

In that regard, Bitcoin mining is a great way to contribute to the security of the Bitcoin network. Since miners do the work for the Bitcoin network, the network sees it fair to reward them with Bitcoins as compensation. This has been the case for more than half a decade, and all had been going well for miners in the beginning. However, with changes in technology and the introduction of huge mining farms, many people have been asking the question if bitcoin mining is still a profitable venture.

Read More: http://themerkle.com/news/is-bitcoin-mining-worth-it/

Sunday February 21 2016

Bit-x doubles to 13% in $BTCUSD, tops Kraken in $BTCEUR

@KittyBitcoin paws at this week’s bitcoin exchange percentage marketshare “wool ball”. We look at $XBTCNY, $XBTUSD, $XBTEUR & $XBTGBP. Estimated read less than 5 minutes. Who did what – and how did it unravel?

All Currencies 7 days



All charts courtesy Bitcoinity.org

@Huobicom’s market leading 51% of marketshare from last week has vanished, sliding to 48%. @OKCoinBTC registers 44% – which is up about 3% from the previous week. @YourBTCC shows about a half percent increase of marketshare over last week and is third overall bitcoin exchange by volume traded worldwide with just 1.8% marketshare. That’s no typo, the top two exchanges account for 92% of the total world market which is up by about one percent over the week before. @LakeBTC lost about one quarter of a percentage over last week’s volume but retains overall number five rank. “Others” has slid a notch indicating a general but small loss of competition in the non top ten exchanges. @Bitfinex has lost 0.30% over last week falling one position lower. @Bitx2014 has gained about 0.35% from last week suggesting that some of Bit-x’s gain came at Bitfinex’s loss. @Coinbase who was seventh overall last week is nowhere to be found. @Bitstamp takes their place. @KrakenFX and @Btcecom flesh out the bottom of the world top bitcoin exchanges by volume for this week.

Read More: http://themerkle.com/technicalanalysis/weekly-xbt-marketshare-2-21-16/

Bitcoin debit cards are a relatively new phenomenon in the Bitcoin world with the first brought out at the end of 2014. Although called bitcoin debit cards they are actually prepaid cards which means your bitcoin is converted into your currency of choice and stored on the card. Some in the community think they are quite controversial as they can charge large fees whilst some see them as a benefit as it makes the process of using your bitcoin at any store that one step easier, instead of waiting for the store to accept bitcoin.

The are a number of bitcoin debit cards on the market that are synced into either their own wallets, such as E-Coin, or to exchange systems such as the Shift Card with Coinbase. Most of these allow you to instantly top up your debit card from your bitcoin wallet and mobile apps are available to make it easier to do so. It’s becoming increasingly easier to get your bitcoin into a card that you can use anywhere.

Read More: http://themerkle.com/news/what-are-bitcoin-debit-cards/

Bitcoin is currently trading at $421 in a bullish market after an intraday high of $425 and a low of $415. In our last technical analysis we indicated that the Bitcoin market was exhibiting a few prominent patterns which shouldn’t go unnoticed. One pattern we indicated was the head and shoulders formation which signaled an upcoming price increase. This recent price hike from the $380 levels to the current $420 validated the technical indicator:


Chart from bitcoinwisdom.com

An interesting observation worth taking note of is the relation between the amount of active users on Bitcoin’s most popular subreddit r/Bitcoin and Bitcoin’s price. This chart from cryptocompare showcases a potential relationship:


Chart from cryptocompare.com

We can see a subtle pattern where the amount of active reddit users rises as bitcoin’s price climbs. Furthermore, we can see on Feb 09 that the amount of active user’s reached a peak last seen Jan 28th. This peak seemed to be a foreshadowing for the rally which began the same day. The amount of active users on a subreddit alone should not be the basis to make a decision on a trade, however it is important to take that data into account as there is a relationship with the market.

Read More: http://themerkle.com/technicalanalysis/bitcoin-technical-analysis-for-21916/

This article will guide you through setting up a Bitcoin faucet using FaucetBox so you can start earning Bitcoins today. A Bitcoin faucet is a website which dispenses Bitcoins in return for completing a captcha. The idea is to have a reward amount to less than the cost of acquiring a new customer, that way you can profit from monetizing the traffic to your site. FaucetBox provides an easy to use php script which can be setup in minutes on any webserver. The script uses FaucetBox’s API so you don’t need to run a bitcoin node or use any extra APIs in order to send bitcoins to users. Lets get started,

Step one:

Sign up for FaucetBox.com, create your first faucet and give it a name.

Step two:

Navigate to Faucetinabox.com and download the script

Step three:

This is where we will be adding the database and the database username for the faucetbox script to use. Navigate to your website’s cPanel and click the My SQL Database Wizard.

Read More: http://themerkle.com/tutorials/how-to-make-a-bitcoin-faucet/

This weekend has been nothing but boring in terms of price action. After a Sunday bear trap for the second time this weekend Bitcoin’s price dropped to trhe low $360 only to bounce right back up to the $370 levels. In our last technical analysis we analyzed the positive divergence which was forming between the OBV and the price. This divergence signaled major price movement and a possible trend reversal, while no major market action occurred just yet does not mean that it won’t happen any time soon.



The chart above shows the breakdown of the last support level, which was right around $375. The last drop from $375 is significant because it signals that the bears are in control since the support zone did not hold. When such technical indicators form, traders will usually short the security in question and additional sell pressure is expected. At this point it is unlikely that we will see the price climb much higher as support is barely holding.

TReano from tradingview points out an interesting idea for the current market situation. He compared the current price action to that of 2 years ago right after the bubble burst. “The picture we are plotting currently reminds me of the 2014 run after the big decline.” While it’s true that one can find patterns anywhere on the chart, in both scenarios the Bitcoin market was facing adversities. Back in 2014 the elephant in the room was the bubble bursting and the price crashing to $300; currently the civil war in the Bitcoin community is the elephant in the room, and the debate over the blocksize is causing hardships for Bitcoin’s launch to the moon.

Read More: http://themerkle.com/coins/bitcoin-technical-analysis-2116/

@LakeBTC exceeds @bitfinex in all currencies traded

@KittyBitcoin paws at this week’s bitcoin exchange percentage marketshare “wool ball”. We look at $XBTCNY, $XBTUSD, $XBTEUR & $XBTGBP. Estimated read less than 5 minutes. Who did what – and how did it unravel?

BraveNewCoin BTC Price Index



Weekly XBT Price Synopsis

The @BraveNewCoin 7 day chart opened at ~ $391 per bitcoin and saw an abrupt price rise to a maximum weekly price of $404.55 on Sunday. Monday saw a decline to $390. Vagarious sideways movement continued until Thursday when the price fell off sharply to $383. Friday the price tumbled sharply again to a low of $369.03. Largely sideways movement has been the norm since.

Read More: http://themerkle.com/coins/this-week-bitcoin-markets-marketshares-exchange/

After unexpected dumps to a low of $365 Bitcoin is making a nice road to recovery as it’s current price is hovering right at the $380 level. Some of the upward pressure may be attributed with today’s announcement that Bitcoin Classic has been released, suggesting contrary to popular belief that Bitcoin isn’t dead.


Looking at the github shows Bitcoin Classic will change the blocksize to 2MB, the earliest time the fork can happen will be March 1st, 2016. The fork will need 75% of the hashpower to agree in order to reach consensus and successfully start mining Bitcoin Classic blocks.

The release of the Bitcoin Classic code is an important step towards scaling Bitcoin to be able to handle today’s users, after March 1st if more than 75% of blocks mined have the Bitcoin Classic flag on the fork will take full effect and any blocks which are not Bitcoin Classic blocks will get dropped.

Read More: http://themerkle.com/coins/bitcoin-technical-analysis-13016/