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Bitcoin Down 12 Percent this Year -Hackers Show Online Risk2015 has not started well for bitcoin with prices having fallen 12%, from $320 to $288. The cyber attack on a leading bitcoin exchange is the latest challenge for the fledgling digital currency. goldcore bloomberg chart4 07 01 15 Wednesday, January 7 Market Update Bitstamp, Europe’s leading bitcoin exchange – and third largest globally – has been off-line following a breach in their system by hackers on Sunday night. The UK based company has suspended lodgements and withdrawals and reported that roughly $5.1 million, around 19,000 BTC, had been ‘lost.’ The revelation follows the disclosure that Bitstamp’s wallet system has been compromised, prompting it to halt deposits and later shut down its platform entirely according to Coin Desk. Today, Bitstamp said it expected to resume trading within 24 hours after suspending operations because of the ‘security breach.’ The bulk of the digital currency units are in cold storage – on computers not connected to the internet – and are therefore safe from further predations, the company has said. “Bitcoin customers can rest assured that their bitcoins held with us before temporary suspension of services . . . are completely safe and will be honoured in full,” Bitstamp said. 2014 was a tough year for bitcoin with prices falling from over $800 to just over $300. At its height, Bitcoin was trading at $1240. But in the run-up to and following the bankruptcy of the leading Mt Gox exchange, it has declined in value to around $285. goldcore bloomberg chart2 07 01 15 Wednesday, January 7 Market Update Bitcoin or BTC in U.S. Dollars – 5 Years (Thomson Reuters) Some say this reflects a steady loss of faith of it’s users in their ability to trade the currency safely due to exchange and technology risk. Others say it was a speculative bubble and was destined to burst and it is healthy it did. We see the value in owning bitcoins as a form of cash diversification and see merits in owning and having a very small allocation to bitcoin. It is slowly proving itself as a means of exchange. However, whether it will become a store of value is another matter. Given the fact that we live in an era of currency wars and bail-ins – having a small allocation to such a liquid and fairly easily traded currency that is independent of debasing fiat currencies is not a bad idea. When the chickens of government and central bank profligacy finally come home to roost, as they always do, alternative digital currencies may serve as an accepted medium of exchange. But today’s news highlights the vulnerability of any form of “virtual wealth.” By virtual wealth, we mean many of our investments and savings today which are either in digital form – deposits – or intermediated by digital platforms – most investments including gold ETFs and digital gold trading platforms. It is imprudent to rely on any asset which derives its value from or can only be accessed through the internet and certain online platforms and websites. goldcore bloomberg chart1 07 01 15 Wednesday, January 7 Market Update This includes bank deposits in our modern digital banking system. In the event of a systemic crisis involving issues with ATMs, online bank accounts, capital controls and bail-ins – it will be prudent to own some assets that are outside of the financial system and indeed outside of the technological grid. As tensions mount geopolitically – thankfully the consequences of military confrontation between nuclear-armed superpowers makes war a last resort – the Western bloc, Russia and China have all been experimenting with non-conventional warfare which include disabling the internet in target countries to collapse the economy. If the internet and the financial system was brought down through unconventional warfare, criminal cyber attacks or simply a major glitch in the system – which has grown so complex that it is incomprehensible even to specialists – the assets of many people would be ‘erased’ and inaccessible. Technology is a great enabler. But it can also be a great disabler. It is important to be aware of this. Cyber and technology risk in the modern era is another reason to own physical coins and bars in an allocated and segregated manner, in the safest vaults, in the safest jurisdictions in the world. SOURCE : http://www.ahametals.com/wednesday-january-7-market-update/
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Source : http://www.ahametals.com/useful-bitcoin-data-resources/The emergence of bitcoin is just one more signal that society has fully moved into the digital age. Technology has changed the way that we do just about everything in our lives, including the ways we consume data and information. bitcoin data 630x345 The 9 Most Useful Bitcoin Data Resources The days of pencil-pushing to gather and analyse data are numbered if not vanished, and new tools have made gathering, sorting, analysing and visualising enormous amounts of data easier than ever. Bitcoin, of course, lends itself perfectly to these quantitatively-focused metric tools. Few things about the digital currency are subjective, and even though nobody knows for certain what drives bitcoin’s price changes, plenty of people have tried their hand at using technical analysis to predict price trends. Luckily for us, there’s no shortage of companies working with data to paint a picture of the ever-changing bitcoin ecosystem. These websites provide information on pricing, trading, market capitalisations, blockchain statistics and more. Here are nine of the most helpful bitcoin data resources: 1. Coinometrics Coinometrics prides itself on its “institutional-level bitcoin data and research”, and the company’s analyses of volatility, price dispersion and currency flows have a refreshingly proprietary feel. 2. Coinmap For bitcoiners eager to spend their BTC at brick-and-mortar businesses, Coinmap is a godsend. The site has a minimalist design, but is well populated with information on hundreds of retailers that accept bitcoin at their physical store locations.
3. Blockchain.info Perhaps the most well known resource for analysing the block chain, Blockchain.infohas basic information on a number of metrics like market capitalisation, transaction volume, hash rate and more. In addition to these stats, users can look up every bitcoin transaction on the block chain by searching a bitcoin address to trace where the coins came from and how much BTC is stored at any particular wallet address. 4. Bitcoincharts.com A user favorite for pricing information, bitcoincharts.com offers a comprehensive look at the digital currency network, with a focus on technical analysis of price trends. The site offers a number of customisations for viewing price charts, and the long term view offers a nice perspective on the currency’s price history. 5. CoinMarketCap Bitcoin isn’t the only player in the digital currency space. There are a number of altcoins gathering momentum in the industry, and while none rival bitcoin’s $7.7bn market cap, CoinMarketCap keeps an up-to-date record of the market capitalisation of some 462 digital currencies. 6. Bitnodes Bitnodes is in development for a very specific pupose: to estimate and visualise the size of the bitcoin network. Powered by the Bitcoin Foundation, the site’s tools gather data on all the nodes running the bitcoin protocol version 70001. 7. Wizbit For those yearning for a more visually focused analysis of bitcoin transactions, Wizbitfits the bill perfectly. The site shows all transactions and newly mined blocks in realtime on an eye-catching spinning globe. 8. Blockr.io Blockr.io is another block chain-focused site that offers data on the block chains of currencies like bitcoin, litecoin, peercoin and more. The site’s “block explorer” has plenty of data on recent blocks, block difficulty, and estimates of future block difficulty, among other things. 9. CoinDesk Of course we’re inclined to point out that CoinDesk is not only the world leader in bitcoin news, but also an industry-leading source for data and information on topics like price, venture capital investments and a number of bitcoin network statistics. Our bitcoin ATM map recently launched as a tool to visualize the ever-growing number of bitcoin ATMs around the world and to provide information for those looking to find a bitcoin ATM nearby.
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At Vator Splash Oakland, we took at look at the future of Bitcoin: A look at challenges and investment opportunities across this fast-growing market segment from leading founders/CEOs and the investors making big bets in this space. Here's the Panel Discussion http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PJLZ2fMXTkThe moderator was: Bryan Parker, Port Commissioner of Oakland, who is also running for Mayor in the 2014 Oakland mayoral race. Parker put together the panel and spearheaded the discussion. Panelists included Brock Pierce (Co-founder & Chairman, GoCoin), Brandon Goldman, (Co-Founder, FreshPay), Will Wheeler (CEO, Expresscoin), Ryan Singer (CryptoCorp). SOURCE : http://www.ahametals.com/the-future-of-bitcoin-panel-discussion/ |
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In an effort to help widen bitcoin’s reach and create a simpler experience when dealing with the online currency, KryptoKit, makers of the bitcoin wallet browser extension, launchedRushWallet, a new easy-to-use bitcoin wallet that works on all web browsers and mobile devices and unlike other wallets, it doesn’t require any login credentials. http://www.ahametals.com/finally-instant-cross-platform-bitcoin-wallet/ |
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Possible reasons for why the Bitcoin price is going down: - Dell is selling their first bitcoins.
- The whales (big Bitcoin holders) are selling.
- There is no real reason to go up, and crypto in general doesn’t seem to like stability, so it either goes up or down.
- Investors think Bitcoin is still in Bubble territory.
- A lot of people have their summer vacations right now. People who hold BTC sell some to get money for travel and vacations.
- Miners are selling and no new investments are being made.
The only reason I think is viable to the price drop is - The whales (big Bitcoin holders) are selling.
We all know that if someone who's holding a big stake in bitcoin and selling it could affect its pricing (correct me if im wrong).. And the question is who? Satoshi?  I don't think so.. Full Story |
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This week has seen the emergence of two separate plans to have the best of both worlds. Ripple, a digital payments network that allows people to transact in a range of virtual and traditional currencies, said it had developed a way for people to transact in a digital form of gold. The announcement on Tuesday came on the heels of a company called Anthem Vault saying it had created its own virtual currency backed by gold, known (inevitably) as Independence Coin. It’s all the convenience of Bitcoin (to the extent there is any convenience in using Bitcoin) without the Bitcoin risk. All you have to worry about are the massive fluctuations in the price of gold. Gold significantly not getting its price as high few years back but bitcoin did in a year.. Full details : Gold Bug's Independence Coin |
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It’s what you get when you combine bitcoin, one of the world’s newest would-be currencies, and gold, one of the oldest. Add mistrust of centralized authority, a dash of rebelliousness and a dollop of profit motive and you might have the Independence Coin, the first gold-backed crypto-money, unveiled this month at FreedomFest, a libertarian convention in — where else? — Las Vegas. We don’t need to fight. We can coalesce “A staunch person who believes in the gold standard says bitcoin is valueless and ultimately a Ponzi scheme, and people who didn’t dig gold but really got bitcoin would say that this is ridiculous, it’s just a dumb metal,” Anthem Hayek Blanchard, chief executive officer of Anthem Vault Inc., the company behind the Independence Coin, said in an interview. “We don’t need to fight. We can coalesce.” Despite the skepticism, bitcoin and gold make a natural match, like kittens and milk. Gold, a store of value since ancient times, has long been popular with investors seeking a haven and doomsayers rejecting fiat currencies churned out on central bank printing presses. Bitcoin, cooked up by programmers six years ago, has been embraced by hipster anarchists and others eager to trade online while avoiding the constraints of conventional money. There are signs that the two sides are finally meeting cute. Last month, DNA Precious Metals Inc., which digs for gold and silver residue in Quebec, Canada, formed a subsidiary called DNA Crypto Corp. to mine online. The Montreal-based company, a penny stock that trades over-the-counter, saw its market shifting to a new unit of exchange for the digital age and wanted to take part, Tony Giuliano, the chief financial officer, said in an interview. Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss, the Harvard University-educated twins famous for their dispute with Facebook Inc. founder Mark Zuckerberg, are planning to introduce the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust, an exchange-traded fund reminiscent of the SPDR Gold Shares fund. Their application, which would be the first of its kind, is pending with the Securities and Exchange Commission. An e-mail to New York-based Winklevoss Capital Management LLC wasn’t answered. There’s no doubt any marriage, or at least an online date, would be between unequals. Bitcoin, which has endured wild price swings since its introduction, now has about US$8 billion in circulation, according to CoinDesk, a news and pricing website. Gold, with centuries of a head start, boasts an US$18 trillion-a- year global market, according to CPM Group, a New York-based research company. Bitcoin originated in a 2008 paper by a programmer or group of programmers under the name Satoshi Nakamoto. It uses a public ledger and cryptography to log transactions and secure ownership. Prices plummeted earlier this year from a high of US$1,147 in 2013 after the collapse of the Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange, once the world’s largest, and China and Russia moved to block money laundering. One bitcoin currently sells for about US$600, according to Bloomberg’s Virtual Currency Monitor. Gold prices are less volatile. They ranged from US$1,182.57 to US$1,433.73 an ounce in the past year. The metal has climbed 7.8% to US$1,294.75 in 2014 after the first annual decline in 13 years.
Full Story : http://www.ahametals.com/bitcoin-gold-investors-common/ |
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http://www.ahametals.com/pure-gold-physical-bitcoins-minted-china/The idea of backing Bitcoin with a physical commodity is nothing new. In May, 2014 Mina Financial, a Toronto-based financial services innovator announced the creation of “Minacoin,” a gold backed cryptocurrency that would, like Bitcoin, create 21 million coins that are backed by two 400-ounce bars of gold worth US$1,050,000 (£618,000). Late last year the people of the Island of Alderney in the Channel Islands flirted with the idea of physical Bitcoin to try and reverse dependency on the British Crown and Pound Sterling, making itself a global hub for digital currencies. And just recently, US gold merchant Anthem Vault released its own “gold-backed” coin.
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