Today, we at Bloq, Inc. announced the general availability of [BloqCloud]( https://www.bloq.cloud/), as a platform for open network developers and teams who want to get on with building – without having to worry about the tedious effort required in simply maintaining the necessary infrastructure to build. The first supported networks will be: - Bitcoin, of course
- Bitcoin Cash
- Ethereum
- Ethereum Classic
The very first services will be:- Managed nodes on-demand (BloqCloud Nodes)
- API services, indexed blockchain data, and blockchain event monitoring (BloqCloud Connect; BTC and BCH to start, with more coming).
Most importantly, this platform is part of the crypto ecosystem: Payment via crypto (BTC, BCH, ETH) or fiat (Visa/Mastercard). Lightning Network and Metronome payments and more coming soon. Upcoming services will include capabilities for accessing distributed computing and storage, all within the BloqCloud console. The BloqCloud Connect service has a free tier (500 API requests per month, limited event/block/address monitoring). For $24/yr or $4/mo (“Starter”), you 10x the API requests and 4x the monitoring. BloqCloud accepts credit card and Bitcoin, with MET and Lightning soon. BloqCloud will continue add services and compatible chains going forward. The FutureBloqCloud is a necessary step, the plumbing of the plumbing, to get us to the blockchain-enabled future we envision. As this product grows along with its user base, we will continuously add services, compatible blockchains, and solutions. Get started: Site: https://bloq.cloud/ Signup: https://console.bloq.cloud/signup Pricing: https://bloq.cloud/pricing/ Docs: https://docs.bloq.cloud/ And the most important document, the 10-year Roadmap: https://sync.bloq.com/bloqcloud-our-platform-and-vision/ |
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We are pleased to announce Metronome, a new cryptocurrency with an autonomous global supply and the ability to import/export across blockchains (a blockchain-on-blockchain approach). Metronome attempts to create a stable, predictable money supply ad infinitum, using daily descending price auctions to distribute the token supply at market prices. Through the Auction contract, an initial 8,000,000 MET are sold in a 7-day initial descending price auction, followed by 2,880 MET per day minted and sold in the daily auctions (through year ~30, where mintage hits a 2%-per-year inflation floor). We retain an additional 2,000,000 MET for a one-time compensation, 75% of which is locked up for up to 3 years. The ETH (or ETC or QTUM or BTC) received in the daily auctions is stored in a Proceeds contract on the blockchain. This Proceeds contract acts like a savings account, holding the auction proceeds (token sale proceeds), and then feeds 0.25% of the total Proceeds balance to another contract, the Changer contract. tl;dr the raise goes to the community long term, zero back to us. The goal is a fair distribution, to the public, at market prices. There is no pre-sale or special access discount. All of the "raise" goes back to the community. Metronome is quite different from any traditional ICO. The Changer contract is an on-chain ETH/MET exchange facility. The Changer contract holds ETH and MET balances. It uses a simplified Bancor-style algorithm to behave like both an exchange and a market maker for ETH/MET pair. Users send ETH, receive MET. Users send MET, receive ETH. In the context of the Proceeds contract, the changer autonomously receives 0.25% of the Proceeds balance every day, overweighting the ETH side of the ETH/MET trading pair. This creates an incentive for others to deposit MET and receive ETH, to arbitrage the Changer ETH/MET pair back to market price. The Proceeds contract causes the Changer to, indirectly, "buy" MET every day, essentially a mechanism of community market liquidity support over many decades. The Proceeds contract is like a slowly deflating balloon. Users transfer MET tokens between each other via the ERC20 contract, using an ERC20-compatible wallet. This contract has been enhanced with extensions for ERC223, MassPay (multiple transfers in one transaction, lowering mass-payout fees), and a unique on-blockchain subscription extension. Website: https://www.metronome.ioOwner's Manual: https://github.com/autonomoussoftware/documentation/blob/master/owners_manual/owners_manual.mdHow to purchase: Send ETH to ETH auction contract, receive MET to an ERC20-compatible wallet. Other resources: FAQ: https://github.com/autonomoussoftware/documentation/blob/master/FAQ.mdArticle: What is a descending price auction? https://medium.com/@MetronomeToken/what-is-a-descending-price-auction-8c0770bb6a71Update: The initial public auction is now live!Update: Source code is available at https://github.com/autonomoussoftware |
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URL: http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/12/bitcoin_space/One of the top software engineers behind the Bitcoin digital currency wants to launch it into space.
Last month, Jeff Garzik floated the idea of Bitcoin in space on an internet discussion forum, pitching it as a way to always keep the system up and running — even if it’s attacked by malicious hackers.
The plan is to send up a Bitcoin computer on a tiny inexpensive satellite and have this machine communicate with terrestrial Bitcoin computers via radio. Garzik — who works at Bitcoin payment processor Bitpay and helps shape the open source software that drives the digital currency on thousands of machines across the internet — says that the satellite node could help the Bitcoin network fight back something known as a Sibyl attack. This is where malicious computers flood a node on the peer-to-peer network with bad data. It could give criminals a way of spending their bitcoins more than once, and it’s also part of the so-called selfish miner scenario that Cornell University researchers described last month, saying it could bring down the entire system.
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URL: http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/networks/bitcoins-in-spaceRichard Branson, the brazen Brit behind Virgin Galactic, made news last week when he announced that he has begun processing Bitcoin payments from would-be space tourists. (A woman in Hawaii has already booked her ticket, the company says.) But it turns out Branson’s not the only Bitcoin enthusiast looking toward the heavens. Jeff Garzik, one of the core developers of the Bitcoin software and a new addition to the team of developers at BitPay, a Bitcoin payment processor, has been quietly working on a side project aimed at making Bitcoin work by satellite.
Garzik first hinted at his intentions during his “State of the Coin” address at a Bitcoin conference last year in London, where he briefly mentioned that he was working to launch a satellite that would be paid for in bitcoins. Last month, he announced the full purpose of the satellite. According to Garzik, it will repeatedly transmit the most recent block in the Bitcoin block chain—the latest transaction data processed by the Bitcoin network.
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OK, he did not quite say that, exactly... <chuckle> URL: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-18/u-s-agencies-to-say-bitcoins-offer-legitimate-benefits.htmlBen Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, is also weighing in on the hearing, saying that it has no plans to regulate the currency.
“Although the Federal Reserve generally monitors developments in virtual currencies and other payments system innovations, it does not necessarily have authority to directly supervise or regulate these innovations or the entities that provide them to the market,” Bernanke wrote in a letter to the committee.
Looking forward to attending the DC hearings in person tomorrow! Anyone else going to be there? |
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One of the key tenets is that bitcoin block data is easy to distribute widely. Information wants to be free. One of the ways we may keep bitcoin healthy and free is finding alternative ways to distribute block chain data. This provides resilience in case the P2P mesh network is attacked. My personal favorite is satellite distribution, something I have been working on quietly in the background. Satellites means one of two things: - 1. Buy some bandwidth on an existing satellite.
- 2. Launch your own satellite.
Buying bandwidth is the most cost-effective, and readily attainable method today. However, not just any satellite channel will do. Bitcoin requires a dedicated, one-to-many broadcast mechanism. This is like renting a TV channel -- although at much lower bandwidth requirements (1MB every minute or two). Nanosatellites have recently cut satellite costs down from the absurd, traditional $20m+ build, $50m+ launch. There is now a standardized cubesat size. Two innovations reduced launch costs down into the $100k's range: (1) Many organizations collaborate together (rideshare), paying a portion of the launch cost. Sometimes 27 or more cubesats are launched at once. (2) These clusters of cubesats are launched as a secondary payload. A primary payload has priority, which means secondary payloads are sometimes not launched into a proper orbit. With these two factors, cubesat construction and launch is lowered to a reachable price: $2m or so. Several people, including some investors, in the bitcoin community have privately expressed interest. It seemed like a good time to move forward with Phase 1 of the project. Phase 1 is: flesh out cubesat specifications, research leased bandwidth pricing, and specific data needs (xmit tech, frequencies). The initial goal is broadcasting worldwide (or at least major continents) the latest bitcoin block, over and over again. Stretch goals include broadcasting recent chains, recent TX's, and other data. A word about government involvement: Set expectations properly. There are three points at which government is inevitably involved, at some level: (a) getting launch approval, (b) ground station(s) inevitably must be located in some useful geolocation, and (c) frequency selection. Fundamentally, these satellites will be broadcasting public, not-encrypted blockchain data, so the content should not be an issue. Donations accepted at 1M9MyyPsAak7zRjW4D96pTxDaAEpDDZLR7Feb 05 update:Project update #1: PermalinkBitSat architecture, v0.1: PermalinkFiles posted on http://bitsat.org/#/docsSponsors (1 BTC or more): - Mohit Kalra (2 BTC, May 2014)
- Unknown (1 BTC, Apr 2014)
- http://www.redstarmining.com/ (1 BTC, Jan 2014)
- Roger Ver (5 BTC, Dec 2013)
- Erik Voorhees (5 BTC, Dec 2013)
- Rusty Russell (1 BTC, Dec 2013)
- BitcoinGrant.org (25 BTC, Nov 2013)
- Jeff Garzik (1 BTC, Nov 2013)
Standard disclaimer: This is a personal project. Nothing to do with my employer. |
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May I humbly request some help from the Chinese bitcoin community? I am trying to discover my Chinese name, hopefully something short. There is a small discussion on G+ https://plus.google.com/u/0/105424721218711536033/posts/Nk3DzpcoChD but the forums seem like a logical place to ask. Apologies if this is not the right forum. Hope to travel to mainland and HK next year. (hint: ping me, if there is a good bitcoin meetup or conference in China...) |
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Press release URL: http://uptweet.com/viewStory?id=1519Related stories: http://gigaom.com/2013/09/16/more-merchants-using-bitcoin-payment-processor-bitpay-says-it-has-surpassed-10000-clients/http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/16/bitpay-10000-merchants/http://www.coindesk.com/bitpay-now-10000-merchants-payment-processor-network/http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bitpay-surpasses-10000-bitcoin-accepting-merchants-2013-09-16ATLANTA -- September 16, 2013 -- BitPay Inc, the world leader in business solutions for virtual currencies, announces it has over 10,000 approved merchants in 164 countries using its service to accept bitcoin payments. This milestone was reached almost exactly one year after the company approved its 1,000th merchant.
The merchants in BitPay’s directory are diverse internationally, with approximately 50% located in North America, 25% in Europe, and 25% in the rest of the world. Ecommerce merchants account for over 90% of the business, including consumer electronics, precious metals and IT services. Bitcoin lowers the risk and cost of accepting payments in a card not-present situation, such as eCommerce.
BitPay’s merchant service continues to expand its feature set at a rapid pace. Merchants using the popular Quickbooks small business accounting software can now download and import their BitPay sales into Quickbooks.
“Our merchants are thrilled with this ability to import into Quickbooks,” says BitPay CFO Bryan Krohn. “It makes reporting their bitcoin sales just as frictionless as the payment itself.”
The month of August was another record month for BitPay, processing over 10,000 merchant transactions worth over $6.4 million. Year-to-date in 2013, over $34 million worth of bitcoins have been spent on goods and services through merchants using BitPay’s platform.
BitPay’s story is unique in the startup space. Founded by two graduates of Georgia Tech, the company built a working product, acquired customers, and achieved profitability with only the two founders.
After raising their round of seed capital, BitPay has chosen to establish their roots in Atlanta and build their company culture in a city known for innovation, but often overlooked by the SIlicon Valley insiders.
“Atlanta is a hub for financial technology, especially in the payment and merchant acquiring space,” states BitPay CEO Anthony Gallippi. “There’s a cluster of amazing companies here, focused on delivering real results through innovation.”
With pre-built plugins or embedded solutions for 20 of the most popular shopping cart platforms, adding bitcoin as a payment option to a merchant’s webstore can be done in a few minutes, without any programming code.
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Pull request https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/2905 proposes to remove "getwork" RPC from bitcoind: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/GetworkOn mainnet, almost everybody uses a pool (and therefore, not "getwork" directly to bitcoind). Those few who solo mine use a pool server to talk to bitcoind via "getblocktemplate" or other means. Tests show that attempts to solo mine on mainnet via "getwork" lead to delays and problems. On testnet, getwork has a better chance of continuing to work. Nevertheless, the same tools (open source pool servers or p2pool) are available for testnet, obviating the continued need to support getwork. However, at one time, getwork to bitcoind was widely used. I wanted to poke the audience, to gauge response to removing "getwork." If a driving use case remains of which we're unaware, speak up, please. We don't want to break anybody needlessly. |
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URL: http://dfs.ny.gov/about/press2013/memo1308121.pdfreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1k7e18/ny_regulator_memo_notice_of_inquiry_on_virtual/FROM: Benjamin M. Lawsky
, Superintendent of Financial Services
DATE: August 12, 2013
RE: Notice of Inquiry on Virtual Currencies
______________________________________________________________________
New York has a long history of promoting technological innovation – both within the financial sector and across our economy.
As innovative products emerge, it is critical to take steps that allow new technologies and industries to flourish, while also working to ensure that consumers and our national security remain protected.
The emergence of Bitcoin and other virtual currencies has presented a number of unique opportunities and challenges. Building innovative platforms for conducting commerce can help improve the depth and breadth of our nation’s financial system. However, we have also seen instances where the cloak of anonymity provided by virtual currencies has helped support dangerous criminal activity, such as drug smuggling, money laundering, gun running, and child pornography.
If virtual currencies remain a virtual Wild West for narco traffickers and other criminals, that would not only threaten our country’s national security, but also the very existence of the virtual currency industry as a legitimate business enterprise.
Indeed, it is in the common interest of both the public and the virtual currency industry to bring virtual currencies out of the darkness and into the light of day through enhanced transparency. It is vital to put in place appropriate safeguards for consumers and law-abiding citizens.
As such, the Department of Financial Services ( DFS ) has launched an inquiry into the appropriate regulatory guidelines that it should put in place for virtual currencies. DFS has already conducted significant preliminary work regarding this inquiry, including making requests for information from virtual currency firms. Based on that initial work , we are concerned that – at a minimum – virtual currency exchangers may be engaging in money transmission as defined in New York law, which is an activity that is licensed and regulated by DFS.
Under current DFS regulations, firms engaging in money transmission are required to post collateral in order to better safeguard customer account funds . Additionally, they are required to undergo periodic safety and soundness examinations, as well as comply with applicable anti-money laundering laws. These guidelines for money transmitters help protect consumers and root out illegal activity.
However, DFS is also considering whether it should issue new regulatory guidelines specific to virtual currencies – rather than simply apply existing money transmission regulations . As such, we could also move forward with new guidelines that are tailored to the unique characteristics of virtual currencies.
We believe that – for a number of reasons – putting in place appropriate regulatory safeguards for virtual currencies will be beneficial to the long-term strength of the virtual currency industry.
First, safety and soundness requirements help build greater confidence among customers that the funds that they entrust to virtual currency companies will not get stuck in a digital black hole. Indeed, some consumers have expressed concerns about how quickly their virtual currency transactions are processed. Taking steps to ensure that these transactions – particularly redemptions – are processed promptly is vital to earning the faith and confidence of c usto mers.
Second, serving as a money changer of choice for terrorists, drug smugglers, illegal weapons dealers, money launderers, and human traffickers could expose the virtual currency industry to extraordinarily serious of criminal penalties. Taking steps to root out illegal activity is both a legal and business imperative for virtual currency firms.
Finally, both virtual currency companies – and the currencies themselves – have received significant interest from investors and venture capital firms. Similar to any other industry, greater transparency and accountability is critical to promoting sustained, long-term investment.
We look forward to working with the virtual currency industry and other stakeholders as our inquiry proceeds, and we move to put in place appropriate regulatory guardrails to protect consumers and our national security.
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(they would yell at me, if I posted this in the Press section, I think) Thought ya'll might be interested in this piece, Bitcoin, free markets, and wanting your ASIC mining hardware now now http://garzikrants.blogspot.com/2013/08/bitcoin-free-markets-and-wanting-your.htmlComments, corrections and additional examples welcome. Update, content pasted below, on request. --------------------------<snip>---------------------- The reddit comments discussing the Avalon status update are particularly amusing, embodying signature American impatience: "I want something, I want it now, and I will rage at the injustice of instant gratification being delayed." When it comes to Bitcoin mining, the whole idea of buying something without having any real clue when you'll get it is absurd. It should be like any other computer. Buy it, get it shipped to you within a week. No more bullshit. Producing a new computer chip requires engineers with highly specialized design skills, and enormous amounts of capital. $500,000 - $2,000,000 or more. Any mistakes in the chips cost similarly large sums of money to fix. Even with a 100% complete design, production may take months. This is simply not a just-in-time operation. Further, unexpected month-long delays are common. Any mistake or change adds weeks to the schedule. Thus, economics dictates certain realities. Namely, paying your engineers and paying for chip production. Possible funding sources: - Angel investors (rich people write big checks)
- IPO (ASICMINER)
- Pre-orders (BFL, Avalon)
- KickStarter (company can fail to produce, and nobody gets sued)
- Bounty
Let's take them one at a time. - In 2011-2012, no one stepped forward to write big checks.
- ASICMINER IPO'd successfully, on an unregistered-securities exchange. Risky, but it worked.
- Pre-orders, we will discuss separately, below.
- KickStarter-like models do not appear to work well for >$1 million projects (statistical anomalies aside). KickStarter itself is anti-bitcoin.
- Bounties never amount to anything more than pocket change, for real projects.
Essentially, there were two workable models that the free market has shown will work in 2011-2012: IPO on unregistered securities market, or pre-orders. An unregistered securities market clearly appeals to free market libertarians, as the creation of GLBSE and other projects in the bitcoin community demonstrate. It is also a magnet for scams, as experience has shown (Pirate-related pass-through funds were listed on GLBSE). Thus, IPO is a risky endeavor, and in 2011-2012 was unlikely to be successful in producing mining chips. ASICMINER, through the regular exercise of [some levels of] transparency, prevailed in a difficult market. They raised capital, started operations, and have so far maintained sufficient levels of profitability to continue operations. ASICMINER survived the collapse of GLBSE, and continues to pay dividends to shareholders, despite the operator "friedcat" remaining anonymous. Pre-orders are the remaining funding model. This is another model that is fraught with scams. Indeed, there have been many copycats who set up a website, promise ASIC hardware, and attempt to collect money. How to separate these scams from the real operators? That question is the fundamental problem with pre-orders. Unfortunately, pre-orders are also the most straightforward way to fund an ASIC project, if you lack IPO or Angel money. For bitcoin, circa 2011-2012, pre-orders were the most realistic way that a computer chip was going to be produced. At the time, fewer knew about bitcoin, and it was unknown if bitcoin's price -- then under $5.00/bitcoin -- would support mining hardware. It was not obvious there would be a profit. Butterfly Labs and Avalon took that risk, and succeeded. Avalon was out the door first, while Butterfly Labs took over 12 months to begin shipping hardware in volume. Another effort, bASIC, failed, through the operator eventually refunded almost all the pre-order sales money. Today, mid-2013, bitcoin hardware has been proven to sell. BFL, Avalon and ASICMINER proved that hardware can be produced, that customer interest exists on the free market. Several other startups are entering the mining hardware business: CoinTerra, HashFast, Alydian, KNCminer to name a few. Existing players are shipping hardware, and working on next-generation designs. We all want instant gratification. And customers who pre-order mining hardware have a clear economic incentive to want the mining hardware in their hands ASAP -- every day lost costs money. But that must be balanced by setting realistic expectations on the mining hardware businesses. These are all tiny startups, with no existing chip production lines, creating brand new computer chips for an uncertain, volatile bitcoin market whose profitability in future months is unknown. "buy it, get it shipped within a week" is a realistic expectation for a decades-old computer market that mass-produces PCs. As the bitcoin mining hardware market matures, we will start to see this too. Many of the new mining hardware companies are learning from the BFL/Avalon experience, and competing with enhanced pricing and customer service models. The free market at work. The bitcoin mining hardware market is what it is, and could not have been accomplished any other way. |
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U.S. judge says SEC can pursue Bitcoin-related lawsuit URL: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/06/us-court-sec-bitcoin-idUSBRE97517G20130806U.S. regulators got the green light from a federal judge to proceed with their lawsuit against a Texas man accused of running a Ponzi scheme using Bitcoin, the virtual online money system.
Trendon Shavers of Bitcoin Savings & Trust had challenged the Securities and Exchange Commission's case against him, saying the regulator had no jurisdiction to sue him because the Bitcoin investments he offered are not securities or subject to any U.S. regulation.
But U.S. Magistrate Judge Amos L. Mazzant in the Eastern District of Texas ruled on Tuesday that his Bitcoin investments "meet the definition of investment contract, and as such, are securities."
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Just got 2x BFL SC Single miners, but cannot find my Kill-A-Watt. Has anybody posted amps/watts numbers for the ASIC Single anywhere? Thanks. Need to make sure I don't blow a circuit or three.  |
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URL: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/2844Adding an HTTP REST API for bitcoind has been occasionally tossed about as a useful thing. Such an API would essentially provide a decentralized block explorer capability, enabling easy external access to transaction/address/block indices that we maintain. The first two implemented API calls are simple, returning a block or TX given a simple query string based on block hash, e.g. GET /rest/block/BLOCK-HASH
This can be easily accessed via command line cURL/wget utilities. Output formats -- binary, hex or json -- may be selected by append a "/json" or "/hex" suffix to the URL, e.g. GET /rest/tx/TX-HASH/json
The general goal of the HTTP REST interface is to access unauthenticated, public blockchain information. There is no plan to add wallet interfacing/manipulation via this API. |
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URL: https://github.com/jgarzik/txtooltxtool is a command line tool written in node.js that interfaces with Bitcoin-Qt/bitcoind, to automate or assist in building interesting, unusual, complicated or just plain odd transactions. The goal is to demonstrate advanced bitcoin features, and make it easier for users to experiment. The intended audience has a basic awareness of how bitcoin transactions look and work. The theory of operation and full list of commands may be reviewed at https://github.com/jgarzik/txtool/blob/master/READMEInitially, two working examples are presented: Further examples such as decentralized crowdfunding and atomic coin swapping will be demonstrated soon. |
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