Bitmart.co.nz was set up based on owner Chris Dawson’s inkling that crypto-currency is an integral part of the future of trading.

“The enthusiasm of the growing Bitcoin community and their eagerness to help establish a thriving digital currency economy in New Zealand really solidifies my belief that Bitcoin is here to stay,” he told Stuff.co.nz.

The First National BNAK announced that it will be opening the world’s first Bitcoin store in Montevideo, Uruguay. The Cofres (safes) swap point will be the first-of-its-kind Bitcoin and Swiftcoin brick and mortar location where people can go to exchange crypto-currency in over the counter fashion with an actual teller.

This “old-school” approach may be just what the private digital currency needs to develop further as the average person still does not understand exactly what Bitcoin is, let alone how to buy, sell or use it for everyday things.

BitcoinWoman Magazine and Ultracoin have announced that they are partnering to sponsor Elsa Hammond in the Great Pacific Race 2014.

The digital currency world will be trekking to London this summer for the second CoinSummit of the year and third overall. The previous CoinSummit convention was held in March in San Francisco and featured a plethora of speeches and panel discussions from leading cryptocurrency entrepreneurs, VC and angel investors, hedge fund professionals, and bitcoin enthusiasts. The London convention will feature nothing less.

I'm glad that Bitcoin become mainstream and now I can use my digital currency as a method of payment for goods and services. But will it profitable for owners of hotels?

Yesterday was day one of China’s first-ever Global Bitcoin Summit in Beijing. The summit comes during a rough patch for Bitcoin in China as eleven of the country’s major banks have ceased dealing with customers using the digital currency. Despite even more setbacks at the last minute, the summit is so far a success.

An important consideration for anyone using cryptocurrencies is the ease of buying and selling them, while safe in the knowledge that the chosen exchange is reputable and trustworthy.
Further to the first part of our review of ten exchanges, CoinTelegraph turns its attention to safety and the transaction process to give a slick overview of each one’s pros and cons.

Keeping your money in Swiss banks seems a bit 80s and a movie cliche now. I guess people might not need offshore banks eventually with Bitcoin, but I bet that's also one of the main reasons the powers that be will try and attack it with too.

Who does the little drawings you've started using now? Some of them are pretty cool (the little lego Dorian man is still my favourite).

Further to CoinTelegraph's investigation into Bitcoin's potentially lethal impact on the banks, The Financial Times reported Tuesday that Switzerland has agreed to share the identities of foreign owners of Swiss bank accounts with their home countries.

Vienna is gearing up to host the first Bitcoin Conference in Central Europe. The Central European Bitcoin Expo (CEBE) 2014 will be held in Austria’s capital from May 31-June 1 at Austria Center Vienna.  Visitors to the Expo can expect a wide array of presentations, speeches, exhibitions, and panel discussions hovering around Bitcoin in Europe.

The true value of bitcoin is in both the currency and the revolutionary technology. I agree it's not a 'regular currency' as they put it, but disagree sternly that it's not a currency at all (as some people allege).

This sounds interesting, I wonder if they will be doing any gold giveaways. 

A euphemistic way to describe the development in the price of Bitcoin is ‘volatile’. Still in relative infancy, revealing its true value is hard, if not impossible. But, if you really want to have a go at determining the value of Bitcoin, try to look at it as a technology, not as a currency.

A new face has been introduced to the digital currency world: gold. Minacoin, a new cryptocurrency that will fully launched by June, doeseverything Bitcoin is supposed to do i.e. peer-to-peer monetary transfers over a de-centralized network. Except Minacoin is going into unchartered digital waters by backing the currency with gold.

Minacoin founders Melvin Ng and David Gallo have backed up their upcoming cryptocurrency with two 400 oz. of gold valued at US$1,050,000.

While China has been making the Bitcoin headlines for all the wrong reasons lately, the Global Bitcoin Summit (GBS) 2014 in Beijing should help to reverse investor fears. China has been a vital part of the Bitcoin world since the digital currency’s inception. Recently though news about Bitcoin in China has been hovering around the recent crackdown of by the People’s Bank of China, although a few silver linings poke through every once in a while. This weekend, a lot of these situations and more will be addressed at the Global Bitcoin Summit 2014 (GBS) in Beijing.

Hmm.. not sure how much demand there will be for people to spend their coins on Lego, but it's always nice to see more merchants, and especially stores that accept only cryptocurrencies.

And is that Dorian's face on the little lego man?  

Brickchain, the world’s first online LEGO store that only accepts digital currency, has opened its virtual doors.

The store is a kind of nerd fantasy land where one can spend cryptocurrencies to buy LEGO sets. Today customers may choose Bitcoin, Litecoin or Dogecoin as payment methods, and more currencies are going to be added soon. All prices are displayed immediately in one of the selected currencies.