The ongoing block size dispute has catapulted to the center of attention again. One of the most talked about developments right now is Segregated Witness, of which a public testnet iteration was launched last week. The innovation as recently proposed by Blockstream co-founder and Bitcoin Core developer Dr. Pieter Wuille is a centerpiece of a scalability “roadmap” set out by Bitcoin Core.

But relying on Segregated Witness as the next step of Bitcoin’s scalability process is opposed by the recently launched Bitcoin Core fork Bitcoin Classic. Rather than a Segregated Witness soft fork, Bitcoin Classic prefers to deploy a “cleaner” hard fork in order to increase the block size limit to 2 megabytes.
To find out where the development community stands on this issue, Bitcoin Magazine reached out to library and wallet developers, those who will need to do the heavy lifting in order to utilize Segregated Witness once rolled out.

GreenAddress Implementing Segregated Witness
Segregated Witness offers several improvements to the Bitcoin network. Among these improvements is an effective block size limit increase to a range between 1.75 and 2 megabytes, depending on the types of transactions. While this has received a lot of attention in context of the block size dispute, many developers are actually more excited about the other improvements to the Bitcoin protocol offered by the innovative solution.

GreenAddress and GreenBits developer Lawrence Nahum is in the advanced stage of implementing Segregated Witness into GreenAddress.

“GreenAddress already implemented some basic support for it on the Segregated Witness testnet,” Nahum said. “We started experimenting because we think Segregated Witnesses is a great enabler. It fixes the unintentional malleability issues, and thus allows for trustless smart contracts as well as lower fees for multi-signature transactions which we use extensively. It’s really exciting.”

More https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/lawrence-nahum-bitcoin-wallet-greenaddress-already-integrating-segregated-witness-1453824522

Coin Center Director of Research Peter Van Valkenburgh has prepared a report regarding the regulation of various cryptocurrencies within a traditional securities framework.

Although the report found cryptocurrencies attached to public blockchains, such as bitcoin and ether, should not be regulated as securities, the team behind the document did find that the definition of a security may apply to some of the more centralized crypto-assets currently on the market.

Most of Coin Center’s report provided a general overview of Bitcoin and related technologies for regulators, but the end of the report mainly focused on the Howey test. The Howey test is a way to figure out whether something should be defined as a security and is defined by the following parameters in the report:

“An investment contract for purposes of the Securities Act means a contract, transaction or scheme whereby a person [1] invests his money in [2] a common enterprise and is led to [3] expect profits [4] solely from the efforts of the promoter or a third party, [excluded factors] it being immaterial whether the shares in the enterprise are evidenced by formal certificates or by nominal interests in the physical assets employed in the enterprise.”

Bitcoin and many altcoins are not well-suited for the Howey test, which is why the report recommends regulators do not treat these cryptocurrencies as securities. The Howey test becomes a bit more viable when talking about blockchain initiatives that have low transparency, involve a pre-sale of tokens, or a more centralized approach to transaction validation (such as a permissioned ledger).
The Coin Center report on treating cryptocurrencies as securities went through all four prongs of the Howey test to determine which types of crypto-assets should be regulated.

Read more https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/coin-center-report-which-digital-currencies-should-be-regulated-as-securities-1453816396

The notion of Bitcoin as digital gold is as old as the decentralized crypto-currency itself. Even in original writings, Bitcoin creator(s) Satoshi Nakamoto wrote about how he intended to design a digital gold.


For instance, the mining of Bitcoin – which entails computer processes – was intended to mimic the mining of gold. That there will only ever be 21 million bitcoins in existence, as well, is a design intended to mimic gold.

Among the biggest inspirations for Bitcoin is Nick Szabo, the creator of the original bit gold. Nathaniel Popper wrote a book entitled Digital Gold about Bitcoin and its adherents. Trace Mayer, an early Bitcoiner, inspired many people within the gold and silver industry to investigate Bitcoin by explaining how it is gold’s digital corollary.

A major debate has recently erupted amongst Bitcoin programmers, and it appears they intend to change the core protocol that has powered Bitcoin heretofore. One main reason they wish to do this is because the Bitcoin network has not perfectly scaled amid huge growth in its first seven years. Thus, in order to ensure people can still use Bitcoin as a secure payment network, the block size limit must be altered. The block size limit of 1MB in transaction data per approximately ten minutes is not enough if Bitcoin is to be a payment system as many people wish it to be. Proposals currently suggest increasing the block size limit to 2MB and even 20MB. Things are seeming to head in the direction of a conservative block size increase of 2-4MB.

And herein lies the new lens with which to understand Bitcoin, as not a digital gold, but more of a distributed SWIFT payment system. SWIFT, Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, is a network allowing financial institutions worldwide to send and receive information in secure, standardized and reliable environment. This is a more accurate comparison for Bitcoin post-block size increase than gold.

Perhaps, digital gold was never a good descriptor of Bitcoin. There have been many attempts at digital gold, and it could merely be that “digital gold” was more akin to a marketing ploy than anything. There are numerous examples of digital gold in the past: e-dinar, Pecunix, iGolder, gbullion, eCache, and others. These examples never had as much success as Bitcoin, but perhaps that’s precisely because Bitcoin was never digital gold in the first place.

Gold, for most millennials, is an outdated concept. It is a resource riddled with production injustices and environmental degradation. The concept of “digital gold” did not appeal to the lion’s share first. Those who did appreciate bitcoin’s gold-like features were more along the lines of the speculator.

Thus, Bitcoin, for most people, is not “digital gold” nor was it ever. Instead, it has been much more akin to the SWIFT system, a distributed one, in fact, which is very much in line with Dee Hock’s original vision for payment systems like VISA. So, for the purposes of this article, Bitcoin is more like a digital Visa card that is decentralized and allows individuals to do what debit and credit  – that is, SWIFT – do.

What does this mean, then, for Bitcoin? Provided a block size limit is approved and Bitcoin is scaled via programming and network consensus, then it means Bitcoin will continue to grow in the ways it must so people can spend small transactions on Bitcoin quickly and efficiently. It also means transaction fees will increase over time as emphasis goes from the “digital gold” of yesterday to the “distributed SWIFT” of tomorrow.

As a payment system alone, Bitcoin will have to compete with credit and debit cards charging currently almost 3%, approximately, for transactions while offering incentives. Thusly, there are no guarantees these margins will incentivize miners forever, so what happens in the finance and banking industry – in regards to blockchain technology and otherwise – will dictate the future niche of Bitcoin.

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitcoin-is-no-longer-digital-gold-its-a-distributed-swift/

You wouldn’t immediately match an ultra-modern crypto currency with farmland investment in one of the smallest nations in the world, but tiny Vanuatu is blazing a trail for the use of bitcoin.

South Pacific Plantation Management Limited, a business in Efate Island, Vanuatu, has started to accept bitcoin for one acre farm-lets on Malekula, a South Pacific island which is part of the Republic of Vanuatu. For those paying in dollars, each let costs $19,950.

The business, which is working with CoinJar, an Australian bitcoin payments provider, believes the move will bear fruit by boosting overseas investment in the plots, which can be used to grow and sell papaya.

Richard Butler, Project Manager for South Pacific Plantation Management Limited, tells OPP.Today, “I am a strong advocate of innovative technology. Myself and the directors of the company embrace exciting and new ideas readily.

“It seems fitting that people now start embracing the new currency. With the recent South Pacific International Communications cable link providing 4G to one of the world’s smallest nations and by accepting the bitcoin economy, overseas transactions will be easier to facilitate.”

“With stock markets wobbling worldwide, a plan B for capital security is of real concern. Without doubt in the back of all minds in January 2016 is where is that safe haven?

“During the 2008 Leman Brothers crash, or as we call it in the South Pacific, the GFC (Great Financial Crisis) enormous amounts of cash were withdrawn from banks and we all remember recently the lines of frustrated withdrawal customers outside Cyprus banks.”

Bitcoin offers the out-of-box thinker a perceived safe haven free of central bank involvement in transfer fees, Mr Butler says. ”Last week, an ex-Russian breakaway country imposed a 20% tax on all outbound international currency movement from its borders.

“Investing in food producing farmland in the tax-friendly nation of the Republic of Vanuatu with our cluster concept in agriculture Malekula farm lets offers an investment that is out of reach from being diminished by most currency meltdowns and loss of value by state and local government seizure and also provides a cash return.


Read more at http://www.opp.today/south-pacific-plantation-hopes-bitcoin-investment-option-bears-fruit/#H4cCC2kBd0XQ5SU1.99

Emercoin: Leading the way Towards a Decentralized World; An Interview with CCO Jason Cassidy

Emercoin was founded in 2013 as a hybrid of PPCoin and Namecoin and was established with the vision of creating a fully functioning merchant platform.

This was achieved and now Emercoin is at the forefront of crypto development. Over the past 2 years, the project has developed many interesting features.

My favorite feature developed so far is the advertising platform. Coming from a marketing background, I guess I am biased. Although it is simply a pay per click system, having it integrated into a coin is phenomenal. I think this feature will likely get noticed more as the coin expands its base. Next comes the transaction optimizer which tries to find an exact match to a transaction being sent to reduce the return transaction or “Change”. We will talk more about that with Jason in the interview Emercoin has nine services in total including:

DNS – built from namecoin called EMCDNS.

EMCSSH-  Secure shell management system needed by every site admin.

EMCLNX-  Decentralized pay-per-click advertising network.

EMCTTS – Trusted storage for digital timestamps on the blockchain.

EMCDPO – Digital proof of ownership solution for physical or digital goods and services.

InfoCard –  Storage for electronic business cards for use with EMCSSL.

Magnet – Distributed torrent tracker for internet file sharing.

Emercoin was added to Microsoft Azure on it BaaS platform. Although Emercoin is not the first coin added to the platform and the service does not focus on crypto as payment method. The uses of this new service are yet to be fully explored.

Jason Cassidy is the CCO OF Emercoin. He has a background in programming and left Blackberry in 2012 to branch out into crypto.

After launching Canada’s first Blockchain consulting firm (CryptoConsultant.com) and a media company called BlockchainTV, he joined Emercoin  to help  bring his vision of a decentralized world.  Now Jason sits down with me to discuss the future and how Emercoin is leading the way in developing solutions in a decentralized world.

So Jason, it looks like Emercoin is a fully developed platform for commerce providing security, DNS, marketing and even advertising. Tell us a little more about it.

Yes, EMCLNX.  Emercoin has nine (9) services already developed and being used. This separates us from virtually every other digital currency or blockchain platform today.

Why do you think Emercoin hasn’t gotten the recognition that other less developed projects (litecoin, Dash) have gotten?

In my opinion, this has to do with the company’s focus on underpraising and over delivering. I came from a background at BlackBerry where we were constantly going over our projected dates. This was because there was a culture of overpromising and under delivering, and people began to accept this.  I worked hard to try and change that philosophy and BlackBerry during my time. So when I joined the Emercoin group, I was overjoyed to see the team had employed the same mindset. The focus of Emercoin has been on the development of tools and services the public can use.

We were not interested in securing external funding based on promises of technological innovations several years in the future. We wanted to create the future ourselves and then let the market know about our solutions.  I believe that because we took that path to create and innovate over hype and promise, we have “flown under the radar” so to speak.


https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/emercoin-leading-way-towards-decentralized-world-interview-jason-cassidy/

In only a few years, digital currency bitcoin has emerged from the shadows to become something debated by politicians and pondered by economists. Now it is blockchain, the technology that makes bitcoin possible, that is having its moment in the sun: the UK government’s Chief Scientist Sir Mark Walport laid out a possible role for it in delivering public services.

What is the blockchain? In essence it is just a digital ledger – a means to record events that have taken place – but its design provides considerable advantages over other ways of recording transactions. The details of every transaction is stored cryptographically on the blockchain, a stream of linked data available online. The entire blockchain is decentralised, with all those using it creating copies of the blockchain record. This one-version-but-many-copies approach removes the need for a centralised authority, such as a bank or legal body, which also provides protection from a single central point of failure. The blockchain is open and public, and practically impossible to alter a record once the block representing the transaction has been added.

The advantage of decentralisation

This removal of central authorities is seen as a holy grail by some. Using bitcoin in global transactions provides security at low cost, and banks are among those investigating how blockchain or distributed ledgers might replace their monolithic and increasingly dated hardware and software systems. But there has been little implementation of blockchain outside its use in cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.

Some companies have proposed using distributed ledgers as part of their supply chain. Everledger is a firm that records the properties and ownership of diamonds to reduce criminal use or fraud. Provenance is another company doing the same for those wishing to prove the authenticity or fairtrade credentials of their products to customers.

Blockchain provides new technical solutions to situations where trust and authenticity are important. But as with any technology there are positives and negatives – for example, bitcoin’s pseudo-anonymity suits its use by criminals. But in truth almost all crime takes place in the real world with real money: banks we trust pay fines for money laundering, and allegations of unauthorised payments have risen in various sports. Perhaps this most obvious dark side is not the one we should be concerned with.


More http://theconversation.com/blockchain-could-challenge-the-accepted-ways-we-shape-and-manage-society-53647

About a week ago, colleagues were sending me copies of a Medium post ricocheting all over the Internet: a crucial Bitcoin developer, Mike Hearn, was calling it quits. The announcement unsurprisingly spawned media speculation and opinion pieces with headlines like, "RIP Bitcoin, it’s time to move on." Bitcoin’s trading price in US dollars fell by about 10 percent in about 24 hours.
But take it from an admitted Bitcoin skeptic—the cryptocurrency isn’t anywhere close to being dead. At least, it's not dying anytime soon.

Hearn is certainly much more knowledgeable about Bitcoin than I am, and he outlines a compelling case for why Bitcoin is in crisis. I hadn’t known, for example, that the blockchain is controlled by a majority of miners based in China where outbound international traffic has high latency. I didn’t realize there’s a huge drag on completing Bitcoin-based transactions. And after reading Hearn’s previous piece arguing in favor of the Bitcoin XT fork, I didn’t realize so many people hated the idea. Users wanted the term banned entirely from a prominent Bitcoin forum.

I maintain there's no way the vast majority of people who live in the banked world would prefer to use something that can be frankly so confounding in practice. And all of Hearn's evidence suggests that Bitcoin, as it stands today, is in serious crisis. But Bitcoin has been pronounced dead nearly 100 times since its inception. As skeptical as I remain, there’s simply no evidence that Bitcoin as we know it is imploding in any discernible way.

More : http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/01/three-reasons-why-bitcoin-isnt-dead-yet/

I cannot pick a favorite that is impossible, there are just too many to pick from, Japanese, Chinese, American, Italian, Greek, English and everything else in between! And it depends what mood I'm in also

They taste really nice with cream garlic and white wine i think that they taste lovely you should try them with that

They are one of the most politically incorrect show around and I think that's why I like it. South Park makes fun of or use sterotypical ideas towards every group on the planet, including animals. When I want mindless humor I really do enjoy it

Command and Conquer Generals Zero Hour and it has been my favorite game every since i played it in 2005.

As we suggested yesterday, Bitcoin price moved in the corridor of $390 - $410. And traders can not choose a direction for further price movement. On Monday, the major stock markets faced a decline that can be seen as a technical rebound after rising on Friday.

Yesterday, the release of the Eurozone business climate index in Germany (IFO) on business sentiment and business conditions was published. The survey involved 7,000 companies and as a result IFO showed 107.3 ​​(previous figure of 108.6) which is the smallest data point for the past 11 months. IFO is closely interconnected with Germany's GDP and its decline was alarmingly perceived by traders in the currency markets. The official release of the IFO noted that the German economy began the year with an unpleasant surprise.

The United States today will publish an index of consumer confidence. This index measures the level of consumer confidence and consumer spending forecasts. High ratings will have a positive effect on the Dollar, and we may expect it today.

Considering this, we expect today, January 26 2016, the strengthening of the US Dollar, which would put pressure on Bitcoin. We assume the price movement will be within a range of $380 - $405. The support level is $380, while the resistance level is $405.

http://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-price-traders-germany

What I love about this question is how it highlights the fact we don't have freedoms. Oh, helping with money laundering they'll argue. Right... because police actually can't find the real crime
Meanwhile, the USD remains the currency of criminals

A decentralized social network founded by Reddit’s former cryptocurrency engineer has moved forward to the proof-of-concept stage.

Launched in August 2015, DATT (Decentralize All The Things) is the product of Ryan X Charles, a veteran of bitcoin startup BitPay, as well as Reddit’s short-lived cryptocurrency program. Now, as a continuation of his efforts, Charles is seeking to launch DATT, which he says is about six months away from completion.

The product received widespread attention from major publications such as Wired, Fortune and the Business Insider at a time when public furor over censorship on Reddit was high.

Moving forward, Charles is seeking to find a technical co-founder who understands blockchain and web technologies. However, he says the basic technology is already up and run for more tech-savvy users.

Charles told CoinDesk:

More http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-social-network-datt-proof-of-concept/

Content theft has persisted as one of the worst ills of the internet generation. Data breaches and identity thefts have always left victims with a sour taste. Bitcoin wallets have been hacked and owners’ wealth stolen on several cases. Are there ways to ultimately prevent one’s wallet from being hacked? Is there any way of recovering stolen funds from a hacked wallet? Are exchanges obliged to refund Bitcoins stolen from a virtual wallet?

Every hoster of virtual wallets and exchanges will always inform wallet owners of the importance of employing sometimes very basic, and at other times a bit more sophisticated measures in safeguarding their wealth. These hosts and exchanges basically provide the avenues and systems of enhancing the security of BitcoinCT r:  6 wallets, yet the buck stops with wallet owners to ensure that their wallets are secure, at least most of the time.

Nevertheless, due to one reason or another, certain individuals may have the security of their wallets breached, some people have even had some or all of their wealth stolen. Most people who have been in such a situation have barely known what next to do. Which gives rise to the question:

What do you do when your wallet is hacked?

A product manager of a hardware wallet who prefers to remain anonymous in responding to the above question says:



read more http://cointelegraph.com/news/security-bitcoin-wallet-hacked

The IFC is using its new financial innovation division to invest in trade finance “disrupters” as a means of bridging the gap between the technology and banking sectors.

In an interview with GTR, Giri Jadeja, who will become global head of financial innovation at the World Bank’s commercial arm on March 1, said that its investment activity will bring more customers into traditional banking channels, at a time when banks are looking for ways to compete with new players.

The IFC has invested both debt and equity in a number of high-profile, non-traditional financial players in recent years. The financial innovation unit, based in Bangkok, has invested US$100mn in 13 technology companies over the past 12 months, with an aim of increasing this to around US$500mn.

Since 2014, the IFC has issued a number of high-profile loans to the Chinese company Ant Financial, a member of the AliBaba Group, for lending to Chinese businesses. Among these was a US$160mn facility and a US$80mn facility, with the specific objective of supporting female entrepreneurs in China.

Jadeja hopes that its relationship with Ant Financial will allow it to work with the traditional banking sector to transform SME lending through the use of Big Data.

“Rather than using the traditional bank channels to provide funding to SMEs, here’s another way to meet SME needs. Ant Financial buys data from AliBaba, one of the largest buyer-seller portals that exists. It uses the flow of goods and money between these SMEs to make sound credit decisions.

Read more http://www.gtreview.com/news/asia/ifc-sees-technology-as-the-future-of-trade-finance/

EU Not to Crackdown on Cryptocurrencies Despite Terror Financing Fears

A senior official from the European Commission indicated that the body prefers not to create new regulations specifically for Bitcoin.

Following calls from high level European politicians in the aftermath of the Paris terrorist attacks to regulate bitcoin and focus attention on cryptocurrencies  raised concerns of a crackdown, it now seems the EU has decided to take a softer approach after all.

At a public hearing on “virtual currencies” in the European Parliament a senior financial services official from the European Commission, Olivier Salles, indicated that the EU executive body prefers not to create new regulations specifically for the field.  “It’s easy to fail when you regulate, you can be too early and too late. From the European Commission’s perspective, we are more on the monitoring side. We want to understand better what is happening,” Salles is quoted by Reuters.

This suggests that the commission thinks the situation is still too fluid for them to fully grasp where it is going or that it simply fears hasty regulation written in an overreaction to an unrelated terror attack might strangle the European blockchain industry in its infancy.

The EU also already has laws on the books regarding terror financing and money laundering and its executive body is looking at possible ways to enforce them in the cryptocurrencies space, however “we are not in a hurry to regulate financial products linked to virtual currencies”, according to Salles.

As you may remember, the European statements of intentions to crackdown on cryptocurrencies came shortly after leaders of the G7 nations expressed suspicion that ISIS uses Bitcoin to fund terror operations. They proposed tighter regulation of FinTech companies, such as those dealing in Bitcoin, who help facilitate anonymous cross-border transfers of money.

http://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/news/eu-not-to-crackdown-on-cryptocurrencies-despite-terror-financing-fears/

Bitcoin has a ways to go when it comes to being understood by the general public and even by today’s bitcoin users. A recent study by Janne Lindqvist, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and a member of the Rutgers Wireless Information Network Laboratory, revealed that people who have not used bitcoin don’t think they ever can use it.

The study also found that bitcoin users are not well informed about how bitcoin works. They overestimate how private transactions are.

Study To Publish In May



The study will be published at the annual Association for Computing Machinery’s Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in May, in San Jose, Calif. The conference, known as CHI, is the premier international conference on human-computer interaction. Assisting Lindqvist in the study were graduate students Gradeigh D. Clark and Xianyi Gao.

Lindqvist said the interviews were done a year before bitcoin developer Mike Hearn publicly stated bitcoin has failed, an event that drew major media attention.

The Rutgers researchers interviewed 10 bitcoin users and 10 non-users about their perceptions of the digital currency.


Read more : https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/rutgers-study-misconceptions-common-bitcoins-privacy-ease-use/

Digital Asset Holdings has released new details about its long-secretive Hyperledger blockchain platform.

The information follows last month's announcement that the code was to be moved to, and developed in collaboration with, the Linux Foundation, and comes just days after Digital Asset raised more than $50m from a number of financial incumbents.

A number of major companies have already made commitments to what has been called the Linux Foundation's Open Ledger Project, including IBM, JP Morgan and Wells Fargo. At the time, Digital Asset was unique among them, however, as its contributions were to go beyond code in that it would provide the brand "Hyperledger", which it acquired in 2015, for use.

Less clear were the technical specifics of Digital Asset's specific approach to blockchain technology.

Founded in 2014, the startup has long categorized itself as a software provider that leverages "distributed infrastructure" to deliver "asset settlement" services to customers, terminology that didn't offer much insight into its motives beyond identifying its target market.

However, a statement released from Digital Asset last Friday, further details the technical side of the project, which it described as a "enterprise-ready blockchain server with a client API".

The release continued:

Digital Asset's writing suggests Hyperledger will be positioned as a "data backbone" that coordinates data across a client's services and a low-level "communication and consensus layer", one that will aim to "upgrade" the global financial infrastructure.

"The goal of Hyperledger is to allow expansion of the data backbone concept to the multi-organization level," it continued, adding:

Read more : http://www.coindesk.com/digital-asset-new-details-hyperledger-blockchain-platform/

CNN Money reports

Fintech entrepreneur Wences Casares joined the board on Tuesday, PayPal announced Wednesday. The move has been interpreted as the beginning of a new phase in PayPal’s timid love story with Bitcoin, which could conceivably culminate in open adoption.

“We’ve entered a period of unprecedented disruption in payments and financial services driven by the mass adoption of mobile technology and the digitization of cash,” said PayPal President and CEO Dan Schulman. “Wences’ long and successful track record as an international fintech entrepreneur with a focus on next-generation payment and cryptocurrency is a perfect fit for PayPal at this time. His unique line of sight into the future of commerce is ideally aligned with PayPal’s vision of transforming the management and movement of money for people around the globe.”

The fact that cryptocurrency and the transformation of money transfer are explicitly mentioned together in PayPal’s official announcement is a telling sign. According to CNN Money , the appointment of Casares to the PayPal board of directors is yet another vote of confidence in Bitcoin’s technology. PayPal, the leading company in Internet-based payments, had already shown interest in Bitcoin payments and the distributed blockchain technology that powers the Bitcoin network, and taken the first cautious steps toward integrating blockchain technology in its operations.

One of the clearest indications of PayPal’s interest in Bitcoin is Paypal’s subsidiary Braintree. The company, which was acquired by eBay (the former parent company of PayPal) for $800 million in September 2013 and became part of PayPal after the split, permits merchants to accept Bitcoin payments seamlessly in partnership with Coinbase. The Braintree Bitcoin payment service is currently in public beta.

“No doubt a financial technology visionary, Casares has become best known for pioneering Bitcoin in recent times and that’s exactly why PayPal has added him to its board,” notes TechCrunch. “It’s exciting to see PayPal, the daddy of online payments and a true disruptor when it started out, open itself up to these new possibilities.” Casares is well positioned to help PayPal in identifying and acquiring promising Bitcoin companies and unlocking new blockchain-based opportunities for its business worldwide.

“I am honored to serve on the board of an iconic global company dedicated to driving the transformation of money on a global scale,” said Casares. “I look forward to working together with the PayPal board and leadership team to continue to deliver their compelling vision.”

Casares is the CEO of Xapo, a Swiss company that offers Bitcoin digital wallets and debit cards. Xapo, which has raised $40 million to date, announced in May that it was relocating its corporate headquarters to Zurich, Switzerland, to take advantage of the country’s strong privacy and banking secrecy. Xapo’s primary deep cold storage vault is also located in Switzerland, with additional secure sites deployed around the globe.

The company takes aggressive initiatives to promote Bitcoin payments worldwide. For example, in April Xapo partnered with social network Taringa!, the second-most-popular social network after Facebook and one of the main destinations in the Latin American Web, to compensate its content-providing members in bitcoins, offering a service that could boost Bitcoin adoption in the region.
Members of the Bitcoin community have wondered if this is just the first of ambitious and aggressive initiatives by PayPal. For example, PayPal could integrate Xapo in its own operations, to complement Braintree’s merchant-facing infrastructure with appropriate consumer-facing services. Another possibility is that Xapo could be acquired and become a PayPal company.

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/paypal-unprecedented-disruption-in-payments-and-financial-services-1453741291