BITCOIN NEWS EVRYDAY! From multiple sources.

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Ukraine Protestors Turn to Bitcoin to Ease Cash Crisis
Jon Southurst (@southtopia) | Published on February 27, 2014 at 12:32 GMT | Lifestyle, News

The dust is yet to settle on the recent, often violent protests in Ukraine that began last November and saw at least 82 people killed and hundreds injured, many seriously. President Viktor Yanukovych was removed from office and has gone into hiding.

On the ground in the capital, Kiev, particularly around the protests’ focal point, the central square known as Maidan Nezalezhnosti or simply ‘Maidan’, there are thousands of people volunteering to deal with the aftermath as winter drags on.

Field surgeries and hospitals treat the wounded, kitchens feed the crowds, blankets and clothing are distributed to those who need them, and people with vehicles shuttle everything around.

Not only is this a major logistical and people-management feat to co-ordinate, but it must all be paid for somehow. So, expatriate Ukrainians around the world have joined the fight to campaign and raise funds to assist the struggle back home.


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Sending the funds home is another matter. PayPal only allows money to be sent out of Ukraine, while international bank transfers can take days to complete. Much of the time, transfers happen through friends and trust networks.

This week sees a new campaign to raise funds directly via bitcoin. Photos are beginning to appear online with protestors holding up QR code signs, as part of a co-ordinated effort to collect donations from anywhere in the world, in any amount, in an instant.

On the ground (and the Web)

Organizing the campaign at the Kiev end is Nastasia Pustova, part of a network of 900 volunteers. Having worked as a manager in the advertising industry for 10 years and more recently as a strategist, she knows all about social media marketing and image management, as well as dealing with tough deadlines and team management.

She recently – “and by accident”, she says – provoked the creation of an activist group on Facebook that collected donations for the protestors and supporters, and now spends 12 to 16 hours a day at the keyboard co-ordinating her team.

Jake Smith, a bitcoin entrepreneur, now based in Beijing, contacted Pustova after seeing a posting on Listserve about the situation, to see if she would be interested in building bitcoin into the campaign.

“I’d heard a lot about bitcoin – many of my friends are geeky guys working abroad. Bitcoin was often joked about, but I didn’t get into much detail until Jake contacted me,” she said.

Does she think bitcoin could be useful as a day-to-day tool for transactions between locals as well as to remit money from overseas?

”The way I see it, the main obstacle for bitcoin here is that it’s only possible to use online currencies and e-money (such as bitcoin and PayPal) for online purchases outside Ukraine. So the problem here is not in technical infrastructure, but in the legal and financial one.”

The majority of Ukrainians prefer to do their social networing via Russia-based social network Vkontakte, with Facebook as a secondary option.

Pustova says her statistics revealed Internet penetration for over 14-year-olds in Ukraine is 42%, with about 17.2m people being regular users. Fourteen per cent of its 44.6m population have smartphones.

These figures will probably increase, she says, “because gadgets are getting cheaper, as well as mobile Internet, and they become affordable to more and more people”.

The expat connection

Assisting Pustova from the Czech Republic is Viktor Kiyashko, one of those Ukrainian expats living abroad and helping collect funds and channel them to local coordinators.

Working as an IT Manager for DHL Information Services in Prague, Kiyashko says he has transferred the equivalent of over $15,000 so far, sometimes needing to convert currencies multiple times and using his own money to pay a fee for each one.

“At the beginning via PayPal it was around 7-8%, as I was doing four conversions. Now it’s less, as I do it via friends who give their money now and will wait for me to give it back to them later,” he said.

”The benefit I have is living in the EU, where banking and financial systems are a bit more advanced than in Ukraine. [Since the downfall of Yanukovych] it’s better, as there’s no such hurry, but still people need help and can’t wait for official banking transfer dates, which can take weeks.”

The fees themselves don’t bother him so much: “If you have wounded people, and need money now, the same day, you don’t care about that.”

To get around the financial system’s roadblocks, he has been using a kind of hawala system, holding the funds himself and promising to pay friends in Ukraine back at a future date.

Kiyashko said he wasn’t familiar with bitcoin until Jake Smith explained it to him as well.

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Bitcoins to hryvnia

There is still one more problem: Since there is no widespread local bitcoin community yet, once the bitcoins are in Ukrainian hands they need to be converted back into the local currency, hryvnia.

The only bitcoin exchange readily available to Ukrainians in their home country is BTC-e, and the remaining option is to use local face-to-face traders, such as those using LocalBitcoins.

“There’s no Ukrainian e-commerce or other service working with bitcoin,” Pustova said.

Ukraine resident Roman Skaskiw, an American who lives and runs a bitcoin group in the city of Lviv, says the revolution will mean people are looking for new ideas. That, and a 20% plunge in the hryvnia’s value over the past couple of days could raise interest in alternatives.

“The biggest obstacle is a paucity of local businesses accepting bitcoin. I’m trying to change that too. But for now, most people see difficulty in changing it into cash and grow sceptical,” he said.

Culture shift

Unfortunately, there may also be issues with government regulation. Just a couple of weeks ago, the National Bank of Ukraine issued one of those ‘central bank warnings’ about bitcoin risks and indicated local bitcoin businesses must register with local financial regulatory agencies.

Neighbouring Russia has recently banned bitcoin use altogether.

That said, financial regulations are unlikely to be a priority in the chaos of Ukraine’s current political environment. Police and security forces are widely mistrusted following the brutal violence they meted out to protestors over the past few months, and exactly who the authorities even are at this stage remains unknown.

An interim government is being set up this week, with prominent activists likely to be in the new cabinet.

The revolution continues, in many ways.

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London Theatre Ticket Agency First in World to Accept Bitcoin
Nermin Hajdarbegovic | Published on February 27, 2014 at 13:37 GMT | Merchants, News

Earlier today, leading theatre ticket agency London Theatre Direct announced that it is accepting bitcoin payments – making it the world’s first.

The agency has tapped BitPay for its processing solution and hopes to accept more alternative currencies in the future. The agency says it is “leading the way” in supporting bitcoin and it is providing some of the best theatre London has to offer in exchange for your hard earned Satoshis.

“Bitcoin is an exciting, experimental, decentralized digital currency that enables instant payments to anyone, anywhere in the world. We want to embrace new methods of accepting payments online,” managing director Francis Hellyer said.

“Although Theatreland is typically a little slower on the uptake of newer technologies, we have been pushing very hard over the past few years to set an example to the industry by experimenting with new technologies.”

Hellyer added that the costs saved by more advanced payment methods like bitcoin can be passed down to consumers, resulting in cheaper and more secure transactions that are mobile-friendly.

The company says it is among the first major UK websites to accept bitcoin as payment and that it is proud to do its part in promoting bitcoin, by allowing Londoners to enjoy their favourite shows for bitcoins.

While London Theatre Direct is a big player in its niche, it is by no means the only bitcoin-friendly merchant in London.

The city currently boasts a bitcoin voucher shop, various bitcoin pubs and a number of companies are acting as middlemen by offering consumers the chance to buy bitcoins and use them to buy tangible goods in thousands of stores that don’t ordinarily accept the currency.

However, the city still does not yet have a bitcoin ATM, but two firms are planning to install a few machines soon.

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Nearly 150 Strains of Malware Are After Your Bitcoins
Nermin Hajdarbegovic | Published on February 27, 2014 at 15:42 GMT | Crime, Wallets

Malware warning
Computer security firm Dell SecureWorks has managed to identify 146 types of bitcoin malware in the wild.

The company’s researchers found the distinct breeds of malware had been specifically designed to steal bitcoins – a number of them presenting quite a danger to owners with coins stored either online or on their computers.

The firm concluded that the number of Windows-compatible cryptocurrency stealing malware (CCSM) strains has gone up in line with bitcoin’s increase in value.

The total of 146 strains is up from 45 a year ago, and 13 two years ago, the researchers say. The biggest spike came after bitcoin briefly broke the $1,000 mark late last year.

Cyber criminals tend to pursue high-growth markets. There has been a lot of focus on smartphones lately, and bitcoin is an obvious target on more than one level.

While most smartphone malware will steal personal info and cause various problems, bitcoin-targeted strains offer the added benefit to the criminals of stealing money with relative ease, and it appears that many can’t resist the allure of bitcoiners’ digital wallets.

Wallets in their sights

The most common type of CCSM is designed to go after digital wallets, for obvious reasons. The malware searches infected computers for wallet software – either by looking in specific locations or by searching all drives found on the system.

Once a wallet is located, the malware uploads it to a remote server, allowing the attacker all the time they need to crack the keys and steal the coins.

Many strains also log the victim’s key strokes, so the attacker does not even have to bother with any cracking. The keylogger provides all the passwords and credentials they will need to pull off a successful heist.

Some malware strains even trick people into sending bitcoins to the attacker.

These types detect when a bitcoin address is copied to the clipboard and put a different one in its place. When the user tries to paste the original during a bitcoin transaction, the substitute address is inserted and the funds are sent to the attacker.

This is also the most sophisticated angle of attack employed by the malware creators, as it does not require data to be sent to a remote server and can operate autonomously, making it much more challenging to detect.

Just recently, the Pony botnet managed to steal $220,000 worth of bitcoins from 30 different types of digital wallets.

Authentication risks

Although two-factor authentication is proving very popular in the bitcoin world, it is still vulnerable to attack. It does offer an added level of security, but advanced malware can successfully fool it.

Several exchanges are using two-factor authentication using one-time PINs, but some malware developers are one step ahead, with CCSM strains that can detect such systems and intercept the PIN as it is used. They then open a hidden browser window and simply log in from the victim’s computer.

Another issue of concern is that Dell SecureWorks found that standard antivirus scanners were incapable of detecting roughly 50% of the CCSMs in circulation.

Windows targeted

Unsurprisingly, Windows is by far the most popular platform for CCSM developers.

Researchers found that 99% of active bitcoin malware is targeted at Windows users, so those running Mac OS X or Linux are in a much more secure position.

Mac owners shouldn’t relax completely, however – most of the efforts to protect users from malware are aimed at Windows systems too, and the arrival of a serious malware threat could be bad news.

There is no word from the researchers on how Android and other mobile operating systems are affected by malware.

Many users overlook security on their mobile devices, but it should be pointed out that Android is by far the most popular platform for mobile malware developers.

Along with the facts that Apple does not allow bitcoin apps, and that many bitcoin users who need a mobile wallet are turning to Android, this sounds like a huge threat in the making for those using that platform.

With all this in mind, Dell SecureWorks is advising bitcoin users to switch to alternative wallets like Electrum and Armory, which use a split arrangement for key storage and appear to be the most secure option at the moment.

Of course, don’t forget that there are plenty of cold storage solutions out there too. Or you could even use the CoinDesk guide to make a paper wallet for your bitcoins.

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Bitcoin Foundation to Senator: US Shouldn’t Turn Away from Innovation
Pete Rizzo (@pete_rizzo_) | Published on February 27, 2014 at 17:24 GMT | Analysis, Bitcoin Foundation, News, Regulation, US & Canada

The outcry over US Senator Joe Manchin’s 26th February letter calling for an outright federal ban on bitcoin came vicious and swift, with the bitcoin community taking to message boards and blogs en masse to deride the West Virginia democrat as out of touch and biased in his motives.

On 27th February, they got some additional support.

The Bitcoin Foundation has formally issued a response to Manchin’s letter that aims to inform him of the benefits digital currency could provide to the financial system and to consumers around the world, provided the technology is allowed to grow and develop.

Penned by general counsel Patrick Murck, the message took an understanding approach to Manchin’s concern for recent events, but cautioned him that the risks are “not as dire” as suggested.

Murck moved to mitigate growing concern that Mt. Gox’s issues were indicative of business practices across the industry, saying:

“We believe that the failure of one foreign-based exchange should not darken the prospects for Bitcoin businesses.”

Furthermore, he discussed the work the Bitcoin Foundation has done to speak with top regulators as part of an effort to ease their concerns, detailed the as-yet-untapped proof of ownership benefits of the protocol and cited the demise of Silk Road as a positive step for the community.

The letter also addressed the economic impact of a potential bitcoin ban:

“We do not believe that this is the right time in U.S. economic history to turn away from innovations that offer improvements in the jobs picture and the economy.”

The full response stopped short of pointing out inaccuracies in the letter, though other responses from the community were eager to provide this analysis.

To view Murck’s complete response, read the full text below:

 

Dear Senator Manchin:

We read with interest your recent letter to federal regulators regarding Bitcoin. Your interest in protecting Americans is genuine, of course, and laudable. We believe the consensus in Washington, D.C., is the right one for protecting consumers and growing the American economy: the U.S. should foster the benefits of Bitcoin while mitigating the risks.

To that end, we offer the following information to help improve your and others’ consideration of the Bitcoin protocol, its many potential benefits, and the risks. We hope to be a valuable resource to you and your office, as we have been to many others in Congress and in relevant U.S. federal agencies.

The Bitcoin Foundation is a member-driven non-profit organization dedicated to serving the business, technology, government relations, and public affairs needs of the Bitcoin community. The foundation works to protect and standardize the Bitcoin protocol and software, to broaden the use of Bitcoin through public education and by fostering a safe and sane legal and regulatory environment, and to support local Bitcoin efforts by connecting a network of Bitcoin communities worldwide.

In the past several months, we have been invited to testify and present in a variety of settings, formal and informal, helping to educate congressional staff and government agencies about Bitcoin. Most notably, we participated in the first congressional hearing on Bitcoin hosted by Senator Carper, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, on November 18, 2013. I testified about Bitcoin’s potential for increasing global financial inclusion, expanding human liberty, strengthening privacy protections for the law-abiding, and providing a stable money supply for those in countries where the local currency is poorly managed. As you know, the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, also held a hearing on virtual currencies on November 19, 2013.

These hearings included witnesses from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network in the Department of the Treasury, from the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Secret Service. The hearings also included representatives of U.S.-based Bitcoin businesses, academics, a state banking regulator, and other interested parties. The federal regulators testifying at these hearings have examined Bitcoin carefully, and they produced careful, thoughtful testimonies. They seem relatively sanguine about the risks Bitcoin creates and open to capturing its benefits for Americans, including the jobs and economic growth that will come from U.S.-led financial services innovation.

The benefits of Bitcoin go beyond its role as an alternative currency. The Bitcoin protocol, essentially a universal public ledger, may help establish property ownership in third-world countries, allow people to create computer-automated contracts, aid in the management of public resources like the Internet, and much more. The Bitcoin protocol is a revolutionary invention whose potential is only beginning to be discovered.

There are risks, but we are confident that they are not as dire as your letter suggests. Because Bitcoin is a public ledger, records of transaction are published and available online for all time. This is a far more transparent system than conventional financial services and payments, in which the vast majority of transactions are concealed. Indeed, a challenge for Bitcoin adoption is making sure that law-abiding people’s transactions do not expose their private financial information. We believe the law enforcement challenge with respect to Bitcoin is different but not harder. As you probably know, at the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on Bitcoin, FinCEN Director Jennifer Shasky Calvery said, “Cash is probably still the best medium for laundering money.”

The demise of Silk Road illustrates well that Bitcoin is not a magic cloak for crime. Though breathless press reports portrayed Bitcoin as a tool of criminality early on, law enforcement has caught up. The Silk Road collapsed, and successor sites have collapsed. We anticipate studying more carefully privacy, anonymity, pseudonymity, and the needs of law enforcement with respect to Bitcoin.

Some countries’ central banks have warned consumers about the risks around Bitcoin. I have done the same. Consumers should not invest any money they aren’t prepared to lose, and the volatility of Bitcoin’s price against the dollar is high, though it will fall over time. Many countries around the world are embracing Bitcoin, though, as a digital currency that offers their people improved financial services and greater economic freedom. Germany, Finland, Singapore, and Canada, for example, are among the U.S. allies that have sent favorable signals by issuing tax guidance on Bitcoin. Ireland, Israel, and Slovenia appear to have plans to do so. News reports about bans on Bitcoin in China, Thailand, and South Korea may be a product of misunderstanding local conditions.

The Bitcoin ecosystem is still very much in its infancy, and the first wave of Bitcoin businesses is now beginning to give way to a second, more sophisticated group of investors and businesspeople. We believe that the failure of one foreign-based exchange should not darken the prospects for Bitcoin businesses in New York, California, Washington state, and all over the country, including a restaurant in West Virginia that announced late last year that it is accepting payments in Bitcoin.

Small businesses all over the country like Artisan Pizza & Pasta in Charleston are signing up to accept Bitcoin payments. With credit card payments costing two to three percent, the narrow profit-margins of retail businesses get even smaller. The competition that Bitcoin may bring to the $50-billion per year credit card payment business may push lower fees and better service for small businesses and consumers alike. Meanwhile, Bitcoin-based financial innovation may help control data breaches, of which we have seen massive examples in the recent past. Payment services designed for the Internet need not put Americans’ personal information at risk.

We do not believe that this is the right time in U.S. economic history to turn away from innovations that offer improvements in the jobs picture and the economy. If Bitcoin does not flourish in the United States, it will flourish elsewhere, and the United States will cede leadership to the countries with the more foresighted approach to innovation and economic progress.

There is a lot to learn about Bitcoin, how it works, and what its effects on U.S. society will be. There is no need to fear Bitcoin or overreact to the challenges that accompany its huge potential benefits. We would be happy to meet with you and your staff at your convenience, as we have done with dozens of others congressional offices and government agencies. I can be reached at patrick@bitcoinfoundation.org.
Respectfully,

Patrick Murck

General Counsel

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Federal Reserve Chair: US Central Bank Can’t Regulate Bitcoin
Pete Rizzo (@pete_rizzo_) | Published on February 27, 2014 at 18:16 GMT | News, Regulation, US & Canada

After months of silence on the matter, Federal Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen has stated that the US central bank does not have the authority to regulate bitcoin.

Yellen was appointed as chair of the Federal Reserve last October after she was nominated to replace Ben Bernanke.

During an address to the Senate Banking Committee on 27th February, the top US banking official, said:

“The Fed doesn’t have authority to supervise or regulate bitcoin in any way.”

In her response, Yellen commented broadly on a score of issues including the impact of recent weather on US economic output, ongoing turmoil in the Ukraine and the new technologies that are more broadly impacting payments.

It was on the latter subject that the topic of bitcoin was introduced, with Yellen noting that such developments are “taking place outside the banking industry”.

Notably, the remarks came in response to a question about bitcoin regulation by US Senator Joe Manchin, a noted critic of bitcoin.

The news follows Manchin’s 26th February letter to the Federal Reserve chairwoman, which called for her to take aggressive action against bitcoin due to its involvement in criminal activity. The Bitcoin Foundation has also since responded to the letter.

Additional remarks

Yellen continued, saying that FinCEN has indicated that current money laundering statutes are “adequate to meet enforcement needs”.

Manchin later asked whether Yellen believed the US to be “behind the curve” in regards to regulation, a nod to his previously stated belief that the US should follow the lead of countries like China and Thailand in banning bitcoin.

Yellen said:

“Certainly it would be appropriate for Congress to ask questions about what the right legal structure would be for digital currencies […] My understanding is Bitcoin doesn’t touch [US] banks.”

She ended her response by stating that the Federal Reserve is looking into the matter.

The statement notably comes at a time when many US state regulators are looking for guidance on how to put controls or safeguards on the bitcoin industry.

Though the most notable example would be New York, which held detailed hearings on the matter in January, Alabama and Texas have joined the conversation following the ongoing troubles at major Japan-based bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox.

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Japan Pushes for International Effort on Bitcoin Regulation
Pete Rizzo (@pete_rizzo_) | Published on February 27, 2014 at 19:59 GMT | Asia, Exchanges, Mt. Gox, Regulation

Japanese Diet upper house
Despite recent suggestions that its top financial bodies would not take any action against troubled bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, Japan’s senior regulators are now saying they would seek to regulate bitcoin, but only as part of an international effort.

Speaking at a press conference on 27th February, Senior Vice Finance Minister Jiro Aichi addressed the topic, stating: “If we regulate [bitcoin], international collaboration would be necessary.”

Aichi suggested that this type of large-scale coordination is needed to prevent criminals from exploiting loopholes or weak points in international law.

“If we regulate [bitcoin], international collaboration would be necessary.”

Further, Japan stepped up its rhetoric on Thursday regarding Mt. Gox, suggesting that it would intervene “if necessary” to determine what wrongdoing occurred. Japanese law enforcement officials were earlier reported to be looking into the developing Mt. Gox case, along with US regulators.

The news follows the release of more documents detailing the exchange’s long-term business plans, and mounting evidence that internal financial mismanagement was a core issue that plagued the once-prominent company.

‘Not a currency’

Aichi released a few additional details about the actions that could take space, and indicated that more government agencies could become involved in the investigation.

He also stated that bitcoin does not meet the definition of currency under Japanese law, but did not say how this could affect any future developments. Aichi added:

“As for its legal position, a currency (under Japan’s jurisdiction) would be coins or notes issued by the Bank of Japan. At the very least, we can say bitcoin is not a currency.”

The Bank of Japan had earlier indicated that it was researching digital currencies, but stopped short of making any statements about their use.

Media take notice

Tokyo meetup with media crewDespite its penchant for high-tech toys, Japan has been oddly silent on bitcoin, though that could soon change.

Sources in Tokyo suggest news from Mt. Gox has filtered through to the mainstream, and that bitcoin is starting to receive attention from the general public, with newspaper articles appearing nearly every week.

Invading TV crews have begun to so annoy the manager of the Tokyo Bitcoin Meetup group’s favourite restaurant that, on Thursday, at least two networks were forced to wait outside and conduct one-by-one interviews.

Whether or not the increased coverage will be positive or not remains to be seen. Japanese media tend to play up the ‘dangerous hacker’ angle on any story involving bitcoin or even peer-to-peer (P2P) technology, sources say, and a recent special report on bitcoin by NHK, the national broadcaster, dedicated 15 minutes of the programme’s half-hour timeslot to discussion of Silk Road.

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Singapore Firm Tembusu Launches Customizable Bitcoin ATM
Nermin Hajdarbegovic | Published on February 27, 2014 at 21:40 GMT | Asia, Bitcoin ATM, News, Regulation, Technology

Boat Quay district, Singapore
There is a new player in the world of bitcoin ATMs, Singapore-based Tembusu Terminals. The company has just installed Singapore’s first permanent bitcoin ATM at a bar in the Boat Quay district.

Tembusu says it is talking to other merchants who would like to install the company’s ATMs, too.

Earlier this month, Bitcoiniac announced it would install Robocoin ATMs in London and Singapore by mid-March. It appears that Tembusu has beaten the Vancouver-based outfit to the punch.

Flexible design

The Tembusu ATM was designed and built in Singapore. It features several security and anti-theft measures, including biometric security features like thumbprint scanning and elaborate know-your-customer (KYC) features.

It can scan user ID cards and it also has integrated anti-money laundering (AML) features, that can be fine-tuned to meet legal requirements in different jurisdictions.

“It has been an exciting, and some would even say trying, past few weeks for bitcoin users worldwide,” said Andras Kristof, Chief Technical Officer, Tembusu Terminals.

“Through this entire rollercoaster ride, I can’t help but think back to the main guiding principle behind designing the Tembusu: flexibility is key.”

Tembusu says its ATM differs from competing solutions, thanks to its customisability and an intuitive full-touch screen interface.

The ATM can be outfitted with a “myriad of options”, the company says, and the fact that its anti-money laundering features can be adapted to meet different requirements might also be attractive to buyers.

Incidentally, the device can also be used to dispense fiat cash.

Regulation likely

There are a few more down-to-earth reasons for the Tembusu ATM’s flexibility. Since it has plenty of KYC and AML features, it can be customized to meet regulatory requirements in different markets.

Earlier this year, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said that it does not regulate bitcoins, and it has been advising the public to be cautious with virtual currencies.

Last week, Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said bitcoin does not fall under the regulatory purview of either his ministry or the MAS.

The Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) issued an advisory on bitcoin taxation earlier this year.

Uncertain future

The regulatory climate is not currently very positive and it is relatively vague, so the ability to customize the Tembusu ATM simply had to be built in.

“When it comes to bitcoin ATMs, it is vital to have future-proof hardware”

The same is true of Robocoin ATMs, which also feature plenty of superfluous features that may be required by regulators in different jurisdictions or at different times.

When it comes to bitcoin ATMs, it is vital to have future-proof hardware – not for fear of going obsolete, but due to regulatory issues that may arise in the future.

Interestingly, the company says it is willing to deploy Tembusu ATMs with no down payment. Tembusu says the same flexibility extends to pricing and financing options.

CoinDesk was not given pricing details, however – the company encourages those who are interested in a quote to get in touch directly.

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EXCLUSIVE: Charlie Shrem Speaks Out About Mt. Gox, His Arrest and the Bitcoin Bromance
Emily Spaven (@emilyspaven) | Published on February 27, 2014 at 19:09 GMT | BitInstant, Companies, News, Silk Road News, US & Canada

Charlie Shrem
“I’ve known Mark Karpeles for a very long time. Mark is a very sweet guy. Very non-confrontational, but has he made bad business decisions? Yes. Has he failed to do everything he should have? Yes.”

So says Charlie Shrem, the troubled bitcoin entrepreneur, speaking to me from his parents’ house in New York, where he’s currently under house arrest.

He tells me he classes Karpeles, CEO of the disastrous bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, as a good friend, but disagrees with a hell of a lot of the decisions the Frenchman has made.

Mt. Gox has been dying a slow and painful death for some months, but now appears to be taking its final breaths after documents came to light suggesting insolvency and the loss of more than 744,400 bitcoins (around $426m).

Shrem believes a number of factors are responsible for the exchange’s current issues, from a lack of PR presence to poor management structure, but first and foremost is the inadequacy of the technology Mt. Gox is built upon. He explained:

“The whole exchange is built on layer upon layer of patchy scrap work – the whole thing is flawed because of the way it was built.”

As for the company’s management structure, Shrem said Karpeles may call himself CEO, but he “doesn’t make any of the business decisions”. Gonzague Gay-Bouchery “pretty much runs the company”, despite his official job title as marketing director.

The company has also hired a lot of developers, but any developer code that’s created has to be looked over and checked by Karpeles, creating a bottleneck that has severely hampered progress.

Shrem believes the company should have, long ago, hired an agency to handle its PR, but it didn’t, because Karpeles didn’t want anyone to know Mt. Gox’s inner workings (read: didn’t want anyone to know what a dire mess it was in).

Mt. Gox bitcoin protest Mark Karpeles

He acknowledges that Karpeles and Mt. Gox have done a massive disservice to bitcoin, but said, in a strange way, they’ve also done everyone a big favour – Gox’s competitors will learn from the mistakes that have been made and will progress with more robust and technologically sound models.

The 24-year-old admitted he has some bitcoins in Mt. Gox and didn’t sound particularly hopeful that he would ever see them again.

However, he’s trying his best to be a good friend to Karpeles at a time when he’s (understandably) being hounded from all angles.

And Shrem certainly knows all about that, having been headline fodder for a good few weeks earlier in the year, following his arrest on money laundering charges.

Shrem’s arrest

“I didn’t know what was going on. One minute I was getting off my flight, the next I was being arrested.”

“The way they did it – arresting me at the airport in front of a ton of people – the whole thing was set up to make me look like a criminal,” he said.

Shrem believes his arrest was carefully planned by the federal government to damage the public’s perception of bitcoin. He thinks the media hasn’t helped matters, either, by “making assumptions” and publishing articles “without knowing the full story”.

He is alleged to have been involved in a scheme to “sell and launder over $1m in bitcoins” through the now defunct online black market Silk Road.

A document published by the Manhattan US Attorney alleged Shrem knew 52-year-old Florida native Robert M Faiella was “operating a bitcoin exchange service for Silk Road users” and that the authorities have email correspondence to prove this.

The entrepreneur said the emails have been taken out of context and that the government and media seem to think his company, BitInstant, where he was CEO until recently, was selling bitcoins to Faiella. He stressed:

“That’s not how the business worked – we didn’t actually sell any bitcoins.”

BitInstant was designed to enable people to quickly transfer money to their bitcoin exchange accounts. The way Shrem sees it, Faiella allegedly advertised his services on Silk Road, and would send his customers on to BitInstant.

These customers would conduct the transactions themselves, then send the money to their own Mt. Gox accounts. Once on this site, they would buy bitcoins, transfer the bitcoin to their Silk Road account and buy illicit goods.

“Now how many times am I removed from that already?” he added.

The case

Having recently resigned from board of the Bitcoin Foundation, Shrem said he is now spending the vast majority of his time focusing on his case and “trying to hang on to my sanity”.

He’s working with his lawyer, Marc Agnifilo of Brafman & Associates, to meticulously comb through the 30-something-page complaint against him and try to work out what exactly the charges against him are.

“Bitcoin is a brotherhood. That’s what keeps me involved, you’re changing the world and you know that other people are doing it with you.”

Agnifilo defended former managing director of the International Monetary Fund Dominique Strauss-Kahn after he was arrested in Manhattan on charges of sexual assault.

Agnifilo’s colleague Benjamin Brafman famously worked with O.J Simpson’s defence lawyer Johnnie Cochran as co-defendant of Sean Combs (Puff Daddy) when he faced illegal weapons and bribery charges.

He was also hired to represent NFL star Plaxico Burress who was indicted on two counts of criminal possession of a weapon and one count of reckless endangerment.

Shrem said he’s currently not allowed to go anywhere – not even his lawyer’s office – without first getting permission from the court, 48 hours in advance. “I can’t go anywhere. It sucks.”

Staying sane

Shrem told me he’s maintaining his sanity by spending his time indoors speaking to his friends and picking up new skills. He explained:

“My friends are here a lot and I’m getting a lot of free stuff. People are sending me a lot of alcohol gifts, which is good. I’m trying to make the best of it – I’m learning some new languages, I’m working out a lot every day and watching Netflix – a lot. Just trying to keeping my spirits up,”

He hasn’t completely put the breaks on his business activities, though. He said he’s working on a “secret project” that involves bitcoin.

When pushed for more details, all he would reveal, rather cryptically, is: “It’s something that I’ve wanted to do for ages, but haven’t had the time. It requires a bunch of licensing and bringing it over from the EU before I can do it.”

He’s trying his best to spread the bitcoin entrepreneurial spirit by giving away the many bitcoin domain names he owns to people looking to start projects within the ecosystem.

“I’m just trying to encourage entrepreneurship and innovation in the space. My brain is here for the picking and a lot of people are calling me to see what I think about their business and I’m brutally honest with them,” Shrem explained, adding:

“Just bring me a six-pack and I’m yours for an hour.”

BitInstant relaunch

Shrem said that, at the time of his arrest, BitInstant was about to close a large investment round. He stepped down from the company so this could continue.

BitInstant plans to relaunch with a service enabling people to buy bitcoin with cash in stores in more than five countries, paying less than 1% in charges.

“Unlike the other American bitcoin companies, we actually have all the licences and the compliance that we need to have, which makes things a lot easier,” he said.

The service BitInstant has planned sounds a lot like that recently launched in the UK by ZipZap – customers order bitcoins online, then head to their nearest ZipZap payment location (there are over 28,000 across the UK), pay cash and see the bitcoins appear in their wallets.

“We worked with ZipZap for a long time in the US. I was the one that introduced Alan Safahi [ZipZap's CEO] to bitcoin in the first place and we became really good friends. He’s a big supporter of us,” said Shrem.

He’s made quite a few “good friends” over his past few years working in the bitcoin ecosystem, in fact, he jokes that he knows “everyone in this frickin’ space”.

The bitcoin brotherhood

“Bitcoin is a brotherhood. That’s the best part about it,” said Shrem.

“It’s such a beautiful thing to be a part of. That’s what keeps me involved in bitcoin. You know that you’re changing the world and you know that other people are involved in doing it with you.”

He challenges me to find a more open and accepting community than bitcoin and likens its close-knit nature to that of his Jewish community.

“We are the most non-discriminatory group of people the world has ever seen. We’re ripping the guts out of the whole financial infrastructure,” he concluded.

[MICRO]

Unilateral Statement Regarding Mt. Gox from an Insider
Jesse Powell (@jespow) | Published on February 27, 2014 at 16:32 GMT | Analysis, Companies, Exchanges, Mt. Gox, News

Jesse Powell is founder and CEO of cryptocurrency trading platform Kraken. Here, he shares his reaction to the recent Mt. Gox revelations, and offers advice to fellow ‘goxed’ customers who have lost both funds and faith in bitcoin. This article was originally posted on Jesse’s blog.

I am deeply saddened to hear of the tremendous loss suffered by the bitcoin community today.

Undoubtedly, thousands of lives have been destroyed and innocent people have been left in financial ruin. I’m not often short on imagination but how the damage got to be so severe without anyone noticing is unfathomable.

I can’t help but be angry, and frustrated and depressed. All the hard work we’ve done to bring bitcoin in to the mainstream and now this, and the people. Fuck.

I actually had lunch with Mark and Gonzague in Tokyo just a month ago and despite their banking woes, they were upbeat and excited about their Bitcoin Café. We talked about how we were in it for bitcoin, and the greater good, and how we should work together.

“Clearly, we need to be more demanding as a community of our wallets and exchanges.”

They certainly gave no indication that they were worried about insolvency. Perhaps it was something they’d come to live with, or perhaps they really were oblivious.

In time we’ll have the true story. After all, second to Bernie Madoff this is the biggest heist/giveaway/debacle of the century. The replacement value of those 744,408 lost coins must be north of $1bn – surely international law enforcement bodies will be tripping over themselves to take such a high profile case.

I was just thinking how grateful I am for not having any funds in Gox, and then I realized that I actually do have funds in Gox. You see, the last time I tried to make a withdrawal from Gox, back in 2012, they’d taken 3+ weeks and still hadn’t processed my wire.

I determined that they were insolvent, canceled my wire and immediately withdrew my funds via coupon to Bitcoinica.

As luck would have it, Bitcoinica got hacked shortly thereafter, never to recover, and what funds remained have been tied up in liquidation proceedings since. And guess who was holding those funds for the liquidator. Can you guess? Mt. Gox, that’s who!

I just ate a whole box of Thin Mints.

You know, when Gox got hacked in June of 2011, Roger Ver, one of my oldest friends from the high school Magic: the Gathering days called me up:

“I’m at the Mt. Gox office. How soon can you be in Tokyo?”

I was on the next plane, on my own dime. I spent the next two weeks volunteering at Gox, leveraging my own personal and company resources to help them get the situation under control.

I even wrote the press release about the event. I did that for the greater good of bitcoin, and when I left, I thought—for the greater good—somebody oughta make another exchange pronto because this ship is going down in flames. We founded Payward in July of 2011.

The internal Mt. Gox ‘Crisis Strategy Draft’ that was released yesterday, if authentic, seems to indicate both a disconnect with reality and a determination that operating on a fractional reserve was a necessity, for the greater good of bitcoin.

A similar approach was discovered to have been taken by Bitcoinica, unbeknownst to its users. In both cases, if the exchange had simply exposed the truth, the damage would have been lessened.

btc

Clearly, we need to be more demanding as a community of our wallets and exchanges. Regulators have been kind enough to not enforce against unlicensed bitcoin businesses, allowing the industry to flourish, but that means the onus is on us to keep our custodians honest.

I’ve been wracking my brain trying to make sense of everything. What gets me is that Mark isn’t an idiot. If I assume that the Crisis Strategy Draft is truthy, a scenario like this is more plausible than what we’ve been fed:

Gox was robbed of a massive amount of coins (800k+) at some prior point in time, possibly June 2011, and has been operating a fractional reserve since.
Gox determined that it was better to continue operating the exchange, probably both for the sake of Bitcoin, and for their customers who would eventually be made whole from fees earned.
Gox knew of transaction malleability and had been keeping that scapegoat in their back pocket to use in the event of a bank run. Or, they didn’t know but the losses from TM were actually recent and minor. Or, they didn’t know but the losses from TM occurred over a long period of time and they never noticed because they never reconciled the books, because they knew they wouldn’t match anyway because they were already fractional.
Fiat withdrawal problems led to an increased uptick of BTC withdrawals, outpacing BTC deposits and draining reserves to 0. This may have been compounded by an actual problem with transaction malleability that accelerated the process.
Gox spent its fiat reserves and customers’ fiat reserves to buy up BTC in order to keep the ship afloat until they could launch their rebranded Gox.com and Bitpocket wallet, which they’d hoped would provide more runway in the form of additional BTC deposits.
Gox doesn’t make it happen in time and is forced to shut down, negative on fiat by millions and having lost all BTC.
Look, I was supposed to write some lawyer-approved PR statement about how Kraken kicks ass and is super secure and compliant, and Payward is leading the charge at DATA, and all the great things we’re doing right.

Obviously, all of that is irrelevant to the guy who just lost his life savings, wondering where he can find a good bridge.

If you got goxed too, I want to appeal to you to hang in there, and stick with it and not do anything stupid. I’ve been broke, and I’ve been robbed for every dime, and did I mention I sold ALL my bitcoin very early to get Kraken to launch?

You’ve got your life, and you’ve got your freedom, and you’ve got tremendous value to this community and cause. Bitcoin just lost a major battle and needs all the reinforcements it can get. The core dev team is underfunded and understaffed, girlscouts can’t get a wallet on iOS, banks are frozen solid, services are lacking in competent technical and business acumen.

I was standing outside of 20Mission tonight talking with Jered Kenna when we were informed by a random woman passing by that “Bitcoin is hacked and dead”.

It’s a goddamn war and it’s not going to be won without you. How many opportunities in history have we had as a people to change the world in such a positive way? If you want to join the effort, call me. If you want to jump off a bridge, call me.

[MICRO]

Bitcoin Transaction Fees To Be Slashed Tenfold
Danny Bradbury (@dannybradbury) | Published on February 28, 2014 at 05:23 GMT | Bitcoin protocol, News, Technology

The bitcoin developers are about to reduce the transaction fees on the bitcoin network tenfold, thanks to the relatively high value of the digital currency.

Transaction fees are small amounts paid to send bitcoin transactions around the network (think of them like postage stamps) and to get miners to confirm them by including them in a mining block. They’re paid in satoshis (tiny amounts of bitcoins), which means that as the price of bitcoin rises, the transaction fees get higher.

Recent fluctuations in the bitcoin world may have set the price yo-yoing, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t doing relatively well. The CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index is still hovering in the $540 range at the time of writing, a little over six times the price last July, when the Index was first introduced.

Making it cheaper to send transactions

The core developers first started discussing the possibility of slashing transaction fees for the coin around three months ago, in this post on the mailing list. At the time, developer Mike Hearn mentioned that the last reduction in transaction fees were about six months earlier, from 50k satoshis to 10k satoshis, in the 0.8.2 release of the reference client (which was released in May 2013).

That held up for a while, but with the spike in pricing, it puts the average transaction fee at around 5 cents of the US dollar. This latest patch would reduce it to half a cent.

There are two thresholds to meet when creating a bitcoin transaction and deciding what fee to charge, explains core developer Jeff Garzik. The first enables the network to relay your transaction, while the second persuades bitcoin miners to include your transaction in a block that they are mining. The first must occur before the second, so that the transaction gets to the miners in the first place.

“In order to avoid spam, there is a hardcoded minimum, to avoid relaying transactions across the payment network that will never confirm (due to low fees or other reasons),” said Garzik. “This anti-spam minimum had not been adjusted since before the large price increase. Now, it’s been adjusted.”

The change is still working its way through the development process, though, said Hearn.

“It’s what’s currently in git master, although of course that’s open to be changed any time before the final release of 0.9,” he said.

Git is the online version control system used by the core developers to manage the various submissions to the code, and ‘master’ is the ‘official’ version, although this doesn’t mean that it has actually been released .

“Actually 0.9 should have been out already,” Hearn continued. “We went to a [release candidate] 1, but the recent malleability stuff means that it got delayed a bit I think.”

The one worry with lowering these hard-coded relay transaction fees is that it could open the door to denial of service attacks, in which people take advantage of very low transaction fees to flood the system with useless transactions designed to clog up the network. Gavin Andresen, who heads up the open source development team behind bitcoin, has explained that the ‘dust’ rule, which defines a minimum amount that can be sent over the network, is set by the transaction relay fee.

“I really don’t want to start playing whack-a-mole with spamming DoS attacks,” said Andresen. One proposal to try and limit spam involves restructuring the bitcoin memory pool (this is the collective memory around the network, that holds bitcoin transactions that have been received but not yet confirmed).

“I’d much rather get to a floating fee system with NO hard-coded relay fee rule sooner,” Andresen has said. What he means is that ultimately, transaction fees won’t be hard coded at all.

Garzik calls hard coded fees a bug, and a dynamic system of ‘floating’ transaction fees is preferable. In this scenario, the free market would decide both the relay limits and the block inclusion thresholds.

This is what smart fees are about. This enhancement to the bitcoin client would see both relay and mining fees handled dynamically, said Garzik. Only transactions likely to be confirmed in the blockchain within 48 hours would be relayed.

Smart fees aren’t yet complete, though, so for now, lowering the transaction fees is a way to make it cheaper to relay transactions. Let’s just hope it doesn’t create a deluge of crud along the way.

[MICRO]

Coinbase Talks 1 Million Wallet Milestone, Mt. Gox and What’s Next
Pete Rizzo (@pete_rizzo_) | Published on February 27, 2014 at 22:42 GMT | Coinbase, Companies, News, Wallets

San Francisco-based bitcoin wallet provider Coinbase has revealed that it officially passed 1 million wallet downloads on 27th February, a major milestone in the lifecycle of the less than two-year-old company.

Founded in June 2012, Coinbase is the second most downloaded consumer bitcoin wallet behind rival Blockchain, which passed its 1 million wallet mark in January.

But, that doesn’t make Coinbase’s numbers any less impressive. At the beginning of 2013, Coinbase had facilitated just 13,000 wallet downloads, meaning it saw more than 7,000% growth over the course of 2013. Further, the company’s internal estimates suggest it’s now adding five new users a minute.

Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam told CoinDesk that growth is coming so quickly in both its consumer and merchant services that he’s barely had the time to reflect since learning of the news:

“Honestly, there’s been so much going on so quickly, you want to make sure you’re iterating on the product as much as possible.”

But during the interview, Ehrsam did stop to reflect on his company’s last year and his own personal journey in the bitcoin space.

Throughout the talk, Ehrsam showed that he’s eager to put past challenges behind so that he can focus on what lies ahead.

Improving the product

Ehrsam addressed the challenge that comes with operating in a space with seemingly endless opportunities, but said he’s always grounded himself with the knowledge that Coinbase is, at its core, about making bitcoin easy to use.

Said Ehrsam:

“You can think about going out doing things like deterministic hierarchical wallets or building other unique things on top of the block chain or doing a full blown industrial exchange.

There’s a lot of opportunity out there, but I want to propel this into the mainstream.”

The personal goal for Ehrsam is for one of those 1 million wallet users to be his mom or a friend from school, the kind of users that will require bitcoin to become more approachable for mainstream commerce.

Right now, Ehrsam estimates Coinbase is 70 to 80% of the way there, but that obstacles remain.

The impact of Mt. Gox

Of course, one vital part of convincing more consumers to enroll will be providing education, a matter that is particularly noteworthy given the media storm surrounding bitcoin as the result of troubled Japan-based exchange Mt. Gox.

For his part, Ehrsam chooses to see the good that has come out of the development, noting that he’s been impressed by the resilience of the bitcoin space.

Still, Ehrsam acknowledges this likely won’t be the last bad news that surfaces as part of a broader transition, one where bitcoin businesses must now play by the rules of regulators. Ehrsam even went so far as to suggest that Coinbase could have ended up falling victim to the same fate as Mt. Gox, had it not made key early decisions.

He traces Coinbase’s success back to its decision to embrace regulatory compliance, one he noted at the NYDFS hearings came with considerable cost:

“When we saw [the FinCEN decision] come out, there was definitely a decision that needed to be made. We could take a risky or defiant route and say ‘Hey maybe we don’t fall under money services business [MSB] standards,’ or meet it head on.’”

2014 and beyond

Despite recent challenges, Ehrsam is still optimistic about his company’s user growth and the growth of the ecosystem in 2014.

This year, he suggested that bitcoin will become more liquid around the world and enter the remittance market. It’s possible that he even shared a hint with a rather bold prediction:

“I think 2014 is going to be the year where you see 10 $1 billion retailers, probably almost exclusively online ones, start accepting bitcoin,” he said.

[MICRO]

BitTorrent Client Integrates Bitcoin Donations
Nermin Hajdarbegovic | Published on February 28, 2014 at 12:40 GMT | Technology

Popular BitTorrent client Frostwire has integrated an experimental mechanism that will allow users to donate bitcoins to torrent sharers. In addition to bitcoin, the same mechanism can be used for litecoin, dogecoin and even PayPal.

FrostWire believes the idea will allow small content creators to easily monetize their content simply by getting tips from those who download it using the P2P client. Needless to say, Big Content is probably not thrilled by the prospect of decentralised content markets, let alone the fact that the technology could even be used to monetize piracy.

However, that is not what FrostWire has in mind, not even close.

Fighting piracy through P2P?

In fact, Frostwire developers believe they are combating piracy by adding the tip mechanism. FrostWire’s Angel Leon told Torrentfreak:

“We believe piracy is best fought by giving consumers the options of getting legal content, and we want to build solutions that use this technology to empower content creators no matter how big or small they are. We want them to try BitTorrent as an alternative, an additional channel. We think it will be easier to convince more and more artists to join us with the new possibilities.”

“Putting it bluntly, Bitcoin and BitTorrent integration give us the tools to create the P2P equivalents of iTunes and Netflix, which are centralized venues which work great for big content but not so much for the little guys who have to jump through many hoops to get in.”

If piracy scares Big Content, then this idea could leave it shell-shocked. Depending on how it is implemented, it could allow just about anyone to monetize huge amounts of content with relatively little in the way of resources and infrastructure. The P2P network would provide both the hardware and bandwidth, as well as cash.

FrostWire sees endless possibilities

In addition to simply selling content via P2P networks, using P2P currencies, FrostWire believes the concept could be applied to other commercial and non-commercial ideas.

Leon believes it could result in a decentralised media store owned by nobody and available to all. The network would allow content creators to deal directly with customers, eliminating corporate interests in the process.

Cutting out the middleman tends to be good for business, so content prices could go down, while at the same time content creators could earn even more than they would if they used a traditional publisher or distributor.

It would also give content creators more freedom, as they would not have to water down their works to meet corporate standards. In other words, it may lead to even more explicit lyrics, mental bass lines and gratuitous nudity in videos.

Non-commercial efforts could help charities raise more money and more awareness, simply by tapping P2P networks with the help of a few popular artists. Artists could share content, while people who enjoy it could make bitcoin donations to their charity of choice.

It sounds like a very practical and useful concept, but at the end of the day it still relies on people – which might not be a bad thing.

From a moral perspective, it is one thing to rip off a huge corporation by illegally downloading its content – as many people simply don’t care.

However, they might think twice if their cash is going directly to the artist and if the price is much lower without corporate middlemen.

If you are interested, you can check up FrostWire’s GitHub for more information.

[depechebtc]

For those of you seeking the ultimate Bitcoin News Aggregator, check out http://allxbt.com

 

[MICRO]

Mac Malware CoinThief Now Disguised as Angry Birds and Other Popular Apps
Neil Sardesai  28/02/2014  Posted 5 hours ago

Mac Malware CoinThief Now Disguised as Angry Birds and Other Popular Apps
Pirated versions of popular Mac apps like Angry Birds are coming bundled with CoinThief, a Bitcoin-stealing trojan.
Just two weeks ago, we reported that a new trojan called CoinThief was stealing thousands of dollars worth of Bitcoin from Mac users. One unfortunate reddit user lost 20 BTC (~$11,340 at the time of this post) due to the malware. CoinThief spread through cryptocurrency-related applications such as Bitcoin Ticker TTM (To The Moon), Litecoin Ticker, BitVanity, and StealthBit. However, security firm ESET has discovered that the trojan is now masquerading as cracked versions of popular Mac applications, including Angry Birds, Pixelmator, BBEdit, and Delicious Library. According to ESET,

“There is clearly strong evidence that the trojan was specifically designed to profit from the current Bitcoin craze and fluctuating exchange rates.

According to detection statistics gathered by the ESET LiveGrid, the threat is mostly active amongst Mac users based in the United States.”

In case you’re not familiar with the malware, CoinThief installs a rogue browser extension that monitors for popular Bitcoin exchanges and wallets like BTC-E and Blockchain respectively. CoinThief also installs a background application (a keylogger) to capture login credentials and send them to a remote server. This makes it really easy for the malware author(s) to steal Bitcoins, since users unwittingly hand over their account credentials to Bitcoin exchanges and wallets.

Detecting and removing CoinThief is not too difficult, and instructions can be found here. If you’re really interested in just exactly how CoinThief works on a deep, code level, check out this analysis at Reverse Engineering Mac OS X. And finally, this should go without saying, but if you want to avoid CoinThief (and other types of malware), avoid pirated software. Official Mac App Store versions of apps like Angry Birds and Pixelmator obviously don’t come bundled with CoinThief. And anyway, if you can spend over $1000 on a Mac, you can surely afford a $5 game.

[MICRO]

Fortress May be First Public Company to Own Millions of Dollars in Bitcoins, Discloses $20m Worth
Nermin Hajdarbegovic | Published on February 28, 2014 at 14:06 GMT | Investors

Fortress Investment Group purchased $20m worth of bitcoins last year, according to a recent filing with the SEC.

Back in December it was rumoured that Fortress had plans to launch a bitcoin investment fund. The news was first reported by CNN, but it could not be confirmed until now.

Fortress is said to be developing a new investment vehicle based on bitcoin which is expected to be an unlisted Exchange Traded Fund (ETF).

The move appears to have been connected to San Francisco-based Pantera Capital. Pantera then registered an investment advisor entity called Pantera Bitcoin Advisors LLC and it filed the necessary paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

$20m for bitcoins last year

According to the 10-K filed with the SEC by Fortress, the investment group set aside $20m for the purchase of bitcoins in 2013. The $20m represents a balance sheet investment by Fortress, and no Fortress-managed funds were used in conjunction with the purchase.

The filing was scrutinized by Gil Luria, who tweeted that Fortress may be the first publicly traded company to report substantial bitcoin holdings.


As of 31st December, Fortress reported having $16,260,000 worth of bitcoins – listed as “other assets”. In addition, Fortress reported $3,702,000 of losses or unrealized gains on its bitcoin investments, but there is a bit of a caveat, as Fortress points out:

“Digital Currency (Bitcoin) – Represents Fortress’s holdings of digital currency which is recorded at the lower of cost or fair value. If fair value is below cost, Fortress records an unrealized loss measured as the excess of cost over fair value of the digital currency. Subsequently, to the extent that fair value increases, Fortress records an unrealized gain but shall not report digital currency above cost.

Fortress determines fair value based on estimated exit value using significant observable inputs as of the balance sheet date. Fortress recorded $3.7 million in unrealized losses on digital currency during 2013, which was included in gains (losses) in the Consolidated Statements of Operations.”

Still, with a balance sheet of $2.6bn, the move represents a relatively small investment for the company that may be immaterial given its holdings.

But, though the purchase may be exploratory, the price of bitcoin has dropped quite a bit since late 2013, so the $3.7m figure might be even lower now, provided Fortress is still holding on to the coins. It notably did not disclose the holdings in its third quarter filings.

What’s the endgame?

There has been quite a bit of interest in digital currencies from institutional investors. Several interesting reports have been published over the last week, including bullish reports from Wedbush Securities and PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

The Winklevoss twins are also vying for a slice of the market through the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust. The pair have recently filed a revised ETF with the SEC, but it is still unclear when the Winklevoss ETF will launch.

Many of these developments have been overshadowed by the highly publicised collapse of Mt. Gox, DDoS attacks on major exchanges and the arrest of Charlie Shrem. However, if major institutional investors are serious about investing in bitcoin, a deflated price could be just what they need.

[MICRO]

HighKart Launches as India’s First Bitcoin E-Tailer
Roop Gill (@roopgill) | Published on February 28, 2014 at 20:30 GMT | Companies, Merchants, Startups

HighKart.com has become the first e-commerce site in India to exclusively accept bitcoin as a payment method.

Launched by Delhi-based entrepreneur Amit Kumar, the online store retails more than 150 products, ranging from digital currency mining equipment to fashion accessories.

Currently, there are more than 500 e-commerce startups in India – most having popped up within the last five years. Companies like Flipkart are dominating the local market, making it difficult for new players to enter.

HighKart is taking an unusual, and brave, route into this mêlée by eliminating the large potential consumer base that uses fiat currencies and opting to accept only bitcoin.

However, HighKart’s model relies on rejecting fiat in order to turn over profits. Kumar explains that being an exclusively bitcoin retailer helps him offer competitive prices because he does not have to pay commission to payment processors. He added:

“I can also hold onto the bitcoin and wait for the valuation increase and still make money out of it, which is not possible with the fiat currency.”

Bank jitters

While HighKart is not the first Indian business to say ‘yes’ to bitcoin, other ventures are accepting it alongside fiat.

WeRwired, a Bangalore-based geospatial, security and entertainment consulting company, is one of them. The owners started accepting bitcoin payments in order to give more choice to their customers, they say.

Castle Bloom, a salon in Chandigarh, became the first physical outlet to start accepting the digital currency late last year. However, that honour was short-lived and they reversed their decision following the recent Reserve Bank of India raids on bitcoin exchanges. Castle Bloom refused to comment further.

Those raids, along with an RBI warning on virtual currencies, have raised alarm in the Indian bitcoin community, but Kumar is not worried about the warnings because he says that all of the products in his catalogue are legal in India.

He says that a big reason for starting this venture was to get people to start using their bitcoin, as opposed to simply holding them:

“In the Indian ecosystem, bitcoin is still just a holding asset – this is not going to help the Indian bitcoin community to grow.

If you want to make it a sustainable currency in the longer run, then there should be an intrinsic value to the currency. And that comes when you start using that currency.”

Kumar is so confident about his business model that he is planning to expand its operations in the American market as well.

Coins in the wrong basket

While HighKart is the first stab at a bitcoin-exclusive e-commerce venture in India, many other enterprises are already up and running. Currency exchanges are the most popular bitcoin-based business right now.

Venture capitalist Maninder Gulati says, however, that both e-commerce and exchanges are not useful for the Indian bitcoin ecosystem at the moment.

Gulati is the vice president at Lightspeed Ventures, a company that has invested in three bitcoin startups including BTC China.

“Most of the startups that have come about have taken a short-term view,” he explained. “Their view is ‘let me build an exchange’ rather than actually solving some of the core problems: liquidity, awareness, convenience, security.”

He is encouraging entrepreneurs to take a different approach:

“If I was an entrepreneur, I would look at things differently. I would say, what is really the India-specific case that solves a certain problem using bitcoin that cannot be solved otherwise. E-commerce is not that problem right now.”

Another concern with launching a bitcoin e-commerce site in India is the low popularity of digital currencies in the country. However, Kumar debunks that myth:

“There is a misconception about the bitcoin community in India being small. People have bitcoin; they are just afraid to use it. We are getting orders from very remote parts of India, which we never imagined.”

[lyth0s]

Great finds, keep them coming

[rohnearner]

HighKart Launches as India’s First Bitcoin E-Tailer
Roop Gill (@roopgill) | Published on February 28, 2014 at 20:30 GMT | Companies, Merchants, Startups

HighKart.com has become the first e-commerce site in India to exclusively accept bitcoin as a payment method.

Launched by Delhi-based entrepreneur Amit Kumar, the online store retails more than 150 products, ranging from digital currency mining equipment to fashion accessories.

Currently, there are more than 500 e-commerce startups in India – most having popped up within the last five years. Companies like Flipkart are dominating the local market, making it difficult for new players to enter.

HighKart is taking an unusual, and brave, route into this mêlée by eliminating the large potential consumer base that uses fiat currencies and opting to accept only bitcoin.

However, HighKart’s model relies on rejecting fiat in order to turn over profits. Kumar explains that being an exclusively bitcoin retailer helps him offer competitive prices because he does not have to pay commission to payment processors. He added:

“I can also hold onto the bitcoin and wait for the valuation increase and still make money out of it, which is not possible with the fiat currency.”

Bank jitters

While HighKart is not the first Indian business to say ‘yes’ to bitcoin, other ventures are accepting it alongside fiat.

WeRwired, a Bangalore-based geospatial, security and entertainment consulting company, is one of them. The owners started accepting bitcoin payments in order to give more choice to their customers, they say.

Castle Bloom, a salon in Chandigarh, became the first physical outlet to start accepting the digital currency late last year. However, that honour was short-lived and they reversed their decision following the recent Reserve Bank of India raids on bitcoin exchanges. Castle Bloom refused to comment further.

Those raids, along with an RBI warning on virtual currencies, have raised alarm in the Indian bitcoin community, but Kumar is not worried about the warnings because he says that all of the products in his catalogue are legal in India.

He says that a big reason for starting this venture was to get people to start using their bitcoin, as opposed to simply holding them:

“In the Indian ecosystem, bitcoin is still just a holding asset – this is not going to help the Indian bitcoin community to grow.

If you want to make it a sustainable currency in the longer run, then there should be an intrinsic value to the currency. And that comes when you start using that currency.”

Kumar is so confident about his business model that he is planning to expand its operations in the American market as well.

Coins in the wrong basket

While HighKart is the first stab at a bitcoin-exclusive e-commerce venture in India, many other enterprises are already up and running. Currency exchanges are the most popular bitcoin-based business right now.

Venture capitalist Maninder Gulati says, however, that both e-commerce and exchanges are not useful for the Indian bitcoin ecosystem at the moment.

Gulati is the vice president at Lightspeed Ventures, a company that has invested in three bitcoin startups including BTC China.

“Most of the startups that have come about have taken a short-term view,” he explained. “Their view is ‘let me build an exchange’ rather than actually solving some of the core problems: liquidity, awareness, convenience, security.”

He is encouraging entrepreneurs to take a different approach:

“If I was an entrepreneur, I would look at things differently. I would say, what is really the India-specific case that solves a certain problem using bitcoin that cannot be solved otherwise. E-commerce is not that problem right now.”

Another concern with launching a bitcoin e-commerce site in India is the low popularity of digital currencies in the country. However, Kumar debunks that myth:

“There is a misconception about the bitcoin community in India being small. People have bitcoin; they are just afraid to use it. We are getting orders from very remote parts of India, which we never imagined.”

I just looked in and must mention they have quite a variety of products to start with, we don't have much e-commerce websites/retailers here in india accepting bitcoins and no big businesses  are  adopting it because of RBI's ambiguous stand on crypto currencies, but success of highkart might be a step towards better future of btc in india..     ..!

[ponjava]

Buttercoin Promises To Launch *Very* Soon… But Where And What?

 Caleb Chen  28/02/2014


Buttercoin has just emailed everyone that signed up for their early access list!

buttercoin launch
That’s right, they made a PR campaign out of their launch.
If you are interesting in pushing me further up the queue to get more information on Buttercoin to the masses faster, please follow this link and register for early access.

http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/thank-you-for-your-interest.png

Who Is Buttercoin?

Buttercoin was founded by Cedric Dahl and Bennet Hoffman, formerly of CoinHarvest, back in 2013 and received roughly $1.6 million in funding from various sources including Google Ventures and Y Combinator.

Dahl and Hoffman are targeting the International Remittance market, a $550 billion USD market that is currently run by “cartels” such as Western Union which charge up to 10% for a transfer.   Buttercoin seeks to rebuild this crucial international infrastructure using Bitcoin as the centerpiece instead of the current hodgepodge mesh of bank transfer systems riddled with middlemen and governments which is currently used.

As I mentioned back in 2013, both domestic and international remittances highlight Bitcoin’s superiority to the USD as a medium of exchange. I posited that we may soon find ourselves in a world where Bitcoin and other cryptocoins are the best “bank account” that someone in a third world country could conceivably own or have steady access to. A Bitcoin wallet in a fiat denominated world is useless without trusted exchanges though, and that’s where Buttercoin comes in.

How is Buttercoin Launching?

Buttercoin’s plan, as revealed to TechCrunch in an interview last August, is to partner with existing local money transfer businesses in order to guarantee regulatory compliance within the country.  However, they plan to keep these local partners’ hands out of the pot, so to say, by only giving them 50% of generated fees.  Buttercoin is merely using these existing local money transfer businesses, or third party payment processors as China likes to call them, for regulatory compliance.  The hands off partnership offers the established fiat businesses a way to legally tap into the growing Bitcoin economy and in turn allows Buttercoin to bring Bitcoin to that specific country.

What And Where Exactly Is Buttercoin Launching?

It isn’t yet clear what exactly Buttercoin has lined up for the launch.  Back in August they informed the press that they planned to open in India by the end of 2014; however, it is likely that the regulatory haze within the Indian government that delayed Unocoin for awhile may have also delayed Buttercoin’s plans in the region.

Astute Bitcoiners may recall that Sunny Ray is involved with both Unocoin and Buttercoin.  The connection is simple, Sunny Ray works with BitPay in India and likely knows all the channels (read: existing local money transfer businesses) that will settle Bitcoin with Indian Rupee.  Whether or not Buttercoin’s new launch effects Unocoin in any way, remains to be seen.

Buttercoin’s announcement hints that they will be launching their Bitcoin trading platform globally; however, I still sincerely hope that they also have a fully established Bitcoin exchange to announce in a new country.

[gpucoolingmethod]

Buttercoin Promises To Launch *Very* Soon… But Where And What?

 Caleb Chen  28/02/2014


Buttercoin has just emailed everyone that signed up for their early access list!

buttercoin launch
That’s right, they made a PR campaign out of their launch.
If you are interesting in pushing me further up the queue to get more information on Buttercoin to the masses faster, please follow this link and register for early access.



Who Is Buttercoin?

Buttercoin was founded by Cedric Dahl and Bennet Hoffman, formerly of CoinHarvest, back in 2013 and received roughly $1.6 million in funding from various sources including Google Ventures and Y Combinator.

Dahl and Hoffman are targeting the International Remittance market, a $550 billion USD market that is currently run by “cartels” such as Western Union which charge up to 10% for a transfer.   Buttercoin seeks to rebuild this crucial international infrastructure using Bitcoin as the centerpiece instead of the current hodgepodge mesh of bank transfer systems riddled with middlemen and governments which is currently used.

As I mentioned back in 2013, both domestic and international remittances highlight Bitcoin’s superiority to the USD as a medium of exchange. I posited that we may soon find ourselves in a world where Bitcoin and other cryptocoins are the best “bank account” that someone in a third world country could conceivably own or have steady access to. A Bitcoin wallet in a fiat denominated world is useless without trusted exchanges though, and that’s where Buttercoin comes in.

How is Buttercoin Launching?

Buttercoin’s plan, as revealed to TechCrunch in an interview last August, is to partner with existing local money transfer businesses in order to guarantee regulatory compliance within the country.  However, they plan to keep these local partners’ hands out of the pot, so to say, by only giving them 50% of generated fees.  Buttercoin is merely using these existing local money transfer businesses, or third party payment processors as China likes to call them, for regulatory compliance.  The hands off partnership offers the established fiat businesses a way to legally tap into the growing Bitcoin economy and in turn allows Buttercoin to bring Bitcoin to that specific country.

What And Where Exactly Is Buttercoin Launching?

It isn’t yet clear what exactly Buttercoin has lined up for the launch.  Back in August they informed the press that they planned to open in India by the end of 2014; however, it is likely that the regulatory haze within the Indian government that delayed Unocoin for awhile may have also delayed Buttercoin’s plans in the region.

Astute Bitcoiners may recall that Sunny Ray is involved with both Unocoin and Buttercoin.  The connection is simple, Sunny Ray works with BitPay in India and likely knows all the channels (read: existing local money transfer businesses) that will settle Bitcoin with Indian Rupee.  Whether or not Buttercoin’s new launch effects Unocoin in any way, remains to be seen.

Buttercoin’s announcement hints that they will be launching their Bitcoin trading platform globally; however, I still sincerely hope that they also have a fully established Bitcoin exchange to announce in a new country.

I dont think you should promote your business here... Also centralised is bad why do you think someone would prefer centralised? Only uninformed people could fall for this but eventually they would know better